| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 26 May 1873 |
ENGELS TO MARX
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] Monday, 26 May [1873]
Dear Moor,
Enclosed £10 in 2 bills: C76, 48 876 & 77, London, 6 February 1873.— I shall go round to your wife with the money this afternoon.
I did a stupid thing on Saturday.[1] Your wife was here and in something of a flurry I gave her your letter[2] —she stared at the closing passage for some time but said nothing. Nor could she in fact make anything very much from your belief that Mr Lissagaray will have pour le moment to make bonne mine à mauvais jeu.[3] If she asks me, I shall say that all I know is that you had expressed doubts as to whether one could simply rely on Lissagaray's sticking to his promise and that you had therefore already talked here about writing to Tussy in an attempt to influence her.
So Mr Thiers has been truly out-parliamented and shown to the door by MacMahon, the greatest jackass in France. The reaction really is a slippery slope down which one cannot stop oneself sliding, once one has embarked on it. If MacMahon is anything at all, then he is a Bonapartist, and it is delightful to see that, just as in 1848 when the two old monarchist parties were forced to place Louis Bonaparte at the head, so now they have to rally behind his governor. In my opinion, this makes the restoration of the Empire the only possible monarchist combination for the moment. The quarrels of the Orleanists and Legitimists will disgust MacMahon; the Rouhers, etc., will ensnare him and, when he is ripe for it, the point where they can instruct him how to lead the troops, etc., to a Bonapartist coup. Then everything will depend on the troops, and MacMahon, whatever else he may be, will certainly do everything in his power—and en connaissance de cause[4] —to train them to this end. En attendant,[5] Thiers is now becoming more popular than ever and Gambetta is receding into the background, so that when things start up once more, the line of people who will have, to make complete asses of themselves all over again will stretch all the way from Thiers to Félix Pyat.
The thing that particularly delights me is that MacMahon has once again proved to Thiers what extraordinary scoundrels precisely the military worthies happen to be.
Regards to Moore[6] and Schorlemmer.
Your
F. E.