MAISTRE, JOSEPH DE (1754-1821), French diplomatist and polemical writer, was born at Chambery on April 1, His family was an ancient and noble one, and is said to have been of Languedocian extraction. The father of Joseph was president of the senate of Savoy, and held other important offices. Joseph himself, after studying at Turin, entered the civil service of Savoy, finally becoming a member of the senate. In 1786 he married Francoise de Morand. The invasion and annexation of Savoy by the French Republicans made him an exile. He betook himself to the neutral territory of Lausanne. There, in 1796, he published his Considerations sur la France. In this he developed his Legitimist views, based on his religious convictions. The philosophism of his day was his lifelong aversion.
Charles Emmanuel now summoned de Maistre to Turin ; he followed the king to Sardinia, and in 1802 he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg. Dur ing these years he only published a single treatise, on the Principe generateur des Constitutions; but he wrote his best and most famous works, Du Pape (written in 1817) and its continuation, De L'eglise gallicane and the Soirees de St. Petersbourg, the last of which was never finished. Du Pape, written from the stand point of papal absolutism, is a treatise on the relations of the sovereign pontiff to the Church, to temporal sovereigns, to civili zation generally, and to schismatics, especially Anglicans and the Greek Church. The Soirees de St. Petersbourg deals with the for tunes of virtue and vice in this world. It contains two of De Maistre's most famous pieces, his panegyric on the executioner as the foundation of social order, and his acrimonious, and in part unfair, but also in part very damaging, attack on Locke. Besides these works he wrote an examination of the philosophy of Bacon, some letters on the Inquisition, and, earlier than any of these, a translation of Plutarch's "Essay on the Delay of Divine Justice," with somewhat copious notes. After 1815 he returned to Savoy, and was appointed to high office. He died on Feb. 26, 1821, at Turin. Most of the works mentioned were posthumous, and it was not till 1851 that a collection of Lettres et opuscules appeared.
Joseph de Maistre was one of the most powerful, and by far the ablest, of the leaders of the neo-Catholic and anti-revolution ary movement. He regarded the temporal monarchy as an insti tution of altogether inferior importance to the spiritual primacy of the pope. He was by no means a 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 power is not to be tempered at all, either by councils or by the temporal power or by national churches, least of all by private judgment. The absolute necessity of order was, doubtless, the first principle of this thinker, who will invite comparison with Hobbes. The anarchic tendencies of the Revolution in politics and religion offended him. Moreover, he was profoundly and accurately learned in history and philosophy and the superficial blunders of the philosophes irritated him as much as their doctrines. To Voltaire he shows no mercy.
Of the two works named as his masterpieces, Du Pape and the Soirees de St. Petersbourg, editions are extremely numerous. No complete edition of his works appeared till 1884-87, when one was published at Lyons in 14 volumes. This had been preceded, and has been followed, by numerous biographies and discussions: C Barthelemy, L'Esprit de Joseph de Maistre (1859) ; R. de Sezeval, Joseph de Maistre (1865) ; L. I. Moreau, Joseph de Maistre (1879) ; F. Paulhan, Joseph de Maistre et sa philosophie (1893) ; L. Cogordan, "Joseph de Maistre" in the Grands ecrivains francais (189e) ; F. Descostes, Joseph de Maistre avant to 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 Savoie (i9oo) ; E. Grasset, Joseph de Maistre (i9oi) ; L. Arnould, La Providence et le Bonheur d'apres Bossuet et Joseph de Maistre (1916) ; C. Besse, Le paradox celebre de J. de Maistre sur la guerre (1916) ; M. Jugie, J. de Maistre et l'eglise Greco-Russe (1922) ; and F. Vermale, Notes sur J. de Maistre inconnu (Chambery, 1921).