ABSTRACT
The making of a social critic is a very complex matter. Not genius alone or literary ability, but obviously certain kinds of frustrations, anger, and failure to adapt to society drive individuals in some instances to try to understand their own life history. Abbe de Guasco, one of Montesquieu's closest friends in later life, can be trusted as a faithful recorder of the philosophe's conversations, at least one bit of evidence survives about the psychic development of the author of the Persian Letters. Franz Neumann's essay summarizes Montesquieu's place in the quarrel over the Frankish constitution, showing that historically Dubos was correct, and not Montesquieu. In the Persian Letters Montesquieu's scheme for the forms of government remains strictly classical, whereas in the Spirit of the Laws it actually comes to be a fourth form of government, something quite different from Aristotle's notion of despotism as perverted monarchy.
