Around 1860, as the Fourierists were attempting to reorganize the Societary School, they submited Considerant’s past action to a highly critical examination. More that the Texas failure, they denounced his authoritarian management of the phalansterian movement and his commitment to political struggle. Yet, Considerant returned to France in 1869 to the acclaim of his friends, who tried in vain to persuade him to take back the School leadership. In the course of the following years, he was repeatedly urged to take part in the activities and manifestations inspired by fourierism. Yet, by the end of the 1880s a new group had constituted itself without him. And after his death, what was left of the Fourierist movement placed the memory of Fourier above that of Considerant.

Bernard Desmars est maître de conférences en histoire contemporaine à l’université de Lorraine. Après avoir étudié la délinquance des premières décennies du XIXe siècle, il s’intéresse depuis quelques années déjà aux militants fouriéristes, et surtout à ce qu’ils deviennent après la Seconde République, aux voies qu’ils empruntent pour réaliser leurs ambitions et concrétiser leurs idéaux. Il participe depuis une quinzaine d’années aux activités de l’Association d’études fouriéristes. Il a récemment publié Militants de l’utopie ? Les fouriéristes dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle (Dijon, Presses du Réel, 2010)