Essay on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism/Introduction
NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR.
John Donoso Cortès was born at Valdegamas, the sixth of May, 1809. At five years of age he entered a primary school, and at eleven he had finished the humanities; at twelve he entered the University of Salamanca, in order to study law; and at sixteen, like Leibnitz, he was prepared, had he not been too young, to receive his degree of Bachelor. In the mean time he devoted all his energies to the study of philosophy, history, and Belles-lettres, under that able and philosophical writer, Emanuel Quintana. From Quintana he received the current ideas of the day: an admiration of French authors, a contempt for those of Spain, in a word, that learned incredulity which prevailed among the last generation.
For more than two centuries Jansenism and philosophism had corrupted the land of Pelagio and the Cid. D'Aranda and Pombal had dared to attack those very laws, proclaimed by the Council of Toledo, which had shown the magnificent influence of the Church in the maintenance of liberty and justice. Spain was no longer distinguished above others as the Catholic nation, the nation of profound and heartfelt convictions; the traditional grandeur of her faith had taken the place of the reality; and faith, instead of being an absolute necessity, had degenerated into a mere habit.
Donoso was affected by the spirit of the age in which he lived, and was in his earlier youth, like the greater number of those around him, a philosophist. This is evident in his first works, which he always held in slight estimation on that account. He afterward courageously renounced many of his early opinions, others were changed, and he had need to be ashamed of none, for his faith became firm, and was boldly defended. When he was only nineteen years of age, Quintana, surprised at his great talents, proposed to him to accept the professorship he was about to vacate. When any encomium was bestowed upon the youth, Quintana would always say, "Donoso is a diamond;" and he fully justified this eulogium. The result more than satisfied the general expectation, and it was admitted by all that he might accomplish still greater things in an enlarged sphere of action. Among those who always attended his lectures was a young girl. Her black eyes were continually fixed upon the animated countenance of the orator; and she regarded his every movement with the most intense admiration. Their hearts were touched, and they were married. Scarcely had Donoso enjoyed "the only true felicity of life," and it seemed as if his happiness was assured, when the two beings who had reconsecrated to him their lives, a beloved wife and infant daughter, were both laid in the tomb; as if he was only permitted this affection in order to make an offering of it to God.
He did not endure this first misfortune with resignation, and it was therefore terrible. Educated in an age which, if not altogether infidel, was at least so in ideas, he had imbibed that indifference, which is the greatest scourge of modern times. Although he was a philosophist from his earliest years, yet he was never irreligious; but divine love and a pious fervor were wanting; and religion is not an effect of human reason, but must come from the heart, which receives it through faith. Custom alone, not conscience, held him in union with the Church, and caused him to practice its duties, from which he was soon to experience such great blessings. Notwithstanding this religious apathy, he always continued to fulfill his obligations as a Catholic; nor had he any painful recollections to lament, nor need to blush on account of a single action, which could embitter the present or darken the future.
When Ferdinand VII., replaced upon the throne by a foreign army, wished, to the prejudice of the heir-apparent, Don Carlos, to favor his daughter Isabella, who, by the Salic law of Philip V., could not have succeeded him, Donoso caused a learned and eloquent memorial to be presented to the king, in which he sustained the cause of the Infanta, and appealed to the love of a husband and father. The king wished to recompense him, and in 1832 conferred upon him a distinguished place in the ministry of "Grace and Justice." He was in this way, at twenty-three years of age, thrown into political life, which he was destined never to abandon.
Ferdinand VII. died, but Donoso continued to support Isabella and her mother, Maria Christina. Spain loved her queens, and the memory of Isabella the Catholic, "the most illustrious being who had ever reigned over men," was affectionately cherished in popular traditions. Donoso considered that this sentiment was alone capable of saving his country, of delivering it from anarchy, of securing to it, not merely the order established in a beleaguered city, but the assured tranquillity of laws and of a just moderation. About this time he was elected a deputy to the Cortes, and afterward Secretary of the Council of the Ministry, under the presidency of the famous Mendizabal, the chief of the party of reform. Donoso soon resigned this office, as he remained firm in his principles, which were not those of the ministry; so that he took no part whatever in the confiscation of the property of the Church, in the suppression of religious orders, or in any of those sacrilegious excesses which seemed to renew the times of Charles III.
The tribune and the press still remained open to him, and sometimes by means of the one, sometimes of the other, he continued, as a citizen, courageously to persevere in the vindication of the opinions he had at first embraced. L'Avvenire, a journal established by him, the Pilota, the Corriere Nazionale, and especially the Rivista di Madrid, of which he was one of the editors, attest his activity and the superiority of his talents. He had already published his "Essay on European Diplomacy, from the Revolution of June to the Treaty of the Quadruple Alliance," a work which reflected great honor on his country, and in which the wide scope of his observation is equal to the truth of his applications.[1] It was at that time that he delivered a course of lectures on international law, in the Atheneum at Madrid, a course so much the more useful, as there no longer existed a just public opinion, and no one attempted to strengthen or confirm these languishing sentiments.
In the mean time, Espartero, emboldened by his decisive victory over the Carlists, not only deprived Maria Christina of the regency, but also of the guardianship of her children. Donoso did not change with this mutation of fortune, but continued unceasingly to defend her, if not as widow and regent, at least as mother and queen. His efforts were unsuccessful, and he had reason to esteem himself fortunate that this civic courage was not punished by death, as was that of his friend, Montes de Oca. Maria Christina appointed him her secretary, and in this capacity he shared her exile, and made known to all Europe the ingratitude and cruelty of the Duke of Victoria. Candidly, I do not know, all things considered, whether these representations were just or not. In 1843, when the Marshal Narvaez established a conservative policy, relying upon the protection of France, (an aid always injurious to the independence of a people,) Donoso succeeded in returning to his country, and changed his position of secretary of the queen for that of secretary and director of the studies of Queen Isabella, whose majority had recently been declared. He was, moreover, proffered a place in the ministry, which he refused. He was a man whose convictions were too profound to permit him to alter them when placed in power; and men who are incapable of change cannot long exercise an influence over a mutable society.
At this juncture, Louis Philippe made him Grand-officer of the Legion of Honor, and the States of Castile conferred upon him a title, by erecting his estate of Valdegamas into a marquisate. He afterward entered upon the diplomatic career, having been nominated minister plenipotentiary of Spain near Berlin, where he was surprised by the revolution of February, or, to speak more correctly, by the great European catastrophe of 1848.
Donoso was now on the verge of that uncertain epoch of human life, having reached the midway of the term of years usually granted by God to man, when the two periods of one's existence seem to be equally balanced, and it is difficult to say whether the culminating point is still to be reached or the descent has already commenced. Solemn hour, when the light of day begins to fade, but the setting sun still preserves its radiant splendor-hour, sacred to the past and the future, when the imagination is no longer enkindled, but the poetry of the heart remains. If our faith has, until then, been rather an act of the understanding than of the affections, and we meet with some disaster in such an hour, we find ourselves suddenly changed, a heavenly unction penetrates our souls, and we approach the end of life with an increase of strength and fervor.
At thirty, Chateaubriand wept and believed; in the death of two beloved objects he gained life, and from their graves ascended those pious desires, through which he acquired the gift of faith. Donoso loved at forty, and was converted. His brother died. He never alluded to this loss without weeping, and writing about him to an intimate friend, Mr. Rio, he said that he ought to ask pardon of God for having so entirely loved a human creature. At the bedside of his dying brother he studied religion, and he there found in it a virtue superior to all others, the virtue of piety. Thenceforward his life was one of faith, love, and expiation; of devotion to the memory of his brother, and of prayer for the repose of his soul. Donoso wept and believed.
In reply to those who attributed this conversion to his own merits before God, he said: I cannot remember to have merited anything; but a certain feeling may have caused me cheerfully to return to God, for I can never behold a poor man at my door without thinking that I see in him a brother. He thus expresses himself, in a letter to Mr. Alberico de Blanche-Ruffin: "As you see, neither my understanding nor my reason have had any part whatever in my conversion. Had I depended upon my limited talents or my miserable reason, I should have descended into the tomb without coming to the knowledge of the true faith. The mystery of my conversion (for in every conversion a mystery is always involved) is a mystery of love. I did not love God; he wished me to love him, and I loved him, and was converted through love."
Notwithstanding his learning, Donoso, when converted, entered upon the path of Christian ignorance, and commenced to become sublime, by learning to be as a simple child, and, like the pilot of Homer, who at times watched the stars, and at times the sea, Donoso was not so entirely absorbed in celestial contemplations as to neglect mundane affairs: but, what is more meritorious, he considered this life as a necessary trial. We now behold him in full possession of truth and virtue, without being subjected to incessant contests, to harassing doubts, to cruel solicitude, to all of which had been added the difficulty of preserving the propensities of such a temperament as his in perfect equipoise. The works of St. Teresa and those of Father Lewis of Grenada, "the first mystic in the world," afforded nutriment to his own religious enthusiasm, for the activity of his exterior life did not indicate how great was his love of meditation. About this time he wrote from Dombenito: "I have never accomplished anything, I accomplish nothing, nor shall I ever, in all my life. I am a perfect example of those men who do nothing; I am always reading, I propose to act, and then I never commence. Sometimes I imagine myself standing before God, and God demanding of me, What hast thou done? and I tremble with excessive fear. I then think that perhaps I was destined for a contemplative life; but these are dangerous illusions presented to my mind. The truth is, that I am a man who has done nothing." The simplicity of his faith equaled that of the most humble countryman. Having learned that a relic of our Lord was preserved in the Church of Argenteuil, he wished to make a pilgrimage thither, in order to obtain of divine mercy the cure of one of his brothers, who was sick. There is such a fullness of affection in those souls who are inspired by divine love, that they desire every act and thought should correspond to this love, and they make of life a continual sacrifice; and yet the world considers them as objects of insult, and takes pleasure in calling them guelfi da campanile; so that, in consequence of a contempt for their example, truth is lost and the practice of virtue discontinued.
I will only say a few words respecting the political opinions of Donoso. "The Christian monarchy, which existed before the absolute monarchy caused the suppression of deliberative assemblies, placed a real and not a revolutionary limit to the royal will;" and then the government was the only social form that was deemed necessary, the only expression of that authority which proceeded from God. In this appeal to the middle ages, to this high Catholic arbitrament, to the feudal and aristocratic power, all the illustrious men of the theological school concur with Cortès, from De Maistre to Balmes, from Bonald to Canuta. It is a general complaint, the want of an age in which faith existed and was potent for good, "and in which the rewards and punishments of a future life governed society." But what is the true Christian monarchy, the true Christian republic? Perhaps it is the monarchy of Gregory VII., that greatest representative of liberalism! But Donoso Cortès does not seem to think so, and in this matter many of the theological school to which he belongs disagree with him, and justly so.
Donoso had the consolation in his dying moments to reflect that "he had never failed to defend society, so cruelly assailed; and that he had never injured any one."[2]