M. Legouvé and those who think like him concerning the emancipation of women, effeminate;
Béranger, a pitiable author, and effeminate; Jean Jacques, not only the prince of effeminates, but the greatest enemy of the people and the revolution—he who was evidently the chief author of our "French Revolution."
Are we not justified in asking you, whether you are for or against the Revolution?
M. Proudhon, you have forfeited your right to all consideration, since you have none for those who have neither offended you or offered you provocation, those who have never pretended to reduce you to servitude; men have lacked courage; they ought to have stopped you when you began to descend to insulting personalities; what they have not done, I, a woman, will do, fearing nothing, or no one, except my own conscience.
Proudhon, the greatest enemy of the people, is the writer who, treading under foot reason and conscience, science and facts, calls to his aid all the ignorance, all the despotism of the past, to mislead the spirit of the people with respect to the rights of half the human species.
Proudhon, the greatest enemy of the revolution, is he who shows it to women as a toy; who detaches them from its holy cause by confounding it with the negation of their rights; who attacks and vilifies the advocates of progress; who dares, in fine, in the name of the principles of general emancipation, to proclaim the social annihilation and the conjugal servitude of one entire half of humanity.
Behold the enemy of the people and of the revolution!
I had proceeded thus far in my reply when, pausing to take breath and to reflect, I grew calm.