The Saint-Simonians Discover ‘Woman’, 1803-1829

Abstract

Fourier’s main rival as theorist and prophet of the new society in the early nineteenth century was Henri, Comte de Saint-Simon.¹ A man of noble birth, he had fought alongside Washington during the American Revolution and, like Fourier, had had a narrow escape from the guillotine during the French Revolution. Like Fourier, too, he sought to understand this cataclysmic event, and to uncover the basis for a new form of social organisation to replace the discredited ancien régime. He dedicated himself to achieving ‘the perfection of civilisation’, the ‘golden age of humanity’, which he insisted lay in the future, not in the past.² Although Saint-Simon died in 1825 a movement inspired by his ideas flourished during the late 1820s and 1830s, and the Saint-Simonians can be described as the first socialist organisation in France. The movement attracted a diverse group of participants, bourgeois and labouring class, male and female, all welcoming the prospect of a new society.