1753–1821 · Savoyard diplomat and counter-Enlightenment philosopher
Joseph de Maistre was a Savoyard lawyer and diplomat who represented the King of Piedmont–Sardinia at the court of Alexander I in Saint Petersburg from 1803 to 1817. A leading counter-Enlightenment voice, he held monarchy to be the only durable form of government and blamed the Terror on rationalism’s rejection of Christianity. The maxim now quoted at democratic electorates was written by a man who doubted that a written constitution could improve a nation not already fit for one — “every law is therefore useless, and even disastrous … if the nation is not worthy of the law.”