« The counter-revolution will be the contrary of the revolution ». Explain and Discuss

Extraits de l'exposé

[...] In contradiction to radical royalists who advocated force, De Maistre argues that the counterrevolution should be reformist in principle rather than reactionary. Firstly because of practical reasons: ?militarily, the émigrés are nothing and can do nothing?, but mostly because of the dangers of armed counterrevolution that would inevitably prolong the conflict and exacerbate the violent tensions between the two camps. Restoration and counterrevolution should be expressed by a general passive recognition and acceptance rather than by popular deliberation: ?people will no more decree the monarchy's restoration than they decreed its destruction or the establishment of the revolutionary government.? While De Maistre doesn't believe in people's deliberation, the restoration can be seen as the only natural outcome of the revolution itself, understood as a sacrificial crisis independently of people's will. [...]

[...] For De Maistre, the ideological successes of the revolution are to a certain extent imputable to the ideological failure of the monarchy and its decline into the rule of force. Nevertheless, De Maistre is a counterrevolutionary who argues in favour of restoration against the evilness and vice of the revolution. His traditionalist argument centred on legitimacy and continuity opposes the ideas of the Enlightenment and those of individualist Protestants. His providential philosophy of history is, besides, fundamental in anticipating the restoration. In a famous maxim, he asserts that the counterrevolution will not be a contrary revolution but the contrary of revolution. [...]

[...] De Maistre theocratic rhetoric explains the revolution as inevitable, but similarly the counterrevolution will be as ?natural' and unavoidable of actively returning traditional legitimacy to the throne. However, the return to traditional authority is not strictly speaking a resumption of continuity, or a rectification of recent history, because it would require introducing reforms in order to reconcile the changes brought by the revolution with royalist conservatism. Counterrevolution as expressed by De Maistre is therefore not effectively the contrary of revolution because of the essential need to adjust, and to succeed, a restoration ought to present some form of compliant accommodation. [...]

[...] The theory of sacrifice and divine punishment for the sins of the monarchy is another explanation for the revolution. Surprisingly enough, De Maistre admits the inevitability of the revolution, thanks to his intellectual independence and ?liberalism' he acquired prior to the revolution. He attributes the decline of the old order to the behaviour of its elites and to the bankruptcy of the ancien regime. The revolution is therefore a ?spiritual crisis?, given that the absolute monarchy was corrupt, the revolution would serve the purification of France through its sacrifice, which would ultimately regenerate the old order. [...]