Charles Maurras on our Next World

The ridiculous republic, one and indivisible, that we know so well, will no longer be the prey of ten thousand invisible, uncontrollable little tyrants; instead thousands of little republics of every sort, ‘domestic’ republics like families, ‘local’ republics like towns and provinces, ‘intellectual’ and ‘professional’ republics like associations, will freely administer their own affairs, guaranteed, coordinated and directed as a whole by one sole power which is permanent, that is to say personal and hereditary and with an interest in the preservation and development of the state… Whereas the citizen of the French Republic is left only with his own meagre individual powers to protect him against the mighty state machine, the citizen of the new kingdom of France will find himself a member of all kinds of strong and free communities (family, town, province, professional organisation etc.) which will deploy their strength to protect him from any injustice.

Charles Maurras, ‘Dictator and King’, in J. S. McClelland (ed.), The French Right: From de Maistre to Maurras, London, Jonathan Cape, 1971, pp. 230–1.

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.