scandalised and desolated by the hypocrisy and machiavellianism
o f those whom European democracy, whether rightly or wrongly,
endures or avows as leaders? No division before the enemy, you
will say to me. But, dear Herzen, which is more to be dreaded for
liberty— schism or treason ?’
He went on to discuss reports that the Tsar Alexander II was
proposing to ‘grant Poland the most precious part o f its liberties.’
Could this mean that liberty was paradoxically emerging from
the autocracy in the east? ‘History is full o f these contradictions,’
he declared, and he seemed to see the action o f the Tsar as setting
alight ‘a hope for liberty’ that might yet shame France, country
o f the Revolution, and give the moral, if not the military, triumph
to Russia.
It would be pedantic to blame Proudhon for being deceived into
believing that Alexander was initiating a genuinely progressive
policy. The mitigation of autocracy that followed the death of
Nicholas I seemed at the time full o f promise, and, indeed, there
was a certain genuine liberalism in the early part of Alexander’s
reign. More than once his gestures were to lead radicals into
unjustified hopes, and even Herzen was later induced by the
emancipation o f the serfs to impute libertarian ambitions to this
tragic and unstable ruler. A t the same time, it is clear from the
tone o f Proudhon’s letter that even now he had not overcome the
illusion, which entrapped so many revolutionaries in his time, of
finding a ruler who would work, whether willingly or otherwise,
for the cause of freedom. Having been disappointed in Louis Napo
leon, he transferred his hopes to this Tsar who seemed so enlight
ened in comparison with his predecessor. But, once again, there
was no question o f his supporting autocracy; he sought rather to
make the autocrat an instrument for destroying his own function,
an idea that must have appealed strongly to his paradoxical tastes.
His disgust with the Crimean War continued to the end, and his
detestation o f the regime that perpetuated it increased rapidly.
A t the end o f July he told Edmond: ‘I have regicide in my heart,’
and in September he hailed the victory o f Sebastopol with a bitter
tirade to Maguet: ‘The day before yesterday all Paris was spon
taneously illuminated to celebrate the great victory o f Sebastopol.
After the two milliards and the hundred and sixty thousand men
that ruin has cost us, we have spent yet another few hundred
francs on flags and lights. Today, bread is raised two sous a loaf,
THE PALADIN OF JUSTICE*95