[2] Joseph de Maistre, Considérations sur la France; Lettres et opuscules, i., ii; Correspondance diplomatique, i., ii.; Soirées de St. Pétersbourg, i., ii; Du Pape; De l'Église Gallicane; Examen de la philosophie de Bacon, i., ii.; Margerée, Le Comte J. de Maistre; E. Faguet, Politiques et moralistes du 19me siècle.
[VI]
BONALD
Side by side with Joseph de Maistre stands Bonald, the famous medieval schoolmaster of the European reaction, a man with the same bent of mind and the same practical aims, but as monotonous as De Maistre is versatile, as conventional as De Maistre is wittily fantastic.
Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de Bonald, was born in 1754 (the same year as De Maistre) at Monna, in the south of France. He began life as an officer in Louis XV.'s musketeers. During the first stage of the Revolution he favoured liberal ideas, but only for a short time. He married early, and was made chief magistrate of the Department of Aveyron, an appointment which he resigned when Louis XVI. found himself obliged to consent to the subjection of the clergy to the secular laws. In 1791 he emigrated, and joined the army of the Prince of Condé. He wrote his Théorie du Pouvoir at Heidelberg. The police of the Directory destroyed almost the whole first edition of this book, but a copy which had been sent to Bonaparte luckily reached its destination and made such a favourable impression on the great man that he removed its author's name from the list of exiles. Not unprofitably had Bonald taught that every revolution is begun by the subject but ended by the ruler, that it begins because the authorities have been weak and have yielded, and ends because they have recovered strength. He had shown that all disturbance only serves to strengthen authority, and prophesied that the Revolution, which had begun with the declaration of the rights of man, would end with the declaration of the rights of God. These latter being the very rights which Bonaparte, by means of his Concordat, was now proclaiming, Bonald's position was assured. He remained devotedly attached to the Bourbons, but was content to dream of them in an appointment conferred on him by the Emperor. He was made conseiller tutélaire of the University, with a salary of 12,000 francs a year for doing nothing. Chateaubriand reviewed his books with reverent admiration. De Maistre wrote to him after the publication of his Recherches Philosophiques; "Is it conceivable that nature has amused herself by tuning two strings until they are in as perfect harmony with each other as your mind and mine? If certain manuscripts of mine are ever printed, you will find in them almost the same expressions you yourself have used, and yet I certainly have altered nothing." In another letter he expresses himself even more strongly: "I have thought nothing which you have not written, and written nothing which you have not thought." Bonald felt himself flattered by these assertions, though he doubted their truth—and this with good reason, for, similar as are the results arrived at by these comrades-in-arms, there is little resemblance between their mental processes.
A proof of the high estimation in which Bonald was held is to be found in the touching letter in which Napoleon's brother, Louis, King of Holland, entreats him to undertake the education of his eldest son. Louis begins by telling what a complete invalid he himself is, how dearly he loves his son, how imperative it is that this son should be educated by a man, in the fullest acceptation of that word, in order that he too may become one. Then he says: "Although I do not know you personally, my investigations have led me to the conclusion that you are one of the men whom I esteem most highly. Therefore you will pardon me that now, when I have to choose the person to whom I must entrust what is more to me than life, I apply to you. If the happiness which you doubtless enjoy in a peaceful home has not made you indifferent to the service you are capable of rendering—I do not say to me, a single individual, but to a whole nation which is even more deserving than it is unfortunate (and that is saying much)—you will consent to become my son's tutor." And he concludes in the same strain, defending himself against slanders which he imagines may have reached Bonald's ears. With such humility did a king appeal to this man—and in vain; he refused the request.
