Letter to Friedrich Engels, December 9, 1851

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 9 December 1851


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. I, Stuttgart, 1913
This letter was published in English in part for the first time in: Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38

To Engels in Manchester

[London,] 9 December 1851

28 Dean Street, Soho

DEAR Frederic,

I have kept you waiting for an answer, QUITE BEWILDERED by the tragi-comic sequence of events in Paris. Unlike Willich, I couldn't say: 'Strange, we've had no advice from Paris!' Nor, like Schapper, declare myself and my pot of beer a permanent fixture at Scharttner's. To save the fatherland, Schapper and a few of his satellites slept two nights at Scharttner's on the pretext of holding a vigil. These gentlemen, like Löwe of Calbe and his like, had packed their malles[1] but, discretion being the better part of valour,[2] decided not to move there until the issue had been 'decided'.

Have you read Louis Blanc's Miserere[3] ? The other day Bernard le Clubiste protested that he had not been a co-signatory of this jeremiad.

Enclosed a letter from Reinhardt from Paris and the 'drunken gossip' I spoke to you about when I was in Manchester.[4]

Pieper is here again, highly delighted with himself. He is leaving the Rothschilds but continuing to give German lessons there; Madame has given him notice as resident private tutor. Since writing to me last he has done nothing, seen nothing and heard nothing in connection with my Proudhon business.[5] It seems to me that he has treated the translation as his own work, ce qui n'est pas.[6] Maintenant,[7] what can I tell you about the situation? This much is clear, the proletariat has spared its strength. For the time being Bonaparte is victorious because, overnight, he transformed the open ballot into a secret one. With the million £ sterling purloined, despite all d'Argout's posthumous protestations, from the bank, he has bought the army. Will his coup again succeed if the vote goes against him? Will the majority vote at all? The Orleans have left for France. It is difficult, indeed impossible, to make any prognostication in a drama with Krapülinski[8] for its hero. At all events it seems to me that the situation has improved rather than deteriorated as a result of the coup d'état. It is easier to deal with Bonaparte than it would have been with the National Assembly and its generals. And the dictatorship of the National Assembly was imminent.

Capital, the disappointment of Techow & Co., who, without more ado, saw in the French army les apôtres de la trinité démocratique, de la liberté, de l'égalité, de la fraternité. Les pauvres hommes![9] And Messrs Mazzini and Ledru can also now sleep easy. The catastrophe was the DOWNFALL of the emigres. It has been shown that they are pour rien[10] in the revolution. For these gentlemen had resolved to suspend world history until Kossuth's return. Apropos, the penny subscription for the latter in London yielded exactly 100d., pronounced pence.

Salut.

Your

K. M.


Apropos, didn't I send you a letter from Pieper to me, written in French? If so, let me have it back by return.

  1. ↑ trunks
  2. ↑ Cf. Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part One, Act 5, Scene 4.
  3. ↑ Address of the French Exiles to Their Countrymen, by Bernard le Clubiste, Louis Blanc and others, The Daily News, 5 December 1851.
  4. ↑ See this volume, p. 492.
  5. ↑ The planned publication of The Poverty of Philosophy in German
  6. ↑ which is not so
  7. ↑ Now
  8. ↑ a character in Heine's 'Zwei Ritter', here Louis Bonaparte
  9. ↑ the apostles of the democratic trinity, of liberty, equality, fraternity. The poor chaps!
  10. ↑ of no account