Excerpt from Lettres PersanesThis purely humanistic culture gradually led him through religious indifference to unbelief, 1 and sup plied him with the foundations oi his philosophy of life, which were borrowed from Pyrrhonism and Stoi cism. After 1711 he studied law, then entered the Parlement or law courts at Bordeaux In 1715 he married, and very soon after (1716) inherited from an uncle the dignity Of president 8 mortier in the Parle ment of Bordeaux, together with the estate and the name of Montesquieu, which he was to make famous. In a general way, he spoke considerately of the Parle ments of the realm, those last images of public liberty (see Lettres persanes, 9 3, and of his colleagues, the parlementaires, who loved to be compared with the Roman patres conscripti, or to be called the fathers of the people. Nevertheless, he had no fondness for the legal profession, and often spoke sarcastically Of ignorant judges, pettifogging lawyers, and obstinate litigants (l. P., 68.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.