Karl Ludwig von Haller (1 August 1768 – 20 May 1854) was a Swiss jurist, statesman and political philosopher. He was the author of Restauration der Staatswissenschaft (Restoration of Political Science, 1816–1834), a book which gave its namesake to the Restoration period after the Congress of Vienna, and which Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel strongly criticized in §258 of Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Von Haller's work, which was burnt during the Wartburg Festival, was a highly systematic defense both of the principles of dynastic legitimacy and monarchy founded on territorial lordship, as well as of pre-modern republics like those of the Swiss city-states, and the most consistent rejection of modern political ideas of the social contract, public law, and state sovereignty. Life Early life Von Haller was a son of Bern statesman and historian Gottlieb Emanuel von Haller, and grandson of poet and polymath Albrecht von Haller. His lineage descended from Johannes Haller (1487-1531), a Reformed preacher who died alongside Huldrych Zwingli in the Second War of Kappel. He did not, however, receive an extensive education, but only some private lessons and a few classes at the Gymnasium. As a child Haller studied at a Greek school under Philipp Albert Stapfer, the latter going on to serve as an official in the Helvetic Republic. At the age of sixteen he entered the chancery of the Republic of Bern as a volunteer. The family moved to Nyon due to his father's promotion as a Landvogt (bailiff). He studied by himself and so filled out the gaps in his education. Following the death of his father in 1786, he became the de facto guardian of his estate. He is elected substitute chancellor the next year, and begins attending the lectures of Swiss theologian Johann Samuel Ith. At the age of nineteen, he was appointed to the important office of Kommissionsschreiber, or clerk of a public commission. In this capacity, he obtained an insight into methods of government, practical politics, and criminal procedure. As secretary of the Swiss diet held in Baden and Frauenfeld, he became familiar with the conditions of things in the Swiss Confederation. In 1789 he began investing in a French annuity plan, which he resold two years later due to his ethical opposition to the French government's confiscation of church estates as biens nationaux. Around this time, he read the works of Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, and found himself