fleeting, stolen in the scanty intervals when Proudhon was not
at the Assembly, at the offices of Le Peuple, at the People’s Bank,
at the revolutionary clubs, or driving frenziedly between these
centres of activity; at the same time, there is no reference to her
in his diary for the whole year, and in his letters only one very
oblique remark which he made in December to Gauthier: ‘It
would take an eternity for us to agree and understand each other.
That arises probably from the fact that you are a triple father and
I am a bachelor. I have always been told that I should think other
wise if I had a wife. I would like to test that, but I very much fear
that instead of correcting myself I should make my wife worse.’
From this it appears that even at the end of 1848 he had still not
finally decided to marry.
It was only now, when he was in hiding, that his friends learnt
o f his secret courtship. Darimon, going one day to visit him in
his hotel, met two women descending the stairs. One was middle-
aged; her companion was young, blonde and handsome. Proud
hon immediately realised that his friend must be speculating about
his visitors, for he burst out laughing and said: ‘Come on, I see
that I must tell you everything. I want to get married. The pre
sence o f a woman at my hearth has become necessary to me. I
came back to Paris to see if I can realise this project, which I have
been cherishing for the last two years.’ To have waited two years
before making a decision, and then to do so when, as a fugitive,
he had no hearth to grace with a wife, was perhaps an appropriate
enough course for a courtship that had begun so extraordinarily.
Meanwhile, Proudhon’s friends grew anxious about his con
tinued presence in Paris, and urged him constantly to leave. But
the fugitive put up one objection after another. ‘I had to be in
Paris to supervise the liquidation of the People’s Bank.’ And when
this was completed, he presented other reasons. He had to follow
up his policy; he had— man of paradox that he was— to defend
the Constitution against which he had voted, since the political
struggle had moved so far to the right that the Constitution had
now become a bulwark protecting the Revolution; he had to keep
the Mountain in check. Darimon objected that if he were to write
his articles in Brussels he would do just as good service to the
democratic cause, and at the same time he would not be in
momentary danger of arrest. Proudhon still refused to depart, and
then, one evening when he had extended his stroll a little farther
THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE