Proudhon - A Biography

THE MAN OF AFFAIRS
there appears in his diary a laconic note, ‘work induces chastity,’
which reveals a world o f inner struggle where the devil who
tempted St. Paul was still lurking.
These disturbances of his personal equanimity seem to have
stimulated Proudhon’s mental activity, and immediately after
completing The Creation of Order he was already planning a new
work. His commercial activities had made him more conscious
than ever o f the contradictions which existed beneath the apparent
unity of the capitalist economic structure, and he proposed to
make these the basis of a new book. As usual, Bergmann was one
o f the first to whom he confided his plans, in a letter written on
the 24th October, 1843. *1 am g ° 'ng to show that all the hypoth­
eses of political economy, of legislation, of morality and of gov­
ernment, are essentially contradictory... I shall also present the
theory and example o f the synthetic resolution o f all the contra­
dictions.’
At the same time, his growing repute as a rising social critic had
brought him to the attention of the editors of the left-wing press,
who began to make tentative suggestions of collaboration. The
Republicans of the Mountain were contemplating a new journal,
La Reforme, and Proudhon told Ackermann: ‘I am called to it by
the entire managing council.’ And then there was Cabet’s Le
Populaire, whose editors also were anxious to gain his help in
turning their paper into a daily.
Martin Nadaud, the mason who became a member of the
revolutionary Assembly in 1848, was one of the two friends of
Cabet who went to negotiate with Proudhon on the last project.
They found him living at No. 36, rue Mazarin, in a tiny, dark
room, on the ground floor, lit only by a small window that gave
on to a narrow court. Nadaud remarked that ‘Proudhon, by
reason of his bearing and his large, rather chubby face, had the
air o f one of those childlike peasants who come home happy from
market when they have driven a good bargain.’
Proudhon carried on a peculiar kind o f intellectual coquetry
with his visitors. He began by praising Cabet, whom he claimed
to regard as an honest man, and then suddenly, when the Icarians
expected a willing collaboration, he turned to a bench loaded
with thick files o f papers and remarked: ‘Gentlemen, these papers
are meant to combat you.’ Despite this indecisive meeting, the
flirtation with the Icarians continued for some time, and appears