Proudhon - A Biography

THE PRISONER

he sees as the very vehicle of intellectual liberation: ‘Irony, true
liberty! It is you who have delivered me from the ambition for
power, from the servitude of parties, from the respect for routine,
from the pedantry of science, from the admiration o f great per­
sonages, from the mystifications o f politics, from the fanaticism
o f reformers, from the superstitious view of this great universe,
and from the adoration o f myself... Your smile appeases dis­
sensions and civil strife; you make peace between brothers and
cure the fanatic and the sectarian... Come, sovereign, spread
over my fellow countrymen the rays o f your light, ignite in their
minds a glimmer o f your spirit, so that my Confessions may
reconcile them and the inevitable revolution may be accomplished
in serenity and joy.’

4

The lyrical termination of his Confessions restored Proudhon

from the almost frenzied state o f inspiration in which he had

written to a renewed concern for the more personal sides o f his

life, and on the n th October we encounter the first surviving

letter to Euphrasie Piegard since the end o f 1847.

‘Mademoiselle,

I send you an authorisation for M. Micaud. Try to come and

see me with him; I shall be gratified. A t last my long rhapsody

draws to its end. I thought to make a pamphlet; it turns out that

I have made a book. You must often have found that care for my

party, my ideas, my reputation, absorbs me and diverts me per­

haps more than it should from my other duties; it is a fault I am

forced to recognise and for which I beg your pardon for the

thousandth time. Come and see me alone and bring me your

forgiveness. Released from the greatest of my cares, I shall per­

haps be less morose and more communicative,

Yours devotedly,

P.-J. Proudhon.’

The formal address should be noted; it suggests that even now

Proudhon had not reached a final decision on the thorny question

o f marriage. It was not, indeed, until the end o f November that

a decisive intimation o f his intentions appeared. On the 22nd o f

that month he noted laconically in his diary that he had given