scheme was demonstrated by the conduct of De Maistre himself. In 1804 pope Pius VII crowned Napoleon emperor. This, according to the theorj' of the work Du Pape, was one of those judgments by which the pa- pal infallibility settled poUtical difficulties. Yet De Maistre speaks of this decision in the following disre- spectful terms : " The pope's journey and the coronation are for the present the great subject of conversation. . . . All in the French Revolution is wonderfully bad, but this is the ne plus ultra. The crimes of an Alexander VI are less frightful than this hideous apostasy of his weak-minded successor. ... I wish with all my heart that the unfortunate pontiff would go to St. Domingo to crown Dessalines. When once a man of his rank and character so far forgets both, all that is to be hoped for is that he may completely degrade himself until he be- comes but an insignificant puppet" (Corrtsp. diplom. p. 138, 139). It was thus the great ultramontane writer respected papal infaUibility when not in accordance with his own views or his passions. De VEglise Gallicane dans ses 7-apports avec le souverain p)ontife (Paris, 1821, 8vo ; Lyons, 1822) is a sort of continuation of the preced- ing work. It attacks the privileges of semi-indepen- dence claimed by the Church of France. This book, in which Bossuet and Fleurj' are somewhat roughly han- dled, was not well received at first by the French clergy. Abbe Baston published an answer to it under the title Reclamations pour VEglise de France, et pour la rerite, contre M. de Maistre (1821, 1824, 2 vols. 8vo); still, in the course of time, it was greatly instrumental in caus- ing the triumph of the ultramontane doctrine. Les soi- i-lcs de St.Petersbourg, ou Entretiens, etc. (Paris, 1821, 2 vols. 8vo), "the best known and certainlv the most readable work of the author," treats of retribution, both here and hereafter. We cannot give here the details of De Maistre's theory, but its most important features may be summed up thus : the thorough badness of hu- man nature, the necessity of atonement, the reversion of the merits of the innocent paying for the guilty, and salvation through blood. These views, in which excel- lent Christians have found a daring perversion of the most holy Christian principles, led De Maistre to justify the Inquisition. His apology, entitled Lettres a un gen- tiUiomme Pusse sur r Inquisition Espagnole (Paris, 1822, 8vo), is, however, but a verj' lame defence of that atro- cious institution. His violent attack against Bacon, Examen de la Philosojihie de Bacon (Paris, 183G, 2 vols. 8vo) is not much better. His works are very original, but more in the form than in the ideas. Canying often a true principle to its fullest extent, he arrives at a par- adox which he then proclaims as evident. "As a pam- phlet writer," says Dr. M'Clintock (in the Meth. Quart. Rev. 1856, p. 218), " De ]\Iaistre may be comp.ared, in some respects, to Paul Louis Courier; he had the same point, the same Jinesse, the same elegance of style, and an ap- parent simplicity, which only set off with greater efiect the home-truths he addressed to his readers; but fin- ished as these minor works decidedly were, true both as to sentiment and language, they were merely suggested by the events of the times, and, as such, were likely to lose most of their point as the course of things moved in a new direction. The Considerations, on the contra- ry, will ever retain their interest, for thej^ discuss prin- ciples ; they belong to the philosophy of historj-. Wliat- cver view we may take of the conclusions adopted by De Maistre, we cannot but admire both the extent of his learning and the depth of his thoughts; the work fidly deserves to be placed by the student on the same shelf as Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History."
Here we woidd notice also one or two peculiarities in the method of count De Maistre. which mark out his originality amid all the writers of his age. The first is that continual reference to God and to the providential superintendence of man's life here below, of which we have iiefore spoken. From this point of view he is ad- mirably placed to discuss the most serious questions, and he does so with a power and an eloquence to which
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everything must yield (compare Ffoulkes, Christeii- dom's Bivisions, i, 200). Another remarkable point is the soundness of his judgment and the sagacity with which he assigns, both to events and to men, their proper influence over the whole course of contemporary histor3^ ]\Iany views, manj^ principles now generally admitted, may be traced back to the Considerations, and have been borrowed from that extraordinary book, often without any acknowledgment. See Raymond, Eloge du comte Jos. de Maistre (Cbambery, 1827, 8vo) ; Rodolphe de Maistre, Notice hiorj. sur le comte Joseph de Maistre (in the preface to J. de M.'s Correspondance et Opuscules (Par. 1851, 2 vols. 8vo ; 1853, 2 vols. 12mo) ; Sainte-Beuve, Cauteries du, Lundi, vol. iv, and his Por- traits Contemporains, vol. ii ; Villeneuvc-Arifat, Eloije du comte Jos. de Maistre (1853) ; Damiron, EssaisurVHis- toire de la Philosophie en France au 19' siecle ; Taine, Les Philosophes Fran^ais du xix" siecle; Edinburgh Re- view, Oct. 1852 ; Albert Blanc, Introduction a la Corre- spondance diplomatique de Joseph de Maistre; Migne, Xour. Enajclopedie Theologicpie, ii, 1320 ; Ediiib. Revieic, April, 1849 ; Lond. Quart. Rev. 1857, art. vii ; and espe- cially the article by Dr. M'Clintock in the Meth. Quart. ^er.' April, 1856, art. iii. (J. H. W.)