Against Rousseau by Joseph de Maistre (review)

220 ,LETTERS IN CANADA 1996 on air balloons) announced that he "Supplies the loss of teeth as usual." , To read such notes is to encolUlter a Cowper who is aufait and engage- selfsequestered in his rural nook but responding ardently to events in the urban macrocosm. Throughout their commentary, Baird and Ryskamp refresh our understanding of the poem's dialectic, its polyphony, and its unique amalgamation of genres. In volume 3 the textual choices are more complicated, thanks to the survival of manuscripts (some of them holograph) for many of the later poems. The introduction describes the surviving evidence with admirable clarity and concision. Following their preference for the 'unsocialized' version (to adopt McGannian terminology), Baird and Ryskamp take as copy-text the holograph when available, or the copy with the greatest authority. This decision allows them to restore the original punctuation, and thereby to free the reader from those editions that 'impose on Cowper's easy syntax and fluid rhythms a grammar alien to the poet which constantly interrupts the flow of the verse.' Now Fanny will be able to quote lYe fallen avenues' with confidence in the accidentals. (BRUCE REDFORD) Joseph de Maistre. Against Rousseau. Edited by Richard A. Lebrun McGill-Queen's University Press. xxxv, 204. $55.00 This translation of three major essays - 'On the State of Nature,' 'On the Sovereignty ofthe People,' and the unfinished 'Onthe Nature ofSovereignty ' - is preceded by an elucidating introduction by Richard Lebrun, who is known for his work on Maistre, an intellectual who supported the monarchy and who fled the army of the French Revolution in 1792. Lebrun immediately answers the first criticism that might be levelled at a project now making available essays that were unfinished, unpublished for fifty years after their composition, and largely unknown then as now. Maistre, who might be viewed as an important 'modern' figure, was a contemporary of Rousseau, representing a significant and unique point of view. (Maistre saw Rousseau as an 'archtypical philosopher,' not as the more frequently depicted natural manI anti-phllosopher.) Furthermore, the evolution of Maistre's thought in these essays and the ambiguity of his understanding of Rousseau make the study of his work valuable to our appreciation of eighteenth-century history and thought. Maistrebaseshis critique on the following syllOgism,whichhe attributes to Rousseau. Man is good. Vices do not come from nature. Thus vices come from society which is, ergo, against nature and bad. Maistre avers that this is not a sufficient demonstration and he posits that, on the contrary, there is no such thing as a state of nature and that man is a social being. Art and perfectibility are part of man's nature and are gifts which can only be HUMANITIES 221 developed in society. As Lebrun points out, bothMaistre and Rousseau see the necessity for a social order. The difference is that Maistre wants the status quo and believes not only in the monarchy but in its divine right, the indivisibility oflaw and rule, while Rousseau believes in the social contract and the separation of the option to participate in the social pact and the choice of ruler. Maistre melds church and state, which Rousseau separates (until, of course, he discusses the cult of the state). Lebrun has done a fine translation and a very conscientious job of editing. For example, he refers both to the pages in the text and to the modem translation, The introduction provides an excellent, succinct discussion which leaves the reader wishing for more. For example, Lebrun offers the example of natural law, which Maistre does not discuss. This topic could be expanded. It might equally be of interest to compare Klng Stanislaus's and Gauthier's replies and refutations ofRousseau's Discourse. It would also have been interesting to look at other discourses that were submitted to the Academie de Dijon, a topic which the late Louise Marcil introduced recently at the North American Society for the Study of JeanJacques Rousseau. One could elaborate on parallels with Burke. One could refer to other works by Rousseau, such as the Dialogues and the Preface de Narcisse, in which Rousseau rejoins Maistre in talking about the conservation ofexisting institutions. One might...