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The Political T ho u g h t o f Jo sep h De M aistre A uthor(s): J o h n C. M u rray Reviewed work(s):Source: The R eview o f Politics, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Jan ., 1949), pp. 63-86Published by: Cambridge University Press f o r th e University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review of PoliticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1404500 Accessed:

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The Political Thought of Joseph De Maistre

By John C. Murray

"\T7ITH the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France, there ^ ^ began one of the most intellectually fruitful periods in French

history. The French suddenly had a greater freedom than had been enjoyed for some time, and as Lamartine tells us, ‘scarcely was the Empire overturned, when people began to think, to write, and to sing again in France. . . . A ll that had been hitherto silent now began to speak.” In politics, all sides had powerful spokesmen. But the old regime, suddenly given a new lease on life, seldom before had been favored with such brilliant apologists as Chateaubriand, Bonald, Lamen­nais, and Joseph de Maistre, the proph ète du passé. One thing should be made clear. That Maistre’s political thought was superior to that of the others of this school, there can be little doubt. But that Maistre was the chief exponent of the reaction during the Restoration is a fact rather falsely assumed o t at least open to exceeding doubt. In reality, it seems quite clear that the influence of Maistre in France during this period was almost negligible. Perhaps one might go so far as to say that his position as chief spokesman of the reaction, rather than having been actually held by him, has been assigned to him by later writers.

Within fifteen short years the Bourbon monarchy was forever doomed. The entire fault lay with the indiscreet politics of the reaction, the politics of the Ultras, led by the near-sighted Comte D’Artois who later abdicated as Charles X. This was the group which “had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” It has been rightly said of this party that to them ‘‘all compromise was treason, all opposition was rebellion; a Moderate was a Jacobin in disguise; the King was little better. . . . Villèle describes them as en ra ges; the King dubs them fo u s ' ' - For several reasons it is difficult to subscribe to an opinion that this party of reaction found its inspiration in Maistre. The White Terror was in absolute contradiction to Maistre’s description of the counter-revolu-

1 Alphonse de Lamartine, History of the Restoration of the Monarchy in France. (London, 1865), I, p. 498.

2 G. L. Dickinson, Revolution and Reaction in Modern France (New York, 1927), p. 75.

63

tion. The desire to reestablish the monarchy exactly as it was remem­bered in 1789 lacked every insight of Maistre’s on the consequence of revolutions.

It has been said of both Maistre and Bonald that “during their lifetime, they were praised more than they were cited.” It can be pointed out that in Maistre’s case, at least, he was not extensively read until long after his death and long after the expiration of the Bourbon Restoration. Indeed, if Maistre exercised a widespread influence in France, it was probably between the years 1840 and 1880 rather than at any other time.' Outside of his Essai sur le P rinciple gén éra teu r des Constitutions politiques (1814), Maistre had published nothing between the years 1796 and 1819. His Considerations sur la France (1796) was undoubtedly widely read by the émigrés^ some of whom found themselves sharply criticised therein. But who among the Ultras would have gone so far as tô say that France had been saved by Robespierre? Or, that “once the revolutionary movement had been established, France and the monarchy were able to be saved only by jacobinism?” Maistre’s Du Papei (1819) was hardly calculated to win friends among the pre­dominantly Gallican ranking clergy^ so active in the Ultra cause. A series of letters shows that he was completely disheartened by the silent or critical reception given this work. To Lamennais he expressed a con­cern over the complaints of the “high clergy of France.” ® To Bonald he fretted over the silence of the journals and spoke of the reaction of the clergy being “as if I had denied the existence of God.” Lamen­nais complimented him on this powerful work, but at the same time had to inform Maistre that some in France were maintaining that there were “at least three or four heresies” in the book. Later, Lamennais

64 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

3 Charles de Remusat, “Du Traditionalisme,” Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. 9, 2® per., (1 May 1857), p. 48. The author further states that, “Je ne serais pas étonné que, sous la restauration, les écrits de M. de Maistre eussent été fort peu répandu; je P affirmerais pour ceux de M. de Bonald.”

4 This is clearly indicated by the entries in the General Catalogue of the BibliothequeNationale of new editions and/or new printings of the works of Maistre. Thus, for in­stance, the Considérations, in the first forty-seven years following its publication has seven such entries; twenty-three suddenly appear in the next thirty-seven years. Du Pape has two entries up through 1835, thirty-eight more appear between 1836 and 1880. AlbertGuérard has pointed out that “Joseph de Maistre, hailed as a genius by his partisans inhis own lifetime, did not secure universal recognition until thirty years later.” FrenchProphets of Yesterday (New York, 1913), p. 26.

5 Considerations, Oeuvres Complètes (Lyons, 1884), I, p. 17, 18.6 1 May 1820, Oeuvres, X IV, p. 226.7 25 March 1920, Ibid., p. 215.

tried to console him on the difficulty Rome had in appreciating the book.® It is not without significance that among the first answers to Maistre’s work, if not the first, was given by the Abbé G. A. R. Bastón, whose impressive title was “docteur de Sorbonne, ancien chanoine, grand vicaire et professeur de théologie.” The appearance, in 1821, after the death of Maistre, of UÊglise Gallicane^ with its merciless attack on the Four Articles of 1682 and those theologians regarded as decisive in France, must have certainly completed the alienation of the clergy of rank.

Maistre’s literary style has justly won him an enduring place in French letters, but at the same time it tends to discourage the examina­tion and understanding of his political and social thought. Thus, de Remusat, who prided himself on his scholarly, yet sympathetic considera­tion of the writings of his opponents, frankly admitted that he “had never read ten pages of Count de Maistre without experiencing a pro­found joy at not thinking as he.”

Maistre’s constant love of the paradoxical, his indiscretion, im­pertinence, and disrespect, and his frequent violence easily lead to his dismissal as an outrageous reactionary. When he is cited, more likely than not the reference will be from his apology of the executioner. This is an excellent example of the Maistrian technique of forcing a point. Instead of simply saying that the authority in the state demands a puni­tive power, a hardly contestable doctrine, he presses this conclusion only after an excursion into one of the most revolting aspects of society. The reader is suddenly brought into the midst of a nervous, milling crowd anxiously awaiting the executioner’s torturing of a prisoner. With an apparent relish, the whole sordid drama is depicted. Bones crack, the blood-filled mouth of the victim gushes out a few words pleading for the mercy of death. The crowd is horrified at the spectacle, but the heart of the executioner beats faster as he compliments himself on his ability to use the torturing wheel. Justice throws a few coins into the

JOSEPH DE MAISTRE 65

8 18 May 1820, Ibid., p. 366-369, and 2 January 1821, Ibid.y p. 369-372.9 G. A. R. Bastón, Réclamation pour l^Êglise de France et pour la vérité, contre

Uouvrage de M. de Maistre, intitulé: Du Pape (Paris, 1821). Charléty speaks of “Ies doctrines ultramontaines que J. de Maistre avait produites en 1819 dans le Pape, au grand scandale du haut clergé et des ultras.” La Restauration, p. 209, in E. Lavisse, Histoire de France contemporaine (Paris, 1921), vol. IV.

10 C. de Rémusat, loc, cit., (15 May 1857), pp. 244-245. “Nous ne pouvons le lire sans nous sentir constamment taquiné, bravé, dans toutes les affirmations de notre raison.”G. Lanson, Histoire de la littérature française (Paris, 17th éd., 1922), p. 909.

bloodied hands of the executioner, and the crowd shrinks back as he passes out of the gathering. This friendless, solitary creature returns home and forgetting his awful tasks resumes his lonely but otherwise natural life. “Is this a man?” asks Maistre. The answer is intention­ally shocking. Yes, he is; and more than that! He is “the bond of human association,” the very “keystone of society.” Faguet has aptly said with respect to this technique of Maistre’s, that “le paradoxe est le méchanceté des hommes bons qui ont trop d’esprit.”

Maistre’s impertinence reaches classic proportions when he remarks, in a passing glance at the period, that “the history of the ninth ther­midor is not long: Severa l scoundrels killed severa l scoundrels/^

Working on the principle that criticism is most effective when it is accompanied with arguments ad hom inem , Maistre constantly abuses the opposition. But, as Dennis Brogan reminds us, “French con­troversy is not gentle.” Thus Voltaire, for whom Maistre had an almost unearthly hatred, is treated severely at every possible opportu­nity. In the Soirées^ there are, perhaps unwittingly, three literary portraits, that of the executioner, that of the savage, and that of Voltaire, To Maistre, Voltaire’s face was itself the picture of evil, indeed “the Divine anathema was written on his face. . . . Nothing absolves him: his corruption is of a genre particular to himself. . . . The laugh he excites is illegitimate. . . . Other cynics scandalize virtue; Voltaire scandalises vice. . . . Paris crowned him; Sodom would have banished him. . . . The greatest crime of Voltaire is the abuse of his talent and the deliberate prostitution of a genius created to glorify God and Virtue.”

Others fare a little less harshly. Maistre did not think there was anything “new” about Bacon’s N ovum Organum^ in fact he asserted

1 1 Les Soirees de Saint-Pétersbourg, Oeuvres, IV , p. 33.12 Ibid,, V . p. 5.13 Émile Faguet, Politiques et Moralistes du X IX siècle (París, 1891), Ire ser., p. 54.

C. Paillette warns the reader of Maistre to be careful lest “l’on prend fK?ur une affonation monstreuse quelque brilliant paradoxe qui fut écrit avec demi-sourire.” La Politique de Joseph de Maistre (Paris, 1895), p. 4.

14 Considérations, Oeuvres, I, p. 107.15 In a letter to the learned critic and publisher of Du Pápe, M. G.-M. de Place

(28 Sept. 1818), Maistre says, . on n’a rien fait contre les opinions tant qu*on n a pas attaqué les personnes.” Oeuvres, XIV, p. 150. Maistre^s friend Bonald constantly criticised the philosophes for employing this same technique. See his Melanges littéraires, politiques, et philosophiques (Paris, 1819), I, p. 242 ff., and II, p. 204 ff.

16 French Personalities and Problems (New York, 1946), p. 81.IT Soirées, Oeuvres, IV , pp. 208-210.

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that he “honors the wisdom which proposes a new organ as much as that which would propose a new leg.” The Essay on Human Un­derstand ing may have been written with “the eloquence of an almanac.” Nevertheless, Locke was an honest man and a man of good sense— even if he did tell us only what was already known.

In good faith it should be noted that this type of criticism was reserved for those whose motives Maistre doubted. insolent, in- so ien t et d em i” ^ Purer souls, like Pascal and Bossuet, were much more cordially treated.

All Maistre’s efforts were not, of course, spent in the coining of clever insults. The “Plato of the Alps,” as Lamartine called him, struck a telling blow at the sensistic psychology of Locke in pointing out that nothing could be more debasing, more deadly for the human spirit. Through this system, “reason has lost its wings, and slithers as a miry reptile; through it the divine source of poesy and eloquence has been dried up; through it, all the sciences have perished. . . . It is the death of every religion, of every exquisite sentiment, of every sublime impetus.” At some place or other Maistre examined almost every problem which has challenged the minds of men. But it is his po­litical thought which has challenged us here, for the reason that it has been generally obscured by that section in Du Pape where he suggests a universal order presided over by the Pope. Obviously there is more to Maistre than this segment of Du Pape,

T he R evolution and the Counter R evolution

Maistre’s first political work to reach the general public was Con­sidérations sur la France, a powerful polemic against the Revolution. With a bitterness equalled only by Burke, Maistre held that “what dis­tinguishes the French Revolution, and what makes it a unique ev en t in history, is that it is radically evil; no element of good relieves the observer’s eye : it is the highest degree of known corruption, it is pure impurity. . . . In its cradle it showed everything that it was to be. It

18 Examen de la philosophie de Bacon, Oeuvres, VI, p. 8. Maistre purposely misin­terprets here for the simple reason of putting across an insult. A few pages previous he had clarified the meaning of Bacon’s title by saying “II n’y a point de nouvel organe, ou pour parler français, de nouvel instrument avec lequel on puisse atteindre ce qui était in­accessible a nos devanciers.” Ibid., p. 5.

19 Soirées, Oeuvres IV, pp. 359-360, 371.20 Saint-Beuve, “Joseph de Maistre,” Les Grands Écrivains Français (Paris, 1930),

X, p. 54.21 Soirées, Oeuvres, IV, pp. 109 and 368.

JOSEPH DE MAISTRE 67

was a certain inexplicable delirium, a blind impetuosity, a scandalous contempt of everything respectable among men; an atrocity of a new genus which joked over its heinous crimes; it was especially an impudent prostitution of reasoning and of every word made for the expression of ideas of justice and virtue. . . . Learned barbarity, systematic atrocity, calculated corruption, etc.”

This work of Maistre’s was intended to offset the harm that might be done by the previously published book of that petit drôle, Benjamin Constant (a good part of which was the work of Madame de Stael), which sought to rally the royalists to the Republic in France. Maistre’s thesis was that France, which ‘‘exercises a veritable magistracy over Europe,” had, among other things, sinfully contradicted her voca­tion through the demoralization of Europe effected by the ph iloso­phes.^^ The Revolution is an act of Providence, a scourge inflicted upon France as a punishment for her crimes. Its providential character is attested by the fact that, following its own course, the Revolution exceeds all human control. The very men who plan the Revolution are but its simple instruments. The most active among them appear passive and mechanical, for once they seek to oppose or alter the course of the Revolution, they disappear from the scene.^^

According to Maistre, the Revolution would pass as soon as France was regenerated, and with it would go its a priori constitutions and governments. If the third constitution were suitable for France, it would daily find new adherents. Instead, ‘‘every minute sees a new deserter of the democracy,” and thus it is justly said to be “a republic without republicans.” ® If the government appears strong, that is only because it is violent. It is not a generally desired thing; it is merely tolerated for fear of something worse. Even the friends of the Republic do not attempt to show its values. Rather, they seek only to prove that the greatest of evils would result from a return of the old regime—a point of view vigorously denied by Maistre.

The Revolution, Maistre held, had led France into slavery. If the French desire a salvation, they will not find it in the Republic, but in

22 Considerations, Oeuvres, I, pp. 50, 52, 53.23 F. Vermale, “Les Origines des ^Considérations sur la France’ de Joseph de Maistre,”

Revue D^Histoire Littéraire de la France, vol. 33 (1926), p. 523. The reference is to Constant’s De la force du government actuel et de la nécessité de s*y rallier (April 1796).

24 Considérations, Oeuvres, I, p. 8.25 Ibid., pp. 4-7.26 Ibid., p. 80.27 Ibid., p. 54.

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their ancient constitution. He maintained that if the people of France “are made for a greater degree of liberty than that which they enjoyed seven years ago, which is not at all clear, they have under their hand, in all the monuments of their history and legislation, everything neces­sary to render them the honor and envy of Europe.” The objection that this constitution had not been in effect did not disturb Maistre. If such were the case, in his estimation, only the French themselves deserved blame. The important thing is that this constitution could be put into effect upon the restoration of the king through a counter­revolution.

Maistre’s ideas on the counter-revolution show at once a love of France greater than that held by a good many of the ém igres and an acute sense of the workings of a revolution. He castigates those nobles who would effect the counter-revolution by a force of arms which could result only in the conquest and division of France, massacres and disorders, “the annihilation of her influence and the debasement of her King.” Equally at fault were those who were seeking the aid of foreign princes, thinking that these powers would fight for the throne without demanding some indemnity. The counter-revolution would inevitably come about, “the date alone is doubtful,” but it would not be by these means.

Those within France who were arguing that the counter-revolution would involve all the horrors of the Revolution, could not be more wrong. Their error was in thinking that the monarchy “overthrown by monsters, must be reestablished by their equals.” The argu­ments that the people fear, or do not desire, or will never consent to the counter-revolution were regarded by Maistre as a waste of words. His conclusion was that “In revolutions the people are as nothing, or at least they enter only as passive instruments. . . . The people, if the monarchy is reestablished, will no more decree its reestablishment than they decreed its destruction or the establishment of the revolutionary government.” Instead, “four or five men will give France a king. Some letters from Paris will announce to the provinces that France has a king, and the provinces will cheer: Vive le roi!” And Paris,

JOSEPH DE MAISTRE 69

28 Ibid., p. 99.29 Ibid., p. 99.30 Ibid., pp. 12-21. For instances of criticism of the émigrés, see, Ibid., pp. 148 ff.,

and 145 fn. 2.31 Ibid., p. 122.32 Ibid., p. 113.33 Ibid.. p. 113.

awakening one morning to find that it has a king, will react similarly. All opposition will vanish as officers of the army, seeking honors, rush to the king’s side. Likewise, rulers of the cities, also hoping for great honors, will turn their jurisdiction over to the king. \^atever wills might be opposed to the king will be unable to unite among themselves. Once the king himself returns, everything will be in his favor; the royalist movement will be invincible.

Whereas the Revolution aroused every vice, Maistre insisted that the counter-revolution would call forth every virtue. This undoubtedly, like the rest of the program, was a broad lesson aimed at the mon­archy. With an insight far greater than the Ultras were later to show, Maistre pointed out that ‘the French have two infallible guarantees against die pretended vengeances which they have been led to fear, the interest of the king and his impotence.” For the king would be foolish indeed if he commenced his reign by abuse; and if he were so foolish, he would never summon the strength to fulfill his desires.^^ Thus, there need be no fear of the counter-revolution, for according to Maistre, “the reestablishment of the monarchy, which is called the counter-revolution, will nowise be a contrary-revolutiony but the con­trary of the revolution.”

The Considérations may have bolstered the hopes of a good many em igres, but within France it naturally did not find a receptive audi­ence. Yet, in a way, the republicans could have profited a great deal from Maistre’s reflections on the course of events. He pointed out a good many of their errors; the over-legislation, the futility of attacks upon those things conducive to a stable society, the foolhardiness in alienating the sympathies of many possible friends. In comparing the equalitarianism of the new regime with the grandeur of the ancien régim e, he taught the psychological desirability of honorary distinc­tions in society. Napoleon, who built an empire on the rubble of the Revolution, had learned these valuable lessons.

Although today we scorn many critics of the principles of the Revo­lution, it seems a bit unfair to heap only contumely on Maistre’s ideas of the Revolution. The Revolution in 1796 was not the glorious move­ment it has come to be. It appears that it was not until the end of the Restoration and during and after the ^Tioring” Bourgeois Mon-

34 Ibid,, p. 145.35 Ibid.36 Ibid., p. 157.

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archy, that the Revolution assumed its mythical proportions. There can be little doubt that Cresson is right in saying that even at the begin­ning of the Restoration “what is especially remembered of the Revolu­tion . . . is the suffering that it has caused. The Revolution is not at this date a great, living idea.” Maistre was too close to events and suffered too much personally—although without petty complaining over his losses ®—to find any saving grace in the Revolution.

It should be understood that Maistre’s apparently impossible re­quest for the reestablishment of the monarchy was not a request for the monarchy which immediately preceded 1789. He certainly realized, and consistently pointed out, the impossibility of restoring intact the old regime. That the returned monarchy would have to be a reformed monarchy was insisted on in the Considérations and reiterated several times thereafter.^® Thus, in 1810, Maistre wrote that the Revolution could not end with a return to previous conditions. Rather, it must end “by a rectification of the condition to which we have fallen,” in very much the same way that “the immense revolution caused by the barbarian invasion of the Roman empire did not end by the expulsion of these barbarians, but by their definite establishment which created the feudal state of Europe.”

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37 ‘‘Or, ce qu’on se rappelle surtout de la Révolution, en 1815, c’est la souffrance qu’elle a causée. La Révolution, ce n’est plus, à cette date, une grande idée vivante; ce n’est pas encore, comme pour nous, une grand idée que l’inertie sociale a fait partiellement avorter; c’est le souvenir de choses atroces, la guillotine, les guerres civiles et étrangères, les émigrations, les invasions, les confiscations, la misère des assignats, la terreur perpétuelle, et, comme couronnement, la défaite et l’anarchie.” André Cresson, Les Courants de la Pensée philosophique française (Paris, 1927), II, p. 65.

38 See the “Notice Biographique” by Rudolphe de Maistre prefacing the Oeuvres Complètes, I. pp. xi-xii.

39 Maistre carefully observed that “another very deadly error is to attach oneself too rigidly to ancient monuments. Without doubt, it is necessary to respect them, but it is especially necessary to consider what the juriconsults call the last condition. Every free constitution is by its nature variable, and variable in proportion as it is free; to wish to revive it in its rudiments, without pulling down any of it, is a foolish enterprise.” Con­sidération, Ouevres, I, pp. 98-99. In UEglise Gallicane, Maistre points out that “Les grandes secousses morales, religieuses ou politiques, laissent toujours quelques choses après elles.. . .On vit alors ce qu’on verra éternellement dans toutes les révolutions: elles finissent, mais l’esprit qui les enfante leur survit.” Oeuvres, III, pp. 3-4. In Du Pape, Maistre in­sists that constitutions have invariably come about “par le melange de différents éléments qui, s’étant d’abord choqués, ont fini par se pénétrer et se tranquilliser.” Oeuvres, II, p. 233.

40 Mémoire, 1810, cited in Blanc, Mémoires Politiques et Correspondance Diplomat­ique de J, de Maistre (Paris, 1858), p. 360. To the Baron Vignet des Étoles, Maistre wrote: “Soyez persuadé, monsieur, que forti fier le monarchie, il faut l’asseoir sur les lois, éviter l’arbitraire, les commissions fréquentes, les mutations continuelles d’emplois et les tripots ministériels.” Lettres et Opuscules inédits du Comte de Maistre (1851), cited in Blanc, loc, cit., p. 369.

As for Maistre’s interpretation of the Revolution as the active inter­vention of Providence, that is a thesis which is beyond the scope of history proper. The submission of Providence to the service of a politi­cal or social system, however, can be exceedingly injurious to Providence. In the present case, for instance, it brought forth De Remusat’s not unjust criticism that Maistre’s interpretation of Providence led to this one point: “Conclusion: la Providence fera la contre-revolution.” Father Lubac, in his excellent study of Proudhon, has rendered a great service in criticising the social and political misuse of “the God of the Christians.” It was against just such a theme that Proudhon revolted, and “to the first cry of revolt: Property is theft,’ he added the corollary: ‘God is ev il’ ” 3

S oyereign ty and G overnm ent

The political thought of Joseph de Maistre maintains a marvellous consistency. This is especially true after 1794. Earlier in life, however, he was imbued with the doctrines of the eighteenth century. Surprising as it may seem, not only was he a Gallican during this period, but he was considered a liberal at the court in Turin. For some years he was a freemason, dutifully attended lodge-meetings, and, recognized as a reforming spirit, he rapidly rose to high official positions in the organiza­tion. In later life he opposed the unqualified accusations that the Revo­lution was the work of Masonry. During this same period, the gentle Claude de Saint-Martin, le Philosophe In connu , and his Illuminism, that school of austere, mystical Christians, made a lasting impression on Maistre.^^

It was during these early years, in his first public composition, that Maistre, speaking of America, pointed out that “Liberty, insulted in Europe, has winged its flight to another hemisphere.” Two years

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4 1 C. de Remusat, loc. cit., p. 245.42 In speaking of Proudhon, Father Lubac says, “Ce n’est pas lui qui a, si l’on

peut dire, lancé Dieu dans la bagarre. Dans les années où il commence d’écrire, la religion traditionelle, depuis lon^emps employée à soutenir la ‘Légitimité, est appelée de nouveau au secours de la ‘Propriété.’ Celle-ci est la nouvelle Idole, et le Dieu des chrétiens est réquisitionné à son service.” Proudhon et le Christianisme (Paris. 1945), p. 197.

43 Ihid,, p. 198.44 See, F. Vermale, Notes sur Joseph de Maistre Inconnu (Chambéry, 1921), espe­

cially chapters 1 and 6. See also, F. Vermale, La franc-maçonnerie savoisienne à I*époque révolutionnaire d*après ses registres secrets (Paris, 1912) and G. Goyau, La Pénsee Re­ligieuse de Joseph de Maistre (Paris, 1921).

45 Éloge de Victor Amédée III (1775), cited in J. Mandoul, C/n homme d*état italien, Joseph de Maistre, et la politique de la maison de savoi (Paris, 1900), p. 21.

later, in his D iscours sur la Vertu delivered before the Senate of Savoy, the young Maistre pictured the birth of society in excellent Rousseauistic terms.' ® But these thoughts of youth were not to last long; the Revolu­tion altered all these early patterns. Just as it reversed his Gallicanism to an ultra-montanism, so also did it lead to a critical contempt of every doctrine of the philosophes.

Having refused to pay the tax levied by the revolutionary conqueror, Maistre, in 1793, began the sad journeying of twenty-four years, four­teen of which were spent in Russia as the envoy of the King of Sardinia to the Court of Alexander I. Reflecting upon the violences and dis­orders of his time and scanning the records of history, he was led to the conclusion that the “effusion of blood is never suspended in the uni­verse,” peace is but a respite between wars, and every period of history may be likened to that of Charles V and Francis I, for “each page of their history is red with human blood.”

There was not the least doubt in Maistre’s mind that man could not radically alter this situation, but he did think that its harshness could be lessened. To this end, two things were necessary in society— unity and authority. And the entire political philosophy of Maistre, “apôtre si sévère de l’unité et de l’authorité” as he said of himself, is built on these foundations.

The theorists of popular sovereignty were, in his estimation, pro­foundly in error. He held it to be an illusion for the people to think that they are, or can be sovereign, for it always appears that “the people who command are not the people who obey.” The same proposition holds for representative governments. Here, the people or the nation may be called sovereign, but this is a “metaphysical sovereignty,” be­cause, in truth, the representatives are sovereign.^® Maistre admitted however, that in a certain sense the people are sovereign, in so far as “it is impossible to imagine a sovereignty without imagining a people

JOSEPH DE MAISTRE 73

46 “Représentez-vous la naissance de la société: voyez ces hommes, las du pouvoir de toute faire, réunis en foule autour des autels sacrés de la patrie qui vient de naître: tous abdiquent volontairement une partie de leur liberté; tous consentent à faire courber les vol­ontés particulières sous le sceptre de la volonté générale, la hiérarchie sociale va se former.” Cited in Goyau, loc. cit., p. 6. The greatest source of information on Maistre in the period prior to the Revolution is to be found in the two works of F. Descostes, Joseph de Maistre avant la Revolution, (1894) and Joseph de Maitre orateur (Chambery, 1896).

47 Considerations, Oeuvres, I, p. 28-34.48 Étude sur la Souveraineté, Oeuvres, I. pp. 311-312.49 Ihid,, pp. 419-420.

who consent to obey.” The origin of sovereignty, nevertheless, could not by any stretch of the imagination be located in a contract. Since man is always found in a social state and since the nature of a being is to exist as God willed him to exist, then society is divinely ordained. Likewise, since every society demands that there be a directing authority, a sovereignty, then God has also “willed sovereignty and the laws, with­out which there is no society.”

Every conceivable species of sovereignty is absolute, “for there will always be, in the last analysis, art absolute power which will be capable of doing wrong with impunity, which will be, therefore, despotic under this point of view, in all the force of the term, and against which there will be no other rampart but that of insurrection.” It should be noted that when Maistre maintains that sovereigns are absolute, he does not mean, arbitrary, he means unlimited; thus he specifies, “Quand je dis que nulle souvera ineté n e s t lim ité, j’entends dans sou exercise lêgi- time/^ An absolutely sovereign ruler could never exist, for there is always something to limit him, it may be “a law, a custom, conscience, a tiara, or a dagger,” but still it will be there. Within the boundaries of its power, however, the sovereign is absolute. In his usually extreme manner, Maistre associates infallibility with the sovereignty by saying

There can be no human society without government, no government without sovereignty, no sovereignty without in­fallibility; andi this last privilege is so absolutely necessary, that one is compelled to suppose infallibility, even in the temporal sovereignties (where it is not) under penalty of seeing the society dissolve.

Arguments such as this led to Maistre’s being called an ''absolutiste fé r o c e . . . légitim iste in transigean t'' A more temperate mind might have said, without fear of shocking anyone, that the political stability of a society depends on a general deference to the decision of the sov­ereign power. Maistre, himself, no doubt realized that his theme of infallibility could create confusion, since he went out of his way to ex­plain that the infallibility so “necessary” to the temporal sovereigns does

50 Ibid., p. 313.51 Ibid., p. 313.52 Ibid., p. 417.53 Du Pape, Oeuvres, II, p. 178.54 Ibid., p. 255.55 Ibid., p. 157.

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not mvolve an inability to err. Rather, it means that sovereigns are infallible “puisque nulle part il n’est permis de dire qu’elles se sont trompées.” Or, to put it another way, “de se tromper sans appel.”^ Thus it is likened to a court of last resort (c’est ainsi qu’un tribunal supreme) whose decision is final.^® Of course, if this principle is not generally accepted, then one is “under the penalty of seeing the asso­ciation disolve. ’

Now Maistre maintained that although all sovereign wills are equally absolute, it does not follow that they are all equally vicious or blind to their proper function, that is, the rendering of justice. This leads to a consideration of his ideas on government. It was Maistre’s particu- ular judgment that monarchy is the natural government for man. And, of all monarchies, the French was without a peer. In this respect he agreed with Grotius that the French “is the most beautiful kingdom after that of heaven.” Not all monarchies, however, are equally excellent or admirable; for Maistre, as a good Italian, was the im­placable foe of the House of Austria, that “great enemy of human­kind.”

Although he may have put all his faith in monarchy, Maistre con­sistently adhered to a political relativism. In 1794, he wrote that the question of the best form of government is academic,^^ “each form of government is the best in certain cases, and the worst in others.” Never­theless, if one were to establish a certain criterion for governments, Maistre maintained that “the best government for each nation is the one which, in the; space of the terrain occupied by this nation, is cap­able? of procuring the greatest possible sum of happiness and power, to the greatest possible number of men, during the longest time poss­ible.”

Democracy, Maistre thought, was the worst form of government:

JOSEPH DE MAISTRE 75

56 É. Faguet, loc. cit., p. 1.57 Du Pape, Oeuvres, II, p. 178.58 Ibid,, p. 274, fn. 1.59 Ibid.60 Considerations y Oeuvres, I, p. 19.61 A. Blanc, loc. cit., p. 377.62 Étude, Oeuvres, I, p. 328.63 Étude, Oeuvres, I, p. 494. In 1807, a similar formula was repeated in the

Memoir for Prince Czartorsky: “Ce qui arrivera ensuite importe assez peu au monde. L’universe entier doit être renversé dans ce bouleversement général; je vote pour les meilleurs gouvernements, c'est à dire pour ceux qui doivent donner le plus grand bonheur possible au plus grand nombre d*hommes possible. Que ce soit, au reste, celui-ci ou celui-là, encore une fois, qu'importe?” A. Blanc, loc, cit., p. 283.

“of all the monarchs, the harshest, the most despotic, the most in- tolerable, is the monarchy of the people” {le monarque'-peuple) Re­publics are much more desirable, but conditions are seldom favorable for them. At times, a republic may be the best of all governments. Maistre was insistent on this point; he went so far as to say, “let us repeat this, because nothing is truer: nothing equals the halcyon days of re­publics; but it is only a flash.” This he deemed to be always the case because the influence of the wise does not suflice to restrain the dis­ordered actions of the people. Furthermore, the sine qua non of a re­public is a sensible and virtuous people, a condition seldom found. In this respect England, he believed, was most fortunate; Maistre con­sidered it safe to say that “the true English Constitution is that admir­able, unique, and infallible public spirit, beyond all praise, which guides everything and preserves everything.” Without such a spirit, and he believed the French did not have it, republics can hardly exist.

Foundations o f a Durable S ociety

The stability, unity, and continuity which Maistre held to be absolu­tely necessary for a durable society were, in his estimation, precisely those things denied society by the teachings of the philosophes. No teaching of this school could be more disruptive of stability than its attack on religion. Not only, he argued, would religion be able to with­stand this assault, but the very idea of attempting its destruction evi­denced a total lack of political wisdom. For the entire course of history offers striking testimony to the powerful role religion has played in the formation of all institutions “from empires to brotherhoods.” The value of religion, Maistre maintained, lay in the* positive and the nega­tive influences it exercised over the human mind, the result of which is that religion becomes a fundamental source of strength and durability for institutions. It moves men to marvelous deeds, and at the same time “the religious principle already so strong by what it does, is again infinitely more so by what it prevents, in consequence of the veneration with which it invests everything that it takes under its protection. . . . Would you then preserve everything, ded ica te everything.” This ex-

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64 Étude, Oeuvres, I, p. 502.65 Ibid,, p. 486.66 Essai, Oeuvres, I, p. 241-242. Except for certain necessary changes, the writer has

utilized the anonymous translations of the Essay which appeared in Boston in 1847.67 Considerations, Oeuvres, I, p. 57.68 Essai, Oeuvres, I, p. 300.

ceedingly pragmatic evaluation of religion is yet more clearly spelled out when Maistre goes on to say that, “These reflections arc addressed to everyone, to the believer as to the sceptic: it is a fact that I advance, and not a thesis. Whether you laugh at religious ideas, or whether you venerate them, it makes no difference: true or false, they form no less the unique base of all durable institutions.”® History, he points out, gives ample evidence that the most famous and “especially the most serious and wise” nations of the past, “such as the Egyptians, Etruscans, Lacedaemonians, and Romans, had precisely the most reli­gious constitutions.”

Small wonder that Auguste Comte paid tribute to Joseph de Mais­tre! Maistre’s completely historical, sociological, and pragmatic sanc­tion of religion caught Comte’s attention. Viscount Morley, while criticising this treatment of religion by Maistre, nevertheless recognized the “urgent social need of such a thing being done.” But Comte, completely misled, as were many others, in thinking that Maistre was the official spokesman of the Church, suggested an alliance of the Catholics and the Positivists to produce this stable and durable society. He went so far as to send an emissary to Rome to seek the aid of the Jesuits. Needless to say, the emissary was not warmly received. Maistre’s treatment of religion may have been good sociology and good statesmanship, but it was far from being good theology.

The ph ilosophes completely disregarded the unity of society in pro­fessing a belief that society can be altered at will by the mere writing of a constitution based on a priori principles. Contrariwise, Maistre pro­posed four principles which must govern every consideration of con­stitutions. A t the same time, by drawing on the English Constitution as an example—the very constitution so admired by the ph ilosophes— Maistre sought to contradict completely the rationalism of the eighteenth century by establishing on historical grounds that the role of the human will in the formation of constitutions is pretty close to non­existent. With a vexatious use of paradox, Maistre made the following proposals:

1. “That the fundamental principles of political constitutions exist

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69 Considérations, Oeuvres, I, p. 56.70 Essai, Oeuvres, I, p. 269.71 John Morley, Critical Miscellanies (New York, 1879), p. 151.72 G. Goyau, loc. cit., pp. 195-218.

before all written law.” Was the admirable English Constitution created a priori? Maistre asked. Did her statesmen ever sit down and say, “Let us create three powers, balancing them in such a manner, etc? No one ever thought of such a thing.” This constitution, instead, was the product of a multiplicity of causes and situations, which Maistre panegyrized.

The constitution is the work of circumstances, and the num­ber of these is infinite. Roman laws, ecclesiastical laws, feudal laws; Saxon, Norman, and Danish custom; the privileges, preju­dices, and claims of all the orders; wars, revolts, revolutions, the Conquests, Crusades; virtue of every kind, and all vices; knowledge of every sort, and all errors and passions;—all these elements, in short, acting together, and forming, by their ad­mixture and reciprocal action, combinations multiplied by myriads of millions, have produced at length, after many cen­turies, the most complex unity, and happy equilibrium of politi­cal powers that the world has ever seen.

In the course of the evolution of the English Constitution, the in­dividuals who influenced the development were, according to Maistre, totally unaware of the functions they were fulfilling. They did not know what they “had done relative to the whole, nor foreseen what would happen.” "® Another might say that fortuitous circumstances led to the end result; but “the lay apologist of Providence” concluded that everything must have beenS “guided by an infallible hand, superior to man,” guided by Providence.

2. “That a constitutional law is, and can only be, the development or sanction of an unwritten pre-existing right.” Maistre pointed out that “the English, doubtless would never have asked for the Great Charter, had not the privileges of the nation been violated; nor would they have asked for it, if these privileges had not existed before the Charter.” He maintained that the American example of 1787 did not contradict the principle because the Americans are heirs to the

73 Eisai, Oeuvres, 1, p. 243.74 Ibid., p. 246.75 Ibid., p. 246-247.76 Ibid., p. 247.77 Ibid., p. 244.78 Ibid., p. 251.

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democratic and republican spirit of the parent country, and, further­more, because they “have built on the plan of the three powers, derived from their ancestors, and have not at all made a table rase, as the French.”

3. “That which is most essential, most intrinsically constitutional, and truly fundamental, is never written, and could not be without en­dangering the state.” Consider the Habeas Corpus Act. If the “authors of this famous act had undertaken to fix the cases in which it should be suspended, they would ipso fa cto have annihilated it.”In our own day Maistre would have found an excellent example in the constitutional law concept of substantive “due process of law.”

4. “That the weakness and fragility of a constitution are actually in direct proportion to the multiplicity of written constitutional articles.” It took a long time for constitution-makers to learn this lesson. But Maistre realized the difficulty of appreciating the truth in these principles, for, in exasperation, he went on to say “. . . but such is the blindness of men, that if, tomorrow, some constitution-monger should come to organize a people, and to give them a constitution made with a little black liquid, the multitude would again hasten to believe in the miracle announced.”

The continuity deemed by Maistre so essential for the preservation of a society could best be maintained by indoctrination. That is to say, prejudices are necessary. Burke had argued that prejudices were of inestimable value in the English society, and the older they were, the more they were cherished, because “We are afraid to put men to live and trade on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and ages.” By prejudices, neither Maistre nor Burke meant really false ideas, but “prejudgments,” or as Maistre explained, “following the force of the word, any opinion adopted before all examination.”

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79 Considerations, Oeuvres, I, p. 87.80 Essai, Oeuvres, I, p. 244.81 Ibid., p. 240.82 Ibid., p. 244.83 Ibid., p. 264.84 E. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France and other Essays (London,

1910), p. 84.85 Etude, Oeuvres, I, p. 375.

In either case, however, we are confronted with the perfect argument of status quo-ism.

Internal and External P eace

As every political theorist must, Maistre examined the question of liberty versus authority, or man versus the state. His answer to this problem perhaps more than anything else earned for him the title of prophet o f the past, or “sombre figure du moyen âge,” Maistre treats the subject in his Du Pape, a work especially contradicting the writings of Voltaire and placing in, an entirely different perspective the role of the Papacy in mediaeval history. Plunging right to the heart of the issue, Maistre pointed out that “the greatest European problem is . . . to know: H ow the sovereign pow er is able to be restrained w ithout destroy in g it,'' It must be restrained, for even though justice is the greatest interest of the sovereign, it is not always the case that the sovereign power acts in conformity with this principle. Maistre re­jected revolution as a means of checking sovereigns for it is usually more disastrous than a despotism. The doctrine of the right of resistance he held admirable, but untenable, because it leaves un­answered the questions : at what times, and by what men is resistance to be undertaken.®’ Furthermore, the doctrine of non-resistance and the binding oath of fidelity demand, like every general rule, provision for exceptions, for “whenever there is no dispensation, there is viola­tion.” To resolve the conflicts between rulers and the ruled there should be a recognized, removed, and disinterested third party with the power to make the necessary decisions. In Maistre’s opinion, this power could best be entrusted to the Pope.® This was not simply the pro­claiming of the indirect power of the Pope, but, instead, it was an entirely new project, a renovation of the role of the mediaeval Popes, a new means whereby internal crises would be settled by decisions made by the Pope according to set rules which could be established and accom­modated to each of the national constitutions.^^

It has always been astonishing to Maistre’s readers that a man so intimate with his times should have proposed such an idea, at such a

86 Du Pape, Oeuvres, II, p. 171.87 Ibid., p. 173-175.88 Ibid., p. 176.

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90 Ibid., pp. 182-183.

moment in history. For a long while it was thought that Maistre undertook the writing of Du Pape as a sort of expiation for some of his highly critical comments on the Pope’s participation in the crowning of Napoleon.^ The literary historians have sufficiently disproved this thesis.^ Mandoul has suggested the thesis that Maistre, an ardent Italian, discouraged by the consolidation of the Holy Alliance with Austria in the predominant role, was calling on the Papacy once more to take a leading position in politics for the sake of Italy. Mandoul asks that one recall “what hopes had been born, in Italy, during the first years of the Pontificate of Pius IX.” Regardless of what might have been Maistre’s motive in writing Du Pape, we know that it was coolly received at Rome.^^ The Papacy was in no mood for such adventures.

If Maistre thought he had found a suitable arrangement for the alleviation of internal disorders, the problem of war could not be sur­mounted so easily. On his own affirmation, he had given long and serious contemplation to the struggle of nations and its resultant per­sonal misery. His final analysis has earned him the reputation of being an apologist of war, but he certainly was no Machiavelli or Clausewitz. To Maistre, the existence of war in society is inexplicable on rational grounds. Especially is this so, if the contract theory is considered valid. “Why,” he asks of the ph ilosophes, “have not nations had enough good sense or luck as individuals; and why have they never convened in a general society in order to end their particular quarrels, as individuals have come together in a national sovereignty in order to end their particular quarrels?”

There can be but one explanation for war, in Maistre’s estimation. It is a startling opinion drawn from one of his typically disturbing para­doxes. In the first place, Maistre says that, “for me it is an incon­testable truth (that) : ‘being given man with his reason, his sentiments and affections, there are no means of explaining how war is humanly possible.’ ” ® Yet it remains equally true, and history “unhappily proves” that war is the habitual state of human beings . . . and that

91 See the letter to M. le Chevalier de Rossi (14 De. 1804), Oeuvres, IX, pp.290-292. > > FF

92 F. Vermale, “Les Origines de *Pape’ de J. de Maistre,’’ Revue D*Histoire lit­téraire ae La France, vol. 35 (1928), pp. 64-72.

93 J. Mandoul, loc. cit., p. 253; for the author’s further comments, see also p. 299.94 See Lamennais’ letter of 2 Jan. 1821 to Maistre, Oeuvres, XIV, p. 369-372.95 Soirées, Oeuvres, V , pp. 12-13.

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peace for each nation is only a respite.” A long series of massacres soils all the pages of history. From the birth of nations even to our day, in states at every stage of advancement, “from the state of barbarism to that of the most refined civilization; always one will find war.”

W ar is psychologically repugnant, for “in spite of his immense degradation, there is still in man an element of love which draws him toward his equals : compassion is as natural as respiration.” Thus, “by what inconceivable magic is he always ready, at the first roll of the drums, to strip himself of this sacred characteristic, to go forth without resistance, often even with a sense of gladness . . . to cut to pieces, on the field of battle, his brother who has never offended him, and who, in his turn, advances to do likewise, if he is able.” Indeed, on the field of battle, the tenderest souls are inflamed with an “enthousiasme du carnage.”

Since this is so, Maistre then held that war can be explained only by recognizing a “hidden and terrible law which demands human blood.” W ar is but a chapter of that “general law which burdens the universe,” visible everywhere, for^^^

In the vast domain of living things, there reigns a manifest violence, a species of prescribed rage which arms all beings in dead ly com bat : as soon as you emerge from the insensible king­dom, you find the decree of violent death written on the very frontiers of life.

In the vegetable kingdom the law is first discernible; in the animal world this “principle of life by violent means” is appallingly evident. Over both these kingdoms rules man, “roi superbe et terrible.” But does this law stop at mankind? No, answers Maistre, the last chapter of this law charges man to slaughter man! He goes on to say, “But how will he be able to fulfill the law, he who is a moral and merciful being, he who is born to love, he who weeps for others as for himself. . . ? It is war that will fulfill the decrees.” Thus is explained why the gentlest soul can, on the field of battle, become an almost possessed

96 Ibid.f p. 2. Here, Maistre is quoting La Bruyère from memory.97 Considérations, Oeuvres, I, p. 28.98 Ibid., p. 33.99 Soirées, Oeuvres, V , p. 3.100 Ibid., p. 3-4.10 1 Ibid., p. 14.102 Ibid., p. 22.103 Ibid., p. 24.

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being and can “perform with enthusiasm that which he has a horror of.” In one of his most doleful yet inspiring passages, Maistre tells us:

Thus is accomplished without end, from the mite to the man, the great law of the violent destruction of living beings. The earth, continually drenched with blood, is but an immense altar whereon all living beings must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without relaxation, until the consummation of things, until the extinction of evil, until the death of death.

A ll this led Maistre to but one conclusion: “La guerre est donc divine en elle-même, puisque c’est une loi du monde.” But why should God create, one asks, and then demand the destruction of his creature? Why does Providence, which directs the cour^ and actions of the universe, allow the existence of such a dreadful law? The answer, Maistre replies, is found in the fall of man. The ph ilosophes, with their belief in the essential goodness of everything, were blind in not per­ceiving that “there is only violence in the universe;” and instead of being good, “in a very true sense, everything is evil.” Not without sympathy, Maistre mournfully explains : “Guilty mortals, and unhappy because we are guilty! It is we who render necessary all the physical evils, but especially war.”

This discourse on war is but one aspect of Maistre’s analysis of evil. Some critics have complained of his obsession with this s u b j e c t , b u t it is now evident that what still remains attractive to some is his mystical treatment of the evils that mankind seems unable to escape.^^ Evil, everywhere present, is portrayed in all its horrifying forms. Yet Maistre

104 Ibid,, p. 25.105 Ibid., p. 26.106 Considerations, Oemres, I, p. 39.107 Ibid,108 Soirees, Oeuvres, V , p. 21.109 G. Lanson: “J. de Maistre prend un malin plaisir à exagérer atrocement le tegne

du mal sur la terre.” Histoire de la littérature française (Paris, I7th éd., 1922), p. 909. An anonymous writer, completely stunned, has remarked that Maistre can “cause the brain to swim, the foot to stagger. . . . A ll you have been taught to look upon as embodied evil stands forth in a garb of light.” “De Maistre and Romanism,” North American Review, vol. 79 (1854), p. 284.

1 1 0 See, E. Dermenghen, Joseph de Maistre, mystique (Paris, 1926, the 2nd ed. ap- {»ared in 1947). During the late war, there appeared in France a little volume of quota­tions from Maistre. The subjects presented are significant of the present valuation of Maistre, e.g. Providence, the Problem of Evil, the Rerversibility of Merits, the Christian Mission of France, the Union of the Churches, Infallibility, Maistre and the Problème mystique, A Pitiot, Le Message de Joseph de Maistre (Paris, 1942).

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constantly points out its spiritual significance. The guilty seem in­variably to prosper while the innocent perpetually suffer. Disturbingly enough, Maistre asks that we reflect for a moment on just who is an innocent man. Regardless, he points out, the trials of the innocent always redound to the advantage of the guilty, just as the offering of the Most Innocent was for the salvation of all the guilty. Man may constantly give evidence of his immense degradation, yet at the same time he has the divine characteristic of perfectibility. Man longs for peace and love, although he alone deprives himself of both. Hopelessly and helplessly man is bound to his nature, yet he constructs in thought ideal worldly societies where men must necessarily be other than they are. With sincere compassion Maistre bemoans the plight of humanity in saying that “All creation groans, and tends with effort and sorrow towards another order of things.”

One might safely say that, in the future, Maistre will still be referred to as proph ète du passé and panegyrists du bourreau^ but one hardly renders him exact justice in holding that “he is like one of those curious instances of atavism for which the science of heredity is so signally unable to account.” On the contrary, the roots of Maistre’s politi­cal thought reach far back into Western culture, stemming directly from the two historical sources of jurisprudence and theology. Furthermore, Maistre was not so radically different from his contem­poraries as one might think. In spite of his constant insistence on realism, throughout all his works there are clear traces of rising Roman-

1 1 1 Considérations, Oeuvres, I, pp. 39-40.112 It is not surprising to find that Baudelaire found a source of inspiration in

Maistre. The apologist of evil has been supplemented by the aesthetician of evil. In his Journaux intimes, Baudelaire wrote that “De Maistre et Edgar Poe m'ont appris à raisson- ner.” Cited, Mother Mary Alphonsus, The Influence of Joseph de Maistre on Baudelaire, Doctoral dissertation (Bryn Mawr, Penna., 1943), frontispiece.

1 13 H. J. Laski, Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty (New Haven, 1917), p. 212.H. Holdsworth, in his capable, exhaustive, and critical study of Maistre, could only refer to Laski’s article as an “étude curieuse.” Joseph de Maistre et V Angleterre, vol. 108 of the Bibliothèque de la Revue de Littérature Comparée (Paris, 1935), p. 294.

114 A recent writer, after a detailed consideration of the thought of Maistre, has come to the conclusion that, “De Maistre — it must be insisted — is primarily a jurist. He is the last representative of that line of jurists descending from Beaumanoir, the ‘father* of French jurisprudence, and running through Bouthillier, Jean de Mares, Rageau, L'Hom- meau, Loisel, Domat, D'Aguesseau, Barbeyrac, Bergier. These men were all conservatives, and bent on effecting a fusion of Roman law with theological principles. A ll shared in the adherence to the monarchical form, of whose advantages they were convinced cham­pions, and which they justified with the Roman axiom quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem” Elio Gianturco, “Juridical Culture and Politico-Historical Judgment in Joseph de Maistre,” The Romanic Review, vol. 27 (1937), p. 254-255. See the same author's Joseph de Maistre and Giambattista Vico (Washington, D. C., 1937).

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And in passing, we might say that the attempt to explain Romanticism as a sort of royalist plot is not only too simple but also absurd. In Maistre we find the usual vaunted admiration of the Middle Ages, the typical melancholy, and the persistent presentation of the occult, the horrifying, and the grotesque. Then, too, historical pessimism was a significant note in the last century, and Maistre was quite in tune with the movement.^^^

Maistre’s insistent demand that history be recognized as “experi­mental politics,” and his historical and sociological explanations of in­stitutions were clearly in line with the thought of the century that followed. Of course, one might not like Maistre’s history, but at least he had the good sense to realize the profound error in Voltaire’s con­ception that the period between the fall of Rome and that of Louis XIV “no more merited a place in history than the story of bears and wolves.” Alphonse Cournot, the mathematician-philosopher, and certainly no adherent of Maistrian doctrines, has rightly pointed out that the contribution of both Maistre and Bonald was their insistence on historical naturalism. They were historical theists, but at the same time naturalists. 11 It would not be going too far to say that if one struck Providence out of Maistre’s works, he would have, to a great extent, the system of Comte. Thus Brunetiere has pointed out that Comte “laicised” the essential principles of Maistre.

The greatest error in Maistre’s historical realism was the fact that he refused to recognize any contributions from the eighteenth century. Then again, the type of monarchy tempered with a dutiful nobility which he advocated can hardly be found in history. Maistre constantly reminded the critics of the proposed return of the Bourbons that ‘they were men, but do you expect to be governed by angels?’ That would be exactly the case if his own semi-mystical monarchy could have been

JOSEPH DE MAISTRE 85

115 See the chapter on Maistre in A. Viatte, Les sources occultes du romantisme, vols. 46, 47 of the Bibliotheque de la Revue de Littérature Comparée, Paris (1928), II, pp. 64-95.

116 See, for instance, J. Lucas-Dubreton, The Restoration and the July Monarchy, (New York, 1929), pp. 20-30, and also, Charléty, loc, cit,, p. 83.

1 17 “For a rationalized exposition of historical pessimism one shall have to turn to the writings of men like Thomas Robert Malthus, Edmund Burke, or Joseph de Maistre.” K. F. Helleiner, “Essay on the Rise of Historical Pessimism in the Nineteenth Century,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8 (1942), p. 526.

118 Cited in F. B. Artz, France under the Bourbon Restoration (Cambridge, 1931), p. 350.

1 19 Considérations sur la marche des idées, Paris (1934 éd.), II, p. 183.120 F. Brunetiére, La Grande Encyclopédie, vol. 22, p. 1019.

founded. Several writers have pointed out that, shocking though it may seem, Maistre was a liberal.^^^ By this it meant that he was a liberal in an older sense of the word. That is to say, he favored a political organization where once again the various orders in society would enjoy their ancient liberties. Again this showed a lack of in­sight on Maistre’s part. He failed to realize that the ascendant bour­geois class had attained sufficient strength to endure no longer the presence of the favored class of nobility.

Maistre has never had a school, so to speak. The theology of “traditionalism” was officially disowned in 1835. The eccentric Barbey d’Aurevilly in the latter half o£ the century gained a certain renown with a rather grotesque distortion of Maistre. Modern Catholic writers, however, while recognizing the genius of Maistre, as one must, will have no part of his politics or theology. It is true, of course, that the A ction Française claimed Maistre as one of its mattres,^^^ Undoubted­ly, there was much in Maistre which could be exploited by these extre­mists, who could exploit almost anyone. After all, when the A ction Française commenced its series of articles entitled ''Nos maitres/' the first to appear was on Voltaire! What a strange assemblage was soon gathered—^Voltaire, Bonald, Pierre Bayle, Renan, Maistre, Proud­hon, etc.! On many essential points, however, Maistre contradicts their doctrines. Fundamental in his entire writings is the plea for order and quietism; yet a basic theme of the A ction was violence and the “coup de force.” There is the possibility of forgiving Maistre’s desires for the reestablishment, in a Europe filled with Crowns, of the lately fallen French monarchy. But one can hardly find any sanity in a twentieth century demand for an immediate return of the monarchy. It is also vitally important to note that Maistre personally lived out the austere programs he suggested for his fellowmen. But in complete accordance with the principle he so often pointed out : that ‘the written word is silent, it cannot] answer back,’ Maistre was unable to repudiate the scoundrels who were one day to claim him as their master.

86 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

12 1 See F. Holdsworth, loc, sit., p. 248. F. Paulhan, Joseph de Maistre et sa philosophie (Paris, 1893), p. 5. Ê. Faguet said, “II était libéral . . . en ce sens qu’il était parlementaire, qu’il était aristocrate, qu’il était pour tous les privilèges des ordres et des corps constitués.” Journal de Débats, 17 August 1895, cited in Mandoul, loc. cit., p. 8, fn. 4. “Et ce légitimiste renforcé, en fait, était assez libéral, à la façon de nos anciens magistrats du Parlement.” G. Lanson, loc. cit., p. 909.

122 See A. V . Roche, Les Idées Traditionalistes en France de Rivarol à Charles Maurras (Urbana, Illinois, 1937).

123 VAction Française, vol. 4, no. 38, (15 Jan. 1901), pp. 147-153.