Proudhon - A Biography

THE EXILE
His doctor told him to do nothing for six months, but such
sustained idleness was impossible for Proudhon, and he worked
obstinately whenever his health would permit him. Nevertheless,
there were long and unavoidable periods o f inaction, during
which he suffered from the most melancholy reflections on his
condition. He was conscious of his age, o f the possibility that he
might spend the rest of his life in chronic invalidism, and o f the
almost total lack of improvement in the world since he had first
become conscious of its deficiencies. He complained that the en­
thusiasms of youth had died down in him, that all his chivalrous
generosity had gone and he felt ‘nothing but an ardour for merci­
less justice.’
When his friends insisted that he should return to Paris, he
showed himself almost morbidly reluctant to do so. A number of
incidents had made him doubt the sincerity o f the Imperial in­
tentions. Blanqui had been imprisoned again, and Greppo, re­
turning in all innocence to take advantage o f the amnesty for
political offenders, had been arrested and kept for three months
in Mazas Prison. Moreover, the French police still showed an
undue interest in his own activities. One friend who visited him
was questioned on his return to France. Letters from other friends
had been opened clumsily in the mail. Finally, he recognised that
once in France he would find it hard to keep his pen out of
dangerous polemical squabbles. ‘I would very much like to grapple
with the gentlemen of Le Sibcle and Les Debats,’ he told Rolland,
‘but at the first word I can see the Imperial prosecutor making an
auto-da-fe o f my person.’
When Jerome Bonaparte took a hand by remarking to Darimon
that he thought it high time the exile returned, and that his diffi­
culties in getting work published in Paris were largely due to his
staying away so long, Proudhon burst into indignant protest at
Plonplon’s unimaginative failure to appreciate his position. ‘It is
easy for the Prince Napoleon to reproach me for delaying my
return so long. Does he know that my removal here cost me
1,500 francs, that my re-removal will cost no Jess; that in the mean­
time I have experienced some grave difficulties and that I have
only begun to get my head above water during the last few
months? And besides, for what reason should I be in such a
hurry to run back? Is it perchance the agreeableness of life under
Imperial discipline ?’