THE PRISONERwhich weighs down upon us.’ He was pessimistic about the
general political situation. ‘The future is ours, no doubt,’ he told
Darimon on the 20th February, ‘but the present belongs to
despotism, and this present can be prolonged for many years.’
Yet he saw no reason for inertia. ‘Despite everything, we must
act energetically both against the reaction and against the dema
gogues; I will never give in to one or the other.’
It will be seen from the letters I have quoted that Proudhon,
despite the ban on communications, managed to carry on a con
siderable correspondence from the Conciergerie, and an idea of
the ruses he had to use is given in a letter to a fellow prisoner,
Nicolle. ‘Would it not be possible,’ he asks, ‘to get letters to me
by a string let down from Bonnard’s window, at nine or ten in
the evening? It is just above the left window o f my room, and
the packet would arrive in front o f a broken pane, so that I could
take it without a light and without opening.’ The privilege of
correspondence was returned officially on the 22nd February,
after 169 members o f the Assembly had joined in censuring the
ministry for the treatment meted out to him. Shortly afterwards
he was allowed to receive his friends and to walk in the rose
garden which was maintained in the courtyard by subscription
among the detainees; here, on visits to the prison, Victor Hugo
would encounter him, tramping solitarily and silently with
enormous strides.
It was during the interlude o f relative calm which lasted from
mid-March to mid-April that he noted in his diary the effect—
surprisingly slight in his opinion— that the first ten months of
imprisonment had worked upon him. ‘The time has seemed
short, despite impatience, restlessness and boredom. The men
I have seen in captivity with me, the works I have completed,
the accidents of my public life, have all filled my days and left
me only a feeble sentiment of the trouble I endure. I should add
here, and mention particularly among the factors that have
sweetened my convict’s existence, my marriage with Euphrasie
Piegard, the simplest, sweetest, most docile o f creatures, and up
to her marriage the most innocent. I expect, in five days, a new
condemnation. My kind is not forgiven; nevertheless, I am right,
despite all the world.’ The condemnation he expected so philoso
phically did not come, for when he appeared before the court on
the 10th April the prosecution was annulled on technical grounds.