Joseph de Maistre

Joseph-Marie de Maistre
Portrait of de Maistre by von Vogelstein, c. 1810.
Born	(1753-04-01)1 April 1753 Chambéry, Kingdom of Sardinia, Duchy of Savoy
Died	26 February 1821(1821-02-26) (aged 67) Turin, Kingdom of Sardinia
Era	18th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Conservatism Counter-Enlightenment Ultramontanism Traditionalism Royalism Mysticism
Notable ideas	Providentialism Sacrifice Legitimacy of authority
Influences Plato Plutarch Giambattista Vico Aristotle Thomas Aquinas Edmund Burke Louis de Bonald
Influenced Louis de Bonald Henri de Saint-Simon Karl Ludwig von Haller Juan Donoso Cortés Charles Baudelaire Louis Veuillot Emil Cioran Carl Schmitt Julius Evola

Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre (French: [də mɛstʁ]; 1 April 1753 – 26 February 1821) was a Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat. He defended hierarchical societies and a monarchical State in the period immediately following the French Revolution. Maistre was a subject of the King of Piedmont-Sardinia, whom he served as member of the Savoy Senate (1787–1792), ambassador to Russia (1803–1817), and minister of state to the court in Turin (1817–1821).

Maistre, considered by Masseau and Didier to have been a key figure of what they termed as the Counter-Enlightenment, saw monarchy both as a divinely sanctioned institution and as the only stable form of government. He called for the restoration of the House of Bourbon to the throne of France and argued that the Pope should have ultimate authority in temporal matters. Maistre also claimed that it was the rationalist rejection of Christianity which was directly responsible for the disorder and bloodshed which followed the French Revolution of 1789.

Maistre was born in 1753 at Chambéry, in the Duchy of Savoy, which at that time was part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, ruled by the House of Savoy. His family was of French and Italian origin. His grandfather André (Andrea) Maistre, whose parents Francesco and Margarita Maistre (née Dalmassi) originated in the County of Nice, had been a draper and councilman in Nice (then under the rule of the House of Savoy), and his father François-Xavier, 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. Joseph's younger brother, Xavier, who became an army officer, was a popular writer of fiction.