68. The president Montesquieu (Considerations sur la
Grandeur, etc., des Romains, c. xiv. in his works, tom. iii.
p. 448,449) excuses this minute and absurd tyranny, by
supposing that actions the most indifferent in our eyes
might excite, in a Roman mind, the idea of guilt and danger.
This strange apology is supported by a strange
misapprehension of the English laws, "chez une nation . . .
ou il est defendu de boire a la sante d'une certaine
personne."