Claire Charlotte Dorothée Gauthier, known as Clarisse Vigoureux, (11 June 1789 in Montagney – 13 January 1865 in
San Antonio
("Cradle of Freedom")
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) was a French
Fourierist
Fourierism () is the systematic set of economic, political, and social beliefs first espoused by French intellectual Charles Fourier (1772–1837). Based upon a belief in the inevitability of communal associations of people who worked and lived to ...
journalist and writer.
Biography
The daughter of a blacksmith, Clarisse Vigoureux was born in Montagney (
Doubs
Doubs (, ; ; frp, Dubs) is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Eastern France. Named after the river Doubs, it had a population of 543,974 in 2019.Besançon, who committed suicide in 1817 by poisoning himself because he was accused by public rumour of being the cause of the famine that was then raging in Besançon.
From 1822, she was introduced to Fourierism by , who was a friend of her brother, and she was to be one of its most active followers. A friend and correspondent of the founder of the movement,
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in ...
, she became a journalist, wrote for “La Phalange” and introduced
Victor Considerant
Victor Prosper Considerant (12 October 1808 – 27 December 1893) was a French utopian socialist philosopher and economist who was a disciple of Charles Fourier.
Biography
Considerant was born in Salins-les-Bains, Jura and studied at the Éco ...
, who had come to prepare for Polytechnique at Besançon College, to Fourierism in 1824.
In 1834, following a "religious emotion" provoked by Lamennais' book “Paroles d'un Croyant” (“Words of a Believer”), she published “Parole de Providence”, a Fourierist response to the theories of Lamennais, “in which she sees an apology for class struggle and violence that are the antithesis of the Fourierist conception of universal harmony.”
She then became the collaborator in Paris of her son-in-law
Victor Considerant
Victor Prosper Considerant (12 October 1808 – 27 December 1893) was a French utopian socialist philosopher and economist who was a disciple of Charles Fourier.
Biography
Considerant was born in Salins-les-Bains, Jura and studied at the Éco ...
, who became the undisputed leader of the Societary School after Fourier's death. After the 13 June 1849, the failure of an insurrection against Louis Napoléon obliged Clarisse and
Victor Considerant
Victor Prosper Considerant (12 October 1808 – 27 December 1893) was a French utopian socialist philosopher and economist who was a disciple of Charles Fourier.
Biography
Considerant was born in Salins-les-Bains, Jura and studied at the Éco ...
to go into exile in
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
. On an invitation by
Albert Brisbane
Albert Brisbane (August 22, 1809 – May 1, 1890) was an American utopian socialist and is remembered as the chief popularizer of the theories of Charles Fourier in the United States. Brisbane was the author of several books, notably ''Social D ...
and helped by Jean-Baptiste Godin, between 1855 and 1857 they founded the colony La Réunion in Texas on Fourier's principles.
Although more than 350 European colonists eventually made La Réunion their home, the experiment was already beginning to fail as the population began to leave. Some returned to Europe while others moved out of the area.
Following this failure, Clarisse Vigoureux died on 13 January 1865. “She was buried in the garden of her San Antonio home. Here Victor would give homage to the woman who had introduced him to his life's work and had supported him and the ideas of Fourier for over 40 years.”