Charles de Secondat (Baron de Montesquieu)

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689–1755), was a French Enlightenment political philosopher and writer. Born near Bordeaux, he inherited the title and the estate of La Brède and served as a magistrate in the Parlement of Bordeaux. His early fame came with *Persian Letters* (1721), a satirical epistolary novel that critiqued French society through the eyes of fictional Persian travelers. Montesquieu later produced his major work, *The Spirit of the Laws* (1748), a comparative study of governments and legal systems. He argued for the separation of powers and the importance of political liberty, influencing later constitutional thought.