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Joseph de Maistre
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Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre (French pronunciation: [d mst][1] 1 April 1753 26 February 1821) was a French-speaking Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat. He defended hierarchical societies and a monarchical State in the period immediately following the French Revolution. Maistre was a subject of the King of Piedmont-Sardinia, whom he served as member of the Savoy Senate (17871792), ambassador to Russia (18031817), and minister of state to the court in Turin (18171821).[2] Maistre, a key figure of the CounterEnlightenment, saw monarchy both as a divinely sanctioned institution and as the only stable form of government. He called for the restoration of the House of Bourbon to the throne of France and argued that the Pope should have ultimate authority in temporal matters. Maistre also claimed that it was the rationalist rejection of Christianity which was directly responsible for the disorder and bloodshed which followed the French Revolution of 1789.
Joseph-Marie de Maistre
Portrait of de Maistre by von Vogelstein, c.1810 Born 1 April 1753 Chambry, Kingdom of Sardinia, Duchy of Savoy 26 February 1821 (aged 67) Turin, Kingdom of Sardinia 18th-century philosophy Western philosophy Conservatism, counterEnlightenment, ultramontanism, royalism, mysticism
Contents
1 Biography 2 Political and moral philosophy 3 Repute and influence 4 See also 5 Notes 6 Works 6.1 Work in English translation 7 References 8 External links
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Biography
Maistre was born in 1753 at Chambry, in the Duchy of Savoy, which at that time was part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, ruled by the House of Savoy.[3] His family was of French origin. His grandfather Andr Maistre, who came from Provence, had been a draper and councilman in Nice (then under the rule of the House of Savoy), and his father Franois-Xavier, who moved to Chambry in 1740, became a magistrate and senator, eventually receiving the title of count from the King of Piedmont-Sardinia. His mother's family, whose surname was Desmotz, were from Rumilly.[4] Joseph's younger brother, Xavier, who became an army officer, was a popular writer of fiction.[5][6] Joseph was probably educated by the Jesuits.[5] After the Revolution, he became an ardent defender of their Order, increasingly associating the spirit of the Revolution with the Jesuits' traditional enemies, the Jansenists. After completing his training in the law at the University of Turin in 1774, he followed in his father's footsteps by becoming a Senator in 1787. A member of the progressive Scottish Rite Masonic lodge at Chambry from 1774 to 1790, Maistre originally favoured political reform in France, supporting the efforts of the magistrates in the Parlements to force King Louis XVI to convene the Estates General. As a landowner in France, Maistre was eligible to join that body, and there is some evidence that he contemplated that possibility.[7] He was alarmed, however, by the decision of the States-General to combine clergy, aristocracy, and commoners into a single legislative body, which became the National Constituent Assembly. After the passing of the August Decrees on 4 August 1789 he decisively turned against the course of political events in France.
Lithograph of Maistre, from a painting by Pierre Bouillon. He is shown wearing the insignia of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.
Maistre fled Chambry when it was taken by a French revolutionary army in 1792, but unable to find a position in the royal court in Turin, he returned the following year. Deciding that he could not support the French-controlled regime, he departed again, this time for Lausanne, in Switzerland. There he discussed politics and theology at the salon of Madame de Stal, and began his career as a counter-revolutionary writer, with works such as Lettres d'un royaliste savoisien ("Letters from a Savoyard Royalist", 1793), Discours Mme. la marquise Costa de Beauregard, sur la vie et la mort de son fils ("Discourse to the Marchioness Costa de Beauregard, on the Life and Death of her Son", 1794) and Cinq paradoxes la Marquise de Nav... ("Five Paradoxes for the Marchioness of Nav...", 1795).[3] From Lausanne, Maistre emigrated to Venice, and then Cagliari, where the King of PiedmontSardinia was exiled after French armies took Turin in 1798. Maistre's relations with the court at
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Cagliari were not always easy[3] and in 1803 he was sent to Saint Petersburg in Russia, as ambassador to Tsar Alexander I. His diplomatic responsibilities were few, and he became a well-loved fixture in aristocratic circles, converting some of his friends to Roman Catholicism, and writing his most influential works on political philosophy. Maistre's observations on Russian life, contained in his diplomatic memoirs and in his personal correspondence, were among Tolstoy's sources for his novel War and Peace.[3] After the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of the House of Savoy's dominion over Piedmont (under the terms of the Congress of Vienna), Maistre returned in 1817 to Turin, and served there as magistrate and minister of state until his death. He died on 26 February 1821 is buried in the Jesuit Church of the Holy Martyrs (Chiesa dei Santi Martiri ).
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In addition to his voluminous correspondence, Maistre left two books that were published posthumously. Soires de St. Ptersbourg ("The Saint Petersburg Dialogues", 1821) is a theodicy in the form of a Platonic dialogue, in which Maistre argues that evil exists because of its place in the divine plan, according to which the blood sacrifice of innocents returns men to God, via the expiation of the sins of the guilty; Maistre saw this is a law of human history, as indubitable as it is mysterious. Examen de la philosophie de Bacon, ("An Examination of the Philosophy of Bacon," 1836), is a critique of the thought of Francis Bacon, whom Maistre considers to be the fountainhead of the destructive Enlightened thought.
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Amongst those who admired him was the poet Charles Baudelaire, who described himself a disciple of the Savoyard counter-revolutionary, claiming that he had taught him "how to think."[17] Maistre also exerted a powerful influence on the Spanish political thinker Juan Donoso Corts and, later, on the French monarchist Charles Maurras and his counterrevolutionary political movement Action Franaise. According to Carolina Armenteros, Maistre's writings influenced not only conservative political thinkers, but also the Utopian socialists.[18] Early sociologists such as Saint-Simon and Comte explicitly acknowledged the influence of Maistre on their own thinking about the sources of social cohesion and political authority.[9][10]
See also
Latin Conservatism
Notes
1. ^ Maistre is traditionally pronounced [mst] (sounding the S, rhymes with bourgmestre); that's how it is usually heard at university and in historical movies (e.g. in Sacha Guitry's 1948 film Le Diable boiteux). The pronunciation [mt] (rhymes with matre) is sometimes heard, under the influence of the modernized pronunciation adopted by some descendants (such as Patrice de Maistre(fr)). 2. ^ The issue of Maistre's national identity has long been contentious. In 1802, after the invasion of Savoy and Piedmont by the armies of the French First Republic, Maistre had fled in Cagliari, the ancient capital of Kingdom of Sardinia that resisted to the French invasion, wrote to the French ambassador in Naples, objecting to having been classified as a French migr and thus subject to confiscation of his properties and punishment should he attempt to return to Savoy. According to the biographical notice written by his son Rodolphe and included in the Complete Works, on that occasion Maistre wrote that He had not been born French, and did not desire to become French, and that, never having set foot in the lands conquered by France, he could not have become French. uvres compltes de Joseph de Maistre, Lyon, 1884, vol. I, p. XVIII. Sources such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic /358824/Joseph-de-Maistre) and the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org /cathen/09554a.htm) identify Maistre as French, by culture if not by law. In 1860 Albert Blanc, professor of law at the University of Turin, in his preface to a collection of Maistre's diplomatic correspondence wrote that: ... this philosopher [Maistre] was a politician; this Catholic was an Italian; he foretold the destiny of the House of Savoy, he supported the end of the Austrian rule [of northern Italy], he has been, during this century, one of the first defenders of [Italian] independence. Correspondance diplomatique de Joseph de Maistre, Paris, 1860, vol. I, pp. III-IV. 3. ^ a b c d Berlin, Isaiah (258 October 1965). "The Second Onslaught: Joseph de Maistre and Open Obscurantism" (http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/nachlass /maistre.pdf) (PDF). Two Enemies of the Enlightenment. Wolfson College, Oxford. http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/nachlass /maistre.pdf. Retrieved 11 December 2008. 4. ^ Triomphe, Robert (1968). Joseph de Maistre. Genve: Droz. pp. 3941. Preview
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5.
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available here (http://books.google.com /books?id=CkrcFHJB5cQC&pg) ^ a b c "Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. ^ "Xavier de Maistre". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. ^ Lebrun, Richard. "A Brief Biography of Joseph de Maistre" (http://www.maistre.polthought.cam.ac.uk /maistrebio.html) . University of Manitoba. http://www.maistre.polthought.cam.ac.uk /maistrebio.html. Retrieved 1 June 2011. ^ Quoted by Philippe Snart in "Maistre et Tocqueville" (http://books.google.com /books?id=kiDaH4ll41oC&pg=PA646) , Joseph de Maistre. Les Dossiers H, (Lausanne: Editions L'Age d'Homme, 2005), p. 646. ISBN 2825118710 ^ a b Lucien Lvy-Bruhl, The Philosophy of Auguste Comte, (New York: Putnam and Sons, 1903), pp. 297-8. ^ a b Mary Pickering, Auguste Comte: An
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Intellectual Biography, vol. 1, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 261-8. ISBN 052143405X ^ de Lamartine, Alphonse (1874). "I". Souvenirs et portraits. 2 (3rd ed.). Paris. pp. 1889. ^ mile Faguet, Politiques et moralistes du dix-neuvieme siecle, 1st series, Paris 1899. Cited in: de Maistre, Joseph (1994). "Introduction". Considerations on France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. xi. ISBN 0-521-46628-8. ^ Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty, 2002, p.132. ^ Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty, 2002, p.154 ^ Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty, 2002, p.137 ^ Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty, 2002, p.151 ^ Lombard 1976, p. 123 ^ Carolina Armenteros, The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794-1854 (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2011). ISBN 0-8014-4943-X
Works
Nobilis Ioseph Maistre Camberiensis ad i.u. lauream anno 1772. die 29. Aprilis hora 5. pomeridiana (Turin, 1772) Joseph de Maistre's decree thesis, kept in the National Library of the University of Turin (link (http://www.sbn.it/opacsbn/opaclib?db=iccu& select_db=iccu&nentries=1&from=5&searchForm=opac/iccu/error.jsp& resultForward=opac/iccu/full.jsp&do=search_show_cmd& rpnlabel=+Autore+%3D+Joseph+de+Maistre+%28parole+in+AND%29++Anno+di+pubb licazione%3E%3D1700++AND+Anno+di+pubblicazione%3C%3D1810+& rpnquery=%40attrset+bib1+%40and+%40and++%40attr+1%3D31+%40attr+4%3D4++%40attr++2%3D4+%2217 00%22++%40attr+1%3D1003+%40attr+4%3D2+%22Joseph+de+Maistre%22++%40attr +1%3D31+%40attr+4%3D4++%40attr++2%3D2+%221810%22&totalResult=9& fname=none&brief=brief) ). loge de Victor-Amde III (Chambry, 1775) Lettres d'un royaliste savoisien ses compatriotes (1793) tude sur la souverainet (1794) De l'tat de nature, ou Examen d'un crit de Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1795) Considrations sur la France (London [Basel], 1796) Intorno allo stato del Piemonte rispetto alla carta moneta (Turn, Aosta, Venice, 17971799) Essai sur le principe gnrateur des constitutions politiques (St Petersborg, 1809) Du Pape (Lyon, 1819) De l'glise gallicane, dit. Rodolphe de Maistre (Lyon, 1821)
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Les Soires de Saint-Ptersbourg ou Entretiens sur le gouvernement temporel de la Providence, dit. Rodolphe de Maistre (Paris, 1821) Lettres un gentilhomme russe sur l'Inquisition espagnole, dit. Rodolphe de Maistre (Paris, 1822) Examen de la philosophie de Bacon, dit. Rodolphe de Maistre (Paris, 1836) Lettres et opuscules indits du comte Joseph de Maistre, dit. Rodolphe de Maistre (Paris, 1853) Mmoires politiques et correspondance diplomatique, dit. Albert Blanc (Paris, 1858)
References
Armenteros, Carolina, The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794-1854 (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2011). Armenteros, Carolina and Richard Lebrun, Joseph de Maistre and his European Readers: From Friedrich von Gentz to Isaiah Berlin (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011). Armenteros, Carolina and Richard Lebrun, Joseph de Maistre and the Legacy of Enlightenment, SVEC (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 2011). Armenteros, Carolina and Richard Lebrun, The New enfant du sicle: Joseph de Maistre as a Writer (http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/10023/847/1 /The%20New%20Enfant%20du%20Siecle %20%28ed%20Armenteros%20and%20Lebrun%29.pdf) , in St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture 1 (2010). Armenteros, Carolina, "From Human Nature to Normal Humanity: Joseph de Maistre, Rousseau, and the Origins of Moral Statistics," Journal of the History of Ideas, 68, 1 (2007): 10730. Armenteros, Carolina, "Parabolas and the Fate of Nations: Early Conservative Historicism in Joseph de Maistre's De la souverainet du peuple," History of Political Thought, 28, 2 (2007): 23052. Barthelet, Philippe, Joseph de Maistre: Les Dossiers H (Geneva: L'Age d'homme, 2005). Bradley, Owen, A Modern Maistre: The Social and Political Thought of Joseph de Maistre| (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). Camcastle, Cara, The more moderate side of Joseph de Maistre, Ottawa, McGill-Queen's
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University Press, 2005. Croce, Benedetto, Il duca di Serra-Capriola e Giuseppe de Maistre (in Archivio storico per le province napoletane, XLVII, pp. 313335), 1922. Buchanan, Patrick (2007). State of Emergency. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-37436-4. Ghervas, Stella (2008). Rinventer la tradition: Alexandre Stourdza et l'Europe de la Sainte-Alliance. Paris: Honor Champion. ISBN 2-7453-1669-9. Glaudes, Pierre, Joseph de Maistre et les figures de l'histoire: trois essais sur un prcurseur du romantisme franais, in Cahiers romantiques (1997). Lebrun, Richard A. (1988). Joseph de Maistre: An Intellectual Militant. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-0645-4. Lombard, Charles (1976). Joseph de Maistre. Boston: Twayne. ISBN 0-8057-6247-7. Fisichella, Domenico, Giusnaturalismo e teoria della sovranit in Joseph de Maistre. Messina-Firenze, 1963. (now in Id. Politica e mutamento sociale. Costantino Marco Editore, Lungro di Cosenza, 2002, pp. 191243. ISBN 88-85350-97-6.) Fisichella, Domenico, Il pensiero politico di Joseph de Maistre. Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1993. ISBN 88-420-4157-2. Fisichella, Domenico, Joseph de Maistre, pensatore europeo. Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2005. ISBN 88-420-7598-1. Gianturco, Elio, Joseph de Maistre and Giambattista Vico (Italian roots of the Maistre's political culture), New York, Columbia University, 1937. Gianturco, Elio, Juridical culture and politico-historical judgement in Joseph de Maistre (in Roman revue n. 27), 1936. Lebrun, Richard, Joseph de Maistre's life, thought and influence: selected studies, Ottawa, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001. Legittimo, Gianfranco, Sociologi cattolici italiani: De Maistre, Taparelli, Toniolo, Il Quadrato, Roma, 1963. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. Mandoul, Jean, Un homme d'tat italien: Joseph de Maistre et la politique de la Maison de Savoie, Alcan, Paris, 1900. Monteton, Charles Philippe Dijon de, Die Entzauberung des Gesellschaftsvertrags. Ein Vergleich der Anti-Sozial-Kontrakts-Theorien von Carl Ludwig von Haller und Joseph Graf de Maistre im Kontext der politischen Ideengeschichte, Frankfurt am Main et al., 2007, 164 S., 2 Abb. ISBN 978-3-631-55538-5. Pranchre, Jean-Yves, L'Autorit contre les Lumires: la philosophie de Joseph de Maistre (Geneva: Droz, 2005). Pranchre, Jean-Yves, Qu'est-ce que la royaut? Joseph de Maistre (Paris: Vrin, 1992). Vermale, Franois, Notes sur Joseph de Maistre inconnu (Chambry: Perrin, M. Dardel successeur, 1921).
External links
The Joseph de Maistre Homepage (http://www.maistre.polthought.cam.ac.uk) at the University of Cambridge Works of Joseph de Maistre in English Translation (http://maistre.ath.cx:8000)
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_de_Maistre& oldid=522405904" Categories: 1753 births 1821 deaths People from Chambry People from Savoy People from the Kingdom of Sardinia 19th-century French writers Italian writers in French French counter-revolutionaries Savoyard counter-revolutionaries Italian philosophers Political theorists Roman Catholic writers French monarchists Roman Catholic philosophers Anti-Protestantism Knights of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus Conservatism French Ultra-royalists Freemasons Counter-Enlightenment Ambassadors to Russia 19th-century philosophers 18th-century philosophers This page was last modified on 11 November 2012 at 00:21. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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