THE PRISONER
not strangers to the expedition? Then give them my compliments,
my sincere regards, and to Mme Bessetaux all my respects..
In November there is an equally graceful letter to the lawyer
Mare Dufraisse, who, in the shared life o f the prison, was rapidly
becoming one o f Proudhon’s closer friends.‘My dear Marc,
It is tomorrow, Sunday, at six in the evening, that I count on
having you to dine at my house, 9, rue de la Fontaine. I shall
probably come to take you from your home at a quarter to six. If
something should prevent me, you know the street and the
number.
M y dear Marc, I am poor— I say it without pride or anger.
I have the misfortune not to be able to treat my friends as I would
like, and I am forced to withdraw into the narrowest o f circles.
It is therefore as a token o f sincere friendship that I beg you to
accept my pot-au-feu. Darimon, who is about to leave for Besangon,
will be with us— a fellow as poor as I.
Come then, so that our relations, our sympathies, shall not
remain enclosed within the walls o f the Conciergerie. I shake
your hand.
P.-J. P.’The pot-au-feu was not so humble as Proudhon Suggested, for a
letter instructing Euphrasie in this little feast specified ‘a good
soup, a roast o f veal, escorted by potatoes, a salad, dessert, and
coffee for those who like it.’
It was on the 18 th October that Proudhon’s ambition for
paternity was achieved, when his wife gave birth to a daughter.
His overt reaction was curiously taciturn; his diary recorded the
fact without comment, and Maurice was told of it two days later
in a brief sentence which described the event as ‘interesting only
to me.’ Clearly, despite his loudly expressed theories on the
excellence of family life, Proudhon was still looking upon his
responsibilities with a bachelor’s caution. Yet he rapidly became
an absorbed and affectionate father, and there seems no doubt
that this experience finally reassured him as to the wisdom of
the Quixotic series o f actions which had culminated in his
marriage.
He called this first child Catherine, ‘from my mother’s name,