 And Montesquieu was probably the most widely read of all the modern thinkers. But they read Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, David Hume, Plutarch, John Locke, etc. The list goes on. Montesquieu was very influential. Just a few years after writing the Federalist Papers, Madison writes an essay on Montesquieu called Spirit of Governance, in which he says that he agrees with Montesquieu on a number of things.