ABSTRACT
On 16 August 1844 Flora Tristan wrote a letter to Armand Barbes, a political activist in prison in Nimes, that she was going from Montpellier to Carcassonne and wanted to ask him for a letter of recommendation for friends who were the most dedicated to the cause of the people. She signed herself as ' Votre soeur en l'humanite (your sister in humanity). This chapter discusses the use of sisterly greetings in a sample of Tristan's political letters. What was reconstituted is some of her two-way correspondence; those of interest here cover the final years of her life between 1843 and 1844. The frequency and consistency of Tristan's usage of the words 'sister' and 'humanity' give a particular gender angle to her identification with current ideas in the socialist milieu. From the responses to her campaign Tristan's desire to be a sister in humanity was familiar to her audience, whether it struck a chord of antagonism or of empathy.
