There is no crueller tyranny than that which is exercised…

The sentence is found in the Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, in chapter XIV, on Tiberius. There Montesquieu shows how the emperor seized upon the law of majesty and applied it “to everything that could serve his hatred or his suspicions”: not only actions, but “words, signs and even thoughts”. “Friendship was regarded as a reef, virtue as an affectation.” Hence this maxim, extended by an image: it is to drown the unfortunate “on the very plank on which they had saved themselves”.

Montesquieu published this book in 1734, without an author’s name; in it, fourteen years before The Spirit of the Laws, he laid the groundwork for his reflection on political liberty. He draws on Tacitus, the historian of the terror under Tiberius.

The sentence targets a tyranny more dangerous than brute force: one that clothes itself in the forms of law. It is quoted whenever those in power misuse the courts to strike at their opponents, and it has lost none of its relevance.

Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, chapter XIV, 1734

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