Sifting through source materials in my quest to find meaning and cohesion in someone’s long-forgotten life is one of my favorite pursuits.  I have traveled thousands of miles to sit in the quiet rooms of faraway libraries and archives, poring through antiquated books or binders filled with thick parchment pages.  But there is nothing like the immediate thrill of coming upon a thoughtfully articulated statement that reflects the wisdom of our forebears, while casting light on a way forward in addressing today’s challenges.  

Recently I learned about Joseph Marie, comte de Maistre (1753-1821), a philosopher and diplomat born in the Duchy of Savoy.  He was a prominent thinker, who challenged many tenets of the European Enlightenment and, along with Anglo-Irish statesman and political philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797), is acknowledged as one of the founders of conservatism.  M. comte de Maistre was impressed by Reflections on the Revolution in France, a treatise that Mr. Burke wrote in 1790, the year following the storming of the Bastille.  Mr. Burke had foreseen the horrific consequences that would stem from tearing apart the traditions of civility and the foundations of the French nation, amid the impassioned cries for liberté! Three years after the publication of Reflections, Louis XVI was beheaded, and in September of 1793, the Reign of Terror filled the streets of Paris with the blood of slain martyrs. 

Although Mr. Burke was a fierce defender of liberty and had supported the American colonists in the War for Independence, he was disturbed by what he was seeing across the English Channel in the early weeks of the French Revolution.  He offered a clear explanation for his hesitance to support the cause of liberté, by laying out the context of how the French people and their new government were dealing with this tectonic shift.  In Reflections, he states:

“I must be tolerably sure, before I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one.… I should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government; with public force; with the discipline and obedience of armies; with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue; with morality and religion; with the solidity of property; with peace and order; with civil and social manners.… The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please….  [L]iberty, when men act in bodies, is power.”

He goes on to identify the crux of the disfunction within the French Republic, that would ultimately lead to chaos and mass murder:

“You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had every thing to begin anew.  You began ill, because you began by despising every thing that belonged to you.”

Mr. Burke’s observations convey a sharp lesson that much of Europe, Canada, and the USA would do well to heed.  In the 21st century, the entire world has a lot to lose, as too many corporate and ruling elites and their minions arrogantly dismantle the pillars of Western culture and civilization, while disrespecting the rising voices of the distraught citizens who are sounding the alarm.  Most troubling is the disregard for truth, as the heavy hands of governments, bureaucracies, and institutions abuse their power and erode the freedoms granted to us all by our Creator.  

In 1797, M. compte de Maistre wrote Considérations sur la France [Considerations on France].  His views overlap with those of Mr. Burke, but there is also considerable divergence.  Both men make the case that natural law, i.e., the notion that morality is derived from reason and nature, was displacing the prominence of the belief in Divine law. The toppling of the monarchy in France and the assault on the clergy was a direct result of favoring rationality over faith in God.  With the destruction of the underpinnings of national cohesion, violence was inevitable.  

In writing the Declaration of Independence, ratified on July 4, 1776, America’s Founders began by pointing to Nature’s God as the source of Natural Law.  In paragraph two, the Declaration goes on to state: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  This is the fundamental truth and moral clarity that had compelled Edmund Burke to oppose his King and support the American Colonies in their fight for independence.

Joseph de Maistre’s views on the catastrophe in France are similar to Burke’s, but in Considerations on France, his analysis is more starkly tied to religion and spirituality:

“Let us first of all raise ourselves to a level that befits an intelligent being, and from this elevated point of view, consider the origins of this government.

“Evil has nothing in common with life; it cannot create, since its power is purely negative.  Evil is the schism of being; it is not true.

“Now what distinguishes the French Revolution and makes it an event unique in history is that it is radically bad.  No element of good disturbs the eye of the observer; it is the highest degree of corruption ever known; it is pure impurity.”

“Elevons-nous d’abord à la hauteur qui convient à l’être intelligent, et de ce point de vue élevé, considérons la source de ce gouvernement.

“Le mal n’a rien de commun avec l’existence; il ne peut créer, puisque sa force est purement négative: Le mal est le schisme de l’être; il n’est pas vrai.

“Or, ce qui distingue la révolution française, et ce qui en fait un événement unique dans l’histoire, c’est qu’elle est mauvaise radicalement; aucun élément de bien n’y soulage l’œil de l’observateur: c’est le plus haut degré de corruption connu; c’est la pure impureté.”

The dynamics of the French Revolution fascinate me, but my knowledge of it is neither broad nor deep.  Most of what I know, I learned as I read up on it for my latest (and as yet unpublished) novel.  A couple chapters of my book detail the impact of the fall of the French monarchy on the main character, a British soldier. 

As for Joseph de Maistre, I don’t exactly remember how he popped onto my radar in recent weeks.  Maybe my friend in Tennessee cited one of his quotes in the daily inspirational email that he sends to me. In any case, the name “Joseph de Maistre” resonated, thanks to a trip I took to Paris six years ago.

It was after dark, when I arrived at my hotel in Montmartre in January of 2019 (see Memories and Montmartre).  Since I had never been to France before, and my knowledge of the language is rudimentary, I wasn’t up for doing any nighttime exploring.  There was a tavern across the street from the hotel that looked inviting, so I went there for dinner.  The simple meal I had was absolute perfection.  It’s not for nothing that France is revered for setting lofty epicurean standards.

I had deliberately chosen to stay at a hotel on rue Lepic, because it was so close to the Cimetière de Montmartre, which I planned to visit during my brief time in Paris.  As soon as I set out the next morning, I stopped at the café on the corner, where I had an amazing breakfast, then I walked a short distance to rue de Joseph de Maistre.  (I regret now that I didn’t take a photograph of it!)  When I reached the end of the block, I was at the cemetery.  Well, to be more accurate, I was at a wide boulevard.  It took me a minute to figure out that I had to cross over the street on le pont Caulaincourt, a steel pedestrian bridge.  Once I did that, the Fates were kind, and it didn’t take long to find the cemetery entrance.

Many of the details of that first visit to France have faded, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the name Joseph de Maistre.  In addition to being an author and a philosopher, he was a lawyer, a politician, and the Sardinian ambassador to Russia.  M. comte de Maistre was born 272 years ago, on April 1, 1753, in Chambéry, Duchy of Savoy, Kingdom of Sardinia.  His book,  Les soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg [St. Petersburg Dialogues], was published not long after his death on February 26, 1821.  I’ll leave you with a quote from it:

“L’essence de toute intelligence est de connaître et d’aimer.”

“The essence of all intelligence is to know and to love.”