452 



1'KOIT 



PROVENCAL 



be paid a visit to Paris ; anil subsequently contrib- 

 uted to the Knritrli*<li< t'lilliuliijiif of Si. I'arent 

 Desbarres the articles ' A postasie,' ' Apocaly \>->:' and 

 others. In 1840 he issued the work entitle*) (Juat- 

 etque la I'rofirittt f { ' Wliitt is Property?') which 

 afterwards became s<i famou-. The nature of the 

 dot-nine announced in it is sullicicntly indicated in 

 its bold paradox, won to be widely popularised 

 La l'r<i[iritte c'rsl If I'ul t'PlOfttty is Theft'). 

 Notwithstanding hia attack on property, which 

 gave great offence to hU patrons, Proiulhon held 

 his |>cnsioii for the regular time. In 1842 he 

 wan t lied for his revolutionary opinions, but was 

 acquitted. In 1846 he published his greatest 

 work, the Systeme de* Contradictions Erunoiniyuc*. 

 Dining tlu revolution of 1844 Pioudhon attained 

 to great notoriety. He waa elected memlier of 

 Afinlilv for the Seine department, but he could 

 not then- gain a hearing for his extreme and para- 

 doxical opinions. He found more adequate scope 

 for hi- energy in the press, publishing several 

 newspapers, in which the most advanced theories 

 wen- advocated in the moat violent language. He 

 attempted aUo to establish a bank which should 

 pave the way for a socialist transformation, by 

 granting gratuitous credit, but failed utterly. The 

 violence of his utterances at last resulted in a 

 sentence of three years' imprisonment, anil in March 

 1849 he fled to Geneva, but returned to Paris in the 

 following .In MC, and surrendered at the prison of 

 Saitile 1'elagie. 



While shut up there he married a young working- 

 woman. During his imprisonment he gave to the 

 world the works entitled Confessions d'mi Hfi-iJa- 

 tionnaire (1849), Actrx de la Involution (1849), 

 Urotiiitf tin Credit (1850), and La Revolution 

 Sociale demontrte jtar It Coup d'Etat (1852); the 

 last of which is remarkable, in the light of sub- 

 sequent events, for the clearness with which it 

 states the alternative of 1'iuinrchie OH le Crsarisme, 

 as pressed on Louis Napoleon, then president. In 

 June 1S.V2 he was set at liberty, but in 1858 was 

 again condemned to three years' imprisonment, 

 and retired to lielgiiim, where lie continued to 

 pulilish from time to time on his favourite subject* 

 of speculation. Amnestied in I860, he died in 

 obscurity near Paris, January 19, 1865. 



The theories of Proudhon cannot be presented in 

 a clear or s\ Menial ic form ; wo can only give some 

 account of the most important of them. He held 

 that pro|>erty was thefi, inasmuch us it appropri- 

 ates the value produced l>y the lulioiir of others in 

 the form of rent, interest, or profit without, render- 

 ing an equivalent. He maiiitaineil that one service 

 can lie duly repaid only by rendering another, 

 wherea.- the owner of land and capital abuse- his 

 position by exacting all manner of service without 

 giving an equivalent. His famous paradox respect- 

 ing iiiitii-rlii/, which he regarded lus the culmination 

 of social progress, was simply an exaggerated and 

 premature assertion of tin; great principle that the 

 fully developed man should IK- a law lo himself 

 that is, the moral progress of man should make 

 government ami external law unnecessary. In the 

 perfect society order would lie secured and main 

 taincd in the aWnce of government through the 

 reasonable self control of the free individual. Laws, 

 [Milice, the whole machinery of government as now 

 established are the marks of an imperfectly de 

 vclo|'d society. Personally Proudhon appears as 

 an original and not unattractive character in the 

 monograph of Sainte -IJeuve, which unfortunately 

 was not 'inished. His complete works fill 3.'l vols. 

 (Paris, 1868-76): his correspondence, II vols. ( 1874). 



Bee Sainte-Benve. Proudhon, ta Vie el Correipondance 

 (1872);A. DMJMUBI, /'"re, J.,,,,.l, I'nnulAun (l.SiNi); 



the articles ANABCH ISM, Soci ALISM, and worlu there cited. 

 Prout, FATIIKH. See M.uioxv. 



I'roilt. SAMI KI., painter in water-coloui-s, wa 

 born at Plymouth, 17th Sepu-mlier 1783. He 

 -tinlied from nature, and sketched with llaydon 

 through Devon and Cornwall, his drawings in the 

 latter county being made for liritton's Beautiet of 

 England and It'ri/ai. In 18(15 he removed to 

 London, in 1815 was elected to the \Vatcr colour 

 Society, and in 1818 went to lioiien by ll.ivi. 

 The picturesque street-architecture ami line Gothic 

 remains there made so strong an impression on 

 his mind that afterwards his principal works were 

 those in which architecture had a prominent 

 place ; ami from time to time, in his aft/er-cni 

 lie made excursions, ransacking every comer 

 of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy 

 for picturesque architectural remains. Prout s 

 name should be dear to all artists and amateurs, 

 for there are few who have not been incited or 

 instructed by his numerous elementary drawing- 

 lnoks, in the slightest of which talent and feeling 

 for art are conspicuous. His water-colour drawings 

 are characterised by decision in handling, great 

 l.ie.nltli. and clear and pleasing colouring. He 

 died February 9, 1852. 



See Ruskin's Memoir of Front in Art Journal ( 1862) ; 

 and hia Koto on tlte Loan Collection of Dnunnyt by Prout 

 and Wm. Hunt ( 1879 80). 



l'ni><-ii<-;il Language and Literature. 



The Provencal language is one of the six prin 

 cipal branches of Latin speech, usually classified 

 I iy philologists under the title Romance lan- 

 guages. The name Provencal, which appears to 

 be derived from the Provineia Romana or Civsar, 

 was not used in the earlier middle ages except 

 in the restricted sense of the language or dialect 

 of Provence proper. The troubadours themselves 

 used the term lengua romana (or lo ruinous). 

 The term /aiigne d'oc was also known in the 

 middle ages, but was afterwards transferred to 

 designate a province of France. The Pro- 

 vencal and other Neo-Latin idioms existed as 

 dialects of the Latin previous to the Germanic 

 invasions, having replaced the ancient languages 

 of Haul. Although tile Provencal and the northern 

 French had original! v sprung from the same 

 stock, they hail gradually grown distinct from 

 one another, until at the time of the troubadours 

 they differed almost as widely as French and Italian. 

 The Provencal language at the time of the trouba- 

 dours extruded far licNond the lioundaries of Pro- 

 vence proper. It extended over the area from 

 the Alps to the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean 

 to the Loire. IJeyond France it was known in 

 the cast of Spain in Catalonia and Aragon, and in 

 the Balearic Isles also in Savoy, Piedmont, ami 

 part of Switzerland. 



The pure Provencal idiom, in which the poets of 

 the 12th century sang, was used by the higher 

 classes over the whole of the district referred to, 

 but the bulk of the people knew only their own 

 dialects vi/. the 1 'rovencal ( proper), Piedinontese. 

 Gascon, and Catalan, all of which differed but 

 slightly from one another. At the end of the 13th 

 century, consequent U|MUI the establishment of the 

 French domination in the south and the introduction 

 of the northern French language, the literary Pro- 

 vencal iM'gan rapidly to disappear, while the vulgar 

 dialects still remained ; and it was in them that the 

 compositions of the later middle ages were written. 

 The Provencal language was more highly inflected 

 than any of the other Neo-Latin languages, and was 

 the earliest of these to be fixed grammatically. It 

 was highly adapted for lyric poetry, owing to its 

 melodiousness ami its rhyming facilities. The 

 grammarian Vidal referring to it says: ' La parla- 

 liira francesca val mais el es plus avineiis a far 

 Ionian/ et pasturellas, mas cella de Lemosin val 

 mais per far vers et cansons et sirventes ' (The 



