im three more years' imprisonment again, which he
only escaped by a rapid flight to Belgium, and in the general amnesty
of the year 1859 he was specially excepted from its conditions. When
the Emperor in 1861, as a special favour, granted him permission to
return home before the proper time, Proudhon proudly refused this
favour, much as he wished to be in Paris, and only returned there at
the expiration of the three years' period, at the end of 1863. These,
at least, are no proofs that the author of _What is Property?_ allowed
himself to be brought over by the man on the 2d December. But Proudhon
was not to breathe the air of his native land much longer. Broken by
the troubles of persecution, he died, after a long illness, on the
19th June, 1865, in the arms of his wife, who, like himself, belonged
to the working classes, and with whom he had led a life full of
harmony and love.

CHAPTER III

MAX STIRNER AND THE GERMAN FOLLOWERS OF PROUDHON

Germany in 1830-40 and France -- Stirner and Proudhon --
Biography of Stirner -- _The Individual and his Property_
(_Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum_) -- The Union of Egoists --
The Philosophic Contradiction of the _Einziger_ -- Stirner's
Practical Error -- Julius Faucher -- Moses Hess -- Karl Gruen
-- Wilhelm Marr.

In the first half of the forties, almost about the same time, but
completely independent one from another, there appeared, on each side
of the Rhine, two men who preached a new revolution in a manner
totally different from the ordinary revolutionist, and one from which
at that time even the most courageous hearts and firmest minds shrank
back. Both were followers of the "royal Prussian Court philosopher"
Hegel, and yet took an entirely different direction one from the
other: but both met again at the end of their journey in their
unanimous renunciation of all political and economic doctrines
hitherto held; in their thorough opposition to every existing and
imagined organisation of society upon whatever compulsion of right it
might be founded; and in their desire for free organisation upon the
simple foundation of rules made by convention or agreement--in their
common desire for Anarchy.

The contemporaneous appearance of Proudhon and Stirner is of as much
importance as their, in many ways, fundamental difference. The first
circumstance shows their appearance was symptomatic, and raises it
above