On France -- Century Library

Author: Joseph de Maistre (French), translated by Lu Ren
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: On France is the masterpiece of Count Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821), written in 1796 during the Directory period. After the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, the clergy and nobility were impacted, and Maistre began his lifelong exile abroad in 1792. In this book, Maistre focuses on the dynamics of the French Revolution's occurrence and development, the constant presence of war factors during the revolution, and the role of God's intention as he perceived it in the entire revolutionary process. Unlike other scholars who emphasized social factors in the revolution, such as the tensions in the status of the elite at the time, the mismatch between population and wealth growth and the channels for status advancement, or ideological factors, such as whether the French Revolution was a ritual to establish legitimacy, Maistre firmly emphasized historical empirical facts, appealing to observations of human behavior. He advocated for the sacred past, the virtues of the classical era, and inevitability, highlighting the role of the spiritual dimension, which constitutes Maistre's own constructed historical narrative of the French Revolution.