Pierre-Joseph PROUDHON publishes War and Peace.

Pierre-Joseph PROUDHON (1809.1865)

Autograph letter signed to Auguste Rolland.

Five pages in-8°. Brussels, July 7, 1861

“Must I withdraw, leave my revolutionary speculations there, break my pen? »

Exiled in Belgium, Proudhon wonders, with doubts, about the reactions aroused by his work published a few weeks earlier by Michel Levy , research on the principle and constitution of international law.

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“My dear Rolland, I had a visit from Ch. Edm. I hoped to see him again before he left: his friendship for me could not go that far. I thought I realized that my last work had altered him: however, I do not believe, after the explanations I gave him, that his heart would have retained the slightest coldness towards me, if I had not noticed for several years that Ch. Edm., first by his associations with the Royal Palace, then by his artistic morals finally by his Polish character, gradually distanced himself from the man who was for a moment his leader, and that it undoubtedly looks like the ruin of February... It's sad for me; It’s bitter but that’s how it is. In two words, Ch. Edm. came to see me for the sake of his conscience; then he fled from me like an indifferent person, a useless acquaintance, almost an enemy. We no longer get along; our hearts do not worship the same deities; our attractions are repulsive. This is certain, and I am not happy about it. So why am I nothing? Why did democracy fall? Why is socialism destroyed?…

In any case, I delivered it to the Hôtel de la Poste, rue Fossé aux Loups, where Ch. Edm was staying. The two volumes that Mr. Stappaerts sent me for you. It was Thursday morning, at 8 a.m., that I made this errand. I was planning to see [?] before his departure, because he had to leave at 9 a.m., having finished his business with V. Hugo. I learned at the hotel that he had left in the morning for the countryside, i.e. for the same destination as the one he had gone to the day before (Waterloo du Mont-St-Jean). Since he was forced to lose another day, I thought I would see him again: it didn't happen.

I attached to the two volumes a nasty brochure with the title: Ingratitude of Napoleon III by an Italian named Delavo, the author of the Marengo monument . You will tell me in your next one if you received everything. I thank you for all the amusing, useful, instructive, friendly things with which you fill your letters for me; I wouldn't ask for anything better than to have at least two like that a week, and I wouldn't be afraid to pinch your ear for this purpose: but I know how to spare your time. Four hours of correspondence per week is too much. I'm limiting you to ½ hour, since you can't help but fill the four pages of your letters.

Your remark on [Greek mention] is correct: it is an enemy hero that Homer said, not a hero from the gods. I must have known this since I explained the passage in my humanities class, and even had learned it by heart. But my head was full of divine genealogies, and it was through a real slip of imagination, ear and pen that I committed the misinterpretation that you noted. It’s been so long since I studied Greek; and that I was able to look at the [Greek mention] as a variant of [Greek mention].

I have Mr. Stappaerts' article: I haven't read it yet. I want to make a batch of everything that has come to my knowledge about my book ; and then I will give my report. But isn't it humiliating, tell me, to hear myself say every moment: I don't understand you; what do you want ? Where are you going ? What's the point?…… The reprint of my book On Justice having made me see how many negligences, obscurities, and inaccurate sentences there were in the first edition, I made all my efforts to ensure that such a thing was not was not found in my work on War and Peace . I wrote and rewrote this work at least four times. I was not afraid of repeating myself, of falling into repetitions; and despite everything, we don't understand! So what is there? Tell me, you who understand. What should I do ? Where can I reach my audience? I am disoriented; I look for objections, refutations; and all I encounter is this: lack of intelligence. So am I the one who is unintelligible? Me who doesn't understand? Me who, thinking I had grasped an idea, only encountered trouble and confusion? If it is me who, in fact, does not get along with myself, I am indeed to be pitied. There is a gap or an ulcer in my brain, and I am a patient who is intellectually unreasonable. If, on the contrary, my thinking is correct, where are we? What can we expect from the public, what can we hope for in such times ? On one side or the other, I am only subject to despair.

Do these proposals not seem clear to you? “The Force has its laws, like everything in the universe ; The laws of force constitute what could be metaphorically or mythologically called the right and duty of force. Now, this metaphorical expression of the right and duty of force will become a literally true expression if it concerns the force considered in man, being intelligent, moral, and free.” On this I could enter into new developments, resort to examples, display analogies; to point out that in the final analysis force can only be tamed and subjected to reason by virtue of its own laws. And thus peace can only be established through the recognition of the right of force. I leave aside all verbiage. Is it once again that the above propositions do not seem clear, limpid, self-evident to you?

Am I being confused when I say that force has its legislation which is: 1º expansion to infinity; 2º absorption of enemy forces, 3º balance, etc., etc. Am I doing anything in this other than copying Newton, who calls attraction or force the first cause of all celestial movements ; and who then calculates the Laws of this force? Please, speak, answer, deny, straighten me out. Don't let my madness get worse, if I'm crazy or hallucinating; help me, if I'm right. And when finally, speaking of the strength in humanity, I say that its right has its limits; that consequently there is a competence in the judgment of force which must not be exceeded, lest we fall into the abuse of force and arbitrariness. Does this do violence to thought, to reason, to logic, to language?….

As a report on my book, I am preparing a brochure of 50 to 60 pages, in which I want to try to tell the public what is in my two volumes, and what their consequences are. , then ask the multitude of critics how we review a work. Naturally, the lesson will be mainly aimed at democracy and democratic newspapers: you feel that I will continue my work as a rectifier. I don't want the policy followed by Le Siècle and others; I don't want it for the inside or the outside. I will measure my opposition to the assistance I can expect from my readers, to their intelligence, to their disposition. This is why I am asking you for advice. If there is a chance of winning back public opinion, I will go at full speed. If there is too much resistance, I will try to be more serious; If I have everyone against me, well, I will protest against everyone, unless you tell me I'm crazy.

I am bored, sad, worried (here it is no longer about my book that I am talking to you) as time passes and I get closer to the time at which I placed my return to France, I am seized with real anxiety. I was happier leaving France than I will be returning there. How will I find the country, the public, the opinion, the democracy? Is there a bourgeoisie, a youth, republicans in France? Do we believe in anything? Has everyone become ragged and shirtless (pannus menstruate)? Do I still have to go and expose myself to the teeth of the ferocious beasts of judgment?

With what pleasure they condemned Blanqui! With what respect they speak to Monsieur Mirès!... It seems, from the way the newspapers talk about it, that, hearing the entire nation saying: Don't touch the apple of my eye! Did you see Germain Sarrut by chance? There was recently, in Le Progrèsinternational, an article by him, a democratic-idealistic-imperial article, a real julienne. Germain Sarrut, former editor of the Capitole, moved closer to the empire. This is unmistakable to me. You don't do these things for free, unless you're completely stupid, and G. Sarrut is not stupid. He has just made the transition. Why did you wait so long? What is the difference today, him, joining after ten years, and Laurent (from Ardèche), joining the next day? When we have entered into despotism, can we still distinguish it and classify ourselves by flags and categories? What is the point of saying, like Thiers: He saved France from factions; He revived credit; He reestablished the administration; He won the battle of Marengo; He made the peace of Amiens; He enlarged the territory, etc., etc., etc. I always answer: He was a usurper; he violated his faith, betrayed the people, assassinated the Republic. Let him abdicate; Let him restore freedom and law : then I will agree to take into account the things he has done. Without this, I will only see in all his great actions the price paid by tyranny in exchange for the freedoms and rights of an entire people, an additional outrage, in no way a reason for excuse. However, it is by virtue of the same principle which makes me affirm the right of force, and with the help of the same dialectic which makes me conclude from this right to universal peace, that I reason thus with regard to the 18 Brumaire and December 2 . Tell me if I'm crazy?

My dear Rolland, you are a Burgundian from Burgundy, a nice boy who talks well, who does not pose, full of vivacity, enthusiasm, mischief, kindness, and who, to your misfortune, appears light to all those who have only seen you three times. But I know you are serious beneath your mask, serious deep within your calembredas, a fair, educated mind, an upright soul, and a firm heart. This is why you have entered so deeply into my mind, and why I say to you: Speak to me, enlighten me, advise me! Should I withdraw, leave my revolutionary speculations there, break my pen? S ^r Learch, owner of Progrès international, offered me 3000fr the day before yesterday. salary if I wanted to put myself in his service. I almost wanted to accept. What do you say?… That would excuse me from returning to France… Tell Madame Rolland that we like her. All your P.-J. Proudhon. »

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Master tutor at the college of Bourges under the July Monarchy, democratic propagandist, Auguste Rolland (1822.1905) was charged by Félix Pyat, commissioner of the Republic in Bourges in 1848, to give lectures at the city's republican club.

Appointed teacher at the Mâcon high school, he was elected deputy to the Legislative Assembly in May 1849, on the mountain list. He was sentenced to five years in prison and a four thousand franc fine by the Assize Court of Côte-d'Or on March 11, 1849, for speeches given on February 27 and March 9, 1849 at the Brotteaux club, founded in Mâcon on February 6, 1849. He took part in the insurrection of June 13, 1849. The High Court of Versailles sentenced him in absentia to deportation. He went into exile first in Geneva, which he had to leave, then in Nyon, where he arrived without papers on October 2, 1849, with Charles Cœurderoy, then, a few days later, in Lausanne where François Jannot and around fifteen people met. other activists from Saône-et-Loire including Sinaï-Combet. He signed with the defendants of June 13 in Lausanne at the trial of October 10, to which they would have liked to attend, their response of October 9 to the defendants in London who refused to do so.

He signed an appeal to the socialist democrats of the Seine department , dated Lausanne on February 18, 1850, in which the refugees announced that they had formed themselves into a “Provisional Relief Committee”. Still in Lausanne, on March 17, 1851, he signed a protest with sixteen other outlaws against the expulsion from Switzerland of the Venetian patriot Varé. A week later, he and his friends were also expelled.

In March 1857, being in Brussels. He wrote to the president of the legislative assembly: “ Citizen President. Having to settle some matters, I was not able to immediately place myself at the disposal of the judicial authority. My poor health also requires some care, which is why my friends have urged me to temporarily evade the proceedings against me. But on the day of judgment, I will present myself. There will always be time, because I do not want to defend myself in the High Court. Only, I think that after having had the signal honor of representing the people, I cannot have a greater honor than that of suffering for them; it is yet another means of representing him, and his cause requires martyrs. »

A regular correspondent of Proudhon, he was one of the latter's six executors of his will.

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Writer and journalist of Polish origin, linked to George Sand, Alexandre Herzen and Proudhon, Charles Edmond Chojecki (1822-1899) long supported revolutionary ideas: expelled from Poland in 1844 because of his political commitment, he also had to leave the France in 1850 and took refuge in Egypt. Returning to Paris, naturalized French, he had to get closer to power. Prince Napoleon took him as an interpreter to Iceland and granted him a position as librarian in the Senate in 1862, which he held until his retirement in 1896.

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The Ingratitude of Napoleon III. Appeal addressed to public opinion by Jean Delavo, founder of the Marengo monument. Brussels, Typography by Ch. Vanderrauwera, 1861. In-8 of 163 pp. “My name is Jean Delavo. I was born in Alexandria, in Piedmont, on December 26, 1806” (page 9).

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Writer and politician, Georges Sarrut (1800-1883) engaged in the fight against the July Monarchy, often prosecuted and sometimes imprisoned: he separated from Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte after the coup d'état of December 2, 1851.

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Proudhon, War and Peace, research on the principle and constitution of international law, Michel Levy Frères, 1861.