Marriage and family are held sacred, as might perhaps be expected from the high honors accorded by Cabet to the fair sex. Perhaps his views concerning the elevated position due woman were influential in drawing to him the large number of sympathizers he found among the ladies of Paris, who encouraged him with kind words and frequent floral gifts. As large an amount of liberty was granted by the Icarians as was practicable. Work was common, as has been stated, but young men and young women were allowed to choose their own career. However, if there existed a disproportionate number of applicants for any particular trade or profession, competitive examination decided who should be selected for the said pursuit. The others were obliged to make another choice. Diligence and thrift were enjoined on all. Men worked till sixty-five years of age and women till fifty. The length of a day’s labor was seven hours in summer and five in winter; for women, however, only four. All labor ceased at 1 P.M. Dirty and disagreeable work was performed by machines. Science and literature were held in high esteem and encouraged, though publication was not free. Any one might write books, but only those could be printed whose publication had been authorized by law. CHAPTER IV. SAINT-SIMON. When we turn from Babœuf and Cabet to Saint-Simon we discover a man of a new type. He differed from his predecessors in aims, purposes, and character. We find in him one who did not desire the dead and uninteresting level of communism, but placed before him as an ideal a social system which should more nearly render to man the just fruits of his own individual exertions than does our present society. Count Henry de Saint-Simon[37] was born at Paris in 1760. He belonged to a noble family of France, which traced its origin to Charlemagne. The family attained distinction early in the fifteenth century through the gallant conduct of one of its members at the battle of Agincourt. It divided into five branches in the seventeenth century. The celebrated Duke de Saint-Simon, author of the “Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XIV. and the Regency,” belonged to one branch; Louis François de Saint-Simon, Marquis de Sandricourt, grandfather of the socialist, to another. Among the sons of the marquis were Balthasar Henri, Maximilien Henri, and Charles François Simeon, of whom the two latter became distinguished. Balthasar Henri was the father of the subject of this chapter.