Since his youth, Pellarin sympathised with left wing republicanism, but he was willing to countenance other political forms, such as constitutional monarchy, provided the government could be induced to adopt social reforms. Pellarin supported the Revolution of 1848 and tried without much success to get the Second Republic to implement such policies as a minimum wage, profit sharing for workers, universal medical insurance and government-sponsored model communities or phalansteries. Like most socialists, Pellarin opposed the "Caesarist adventurer" Louis Bonaparte. He lived long enough to witness the Paris Commune of 1871, though he was not actively involved in its affairs. Though not unsympathetic to the 'explosion' of the Commune, Pellarin—who was greatly disturbed by the drowning of a policeman he witnessed—deplored the violence and took it as a symptom of the "moral abasement and total lack of energy of the population."