Joseph de Maistre

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Joseph de Maistre
Providentialism
  • Necessity of sacrifice
  • Legitimacy of authority
  • Legitimacy of tradition

    • Joseph Marie, comte de Maistre (French:

    social hierarchy and monarchy in the period immediately following the French Revolution.[4] Despite his close personal and intellectual ties with France, Maistre was throughout his life a subject of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which he served as a member of the Savoy Senate (1787–1792), ambassador to Russia (1803–1817),[5] and minister of state to the court in Turin (1817–1821).[6]

    A key figure of the

    rationalist rejection of Christianity was directly responsible for the disorder and bloodshed which followed the French Revolution of 1789.[9][10]

    Biography

    Maistre was born in 1753 at

    Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia which was ruled by the House of Savoy.[11] His family was of French and Italian origin.[12] His grandfather André (Andrea) Maistre, whose parents Francesco and Margarita Maistre (née Dalmassi) originated in the County of Nice,[13] had been a draper and councilman in Nice (then under the rule of the House of Savoy) and his father François-Xavier (1705–1789), who moved to Chambéry 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.[14] He was the eldest of ten surviving children and godfather to his younger brother, Xavier, who would become a major general and a popular writer of fiction.[15][16]

    Stipple engraving of Maistre from a painting by Pierre Bouillon in which he is shown wearing the insignia of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus

    Maistre was probably educated by 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

    August Decrees on 4 August 1789, he decisively turned against the course of political events in France.[19]

    Portrait of Maistre by Swiss painter Félix Vallotton from La Revue blanche, 1895

    Maistre fled Chambéry when it was taken by a French revolutionary army in 1792, but he was unable to find a position in the royal court in Turin and returned the following year. Deciding that he could not support the French-controlled regime, Maistre departed again, this time for

    Madame de Staël, and began his career as a counter-revolutionary writer,[21] with works such as Lettres d'un Royaliste Savoisien ("Letters from a Savoyard Royalist", 1793), Discours à 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 à la Marquise de Nav... ("Five Paradoxes for the Marchioness of Nav...", 1795).[11]

    From Lausanne, Maistre went to Venice and then to Cagliari, where the King of Piedmont-Sardinia held the court and the government of the kingdom after French armies took Turin in 1798. Maistre's relations with the court at Cagliari were not always easy.[11] In 1802, he was sent to Saint Petersburg in Russia as ambassador to Tsar Alexander I.[22] His diplomatic responsibilities were few and he became a well-loved fixture in aristocratic and wealthy merchant 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 Leo Tolstoy's sources for his novel War and Peace.[11] After the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of the House of Savoy's dominion over Piedmont and Savoy 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 and is buried in the Jesuit Church of the Holy Martyrs (Chiesa dei Santi Martiri).

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    In

    atheistic doctrines of the 18th-century philosophers. He claimed that the crimes of the Reign of Terror were the logical consequence of Enlightenment thought as well as its divinely-decreed punishment.[23]

    In his short book Essai sur le Principe Générateur des Constitutions Politiques et des Autres Institutions Humaines ("Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions and other Human Institutions", 1809), Maistre argued that

    human reason, but rather come from God
    , who slowly brings them to maturity.

    What was novel in Maistre's writings was not his enthusiastic defense of monarchical and religious authority per se, but rather his arguments concerning the practical need for ultimate authority to lie with an individual capable of decisive action as well as his analysis of the social foundations of that authority's legitimacy. In his own words which he addressed to a group of aristocratic French émigrés, "You ought to know how to be royalists. Before, this was an instinct, but today it is a science. You must love the sovereign as you love order, with all the forces of intelligence."[24] Maistre's analysis of the problem of authority and its legitimacy foreshadows some of the concerns of early sociologists such as Auguste Comte[25] and Henri de Saint-Simon.[26][27]

    Religion

    After the appearance in 1816 of his French translation of

    On the Pope") in 1819, the most complete exposition of his religious conception of authority. According to Maistre, any attempt to justify government on rational grounds will only lead to unresolvable arguments about the legitimacy and expediency of any existing government and that this in turn will lead to violence and chaos.[28][29] As a result, Maistre argued that the legitimacy of government must be based on compelling, but non-rational grounds which its subjects must not be allowed to question.[30] Maistre went on to argue that authority in politics should derive from religion and that in Europe this religious authority must ultimately lie with the Pope
    .

    Ethics

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    In addition to his voluminous correspondence, Maistre left two books that were published posthumously. Soirées de St. Pétersbourg ("St Petersburg Dialogues", 1821) is a theodicy in the form of a Platonic dialogue[31] 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 sees this as a law of human history as unquestionable as it is mysterious.

    Science

    Examen de la Philosophie de Bacon, ("An Examination of the Philosophy of Bacon", 1836) is a critique of the thought of Francis Bacon,[32] whom Maistre considers to be the fountainhead of the destructive rationalistic thought.[33] Maistre also argued, romantically, that genius plays a pivotal role in great scientific discoveries, as demonstrated by inspired intellects such as Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, contrary to Bacon's theory about conforming to a mechanistic method.[34]

    Legacy and reputation

    Statue of the Joseph and Xavier de Maistre brothers outside the old fortress in their hometown Chambéry
    Joseph de Maistre's tomb at the Church of the Holy Martyrs in Turin

    Politics

    Together with the

    Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke, Maistre is commonly regarded as one of the founders of European conservatism.[35][36] Maistre exerted a powerful influence on the Spanish political thinker Juan Donoso Cortés,[37][38] the French monarchist Charles Maurras and his monarchist political movement Action Française[39] as well as the German philosopher of law Carl Schmitt.[40]

    However, according to Carolina Armenteros, who has written four books about Maistre, his writings influenced not only conservative political thinkers but also the utopian socialists.[41] Early sociologists such as Auguste Comte and Henri de Saint-Simon explicitly acknowledged the influence of Maistre on their own thinking about the sources of social cohesion and political authority.[26][27]

    Maistre has been criticized by classical liberals. Literary critic Émile Faguet described Maistre as "a fierce absolutist, a furious theocrat, an intransigent legitimist, apostle of a monstrous trinity composed of pope, king and hangman, always and everywhere the champion of the hardest, narrowest and most inflexible dogmatism, a dark figure out of the Middle Ages, part learned doctor, part inquisitor, part executioner".[42] Political historian Isaiah Berlin considered Maistre a forerunner to the 20th-century movement of fascism, claiming that Maistre knew the self-destructive impulses in human nature and intended to exploit them; and he compared Maistre's political views to those of The Grand Inquisitor, a Dostoevsky character.[43] However, fascists openly rejected Maistre's reactionary conservatism. [44]

    Literature

    Maistre's skills as a writer and polemicist ensured that he continues to be read. Matthew Arnold, an influential 19th-century critic, wrote as follows while comparing Maistre's style with that of his Irish counterpart Edmund Burke:

    "Joseph de Maistre is another of those men whose word, like that of Burke, has vitality. In imaginative power he is altogether inferior to Burke. On the other hand, his thought moves in closer order than Burke's, more rapidly, more directly; he has fewer superfluities. Burke is a great writer, but Joseph de Maistre's use of the French language is more powerful, more thoroughly satisfactory, than Burke's use of the English. It is masterly; it shows us to perfection of what that admirable instrument, the French language, is capable."[45]

    The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 describes his writing style as "strong, lively, picturesque" and states that his "animation and good humour temper his dogmatic tone".[15] George Saintsbury called him "unquestionably one of the greatest thinkers and writers of the eighteenth century".[46] Although a political opponent, Alphonse de Lamartine admired the splendour of his prose, stating:

    "That brief, nervous, lucid style, stripped of phrases, robust of limb, did not at all recall the softness of the eighteenth century, nor the declamations of the latest French books: it was born and steeped in the breath of the Alps; it was virgin, it was young, it was harsh and savage; it had no human respect, it felt its solitude; it improvised depth and form all at once ... That man was new among the enfants du siècle [children of the century]."[47]

    Maistre is also associated with the Counter-Enlightenment movement Romanticism[48][49][50] and is often referred to as a Romantic.[34][51][23] Among those who admired him was Charles Baudelaire – the most famous Romantic poet in France – who described himself a disciple of the Savoyard counter-revolutionary, claiming that Maistre had taught him how to think.[52][53][54]

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    See also

    Notes

    1. Le Diable Boiteux [fr]). The pronunciation [mɛːtʁ] (rhymes with maître
      ) is sometimes heard under the influence of the modernized pronunciation, adopted by some descendants (such as Patrice de Maistre).

    References

    1. ^ John Powell, Derek W. Blakeley, Tessa Powell. Biographical Dictionary of Literary Influences: The Nineteenth Century, 1800-1914. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. P267.
    2. ISBN 9781611475067
      .
    3. ^ "Joseph de Maistre". Encyclopædia Britannica.
    4. ^ Beum, Robert (1997). "Ultra-Royalism Revisited," Modern Age, Vol. 39, No. 3, p. 305.
    5. ^ "Joseph de Maistre," The Dublin Review, Vol. XXXIII, 1852.
    6. ^ 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 to Cagliari, the ancient capital of Kingdom of Sardinia that resisted the French invasion; he wrote to the French ambassador in Naples, objecting to having been classified as a French émigré 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:

      "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."

      — Œuvres complètes de Joseph de Maistre, Lyon, 1884, vol. I, p. XVIII.
      Sources such as the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Catholic Encyclopedia 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.
    7. ^ Masseau, Didier (2000). Les Ennemis des Philosophes. Editions Albin Michel.
    8. ^ Alibert, Jacques (1992). Joseph de Maistre, Etat et Religion. Paris: Perrin.
    9. ^ Lebrun, Richard (1989). "The Satanic Revolution: Joseph de Maistre's Religious Judgment of the French Revolution", Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History, Vol. 16, pp. 234–240.
    10. ^ Garrard, Graeme (1996). "Joseph de Maistre's Civilization and its Discontents", Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 57, No. 3, pp. 429–446.
    11. ^ a b c d Berlin, Isaiah (24 November 2005) [1965]. "The Second Onslaught: Joseph de Maistre and Open Obscurantism" (PDF). Two Enemies of the Enlightenment. Wolfson College, Oxford. Retrieved 11 December 2008.
    12. ^ "Etude Culturelle - Recherches Historiques". Archived from the original on 12 November 2016. Retrieved 11 November 2016.
    13. ^ "Etude Culturelle - Recherches Historiques". Archived from the original on 12 November 2016. Retrieved 11 November 2016.
    14. ^ Triomphe, Robert (1968). Joseph de Maistre. Genève: Droz. pp. 39–41. Preview available here
    15. ^ a b c Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
    16. ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Xavier de Maistre" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
    17. ^ Vulliaud, Paul (1926). Joseph de Maistre Franc-maçon. Paris: Nourry.
    18. ^ Lebrun, Richard. "A Brief Biography of Joseph de Maistre". University of Manitoba. Archived from the original on 25 March 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2011.
    19. ^ Greifer, Elisha (1961). "Joseph de Maistre and the Reaction Against the Eighteenth Century," The American Political Science Review, Vol. 55, No. 3, pp. 591–598.
    20. ^ Bordeaux, Henri (1895). "Joseph de Maistre à Genève et à Lausanne". In: Semaine Littéraire, II, pp. 478–480.
    21. ^ Ferret, Olivier (2007). La Fureur de Nuire: Échanges Pamphlétaires entre Philosophes et Antiphilosophes, 1750-1770. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
    22. ^ Teeling, T.T. (1985). "Joseph de Maistre," The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. XX, p. 824.
    23. ^ a b Lebrun, Richard (1967). "Joseph de Maistre, how Catholic a Reaction?" (PDF). CCHA Study Sessions. 34: 29–45. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 January 2007.
    24. ISBN 2825118710
    25. ^ Barth, Hans (1956). "Auguste Comte et Joseph de Maistre". In: Etudes Suisses de l'Histoire Générale, XIV, pp. 103–138.
    26. ^ a b Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (1903). The Philosophy of Auguste Comte. New York: Putnam and Sons, pp. 297-8.
    27. ^
      ISBN 052143405X
    28. ^ Murray, John C. (1949). "The Political Thought of Joseph de Maistre," The Review of Politics, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 63–86.
    29. ^ Bradley, Owen (1999). A Modern Maistre: The Social and Political Thought of Joseph de Maistre. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.
    30. ^ Lebrun, Richard A. (1969). "Joseph de Maistre, Cassandra of Science," French Historical Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 214–231.
    31. ^ Kochin, Michael S. (2002). "How Joseph De Maistre Read Plato's Laws," Polis, Vol. 19, Nos. 1–2, pp. 29–43.
    32. ^ Huet, François (1837). "Le Chancelier Bacon et le Comte Joseph de Maistre." In: Nouvelles Archives Historiques, Philosophiques et Littéraires. Gand: C. Annoot-Braekman, vol. I, pp. 65–94.
    33. ^ Gourmont, Rémy de (1905). "François Bacon et Joseph de Maistre." In: Promenades Philosophiques. Paris: Mercure de France, pp. 7–32.
    34. ^
      OCLC 502414345
      .
    35. ISBN 978-0-691-20777-3
      .
    36. ^ Fuchs, Michel (1984). "Edmund Burke et Joseph de Maistre", Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa, Vol. 54, pp. 49–58.
    37. ^ Tarrago, Rafael E. (1999). "Two Catholic Conservatives: The Ideas of Joseph de Maistre and Juan Donoso Cortes," Archived 13 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine Catholic Social Science Review, Vol. 4, pp. 167–177.
    38. ^ Spektorowski, Alberto (2002). "Maistre, Donoso Cortes, and the Legacy of Catholic Authoritarianism," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 63, No. 2, pp. 283–302.
    39. ^ Gerin-Ricard, Lazare de (1929). Les Idées Politiques de Joseph de Maistre et la Doctrine de Maurras. La Rochelle: Editions Rupella.
    40. OCLC 985104734
      . Retrieved 20 April 2023.
    41. ISBN 0-8014-4943-X
    42. ISBN 0-521-46628-8
      .
    43. ^ Isaiah, Berlin (1965). The Second Onslaught: Joseph de Maistre and Open Obscurantism (PDF) (Speech). Harkness Theater, Columbia University.
    44. ISBN 0299148742
    45. ^ Arnold, Matthew (1973). "Joseph de Maistre on Russia." In: English Literature and Irish Politics. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, p. 87.
    46. ^ Saintsbury, George (1917). A Short History of French Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 469.
    47. ^ de Lamartine, Alphonse (1874). "Les De Maistre". Souvenirs et Portraits. Vol. 1. Paris: Hachette et Cie. p. 189.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
    48. OCLC 845004043
      .
    49. ^ Lebrun, Richard A. (1974). "Introduction". In de Maistre, Joseph (ed.). Considerations on France. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 11.
    50. OCLC 733805752
      .
    51. ISBN 9781139170758. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help
      )
    52. ^ Alphonsus, Mère Mary (1942). The Influence of Joseph de Maistre on Baudelaire. "De Maistre et Edgar Poe m'ont appris à Raisonner" (journaux intimes). Bryn Mawr: Bryn Mawr College doctoral thesis.
    53. ^ Eygun, Francois-Xavier (1990). "Influence de Joseph de Maistre sur les "Fleurs du Mal" de Baudelaire", Revue des Etudes Maistriennes, Vol. 11, pp. 139–147.
    54. ^ "De Maistre and Edgar Poe taught me to reason." – Baudelaire, Charles (1919). Intimate Papers from the Unpublished Works of Baudelaire. Baudelaire – His Prose and Poetry. New York: The Modern Library, p. 245.

    Sources

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