e
the ideas which Maistre bound together in serried logic, and deployed
with the mastery of an intellectual tactician. The recoil from
individualism to authority could not have found a more absolute
expression.

The Vicomte de Bonald (1754-1840), whose theocratic views have much
in common with those of Maistre, and of his teacher Saint-Martin,
dwelt on the necessity of language as a condition of thought, and
maintained that language is of divine origin. Ballanche (1776-1847),
half poet, half philosopher, connected theocratic ideas with a theory
of human progress--a social and political palingenesis--which had
in it the elements of political liberalism. Theocracy and liberalism
met in the genius of FELICITE-ROBERT DE LAMENNAIS (1782-1854); they
engaged after a time in conflict, and in the end the victory lay with
his democratic sympathies. A Breton and a priest, Lamennais, endowed
with imagination, passion, and eloquence, was more a prophet than
a priest. He saw the world around him perishing through lack of faith;
religion alone could give it life and health; a Church, freed from
political shackles, in harmony with popular tendencies, governed by
the sovereign Pontiff, might animate the world anew. The voice of
the Catholic Church is the voice of humanity, uttering the general
reason of mankind. When the _Essai sur l'Indifference en Matiere de
Religion_ appeared, another Bossuet seemed to have arisen. But was
a democratic Catholicism possible? Lamennais trusted that it might
be so, and as the motto of the journal _L'Avenir_ (1830), in which
Lacordaire and Montalembert were his fellow-labourers, he chose the
words _Dieu et Liberte_.

The orthodoxy of the _Avenir_ was suspected. Lamennais, with his
friends, journeyed to Rome "to consult the Lord in Shiloh," and in
the _Affaires de Rome_ recorded his experiences. The Encyclical of
1832 pronounced against the doctrines dearest to his heart and
conscience; he bowed in submission, yet he could not abandon his
inmost convictions. His hopes for a democratic theocracy failing,
he still trusted in the peoples. But the democracy of his desire and
faith was one not devoted to material interests; to spiritualise the
democracy became henceforth his aim. In the _Paroles d'un Croyant_
he announced in rhythmical prose his apocalyptic visions. "It is,"
said a contemporary, "a _bonnet rouge_ planted on a cross." In his
elder years Lamennais believed in a spiritual power, a common thoug