Letter to Laura Lafargue, February 3, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 3 February 1892


First published, in the language of the original (English), in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. III, Paris, 1959
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

London, 3 February 1892

My dear Laura,

Can you get me from the Intransigeant the London address of Roche- fort? Wrôblewski all of a sudden sends me a letter for that distin- guished foreigner and supposes I know his address, but I will be hanged if I know anybody who can procure it me here — everybo- dy advises me to write to Paris as the shortest and safest way to get it — so I suppose I must follow their advice and submit the case to you, especially as I have a slight suspicion that the poor devil of Wrôb- lewski applies to Rochefort for cash, and would not have it said for the world that I was the cause of delaying even for one hour the — undoubt- edly negative — answer he is sure (if any) to get from le grand boulevardier.

Here we have suffered from influenza right and left— I have been spared so far, but Louise and my servant have had a touch. Percy has had a pretty severe attack followed by pneumonia and is not yet on his legs again, Bernstein has been down, and E. Aveling is not quite himself. Our street and neighbourhood has suffered severely, cases right and left.

The latest scandal: all over London goes the rumour that the Duke of Clarence on his death had called his mother[1] and told her that 'May'[2] was in the family way by him. If true it is the only action for which I respect the boy. They say he was after her for a good time past, but the old queen[3] did not approve of the match at first. And if they did take the law into their own hands, it's more than I should have expected from 'Cuffs and Collars' and show that after all he was good for something.

Paul's migrations are very interesting,[4] but won't he soon get tired of it? It's very useful and very good work, but if he carries it on till May 1st, he will lose a deal of weight and come back, may be, to his parliamentary duties with the 'lean and hungry look', which, as a Cassius,[5] might become him in the eyes of the épicier[6] At all events he has silenced the Brousses and other NeidkämmeI[7] who came down upon him for a slip of the tongue or two in his first speech.[8]

The statistics about Notre Dame de la fabrique etc. are the best reply.

My article[9] from the Almanack has come out in Italian in the Cri- tica Sociale di Milano and will appear in German in the Neue %eit next No. with additions. Bebel has sent me some Alsatian papers with re- ports of his speech in Mülhausen,[10] one in French, I want to send it to you if I can find it (Louise says she forwarded it to you),[11] to show you what horrid French these 'patriots' of the Industriel Alsacien do per- petrate.

An awful row will be caused by the publication of the order of Prince George of Saxony to the 12th German (Saxon) Army Corps in yesterday's Vorwärts.[12] That shows how far our connexions in the army reach, and William[13] will be awfully vexed. It is sure to cause a deal of sensation in France, and if you can forward me Paris papers with comments on it, to be forwarded to Bebel and to be used in the Reichstag, it will be very very useful.

In great haste — kind regards from Louise and

ever yours,

F. E.

  1. ↑ Princess Alexandra
  2. ↑ Princess Victoria Mary von Teck
  3. ↑ Victoria
  4. ↑ Between December 1891 and early February 1892 Paul Lafargue made several canvassing tours in France, addressing rallies and workers' meetings in Lille, Lyons, Boulogne, Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse and other cities. As he told Engels in his letter of 26 December, these tours were, above all, part of the campaign for the municipal elections due on 1 May 1892. Referring to the tours in a letter to Engels on 28 December, Laura Lafargue jok ingly called her husband the wandering Jew. Engels, in his reply, alludes to La- fargue's black origin.
  5. ↑ An allusion to a passage in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2: 'Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dan gerous!'
  6. ↑ grocer
  7. ↑ grudger
  8. ↑ On 17 December 1891 Paul Lafargue, on behalf of the French Workers' Party, submitted to the Chamber of Deputies a bill on the separation of the Church from the State, which was, by and large, based on the decree of the Paris Commune of 2 April 1871. It envisaged the cancellation of the cults budget, the confiscation of Church property, with the means thus obtained to be used for popular education and social security, and a ban on the building of churches and the involvement of workers in religious societies. The bill was published in Le Socialiste, No. 66, 26 December 1891. Lafargue's maiden speech in the Chamber of Deputies (8 December 1891) was a substantiation of his bill on a full amnesty for persons charged with political of fences. The speech was repeatedly interrupted by noise and heckling from bour geois deputies. It was published verbatim in Le Socialiste, No. 65, 19 December 1891.
  9. ↑ F. Engels, 'Le Socialisme en Allemagne'.
  10. ↑ On 6 January 1892 Bebel addressed a workers' meeting in the Alsatian town of Mulhouse. He spoke mostly about the economic condition of Alsace. His attempts to proceed to political questions were cut short by the police commissioner, who threatened to close the meeting. A report on the meeting was published in Vorwärts on 9 January 1892.
  11. ↑ The words in brackets were inserted by Engels later.
  12. ↑ This Order of the Day by Prince George of Saxony, commander-in-chief of the Sax on army, dated 8 June 1891, was published in Vorwärts, No. 26, 31 January 1892, under the title 'Zu den bevorstehenden Reichstags-Verhandlungen über den Mili tär-Etat'. It summed up the findings of a court martial investigation into com plaints about the brutal treatment of soldiers.
  13. ↑ William II