Friday 4 December 2009

Joseph de Maistre on our New World

There is a satanic element in the French Revolution which distinguishes it from any other revolution known or perhaps that will be known. Remember the great occasions – Robespierre’s speech against the priesthood, the solemn apostasy of the priests, the desecration of objects of worship, the inauguration of the goddess of Reason, and the many outrageous acts by which the provinces tried to surpass Paris: these all leave the ordinary sphere of crimes and seem to belong to a different world.

Joseph de Maistre, ‘Considerations on France’, in J. Lively (ed.), The Works of Joseph de Maistre, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1965, p. 71.

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