THE STRICKEN YEARShe exclaimed in April. But sickness impeded his own efforts to
foster the ideological development o f this new movement. A t the
beginning o f June he succumbed to erysipelas, and it was not until
early in July that the doctors pronounced him convalescent. He
was still extremely weak, and told Delhasse that never since the
cholera o f 1854 had he been so prostrated. ‘My eyes see the letters
dancing on the books I read, my hand trembles in writing, and
I can collect my thoughts only with difficulty.’
His sickness had again set him back financially, but he was saved
from immediate anxiety by his friend’s considerateness, for Del
hasse promptly sent him 2,000 francs. ‘It is a real ransom to
me,’ he wrote in gratitude; now he could, ‘without agitation or
fever, set myself to work again in all the fulness o f my powers
and the calmness o f my reason.’ He confided to Delhasse the
thought that he was probably entering the last, but also ‘the most
important and decisive’ phase o f his career. He still hoped to
enjoy ten or twelve years o f active work. ‘I ask no more— I have
so many things in my head and my heart.’
Convalescence was painfully slow, but he did not let weakness
dim his resolution to sustain the main work he had planned. His
body was clearly decaying more rapidly than ever, but the inner
drive was undiminished. ‘Alas, here I am coming back like an old
athlete,’ he jested grimly to Buzon in mid-July. ‘I weep as I look
at my wasted limbs, my softened muscles, my exhausted nerves.
There only remains my heart, whose fire is inextinguishable. I
shall fight to the end... I do not want to die without having
developed my ideas to the last degree.’
7
Through the summer o f 1864 Proudhon’s condition improved
little, and at last, in the hope o f re-establishing his health by a
change of scene, he decided to revisit the Franche-Comte. He set
off in August, accompanied by his most constant medical adviser,
the homoeopath Cretin. Despite his weak condition, this last jour
ney to the Jura was more arduous than any trip he had made
before. He seemed eager to cram in every experience, to visit
every place, to see every friend, and there is a kind o f doomed
poignancy in the series o f letters in which he described to Euphra
sie this voyage after a lost health and a departed youth.