CHEVALIER, MICHEL (1806-1879), French economist, was born at Limoges. In his early manhood, while employed as an engineer, he became a convert to the theories of Saint-Simon; these he ardently advocated in the Globe, the organ of the Saint Simonians, which he edited until his arrest in 1832 on a charge of outraging public morality by its publication. He was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, but was released in six months through the intervention of Thiers, who sent him on a special mission to the United States to study the question of land and water trans port. In 1836 he published the letters he wrote from America to the Journal des Debats, as Lettres sur l'Amerique du Nord, and in 1838 published Des interets materiels de la France. In 185o he became a member of the Institute, and in 1851 published his Examen du systeme commercial connu sous le nom de systeme protecteur. He played an important part in bringing about the conclusion of the Cobden commercial treaty between France and Great Britain in 186o. He became a member of the Senate in 186o.
Among his other works are : Cours d'economie politique (1842 50) ; Essais de politique industrielle (1843) ; De la baisse probable d'or (1859, translated into English by Cobden, On the Probable Fall of the Value of Gold, Manchester, 1859) ; L'Expedition du Mexique (1862) ; Introduction aux rapports du jury international (1868).