The historian Roland Mousnier defines the state in the following manner:
“The state is a spontaneous, natural organism, resulting from the needs inherent in human nature, issuing from the natural laws that govern the development of societies, which are necessary facts, independent of man’s will. The state comes into being spontaneously, without men thinking about it. When men start to be aware of the state, it has already existed long since.”
(Taken from Roland Mousnier, The Institutions of France Under the Absolute Monarchy 1598-1789, Society and State, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1979, p. 646.)
