Comte Joseph de Maistre, the Savoyard philosopher and diplomat, was born in Chambéry. After the conquest of Savoy by the French revolutionary forces, he retired to Lausanne, where he lived for three years, devoting himself mainly to writing his Considérations sur la France (1796), an attack on the political philosophy of republicanism. He was then summoned to Turin by the king of Sardinia and later moved to Cagliari, the capital of the very diminished kingdom of Sardinia. In 1802 he was appointed Sardinian minister plenipoteniary to St. Petersburg and remained there for fourteen years, composing his famous Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, which was not published until the year of his death.

Ultramontanism

De Maistre is best known for his ultramontanism and traditionalism, which are most forcibly stated in Du pape, written in 1817, although anticipated in certain details in his...