Book Review                                                                             

Icarie:
French Utopia on Illinois soil

By RICHARD JOHNSTON

Robert P. Sutton. Les Icariens: The Utopian Dream in Europe and America. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Pp. 199 with notes, bibliography and index. $26.95 (cloth).

On Thursday morning, February 3, 1848, 69 Frenchmen calling themselves Soldiers of Humanity gathered at the harbor of Le Havre. The previous evening they had enjoyed a sumptuous farewell banquet sponsored by enthusiastic supporters. "The next morning at the wharf," writes historian Robert P. Sutton, "the hand-picked troops, bedecked in uniforms of black velvet tunics and gray felt caps, huddled in the gray winter's cold. ... Then in silent procession they boarded the ship Rome. Assembled on the stern deck they chanted the first couplet of their new Icarian anthem ... the Chant du Depart sung to the tune of La Marseillaise.

Thus began the Icarian adventure in America, inspired by an emerging European socialist movement and by a work of fiction, Voyage en Icarie, a Utopian novel by Etienne Cabet depicting "... a society without private property or money, devoid of political corruption, unemployment, immorality, and crime."

Photo courtesy of Center for Icarian Studies, Western Illinois University Etienne Cabet emigrated from France in the mid-19th century. He founded a socialist community in Nauvoo, Ill. The settlement was inspired by the work of fiction, Voyage en Icarie.

Robert P. Sutton, professor of history and director of the Center for Icarian Studies at Western Illinois University, is singularly well equipped to tell this exciting story. Having access to Icarian archives at Western Illinois and at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, he has translated Voyage en Icarie into English and engaged in extensive research over a period of years into European sources of pre-Marxist socialism.

Arriving in America these Soldiers of Humanity, who were not accompanied by Cabet, tried to found a settlement on the Red River in Texas. Cabet had purchased the site unseen from a developer in London. Ravaged by malaria and dehydration in this remote and unsuitable location, they gave up and retreated to New Orleans.

Joined now by Cabet and additional settlers, they ascended the Mississippi River. Fortunately, they found at Nauvoo a settlement they could buy at bargain basement prices from the Mormons who had been forced to flee in fear for their lives.

There they began to build their Utopia. To establish a seedbed for the future perfect community they placed children away from their families in a boarding school, although children could spend weekends and holidays with their parents. Cabet wasted no time creating his "community of goods" without private property or even personal possessions other than clothing. "Icarians rose in the morning to the call of a bugle at six o'clock in winter and five o'clock in summer ... everyone went off to work.... Finally, at six o'clock the day ended with supper."

In 1856, after eight years of ceaseless toil, the community came apart. Angered by the relentless surveillance of Cabet and prodded by his constant and humorless calls to discipline, the settlers revolted. Cabet had banned tobacco and alcohol and imposed other harsh rules. Women were not given an equal vote. The majority of settlers seized control and Cabet, a victim of his own elaborate governance structure, was expelled.

With a number of his faithful followers he sought to plant the seeds of Icarian socialism in what he hoped was the more fertile soil of Cheltenham, a suburb of St. Louis, Mo. Within months, however, Cabet, a broken man, died of a heart attack.

Back at Nauvoo the remaining majority soon moved to a more promising agricultural site in Coming, Iowa. There, after a brief period of happy prosperity, they broke into two warring factions. The schism, largely intergenerational, pitted the young and some newly arrived settlers against the old guard. Finally, accepting a division legitimized by a local court, they drew apart into two entirely separate groups, each with its own buildings and equipment. Even families were divided as sons battled fathers.

In February 1895, almost 50 years after the original departure from France, eight members of the old guard gathered "... briefly for the last time as the General Assembly of New Icaria. Madame Gentry [an original settler] pleaded not to take the final step, but she was ignored.

36/April 1995/lllinois Issues

[Leon] Bettannier [then president] called for the vote that would officially dissolve the community. It was affirmative, unanimous. [Alexis Armel] Marchand [former president] then suggested that Bettannier go to Coming and ask the Circuit Court to appoint him as Receiver in charge of dissolution."

Why did the Icarian experiment fail? In various passages Sutton identifies a central problem in the character of Etienne Cabet. "To Cabet," he writes, "the Reign of Terror [in the French Revolution] was necessary: the end justified the means. A temporary dictatorship was essential." Elsewhere, Sutton notes that disagreements deepened because "when they [the Icarians] fought they had no room for compromise, only schism and separation."

Sutton portrays Cabet as a complex person. Frugal in his habits, he did not drink or smoke, was not a womanizer and held himself to a rigid discipline of work, which produced an immense output of political writing. His great weakness was an excessive need for power over his followers for whom he wanted to be an indispensible leader, insisting they call him "Papa" as he helped them to achieve perfection. He had, as Sutton abundantly illustrates, the puritanical rigidity of many Utopian reformers.

Professor Sutton, perhaps wisely, does not attempt to draw moral lessons from this story, nor does he try to place the Icarian adventure in a broader context of 19th century America. He sticks closely to facts and carefully documented descriptive narrative, leaving us to draw our own conclusions.

I recommend this book. New Age contemporaries who celebrate the idea of Community with a capital "C" and project upon us visions of harmonic spiritual convergences resulting from right-brain thinking, following our hearts rather than our heads, could profit from reading this story of the problems inherent in managed strategies of enforced perfection. Sutton's account is of general interest and could provide valuable insights for romantic seekers of community.

Richard Johnston, professor emeritus of history at Sangamon State University, is now living in Crestone, Colo.