[FOURIERISME] VIGOUREUX, Parole de Providence, 1834

Scarce first edition of the only work by the first female disciple of Charles Fourier.
Clarisse Vigoureux (1789-1865), born Charlotte-Dorothée-Claire Gauthier, was a fervent follower of Fourier's theories: it was she who introduced Victor Considerant to Fourierism (the latter married his daughter Julie).
She put her personal fortune at the service of the Fourierist cause by financing Phalanges (the journal of Charles Fourier) and later the exile of Considerant and then their attempt to found the Réunion phalanstery in Texas. Ruined, she will end her life alone in San Antonio.

François Barrier, central personality of the Fourierist movement, he adhered to the Fourierist doctrine in 1843. He was, in 1845, one of the founders of the African Agricultural Union and became the main leader and financial supporter from the Lyon Corporate School in the 1860s.

His work responded to the Words of a Believer, published in April 1834 by Lamennais, in which he promoted violence in the service of the class struggle. Clarisse Vigoureux, deeply pacifist and feminist, will answer him:
"What is this war cry and this reverberation which has been heard on all sides? [...] I ask the stronger sex who knows how to dethrone their kings, and who, calling himself a king, does not know how to hold the reins of the world" (excerpt from the preface)
This book will be condemned by the Roman Church and put in the Index catalog on September 22, 1836.

On the false title we see. finds the following mention written in pencil : "Given by Miss Beuque to Mr Barrier. (April 1845). Aimée Beuque (1788-1871) met Charles Fourier at Clarisse Vigoureux in 1828 and immediately adhered to his ideas, she will lead the Fourierist circles of Lyon. François Barrier, professor of medicine at the Faculty of Lyon, adhered to the Fourierist doctrine in 1844.