Foreword

Much is owing Nicholas Davidson for editing and translating Louis de Bonald's On Divorce. On Divorce is one of Bonald's most important works, and Mr. Davidson has done ample justice to it in both his exemplary translation and his sage and cogent introduction. Bonald was one of that hardy group of thinkers who, at the end of the eighteenth century, formed what has sometimes been called the Anti-Enlightenment. The Enlightenment and Revolution had glorified the individual and the state, each conceived abstractly, no longer a part of the larger social order. Philosophes and Jacobins were particularly scornful of all that lay in between individual and state in the way of institutions and communities. The greatest contribution of Bonald principally but of other conservatives too was the reawakening in Western Europe after the Revolution of an appreciation of these intermediate ties among human beings, with the family and church leading the way.