JOSEPH DE MAISTRE.
Reading edition
page
The Catholic reaction in France at the beginning of the century257
De Maistre the best type of the movement262
Birth, instruction, and early life263
Invasion of Savoy, and De Maistre’s flight268
At Lausanne, Venice, and Cagliari270
Sent in 1802 as minister to St. Petersburg275
Hardships of his life there from 1802 to 1817276
Circumstances of his return home, and his death285
De Maistre’s view of the eighteenth century287
And of the French Revolution291
The great problem forced upon the Catholics by it293
De Maistre’s way of dealing with the question of the divine method
of government293
Nature of divine responsibility for evil294
On Physical Science298
Significance of such ideas in a mind like De Maistre’s299
Two theories tenable by social thinkers after the Revolution303
De Maistre’s appreciation of the beneficent work of the Papacy
in the past307
Insists on the revival of the papal power as the essential condition
of a restored European order313
Views Christianity from the statesman’s point of view314
His consequent hatred of the purely speculative temper of the Greeks316
His object was social or political318
Hence his grounds for defending the doctrine of Infallibility319
The analogy which lay at the bottom of his Ultramontane doctrine320
His hostility to the authority of General Councils323
His view of the obligation of the canons on the Pope325
His appeal to European statesmen326
Comte and De Maistre329
His strictures on Protestantism331
Futility of his aspirations335