Proudhon - A Biography

THE EXILE
In Spa Proudhon had learnt that Justice Hunted by the Church
was to be excluded from France. ‘The expulsion o f my memoir
is equivalent to the exclusion o f my person, unless I decide to
enter for three years o f prison,’ he declared. ‘In a word, it is
banishment.’ He decided to abandon the hope o f a decision by
the Court of Appeal in his favour and to take the steps necessary
to make his residence in Brussels definite. A t the end of October,
1858, he obtained permission from the Belgian police for his
family to join him, and during the ensuing weeks he wrote his
wife a series of urgent letters, crammed with instructions regard­
ing removal and complaints of the difficulty o f finding an apart­
ment. ‘Nothing is scarcer in Brussels, where for the past ten
years they have been building nothing but palaces and barracks,
as if they intended to destroy the middle class in Belgium.’
Finally, towards the end o f November, he discovered an
apartment in the suburb of Ixelles, one o f the healthier parts of
Brussels. The rent was 372 francs a year, little more than half
what he had paid in Paris, and the house, he enthused, was
‘extremely tidy’ and ‘bright as a jewel.’ It was only a few steps
from the market, and many o f his friends, including Gruen,
Madier-Montjau and Delhasse, lived in the same quarter.
Assured of a dwelling, he began a busy tour o f the furniture
dealers, though, since Euphrasie had expressed doubts o f his
taste, he bought only such things as seemed to him immediately
essential. His needs were o f the simplest; strong, plain chairs at
3^ francs each were good enough for him, and a table at 10 francs
served him as a desk. ‘I have warned you that I do not want
luxury, but neatness,’ he cautioned Euphrasie. ‘That is why
I buy new things, but o f the common kind. It suits our position,
and I notice that it is generally approved here, and helps to make
me esteemed and accepted. Profit from this caution: no ill-placed
vanity, and you, as well as I, will be well-received and well-
regarded.’
Finally, on the 1st December, there came an end to the weeks
o f busy preparation and frantic correspondence, o f hurried
purchases and multitudinous customs formalities, and promptly
at midday the family was reunited in the main station at Brussels.
Euphrasie had lost her voice on the journey, but recovered it
with disconcerting rapidity when they moved into the new apart­
ment on the day after her arrival. She expressed the deepest