Two Catholic Conservatives-The Ideas of Josheph de Maistre and Juan Donoso Cortes

8/3/2019 Two Catholic Conservatives-The Ideas of Josheph de Maistre and Juan Donoso Cortes

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Two Catholic Conservatives: The Ideas ofJoseph de Maistre and Juan Donoso Cortes-by Rafael E. Tarrago

University of MinnesotaThe prophetic voice of Cortes offers the insight that the violent socialupheavals in the modern world parody Christianity; however, Christiansolidarity is a far cry from socialism. Human solidarity in Catholicism offersmore hope than social and liberal reforms. Both writers take into accountoriginal sin and defend authority.In most histories of 19th century conservatism, the figure of Joseph deM aistre is a prominent one . Some authors wh o see an An glo-Am erican brandof conservatism distinct from what they call continental conservatism presentthe Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke as the founder of their Anglo-American conservatism, and Joseph de Maistre as the embodiment of thecontinental brand of conservatism, which they oftentimes describe asautocratic, Catholic, and backward looking. The purpose of this essay is tosuggest that whatever the accuracy of this neat division of 19th centuryconservatism in the western world, it is not accurate to portray all no n-Englishconservative thoug ht of the 19th century as a footnote to the thoug ht of Josephde M aistre.The influence of Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) in continental Europeduring the first three decades of the 19th century is an undeniable fact. 1 InFrance he had his most influential follower in Vicomte Louis Bonald (1754-1840), but he also influenced the Austrian Prince Clemens von Metternich

(1773 -1849 ), and the Spaniard Juan Dono so Cortes (1809-1 853). It cannot besaid, however, that all non-English conservative thought of the 19th centuryderived from him. In Spain, Jaime Balmes (1810 -1848) developed a differentkind of conservative political thought.2 Although influenced by de Maistre,Donoso Cortes developed his own kind of conservatism, accepting free w ill andadvoca ting hum an solidarity and social responsibility.3De M aistre was born to the minor nobility of Savoy (then a com ponen t ofwhat was called the Kingdom of Sardinia, a conglomerate of territoriesincluding the island of Sardinia but with its political center in the Italian

Piedm ont, at Turin). After the armies of the French Republic forced him intoexile in 1793, he began his career as a counter-revolutionary political writer.

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In the year he published Letters of a Savoyard Royalist, followed by twounpublished anti-Rousseaunian works (On the State o f Nature and On PopularSovereignty, of 1795), Considerations on France (1797), and Essay on theGenerative Powers of Political Constitutions (1809). Letters on the SpanishInquisition, the celebrated On the Pope, and his unfinished Dialogues of St.Petersburg were published after his death.4 Most of these works weretranslated into English and mod ern translations of them are still in print. Exiledin St. Petersburg between 1795 and 1815, de Maistre becam e influential am ongthe circles of royalists from France and Italy who, in the capitals of Austria,Prussia, and Russia, plotted for the restoration of their legitimate sovereignsand the status quo ante in their hom elands.

The re is some truth to the characterization of the political views of Jo sephde Maistre as autocratic and backward looking. Originally a critic of theexcesses of 18th century royal absolutism, after suffering from the excesses ofthe French Revolution which overthrew it, he became a eulogizer of divine-right monarch y, with its presuppositions of a birth-aristocracy 's mo nopo ly ofpolitical power, and of the unquestioning acceptance of the royal will bysubjects without right to resist or even demand responsible behavior from thesovereign. In other words, he proposed a return of socio-political life in Europ eto w hat it had been in what is now called the Ancien Regime.De Maistre thought that the support of the Catholic Church was essentialfor the restoration of that Ancien Regime, by its influence as a religious force,

and as the provider of education in most of Catholic Europe.5 In his treatise Onthe Pope, he emphasizes the monarchial organization of the hierarchy of theCatholic Church, and the absolutist nature of the papacy, counseling thecooperation of European monarchs with the pope in order to bring back thepolitical order and the society of estates predominant in mo st of Europ e beforethe French Revolution of 1789.6 Here he also understates the importance ofhistorical conflicts between European monarchs and the popes and does notmention natural law.7It is puzzling that nowhere in the works of de Maistrea professed

Catholiccan one find the Catholic concept of natural lawa law present in theheart of each human being and established by reason, consisting of universalprecep ts, and whose authority extends to all men, providing the indispensablemo ral foundations for building the human com mun ity and the necessary basisfor the civil law. In his two anti-Rousseaunian tracts, de Maistre criticizesRousseau for the naivete of his belief in the natural goodness of humankind,accuses him of fostering immorality with his works debunking socialhierarchies and morals, and shows indignation at his proposing in The SocialContract that Christianity cannot serve as a civic religion. But de Maistrenow here criticizes Rousseau for his dispensing with natural law. It has beenargued that in his anti-Rousseaunian treatises he is closer to Rou sseau than their

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superficial reading might suggest.8 It has been said that de Maistre agreed withRousseau in considering that man's first need is that his nascent reason becurved and lose itself into a general will, and he made no attempt to criticizeRousseau's controversial chapter on civic religion.9Donoso Cortes is not as well known in the English-speaking world as deM aistre. In 1991 his early w ork, Lecciones de derecho politico (1836-1837),was published in English as A Defense of Representative Government byCaptus U niversity Pub lication, but m ost of his works have not been translatedinto English. The most recent translation of his major Essay on Catholicism,Liberalism, and Socialism was published in 1925. In 1967, the IntercollegiateReview published Frederick Wilhelmsen's perceptive article "Donoso Cortesand the P roblem of Political Power," and in 1974 John T. Graham published animaginative essay on the Spanish publicist, but no other major article or book-length work on him was published in English until two years ago when R.A.Herrera published his Donoso Cortes. Cassandra of the Age.10

Born in a family of the Spanish provincial gentry, Donoso Cortesdistinguished himself as a scholar at an early age. Before he was thirty heentered Spanish politics in the Moderate Liberal Party, formed afterconstitutional monarchy was established in Spain upon the death of KingFerdinand V II (1784 -1833). Later he held an important diploma tic post inParis, during the reign of King Lo uis Philippe (183 0-1848 ), and in 1849 he w asSpanish Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotenciary to Prussia.He w as again posted to Paris, this time as Am bassador, during the p residencyof Louis Napo leon and the beginning of the Second E mp ire, and he died in thatcity in 1853. During his lifetime, he influenced prominent statesmen, gainingpraise from M etternich, who declared that "after D onoso C ortes, one has to putdown one's pen, for nothing more and nothing better can be said on thehistorical transition we are witnessing."11

The political ideas of Donoso Cortes take into account original sin anddefend au thority, like de M aistre 's. But Donoso Cortes defends an authoritylegitimized both by performance and origin, and he uses the conce pt of naturallaw in his definition of what is legitimate authority.12 He will accept theoverthrow of an ineffective legitimate governm ent by an organized sector of hegovernm ental hierarchy if it is the only alternative to its violent overthrow byanon ym ous popular forces. His speech on dictatorship before the Spanishparliament in 1849, where he said the above, is often misinterpreted as adefense of dictatorsh ip, but in context it was a defense of that act whe n no otheralternative except po pular revolt remained.13 Like de Maistre, Donoso Corteswas a monarchist, but even after he became disillusioned with constitutionalmonarchy after 1849, he did not advocate unquestioning obedience to powerholders, and demanded responsible behavior from them~as he showed in hisscathing attack of December 1851 against the dictatorial regime of General

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Narvaez, known as Discurso sobre la situation de Espafia.14 The aristocracythat Donoso Cortes favored in his latter years was open to men of merit andenterprise, and he had social concerns. In a letter that he wrote in 1851 to hisfriend the Q ueen M other Maria C ristina, he said that the rich had betrayed theirChristian d uty of charity to the poor, and predicted social revolution un less theunited Christian monarchs of Europe stated a new age of social ethics byhelping th e poor and restraining the excesses of the rich.15

After going through a period of personal turmoil and political d isillusion,Don oso C ortes adopted the political views he died upholding. In 1851 , hepublished th e work in which he ex presses his definite socio-political tho ught,his Essay on Catholicism, Liberalism, a nd Socialism. In his Essay, he is morecon vinc ing in his critique of liberalism and socialism actually, what he me ansby liberalism is present-day United States' libertarianism, and under the termsocialism he refers to com mu nists and anarchiststhan he is in his argument forthe universal embrace of what he calls the Catholic system. Donoso Cortesseems to assu me that C atholic citizens, rich and poor, and public officers of allranks, will always act justly, as they o ught. But he is formidable in his critiqueof 19th century liberalism and socialism. W ith uncanny foresight he pred ictsthe overthrow of weak liberal regimes by socialist groups disturbingly like theGerman National Socialists of the 1930s and the International Socialists wh ofor so long ruled over Russian and C entral Eastern Europe.16

Donoso Cortes criticizes liberals for attributing the origin of all evils topolitical systems and for seeing the only remedy to all evils in politics. Hecriticizes them also for their deification of legitimate government, which heclaims they define as government of the middle classes and professionals, andtheir incapacity for seeing a legitimate g overnment as capable of doing w rong.17His major criticism of socialists is their belief that man is perfect and societycorrupt, with the corollary call for men to destroy all social institutions.18Donoso Cortes condemns both for not acknowledging that the main problemin society is the flawed character of human nature, wound ed by o riginal sin.The middle class liberalism criticized by Donoso Cortes had become

established in most of southern Europe and in Belgium in the 1830s, and cam eto a crisis in 1848 . He justly diagnosed its shallowness and self-contradictionsbeca use, while these liberal governm ents claimed to be harbingers of freedomand espoused popular sovereignty, they imposed property and incomequa lifications to suffrage. In his opinion socialism had sounder logical basisthan liberalism, but viewed it less as a secular ideology than as an incipient newtheology or secular religion.19 Donoso Cortes believed that both liberals andsocialists had replaced religion and traditional authority with mass authority,claiming that they were increasing hum an freedom. He refuted them on thatclaim, with the counter claim that their ending of religious and traditionalchecks would leave political power uncheck ed, and would thereby prod uce not



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freedom but despotism.20In his Essay, Dono so Co rtes breaks new ground with his Catholic argumentfor human solidarity. Based on the dogma of human d escent from Ada m andthe deduction that each human being is responsible for every fellow humanbeing, he defines wh at he calls Dogm a of Solidarity as the substantial unity ofthe human race and the close relationship of all human beings to each other,which demand all Catholics to be concerned about their neighbor, and forbidthem to be indifferent to the needs of others.21 Implicitly he asserts thatCatholics are obligated to act upon the dogm as of their faith, which tell themthat fellow hu man bein gs are brethren , irrespective of accidental differencessuch as social position, economic pow er, and race. Donoso C ortes challengesliberals, wh o profess a belief in the rights of man, and socialists, wh o professto believe in the equality of all human beings, to tell him on what materialgrounds they base those beliefs, when so many daily experiences show hu maninequalities, oppression , and strife.22 Thus, he emph asized how arbitrary are th ebonds of humanity if they are not supported by the fact that there is a God,creator of all, and father of humankind.

The political views that Donoso C ortes expressed in his Essay of 1851 arevery different to those he expressed in his Lecciones de derecho politico of1836-1837 (when he was a Moderate Liberal). However, both works have acomm on un derpinning: respect for the Catholic Church as a divinely inspiredinstitution. In the Essay he denies the capability for sound reasoning of fallenman and the genius of representative government which he had defended inLecciones. In the latter period of his political life, he came to despair of h um aninstitutions, disillusioned by the aftermath of the European revolutions of 1848,which overthrew moderate liberal regimes which he had supported; until thatyear he favored constitutional monarchy and a liberalism moderated byCatholicism.

Don oso C ortes expressed his early views on representative g overnmen t inLecciones, but he gave the historical reasons why an evolutionary constitutionalmo narchy tem pered by religion and respect for law was appropriate for S painin his De la monarquia absoluta, of 1838. In this essay on the origins ofabsolutism in Spain, he also argues the transitory and nec essity-oriented natureof political systems, saying that while absolute monarchy ought to disappearfrom Spain at the time of his writing and give w ay to constitutional m onarchy ,it was not because absolutism was intrinsically bad, but because it had beenappropriate for a type of society that no longer existed in Spain. This wastypical of a man who condem ned claims of perfection by any political system,because he believed that societies are in continuous flux, and will requiredifferent political systems according to the signs of the times.23

In De la monarqu ia absoluta, Donoso Cortes portrays the S panish state asone with religious and populist foundations, having risen from dioceses and

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mun icipalities after the fall of the Rom an Em pire and the Visigothic invasion.After the Mu slim Conquest of 711, the populist elements of the Spanish statewere reinforced by the foundation of an elective Spanish monarchy. In thecourse of the Middle Ages, the warrior class of nobles abused its powers,provok ing the alliance of the Crown with the Church hierarchy and the people,wh ich becam e stronger after th e establishment of hereditary succession in the1 lth centurya century w hich also witnessed the grants of privileges to citiesand the formation of the Cortes of C astile. On account of that alliance, abso lutemonarchs in Spain always respected the privileges of the Church and localfueros.24 Even after he rejected representative government in his Essay,Do noso C ortes ' ideal mon arch was the limited monarch of the Middle Ages asopposed to the divine-right absolutism established in Spain by the House ofBourbon in the 18th century. It is ironic that Donoso C ortes never wavered inhis support of Isabel II, daughter of Fernando VII, because the politicalprogram of her absolutist challenger to the succession (who backed h is claimswith the non-Sp anish Salic Law, established by the first Bourbon king of Spain,but later abrogated by his hispanized d escendant C harles IV, and once again byKing Fe rnando V II himself), don Carlos, upheld the prerogatives of the Churchand fueros abolished by her first liberal government.

One reason for the difference between the monarchy that de Maistreadvocated and that which Donoso Cortes advocated may be the differencebetween Spanish absolutism and French absolutism. In the France of theAncien Regime, natural law was not a welcome Catholic concept.25 Theabsolute monarchy that de M aistre wanted restored had developed as a politico-religious institution in France under the first three kings of the House ofBourbon (Henry IV, Louis XIII, and Louis X IV) during the 17th century.26 By1625, the Bishop of Chartres ventured the opinion "there is no one who doesnot hold and believe that the King of France is in no way m ortal but insteadsom ething very like the Deity and similar to Him."27 This arrogation o f a sacralpersona to the monarch was indicative of a mood in France which was givenofficial expression by the French bisho ps in 1682 in the Declaration by theGeneral A ssemb ly of the Gallican Clergy of the absolute independence of theFrench m onarch from both the nation and the Church. Such was the divine-rightabsolutism overthrown by the French R evolution of 1789.

Although by the time when he wrote his Essay, Donoso C ortes had rejectedconstitutional monarchy, he was far from advocating a monarchy with theprerogatives over the Church and people that the absolute kings of France andother European nations had acquired by 1789.28 Albeit reluctantly, he acceptedliberty as a God-given attribute of humankind, although he did not accept astrue liberty what liberals and socialists called liberty.29 His historical mo del fora mo narchy, the Spanish mon archy, was supposedly founded at the election ofdon Pelayo as King of Asturias; a monarchy w here kings were not crow ned, but



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sworn to respect and defend the laws and rights of their subjects. Althou gh, bythe beginning of the 17th century, the kings of Spain had limited thepreroga tives of the aristocracy and the Church, in 1614 the S panish theolog ianFrancisco Suarez, S.J., was allowed to publish a treatise where he said, "Noking or lord has or ever had his political authority directly from God or bydivine institution, but through human institution."30 As late as 1640, theSpanish diplomat Diego Saavedra Fajardo wrote in a manual intended forPrince Baltasar C arlos-Idea de unprincipepolitico christiano-, "Let the P rinceknow that the nature of his sovereignty is not such that the people hav e not any. . . good kings are pleased that their subjects enjoy some freedoms; it is onlytyrants who want to be absolute rulers."3 '

Ab solutism of the French kind cam e to Spain in the 18th century, with theHo use of Bourbo n. King C harles III (king from 1759 to 1788) is know n to havesaid that whoever criticized the activities of the government, even bad ones,committed an infraction.32 But the Spanish Bourbons w ere never able to obtaina declaration of the Spanish clergy like that which the General A ssem bly of theGallican Clergy made for Louis XIV, and except for some abuses by CharlesIII and C harles IV, and the excesses of liberal governm ents during the mino rityof Isabel II (queen from 1833 to 1868), Spanish monarchs rem ained respectfulof the prerogatives of the Church and popularin D onoso C orte s' ow n words"religious and populist."33 In a perceptive analysis of the political ideas ofDonoso Cortes, Frederick Wilhelmsen concludes that behind his predilectionof type of monarchy lies a philosophy which transcends them, because itpurports to teach us something about power as power no matter where or inwh at historical mo men t of time, or under wh atever form of governmen t it mightexist.34

De Maistre was opposed to the theory of popular sovereignty because hebelieved in the sovereignty of the crown. His ideal governm ent was divine-right mo narc hy as it existed in France in the 18th century. He upheld theauthority of the pope as a legitimizer of absolute monarch y; a paradigm of whatroyal autho rity ought to be (partly because h e believed in the utter co rruptionof human n ature by the fall and in the reality of original sin). His lowexpectation of human capabilities for good made him an advocate ofauthoritarian governm ent and repression. He considered the executioner a heroof law and order. Dono so Cortes became an advocate of authoritarianism at theend of his political career, but the one and perpetual order he proposed was tobe limited by estates, and in his system sovereignty was Go d's . He deem eddictatorship p referable to popu lar insurrection, but he did not idealize it; and hedenou nced corruption as damnab le in any type of regim e. After 1848, headopted de Maistre's view of humankind as radically corrupted, and saw inCatholicismfruit of divine revelationthe sole foundation of order andcivilization. But he did not set his hopes for human reg eneration in any

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political system, adopting the Au gustinian attribute that evil is personal and thatthere is no way to extirpate it that does not begin with the human heart.By the end of his political career, Donoso Cortes' ideas had come toresem ble those of de Maistre. Indeed, it can be said that he had been influencedby the Savoyard. But important differences remained between these twoCath olic conserva tives. De Maistre was an advocate of divine-right m onarch y

for whom the king was sovereign and the Church his most valuable support.Do noso C ortes was an advocate of authoritarianism limited by so cio-econom icgroups within society, for whom sovereignty comes from God and the Catho licCh urch is the deposit of divine revelation. Even in his authoritarian Essay, heexpresses belief in an essential law which even kings have to respectthenatu ral law never considered by de M aistre. In practical term s the mostimpo rtant difference between them , how ever, is that de M aistre never conside rsthe grievances of the revolutiona ry populou s, and Don oso Cortes does. DeMaistre never makes reference to social problems, seemingly convinced thatrevolu tions are produced by ideas, wh ile Don oso C ortes sees social injustice asa source of revolutions in his "Discurso sobre la situation Espan a" of 1850, andin his letter to the Queen M other of 1851.

A careful consideration of the differences between the po litical projects ofthese two conservative pu blicists show s that at the heart of their divergen ces isthe place of Catholicism in them . De M aistre saw in the altar a support for therestoration of the Ancien Regime wh ile for Donoso C ortes the Catholic C hurchis Mother and Teacher, and the only hope for the creation of a new order.An other cause for divergences in their projects is their views on liberty. DeMaistre saw human freedom as a dangerous threat.35 His political ideasem phasize order and authority at all costs. Throne and altar are for him pow ersto which unq uestioning o bedience is due in all things and at all time s. Do nosoCo rtes saw hum an freedom as a gift from Godeven in his latter yearsnot asevil in itself, although he despaired of hum ank ind's use of the gift of choice.36

All this said, one might wonder what is the use of reviewing the ideas ofthese m en dead so long. I wou ld dare say that it is refreshing to be rem indedthat there is more to conservatism than concern over money and power.Traditional conservatism d istinguished itself for a mistrust of hum an na ture andtrust in unbroken historical continuity and in some traditional framework totam e hum an nature. This is particularly true of traditional Catholic politicaland economic views. As Thomas R. Rourke pointed out in a recent disputewith M ichael Novak, "Catholic thought, grounded in Saint Thomas A quinasand expressed in num erous encyc licals, defined itself in opposition to econom icliberalism on the grounds that the latter rejected the Catholic concept of thecommon good in favor of a relatively unrestricted pursuit of individualgoods."37 Since Saint James the Apostle wrote his epistle, bishops and popeshav e preached that Christians are obligated to share their we alth. M ost



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recently, His Holiness John Paul II has written, "The Redemption has savedmankind and at the same time united all people, making them responsible forone another."38Although I would not propose the ideas of Juan Donoso Cortes as apolitical manual for today's Catholics, I think that they are more "Catholic"than those of Joseph de M aistre. R. A. Herrera sees Donoso Cortes as aprophetic voice with the insight that the cause of the radical violence of thesocial and polem ical upheavals in the modern world is the Christian spirit thatrevolutions appropriate as a parody of Christianity, which, when joined torationalism and the idealism of abstract quantity, creates a public orthodoxy asinflexible as it is ubiquitous.39 The same author says of Donoso Cortes, "Heprods contemporary man to rethink his principles and retrace his steps." 40Edmund Schram's verdict on Donoso Cortes' contribution is his heighteningof the Christian concep t of solidarity by comp aring it to the social doctrines ofliberals and socialists.41In a political culture where the democratic principle is unwritten orthodoxy,the ideas of Juan Donoso Cortes may seem reactionary . His system ofresponsible authority derived from God through popular acclamation andlegitimized by performance is the antithesis of present-day societies, whereprofound socio-economic divisions have developed too complex andwidespread to be solved by traditional charity or impersonal governmentage ncie s. But there are some elements in it that can be useful to face certain

aspects of modern-day reality. His claims of a high moral ground for what hecalled the "Catholic system" are a challenge to Catholics today, and his Dogm aof Solidarity is a corrective in our hedonistic society. But most appropriate tothe signs o f the times is his conclusion that, if man and society are fallible andcan never be perfected, then it ma tters mo re that religious improvement w ithinindividual souls will make humans act upon aspects of their faith, such ashuman solidarity in Catholicism, than social and liberal reforms, which canalways be subverted by unreformed individuals.

Notes1. Bela Menczer, Tensions ofOrder and Freedom, Catholic Political Thought, 1789-1848 (New Brunswick: Transactions Publishers, 1994), 60; T. John Jameson, "A Josephde M aistre Revival," Modern Age 38 (Fall 1996): 392-398.2. Menczer, Op. Cit, 157.3. Peter Viereck, Conservatism from John Adams to Churchill (Princeton: D. VanNostrand Company, Inc., 1956), 63-69.4. See Richard A. Lebrun, Joseph de Maistre: An Intellectual Militant (Montreal:McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988). Also see the editions of individual works byde Maistre cited below.

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5. Viereck, Op. Cit . ,51.6. See Joseph de Maistre, Du Pape, Jacques Lovie and Joannes Cheail, eds.

(Geneva: L ibrairie Droz, 1966).7. Richard A. Lebrun, "Introduction," in Joseph de Maistre, Against Rousseau,

Richard A. Lebrun trans, and ed. (Montreal: McG ill-Queen's University Press, 1996),xxii.8. See Ernest Seilliere, "Joseph de Maistre et Jean Jacques Rousseau," Seances etTravaux del'Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques 194 (1920): 321-363.

9. Graeme Garrand, "Rousseau, M aistre, and the C ounter-Enlightenment," Historyof Political Th ought 15 (Spring 1994): 113.

10 . See Frederick W ilhelmsen, "Donoso C ortes and the Meaning of Political Pow er,"The Intercollegiate Review 3 (Jan.-Feb. 1967): 109-127; John T. Graham, DonosoCortes. Utopian Romanticist and Political Realist (Columbia: University of MissouriPress, 1974); R. A. Herrera, Donoso Cortes. Cassandra of the Age (Grand Rapids,Mich.: William B. Eerdman Publishing Co., 1995).

l l .Menczer , Op. Cit , 159.12. Juan Donoso Cortes, "Carta al eminentisimo senor Cardenal Fornari sobre el

principio generado de los mas graves errores de nuestros dias," in Ensayo sobre elcatolicismo, el liberalismo y el socialismo y otros escritos, Jose' Luis G6mez, ed.(Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, S.A., 1985), 327.

13 . , "Discurso sobre la dictadura," in Obras completas, Carlos Valverde,S.J., ed. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Au tores Cristianos, 1970), 11:305-323.

14. , "Discurso sobre la situation de Espafia," in Ibid., 2:479-498.15 . , "Carta a Maria Cristina," in Ibid., 2:722-729.16. Fo r a text representative of the Moderate Liberal period of D onoso C ortes see his"Lecciones de direcho politico of 1836-37" in Ibid., 1:327-445.17. Dono so Cortes, "Ensayo sobre el catolicismo, el liberalismo y el socialismo," in

Ibid., 2:595.18. Ibid., 599.19. Graham, Op. Cit., 275-276.20. Viereck, Op. C it, 67.21. Donoso Cortes, "Ensayo" in Obras completas, 2:638.22. Ibid., 2:649.23. Donoso Cortes, "De lamonarquia absoluta," in Obras completas, 1:527.24. Ibid., 1:578.25. See J. Neville Figgis, "On some Political Theories of the Early Jesuits,"

Transactions of the Royal H istorical Society. New Series.l 1(1897):89-112.26. Dale K. Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution. From Calvin

to the Civil Constitution, 1 560-1791 (New H aven: Yale University P ress, 1996), 8.27. Ibid., 33 .28. Donoso Cortes, "De la monarquia absoluta," in Obras completas, 1:572; for an

account of absolutism in France see Emm anuel Le Roy La durie, The Ancient Regime.A History of France, 1610-1774, Mark Greengrass, trans. (Oxford: Blackwell PublishersLtd., 1996).



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29. Do noso C ortes, "Ensayo" in Op. C it, 2:550; see R. A. Herrera, "The Great in theSmall: Dono so Cortes ' Variations on a Theme from the Civitas Dei," Augustiniana fasc.1-4(1988): 140-147.

30. Restituto Sierra Bravo, El pensam iento social y econ omico d e la escoldsticaDesde sus origenes al comienzo del catolicismo social (Madrid: C.S.I.C./Instituto deSociologia "Balmes," 1975), 2:738.31. Diego Saavedra Fajardo, Empresas politicas, F. Javier Diez de Revenga, ed.(Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1988), 138.

32. Rene Andios, "Introduction," in Vicente Garcia de la Huerta, Raquel, ReneAn dios, ed. (Madrid: Clasicos Castalia, 1971), 34.

33. Donoso Cortes, "De la monarquia absoluta," Op. Cit., 1:578.34. Wilhelmsen, Op. Cit., 172.35. See Joseph de Maistre, Saint Petersburg Dialogues or Conversations on the

Temporal Government of Providence, Richard A. Lebrun, trans, and ed. (Montreal:McGill-Queens' University Press, 1993).

36. Donoso Cortes, "Ensayo," 1:578.37 . Thomas R. Rourke, "Michael Novak and Yves R. Simon on the Common Good

and Cap italism," Review of Politics 58 (Spring 1996): 229.38. John Paul II, PP.MM., Centesimus annus (Boston: Saint Paul Books and Med ia,

1991), 72.39. Herrera, Donoso C ortes, 133.40. Ibid., 135.41. Edmund Schram, Dono so C ortes, su viday su pensam iento, Ramon de la Serna,

trans. (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1936), 287.

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Two Catholic Conservatives-The Ideas of Josheph de Maistre and Juan Donoso Cortes