Etiennc Cabet, a French communist, born in Dijon, Jan. 2, 1788, died in St. Louis, Mo., Nov. 9, 1856. He was educated for the bar, and became attorney general of Corsica, from which office he was soon dismissed. He was sent to the chamber of deputies in July, 1831. There he made himself so obnoxious to the government by his speeches, pamphlets, and a journal, the Populaire, that he was indicted for treason, and withdrew to England, where he published the Voyage en Icarie, in which he elaborated his scheme of communism. In 1848 a band of 69 Icarians left France for the Red river in Texas, where Cabet, who assumed the financial and general control of the affairs of the colony, had secured a large tract of land. The colonists suffered great hardships, and in 1850, upon the arrival of Cabet with another band, removed to Nauvoo, 111., which had been abandoned by the Mormons. Cabet went back to France, where he obtained a reversal of a judgment which had been rendered against him for swindling his followers. He then returned to Nauvoo, where he presided over the colony until shortly before his death, when he was set aside. The Icarians held their property in common, and were esteemed for their industry and morality.

Cabet published the Revolution de 1830 (Paris, 1832), Histoire populaire de la revolution franpaise de 1789 (4 vols., 1840), and the Almanack Icarien (1843-'8).