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Sylvain Maréchal (French:[silvɛ̃maʁeʃal]; 15 August 1750 – 18 January 1803) was a French essayist, poet, philosopher and political theorist, whose views presagedutopian socialism andcommunism.[1] His views on a futuregolden age are occasionally described asutopiananarchism. He was editor of the newspaperRévolutions de Paris.
Born inParis as the son of a wine merchant, he studiedjurisprudence and became alawyer in the capital. At the age of 20, he publishedBergeries, a collection ofidylls, successful enough to ensure his employment at theCollège Mazarin as an aide-librarian.[citation needed]
Maréchal was an admirer ofJean-Jacques Rousseau,Voltaire,Claude Adrien Helvétius, andDenis Diderot, and associated withdeist andatheist authors.[citation needed]
He developed his own views of anagrarian socialism where all goods would beshared. InFragments d'un poème moral sur Dieu ("Fragments of a Moral Poem on God"), he aimed to replace elements of practiced religion with a cult of Virtue and faith with Reason (seeCult of Reason).[citation needed]
His critique of both religion andpolitical absolutismBook Salvaged from the Flood –Livre échappé du déluge, aparody of theBible) and his atheism caused him to lose his position at the college; Maréchal was forced to live off his literary output.[citation needed]
In 1788, he was sentenced to four months in prison for publishing theAlmanach des Honnêtes Gens ("Honest Man's Almanac"). The months were given names numbered one through twelve (for example, March is the first month, listed as "mars ou princeps", while February is "février ou duodécembre". The calendar also replaced the usual figures of acalendars of saints with famous characters (such asBlaise Pascal). Later editions of theAlmanach used theFrench Republican Calendar.[2][3][4]
From this moment on until his death he publishedanonymously to prevent further prosecutions.[citation needed]
During Maréchal's lifetime, atheism was consistently frowned upon by the highly religious people of France. Living in a traditionalist Christian country, he would often write about his thoughts on the church, often critical of the doctrines and beliefs held by the Christians of his time.[citation needed]
In his 1799 essay,Preliminary discourse, or Answer to the question: What is an atheist?, Sylvain Maréchal proclaimed that he had no more need of God than God needed him, and proclaimed such an attitude was "true atheism" after rejecting several competing stances.[5] He outright rejected the idea of masters ruling his life, and that included the will of any god. For him,to believe in God is to submit to hierarchy.[citation needed]
An enthusiastic supporter of theFrench Revolution, Maréchal also advocated the defense of the poor. He did not become involved in the conflict opposingGirondists andJacobins, and became instead worried about the outcome of revolutionary events, especially after theThermidorian Reaction and the establishment of theFrench Directory. The encounter between him andFrançois-Noël Babeuf (Gracchus Babeuf) and involvement in the latter'sconspiracy was to find in Maréchal an early influence onutopian socialism, as evidenced by the manifesto he wrote in support of Babeuf's goals: "The Manifesto of the Equals" –Le Manifeste des Égaux (first issued in 1796).
His later works include an 1801Projet de loi portant défense d'apprendre à lire aux femmes ("Bill Forbidding the Teaching of Reading to Women"), which relates to the subject matter ofwomen's studies andegalitarianism, as well as aDictionnaire des Athées anciens et modernes ("Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Atheists"). He died atMontrouge in 1803.[citation needed]
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