Letter to Ludwig and Gertrud Kugelmann, May 8, 1870

Author(s) Jenny Marx Longuet
Written 8 May 1870


First published in Movimento Operaio, No. 2, Milan, 1955. Reproduced from the original. Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43

J E N N Y MARX (DAUGHTER) TO LUDWIG AND GERTRUD KUGELMANN

IN HANOVER

[London,] 8 May 1870

Many many thanks my dear Mr and Mrs Kugelmann for the beautiful presents you have sent me. I don't know which delight me more—the engravings or the songs—my eyes and ears are equally busy. The studs have given Moor great pleasure, and indeed the flowers are most artistically worked. He is also delighted with the tapestry of Leibniz and has already given it a place in his study, where we have stuck it on the wall over the mantel-piece.[1] Unfortunately the blue paper of the tapestry has injured the beautiful engraving representing the death of Caesar, having covered it with blue colour. Altogether the engravings have been damaged by the way in which they were packed,— Kaulbach's history is partly torn. However we hope, the picture-framer will be able to patch it up again. The box only reached its destination yesterday afternoon (Saturday)[2] —so it must have been a very long time travelling.

I also have to thank you—last though not least—for your kind letters and good wishes for my birthday.[3] I was sorry to hear that you, dear 'doctor', are again unwell, and trust soon to have a better account. Moor also is far from well, having caught a very severe cold. All the other inmates of Modena Villa, four cats and dog included, are well, but in a great hubbub, in which they have been ever since last Sunday, when the news came from Paris that a plot against Bonaparte's life had been discovered. Of course you have seen from the German papers that the imbecile French government attempted at first to implicate the International in this affair, and that a great number of its members, forming the Paris and Lyons branches of the International, have been arrested.[4]

The flunkeys of the English and French press of course availed themselves of this opportunity to make furious onslaughts on the International and to call upon their respective governments to suppress that odious Association as the root of all evils. For all that, the French government has however been obliged to declare that the International has nothing to do with the plot, and that its members are solely being prosecuted for the crime of belonging to an 'illicit society'. Moor has written a declaration, unanimously adopted by the General Council, in which he repudiates any complicity of the International in the affair.[5]

According to the French government, M. Gustave Flourens is deeply implicated in the plot, and as that gentleman is in England, the French government has been secretly asking the English government to deliver him up; but Mr Gladstone, who is well aware that the doing so would cost him his premiership, (as it did Palmerston in the case of Simon Bernardb), declares that the ministry can do nothing in the matter without further proofs of M. Flourens' culpability. But in reality there are no proofs against M. Flourens in the hands of the French government, for granted it be proved that he sent money to Paris for the purpose of arming the people with bombs in case an insurrection should break out, that does not imply that he had anything to do with the intended assassination of the Emperor. Last Sunday (my birthday) when the news of the discovered complot reached us M. Flourens was at our home—so you can imagine that my birthday was anything but a tranquil or a gay one. We did not know at the time but what M. Flourens might not be at once arrested. He is the son of the celebrated naturalist of that name and has himself written a book on Ethnography[6] and delivered lectures at the Collège de France. He is a most extraordinary mixture of a savant and an homme d'action.[7]

The good result of the plot is that it has forced the man of December6 [8] to throw off his liberal mask and to show himself in his true colours. A system of blanche terreur[9] prevails at Paris. Yesterday all the opposition papers were confiscated, the people are being goaded to a state of desperation. There is no knowing what will happen to-day.

I continue to write to the Marseillaise, several of my letters have been quoted in The Irishman, the national paper of Ireland.[10] At present I am waiting for news from Ireland concerning the treatment of the political prisoners. If I do not soon receive an answer I shall begin to think that the letter I have written to the wives of the prisoners has been intercepted by the British Government. Unluckily I signed my real name!

Post-time. Kiss dear Fränzchen[11] for me, my good Trautchen,[12] and with ever so many thanks for your kindness

Believe me

Affectionately yours

Jenny

Mama and Tussy send their kindest regards—I forgot to tell you that Dr Gunz called upon us three times. He sent us tickets for several operas.

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 512.
  2. ↑ 7 May
  3. ↑ 1 May
  4. ↑ In view of the preparations for the plebiscite to be held in France (see Note 612), commencing in late April 1870, arrests of socialists began through out the country. They were charged with belonging to the International Working Men's Association, as well as with 'complicity' in the plot against Napoleon III (the so-called Blois trial), which was in fact staged by the Prefect of the Paris Police Pietri. On 5 May 1870, the Journal officiel made public the verdict of guilty passed by the Procurator General Grandperret, who charged a number of persons, including Flourens, with complicity in the fictitious plot. On the same day, La Gaulois alleged that Flourens, who was at that time in England, had been persecuted by the British police and thus forced to go into hiding.
  5. ↑ K. Marx, Concerning the Persecution of the Members of the French Sections. Declaration of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association. See this volume, p. 505.
  6. ↑ G. Flourens, Histoire de l'homme. Cours d'histoire naturelle des corps organisés au Collège de France.
  7. ↑ a scholar and a man of action
  8. ↑ Napoleon III
  9. ↑ white terror
  10. ↑ The Irishman, No. 40, 2 April 1870 published excerpts from Jenny Marx's second article on the Irish question. The sixth article, 'Agrarian Outrages in Ireland', was published in full in The Irishman, No. 45, 7 May 1870. On Jenny Marx's articles on the Irish question, see Note 562.
  11. ↑ Franziska Kugelmann
  12. ↑ Gertrud Kugelmann