ture o f the Second Empire. The republicans, realising the influence
Proudhon’s name still wielded among the workers, tried to draw
him out o f his retirement by offering him candidatures in Paris,
Lyons and St. Etienne. A t first he was hesitant, but a few days of
reflection led him to decide that the election was in fact designed
by Napoleon to give new blood to the Empire, and he joined the
abstentionists, declaring that the essential conflict between the
authorities and the people could best be emphasised by the latter
refusing to take part in a governmental manoeuvre.
But, despite his stand for abstention, Proudhon noted with
satisfaction the setback which the elections brought to the Bona-
partists in Paris and the other large cities— the first major shift
in public opinion since the coup d’etat. ‘The meaning of the vote
in Paris is beyond doubt,’ he commented. ‘It is a rejection of the
imperial rule; all the large towns have spoken in the same way;
only the sheep of the country have bleated to the voice o f the
master... In this situation, conflict between the authorities and
the country is inevitable; it is a question o f time, the time which is
needed for public opinion to draw, as I have drawn, the con
clusion from the vote.’
Yet, pleased as he was by this sign o f dwindling loyalty to the
Empire, he was even more delighted by the number o f people
who had done as he recommended (though it is doubtful whether
many o f them had the same reasons as he) and had kept away from
the polling booths. In Paris alone 190,000 had been absent, and
Proudhon found in this a sign o f a widespread recognition that
the revolutionary issue was being carried out o f the field of
politics into that of social struggle. Even if he somewhat mis
interpreted popular tendencies, his own stand in this matter was
historically important, not merely because it established his future
attitude towards political action, but also because it made for the
first time that clear distinction between social and political
struggle, between direct action and governmentalism which later
divided the libertarian from the authoritarian socialists, the anar
chists from the communists, Bakunin from Marx, Morris from
the Fabians.
10
On the 22nd April, 1858, after three years of delays and diffi
culties, o f anxieties and apprehensions, including a police raid
THE PALADIN OF JUSTICE