Letter to Karl Marx, February 12, 1851

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 12 February 1851


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38, pp. 286-288

TO MARX IN LONDON

[Manchester,] Wednesday [12 February 1851]

Dear Marx,

I have just found your letter at home and am at once writing by today's post to tell you that by the end of this or the beginning of next week at the latest, I shall somehow arrange to send you the £1.10s. for Landolphe so that this business, which must be protracted no longer, is settled once and for all.[1] Notre ami[2] Landolphe has once again shown what an old woman he is, while the fatuous vanity of the hyperclever L. Blanc is taking such a turn as to brand the sublime dwarf a fool pure and simple. C'est bien.[3] One comes to realise more and more that emigration is an institution which inevitably turns a man into a fool, an ass and a base rascal unless he withdraws wholly therefrom, and unless he is content to be an independent writer who doesn't give a tinker's curse for the so-called revolutionary party. It is a real SCHOOL OF SCANDAL AND MEANNESS in which the hindmost donkey becomes the foremost saviour of his country. At any rate the little popularity-monger will atone for it once we have a press organ again. As you know, I have none of my papers with me here, so I'd like you to suggest a few more sources on French affairs between 1830 and 1848 which you may happen to know about, and I shall endeavour to shovel coals of fire, at least in a literary sense, under the worthy pretender's backside. At all events, in my articles in The Friend of the People, I shall call on him to publish—provided you have no objection, since it was you to whom he told the story—the information given him by Mr Mazzini concerning the character of the European Central Committee and its attitude towards socialists and communists, and shall make such allusions as are necessary for this to be understood. Pourquoi nous gênerions-nous?[4]

Today Harney will be getting 3 articles by way of introduction, pretty lengthy, a gentle hint dropped here and there. The awkward part of it is that it's difficult to attack Ledru & Co., without at least partially identifying oneself with the Willich-Barthélemy clique in the eyes of the English proletariat and Harney's readers. Ultimately the only way out will be to devote a few special articles to that clique. Not, however, in the first 3 articles, which have been written for Harney's benefit, TO PUT HIM IN THE RIGHT TRACK, rather than for any other purpose. But in numbers 4-9 Ledru, Mazzini, Ruge, etc., etc., will be attacked in rapid succession and in as direct and personal a manner as possible.

The Willich affair is impayable.[5] Only do make sure that you get hold of the letters.[6] I'd like to witness the moral indignation when the bomb goes off. It would seem that for some time past you've again had good spies in Great Windmill Street[7] ; cela ne fait pas de mal[8] and at least provides some entertainment. I confess I could never have thought the fellow so stupid. He will, incidentally, be well and truly on fire now that the Prussian ministerial press is holding out the prospect of war with Switzerland and the reserve guardsmen—as they were informed on parade—are being kept under arms for that very reason.[9] The governments of the Holy Alliance[10] are playing into the hands of these fantastic idiots in a truly irresponsible way and, were it not for Palmerston, the next 'emancipation of general stupidity' might well see the light of day six months prematurely.

Your latest economic discovery is at present being subjected to my most earnest scrutiny. I have no time today to go into it further, but the thing seems to me to be absolutely right. But figures are not to be trifled with and I am therefore considering the matter in detail.

Quelle bête que ce Louis-Napoléon![11] He sells his doubts about the electoral law to the assembly, and himself to Montalembert, for 1,800,000 fr. which in the end he does not get after all.[12] There's nothing you can do with an adventurer of this stamp. If, for the space of four weeks, he allows himself to be guided by ingenious intriguers, you may be quite sure that, come the fifth, he will in the most fatuous fashion bring to nought all that has been accomplished. Aut Caesar aut Clichy![13]

Not long ago we inaugurated a new CHARTIST LOCALITY here. These English are far less conscientious than we honest, timid Germans in the matter of democratic forms. There were thirteen of us, and it was immediately resolved to elect a COUNCIL of thirteen members, namely those present. Thereupon each man proposed one of those present and, in place of myself, since I, of course, refused, one who was absent and, in less than five minutes, these PRIVATE GENTLEMEN had turned themselves into a COUNCIL, and yet each one of them had been elected, and this comical PROCEEDING PASSED OFF VERY SERIOUSLY AND AS A MATTER OF COURSE. What will come of this business I shall see ere long. For today, prosit.[14]

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 284.
  2. ↑ Our friend
  3. ↑ Well and good.
  4. ↑ Why should we make any bones about it?
  5. ↑ priceless
  6. ↑ See this volume, p. 284.
  7. ↑ The London German Workers' Educational Society (see Note 52) had its premises in Great Windmill Street.
  8. ↑ that does no harm
  9. ↑ A reference to a conflict between Prussia and Switzerland over the principality of Neuchâtel and Valangin which prior to 1848 was under Prussian rule, but which since 1815 had been incorporated into the Swiss Confederation as a canton. In February 1848 a bourgeois revolution broke out in Neuchâtel and a republic was proclaimed. However only in 1857 under pressure from France did Prussia give up its claims to Neuchâtel and Valangin.
  10. ↑ Marx mentions the Holy Alliance in connection with the attempts of feudal-monarchical circles in Prussia, Austria and tsarist Russia to form a coalition similar to the counter-revolutionary Holy Alliance founded in 1815 by the European monarchs, and which ceased to exist after the 1830 revolution in France.
  11. ↑ What an idiot Louis Napoleon is!
  12. ↑ An allusion to Montalembert, a representative of the monarchist coalition (the Party of Order), who in February 1851 supported in the Legislative Assembly the motion to grant Louis Napoleon a supplementary provision of 1,800,000 francs. The majority of the Party of Order voted against (see also Note 364).
  13. ↑ Either Caesar or Clichy (Clichy—a debt prison in Paris): paraphrase of 'Aut Caesar aut nihil' (either Caesar or nothing), a motto of the fifteenth-century Italian politician, Cesare Borgia.
  14. ↑ your health