THE PALADIN OF JUSTICEassociated with his trial, the formerly ailing Proudhon complained
hardly at all about his condition. Even his financial situation he
regarded with philosophic equanimity. He owed four thousand
francs in current debts to the Garniers, he had an equal amount
to pay for his fine, but when the accounting was all made, he
would still have between seven and eight thousand francs to see
him through prison. And, he added, ‘Prison will not be un
fruitful for me: I shall work.’
Having formulated his appeal and engaged Crdmieux as his
lawyer, Proudhon set about composing a iengthy memoir for
publication, in which he intended to discuss in detail the decisions
o f the Court, hoping thus to have his defence well lodged in the
public attention before the hearing took place. The Imperial
Procurator would allow him to print only twenty copies o f this
memoir, but even this number he found it impossible to obtain,
since the printers, scared by the sentences already imposed on
their colleagues, and by police warnings that any publications by
M. Proudhon were dangerous, refused unanimously to have
anything to do with it. It became evident that many factors were
combining against his chance o f a fair hearing, and he finally
decided to go into exile.
It was a decision he reached only reluctantly. For a month his
friends had been urging him to go, but he had opposed their
advice and was even liable, on occasion, to interpret it as a sign
o f lack o f confidence. ‘They do not cease exhorting me to flee/
he complained to Edmond. ‘I carry the flag before the enemy,
like Bonaparte on the Bridge o f Arcole, and nobody supports
me!’ Even when he departed, he pretended that he was fleeing
less to avoid an imprisonment which he considered unjust than
to find the means o f publishing the memoir that would be the
basis of his appeal. But he had enough realism to admit that once
he went into exile there would be no point in returning unless
conditions were favourable, and on the eve of his departure he
wrote to Mathey: ‘A new life is about to begin for me. I have
plenty o f things to do, and good ones.’