Quiz: The Spirit of the Laws

15 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. What did the fragment of the Voconian law preserved by Cicero forbid? Soldiers making wills in the field during a campaign Fathers selling their children Women marrying outside their own class or order Making a woman one’s heir, married or not
2. How does Montesquieu explain the custom among the Naires of Malabar by which a woman may have several husbands? It prevents the division of landed estates among many sons and heirs It is a law imposed by the Mahomedan conquerors It frees noble soldiers from family cares and keeps them warlike There are far more women than men in Malabar, owing to the climate
3. What, for Montesquieu, was the crowning error in the Spaniards’ trial of Atahualpa? They let him go free in exchange for a ransom They tried him by canon law before a church court They tried him under the law of nations, but without a jury of his peers They judged him by Spain’s political and civil laws, not his own
4. How many witnesses does Montesquieu think should be required to condemn a man to death? Two Three Twelve One
5. What does Montesquieu say the state owes every citizen? Nothing beyond the protection of the laws A plot of land on reaching adulthood Only alms in times of famine Subsistence, food, clothing and a healthy way of life
6. How does Montesquieu define the political liberty of the subject in Book XI, chapter 6? The power of doing whatever one wishes, without any restraint of law A share in the sovereign power, exercised by the people as a body The right of every citizen to vote in person on each and every law Tranquillity of mind from each person’s opinion of his safety
7. What kind of constitution does Montesquieu say combines the internal advantages of a republic with the external force of a monarchy? A military dictatorship chosen for a term A mixed monarchy with a hereditary senate An elective aristocracy A confederate republic
8. Which kind of tax does Montesquieu call “more natural to liberty”? A forced loan from the nobility A capitation or poll tax A tax on land registers A duty on merchandise
9. How does Book VI justify the trouble, expense and delays of legal proceedings in moderate governments? They are the price each subject pays for his liberty They enrich the judges and so secure their loyalty to the crown They protect the judges from bribery They discourage the poor from going to law over trifles
10. Why, according to Montesquieu, can English law afford not to punish false witness with death? English juries were forbidden to rely on witnesses at all Without torture it relies on witnesses, and hears them on both sides Perjury was unknown in England because of the solemn oath on the Gospels English judges could pardon any perjurer at their own discretion, without appeal
11. Which confederacy does Montesquieu name as his model of an excellent confederate republic? Lycia Holland The Germanic empire The Swiss cantons
12. In the ironic chapter “Of the Slavery of the Negroes”, which economic argument does Montesquieu put in the mouth of the slavery’s defenders? Cotton could not be grown in Carolina without slaves Africa’s rulers demanded the trade Sugar would be too dear without slave labour Slaves were needed to work the silver mines of Peru
13. Whose words does Montesquieu borrow at the end of the Preface: “And I also am a painter”? Raphael Plato Correggio Michelangelo
14. According to Book XVIII, countries are cultivated in proportion to what? Their liberty Their population Their fertility The quantity of their money
15. What did the capitulary of the synod of Frankfort claim had happened in the last famine? The counts had emptied the royal granaries Infernal spirits had devoured the grain, rebuking unpaid tithes Locusts had been sent to punish Charles Martel’s seizure of church lands The Normans had burned the barns of every church

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