Victor Considerant

• Victor-Prosper Considerant
• Born: October 12, 1808
• Died: December 27, 1893

Utopian socialist and leader of the Fourierist movement, was born in the town of Salins in the Jura Mountain region of France. His father was Jean-Baptiste Considerant, a librarian at the local college or secondary school who had served as an officer in the French army during the Revolution. In 1812 Jean-Baptiste Considerant became professor of humanities while still retaining his post of librarian. Victor Considerant’s mother was born Suzanne Courbe, the daughter of a notary in Salins. The family was middle-class.

At age six Considerant entered a pension at Salins, and after several years of study he went to Besancon, where he was a student at the royal college for eight years. It was through one of Franancois Fourier’s disciples in Besancon, Clarisse Vigoureux, that Considerant first became aware of Fourierism, and he probably first met Fourier himself at her home.

In 1826 Considerant went to Paris to study at the Ecole Polytechnique. In 1828 he became an officer in the engineering corps of the French army and was sent to Metz for further studies. Enthusiastically welcoming the Revolution of 1830, Considerant soon felt constrained by his army career, and while he didn’t formally resign his captain’s commission until 1836, he decided to devote himself to the propagation of a Fourierist program for the reform of society. By 1832 he was back in Paris, where he quickly became the dominant personality in the newly founded Le Phalanstere, the first of the various Fourierist journals with which he would be associated.

It was Considerant who was largely responsible for converting Fourierism from a small group of loyal disciples into a broad-based political and social movement, initially despite the reticence, if not outright opposition, of Fourier himself, who had little taste for organizational tasks and much feeling that the world should simply come to him. By the time of his death in 1837, Fourier had nonetheless indicated approval of Considerant as his successor.

Fourier had based his vision upon the belief that human passions or instincts were frustrated and repressed in existing society, and that it was possible to create a prosperous and harmonious new society that would provide opportunities for the satisfaction of these passions. The phalanstery or phalanx, a small, democratic community populated by a variety of personality types, would be the fundamental organizational unit. Work would be varied, as would opportunities for personal relationships. Private property and differences of wealth would be retained, but even the poorest member of the phalanstery would live a life of material comfort and emotional fulfillment.

Considerant, far more pragmatic and logical than the eccentric Fourier, worked the ideas of the master into an orderly system, most notably in the three-volume Destinee sociale, which appeared between 1834 and 1844. Never formally rejecting the “harmony of the passions,” Considerant in his attempt to appeal to a middleclass constituency downplayed such ideas as free love in the phalanstery and eliminated some of the more outlandish notions found in Fourier’s writings. This didn’t prevent him from being laughed at by the newspapers for Fourier’s belief that in the Utopian world to come the sea would turn into lemonade, and for the idea falsely attributed to Fourier that in the future humans would grow a tail with an eye for rear vision.

In his attempt to broaden the base of Fourierism and to work for reform through political action, Considerant was forced to combat a tendency toward doctrinal rigidity among Fourier’s followers. Although in 1832 he wrote the statutes for an unenduring phalanstery in Condésur-Vesgre near Paris, Considerant in the years following Fourier’s death also opposed pouring Fourierist energies into the founding of phalansteries. During the 1840s Fourierism under Considerant’s leadership took its place among the nascent French socialist movements.

In 1836 Considerant married Julie Vigoureux, daughter of the woman who had first introduced him to Fourierism. She was totally devoted to him and his cause. Her mother soon came to live with the couple. Julie Vigoureux’s dowry and Clarisse Vigoureux’s considerable wealth freed Considerant from material cares. Even after his mother-in-law suffered severe financial losses, the family appeared to live in relative comfort for some years.

Unsuccessful in his first try for public office in 1839, Considerant was elected to the departmental council in Paris in 1843. While supporting the February revolution in 1848, he took a cautious position and pleaded in vain against the outbreak of class warfare in June. Considerant also failed in an attempt to unify the various socialist groups in 1848. He was elected to the Constitutent Assembly and the next year to the Legislative Assembly of the new Second Republic. In June 1849 Considerant participated in an armed protest opposing the policies of the president, Louis Napoleon. Charged with treason, he escaped to Brussels to avoid imprisonment and was condemned in absentia.

From his Belgian refuge Considerant watched helplessly as the Fourierist movement collapsed in France. Disgusted with politics, he now turned to the idea of founding a phalanstery in the New World. Late in 1852 he left for New York and a grand tour of America, part of which was taken accompanied by Albert Brisbane, the leading Fourierist in the United States.

Considerant was apparently not greatly impressed by what he saw of American Fourierism, but he was very struck by the climatic conditions, geography, and people of Texas. Convinced that he had seen the Promised Land, he returned to Belgium and in 1854 founded a corporation for the colonizing of Texas, which was capitalized at more than 5 million francs. The corporation bought 57,000 acres of land scattered throughout the state, and plans were made to establish a community on a 2,000-acre tract on the limestone bluffs bordering the Trinity River, about three miles from Dallas.

In December 1854 Considerant, his wife, and mother-in-law left for America with about 100 settlers from various European countries. The colony, baptized “La Réunion,” was organized democratically, with control vested in a general assembly. Each settler was allotted 6.4 acres of land for farming. A communal general store and communal restaurant were established. The institution of marriage was retained but the phalansterians built no churches.

Ultimately the colony had 300 to 500 inhabitants, but from the first La Reunion was plagued by problems. Considerant had planned an agricultural community, but the colonists were mainly urban craftsmen, artists and writers with little or no experience in farming. The hastily constructed frame houses were inadequate for the unexpectedly cold Texas winter, and a two-year dry spell added to the troubles of the community. Moreover, the rocky soil of the limestone cliffs was not the most desirable agricultural land.

The community was successful in establishing commercial and social relations with the neighboring village of Dallas, but Know-Nothing politicians in the Texas state legislature denounced the foreign socialists of La Reunion. Considerant was successful in disarming this opposition by writing a skillfully conceived defense in which he compared the colonists to pilgrims feeing a decaying Europe.

Despite this victory over the prejudices of the Know-Nothings, the situation of La Réunion was quite impossible. In 1856 Considerant obtained a temporary authorization to return to France, where he sought assistance for the struggling community. When he returned he found his phalanstery in total disarray. No single incident destroyed La Reunion, but settlers began to leave and the experiment in communal living simply dissolved. One of the first to leave was Considerant, who moved with his spouse and her mother to a log cabin near San Antonio. He took out American citizenship and led a quiet life, farming and reading extensively. Early in 1869 Clarisse Vigoureux died, and that same year an amnesty permitted Considerant and his wife to return to Paris permanently.

In his later years Considerant became a student once again, taking courses at the College de France and the Museum of Natural History. He was a familiar and colorful Left Bank figure, garbed in a sombrero and serape and carrying a large oak cane. His wife died in 1880. The couple had no children.

Considerant, aged and now impoverished, died on December 27, 1893. His funeral was attended by all leading French socialists, as he achieved in death a socialist unity that had eluded him in life. He was cremated and buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery.

A collection of Considerant’s personal papers can be found under “Archives Sociétaires” at the Archives Nationales in Paris. Considerant wrote extensively over his long life. Some of the most important works in addition to the Destinée sociale are: Manifeste de VEcole societaire (1841); Exposition abregee du systeme phalansterien (1845); Principes du socialisme manifeste de la democratic au XIXe siecle (1847); and Socialisme devant le vieux monde, ou le vivant devant les morts (1849).

A standard biography that treats Considerant sympathetically is M. Dommanget, Victor Considerant; sa vie, son oeuvre (1929). H. Bourgin, Victor Considerant; son oeuvre (1929) is an intellectual portrait that covers the significant events of Considerant’s life without pretending to be a complete biography. An interesting analysis of Considerant’s thought can be found in P. Chanson, Trois socialistes français (1945). A competent treatment in English of Considerant’s life and thought is an unpublished doctoral dissertation at City University of New York, G. Kirchmann, “Utopia and Reality: The Life and Social Theories of Victor Considerant” (1973). The story of the La Reunion community is briefly recounted in E. Lutz, “Almost Utopia,” Southwest Review (Spring 1929).