THE MAN OF AFFAIRSother editors should have anticipated him with a publication so
similar in title and approach to the journal he himself envisaged.
He immediately made contact with Fauvety and Viard, and on
the 29th December the lapsed Representant du Peuple and the un
born Le Peuple were fused. ‘We shall start off with 3,000 sub
scribers,’ Proudhon noted in his diary. ‘It is a fair nucleus for
foundation. We count on 6,000 in the first six months, and if the
subscription grows, the paper, without ceasing to be a weekly,
will become a daily.’ The first issue of the reconstituted Represen
tant du Peuple was published on the 27th February, 1848, and thus
the further history o f Proudhon’s journalist ambitions belongs
to the period that followed the outbreak o f the Revolution. In
the meantime, however, there remain certain incidents in his per
sonal life which precede that event and demand more than a
passing mention.
Closely connected with his decision to found and edit a news
paper was the final termination of his connection with the house
of Gauthier. Already in May he had discussed with Maurice the
difficulties he experienced in ordering his life, and in June, having
spent a whole month in Dijon looking after his employers’ affairs,
he complained to Bergmann that his duties kept him from follow
ing the studies he had planned. By October, after a frustratingly
busy summer and some differences of opinion with his employers,
he finally decided to abandon caution and leave Gauthiers without
waiting to find an alternative means of existence. ‘I have been long
enough in the service of others,’ he told Bergmann. ‘I want to be
master in my turn, even if it is only o f a savage’s hut and a fishing
line. And if I must ever again endure employment, I shall be
careful to take for my employer a stranger, unknown to me, who
is neither my companion, my fellow-believer, nor my friend, who
never sets foot in my house, who is not interested in me, and whose
house I do not enter.’
The decision was doubtless inevitable, yet it involved a certain
moral courage, for at present Proudhon had no source of income
other than that provided by Gauthiers. He could expect nothing
from his projected newspaper until it had become established,
while, owing to his inability to do any writing since the appear
ance of Economic Contradictions, he had no manuscript on hand
that might be immediately remunerative. He confided to Berg
mann that he was leaving his position with only 200 francs in his