The paradox, quite painful for me, is that I was already a royalist at a very young age. I could almost say, since childhood. My early readings of history led me to seek the origins and workings of the monarchy. I know perfectly well that the monarchy, as I conceive it and as other eras have experienced it, is now unthinkable. […] For me, a power that comes from transcendence, from a divine origin, and that is assumed as such by the king, as an obligation before a being and an authority superior to humankind, is far more convincing. From this commitment of the king come the source, the origin, the reason for this power that is his for life, as well as the right of his sons to inherit this power, after the coronation ceremony. This seems far more acceptable to me, and I connect with it and live with it much better than with laws, regulations, and codes approved by a majority consensus, to which I must submit and which were created by men in my own image. The fact that the majority agrees that society should be this way or that means absolutely nothing to me. For this society to deserve my respect, for me to feel involved in it and for it to be entitled to my respect, it must be of higher origin, and not the product of a logical process, rehashed and prepared by a group of men who claim to represent the majority of the population. Because in my opinion, that would be the most abominable tyranny imaginable.
Excerpts from Souvenirs et autres fantasmes , a book of interviews with Eduardo Garcia Aguilar, Editions Folle Avoine.
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