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JOSEPH DE MAISTRE (1754-1821)

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 446 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOSEPH DE See also:MAISTRE (1754-1821)  , See also:French diplomatist and polemical writer, was See also:born at See also:Chambery on the 1st of See also:April 1754 . His See also:family was an See also:ancient and See also:noble one, enjoying the See also:title of See also:count, and is said to have been of Languedocian extraction . The See also:father of See also:Joseph was See also:president of the See also:senate of See also:Savoy, and held other important offices . Joseph himself, after studying at See also:Turin, received various appointments in the See also:civil service of Savoy, finally becoming a member of the senate . In 1786 he married Francoise de 1\forand . The invasion and See also:annexation of Savoy by the French Republicans made him an See also:exile . He did not take See also:refuge in that See also:part of the See also:king of See also:Sardinia's domains which was for the See also:time spared, but betook himself to the as yet neutral territory of See also:Lausanne . There, in 1796, he published his first important See also:work (he had previously written certain discourses, See also:pamphlets, letters, &c.), Considerations sur la See also:France. in this he See also:developed his views, which were those of a Legitimist, but a Legitimist entirely from the religious and See also:Roman See also:Catholic point of view . The philosophism of the 18th See also:century was Joseph de See also:Maistre's lifelong See also:object of See also:assault . After the still further losses which, in the See also:year of the publication of this See also:book, the French Revolution inflicted on Sardinia; See also:Charles See also:Emmanuel summoned Joseph de Maistre to Turin, and he remained there for the brief space during which the king retained a remnant of territory on the mainland . Then he went to the See also:island of Sardinia, and held See also:office at Cagliari . In 1802 he was appointed See also:envoy extraordinary and See also:minister plenipotentiary at St See also:Petersburg, and journeyed thither the next year .

Although his See also:

post was no See also:sinecure, its duties were naturally less See also:engrossing than the See also:official See also:life, with intervals of uneasy exile and travelling, which he had hitherto known, and his See also:literary activity was See also:great . He only published a single See also:treatise, on the Principe generateur See also:des Constitutions; but he wrote his best and most famous See also:works, Du Pape, De L'eglise gallicane and the Soirees de St Petersbourg, the last of which was never finished . Du Pape, which the second-named book completes, is a treatise in See also:regular See also:form, dealing with the relations of the See also:sovereign pontiff to the See also:Church, to temporal sovereigns, to See also:civilization generally, and to schismatics, especially Anglicans and the See also:Greek Church . It is written from the highest possible standpoint of papal See also:absolutism . The Soirees de St Petersbourg, so far as it is anything (for the arrangement is some-what desultory), is a See also:kind of theodicee, dealing with the fortunes of virtue and See also:vice in this See also:world . It contains two of De Maistre's most famous pieces, his See also:panegyric on the executioner as the See also:foundation of social See also:order, and his acrimonious, and in part unfair, but also in part very damaging, attack on See also:Locke . The Du Pape is dated May 1817; on the Soirees the author was still engaged at his See also:death . Besides these works he wrote an examination of the See also:philosophy of See also:Bacon, some letters on the See also:Inquisition (an institution which, as may be guessed from the remarks just noticed about the executioner, was no stumbling-See also:block to him), and, earlier than any of these, a See also:translation of See also:Plutarch's " See also:Essay on the Delay of Divine See also:Justice," with somewhat copious notes . After 1815 he returned to Savoy, and was appointed to high office, while his Du Pape made a great sensation . But the world to which he had returned was not altogether in accordance with his desires . He had domestic troubles; and chagrin of one sort and another is said to have had not a little to do with his death by See also:paralysis on the 26th of See also:February 1821 at Turin . Most of the works mentioned were not published till after his death, and it was not till 1851 that a collection of Lettres et opuscules appeared, while even since that time fresh See also:matter has been published .

Joseph de Maistre was one of the most powerful, and by far the ablest, of the leaders of the neo-Catholic and See also:

anti-revolutionary See also:movement . The most remarkable thing about his stand-point is that, layman as he was, it was entirely ecclesiastical . Unlike his contemporary See also:Bonald, Joseph de Maistre regarded the temporal See also:monarchy as an institution of altogether inferior importance to the spiritual primacy of the See also:pope . He was by no means a See also:political absolutist, except in so far as he regarded obedience as the first of political virtues, and he seldom loses an opportunity of stipulating for a tempered monarchy . But the pope's See also:power is not to be tempered at all, either by See also:councils or by the temporal power or by See also:national churches, least of all by private See also:judgment . The peculiarity of Joseph de Maistre is that he supports his conclusions, or if it be preferred his paradoxes, by the hardest and heaviest See also:argument . Although a great See also:master of See also:rhetoric, he never makes rhetoric do See also:duty for See also:logic . Every now and then it is possible to detect fallacies in him, but for the most part he has succeeded in carrying matters back to those fundamental See also:differences of See also:opinion which hardly admit of argument, and on which men take sides in consequence chiefly of natural See also:bent, and of predilection for one See also:state of things rather than for another . The See also:absolute See also:necessity of order may be said to have been the first principle of this thinker, who, in more ways than one, will invite comparison with See also:Hobbes . He could not conceive such order without a single visible authority, reference to which should See also:settle all dispute . He saw that there could be no such temporal See also:head, and in the pope he thought that he saw a spiritual substitute . The anarchic tendencies of the Revolution in politics and See also:religion were what offended him .

It ought to be . added that he was profoundly and accurately learned in See also:

history and philosophy, and that the superficial blunders of the 18th-century philosophes irritated him as much as their doctrines . To See also:Voltaire in particular he shows no See also:mercy . Of the two works named as his masterpieces, Du Pape and the Soirees de St Petersbourg, See also:editions are extremely numerous . No See also:complete edition of his works appeared till 1884-1887, when one was published at See also:Lyons in 14 volumes . This had been preceded, and has been followed, by numerous See also:biographies and discussions: C . See also:Barthelemy, L'Esprit de Joseph de Maistre (1859); R. de Sezeval, Joseph de Maistre (1865), and J . C . See also:Glaser, See also:Graf Joseph Maistre (same year); L . I . See also:Moreau, Joseph de Maistre (1879); F . Paulhan, Joseph de Maistre et sa philosophie (1893); L .

Cogordan, " Joseph de Maistre " in the Grands ecrivains franrcais (1894) ; F . Descostes, Joseph de Maistre avant la revolution (1896), and other works by the same writer; J . Mandoul, Un Homme d'etat italien: Joseph de Maistre et la politique de la maison de See also:

Savoie (1900); and E . Grasset, Joseph de Maistre (1901) . (G .

End of Article: JOSEPH DE MAISTRE (1754-1821)
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