Part Two
THE CRITIC OF PROPERTY
iP
R O U D H O N reached Paris in the iate autumn of 1838, and
immediately established contact with Joseph Droz, who had
been nominated by the Besangon Academy to advise him in his
studies. Droz, a mild and honest savant who wrote innocuous
essays on the Art of Oratory and the Art of Being Happy, was
at first rather perturbed by the unpolished character of his pupil,
but he saw clearly the excellent qualities that were concealed by
this rough exterior. ‘I believe I shall be able to announce to you
before long,’ he wrote to Perennes shortly after meeting Proudhon,
‘that, without shedding any of his excellent Franc-Comtois quali
ties, he will lose his wildness, and his timidity will become no
more than the modesty that is proper in a man of merit.’
Through these remarks there runs a suggestion of the bewilder
ment Droz must have experienced on his first encounter with
Proudhon, whose own comment on their relationship is even
more illuminating. Droz, he told Perennes, appeared to have
come to the conclusion that ‘I am a man of paradox, and he is not
wrong.’ This remark is worth noting; it shows the 'Beginning of
Proudhon’s tendency to self-dramatisation, which in later years
was to grow almost into a second nature. Yet one cannot deny the