Xavier de Maistre of Savoy lived largely as a military man but is known as a French writer. The younger brother of Joseph de Maistre, a noted philosopher and counter-revolutionary, Xavier was born to an aristocratic family at Chambéry in October 1763. He served when young in the army of Piedmont-Sardinia, and in 1790 wrote his fantasy Voyage autour de ma chambre, when he was under arrest in Turin as the consequence of a duel.