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THE DIALOGUE IN HELL BETWEEN MACHIAVELLI AND MONTESQUIEU -- COMMENTARY

Part IV:  The Drama of the Dialogue

Chapter Nine:  The Portrait of Machiavelli

Thinkers who have come into contact with Joly appreciate his talents and insights and unfailingly remark upon the gross abuse that the Dialogue in Hell has suffered at the hands of posterity. However, the real nature of this abuse and a  true appreciation of Joly's text presume an adequate understanding of the more subtle intentions and teachings of the Dialogue which heretofore have been not sufficiently addressed. This requires greater concentration on the dramatic elements of the Dialogue whose careful construction has been overlooked by  scholars whose interest in Joly derives from their greater concern with the Protocols.

In his essay on Joly, Hans Speier summarizes a view of past scholars that he shares, in part, but would also like to refine and correct.

While critics have often pointed out that Joly's sympathies are on the side of Montesquieu, it would be more correct to stress that in the  Dialogue he shared Montesquieu's moral preferences but regarded  Machiavelli's knowledge of politics as superior to that of his adversary. [1]

Speier senses the need for more clarity in coming to grips with the enigmatic character of the author of the Dialogue in Hell, but his statement, despite his intentions, brings greater obfuscation.

When taken at face value, his comment on Joly's critics leads to some insupportable conclusions that do no justice to Joly, an author Speier obviously respects, or the subtlety of the text, the real significance and continuing relevance  of which Speier wished to present. Indeed, the most astute commentator on the  Dialogue in Hell would unintentionally force the issue of a more adequate treatment of Joly, whose thought and way of writing is again underestimated and  escapes the scholar most capable of grasping its finer points. [2l

Montesquieu is devastated by the arguments of Machiavelli. Following Speier's line of thought, certain perplexing questions arise. If Joly's sympathies  lie with Montesquieu, why would he seem so utterly to refute his position? Can we really maintain a preference for a morality that is erected upon baseless  assumptions? Joly would be presenting us with a very unpalatable choice. We  might have our "moral preferences" but at the sacrifice of reason.

There really is no choice in such a case. Given the limitations of Montesquieu in the portrait of him presented by the Dialogue, we are led to side with  Machiavelli. [3] However, if we leave it at that, we would be forced to conclude  that Joly's effect, if not his intention, is immoral in seeming to serve the cause of despotism. Finally, we might begin to wonder at the perversity of such a man so  obviously in contradiction with himself. We shall see that the resolution of these  contradictions begins with a more adequate understanding of the character and  thought of the Machiavelli in the Dialogue in Hell.

Dissatisfaction with Speier's account of Joly requires a return to the text. In- deed, a closer investigation of details reveals a certain sympathy to elements of  Montesquieuan thought, not within the Dialogue proper but outside it, so to speak, in A Short Introductory Statement and on the Title page. These are the  only places where Joly addresses us in a direct manner and not through his interlocutors. They are the logical starting places for distilling a more adequate understanding of Joly and deserve proper emphasis.

There are two quotes from The Spirit of the Laws on the title page.

Soon we should see a frightful calm during which everyone would unite against that power which had violated the laws.

When Sulla thought of restoring Rome to her liberty, this unhappy city was incapable of receiving that blessing.

These quotes are keyed to Joly's deeper intentions. [4l

In the former, we are presented with a glimpse of the future. The statement would aptly refer to the rule of Joly's despot and his violation of the statutes and organic law of the liberal regime as well as, perhaps, the more fundamental laws  of religious origin that are the basis of civil life. Inaugurated in violence, his rule  moves toward a peace that could be described as "'frightful," if not chilling, due  to the apparent success of the despot in overcoming the resistance of his subjects  and winning acceptance to their own servitude. We are, however, on the verge  of a great social upheaval and may stand in only an interval of a calm before an  even more dreadful storm.

In the second quote, Joly presents an ancient partisan of liberty, Sulla, who attempted to restore Rome and its Senate to republican principles. However,  there were only the feeble remains of virtue. The succession of Caesars that followed failed to arouse Rome from its lethargy and steadfastly riveted the chains  of servitude. When the people struck blows, it was at the tyrant, not the tyranny. [5l

A case can be made that Joly himself takes advantage of this "frightful calm" to teach his contemporaries of the crisis that is ripening and the despotism that is  upon them. It is not unlike the despotism that engulfed Rome in the rule of the Caesars who followed in the wake of Sulla 's failure. His addressees, who are not  fully cognizant of their situation, dictate the manner in which he presents his teaching. In revealing the tyrant, Joly indicates what makes the present so perilous and tries to arouse his contemporaries from their lassitude. In this regard, his  intentions are similar to those of Sulla, although the methods markedly differ, to  say the least. He prompts the test of their virtue in the face of the modem Caesar  and, conscious of Sulla, doubts their response.

We may see the quotes as an expression of a political crisis that Joly thought was brought to a head by recent Napoleonic policies. Political upheaval remains  a distinct possibility in the face of a political order, the closest antecedent of  which is Imperial Rome. The possibility for liberty rests in thwarting the aims of  that order without unleashing a dangerous anarchy. In the first quote, the destruction of the regime is held forth as a distinct and perhaps imminent possibility. The undertones of mass anarchy make the present moment a truly delicate  one, calling for a political teaching that is at once prudent, as well as revealing and frank. Joly's solicitude is not unfounded. He basically accepts the analysis of Joly's Machiavelli regarding the character of his contemporaries. We have only to look to the anarchy of the Commune and its murderous repression,  when, indeed, the Napoleonic Empire suddenly fell in war with Germany.6 And  as citizens of the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we have  fresh experience of the mayhem that can follow from the collapse of a powerful  despotic empire.

Joly's name is not found on the Title page of his own book. Given the nature of the material in the book and his presentation of the ways of the Napoleonic regime, he presumably does this for prudential reasons of a personal kind. He  has his book published in Brussels, a place that was more congenial to projects  like his own!

In his preface, he writes that his book will be published anonymously. Giving his name is not important, all considerations of prudence aside. The work  does not represent personal views. It is the "public voice" and a "call to conscience" that is contained therein. It is meant to speak in disinterested tones. At  least according to its author, we are not to doubt his "moral intentions" or his  opposition to despotism.

In A Short Introductory Statement, we also see how the author views the regime described in the Dialogue. He does not simply identify with the teaching of  Machiavelli therein. Machiavelli's regime is present reality. The day that it was  "enthroned" is "all too distant." It is a regime whose continued existence rests on "corruption " and is an insult to "integrity," as a reading of the last part of the  Dialogue, in particular, conveys. The proper interpretation of Joly begins and ends with what is his earliest and most open assessment of the regime and his  implied intention to help coalesce the forces that would end it.

Joly indicates why he proceeds as he does. Certain of his contemporaries do not accept "harsh political truths." Their sensibilities would be outraged. These  are sons of the Enlightenment, sophisticated and worldly. They trust in the powers of reason to ameliorate political and social life. Indeed, politics is no longer  the predominant concern of the educated. Joly's addressees are literate men of goodwill, though politically naive. He intends to teach them "harsh truths about  contemporary politics" through a dialogue "that is not without its lively pleasures." The Dialogue in Hell is the vehicle by which he delivers his stern teaching that couches an anti-Caesarian conspiracy. The ultimate resonance of the  conspiracy theme, so prominent in the Dialogue, can be appreciated at this  point.

Joly's Mode of Writing

Joly chooses the dialogue format to present his teaching even though it might initially cause his work to be mistaken as a purely literary endeavor. A fictional  presentation would prove to be more appealing to his addressees and perhaps an  aid to getting a distance on themselves and their times proper to a correct perspective. A political tract might be seen as coming from partisan sources, while  a more theoretical work would lose the majority of his intended audience. We soon see that Joly is not at all writing fiction, nor can the cause he serves in his  attack on Napoleon be seen as narrowly partisan.

In his preface, Joly expressly puts before us the question of his way of writing, a mode that has been adopted with certain diverse and specific intentions in mind. Beyond it, we may glean additional reasons in the body of the text for his  proceeding the way he does. These are found in the detailed sections on propaganda and the press. In these passages, the peculiar sensitivity of the new regime  to written material of a political nature is revealed, as the control of thought becomes crucial to the success of the new despot.

Joly explains through his Machiavelli that a long political tract would not engage the interests of his reading public. Moreover, such an endeavor would  put the author under the immediate suspicion of the secret police, oftentimes with dire consequences, as was explained. Joly's literary mode allows him to  reach his proper audience in a manner that engages their interest, while it allows  him to escape the closer scrutiny of the censors and the police, who are tolerant and even encouraging, by their laxness, in areas that do not involve direct political concerns. 

If the return to a guarded orthodoxy marks the politics of the Second Empire, prudence recommends a mode of writing to express opposition to proper audiences and to escape persecution from official quarters. Machiavelli and Montesquieu wrote in a former such epoch. They may in certain ways be a model or  inspiration for such an endeavor on the part of Joly, whose skills are perhaps  sharpened by his study of their texts. In fact, the mode of writing adopted by Joly may prove serviceable in multiple ways, as important for prudential considerations in avoiding the scrutiny of several groups as it is in enlisting the attention of several levels of more sympathetic readers.

Albert Guerard notes how censorship and the persecution of writers in this epoch forced individuals (like Joly) to a greater exercise of wit that resulted in a  clear gain for both art and thought.

The repressive laws were for the journalist a blessing in their disguise. If, until the closing years, writers could not indulge in violent  personal attacks, the loss to genuine freedom was small. If they had  to use wit, allusiveness, and irony in the exhilarating game with the censor, the result in thought and an was clear gain. Napoleon III was  spared, but Tiberius of Rome and Soulouque (Faustin IlI of Haiti were mercilessly criticized.  [8]

In the short autobiographical sketch written while imprisoned in 1870, Joly recounts how he decided upon the dialogue format he chose. The Dialogues sur  le Commerce des Bles by the Abbe Ferdinand Galiani (1770) is mentioned as the  model. There, the controversial friend of d'Holbach and Mme. d'Epinay had depaned souls wittily discuss tariffs, grain trade, and  other important matters. The  format was designed to hoodwink the censors while attacking the politics of the  time. "While walking on the terrace along the river near Port Royal in bad weather," Joly came to his idea of a conversation in hell between Montesquieu  who "represents the policy of justice," and Machiavelli, who describes the  "abominable policies" of Napoleon III. Joly specifically indicates the necessity for a "disguise" for writers during the Second Empire. [9]

He probably anticipated a certain celebrity for the Dialogue. [10]o If he were apprehended by the police for the opinions expressed therein, his defense would be aided by the complex elements of his thought, which would provide him a flexible scope for his response. At the very least, this would prove frustrating and  embarrassing for prosecutors. As a canny lawyer himself and very familiar with  the conduct of Parisian courts, Joly could use a judicial forum to his advantage in publicizing his book and pressing his attack on the Napoleonic regime.

His literary mode avoids a mass readership which, given the quotes on the Title page and the possibilities of anarchy, must be preserved from any political teaching that would for whatever reason enflame its passions. Already, this  separates Joly from more doctrinaire liberals who ultimately see no threats from the dispersion of political opinion. The author of the Dialogue in Hell shows a  more complex understanding of the relationship of thought to society than that  presented by the spokesman for liberalism in his text, who, in many respects,  represents a certain naive and doctrinaire view of liberalism.

But where the masses are preserved from certain teachings that would enflame passions, the proper addressees of Joly's work, those educated types who would be the victims of Napoleonic politics, are to be politicized through Joly's harsh lessons. These are the elements in a regime that set its tone and are the target of the prince's covert efforts of suppression and seduction, as explained in  Part Two of the Dialogue.

The Portrait of the Philosopher

Finally, beyond such readers, there are other addressees, more attentive readers who are able to appreciate the multiple levels and more subtle intentions of Joly's work. In the deeper reading of the Machiavelli of the Dialogue lies a portrait of the philosopher, less conspicuous than that of the tyrant he has endeavored to reveal, but equally impressive in its own right. This subtler portrait may now come into better focus.

We have noted Joly's use of Montesquieu on the title page as opening the Dialogue to an interpretation that is antagonistic to despotism and sympathetic to a republican cause. But the hidden key in interpreting the drama of the text  rests with Machiavelli, whose thought dominates the Dialogue as a whole.  Proper understanding of the Machiavelli there presented reveals a character that  is not the same as his reputation would depict him. We shall find that Joly presents a more sophisticated portrait of Machiavelli that rises above a naive connection of his name with evil and tyranny. The true Machiavelli comes to light  as a philosopher benevolently motivated toward men, as illustrated, ironically  enough, by his treatment ofhis interlocutor in the Dialogue.

It is obvious from the outset that Machiavelli is a master of irony. It is in fact employed in his very greeting of Montesquieu, in order to effectively "size up"  this celebrated personage. Montesquieu confesses to being very inept in such  arts of conversation. At the end of his encounter, he has the strong impression  that the portrait of tyranny just sketched is meant as consummate irony. [11] Yet, it  is at this point that Machiavelli is his most serious. Far from an ironic presentation, he reveals that his tyranny is current in the world. It is often the case that  whenever Machiavelli is most facetious, Montesquieu is most earnest. His seriousness is similarly misinterpreted. In either case, Montesquieu is constantly  gulled until the end, when Machiavelli dramatically reveals the most recent  events that have escaped Montesquieu's purview.

The final disclosures to Montesquieu are meant to underscore the serious use of Machiavellian irony. In a seemingly playful dialogue, a "friendly wager" issues into a teaching of tremendous consequence to Montesquieu. Its impact is greatly heightened by its mode of presentation. The effect of the conversation is  not unlike the intended effect of the Dialogue on its readers, who are suddenly  brought to certain very sobering revelations in a book whose seriousness is initially disguised.

As readers, we are encouraged throughout the Dialogue to ponder the irony of Machiavelli and the enigmatic character of Joly's presentation. We shall find  that by resolving the one, we shall resolve the other. There are two points of access to Machiavelli's intentions, which allow us "to get behind" his irony, as it  were. They are presented to us at the very beginning of the Dialogue and at the  very end.

At the end of the Dialogue, Machiavelli reveals to Montesquieu the actuality of the tyranny he has described.

What I have just described-this mass of monstrous things before which the spirit recoils in fright, this work that only hell itself could  accomplish-all this is done, exists, and is prospering in the light of day, at this very hour, in that place on the globe that you have recently departed.

To this point, Montesquieu has been consistently complacent in the face of Machiavelli's attack. He was first sure of the cause he defended. Later, he takes  consolation from the fact that he is only involved in a theoretical discussion, an impression that might have let Machiavelli score some easy debating points  which later prove so consequential. In a surface reading of the text, we also assume that Machiavelli has identified himself with the regime he has described.  Here, however, he condemns it in no uncertain terms. The condemnation itself  reminds us of Joly's own statements in his preface, the most forthright revelation of Joly's views and intentions.

The circumstances that surround Machiavelli's utterances at this point lead us to believe in his sincerity. Machiavelli is being spirited away by the onrush of  sinister souls who have haunted the conversation throughout. In his last statement to Montesquieu-for eternity-and the denouement of the whole conversation, irony would be singularly out of place. In his frankest and most dramatic  moment, Machiavelli distinguishes himself from the "Machiavellianism" he has  described. His statement of the political truth, which he so intransigently pursues, does not, it seems, necessarily imply moral approbation. His last statements also constitute a critique of worldly glory and a subtle rebuke to Montesquieu.

Throughout Machiavelli's discourse, we have understood the greatest good for political men to be glory. This is without doubt the chief motive of the new  prince, who wants to achieve enduring glory in the most ambitious and lasting of  political foundings. Haunting their conversation are men who, according to Machiavelli, also sought celebrity in their earthly existence from various political  endeavors. The enigmatic presence of such figures in fact serves an important dramatic function in the Dialogue beyond a periodic reminder of the context of  their conversation. In pointing out the present shame of such men, with whom  Montesquieu was perhaps intimate, Machiavelli reminds us of the predominance  of fortune in political affairs and the evanescence of even the greatest fame.  Formerly prominent, these men have been brought low by events, subsequent to  their deaths, that mock their life's achievements.

The drama of the moment prompts the question as to whether or not the men of the Enlightenment had in fact laid the foundations for this Napoleonic tyranny. The real Montesquieu poignantly expresses a similar thought in The  Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline. There he wonders if all the history  of the Roman Republic, a history resplendent with the accomplishments and virtues of heroic individuals not seen since, existed only to appease and satiate the happiness of five or six monsters in the Empire. [12] The grand "spectacle of things  human," when contemplated from hen, would diminish even the greatest pretensions to worldly glory and lasting achievement.

lt is therefore significant that the Machiavelli of Joly's Dialogue reveals himself on earth and in hell as personally unmoved by the motive of political  glory that he analyzes in the great actors on the world stage. However, he would have been capable, at least by knowledge, if not fortune, of attaining its heights,  it seems.

At the very beginning of his encounter with Montesquieu, Machiavelli shows his imperturbability in the face of his personal plight in hell. According to the Joly portrait, his situation is not unlike his life on earth, which is interpreted  in the Dialogue as devoted to inquiry and the search for truth. In fact, his situation is perhaps an improvement over his lot on earth which, as Montesquieu  points out, saw the defeat in Florence of his republican political cause during a  lifetime marked by harassment and disappointment, ending in torture and misery. Here at least, he may find the world's great minds whom he may engage in  conversation. Given the present reality on earth, Machiavelli has escaped a  worse hell and, in a certain sense, leads a blessed existence free from less important cares and concerns.

Machiavelli's subsequent handling of Montesquieu is marked by what seems to be a harshness that borders on cruelty. He is devastating in the manner by  which he disabuses Montesquieu of his reputation and his putative standing before God. Yet, his harsh lesson to Montesquieu is not unjust, if we are to hold  the truth at all important. It also conceals a certain humanity. In forcing him to  confront his former illustrious cohorts, who are passing nearby, Machiavelli  forces Montesquieu to realize the vacuity of glory and the present atrocities in a  world which he apparently loves too much. Under the present despotism, it is  not a world to be regretted. Machiavelli would seemingly want to impress Montesquieu by his example and teach him the pleasures of his lofty detachment from the vanity that infects his interlocutor.

We remember that knowledge of recent events has escaped Montesquieu, who has met only the deceased from long ago and far away in his wanderings in  hell. Apparently, he earnestly seeks to be "filled in" on these events if only for  present confirmation of his theories. At the end of his conversation with Machiavelli, he is shown passing before his eyes his chagrined contemporaries who  could inform him of it. The point is that one or another of such men will disabuse Montesquieu of his illusions. Machiavelli, in his apparent harshness, would do so in a way that points to his liberation from his ignorance and vain  concerns.

Machiavelli predicts that after their confrontation, Montesquieu will anxiously seek him out and wander eternally in his pursuit. This is the reverse of the  beginning of the Dialogue where it was Machiavelli who sought out Montesquieu. Machiavelli has brought to Montesquieu a concern for philosophy and  inquiry born of the recognition of certain harsh truths and the realization that the human, political problem has not been solved. In this search is not only liberation but a recognition of the true human situation and the highest manifestation  of our human autonomy.

As hell is depicted in the Dialogue, it is a stopping place for the deceased before judgment day. The proper attitude would seem to be one of introspection  and an examination of conscience before one makes his defense before the tribunal of God. [13] In the case of these two interlocutors, an examination of conscience would involve an examination of political history. More than perhaps all  other men, they are personally responsible for the conditions of the world.

Joly characterizes his work in his preface as "a call to conscience." This is the distinct effect of Machiavelli'~ narsh" teaching on the Montesquieu of the Dialogue, though his conversation begins "pleasantly enough." This Montesquieu does not initially recognize his human responsibility, nor is he adequately philosophic. He trusts that the political problem has been solved and exalts in his  own role in providing the solution. He therefore feels himself personally secure in hell and in God's eyes. The conversation with Machiavelli is his shock of  awareness on these scores.

Joly's Montesquieu is not the philosopher of The Spirit of the Laws, a point to which we will return shortly. The latter has been sacrificed to Joly's literary  mode. The Montesquieu of the Dialogue is more the contemporary liberal, a  man of good intentions but one who would be the dupe and casualty of Napoleon 's politics. Joly's text is a call to conscience (and consciousness to such types.

Machiavelli and Joly tell such men of the eternal possibilities of despotism and its new and future forms. [14] The politics of the future will not, as Joly sees it,  be menaced by a reaction to the Enlightenment but by a regime that emanates from it. It does not appear bloodthirsty. As the great contemporary of Joly,  Alexis de Tocqueville, described his own fears in this regard, it has the capacity  to degrade men without tormenting them. Its real threat, obscured for these reasons, can be characterized as destroying human autonomy and responsibility to  the point where Joly's call, like that of Sulla, falls on deaf ears.

The task of the future is to confront the political situation realistically. Through Machiavelli, we are made aware that the moral good is not supported  by mere goodwill or by the evolution of a history which orders affairs to continual progress. Such good is the product of active human concerns that begin with  the active concern for the truth. In the context of the Dialogue, only this would  justify us in the eyes of God. On this basis, it is Machiavelli who can face God's  tribunal with equanimity , despite the infamy attached to his name and his condemnation by inferior earthly judges.

We would be well reminded of a most perspicacious statement that the sixteenth-century playwright Christopher Marlowe attributes to Machiavelli, who  appears in his play, The Jew of Malta. There, the Florentine philosopher boldly  confesses that "there is no sin but ignorance." [15] There could be no more succinct  and fitting epigram to describe the character of the Machiavelli that appears in Joly's work of "fiction." It is the forthright statement of the philosopher that points to what is so impressive in the Joly portrait.

Lifting Joly's and Machiavelli's Mask

A clearer appreciation of Joly's thought and intentions emerges in a deeper probing of the character of Machiavelli as he appears in the Dialogue. As Speier  stated, Joly regarded his Machiavelli's knowledge of politics as superior. But  this is not, as Speier formulates it, contrary to his more subtle moral intentions or his liberal sympathies. A case can be made that Joly's Machiavelli harbors  republican intentions in his open teaching of tyranny, just as he has a humane end in view in his harsh treatment of his interlocutor. This is consistent with a certain sophisticated view of Machiavelli that Joly seems to share, at least as revealed by the teaching and drama of the Dialogue.

The parallels between Joly and this subtler portrait of Machiavelli, as philosopher and republican partisan, are manifold and present us with hints as to the  character of the author of the Dialogue in Hell. Like this Machiaveli, Joly shows himself to be indifferent to reputation in hiding what is most deeply revealing of  himself in his service to his disinterested call to conscience.

Like Machiavelli's The Prince, Joly's work is subject to misinterpretation. At one extreme, both Joly and Machiavelli are seen as openly teaching and advocating tyranny. At the other extreme, they may be seen as involved in a purely "literary" endeavor. Montesquieu, who wants to pass his time pleasantly with  his interlocutor, prefers this latter interpretation which has Machiavalli, as the  author of The Prince, merely trying to paint the characters and exploits of his time in the most vivid colors.

It is more than coincidence that Joly refers specifically to the possibility of these very same misunderstandings with regard to his own work. But he warns in his preface of the careful construction of his book. Beyond pleasant fictions, moral causes are being served in a "call to conscience" and deeper, enduring political truths revealed.

In this same preface, Joly reveals his disapprobation of the regime he will shortly describe. At the end of his conversation with Montesquieu, Machiavelli reveals his disapprobation of the regime in terms strikingly similar to those of Joly. His dramatic and disquieting revelation sheds light on the motive for his  search of Montesquieu in the beginning. Machiavelli's knowledge of contemporary affairs has rendered him anxious for the future of civil life. It is not for  mean or malevolent purposes that he searches out Montesquieu, but to engage  him, liberalism's great spokesman, in a conversation to come to terms with its  problems.

We are not to assume that the defeat of Montesquieu is tantamount to a definitive defeat of the cause of freedom. Machiavellianism triumphs precisely be-  cause of Montesquieu 's ignorance about what has come to pass. The manner by  which Machiavelli enlightens his "adversary" would allow for the reconstruction  of the case for liberalism, without illusions, and fully cognizant of what is at  stake. The MachiaveIlian regime is described as leaving extant the institutions of  liberalism, while changing the spirit of the operations. The Dialogue might perhaps be seen as attempting to rekindle that spirit in the face of the despot and the  possibility of a renewed outbreak of anarchy.

The Montesquieu that Machiavelli finds in hell is ignorant of contemporary  events and singularly complacent. Machiavelli guides the course of their conversation accordingly. What was sought out as a conversation between two philosophers becomes a didactic enterprise on the part of Machiavelli, served by  irony. But at the beginning and at the end of their conversation, the real intentions of Machiavelli are manifest. The Machiavelli of the Dialogue, properly  understood, is Joly's spokesman and the enlightenment of Montesquieu is really the enlightenment of the reader who shares most of his fatal prejudices.

Machiavelli states that his political teaching was intended for princes and people alike. He has shown the truth to people as he has to kings. He says that  Machiavellian princes are not in need of such teachings. They do not learn anything from Machiavelli that they do not know already. The real effect of the  open teaching of the techniques of tyrannical politics is to enlighten the people.  They stand to learn what threatens them and are made to see politics in a realistic light.

The success of the tyrant requires duplicity and cunning. The open teaching of tyranny removes this possibility by fully revealing the tyrant. Through Joly's conceit of a dialogue in hell, Machiavelli is describing the despot Napoleon III, shorn of his disguise. In what appears as a theoretical discourse between two eminent philosophers, Joly is actually presenting a brutally realistic portrayal of  contemporary life. like the Montesquieu of the Dialogue, the readers are  blithely ignorant in the crucial sense of what has recently come to pass.

Joly's Machiavelli hints at the intended use of his teaching. He states that Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, in its teaching on liberal government, might be a great aid to Machiavellians who seek to overthrow such regimes.  Ironically, it has been Machiavelli's guide throughout the conversation with Montesquieu, and Machiavelli shows that he is capable of accurately quoting its text. The implication is too transparent to miss: the detailed teaching of tyranny  in the Dialogue in Hell could properly serve his audience for their own defense.  At the beginning of their conversation, Montesquieu wonders how Machiavelli,  a staunch republican in life, could be the mentor of tyrants in his writings. The  conclusion of the Dialogue would lead us to believe that no such disjunction exists. A republican cause is being served in the very writing that seems to bless  tyranny. [16]

That the Dialogue intends enlightenment of his contemporaries is obvious at certain points. Periodically, Machiavelli feigns ignorance. This allows Montesquieu to discourse on liberal institutions and the intentions behind certain political, social, and economic arrangements. Through Montesquieu, we have a reteaching of the general theory of liberal politics. But through the various discussions of Machiavelli, particular attention is drawn to the sensitive points that hold together the political and social fabric of liberalism. The proper addressees  of the Dialogue, those concerned with the fate of free government, are prompted  by Joly to contemplate the threats that emanate from modern dictators as well as the means by which liberal institutions may be shored up and fortified against the new vulnerabilities that Machiavelli has identified.

Joly shows where the present danger can be found. It is not in a reactionary and rapacious tyranny but in the modern Caesar, whose genius lies in appealing  to the passions of the masses and in representing their satisfaction as the legitimate exercise of their rights. Joly recurs to the "timeless wisdom" of Machiavelli to remind us of the eternal threat of Caesarism to republican government.  The test of liberal government is to adapt itself in countering what was to be the future threat to its perpetuation, foreseen by Joly in the politics of Napoleon.

In his stunning portrait of modern tyranny, Joly makes his "call to con- science," which demands of his contemporaries as much a moral as an intellectual effort. Implicitly, in the absence of the Enlightenment faith in progress, it is an effort that rests on the determination to be free. Critics who fail to see the  moral dimensions of Joly's Dialogue fail to see what is at its core.

If we are permitted to speak of Joly's own view of history, we might say that it clearly does not reflect a process of guaranteed progress. Indeed, it is in the  guise of progress that Caesarism threatens to establish itself. Nor, if men are essentially free, can a universal conclusion to historical development be presumed, as the Saint-Simonians and future historicist thinkers down to our day would argue. Joly's primary intention in the Dialogue-to issue a "call to conscience"  is based on the premise of man's irreducible freedom and his capacity as a moral being to respond to his call. [17]

History is open-ended. There can be no scientific certitude in such matters because the future is necessarily indeterminate, always dependent on the contingent actions of men and women. Situations are presented that elicit numerous possible responses that are a constant test of the virtues of history's actors. The  shaping of events varies according to the influence of these actors, more so with  regard to the Machiavellis and the Montesquieus, of course, but in some degree  as well from the more modest efforts of people like Joly.

Speier describes Joly as being equally outraged by the despot as by the ease with which the people let themselves be corrupted. In concentrating on the  weaknesses of the majority of men, he leaves himself open to a charge of a certain irascible moralism, a claim that is substantiated by what little is known of his personal life. But, this charge might be leveled only by those, like the subjects of the Empire, unaware of their own corruption. Moreover, he anticipates  such charges in the body of the text when he shows an awareness of how singularly strange types like himself will appear among his contemporaries and future  generations. His call may fail, as did that of Sulla, but not from simple moral-  ism.

Joly appears to be appealing to the sterner virtues of ancient republics and he might have found himself more at home in such times than in his own century,  for which he displays a certain loathing and contempt. Yet, it is such sterner virtues that are under attack in the soft despotism described in the Dialogue. Joly seeks to revive it in his call to conscience as the essential condition for the possibility of republican regimes, even in modern times. In this light, we can appreciate more fully the peculiar appropriateness of his identification with the severe  Sulla as well as the more Catonic tones in which he casts his critique of modern life. [18]

At end, it might be helpful to situate Joly with regard to the two great protagonists in the Dialogue. For Montesquieu, man becomes master of his destiny as human reason progressively brings order to the physical universe and political  world. For Machiavelli, man is subject to a fatality he cannot ultimately fathom or control. Joly might be said to incline toward the pessimism of the Dialogue's  Machiavelli. This is what the experience of the Second Empire forces upon him.  But in his call to conscience, he acknowledges man's capacity to affect and better his future. For Joly, it seems, man is neither the lord of history nor its plaything. He would agree with Alexis de Tocqueville, when he counsels prudent  human action born of the recognition of human freedom and its ineluctable limits. Our task is to act responsibly within the margins of freedom that the constraints of history leave us. Like his great contemporary, Joly is acutely aware of the decline of civic courage and honorable love of freedom in his fellow citizens. The action that is called for at the moment Joly writes requires clarity of  vision and a revival of this civic courage. The Dialogue attempts to provide the first and spur the second.

Concluding Remarks

Before closing our discussion of Joly, it might again be helpful to elaborate somewhat further his presentation of the two great interlocutors in his work. It would be unseemly to leave the discussion of the Dialogue with the impression  that Joly's portrait of Montesquieu and Machiavelli is definitive. The concluding  remarks that are in order are not meant to detract from Joly's achievement but to  be more just to the great thinkers he employs in his work. They will also let us  more fairly assess Joly's contribution to our political understanding. [19] We turn first to Montesquieu.

In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu broadens and historicizes the "logical" classification of regimes found in Aristotle's Politics. He famously delineates both the nature and animating principle of the fundamental political alternatives. The republican regime is motivated by virtue, the European monarchy by  honor, and despotism by fear. Curiously, Montesquieu's regime of liberty lies  outside this classification. It is found in modern England, of course. But, even  more curiously, its name is not mentioned. We today fail to grasp its "newness"-this regime of political liberty, this commercial "republic" embedded  and hidden in the "forms" of monarchic government. There, law is no longer the  measure of man but his instrument.

Joly is correct in sensing that its lessons somehow lie at the core of Montesquieu's teaching. One is tempted to say that the new political "model" for man  falls outside the alternatives that history has heretofore offered. It is a regime outside the "natural" alternatives, so to speak. Its happy circumstance is literally  a historic ( and geographic) accident of history .By offering England as a model  for the future, Montesquieu shows, perhaps paradoxically, how "history" may be  used to better our condition and escape our "historic fate."

In contrast to the regime of liberty, whose influence will be found in the future, the ancient city's time has forever passed. At first blush, Aristotle's classification of regimes seems exhaustive. Indeed, the ancient city can be governed, it would seem, in virtuous or vicious ways, by one, a few, or many. There is inherent logical appeal in such a classification But it actually applies "exhaustively" to only a very narrow political alternative-the ancient polis.

According to Aristotle, how a city lines up within this schema is what fundamentally determines its way of life. Montesquieu implicitly attacks Aristotle  and offers a different conception of the ancient city and what may be judged as  "virtue" therein. The "virtue" of the ancient city is not to be judged by its approach to human excellence. It is manifested in a "love of country," regardless  of the numbers of individuals who nominally rule. A "patriotism" burns in the  ancient soul that is hard for moderns to conceive. This is its animating "principle"-what gives it "life"-and what distinguishes it as an historic alternative. [20] 

But, for Montesquieu, the historic moment of the polis has passed. and its passing (contrary to the Romantics) is not to be regretted. In despotism, all are  equal before the despot-equally abject, that is. [21] In the ancient city, "equality"  belongs to a constricted group of citizens who enjoy their privileges at the expense of a larger class of slaves. Like despotism, the ancient city is an outrage to our rightful sense of basic human dignity while life there mutilates the soul,  even of the privileged, by a rigor that resembles the dryly cruel and austere life  of the monastery.

Outside of Aristotle's ambit of experience lies modern England, of course, but also the medieval Christian monarchy. At the time that Montesquieu wrote,  this historic alternative was at its apogee. And Montesquieu's France was, but for the most recent past, the most beautiful flower of this historic moment.

The latter half of The Spirit of the Laws divides about equally between a segment that describes the modern regime of commerce and a segment that describes feudal law. The former was written under the invocation of a muse. Its  passages shine with new luster. The latter is dark, dense, opaque, and labyrinthine. They belong to the scholar, not the poet. But it is here that the soul of  France will be found and the labyrinth will lead all the way to a band of men, loyally pledged to one another, in a German forest.

When Montesquieu wrote, he thought that the soul of France had been corrupted. The luxurious court of Louis XIV had suborned honor, the life principle  of the regime. The "forms" of medieval honor remained. Indeed, they were respected in ever more exaggerated ways. But the noble merely played at "honor," hypocritically, while he actually sought favor, abjectly, from the reigning sovereign. His stout independence and noble indifference to material blandishments  had eroded. In a word, France was adopting the manners of Byzantium. [22]

Montesquieu sensed a coming revolution that would, a century and a half later, undermine the medieval monarchy and render it passe. Where it did perpetuate itself, it would exist (as Walter Bagehot would put it) only in the "decorative" part of modern constitutions and far from where "efficient" power was  exercised. As with the ancient city, its vital juices now only nourish poetic  imaginations.

The Persian Letters was Montesquieu's most pessimistic (and accurate) assessment of the predicament of France. The long absence of Usbekfrom his Persian seraglio leads to anarchy and revolution that overturns the natural order of  things, as the women blindly revolt against their absent god. The horrific lessons  for France can be drawn from the homely example from the East. [23] The Enlightenment's attack on the Christian God will see His withdrawal from the political  world. His absence will bring unprecedented revolutionary anarchy that will  bring the political world to capitulation before the power of a new kind of god -- not the Prince of Peace, for sure, but the man that Clausewitz called "the god of  war." The earthly city, built on the ruins of the City of God, will not bring historic liberation but a return to a despotism in a new and more virulent form.  Montesquieu's prescience should be well noted and alert us to the power of a  political analysis that reaches beyond centuries.

Montesquieu's preferred solution for France's predicament was certainly not "England." A turn at this time (the Regency of Louis XVl to the modern commercial republic would fly in the face of extant institutions and the most deeply  etched lineaments in the French soul. Rather, Montesquieu wanted to recover  the ancient vitality of his country by a return to its feudal origins. Contrary to the  naive "progressive" as he appears in the Joly portrait-enamored of England as the only historic alternative for the times-the real Montesquieu may be seen as  a "conservative," at least in what regards France. We might even call him a "reactionary"-a term of even greater opprobrium in the "progressive's" vocabulary. [24] But Montesquieu's preference for this solution was done knowingly and  the subsequent history of his country, when cut off from its "natural" origins, bears him out.

Cut loose from its roots, France will in fact relive and suffer the whole course of history as if in microcosm. Periods will be marked by turns to the constitutional arrangements of England. These will lapse into despotism but not before a brief interlude (with Robespierrel that will try to reintroduce the regime of  republican virtue. There will be Restorations of the medieval alternative as well as periods of Empire that recall Rome and its fate under the Caesars. Things will not settle until 1958, if we can count on the recent past projecting itself into  what now beckons and is called the "new Europe."

Montesquieu is a modern. He did not sketch a "best regime." Such "heavenly principalities" are something "to be prayed for" (perhaps) but can not provide  effectual guidance for men today. There is, however, a palpable sense of the "worst regime" and its hovering presence-despotism. We could say that the summum malum is all too present and real while the summum bonum is all too  distant and ambiguous. Accordingly, Montesquieu designs his politics to escape  the "worst" and to cultivate prospects for the implantation of the "best" that is  available to us. In this light, he sees England as escaping the "worst" the best.  The medieval monarchy, on the other hand, despite moderating institutions and a religious grounding, would be perpetually menaced by the "worst."

But a choice of modern England over even the remnants of medieval France could be made only with great reservations. The modern regime is characterized  by a vigilant sense of protecting one's own space as well as frenetic and self-forgetting enterprise. Such life threatens the greatness of soul that finds its  proper soil in regimes that are historically passe. By the middle of the nineteenth century , at the time of the Second Republic, the monarchic alternative had completely exhausted itself in France. At this time, Alexis de Tocqueville, admirably, takes Montesquieu's lead in trying to infuse the modern life that is our fate  with the ennobling characteristics that it naturally resists. [25]

At end, Montesquieu's assessment of despotism is much richer and complex than that found in the Dialogue in Hell. And any transition to "England" as a solution for modern man is a much more troubled, if still desirable, prospect.  This our contemporaries, who see a world of liberal politics and marketplace  economies as imminently before us, would be well advised to ponder.

Montesquieu has been called the "Hippocrates" of politics. He makes a tour of our fundamental political alternatives to help us purge them of nefarious,  even mortal, tendencies. This is done, not in the spirit of facilitating the benign  and ineluctable movement of history .Indeed, a reading of The Greatness of the  Romans and their Decline is sufficient to cause anyone to question any hope of  permanency to political life, especially any notion that would see man as permanently perfecting himself through history. Rather, he acts in the spirit of the good physician, with humanity and wisdom, and more often than not he recommends a medicine or a regimen of moderation that would cause those most in need of his counsel to balk. [26]

Montesquieu has also been called the preeminent political (or philosophic l sociologist. Contrary to Aristotle, the question of who rules does not provide a  sufficient entry into a statesmanlike political understanding of things. Man is shaped by many "forces"-historical and social-that are equally if not more  important than questions of regime, narrowly understood. The statesman must  be cognizant of soil, climate, religion, history, mores and manners, and their intricate interplay in setting the course for the future. Again, contrary to ancient philosophy, consideration of what they termed "the best regime" can not possibly furnish appropriate light for modern men. For this we need the capacious  intelligence of someone like Montesquieu, who has made the tour of our fundamental historical alternatives with a view to what is concretely possible, not  theoretically desirable.

Nevertheless, abiding links still tie Montesquieu and Aristotle together. For both, prudence is the foremost virtue in our practical affairs. They are preeminent among political philosophers, ancient and modern, in counseling political  moderation. What crimes have been committed in the last two centuries in the  name of "humanity," cut off from moderation, and bathed in  the rhetoric of  "progress"! How pathetic are most of our contemporaries who facilely claim for  themselves this virtue! The humanity of the author of The Spirit of the Laws is of a wholly different order, it goes without saying. [27] Montesquieu (and Aristotle  before him) reveals for us the limits of the "progress" we can hope for. They  remind us (too late for twentieth-century man) that moderation is not the enemy  of "progress" but its essential condition. In this light, the naive and optimistic  Montesquieu of Joly's Dialogue seriously distorts "ce grand homme." The real  Montequieu, sober but hopeful, is lost from view in the Dialogue in Hell. [28]

How then are we finally to assess Joly? One of the alternatives for post- Revolutionary France was Imperial expansion. It was Joly's view that Louis was  successor to Napoleon I's ambitious megalomania. But the Napoleons were only  in a certain sense the historic counterparts to the Caesars. Present in their politics  was something Raymond Aron detected and analyzed in later regimes and which  was absent from the Roman alternative. Modern despotism, unlike the ancient variant, is crucially "ideocratic." [29]

Napoleon I projected power that escaped the most formidable French kings. He reverted to the forms of the past in France to advance modern thought. This  was the decisive thing that made his appearance emblematic of modernity and the revolutions and wars of the future. It was "world-historic" ideas and not  merely French prestige that put his armies on the move.

He crucially reshaped the "civilizing mission" of France, which was displaced from the realm of culture and made politically aggressive. He would topple the tottering monarchs of Europe, whose legitimacy was being undermined  in the thought of its "wisest" men and in the sentiments of its poorest citizens.  Joly sees Napoleon III as harboring similarly grand ambitions but endeavoring  to give historic form to the thought of Saint-Simon and his followers, a more  radical interpretation of the Enlightenment project, as we now see, hopefully  more clearly. Joly is the analyst par excellence of ideocratic despotism as it first  manifested itself in the nineteenth century. Raymond Aron is the analyst par excellence of the more menacing and devastating ideocratic despotisms of the twentieth century, which found inspiration in the thought of Marx and the racist  epigones of Nietzsche. Their lifeworks were complementary and, rightfully  viewed, we owe to them a new political awareness and a new sense of our vulnerabilities and possibilities.

My endeavor has been to emphasize the Aronian elements of Joly's thought. Therein lies what is best in him and what deserves most praise. I would praise Aron as the most Montesquieuan of modern political analysts if it were becoming for someone like me to praise these latter figures. [30]

There are also problems with Joly's treatment of Machiavelli who emerges in the deepest reading of the Dialogue as aphilosopher whose political predilections, like those of Joly, lie with republicanism. Joly is perhaps too quick in  dismissing or explaining away the tyrannous pronouncements of The Prince and  the shocking design of his teaching. His perception of Machiavelli is shared by  many learned students of the Florentine who see his writings merely as the forthright statements of "realpolitik." As Joly himself maintains, it is as absurd to blame Machiavelli for describing politics as it really is as it would be to blame a geologist for his analysis of earthquakes.

For all its "learnedness," such an interpretation may in fact be a hindrance to a finer appreciation of the real Machiavellian teaching which is perhaps better  approached, initially at least, through the more naive view of Machiavelli as in-  deed a purveyor of evil. The learned view is a product of the essential Machiavellian project. It therefore underestimates the truly radical character of its teaching, the sense of which is grasped only in a sympathetic appreciation of the philosophic world against which Machiavelli is revolting.

Machiavelli's teaching assumes souls formed by this world, the truth of which, by this late date, is no longer entertained in "learned" circles. The magnitude and audacity of Machiavelli's project escapes more recent interpreters who,  importing categories of thought of a later date, might explain Machiavellian  thought as the product of its time, conditioned by the moment in which he wrote.  Or, worse, they might "psychologize" and trivialize an enterprise like The Prince as merely an effort to secure employment. Interestingly enough, both of  these views are present in the Dialogue as Montesquieu's putative conception of  the real figure of Machiavelli, whose reputation is finally acknowledged to be  undeserved in either case. 

The nature of Machiavelli ' s preference for republicanism is indeed a key to his thinking. The Prince praises republics for providing the most stable foundations for political orders. The Roman Republic in particular is repeatedly cited in  his works as the proper ground for virtue. By recurring to Rome as an eminently  respectable political model, Machiavelli recurs to pre- hristian times. A revolutionary understanding of virtue emerges from the study of ancient republics  which crucially informs the project of the future as it renders Christian teachings and ancient political philosophy itself radically suspect. 

In the final analysis, Joly's Machiavelli appears as the intransigent seeker of truth, despite personal consequences. His service to and sympathy for liberal republicanism, as portrayed in the Dialogue, would question the older conception  of such a figure, while it also robs him of all moral controversy. The real Montesquieu has been sacrificed to the literary and didactic requirements of the Dialogue. Perhaps the real Machiavelli has also been sacrificed, though even more unwittingly, and with full conviction in the exactness of his more sophisticated  portrait.

We might agree with Joly that Machiavelli was fundamentally motivated by the search for the enduring principles of political order, whose breakdown was  acutely felt in his times. But this did not lead to a simple defense of former times and admiration for political conditions informed by the principle of "divine  right." It is an all too obvious distortion to align Machiavelli with positions embraced by "conservative" partisans of the early nineteenth century or with Christian principles of rule that predominated in the Middle Ages. More important,  the Machiavelli of the Dialogue is adamantly opposed to the regime he has just  described as the "work of hell itself." He is not the sympathetic spokesman for  the "new theories," promoted by Napoleon and the Saint-Simonians. Yet, as our  analysis of the chapter on the religious founding indicates, there is perhaps an  abiding affinity between the real Machiavelli and the Saint-Simonian doctrine that informs the project that Joly's Machiavelli describes.

The Saint-Simonians, like the real Machiavelli, ultimately look to security ( or orderl as the great desideratum of political life. Again, like the real Machiavelli in his praise of Rome, the political virtues appropriate to their historic project are nurtured in the element of a civil religion. In a call to reinfuse society  with the elements of a revitalized Christianity, they may be seen as standing at  polar opposites from the Florentine. In the end, however, the apparent revolt of the Saint-Simonians against Machiavellianism essentially takes place on Machiavellian grounds.

In jettisoning the transcendent elements of that faith and leaving its moral core, the Saint-Simonians intend to overcome the fatal division of the world introduced by traditional Christianity. This was classically diagnosed by the real Machiavelli as the deepest cause of political strife in holding politics to precepts  it can not follow. It is also the source of man's alienation from the earth, while it  prevents him from even contemplating the steps necessary to secure its blessings. Machiavelli would be far from "recoiling in fright" from the spectacle of  the harsh and despotic steps necessary to achieve a return to the conditions of  political health, grandeur, and human happiness, as the Saint-Simonians see it. 

Were we, unlike Joly, to take more seriously the scope of the real Machiavelli's vision, we might approach a truer appreciation of such an enigmatic figure. He is more than a mere analyst of tyranny who would warn and enlighten  others about harsh truths in the real world. And he is more than a mere republi-  can partisan. We would do well to take at face value his self-proclaimed mission  as a new "Columbus." He has discovered a vast continent of thought that accommodates the likes of Bacon as well as Saint-Simon and his followers. From this perspective, the distortion of Machiavelli on Joly's part proceeds, ironically  enough, from an underestimation of the thinker he so admired in the pages of the  Dialogue. It is also a misreading of his moral intentions. These are much more  ambiguous than Joly seems to realize. They should be much more questionable  to one so ardently and intransigently moved by such considerations.

Notes

1. Speier, "The Truth in Hell," 23.

2. The sensitivity of Speier to an esoteric form of writing as a vehicle to reach several levels of audience in the same work is demonstrated in his essay  on Grimelshausen. See Hans Speier, "Grimmelshausen's Laughter," in Ancients and Modems, Joseph Cropsey, ed., (New York: Basic Books, 1964) 177-212.

3. Note the emphasis given Machiavelli on the Title page by capitalizing his name. The key to the Dialogue surely lies with him.

4. See Montesquieu The Spirit of the Laws III 3 and XIX 27.

5. Sulla's effort on behalf of the Republic is analyzed in greater detail in Montesquieu, Greatness of the Romans XI. Consider the comparison of Sulla  and Augustus in light of the Dialogue and Joly's stance vis-a-vis the modem  Caesar.

But in Sulla's whole life, even in the midst of his acts of violence, a republican spirit was revealed. All his regulations, although tyrannically executed, tended toward a certain form of  republic. Sufla, a man of passion, violently led the Romans to  liberty; Augustus, a scheming tyrant, conducted them gently  to servitude. Under Sulla, while the republic gained its  strength. everyone cried out against the tyranny, and while  tyranny fortified itself under Augustus, people spoke of nothing but liberty.

Montesquieu also composed a Dialogue between Sulla and Eucrates. After gathering all power in Rome, Sulla abandons his station in weariness and disgust with his contemporaries. Joly's weariness and disgust is almost palpable. 

6. According to a jingle at the time, the choice facing France was "Cavaignac" (order) or "le mic-mac'. (chaos). Paris had not seen such anarchy since the .Revolution. The  army's repression of the Paris Commune insurgents was ruthless and chilling. Cavaignac was the Minister of War who designed the plan of battle against the "Reds."

7. The Belgian police had a close working relationship with the French police of the Empire. Belgian cooperation helped keep Paris informed of the refugee press. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs occasionally persuaded Belgian authorities to suppress anti-French literature. Joly is aware of the  complicity between France and smaller, easily intimidated countries on her borders. He is thus aware of the risks he ran in going to Brussels to have his work  published. However, the freedom of the press that existed in Belgium made it a  natural place for those like Joly to gravitate. Despite efforts of the police, the  volume of clandestine literature that filtered through such channels was considerable. This included the latest works of Victor Hugo, Louis Napoleon's nemesis. .See Howard C. Payne, The Police State of Napoleon Bonaparte 1852-1860  (Seattle; University of Washington Press, 1960), 158.

8. Guerard, France, 309. The historian hits upon something important. Looking to the experience of the Soviet Union, some have remarked that censorship, not to mention the grossest repression, was conducive of great literary effort. Freedom-lost-Empire-does not match up (as yet, anyway). Can what is observed in the Soviet Union be generalized to history as a whole? Can it be possible that artistic freedom stultifies high art? It would seem that the human spirit needs deprivation and a profound sense of lack to stimulate creativity.  Nietzsche, in his portrait of the "Last Man" and many other places, has much to say about all this. Rousseau, too.

The ancients (Thomas, included), thought that creativity was something divine (as with the "divine Homer"). Its source was not deprivation and aspiration but a fullness of being.

Those conservatives who fret over the state of contemporary culture and its coarsening effect on the national character are correct. It certainly does seem  that rock and roll is here to stay and, as it continues to go down in history, we are fated to dig it to the end.

I wonder if Vaclav Ravel is even writing today. If Solzhenitsyn today wrote a great novel, I would feel more confidence in the ancient view of things.

9. See Bernstein, The Truth About the Protocols, 15-17.

10. Joly was adamant that his book was serious and meant to be taken seriously. He was at pains to distinguish it from "lampoons" and mere "pamphlets." This did not mean  that his work would not appeal to his contemporaries in a manner similar to such writings. Albert Sorel beautifully captures the character of those who write and read such material. When "men of letters" (like Joly or Montesquieul write "lampoons" or "pamphlets," the "men of the world are amused by them, courtiers condemn them, the author  goes to prison, and the reader rubs his hands." Joly knew very well that he risked prison. I also think he thought his reading public would "rub their hands" before trying to grab a  copy of his work. He hoped, once in hand and read, they would then be led to deeper reflection.

11. Thomas Babington Macaulay seems to think that Lord Bacon sees The Prince as "merely a piece of grave irony." It can best be understood as attempting to "warn nations against the arts of ambitious men." The reader is referred to  the Appendix for further discussion of these matters.

12. Montesquieu, Greatness of the Romans XV.

13. In an interesting interlude in the Dialogue, a moment arises that shifts the attention of the interlocutors to questions of God's ultimate justice. A pregnant silence is Machiavelli's response. Obviously, we do not find a Christian  "heir" in Joly's Dialogue. For example, there is no talk of hellfire, as in Christian mythology of the afterlife. There is talk of "banks" and "shores." This, in  fact, reminds us more of Hades, the ancient conception of afterlife, where we  find the rivers Styx and Lethe. Perhaps the judgment of a Christian God is not  forthcoming. The revelation of this fact would, however, destroy the spur to  knowledge and personal responsibility that Machiavelli endeavors to bring to bear on his interlocutor (and presumably the reader). Joly might be indicating to  sympathetic readers that he shares the real Machiavelli's skepticism with regard  to any hopes for "ultimate justice."

Socrates, of course. brought changes to the orthodox conception of Hades. He gave an account that would have philosophy as the most needful thing for  humans. Those parched souls who greedily drink the waters of Lethe do not find  relief. Rather, they are drugged into oblivion before their souls reenter the world  from which they have departed. The whole human drama is to navigate the pas-  sage of Lethe in a manner that will not defile the soul. As it turns out, only the  philosopher can do this. All other men, out of ignorance, have chosen defective  "souls"-lives of pleasure or honor-as their fate in the next life. There is no  rest for cities until philosophers are kings. Apparently, there is no rest for the  soul until philosophy rules therein. Indeed, "only the truth will set you free," the reconstructed myth of Er seems to say. "Er" is another noble lie, is it not? Its tale  would make the listener more philosophic. Is Joly's Machiavelli also perpetrating a lie to nobly benefit Montesquieu? These thoughts are prompted by Joly's  account. I wouldn't put it past him that he intended to guide the reader to them.  See the "myth of Er" in Plato's Republic 614a-621 d for the Socratic transformation of Hades.

Before being accused of mistranslating the Title of Joly's work, it should be pointed out that a literal rendering would be Dialogue in Hells. This is curious,  to say the least. Perhaps Dante's afterlife, with its circles of hell, inspires Joly.

14. Joly was, of course, right when he indicated that we stood, not before a benign end to history, but a new era of unprecedented despotisms. There are  those who see that that era has definitively come to end with the fall of Soviet  Communism. Daniel Mahoney thinks otherwise. It can not be treated as a mere  "episode,"-"an historic parenthesis,"-as it were. Totalitarianism is not something which "contemporary democrats need not reflect about at any length or  with any sustained seriousness" as if it were of "merely historical or antiquarian  interest." He puts what I want to say very well when he says that "reflexive dismissal of reflection about totalitarianism as part of a distant Cold War past ignores the permanent lessons that can and ought to be discerned from the lived experience of totalitarian despotism." See his Introduction to "Aron and Arendt  and the Origins of Totalitarianism" in In Defense of Political Reason, 95. Aron  (and Joly) would certainly agree. 

15. See Machiavelli's "Prologue" in Christopher Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta" in The Complete Plays of Christopher Marlowe, Irving Ribner ed., (New  York: Odyssey Press, 1963), 179. Machiavelli's statement-"there is no sin but  ignorance"-is shocking to Christian ears and its conception of sin. Indeed, the  original sin was to want to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge and be the equal  of God. Marlowe's Machiavelli, however, expresses sentiments not too distant  from the founder of political philosophy, Socrates, (if we are indeed permitted to  speak of "sin" in the context of pagan philosophy). Consider his statement that  "knowledge is virtue." Ultimately it is as shocking to pagans as, perhaps, it is to  Christians. Think through what Socrates was really doing by changing myth in  note 12 above.

16. The author of the "Memoir of Machiavelli" (unidentified) writes that Machiavelli once responded to someone who reproved him for the teachings of  The Prince with the following retort: "lf I taught princes how to tyrannize, I also  taught the people how to destroy them." That Machiavelli really once said this  may be taken with a grain of salt. (See Chapter I, note 2l. Nevertheless, this author (Bohn himself?) tries to "make sense of Machiavelli" accordingly. "He  probably develops in these words the secrets of his writings," he continues. "He was willing to teach both parties but his heart was with the republic." The  "quote" from Machiavelli can be found in The History of Florence, xix. Joly  basically agrees that such thinking best explains Machiavelli, indeed, best reveals his "secrets."

Rousseau seems to be the most eminent thinker to share this view of The Prince. "In feigning to give lessons to kings, he gave great ones to peoples. The  Prince of Machiavelli is the book for republicans," he declares. See Social Con-  tract III 6. The 1782 edition of this work also had the following note attached to  what was just quoted:

Machiavelli was an honest man and a good citizen. But attached to the house of the Medici he was forced by the oppression of his country to disguise his love of liberty. The  choice alone of his execrable Heroes manifests fairly clearly  his secret intention and how contrary the maxims of The  Prince are to those of his Discourses on Titus Liry. And his  History of Florence shows how this profound political man  has up until now had only superficial and corrupt readers.  The Court of Rome censored his book severely, and rightly  so. It was what was being depicted in the clearest of lights.

17. Joly's view of history is not, it should be stressed, just a variation of "one damn thing after another" school. Like Tocqueville, he could see inevitable  trends that have permanently changed political things. The process of democratization in the West is the most massive and important of these trends, for sure.  He would also point to certain "constants" in the human condition that don't  change-ambition and pusillanimity, for example. His endeavor was not to rise  to a philosophic view of history but to warn his contemporaries about how the  "constants" could change even what appears to be the most auspicious of historic circumstances. Albert Sorel quotes Montesquieu as follows: "As men have  at all times had the same passions, the occasions giving rise to great changes  have been different, but their causes always the same." This is why the Greatness of the Romans stays fresh and instructive. I believe Joly held to similar  views and that is why he thought his little work would provide timeless lessons for those who love liberty. For the Montesquieu quote, see Sorel, Montesquieu,  63.

18. According to Speier, Joly "was a lonely man devoted to moral principles and apparently never forgave anyone who did not live up to his standards. Perhaps his keen insight into politics and society was sharpened by a passionate desire to remain pure and morally inviolate. If so, he paid with his life for such  rigor." Speier, "The Truth in Hell," [21].

19. My remarks benefited greatly from the penetrating insights of Pierre Manent on Montesquieu as well as Daniel J. Mahoney's sensitive and illuminating remarks thereon. See Pierre Manent, La Cite de L 'Homme (Paris: Fayard,  1994). See also Daniel Mahoney's review essay on Manent's book "Modem  Man and Man Tout Court," in Interpretation 22. no.3 (Spring 1990): 417-438.

The best book I have read that is exclusively on Montesquieu is Thomas L.Pangle's Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalism (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1973).

20. See The Spirit of the Laws XI 9 entitled "Aristotle's manner of thinking." This small chapter follows hard upon Montesquieu's discourse on the institutions of contemporary England. Ostensibly, it is a criticism of Aristotle for his misconceptions concerning monarchy. It is, in truth, more sweeping.

21. Who is not stunned by the shortest chapter in the whole of The Spirit of the Laws, which gives an "idea" of the mentality of the despot and what despotic  power really entails. Montesquieu writes:

When the savages of Louisiana are desirous of fruit, they cut the tree to the root, and gather the fruit. This is an emblem of  despotic government.

Was there not an even greater "savage" mentality in Soviet despotism that ,.cut down" ten million kulaks in the name of increasing agricultural production? This  could serve as the "emblem" of Leninism. See The Spirit of the Laws V 13.

22. Montesquieu's words undoubtedly apply to his contemporaries:

The character of the majority of courtiers is marked by indolent ambition, mean-spirited pride, lust for wealth without labor, antipathy to truth, flattery, treachery, perfidy, neglect of  all engagements, contempt for civic duties, dread of virtue in  the prince, and hope based upon his weaknesses-above all,  an ingrained habit of sneering at virtue.

We should bear in mind that, in Montesquieu's thinking, once the animating  principle in a regime is corrupted, there is little possibility to revive it. His hope for reform of France and the recovery of honor to avoid revolution was probably  a slender one. The above quote can be fund in Sorel, Montesquieu, 176 and is  taken from The Spirit of the Laws III 5.

23. Exotic thinking and new ways of doing things would seduce the mind of France as they seduced the mind of Usbek. France's encounter with the secular  apostles of the new order would make it impossible for it simply to return to the  old ways. The Enlightenment would change the West, as Montesquieu clearly  saw. (So, too, would it change Usbek's East.) He would want to bequeath what  is best from the changes that were upon us all.

24. His reputation as a "conservative" is of longer date than the reputation that Joly would fix on him. It was in fact the first reaction to his thought. Helvetius, a not unfriendly contemporary of Montesquieu, criticized the author of  The Spirit of the Laws because he was too fixated on the past and because he  tried to ameliorate defective regimes and practices. "I know but two classes of  government," he wrote, "the good and the bad; and the good are yet to be  found." This is the mind of the ideologue who, in accepting nothing short of perfection, would jeopardize what good man can attain.  Who can not see in Helvetius the intellectual mindset of today? His remarks on Montesquieu can be found in Sorel, Montesquieu, 163.

25. What is absent from the modern world is the sense of a secure place for the human spirit, which gives rise to a noble use of leisure, taste, and refinement.  According to Pierre Manent, this was present in France until the 1960s. It was then that the quintessentially French "aesthetic education" (to use Schiller's term) succumbed. It was, more precisely, when Daniel Cohn- endit, on the  streets and with a smirk, drove the last and perhaps the greatest representative of  old France from political office. The young wanted new heroes. It should be   pointed out that in America and France, the new ones did not last too, too long.  See Manent, La Cite de l'homme, 43. Before Aron, Montesquieu and Tocqueville were the most noble and intellectually defensible efforts to "plaidoyer pour L' Europe decadent."

26. The French nobility at the time Montesquieu wrote was not likely to appreciate his message: to wit, they were unaware of their own corruption and  were leading France to revolutionary destruction. Nor would they like to take  the "medicine" of a return to ancestral ways that this political .'Hippocrates" recommends.

Similarly, today's Americans would not likely relish being told that their "optimism" is hopelessly naive and breeds arrogance. Indeed, "radical surgery" would be necessary to disabuse them of this character trait, since all the horrors of the last century apparently were unable to do so. Nor should such "surgery"  be undertaken. anyway. This is because much of what is best in the American  "spirit" is also inextricably bound up with their optimism. At the source of our  "arrogance" are standards that we apply not only to others but to ourselves.  America at its best is constantly striving, internally and externally. Complacent  self-absorption would be its downfall.

Ultimately, I believe, our optimism stems from a certain belief in morality that sees in the acts of a moral agent of goodwill the necessary and sufficient  condition to affect change. Among other things, it discounts the fragility of the  moral horizon that envelops civilized life.

All other countries identity themselves with a brief shining moment in the past. They sense that their best as a people somehow lies behind them. More  prominent in their memories are the tragedies that still weigh heavily upon them.  But what is the world to make of a people whose past weighs so lightly? To  Americans, the past is mere grist for the future, not a huge boulder that blocks  their way. They are continually building their historic home, only to abandon it  before living therein, ever moving confidently forward. It is always just dawn in  America. This is a people that has, as yet, not suffered a historic tragedy, at least  not at the hands of others. Is this optimism the "tragic flaw" in a people that has  heretofore not known tragedy?

A look to the pain of Vietnam (it would take "radical surgery" to remove it from my generation) may be instructive. The "flip side'. of American optimism  is a tendency to withdraw from the world when it proves recalcitrant to its  "spirit"-which it inevitably will do, probably more often than not.

Vietnam began, I am convinced, in all optimism and with all good intentions. The war was conducted with our characteristic faith in technology, that is,  that "calibrated bombing" would soon end it. We assumed that the "rational"  incentives that would move Americans would move the Viet Cong. But Vietnam  did not end quickly or well.

The "experience" has been interpreted in at least three different ways. Some Americans believe that we were, in a sense, "stabbed in the back." Our policy  would have been vindicated had not certain elements-nearly "treasonable"-  not blocked our efforts. Our real enemy was "within." Some Americans reacted  with hostility to the world that proved so recalcitrant to them. "You 're on your  own now: Debrouillez-vous." Retreat from the world and a markedly lower profile followed the experience. (It is likely that Congress, much maligned, effectively represented the majority of Americans in this regard.) Equilibrium, tentative at best, followed only a decade later. And some Americans, like the first  group, saw the problem as lying within but attributed it, not to dissident elements, but to something more fundamentally Wrong. It is this group that the first  group finds treasonable. It may indeed be the case that our deepest domestic divisions, still with us. have a foreign policy origin.

All these reactions pointed to a new "isolationism," which is really not a policy option anymore but nevertheless remains as a permanent temptation to  Americans in the aftermath of their failures-the "flip side" of their optimism, I would argue. It is part of a post-Vietnam mentality that makes us turn to an "exit  strategy" as the first priority in the use of our power, while the darker side of  America's former involvement in Asia now forces us to tolerate no casualties to  American soldiers and none to enemy civilians, not to speak of unacceptable "collateral" damage. Such presumptions drive the technology of our weapons  systems. But what is astonishing is that our commanders in chief seem to accept  these parameters as a basis for any military engagements. This can not remain  the basis of effective foreign policy, at least given the dangers of the world and  the global responsibilities that we have assumed. Our Secretaries of State need a  little talking to in the gardens of Rucellai.

Historically, Vietnam has been called a "non-event." This is arguable. In any case. there will inevitably be other Vietnams in America's future, which might  indeed alter the course of human events. If Vietnam is in any way an instructive  precedent. Americans will withdraw from the world, brood in their tent, Achilles-like (Holden Caulfield-like?), nursing their grievances. A plaintive '.come  home, America" will again be heard and, if the pain is deep enough, the bruised  son will come back to the maternal call. Meanwhile, the pieces of the world will  fall into place without American participation or influence. This will be unfortunate for America. It is not shallow patriotism that makes me think it will be un-  fortunate for the world, too.

At end, if American optimism can not and should not be rooted out of the American character, it should, nevertheless, be made more clear-sighted, sober,  and mature. In a word, it should be more "Montesquieuan." This, I think, would help forestall the appearance of other Vietnams in the future and would ultimately equip us to deal with them better when they happen.

Speaking of Montesquieu, and probably with the French uppermost in his mind. Albert Sorel stated that "when men tried to return to order, moderation, liberty, they returned to him." He also thought that Montesquieu's greatest gift  to posterity was '.something better than precepts." This is what I am talking  about. "He left a method making it possible to develop his thought, and to apply  it to cases that he never had foreseen." See Sorel, Montesquieu, I88 and 209. 

27. The multimillionaire rock star, who has climbed the greasy pole of what passes for fame in contemporary America, even passes for "humane." This is  when he or she gives a concert for AIDS victims or rain forests and doesn't take  a cut in receipts. Imagine! Thomas Pangle even thinks there are "limits" to Montesquieu's "humanity." He writes that Montesquieu believed "that in order to  benefit humanity one must never permit the sense of humanity to blur one's  clarity of vision." Indeed, without. this "clarity of vision" claims to "humanity"  are all too often self-indulgent vanity. See Pangle, Montesquieu's Philosophy of  Liberalism, 172.

28. Chapter 10 of this work is a historic survey of the various views of Napoleon III. It is also a polemic against the way history is done today. These remarks on Montesquieu should be kept in mind when reading this later chapter .  Among other things, they show that contemporary historicism is not the final  word on the proper relation of man to history.

29. Hegel, famously and in a moment of epiphany, literally saw the Emperor in Berlin as the apotheosis of modernity. At Jena, shortly before, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by his force. The modem Caesar was upon Europe.  Stendhal had glimpsed the phenomenon even in Italy. We could have had a key  to the character of his conquests by his actions in Egypt. A host of scientists disembarked with his armies at the mouth of the Nile. There were 167 of them -- civil engineers, astronomers, physicists, chemists, medical men; also musicians,  writers, and artists. They would unlock the mysteries of mankind's deep past as  they would infect ever after the life of the East. When former sovereigns conquered, they brought court jesters. Napoleon brought savants. In the age of  world empire building to follow and the revolutions and wars of the last century,  "ideas" would prove to be the most important arm in conquerors' arsenals. I fol-  low Daniel Mahoney in use of the term "ideocratic" which, I think, he coined.

30. It is not appropriate for "intellectual valets" to praise such "heroes" of thought. I also realize that to confess to having heroes, intellectual or otherwise,  is today something quaint, if not bemusing. But I have made my pilgrimage to  La Brede, Montesquieu's ancestral home. The best Americans, by the way, in an age of heroes, forthrightly declared their admiration for Montesquieu. They  called him "the celebrated Montesquieu" and at the most important moment in  their history followed "the legislator of nations" as their guide. It should also be  noted that Montesquieu has pride of place in Aron's magisterial study on sociology and its greatest practitioners. He is one of the few legitimate "philosopher-sociologists" in his view. See Aron's two-volume study Main Currents in Sociological Thought (London: Penguin Books, 1967).

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