Proudhon - A Biography

THE CRITIC OF PROPERTY
been terrible for me,’ he wrote to Bergmann. ‘They have cried
scandal and ingratitude... I am an ogre, a wolf, a serpent; all
my friends and benefactors shun me... Henceforward everything
is ended; I have burnt my boats; I am without hope. They would
almost like to force from me some kind of retraction; I am not read
— I am condemned.’
One can readily imagine the timid priests and professional men
o f a small provincial city shuddering to see the way in which their
protege was growing up into an embarrassingly powerful critic
of notions they did not dare or desire to question. Indeed, it is to
the Academy’s credit that many of its members were sufficiently
unaffected by the general prejudice to remain friendly to Proud­
hon. Yet even these felt that he had written too violently. One of
them was the urbane Weiss, who said to Proudhon: ‘My dear
friend, you do wrong to your cause by your manner o f defending
it. Have you forgotten the words of Henry IV — one catches more
flies with a spoonful o f honey than with a hundred barrels of
vinegar ?’ ‘It is not a question of catching flies, but of killing them,’
replied Proudhon.
Nevertheless, he was influenced by the opinion of his friends,
and perhaps a little sobered by the amount o f hostility he had
aroused, for he now proposed writing a second essay to dispel the
misapprehensions that might have arisen in connection with What
is Property? He mentioned this in a mollifying letter to the Acad­
emy, and promised to return afterwards to his studies o f ‘philo­
logy, metaphysics and morality.’ ‘Gentlemen,’ he assured them,
'T belong to no party, no coterie; I have no followers, no col­
leagues, no associates. I create no sect, I would reject the role of
tribune, even if it were offered to me, for the sole reason that I do
not wish to enslave myself! I have only you, gentlemen, I trust
only in you, I expect favour and solid reputation only through
you. I know that you propose to condemn what you call my
opinions, and to renounce all solidarity with my ideas. I persist
nonetheless in believing that the time will come when you will
give me as much praise as I have caused you irritation.’
The more hostile academicians were not won over by this
approach, and on the ioth August Proudhon told Tissot: ‘They
think o f withdrawing my pension; they no longer expect anything
o f me, at the very time when they should expect most; they will
abandon me at the moment of my strength and productivity.’