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NATURE, SCIENCE AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH POLITICAL ECONOMY: THE CASE OF MICHEL CHEVALIER (1805–1879)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2017

MICHAEL DROLET
MICHAEL DROLET*
Affiliation:
Worcester College, Oxford E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores the significant yet neglected topic of environmental awareness in nineteenth-century French political economy, and the French school of “industrialism” in particular. It focuses on the work of the one-time Saint-Simonian and political economist Michel Chevalier (1806–79) as an interesting example of an environmentally sensitive political economy of “industrialism.” The article reveals how Chevalier's political economy was informed by a sophisticated and environmentally conscious understanding of nature that came to mark scientific and engineering thinking in early nineteenth-century French academic circles. It shows how this understanding of nature was transmitted through publications and lectures of scientists and engineers within leading French academic institutions such as the Ecole polytechnique and the Ecole des mines. The article demonstrates that Chevalier's scientific and engineering education at these institutions shaped his understanding of nature and society as intimately interconnected and mutually impacting. The article then explores how his view of nature and society developed in a more decidedly Romantic direction during his time as a Saint-Simonian. The Romantic sensibility of this time was short-lived, but a keen environmental awareness dating back to Chevalier's student days remained a significant feature of his later reflections in political economy. It was this particular quality of Chevalier's political economy that set it apart both from the French liberal school of political economy, with its very low environmental awareness, and from the more fully ecological political economy of the kind advanced by his fellow Saint-Simonians Pierre Leroux and Jean Reynaud. Finally, the article shows what has not been widely appreciated: that an environmentally sensitive political economy, of which Chevalier's was a good example, was endorsed by a large body of nineteenth-century French scientific and administrative opinion.

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Modern Intellectual History , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , November 2018 , pp. 711 - 745
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

* I wish to express my thanks to the following institutions that assisted me in writing this article. I am grateful to the British Academy (grant no SG101903); the Faculty of History, University of Oxford; and Stanford University Library for their generous funding. A number of archives opened their collections to me, and I am grateful to the Ecole nationale supérieure des mines de Paris, the Académie royale de Beligique, the Archives départementales de l'Hérault, the Archives départementales de la Haute Vienne, Archives nationales de France, Georgetown University Library Special Collections Research Center, and the Parks Library, Iowa State University. I am grateful to Ulrich Pässler of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften; Eric Willey of the McCormick–International Harvester Collection Library–Archives Division, Wisconsin Historical Society; and Sarah Sussman, Stanford University Library, who facilitated my access to the Gustave Gimon Collection, and was the most hospitable of hosts during my stay at Stanford. A very special thanks to Olivier Azola, archivist at the Ecole polytechnique de Paris, who was incredibly generous with his time and helped me uncover some fascinating material. The following individuals offered generously of their time and advice: Pietro Corsi, Ludovic Frobert, Sudhir Hazareesingh, Joanna Innes, Jeremy Jennings, Alan Kahan, Eduardo Pasado-Carbo, Mark Philp, Philippe Régnier, Lyndal Roper, Nicholas Stargardt and Andrea Wulf. I am most grateful to you all. I wish to record my thanks to the anonymous readers who took time and care in reading an earlier draft of this article. Their shrewd observations and constructive criticisms were greatly appreciated. And finally, I wish to thank Sophie Rosenfeld and the editors of Modern Intellectual History for their sage editorial advice.

References

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2 Broc, Numa, “Les grandes missions scientifique française aux XIXe siècle (Morée, Algérie, Mexique) et leurs travaux géographiques,” Revue d'histoire des sciences et de leurs applications 34/3–4 (1981), 319–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dunbar, Gary S., “‘The Compass Follows the Flag’: The French Scientific Mission to Mexico, 1864–1867,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 78/2 (1988), 229–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Broc, Numa, “Le Mexique vu par les savants français (1865–1867),” in Meyran, Daniel, ed., Maximilien et le Mexique (1864–1867) (Perpignan, 1992), 69–81Google Scholar; Edison, Paul N., “Conquest Unrequited: French Expeditionary Science in Mexico, 1864–1867,” French Historical Studies 26/3 (2003), 459–95, at 463–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Chevalier described his travels in letters from April 1835 to Charles Béranger, Fonds Enfantin, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. Cited in Walch, Jean, Michel Chevalier économiste saint-simonien (Paris, 1975), 41Google Scholar. Chevalier's descriptions of Mexico appeared in five essays under the title “Lettres sur le Mexique,” which appeared in the Journal des débats between 20 July and 7 September 1837. His later writings on Mexico included Des mines d'argent et d'or du nouveau-monde (Paris, 1846); Le Mexique: Extrait de l'Encyclopédie du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1851); L'Expédition du Mexique (Paris, 1862); Le Mexique ancien et moderne (Paris, 1864).

4 Chevalier, Des mines d'argent et d'or, 7.

5 Ibid.

6 Chevalier, Le Mexique, 34.

7 ANF, F/17/2909 Exploration scientifique du Mexique.

8 This opinion was borne out by rigorous scientific studies by, amongst others, François Arago and François-Antoine Rauch. Fressoz, Baptiste, “Modernity's Frail Climate: A Climate History of Environmental Reflexivity,” Critical Inquiry 38/3 (2012), 579–98, at 585–6Google Scholar.

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12 Chevalier wrote numerous books, pamphlets and articles on these questions. See, for example, Chevalier, Michel, Le système de la Méditerranée (Paris, 1832)Google Scholar; Chevalier, , Des intérêts matériels en France: Travaux publics, routes, canaux, chemins de fer (Paris, 1837)Google Scholar; Chevalier, , L'isthme de Panama: Examen historique et géographique des différentes directions suivant lesquelles on pourrait le percer et des moyens à y employer; suivi d'un aperçu sur l'isthme de Suez (Paris, 1844)Google Scholar; Chevalier, , Tunnel sous-marin entre la France et l'Angleterre sous le Pas-de-Calais: description des travaux préliminaires, puits de sondage, carte de sondages, profil en long (Paris, 1874)Google Scholar.

13 Löwy, Michael, “For a Critical Marxism,” Against the Current 12/5 (1997), 33–4Google Scholar, cited in Foster, John Bellamy, Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), 135Google Scholar.

14 The English language scholarship on industrialism is limited but growing. Some notable works include Whatmore, Richard, Republicanism and the French Revolution: An Intellectual History of Jean-Baptiste Say's Political Economy (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar; Romani, Roberto, National Character and Public Spirit in Britain and France, 1750–1914 (Cambridge, 2002), chap. 3Google Scholar; Rosenblatt, Helena, “Re-evaluating Benjamin Constant's Liberalism: Industrialism, Saint-Simonianism and the Restoration Years,” History of European Ideas 30 (2004), 23–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Drolet, “Industry, Class and Society.”

15 This pastoralism, a dominant feature of French cultural life throughout the nineteenth century, was given voice in the works of conservatives such as de Morogues, P.-M.-S. Bigot, Essai sur les moyens d'améliorer l'agriculture en France (Paris, 1822)Google Scholar; and de Villeneuve-Bargement, Alban, Economie politique chrétienne, ou recherches sur la nature et les causes du paupérisme en France et en Europe, et sur les moynes de la soulager et le prévenir (Paris, 1834)Google Scholar. Caroline Ford, “Nature, Culture and Conservation in France,” 191–8.

16 Hayek, F. A., The Counter-revolution of Science (Glencoe, IL, 1952)Google Scholar.

17 Musso, Pierre, Saint-Simon, l'industrialisme contre l’état (Paris, 2010), 180Google Scholar; Picon, Antoine, Les saint-simoniens: Raison, imaginaire et utopie (Paris, 2002), 111Google Scholar.

18 André Thépot's more refined reading of Chevalier showed how he affected a synthesis between Saint-Simonianism and economic liberalism. Picon's and Christophe Prochasson's work reinforce Thépot's argument. Prochasson, C., Saint-Simon ou l'anti-Marx (Paris, 2005), 281Google Scholar. The argument is developed further by Drolet, “Industry, Class and Society,” 1230.

19 Arago described Gay-Lussac and Humboldt's friendship as “vive et profonde.” Arago, François, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 3 (Paris and Leipzig, 1855), 17Google Scholar.

20 Chevalier describes his fascination with Humboldt's work in a conversation with Prospère Enfantin on 9 October 1832. He described Humboldt as “un homme fort avancé” in Michel Chevalier, “Conversations avec le Père,” in Régnier, Philippe, ed., Le livre nouveau des Saint-Simoniens (Tusson, 1991), 173–91, at 184Google Scholar.

21 Humboldt admitted this. In writing to Arago, he stated, “Une prudence que tu approveras (j'en suis sûr) ajoute à des motifs plus nobles. Ayan quelque facilité de manier ma langue je puis aussi espérer d'influer sur une jeunesse qui s'est jettée jadis dans les écarts de la philosophie de la Nature, parce qu'on ne lui a pas montré que sans s’éloinger des verités physiques, on peut encore parler à l'imagination et à l'esprit.” Humboldt to Arago, 30 April 1827, in Correspondance d'Alexandre de Humboldt avec François Arago (1809–1853), ed. E.T. Hamy (Paris, n.d.), 31. Both Goethe and Schelling were great admirers of Humboldt. Reed, T. J., Light in Germany: Scenes from an Unknown Enlightenment (Chicago, 2015), 127CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Wulf, Andrea, The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, The Lost Hero of Science (London, 2015), 128Google Scholar.

23 Saint-Simonians such as Gustave d'Eichtal championed, in the words of Michel Espagne, a kind of “panthéisme schellingien appliqué à la pratique sociale.” Espagne, Michel, “Gustave d'Eichtal et l'Allemagne: critique biblique ou géopolitique,” in Régnier, Philippe, ed., Etudes saint-simoniennes (Lyon, 2002), 111–25, at 117Google Scholar.

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25 See Drolet, Michael, “From the Nation State to the Community of Europe: The Origins and Evolution of Michel Chevalier's Theory of Complex Networks, 1829–1879,” in Aprile, Sylvie, Cristina Cassina, Philippe Darriulat, and René Leboutte, eds., Europe de papier: projets européens au xixe siècle (Lille, 2015), 159–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Simmons, Dana, “Waste Not, Want Not: Excrement and Economy in Nineteenth-Century France,” Representations 96/1 (2006), 73–98, at 75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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28 Chaptal, Jean-Antoine, De l'industrie française, vol. 1 (Paris, 1819), 5Google Scholar; Chaptal, , Chimie appliquée à l'agriculture, vol. 1 (Paris, 1823), xlixGoogle Scholar.

29 Dupin, Charles, Forces productives et commerciales de la France, vol. 1 (Paris, 1827), 12, 18, 23, 78, esp. 115Google Scholar. Chaptal makes a similar point in L'industrie française, 143–9.

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31 Dunoyer, Charles, L'industrie et la morale considérées dans leurs rapports avec la liberté (Paris, 1825), 1Google Scholar, original emphasis. Dunoyer rejected those analyses that stressed the importance of nature to culture, and dismissed contemptuously Montesquieu's account. Ibid., 159.

32 Benjamin Constant showed how industrialism's logic of felicific calculus rested on a crude idea of social organization. Constant, Benjamin, “De M. Dunoyer et de quelques-uns des ses ouvrages,” in Gauchet, Marcel, ed., De la liberté chez les modernes: écrits politiques (Paris, 1980), 543–62Google Scholar.

33 Charles Dupin, Forces productives, i; Jean-Antoine Chaptal, Chimie appliquée à l'agriculture, vol. 1, xxiv–v.

34 Démier, Francis, “Charles Dupin: Un libéralisme sans doctrine?”, in Christen, Carole et Vatin, François, Charles Dupin (1784–1873): Ingénieur, savant, économiste, pédagogue et parlementaire du Premier au Second Empire (Rennes, 2009), 165–70, at 168Google Scholar.

35 The importance of soil science to nineteenth-century ecologism has been well documented. Most of the scholarship tends to locate advances in soil science to the 1840s and the work of the German chemist Justus von Liebig. Foster, Marx's Ecology, 147–77; Warde, Paul, “The Invention of Sustainability,” Modern Intellectual History 8/1 (2011), 135–70, at 170CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This article, in following Dana Simmons, highlights the work of early nineteenth-century French chemists in reinforcing aspects of eighteenth-century physiocracy. Simmons, “Waste Not, Want Not,” 76.

36 In its preface Chaptal declared “Les lois de la vitalité sont immuables comme toutes les lois naturelles, mais la différence d'organisation dans les corps vivans en varie et modifie l'action, de manière que les produits diffèrent dans chaque espèce et dans chacun de leurs organes cette variété de produits a de quoi nous surprendre.” Chaptal, Chimie appliquée à l'agriculture, vol. 1, xv–xvi. On Chaptal's positive evaluation of Gay-Lussac and Thénard's chemical analysis of the importance of animal and plant waste to improving soil nutrients see ibid., 119–21.

37 Ibid., xix.

38 Chaptal described infrastructure in organic terms, stressing circulation and growth. “Ces grands moyens de communication forment les artères du corps social et en vivifient tous les organes.” Ibid., xxviii.

39 Dana Simmons, “Waste Not, Want Not,” 75. In their joint Encyclopédie nouvelle, Leroux and Reynaud praise Dumas's work on organic waste. See their entry on manure, or engrais. Leroux, Pierre and Reynaud, Jean, Encyclopédie Nouvelle, ou dictionnaire philosophique, scientifique, littéraire et industriel, offrant le tableau des connaissances au dix-neuvième siècle, par une société de savans et de litterateurs, vol. 4 (Paris, 1843), 802Google Scholar.

40 Dupin, Charles, Forces productives et commerciales de France (Paris, 1827), 130, 245Google Scholar. Dutens, Joseph, Analyse raisonné des principes fondamentaux de l’économie politique (Paris, 1804), 14Google Scholar.

41 Dutens studied at the Ecole royale des ponts et chaussées and Dupin graduated from the Ecole polytechnique.

42 Démier, “Charles Dupin,” 167–8.

43 Ecole royale polytechnique, “Registre de l'instruction,” 1823–4, 1824–5, AEP X IIc 7.

44 Ecole royale polytechnique, “Registre des Notes,” 1823–4, 1824–5, AEP X IIc 8.

45 See the editorial introduction to Nouveau bulletin des sciences 1 (Oct. 1807), iii–iv.

46 Crosland, Maurice, The Society of Arcueil: A View of French Science at the Time of Napoleon I (London, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Arago, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 3, 50.

48 Humboldt to Arago, 30 April 1827, in Correspondance, 31. Arago, Gay-Lussac and Humboldt championed a more rigorously empiricist philosophie de la nature than other proponents of Naturphilosophie in Germany, such as Schiller. Reed, Light in Germany, 127.

49 Crepel, Pierre, “Le cours d'arithmétique sociale de François Arago à l'Ecole polytechnique (1825): Transcription des notes prises par l’élève Hippolyte Renaud,” Bulletin de la Sabix 4 (1989), 14–16, available at http://sabix.revues.org/564Google Scholar.

50 The third of Arago's lectures on probabilities and social arithmetic covered a wide range of topics, especially ones pertaining to public health. In his treatment of mortality tables in his third lesson of 9 July 1825, he raised the issue of the “influence changes to climate had on the health of men.” “Cours de Professeur M. Arago Arithmétique Sociale—calcul des probabilités,” AEP IX Rocquemaurel.

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53 “2ième année, janvier 1825—4ième leçon, cours des machines,” AEP IX Rocquemaurel.

54 Belhoste, La formation d'une technocratie, 105–9.

55 Powers, Elizabeth, “The Sublime, ‘Über den Granit,’ and the Prehistory of Goethe's Science,” Goethe Yearbook 15 (2008), 35–56, at 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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57 Crosland, Maurice, Gay-Lussac: Scientist as Bourgeois (Cambridge, 1978), 69, 127CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Ibid., 43.

59 Ibid., 104.

60 Tomic, Sacha, “Le cadre matériel des cours de chimie dans l'enseignement supérieur à Paris au XIXe siècle,” Histoire de l’éducation 130 (2011), 57–83, at 65, 75Google Scholar.

61 Arago noted the widely shared appreciation of Gay-Lussac's influence on agriculture, and in particular the efficient use of manure. Arago, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 3, 108–9.

62 The question was of such importance that the French Ministry of Finance asked the Academy of Sciences to investigate it. Both Arago and Gay-Lussac were appointed to the commission, along with Costaz, Louis, Dulong, Pierre Louis, Girard, Pierre Simon, de Mirbel, Charles-François Brisseau and de Silvestre, Augustin-François. Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences 3 (1836), 399Google Scholar. The commission's work dragged on for years, due, in Arago's words, “to the large number of documents that it [was] necessary to collect” and study. Tableau Général des Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences (Paris, 1853). Silvestre left the commission and Costaz and Girard died before its work could be completed. Boussingault, Dumas, and Duperrey replaced them. Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences 19 (1847), 403.

63 Their differing conclusions were discussed by Beaussire, Ludovic, “Du défrichement des bois,” Annales forestières 1 (1842), 386–400, at 391–2Google Scholar. Though they differed on whether deforestation affected climate negatively, they agreed that there was a relation between forests and climate.

64 Cited in Becquerrel, A. C., Des climats et de l'influence qu'exercent les sols boisés et non boisés (Paris, 1853), viGoogle Scholar.

65 Brochant de Villiers, “Premier Leçon,” Cours de minéralogie et géologie, 1810–1811, 1, ENSMP Ms 39/214.

66 Jackson, M., “Natural and Artificial Budgets: Accounting in Goethe's Economy of Nature,” Science in Context 7 (1994), 409–31, at 417CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 This was elaborated by Werner in his 1791 New Theory of the Formation of Veins; with its Application to the Art of Working Mines (Edinburgh, 1809).

68 Jackson, “Natural and Artificial Budgets,” 419.

69 Rabinow, Paul, French Modern: Norms and Forms of the Social Environment (Cambridge, MA, 1989), 61Google Scholar.

70 Philippe Grandchamp, “Le cours de géologie professé par Brochant de Villiers à l'Ecole des mines dans les années 1810,” Comité français d'histoire de la géologie (cofrhigeo) (séance du 14 décembre 2005) 19 (3rd series) (2005), 149–71.

71 Brochant, “Minéralogie et géologie Ecole pratique des mines de Paris, 1810–1811,” ENSMP 10867.

72 An example of that was their observation on mining in Staffordshire. de Beaumont, Elie and Dufrénoy, Armand, “Fabrication de la fonte et du fer en Angleterre,” Annales des Mines 1 (2nd series) (1827), 353–80, at 373–4Google Scholar.

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74 Ibid., 243–4.

75 See Chevalier’s, “Notice nécrologique sur M. Coste, ingénieur des mines,” Annales des Mines 20 (1841), 627–36, at 627Google Scholar.

76 Louis Aguillon, L'École des mines de Paris (Paris, 1889), 138.

77 “Registre d'entrée des journaux et mémoires de voyages des élèves,” ENSMP. Chevalier's unpublished reports were: (1) “Mémoire sur l'affinage du fer dans la vallée de Vicdessos” (1827), ENSMP, Ms. M 1827 (65); (2) “Mémoire sur le gisement et l'exploitation du fer spathique dans la vallée de Baigorry” (1827), ENSMP, Ms. M 1827 (54); (3) “Mémoire sur la géologie des environs de Framont, sur le gisement et l'exploitation des minerais de fer qui s'y trouvent” (1828), ENSMP, Ms. M 1828 (73); (4) “Mémoire sur le gisement, l'exploitation, la préparation mécanique et le traitement du minérai de plomb dans le Münsterthal” (1828), ENSMP, Ms. M 1828 (76).

78 His published reports as an aspirant include La carbonisation de la tourbe à Crouy-sur-Ourcq (Paris, 1829); Notes sur la forge de Chavanon (Clermont-Ferrand, 1829); Observations sur les mines de Mons et sur les autres mines de charbon qui approvionnent Paris (Paris, 1829); Rapports sur les mines de houille et de fer carbonaté que renferme la concession du Long-Terne, à Dour, royaume des Pays-Bas (Valenciennes, 1829).

79 During his travels to Mexico Chevalier observed with horror the environmental and human cost of the “dry” method of silver amalgamation, which relied on mercury. Chevalier, Des mines d'argent et d'or, p.47.

80 Chevalier wrote sections 2, 3, and 5. Drouot wrote the first and fourth sections, and Vène wrote sections 6 through 9.

81 During Chevalier's 1828 campagne he accompanied two students in the year below him, Jean Reynaud (1806–63) and Jean Martial Bineau (1805–55). “Journal de voyage de MM Chevalier, Bineau et Reynaud, année 1828,” ENSMP, Ms. J 1828, No 20. Like Drouot and Vène, Bineau and Reynaud became Saint-Simonians. Reynaud collaborated with Pierre Leroux in advancing a form of ecologism.

82 “Journal de voyage de MM Chevalier, Bineau et Reynaud,” part II.

83 Chevalier, “Mémoire sur la géologie des environs de Framont, sur le gisements et l'exploitation des minéraux de fer qui s'y trouvent,” 25–8.

84 They were “Mémoire sur le gisement et l'exploitation du fer Spathique dans la vallée de Baigorry” and “Mémoire sur l'affinage du fer dans la vallée de Vicdessos.”

85 Chevalier, , “Mémoire sur le gisement et l'exploitation du fer spathique dans la vallée de Baigorry,” part I, 5–6. P. Berthier, “Analyse des cendres de diverses espèces de bois,” Annales de Chimie et de physique, 32 (1826), 240–65, at 248Google Scholar; Chaptal highlighted the important nutritional benefits derived from chestnuts. See his De l'industrie française, vol. 1, 244.

86 Chevalier, “Mémoire sur le gisement et l'exploitation du fer Spathique dans la vallée de Baigorry,” 5.

87 Ibid., 9.

88 Chevalier, “Mémoire sur l'affinage du fer dans la vallée de vicdessos,” 1er cahier, 14. See too 2ième cahier, 10–14.

89 The society's members, including Chevalier, were eager to see the reforestation of non-cultivatable land and hillsides. François, Jules, Recherches sur le gisement et le traitement direct des minerais de fer dans les Pyrénées et particulièrement dans l'Ariège (Paris, 1843), 392–3Google Scholar.

90 Chevalier, Des mines d'argent et d'or, 7, 92.

91 ANF F/17/2909.

92 On Werner's Wasserwirtschaft see Jackson, “Natural and Artificial Budgets,” 411.

93 Chevalier, “Mémoire sur l'affinage du fer dans la vallée de Vicdessos,” 1er cahier, 11–14.

94 Chevalier, “Mémoire sur la géologie des environs de Framont, sur le gisements et l'exploitation des minéraux de fer qui s'y trouvent,” 28.

95 Ibid, 25.

96 On the relation between Marx and Engels's materialist ontology and theory of history and Hegel's reading of Werner see Foster, Marx's Ecology, 119–20.

97 Chevalier made this point in his tenth letter on America reflecting on a new “race” of individuals he observed in the Western territories of the United States. The “man of the West” represented a fusion of the character of the “Yankee” and the “Virginian.” As he noted: “Lorsqu'un troisième type, dont la supériorité est admise des deux autres, ou qui partage assez de la nature de l'un et de l'autre pour leur servir de lien et d'intermédiaire, vient se poser entre eux, il en resulte une vigoureuse organisation sociale; car alors l'harmonie entre les deux types primitifs a cessé d’être une abstraction; elle a pris chair et os.” Michel Chevalier, Lettres sur l'Amérique du Nord, vol. 1, 4th edn (Brussels, 1844), 110.

98 Chevalier, Michel, Système de la Méditerranée, in Religion saint-simonienne: Politique industrielle et Système de la Méditerranée (Paris, 1832), 102–9, at 105Google Scholar.

99 Chevalier's friend, fellow polytechnicien and mining engineer Frédéric Le Play, learned the same lesson. He addressed it in Des forêts considérées dans leurs rapports avec la constitution physique du globe et l’économie des sociétés (Fontenay-aux-Roses, 1996), 151, 163, 180, 204.

100 Picon, Antoine, “Générosité sociale et aspirations technocratiques: Les polytechniciens saint-simoniens,” in Belhoste, Bruno, Dalmedico, Amy Dahan, Pestre, Dominique and Picon, Antoine, eds., La France des X: Deux siècles d'histoire (Paris, 1995), 145–56, at 148–9Google Scholar.

101 On Fourier's ecologism see Cossette-Trudel, Marie-Ange, “La temporalité de l'utopie: Entre création et réaction,” Temporalités: Revue de sciences sociales et humaines 12 (2010)Google Scholar, at http://temporalités.revue.org/1346; DOI: 10.40000/temporalites.1346.

102 Fourier, Charles, Détérioration matérielle de la planète, in René Schérer, L’écosophie de Charles Fourier (Paris, 2001), 35–125, at 67Google Scholar.

103 Fourier, Détérioration, 75.

104 Transon, Abel, Simple écrit d'Abel Transon aux saint-simoniens (Paris, 1832), 20Google Scholar.

105 Espagne, “Gustave d'Eichtal et l'Allemagne,” 117.

106 Wittman, Richard, “Space, Networks, and the Saint-Simonians,” Grey Room 40 (2010), 24–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

107 Conversation between Chevalier and Enfantin, 12 Aug. 1832, in Régnier, Le livre nouveau, 173–91, at 174, original emphasis.

108 Ibid., 175.

109 Chevalier and Enfantin, 7 Sept. 1832, in Régnier, Le livre nouveau, 176, original emphasis.

110 Ibid., 178–9. On the place of the body in Saint-Simon's thought see Manuel, Frank, The New World of Henri Saint-Simon (Cambridge, MA, 1956), 300–4Google Scholar, and Wittman, “Space, Networks, and the Saint-Simonians,” 34.

111 Chevalier, “La terre, l'eau, l'air,” in Régnier, Le livre nouveau, 245–6.

112 Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste, Itineraires: Idées, hommes et nations d'Occident (XIXe–XXe siècles) (Paris, 1991), 139Google Scholar.

113 Chevalier, “Le temple,” in Régnier, Le livre nouveau, 237–43.

114 Chevalier, “La polarité universelle,” in Régnier, Le livre nouveau, 251.

115 Chevalier, “Le temple,” 238.

116 Ibid., 239.

117 Conversation with Enfantin, 7 Sept. 1832, in Régnier, Le livre nouveau, 181. Chevalier never abandoned the idea of bringing together all of humanity's achievements in a single space. He was president of the 1855 Paris Universal Exhibition, and president of the French delegation to the 1851 and 1864 London Universal Exhibitions. He also served on the 1867 and 1871 Universal Exhibitions’ commissions.

118 Conversation between Chevalier and Enfantin, 7 Sept. 1832, in Régnier, Le livre nouveau, 176.

119 The four other articles were by Charles Duveyrier, Stéphane Flachat and Henri Fournel. Though celebrated as among Chevalier's most important published writings, editions of them remain fragmentary, and their scope not yet fully understood. For a more thorough appraisal of them see Drolet, M., “A Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean Union: Michel Chevalier's Système de la Méditerranée,” Mediterranean Historical Review 30/2 (2015), 147–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

120 Chevalier, Système de la Méditerranée, 136.

121 For Saint-Simon's reflections on physiology see, for example, Saint-Simon, Henri, Mémoire sur la science de l'homme, in Saint-Simon, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2 (Paris, 2012), 1103–22Google Scholar.

122 Chevalier, Système de la Méditerranée, 148. In later years Chevalier mapped the central arteries of his global system, which included canals at Suez and Nicaragua and a railway tunnel under the English Channel. See Chevalier, L'isthme de Panama; Chevalier, Tunnel sous-marin.

123 See, for instance, the 7th and 8th letters, Lettres sur l'Amérique du Nord, vol. 1, 76–90.

124 ‘Lettre 9’, in ibid., 97.

125 Chevalier, Des intérêts materiels en France, 191.

126 Ibid., 191–2.

127 For Chevalier's close association with these societies see G. Serval, “Chronique forestière,” Revue des eaux et forêts 2 (1863), 155–60, at 157; Société d'agriculture, des sciences et arts de la Haute-Vienne (Limoges, 1850), 254.

128 Vicaire, Henri, Rechercher les causes des inondations et les moyens d'en prévenir le retour, in Mémoires d'agriculture, d’économie rurale et domestique (Paris, 1857), 271–2Google Scholar.

129 Chevalier, Michel, “Discours d'ouverture du cours de l'année 1841–42,” in Chevalier, Cours d’économie politique fait au collège de France, année 1841–2, ed. Broët, M. A. (Paris, 1842), 33Google Scholar.

130 Walch, Michel Chevalier économiste saint-simonien, 261.

131 Chevalier, Cours, année 1841–2, 3. The importance of agriculture to political economy was recognized by Napoleon III, who appointed Chevalier to his 1866 Imperial Commission on Agriculture. Annales de la société d'Agriculture, sciences, arts et Belles-Lettres du département d'Indre-et-Loire (Tours: Ladevèze, 1866), 152.

132 Chevalier, Cours, année 1841–2, 12.

133 He documented and attacked this practice in Chevalier, Observations sur les mines de Mons, 455–6.

134 Ibid., 471–2.

135 Chevalier, , Les forces alimentaires des états et des devoirs du gouvernement dans la crise actuelle (Paris, 1847), 14–15Google Scholar.

136 Chevalier, Les forces alimentaires, 21.

137 On Chevalier's interest in McCormick's wheat reaper see Bulletin des séances de la société royale et centrale d'agriculture 1853–1854 9 (2nd series) (1853), 198. Chevalier, along with France's leading organic chemists, Dumas and Bossingault, gave strong support to J. A. Barral's Société générale des guanos et pêcheries du nord. See L'echo saumurois, 25 June 1870, 3. He also argued for the removal of the surtax on guano. See Chevalier, Industrie moderne, ses progrés et les conditions de sa puissance (éxposition universelle de 1862) (Paris, 1862), 39–40, 68. On his important experimental work on combatting phylloxera see Bulletin des séances de la société royale et centrale d'agriculture, 36 (1876), 54.

138 Chevalier, Cours, année 1841–2, 17–18.

139 Chevalier stressed these benefits in speeches to the Conseil général de l'Hérault of which he was president. See Procès verbaux du Conseil Général de l'Hérault, 26 Aug. 1861, 25 Aug. 1862. Archives départementales de l'Hérault, 1 N 35 and 1 N 36.

140 Chevalier, Cours, année 1841–2, 22.

141 The Annales forestière highlighted the importance of Chevalier's lectures to agriculture and sylviculture. See Annales forestière 3 (1844), 60–61. It is no coincidence that Henri Baudrillart (1821–92), one of France's leading sylviculturalists, would serve as Chevalier's assistant lecturer in political economy at the Collège de France. Chevalier himself played a prominent role in the Société d'agriculture de la Haute Vienne.

142 Annales forestière 15 (1856), 2.

143 Todd, “Transnational Projects,” 17.

144 Chevalier, Cours, 1841–2, 27.

145 Chevalier's account of capital circulation made up his theory of credit. This was the topic of his ninth lecture.

146 These topics were the object of the 4th, 5th and 6th of 1842–3, Cours, deuxiéme année, 1842–3 (Paris, 1844), 125–97.

147 Ibid., 100.

148 Letters 9 and 13 describe wages and living conditions in the United States. Chevalier, Lettres sur l'Amérique du Nord, vol. 1, 97–8, 134–9.

149 Cours, 1842–3, 11.

150 Ibid., 15.

151 Walch, Michel Chevalier économiste saint-simonien, 444.

152 Drolet, “Industry, Class and Society,” 1261.