tected in his life at this time was social rather than political.
During 1829 a customer of Gauthier was Charles Fourier, the
founder of the idea o f phalansterian communities, who brought
into the printing house his masterpiece, Le Nouveau Monde In
dustrieI et Sociefaire, one of the most curious combinations of
insight and eccentricity, of sound social reasoning and chiliastic
fantasy, ever to be published. Proudhon, who had now qualified
as a corrector, supervised the printing o f the book, and had
several opportunities of talking with Fourier.
He was not impressed by the physical aspects of the man, for
later he recollected: ‘I knew Fourier. He had a medium-sized
head, wide shoulders and chest, a nervous carriage, narrow brow,
mediocre cranium; a certain air of enthusiasm which spread over
his face gave him the look of an ecstatic dilettante. Nothing in
him proclaimed the man of genius, any more than it did the
charlatan.’
Fourier’s ideas, however, made a great impression on a mind
which up to now had been nourished on the arid diet o f theo
logical casuistry, and Proudhon encountered with astonished
fascination the bold conceptions that rose like shining build
ings out o f the chaotic fantasy of Fourier’s lonely and speculative
mind. ‘For six whole weeks,’ he said, ‘I was the captive o f this
bizarre genius.’ It was not long before his natural common sense
revolted against Fourier’s absurdities, but the latter’s serialist
theory (to which I shall return in greater detail), and even some
o f his minor suggestions, had a lasting effect on Proudhon’s
philosophical and social beliefs.
A more immediately productive meeting in the same year was
his encounter with Gustave Fallot, a young Huguenot scholar
from Montbeliard. By this time Proudhon had already begun to
attract the attention o f the Bisontin intellectuals; he was emerging
from the surly misanthropy of his schooldays and, though he was
never a spontaneously effective talker and remained stiff and
reserved on first acquaintance, his conversation was intelligent
and illuminated by an enthusiastic longing for knowledge.
Charles Weiss had remained interested in his progress since the
day of their brusque encounter in the Besangon library; Perennes,
the secretary of the Besangon Academy, had been one of his
teachers in 1827. His circle o f acquaintances gradually widened,
and it was about this time that he began lifelong friendships with
THE HILLS OF THE JURA