Pierre Leroux and the Circulus
109
a massive increase in the use of human excrement as fertilizer. He was
well aware of the dangers posed by untreated sewerage and deplored
the activities of the unscrupulous Montfaucon night-soilers who produced vast quantities of “poudrette” (p. 107). He noted that the risks
for health were greater in France than in England on account of the
fact that the French favoured cesspits and lacked the water closets and
sewerage systems that were being installed in England (although vast
quantities of waste were still in fact polluting the Thames). His aim
was to “changer une source de maladie et de pestilence en une source
de richesse matérielle” (p. 191). What particularly irked Leroux was
that, when such ideas received attention in the public press, his views
were either ignored or misrepresented.
11
Leroux, however, was not simply concerned with the implementation of more efficient schemes for the disposal of waste. The
greater part of Aux États de Jersey was given over to a series of
lengthy appendices that contained autobiographical anecdotes, political polemics and explorations of the implications of the circulus.
Starting from the proposition that all of society’s major ills were
caused by hunger Leroux wondered how food production could be
made commensurate with the needs of a growing population. His answer was breathtakingly simple. Food shortages would cease once
human manure were used as a fertilizer: “le problème du Prolétariat
envisagé comme problème des subsistances [n’est] qu’un problème de
chaise percée” (p. 193). Leroux was immensely proud of his grand
idea but was saddened to discover that his political enemies trivialized
and ridiculed his theories.
12 In reality he was only one of many who
considered that more extensive use could be made of human manure.
In France the idea was much debated and official trials were success___________________________
11 Leroux was angered by a series of articles by Victor Meunier that, in his opinion,
unfairly represented his authentically French, socialist ideas as so many foreign, English innovations. Leroux enjoyed casting himself in the role of a prophet crying in the
wilderness but he did claim to have exerted some influence over Auguste Bella, the
first director of the Institution Royale Agronomique (p. 103). Leroux was fully aware
of developments elsewhere in Europe, notably the Kennedy system employed in Ayrshire to distribute animal manure to the fields.
12 A political adversary of Leroux ended his discussion of the circulus thus: “Quand
on voit un homme doué de facultés remarquables à certains égards tomber dans de
telles aberrations, il ne reste qu’à sourire ou à gémir”. Alfred Sudre, Histoire du
communisme ou réfutation historique des utopies socialistes (Paris: Lecou, 1849), p.
466.
109
a massive increase in the use of human excrement as fertilizer. He was
well aware of the dangers posed by untreated sewerage and deplored
the activities of the unscrupulous Montfaucon night-soilers who produced vast quantities of “poudrette” (p. 107). He noted that the risks
for health were greater in France than in England on account of the
fact that the French favoured cesspits and lacked the water closets and
sewerage systems that were being installed in England (although vast
quantities of waste were still in fact polluting the Thames). His aim
was to “changer une source de maladie et de pestilence en une source
de richesse matérielle” (p. 191). What particularly irked Leroux was
that, when such ideas received attention in the public press, his views
were either ignored or misrepresented.
11
Leroux, however, was not simply concerned with the implementation of more efficient schemes for the disposal of waste. The
greater part of Aux États de Jersey was given over to a series of
lengthy appendices that contained autobiographical anecdotes, political polemics and explorations of the implications of the circulus.
Starting from the proposition that all of society’s major ills were
caused by hunger Leroux wondered how food production could be
made commensurate with the needs of a growing population. His answer was breathtakingly simple. Food shortages would cease once
human manure were used as a fertilizer: “le problème du Prolétariat
envisagé comme problème des subsistances [n’est] qu’un problème de
chaise percée” (p. 193). Leroux was immensely proud of his grand
idea but was saddened to discover that his political enemies trivialized
and ridiculed his theories.
12 In reality he was only one of many who
considered that more extensive use could be made of human manure.
In France the idea was much debated and official trials were success___________________________
11 Leroux was angered by a series of articles by Victor Meunier that, in his opinion,
unfairly represented his authentically French, socialist ideas as so many foreign, English innovations. Leroux enjoyed casting himself in the role of a prophet crying in the
wilderness but he did claim to have exerted some influence over Auguste Bella, the
first director of the Institution Royale Agronomique (p. 103). Leroux was fully aware
of developments elsewhere in Europe, notably the Kennedy system employed in Ayrshire to distribute animal manure to the fields.
12 A political adversary of Leroux ended his discussion of the circulus thus: “Quand
on voit un homme doué de facultés remarquables à certains égards tomber dans de
telles aberrations, il ne reste qu’à sourire ou à gémir”. Alfred Sudre, Histoire du
communisme ou réfutation historique des utopies socialistes (Paris: Lecou, 1849), p.
466.