Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre

Charles-Irénée Castel, abbé de Saint-Pierre (18 February 1658 – 29 April 1743) was a French author whose ideas were novel for his times. His proposal of an international organisation to maintain peace was among the first in history, with possible exceptions such as George of Poděbrady's Tractatus (1462–1464) and Émeric Crucé. He influenced Rousseau and Kant. Saint-Pierre was born at the château of Saint-Pierre-Église near Cherbourg, where his father, the Marquis de Saint-Pierre, was grand bailli of Cotentin. He was educated by the Jesuits. The youngest of five children and unsuited to a military career owing to poor health, he became a priest. He was introduced by family connections into the salons of Madame de la Fayette and the Marquise de Lambert in Paris. He was elected to the Académie française in 1695, although he had previously produced no notable work; his election was an episode in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, Saint-Pierre being a clear representative of the latter. The same year he gained a footing at court as chaplain to Madame, the king's sister-in-law. From 1703 to his death, he was abbot of Tiron. Contrary to a widely believed opinion, it is not while working as a negotiator of the Treaty of Utrecht (1712–13) that he developed his project of universal peace. Saint-Pierre worked on the idea from 1708 and published early versions from 1712. In 1718, he published Discours sur la polysynodie, where he proposed that appointed ministers be replaced by elected councils. As a consequence of his criticism of the policy of Louis XIV (died 1715) he was expelled from the Académie later the same year. In 1723, with Pierre-Joseph Alary he founded the Club de l'Entresol, an early modern think tank in Paris; the club was closed for political reasons in 1731. He died in Paris on 29 April 1743 aged 85. Saint-Pierre's works are centered on an acute and visionary criticism of politics, law and social institutions. He had a great influence on Rousseau, who left elaborate examinations of some of them, and was a forerunner of Kant's 1795 essay on perpetual peace.