Joseph de Maistre on Monarchy

“Monarchy is a centralized aristocracy. At all times and in all places, the aristocracy commands. Whatever form is given to governments, birth and wealth always obtain the first rank, and nowhere do they rule more harshly than where their dominion is not founded on law. But in a monarchy, the king is the centre of this aristocracy; it is true that the aristocracy rules as elsewhere; but it rules in the king’s name, or if you will, the king is guided by the knowledge of the aristocracy.”

“Monarchy is, without contradiction, the form of government that gives the most distinction to the greatest number of persons. Sovereignty in this kind of government possesses enough brilliance to be able to share a part of it, with the necessary gradations, with a crowd of its more or less distinguished agents. In a republic, sovereignty is not tangible, as it is in a monarchy; it is a purely moral concept, and its greatness is incommunicable. In addition, in republics public offices are nothing outside the capital city, and moreover, they are nothing except insofar as they are occupied by members of government. Then it is the man who honours the office, not the office that honours the man.”