Louis de Bonald 1754 – 1840

Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de Bonald, was a French traditionalist philosopher and statesman and, with Joseph de Maistre, one of the principal theorists of the post-revolutionary Catholic reaction. After military emigration during the Revolution, he returned under the Empire and served as a deputy and peer of France through the Restoration and the early July Monarchy. His Theory of Political and Religious Power, Primitive Legislation, and Philosophical Researches argued that society precedes the individual, that human language is given to humanity rather than invented by it, and that religion and political order rise and fall together.