incorruptible man’— for he did not like ‘theatrical virtues’ he
declared that he solicited the concession as ‘an economist and a
democrat,’ and that, since Pereire was ‘the representative o f the
Saint-Simonian principle o f industrial feudalism’ he felt it would
be inconsistent for him to receive money from ‘the enemy.’
One can applaud this rigid integrity, but, even in granting
Proudhon s personal right to remain poor on grounds o f prin
ciple, one may legitimately question the deliberate continuation
of his family’s poverty. Yet that is to venture on the controversial
issue of whether a man dedicated to the point o f self-sacrifice, as
Proudhon was, should become involved at all in domestic respon
sibilities. He himself regarded the family as a universal necessity,
but in effect his domestic needs did not always agree with the
demands o f his social ideals, and when a conflict arose, it was
usually the family that suffered.
In the midst of these cumulative personal setbacks Euphrasie
gave birth to a third daughter, Stephanie. ‘The triad is victorious,’
wrote Proudhon to the ever-thoughtful Maguet, who had sent
a present o f partridges at the appropriate moment. ‘Pierre Leroux
wins and your poor philosopher is decidedly confounded.’ And
to console himself for the steady increase o f his family in such
materially difficult circumstances, he looked into the hypothetical
future. ‘In fifteen years I shall have a complete workshop, and,
with my career ended and my daughters installed, I shall go into
retirement and keep their books.’4
Towards the end o f his imprisonment, Proudhon had been
criticised by a philosophical scholar, Romain Cornut, who had
indicated certain apparent contradictions in his thought and had
demanded the unifying principles in a philosophical attitude that
at times seemed so diffuse. Proudhon began to compose a reply
for publication in Girardin’s La Presse, but the two letters he
wrote were much too long for this purpose, and he decided to
make them into a book. It was not until the middle o f 18 5 3 that
the completed work was ready for publication; the delay was due
to Proudhon’s interests having been diverted from the philo
sophical to the polemical during the period following the coup
THE PALADIN OF JUSTICE