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Victor Considerant: The Making of a Fourierist

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In the Presence of the Past

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Abstract

In Dostoevsky’s great novel The Devils we are introduced at an early point to “the insignificant and almost abject figure of a little provincial official, a jealous husband and coarse family tyrant”, named Liputin. When Liputin is visited by Nicholas Stavrogin, Stavrogin finds a book by the French Utopian socialist Victor Considerant lying “very conspicuously” on his table. It soon turns out that the little man, “a miser and a moneylender, who locked up the remnants of meals and the candle-ends”, was at the same time a Fourierist who spent his nights gloating ecstatically over “fantastic visions of a future Phalanstery”. Stavrogin is mystified by the discovery of this utopian dreamer in a sleepy provincial town where, for perhaps a hundred miles around, “there was not a single man, himself included, who bore any resemblance to a future member of ‘the universal social republic and harmony’”. Later we learn that Liputin is a “Fourierist with a strong leaning towards police work”. But at the end of this first encounter we are left only with a question: “‘Goodness knows where such people spring from,’ wondered Nicholas, as he sometimes recalled the unlooked-for Fourierist”.1

This article is adapted from a book in progress to be entitled Victor Considerant and the Rise and Fall of French Romantic Socialism. The chance to work uninterruptedly on the article and the book was made possible by a Guggenheim Fellowship and a University of California President’s Fellowship in the Humanities. I am grateful for both. I am also grateful to Frank Manuel whose writings first made me aware of the fascination of the French Utopian socialists. Although my approach is different from his, his work has been a continuing inspiration for me.

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Notes

  1. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Devils (The Possessed), trans. by David Magarshack (Harmondsworth, 1973), 66–67, 229.

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  2. The standard works on Victor Considerant are Maurice Dommanget, Victor Considerant. Sa. vie, son oeuvre (Paris, 1929); Hubert Bourgin, Victor Considerant. Son oeuvre (Paris, 1909); Pierre Collard, Victor Considerant (1808–1893). Sa vie, ses idées (Dijon, 1910); Clarisse Coignet, Victor Considerant. Sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris, 1895); and Rondel Van Davidson, Did We Think Victory Great? The Life and Ideas of Victor Considerant (Lanham, Md., 1988). None of these works sheds much light on Considerant’s early years and his roots in Franche-Comté. On these subjects and many others my own knowledge has been greatly enriched by numerous conversations and exchanges of letters with Jean-Claude Dubos.

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  3. Three outstanding works of erudition which have greatly helped me to understand the milieu out of which Victor Considerant came are Michel Vermis, La Vie comtoise au temps de l ancien régime (XVIIIe siècle), 2 Vols. (Lons-le-Saunier, 1983–1985); Eldon Kaye, Les Correspondants de Charles Weiss (Longueuil, Québec, 1987); Marcel Vogne, La Presse périodique en Franche-Comté des origines à 1870, 7 Vols. (Besançon, 1977–1979). Each of these works offers much more than the title suggests. See also Lucien Fevre, Histoire de Franche-Comté (Paris, 1930).

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  4. Gaston Coindre, Le Vieux Salins. Promenades et causeries (Besançon, 1930); Just Tripard, Notices sur la ville et les communes du canton de Salins, suivies de biographies salinoises (Paris, 1881), 251–266; Max Buchon, “Le Matachin”, Revue des deux mondes, 2nd ser. (June 15, 1854).

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  5. Michel Vernus, “Un libraire jurassien à la fin de l’ancien régime: Jean-Claude Considérant, marchand libraire à Salins (1782)”, Société d’émulation du Jura. Travaux présentés… en 1979 et 1980 (Lons-le-Saunier, 1981), 133–167; Georges Gazier, “Jean-Baptiste Considérant de Salins (1771–1827)”, Mémoires de la société d’émulation du Doubs, 8th ser., III (1908), 359–380.

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  6. Jean-Claude Dubos, “Les origines de Victor Considerant et de son épouse Julie Vigoureux” (unpublished paper); Archives Nationales (AN), Fonds Considerant 10AS 29 (3), “Correspondance de famille”.

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  7. Considerant to Paul Vigoureux, March 24, 1826, AN 10AS 28 (6).

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  8. “Correspondance de famille”, AN 10AS 29 (3).

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  9. Jean-Baptiste Considerant to Suzanne Considerant, 27 fructidor (1798), AN 10AS 29 (3).

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  10. Gazier, “Jean-Baptiste Considerant”; Kaye, Les Correspondants de Charles Weiss, 138–140; Tripard, Notices sur la ville de Salins, 553–554; Emile Fourquet, Les Hommes célèbres et les personnalités marquantes de Franche-Comté (Besançon, 1921), 293; Les Tablettes franc-comtoises, I, 22 (May 6, 1827).

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  11. Gazier, “Jean-Baptiste Considerant”, 363–364.

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  12. Charles Weiss, Journal, April 27, 1827, cited in Gazier, “Jean-Baptiste Considerant”, 359; Charles Nodier, J. Taylor and Alphonse de Cailleux, Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l’ancienne France. Franche-Comté (Paris, 1825 [sic for 1827]), 164.

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  13. Gazier, “Jean-Baptiste Considerant”, 378; Nodier, Voyages pittoresques, 164.

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  14. Jean-Baptiste Considerant to Suzanne Considerant, February 25, 1809, AN 10AS 29 (3).

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  15. Jean-Baptiste Considerant to Victor Thelmier, May 17, 1814, Archives Municipales de Besançon (AMB), Ms. 1419P, #17, also cited in Gazier, “Jean-Baptiste Considerant”, 380.

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  16. Jean-Baptiste Considerant to Victor Thelmier, November 27, 1824, AMB, Ms. 1419P, #112; Pierre Haubtmann, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Sa vie et sa pensée (1809–1849) (Paris, 1982), 67–69; Victor Considerant, Destinée sociale, 3 Vols., II (Paris, 1838), lv–lvi.

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  17. Clarisse Coignet, Victor Considerant, 2.

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  18. Victor Considerant to Victor Thelmier, May 31, 1828, in Emile Ledoux, “Victor Considerant. Trois lettres inédites. Notes sur sa jeunesse”, Memoires de la société d’émulation du Doubs, 8th ser., III (1908), 386; Victor Considerant, Destinée sociale, II (Paris, 1838), 275.

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  19. Ledoux, “Victor Considerant”, 383n; E. Delacroix, “Notice sur M. Delly, Professeur de mathématiques spéciales à Besançon”, Mémoires et comptes rendus de la Société d’émulation du Doubs, I (1841), 68–69.

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  20. Liedoux, “Victor Considerant”, 383n.

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  21. Alphonse Tamisier to Considerant, May 24, 1878, AN 10AS 42 (2). Another student at the Collège royale de Besançon at this time, just one year behind Considerant, was his future antagonist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. According to Proudhon, they had no contact. See J.-A. Langlois (ed.), Correspondance de P.-J. Proudhon, 14 Vols. (Paris, 1875), II, 23.

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  22. My account of Clarisse Vigoureux’s discovery of Fourier is based largely on an untitled twenty-one page manuscript in her hand in the Archives Victor Considerant (AVC) at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), Carton 9 (I, 1). On Clarisse Vigoureux see Jean-Claude Dubos, “Un centcinquantenaire oublié: ‘Paroles de Providence’ de Clarisse Vigoureux”, Le Jura Français, 185 (January-March 1985), 121–124. The complicated financial affairs of Joseph Gauthier, leading to his ruin and that of Clarisse Vigoureux in 1840, are masterfully untangled in Jean-Claude Dubos, “Une Famille de maîtres de forges: les Gauthier”, Bulletin de la Société d’Agriculture, Lettres, Sciences et Arts de la Haute-Saône. New ser., 17 (1984), 61–114. See also Jeannine Joliot, “Clarisse Coignet, cousine des Considerant. Une adolescence fouriériste”, Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Besançon. Procès-verbaux et mémoires, Vol. 185 (Années 1982–1983), 253–274.

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  23. Clarisse Vigoureux, untitled manuscript on Fourier, ENS, AVC, Carton 9 (I, 1).

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  24. Considerant quoted in Just Muiron to Clarisse Vigoureux, May 15, 1852, ENS AVC, Carton 3 (XI, 1). For Considerant’s letters to Clarisse Vigoureux see AN 10AS 28 (6) and (7) and ENS AVC, Carton 2 (I, 4 and 5).

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  25. Clarisse Coignet, Mémoires, 4 Vols. (Lausanne, 1899–1903), I, 114, 237–238; Jeannine Joliot, “Clarisse Coignet”, 258–259.

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  26. Gazier, “Jean-Baptiste Considerant”, 376–379; Kaye, Les Correspondants de Charles Weiss, 139–140.

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  27. Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, March 22, 1826, AN 10AS 28 (6).

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  28. For the orations delivered at Jean-Baptiste Considerant’s funeral by Father Racle and Dr. Broye see AN 10AS 29 (3) and Les Tablettes franc-comtoises, I, 22 (May 6, 1827).

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  29. On the Ecole Polytechnique see Gaston Pinet, Histoire de l’Ecole Polytechnique (Paris, 1887); Gaston Pinet, Ecrivains et penseurs polytechniciens (Paris, 1902).

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  30. Gaston Pinet, Ecole Polytechnique. Livre du centenaire, 1794–1894, 3 Vols. (Paris, 1895); and Terry Shinn, L’Ecole Polytechnique, 1794–1914: Savoir scientifique et pouvoir social (Paris, 1980).

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  31. In addition to the works cited above see Adeline Daumard, “Les Elèves de l’Ecole Polytechnique de 1815 à 1848”, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, V (1958), 226–234.

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  32. Considerant to Victor Thelmier, May 31,1828, in Ledoux, “Victor Considerant”, 386.

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  33. Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, January 20, 1828, AN 10AS 28 (6). Claire Vigoureux died at the age of seventeen on January 15, 1827, just a year before this letter was written. In 1838 Considerant was to marry her younger sister Julie. Copies of Claire’s birth and death certificates were carefully preserved among Considerant’s paper until his death. AN 10AS 29 (1).

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  34. Pierre Chalmin, L’Officier français de 1815 à 1870 (Paris, 1957), 170; Considerant to Charles Magnin, n.d. (1828), Bibliothèque Municipale de Salins; Considerant to Victor Thelmier, May 31, 1828, in Ledoux, “Victor Considerant”, 386.

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  35. Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, July 15 (1828), ENS AVC, Carton 2 (I, 4).

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  36. François-Augustin Gréa, a lawyer, was mentioned in 1806 in a list of “the sixty proprietors of the Jura most distinguished by their wealth and by their public and private virtues”, cited in Jean-Claude Dubos, “Les Origines de Victor Considerant et de son epouse Julie Vigoureux” (unpublished paper). On Désiré-Adrien Gréa see Jonathan Beecher, Charles Fourier: The Visionary and his World (Berkeley, 1968), 163–164, 381–382,464, and passim.

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  37. On Considerant’s relations with Jobez and Gréa see Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, June 1828 and July 15 (1828), ENS AVC, Carton 2 (I, 4). On July 15 Considerant wrote: “My free days are just as pleasant as they could be. Very often I go to visit your deputy [Jobez] and his family. I am treated like a nephew there…”.

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  38. Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, July 15 (1828), ENS AVC, Carton 2 (I, 4). On the Nodiers and their Sunday evenings at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal see Michel Salomon, Charles Nodier et le groupe romantique (Paris, 1908), 116–224.

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  39. On Charles Magnin see Eldon Kaye, Les Correspondants de Charles Weiss, 298–301. Magnin’s papers at the Bibliotheque Municipale de Salins include eleven letters from Considerant written between 1827 and 1851.

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  40. Considerant to Magnin, August 20, 1829, Bibliothèque Municipale de Salins. On Considerant’s relations with Bugeaud and Soult see his file at the Archives historiques de l’armée at Vincennes (Ministère de la Guerre. Archives administratives, Célébrités.): especially Considerant to Soult, May 5, 1832; Burgeaud to Soult, September 14, 1835; Considerant to Soult, September 23,1835.

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  41. F. A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science (Glencoe, IL, 1952), 94–116.

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  42. Considerant graduated 69th in a class of 123. At the end of his first year his rank was 57th out of 127. Ledoux, “Victor Considerant”, 385.

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  43. Considerant to Victor Thelmier, February 21, 1830, in Ledoux, “Victor Considerant”, 388. On the Ecole d’application de Metz see Frederick B. Arts, The Development of Technical Education in France, 1500–1850 (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 259–261.

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  44. Daniel Tyler: A Memorial Volume (New Haven, 1883), 10–11. Considerant to Paul Vigoureux, September 28, 1829, AN 10AS 28 (6).

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  45. Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, January 26 or 27, 1829, ENS AVC, Carton 2 (I, 5). Considerant to Victor Thelmier, February 21, 1830, in Ledoux, “Victor Considerant”, 388.

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  46. Considerant to Victor Thelmier, February 21, 1830, in Ledoux, “Victor Considerant”, 389. Considerant to Charles Magnin, August 20, 1829, Bibliothèque Municipale de Salins.

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  47. Considerant to Charles Magnin, February 6, 1830, Bibliothèque Municipale de Salins. Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, May 3, 1830, AN 10AS 28 (7). Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, June 11, 1830, AN 10AS 28 (7).

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  48. Henry Contamine, “La Révolution de 1830 à Metz”, in Comité français des sciences historiques, 1830: Etudes sur les mouvements liberaux et nationaux de 1830 (Paris, 1932), 55–63. Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, August 3, 1830 and August 4, 1830, AN 10AS 28 (7).

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  49. Considerant to Marshall [Soult], draft, September 30, 1830, AN 10AS 28 (7).

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  50. Considerant to Julie Vigoureux, May 1, 1832, ENS AVC, Carton 9 (III, 1). Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, February 15, 1831, ENS AVS, Carton 2 (I, 5).

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  51. Considerant to Victor Thelmier, December 14, 1831 (not 1832), in Ledoux, “Victor Considerant”, 390. On the Association Nationale see Gabriel Perreux, La Propagande republicaine au début de la Monarchie de Juillet (Paris, 1930), 5–6, and Paul Thureau-Dangin, Histoire de la Monarchie de Juillet, I (Paris, 1888), 415–416.

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  52. The Institut Barbet, which was founded in 1825, later became one of the most famous Parisian preparatory schools for students seeking to enter the grandes écoles. On its founder, Jean-François Barbet (1799–1880) see Dictionnaire de biographe française, V (1951), 278–279. Although Considerant’s stint as a teacher at Barbet’s institute was brief, the two remained in touch for almost fifty years. Considerant’s papers include a letter of condoleances for his wife’s death written in a quavering hand on April 10, 1880 and signed “ton vieil ami Barbet”. AN 10AS 29 (1). See alse Ledoux, “Victor Considerant”, 390n, and Sebastien Bottin (ed.), Almanach du commerce de Paris… 1829 (Paris, 1829), 139–140.

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  53. Considerant to Victor Thelmier, December 14, 1831, in Ledoux, “Victor Considerant”, 390–391.

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  54. Antoine Fontaney, Journal intime, René Jasinski (ed.), (Paris, 1925), 4–5 (August 21, 1831). Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, September 11, 1831, AN 10AS 28 (7).

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  55. Corps royale du genie. Rapport particulier sur M. Considerant, Metz, September 10, 1831, signed Cournault, Colonel du régiment. Note added by a General: “This officer is returning from leave in connection with the Associations. He shows little zeal in his activities”. Archives historiques de l’armée (Vincennes). Ministère de la Guerre. Archives administratives. Célébrités. Dossier Victor Considerant.

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  56. [Virtomnius] Just Muiron, Les Nouvelles transactions sociale, religieuses et scientifiques (Paris, 1832), 146–150.

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  57. Clarisse Vigoureux, Untitled manuscript, 21 pp. ENS AVC, Carton 9 (I, 1). See also Beecher, Charles Fourier: The Visionary and his World, 158–163.

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  58. Considerant to Paul Vigoureux, May 24, 1826, 13 pp., AN 10AS 28 (6).

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  59. Considerant to Charles Magnin, August 20, 1829, 8 pp., Bibliothèque Municipale de Salins.

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  60. Jules Lechevalier, Etudes sur la science sociale (Paris, 1834), 15. Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, July 15 (1828), ENS AVC, Carton 2 (I, 4).

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  61. Considerant to Deleuze, December 18, 1826, in Les Annales Franc-comtoises, new ser., VII (1895), 363. On Considerant’s interest in Owen see the large envelope of reading notes on works by and about Owen in AN 10AD 26. See also Considerant to Charles Magnin, August 20, 1829, p. 2, Bibliothèque Municipale de Salins. On the Saint-Simonians see Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, November 1, 1829. ENS AVC, Carton 2 (I, 5).

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  62. Comte Le Camus, Mémoires du vicomte Armand de Melun, 2 Vols. (Paris, 1891), I, 48. Considerant to Fourier, September 7, 1831, AN 10AS 28 (7).

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  63. Victor Considerant, “Le Nouveau monde industriel et sociétaire de M. Charles Fourier”, Le Mercure de France au XIXe siècle, XXVIII (March 13, 1830), 477–490.

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  64. Charles Fourier to the editors of the Mercure de France, December 20, 1831, draft, AN 10AS 16 (42).

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  65. Considerant to Fourier, September 7, 1831, AN 10AS 25 (3bis). Considerant to Clarisse Vigoureux, September 11, 1831, AN 10AS 28 (7). Considerant to Fourier, September 24, 1831, ENS AVC, Carton 2 (II, 2).

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  66. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Diary of a Writer, trans. by Boris Brasol (New York, 1954), 148.

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  1. Jonathan Beecher
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Missouri, Columbia, USA

    Richard T. Bienvenu

  2. Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, USA

    Mordechai Feingold

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Beecher, J. (1991). Victor Considerant: The Making of a Fourierist. In: Bienvenu, R.T., Feingold, M. (eds) In the Presence of the Past. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 118. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3764-5_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3764-5_6

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