Letter to Watteau, November 10, 1861

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 10 November 1861


First published in full in La Nouvelle revue socialiste. Politique. Culture, No. 20, Paris, 1976
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 41


MARX TO LOUIS WATTEAU[1]

IN BRUSSELS

[London,] 10 November 1861

Dear Citizen,

My reply to your last letters has been delayed for so long because I was waiting from day to day for news from a lady you know.[2] At last I have learned that she left for Italy some months ago but will shortly be returning to Berlin.

If the first letter for L.[3] has not arrived, I imagine that the fault must lie in the address; it was marked via Gibraltar instead of via Southampton. After I had been advised of this mistake, I corrected the address on the second letter. This I not only franked but also registered. I enclose the receipt from the English post office.

The 50 francs I am sending you comes from a German working men's club.c In my next letter I shall send you a further contribution. Please be so kind as to acknowledge receipt and send copies of your pamphlet[4] in return.

It would be useful if you were to write me a letter I could send to Berlin and which would establish the monetary resources needed for a <rescue attempt>.[5] I should return it to the appropriate quarter.

Rest assured that there is no one more interested than myself in the lot of a man[6] whom I have always regarded as the brains and inspiration of the proletarian party in France.

Salut.

K. M.

  1. ↑ This is the only letter of the Marx-Watteau correspondence on the Blanqui case to have been found (see Note 322). The French original is in the collection of the Blanqui papers at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris.
    The last paragraph of the letter was first published in Roger Garaudy's book, Les sources françaises du socialisme scientifique, Paris, 1948, p. 217. The letter was published in full, except for three obliterated words, in Vol. 30 of the Second Russian Edition of the Works of Marx and Engels in 1963 and in the language of the original in La Pensée, No. 125, Paris, 1966. The three obliterated words, since deciphered with the aid of modern technical facilities, read tentative de sauvetage and are evidence of Marx's involvement in the plans for rescuing Blanqui. The full text of the letter, including these three words, was published by Maurice Paz in La Nouvelle revue socialiste. Politique. Culture, No. 20, 1976.
    In a letter to Marx dated 22 January 1862 Blanqui thanked him for what he was doing in his behalf.
  2. ↑ Sophie von Hatzfeldt
  3. ↑ Cyrill Lacambre ' the German Workers' Educational Society in London
  4. ↑ Watteau's pamphlet failed to appear as no publisher had been found for it.
  5. ↑ The words in brackets are crossed out in the original.
  6. ↑ Auguste Blanqui