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V

With the appearance of the Exposition, and of a number of articles by Enfantin14.55 and others in the new Saint-Simonian journals Organisateur and Globe which we need not further consider, the development of their ideas which is of interest to us came more or less suddenly to an end. If we cast a quick glance over the further history of the school, or rather the Saint-Simonian church, as it presently became, it will show why its immediate influence was not greater, or rather, why that influence was not more clearly recognized. The reason is that under Enfantin's influence the doctrine was turned into a religion;14.56 the sentimental and mystic elements gained the upper hand over the ostensibly scientific and rational, just as they did in the last phases of Saint-Simon's and later of Comte's life. Already the second year of the Exposition shows an increasing tendency in that direction. But in its further career the literary activities are of less importance and it is to the organization of the church and to the practical application of its doctries that we must look for the picturesque qualities and sensational doings of the new church which have attracted more attention than the earlier and more important phase of its activity.14.57

The new religion consisted at first merely of a vague pantheism and a fervent belief in human solidarity. But the dogma was much less important than the cult and the hierarchy. The school became a family over which Enfantin and Bazard presided as the two supreme fathers --new popes with a college of apostles and various other grades of members below them. Services were organized at which not only the doctrine was taught, but at which the members soon began publicly to confess their sins. Itinerant preachers spread the doctrine all over the country and founded local centers.

For a time the success was considerable, not only in Paris but throughout France and even in Belgium. Among their group they counted then P. Leroux, Adolphe Blanqui, Pecqueur, and Cabet. Le Play was also a member14.58 and in Brussels they gained a new enthusiast for social physics in the astronomer and statistician A. Quetelet, who had already been profoundly influenced by the circle of the Ecole polytechnique.14.59

The July revolution of 1830 found them altogether unprepared but naively assuming that it would place them into power. It is said that Bazard and Enfantin even requested Louis Philippe to hand over to them the Tuileries since they were the only legitimate power on earth. One effect of the revolution on their doctrines appears to have been that they felt compelled to make some concessions to the democratic tendencies of the age. The originally authoritarian socialism thus began its temporary partnership with liberal democracy. The reasons for this step were explained by the Saint-Simonians with an amazing frankness, rarely equaled by later socialists: ``We demand at this moment liberty of religious practice in order that a single religion can be more easily erected on the ruins of the religious past of humanity; ...the liberty of the press, because this is the indispensable condition for the subsequent creation of a legitimate direction of thought; the liberty of teaching, in order that our doctrine can be more easily propagated and become one day the only one loved and followed by all; the destruction of the monopolies as a means of arriving at the definite organization of the industrial body.''14.60 Their real views, however, are better shown by their early discovery of, and enthusiasm for, the organizing genius of Prussia14.61 sympathy which, as we shall presently see, was reciprocated by the ``Young Germans,'' one of whom, with some justification, remarked that the Prussians had long been Saint-Simonians.14.62 The only other doctrinal development during this period which we need mention is their increasing interest in railways, canals and banks, to which so many of them were to give their lifework after the dispersal of the school.

Already Enfantin's early attempt to turn the school into a religion had created a certai tension among the leaders and caused some desertions. The main crisis came when he began to develop new theories about the position of women and the relation between the sexes. There was virtually nothing in the teaching of Saint-Simon himself to justify this new departure, and the first elements of this doctrine were probably an importation from Fourierism, with its theory of the couple, man and woman, constituting the true social individual. For Enfantin there was only a short step from the principle of the emancipation of women to the doctrine of the ``rehabilitation of the flesh'' and the distinction between the ``constant'' and ``inconstant'' types among both sexes, which both should be able to have it their own way. These doctrines and the rumors which got around about their practical application (for which, it must be admitted, the Saint-Simonians gave ample cause in their writings)14.63 created a considerable scandal. A break between Enfantin and Bazard followed, and the latter left the movement and died nine months later. His chair was left vacant for the Mère supréme, an honor which George Sand had declined. With Bazard some of the most eminent members, Carnot, Leroux, Lechevalier, and Transon, seceded, the last two becoming Fourierists; and a few months later even Rodrigues, the living link with Saint-Simon, broke with Enfantin.

Faced with a serious setback, since financial difficulties made it necessary to discontinue the Globe, and as they had begun to attract the attention of the police, Enfantin with forty faithful apostles withdrew to a house at Ménilmontant, at the outskirts of Paris, to begin a new life in accordance with the precepts of the doctrine. The forty men started there a community life without servants, dividing the menial tasks between them and observing, to silence the ugly rumors, strict celibacy. But if their life was half modeled on that of a monastery, in other respects it was more like that of a Nazi Führerschule. Athletic exercises and courses in the doctrine were to prepare them for a more active life in the future.

Although they voluntarily confined themselves to their estate, they did not cease in their attempts to attract notoriety. The forty apostles who in their fantastic costumes cultivated their garden and tended their home became for a while the sensation of the Parisians, who flocked there in thousands to watch the spectacle. In consequence the ``retreat'' by no means reassured the police. Proceedings were instituted against Enfantin, Chevalier, and Duveyrier for outraging public morality and ended with their being condemned to imprisonment for one year. The march of the whole group to the law courts in their peculiar costumes and with their spades and other implements on their shoulders, and the sensational defense of the accused, was almost the last public appearance of the group. When Enfantin entered the St. Pelagier prison to serve his sentence the movement began rapidly to decline and the establishment in Ménilmontant soon broke up. A group of disciples still gave the people much to talk about by their journey to Constantinople and the East pour chercher la femme libre.14.64But when Enfantin left the prison, although he organized another journey to the East, it was for a more sensible purpose. He and a group of Saint-Simonians spent some years in Egypt, trying to organize the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez. And although they at first failed to obtain support, it is largely due to their efforts that later the Suez Canal Company was founded.14.65 As we shall have occasion to mention again, most of them continued to devote their lives to similar useful efforts ---Enfantin to founding the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway system and many of his disciples to organizing railway and canal constructions in other parts of France and elsewhere.14.66


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