Proudhon - A Biography

THE CRITIC OF PROPERTY
cliquishness of the professors. But the greater part of his work
consisted o f reading in the Bibliotheque Royale and the Biblio-
thfcque Mazarine. His activities during these early months of
study had little appearance o f integration. He thought of
studying for his licenciate as the preliminary to an academic
career. He contemplated a critical history of the Hebrews. He
began to learn German and Sanscrit. But his principal work was
still in the field o f philology, and centred around the preparation
o f a thesis to compete for the Prix Volney, which was to be
awarded by the Institut de France. For this purpose he elaborated
and enlarged his earlier grammatical essay and presented it under
the title of Recberches sur les categories grammaticales et sur quelques
origines de la langue franfaise. The prize was not awarded, since the
judges did not think any of the competing papers sufficiently
elaborate, but Proudhon’s manuscript was selected for honour­
able mention; the judges praised his ingenious analysis, particu­
larly in the mechanism of the Hebrew language, but ‘regretted
that the author should have abandoned himself to hazardous
conjectures and that he should sometimes have forgotten the
experimental and comparative method which the commission
especially recommended.’
Meanwhile, it was quickly becoming evident to Proudhon that
his financial situation would not allow him to devote his whole
attention to study. N o doubt in ordinary circumstances during
the 1830’s a grant of 1,500 francs a year would have been enough
for a scholar to keep himself frugally in Paris. Proudhon, however,
was no ordinary, unburdened student. Not only did he send help
to his parents, who were still in need, but in some way which it is
now hard to determine he had assumed responsibility for a debt
in connection with his printing press which involved the payment
o f at least 300 francs a year in interest. ‘If I were foolish enough to
forget my living by trusting to the Suard Pension,’ he remarked,
‘in six months I would not have a crust o f bread.’
Not long after he reached Paris he was seeking evening work as
a printer to double his income, and by March, 1839, he was writ­
ing articles on grammar, logic and philosophy for a Catholic
Encyclopaedia, and reading proofs for a Legitimist paper,
UEurope. But these schemes for earning money were indifferently
successful; the editor of the Catholic Encyclopaedia suspended
publication without paying for all the articles he had com­