Joseph de Maistre, Count
Joseph de Maistre, Count
Political philosopher, brother of Xavier de Maistre , born Chambery, France , 1753; died Turin, Italy , 1821. He passed fourteen years at Saint Petersburg as Sardinian plenipotentiary. He was a profound thinker and ranks very high in French letters. He had an intense love of religion, a firm belief in authority, and a detestation of the 18th-century rationalism, as is evidenced in his “Considerations sur la France,” “Du pape,” and “Les soires de Saint Petersbourg.”