“The judges of the nation are only the mouth that pronounces the words of the law.” MONTESQUIEU (1689–1755).

A historical collectible composition dedicated to Charles Louis de Montesquieu, the French philosopher, jurist and one of the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment. The display combines a portrait of Montesquieu, an original 18th-century French legal document, a copy of its reverse side and a thematic plaque bearing the quotation: “The judges of the nation are only the mouth that pronounces the words of the law.”

The central historical artefact is an original handwritten legal document dated 19 April 1747, executed on official stamped paper (papier timbré) of the Kingdom of France. The document concerns a legal opposition (opposition) in a dispute between local communities involving their rights, seigneurial rights and financial claims. Its text refers to a sum of 100 livres, together with legal costs, damages and compensation. The document bears an original handwritten signature of an official.

The document dates from Montesquieu’s lifetime and was created only one year before the first publication of his seminal work “The Spirit of the Laws” (1748), in which he examined law, forms of government and the principles of separation of powers. Importantly, the document is not a manuscript or autograph of Montesquieu; its connection to him is historical and thematic. It is an authentic legal artefact from the same French legal world that formed the subject of Montesquieu’s intellectual inquiry.

Bringing together the original 1747 document, a reproduction of its reverse, Montesquieu’s portrait and his words on the role of judges, the composition creates a dialogue between the legal practice of 18th-century France and the ideas of one of the defining thinkers in the history of modern law and political philosophy.