5 COUNT 
 
 r 4 *' ’V . ’ 1 • . , 
 
 JOSEPH DE MA1STRE ; 
 
 HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 |e \ a 
 
 ; 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. W. FITZGERALD, 
 
 Vice-President, 
 
 ST. DOLMAN’S COLLEGE, FERMOY, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 THE CORK YOUNG MEN’S SOCIETY, 
 November 10 tk 1870. 
 
 44 A vivid and masterly lecture .* 9 — Cork Examiner. 
 
 44 The lecture was complete in every particular — it exhausted 
 the subject. 
 
 The crushing logic, scorching sarcasm, and subduing wit of 
 Joseph de Maistre were all splendidly traced .” — Cork Herald. 
 
 ’■I u— ■> ’ £ >QC&< 
 
 FERMOY : 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN LIN T DSEY, KING STREET. 
 
[<?. "' ■ S> 
 
 COUNT 
 
 JOSEPH DE MAISTRE ; 
 
 I HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS: 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 * 
 
 BY 
 
 ■ THE REV. W. FITZGERALD, 
 
 Yice-President, 
 
 * I 
 
 ST, COLMAN’S COLLEGE, FERMOY, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 THE CORK YOUNG MEN’S SOCIETY, 
 
 November 10 th 1870. 
 
 ” A vivid and masterly lecture .’ ’ — Cork Examiner. 
 
 “ The lecture was complete in every particular — it exhausted 
 the subject. 
 
 The crushing logic, scorching sarcasm, and subduing wit of 
 Joseph de Maistre were all splendidly traced .” — Cork Herald. f 
 
 FERMOY : 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN LINDSEY, KING STREET. 
 
 k — - — — ■ ■ - — - ssa 
 
I 
 
e> 
 
 IV\XMf 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 o 
 
 What is knotfnof Count Joseph de Maistre ? truly, 
 very little in our country, and hence the publication of the 
 following lecture. By a strange arrangement the greatest 
 French Catholic writer of our century is comparatively unknown, 
 whilst every one is acquainted, to a greater or lesser extent, 
 with the host of hostile writers whom it was Joseph de Maistre’ s 
 mission to answer and confound. He who threw such light on 
 the nature, causes and results of the chastening ordeal through 
 which France was forced to pass between the convocation of the 
 States-General in 1789, and the Congress of Vienna, ought, 
 indeed, to be worth consulting at a time, when the same gallant 
 and Catholic nation is again subjected to disappointment, 
 defeat and humiliation. It is, then, to gratify no mere whim, 
 to satisfy no idle purpose, that the author has, with the 
 approval of a few sincere and discriminating friends, consented 
 to the publication of his lecture on the ,£ Life and Writings’ 5 
 of Count Joseph de Maistre : — whilst the Lecture has many 
 defects (of which no one is more conscious than the author himself) 
 it has, at all events, this much to recommend it to the indulgence 
 of its readers ; — in the first place, whatever is told is told 
 frankly and in good faith, and secondly it is written by one 
 whose time is constantly occupied with sufficiently important 
 duties, and who, in consequence, was not able to give to its matter, 
 style and arrangement all the consideration and care, which he 
 himself would wish, and which a too exacting criticism may be 
 disposed to look for, 
 
 St Colman' s College , 
 Nov. 17, 1870. 
 
 Wm. fitzgebald. 
 

 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/countjosephdemaiOOfitz 
 
LECTURE. 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, 
 
 It is no small privilege to be allowed to address 
 the members of a Society, so useful, so learned, and 
 so influential as that before which I have the honor of 
 appearing this evening. I would rejoice exceedingly at 
 being permitted to add my labours to those of others in 
 furtherance of the great cause for which your Association 
 was founded, did not I feel satisfied that in your 
 selection of Lecturer, you have not been as successful 
 on the present, as you were well known to have been 
 on former occasions. Any demand, however, made in 
 your favour by the high-minded gentleman and accom- 
 plished scholar who has so long, and so wisely conducted 
 your Society is, to my mind, one that would not be 
 sufficiently respected as long as it remained un-complied 
 with. J. G. McCarthy, because of long and distin- 
 guished services to the Catholic cause deserves too well 
 of every one that knows him, not to make any request 
 of his, that affects the interests of the Cork Young 
 Men’s Society, in meaning and in effectiveness equal to 
 a command. Hence it was, that though at first un- 
 willing, I finally consented to appear before you this 
 evening in the capacity of lecturer and to submit to you, 
 with the permission of your respected and learned 
 President, what I know of J. de Maistre, as fully, as 
 frankly, and as interestingly as I can. 
 
8 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRI. 
 
 Much about the time that the army of Dumouriez 
 was left at liberty, by the retreat of the Allies under the 
 Duke of Brunswick, to invade the low countries, and 
 win for revolutionary France the famous battle of 
 Jemappes, another republican army was on the point of 
 entering Savoy, which was soon claimed and conquered 
 by the French from Chambery to Mont Cenis. The 
 consequence of this invasion was the flight of many 
 respectable families, and the confiscation of their pro- 
 perty — amongst others there left Chambery for Lausanne, 
 in this memorable year of 1792, a married man of 38 
 years of age, one whose father was President of the 
 Senate, and who himself, though a Savoyard, loved best 
 after the Church, not Savoy, but France. “ Nothing 
 great,” he wrote at one time to a friend, ct takes place 
 in Europe without the French ; — they have been absurd, 
 mad, atrocious &c. & c as much as you please, but, they 
 nevertheless have been chosen as the instruments of a 
 great revolution, and I have no doubt, but, that one 
 day, they will abundantly repay the world for all the 
 mischief they have caused.” Like all great men Joseph 
 de Maistre has had friends and enemies , indeed his 
 readers must of necessity range themselves in one 
 category or the other, and to give the distinguished 
 writer himself his due, he was clearly not unwilling to 
 make mankind consist of only the two parties. From 
 his boyhood he had a singular predilection for, will we 
 say, <f choosing his side,” and once he placed himself on 
 this side, or on that, he held his own with marvellous 
 boldness and all but unanswerable logic. To give an 
 instance of the consistent tenacity of the great subject 
 of this evenings’s lecture, I may tell you that from his 
 infancy he was singularly fond of the Jesuits, and when 
 during his stay in St. Petersburg, he read something 
 thatsoughtto damage that distinguished body, he replied, 
 as follows, to the Parisian friend who sent him the book 
 containing the objectionable passages, “ To conclude, 
 my dear friend, there is nothing I value so highly as 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 9 
 
 family feeling — my grand father loved the Jesuits, my 
 father loved them, my sublime mother loved them, my 
 son loves them, and his son shall (please God) love 
 them, if only the King gives him leave to have a son.” 
 It is no wonder that such a ;i v y.A d be loved and 
 hated ; loved as the honest and fearless believer, the 
 unshrinking and matchless defender of what he believed, 
 the loyal subject, at a time when a premium was set on 
 disloyalty, the devoted husband and father, the elegant 
 scholar and fine Christian gentleman, and hated by all 
 who cannot realize to themselves the triumphs of grace 
 and of Faith, who disbelieve in virtue, who think Lord 
 Bacon infallible, who hate the Church, and would 
 persecute the Jesuits. Up to the time of his leaving 
 Savoy for Switzerland, M. de Maistre lived in compar- 
 ative retirement at Chambery, content with discharging 
 in peace and honor the agreeable duties of an aristocratic 
 pater-familias — he was not, however, forgetful of litera- 
 ture, its claims and its beauties — in his letters and 
 opuscules written at this period, and afterwards edited by 
 his son, Rodolph, we find numberless passages which 
 bespeak an intimate knowledge with, what we may call, 
 the delicacies of the French language, and find in a state 
 already more than half developed that peculiarly skilful 
 use of the humorous in argument, with which J. 
 de Maistre was in after years accredited and which, when 
 dealing with the would-be philosophers of his time, he 
 turned to such singular account. Never, perhaps, has 
 the plastic and graceful language of Racine and Fenelon 
 been presented to the reader with greater clearness, 
 greater animation, and more thrilling nervousness than 
 by the brilliant but inflexible publicist of Chambery. 
 Much as he loved France and its people, he loved its 
 language better still. a Do you know,” he says, writing 
 to the Father of the late venerable Archbishop of Lyons, 
 “ in my love of the French language, I do not yield even 
 to yourself; laugh if you will, but it cannot enter into 
 my head that a man can be as eloquent in any language 
 
10 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH HE MAfSTRE. 
 
 as in French/* The sad state of affairs in Europe at 
 the time of his arrival in Lausanne soon afforded Joseph 
 de Maistre sufficient matter for deep and continued 
 observation — truth and error were more vigorously than 
 at any previous time combating for the mastery on the 
 once sacred, but then seemingly accursed soil of France. 
 It is very possible that if the frame-work of European 
 society had not been, in his time, wholly disorganized, 
 the scholarship of our great Christian author would not 
 have been known outside the old capital of Savoy. 
 Whilst a few perishable materials will be enough for 
 small minds, great ones require vast and lasting elements 
 to warm them into energy and action. “ Materia alitur * 
 says Tacitus, talking of genius, “ motibus excitatur, et 
 urendo lucescit** — it is nourished by materials, excited 
 by occasions and shines by burning/* Whilst error has 
 a thousand forms it may be said to have only two prin- 
 cipal characters, and these are superstition and 
 incredulity — either man seeks to accommodate the image 
 of God, which is within him, to his own detestable 
 passions, and this is superstition , or by a perversity 
 still more lamentable he seeks to blot out the Divine 
 likeness altogether, and this is incredulity. In the early 
 ages of the world, there was only one people exempt 
 from the first impiety, but it was reserved for after ages 
 to witness the origin, progress and ravages of the second. 
 Had not divine truth itself been pleased to come upon 
 earth and in the language of one of the prophets “ con- 
 descended to converse with men,** the infamous doctrines 
 of the school of Epicurus would have inevitably involved 
 the Pagan subjects of Imperial Rome in, what we may 
 call, an intellectual and social chaos. Under the 
 hallowed and mysterious influence of the Gospel, society 
 which was only a while ago threatened with dissolution, 
 recovered life and energy, and the religious complexion 
 of European civilization continued unchanged until the 
 period, which in one sense, at all events, is not inaptly 
 calledthe “renaissance/* — In the rationalism of Marsilius 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 11 
 
 Ficinus and Gemisthus Pletho, in the saracenic mysti-* 
 cism of Picus of Mirandola, and, indeed, in that scarcely 
 disguised patronage of sceptical philosophy for the which 
 the voluptuous Medici had, by this time, got into disre- 
 pute, we behold evidences of a returning unbelief, which, 
 in due course, sought to demolish one by one the various 
 articles of the Christian faith, and reached its climax of 
 impiety and destructiveness in the French Revolution. 
 It was arranged by Providence, that things should be 
 now as they were in the first ages of Christianity : — - 
 martyrs to the Truth were demanded, and they were 
 found, apostles were wanting, and they were not slow 
 in forthcoming. The very order, namely that of the 
 noblesse, which contributed so much by its supercili- 
 ousness and hostility to the people, and, perhaps, by 
 its profligacy and extravagance, to bring about the 
 Revolution was that order of all others, which supplied 
 the guillotine with some of its most precious victims, 
 and furnished to the Christian cause some of its ablest 
 defenders. 
 
 The French nobility, after the commission of many 
 errors and the rendering of a sufficiently large measure 
 of expiation, gave to France and the world three remark- 
 able men, whose mission was to re-establish the empire 
 of Truth, to build up anew its altars which had so long 
 lain in ruins, and to prove to an unbelieving and heart- 
 less generation that a superintending power did not 
 cease to direct the destinies of mankind even amidst the 
 desolation and miseries of the Revolution. These three 
 men were Chateaubriand, the Vicomte de Bonald, but, 
 above and incomparably beyond the other two, the illus- 
 trious Count Joseph de Maistre. The Religion of their 
 fathers, the rights of their displaced line of kings, the 
 legitimate freedom of all, such were the noble themes to 
 which these extraordinary men consecrated their time, 
 their thoughts and their genius. Of the two, de Bonald 
 was much more like Joseph de Maistre than the brilliant, 
 but sometimes erratic Chateaubriand. — De Bonald was 
 
12 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 clear and solid, was dignified and Christian, and in this 
 he resembled de Maistre, but, he sadly wanted the 
 playfulness, the point, the pungency and power of the 
 great Savoyard. There is probably no writer, in any 
 language, who has made metaphysical subjects so read- 
 able as did Joseph de Maistre, and this, because of the 
 singular play of fancy and happiness of expression with 
 which he clothed some of the most profound theories 
 ever broached, concerning society and civil government. 
 Wit which many dull people would, perhaps, refuse to 
 accept of as an auxiliary, was, at all times, gladly availed 
 of by our author, and the philosophers of his time can 
 best tell with what amazingly good results. He thought 
 that it was with controversy as with other games, that 
 the man half wins who puts his antagonist out of 
 temper — Cela les fera enrager la bas, he would repeat to 
 himself whenever he said something very hard, to the 
 Yoltarians, “that will set them mad below there” below 
 there , of course, meaning Paris. And the learning of 
 this extraordinary man was not limited to one depart- 
 ment of science, but, may be said to have extended to 
 all. Philosophy, Theology, Ethics, History, and political 
 science were all laid under contribution by the vast 
 intellect of the Chambery lawyer. His first work of im- 
 portance was the famous “ Considerations sur la France,” 
 which immediately gave him a prominent place amongst 
 the French writers of the period. Though the govern- 
 ment of Directory prohibited the circulation of the work 
 in France, it went through three editions in the course 
 of the year; even in the opening sentences of this 
 remarkable work, the reader finds an epitome of the 
 system which it takes only ten chapters to expound — 
 but, ten such chapters — they tell, no doubt, of the 
 mightiest efforts of men in word and deed, and they tell, 
 alas ! equally of the impotence of those efforts. They 
 are, at once, the recueil of human wisdom, and the proof 
 of its insufficiency. — “ Man proposes” says that proverb 
 justly become so common, “but God disposes,” Yes in 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 13 
 
 truth, man can only propose, for in the language of the 
 sublime and orthodox de Maistre, u nous sommes tous 
 attaches au trone de Petre supreme par une chaine 
 souple qui nous retient sans nous asservir. Ce qu’ily 
 a de plus admirable dans Pordre universel des choses, 
 c’est Paction des etres libres sous la main divine. 
 Librement esclaves, ils operent tout-a-la fois volon- 
 tairement et necessairement : ils font reellement ce qu’ 
 ils veulent, mais sans pouvoir deranger les plans 
 generaux. Chacun de ces etres occupe le centre (Pune 
 sphere d’activite dont le diametre varie au gre de Peternal 
 geometre, qui sait etendre, restreindre, arreter ou diriger 
 lavolonte, activitesans alterer lanature.” There have been 
 some, no doubt, who pretended to find in these remark- 
 able words an approach to fatalism, and who regarded it 
 as a somewhat curious and instructive fact, that a 
 theory, which had been so often made a ground of 
 reproach against the partisans of the Revolution, was, at 
 a later period, professed by one of their most determined, 
 and most formidable enemies. But, nothing was farther 
 from Joseph de Maistre’s mind, than to go in for fatalism 
 under any form whatsoever. — He found, by a searching 
 analysis of the historical events which came under his 
 notice, that the relationship of cause and effect was so 
 well sustained throughout as to give to the whole chain 
 a kind of necessary succession ; whilst the right and 
 power of combination for political purposes will always 
 remain to man, it is only to the creative power of God, 
 that we are indebted for every result that is orderly and 
 progressive. It is with nations, as with individuals, 
 they cannot dispense with the divine supervision unless 
 at the certain risk of great political convulsions, and 
 perhaps of entire and speedy dismemberment — the power 
 to build up is not a human power, for order must, of 
 necessity, come from the source of all order ; — That this 
 principle true of all times, of all countries, of all forms 
 of government is particularly true of the great French 
 revolution, De Maistre shows with a conclusiveness 
 
14 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTitE. 
 
 and an eloquence worthy of tbe great Bosuet himself* 
 The worst agents of the revolution were not so much 
 agents as instruments, it was not they who brought 
 about and encouraged the revolution, but it was rather 
 the revolution that gave them influence and prominence. 
 Robespierre, Collot d’Herbois and St. Just were only 
 greatly to be feared because of a reign of terror — it was 
 the period that made the men, and not the men who 
 made the period. These very men who were by no 
 means possessed of conspicuous abilities, exercised for 
 a time over a nation that had sinned a despotism of the 
 very worst kind, but there were no three men in the 
 kingdom more surprised at their tyranny and blood- 
 spilling than were the three revolutionary bravos them- 
 selves. For a time everything seemed to thrive with the 
 enemies of Christianity and order, they were constantly 
 looking forward to even greater results in their favor 
 than they could, a while ago, have anticipated, always 
 forgetting that they were only the instruments of One 
 wiser than themselves, and that their successes were no 
 more their own, than was his own the musical triumph 
 of Vaucanson^s mechanical flute player who whether he 
 (wished it or not) was never able to discourse false notes. 
 Nations as individuals have their missions to discharge and 
 as the mission of the French nation was to lead the Chris- 
 tian civilization of Europe, it was no wonder that when 
 France forgot her mission, God would recall her to a 
 sense of her duty by forcing her to pass through a terrible 
 and sanguinary ordeal. In a revolution, the innocent 
 sometimes suffer equally with the guilty, but the innocent, 
 according to Joseph de Maistre’s notion, are much 
 fewer than people ordinarily imagine. In one of his 
 interviews with Clarke, Duke of Feltre, our own country- 
 man Theobald Wolfe Tone was told that “ on ne fait 
 pas des omelettes sans casser des oeufs,^ when the war 
 Minister to the Directory was replyingto some objections 
 which the young and enthusiastic Irish patriot had 
 heard more than once in Ireland, and which he quoted 
 at the Luxembourg. “ You cannot make omelets without 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 15 
 
 breaking eggs” said Clarke, and for this result Joseph 
 de Maistre in almost every page of his " considerations” 
 supplies us with more than sufficient reason. Probably 
 in no language is there to be found finer writing than in 
 some of the passages in which, with his inflexible logic, 
 he works out the apparently singular theory "‘that the 
 universe is filled with punishments the victims and 
 inflictors of which are equally guilty.” It is not only 
 individuals who have been condemned to death, but 
 against nations themselves the dread decree has 
 gone forth and if it were permitted us to see fully 
 into the designs of God, we would as easily compre- 
 hend why Heaven punished France, as why the Jacobins 
 beheaded Madame Roland. In this, his first work of 
 real importance, Joseph de Maistre plans out for 
 himself a system to which he remained consistently 
 faithful during a sufficiently long and eventful life — one 
 may suppose from the theocratic complexion of his poli- 
 tical philosophy that Joseph de Maistre was a friend to 
 absolute government, but such was very far from being 
 the case in a letter to his friend, Baron de Vignet, he 
 writes, “ The other point on which it appears to my regret 
 that we cannot agree is about the revolution (of one 
 kind or other) which seems to be inevitable in all States. 
 You say that nations will require “ strong governments.” 
 whereupon, I must enquire what you mean by that ! 
 If monarchy is strong in proportion as it is absolute, 
 the governments of Naples, Lisbon and Madrid, must in 
 your eyes, appear to be very vigorous. Yet you know, 
 and everybody knows, that these monsters of weakness 
 only exist, thanks to their equilibrium. Rest assured 
 that to strengthen monarchy you must base it on the 
 laws, and must avoid military tribunals, changes of office, 
 and ministerial jobs and messes.” In 1797* Joseph 
 de Maistre left Switzerland for Turin, but did not remain 
 there long — Charles Emmanuel 1 Y. was about this time 
 compelled to abandon his continental possessions, and 
 Iqo I it convenient to withdraw to the island of Sardinia* 
 
16 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 Joseph de Maistre did not follow immediately the fortunes 
 of his banished Sovereign, but repaired, after a perilous 
 journey from Piedmont, to Venice, whence the victories 
 of the Russian general, Suwaroff, made his return to 
 Turin a matter of no great difficulty. He was scarcely 
 well back in the Piedmontese capital when he was called 
 to the island of Sardinia, where he filled for a few years 
 the office of 66 regent de la Chancellerie royale*’ His 
 next appointment was that of Envoy extraordinary to 
 the court of St. Petersburg!}, and his arrival there was 
 contemporaneous with the elevation to the moscovite 
 throne of the most accomplished prince in Europe at that 
 time, the Emperor Alexander I. Joseph de Maistre 
 now obliged to reside at a distance from home and 
 friends soon became a great favorite in the Russian 
 capital : his vast erudition, his brilliant conversational 
 powers, his supreme contempt for the “ petitesse” that 
 characterized most of the doctrinaires of his time, but, 
 above all, his frank, manly and generous nature secured 
 for him an entree not only into the salons of the Russian 
 noblesse, but caused the Czar himself to appreciate to 
 the full extent the virtues and talents of the illustrious 
 diplomatist. For the highly civilized and (shall I build 
 the word) courtier-born de Maistre, residence near the 
 Russian Court at that period must have had many and 
 powerful attractions, but, tho* a gentleman and courtier 
 by birth and training, Joseph de Maistre was still more 
 a husband and father after the good old catholic model. 
 To be separated for twelve years from that devoted and 
 virtuous wife, to whom he plighted his faith and love in 
 1786, was in itself, a hard and heavy trial, but the Count 
 de Maistre had too much reliance and hope in the pro- 
 vidence of God not to receive every trial (and many of 
 them came in his way) in the spirit of Christian peace 
 and resignation. During his stay in St. Petersburg, 
 his wife and one of his daughters, resided between 
 Lausanne and Chambery — the second daughter Con- 
 stance, whom her father only saw, when she was twenty 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 17 
 
 years of age, resided entirely at Chambery under the 
 safe guardianship of a venerable and religious relative. 
 The young Rodolph, who followed his distinguished 
 father to St. Petersburg, soon after his arrival in Russia 
 was appointed to a commission in the Imperial Guard. 
 With Joseph de Maistre’s singularly orthodox notions 
 regarding the religious and civil government of the 
 world, with his strong catholic instincts, and his pecu- 
 liarly domestic habits, this relegation to the banks of the 
 Neva, in the midst of an European chaos, would never 
 have been sufficiently compensated for, not even by the 
 sword and cocked hat of an ambassador, were it not 
 that he believed fully, firmly and freely in the re-estab- 
 lishment of faith, loyalty and order throughout the 
 length and breadth of the country which he loved so well 
 even in the midst of her aberrations. Tho’ often pressed 
 to share in the court hospitalities, which Alexander dealt 
 out at this period with such truly imperial magnificence, 
 he would appear to have preferred the unobtrusive and 
 thoughtful life of the student and philosopher , — “ if 
 perchance” he says, writing to a lady friend in 1805, 
 “ you have a fancy to know what I am doing, and how 
 I am living, I can easily answer my life just now is 
 very much like something you know — the motion of a 
 clock — tic-tac. — Yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, and al- 
 ways, I can with difficulty drag myself oat, and I often 
 refuse dinners to indulge in the great pleasure of staying 
 at home. I read, I write, I learn, for after all one must 
 know something. When 9 o’clock comes I may permit 
 myself now and then to be dragged to a friend’s house, 
 you may not be of opinion that I am right, but, never 
 mind, tastes differ. At all events I try before the day 
 is over to resume that native cheerfulness which has 
 sustained me up to this ; I blow upon the flames, just 
 as an old woman tries to light her lamp by the embers 
 of yesterdays fire. I strive to forget that terrible 
 revolution, the vision of broken heads and arms which 
 are constantly haunting me ; I then sup like a young 
 
18 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 man, I sleep like a child, and wake like a grown man, 
 the meaning of which is I get up very early; and then I 
 begin over again, always turning in the same circle, and 
 invariably placing my foot in the same place, much as a 
 donkey does in a mill, and with this sublime comparison, 
 allow me to conclude, Madame, with the assurance of my 
 very highest consideration.” In a letter to his brother 
 the Chevalier de Maistre, the inimitable Count Joseph 
 again gives vent to his inexhaustible humour — “Why 
 my dear Brother, the truth is I have got over another 
 winter here, and this, if you please, without a fur pelisse, 
 which is very much the same thing as to have no shirt, 
 at all at Cagliari. As the attendance of a single servant 
 is considered impossible here on account of the climate 
 and the work, in order to have a second, I have made 
 the acquaintance of a thief, who was on the point of 
 falling into the hands of justice ; and I have proposed to 
 him to become a honest man under the shadow of my diplo- 
 matic protection. Forthe last fewmonths I have managed 
 to get on pretty well : — -the hotel-keeper, who used to 
 poison me having left, I am now obliged to go in for 
 what would be to your mind, perhaps, a very singular 
 torment, — that of sharing my servants mess. There is 
 no doubt, a great deal of hospitality in this country, 
 but the foreigner never reaches the Russian^ heart. 
 For my part I never yet found myself in full dress in 
 the midst of this Asiatic pomp that I did not think 
 with regret of xpy gray stockings at Lausanne” ! . J oseph 
 de Maistre was like all good «nen, fond of his friends, 
 even to friendship, in her “ slippers,” as he himself once 
 expressed it he was fond of talking about old times, old 
 recollections, and old regrets. And what good or great 
 man has ever been otherwise ! He regarded with a kind 
 of religious regard : — - 
 
 Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven, 
 
 The noble mind^s delight and pride 
 
 To man and angels only given, 
 
 To all the lower world denied.. 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 19 
 
 Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys 
 On fools and villians ne’er descend : 
 
 In vain for thee the tyrant sighs 
 And hugs a flatterer for a friend. 
 
 Directress of the brave and just 
 
 O guide us through life’s darksome way ! 
 
 And let the tortures of mistrust 
 On selfish bosoms only prey. 
 
 Amongst the many friends who trusted Joseph 
 de Maistre and whom he esteemed and trusted in turn 
 w as the worthy and religiousMadame Huber d’ Allion, who 
 died at Lausanne somewhere about the time we are now 
 speaking of. The learned author of the “Considerations” 
 was exceedingly grieved on hearing of the death of this 
 respected Christian lady, and he whose mission would 
 appear to have been to assail and overthrow the 
 Voltairian philosophy of the period, could so far depart 
 from the crushing logic and playful sarcasm to wdiich he 
 had been accustomed, as to go in for the following 
 exquisitely soft and tender piece of portrait painting. 
 “ You cannot fancy” he says in one of his letters “ how 
 present the poor woman is to my mind’s eye, I see her 
 constantly before me with her tall straight figure, her 
 Genevese primness, her calm reason, her natural finesse 
 and grave pleasantry. I shall never pass such evenings 
 again, as I have spent at her house — my feet on the 
 fender, my elbow on the table, thinking, talking and 
 skimming over a thousand subjects She is gone ! and 
 I will not be likely to see her replaced. When one has 
 passed the middle of life (and I dare say I have passed 
 it by this) such losses are irreparable. Separated for 
 ever from all I love, I learn the death of my old friends, 
 the young will one day learn mine. In truth I died in 
 1798, and the funeral is only put off. These lugubrious 
 fancies form no contrast to public events which are far 
 from being rose-coloured in this year of grace 180/. 
 Some few thankless foreigners may be like yourself sadly- 
 Russian , but as for me I am Russianly sad” The state 
 
20 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 of things in France immediately before and after the 
 coronation of the First Napoleon was the constant subject 
 of his thoughts and conversation, and notwithstanding 
 his distance from the scene of action, “ relegated at one 
 of the poles, ” as he himself used to put it, his judgments 
 on what was passing were amazing in their accuracy : — 
 perhaps, after all, his great distance from France may 
 not have been such an obstacle to him as we, at first 
 sight, may be disposed to imagine. One of his own 
 favorite sayings was “ that the eye does not see what 
 touches it” and it may be that from his remote point of 
 observation Joseph de Maistre appreciated better the 
 political complexion of things in France than if he had 
 been struggling in the crowd. His faith never wavered 
 in the downfall of the Buonaparte dynasty, and in the 
 return to power of the banished Bourbons. “ I have 
 good reason to believe that the mission of Bounaparte 
 is to restore monarchy, after which restoration he and 
 his race will in due course disappear — as to the exact 
 time, it would be bold to hazard a conjecture — every wise 
 man should say “ Nescio diem neque horam.” Success- 
 ful military adventurers like Napoleon and Cromwell 
 have never yet founded lasting dynasties — royal families, 
 like others, are sometimes worn out, but when that 
 happens their places are not to be filled by private 
 individuals — “ I say that such families do not last, and 
 that is all 1 say.” Among the various projects that 
 occupied his active mind at this time was that of going 
 to Paris to see the lately crowned Emperor and plead in 
 person the cause of his dispossessed sovereign. Although 
 he disliked Buonaparte, he did not fear him, and he 
 feared him less as King than he did as Conqueror ; 
 Buonaparte as sovereign must, of necessity, try to stifle 
 that revolutionary spirit which, when a mere soldier he 
 felt it his interest to develop and stimulate. Joseph 
 de Maistre, taking it for granted that Napoleon knew 
 me too well to treat badly one of the first scholars is 
 Europe, placed his services at the disposal of Charles 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 21 
 
 Amadeus ; unfortunately, the treaty of Paris, by which 
 Savoy was annexed to France (not as the world since 
 knows for the last time) put out of the question the 
 possibility of carrying on, in favor of the king of Sardinia, 
 anything like successful negotiations. The great royal- 
 ist writer was now convinced that he must resign 
 himself to a protracted stay in Russia, for there was little 
 in southern or western Europe to draw him to either. 
 The Jesuit Fathers, who, for some years before this, had 
 been established in St. Petersburg, were now ordered to 
 leave — rightly, or otherwise, they were accused of 
 bringing about a great religious change which was daily 
 taking place in some of the highest circles of Russian 
 society. M. de Maistre’s well known talents as a con- 
 troversialist, his unbounded zeal for the interests of the 
 church, and extraordinary regard for the Jesuits, soon 
 brought him into difficulties. He was called to an 
 interview with the Emperor, and although he succeeded 
 in clearing his character and his honor from several 
 of the charges preferred against him, he was not, after 
 this time, as high in favor with Alexander as before. 
 “ It is well” he writes “ that in a country like Russia, 
 there should be no cloud between the sovereign and a 
 foreign minister, but, whilst not interfering with any 
 member of the Greek church, 1 am bound to say that if 
 any one should consult me in religious matters. I would, 
 as a devoted son of the Catholic church, regard myself 
 as under an obligation to. tell the whole truth.” His old 
 preceptors, the Jesuits, to whom he owed it, “that he was 
 not an orator of the constituent assembly,” had left St. 
 Petersburg towards the end of the year 1816, by order 
 of Prince Galitzin, Minister of public worship, and 
 Joseph de Maistre did not wish to remain after them. 
 He wrote to Turin asking for his recall, and was soon 
 enabled to get a passage to Calais on board a Russian 
 ship of war, which was under orders to bring home a 
 portion of the Russian army of occupation in France. 
 He arrived at Paris on the 24th June 1817 and pro- 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE, 
 
 ceeded immediately to visit his native mountains after 
 an absence of over twenty years. One of his first cares 
 after his return to Turin, where the treaties of 1815 per- 
 mitted himself and his sovereign to renew their official 
 acquaintance, w’as to prepare for publication the following 
 remarkable works, “ Du Pape” “ De L’Eglise Gallicane” 
 and “ Les Soirees dc St. Petersburg” : — they were 
 published at Paris, the first in 1819, and the other two 
 in 1821. “ Some years have elapsed,” he says in his 
 
 very learned preface to “Du Pape,” “since I considered 
 the state of France, and unless I am totally blinded by 
 an honourable ambition of serving her, I rather think 
 my services then were not wholly unacceptable — circum- 
 stances have no doubt changed since 1796 — then each 
 man was free to attack the brigands , a* I may well call 
 them, however, to-day that all the constituted authorities 
 are in their proper places a writer should be continually 
 on his guard, lest there may happen to him the 
 misfortune which befel Diomede under the walls of 
 Troy, namely that of wounding a divinity when pursuing 
 an enemy. I am convinced, and I wish with all my heart 
 to convince others, that without the sovereign Pontiff 
 there is no true Christianity, and that no honourable 
 Christian, separated from him, could draw up (if the 
 man should be possessed of any real knowledge) a pro- 
 fession of faith clearly defined. The first lines of my 
 book then tell what it is, and if anyone is in dread of 
 being shocked at its doctrines, I beg of him to 
 lay it instantly aside.” There is no one who has ever 
 read carefully this great treatise, that has not considered 
 it a masterpiece of controversial scholarship ; — for a man 
 of the world to enter the theological arena against the 
 eagle of Meaux, no small amount of pluck and erudition 
 was necessary, and yet, Joseph de Maistre approaches 
 the task with equal boldness and success, — I am fully 
 aware that polemics, like politics and piety, should be 
 avoided here — this is, as it should be, neutral ground 
 upon which neither the angry politician nor the crazy 
 conversialist has any right to tread ; — 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 23 
 
 “ There is no health, physicians say that we 
 Have nothing better than neutrality 
 And, gentlemen, as far as the members of your invaluable 
 society are concerned, I perfectly agree with the 
 physicians — still, I must, subject of course to your 
 approval, Mr. Chairman, touch lightly on religious 
 ground, as I am drawn thither by the honoured subject 
 of our lecture. The Count de Maistre loved and defended 
 order, and because he loved it with an unquenchable 
 love, and defended it with unrivalled power, therefore did 
 he love and defend the Papacy : he willed the end, 
 therefore did he will and extol the means. “ Without 
 the sovereign Pontiff in the world” he wrote at a time 
 when the power of the Holy See was, as in our own time, 
 reviled and supposed to be humbled, “ the whole super- 
 structure of Christianity would soon be sapped and 
 undermined, and to crumble to pieces, would only 
 require the development of a few agencies, which would 
 very soon be brought into play.” The Pope is considered 
 by our great writer under four relationships : — 
 
 1° : — he is considered dans sou rapport with the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 2° : — he is considered in his relations with temporal 
 sovereigns. 
 
 3° : — he is considered in his relations with the 
 interests of civilization, and lastly : — 
 
 He is considered in the relationship which he holds 
 towards the separated churches. 
 
 Under each one of those heads Joseph de Maistre 
 masses together such an amount of scriptural, patristic, 
 and scholastic learning, as that any one reading him 
 is fairly amazed how M un homme qui n^etait pas pretre,” 
 as he describes himself, could ever have mastered, as he 
 did, the whole range of theological science. In his open- 
 ing chapters on infallibility and the councils, so much tf 
 admired for their vigour and perspicuity, he anticipates 
 and demolishes with unsparing hand almost every 
 possible objection against the infallibility of the sovereign 
 
24 
 
 count Joseph de maistre. 
 
 Pontiff, when defining, as Pastor Supremus, freely and 
 ex-cathedra what are the doctrines scriptae et traditae 
 of the universal church. “ Let religious supremacy 
 once descend from the successors of St. Peter and it 
 will go to the Patriarchs, as at Constantinople, it will go 
 from them to the Synod as in St. Petersburg, it will next 
 go to the Bishops, as in the episcopal churches of the 
 new countries, and finally it will go to the State, as is 
 the case in England — “ once admit” exclaims this 
 great catholic writer “ that there is an appeal from the 
 decrees of the sovereign Pontiff, and there is no longer 
 government, no longer unity, no longer a visible church” 
 and, then with his usual playfulness, and roguery, he 
 must contrive to put even two great men in an un corn- 
 comfortable position : — “If theologians of th e first order” 
 he archly suggests “ such, for instance, as Bossuet and 
 Fleury, kept these self-evident principles before their 
 minds, they would never have permitted laymen of 
 common sense to be laughing at them.” His long 
 residence in Russia, and thorough acquaintance w ith the 
 religious situation in that (some 60 years ago) almost 
 unkown country, enabled the Count de Maistre to bring 
 to the relief of the catholic cause most valuable evidence 
 from the liturgy and traditions of the Russo-schismatic 
 church : — with his singular power of acquiring know- 
 ledge, Joseph de Maistre was not long in Russia when 
 he knew the Sclavonic language, almost as well as he 
 knew French, certainly as w r ell as he knew any other 
 (excepting French) of the five or six European languages 
 with which he was acquainted. Whether it is the 
 Akaphisti Sedmitchni, a volume containing the prayers 
 ordained by the Holy Synod, and printed at Mohileff so 
 early as 1698, or the (Mineia Mesatchnaja) the Lives of 
 the Saints for each month of the Russian year, or (The 
 Trio Postinaia) the Lenten Ritual, or (the Sobornic) 
 which he found at Moscow, and w 7 hich is a recueil , or 
 collection of homilies and epistles, by the Fathers of the 
 eastern church, from which he quotes, he heaps testi- 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 25 
 
 mony upon testimony in support of the supremacy in 
 jurisdiction and dignity of the Bishop of Rome — after 
 telling how the emperor Basil in 1019 sent ambassadors 
 from Constantinople to Pope John XX. to obtain from 
 him in favor of the then patriarch of Constintinople, the 
 title of (Ecumenical Patriarch of the East, as the Pope 
 was Patriarch over the whole earth, De Maistre dismisses 
 the question of Russian evidence by stating with as 
 much point as truth, that, the Greeks were sure always 
 to recognize the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff, when 
 they wanted a favor, and whenever they became rebels, 
 it was, simply, because the favors they asked were 
 not granted them. Every one, who read a du Pape,” 
 must have fastened on the adroitness with which the 
 scales were turned against a school of theologians, headed 
 by the famous Natalis Alexander, who supported the 
 infallibility, rather (according to them) the indefect ability 
 of the See , and refused it to the person or occupant : — - 
 De Maistre getting tired of hearing them continually 
 repeat the Holy See , whilst they never mentioned the 
 sovereign Pontiff, at length, made up his mind to hit 
 them hard : — “ Why gentlemen,” he says in substance, 
 you remind me very much of the realists of the 12th 
 century — they were a lot of well-meaning people who 
 supported the objective existence of universal ideas — they 
 embroiled the literary world in those days by asking the 
 question, was it man or mankind , that studies logic with 
 us at the university, and that is daily in the habitof giving 
 presents and receiving them- now, the difference between 
 you, gentlemen, and your friends, the realists , is this (and 
 it is to your disadvantage) that whilst they believed that 
 mankind really read logic, they held that man, the indi- 
 vidual A, or B, or C read logics too : — in other words, 
 whilst they believed that in zoology there was such an 
 entity as an elephant in the abstract , they would never 
 think of going to his establishment for ivory — you, realist 
 theologians, have much more effrontory, you admit the 
 
26 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 sovereignty of a dynasty, and when you have done that 
 much by way of concession, you tell us that no member 
 of the dynasty is sovereign.” After exhausting the 
 subject of infallibility de Maistre concludes the first part 
 of his great treatise by an exquisite and most conclusive 
 chapter on the use of the latin tongue throughout the 
 western church. As the deportment, dress and language 
 of a wise man bespeak his character, so, too, is the un- 
 changeableness of the church shown in her outward 
 appearance — she speaks everywhere to the faithful in 
 the same language, and this is so, only because particular 
 churches have listened to the voice, and accepted the 
 legislation of the sovereign Pontiff. Trajan wished, as 
 the last of his conquests, that the language of victorious 
 Rome would be carried to the banks of the Euphrates, 
 but, what was refused to the haughty ruler of imperial 
 Rome, was granted and more than granted to ChrisPs 
 Yicar upon earth, at whose bidding the soldiers of the 
 cross have carried the latin language to the remotest 
 regions of both hemispheres. That, which from the 
 beginning was the language of the Roman conquerors, 
 was never more truly so, than when spoken by the 
 missionaries of the Roman church — and, as it was the 
 language of conquest, so was it equally the language of 
 civilization. Whatever was venerable in Europe had its 
 history and traditions written in latin — medals and 
 trophies, tombs and annals, laws and canons spoke (if 
 the expression will be allowed me) no other than the 
 language of Caesar and Cicero, which alone of the dead 
 languages has again come to life, which is heard from 
 pole to pole, and will not die, until that supreme voice, 
 to which it owes its resurrection, shall be heard no more’ 
 upon earth. In the second section of his work “ du Pape,” 
 de Maistre treats anew the question of sovereignty, and, 
 with his wonted extraordinary ability, justifies the power 
 exerted by the Pope during the period that elapsed 
 between the 11th and 16th centuries — but, it is in the 
 3rd and fourth sections that he employs with most sue- 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 27 
 
 cess his vast knowledge in defending the authority-, 
 privileges and usefulness of the primacy of St. Peter. 
 He argues the case of Catholic versus Protestant missions 
 with great warmth, and whether it is Dr. Buchanan, the 
 anglican, or Voltaire himself, that comes in his way, he 
 makes very short work of both and their objections, — one 
 of his stories in winding up the case of the catholic 
 apostleship is worth telling : — When the British Minister 
 of the day sent Lord Macartney to China on an embassy, 
 which forms a sufficiently curious chapter in the history 
 of English diplomacy in the East, his Britannic Majesty 
 thought it well to secure some Propaganda students, 
 who, in a short time, would be likely to understand and 
 speak the Chinese language. Cardinal Borgia, then at 
 the head of the Propaganda, entered immediately into 
 the views of the English foreign office, and recommended 
 a certain number of students, who, in due time, accom- 
 panied the English ambassador to Pekin — on his arrival 
 Lord Macartney, altho’ a staunch protestant, pleaded the 
 case of the catholic missions with great earnestness before 
 the minister of state ; the Oriental listened with great 
 attention, and when Lord Macartney thro’ his interpre- 
 ter, had finished, the mandarin (as you will say) very 
 pertinently replied, that the Emperor, his master, would 
 think it a very extraordinary thing, that the English, in 
 the very heart of Asia, should seek encouragement and 
 protection for a religion, which their fathers had dis- 
 avowed and rejected at home. In the concluding portion 
 of his work he investigates after a most searching manner 
 the nature, history and results of schism. One of his 
 principles was that “ every church that is not catholic 
 is protestant” The distinction between schismatic and 
 heretical churches ne vaut rien, is worth nothing. Every 
 Christian who rejects communion with the Holy Father 
 is either protestant, or will be so. He protests , at all 
 events, and whether he protests against one catholic truth 
 or many, in as much as he protests, he is and should be 
 regarded as protestant. De Maistre insists over and 
 
28 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 over again on the impossibility of giving to the separated 
 churches any common name which is indicative of unity, 
 there is only one name which is applicable to all and 
 under which, as a generic term, all may be classed, and 
 that is “ protestant” which is a negative term, not 
 telling what they are, but telling what they are not. 
 Two years after the publication of “ Du Pape,” (to 
 which it was intended as a sequel) appeared “ De 
 L’Eglise Gallicane dans son rapport avoe le Souverain 
 Pontife.” It was written immediately before Joseph 
 de Maistre left St. Petersburg, but was not published 
 until 1821. It was in this learned treatise that he 
 published his notions on jansenism, and its abettors in 
 France of the school of Port Royal. To the literature 
 of this sect, and to the Calvanistic spirit which character- 
 ized the legislative proceedings of the parliaments of 
 Paris and Toulouse did he attribute the growth of that 
 Gallican theology of which Gibbon once said, that “placed 
 between the orthodoxy of Rome and the heterodoxy 
 of Protestantism it received in turn the blows of both.” 
 The famous definition of calvanism given by the protes- 
 tant Jortin is applied by de Maistre to the system of 
 Jansenius: — “ it is” said he “a religious system con- 
 sisting of creatures without liberty, doctrines without 
 sense, faith without reason, and a god without mercy.” 
 How such a school of opinion could have ever secured 
 so many partisans in France, and given such trouble to 
 church and state is answered by this explanation 
 amongst others, “ that the human heart is of itself revolu- 
 tionary, and once the standard of rebellion is raised 
 against authority, it will not be hard for the leaders of 
 the opposition to find recruits — “Non serviam” — is as 
 true of our days as of the time of the prophet Jeremy 
 (chap. 2. v. 20) History scarcely tells of any such 
 association as that which, under the guidance of Pascal 
 and Arnauld, wrote, and prayed and protested within 
 the gloomy walls of Port-Royal-des-champs. Ministers 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 29 
 
 magistrates, savants , all, as a matter of course, enemies 
 of the Holy See, gathered together from time to time 
 within this enclosure of revolt, and by shedding tears, 
 making complaints, uttering calumnies, fomenting in- 
 trigues, printing books, and carrying on a correspondence 
 of, by no means, a charitable character, they succeeded, 
 as they ought to succeed, in causing the church of France 
 to grieve, in braving the sovereign Pontiff, and in dis- 
 quieting the proud spirit of even the “grand monarque.” 
 De Maistre says, it is quite a mistake to thank Port Royal 
 for the genius of Pascal, or the learning of Arnauld. 
 Port Royal was not an institution, it was a theological 
 club, and nothing more, and you may, with as much 
 justice, thank the Cafe francais for the wit of those who 
 frequent it, as Port Royal for the truths discovered in 
 connection with the cycloid, or the great work on the 
 “ perpetuity of faith” in the catholic church touching 
 the sacrament of the Eucharist. De Maistre whilst 
 giving Pascal all the praise to which, because of his vast 
 intellectual powers, he was so justly entitled, meanwhile, 
 was far from thinking “ that in no country, and at no 
 time was a more magnificent genius ever known than 
 Blaise Pascal.” The name of Pascal was for the 
 jansenist party a tower of strength, no doubt, but 
 there is scarcely anything less just than to believe Pascal 
 to have been a great theologian — He was as the world 
 knows, a geometer of the very first rank, he was, by his 
 very nature, and as it were mathematical severity of 
 thought, intended to be the head of a great philosophical 
 school, but of theological science, he could not have 
 known as much as would have made him a guide for 
 every one else. A contemporary, remarkable alike for 
 his erudition and conscientiousness, I mean the Baron 
 Von Leibnitz said of Pascal : — “ he never studied history, 
 nor jurisprudence, and meanwhile one and the other are 
 necessary for those who wish to establish some of the 
 great Christian truths.” I have often thought myself 
 
30 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 that Josephde Maistre was not sufficiently well-informed, 
 when in one peculiar instance he passed a somewhat 
 severe judgment on Pascal. Pascal is, on his own side, 
 in genius, the greatest man that France ever produced — 
 I mean, by his own side , the party which went, afterwards, 
 even beyond the termini that separate orthodoxy from he- 
 terodoxy . If Blaise Pascal was not an accurate and learned 
 theologian, he was certainly an extraordinary thinker — 
 every one who read Pascals life by his sister Mdme. 
 Perier knows, how, at the age of twelve, he surprised his 
 father by working out on the pavement, where he used 
 to play, a proposition that corresponded to the thirty- 
 second of the first book of Euclid. At the age of sixteen, 
 he composed a little treatise on the conic sections, 
 which whilst it excited the admiration of Descartes made 
 him doubt the authorship, and de Maistre says distinctly 
 that Descartes had very good reason for so doubting. At 
 nineteen, Pascal invented his celebrated arithmetical 
 machine, and at the age of twenty six, by his experiments 
 in the physical sciences, he found himself associated with 
 the first philosophers of the age. It was not alone in 
 mathematics that the originality and inventiveness of 
 Pascal were extraordinarily great, in his moral consider- 
 ations, too, though he is not, unhappily, deferential to 
 authority, there is a peculiar depth, subtlety, and 
 brilliancy. The great experiment of PascaPs life was 
 that by which on the Puy-de-dome, he set at rest for 
 ever the cause of the suspension of the mercury in the 
 barometrical tube. Pascal was charged with appropri- 
 ating the previous experiments of Toricelli, by which he 
 was led to his great discovery, and Joseph de Maistre 
 does not see that this charge should never have been 
 made. In his “ nouvelles experiences” which Joseph 
 de Maistre could not possibly have seen Pascal distinctly 
 says that he did not only not claim, but he had energetical- 
 ly disclaimed, all credit for the experiments in question, 
 aud whatever honor attached to them belonged to 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 31 
 
 Toricelli, and not to himself. Whilst rendering • to 
 Pascal the full measure of praise, to which, because of 
 his great scientific attainments he was entitled, de Maistre 
 refuses to recognize the force or truth of the exagger- 
 ated language in which Pascal is so often spoken of. 
 There were two circumstances which mainly contributed 
 to cause people to put a high value on the “ lettres 
 provinciates” ; — in the first place, they were the only 
 respectable French prose that had, up to their own 
 time, appeared ; and secondly they were written against 
 the Jesuits. If it were against the capuchins or oratori- 
 ans that these tetters were directed, the chances are 
 they would be scarcely spoken of now-a-days, and the 
 great repute in which they were held, and which from 
 their bad faith they never deserved, would have been 
 long since entirely denied them. The legislation of the 
 provincial parliaments the writings of Port Royal, the 
 obsequiousness of certain bishops, the affair of the regale, 
 the declaration of 1682 , the character of Louis XIV, 
 are all handled by de Maistre in his “ de L^Eglise 
 Gallicane” after that masterly manner which suggests 
 the question so often to the reader, whether it is wit, or 
 eloquence, or argument, that predominates during the 
 course of those remarkable pages. From many causes 
 the principal of which have just been named, there 
 sprung a system, known as gallicanism, now happily 
 for the peace of the church, fully and finally condemned, 
 and which was described, as follows, by one who was 
 never known to exaggerate or under state the truth ; — 
 writing of gallicanism in one of the pieces justificatives 
 found in his history, the amiable and saintly Fenelon 
 said : — a the fact is, that in France the king is practically, 
 more the head of the church than the Pope : — liberties 
 they are called — it is only true to say, that these liberties 
 with regard to the Pope mean slavery to the king . From 
 the king authority over the church goes to the lay judges, 
 and the judges are not slow in ruling the bishops.” 
 
32 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 It was in the October of the year 1822, that also 
 appeared the “ Soirees de St. Petersburgh,” a work, 
 which if Joseph de Maistre had written no other, would 
 have caused his name to live amongst the greatest of 
 French writers — immediately before the publication of 
 the “ Soirees,” it was revised by the celebrated de 
 La Mennais, the immortal author having died of a slow 
 paralysis on the 26th of the preceeding February. The 
 “imprimatur” of such a man as the writer of the “Essai 
 sur ^indifference dans la matiere de la religion” was 
 enough to recommend the new publication to every 
 philosophic reader. I have not been able to find out 
 whether de Maistre and that truly wonderful, but ! alas, 
 unfortunate man were, at any time, personally acquaint- 
 ed : — certain it is, however, that in the opinions of 
 both men (before, of course, de La Mennais’ fall), in 
 their unswerving belief in the superintending power of 
 God, in the religious earnestness of their convictions 
 touching the future interests of the church and of France, 
 there was a great deal of what was exceedingly alike. 
 “ Europe” wrote Felix de La Mennais, whilst yet the 
 church of France gloried in his genuis, “is running 
 headlong in the direction of revolution. Nothing is 
 fixed, nothing secure, conturbatae sunt gentes, et inclinata 
 sunt regna — Psal. xlv. 7* We are, I fear, only in the 
 beginning of our troubles — Catholics will be called on 
 to make still greater sacrifices for truth and conscience- 
 sake — Oh ! may they (whilst always subject to the 
 justly constituted authorities) never bend to the tyranny 
 of faction, and may they be ready to die for the truth 
 rather than renounce that holy liberty which Christ 
 purchased with his blood — such, at all events, is our 
 prayer — we pray for order and for peace, and peace and 
 order can only be found in presence of Christian justice 
 and Christian right.” In de LaMennais 5 work “ Sur le 
 progres de la Revolution,” which was printed in 1829 ? 
 and which, at the time, attracted considerable attention^ 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 33 
 
 there is shown the very same necessity for the presence 
 of the Christian influence in governments, as we have 
 more than once seen insisted on during the course of our 
 criticism on the “ Considerations” of our author. 
 •‘Such need” says de LaMennais “have nations of the 
 power and liberty that come from God, that if they 
 look for one or the other outside the Christian church, 
 they will sooner or later be forced to admit that she 
 alone on earth furnishes us with the source of right 
 and duty, she is the guide of those who command, she 
 is the protection of those who obey, she is in a word the 
 principle itself of moral order and existence. Written 
 by Joseph de Maistre, revised by Felix de La Mennais 
 it was not wonderful that the Soirees would be eagerly 
 read — it was not every day that the catholic public 
 would be treated to such a luxury in literature, as that 
 with which they were now presented. The “Soirees deSt. 
 Petersburg” consisted of a series of dialogues, metaphy- 
 sical and moral, which put in another shape some of those 
 principles of government upon which de Maistre had 
 those already insisted. In no other of his works has our 
 immortal author succeeded better in uniting masculine 
 strength with grace and sweetness than he has done in 
 the famous “ entretiens sur le government temporel de 
 la providence” — all the flexibility of which he was so 
 great a master is here brought into play, and even though 
 a severe critic may sometimes object to certain pleasant- 
 ries, and to the manner in which certain truths are 
 brought forwardhe will still confess that apart from a few 
 mistakes which no more affect the whole than the 
 unevenness of the rind does the interior of an orange, there 
 are few works in any language, few certainly, in French, 
 which contain more of elevated thought, and superior 
 beauty of style than do the Soirees de St. Petersburg. I 
 fear I must have fatigued you by this time, seeing that 
 I have dwelt so long on subjects known to you before, 
 and which only found freshness and novelty inasmuch 
 
34 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 as they were connected with a great and illustrious name. 
 But the truth is, I have myself so much admired Joseph 
 de Maistre’s originality and prodigious erudition that I 
 must be pardoned if I be mure exacting on your patience 
 than I ought to be. It was Lord Macauly who wrote 
 at one time the following words, which however are far 
 from being a transcript of gospel truth “ the enthusiast 
 misrepresents facts with all the effrontery of an advocate, 
 and confounds right and wrong with the dexterity of a 
 jesuit — and all this that a man who was in his grave for 
 many years may have a better character than he de- 
 serves.” — These would be hard words if I were an enthu- 
 siast, but, as an enthusiast is defined by Jeremy Taylor 
 to be “ one who has the zeal of credulity” and as I have 
 not yet reached that degree of blind admiration, I con- 
 gratulate myself on having escaped the literary 
 excommunication of the great critic of the “Edinburgh.” 
 To attempt a criticism on the works of Joseph de Maistre, 
 and pass by unnoticed his “ Soirees ” and “ Lettres to 
 a Russian gentleman on the Spanish Inquisition” 
 would, surely, not be doing justice to the immortal 
 author of both. I do not undertake to say that the 
 “ Soirees de St. Petersburg” is a work superior in merit 
 to Du Pape. — In Du Pape Joseph De Maistre has before 
 him only one truth, which he considers from different 
 points of view, and developes with all the power and 
 eloquence of which he is so complete a master : — in the 
 “ Soirees de St. Petersburg,” he takes to himself a 
 wider field ; he considers man in his relationship with 
 God under almost every possible aspect. He seeks to 
 reconcile man’s free will with the divine preescientia , he 
 investigates and accounts for the presence in the world 
 of good and evil : — these are some of the questions 
 which he undertakes to solve, and truly may it be said 
 that in no one else did the grovelling philosophy of the 
 eigthteenth century meet with a more formidable antag- 
 anist. He continues to discuss through the course of 
 
COUNT JOSEPH HE MATSTRE. 
 
 his eleven “ entretiens” or dialogues with Monsieur 
 Le Senateur T. and Chevalier B. every question that 
 turns up in a way that the philosophers la bas never 
 dreamt of. He has at his disposal arms of every kind 
 for their discomfiture, sometimes it is the cry of angry 
 indignation, sometimes it is the withering smile of 
 thorough and merciless contempt, sometimes it is the 
 scorching sarcasm that he employs against them, at 
 other times it is to the faultless syllogism that he appeals, 
 whilst, at all times, there is underlying his whole process 
 of offence and defence, the wisdom of the statesman, 
 with the faith and hope of the sincere Christian. The 
 flexibility of his genius is shown in every dialogue of 
 this profound, but really charming work — the man who 
 can write of war with sternness and sublimity can be 
 melting in his tenderness when he treats of prayer — 
 “ the destroying angel as the sun” he writes “goes 
 round and round this globe of ours, and gives breathing 
 time to one nation only that he may strike down the 
 other. For when the measure of a nations sins is filled 
 up, the angel must press on unceasingly in his indefa- 
 tigable flight — like to the lighted torch which you whirl 
 round with rapidity, the rapidity of his movement makes 
 him omnipresent at every point of his terrible orbit. 
 He strikes at the same moment the erring nations, and 
 seems to superintend the carnage as the duly appointed 
 and inflexible minister of vengeance. And think not, 
 that the populations which have fallen away from justice 
 can escape or cut short this fearful judgment. The 
 “grands coupables,” the leading sinners must have 
 filled up to the brim the chalice of expiation, 
 before their offspring will be allowed to tell of the deso- 
 lating wars that were brought about by the sins of their 
 fathers.” War is then he argues, a law of the world, 
 and because it is such it comes from God, and it is not 
 only divine in the source whence it comes, but it is also 
 divine in its results. Who would dare to say that many 
 
36 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH D.E MAISTRE. 
 
 who die in war are not, by the very fact, privileged, and 
 who would believe that the victims of this mysterious 
 law have all shed their blood in vain ? When Joseph 
 de Maistre wrote these striking passages, he was survey- 
 ing from the banks of the Neva the wasted fields and 
 burned cities of central and eastern Europe — he had 
 before his mind the horrors of the retreat of 1812 . and 
 with the light of the Kremlin, which he saw in imagin- 
 ation from the new capital of all the Russias, it was not 
 difficult for the great Christian philosopher to behold 
 the chastening hand of God punishing France and 
 Europe for the sins which reached their culminating 
 point in the horrors of the revolution. Had the Count 
 de Maistre been alive in our time, and witnessed the 
 mighty changes, which it has taken only a few months 
 to accomplish ; had beheld the dreadlul humiliation to 
 which the proudest of European nations has been so 
 unexpectedly subjected, had he beheld the unceremo- 
 nious and ruthless way in which the oldest dynasty in 
 the world has been lately overthrown, and had he 
 studied in their causes and results the unholy agencies 
 that were employed to bring about an issue at variance 
 with the first principles of even the pagan morality of 
 Greece or Rome, had he the great Christian philosopher 
 and political prophet of our century witnessed all this, 
 he would have raised his hands to heaven, and in faith 
 and resignation would have exclaimed ; — to thee, O Lord, 
 do I return thanks for the things that I have seen, in 
 thy ways and in thy works, thou, indeed, art wonderful — 
 in the humiliation which has befallen that country, 
 which of all others I loved so well, do I discern proofs 
 of thy retributive and chastening power, and in the 
 passing dangers and difficulties that have encompassed 
 thy representative on earth, I can see that a new occasion 
 is presented for the exercise of that spirit of endurance 
 and firmness which is inseparable from the church, and 
 which, in due time, will enabieher to arise from the conflict 
 
' COUNT JOSEPH DE MA] STRE. 
 
 37 
 
 upon which she has been forced to enter in the fulness 
 of renovated healthy and vigour. Few are there to day, 
 who would measure as would the philosophic de Maistre, 
 the length and depth of one of the greatest collapses 
 which we read of in the history of nations. A favourite 
 principle of his was this, that when the right of 
 imposing obligation is denied, power becomes brute 
 force, and obedience becomes slavery. Christian people, 
 whether they aspire to intellectual, social or political 
 success must recognize the presence and force of the 
 divine guidance and traditions, which bind society 
 together, and without which men soon become isolated 
 and sacrifice to individual gain and individual passion 
 what belongs to the nation at large. In the present state 
 of the world, there is, unhappily, scarcely anything more 
 noticeable than the absence of the religious element in 
 all the public transactions of kings and statesmen — it is 
 the law of physical force and passion that everywhere 
 holds sway — no title, however sacred and ancient, is 
 proof against the false political teaching and practices 
 of the present age. The venerable traditions, which, in 
 the good old catholic times, were so useful for the pro- 
 tection of Europe against the lawless spirit of barbaric 
 conquest, have all disappeared, and the morality of 
 courts and courtiers, of sovereigns and soldiers is regu- 
 lated by no principle of justice or morality of which 
 honest men can have the smallest conception. Joseph 
 de Maistre held consistently thro* life that it is with 
 political, as it is with social morality, once you throw 
 religion over board yon will have nought left but 
 disappointment, disaster and defeat. This primary truth 
 upon which our learned author insisted with as much 
 energy as logic in his “ Considerations,** he developed 
 still further at a later period of his life in a treatise, 
 entitled an “ Essay on the creative principle in political 
 constitutions.** — He found in the words of Proverbs 
 “Per me reges regnant* a key tohis whole system — this to 
 
38 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH I)E MAISTRE, 
 
 the mind of Joseph de Maistre was no mere ecclesiastical 
 phrase* no pulpit metaphor* but was a literal* simple and 
 palpable truth. It is not for men but for God to make 
 or unmake sovereigns — the most man can do is to serve 
 as an instrument in the dispossessing of princes* and in 
 handing over the states of the dispossessed sovereigns 
 to some others who were or were not princes — if they 
 were not already princes* they cannot found a new 
 dynasty “ for 5 ' according to de Maistre* “ there never 
 yet existed for any lengthened period a ruling family 
 the founder of which was plebeian/' This rather novel 
 position may at first seem opposed to historical evidence* 
 but de Maistre boldly challenges his readers to gainsay 
 the fact — the carlovingians were replaced by Hugh 
 Capet* but Hugh Capet was duke of Paris* first peer of 
 France* and his origin was lost in the night of ages. 
 The Stuarts were expelled* no doubt, but expelled b)^ a 
 Prince * and their blood remained on the throne* for 
 Queen Anne was a Stuart. Look* however* at the 
 history of the first Napoleon* and recollect what was the 
 end of that extraordinary man whose power* at one time* 
 was supposed to be so far consolidated as to secure for 
 him and his race a predominance in Europe — and the 
 possibility of a long tenure of power by the dynasty 
 which the coup d^etat of 1851 restored to France is not 
 likely to be secured by the recent change of residence on 
 the part of a distinguished personage from St. Cloud to 
 Wilhelmshohe. Why did not the son of Napoleon I. 
 succeed to the empire ? Why did not Richard Cromwell 
 succeed to the protectorate ? People account for the 
 first result by saying that the king of Rome died pre- 
 maturely* and that even in the event of his having lived 
 to a mature age the allies, who sent his father to St. 
 Helena* would not pe; mit him to take up his residence at 
 the Tuilleries* and ihey account for the second result by 
 si ng that Richard Cromwell unhappily had not the 
 genTus of the merciless Oliver* all of which simply 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 39 
 
 amounts to this that these families would be still reigning 
 if they had not ceased to reign . 
 
 In dealing with the vast problems touching the 
 foundation of the social edifice, and the transmission of 
 the civil power, Joseph de Maistre is substantially in 
 accord with the teaching of our great catholic doctors 
 from Bellannineto Billuart, and from Billuartto Balmez 
 and Montalembert. He certainly seems here and there 
 throughout his “essay on the creative principle in govern- 
 ment” to be more of an obsolutist than Bellarmine whose 
 fundamental principle was expressed in these words “ it 
 is certain that public authority comes from God, from 
 whom emanates all that is good and lawful — it resides 
 immediately in the multitude and this by divine right, 
 and as divine right has not given this power to any one 
 in particular (for positive law being taken away, there is 
 no reason why one man would rule rather than another 
 among a number of equal men) it is the multitude that 
 will give power to the sovereign, not the sovereign who 
 will give power to the multitude. According to this 
 teaching society has a perfect right to establish the form 
 of government which it thinks best for its peculiar wants, 
 and by counsel and election to transfer to an individual, 
 whether king or consul, the authoiity and jurisdiction 
 which a while ago was vested in itself. Between poli- 
 tical power and ecclesiastical power there is, however, 
 a difference, which must be borne in mind, that political 
 power is given by divine law to the multitude, and, 
 therefore indirectly as far as divine law is concerned and 
 directly by the law of nations to the chief magistrate, for 
 the law of nations is nothing more than series of conclu- 
 sions drawn by mere human reason from the natural 
 law, and one of these conclusions recognizes and re- 
 commends election as a means of deciding the question 
 of superiority, — ecclesiastical power comes entirely by 
 divine law, and the subject who receives it, receives it im- 
 mediately from God. This doctrine touching the trans- 
 
40 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 mission of the civil power was not the doctrine solely 
 of the illustrious Cardinal Bellarmine, but has been 
 adopted by most catholic writers since his time ; — 
 a Spanish theologian maintained against the pedantic 
 James I. that power comes to princes mediately from 
 God; and immediately from the people— the theo- 
 logian in question was no other than the great father 
 Francis Suarez of the university of Coimbra. The 
 .catholic church is every day charged with every possible 
 manner of guilt — at one time she is a tyrant, she 
 teaches and practices tyranny, at another time she is a 
 slave to the powers of the world, and tries to impose 
 by her system her own slavishness upon her misguided 
 followers — reviews, newspapers, speeches, sermons, 
 charges , all tell us, that Popery is a fearful engine of 
 mischief, only second in its destructiveness to infidelity, 
 as we were told the other day by a dignitary of the 
 church of England : — this right rev. prelate would very 
 likely have made, if a choice were given him, much about 
 the same reply to his correspondent that Johnson made 
 to Boswell, when the latter asked him which of the two 
 religions he would prefer “ roman Catholicism or presby- 
 terianism,” Why sir of the two , answered the grim old 
 sage, I would prefer the popish,” Returning to the 
 question of government I will take occasion here to ask 
 those who may misrepresent us, do they find in any of 
 their own writers, in Hooke or Chilling worth, any more 
 reasonable doctrine on the vexed question of sovereignty 
 than such as 1 have introducedfrom Bellarmine and Suarez. 
 Will they refuse to believe that man is unlike all other ani- 
 mals, and inasmuch as he is born destitute of many things 
 that are of necessity for soul and body, he must appeal 
 to society, that is, to the assistance of his fellow mortals — 
 This society, which is indispensable to him cannot long 
 exist without some directive power — God, who adapted 
 him for society, and made society of necessity to him, 
 must, too, have given a power to society in order to its 
 
COUNT JOSEPH HE MAISTRE. 
 
 41 
 
 own control and government. Society supposes a mul- 
 titude and in a multitude when all are alike in power, 
 no one man is entitled, jure proprio, to step to the front 
 and claim authority over the others — this authority 
 must be given, and those to give it are clearly those who 
 possess it, the multitude possess it and by election or 
 other becoming way can delegate its power to many 
 taken from several classes, and the form of government is 
 called a democracy, it can delegate power to a few nobles, 
 and the form of government is called an aristocracy, or 
 to one man for himself only, or to one for himself and in 
 trust for others, and this last form of government is 
 called a hereditary monarchy. I said that M. de Maistre 
 is substantially in accord with most catholic writers, 
 when treating of the transmission of the civil power — he 
 and they recognize the fact, that all legitimate power 
 comes from God, and they only differ as to the manner 
 in which it comes to the sovereign, or other justly con- 
 stituted authorities. As the church has never pronoun- 
 ced judgment upon the matter, we are as free to hold 
 the moderate opinion of Bellarmine and Suarez, as we 
 are to hold the absolutist doctrine of de Maistre or de 
 Bonald. The first seeds of revolt against the existence 
 of divine authority in government were sown in Europe 
 by the unsparing hand of Martin Luther, who in his 
 book “de libertate Christiana,” told the peasants of 
 Germany that a Christian was subject to no one. At a 
 later period the people of England were told by Thomas 
 Hobbes (whose system prepared the way for that of 
 Locke) that the force of all law rests upon agreement — 
 Every kind of right as a consequence is derived from a 
 pact or mutual convention and this pact he says was 
 preceded by a state of nature, during the continuance of 
 which men had a right to everything, and when in the 
 words of the atheistic author of the “ contrat social,” 
 “ each one being united to the rest, nevertheless, obeyed 
 only himself, and was as free after as before.” The 
 
42 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 obvious meaning of all this is that simply there is no 
 difference between right and wrong, and that man left 
 to himself without the unerring compass of Christian 
 faith must inevitably drift into a set of opinions which 
 will reduce society to either slavery or anarchy. How 
 different the sublime and consoling teaching of the 
 Christian philosopher — who, whilst he gives his spirit of 
 enquiry sufficient scope, recognizes certain principles as 
 unalterable, and rejects any consequences that are irre- 
 concilable with these — He believes in God, and regards 
 only as legitimate, the authority that is derived from 
 him — he believes that the same God who is the author 
 of nature is likewise the author of society, and that he 
 imposed upon all, for the reason that all were formed by 
 himself who could not be the author of disorder, the 
 saving principle of obedience for conscience sake. Let 
 every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is 
 no power but from God, — and those that are, are 
 ordained by God : — therefore, he, that resisteth the 
 power, resisteth the ordinance of God (Epis. ad Rom. 
 cap. xiii.). The power here spoken of is legitimate power, 
 not the power of those who abuse power. The great 
 Bossuet on this particular passage of St. Paul puts the 
 case in this way : — “ God takes under his protection all 
 legitimate power, under whatsoever form established, 
 and whoever undertakes to overturn such power is not 
 only an enemy to public order, but is an enemy of God.'* 
 Why, the truth is (and it is told to the shame and dis- 
 credit of modern philosophy) that the ancient law-givers 
 of Greece and Rome established their various systems 
 of government on divine authority — in those times, 
 politics and religion were not entirely separated, and it 
 was not at all times easy to distinguish the legislator 
 from the priest — and to be satisfied of this, I have only 
 to invite you to read a book which I have no doubt you 
 lave got in the library of your society, Plutarch*s life of 
 Numa. “He would be a fool * 9 says an unsuspected 
 
COUNT JOSEPH P . MA>-TRE. 
 
 43 
 
 writer of the last cent- y “ that would raise^be question 
 who gave a cor .itution and liberty to Sp ;ta and 
 Home : — these / ^publics did not receive the chan, s of 
 their freedo m from man, they received them from natuu 
 say, from God.” In the religious institutions of 
 Numawefind already laid the foundation of Roman juris- 
 prudence and liberty, and to the worth of these institu- 
 tions and their results is paid by the historian Livy, seven 
 hundred years afterwards, this remarkable compliment: — 
 “neque ambigitur quin Brutus idem, qui tantum gloriae, 
 superbo exacto rege, meruit, pessimo publico id facturus 
 fuerit, si libertatis immatura cupidine priorum regum 
 alicui regnum extorsisset” (Lib. II chap. I.). Why 
 would Brutus have wrested sovereignty from any one 
 of the former kings to the public detriment ? is it for 
 the reason given by Machiavelli : — “ Uno populo uso a 
 vivere sotto un principe se per qualche accidente diventa 
 libero con difficulty mantiene la liberta” — a people 
 accustomed to live under a prince if by any accident 
 they should become free will with difficulty preserve their 
 liberty; — or is it, which is far more likely, that under 
 former kings notwithstanding their diversity of tastes 
 and the peculiar complexion of their several adminis- 
 trations, there was still to be met with a religious 
 appreciation of the duties which they were bound to dis- 
 charge in virtue of their kingly office. Nations have never 
 been civilized but by religion — no other save the reli- 
 gious influence can make men truly civilized. For full 
 three centuries, says Joseph de Maistre, Europe has had 
 footing in America and what was given by her to the new- 
 ly discovered continent but fire-arms and whiskey — fire- 
 arms by which the Indian savage was able to kill others 
 and fire-water by which he was enabled to kill himself. 
 We, no doubt, took with us to America science and 
 commerce, in a word, our civilization, such as itwas, but, 
 meanwhile we drove back to remote forests and hunting- 
 grounds a race of men who were as much the victims of 
 
44 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH HE MAISTRE. 
 
 our vices, as they were of our relentless superiority. How 
 differently did the catholic church treat those unhappy 
 savages — She sent her missionaries from one end of 
 that vast continent to another to rescue men from misery 
 by teaching them not only to know and serve God, 
 but also to teach them agriculture and form them after 
 the model of the most industrious and educated Christian 
 nations — Did the philosophers do as much as this ? not 
 they — they would prefer to write books in Paris to 
 show that the savage state was a natural state, in fact, 
 an enviable state, and that the heroic men who taught 
 astronomy in Paraguay painting in China, and music 
 by the Hudson river had done vast damage to the 
 prospects and happiness of the happiest of peoples. 
 All — and I mean by all, — all rational men — who are 
 subject to authority in whose legitimacy they believe 
 and in whose wisdom, religiousness and justice, they 
 have confidence, will not, as they ought not, look for 
 change, merely for the sake of making an experiment, 
 they will say, as did the old Roman of whom Dionysius 
 Halicarnassus makes mention. “ Nobis nova reipublicae 
 forma non est opus, nec a majoribus probatam et per 
 manus traditam mutabimus,” and it is because that his 
 countrymen fas he may have called them) forgot them- 
 selves, because they forgot the presence of the divine 
 principle and influence in government, because every 
 Frenchman, following the advice of David Hume, took 
 about in his pocket “ the plan of a perfect republic” 
 because, in a word, they forgot the ancient religious 
 maxims of their country, maxims which Jerome de 
 Bignon said were written not on paper 66 mais es coeurs 
 des franfais” it was because of all this that the immortal 
 de Maistre came to the relief of what was thought to be 
 the tottering Christian edifice, and by his genius and his 
 pleasantry literally shivered to atoms the fabric raised 
 by men whose mission was, in the impious language of 
 their chief “ ecraser Y infame de chretiente” I would not 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 
 
 45 
 
 do full justice to the great scholarship of Joseph de 
 Maistre, if I did not here make allusion to his extraor- 
 dinary knowledge of the ancient classics — although able 
 to draw apposite illustrations from all, he seems to have 
 had a particular fondness for Plato and Plutarch amongst 
 the Greeks, as Cicero and Livy were clearly his favorites 
 among the Latins — indeed, some of his critics thought he 
 borrowed somewhat too much of argument and quo- 
 tation from pagan sources, but, like a great many eminent 
 scholars it was not improbable that he was oftentimes 
 under the impression that truth in a dead language is 
 doubly true — certain it is, that to these ancient models 
 we are no doubt to attribute in great part that rare con- 
 ciseness, clearness, and vigour for which Joseph de 
 Maistre will ever hold among French writers a foremost, 
 if not the very first, place. In his six letters to a Russian 
 gentleman he disposes of the whole case of the Spanish 
 inquisition in such a way, as that no one after reading 
 him could with any show of reason venture upon retailing 
 the old fashioned calumnies against the catholic church. 
 Three capital errors have for centuries pre-occupied 
 men’s minds touching the Spanish Inquisition : — 1st. It 
 is believed to have been a purely ecclesiastical tribunal, 
 2nd, it is believed that the ecclesiastical judges who sat 
 in the tribunal condemned to death, 3rd, it is believed 
 that persons were condemned to death for simple 
 opinions. Joseph de Maistre after denouncing the first 
 opinion as false, the second as false, and the third as 
 ridiculously false, shows the real facts of the case to be 
 so plain, and yet so overwhelming, that the reader must 
 rise from a perusal of those six letters amazed at the 
 ignorance shown by most writers on the vexed question 
 of the inquisition. — Voltaire, whom the illustrious 
 Joseph de Maistre never spares, is in these letters turned 
 into immense ridicule — the sneer and sarcasm which the 
 unbelieving philosopher of Ferney flung at everything 
 that Christians deem sacred were both employed against 
 
40 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH HE MAISTRE. 
 
 himself with literally crushing effect by the great subject of 
 our lecture. — In his Jeanne d 5 Arc Voltaire in a moment 
 of forgetfulness wrote of iS Un tribunal qui egorge les 
 mortels arec un fer sacre” de Maistre first reminds his 
 readers that “ un fer sacre” was stolen from Moliere’s 
 Tartufe, but of course, he archly suggests, “ comedians 
 have all things in common” and then he tells the im- 
 pious author that in hating the inquisition he had shown 
 his sense of discrimination for whatever other defects may 
 have attached to that tribunal, if he, Voltaire, had 
 come in its way it would have made very short work of 
 him and his anti-christian productions. It would take 
 me too long did I give to those letters even a part of the 
 prominence which is their due but, it will be enough to 
 say that they prove how true were the words spoken 
 y ^ before by the man who wrote them. “ All great 
 men wau. ' soldiers or statesmen, notwithstanding 
 what their friends tell you, are and m.. be in a certain 
 sense intolerant — as they should uphold truth so 
 should they by an equal obligation condemn ^vhat is 
 opposed to it, and it is always an axiom in govern, lent 
 that great errors which bring about political viole. le 
 and insubordination are only to be met and prevente ' 
 by means whilst they are not equally wrong are equally 
 energetic. The other works of Joseph de Maistre best 
 known abroad are his “ examen” and refutation of the 
 fundamental principles of the Baconian philosophy, his 
 admired criticism on the letters of Madme Sevigne, his 
 u Letters on public education in Russia,” and his enter- 
 taining “ Miscellanies” in which are found the “ five 
 famous paradoxes.” — I said cs best known abroad,” for 
 the truth is Joseph de Maistre is scarcely known at all 
 in Ireland, certainly not known as he deserves. Cha- 
 teaubriand who, with all his brilliancy, falls so far short 
 of the matchless de Maistre, is known to the great 
 majority of Irish readers : the “ Genie du christianisme” 
 is a book which every one has read whilst the inimitable 
 
COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 47 
 
 K Soirees de St. Petersburg” are almost as little known 
 in our country as the treatise on alchemy by Avarroes 
 of Cordova. To be sure the works of Joseph de Maistre 
 are not to be found in english dress — “ du Pape,” as 
 far as I know, being the only one of his books which 
 has been translated into our language. If at first sight 
 it seems a matter of regret that all his writings are not 
 translated it is, in one sense, perhaps, a matter for con- 
 gratulation that things are so ; — Joseph de Maistre 
 would be certain to lose by translation — it would be 
 scarcely possible to do full justice in any translation to 
 that racy, nervous, and masculine French in which the 
 anti-christian doctrines of the 18th century are so piti- 
 lessly exposed and so completely refuted. You, 
 gentlemen, at all events, cannot urge your ignorance of 
 French as a reason why you cannot profit of the teachings 
 of the greatest catholic writer of the first period of the 
 present century. The successful studies, which, as I 
 have been told, you have made in that language, now 
 become so universal, ought to encourage you to read 
 and read again the works of the immortal author upon 
 whose life and writings I have so very unworthily under- 
 taken to lecture. In an age like ours, when the book- 
 stalls of every city, town and village in the land are 
 overcrowded with cheap and mischievous books, when 
 the poisonous literature of Paris and London is served 
 up at 6d. a volume for the undermining of Irish faith and 
 Irish virtue, when Dumas pere et fils would seek to get an 
 entree into respectable society, and Reynolds would aspire 
 to guide our unselfish, generous and patriotic w r orking 
 classes, whilst this much is being done, it is your mission, 
 gentlemen of the Cork Young Men^s Society, first to 
 see that you yourselves are instructed in the sciences 
 which perfect the Christian scholar, and by your example 
 and your superior knowledge to be afterwards the means 
 of edifying and instructing others, who have not been 
 equally fortunate as yourselves. Bring to your aid and 
 
48 
 
 COUNT JOSEPH DE MA1STRE. 
 
 to theirs not the opinions of men^ who, in truth, have no 
 opinion that you or I should think worth acceptance — no 
 matter in what Johnsonian language their theories may 
 be worked out, your touch-stone should be not classic 
 english, but sound doctrine. We should not forget 
 that there is more of what is hostile to catholic truth 
 conveyed, through the medium of the english language, 
 than through any other channel with which we are 
 acquainted. — It is by excellence the language of heresy, 
 and the language which of all others has shown itself 
 most subservient to the infidels of Europe. There is 
 no calumny however clumsy from Cracow to Guebec that 
 our “ leading journals” are not oj dy too anxious to retail 
 with note and comment, provided always that the Pope 
 and the catholic church be the accused, and it matters 
 little who is the accuser. We the children of the church 
 have at this moment a great and sacred cause to cherish 
 and defend- — a cause that notwithstanding the elaborate 
 machinery of misrepresentation that has been exerted 
 against it in these countries, is still triumphing, and tri- 
 umphing to such an extent as that its enemies are forced 
 to admit their confusion. Whilst we witness with becom- 
 ing pride the great things that have been effected for 
 religion in our own country, we feel intensely, (and this 
 after the example of the Apostle because our solicitude 
 extends to all the churches) for the sufferings of our 
 brethren abroad. As we are all members of the one 
 mystic body, we share in the sorrows of all who 
 suffer for “ conscience sake” as we would have shared in 
 their joys : — their sufferings are our sufferings, their 
 happiness is our happiness, in the same way as their 
 enemies are our enemies, and as those who defend 
 them are equally the defenders of the cause w r e regard as 
 our own. Let us then, keeping in mind the invaluable 
 services which, in his own time, he rendered to the 
 Christian and catholic cause hold Joseph de Maistre iri 
 grateful remembrance ; — his genius, his candour, his 
 
COUNT JOSEPH HE MAISTRE. 
 
 49 
 
 wit, his eloquence, his orthodoxy are all worthy of admi- 
 ration. In our days we have had few like him, indeed, 
 it seems to me we have had no one like him. It is, no 
 doubt, regrettable that so comprehensive a subject as 
 the “ life and writings of Joseph de Maistre” should 
 have fallen into such unworthy hands as mine, but even 
 though I have failed in many things, I trust, you, 
 gentlemen, will give me credit for this much, that what I 
 have said, I have said deliberately, and in good faith, 
 and that whatever others may think of the illustrious 
 Savoyard, who lies buried in the Jesuit church at 
 Turin, you will believe me (however mistaken) suffici- 
 ently sincere in regarding him as probably the ablest, 
 as certainly he was the most uncompromising catholic 
 apologist of our century. 
 

 
**