Under the influence of Fourier’s philosophy, the French manufacturer J.B.A. Godin set up a social community of workers in the middle of the XIXth Century. Within the “Familistère”, Godin managed a factory, accommodations for workers, a school, shops, a theater, aso. This paper describes this innovative experimentation that run until the death of Godin in 1888. The case of the “Familistère” is not only interesting per se. It is also a relevant way to sustain the debate on the status of the firm in the field of the current economic sociology. In such a perspective, the author uses a definition of the institution partially indebted to the durkheimian sociology. He suggests that, even in the case of paternalistic organizations like the “Familistère”, firm can never be regarded as a “total institution”.