JOSEPH DE MAISTRE
St. Francis de Sales, was not only a missionary, but also a man of
letters, and--especially--a patron of letters. Thirty years before
Richelieu founded the French Academy, he founded the Florimontane
Academy--with the motto _Flores fructusque perennes_--in Savoy, and
thus forged one of the links between the literature of Savoy and
that of France. More than one great writer, whom we carelessly class
as French, was really of Savoyard origin. Vaugelas, described by
Sainte-Beuve 'as the first of our correct and polished grammarians,'
was the son of the Vaugelas who helped St. Francis de Sales in the
formation of his literary society at Annecy. St. Réal, the forerunner
of Montesquieu, was also a Savoyard; and so were Count Xavier de
Maistre, author of the widely-read 'Voyage Autour de ma Chambre,' and
Count Joseph de Maistre, his more distinguished brother.
Joseph de Maistre, indeed, is the greatest of the literary sons of
Savoy, and a worthy inheritor of the traditions of the saint, his
predecessor. An aristocrat, and a senator, he was a man of forty when
the revolutionary storm burst upon his country. For a season he took
refuge in Lausanne, where he often met, and argued with, Madame de
Staël, whom he regarded as a woman with a good heart but a perverted
head. His discussions with her, he said, 'nearly made the Swiss
die with laughing, though we conducted them without quarrelling.'
Afterwards he was sent to represent his sovereign at the Court of St.
Petersburg, where, he complains, he had to get on as best he could,
'without a salary, without a secretary, and without a fur-lined
overcoat.' Both there and at Lausanne he wrote.
His date and his circumstances class him with the literary
_émigrés_--with Madame de Staël, Châteaubriand, and Sénancour;
but he lacks their melancholy and their sentimentalism. He and
Châteaubriand, indeed, resemble one another as two champions of
the Catholic religion; but they support that religion from widely
different points of view. Châteaubriand is before all things the
religious æsthete. He deduces the truth of a creed from its beauty,
and is very little concerned with its bearing upon moral conduct.
Joseph de Maistre, on the contrary, seems to believe in the authority
of the Church because he believes in authority generally. He is an
Absolutist who hates all Radicals, and regards the schismatic as
the worst kind of Radical. He makes a religion of the principle of
'keeping people in their place,' and he supports his religion with
epigrams. The epigrams are very good, though the religion is very
bad. The French, like the sound critics that they are, have proved
themselves capable of enjoying the one while refusing to have very
much to do with the other.
INDEX
Alexander I., 62
Amadeus VIII., Duke, 96
Arnaud, Henri, 84
Bèze, M. de, 101
Bonivard, 5
Bonnet, Charles, 69
Bonstetten, 84, 86
Bridel, Doyen, 40
Bridel, Louis, 40
'Buonaparte,' 44
Byron, 85
Calvin, 6
Carnot, 86
Cart, C. C., 61
Casaubon, 68
Charrière, Madame de, 41, 46, 47, 50
Châteaubriand, 106
Constant de Rebecque, Benjamin, 45, 47, 48, 49, 54, 58, 59, 60, 86
Constant, Rosalie de, 45
Coppet, 49, 56, 59, 60, 85
Curchod, Mademoiselle Suzanne, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27
D'Alembert, 13
Davel, Major, 9
Deffand, Madame du, 35
Dent d'Oche, 89
Deyverdun, 26, 29
Dickens, 65
Dutertre, Madame, 54, 55, 56, 57
English Colony, 65, 73
Eugenius IV., Pope, 97, 98
Evian, 89, 91, 93
Farel, 6, 104
Felix V., 97, 98
Florimontane Academy, 105
Fox, Charles James, 28, 30
Fraubrunnen, 62
Gesner, 69
Gibbon, 13, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 34, 35, 36, 39,
40, 41, 42, 61, 65
Godet, M. Philippe, 80
Hardenberg, Madame de, 53
d'Haussonville, Monsieur, 20, 21, 22, 23
Jomini, 69
Knox, John, 13
Laharpe, César, 61, 62, 83
Lavater, 69
'Lettres de Lausanne,' 41
Ligne, Prince and Princesse de, 31
Lindsay, Mrs., 53
Maistre, Count Joseph de, 105, 106, 107
Maistre, Count Xavier de, 105
Meillerie, 93
Mercier, 31
Michaut, M., 78
Montolieu, Madame de, 39, 40, 41
Moore, Dr. John, 71
Morges, 61, 83
Moudon, 2
Moultou, Pastor, 22
Necker, Jacques, 31, 34, 37
Necker, Madame, 20, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37
Necker, M., Madame, and Mademoiselle, 31
Nyon, 83, 84, 86
Olivier, Juste, 77, 79
Olivier, Madame, 78
Pavilliard, Pastor, 13
Peter of Savoy, 3
Pestalozzi, 67
Philibert, Duke Emanuel, 95
Raynal, Abbé, 31
_Revue Suisse_, 79
Ripaille, 96, 97
Robespierre, 62
Rocca, Albert de, 58, 60
Rolle, 61, 83
Rousseau, 23
Rovéreaz, Colonel de, 62
Sainte-Beuve, 76, 77, 79
Saint-Cergues, 87
St. Francis de Sales, 89, 93, 95, 98, 101, 102, 103, 105
Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 45
Saussure, 69
Schlegel, 55
Sénancour, 106
Sheffield, Lord, 29, 40
Staël, Madame de, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56,
57, 58, 59, 63, 85, 86, 106
Staël, M. de, 48
Sylvius, Æneas, 97, 98, 100
Talma, Madame, 49
Thonon, 93, 102
Tissot, Dr., 31, 42, 43
Vinet, Alexandre, 76, 77, 79, 80
Viret, 6, 7, 80
Voght, Baron de, 59
Voltaire, 13, 30, 83, 86
Vulliemin, Louis, 2, 3, 6, 7
Waldenses, 84
Warens, Madame de, 93
Wurtemberg, Prince of, 43
Zaeringen, 1
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