THE MAN OF AFFAIRSreform that was mounting towards the crisis of the ensuing year.
For the rest, with the dissolution of his family, he stood almost
nakedly independent, since his feelings for Euphrasie Piegard
were certainly not strong enough to deflect him from the path of
a reformer which he had chosen to follow. Indeed, despite his
tacitly established position as her suitor, he seems even now to
have been undecided whether to marry her, for when he recorded
his mother’s death he added the significant note: ‘I hope, if I ever
marry, to love my wife as much as I have loved my mother.’
Thus, though Proudhon had no direct part in fomenting the
great events which shook France and Europe in the following
year, and even foresaw them with apprehension, he had at this
time become so detached from the associations of his past that he
was able to accept without any hindering obligations the peculiar
opportunities and responsibilities which history was shortly to
place upon him.