THE PRISONERto Micaud on the 17th December gave a hint of a storm to come.
‘One must beat on human brains as on an anvil; otherwise they
will not listen.’ However, at this time he still retained a certain
caution, for he also remarked to Herzen: ‘As journalists foreseeing
the coming catastrophe, it is not for us to present it as something
inevitable and just, or we shall be hated and kicked out, and we
have to live.’
The incident that precipitated the change in his journalistic
policy is recounted by Herzen, who had come to Paris in January,
1850, and called on Proudhon at the same time as two o f the editors
of La V oix du Peuple and Count D ’Alton-Shee, a Bohemian dandy
who held a somewhat independent position on the foothills of
the Mountain. D ’Alton-Shde respected Proudhon, whom he called
‘the great foreseer,’ and he frequently visited him in prison.
‘He [D’Alton-Shee] was saying to Proudhon that the last
numbers o f La V oix du Peuple were feeble; Proudhon was looking
through them and growing more and more morose. Then,
thoroughly incensed, he turned to the editors: “ What is the
meaning of it? Y ou take advantage o f my being in prison, and
go to sleep in the office. No, gentlemen, if you go on like this
I shall refuse to have anything to do with the paper and shall
publish my reasons” .’
This verbal reproach was reinforced by a letter to Darimon, in
which Proudhon called his friends to order and declared his
intention to light the regime. ‘We have discussed long enough.
The reaction makes fun of us and prepares to scuttle the Re
public. It is time we did a little agitation and threatening once
again.... Enough o f political economy and metaphysics; every
week a good article on the State, another on credit, and that is
enough. The rest— war. I propose from tomorrow onwards to
put you back in that line. We shall, I hope, inoculate the venom
o f revolt into the whole country. Since we must again pass
through the Jacobin orgy, since the reaction forces us to it,
since reprisals become each day more a right and a duty, I do
not intend to be left behind. I still want to be king of the carnival.
Besides, each day irritates me more, and I can no longer maintain
this cautious attitude. I prefer Doullens or a dungeon.... I must
speak or break my pens.’
The results of the new policy were soon forthcoming. The
editors combined to put their most scathing criticism of the