Letter to Friedrich Engels, October 25, 1854

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 26 October 1854


First published abridged in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Literature and Art. Selections from Their Writings, N. Y., 1947, p. 134
Published in English for the first time in full in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 39


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 26 October 1854 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Frederic,

While studying the Spanish muck I have got to the bottom of the worthy Chateaubriand—a style-specialist who combines in the most repellent manner the refined scepticism and Voltairianism of the eighteenth century with the refined sentimentalism and romanticism of the nineteenth. Stylistically', of course, such a combination was bound to be epoch-making in France, though even the style has an element of spuriousness which, for all his clever tricks, frequently leaps to the eye. As for the political man, he has exposed himself utterly in his Congrès de Vérone'?[2] and the only question is whether he received 'cash' from Alexander Pavlovich[3] or whether he was bought simply by FLATTERY to which the conceited fop was more susceptible than anyone else. AT ALL INSTANCES he received the Order of St Andrew[4] from Petersburg. Everything about M. le 'Vicomte's' (?) vanitas', notwithstanding his now Mephistophelian, now Christian coquetting with vanitatum vanitas'.[5] You will remember that, at the time of the Congress, Villèle was Louis XVII I's Prime Minister and Chateaubriand French envoy in Verona. His Congrès de Vérone', which you may at some time have read, contains documents, transactions, etc. Begins with a short history of the Span, revolution of 1820-23. As for this 'history', all I need tell you is that he transfers Madrid to the banks of the Tagus (merely so as to quote the Span, saying that this river cria oro[6] ) and tells us that Riego led 10','000 men ('realiter[7]

only 5,000) into the field against the 13,000 under General Freire; that Riego, having been beaten, withdrew with 15','000 men. In order to compare him with the hero of La Mancha,[8] he sends him to the Sierra Morena instead of the Sierra de Ronda. This I mention en passant as characteristic of his manner. Hardly a date that is right.

The best part of the joke, though, is Mr Chateaubriand's doings

  1. ↑ This letter was published in English for the first time abridged in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Literature and Art. Selections from Their Writings, N. Y., 1947, p. 134
  2. ↑ British troops under Wellington fought Napoleonic France during the Peninsular War, 1808-14
  3. ↑ Alexander I
  4. ↑ The Order of St Andrew, the highest order in the Russian Empire, was introduced by Peter the Great in 1698
  5. ↑ Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas—vanity of vanities, Ecclesiastes 1:2.
  6. ↑ breeds gold
  7. ↑ in reality
  8. ↑ Don Quixote