'My ancestors on both sides were free peasants, exempt from feudal servitude from time immemorial'; there remained to Proudhon all his life a family pride as great as that of a Guerinantes; be was born of no proletarian or servile stock. Had not his maternal grandfather, the old soldier, withstood before the revolution die local tyrannical squire, and was not his mother 'noted for her virtues and for her republican ideas'? 'This is real nobility of race. I myself am a noble.' His father's family, the Proudhons, was noted for obstinacy; one branch had risen in the world, had entered the middle classes and produced an eminent lawyer, but the poorer connections were far from playing the role of poor relations; they had their share of the pride, that was to be so marked in their most famous kinsman. Proudhon's father was a cooper and, for a time, a brewer. He was, doubtless, an honest and industrious man, but unsuccessful in his business. Later, Proudhon attributed his father's financial d