Persian Letters

Summary

Persian Letters is an epistolary novel made up of letters exchanged between two Persian noblemen travelling in Europe, Usbek and his younger companion Rica, and their friends, servants and wives back home in Isfahan. The letters run from 1711 to 1720, covering the last years of Louis XIV, the Regency and the collapse of John Law's financial system. Usbek has left Persia partly in search of knowledge and partly to escape enemies at court. He leaves behind a seraglio of wives, among them Zachi, Zelis and his favourite Roxane, guarded by eunuchs led by a Chief Eunuch who writes to him of his own mutilation and of the hatred he bears the women he controls. In Paris and elsewhere the two travellers observe French society with the eyes of outsiders, and their naive descriptions turn familiar institutions into absurdities: the king as a magician who makes people believe paper is money, the pope as another magician who makes them believe three are one, the fashions that change so fast that a woman returning from the country seems out of date, the vanity of salons, the pedantry of scholars, the pretensions of nobles and the quarrels of theologians. Interspersed are longer reflections on politics and morality. Usbek tells the fable of the Troglodytes, a people who destroy themselves through selfishness and then flourish through virtue, only to ask for a king when virtue becomes a burden. He discusses depopulation, religious tolerance, despotism, justice and the right to take one's own life. Rica, lighter and more adaptable, becomes something of a Parisian himself. As the years pass, letters from Isfahan grow more alarming. The women quarrel, the eunuchs lose control, and there are reports of infidelity and intrigue. Usbek, who reasons so liberally about European tyranny, responds with orders for harsh punishments and gives the eunuchs absolute power. The final letters describe the collapse of the seraglio. Roxane, discovered with a lover who is killed, writes Usbek a defiant final letter: she has deceived him, she has always been inwardly free, and she has taken poison. The ending turns the satire back on its narrator: the philosopher who analyses despotism abroad is himself a domestic despot, and his household becomes an image of the political tyranny the book condemns.

Plot or Argument

• Departure and the seraglio

  Usbek and Rica leave Isfahan and travel through Turkey to Europe. Early letters establish the seraglio, the eunuchs' resentment, and the wives' devotion and rivalries.

• Paris through foreign eyes

  The travellers describe the French court, church, fashion, cafés, theatre and academies, defamiliarizing French customs to satirical effect.

• The Troglodytes

  Usbek's parable of a people destroyed by egoism and restored by virtue, which ends when they choose a king to escape the burden of self-government.

• Philosophical letters

  Reflections on justice, religious tolerance, depopulation, colonies, divorce, suicide and the nature of government, mostly in Usbek's voice.

• Regency and Law's System

  Later letters reflect the death of Louis XIV, the Regency and the speculative boom and crash of John Law's paper-money scheme.

• Collapse of the seraglio

  Disorder in Isfahan escalates; Usbek orders punishments; Roxane's affair is discovered and she writes a final letter of defiance before dying by poison.

Characters

• Usbek, principal letter-writer

  Persian nobleman, philosophical and critical of European institutions, but a jealous tyrant in his own household.

• Rica, Usbek's companion

  Younger, witty traveller who adapts readily to Paris and writes many of the most satirical letters.

• Roxane, Usbek's favourite wife

  Seemingly the most virtuous wife; her final letter reveals deception, rebellion and suicide.

• Zachi, Usbek's wife

  Wife whose jealousy and later misconduct are reported to Usbek.

• Zelis, Usbek's wife

  Wife whose letters reflect on the condition of women in the seraglio.

• The Chief Eunuch, guardian of the seraglio

  Castrated servant who describes his mutilation and his bitter power over the women.

Lessons

• Seeing one's own culture as strange

  By describing France through Persian eyes, Montesquieu makes the familiar absurd. The device teaches readers to question customs they take for natural.

  • Which French customs look most absurd when described by Rica?
  • Does the book also exoticize Persia in ways a modern reader should question?

• Reason does not guarantee virtue

  Usbek argues eloquently against despotism while ruling his seraglio by terror. The novel shows that enlightened opinions can coexist with tyranny in private life.

  • Where do Usbek's philosophical letters contradict his commands to the eunuchs?
  • Is Roxane's final letter the moral centre of the book?
  • What modern examples of 'public liberal, private tyrant' come to mind?

• Virtue as the foundation of self-government

  The Troglodyte fable argues that a free society depends on citizens who choose justice, and that people sometimes prefer a master to the burden of virtue.

  • Why do the virtuous Troglodytes ask for a king?
  • How does the fable anticipate Montesquieu's later theory of republics?

Context

The book belongs to a fashion for Oriental tales after Antoine Galland's French translation of the Thousand and One Nights (1704–1717) and draws on travel accounts of Persia by Jean Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. It reflects the end of Louis XIV's reign, the more permissive Regency, and the financial mania of John Law.

Composition

Published anonymously in 1721 with a false imprint, and quickly reprinted. Montesquieu added further letters in a posthumous edition of 1758, so letter numbering differs between editions; the 1758 edition contains 161 letters.

Reception

An immediate success that made its author famous, though its satire of religion caused difficulties when he sought election to the Académie française (elected 1728). It became a model for later 'foreign observer' satires such as Oliver Goldsmith's The Citizen of the World.

Comparisons

• gullivers-travels

  Both use a traveller's estranged perspective to satirize European politics, religion and learning; Swift invents fantastic lands while Montesquieu brings outsiders to Paris.

• candide

  Voltaire's satire shares Montesquieu's attack on religious intolerance and complacency, but uses a picaresque plot rather than letters.

• the-arthashastra

  Both treat the mechanics of absolute rule; Kautilya advises the king, while Montesquieu exposes despotism by showing it from within a household.

• the-histories

  Herodotus pioneered the comparison of Greek and Persian customs that Montesquieu reverses, making Persians the observers of the West.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The two story lines running side by side: the letters from Paris about French customs, and the letters from Isfahan about the seraglio. Keep track of the dates, because the gap between Usbek's departure and the news he receives grows wider as the book goes on.
• Rica's letters on Paris, where the king becomes a magician who makes people take paper for money and the pope another magician, and where Parisians who learn Rica is Persian wonder how anyone could be such a thing.
• The fable of the Troglodytes, told by Usbek early in the book in a series of letters, and especially its ending, when the virtuous Troglodytes ask an old man to be their king.
• Usbek's philosophical letters on justice, religious tolerance and the laws against suicide. Compare the reasonable tone of these letters with the orders he sends home to the Chief Eunuch.
• Roxane's final letter, which closes the book and forces the reader to reread everything Usbek has written.

Key terms and names

Usbek

The Persian nobleman who leaves Isfahan for Europe in search of knowledge and safety from enemies at court. He writes thoughtful letters on justice and tolerance while ruling his wives at home through fear.

Rica

Usbek's younger travelling companion, whose quick, comic letters supply most of the satire of Paris. Unlike Usbek, he adapts easily and grows half Parisian.

Seraglio

The enclosed women's quarters of Usbek's house in Isfahan, where his wives live under the guard of eunuchs. Its gradual collapse is the novel's plot.

The Chief Eunuch

The guardian of the seraglio, who writes of his own mutilation and his resentful power over the women. He represents the servant of a despot who is himself both victim and tyrant.

The Troglodytes

An imagined Arabian people in Usbek's fable who perish through selfishness, then flourish through justice and mutual care, and finally choose a king because virtue has become a burden.

Roxane

Usbek's favourite wife, thought by him the most virtuous. Her last letter reveals that she has deceived him, that she has kept her inner freedom, and that she has taken poison.

Epistolary novel

A novel told entirely in letters. Montesquieu uses the form to let many voices speak without a narrator to judge them, leaving the reader to discover the contradictions.

John Law's System

The paper-money and stock scheme of the Scottish financier John Law in Regency France, which collapsed in 1720. Late letters satirize the speculative frenzy it produced.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why does Usbek leave Persia, and whom does he leave in charge of his household?
2. Comprehension Retell the fable of the Troglodytes in order: how they destroy themselves, how the two virtuous families restore them, and what happens when they choose a king.
3. Comprehension What goes wrong in the seraglio in the later letters, what does Usbek order in response, and what does Roxane reveal in her final letter?
4. Interpretation Why does Montesquieu have Persians, rather than a French narrator, describe Paris? What becomes visible about French customs, religion and fashion only through foreign eyes?
5. Interpretation The old man chosen king by the Troglodytes weeps at their request. What does he see that they do not, and what does the fable suggest about why free people give up self-government?
6. Interpretation Usbek reasons well about justice and despotism in Europe but rules his own house by terror. Is he a hypocrite, or does Montesquieu suggest something about how hard it is to see one's own household clearly?
7. Interpretation Does Roxane's final letter make her the moral center of the book, or does her deception complicate the reader's sympathy?
8. Big Question The Troglodytes find virtue harder to bear than obedience to a king. Can a free society last without virtuous citizens, and what happens to a people that would rather be ruled than govern themselves?

Faith Connections

• 1 Samuel 8 (Scripture)

  Israel asks Samuel for a king like the other nations, and Samuel warns them what a king will take from them. The Troglodytes' request for a king, and the old man's grief at it, closely parallel this chapter, which Montesquieu's readers would have known well.

• Matthew 7:3-5 (Scripture)

  Jesus asks why we see the speck in a brother's eye but not the log in our own. Usbek sees every absurdity of French court and church, yet cannot see the despotism of his own seraglio until Roxane's letter shows it to him.

• Augustine, City of God XIX.15 (Church Fathers)

  Augustine argues that God made rational man to have dominion over irrational creatures, not man over man, and that servitude entered through sin. Usbek's household, where eunuchs and wives live under total command and all are made wretched, illustrates Augustine's point that mastery of one person over another corrupts both.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Customs that seem natural to those who live with them can look absurd to outsiders, so a nation should examine its own institutions with the eyes of a stranger. Yet the same examining reason that sees tyranny abroad can remain blind to tyranny at home. Despotism, whether in a state or a household, rules by fear, corrupts both master and servant, and in the end destroys the order it was meant to secure. Therefore liberty depends not on clever opinions but on justice actually practised, beginning in one's own house.

Rhetorical device: persona (the naive foreign observer). In Rica's letters from Paris, Montesquieu speaks through a Persian who describes the king and the pope as magicians and treats Parisian fashion as a bewildering spectacle. Because the speaker seems not to understand what he reports, the reader is left to see the absurdity for himself, and the author avoids attacking anything directly.

Debate: Resolved: The fable of the Troglodytes proves that a people cannot remain free without virtue.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Montesquieu places Usbek's letters on justice and tolerance in the same book as his orders to the Chief Eunuch. Using the Troglodyte fable, at least one of Usbek's philosophical letters, and Roxane's final letter, argue what the novel teaches about the relation between public opinions and private conduct.

Comparison with Gulliver's Travels: Swift sends an Englishman to imaginary lands, while Montesquieu brings Persians to Paris, and both use the traveller's strange perspective to satirize European politics, religion and learning. Compare the two satirists' methods and targets, and argue which traveller ends up being more of a target of the satire himself, Gulliver or Usbek.

Medical Lens

Of interest mainly for the Enlightenment debate on suicide: one of Usbek's letters argues that European laws punishing suicide are unjust, an important early secular defence of the right to die that anticipates Hume's essay on suicide. The eunuchs' letters describe castration as both bodily mutilation and psychological wound. Roxane's death by poison ends the book. Medicine as such is not a theme, beyond passing satire of physicians and quack remedies in the Paris letters.

• Letter 76 (numbering varies by edition)

  Usbek argues that laws against suicide are unjust, since a man oppressed by misery should be free to leave a society that no longer benefits him.

  Suicide
• Early seraglio letters (c. Letters 9 and following)

  The Chief Eunuch describes his castration and his resentment of the women he guards.

  Disability DeformitySexuality Medicalized
• Final letter (Letter 161 in the 1758 numbering)

  Roxane writes to Usbek after taking poison, declaring her deception and her inner freedom.

  SuicidePharmacology Poisons

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write a new 'Persian letter' in which a visitor describes a modern hospital, clinic or pharmacy without understanding its conventions.

• Essay

  Compare Usbek's letter on suicide with modern debates on assisted dying. What has changed in the arguments?

• Dialogue

  Stage an exchange between Usbek and Roxane in which she answers his philosophical letters point by point.

Further Reading

• The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu

• The Citizen of the World, Oliver Goldsmith

  English imitation using a Chinese observer.

• Orientalism, Edward W. Said