Of Spiders and Bees 195the Prus sian court. Vattel obtained a degree in humanities and philosophy
at the University of Basle and then studied at the Academy of Geneva, where
he was a student of Burlamaqui. It was at this time that he discovered the
writings of Wolff , which became his principal intellectual guide. Being un-
successful in a quest for employment by the Prus sian government, he en-
tered the ser vice of Saxony, which entailed a very brief diplomatic mission to
Berne (in 1747). He then returned to Neuchâtel, where he remained for the
next ten years. During this period, he wrote most of the work for which he is
known— most outstandingly Th e Law of Nations. Th e book was published in
French (not Latin) in 1757 in Neuchâtel, although the title page gave 1758 as
the date and London as the place.
Th e work was a great success, and deservedly so. It was, in fact, the very
fi rst treatise of international law of the recognizably modern kind. Previous
expounders of the subject had written in Latin for scholarly audiences. Vat-
tel wrote in the vernacular and for Everyman. He gave a comprehensive over-
view of the subject, but in a straightforward and direct manner that was
readily accessible for lay readers. Every general international-law treatise
writer since that time has followed in the footsteps of the man from
Neuchâtel— but seldom with such verve and sparkle. Th e book’s charming
style ensured it a wide readership, and it rapidly became the handbook of
choice for statesmen and judges throughout Eu rope and in the New World
colonies as well. A translation into En glish quickly followed, in 1760. Such
fame did Vattel earn from the book that he was invited back to Saxony,
where he served on the privy council and as adviser on foreign aff airs to the
Saxon government. He married into a Huguenot noble family, but ill health
claimed him in 1767, at age fi ft y- three.
Vattel’s allegiance, in principle, to the rationalist approach is evident in
his self- declared role as pop u lar izer of the ideas of Wolff , whom he lauded as
the “great master” who went before him and showed him the way. Vat t e l
did, however, acknowledge his intellectual mentor’s treatise to be “a very dry
work” — an accusation that no one could level against his own text. Vattel
candidly declared a preference for a deductive rather than an inductive
method. He was, in short, a self- proclaimed spider. He also made it clear
that, like Grotius and Wolff before him, he was not prepared to accept the de
facto conduct of states as the mea sure of what the law required. Th e princi-
ples that he expounded, he candidly announced, “are going to appear very