THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLEunworkable in the form Proudhon suggested, at least contained a
germ that was worthy o f consideration. It was in fact a tax on
unearned income o f which half was to be used to subsidise
farming and industry, and its close relatives in taxation and subsidy
have become familiar in the modern world. But the members of
the Finance Committee, to whom the plan was referred, were
hostile from the start, and however reasonable and conciliating
Proudhon tried to be, they refused to see any good in his proposal
and accused him of trying to associate the legislators with his
attacks on property. The discussions soon shaped themselves
into a duel between Proudhon and Thiers, who suggested that
the proposal was really an attempt ‘to agitate and raise the
masses,’ and who later reported to the Assembly in general in a
manner which sought to discredit Proudhon’s plan by a minute
criticism of its figures and a contemptuous dismissal o f its basic
principles. Proudhon heard the speech in silence and, according
to one satirical commentator, shook himself like a wet dog; he
was becoming used to public denunciation. He asked for time to
prepare his reply, and on the 31st July appeared at the Assembly
to defend his proposition.
It was a crowded session, for public expectation had been
raised to a considerable height by rumours o f Proudhon’s
demands. The orator mounted the tribune clad in a black frock
coat. His thin hair, Victor Hugo remembered, was ‘ruffled and
ill-combed, with a curl on his high and intelligent brow.’ Hugo
saw ‘something o f the mastiff in his flatfish nose and of the
monkey in his whiskers,’ and noted that his thick lower lip gave
his mouth a look of perpetual ill-humour. His gaze, the novelist
decided, was ‘humble, penetrating and steady,’ and his expression
was one of ‘mingled embarrassment and assurance.’
A ll the eye-witnesses agree that Proudhon spoke badly, and,
with the friendliest intentions, one has to agree with Lord
Normanby, the British Ambassador, that the text of his speech,
which lasted three and a half hours, was ‘irremediably dull.’ Yet
the scene in the Assembly did not reproduce this dullness.
Proudhon’s colleagues had gone there to laugh, but soon they
were provoked to anger by the speaker’s statements.
Having defined his aim as the reduction of property to
possession by the abolition o f revenues, he went on to say that
the ‘liquidation o f the old society,’ which had begun on the