De Maistre lived at St. Petersburg in great poverty, which he bore without being humiliated by it. He was distrusted and constantly left in the lurch by his ungrateful court, which did not even repay him the sums that from time to time he was obliged to advance out of his slender means to necessitous fellow-countrymen in Russia. During these years his theories matured and his intellectual idiosyncrasies became more marked. The letters, private as well as diplomatic, which he wrote at this time give us an excellent idea of the spirit and the general conditions prevailing at the court of Alexander I. Those written previous to and during Napoleon's campaign in Russia are especially interesting from the graphic impression they give of the fears, hopes, panics, and rejoicings produced at that time throughout the Russian empire by war news, whether true or false. At first De Maistre is in great anxiety about the issue of the war. He clearly sees the incompetence of the generals who are appointed to direct the operations against such a leader as the Emperor of the French. But from the moment when it is known how ill-equipped the French army is to face the Russian autumn, not to mention the Russian winter, he is no longer in doubt; he foresees that Napoleon's fall and the restitution of all his conquests—events which he had long regarded as certain to happen sooner or later—are close at hand.
Six of De Maistre's works were written at St. Petersburg. Of these Du Pape, De l'Église Gallicane, Examen de la Philosophie de Bacon, and Soirées de St. Pétersbourg are the most important and the most characteristic of their author.
The Soirées contain the ideas on the subject of God and the world upon which his theory of the state is based. Anticipating the objection that the authority of his absolute monarchs rests upon no foundation, that they are utterly irresponsible, that, in other words, autocracy is unjust, he meets it with the preliminary general answer that injustice is the law of every society, because it is the law of all life on earth. In nature itself might is right—with the right of the stronger, plants and animals are perpetually destroying one another. And this law: Might is right, is far from losing its validity in the world of man; here also it prevails, as the law of war. War is a perpetually recurring phenomenon in the life of the human race. Except for a few years in each century, it has raged from the most ancient times until now, and it will continue to do so. Human blood will always be flowing upon earth. For the chastisement of heaven is upon man. To this conception of war the military profession owes the high position it holds and always has held. No trade is considered so honourable as that of the soldier. The human race, taken as a whole, is guilty and deserves the scourge of war, unjustly though the punishment may fall in single cases.
It is, then, as the representative of God upon earth that the autocrat is, in the first place, the war-lord, in the second, the possessor of the divine and terrible prerogative of punishing the guilty. This prerogative necessarily entails the existence of a man whose profession it is to execute the punishments ordained by human justice. And such a man is always to be found—a strange and inexplicable fact, for our reason is at a loss to discover any motive which can lead a man to choose such a profession. Hence the character who is the mouthpiece of De Maistre's own opinions is inspired with a feeling of awe and reverence by the much misjudged executioner.
According to the general, and, in De Maistre's opinion, entirely justifiable verdict, every soldier, simply as such, is so noble that he ennobles even those actions which are generally regarded as the most degrading; he may exercise the calling of the executioner without suffering the slightest degradation, so long as he only carries out the sentence of death upon members of his own profession and uses no other instruments for the purpose but its weapons. It is not without its significance that on every page of the Old Testament shines the name, the Lord of Hosts. No action is more inseparably connected in men's minds with honour than the innocent shedding of innocent blood. It is in the very passion of carnage that De Maistre admires the soldier most. Such a thing has never been known as an army refusing to fight. It is an irresistible impulse that drives men onward into battle. And why is this so? In order that to the end of time there may be fulfilled that law of the violent destruction of living beings which extends throughout creation, from the lowest animal to man.
But although from time immemorial there has been no calling more honourable than that which involves the shedding of innocent blood, a remarkable prejudice has caused the calling of the executioner to be as much disdained as the soldier's is respected.
De Maistre inquires if this man who, in preference to all profitable and honourable callings, has chosen that of torturing and killing his fellow-men, is not really a being of some peculiar and higher kind. And in his dialogues the Count, who is his own mouthpiece, answers:—
"I myself have no doubt on the subject. Outwardly, he is formed like ourselves; but he is an abnormal being, and it is only a special act of creative power which can add such a member to the human family. He is like a world in himself. All shun him; his house stands in a desert place, every one withdrawing as far as possible from the spot where he lives with his mate and his young ones, whose voices are the only cheerful human sounds that fall upon his ear; but for them he would hear nothing but shrieks of agony.... A sinister signal is given. One of the lowest menials of justice knocks at his door and informs him that his services are required; he sets off; he arrives at a public place where human beings are crowding together in excited expectancy. A prisoner—a parricide, a committer of sacrilege—is flung at his feet; he seizes this man, binds him to a cross which is lying on the ground, then raises his arm—the terrible silence that follows is only broken by the sound of the crashing of bones under the blows of the iron mace and the screams of the victim. He unbinds the man; he carries him to the wheel; the broken limbs are twined round its spokes, the head hangs down, the hair stands on end, and from the mouth, open like the opening of a glowing furnace, there come at intervals a few broken syllables of entreaty for death.—He has finished his task; his heart is beating, but it is with pleasure; he is satisfied with his work; he says in his heart: No man breaks on the wheel better than I. He comes down from the scaffold and holds out his bloody hand, into which, from as great a distance as possible, the official whose duty it is to pay him flings a few gold pieces, with which he marches off between two rows of human beings who shrink from him with horror. He sits down to table and eats; he goes to bed and sleeps; and when he awakes next morning his thoughts run on everything but his occupation of the day before. Is he a man? Yes. God allows him to enter His temples and accepts his prayer. He is no criminal, and yet in no human language is he called honourable or estimable."
"Nevertheless all greatness, all power, all order depend upon the executioner. He is the terror of human society and the tie that holds it together. Take away this incomprehensible force, and that very moment order is superseded by chaos, thrones fall, and states disappear. God, who is the source of the power of the ruler, is also the source of punishment; He has suspended our world upon these two poles, for the Lord is the Lord of the poles, and round them He sets the world revolving."
And in order that this reverence for the office of the executioner which it is in keeping with his plan to inculcate, and which it entertains him to astound with, may make a proper impression on the reader, De Maistre takes up the subject again in one of the later conversations. He asks what a reasoning being coming from another world to investigate into the conditions prevailing in ours would think of the executioner, and himself gives the answer: "He is an august being, the corner-stone of society. Since crime has undoubtedly taken up its abode upon earth, and since it can only be kept in check by punishment, it is plain that, if the executioner disappeared, all order would disappear with him. And what greatness of soul, what noble disinterestedness must we presume that man to be possessed of who takes upon himself the execution of a task which, though certainly a very honourable one, is most painful and repugnant to human nature, &c."