Folio [25.7 x 20.2 cm], on headed paper of the ‘Religion Saint-Simonienne’. Centrally creased in both directions from folding. Ephemerally-printed single leaf invitation (intended to be completed in manuscript) from Michel Chevalier, de-facto secretary of the Saint-Simonians, shedding some light on the internal machinations of the movement during its twilight days. In May 1832 its public meeting-halls would be closed by the government, and later that year the Père Suprême Barthélemy-Prosper Enfantin would be briefly imprisoned. Thanks to the ongoing cost of the trial against him, the funeral for Enfantin’s mother took place at a strenuous time for the movement. Pamela M. Pilbeam (Saint-Simonians in Nineteenth-Century France: From Free Love to Algeria, 2014) describes it thus: “The luxurious lifestyle of rue Monsigny was no longer tenable. Enfantin made necessity a virtue by organizing a low cost ‘monastic’ alternative. On 22 April he led several hundred of his acolytes directly from his mother’s funeral (she died of cholera) to his family’s country home at Ménilmontant, on the western outskirts of Paris. About 40 men agreed to join him in a ‘retreat’ until the trial…” (p. 52). The present invitation was evidently printed on the day of Madame Enfantin’s death (“ce matin”) and perhaps suggests that the funeral, and the subsequent move to Ménilmontant, was rather hastily organized. Chevalier requests that the recipient join the ‘convoy’ which will be departing the following day – Monday the 23rd, at precisely noon. * Unrecorded in OCLC etc.