French thinker born in Paris, one of the main utopian socialists, precursor of socialism when he conceived a future society dominated by scientists and industrialists, among which included businessmen, bankers, merchants and workers. Great-nephew of the Duke of Saint-Simon, the great memoirist of the Louis XIV century, he joined the army at the age of 17.
He fought in the American War of Independence (1779-1783) and, back in France, abandoned his nobility and joined the French Revolution. He was opposed to revolutionary violence and so was imprisoned for almost a year in the Period of Terror. After making a fortune in real estate speculation, he resumed his studies at the age of 40, at the Escola de Medicina and the Escola Politécnica. He began to project himself as a theorist of socialism with his book Lettres d'un inhabitant de Genève à ses contemporains (1802), in which he advocated a new science-based religion dedicated to the cult of Newton.
He created a fervent group of followers, known as Saint-Simonists, among which were influential politicians, bankers, engineers and writers such as the historian Augustin Thierry and philosopher Auguste Comte, creator of positivism, and the true founders of the Simonist sect Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin and Saint-Amand Bazard. Other works of importance to the thinker were Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du XIXème siècle (1807), Mémoires sur la science de l'homme (1813-1816), Le Système industriel (1821), Le Catéchisme des industriels (1823) and Le nouveau christianisme (1825). He died in his hometown and his ideas influenced later romantic authors such as Sainte-Beuve, Victor Hugo, George Sand and Heinrich Heine, among others, and were taken over by technocrats in the twentieth century.
Source: http://www.dec.ufcg.edu.br/biografias/
Order S - Biography - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/biografia/claude-henri-rouvroy.htm
