Joseph de Maistre 1753 – 1821

Joseph-Marie, Count de Maistre, was a Savoyard lawyer, diplomat, and political philosopher and one of the most powerful counter-Enlightenment voices of the early nineteenth century. Driven from his homeland by the French revolutionary armies, he served as Sardinian ambassador to St Petersburg from 1803 to 1817, where he wrote most of his major works. Considerations on France argued that the Revolution was a divine punishment for Enlightenment hubris, while The St Petersburg Dialogues and Pope defended throne and altar against the new liberal order. His polemical brilliance and bleak anthropology have continued to attract readers from across the political spectrum.