Michel Chevalier (1806-1879) was a French engineer, statesman, economist and free market liberal. In 1830, after the July Revolution, he became a Saint-Simonian, and edited their paper Le Globe. The paper was banned in 1832, when the "Simonian sect" was found to be prejudicial to the social order, and Chevalier, as its editor, was sentenced to six months imprisonment. After his release, Minister of the Interior Adolphe Thiers sent him on a mission to the United States and Mexico, to observe the state of industrial and financial affairs in the Americas. His works include Society, Manners and Politics in the United States (1839).