Clarisse Vigoureux (Vigoureaux, Migoureaux)

Origin: Montagney, France
Sources: Santerre, DMN 1906, Boyer, Cordillot, Wolski
Notes: Considerant's mother-in-law (Cordillot, Au Texas: sailed with the Considerants ; Cordillot's appendix carries Santerre's 'MIGOUREAUX' as a separate nameJan 1855, left the colony with Julie ~Feb 1858, d. San Antonio 1865); Santerre's '[surname only] Migoureaux' is a garble of DMN 1906's 'Mrs. Vigoureaux'

Biography

Clarisse Vigoureux


Name
  Canonical: Clarisse Vigoureux
  Full: Claire-Dorothee Vigoureux, nee Gauthier, called Clarisse
  Also: Mrs. Vigoureaux (DMN 1906, Boyer); "Mr. Migoureaux" (Santerre's
    garble). Confirmed as Considerant's mother-in-law by Cordillot.

Birth: June 11, 1789, Montagney (Doubs), France
Death: January 13, 1865, near San Antonio, Texas, on her son-in-law's
  property
Burial: by Victor and Julie Considerant near their cabin on the San
  Antonio River, five kilometres from the town

Origin: daughter of an ironmaster. Married in 1808 Pierre-Francois
  Vigoureux, cloth merchant of Besancon, who killed himself in 1817 after
  public rumour -- certainly false -- blamed him for the famine then
  afflicting Besancon.

Family
  Son: Paul-Emile Vigoureux, Considerant's schoolmate, her nominal
    proxy at Le Phalanstere in 1832 -- which has led biographers to make
    her son her husband
  Daughter: Julie, married Victor Considerant 1838
  Brother: Joseph Gauthier, ironmaster, whose bankruptcy in January 1841
    ruined her and her children
  Son-in-law: Victor Considerant

Before the colony
  - Converted to Fourierism in 1822 by Just Muiron, a friend of her
    brother; a fervent propagandist: Paroles de Providence (1834), in
    reply to Lamennais, put on the Index by Gregory XVI
  - 1832: manager (gerante) of Le Phalanstere with Muiron and Fourier
  - 1839: by a fictitious acknowledgement of debt enabled Considerant to
    pay the 500-franc cens to stand for the Chamber
  - Her lost fortune played no part in the SCEAT's founding in 1854; the
    principal shareholder was Godin-Lemaire (Cordillot)
  - Lived with the Considerants in Paris and in the Belgian exile,
    relieving him, as her letters show, of many material details

Ship / arrival: sailed with her daughter and son-in-law on the New York
  steamer, January 17, 1855 (the Considerant notice says Ostend, January
  15); New York February 4; Reunion with Considerant's party, May-June
  1855.

Colony role: after Considerant's departure for San Antonio (July 1856)
  stayed at Reunion with Julie; the two women left the condemned colony
  together around the end of February 1858.

Sources
  Cordillot, "Vigoureux Claire-Dorothee, dite Clarisse," Au Texas (2003)
  Santerre, White Cliffs of Dallas (1955), old list ("Migoureaux")
  DMN 1906 roster, second name listed after Considerant
  TIMELINE.md: 1855.02.04, 1856.07.08

Notes
  The registry carried her as "Mrs. Vigoureaux" with a note to verify
  against Beecher; Cordillot settles the identity and the dates. She and
  Julie Considerant stayed at the colony for twenty months after the
  founder fled -- the two women outlasted the Societe de Reunion by more
  than a year.

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