Édouard Laboulaye, légataire de Montesquieu : la «République constitutionnelle»

Simone Goyard-Fabre : Edouard Laboulaye, Montesquieu's heir : the «constitutional republic ». Edouard Laboulaye influenced modern Western liberal individualism in a way which reflects the inheritance of Montesquieu's legal philosophy. Laboulaye, who liked to define himself as a «republican of the future », obviously condemned the Old Regime monarchy. But above all he denounced the sophistry which in his opinion dogged the French conception of sovereignty and which was defended by the Revolution with its obsessive centralism. Following Locke and Montesquieu we must, he said, oppose the artificiality of political rationality defended by the French Revolution and separate society and state. Thus his liberalism gives rise to an organic, pluralistic constitutional programme which demands that each individual, whatever his function, accepts his share of responsability.