SOURCE: "The France of Napoleon and the Restoration," in The General History of Socialism and Social Struggles, Vol. I, Russell & Russell, Inc., 1957, pp. 103-33.

In the following excerpt, Beer discusses Fourier's conception of nature and human history.

War, Imperial Policy, and Commercial Speculation

After the execution of Babeuf and Darthé and the banishment of Buonarroti and his comrades, the French socialist revolutionary movement disappeared from the surface of politics for three decades. The Directory repressed all opposition and prepared the way for the rule of Napoleon. In 1799 he overthrew the Directory, and in 1804 he was invested with imperial dignities. The French enjoyed equality—equality before the despotism which, however, filled their imaginations with bloody wars and glorious victories and their pockets with the chinking and paper results of commerce, of war contracts and war industry. For traders, speculators, money-lenders and stock-brokers the years of the Revolution and of...