Life
Xavier shared the political sympathies of his brother Joseph, 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 as Piedmont-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 a Russian lady, related to the Tsars, Mrs. Zagriatsky. He remained in Russia even after the overthrow of Napoleon and the consequent restoration of the Piedmontese dynasty.
Read more about this topic: Xavier De Maistre
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“With only one life to live we can’t afford to live it only for itself. Somehow we must each for himself, find the way in which we can make our individual lives fit into the pattern of all the lives which surround it. We must establish our own relationships to the whole. And each must do it in his own way, using his own talents, relying on his own integrity and strength, climbing his own road to his own summit.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“They think how one life hums, revolves and toils,
One cog in a golden singing hive:”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)
“Next to our free political institutions, our free public-school system ranks as the greatest achievement of democratic life in America ...”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)