“And because,” returned the lover, “when some of Bach's music had rolled back into the ocean, it left a pearl ashore for me.”
The Benefits Of Italian Unity.
From The Etudes Religieuses.
Revolution is a dangerous syren. The nations of the earth have yielded to her seductions, but the day is coming when with one voice they will curse the great enchantress who has lured them on to apostasy. For a century she has not ceased to announce an era of prosperity to the rising generation, but at length we see her promises are as deceptive as her principles are corrupt. From the heart of all nations rise up groans and maledictions against her teachings, and against her agents who have betrayed the hopes of their partisans, brought death instead of life, ruin instead of prosperity, and dishonor instead of glory. In a word, revolution is in a state of bankruptcy. This is not acknowledged by the politicians of the tiers-parti and their followers. They still continue to proclaim the sovereignty of the “immortal principles,” declare revolution a success, celebrate its material and moral benefits, and boast that “real social justice was for the first time rendered in 1789”—after eighteen centuries of Christianity! But people are ceasing to be duped by any such political sophisms; they are beginning to regret profoundly the peace, order, and security, and all the benefits assured to the world by the supremacy of religion, and lost through social apostasy. The wisest of politicians are tired of revolutions. People who have lost their sacred heritage, and find themselves deprived of the highest blessings of life, are beginning to remember their baptismal engagements, and to feel the necessity of putting an end to revolution, and returning to the social order established of God. The prodigal son, famished with hunger, makes an energetic resolution: Surgam et ibo ad patrem! Hesitation is no longer possible. Weary of your modern theories, we will return to our Father's house—to Christ and his church!
The man who comprehended most thoroughly the Satanic nature of the revolutionary spirit—Count Joseph de Maistre—had an intuitive assurance of the calamities that would avenge the disregard of the laws of order, and lead future generations back to the sacred principles of their ancestors. The foresight and warnings of this eminent writer are well known. Addressing the French, he says: “Undeceive yourselves, at length, as to the lamentable theories that have disgraced our age. You have already found out what the promulgators of these deplorable dogmas are, but the impression they have left is not yet effaced. In all your plans of creation and restoration you only leave out God, from whom they have alienated you.... How has God punished this execrable delirium? He has punished it as he created light—by a single word—Fiat!—and the political world has crumbled to atoms.... If any one wishes to know the probable result of the revolution, they need only examine the point whereon all its factions are united. They all desire the degradation, yea, the utter subversion, not only of the monarchy, but of Christianity; whence it follows that all their efforts must finally end in the triumph of Christianity as well [pg 793] as the monarchy.”[240] In these few words the great philosopher gives us a complete history of the era of revolution in the past as well as the future. He declares it a widespread overturning of order, necessarily followed by terrible misfortunes, till a counter-stroke turns the nations back to the way appointed by God.[241]
While M. de Maistre was regarding the progress of events from the heights of his genius, he gave the most minute attention to the ravages of the revolutionary spirit in every department. In the Mélanges Inédits, for which we are indebted to Count Joseph's grandson, and which appeared on the very eve of our great disasters (1870), we find more than a hundred pages devoted to reviewing the benefits of the French Revolution. They contain an inventory drawn up by the aid of the republican papers of the time, in which the moral and material results of revolutionary barbarism are attested by the avowal of the barbarians themselves. A certain historian of the Revolution would have done well to examine this catalogue before officially undertaking, in the presence of the National Assembly, the awkward apology so generally known. And what if he had continued to verify the benefits of the revolutionary syren, still beloved of certain politicians, till the end of the year 1872? How glorious would be the balance-sheet of the “immortal principles” in the eighty-fourth year of their reign! Every Frenchman knows what it has cost to be the eldest son of the Revolution!—As statistics are held in such high honor in our day, why not draw up the accounts of '89, and establish clearly the active and passive of the revolutionary spirit now spreading throughout the world?
We lay before our readers some notes that may be of service in this vast liquidation, taken from two valuable works that have been kindly brought to our notice.[242] We do not feel at liberty to designate the eminent person who wrote these Notes, which, if we are rightly informed, were first published in the Messager Russe. All we feel permitted to state is that we can place full confidence in the probity of this traveller. He belongs to the diplomatic corps, but unfortunately is not of the Catholic religion. We will let him testify for himself. It will at once be seen by the frequent quotations we shall make that he is a man of superior mind, decision and honesty of character, and of an upright and incorruptible conscience.
“Eleven years ago, I witnessed the foundation of the kingdom of Italy. I have just seen the work completed—the edifice crowned—Rome made the capital.—My observations have been made in person, and are impartial, as I had no preconceived opinions. My numerous quotations are taken in a great measure from Italian sources, nay, even the most Italian. My position as an independent observer, unbiassed by any feeling of responsibility, enables me to judge events in a cooler manner [pg 794] than might be done by an opponent of the various publicists that have treated of the successive phases of the great Italian drama.”[243]
Here, then, is contemporaneous Italy studied by an observer of incontestable impartiality—studied on the spot, and from authentic sources. It is by no means uncommon to hear the correspondents of Catholic journals accused of exaggeration. Certain newspapers under party influence, like the Journal des Débats and the Indépendance Belge, are paid to divert public attention from facts that cannot be denied. We are sure the Italo-Parisian and the Italo-Belgian press will not say a single word about the Etudes sur l'Italie contemporaine.[244]