Part Six
THE PALADIN OF JUSTICE
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Ih OR most men release from prison means a return from a life
J- of inertia to one of relative activity. For Proudhon it was
almost the reverse. His three years in as many gaols had been
among the most productive in his life; he had written three
important books; he had edited three newspapers and contributed
to them a large quantity o f provocative writing; he had en
countered many celebrated men and women in the literary and
revolutionary worlds; he had married and founded a family.
Circumstances, public and personal alike, were to make the three
following years a great deal less full in activity and satisfaction,
and Proudhon passed, when he walked out o f Sainte-Pelagie*
from a world o f manifold achievement into one o f perpetually
frustrated effort.
The pattern o f frustration took shape almost immediately. The
railway projects which Proudhon had discussed with friends like
Charles Beslay were slow to mature, but his concern with them
was soon overshadowed by his trouble in connection with the
book on Louis Napoleon’s coup d’ etat which he had been writing
during his last weeks in prison.
This book, La Revolution Sociale demontree par le Coup d’Etat du