[MONTESQUIEU, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de]. De L'Esprit des Loix. 1749.

Major work of the 18th century.
The original edition will appear in Geneva in 1748, the success was immediate and many reissues were published throughout Europe before the book was put on the index in 1751.
This 12mo edition spotted by Quérard repeats the second corrected edition published in 1749. It contains the warning which includes all the modifications made by Montesquieu to the first edition.

De l'Esprit des Loix, innovates in several areas: the adjustment of laws to human society, the separation of powers, and a theory of climates which will have effects even in the structuralism of the twentieth century.
Durkheim will see in Montesquieu's work the origins of a new science: sociology.