The New Student's Reference Work/Saint-Simon, Claude Henri

Saint-Simon (sā́nt-sī′ mŭn), Claude Henri, Count of, the founder of French socialism, was born at Paris, Oct. 17, 1760.  Like other French nobles he showed his love for liberty by serving as a volunteer in the American Revolutionary War.  However, he took very little part in the French Revolution, except to undergo a short imprisonment.  His first work was Letters of a Citizen of Geneva to His Contemporaries.  His last and most important was New Christianity.  He suffered hardships from lack of means, often being without decent clothes and food.  This poverty caused him to try to shoot himself, in which attempt he lost an eye, two years before his death, May 19, 1825.