Proudhon - A Biography

THE PRISONER
absurdity o f universal suffrage. No, the masses are not and will
not for a long time be capable o f a good action for themselves.’
10 th December. ‘Through the defection o f the working class,
Paris has lost the battle.’
14 th December. ‘She [Mme Suchet confirms the news o f the]
shooting of citizens taken at the barricades.... Thus, he is not
content to defend himself; he has not even recoiled before
massacre, before crime. France is under oppression. The insolence
of the conquerors knows no bounds; indignation is growing.’
15 th December. ‘A sign of Parisian stupidity. Most people go about
repeating, with B’s newspapers, that without the coup d’etat, we
should have had the revolution, that is to say, pillage, arson,
murder, robbery. And they have under their eyes the atrocities,
the nameless atrocities o f the armyl’
By the middle o f December his serenity had returned, and on
the 19th he told Edmond that, though for a week his nights had
been ‘like those of a man condemned to death,’ he was now calm
and ‘working like a nigger.’ Despite what had happened, he
believed that the Revolution in its good time would proceed
regardless o f the activities o f governments. But he had little
optimism for the immediate future; he foresaw widespread
intellectual purges, resulting in difficulties for himself. ‘I still
cannot suppress my anxiety,’ he told Maurice. ‘It is not the
authorities, certainly, who fear me; it is the clerical and episcopal
party.’
The last remark brings us to a curious ambiguity which at this
time began to appear in Proudhon’s attitude. For, basing his
opinion on evidence which is certainly not available to us now,
he came to believe that among the socialists he was the man the
Bonapartists regarded most highly. And, while it is hard to
imagine that such an attitude existed on their part towards an
outspoken critic of Louis Bonaparte, it is at least certain that
when Proudhon thought he might use the new ministers for
furthering his own social ideals, they received him with a
cordiality which at least suggests that the desire to make use
may have been mutual.
On the 24th December Proudhon wrote to the Minister of
Marine and Colonies suggesting that political prisoners should
be given the chance o f going to an autonomous colony, outside
Europe and the French Empire, which might be subsidised