Letter to Karl Marx, March 19, 1851

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 19 March 1851


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38


TO MARX IN LONDON

[Manchester,] Wednesday, 19 March 1851

Dear Marx,

The business of Blanqui's toast is coming on very nicely indeed. Vidil's statement[1] with regard to Louis Blanc is priceless—the fellow branded a common liar in the eyes of France and England. Barthélémy has got himself wonderfully embroiled.—There's part of your letter I don't understand: Vidil declares: 'The committee had consisted of 13 persons, not 6.... He had been among the 6.' Who are the 6? The signatories of the first statement or, perhaps, the faction which voted in favour of reading out Blanqui's toast?[2]

The tittle-tattle among the Germans also makes agreeable reading. I saw the account of the banquet in the Daily News[3] —since the thing was respectable it was an occasion which even Mr Mazzini felt able to attend without embarrassment. 'General Haug IN THE CHAIR!' That fellow shows promise of becoming a caricature of General Dubourg as he was in 1830. To judge by the advertisement in The Times, Göhringer's Golden Star TAVERN is now very RESPECTABLE. Since I must collect together all the tittle-tattle, it might not be a bad idea to send out a patrol to reconnoitre there—il s'en trouvera bien un qui voudra mettre son nez dans cette merde-là, même au risque d'être mis à la porte.[4]

LAST—BUT NOT LEAST—the Willichiana[5] did a great deal to enliven my breakfast this morning. What a numskull! How he could regard Schramm's[6] letter as an answer to his first one, I really cannot conceive. But the chance of a military dictatorship in the Rhine province, without a press to plague him, sapristi,[7] that would be quite enough to turn the dense oaf's head. Capitaine d'armes[8] and sergeant, no more nor less! Social revolution by means of providing paupers' victuals for Landwehr[9] families; statistics reduced to a register of 'rations, livestock, vehicles, and troops'! This plan for revolution knocks into a cocked hat the earlier one for conquering Germany with 5,000 men. If that doesn't make sense to the Landwehr, one can only despair of humankind. 'I would take a few men with me and call upon others'—and do you know what the fellow's intention was? 'Citizen Karl Marx is called upon to present himself in Cologne within 48 hours and to take charge of public finance and social reforms under the supervision and control of Citizen Gebert. Failure to comply with this order and any contrariness or argument, as also unseemly jokes, will be punishable with death. Citizen Marx will be provided with a guard of one corporal and six men.'—And now, hearken to what this fellow says of Schapper: 'Nous ne voulons plus de jouisseurs!'[10] So even the spartan POT HALF AND HALF and the fat pig's unresisting inamorata count for sybaritism with this self-sufficient sergeant who tipples gratis. Indeed, who knows whether, if Cologne were to be besieged, the fat pig would not imitate the conduct of the noble Palafox at Saragossa who, throughout the whole of the second (the real) siege of Saragossa,[11] never put in an appearance because, together with 3-4 dissolute fellows and a crowd of whores, he was busying himself among the wine barrels in the bomb-proof cellar of a convent, and didn't show his nose until the time came to conclude the capitulation.

But to what is Willich replying in the third, jubilant letter which betrays a certainty of victory and a lack of nothing but funds? Had Schramm written him a second one, or had Becker replied to Willich's 2nd letter? Explique-moi cela[12] and let me know whether you need the things back yet; I'd like to keep them here for the present so that I can occasionally make what notes I want.

Speculation in railways is again reaching dazzling heights—since 1 January most shares have risen by 40 per cent, and the worst ones more than any. Ça promet![13]

Your

F. Engels

  1. ↑ La Patrie, No. 69, 10 March 1851.
  2. ↑ Vidil was one of the six members of the organising committee of the banquet held on 24 February 1851 who voted for Blanqui's toast to be read out. Seven committee members voted against. Yet the statement in La Patrie, No. 67 of 7 March, denying reception of Blanqui's toast, was also signed by six committee members, including Vidil. Marx drew attention to this in his letter to Engels of 22 March 1851 (see this volume, p. 321). Later Marx and Engels described in detail in The Great Men of the Exile how the attempts to keep Blanqui's toast secret had been exposed. They also included in the pamphlet a passage from La Patrie, No. 71 of 12 March 1851 (see present edition. Vol. 11, p. 296) which Marx quoted in his letter of 17 March.
  3. ↑ The banquet held on 13 March 1851 to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution in Vienna on 13 March 1848 (The Daily News, 14 March 1851).
  4. ↑ there's sure to be someone prepared to nose about in that muck, even at the risk of being thrown out
  5. ↑ i.e. Willich's letters to Hermann Becker, see this volume, p. 314.
  6. ↑ Conrad Schramm
  7. ↑ great heavens
  8. ↑ Master-at-arms
  9. ↑ Landwehr (the army reserve) in Prussia was formed at the time of the struggle against Napoleonic rule. In the 1840s it was made up of persons up to forty years of age who had served three years in the army and been on the reserve list for at least two years. As distinct from the regular troops, the army reserve was mobilised only in special emergencies (war or threat of war). In the autumn of 1850, in connection with the aggravation of the Austro-Prussian conflict, the Prussian Government mobilised the army reserve.
  10. ↑ We will no longer tolerate sybarites.
  11. ↑ During the liberation war of the Spanish people against Napoleonic rule the French twice laid siege to Saragossa: from 15 June to 14 August 1808 and from 20 December 1808 to 20 February 1809. The city withstood the first siege but fell after resisting the second heroically for two months. Engels' remark about the second siege of Saragossa is his own interpretation of an episode described by W.F.P. Napier in his History of the War in the Peninsula..., Vol. II, London, 1832, p. 51.
  12. ↑ Explain that to me
  13. ↑ That's promising!