 1821 title page ofConsidérations sur la France | |
| Author | Joseph de Maistre |
|---|---|
| Original title | Considérations sur la France |
| Language | French |
| Genre | Political philosophy · Social criticism · Culture war |
Publication date | 1796 |
| Publication place | France |
| Pages | 250 |
| Text | Considerations on France at Internet Archive |
Considerations on France (French:Considérations sur la France) is a 1796 politicalpamphlet andtreatise by the Savoyard philosopherJoseph de Maistre about the ongoingFrench Revolution. Maistre presents aprovidential interpretation of the Revolution and argues for a new alliance of throne and altar under a restoredBourbon monarchy. The work is the best-known French equivalent ofEdmund Burke's workReflections on the Revolution in France (1790).[1]
Maistre claimed that France had a divine mission as the principal instrument ofgood and evil on Earth. He interpreted the Revolution as a providential event in which themonarchy, thearistocracy and theAncien Régime in general, instead of directing the influence of French civilization to the benefit of mankind, had promoted theatheistic doctrines of the 18th-centuryphilosophes. He claimed that the crimes of theReign of Terror were the logical consequence of rationalisticEnlightenment thought as well as its divinely-decreed punishment.[2]
Maistre's political pamphlet quickly established his European reputation as a formidable defendant of throne and altar.[3] The pretender to the throne of France, the future kingLouis XVIII, sent Maistre his greetings upon the publication.[4] To honour Maistre for his work,Napoleon made him French against his will in 1802.[5]
The circumstances at the time of its publication in 1796 meant that Maistre's call for a restoration of the monarchy remained unanswered. But in 1814, when his program was implemented, Maistre would be regarded as a prophet. The prominent French authorJules Barbey d'Aurevilly, who was an admirer of Maistre, spoke of a "delayed explosion" and compared it to a cannonball shot with an unusually long interval between the flash and the boom.[6]
The work has received much attention for its stylistic qualities.[7] The prominent literary criticCharles Augustin Sainte-Beuve called it a 'sublime pamphlet.'[8] Scholar ofRomanticism Charles L. Lombard characterized it as primarily a creative work, filled with paradox and drama.[9] French historian Jean-Louis Darcel suggested that the most seductive aspect of the work was its tone:
The sparkle of the visionary, a prophetic tone, and in its best pages, an apocalyptic lyricism linking up with the scriptural origins of Judeo-Christian civilization, this is what seemed new, what struck the first readers.[10]
Historian of ideasCarolina Armenteros, who has written four works on Maistre, characterized the prose style as follows:
TheConsidérations sur la France (1797) uses the ancient technique ofdeinôsis, a Greek term signifying the religious horror that mortals experience in the presence of a terrifying divinity. The imprecations, vociferations and vituperations of his style are so many codes of his anti-modernity.[11]
According to French historian Pierre Glaudes, Maistre's appropriation ofBurke's notion of the sublime provided him with both an interpretive key for understanding the Revolution and a new rhetoric for elucidating and imposing its transcendent meaning.[12] In this way, politics and æsthetics are portrayed as intimately bound together.[13]
Quotations related toConsiderations on France at Wikiquote
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