only a commission
sufficient to defray its running expenses,--Proudhon endeavored, in
a number of articles, to explain its mechanism and necessity. These
articles have been collected in one volume, under the double title,
"Resume of the Social Question; Bank of Exchange." His other articles,
those which up to December, 1848, were inspired by the progress of
events, have been collected in another volume,--"Revolutionary Ideas."

Almost unknown in March, 1848, and struck off in April from the list of
candidates for the Constituent Assembly by the delegation of workingmen
which sat at the Luxembourg, Proudhon had but a very small number of
votes at the general elections of April. At the complementary elections,
which were held in the early days of June, he was elected in Paris by
seventy-seven thousand votes.

After the fatal days of June, he published an article on le terme, which
caused the first suspension of "Le Representant du Peuple." It was at
that time that he introduced a bill into the Assembly, which, being
referred to the Committee on the Finances, drew forth, first, the report
of M. Thiers, and then the speech which Proudhon delivered, on the
31st of July, in reply to this report. "Le Representant du Peuple,"
reappearing a few days later, he wrote, a propos of the law requiring
journals to give bonds, his famous article on "The Malthusians" (August
10, 1848).

Ten days afterwards, "Le Representant du Peuple," again suspended,
definitively ceased to appear. "Le Peuple," of which he was the
editor-in-chief, and the first number of which was issued in the early
part of September, appeared weekly at first, for want of sufficient
bonds; it afterwards appeared daily, with a double number once a week.
Before "Le Peuple" had obtained its first bond, Proudhon published a
remarkable pamphlet on the "Right to Labor,"--a right which he denied
in the form in which it was then affirmed. It was during the same
period that he proposed, at the Poissonniere banquet, his Toast to the
Revolution.

Proudhon, who had been asked to preside at the banquet, refused, and
proposed in his stead, first, Ledru-Rollin, and then, in view of the
reluctance of the organizers of the banquet, the illustrious president
of the party of the Mountain, Lamennais. It was evidently his intention
to induce the representatives of the Extreme Left to proclaim at last
with him the Democratic and Social Republic. Lamennais being accepted by
the organize