no heart for the
affair. 'After you, gentlemen,' they appear to say to the Democrats.
But after the democracy there will not remain much for a dynasty to
pick up, or the economic equilibrium would be false. _Non datur regnum
aut imperium in oeconomiae._"

This certainly reasonable and moderate point of view, which proceeds
from the perception that in an organic society the caprice of one
individual cannot possibly stop or disturb the course of the social
function, and that king or emperor accordingly could at most be a
symbol, is also at the bottom of the book on social revolution. In the
_coup d'etat_ of the 2d of December, Proudhon only saw a stage of the
great social revolution, the manifestation of the will of the people,
striving in the direction of social equalisation; although perhaps
mistakenly, and challenged Louis Napoleon, whose _coup d'etat_ he had
prophesied, condemned, and sought to prevent, to show himself worthy
of public opinion, and to use the mandate given him by destiny and by
the French people in the sense that it was entrusted to him.[6]
Proudhon probably did not believe, when he was writing the _Sociale
Revolution_, by any means too much in the willingness of Napoleon to
take upon himself such a mission as he assigned to him. The language
of the book is in any case very reserved, and there is no trace of the
apotheosis of the author of the _coup d'etat_.

[6] It must not be forgotten that the people expected in
Louis Napoleon "the social emperor," and that he had in
earlier times played upon this expectation. Compare his work
on _The Abolition of Pauperism_, German translation by R. V.
Richard. Leipsic, 1857. Volume ii.

Nevertheless some have wished to represent this as Proudhon's
intention; his early release from the prison in which the little book
was written as the immediate effect, and as being the thanks of the
Emperor, thus representing Proudhon as a mercenary time-server. But
this is not in accordance with the facts. Proudhon remained in his
imprisonment almost till the very last day of his sentence, and the
attitude of the authorities towards his writings afterwards does not
seem to show that any relationship, even a secret one, existed between
Proudhon and Napoleon. Proudhon might write what he liked, it was
confiscated; in vain he applied for permission to be allowed to issue
his paper, _Justice_; a book which no longer showed the violence of
his youth brought h