Proudhon - A Biography

THE CRITIC OF PROPERTY
author of the pamphlet to which he was replying appears to have
been Claude-Marie-Henri Dameth, a socialist journalist who
ended his career as a professor o f political economy at Geneva,
but Proudhon was not aware o f this, and the fact that Considerant,
even if he had not written the pamphlet, evidently agreed with its
contents, seemed sufficient reason to regard him as symbolically
responsible.
While Proudhon worked on this new essay on property through
the summer of 1841, he also began for the first time to think of
finding a new medium for his ideas in political journalism. It was
perhaps natural that such an extreme individualist should think
less of contributing to already established periodicals than of
founding a magazine over which he would have control, and
during July, 1841, he was tempted by proposals emanating from
two widely different quarters. A certain Baron Corvaja approached
him on behalf o f a shadowy group of Milanese bankers who
wished to start an unorthodox financial review, and a number of
dissident Phalansterians started to make plans for a periodical in
the editing o f which, thanks to the lack of literary talent among
its founders, Proudhon hoped he might take a leading part. The
doubts of his editorial capacity which he had expressed to
Muiron nine years before seem to have vanished, and he was
anxious to avail himself of any opportunity to express his views,
through active journalism, to a wider public than his books were
likely to reach. Neither o f the plans actually materialised,
possibly because o f differences of policy, but they implanted in
Proudhon a growing desire to control some periodical in which
he might relate his developing opinions on the nature of society
to the daily pattern of events.
A t the end of July the situation of his printing business forced
him to leave Paris once again for the Franche-Comte. Heavy
bills had fallen due, and he must either sell out in order to settle
them or else find the cash in some other way. He sought in vain
for either buyer or banker, and his friends pressed on him the
drastic solution of marrying a girl with a dowry.
‘But that would be the very devil!’ he confided to Bergmann.
‘I am not particularly amorous, I know nobody, and despite the
small reputation I have acquired, I am, without exaggeration, a
bad bargain for a girl. A poor girl would be no help to me, and I
should be lost without any profit to her. A rich girl would