ABSTRACT
On the European continent, some of the aristocratic opponents of the French Revolution saw it as the logical, if terrible, outcome of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, with its glorification of human reason. Because they reacted against the revolution, these writers came to be known as the “reactionaries” whose ideas constituted the “Counter-Enlightenment.” Perhaps the most important writer who sought to restore the old order of European society—with the church, monarchy, and aristocracy firmly in control—was Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821). The following selections are from Maistre’s Considerations on France (1796) and Study on Sovereignty (first published in 1884).
