{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24553/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24553","id":"gutenberg_24553","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24553","summary":null,"tags":["Authors, French -- 19th century -- Biography","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - European","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Diplomats -- France -- Biography","Maistre, Joseph Marie, comte de, 1753-1821","Philosophers -- France -- Biography","Theologians -- France -- Biography"],"text":"Produced by Paul Murray, Rene Anderson Benitz and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCRITICAL MISCELLANIES\n\n\nBY\n\nJOHN MORLEY\n\n\nVOL. II.\n\nEssay 4: Joseph de Maistre\n\n\n\n\nLondon\nMACMILLAN AND CO., Limited\nNew York: The MacMillan Company\n1905\n\n\n\n\nJOSEPH DE MAISTRE.\n\n\n\n\n                                                                   PAGE\n\nThe Catholic reaction in France at the beginning of the century     257\n\nDe Maistre the best type of the movement                            262\n\nBirth, instruction, and early life                                  263\n\nInvasion of Savoy, and De Maistre's flight                          268\n\nAt Lausanne, Venice, and Cagliari                                   270\n\nSent in 1802 as minister to St. Petersburg                          275\n\nHardships of his life there from 1802 to 1817                       276\n\nCircumstances of his return home, and his death                     285\n\nDe Maistre's view of the eighteenth century                         287\n\nAnd of the French Revolution                                        291\n\nThe great problem forced upon the Catholics by it                   293\n\nDe Maistre's way of dealing with the question of the divine\n  method of government                                              293\n\nNature of divine responsibility for evil                            294\n\nOn Physical Science                                                 298\n\nSignificance of such ideas in a mind like De Maistre's              299\n\nTwo theories tenable by social thinkers after the Revolution        303\n\nDe Maistre's appreciation of the beneficent work of the\n  Papacy in the past                                                307\n\nInsists on the revival of the papal power as the essential\n  condition of a restored European order                            313\n\nViews Christianity from the statesman's point of view               314\n\nHis consequent hatred of the purely speculative temper of\n  the Greeks                                                        316\n\nHis object was social or political                                  318\n\nHence his grounds for defending the doctrine of Infallibility       319\n\nThe analogy which lay at the bottom of his Ultramontane\n  doctrine                                                          320\n\nHis hostility to the authority of General Councils                  323\n\nHis view of the obligation of the canons on the Pope                325\n\nHis appeal to European statesmen                                    326\n\nComte and De Maistre                                                329\n\nHis strictures on Protestantism                                     331\n\nFutility of his aspirations                                         335\n\n\n\n\nJOSEPH DE MAISTRE.\n\n\nOwing to causes which lie tolerably near the surface, the remarkable\nCatholic reaction which took place in France at the beginning of the\npresent century, has never received in England the attention that it\ndeserves; not only for its striking interest as an episode in the\nhistory of European thought, but also for its peculiarly forcible and\ncomplete presentation of those ideas with which what is called the\nmodern spirit is supposed to be engaged in deadly war. For one thing,\nthe Protestantism of England strips a genuinely Catholic movement of\nspeculation of that pressing and practical importance which belongs to\nit in countries where nearly all spiritual sentiment, that has received\nany impression of religion at all, unavoidably runs in Catholic forms.\nWith us the theological reaction against the ideas of the eighteenth was\nnot and could not be other than Protestant. The defence and\nreinstatement of Christianity in each case was conducted, as might have\nbeen expected, with reference to the dominant creed and system of the\ncountry. If Coleridge had been a Catholic, his works thus newly coloured\nby an alien creed would have been read by a small sect only, instead of\nexercising as they did a wide influence over the whole nation, reaching\npeople through those usual conduits of press and pulpit, by which the\nproducts of philosophic thought are conveyed to unphilosophic minds. As\nnaturally in France, hostility to all those influences which were\nbelieved to have brought about the Revolution, to sensationalism in\nmetaphysics, to atheism in what should have been theology, to the notion\nof sovereignty of peoples in politics, inevitably sought a\nrallying-point in a renewed allegiance to that prodigious spiritual\nsystem which had fostered the germs of order and social feeling in\nEurope, and whose name remains even now in the days of its ruin, as the\nmost permanent symbol and exemplar of stable organisation. Another\nreason for English indifference to this movement is the rapidity with\nwhich here, as elsewhere, dust gathers thickly round the memory of the\nchampions of lost causes. Some of the most excellent of human\ncharacteristics--intensity of belief, for example, and a fervid anxiety\nto realise aspirations--unite with some of the least excellent of them,\nto make us too habitually forget that, as Mill has said, the best\nadherents of a fallen standard in philosophy, in religion, in politics,\nare usually next in all good qualities of understanding and sentiment to\nthe best of those who lead the van of the force that triumphs. Men are\nnot so anxious as they should be, considering the infinite diversity of\neffort that goes to the advancement of mankind, to pick up the\nfragments of truth and positive contribution, that so nothing be lost,\nand as a consequence the writings of antagonists with whom we are\nbelieved to have nothing in common, lie unexamined and disregarded.\n\nIn the case of the group of writers who, after a century of criticism,\nventured once more with an intrepid confidence--differing fundamentally\nfrom the tone of preceding apologists in the Protestant camp, who were\nnearly as critical as the men they refuted--to vindicate not the bare\noutlines of Christian faith, but the entire scheme, in its extreme\nmanifestation, of the most ancient and severely maligned of all\nChristian organisations, this apathy is very much to be regretted on\nseveral grounds. In the first place, it is impossible to see\nintelligently to the bottom of the momentous spirit of ultramontanism,\nwhich is so deep a difficulty of continental Europe, and which, touching\nus in Ireland, is perhaps already one of our own deepest difficulties,\nwithout comprehending in its best shape the theory on which\nultramontanism rests. And this theory it is impossible to seize\nthoroughly, without some knowledge of the ideas of its most efficient\ndefenders in its earlier years. Secondly, it is among these ideas that\nwe have to look for the representation in their most direct, logical,\nuncompromising, and unmistakable form of those theological ways of\nregarding life and prescribing right conduct, whose more or less rapidly\naccelerated destruction is the first condition of the further elevation\nof humanity, as well in power of understanding as in morals and\nspirituality. In all contests of this kind there is the greatest and\nmost obvious advantage in being able to see your enemy full against the\nlight. Thirdly, in one or two respects, the Catholic reactionaries at\nthe beginning of the century insisted very strongly on principles of\nsociety which the general thought of the century before had almost\nentirely dropped out of sight, and which we who, in spite of many\ndifferences, still sail down the same great current, and are propelled\nby the same great tide, are accustomed almost equally either to leave in\nthe background of speculation, or else deliberately to deny and\nsuppress. Such we may account the importance which they attach to\norganisation, and the value they set upon a common spiritual faith and\ndoctrine as a social basis. That the form which the recognition of these\nprinciples is destined to assume will at all correspond to their hopes\nand anticipations, is one of the most unlikely things possible. This,\nhowever, need not detract from the worth for our purpose of their\nexposition of the principles themselves. Again, the visible traces of\nthe impression made by the writings of this school on the influential\nfounder of the earliest Positivist system, are sufficiently deep and\nimportant to make some knowledge of them of the highest historical\ninterest, both to those who accept and those who detest that system.\n\nAt the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were three chief\nschools of thought, the Sensational, the Catholic, and the Eclectic; or\nas it may be put in other terms, the Materialist, the Theological, and\nthe Spiritualist. The first looked for the sources of knowledge, the\nsanction of morals, the inspiring fountain and standard of aesthetics, to\nthe outside of men, to matter, and the impressions made by matter on the\ncorporeal senses. The second looked to divine revelation, authority and\nthe traditions of the Church. The third, steering a middle course,\nlooked partly within and partly without, relied partly on the senses,\npartly on revelation and history, but still more on a certain internal\nconsciousness of a direct and immediate kind, which is the supreme and\nreconciling judge of the reports alike of the senses, of history, of\ndivine revelation.[1] Each of these schools had many exponents. The\nthree most conspicuous champions of revived Catholicism were De Maistre,\nDe Bonald, and Chateaubriand. The last of them, the author of the _Genie\ndu Christianisme_, was effective in France because he is so deeply\nsentimental, but he was too little trained in speculation, and too\nlittle equipped with knowledge, to be fairly taken as the best\nintellectual representative of their way of thinking. De Bonald was of\nmuch heavier calibre. He really thought, while Chateaubriand only felt,\nand the _Legislation Primitive_ and the _Pensees sur Divers Sujets_\ncontain much that an enemy of the school will find it worth while to\nread, in spite of an artificial, and, if a foreigner may judge, a\ndetestable style.\n\nDe Maistre was the greatest of the three, and deserves better than\neither of the others to stand as the type of the school for many\nreasons. His style is so marvellously lucid, that, notwithstanding the\nmystical, or, as he said, the illuminist side of his mind, we can never\nbe in much doubt about his meaning, which is not by any means the case\nwith Bonald. To say nothing of his immensely superior natural capacity,\nDe Maistre's extensive reading in the literature of his foes was a\nsource of strength, which might indeed have been thought indispensable,\nif only other persons had not attacked the same people as he did,\nwithout knowing much or anything at all at first-hand about them. Then\nhe goes over the whole field of allied subjects, which we have a right\nto expect to have handled by anybody with a systematic view of the\norigin of knowledge, the meaning of ethics, the elements of social order\nand progressiveness, the government and scheme of the universe. And\nabove all, his writings are penetrated with the air of reality and life,\nwhich comes of actual participation in the affairs of that world with\nwhich social philosophers have to deal. Lamennais had in many respects a\nfiner mind than De Maistre, but the conclusions in which he was finally\nlanded, no less than his liberal aims, prevent him from being an example\nof the truly Catholic reaction. He obviously represented the Revolution,\nor the critical spirit, within the Catholic limits, while De Maistre's\nruling idea was, in his own trenchant phrase, '_absolument tuer\nl'esprit du dix-huitieme siecle_.' On all these accounts he appears to\nbe the fittest expositor of those conceptions which the anarchy that\nclosed the eighteenth century provoked into systematic existence.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] See Damiron's _La Philosophie en France au XIXieme Siecle_.\nIntroduction to Vol. I. (Fifth edition.)\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nJoseph de Maistre was born at Chambery in the year 1754.[2] His family\nwas the younger branch of a stock in Languedoc, which about the\nbeginning of the seventeenth century divided itself into two, one\nremaining in France, the other establishing itself in Piedmont. It is\nnot wonderful that the descendants of the latter, settled in a country\nof small extent and little political importance, placed a high value on\ntheir kinship with an ancient line in the powerful kingdom of France.\nJoseph de Maistre himself was always particularly anxious to cultivate\nclose relations with his French kinsfolk, partly from the old\naristocratic feeling of blood, and partly from his intellectual\nappreciation of the gifts of the French mind, and its vast influence as\nan universal propagating power. His father held a high office in the\ngovernment of Savoy, and enjoyed so eminent a reputation that on his\ndeath both the Senate and the King of Sardinia deliberately recorded\ntheir appreciation of his loss as a public calamity. His mother is said\nto have been a woman of lofty and devout character, and her influence\nover her eldest son was exceptionally strong and tender. He used to\ndeclare in after life that he was as docile in her hands as the youngest\nof his sisters. Among other marks of his affectionate submission to\nparental authority, we are told that during the whole time of his\nresidence at Turin, where he followed a course of law, he never read a\nsingle book without previously writing to Chambery to one or other of\nhis parents for their sanction. Such traditions linger in families, and\nwhen he came to have children of his own, they too read nothing of which\ntheir father had not been asked to express his approbation. De Maistre's\nearly education was directed by the Jesuits; and as might have been\nexpected from the generous susceptibility of his temper, he never ceased\nto think of them with warm esteem. To the end of his life he remembered\nthe gloom which fell upon the household, though he was not nine years\nold at the time, when the news arrived of the edict of 1764, abolishing\nthe Society in the kingdom of France. One element of his education he\ncommemorates in a letter to his favourite daughter. 'Let your brother,'\nhe says, 'work hard at the French poets. Let him learn them by heart,\nespecially the incomparable Racine; never mind whether he understands\nhim yet or not. I didn't understand him when my mother used to come\nrepeating his verses by my bedside, and lulled me to sleep with her\nfine voice to the sound of that inimitable music. I knew hundreds of\nlines long before I knew how to read; and it is thus that my ears,\naccustomed betimes to this ambrosia, have never since been able to\nendure any sourer draught.'\n\nAfter his law studies at the University of Turin, then highly renowned\nfor its jurisconsults, the young De Maistre went through the successive\nstages of an official career, performing various duties in the public\nadministration, and possessing among other honours a seat in the Senate,\nover which his father presided. He led a tranquil life at Chambery, then\nas at all other times an ardent reader and student. Unaided he taught\nhimself five languages. English he mastered so perfectly, that though he\ncould not follow it when spoken, he could read a book in that tongue\nwith as much ease as if it had been in his own. To Greek and German he\ndid not apply himself until afterwards, and he never acquired the same\nproficiency in them as in English, French, Italian, Latin, and Spanish.\nTo be ignorant of German then, it will be remembered, was not what it\nwould be now, to be without one of the literary senses.\n\nLike nearly every other great soldier of reaction, he showed in his\nearly life a decided inclination for new ideas. The truth that the\nwildest extravagances of youthful aspiration are a better omen of a\nvigorous and enlightened manhood than the decorous and ignoble faith in\nthe perfection of existing arrangements, was not belied in the case of\nDe Maistre. His intelligence was of too hard and exact a kind to\ninspire him with the exalted schemes that present themselves to those\nmore nobly imaginative minds who dream dreams and see visions. He\nprojected no Savoyard emigration to the banks of the Susquehanna or\nDelaware, to found millennial societies and pantisocratic unions. These\ngenerous madnesses belong to men of more poetic temper. But still, in\nspite of the deadening influences of officialism and relations with a\ncourt, De Maistre had far too vigorous and active a character to subside\nwithout resistance into the unfruitful ways of obstruction and social\ncomplacency. It is one of the most certain marks, we may be sure, of a\nsuperior spirit, that the impulses earliest awakened by its first fresh\ncontact with the facts of the outer world are those which quicken a\ndesire for the improvement of the condition of society, the increase of\nthe happiness of men, the amelioration of human destiny. With this\nunwritten condition of human nature De Maistre, like other men of his\nmental calibre, is found to have complied. He incurred the suspicion and\nill-will of most of those by whom he was immediately surrounded, by\nbelonging to a Reform Lodge at Chambery. The association was one of a\nperfectly harmless character, but being an association, it diffused a\ntarnishing vapour of social disaffection and insurgency over the names\nof all who ventured to belong to it, and De Maistre was pointed out to\nthe Sardinian court as a man with leanings towards new things, and\ntherefore one of whom it were well to beware. There was little ground\nfor apprehension. In very small countries there is seldom room enough\nfor the growth of a spirit of social revolution; not at least until some\ngreat and dominant country has released the forces of destruction. So,\nwhen the menacing sounds of the approaching hurricane in France grew\nheavy in the air, the little lodge at Chambery voluntarily dissolved\nitself, and De Maistre was deputed to convey to the king, Victor Amadeo\nIII., the honourable assurance of its members that they had assembled\nfor the last time.\n\nIn 1786, at the age of thirty-two, De Maistre had married, and when the\nstorm burst which destroyed all the hopes of his life, he was the father\nof two children. In one of his gay letters to a venerable lady who was\non intimate terms with them both, he has left a picture of his wife,\nwhich is not any less interesting for what it reveals of his own\ncharacter. 'The contrast between us two is the very strangest in the\nworld. For me, as you may have found out, I am the _pococurante_\nsenator, and above all things very free in saying what I think. She, on\nthe contrary, will take care that it is noon before allowing that the\nsun has risen, for fear of committing herself. She knows what must be\ndone or what must not be done on the tenth of October 1808, at ten\no'clock in the morning, to avoid some inconvenience which otherwise\nwould come to pass at midnight between the fifteenth and sixteenth of\nMarch 1810. \"But, my dear husband, you pay attention to nothing; you\nbelieve that nobody is thinking of any harm. Now I know, I have been\ntold, I have guessed, I foresee, I warn you,\" etc. \"Come now, my dear,\nleave me alone. You are only wasting your time: I foresee that I shall\nnever foresee things: that's your business.\" She is the supplement to\nme, and hence when I am separated from her, as I am now, I suffer\nabsurdly from being obliged to think about my own affairs; I would\nrather have to chop wood all day.... My children ought to kiss her very\nsteps; for my part, I have no gift for education. She has such a gift,\nthat I look upon it as nothing less than the eighth endowment of the\nHoly Ghost; I mean a certain fond persecution by which it is given her\nto torment her children from morning to night to do something, not to do\nsomething, to learn--and yet without for a moment losing their tender\naffection for her. How can she manage it? I cannot make it out.' She was\nlaughingly called by himself and her friends, Madame Prudence. It is\ncertain that few women have found more necessity for the qualities\nimplied in this creditable nickname.\n\nThey had not been married many years before they were overtaken by\nirreparable disaster. The French Revolution broke out, and Savoy was\ninvaded by the troops of the new Republic. Count De Maistre, with his\nwife and children, fled from Chambery across the Alps to Aosta. '_Ma\nchere amie_,' he said to his wife, by the side of a great rock which he\nnever afterwards forgot, 'the step that we are taking to-day is\nirrevocable; it decides our lot for life;' and the presentiment was\ntrue. Soon the _Loi des Allobroges_ was promulgated, which enjoined upon\nall who had left their homes in Savoy to return instantly, under pain of\nconfiscation of all their property. It was the very depth of winter.\nMadame de Maistre was in the ninth month of her pregnancy. She knew that\nher husband would endure anything rather than expose her to the risks of\na journey in such a season. So, urged by a desire to save something from\nthe wreck of their fortune by compliance with the French decree, she\nseized the opportunity of her husband's absence at Turin, and started\nfor Savoy without acquainting him with her design. She crossed the Great\nSt. Bernard in the beginning of January on the back of a mule,\naccompanied by her two little children wrapped in blankets. The Count,\non his return to Aosta two or three days afterwards, forthwith set off\nin her steps, in the trembling expectation of finding her dead or dying\nin some Alpine hovel. But the favour of fate and a stout heart brought\nher safe to Chambery, where shortly afterwards she was joined by her\nhusband. The authorities vainly tendered him the oath, vainly bade him\ninscribe his name on the register of citizens; and when they asked him\nfor a contribution to support the war, he replied curtly that he did not\ngive money to kill his brothers in the service of the King of Sardinia.\nAs soon as his wife was delivered of their third child, whom he was\ndestined not to see again for nearly twenty years, he quitted her side,\nabandoned his property and his country, and took refuge at Lausanne,\nwhere in time his wife and his two eldest children once more came to\nhim.\n\nGibbon tells us how a swarm of emigrants, escaping from the public ruin,\nwas attracted by the vicinity, the manners, and the language of\nLausanne. 'They are entitled to our pity,' he reflected, 'and they may\nclaim our esteem, but they cannot in their present state of mind and\nfortune contribute much to our amusement. Instead of looking down as\ncalm and idle spectators on the theatre of Europe, our domestic harmony\nis somewhat embittered by the infusion of party spirit.' Gibbon died in\nLondon almost at the very moment that De Maistre arrived at Lausanne,\nbut his account of things remained true, and political feuds continued\nto run as high as ever. Among the people with whom De Maistre was thrown\nwas Madame de Stael. 'As we had not been to the same school,' he says,\n'either in theology or in politics, we had some scenes enough to make\none die of laughter; still without quarrelling. Her father, who was then\nalive, was the friend and relative of people that I love with all my\nheart, and that I would not vex for all the world. So I allowed the\n_emigres_ who surrounded us to cry out as they would, without ever\ndrawing the sword.' De Maistre thought he never came across a head so\ncompletely turned wrong as Madame de Stael's, the infallible\nconsequence, as he took it to be, of modern philosophy operating upon a\nwoman's nature. He once said of her: 'Ah! if Madame de Stael had been\nCatholic, she would have been adorable, instead of famous.' We can\nbelieve that his position among the French _emigres_ was not\nparticularly congenial. For though they hated the Revolution, they had\nall drunk of the waters of the eighteenth century philosophy, and De\nMaistre hated this philosophy worse than he hated the Revolution itself.\nThen again, they would naturally vapour about the necessities of strong\ngovernment. 'Yes,' said the Savoyard exile, 'but be quite sure that, to\nmake the monarchy strong, you must rest it on the laws, avoiding\neverything arbitrary, too frequent commissions, and all ministerial\njobberies.' We may well believe how unsavoury this rational and just\ntalk was to people who meant by strong government a system that should\nrestore to them their old prerogatives of anti-social oppression and\nselfish corruption. The order that De Maistre vindicated was a very\ndifferent thing from the deadly and poisonous order which was the object\nof the prayers of the incorrigible royalists around him.\n\nAfter staying three years at Lausanne, De Maistre went to Turin, but\nshortly afterwards the Sardinian king, at the end of a long struggle,\nwas forced to succumb to the power of the French, then in the full tide\nof success. Bonaparte's brilliant Italian campaign needs no words here.\nThe French entered Turin, and De Maistre, being an _emigre_, had to\nleave it. Furnished with a false passport, and undergoing a thousand\nhardships and dangers, he made his way, once more in the depth of a\nsevere winter (1797), to Venice. He went part of the way down the Po in\na small trading ship, crowded with ladies, priests, monks, soldiers, and\na bishop. There was only one small fire on board, at which all the\ncooking had to be done, and where the unhappy passengers had to keep\nthemselves warm as they could. At night they were confined each to a\nspace about three planks broad, separated from neighbours by pieces of\ncanvas hanging from a rope above. Each bank of the river was lined by\nmilitary posts--the left by the Austrians, and the right by the French;\nand the danger of being fired into was constantly present to aggravate\nthe misery of overcrowding, scanty food, and bitter cold. Even this\nwretchedness was surpassed by the hardships which confronted the exiles\nat Venice. The physical distress endured here by De Maistre and his\nunfortunate family exceeded that of any other period of their\nwanderings. He was cut off from the court, and from all his relations\nand friends, and reduced for the means of existence to a few fragments\nof silver plate, which had somehow been saved from the universal wreck.\nThis slender resource grew less day by day, and when that was exhausted\nthe prospect was a blank. The student of De Maistre's philosophy may see\nin what crushing personal anguish some of its most sinister growths had\ntheir roots. When the cares of beggary come suddenly upon a man in\nmiddle life, they burn very deep. Alone, and starving for a cause that\nis dear to him, he might encounter the grimness of fate with a fortitude\nin which there should be many elevating and consoling elements. But the\ndestiny is intolerably hard which condemns a man of humane mould, as De\nMaistre certainly was, to look helplessly on the physical pains of a\ntender woman and famishing little ones. The anxieties that press upon\nhis heart in such calamity as this are too sharp, too tightened, and too\nsordid for him to draw a single free breath, or to raise his eyes for a\nsingle moment of relief from the monstrous perplexity that chokes him.\nThe hour of bereavement has its bitterness, but the bitterness is\ngradually suffused with soft reminiscence. The grip of beggary leaves a\nmark on such a character as De Maistre's which no prosperity of after\ndays effaces. The seeming inhumanity of his theory of life, which is so\nrevolting to comfortable people like M. Villemain, was in truth the only\nexplanation of his own cruel sufferings in which he could find any\nsolace. It was not that he hated mankind, but that his destiny looked as\nif God hated him, and this was a horrible moral complexity out of which\nhe could only extricate himself by a theory in which pain and torment\nseem to stand out as the main facts in human existence.\n\nTo him, indeed, prosperity never came. Hope smiled on him momentarily,\nbut, in his own words: 'It was only a flash in the night.' While he was\nin Venice, the armies of Austria and Russia reconquered the north of\nItaly, and Charles Emanuel IV., in the natural anticipation that the\nallies would at once restore his dominions, hastened forward. Austria,\nhowever, as De Maistre had seen long before, was indifferent or even\nabsolutely hostile to Sardinian interests, and she successfully opposed\nCharles Emanuel's restoration. The king received the news of the perfidy\nof his nominal ally at Florence, but not until after he had made\narrangements for rewarding the fidelity of some of his most loyal\nadherents.\n\nIt was from Florence that De Maistre received the king's nomination to\nthe chief place in the government of the island of Sardinia. Through the\nshort time of his administration here, he was overwhelmed with vexations\nonly a little more endurable than the physical distresses which had\nweighed him down at Venice. During the war, justice had been\nadministered in a grossly irregular manner. Hence, people had taken the\nlaw into their own hands, and retaliation had completed the round of\nwrong-doing. The taxes were collected with great difficulty. The higher\nclass exhibited an invincible repugnance to paying their debts. Some of\nthese difficulties in the way of firm and orderly government were\ninsuperable, and De Maistre vexed his soul in an unequal and only\npartially successful contest. In after years, amid the miseries of his\nlife in Russia, he wrote to his brother thus: 'Sometimes in moments of\nsolitude that I multiply as much as I possibly can, I throw my head back\non the cushion of my sofa, and there with my four walls around me, far\nfrom all that is dear to me, confronted by a sombre and impenetrable\nfuture, I recall the days when in a little town that you know well'--he\nmeant Cagliari--'with my head resting on another sofa, and only seeing\naround our own exclusive circle (good heavens, what an impertinence!)\nlittle men and little things, I used to ask myself: \"Am I then condemned\nto live and die in this place, like a limpet on a rock?\" I suffered\nbitterly; my head was overloaded, wearied, flattened, by the enormous\nweight of Nothing.'\n\nBut presently a worse thing befell him. In 1802 he received an order\nfrom the king to proceed to St. Petersburg as envoy extraordinary and\nminister plenipotentiary at the court of Russia. Even from this bitter\nproof of devotion to his sovereign he did not shrink. He had to tear\nhimself from his wife and children, without any certainty when so cruel\na separation would be likely to end; to take up new functions which the\ncircumstances of the time rendered excessively difficult; while the\npetty importance of the power he represented, and its mendicant attitude\nin Europe, robbed his position of that public distinction and dignity\nwhich may richly console a man for the severest private sacrifice. It is\na kind destiny which veils their future from mortal men. Fifteen years\npassed before De Maistre's exile came to a close. From 1802 to 1817 he\ndid not quit the inhospitable latitudes of northern Russia.\n\nDe Maistre's letters during this desolate period furnish a striking\npicture of his manner of life and his mental state. We see in them his\nmost prominent characteristics strongly marked. Not even the\npainfulness of the writer's situation ever clouds his intrepid and\nvigorous spirit. Lively and gallant sallies of humour to his female\nfriends, sagacious judgments on the position of Europe to political\npeople, bits of learned criticism for erudite people, tender and playful\nchat with his two daughters, all these alternate with one another with\nthe most delightful effect. Whether he is writing to his little girl\nwhom he has never known, or to the king of Sardinia, or to some author\nwho sends him a book, or to a minister who has found fault with his\ndiplomacy, there is in all alike the same constant and remarkable play\nof a bright and penetrating intellectual light, coloured by a humour\nthat is now and then a little sardonic, but more often is genial and\nlambent. There is a certain semi-latent quality of hardness lying at the\nbottom of De Maistre's style, both in his letters and in his more\nelaborate compositions. His writings seem to recall the flavour and\nbouquet of some of the fortifying and stimulating wines of Burgundy,\nfrom which time and warmth have not yet drawn out a certain native\nroughness that lingers on the palate. This hardness, if one must give\nthe quality a name that only imperfectly describes it, sprang not from\nany original want of impressionableness or sensibility of nature, but\npartly from the relentless buffetings which he had to endure at the\nhands of fortune, and partly from the preponderance which had been given\nto the rational side of his mind by long habits of sedulous and accurate\nstudy. Few men knew so perfectly as he knew how to be touching without\nceasing to be masculine, nor how to go down into the dark pits of human\nlife without forgetting the broad sunlight, nor how to keep habitually\nclose to visible and palpable fact while eagerly addicted to\nspeculation. His contemplations were perhaps somewhat too near the\nground; they led him into none of those sublimer regions of subtle\nfeeling where the rarest human spirits have loved to travel; we do not\nthink of his mind among those who have gone\n\n    Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.\n\nIf this kind of temper, strong, keen, frank, and a little hard and\nmordent, brought him too near a mischievous disbelief in the dignity of\nmen and their lives, at least it kept him well away from morbid weakness\nin ethics, and from beating the winds in metaphysics. But of this we\nshall see more in considering his public pieces than can be gathered\nfrom his letters.\n\nThe discomforts of De Maistre's life at St. Petersburg were extreme. The\ndignity of his official style and title was an aggravation of the\nexceeding straitness of his means. The ruined master could do little to\nmitigate the ruin of his servant. He had to keep up the appearance of an\nambassador on the salary of a clerk. 'This is the second winter,' he\nwrites to his brother in 1810, 'that I have gone through without a\npelisse, which is exactly like going without a shirt at Cagliari. When I\ncome from court a very sorry lackey throws a common cloak over my\nshoulders.' The climate suited him better than he had expected; and in\none letter he vows that he was the only living being in Russia who had\npassed two winters without fur boots and a fur hat. It was considered\nindispensable that he should keep a couple of servants; so, for his\nsecond, De Maistre was obliged to put up with a thief, whom he rescued\nunder the shelter of ambassadorial privilege from the hands of justice,\non condition that he would turn honest. The Austrian ambassador, with\nwhom he was on good terms, would often call to take him out to some\nentertainment. 'His fine servants mount my staircase groping their way\nin the dark, and we descend preceded by a servant carrying _luminare\nminus quam ut praeesset nocti_.' 'I am certain,' he adds pleasantly,\n'that they make songs about me in their Austrian patois. Poor souls! it\nis well they can amuse themselves.'\n\nSometimes he was reduced so far as to share the soup of his valet, for\nlack of richer and more independent fare. Then he was constantly fretted\nby enemies at home, who disliked his trenchant diplomacy, and distrusted\nthe strength and independence of a mind which was too vigorous to please\nthe old-fashioned ministers of the Sardinian court. These chagrins he\ntook as a wise man should. They disturbed him less than his separation\nfrom his family. 'Six hundred leagues away from you all,' he writes to\nhis brother, 'the thoughts of my family, the reminiscences of childhood,\ntransport me with sadness.' Visions of his mother's saintly face\nhaunted his chamber; almost gloomier still was the recollection of old\nintimates with whom he had played, lived, argued, and worked for years,\nand yet who now no longer bore him in mind. There are not many glimpses\nof this melancholy in the letters meant for the eye of his beloved\n_trinite feminine_, as he playfully called his wife and two daughters.\n'_A quoi bon vous attrister_,' he asked bravely, '_sans raison et sans\nprofit?_' Occasionally he cannot help letting out to them how far his\nmind is removed from composure. 'Every day as I return home I found my\nhouse as desolate as if it was yesterday you left me. In society the\nsame fancy pursues me, and scarcely ever quits me.' Music, as might be\nsurmised in so sensitive a nature, drove him almost beside himself with\nits mysterious power of intensifying the dominant emotion. 'Whenever by\nany chance I hear the harpsichord,' he says, 'melancholy seizes me. The\nsound of the violin gives me such a heavy heart, that I am fain to leave\nthe company and hasten home.' He tossed in his bed at night, thinking he\nheard the sound of weeping at Turin, making a thousand efforts to\npicture to himself the looks of that 'orphan child of a living father'\nwhom he had never known, wondering if ever he should know her, and\nbattling with a myriad of black phantoms that seemed to rustle in his\ncurtains. 'But you, M. de Chevalier,' he said apologetically to the\ncorrespondent to whom he told these dismal things, 'you are a father,\nyou know the cruel dreams of a waking man; if you were not of the\nprofession I would not allow my pen to write you this jeremiad.' As De\nMaistre was accustomed to think himself happy if he got three hours'\nsound sleep in the night, these sombre and terrible vigils were ample\nenough to excuse him if he had allowed them to overshadow all other\nthings. But the vigour of his intellect was too strenuous, and his\ncuriosity and interest in every object of knowledge too\ninextinguishable. 'After all,' he said, 'the only thing to do is to put\non a good face, and to march to the place of torture with a few friends\nto console you on the way. This is the charming image under which I\npicture my present situation. Mark you,' he added, 'I always count books\namong one's consoling friends.'\n\nIn one of the most gay and charming of his letters, apologising to a\nlady for the remissness of his correspondence, he explains that\ndiplomacy and books occupy every moment. 'You will admit, madam, there\nis no possibility of one's shutting up books entirely. Nay, more than\never, I feel myself burning with the feverish thirst for knowledge. I\nhave had an access of it which I cannot describe to you. The most\ncurious books literally run after me, and hurry voluntarily to place\nthemselves in my hands. As soon as diplomacy gives me a moment of\nbreathing-time I rush headlong to that favourite pasture, to that\nambrosia of which the mind can never have enough--\n\n    _Et voila ce qui fait que votre ami est muet._'\n\nHe thinks himself happy if, by refusing invitations to dinner, he can\npass a whole day without stirring from his house. 'I read, I write, I\nstudy; for after all one must know something.' In his hours of\ndepression he fancied that he only read and worked, not for the sake of\nthe knowledge, but to stupefy and tire himself out, if that were\npossible.\n\nAs a student De Maistre was indefatigable. He never belonged to that\nlanguid band who hoped to learn difficult things by easy methods. The\nonly way, he warned his son, is to shut your door, to say that you are\nnot within, and to work. 'Since they have set themselves to teach us how\nwe ought to learn the dead languages, you can find nobody who knows\nthem; and it is amusing enough that people who don't know them, should\nbe so obstinately bent on demonstrating the vices of the methods\nemployed by us who do know them.' He was one of those wise and laborious\nstudents who do not read without a pen in their hands. He never shrank\nfrom the useful toil of transcribing abundantly from all the books he\nread everything that could by any possibility eventually be of service\nto him in his inquiries. His notebooks were enormous. As soon as one of\nthem was filled, he carefully made up an index of its contents, numbered\nit, and placed it on a shelf with its unforgotten predecessors. In one\nplace he accidentally mentions that he had some thirty of these folios\nover the head of his writing-table.\n\n'If I am a pedant at home,' he said, 'at least I am as little as\npossible a pedant out of doors.' In the evening he would occasionally\nseek the society of ladies, by way of recovering some of that native\ngaiety of heart which had hitherto kept him alive. 'I blow on this\nspark,' to use his own words, 'just as an old woman blows among the\nashes to get a light for her lamp.' A student and a thinker, De Maistre\nwas also a man of the world, and he may be added to the long list of\nwriters who have shown that to take an active part in public affairs and\nmix in society give a peculiar life, reality, and force to both\nscholarship and speculation. It was computed at that time that the\nauthor of a philosophic piece could not safely count upon more than a\nhundred and fifty readers in Russia; and hence, we might be sure, even\nif we had not De Maistre's word for it, that away from his own house he\nleft his philosophy behind. The vehemence of his own convictions did not\nprevent him from being socially tolerant to others who hated them. 'If I\nhad the good fortune to be among his acquaintances,' he wrote of a\nheretical assailant, 'he would see that among the people with\nconvictions it would be hard to find one so free from prejudice as I am.\nI have many friends among the Protestants, and now that their system is\ntottering, they are all the dearer to me.' In spite of his scanty means,\nhis shabby valet, his threadbare cloak, and the humbleness of his\ndiplomatic position, the fire and honesty of his character combined with\nhis known ability to place him high in the esteem of the society of St.\nPetersburg. His fidelity, devotion, and fortitude, mellowed by many\nyears and by meditative habits, and tinged perhaps by the patrician\nconsciousness of birth, formed in him a modest dignity of manner which\nmen respected. They perceived it to be no artificial assumption, but the\noutward image of a lofty and self-respecting spirit. His brother\ndiplomatists, even the representatives of France, appear to have treated\nhim with marked consideration. His letters prove him to have been a\nfavourite among ladies. The Emperor Alexander showed him considerable\nkindness of the cheap royal sort. He conferred on his brother, Xavier de\nMaistre, a post in one of the public museums, while to the Sardinian\nenvoy's son he gave a commission in the Russian service.\n\nThe first departure of this son for the campaign of 1807 occasioned some\nof the most charming passages in De Maistre's letters, both to the young\nsoldier himself and to others. For though without a touch of morbid\nexpansiveness, he never denied himself the solace of opening his heart\nto a trusted friend, and a just reserve with strangers did not hinder a\nhumane and manly confidence with intimates. 'This morning,' he wrote to\nhis stripling, soon after he had joined the army, 'I felt a tightening\nat my heart when a pet dog came running in and jumped upon your bed,\nwhere he finds you no more. He soon perceived his mistake, and said\nclearly enough, after his own fashion: _I am mistaken; where can he be\nthen?_ As for me I have felt all that you will feel, if ever you pursue\nthis mighty trade of being a father.' And then he begs of his son if he\nshould find himself with a tape line in his hand, that he will take his\nexact measure and forward it. Soon came the news of the battle of\nFriedland, and the unhappy father thought he read the fate of his son in\nthe face of every acquaintance he met. And so it was in later campaigns,\nas De Maistre records in correspondence that glows with tender and\nhealthy solicitude. All this is worth dwelling upon, for two reasons.\nFirst, because De Maistre has been too much regarded and spoken of as a\nman of cold sensibility, and little moved by the hardships which fill\nthe destiny of our unfortunate race. And, secondly, because his own keen\nacquaintance with mental anguish helps us to understand the zeal with\nwhich he attempts to reconcile the blind cruelty and pain and torture\nendured by mortals with the benignity and wisdom of the immortal. 'After\nall,' he used to say, 'there are only two real evils--remorse and\ndisease.' This is true enough for an apophthegm, but as a matter of fact\nit never for an instant dulled his sensibility to far less supreme forms\nof agony than the recollection of irreparable pain struck into the lives\nof others. It is interesting and suggestive to recall how a later\npublicist viewed the ills that dwarf our little lives. 'If I were asked\nto class human miseries,' said Tocqueville, 'I would do so in this\norder: first, Disease; second, Death; third, Doubt.' At a later date, he\naltered the order, and deliberately declared doubt to be the most\ninsupportable of all evils, worse than death itself. But Tocqueville was\nan aristocrat, as Guizot once told him, who accepted his defeat. He\nstood on the brink of the great torrent of democracy, and shivered. De\nMaistre was an aristocrat too, but he was incapable of knowing what\ndoubt or hesitation meant. He never dreamt that his cause was lost, and\nhe mocked and defied the Revolution to the end. We easily see how\nnatures of this sort, ardent, impetuous, unflinching, find themselves in\nthe triumphant paths that lead to remorse at their close, and how they\nthus come to feel remorse rather than doubt as the consummate agony of\nthe human mind.\n\nHaving had this glimpse of De Maistre's character away from his books,\nwe need not linger long over the remaining events of his life. In 1814\nhis wife and two daughters joined him in the Russian capital. Two years\nlater an outburst of religious fanaticism caused the sudden expulsion of\nthe Jesuits from Russia, to De Maistre's deep mortification. Several\nconversions had taken place from the Orthodox to the Western faith, and\nthese inflamed the Orthodox party, headed by the Prince de Galitzin, the\nminister of public worship, with violent theological fury. De Maistre,\nwhose intense attachment to his own creed was well known, fell under\nsuspicion of having connived at these conversions, and the Emperor\nhimself went so far as to question him. 'I told him,' De Maistre says,\n'that I had never changed the faith of any of his subjects, but that if\nany of them had by chance made me a sharer of their confidence, neither\nhonour nor conscience would have allowed me to tell them that they were\nwrong.' This kind of dialogue between a sovereign and an ambassador\nimplied a situation plainly unfavourable to effective diplomacy. The\nenvoy obtained his recall, and after twenty-five years' absence returned\nto his native country (1817). On his way home, it may be noticed, De\nMaistre passed a few days in Paris, and thus, for the first and last\ntime, one of the most eminent of modern French writers found himself on\nFrench soil.\n\nThe king accorded De Maistre an honourable reception, conferred upon him\na high office and a small sum of money, and lent his ear to other\ncounsellors. The philosopher, though insisting on declaring his\npolitical opinions, then, as ever, unwaveringly anti-revolutionary,\nthrew himself mainly upon that literary composition which had been his\nsolace in yet more evil days than these. It was at this time that he\ngave to the world the supreme fruit of nearly half a century of study,\nmeditation, and contact with the world, in _Du Pape_, _Les Soirees de\nSaint Petersbourg_, and _L'Eglise Gallicane_. Their author did not live\nlong to enjoy the vast discussion which they occasioned, nor the\nreputation that they have since conferred upon his name. He died in\nFebruary 1821 after such a life as we have seen.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[2] The facts of De Maistre's life I have drawn from a very meagre\nbiography by his son, Count Rodolphe de Maistre, supplemented by two\nvolumes of _Lettres et Opuscules_ (Fourth edition. Paris: Vaton. 1865),\nand a volume of his _Diplomatic Correspondence_, edited by M. Albert\nBlanc.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nIt is not at all surprising that they upon whom the revolutionary deluge\ncame should have looked with indiscriminating horror and affright on all\nthe influences which in their view had united first to gather up, and\nthen to release the destructive flood. The eighteenth century to men\nlike De Maistre seemed an infamous parenthesis, mysteriously interposed\nbetween the glorious age of Bossuet and Fenelon, and that yet brighter\nera for faith and the Church which was still to come in the good time of\nDivine Providence. The philosophy of the last century, he says on more\nthan one occasion, will form one of the most shameful epochs of the\nhuman mind: it never praised even good men except for what was bad in\nthem. He looked upon the gods whom that century had worshipped as the\ndirect authors of the bloodshed and ruin in which their epoch had\nclosed. The memory of mild and humane philosophers was covered with the\nkind of black execration that prophets of old had hurled at Baal or\nMoloch; Locke and Hume, Voltaire and Rousseau, were habitually spoken of\nas very scourges of God. From this temper two consequences naturally\nflowed. In the first place, while it lasted there was no hope of an\nhonest philosophic discussion of the great questions which divide\nspeculative minds. Moderation and impartiality were virtues of almost\nsuperhuman difficulty for controversialists who had made up their minds\nthat it was their opponents who had erected the guillotine, confiscated\nthe sacred property of the church, slaughtered and banished her\nchildren, and filled the land with terror and confusion. It is hard amid\nthe smoking ruins of the homestead to do full justice to the theoretical\narguments of the supposed authors of the conflagration. Hence De\nMaistre, though, as has been already said, intimately acquainted with\nthe works of his foes in the letter, was prevented by the vehemence of\nhis antipathy to the effects which he attributed to them, from having\nany just critical estimate of their value and true spirit. 'I do not\nknow one of these men,' he says of the philosophers of the eighteenth\ncentury, 'to whom the sacred title of honest man is quite suitable.'\nThey are all wanting in probity. Their very names '_me dechirent la\nbouche_.' To admire Voltaire is the sign of a corrupt soul; and if\nanybody is drawn to the works of Voltaire, then be sure that God does\nnot love such an one. The divine anathema is written on the very face of\nthis arch-blasphemer; on his shameless brow, in the two extinct craters\nstill sparkling with sensuality and hate, in that frightful _rictus_\nrunning from ear to ear, in those lips tightened by cruel malice, like a\nspring ready to fly back and launch forth blasphemy and sarcasm; he\nplunges into the mud, rolls in it, drinks of it; he surrenders his\nimagination to the enthusiasm of hell, which lends him all its forces;\nParis crowned him, Sodom would have banished him.[3] Locke, again, did\nnot understand himself. His distinguishing characteristics are\nfeebleness and precipitancy of judgment. Vagueness and irresolution\nreign in his expressions as they do in his thoughts. He constantly\nexhibits that most decisive sign of mediocrity--he passes close by the\ngreatest questions without perceiving them. In the study of philosophy,\ncontempt for Locke is the beginning of knowledge.[4] Condillac was even\nmore vigilantly than anybody else on his guard against his own\nconscience. But Hume was perhaps the most dangerous and the most guilty\nof all those mournful writers who will for ever accuse the last century\nbefore posterity--the one who employed the most talent with the most\ncoolness to do most harm.[5] To Bacon De Maistre paid the compliment of\ncomposing a long refutation of his main ideas, in which Bacon's\nblindness, presumption, profanity, and scientific charlatanry are\ndenounced in vehement and almost coarse terms, and treated as the\nnatural outcome of a low morality.\n\nIt has long been the inglorious speciality of the theological school to\ninsist in this way upon moral depravity as an antecedent condition of\nintellectual error. De Maistre in this respect was not unworthy of his\nfellows. He believed that his opponents were even worse citizens than\nthey were bad philosophers, and it was his horror of them in the former\ncapacity that made him so bitter and resentful against them in the\nlatter. He could think of no more fitting image for opinions that he did\nnot happen to believe than counterfeit money, 'which is struck in the\nfirst instance by great criminals, and is afterwards passed on by honest\nfolk who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they do.' A\nphilosopher of the highest class, we may be sure, does not permit\nhimself to be drawn down from the true object of his meditations by\nthese sinister emotions. But De Maistre belonged emphatically to minds\nof the second order, whose eagerness to find truth is never intense and\npure enough to raise them above perturbing antipathies to persons. His\nwhole attitude was fatal to his claim to be heard as a truth-seeker in\nany right sense of the term. He was not only persuaded of the general\njustice and inexpugnableness of the orthodox system, but he refused to\nbelieve that it was capable of being improved or supplemented by\nanything which a temperate and fair examination of other doctrines might\nperadventure be found to yield. With De Maistre there was no\nperadventure. Again, no speculative mind of the highest order ever\nmistakes, or ever moves systematically apart from, the main current of\nthe social movement of its time. It is implied in the very definition of\na thinker of supreme quality that he should detect, and be in a certain\naccord with, the most forward and central of the ruling tendencies of\nhis epoch. Three-quarters of a century have elapsed since De Maistre was\ndriven to attempt to explain the world to himself, and this interval\nhas sufficed to show that the central conditions at that time for the\npermanent reorganisation of the society which had just been so violently\nrent in pieces, were assuredly not theological, military, nor\nultramontane, but the very opposite of all these.\n\nThere was a second consequence of the conditions of the time. The\ncatastrophe of Europe affected the matter as well as the manner of\ncontemporary speculation. The French Revolution has become to us no more\nthan a term, though the strangest term in a historic series. To some of\nthe best of those who were confronted on every side by its tumult and\nagitation, it was the prevailing of the gates of hell, the moral\ndisruption of the universe, the absolute and total surrender of the\nworld to them that plough iniquity and sow wickedness. Even under\nordinary circumstances few men have gone through life without\nencountering some triumphant iniquity, some gross and prolonged cruelty,\nwhich makes them wonder how God should allow such things to be. If we\nremember the aspect which the Revolution wore in the eyes of those who\nseeing it yet did not understand, we can imagine what dimensions this\neternal enigma must have assumed in their sight. It was inevitable that\nthe first problem to press on men with resistless urgency should be the\nancient question of the method of the Creator's temporal government.\nWhat is the law of the distribution of good and evil fortune? How can we\nvindicate with regard to the conditions of this life, the different\ndestinies that fall to men? How can we defend the moral ordering of a\nworld in which the wicked and godless constantly triumph, while the\nvirtuous and upright who retain their integrity are as frequently\nbuffeted and put to shame?\n\nThis tremendous question has never been presented with such sublimity of\nexpression, such noble simplicity and force of thought, as in the\nmajestic and touching legend of Job. But its completeness, as a\npresentation of the human tragedy, is impaired by the excessive\nprosperity which is finally supposed to reward the patient hero for his\nfortitude. Job received twice as much as he had before, and his latter\nend was blessed more than his beginning. In the chronicles of actual\nhistory men fare not so. There is a terribly logical finish about some\nof the dealings of fate, and in life the working of a curse is seldom\nstayed by any dramatic necessity for a smooth consummation. Destiny is\nno artist. The facts that confront us are relentless. No statement of\nthe case is adequate which maintains, by ever so delicate an\nimplication, that in the long run and somehow it is well in temporal\nthings with the just, and ill with the unjust. Until we have firmly\nlooked in the face the grim truth that temporal rewards and punishments\ndo not follow the possession or the want of spiritual or moral virtue,\nso long we are still ignorant what that enigma is, which speculative\nmen, from the author of the book of Job downwards, have striven to\nresolve. We can readily imagine the fulness with which the question\nwould grow up in the mind of a royalist and Catholic exile at the end of\nthe eighteenth century.\n\nNothing can be more clearly put than De Maistre's answers to the\nquestion which the circumstances of the time placed before him to solve.\nWhat is the law of the distribution of good and evil fortune in this\nlife? Is it a moral law? Do prosperity and adversity fall respectively\nto the just and the unjust, either individually or collectively? Has the\nancient covenant been faithfully kept, that whoso hearkens diligently to\nthe divine voice, and observes all the commandments to do them, shall be\nblessed in his basket and his store and in all the work of his hand? Or\nis God a God that hideth himself?\n\nDe Maistre perceived that the optimistic conception of the deity as\nbenign, merciful, infinitely forgiving, was very far indeed from\ncovering the facts. So he insisted on seeing in human destiny the\never-present hand of a stern and terrible judge, administering a\nDraconian code with blind and pitiless severity. God created men under\nconditions which left them free to choose between good and evil. All the\nphysical evil that exists in the world is a penalty for the moral evil\nthat has resulted from the abuse by men of this freedom of choice. For\nthese physical calamities God is only responsible in the way in which a\ncriminal judge is responsible for a hanging. Men cannot blame the judge\nfor the gallows; the fault is their own in committing those offences for\nwhich hanging is prescribed beforehand as the penalty. These curses\nwhich dominate human life are not the result of the cruelty of the\ndivine ruler, but of the folly and wickedness of mankind, who, seeing\nthe better course, yet deliberately choose the worse. The order of the\nworld is overthrown by the iniquities of men; it is we who have provoked\nthe exercise of the divine justice, and called down the tokens of his\nvengeance. The misery and disaster that surround us like a cloak are the\npenalty of our crimes and the price of our expiation. As the divine St.\nThomas has said: _Deus est auctor mali quod est poena, non autem mali\nquod est culpa._ There is a certain quantity of wrong done over the face\nof the world; therefore the great Judge exacts a proportionate quantity\nof punishment. The total amount of evil suffered makes nice equation\nwith the total amount of evil done; the extent of human suffering\ntallies precisely with the extent of human guilt. Of course you must\ntake original sin into account, 'which explains all, and without which\nyou can explain nothing.' 'In virtue of this primitive degradation we\nare subject to all sorts of physical sufferings _in general_; just as in\nvirtue of this same degradation we are subject to all sorts of vices _in\ngeneral_. This original malady therefore [which is the correlative of\noriginal sin] has no other name. It is only the capacity of suffering\nall evils, as original sin is only the capacity of committing all\ncrimes.'[6] Hence all calamity is either the punishment of sins actually\ncommitted by the sufferers, or else it is the general penalty exacted\nfor general sinfulness. Sometimes an innocent being is stricken, and a\nguilty being appears to escape. But is it not the same in the\ntransactions of earthly tribunals? And yet we do not say that they are\nconducted without regard to justice and righteousness. 'When God\npunishes any society for the crimes that it has committed, he does\njustice as we do justice ourselves in these sorts of circumstance. A\ncity revolts; it massacres the representatives of the sovereign; it\nshuts its gates against him; it defends itself against his arms; it is\ntaken. The prince has it dismantled and deprived of all its privileges;\nnobody will find fault with this decision on the ground that there are\ninnocent persons shut up in the city.'[7]\n\nDe Maistre's deity is thus a colossal Septembriseur, enthroned high in\nthe peaceful heavens, demanding ever-renewed holocausts in the name of\nthe public safety.\n\nIt is true, as a general rule of the human mind, that the objects which\nmen have worshipped have improved in morality and wisdom as men\nthemselves have improved. The quiet gods, without effort of their own,\nhave grown holier and purer by the agitations and toil which civilise\ntheir worshippers. In other words, the same influences which elevate and\nwiden our sense of human duty give corresponding height and nobleness to\nour ideas of the divine character. The history of the civilisation of\nthe earth is the history of the civilisation of Olympus also. It will be\nseen that the deity whom De Maistre sets up is below the moral level of\nthe time in respect of Punishment. In intellectual matters he vehemently\nproclaimed the superiority of the tenth or the twelfth over the\neighteenth century, but it is surely carrying admiration for those loyal\ntimes indecently far, to seek in the vindictive sackings of revolted\ntowns, and the miscellaneous butcheries of men, women, and babes, which\nthen marked the vengeance of outraged sovereignty, the most apt parallel\nand analogy for the systematic administration of human society by its\nCreator. Such punishment can no longer be regarded as moral in any deep\nor permanent sense; it implies a gross, harsh, and revengeful character\nin the executioner, that is eminently perplexing and incredible to those\nwho expect to find an idea of justice in the government of the world, at\nleast not materially below what is attained in the clumsy efforts of\nuninspired publicists.\n\nIn mere point of administration, the criminal code which De Maistre put\ninto the hands of the Supreme Being works in a more arbitrary and\ncapricious manner than any device of an Italian Bourbon. As Voltaire\nasks--\n\n    _Lisbonne, qui n'est plus, eut-elle plus de vices\n    Que Londres, que Paris, plonges dans les delices?\n    Lisbonne est abimee, et l'on danse a Paris._\n\n\nStay, De Maistre replies, look at Paris thirty years later, not dancing,\nbut red with blood. This kind of thing is often said, even now; but it\nis really time to abandon the prostitution of the name of Justice to a\nprocess which brings Lewis XVI. to the block, and consigns De Maistre to\npoverty and exile, because Lewis XIV., the Regent, and Lewis XV. had\nbeen profligate men or injudicious rulers. The reader may remember how\nthe unhappy Emperor Maurice as his five innocent sons were in turn\nmurdered before his eyes, at each stroke piously ejaculated: 'Thou art\njust, O Lord! and thy judgments are righteous.'[8] Any name would befit\nthis kind of transaction better than that which, in the dealings of men\nwith one another at least, we reserve for the honourable anxiety that he\nshould reap who has sown, that the reward should be to him who has\ntoiled for it, and the pain to him who has deliberately incurred it.\nWhat is gained by attributing to the divine government a method tainted\nwith every quality that could vitiate the enactment of penalties by a\ntemporal sovereign?\n\nWe need not labour this part of the discussion further. Though conducted\nwith much brilliance and vigour by De Maistre, it is not his most\nimportant nor remarkable contribution to thought. Before passing on to\nthat, it is worth while to make one remark. It will be inferred from De\nMaistre's general position that he was no friend to physical science.\nJust as moderns see in the advance of the methods and boundaries of\nphysical knowledge the most direct and sure means of displacing the\nunfruitful subjective methods of old, and so of renovating the entire\nfield of human thought and activity, so did De Maistre see, as his\nschool has seen since, that here was the stronghold of his foes. 'Ah,\nhow dearly,' he exclaimed, 'has man paid for the natural sciences!' Not\nbut that Providence designed that man should know something about them;\nonly it must be in due order. The ancients were not permitted to attain\nto much or even any sound knowledge of physics, indisputably above us as\nthey were in force of mind, a fact shown by the superiority of their\nlanguages which ought to silence for ever the voice of our modern pride.\nWhy did the ancients remain so ignorant of natural science? Because they\nwere not Christian. 'When all Europe was Christian, when the priests\nwere the universal teachers, when all the establishments of Europe were\nChristianised, when theology had taken its place at the head of all\ninstruction, and the other faculties were ranged around her like maids\nof honour round their queen, the human race being thus prepared, then\nthe natural sciences were given to it.' Science must be kept in its\nplace, for it resembles fire which, when confined in the grates prepared\nfor it, is the most useful and powerful of man's servants; scattered\nabout anyhow, it is the most terrible of scourges. Whence the marked\nsupremacy of the seventeenth century, especially in France? From the\nhappy accord of religion, science, and chivalry, and from the supremacy\nconceded to the first. The more perfect theology is in a country the\nmore fruitful it is in true science; and that is why Christian nations\nhave surpassed all others in the sciences, and that is why the Indians\nand Chinese will never reach us, so long as we remain respectively as we\nare. The more theology is cultivated, honoured, and supreme, then, other\nthings being equal, the more perfect will human science be: that is to\nsay, it will have the greater force and expansion, and will be the more\nfree from every mischievous and perilous connection.[9]\n\nLittle would be gained here by serious criticism of a view of this kind\nfrom a positive point. How little, the reader will understand from De\nMaistre's own explanations of his principles of Proof and Evidence.\n'They have called to witness against Moses,' he says, 'history,\nchronology, astronomy, geology, etc. The objections have disappeared\nbefore true science; but those were profoundly wise who despised them\nbefore any inquiry, or who only examined them in order to discover a\nrefutation, but without ever doubting that there was one. Even a\nmathematical objection ought to be despised, for though it may be a\ndemonstrated truth, still you will never be able to demonstrate that it\ncontradicts a truth that has been demonstrated before.' His final\nformula he boldly announced in these words: '_Que toutes les fois qu'une\nproposition sera prouvee par le genre de preuve qui lui appartient,\nl'objection quelconque,_ MEME INSOLUBLE, _ne doit plus etre ecoutee._'\nSuppose, for example, that by a consensus of testimony it were perfectly\nproved that Archimedes set fire to the fleet of Marcellus by a\nburning-glass; then all the objections of geometry disappear. Prove if\nyou can, and if you choose, that by certain laws a glass, in order to be\ncapable of setting fire to the Roman fleet, must have been as big as the\nwhole city of Syracuse, and ask me what answer I have to make to that.\n'_J'ai a vous repondre qu'Archimede brula la flotte romaine avec un\nmiroir ardent._'\n\nThe interesting thing about such opinions as these is not the exact\nheight and depth of their falseness, but the considerations which could\nrecommend them to a man of so much knowledge, both of books and of the\nouter facts of life, and of so much natural acuteness as De Maistre.\nPersons who have accustomed themselves to ascertained methods of proof,\nare apt to look on a man who vows that if a thing has been declared\ntrue by some authority whom he respects, then that constitutes proof to\nhim, as either the victim of a preposterous and barely credible\ninfatuation, or else as a flat impostor. Yet De Maistre was no ignorant\nmonk. He had no selfish or official interest in taking away the\nkeys of knowledge, entering not in himself, and them that would\nenter in hindering. The true reasons for his detestation of the\neighteenth-century philosophers, science, and literature, are simple\nenough. Like every wise man, he felt that the end of all philosophy and\nscience is emphatically social, the construction and maintenance and\nimprovement of a fabric under which the communities of men may find\nshelter, and may secure all the conditions for living their lives with\ndignity and service. Then he held that no truth can be harmful to\nsociety. If he found any system of opinions, any given attitude of the\nmind, injurious to tranquillity and the public order, he instantly\nconcluded that, however plausible they might seem when tested by logic\nand demonstration, they were fundamentally untrue and deceptive. What is\nlogic compared with eternal salvation in the next world, and the\npractice of virtue in this? The recommendation of such a mind as De\nMaistre's is the intensity of its appreciation of order and social\nhappiness. The obvious weakness of such a mind, and the curse inherent\nin its influence, is that it overlooks the prime condition of all; that\nsocial order can never be established on a durable basis so long as the\ndiscoveries of scientific truth in all its departments are suppressed,\nor incorrectly appreciated, or socially misapplied. De Maistre did not\nperceive that the cause which he supported was no longer the cause of\npeace and tranquillity and right living, but was in a state of absolute\nand final decomposition, and therefore was the cause of disorder and\nblind wrong living. Of this we shall now see more.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] _Soirees de Saint Petersbourg_ (8th ed. 1862), vol. i. pp. 238-243.\n\n[4] _Soirees de Saint Petersbourg, 6ieme entretien_, i. 397-442.\n\n[5] _Ib._ (8th ed. 1862) vol. i. p. 403.\n\n[6] _Soirees_, i. 76\n\n[7] De Maistre found a curiously characteristic kind of support for this\nview in the fact that evils are called _fleaux_: flails are things to\nbeat with: so evils must be things with which men are beaten; and as we\nshould not be beaten if we did not deserve it, _argal_, suffering is a\nmerited punishment. Apart from that common infirmity which leads people\nafter they have discovered an analogy between two things, to argue from\nthe properties of the one to those of the other, as if, instead of being\nanalogous, they were identical, De Maistre was particularly fond of\ninferring moral truths from etymologies. He has an argument for the\ndeterioration of man, drawn from the fact that the Romans expressed in\nthe same word, _supplicium_, the two ideas of prayer and punishment\n(_Soirees, 2ieme entretien_, i. p. 108). His profundity as an\netymologist may be gathered from his analysis of _cadaver_: _ca_-ro,\n_da_-ta, _ver_-mibus. There are many others of the same quality.\n\n[8] _Gibbon_, c. xlvi. vol. v. 385.\n\n[9] See the _Examen de la Philosophie de Bacon_, vol. ii. 58 _et seq._\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nWhen the waters of the deluge of '89 began to assuage, the best minds\nsoon satisfied themselves that the event which Bonaparte's restoration\nof order enabled them to look back upon with a certain tranquillity and\na certain completeness, had been neither more nor less than a new\nirruption of barbarians into the European world. The monarchy, the\nnobles, and the Church, with all the ideas that gave each of them life\nand power, had fallen before atheists and Jacobins, as the ancient\nempire of Rome had fallen before Huns and Goths, Vandals and Lombards.\nThe leaders of the revolution had succeeded one another, as Attila had\ncome after Alaric, and as Genseric had been followed by Odoacer. The\nproblem which presented itself was not new in the history of western\ncivilisation; the same dissolution of old bonds which perplexed the\nforemost men at the beginning of the nineteenth century, had distracted\ntheir predecessors from the fifth to the eighth, though their conditions\nand circumstances were widely different. The practical question in both\ncases was just the same--how to establish a stable social order which,\nresting on principles that should command the assent of all, might\nsecure the co-operation of all for its harmonious and efficient\nmaintenance, and might offer a firm basis for the highest and best life\nthat the moral and intellectual state of the time allowed. There were\ntwo courses open, or which seemed to be open, in this gigantic\nenterprise of reconstructing a society. One of them was to treat the\ncase of the eighteenth century as if it were not merely similar to, but\nexactly identical with, the case of the fifth, and as if exactly the\nsame forces which had knit Western Europe together into a compact\ncivilisation a thousand years before, would again suffice for a second\nconsolidation. Christianity, rising with the zeal and strength of youth\nout of the ruins of the Empire, and feudalism by the need of\nself-preservation imposing a form upon the unshapen associations of the\nbarbarians, had between them compacted the foundations and reared the\nfabric of mediaeval life. Why, many men asked themselves, should not\nChristian and feudal ideas repeat their great achievement, and be the\nmeans of reorganising the system which a blind rebellion against them\nhad thrown into deplorable and fatal confusion? Let the century which\nhad come to such an end be regarded as a mysteriously intercalated\nepisode, and no more, in the long drama of faith and sovereign order.\nLet it pass as a sombre and pestilent stream, whose fountains no man\nshould discover, whose waters had for a season mingled with the mightier\ncurrent of the divinely allotted destiny of the race, and had then\ngathered themselves apart and flowed off, to end as they had begun, in\nthe stagnation and barrenness of the desert. Philosophers and men of\nletters, astronomers and chemists, atheists and republicans, had shown\nthat they were only powerful to destroy, as the Goths and the Vandals\nhad been. They had shown that they were impotent, as the Goths and the\nVandals had been, in building up again. Let men turn their faces, then,\nonce more to that system by which in the ancient times Europe had been\ndelivered from a relapse into eternal night.\n\nThe second course was very different from this. The minds to whom it\ncommended itself were cast in a different mould and drew their\ninspiration from other traditions. In their view the system which the\nChurch had been the main agency in organising, had fallen quite as much\nfrom its own irremediable weakness as from the direct onslaughts of\nassailants within and without. The barbarians had rushed in, it was\ntrue, in 1793; but this time it was the Church and feudalism which were\nin the position of the old empire on whose ruins they had built. What\nhad once restored order and belief to the West, was now in its own turn\novertaken by decay and dissolution. To look to them to unite these new\nbarbarians in a stable and vigorous civilisation, because they had\norganised Europe of old, was as infatuated as it would have been to\nexpect the later emperors to equal the exploits of the Republic and\ntheir greatest predecessors in the purple. To despise philosophers and\nmen of science was only to play over again in a new dress the very part\nwhich Julian had enacted in the face of nascent Christianity. The\neighteenth century, instead of being that home of malaria which the\nCatholic and Royalist party represented, was in truth the seed-ground of\na new and better future. Its ideas were to furnish the material and the\nimplements by which should be repaired the terrible breaches and chasms\nin European order that had been made alike by despots and Jacobins, by\npriests and atheists, by aristocrats and sans-culottes. Amidst all the\ndemolition upon which its leading minds had been so zealously bent, they\nhad been animated by the warmest love of social justice, of human\nfreedom, of equal rights, and by the most fervent and sincere longing to\nmake a nobler happiness more universally attainable by all the children\nof men. It was to these great principles that we ought eagerly to turn,\nto liberty, to equality, to brotherhood, if we wished to achieve before\nthe new invaders a work of civilisation and social reconstruction, such\nas Catholicism and feudalism had achieved for the multitudinous invaders\nof old.\n\nSuch was the difference which divided opinion when men took heart to\nsurvey the appalling scene of moral desolation that the cataclysm of '93\nhad left behind. We may admire the courage of either school. For if the\nconscience of the Liberals was oppressed by the sanguinary tragedy in\nwhich freedom and brotherhood and justice had been consummated, the\nCatholic and the Royalist were just as sorely burdened with the weight\nof kingly basenesses and priestly hypocrisies. If the one had some\ndifficulty in interpreting Jacobinism and the Terror, the other was\nstill more severely pressed to interpret the fact and origin and meaning\nof the Revolution; if the Liberal had Marat and Hebert, the Royalist had\nLewis XV., and the Catholic had Dubois and De Rohan. Each school could\nintrepidly hurl back the taunts of its enemy, and neither of them did\nfull justice to the strong side of the other. Yet we who are, in England\nat all events, removed a little aside from the centre of this great\nbattle, may perceive that at that time both of the contending hosts\nfought under honourable banners, and could inscribe upon their shields a\nrational and intelligible device. Indeed, unless the modern Liberal\nadmits the strength inherent in the cause of his enemies, it is\nimpossible for him to explain to himself the duration and obstinacy of\nthe conflict, the slow advance and occasional repulse of the host in\nwhich he has enlisted, and the tardy progress that Liberalism has made\nin that stupendous reconstruction which the Revolution has forced the\nmodern political thinker to meditate upon, and the modern statesman to\nfurther and control.\n\nDe Maistre, from those general ideas as to the method of the government\nof the world, of which we have already seen something, had formed what\nhe conceived to be a perfectly satisfactory way of accounting for the\neighteenth century and its terrific climax. The will of man is left\nfree; he acts contrary to the will of God; and then God exacts the\nshedding of blood as the penalty. So much for the past. The only hope of\nthe future lay in an immediate return to the system which God himself\nhad established, and in the restoration of that spiritual power which\nhad presided over the reconstruction of Europe in darker and more\nchaotic times than even these. Though, perhaps, he nowhere expresses\nhimself on this point in a distinct formula, De Maistre was firmly\nimpressed with the idea of historic unity and continuity. He looked upon\nthe history of the West in its integrity, and was entirely free from\nanything like that disastrous kind of misconception which makes the\nEnglish Protestant treat the long period between St. Paul and Martin\nLuther as a howling waste, or which makes some Americans omit from all\naccount the still longer period of human effort from the crucifixion of\nChrist to the Declaration of Independence. The rise of the vast\nstructure of Western civilisation during and after the dissolution of\nthe Empire, presented itself to his mind as a single and uniform\nprocess, though marked in portions by temporary, casual, parenthetical\ninterruptions, due to depraved will and disordered pride. All the\ndangers to which this civilisation had been exposed in its infancy and\ngrowth were before his eyes. First, there were the heresies with which\nthe subtle and debased ingenuity of the Greeks had stained and distorted\nthe great but simple mysteries of the faith. Then came the hordes of\ninvaders from the North, sweeping with irresistible force over regions\nthat the weakness or cowardice of the wearers of the purple left\ndefenceless before them. Before the northern tribes had settled in their\npossessions, and had full time to assimilate the faith and the\ninstitutions which they had found there, the growing organisation was\nmenaced by a more deadly peril in the incessant and steady advance of\nthe bloody and fanatical tribes from the East. And in this way De\nMaistre's mind continued the picture down to the latest days of all,\nwhen there had arisen men who, denying God and mocking at Christ, were\nbent on the destruction of the very foundations of society, and had\nnothing better to offer the human race than a miserable return to a\nstate of nature.\n\nAs he thus reproduced this long drama, one benign and central figure was\never present, changeless in the midst of ceaseless change; laboriously\nbuilding up with preterhuman patience and preterhuman sagacity, when\nother powers, one after another in evil succession, were madly raging to\ndestroy and to pull down; thinking only of the great interests of order\nand civilisation, of which it had been constituted the eternal\nprotector, and showing its divine origin and inspiration alike by its\nunfailing wisdom and its unfailing benevolence. It is the Sovereign\nPontiff who thus stands forth throughout the history of Europe, as the\ngreat Demiurgus of universal civilisation. If the Pope had filled only\nsuch a position as the Patriarch held at Constantinople, or if there had\nbeen no Pope, and Christianity had depended exclusively on the East for\nits propagation, with no great spiritual organ in the West, what would\nhave become of Western development? It was the energy and resolution of\nthe Pontiffs which resisted the heresies of the East, and preserved to\nthe Christian religion that plainness and intelligibility, without which\nit would never have made a way to the rude understanding and simple\nhearts of the barbarians from the North. It was their wise patriotism\nwhich protected Italy against Greek oppression, and by acting the part\nof mayors of the palace to the decrepit Eastern emperors, it was they\nwho contrived to preserve the independence and maintain the fabric of\nsociety until the appearance of the Carlovingians, in whom, with the\nrapid instinct of true statesmen, they at once recognised the founders\nof a new empire of the West. If the Popes, again, had possessed over the\nEastern empire the same authority that they had over the Western, they\nwould have repulsed not only the Saracens, but the Turks too, and none\nof the evils which these nations have inflicted on us would ever have\ntaken place.[10] Even as it was, when the Saracens threatened the West,\nthe Popes were the chief agents in organising resistance, and giving\nspirit and animation to the defenders of Europe. Their alert vision saw\nthat to crush for ever that formidable enemy, it was not enough to\ndefend ourselves against his assaults; we must attack him at home. The\nCrusades, vulgarly treated as the wars of a blind and superstitious\npiety, were in truth wars of high policy. From the Council of Clermont\ndown to the famous day of Lepanto, the hand and spirit of the Pontiff\nwere to be traced in every part of that tremendous struggle which\nprevented Europe from being handed over to the tyranny, ignorance, and\nbarbarism that have always been the inevitable fruits of Mahometan\nconquest, and had already stamped out civilisation in Asia Minor and\nPalestine and Greece, once the very garden of the universe.\n\nThis admirable and politic heroism of the Popes in the face of foes\npressing from without, De Maistre found more than equalled by their\nwisdom, courage, and activity in organising and developing the elements\nof a civilised system within. The maxim of old societies had been that\nwhich Lucan puts into the mouth of Caesar--_humanum paucis vivit genus_.\nA vast population of slaves had been one of the inevitable social\nconditions of the period: the Popes never rested from their endeavours\nto banish servitude from among Christian nations. Women in old\nsocieties had filled a mean and degraded place: it was reserved for the\nnew spiritual power to rescue the race from that vicious circle in which\nmen had debased the nature of women, and women had given back all the\nweakness and perversity they had received from men, and to perceive that\n'the most effectual way of perfecting the man is to ennoble and exalt\nthe woman.' The organisation of the priesthood, again, was a masterpiece\nof practical wisdom. Such an order, removed from the fierce or selfish\ninterests of ordinary life by the holy regulation of celibacy, and by\nthe austere discipline of the Church, was indispensable in the midst of\nsuch a society as that which it was the function of the Church to guide.\nWho but the members of an order thus set apart, acting in strict\nsubordination to the central power, and so presenting a front of\nunbroken spiritual unity, could have held their way among tumultuous\ntribes, half-barbarous nobles, and proud and unruly kings, protesting\nagainst wrong, passionately inculcating new and higher ideas of right,\ndenouncing the darkness of the false gods, calling on all men to worship\nthe cross and adore the mysteries of the true God? Compare now the\nimpotency of the Protestant missionary, squatting in gross comfort with\nwife and babes among the savages he has come to convert, preaching a\ndisputatious doctrine, wrangling openly with the rival sent by some\nother sect--compare this impotency with the success that follows the\ndevoted sons of the Church, impressing their proselytes with the\nmysterious virtue of their continence, the self-denial of their lives,\nthe unity of their dogma and their rites; and then recognise the wisdom\nof these great churchmen who created a priesthood after this manner in\nthe days when every priest was as the missionary is now. Finally, it was\nthe occupants of the holy chair who prepared, softened, one might almost\nsay sweetened, the occupants of thrones; it was to them that Providence\nhad confided the education of the sovereigns of Europe. The Popes\nbrought up the youth of the European monarchy; they made it precisely in\nthe same way in which Fenelon made the Duke of Burgundy. In each case\nthe task consisted in eradicating from a fine character an element of\nferocity that would have ruined all. 'Everything that constrains a man\nstrengthens him. He cannot obey without perfecting himself; and by the\nmere fact of overcoming himself he is better. Any man will vanquish the\nmost violent passion at thirty, because at five or six you have taught\nhim of his own will to give up a plaything or a sweetmeat. That came to\npass to the monarchy, which happens to an individual who has been well\nbrought up. The continued efforts of the Church, directed by the\nSovereign Pontiff, did what had never been seen before, and what will\nnever be seen again where that authority is not recognised. Insensibly,\nwithout threats or laws or battles, without violence and without\nresistance, the great European charter was proclaimed, not on paper nor\nby the voice of public criers; but in all European hearts, then all\nCatholic Kings surrender the power of judging by themselves, and nations\nin return declare kings infallible and inviolable. Such is the\nfundamental law of the European monarchy, and it is the work of the\nPopes.'[11]\n\nAll this, however, is only the external development of De Maistre's\ncentral idea, the historical corroboration of a truth to which he\nconducts us in the first instance by general considerations. Assuming,\nwhat it is less and less characteristic of the present century at any\nrate to deny, that Christianity was the only actual force by which the\nregeneration of Europe could be effected after the decline of the Roman\ncivilisation, he insists that, as he again and again expresses it,\n'without the Pope there is no veritable Christianity.' What he meant by\nthis condensed form needs a little explanation, as is always the case\nwith such simple statements of the products of long and complex\nreasoning. In saying that without the Pope there is no true\nChristianity, what he considered himself as having established was, that\nunless there be some supreme and independent possessor of authority to\nsettle doctrine, to regulate discipline, to give authentic counsel, to\napply accepted principles to disputed cases, then there can be no such\nthing as a religious system which shall have power to bind the members\nof a vast and not homogeneous body in the salutary bonds of a common\ncivilisation, nor to guide and inform an universal conscience. In each\nindividual state everybody admits the absolute necessity of having some\nsovereign power which shall make, declare, and administer the laws, and\nfrom whose action in any one of these aspects there shall be no appeal;\na power that shall be strong enough to protect the rights and enforce\nthe duties which it has authoritatively proclaimed and enjoined. In free\nEngland, as in despotic Turkey, the privileges and obligations which the\nlaw tolerates or imposes, and all the benefits which their existence\nconfers on the community, are the creatures and conditions of a supreme\nauthority from which there is no appeal, whether the instrument by which\nthis authority makes its will known be an act of parliament or a ukase.\nThis conception of temporal sovereignty, especially familiarised to our\ngeneration by the teaching of Austin, was carried by De Maistre into\ndiscussions upon the limits of the Papal power with great ingenuity and\nforce, and, if we accept the premisses, with great success.\n\nIt should be said here, that throughout his book on the Pope, De Maistre\ntalks of Christianity exclusively as a statesman or a publicist would\ntalk about it; not theologically nor spiritually, but politically and\nsocially. The question with which he concerns himself is the utilisation\nof Christianity as a force to shape and organise a system of civilised\nsocieties; a study of the conditions under which this utilisation had\ntaken place in the earlier centuries of the era; and a deduction from\nthem of the conditions under which we might ensure a repetition of the\nprocess in changed modern circumstance. In the eighteenth century men\nwere accustomed to ask of Christianity, as Protestants always ask of so\nmuch of Catholicism as they have dropped, whether or no it is true. But\nafter the Revolution the question changed, and became an inquiry whether\nand how Christianity could contribute to the reconstruction of society.\nPeople asked less how true it was, than how strong it was; less how many\nunquestioned dogmas, than how much social weight it had or could\ndevelop; less as to the precise amount and form of belief that would\nsave a soul, than as to the way in which it might be expected to assist\nthe European community.\n\nIt was the strength of this temper in him which led to his extraordinary\ndetestation and contempt for the Greeks. Their turn for pure speculation\nexcited all his anger. In a curious chapter, he exhausts invective in\ndenouncing them.[12] The sarcasm of Sallust delights him, that the\nactions of Greece were very fine, _verum aliquanto minores quam fama\nferuntur_. Their military glory was only a flash of about a hundred and\nfourteen years from Marathon; compare this with the prolonged splendour\nof Rome, France, and England. In philosophy they displayed decent\ntalent, but even here their true merit is to have brought the wisdom of\nAsia into Europe, for they invented nothing. Greece was the home of\nsyllogism and of unreason. 'Read Plato: at every page you will draw a\nstriking distinction. As often as he is Greek, he wearies you. He is\nonly great, sublime, penetrating, when he is a theologian; in other\nwords, when he is announcing positive and everlasting dogmas, free from\nall quibble, and which are so clearly marked with the eastern cast, that\nnot to perceive it one must never have had a glimpse of Asia.... There\nwas in him a sophist and a theologian, or, if you choose, a Greek and a\nChaldean.' The Athenians could never pardon one of their great leaders,\nall of whom fell victims in one shape or another to a temper frivolous\nas that of a child, ferocious as that of men,--'_espece de moutons\nenrages, toujours menes par la nature, et toujours par nature devorant\nleurs bergers_.' As for their oratory, 'the tribune of Athens would have\nbeen the disgrace of mankind if Phocion and men like him, by\noccasionally ascending it before drinking the hemlock or setting out for\ntheir place of exile, had not in some sort balanced such a mass of\nloquacity, extravagance, and cruelty.'[13]\n\nIt is very important to remember this constant solicitude for ideas that\nshould work well, in connection with that book of De Maistre's which\nhas had most influence in Europe, by supplying a base for the theories\nof ultramontanism. Unless we perceive very clearly that throughout his\nardent speculations on the Papal power his mind was bent upon enforcing\nthe practical solution of a pressing social problem, we easily\nmisunderstand him and underrate what he had to say. A charge has been\nforcibly urged against him by an eminent English critic, for example,\nthat he has confounded supremacy with infallibility, than which, as the\nwriter truly says, no two ideas can be more perfectly distinct, one\nbeing superiority of force, and the other incapacity of error.[14] De\nMaistre made logical blunders in abundance quite as bad as this, but he\nwas too acute, I think, deliberately to erect so elaborate a structure\nupon a confusion so very obvious, and that must have stared him in the\nface from the first page of his work to the last. If we look upon his\nbook as a mere general defence of the Papacy, designed to investigate\nand fortify all its pretensions one by one, we should have great right\nto complain against having two claims so essentially divergent, treated\nas though they were the same thing, or could be held in their places by\nthe same supports. But let us regard the treatise on the Pope not as\nmeant to convince free-thinkers or Protestants that divine grace\ninspires every decree of the Holy Father, though that would have been\nthe right view of it if it had been written fifty years earlier. It was\ncomposed within the first twenty years of the present century, when the\nuniverse, to men of De Maistre's stamp, seemed once more without form\nand void. His object, as he tells us more than once, was to find a way\nof restoring a religion and a morality in Europe; of giving to truth the\nforces demanded for the conquests that she was meditating; of\nstrengthening the thrones of sovereigns, and of gently calming that\ngeneral fermentation of spirit which threatened mightier evils than any\nthat had yet overwhelmed society. From this point of view we shall see\nthat the distinction between supremacy and infallibility was not worth\nrecognising.\n\nPractically, he says, 'infallibility is only a consequence of supremacy,\nor rather it is absolutely the same thing under two different names....\nIn effect it is the same thing, _in practice_, not to be subject to\nerror, and not to be liable to be accused of it. Thus, even if we should\nagree that no divine promise was made to the Pope, he would not be less\ninfallible or deemed so, as the final tribunal; for every judgment from\nwhich you cannot appeal is and must be (_est et doit etre_) held for\njust in every human association, under any imaginable form of\ngovernment; and every true statesman will understand me perfectly, when\nI say that the point is to ascertain not only if the Sovereign Pontiff\nis, but if he must be, infallible.'[15] In another place he says\ndistinctly enough that the infallibility of the Church has two aspects;\nin one of them it is the object of divine promise, in the other it is a\nhuman implication, and that in the latter aspect infallibility is\nsupposed in the Church, just 'as we are absolutely bound to suppose it,\neven in temporal sovereignties (where it does not really exist), under\npain of seeing society dissolved.' The Church only demands what other\nsovereignties demand, though she has the immense superiority over them\nof having her claim backed by direct promise from heaven.[16] Take away\nthe dogma, if you will, he says, and only consider the thing\npolitically, which is exactly what he really does all through the book.\nThe pope, from this point of view, asks for no other infallibility than\nthat which is attributed to all sovereigns.[17] Without either\nvindicating or surrendering the supernatural side of the Papal claims,\nhe only insists upon the political, social, or human side of it, as an\ninseparable quality of an admitted supremacy.[18] In short, from\nbeginning to end of this speculation, from which the best kind of\nultramontanism has drawn its defence, he evinces a deprecatory\nanxiety--a very rare temper with De Maistre--not to fight on the issue\nof the dogma of infallibility over which Protestants and unbelievers\nhave won an infinite number of cheap victories; that he leaves as a\ntheme more fitted for the disputations of theologians. My position, he\nseems to keep saying, is that if the Pope is spiritually supreme, then\nhe is virtually and practically _as if he were_ infallible, just in the\nsame sense in which the English Parliament and monarch, and the Russian\nCzar, are as if they were infallible. But let us not argue so much about\nthis, which is only secondary. The main question is whether without the\nPope there can be a true Christianity, 'that is to say, a Christianity,\nactive, powerful, converting, regenerating, conquering, perfecting.'\n\nDe Maistre was probably conducted to his theory by an analogy, which he\ntacitly leaned upon more strongly than it could well bear, between\ntemporal organisation and spiritual organisation. In inchoate\ncommunities, the momentary self-interest and the promptly stirred\npassions of men would rend the growing society in pieces, unless they\nwere restrained by the strong hand of law in some shape or other,\nwritten or unwritten, and administered by an authority, either\nphysically too strong to be resisted, or else set up by the common\nconsent seeking to further the general convenience. To divide this\nauthority, so that none should know where to look for a sovereign\ndecree, nor be able to ascertain the commands of sovereign law; to\nembody it in the persons of many discordant expounders, each assuming\noracular weight and equal sanction; to leave individuals to administer\nand interpret it for themselves, and to decide among themselves its\napplication to their own cases; what would this be but a deliberate\npreparation for anarchy and dissolution? For it is one of the clear\nconditions of the efficacy of the social union, that every member of it\nshould be able to know for certain the terms on which he belongs to it,\nthe compliances which it will insist upon in him, and the compliances\nwhich it will in turn permit him to insist upon in others, and therefore\nit is indispensable that there should be some definite and admitted\ncentre where this very essential knowledge should be accessible.\n\nSome such reflections as these must have been at the bottom of De\nMaistre's great apology for the Papal supremacy, or at any rate they may\nserve to bring before our minds with greater clearness the kind of\nfoundations on which his scheme rested. For law substitute Christianity,\nfor social union spiritual union, for legal obligations the obligations\nof the faith. Instead of individuals bound together by allegiance to\ncommon political institutions, conceive communities united in the bonds\nof religious brotherhood into a sort of universal republic, under the\nmoderate supremacy of a supreme spiritual power. As a matter of fact, it\nwas the intervention of this spiritual power which restrained the\nanarchy, internal and external, of the ferocious and imperfectly\norganised sovereignties that figure in the early history of modern\nEurope. And as a matter of theory, what could be more rational and\ndefensible than such an intervention made systematic, with its\nrightfulness and disinterestedness universally recognised? Grant\nChristianity as the spiritual basis of the life and action of modern\ncommunities; supporting both the organised structure of each of them,\nand the interdependent system composed of them all; accepted by the\nindividual members of each, and by the integral bodies forming the\nwhole. But who shall declare what the Christian doctrine is, and how its\nmaxims bear upon special cases, and what oracles they announce in\nparticular sets of circumstances? Amid the turbulence of popular\npassion, in face of the crushing despotism of an insensate tyrant,\nbetween the furious hatred of jealous nations or the violent ambition of\nrival sovereigns, what likelihood would there be of either party to the\ncontention yielding tranquilly and promptly to any presentation of\nChristian teaching made by the other, or by some suspected neutral as a\ndecisive authority between them? Obviously there must be some supreme\nand indisputable interpreter, before whose final decree the tyrant\nshould quail, the flood of popular lawlessness flow back within its\naccustomed banks, and contending sovereigns or jealous nations\nfraternally embrace. Again, in those questions of faith and discipline,\nwhich the ill-exercised ingenuity of men is for ever raising and\npressing upon the attention of Christendom, it is just as obvious that\nthere must be some tribunal to pronounce an authoritative judgment.\nOtherwise, each nation is torn into sects; and amid the throng of sects\nwhere is unity? 'To maintain that a crowd of independent churches form a\nchurch, one and universal, is to maintain in other terms that all the\npolitical governments of Europe only form a single government, one and\nuniversal.' There could no more be a kingdom of France without a king,\nnor an empire of Russia without an emperor, than there could be one\nuniversal church without an acknowledged head. That this head must be\nthe successor of St. Peter, is declared alike by the voice of tradition,\nthe explicit testimony of the early writers, the repeated utterances of\nlater theologians of all schools, and that general sentiment which\npresses itself upon every conscientious reader of religious history.\n\nThe argument that the voice of the Church is to be sought in general\ncouncils is absurd. To maintain that a council has any other function\nthan to assure and certify the Pope, when he chooses to strengthen his\njudgment or to satisfy his doubts, is to destroy visible unity. Suppose\nthere to be an equal division of votes, as happened in the famous case\nof Fenelon, and might as well happen in a general council, the doubt\nwould after all be solved by the final vote of the Pope. And 'what is\ndoubtful for twenty selected men is doubtful for the whole human race.\nThose who suppose that by multiplying the deliberating voices doubt is\nlessened, must have very little knowledge of men, and can never have sat\nin a deliberative body.' Again, supposing there to present itself one of\nthose questions of divine metaphysics that it is absolutely necessary to\nrefer to the decision of the supreme tribunal. Then our interest is not\nthat it should be decided in such or such a manner, but that it should\nbe decided without delay and without appeal. Besides, the world is now\ngrown too vast for general councils, which seem to be made only for the\nyouth of Christianity. In fine, why pursue futile or mischievous\ndiscussions as to whether the Pope is above the Council or the Council\nabove the Pope? In ordinary questions in which a king is conscious of\nsufficient light, he decides them himself, while the others in which he\nis not conscious of this light, he transfers to the States-General\npresided over by himself, but he is equally sovereign in either case. So\nwith the Pope and the Council. Let us be content to know, in the words\nof Thomassin,[19] that 'the Pope in the midst of his Council is above\nhimself, and that the Council decapitated of its chief is below him.'\n\nThe point so constantly dwelt upon by Bossuet, the obligation of the\ncanons upon the Pope, was of very little worth in De Maistre's judgment,\nand he almost speaks with disrespect of the great Catholic defender for\nbeing so prolix and pertinacious in elaborating it. Here again he finds\nin Thomassin the most concise statement of what he held to be the true\nview, just as he does in the controversy as to the relative superiority\nof the Pope or the Council. 'There is only an apparent contradiction,'\nsays Thomassin, 'between saying that the Pope is above the canons, and\nthat he is bound by them; that he is master of the canons, or that he is\nnot. Those who place him above the canons or make him their master, only\npretend that he _has a dispensing power over them_; while those who deny\nthat he is above the canons or is their master, mean no more than that\n_he can only exercise a dispensing power for the convenience and in the\nnecessities of the Church_.' This is an excellent illustration of the\nthoroughly political temper in which De Maistre treats the whole\nsubject. He looks at the power of the Pope over the canons much as a\nmodern English statesman looks at the question of the coronation oath,\nand the extent to which it binds the monarch to the maintenance of the\nlaws existing at the time of its imposition. In the same spirit he\nbanishes from all account the crowd of nonsensical objections to Papal\nsupremacy, drawn from imaginary possibilities. Suppose a Pope, for\nexample, were to abolish all the canons at a single stroke; suppose him\nto become an unbeliever; suppose him to go mad; and so forth. 'Why,' De\nMaistre says, 'there is not in the whole world a single power in a\ncondition to bear all possible and arbitrary hypotheses of this sort;\nand if you judge them by what they can do, without speaking of what they\nhave done, they will have to be abolished every one.'[20] This, it may\nbe worth noticing, is one of the many passages in De Maistre's writings\nwhich, both in the solidity of their argument and the direct force of\ntheir expression, recall his great predecessor in the anti-revolutionary\ncause, the ever-illustrious Burke.\n\nThe vigour with which De Maistre sums up all these pleas for supremacy\nis very remarkable; and to the crowd of enemies and indifferents, and\nespecially to the statesmen who are among them, he appeals with\nadmirable energy. 'What do you want, then? Do you mean that the nations\nshould live without any religion, and do you not begin to perceive that\na religion there must be? And does not Christianity, not only by its\nintrinsic worth but because it is in possession, strike you as\npreferable to every other? Have you been better contented with other\nattempts in this way? Peradventure the twelve apostles might please you\nbetter than the Theophilanthropists and Martinists? Does the Sermon on\nthe Mount seem to you a passable code of morals? And if the entire\npeople were to regulate their conduct on this model, should you be\ncontent? I fancy that I hear you reply affirmatively. Well, since the\nonly object now is to maintain this religion for which you thus declare\nyour preference, how could you have, I do not say the stupidity, but the\ncruelty, to turn it into a democracy, and to place this precious deposit\nin the hands of the rabble?\n\n'You attach too much importance to the dogmatic part of this religion.\nBy what strange contradiction would you desire to agitate the universe\nfor some academic quibble, for miserable wranglings about mere words\n(these are your own terms)? Is it so then that men are led? Will you\ncall the Bishop of Quebec and the Bishop of Lucon to interpret a line of\nthe Catechism? That believers should quarrel about infallibility is what\nI know, for I see it; but that statesmen should quarrel in the same way\nabout this great privilege, is what I shall never be able to\nconceive.... That all the bishops in the world should be convoked to\ndetermine a divine truth necessary to salvation--nothing more natural,\nif such a method is indispensable; for no effort, no trouble, ought to\nbe spared for so exalted an aim. But if the only point is the\nestablishment of one opinion in the place of another, then the\ntravelling expenses of even one single Infallible are sheer waste. If\nyou want to spare the two most valuable things on earth, time and money,\nmake all haste to write to Rome, in order to procure thence a lawful\ndecision which shall declare the unlawful doubt. Nothing more is needed;\npolicy asks no more.'[21]\n\nDefinitely, then, the influence of the Popes restored to their ancient\nsupremacy would be exercised in the renewal and consolidation of social\norder resting on the Christian faith, somewhat after this manner. The\nanarchic dogma of the sovereignty of peoples, having failed to do\nanything beyond showing that the greatest evils resulting from obedience\ndo not equal the thousandth part of those which result from rebellion,\nwould be superseded by the practice of appeals to the authority of the\nHoly See. Do not suppose that the Revolution is at an end, or that the\ncolumn is replaced because it is raised up from the ground. A man must\nbe blind not to see that all the sovereignties in Europe are growing\nweak; on all sides confidence and affection are deserting them; sects\nand the spirit of individualism are multiplying themselves in an\nappalling manner. There are only two alternatives: you must either\npurify the will of men, or else you must enchain it; the monarch who\nwill not do the first, must enslave his subjects or perish; servitude or\nspiritual unity is the only choice open to nations. On the one hand is\nthe gross and unrestrained tyranny of what in modern phrase is styled\nImperialism, and on the other a wise and benevolent modification of\ntemporal sovereignty in the interests of all by an established and\naccepted spiritual power. No middle path lies before the people of\nEurope. Temporal absolutism we must have. The only question is whether\nor no it shall be modified by the wise, disinterested, and moderating\ncounsels of the Church, as given by her consecrated chief.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere can be very little doubt that the effective way in which De\nMaistre propounded and vindicated this theory made a deep impression on\nthe mind of Comte. Very early in his career this eminent man had\ndeclared: 'De Maistre has for me the peculiar property of helping me to\nestimate the philosophic capacity of people, by the repute in which they\nhold him.' Among his other reasons at that time for thinking well of M.\nGuizot was that, notwithstanding his transcendent Protestantism, he\ncomplied with the test of appreciating De Maistre.[22] Comte's rapidly\nassimilative intelligence perceived that here at last there was a\ndefinite, consistent, and intelligible scheme for the reorganisation of\nEuropean society, with him the great end of philosophic endeavour. Its\nprinciple of the division of the spiritual and temporal powers, and of\nthe relation that ought to subsist between the two, was the base of\nComte's own scheme.\n\nIn general form the plans of social reconstruction are identical; in\nsubstance, it need scarcely be said, the differences are fundamental.\nThe temporal power, according to Comte's design, is to reside with\nindustrial chiefs, and the spiritual power to rest upon a doctrine\nscientifically established. De Maistre, on the other hand, believed that\nthe old authority of kings and Christian pontiffs was divine, and any\nattempt to supersede it in either case would have seemed to him as\ndesperate as it seemed impious. In his strange speculation on _Le\nPrincipe Generateur des Constitutions Politiques_, he contends that all\nlaws in the true sense of the word (which by the way happens to be\ndecidedly an arbitrary and exclusive sense) are of supernatural origin,\nand that the only persons whom we have any right to call legislators,\nare those half-divine men who appear mysteriously in the early history\nof nations, and counterparts to whom we never meet in later days.\nElsewhere he maintains to the same effect, that royal families in the\ntrue sense of the word 'are growths of nature, and differ from others,\nas a tree differs from a shrub.'\n\nPeople suppose a family to be royal because it reigns; on the contrary,\nit reigns because it is royal, because it has more life, _plus d'esprit\nroyal_--surely as mysterious and occult a force as the _virtus\ndormitiva_ of opium. The common life of man is about thirty years; the\naverage duration of the reigns of European sovereigns, being Christian,\nis at the very lowest calculation twenty. How is it possible that 'lives\nshould be only thirty years, and reigns from twenty-two to twenty-five,\nif princes had not more common life than other men?' Mark again, the\ninfluence of religion in the duration of sovereignties. All the\nChristian reigns are longer than all the non-Christian reigns, ancient\nand modern, and Catholic reigns have been longer than Protestant reigns.\nThe reigns in England, which averaged more than twenty-three years\nbefore the Reformation, have only been seventeen years since that, and\nthose of Sweden, which were twenty-two, have fallen to the same figure\nof seventeen. Denmark, however, for some unknown cause does not appear\nto have undergone this law of abbreviation; so, says De Maistre with\nrather unwonted restraint, let us abstain from generalising. As a matter\nof fact, however, the generalisation was complete in his own mind, and\nthere was nothing inconsistent with his view of the government of the\nuniverse in the fact that a Catholic prince should live longer than a\nProtestant; indeed such a fact was the natural condition of his view\nbeing true. Many differences among the people who hold to the\ntheological interpretation of the circumstances of life arise from the\ndifferent degrees of activity which they variously attribute to the\nintervention of God, from those who explain the fall of a sparrow to the\nground by a special and direct energy of the divine will, up to those\nat the opposite end of the scale, who think that direct participation\nended when the universe was once fairly launched. De Maistre was of\nthose who see the divine hand on every side and at all times. If, then,\nProtestantism was a pernicious rebellion against the faith which God had\nprovided for the comfort and salvation of men, why should not God be\nlikely to visit princes, as offenders with the least excuse for their\nbackslidings, with the curse of shortness of days?\n\nIn a trenchant passage De Maistre has expounded the Protestant\nconfession of faith, and shown what astounding gaps it leaves as an\ninterpretation of the dealings of God with man. 'By virtue of a terrible\nanathema,' he supposes the Protestant to say, 'inexplicable no doubt,\nbut much less inexplicable than incontestable, the human race lost all\nits rights. Plunged in mortal darkness, it was ignorant of all, since it\nwas ignorant of God; and, being ignorant of him, it could not pray to\nhim, so that it was spiritually dead without being able to ask for life.\nArrived by rapid degradation at the last stage of debasement, it\noutraged nature by its manners, its laws, even by its religions. It\nconsecrated all vices, it wallowed in filth, and its depravation was\nsuch that the history of those times forms a dangerous picture, which it\nis not good for all men so much as to look upon. God, however, _having\ndissembled for forty centuries_, bethought him of his creation. At the\nappointed moment announced from all time, he did not despise a virgin's\nwomb; he clothed himself in our unhappy nature, and appeared on the\nearth; we saw him, we touched him, he spoke to us; he lived, he taught,\nhe suffered, he died for us. He arose from his tomb according to his\npromise; he appeared again among us, solemnly to assure to his Church a\nsuccour that would last as long as the world.\n\n'But, alas, this effort of almighty benevolence was a long way from\nsecuring all the success that had been foretold. For lack of knowledge,\nor of strength, or by distraction maybe, God missed his aim, and could\nnot keep his word. Less sage than a chemist who should undertake to shut\nup ether in canvas or paper, he only confided to men the truth that he\nhad brought upon the earth; it escaped, then, as one might have\nforeseen, by all human pores; soon, this holy religion revealed to man\nby the Man-God, became no more than an infamous idolatry, which would\nremain to this very moment if Christianity after sixteen centuries had\nnot been suddenly brought back to its original purity by a couple of\nsorry creatures.'[23]\n\nPerhaps it would be easier than he supposed to present his own system in\nan equally irrational aspect. If you measure the proceedings of\nomnipotence by the uses to which a wise and benevolent man would put\nsuch superhuman power, if we can imagine a man of this kind endowed with\nit, De Maistre's theory of the extent to which a supreme being\ninterferes in human things, is after all only a degree less ridiculous\nand illogical, less inadequate and abundantly assailable, than that\nProtestantism which he so heartily despised. Would it be difficult,\nafter borrowing the account, which we have just read, of the tremendous\nefforts made by a benign creator to shed moral and spiritual light upon\nthe world, to perplex the Catholic as bitterly as the Protestant, by\nconfronting him both with the comparatively scanty results of those\nefforts, and with the too visible tendencies of all the foremost\nagencies in modern civilisation to leave them out of account as forces\npractically spent?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDe Maistre has been surpassed by no thinker that we know of as a\ndefender of the old order. If anybody could rationalise the idea of\nsupernatural intervention in human affairs, the idea of a Papal\nsupremacy, the idea of a spiritual unity, De Maistre's acuteness and\nintellectual vigour, and, above all, his keen sense of the urgent social\nneed of such a thing being done, would assuredly have enabled him to do\nit. In 1817, when he wrote the work in which this task is attempted, the\nhopelessness of such an achievement was less obvious than it is now. The\nBourbons had been restored. The Revolution lay in a deep slumber that\nmany persons excusably took for the quiescence of extinction. Legitimacy\nand the spiritual system that was its ally in the face of the\nRevolution, though mostly its rival or foe when they were left alone\ntogether, seemed to be restored to the fulness of their power. Fifty\nyears have elapsed since then, and each year has seen a progressive\ndecay in the principles which then were triumphant. It was not,\ntherefore, without reason that De Maistre warned people against\nbelieving '_que la colonne est replacee, parcequ'elle est relevee_.' The\nsolution which he so elaborately recommended to Europe has shown itself\ndesperate and impossible. Catholicism may long remain a vital creed to\nmillions of men, a deep source of spiritual consolation and refreshment,\nand a bright lamp in perplexities of conduct and morals; but resting on\ndogmas which cannot by any amount of compromise be incorporated with the\ndaily increasing mass of knowledge, assuming as the condition of its\nexistence forms of the theological hypothesis which all the\npreponderating influences of contemporary thought concur directly or\nindirectly in discrediting, upheld by an organisation which its history\nfor the last five centuries has exposed to the distrust and hatred of\nmen as the sworn enemy of mental freedom and growth, the pretensions of\nCatholicism to renovate society are among the most pitiable and impotent\nthat ever devout, high-minded, and benevolent persons deluded themselves\ninto maintaining or accepting. Over the modern invader it is as\npowerless as paganism was over the invaders of old. The barbarians of\nindustrialism, grasping chiefs and mutinous men, give no ear to priest\nor pontiff, who speak only dead words, who confront modern issues with\nblind eyes, and who stretch out a palsied hand to help. Christianity,\naccording to a well-known saying, has been tried and failed; the\nreligion of Christ remains to be tried. One would prefer to qualify the\nfirst clause, by admitting how much Christianity has done for Europe\neven with its old organisation, and to restrict the charge of failure\nwithin the limits of the modern time. To-day its failure is too patent.\nWhether in changed forms and with new supplements the teaching of its\nfounder is destined to be the chief inspirer of that social and human\nsentiment which seems to be the only spiritual bond capable of uniting\nmen together again in a common and effective faith, is a question which\nit is unnecessary to discuss here. '_They talk about the first centuries\nof Christianity_,' said De Maistre, '_I would not be sure that they are\nover yet_.' Perhaps not; only if the first centuries are not yet over,\nit is certain that the Christianity of the future will have to be so\ndifferent from the Christianity of the past, as to demand or deserve\nanother name.\n\nEven if Christianity, itself renewed, could successfully encounter the\nachievement of renewing society, De Maistre's ideal of a spiritual power\ncontrolling the temporal power, and conciliating peoples with their\nrulers by persuasion and a coercion only moral, appears to have little\nchance of being realised. The separation of the two powers is sealed,\nwith a completeness that is increasingly visible. The principles on\nwhich the process of the emancipation of politics is being so rapidly\ncarried on, demonstrate that the most marked tendencies of modern\ncivilisation are strongly hostile to a renewal in any imaginable shape,\nor at any future time, of a connection whether of virtual subordination\nor nominal equality, which has laid such enormous burdens on the\nconsciences and understandings of men. If the Church has the uppermost\nhand, except in primitive times, it destroys freedom; if the State is\nsupreme, it destroys spirituality. The free Church in the free State is\nan idea that every day more fully recommends itself to the public\nopinion of Europe, and the sovereignty of the Pope, like that of all\nother spiritual potentates, can only be exercised over those who choose\nof their own accord to submit to it; a sovereignty of a kind which De\nMaistre thought not much above anarchy.\n\nTo conclude, De Maistre's mind was of the highest type of those who fill\nthe air with the arbitrary assumptions of theology, and the abstractions\nof the metaphysical stage of thought. At every point you meet the\nperemptorily declared volition of a divine being, or the ontological\nproperty of a natural object. The French Revolution is explained by the\nwill of God; and the kings reign because they have the _esprit royal_.\nEvery truth is absolute, not relative; every explanation is universal,\nnot historic. These differences in method and point of view amply\nexplain his arrival at conclusions that seem so monstrous to men who\nlook upon all knowledge as relative, and insist that the only possible\nroad to true opinion lies away from volitions and abstractions in the\npositive generalisations of experience. There can be no more\nsatisfactory proof of the rapidity with which we are leaving these\nancient methods, and the social results which they produced, than the\nwillingness with which every rightly instructed mind now admits how\nindispensable were the first, and how beneficial the second. Those can\nbest appreciate De Maistre and his school, what excellence lay in their\naspirations, what wisdom in their system, who know most clearly why\ntheir aspirations were hopeless, and what makes their system an\nanachronism.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[10] De Maistre forgot or underestimated the services of Leo the\nIsaurian whose repulse of the Caliph's forces at Constantinople (A.D.\n717) was perhaps as important for Europe as the more renowned victory of\nCharles Martel. But then Leo was an Iconoclast and heretic. Cf. Finlay's\n_Byzantine Empire_, pp. 22, 23.\n\n[11] _Du Pape_, bk. iii. c. iv. p. 298 (ed. 1866).\n\n[12] _Du Pape_, bk. iv. c. vii.\n\n[13] A remark of Mr. Finlay's is worth quoting here. 'The Greeks,' he\nsays, 'had at times only a secondary share in the ecclesiastical\ncontroversies in the Eastern Church, though the circumstance of these\ncontroversies having been carried on in the Greek language has made the\nnatives of Western Europe attribute them to a philosophic, speculative,\nand polemic spirit, inherent in the Hellenic mind. A very slight\nexamination of history is sufficient to prove that several of the\nheresies which disturbed the Eastern Church had their origin in the more\nprofound religious ideas of the oriental nations, and that many of the\nopinions called heretical were in a great measure expressions of the\nmental nationality of the Syrians, Armenians, Egyptians, and Persians,\nand had no conception whatever with the Greek mind.'--_Byzantine Empire,\nfrom 716 to 1057_, p. 262.\n\nThe same writer (p. 263) remarks very truly, that 'the religious or\ntheological portion of Popery, as a section of the Christian Church, is\nreally Greek; and it is only the ecclesiastical, political, and\ntheoretic peculiarities of the fabric which can be considered as the\nwork of the Latin Church.'\n\n[14] Sir J. Fitzjames Stephen in the _Saturday Review_, Sept. 9, 1865,\np. 334.\n\n[15] _Du Pape_, bk. i. c. i. p. 17.\n\n[16] _Ib._ bk. i. c. xix. pp. 124, 125.\n\n[17] _Ib._ bk. i. c. xvi. p. 111.\n\n[18] '_Il n'y a point de souverainete qui pour le bonheur des hommes, et\npour le sien surtout, ne soit bornee de quelque maniere, mais dans\nl'interieur de ces bornes, placees comme il plait a Dieu, elle est\ntoujours et partout absolue et tenue pour infaillible. Et quand je parle\nde l'exercice legitime de la souverainete, je n'entends point ou je ne\ndis point l'exercice_ juste, _ce qui produirait une amphibologie\ndangereuse, a moins que par ce dernier mot on ne veuille dire que tout\nce qu'elle opine dans son cercle est_ juste ou tenu pour tel, _ce qui\nest la verite. C'est ainsi qu'un tribunal supreme, tant qu'il ne sort\npas de ses attributions, est toujours juste_; car c'est la meme chose\nDANS LA PRATIQUE, d'etre infaillible, ou de se tromper sans appel.'--Bk.\nii. c. xi. p. 212 (footnote).\n\n[19] Thomassin, the eminent French theologian, flourished from the\nmiddle to the end of the seventeenth century. The aim of his writings\ngenerally was to reconcile conflicting opinions on discipline or\ndoctrine by exhibiting a true sense in all. In this spirit he wrote on\nthe Pope and the Councils, and on the never-ending question of Grace.\nAmong other things, he insisted that all languages could be traced to\nthe Hebrew. He wrote a defence of the edict in which Lewis XIV. revoked\nthe Edict of Nantes, contending that it was less harsh than some of the\ndecrees of Theodosius and Justinian, which the holiest fathers of the\nChurch had not scrupled to approve--an argument which would now be\nthought somewhat too dangerous for common use, as cutting both ways.\nGibbon made use of his _Discipline de l'Eglise_ in the twentieth\nchapter, and elsewhere.\n\n[20] _Du Pape_, bk. i. c. xviii. p. 122.\n\n[21] Bk. i. c. xvii. p. 117.\n\n[22] Littre, _Auguste Comte et la Phil. Posit._ p. 152.\n\n[23] _Du Pape_, Conclusion, p. 380.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEND OF VOL. II.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Printed by_ R. & R. Clark, Limited, _Edinburgh_.\n\n\nTranscribers' Notes:\n\nMinor printer errors (omitted quotation marks) have been amended without\nnote. Other errors have been amended and are listed below.\n\nOE/oe ligatures have not been retained in this version.\n\nList of Amendments:\n\nPage 305: lights amended to rights; \"... freedom, of equal rights, and\nby ...\"\n\nPage 329: impressisn amended to impression; \"... theory made a deep\nimpression on the mind ...\"","title":"Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":21837}