I cannot conclude this book without making some applications of my
three principles.
1st Question. It is a question whether the laws ought to oblige a
subject to accept a public employment. My opinion is that they ought in
a republic, but not in a monarchical government. In the former, public
employments are attestations of virtue, depositions with which a citizen
is entrusted by his country, for whose sake alone he ought to live, to
act, and to think, consequently lie cannot refuse them.
[55]
In the latter, public offices are testimonials of honour; now such is the
capriciousness of honour that it chooses to accept none of these
testimonies but when and in what manner it pleases.
The late King of Sardinia
[56]
inflicted punishments on his subjects who refused the dignities and public
offices of the state. In this he unknowingly followed republican ideas: but
his method of governing in other respects sufficiently proves that this was
not his intention.
2nd Question. Secondly, it is questioned whether a subject should
be obliged to accept a post in the army inferior to that which he held
before. Among the Romans it was usual to see a captain serve the next
year under his lieutenant.
[57]
This is because virtue in republics requires a continual sacrifice of our
persons and of our repugnances for the good of the state. But in monarchies,
honour, true or false, will never bear with what it calls degrading itself.
In despotic governments, where honour, posts, and ranks are equally
abused, they indiscriminately make a prince a scullion, and a scullion a
prince.
3rd Question. Thirdly, it may be inquired, whether civil and
military employments should be conferred on the same person. In
republics I think they should be joined, but in monarchies separated. In
the former it would be extremely dangerous to make the profession of
arms a particular state, distinct from that of civil functions; and in
the latter, no less dangerous would it be to confer these two
employments on the same person.
In republics a person takes up arms only with a view to defend his
country and its laws; it is because he is a citizen he makes himself for
a while a soldier. Were these two distinct states, the person who under
arms thinks himself a citizen would soon be made sensible he is only a
soldier.
In monarchies, they whose condition engages them in the profession
of arms have nothing but glory, or at least honour or fortune, in view.
To men, therefore, like these, the prince should never give any civil
employments; on the contrary, they ought to be checked by the civil
magistrate, that the same persons may not have at the same time the
confidence of the people and the power to abuse it.
[58]
We have only to cast an eye on a nation that may be justly called a
republic, disguised under the form of monarchy, and we shall see how
jealous they are of making a separate order of the profession of arms,
and how the military state is constantly allied with that of the
citizen, and even sometimes of the magistrate, to the end that these
qualities may be a pledge for their country, which should never be
forgotten.
The division of civil and military employments, made by the Romans
after the extinction of the republic, was not an arbitrary thing. It was
a consequence of the change which happened in the constitution of Rome;
it was natural to a monarchical government; and what was only commenced
under Augustus
[59]
succeeding emperors
[60]
were obliged to finish, in order to temper the military government.
Procopius, therefore, the competitor of Valens the emperor, was very
much to blame when, conferring the pro-consular dignity
[61]
upon Hormisdas, a prince of the blood royal of Persia, he restored to this
magistracy the military command of which it had been formerly possessed;
unless indeed he had very particular reasons for so doing. A person that
aspires to the sovereignty concerns himself less about what is
serviceable to the state than what is likely to promote his own
interest.
4th Question. Fourthly, it is a question whether public employments
should be sold. They ought not, I think, in despotic governments, where
the subjects must be instantaneously placed or displaced by the prince.
But in monarchies this custom is not at all improper, by reason it
is an inducement to engage in that as a family employment which would
not be undertaken through a motive of virtue; it fixes likewise every
one in his duty, and renders the several orders of the kingdom more
permanent. Suidas very justly observes that Anastasius had changed the
empire into a kind of aristocracy, by selling all public employments.
Plato
[62]
cannot bear with this prostitution: "This is exactly,"
says he, "as if a person were to be made a mariner or pilot of a ship
for his money. Is it possible that this rule should be bad in every
other employment of life, and hold good only in the administration of a
republic?" But Plato speaks of a republic founded on virtue, and we of a
monarchy. Now, in monarchies (where, though there were no such thing as
a regular sale of public offices, still the indigence and avidity of the
courtier would equally prompt him to expose them to sale) chance will
furnish better subjects than the prince's choice. In short, the method
of attaining to honours through riches inspires and cherishes
industry,
[63]
a thing extremely wanting in this kind of government.
5th Question. The fifth question is in what kind of government
censors are necessary. My answer is, that they are necessary in a
republic, where the principle of government is virtue. We must not
imagine that criminal actions only are destructive of virtue; it is
destroyed also by omissions, by neglects, by a certain coolness in the
love of our country, by bad examples, and by the seeds of corruption:
whatever does not openly violate but elude the laws, does not subvert
but weaken them, ought to fall under the inquiry and correction of the
censors.
We are surprised at the punishment of the Areopagite for killing a
sparrow which, to escape the pursuit of a hawk, had taken shelter in his
bosom. Surprised we are also that an Areopagite should put his son to
death for putting out the eyes of a little bird. But let us reflect that
the question here does not relate to a criminal sentence, but to a
judgment concerning manners in a republic founded on manners.
In monarchies there should be no censors; the former are founded on
honour, and the nature of honour is to have the whole world for its
censor. Every man who fails in this article is subject to the reproaches
even of those who are void of honour.
Here the censors would be spoiled by the very people whom they ought
to correct: they could not prevail against the corruption of a monarchy;
the corruption rather would be too strong against them.
Hence it is obvious that there ought to be no censors in despotic
governments. The example of China seems to derogate from this rule; but
we shall see, in the course of this work, the particular reasons of that
institution.
