THE MAN OF AFFAIRS3
One of the conditions on which Proudhon had accepted his
employment with the Gauthiers was that he should be free, for
three or four months each year, to leave his desk at Lyons and go
to Paris, where, while he attended to his firm’s business there,
he could also carry on his studies. He made his first trip in
September, 1843, announcing his departure to Ackermann by
declaring: ‘Without a wife, without any attachment, with no
passion but the love o f truth, hatred o f prejudice and an immense
taste for walking, conversation and loafing, I hope gaily to lead
my Bohemian life.’
N ow he was no longer the student to whom Paris had seemed
such a desolate and hostile city. He had an income which, though
he still sent money to his parents and paid the interest on his debts
as scrupulously as he could, allowed him to lead a fuller life than
before, while his repute as a writer had won him many new
friends. At the same time, he exaggerated to Ackermann the
Bohemian and loafing aspects o f his new life, for this period in
Paris was actually characterised by an acceleration of his intel
lectual activity.
A new interest which his increased prosperity allowed him to
follow at this period was the stage, and many of the more inter
esting entries in the diary he began this year are concerned with
the theatre. He regularly attended the Opera and the playhouses,
and wrote perceptive and caustic comments on the performances.
After hearing Rossini’s William Tell, for instance, he noted with
discrimination: ‘Tragedy, comedy and music have independently
reached a high point of perfection, but as they have not arrived
there simultaneously, the performance cannot attain complete
ness.’ And towards the great actress Rachel, whom he saw in
Phedre, he reacted in shocked hostility. She seemed to him a per
sonification o f the romantic excesses which he regarded as the
great disintegrating factor in French art and literature. ‘From the
beginning to the end of the tragedy she acted like an old tart in love
with a handsome boy, and in the grip of an attack of hysteria...
When Rachel moves you, it is by grating on your nerves, not by
touching your feelings.’
Yet, though he was critical o f every piece he saw, his interest in
the potentialities o f the theatre remained strong, and for a time he