2. Restorationist Conservatism.
Burke's Reflections
on the Revolution in
France rapidly found an echo in
Germany, where reception was prepared
by the his-
toricist opposition to radical
enlightenment—above all
in J. Möser, E. Brandes, A. W.
Rehberg, and Friedrich
Gentz. Though at first stamped by the
Enlightenment,
all of these found in Burke that mixture of political
experience with concrete reflection, of assured con-
sciousness of freedom with a skeptical attitude
toward
innovation and emancipation that could not have arisen
independently under German conditions. Their rejec-
tion of revolution was not directed against Jacobin
horrors
alone. Because they recognized that it was no
longer merely a question of a
“change of regime” in
the old manner, but of a
“total revolution” (Gentz),
even though executed by a
part of the nation only,
they denounced revolution as a “breach
of the social
contract” hostile to every order in society and
therefore
as an “amoral operation” (Gentz). To the
claim of
revolution to reconstitute society they opposed an
equally
comprehensive denunciation of revolution as
a breach of law and as
destructive of the foundations
of the order of European society and state,
but did
not yet present any antirevolutionary counter-ideol-
ogy, nor any program of restoration.
The former appeared in French aristocratic Catholic
émigré
circles from the pens of J. M., Comte de Maistre
and L. G. A. de Bonald.
They were consciously opposed
to liberal enlightened thought, considered
revolution
as simply evil, and favored instead a retroactively
purified “order” that was traditional, hierarchical,
and
springing directly from the will of the Creator; against
revolutionary changes they offered the wisdom of his-
tory as the instructress of politics. A state could not
be
organized in accordance with rational constitutional
principles: its form
must derive from the history of
a people, and the sovereign power that
constitutes it
originates in God, and so obtains its legitimacy.
Written
statutes are only the formulation of the unwritten,
eternally
valid laws; only those institutions can endure
that are founded on
religious conceptions. For de
Maistre individual reason is presumption
condemned
to error, and philosophy is a destructive force. Since
monarchy is for him the traditional ordering power
and almost
“natural,” he wants it to be restored; not
indeed in
its absolute form, but in a patriarchal and
decentralized manner commanding
a society divided
into corporations (Stände) and in the closest relation
to the Catholic Church
as the universal force for tradi-
tion and
order. By setting the Church over the state,
and the Pope over kings, de
Maistre made them the
most powerful instruments of counterrevolution
and
restoration, a barrier to enlightenment and individ-
ualism, and the prop of monarchy and corporative
structure.
Even more clearly than de Maistre, de Bonald
emphasized the view that only
in society is human
nature truly realized; he thereby gave expression
to
those anti-individualistic features of conservatism that
enabled it
to recognize the social problems of an
industrial society in process of
development and so to
advance the social science. Bonald also
formulated
most clearly the differences between the individualistic
and abstract versions of a republic (that could not
achieve any important
social objective) and a real
“social” monarchy; his
criticism became focal in con-
servative
argumentation. Like de Maistre he sought
restoration, but was not content
with simply denounc-
ing revolution; rather
he presupposed its existence in
order to derive from its abstract
principles the con-
creteness of
restorationist politics. The content and
style of his thought later
influenced the Action
Française.
In central Europe restorationist conservatism found
its most acute proponent
in the Swiss, K. L. von Haller,
who saw patriarchal leadership, the
prerogative of civil
law, and the corporate patrimonial state as “natural”
institutions; on the other hand, he viewed the entire
development of the modern state as a path of error,
and so won the approval
of the Prussian conservatives
close to Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Western and
middle
European restorationist conservatism found an echo in
Russia
and—together with ideas of mysticism, quietism,
and
romanticism—influenced Tsar Alexander I; the
Holy Alliance,
which was initiated by him and repre-
sented
an antirevolutionary program, aimed at stability
and was based upon the
assumption of the solidarity
of all Christian sovereigns and people.
