Philatelic document - Claude-Henri de Rouvroy

Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), was a great thinker and author of important books at the crossroads of two centuries. This gentleman of the Ancien Régime was reluctant to accept a classical education from an early age, and was drawn to "new ideas" and a spirit of adventure. At the age of 17, he left for the United States to join La Fayette's army of liberation. Back in Europe, he developed a passion for hydraulics and communication routes, and at the time of the French Revolution, he acquired the national property of the Orne department, transforming a penniless man into a wealthy landowner. He began to develop his theories, nurtured by an eclectic intellectual life, based on the progress of mankind through science, industry and the development of educated social elites (including engineers), then known as "capacitaires". Inspired by the Société Générale and Crédit Lyonnais, and admired by the polytechnics, he advocated a transition from the feudal and theological age to the positive and industrial age. This transition would enable solidarity, peace, fraternity and the development of "talents". With his successor, Prosper Enfantin, this trend became a veritable Church, if not a sect, whose common living spaces, known as phalansteries, worried the public authorities. Saint-Simon is considered one of the founders of French socialism, before Karl Marx. The idea of God is replaced by that of science, and the new value becomes society, a society organized by links between beings, thanks to railways; this idea of "circulation" takes its cue from the circulation of blood in the human body. Saint-Simon also felt that women's place in society needed to evolve, and he envisioned women being able to dispose of their bodies more freely. Although his name is sometimes forgotten, his influence over the past two centuries in France has been considerable. Vincent Genin

Timbre (héliogravure) : Mise en page Bruno Ghiringhelli d’après photo Portrait du comte de Saint-Simon, Ravergie Hippolyte (b.1815) / Bibliothèque de L'Arsenal, Paris, France © Archives Charmet/Bridgeman Images. Document philatélique : Mise en page Bruno Ghiringhelli d'après photo Portrait de Claude-Henri de Rouvroy de Saint-Simon. Cachet d'oblitération : Conception Bruno Ghiringhelli. Texte : Vincent Genin.