Workers Solidarity Movement

Listen to me. For twenty-five years, the most intelligent and devoted of men have dedicated their lives to the defence of our holy cause. In their writings, speeches, reports, memoirs, investigations and statistics, they have pointed out, affirmed and demonstrated to the Government and to the wealthy that the working class is, in the present state of things, materially and morally placed in an intolerable condition of poverty and suffering

(Flora Tristan-Moscoso, 1803-44) was born in Pans to a Peruvian nobleman, Mariano de Tristan, descended, from Montezuma, and a Frenchwoman, Therese Lame. After her father's death when she was a child of four or five, Tristan lived in severe poverty since her mother, having had an improperly registered, marriage in Spam, was disinherited from her husband's estate Peru.

In 1820 she worked in an engraving studio, colouring perfume labels by hand, then married her boss, and had three children. The violent marriage broke up in 1825, and a legal separation was obtained in 1828. In 1834, after an obscure period, when she perhaps' lived as a 'dame de compagnie' on ocean voyages, she went to Peru: in an attempt to reclaim her patrimony. This ended in failure. In 1835, she met Fourier; her youngest child, Aline Chazal-Tnstan, who would be the mother of the painter Gauguin, was kidnapped by the father; and Tristan began her career as a writer with Peregrinations d'une paria, 1833-1834, in which she recounted her, travels and the dilemmas of an independent woman.

Her Union ouvrière appeared in 1843 and 1844, financed by an appeal to socialist circles as well as juste milieu liberals, and its publication' was followed by a tour of France in which she was enthusiastically received by working class audiences who responded to her call for a national and international union of workers.

Introduction and translation from Paul Corcoran's Before Marx: Socialism and Communism in France, 1830-48.

Listen to me. For twenty-five years, the most intelligent and devoted of men have dedicated their lives to the defence of our holy cause.1 |In their writings, speeches, reports, memoirs, investigations and statistics, they have pointed out, affirmed and demonstrated to the Government and to the wealthy that the working class is, in the present state of things, materially and morally placed in an intolerable condition of poverty and suffering.

They have shown that, from this state of abandonment and neglect, it necessarily follows that the greater part of workers, embittered by misfortune, brutalised by ignorance and exhausting work, were becoming dangerous to society.

They have proved to the Government and to the wealthy - that not only justice and humanity imposed the duty of coming to the aid of the working classes by a law permitting the organisation of labour, but that even general interest and security imperiously recommended this measure. But even so, for twenty-five years, many eloquent voices have been unable to awaken the solicitude of the Government concerning the dangers courted by society in the face of seven to eight million workers exasperated by neglect and despair, among whom a great number find themselves torn between suicide ... or theft!

Workers, what remains to be said in defence of your cause? For twenty-five years, hasn't everything been said and said again, to the saturation point, about all these forms? There is nothing more to say, nothing more to write, because your unhappy condition is well known to all. Only one thing remains to be done: to act in pursuance of the rights inscribed in the Charter.

Now, the day has come when it is necessary to act. It is to you, to you alone, that it falls to act in the interest of your own cause. That way lies your life ... or your death from that horrible end which kills at every instant: poverty and hunger!

Worker, wait no longer for the intervention promised to you for twenty-five years. Experience and the facts tell you well enough that the Government cannot and does not want to be bothered with
your kind in the matter of amelioration. On you alone it depends, if you firmly desire it, to get out of the labyrinth of miseries, injuries] and abasement in which you languish. Do you want to assure your children the benefit of a good vocational education and for yourselves? the assurance of repose in your old age? You can do so.

Your action, on your own behalf, is not armed revolt, a riot in public places, arson or pillage. No. Because destruction, instead of remedying your ills, would only make them worse. The riots in Lyon and Paris have attested to that. Your action, on your own, behalf, must only be legal, legitimate and avowed before God and men. It is the Universal Union of Working Men and Women.

Workers, your condition in present society is miserable and distressing. In good health, you do not have a right to work. Sick, infirm, wounded or old, you do not have a right to hospital. Lacking; everything, you do not even have a right to beg, because mendicancy is prohibited by law. This precarious position plunges you into that; savage state where man, living in the forest, is obliged each morning; to dream up means by which he might procure his nourishment for' the day.

Such an existence is veritable torture. The plight of an animal which feeds in a sty is a thousand times preferable to yours. It is sure of eating tomorrow. Its master keeps straw and hay in the| barn, just for an animal, for the winter. The lot of the bee, in a tree trunk, is a thousand times preferable to yours. The life of the ant, which works in summer in order to live tranquilly in the winter, is a thousand times preferable to yours.

Workers, you are unhappy, yes, undoubtedly. But from whence comes the principal cause of' your ills? If a bee and an ant, instead of working in concert with other bees and ants to furnish the common abode for the winter decided to separate themselves and work alone, they too would die of cold and hunger in their solitary corner. So why do you remain in isolation? Divided, you are weak and fall, crushed underfoot by all sorts of misery! Union makes power. You have numbers in your favour, and numbers mean a great deal.

I come now to propose to you a general union irrespective of trade among working men and women living in the same kingdom - a union which would have as its goal to constitute the working class and to build several Palaces of the Workers' Union distributed equally throughout all of France. There children of both sexes would be raised, from six to eighteen years of age, and infirm on injured workers and the elderly would be admitted. Listen to the numbers speak, and you will have an idea of what can be done with the Union.

There are about five million working men and two million working women in France.2 If only these seven million workers would unite in thought and deed, with a view to a great common task, to the profit of all men and all women, and each contributed two francs a year to it, at the end of a single year the Workers' Union would possess the enormous sum of fourteen million francs. You might well say: How are we to unite for this great task? By location and the rivalry between trades we are dispersed, often even enemies at war one against another. And a two franc annual fee is a great deal for poor daily labourers!

To these two objections I reply: To unite for the realisation of a great task is not necessarily to associate. Footsoldiers and seamen who, through a deduction from their pay, contribute an equal share to a common fund to care for 3,000 soldiers and seamen at the Hotel des Invalides are not by that fact associated amongst themselves. They have no need of knowing each other or of being sympathetic in opinions, tastes, and character. It is enough to know that the whole military, from one end of France to the other, pay the same subscription, assuring to the wounded, the infirm and the aged their entry by right to the Hotel des Invalides.

As for the amount, I ask you, what worker, even among the poorest, would not be able, by economising a little, to come up with a two franc annual subscription, so as to assure him of a retirement in his old age. Why consider your neighbours, the unhappy Irish, the poorest people in all the world, the people who eat only potatoes, and then only every other day!3 And such a people (they number only seven million souls) have found the means to pay nearly two million in rents to a single man (O'Connell),4 and for twelve years running at that!

And you French people, the richest in all the world, cannot find the means to build large, healthy, comfortable palaces to care for your children, your wounded and your aged? Oh, this would be a veritable shame, an eternal shame indicting your egoism, carelessness and lack of intelligence! Yes, yes, if the Irish workers, going barefoot and hollow bellied, have given, for twelve years, a two-million franc honorarium to their defender, O'Connell, you are much more able to give fourteen million a year to house and nourish your brave veterans of labour, and to train apprentices.

Two francs a year! Who amongst you does not pay, for your little individual associations such as trade-guilds, mutual benefits and others, or even your little bad habits, such as tobacco, coffee,« brandy, etc., ten to twenty times this amount? Two francs apiece: is a small sum to scrape together and each, in giving this pittance, produces a total of fourteen million. See what wealth you possess solely through your numbers? But, to enjoy this wealth, the numbers must unite, form a whole, a unity.

Workers, put aside all your petty rivalries of trade and, outside of your particular associations, form one compact, solid, indissoluble Union. Tomorrow, immediately, may all hearts be lifted up spontaneously in a single, unique idea: Union! May the cry of union resound throughout France, and in one year, if you steadfastly desire it, the Workers' Union will be established. In two years you will have fourteen million francs of your own in the bank to build a palace worthy of the great labouring people.

Yes, it falls to you champions of labour to raise the first voice to honour the only truly honourable thing, Labour. It is to the producers, still despised by those who exploit you, that the task falls of building the first palace for the retirement of your aged workers. It remains to you workers, who built the palaces of kings and the rich, the temples of God, the homes and sanctuaries where all| humanity finds shelter, finally to construct a refuge where you may die in peace - never having had a place to rest your head except in hospital, if there was room. To work then! To work!

Workers, reflect carefully upon the efforts I have made to tempt you in order to wrest you away from poverty. Oh, if you do not respond to this call for Union, if, through egoism or carelessness, you refuse to-Unite yourselves, what else can be done to save you?

Brothers, a distressing thought wounds the heart of all those who write for the poor people, who are so forsaken, so overburdened with labour from childhood, that three-quarters of them do not know how to read and the other quarter haven't the time to read. Thus, to write a book for the people is to throw a drop of water in the ocean.

So I know that if I were limiting myself to putting my proposal for a Universal Union on paper, as magnificent as it is, the proposal would be a dead letter, as it has been with so many other plans already proposed. I understand that, my book published, I have another work to accomplish, which is to go myself, proposal for union in hand, from city to city, from one end of France to another, to speak to the workers who do not know how to read and brandy, etc., ten to twenty times this amount? Two francs apiece: is a small sum to scrape together and each, in giving this pittance, produces a total of fourteen million. See what wealth you possess solely through your numbers? But, to enjoy this wealth, the numbers must unite, form a whole, a unity.

Workers, put aside all your petty rivalries of trade and, outside of your particular associations, form one compact, solid, indissoluble Union. Tomorrow, immediately, may all hearts be lifted up spontaneously in a single, unique idea: Union! May the cry of union resound throughout France, and in one year, if you steadfastly desire it, the Workers' Union will be established. In two years you] will have fourteen million francs of your own in the bank to build a palace worthy of the great labouring people.

Yes, it falls to you champions of labour to raise the first voice to honour the only truly honourable thing, Labour. It is to the producers, still despised by those who exploit you, that the task falls of building the first palace for the retirement of your aged workers. It remains to you workers, who built the palaces of kings and the rich, the temples of God, the homes and sanctuaries where all| humanity finds shelter, finally to construct a refuge where you may die in peace - never having had a place to rest your head except in hospital, if there was room. To work then! To work! Workers, reflect carefully upon the efforts I have made to tempt you in order to wrest you away from poverty. Oh, if you do not respond to this call for Union, if, through egoism or carelessness, you refuse to-Unite yourselves, what else can be done to save you?

Brothers, a distressing thought wounds the heart of all those who write for the poor people, who are so forsaken, so overburdened with labour from childhood, that three-quarters of them do not} know how to read and the other quarter haven't the time to read. Thus, to write a book for the people is to throw a drop of water in the ocean.

So I know that if I were limiting myself to putting my proposal for a Universal Union on paper, as magnificent as it is, the proposal would be a dead letter, as it has been with so many other plans already proposed. I understand that, my book published, I have another work to accomplish, which is to go myself, proposal for union in hand, from city to city, from one end of France to another, to speak to the workers who do not know how to read and to those who haven't the time to read. I tell myself that the moment has come to act.

And for those who really love the workers, who want to devote themselves, body and soul, to their cause, a wonderful mission is there to fulfil. Such a person must follow the example of the first apostles of Christ. These men, braving persecution and fatigue, took up a beggar's sack and staff and went from country to country preaching the New Law - brotherhood in God, union in God. And so why, as a woman who has faith and strength, should I not go, the same as the apostles, from city to city, announcing the Good News to the workers and preaching to them brotherhood in humanity, union in humanity?

In the legislative assembly, in the Christian pulpit, in the assemblies of the world, in theatres and especially in the courts of law, people often speak about workers; but no one as yet has tried to speak to the workers. It is a direction that must be explored. God tells me that it will succeed. That is why I set upon this new path with confidence. - Yes, I will go find them in their workshops, in their garrets and even in their cabarets, if necessary, and there, face to face with their misery, I will move them to tears about their plights and force them, in spite of themselves, to leave this horrible poverty which degrades them and kills them.

Why I mention women
Workers, my brothers, I work for you with love because you represent the hardiest, most numerous and the most useful part of humanity. With this in mind I find my own satisfaction in serving your cause. I earnestly beg you to read this chapter carefully and with the greatest attention. You must be persuaded by it, because it is in your own material interests to understand fully why I always mention women by using the feminine ouvieres and toutes.

For anyone whose intelligence is illumined by the rays of divine love and the love of humanity it is easy to grasp the logical sequence of the relations which exist between causes and effects. For such a person, all philosophy, all religion comes down to two questions. The first: How may and how ought we to love God and serve him with a view to the universal well-being of all men and women making up humanity? The second: How may and how ought we to love and treat woman with a view to the universal well-being of all men and women making up humanity?

I do not believe this is the place to respond to these two questions. Later, if workers show any interest in it, I will gladly discuss with them, metaphysically and philosophically, questions of the highest > order. But, for the moment, it suffices here to adopt these two questions, as the formal declaration of an absolute principle . . .

To the present time, woman has counted for nothing in human societies. And what is the result? That the priest, the legislator and the philosopher have treated her as the true pariah. Woman (that is, half of humanity) has been placed outside the Church, outside the law, outside of society.5

For her there can be no office in the Church, no representation before the law, no position in the State. The priest says to her: 'Woman, you6 are temptation, sin, evil. You represent the flesh, which is to say corruption and decay. Weep for your condition,;; throw ashes upon yourself, close yourself up in a cloister and there mortify your heart, which is made for love, and your womb, which is made for motherhood. And when you have mutilated your heart and body offer them, all bloody and dessicated, to your God for the remission of original sin committed by your mother, Eve.'

Then the lawmaker says to her: 'Woman, by yourself you are nothing as an active member of the body of humanity. You may not hope to find a seat at the banquet of society. If you wish to live, you must serve as an annex to your lord and master, man. Therefore, young girl, you will obey your father. Wife, you will obey your husband. Widow and old woman, you will not even be taken into account.' Finally, the wise philosopher says to her: 'Woman, it has been | confirmed by science that, due to your makeup, you are inferior to man.7

Now, you have no intelligence, no comprehension of higher questions, no grasp of ideas, no capacity at all for the so-called exact science, no aptitude for serious works. Finally, you are weak in body and spirit, cowardly and superstitious. In a word, you are only a capricious child, wilful and frivolous. During the first ten or fifteen years of your life you are sweet little doll, but full of defects and vices. This is why, woman, that man must be your master and have complete authority over you.'8

For the six thousand years the world has existed, this is how the wisest of sages have judged the female race.

Such a terrible condemnation, repeated for six-thousand years, would naturally influence the masses, because the sanction of time. This is as simple to comprehend as two being the double of one. But, alas, we are not there yet, and while awaiting this happy 89, let us take note of what is happening in 1843.

The Church claims that woman is evil. The lawmaker finds that by herself, she is nothing, and should enjoy no rights. The wise! philosopher suggests that by her makeup she lacks intelligence. One would conclude that here is a poor creature disinherited by God;| men and society in consequence have treated her precisely in that way. I know nothing so powerful as the compelling, inevitable logic which flows from a received principle or an hypothesis representing, it. The inferiority of woman, once proclaimed and postulated as a, principle, leads to disastrous consequences for the universal well-being of all humanity, both men and women.

In the life of workers, the woman is all-important. She is their unique providence. Lacking her, they lack everything. You hear it said that 'it is the woman who makes or destroys a home', and that j the exactness of that truth is why it has become a proverb. However, what education, training, direction and moral or physical development do these women of the people receive? None. As a child, she is left to the mercy of a mother and grandmother, who themselves received no education.

The former, as is only natural,10 will be brutal and mean, beating and mistreating her for no reason, the! latter weak and careless, giving in to a girl's every whim. (In this, as in all of my arguments, I speak in general terms. Of course, I admit to numerous exceptions.) The poor child will be raised amidst the most shocking contradictions: one day irritated by abuse and injustice, the next day cossetted and spoiled by no less pernicious indulgences.

Instead of sending her to school,11 they are kept at home in preference to their brothers, because better use can be made of daughters around the house: minding the children, running errands, tending the soup, etc. At twelve, they are placed in an apprenticeship, where they continue to be exploited by their master and often mistreated as badly as by her parents.

Nothing sours the character, hardens the heart and renders one mean-spirited so much as the continual suffering endured during an unjust and brutal upbringing. From the start, injustice wounds, afflicts and makes us desperate. Then, as it continues, we become irritated, exasperated and, dreaming only of a means of avenging ourselves, we end up becoming,

ourselves, hard, unjust and mean. Such is the normal state of a poor twenty year-old girl. Then she will marry, without love, simply because one must marry to escape the tyranny of one's parents. What happens then? I suppose she has children, and in her turn she will become incapable of raising her own children properly, being as brutal to them as her mother and grandmother were toward her.12

Working class wives, I beg you to pay close attention. In pointing out here the realities of your ignorance and inability to raise your children, I have no intention at all of making the least accusation against you and your nature. No, it is society that I accuse for allowing you to be so uncultivated - you, wives and mothers, who have so much need, on the contrary, of being trained and developed so that in turn you may train and develop men, as children, confided to your care.

Working class wives are, in general, brutal, mean and hard. This is true, but what is the source of this state of affairs which so badly conforms to the gentle, good, sensitive and generous nature of woman?

Poor working women! They have so many subjects of vexation. First the husband. (One must confess that few working class households are happy.) Having received more instruction, being the head by law and also by money, which they bring home,13 the husband believes himself to be (as he is in fact) superior to his wife who brings home a small wage for her day's work and in the home I is no more than a very humble servant.

It follows that the husband treats his wife, at the very least, with much disdain. The poor wife, who finds herself humiliated by every word and glance from her husband, secretly or overtly rebels, depending upon her personality. Here is the origin of violent, wounding scenes which end up leading to a state of constant irritation between the master and the servant (or one might even say slave, because the wife is, as it were, the husband's property).

The condition becomes so painful that the husband, instead of staying home to talk with his wife, cannot wait to get away. Because he has nowhere else to go, he goes to the cabaret to drink cheap wine with other husbands who are just as miserable as he is, in the hope of drowning their sorrows.

This means of distraction compounds the problem. The wife who waits for pay-day on Sunday to keep her family alive for the next week despairs in seeing her husband spend the greater part of it at the cabaret. Then her irritation is carried to the limit, her brutality and meanness redoubled. One must see these working class house-; holds close at hand (especially the worst) to form an idea of the unhappiness experienced by the husband, and the suffering of the wife. From reproaches and insults, they pass to blows, and finally to tears, discouragement and despair.15

The burning disappointments caused by her husband are followed in turn by pregnancies, sickness, the lack of work and poverty - a poverty which is always there at the door like the head of Medusa.

Amongst the misfortunes which populate the houses of prostitution . . . and the unfortunates who groan in prisons, how many there are who can say: 'If only we had a mother capable of raising us properly, certainly we should not be here.'

I repeat, a woman is everything in the life of a worker. As a mother, she influences him during his childhood. It is from her, andj uniquely from her, that he draws his first notion of that science which is so important to acquire, the science of life which teaches us to live befittingly to ourselves and others, according to the; condition in which our fate has placed us.16

As a lover, she has influence over him during his youth, and what a powerful influence may be exercised by a pretty and beloved girl! As wife, she has an influence over him for three-quarters of his life. Finally, as a daughter, she has an influence over him in his old age.

It is noteworthy that the position of a worker is very different from that of an idler. If a child of the rich has a mother incapable of raising him, he can be pensioned elsewhere, or given a governess. If a rich young man hasn't a mistress, he may busy his heart and imagination in the study of the arts or sciences.

If a rich man has no spouse, he never lacks for contact with the world's distractions. When old, and he has no daughter, he finds several old friends or young nephews who gladly consent to play cards with him, while the worker, to whom all these pleasures are forbidden, has for all joys and consolation only the society of women in the family, his companions in misfortune.

It follows from this situation that it is of the greatest importance, for the intellectual, moral and material, amelioration of the working class that working class women receive, from infancy, a rational, solid and proper education in order to develop all of their good propensities. Then they can become skilful workers in their trade, good mothers to their families, capable of raising and guiding their children, becoming, as La Presse put it, their natural and free tutors .for school lessons. They can also serve as moralising agents for men •i over whom they have an influence from birth till death.

Do you begin to understand - you men who cry scandal before I deigning to examine the question - why I lay claim to woman's rights? Why I want to see her placed on a footing of absolute equality with man, so that she might benefit from the legal right obtaining to every creature at birth?

I protest for women's rights because I am convinced that all the world's misfortunes derive from this scornful ignorance shown to this very day toward the natural and imprescriptible rights of the I female person. I speak out for the rights of women because I am convinced that it is the unique means by which she can take charge of her own education. And upon the woman's education depends that of man in general, and particularly the man of the people.

I claim certain rights for woman because there lies the sole means of obtaining her rehabilitation before the Church, the law and society. This prior rehabilitation must occur so that the workers themselves may be rehabilitated.
.
Workers, as things now stand you know what takes place in your ', homes. You, man, having the right of master over your wife, do you j and she live with a contented heart? Are you happy? No, no. It is i easy to see that despite your right, you are neither content nor happy. Between the master and the slave, one can only be fatigued I by the weight of the chain that ties them together. Where this absence of liberty is felt so keenly, happiness could never exist.

The husband, knowing that his wife had rights equal to his would no longer treat her with disdain, the contempt one shows to I inferiors. On the contrary, he would treat her with that respect and I deference that one accords to equals. As his contempt is no longer a constant irritation and, once the cause of the problem is destroyed, I his wife will no longer show herself to be brutal, wily, crabby, hot tempered, exasperating or mean.

Being no longer regarded in the home as the husband's servant, but rather the associate, friend and companion of the man, naturally she will take an interest in the '. association and will do all that she can to make the little household prosper.

In the conditions I have just outlined, the household, instead of being a cause of ruin for the worker, would be on the contrary a ! cause of well-being. Who knows but that love and a contented heart might triple or quadruple the strength of a man? We have already seen this in rare examples. It has happened that a worker, adoring his family and taking the lead in giving an education to his children, to attain this noble aim, did the work that three unmarried men$ could not have done . .

Workers, this hastily sketched picture of the position the proletarian class would enjoy if women were recognised as the equal of men ought to make you reflect on the evil which exists and the good which might be. This should provide you with great determination.

Workers, if you do not have the power to abrogate ancient laws and make new ones - and without a doubt you cannot - you do have the power to protest against the injustice and absurdity of laws which hinder the progress of humanity and make you suffer - you, most of all. It is even your sacred duty to protest energetically in thought, speech and writing against all the laws which oppress you. Thus it is important that you endeavour to understand this point: the law which enslaves the woman and deprives her of education oppresses you proletarian men.

NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. Saint-Simon, Owen, Fourier and their schools. Parent-du-Chatelet, Eugene Buret, Villerme, Pierre Leroux, Louis Blanc, Gustave de Baumont, Proudhon, Cabet; - and among the workers, Adolphe Boyer, Agricol Perdiguier, Pierre Moreau, etc. (F. T.). 2. For the accuracy of these figures, see the writings of statisticians, and the remarkable work of M. Pierre Leroux, De la ploutocratie. (F. T.)

3. The Irish eat meat only once a year, at Christmas. (F. T.)

4. O'Connell addressed the following response to Lord Shrewsbury, who had reproached him for the annual voluntary subvention of 75,000 (Frs. 1,875,000) paid to him by Ireland. O'Connell's reply, which was very elegant, ended with these words: 'I am proud to proclaim it, that I am the hired servant of Ireland, and that is a livery which I take pride in wearing.' Minutes of the House of Commons, October 1842. (F. T.)

5. Aristotle, less generous than Plato, posed without resolving this question: Do women have a soul? - a question which the Council of Macon disdained to find in their favour by a majority of three (La Phalange, 21 Aug. 1842). (F.T.) Tristan's footnote goes on for more than a page documenting how history's sages - Moses, the author of Ecclesiastes, Mohammed, Rousseau, etc. - with the exception of Jesus have regarded women as inferior and even sub-human.

6. The condescending 'tu' is used throughout the passage.

7. Most savants, being naturalists, physicians or philosophers, have concluded that women are intellectually inferior. (F. T.)

8. 'Woman was made for man.' St. Paul. (F. T.)

9. All the famous generals of the Empire came from the working class. Before 1789, noblemen alone were officers. (F. T.) The first of these points is unreliable. (Ed.)

10. This point is argued below.

11. Tristan adds a footnote here discussing the discrimination facing females who do attend school, where teachers are under orders to demand more from the male pupils.

12. Wives of the people show themselves to be very tender mothers toward their infants up to the age of two or three years. Their instinct as a woman enables them to understand that the child during these first two years needs constant care. But after this, she brutalises them (with some exceptions). (F. T.)

13. Here Tristan gives a long footnote about the relative dexterity of female workers, compared to men, and points out that women are generally paid only one-half the wage men receive for the same work.

14. Here Tristan, in a very long and interesting footnote, gives a description of working class drinking habits and a kind of sociological analysis of the working class cabaret.

15. Here the author relates, in a footnote, a poignant story of a wife being tried and convicted of killing her husband with a kitchen knife, and her subsequent death from despair and self-imposed starvation. It is not unlikely that Tristan is being autobiographical in her descriptions of domestic violence. She was repeatedly beaten by her husband, and after her separation, once shot by him.

16. Tristan gives another long footnote, quoting at length from the Fourierist Phalange (11 Sept. 1842) on the lack of adequate primary schools. It is noted that 4,196 communes in France have no schools at all.