Sylvain Maréchal

Life

Sylvain Maréchal, the son of a wine merchant, studied law in Paris and later became a lawyer. The success of his idyll collection Bergeries, which he published at the age of 20 years, enabled him to work as an assistant librarian in Paris' Collège Mazarin. Through his work in the library he acquired considerable knowledge and especially appreciated the works of Jean -Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Helvetius and Diderot.

Maréchal developed the idea of an agrarian socialism with collective ownership of goods. His ideal of a cult of reason and his critique of religion and absolutism eventually led to the dismissal from the College. He was later sentenced to four months in prison after he had published the almanac of honnêtes gene. In it, he developed the so-called Maréchal calendar, a secular calendar, in which he replaced the names of Christian saints by famous personalities in history. After his arrest, he was cautious and only published anonymously in order to avoid prosecution.

After the outbreak of the French Revolution, he supported this enthusiastically and sat a particularly for the poor. Maréchal took part in the conspiracy to Gracchus Babeuf, but later escaped punishment. As editor of the newspaper Révolutions de Paris, he fought for the liberation of the people from all forms of slavery and saw religion as an instrument of governments to the economic exploitation of the people. The manifestos of égaux he wrote:

" Disappear at last, her outrageous differences between rich and poor, young and old, between master and servant, ruler and the ruled. "

As Sylvain Maréchal published his texts anonymous, he could continue to pay until his death in 1803, unmolested writing.

Works

• Mountains Ries ( 1770)
• Chansons anacréontiques (1770 )
• Essais de poésies légères suivis d'un songe (1775 )
• Fragments d' un poème moral sur Dieu (1780 )
• Dieu et les prêtres (1781 )
• Fragments d' un poème Philosophique (1781 )
• L' Âge d' Or ( 1782 )
• Livre Echappe you déluge (1784 )
• Almanac of honnêtes gene ( 1788)
• Apologues modern, à l' usage d'un dauphin (1788 )
• Dame Nature à la barre de l' Assemblée nationale (1791 )
• Jugement dernier des rois (1793)
• Manifestos of égaux (1801 )
• Pensées libres sur les prêtres (1798 )
• Le Lucrèce Français ( 1798)
• Culte et lois d'une société d' hommes sans Dieu (1798 )
• Les Voyages de Pythagore (1799 )
• Dictionnaire des anciens et modernes Athées (1800)
• Pour et contre la Bible (1801 )