Part 1

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CRITICAL MISCELLANIES

JOHN MORLEY

VOL. II.

Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre

London MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited New York: The MacMillan Company 1905

JOSEPH DE MAISTRE.

PAGE

The Catholic reaction in France at the beginning of the century 257

De Maistre the best type of the movement 262

Birth, instruction, and early life 263

Invasion of Savoy, and De Maistre's flight 268

At Lausanne, Venice, and Cagliari 270

Sent in 1802 as minister to St. Petersburg 275

Hardships of his life there from 1802 to 1817 276

Circumstances of his return home, and his death 285

De Maistre's view of the eighteenth century 287

And of the French Revolution 291

The great problem forced upon the Catholics by it 293

De Maistre's way of dealing with the question of the divine method of government 293

Nature of divine responsibility for evil 294

On Physical Science 298

Significance of such ideas in a mind like De Maistre's 299

Two theories tenable by social thinkers after the Revolution 303

De Maistre's appreciation of the beneficent work of the Papacy in the past 307

Insists on the revival of the papal power as the essential condition of a restored European order 313

Views Christianity from the statesman's point of view 314

His consequent hatred of the purely speculative temper of the Greeks 316