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Metternich did not see himself as defending the pre-1789 ancien regime of

oppression and privilege, but civilisation itself. Like Burke in England, his revulsion
from the French Revolution stimulated him to forge a new conservative philosophy
out of progressive, Enlightened principles. Metternich was as much a creation of the
Revolutionary era as the liberals and nationalists he tried to crush.

Metternich’s nemesis: Mazzini, prophet of nationalism
Giuseppe Mazzini was an enigmatic figure, an Italian politician, journalist and
revolutionary activist (“conspirator” to his many enemies), born in Genoa in 1805 (it

was then ruled by Napoleon), the son of a university professor. He was the
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inspiration behind the Risorgimento, the broad 19 century movement to free the
disparate Italian states from foreign domination (particularly Austrian) and unite it as
an independent nation, a free, democratic republic. Mazzini was personally very
attractive and charismatic; people called him “the most beautiful being, male or
female”, they’d ever seen. Forced to leave Italy for his revolutionary beliefs, he
eventually settled in London and became a celebrity in Victorian society, helped by a

wave of support when it was revealed that the British government was intercepting
and reading his correspondence. To his contemporaries, Mazzini was the
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embodiment of European nationalism in the first half of the 19 century.

Rousseau and the birth of the inner life
Metternich was trying to buttress the old, traditional, pre-1789 sources of legitimacy,
namely monarchy, church and aristocracy. But Mazzini set against these a new form
of legitimacy, namely one derived from the inner life of the individual*.

*Francis Fukuyama Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition (2018)

Where did this originate? Not with Mazzini, nor even the French Revolution, but with
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the 18 century thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau (died 1778). Rousseau is a difficult
figure because his ideas embrace both the Enlightenment and Romanticism. He did
not originate the idea of an inner life, but previously it had always been articulated in

Christian terms, as in the writings of St Augustine in the 4th Century and Martin
Luther in the 16th, describing their personal religious turmoil and anguish.

Rousseau was the first western thinker to articulate the inner life in secular terms. In
doing so, in one of the most pivotal moments in western intellectual history, he
swept aside the fundamental Christian belief in Original Sin. This said that evil was

God’s punishment for our sins. Rousseau declared that individual human beings were
innately good. Evil did not originate within each person, due to Original Sin, but in
society. It was social life that created rivalries and resentments.