Part 9

His first book, written in 1796, already shows the character of the reaction to which he gives expression, and which he endows with stubborn consistency. While the Revolution is still proceeding, but at the moment when the counter-revolution is beginning to make its influence felt, he eagerly vindicates the two powers which the century had repudiated--belief in the supernatural and fidelity to political tradition.

Maintaining that every nation, like every individual, has its mission to fulfil, he declares that France has guiltily abused the position of authority given to her in Europe. She stood at the head of the religious system, and not without reason were her kings called "the most Christian." As she has used her power to act in direct contradiction to her mission, it can surprise no one that she is being brought back to the right path by terrible chastisements. The French Revolution is marked by _Satanic_ traits, which distinguish it from anything ever seen before and possibly from anything that will ever be seen again. Its so-called legislators have issued such a proclamation as this: "The nation supports no religion," words which would almost seem to indicate hatred of the Divine Being.

Even Rousseau, though he was "the most mistaken of men," perceived that it was only a narrow-minded and arrogant philosophy which could suppose the founders of such religions as the Jewish and the Mahometan to be nothing but lucky impostors. Philosophy is a disintegrating, religion alone an organising power. But no religion in the world can be compared with Christianity. It alone, although it is founded upon supernatural facts and is a revelation of incomprehensible dogmas, has been believed for eighteen centuries and been defended by the greatest men of all ages, from Origen to Pascal. Now it has been dethroned and its altars have been overturned. Philosophy reigns triumphant. But if Christianity issues from this ordeal purer and stronger than ever--then, Frenchmen, make way for the most Christian king, place him on his ancient throne, lift high his flaming banner (_oriflamme_), and proclaim that Christ commands, guides, and conquers!

There is no government but theocracy (priestly rule), and every constitution comes from God. A constitution is never the result of a contract, and the laws which rule the nations are never written laws, for those constitutions which are written are never anything but proclamations of older laws, of which all that can be said is that they exist because they exist. The constitution of 1795 is, like earlier revolutionary constitutions, made for _man_. But there is not such a thing as _man_: "In the course of my life I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, &c.; I know, too, thanks to Montesquieu, that there are Persians; but _man_ I have never met; if he exists, it is contrary to my knowledge." No; when the population, the customs, the religion, the geographical position, the existing political conditions, the good and bad qualities of a nation are known, then a constitution is the solution to the problem of finding the laws suitable for that particular nation.

De Maistre traces the probable course of the counter-revolution. He sagaciously demonstrates the unreasonableness of the supposition that it can only be the outcome of the will of the people. Very possibly a minority of four or five persons, he says, will give France a king. Letters from Paris will announce to the provinces that the country has a king, and the provinces will shout: _Vive le roi!_ With his obstinate faith in providence he foretells the restoration (even in its details) at a time when all hopes of such an event seemed indeed to be built upon sand, and in process of so doing exhibits a fascinating combination of excessive enthusiasm for the pre-revolutionary conditions with a practical political sagacity which avoids any overstraining of principle that would make the restoration of these conditions impossible. On the delicate question, whether or not the restoration of the monarchy will entail the return of the national property to its original owners, he expresses himself with a caution which is strikingly at variance with the generally confident, defiant tone of the book. He explains that a revolutionary government is, by its very nature, an unsteady government. Under it nothing is certain. As the ownership of national property is not yet, in the opinion of the general public, free from the reproach originally attaching to it, a government which considered itself in no way debarred from undoing what it had done would in all probability lay hands on this property as soon as it could. "But under a steady, permanent government everything is permanent, so that even for the acquirers of national property it is important that the monarchy should be restored; they will then know what they have to rely upon." In other words, he has at least so much regard for actual circumstances as to acknowledge that it will not be possible to reign after the Revolution in exactly the same manner as before it.

His fundamental political doctrine is that the state is an organism, that as an organism it possesses real unity, and lives its life by virtue of a far-off past, from which it refreshes itself as from a perennial source, and by virtue of an inward, secret fountain of life. It is not the outcome of discussion and arrangement, but of an unfathomable mystery. Hence a written constitution signifies nothing. It is the soul of the nation which gives the nation unity and permanence, and this soul is the love of the nation for itself and its national memories. France is not thirty millions of human beings living between the Pyrenees and the Rhine, but a thousand millions who have lived there. Our country is nought else but the unity of those who live, those who have lived, and those who will live in the days to come on the same fragment of the earth's surface. The fact that one family is the symbol of the continued existence of this nation leads De Maistre to monarchy.

Sovereignty cannot be divided. Therefore the king does not share his power with the great of the land. These latter have no privileges, but they have duties. They form the king's council; they are guardians of the national unity, inasmuch as they unite the people to the throne, and guardians of the national continuity, inasmuch as they are the sustainers of tradition. It is their duty perpetually to proclaim to the people the benefit of authority, and to the king the benefits of liberty. The law is, as law, the same for all, therefore destitute of the pliability which is a necessity if freedom is to be granted and ensured. An enlightened autocracy secures liberty.

When Bonaparte appears and quickly develops into Napoleon, Joseph de Maistre is, naturally, his implacable enemy. Nevertheless, he recognises the autocrat in him. He feels that the unity of the French nation is embodied in him, and this though he regards him as the _demonium meridianum_ (see _Correspondance diplomatique_, ii. 65). In July 1807 he writes: "In those newspapers which are his organs Bonaparte causes himself to be called the messenger of God. Nothing could be truer. Bonaparte comes straight from heaven ... as lightning does." In other words, De Maistre saw in the calamities which Napoleon brought upon Europe, as in all "heaven-sent" calamities, judgments, the justice of which did not diminish the guilt of those who executed them. In 1808, out of love for his country, he did violence to his own inclinations by endeavouring to obtain an audience of Napoleon for the purpose of pleading the cause of Sardinia. He took this step not in his capacity of minister, but privately and on his own responsibility. Napoleon, though he did not answer De Maistre's letter (written from St. Petersburg), was evidently impressed by the quality of the man; he ordered the French ambassador at the Russian court to show him favour, and did not take his audacity at all amiss. De Maistre's own court, however, did. It was intimated to him that the Cabinet, to which he had sent immediate notice of the measure taken, had been disagreeably surprised by it. He replies proudly and satirically: "The Cabinet has been surprised! The skies may fall--that is a matter of no consequence--but heaven preserve us from an unexpected idea! I am now more than ever persuaded that I am not the man you want. I can promise you to transact His Majesty's affairs as well as any man, but I cannot promise never to surprise you. That is a weakness in my character which I am incapable of curing." He proved the truth of what he himself somewhere says, that trusting to the constancy of court favour is "like lying down on the wing of a windmill to sleep soundly." When vindicating himself he writes: "I know everything that can be said against Bonaparte; he is a _usurper_, he is a _murderer_; but note well that he is less of a usurper than William of Orange and less of a murderer than Elizabeth of England. ... As yet we are not stronger than God, and we must come to terms with him to whom it has pleased God to entrust the power" (_Lettres et opuscules_, i. 114.)

Joseph de Maistre spent fourteen years of his life as envoy at St. Petersburg. The long separation from the female members of his family was very painful to him, and the cares of a father often weighed heavily on his mind. It is touching to read in one of his letters that when he was lying awake at night, over-tired with work, he often imagined that he heard his youngest little daughter, whom he did not know, crying in Turin.

As a proof of his favour and esteem for De Maistre, the Czar gave commissions in the Russian army to his brother and son. The brother was wounded during the campaign in the Caucasus. The son fought in the war against Napoleon. "No one," writes the father, "knows what war is unless he has a son fighting. I do what I can to banish the thoughts of hewn-off arms and smashed skulls that constantly torment me; then I sup like a youth, sleep like a child, and awake like a man, that is to say, early."

The great panegyrist of the executioner and the _auto da fé_ had in private life a very tender heart. His private utterances often convey the impression of kindliness, as his public do of whimsical wit.

He perhaps shows most amiably in his letters to his daughter: "You ask me, dear child, why it is that women are condemned to mediocrity. They are not. They may become great, but it must be in a feminine way. Every creature ought to keep to its own place and not strive after advantages other than those which properly belong to it. I have a dog called Biribi, who is a great amusement to us all; if he were to take it into his head to have himself saddled and bridled to carry me out into the country, I should be as little pleased with him as with your brother's English mare if she were to take it into her head to jump on my knee or to sit down at the breakfast-table with me. The mistakes some women make come from their imagining that in order to rise above the common level they must act like men.... If twenty years ago a pretty woman had asked me: 'Do you not believe that a woman is just as capable of being a great general as a man?' I should have answered: 'Most undoubtedly I do, Madam. If you commanded an army, the enemy would fall on their knees to you as I do now, and you would enter their capital with drums beating and banners flying.' If she had said to me: 'What is there to prevent my knowing as much of astronomy as Newton?' I should have replied with equal sincerity: 'Nothing whatever, O peerless beauty! You have but to look through the telescope, and the stars will consider it an honour to be gazed at by your beautiful eyes, and will hasten to discover all their mysteries to you.' These are the things we say to women, both in prose and verse; but the woman who takes such speeches seriously is uncommonly stupid." After declaring that woman's mission is to bear and to bring up men, he adds: "But, dear child, I am for moderation in everything. I believe, speaking generally, that women ought not to aim at acquirements which are at variance with their duties, but I am far from thinking that they ought to be perfectly ignorant. I do not wish them to believe that Pekin is in France, or that Alexander the Great proposed marriage to a daughter of Louis XIV." And in a following letter he writes: "I see that you are angry with me for my impertinent attack on learned women. It is absolutely necessary that we should make friends again before Easter. The fact that you have misunderstood me ought to make the process easy. I never said that women were monkeys; I swear to you by all that is most holy that I have always thought them incomparably more beautiful, more amiable, and more useful; but I did say, and this I abide by, that the women who want to be men are monkeys; for wanting to be learned is wanting to be a man. I think that the Holy Spirit has shown His wisdom in arranging things as they are, sad as it may seem. I make my humble obeisance to the young lady you tell me of, who is writing an epic poem, but heaven preserve me from becoming her husband; I should live in terror of seeing her delivered in my house of a tragedy, or possibly even of a farce--for when talent has once set off, there is no knowing where it will stop."

"The best and most convincing observation in your letter is that upon the raw material employed in the creation of man. Strictly speaking, it is only man who is made of dust and ashes, or, not to mince matters, of dirt, whereas woman was made of a mire that had already been prepared and elevated to the dignity of a rib. _Corpo di Bacco! questo vuol dir molto_. You cannot say too much, my dear child, as far as I am concerned, about the nobility of women, even those of the bourgeois class; to a man there should be nothing more excellent than a woman, just as to a woman, &c, &c.... But it is precisely because of the exalted opinion I have of these noble ribs that I become seriously angry when I see any of them desiring to transform themselves into original mire. And now it seems to me that the question is completely disposed of." (_Lettres et opuscules_, i. 145, 156).

It surprises us to find the strictly orthodox Catholic jesting thus lightly with Bible legend; but even in his witty and sportive moods De Maistre is faithful to his reactionary principles. It is one of his characteristics that a certain piquant wit goes hand in hand with the violent, dæmonic energy of his attack, an energy which reveals itself even in the little fact that his favourite expression is _à brûle-pourpoint_ (in its literal meaning--to fire with the muzzle of one's pistol upon one's antagonist's coat).

In the _Soirées de St. Pétersbourg_, in which he already writes of Bacon with some of that animosity to which he afterwards gave full vent in a large and erudite work, he makes a humorous observation which is quite in accord with the newest scientific view of the matter: "Bacon was a barometer that announced fine weather, and because he announced it, men believed that it was he who had produced it." And in a letter he writes: "I cannot tell how there came to be this war to the death between me and the late Lord Chancellor Bacon. We have boxed like two Fleet Street boxers, and if he has pulled out some of my hair, I imagine that his wig no longer sits very straight on his head."

When De Maistre is broaching his favourite theories, his humour is often very sarcastic, as, for instance, when he discourses, in the second part of the _Soirées_, on the ways of maintaining _esprit de corps_. There is much cynicism in such pleasantry as this: "To produce discipline and the feeling of honour in any corps or society, special rewards are of less avail than special punishments." He shows how the idea had occurred to the Romans of making military punishment a privilege--only soldiers had the right to be beaten with rods made of the wood of the vine. No man who was not a soldier might be beaten with such a rod, and no other kind of rod might be used to flog a soldier with. "I cannot understand how some such idea has not occurred to any of our modern rulers. If I were asked for advice on the subject, I should not go back to the vine rod, for slavish imitation is useless. I should suggest laurel rods." He further proposes that a great forcing-house should be erected in the capital, exclusively for the purpose of producing the necessary supply of laurel branches with which the non-commissioned officers are to belabour the backs of the Russian army. This forcing-house is to be under the supervision of a general, who must also be a Knight of St. George of the Second Class, at lowest, and whose title is to be "Chief Inspector of the Laurel Forcing-House"; the trees are to be attended to by old pensioners of unblemished character; models of the rods, which must all be exactly alike, are to be kept in a red case at the War Office; each non-commissioned officer is to carry one hanging by a ribbon of St. George from his button-hole; and on the façade of the forcing-house is to be inscribed: This is _my_ tree, which brings forth _my_ leaves.

De Maistre lived at St. Petersburg in great poverty, which he bore without being humiliated by it. He was distrusted and constantly left in the lurch by his ungrateful court, which did not even repay him the sums that from time to time he was obliged to advance out of his slender means to necessitous fellow-countrymen in Russia. During these years his theories matured and his intellectual idiosyncrasies became more marked. The letters, private as well as diplomatic, which he wrote at this time give us an excellent idea of the spirit and the general conditions prevailing at the court of Alexander I. Those written previous to and during Napoleon's campaign in Russia are especially interesting from the graphic impression they give of the fears, hopes, panics, and rejoicings produced at that time throughout the Russian empire by war news, whether true or false. At first De Maistre is in great anxiety about the issue of the war. He clearly sees the incompetence of the generals who are appointed to direct the operations against such a leader as the Emperor of the French. But from the moment when it is known how ill-equipped the French army is to face the Russian autumn, not to mention the Russian winter, he is no longer in doubt; he foresees that Napoleon's fall and the restitution of all his conquests--events which he had long regarded as certain to happen sooner or later--are close at hand.

Six of De Maistre's works were written at St. Petersburg. Of these _Du Pape, De l'Église Gallicane, Examen de la Philosophie de Bacon_, and _Soirées de St. Pétersbourg_ are the most important and the most characteristic of their author.

The _Soirées_ contain the ideas on the subject of God and the world upon which his theory of the state is based. Anticipating the objection that the authority of his absolute monarchs rests upon no foundation, that they are utterly irresponsible, that, in other words, autocracy is unjust, he meets it with the preliminary general answer that injustice is the law of every society, because it is the law of all life on earth. In nature itself might is right--with the right of the stronger, plants and animals are perpetually destroying one another. And this law: Might is right, is far from losing its validity in the world of man; here also it prevails, as the law of war. War is a perpetually recurring phenomenon in the life of the human race. Except for a few years in each century, it has raged from the most ancient times until now, and it will continue to do so. Human blood will always be flowing upon earth. For the chastisement of heaven is upon man. To this conception of war the military profession owes the high position it holds and always has held. No trade is considered so honourable as that of the soldier. The human race, taken as a whole, is guilty and deserves the scourge of war, unjustly though the punishment may fall in single cases.

It is, then, as the representative of God upon earth that the autocrat is, in the first place, the war-lord, in the second, the possessor of the divine and terrible prerogative of _punishing the guilty_. This prerogative necessarily entails the existence of a man whose profession it is to execute the punishments ordained by human justice. And such a man is always to be found--a strange and inexplicable fact, for our reason is at a loss to discover any motive which can lead a man to choose such a profession. Hence the character who is the mouthpiece of De Maistre's own opinions is inspired with a feeling of awe and reverence by the much misjudged executioner.

According to the general, and, in De Maistre's opinion, entirely justifiable verdict, every soldier, simply as such, is so noble that he ennobles even those actions which are generally regarded as the most degrading; he may exercise the calling of the executioner without suffering the slightest degradation, so long as he only carries out the sentence of death upon members of his own profession and uses no other instruments for the purpose but its weapons. It is not without its significance that on every page of the Old Testament shines the name, the Lord of Hosts. No action is more inseparably connected in men's minds with honour than the innocent shedding of innocent blood. It is in the very passion of carnage that De Maistre admires the soldier most. Such a thing has never been known as an army refusing to fight. It is an irresistible impulse that drives men onward into battle. And why is this so? In order that to the end of time there may be fulfilled that law of the violent destruction of living beings which extends throughout creation, from the lowest animal to man.

But although from time immemorial there has been no calling more honourable than that which involves the shedding of innocent blood, a remarkable prejudice has caused the calling of the executioner to be as much disdained as the soldier's is respected.

De Maistre inquires if this man who, in preference to all profitable and honourable callings, has chosen that of torturing and killing his fellow-men, is not really a being of some peculiar and higher kind. And in his dialogues the Count, who is his own mouthpiece, answers:--