Page "Joseph de Maistre" Paragraph 13

In addition to his voluminous correspondence, Maistre left two books that were published posthumously.

Soirées de St. Pétersbourg (" The Saint Petersburg Dialogues ", 1821 ) is a theodicy in the form of a Platonic dialogue, in which Maistre argues that evil exists because of its place in the divine plan, according to which the blood sacrifice of innocents returns men to God, via the expiation of the sins of the guilty ; Maistre saw this is a law of human history, as indubitable as it is mysterious.

Examen de la philosophie de Bacon, (" An Examination of the Philosophy of Bacon ," 1836 ), is a critique of the thought of Francis Bacon, whom Maistre considers to be the fountainhead of the destructive Enlightened thought.