Xavier de Maistre

Memorial of Joseph and Xavier de Maistre in front of the Castle of Chambéry

Xavier de Maistre (1763 – June 12 1852) of Savoy (a region in the Kingdom of Sardinia), lived largely as a military man, but is known as a French literateur. The younger brother of noted philosopher and counter-revolutionary Joseph de Maistre, Xavier was born to an aristocratic family at Chambéry in October 1763. He served when young in the Kingdom of Sardinia army, and wrote his fantasy, Voyage autour de ma chambre (Journey Around My Room, published 1794) when he was under arrest at Turin in consequence of a duel.

Xavier shared the politics and the loyalty of his brother, and after a French revolutionary army annexed Savoy to France in 1792, he left the service, and eventually took a commission in the Russian army. He served under Alexander Suvorov in his victorious Austro-Russian campaign and accompanied the marshal to Russia in 1796. By then, Suvorov's patron Catherine II of Russia had died, and the new monarch Paul I dismissed the victorious general (partly on account of the massacre of 20,000 Poles after he conquered Warsaw). Xavier de Maistre shared the disgrace of his general, and supported himself for some time in St. Petersburg by miniature painting, particularly landscapes.

In 1803, Joseph de Maistre was appointed the Sardinia's ambassador to the court of Alexander I, Tsar of Russia. On his brother's arrival in St. Petersburg, Xavier de Maistre was introduced to the Minister of the Navy, and was appointed to several posts including director of the Library, and of the Museum of Admiralty. He also joined active service, and was wounded in the Caucasus, attaining the rank of major-general. In 1812 he married the Russian lady, related to the Tsars, Mrs. Zagriatsky, and established himself in his adopted country, even after the overthrow of Napoleon, and the consequent restoration of the Piedmontese dynasty.

Literary life

His Voyage autour de ma chambre (1794), a parody set in the tradition of the grand travel narrative, is an autobiographical account of how a young official, imprisoned in his room for six weeks, describes the customs, furniture, engravings, etc, as if it were a voyage to a strange land. He praises this voyage because it does not cost anything, for this reason it is strongly recommended to the poor, the infirm, and the lazy. His room is a long square, and the perimeter is thirty-six paces. He travels rarely in a straight line; from the table he goes towards the corner, and then obliquely to the door, but while he initially intended to return to the table, should an armchair be found en route, he settles down on it immediately, and falls into a reverie. Later, proceeding North, he encounters his bed... Continuing in this lighthearted vein Voyage is remarkable for its play with the reader's imagination, along the lines of Laurence Sterne, whom Xavier admired. Xavier did not think much of Voyage, but his brother Joseph had it published.

Most of his other works are of modest dimensions; these include

• Le Lépreux de la Cité d'Aoste (The leper from Aoste, 1811), a touching humane story in a simple style, involving a dialogue between a leper who reminisces with a soldier about his lost youth and his sequestered life in a tower with a view of the Alps;
• Les Prisonniers du Caucase, (Prisonners of the Caucasus, 1825) a powerful sketch of Russian character,
• La Jeune Sibérienne, (The young Siberian, 1825), and
• Expedition nocturne de ma chambre(Night voyage around my room, 1825), a sequel to the Voyage autour de ma chambre.

At the time of the French edition of La Jeune Sieberienne (1825) he went on a long journey to Paris and Savoy, (in 1839), when he was somewhat surprised to find himself well known in literary circles; Alphonse de Lamartine dedicated a poem to him (Retour) 1826, the entire poem praises his genius: "the future sons will say ... it is your heart, which through your mellifluous writings have passed to us". He met Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, who has left some pleasant reminiscences of him.

His work is mentioned in British author Alain de Botton's book The Art of Travel (2002, ISBN 0-375-42082-7).

For a time, he lived at Naples, but eventually he returned to St Petersburg and died there in 1852.

External links

• This article incorporates material from Xavier de Maistre in the 1911 Encyclopedia
• Xavier de Maistre in The Catholic Encyclopedia
• Voyage autour de ma chambre: fulltext (French)]; this site also has most of his other work.
• This article uses information material from the [French wikipedia] 2007-06-05

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