71

Pierre Leroux died during the Commune and the revolutionary government reluctantly held an official funeral service for the socialist thinker. His death led the Commune and its followers to debate their relationship with the past Second Republic, which kind of socialism they promoted, and the place of religion in it. The funeral organization was the result of the action of various actors, largely forgotten by history, like the fusionist communards (whose religious positions seemed anachronic to many) or the supporters of mutualism in 1848 or during the Second Empire. The analysis of rites, actions, and attitudes allows a better understanding of the conceptions of direct democracy and of religion that stirred up a group of communards, as well as the fear and aversion these can provoke. This funeral was a step in creating a new, essential ritual for the French labor movement after 1871: the celebration of the communards, victims of the repression, near the mur des fédérés in the cemetery of Père Lachaise, which became a new Panthéon for the socialists. This funeral also demonstrated the decline of Pierre Leroux’s philosophy of religion, and more generally of the belief in the immortality of the soul, marginalized among revolutionaries.