Obstinate insistence on the principle of authority is, then, the distinctive, the ruling feature of this literary group. The French rebuilders of society champion the principle with much more ardour than those of Germany, partly because of their racial peculiarities, partly because of their different religion. The reactionary movement in German literature has its origin, as we have seen, in the law-defying self-assertion and self-will of the individual.[8] In spite of its Catholic tendencies and its apery of Catholicism, German Romanticism never became so entirely Catholic, so deferential to authority, as the French reaction. Teutonic and Protestant self-will always militated against this. The French mind yielded easily. And it must be allowed that there is something attractive in the complete, unmitigated reaction which is lacking in the undecided, incomplete reaction.
Even when the revulsion is at hand, and the dissolution of the school fast approaching, we find Lamennais maintaining in his book on indifference in the matter of religion that it is not sentiment, and still less the spirit of investigation, which is the mark of true religion, but that "the true religion is incontestably the religion which is founded upon the strongest possible visible authority." And from the very beginning of the movement the utterances of all its adherents breathe the same spirit. To Bonald religion is a kind of police for maintaining order. In proof of this let me quote a few sentences which I have collected from his works:—
"Religion, which is the bond in every society, more especially tightens the knot of political society; the very word religion (religare) sufficiently indicates that it is the natural and necessary bond of human society in general, of the family, and of the state.—Religion introduces order into society, because it teaches men whence power and duties proceed.—The principles of order are an essential part of religion.—Religion will triumph because, as Malebranche says, order is the inviolable law of minds." Rejoicing at the spread of the reaction, he exclaims: "We already see all European authors who have any real title to fame acknowledging or defending the necessity of the Christian religion, and stamping their works with the seal of its immortality; for—let authors mark this well—all works in which the fundamental principles of order are denied or controverted will disappear; only those in which they are acknowledged and reverently upheld will descend with honour to posterity." We observe that there is no question here of piety, of fervent faith, of sentiment. Religion is the bond, is order, is the principle of authority. How far we are from Germany, where even moonlight sentimentality turned into religion!
Curiously enough, this enthusiastic vindication of religion as order gives Bonald a certain resemblance (which he himself would have angrily refused to acknowledge) to the man he detested almost more than any other, namely, Robespierre. Robespierre, too, had a passionate love of order, and for its sake desired a state religion. The difference is that Robespierre only wished such order as would preserve the gains of the Revolution, whilst to Bonald the word meant the sum and substance of all old tradition.
He and De Maistre are at one on this point. De Maistre says: "Without a Pope no sovereignty, without sovereignty no unity, without unity no authority, without authority no faith." He places monarchy beyond the reach of all criticism and investigation by pronouncing it to be a miracle. He eulogises brute force as such. In his books he submits military society to the discipline of the corporal's cane, civil society to that of the executioner's axe.[9] This last was the measure which Robespierre took in grim reality, though not until he saw no salvation for the Revolution except in a dictatorship. Thus De Maistre, too, has his points of resemblance to Robespierre. He puts the finishing touch to his work in a eulogy of the Inquisition.
What these writers vindicate is, then, authority and power. In the state authority is overthrown by popular institutions which entail compulsory changes of ministry; in religion it is endangered when the clergy attain to comparative independence of Rome (hence De Maistre's book against Gallicanism), or are made completely independent ("by Presbyterianism," as Bonald has it); in the family it is done away with from the moment that divorce is permitted under any circumstances whatsoever. King, minister, and subject; Pope, priest, and flock; husband, wife, and child—these are to Bonald inseparable triads, formed after the image of the Trinity. And in their inseparability they safeguard the great fundamental principles of authority and order.
By sounding here and sounding there, and everywhere coming upon the same fundamental thought, we have discovered what was the ruling idea of the new period. It may be called by many names. It is the great principle of externality, as opposed to that of inward, personal feeling and private investigation; it is the great principle of theocracy, of the sovereignty of God, as opposed to the sovereignty of the people; it is the principle of authority and power, as opposed to the principles of liberty, of human rights, and of human interdependence. And when we examine the life of the day in all its various developments, we everywhere find the same watchword and the same white flag. The fundamental idea sets its mark upon everything.
In the state it leads to the principle of right being superseded by the principle of might—which goes by the name of divine power, and becomes monarchy by the grace of God. In society it banishes the idea of fraternity, substituting a half-patriarchal, half-tyrannical paternal relation—the idea of equality being simultaneously superseded by that of dependence. In the domain of morality it effaces the inward law and substitutes papal bulls and the decrees of church councils. It does not look upon religion as faith, but as a bond, as the "political fetter" which the Revolutionists had so lately upbraided it with being. It champions indissolubility in marriage and in the state. It teaches that language was a direct gift to man from God, thereby stifling the science of language at its birth in order to erect a theological pyramid above its corpse. It makes real scientific progress impossible by keeping all inquiry and research in the leading-strings of powerful outward authority. It dulls the understanding of the rising generation by entrusting its education to a corps of cultivated, well-bred half-men, sworn to blind obedience to the General of the Jesuit order.
And as this same idea, not long after its first vigorous appearance, attains to the possession of a literature, it soon sets its mark upon fiction, upon lyric poetry, from ballad and song to ode and hymn, nay, even upon the drama. In literature, too, the lily reigns. The new school becomes known as the seraphic school. Its heroes, its typical characters, are martyrs, as in Chateaubriand's writings, or prophets, as in Hugo's and De Vigny's. Its poets seek their inspiration and their points of departure in the Bible and Milton. Authoresses like Madame de Krüdener play the rôle of prophetesses, and as such exercise a distinct influence on the social development of the period. The consecration of the King and the birth of the Crown Prince call forth high-flown and deeply reflective poems from such authors as Hugo and Lamartine. The birth of the Count de Chambord is little less than a miracle, and is celebrated in song throughout the country. Chateaubriand, with the cross in his hands, drives heathen mythology out of fiction; and with the cross in their hands, Lamartine and Hugo expel it from lyric poetry. On the stage the Knights Templar and the Maccabees (whose acquaintance we made in Zacharias Werner's Sons of the Vale and The Mother of the Maccabees) make their appearance, the former introduced by Raynouard, the latter by Guiraud. There is not a feeling in the human heart, not a corner of the human mind, and not a branch of literature, upon which this restoration of the spirit of the past does not set its stamp during its day of power.[10]