London, 15 February 1869 

Dear Paul and beloved Cacadou, 

You know Falstaff’s opinion of old men. They are all of them 
cynics.* So you will not be astonished at my passing over that 
stubborn fact—-my prolonged silence. I jump at once into medias 
res,” turning the back to the sins of the past. 

In the first instance, I must frankly tell you that I feel much 
anxiety as to Laura’s health. Her prolonged sequestration I know 
not how to account for.© Her invisibility to my friends, such as 
Dupont, stimulates my misgivings. So soon as certain arrange- 
ments permit, I shall come over for the single purpose of having a 
look at my child. After the publication of The 18th Brumaire of 
Louis Bonaparte,’ | might not be quite safe at Paris. Do not, in your 
letters, drop any hint as to my secret plan. 

I feel much obliged to little Fouchtra who tries his best at 
keeping his Grandfather up in the literature of the day. 
Vermorel’s book’ has much amused me. I generally concur in his 
appreciation of the persons that played in 1848 a part natural 
selection had not meant them for. Some men he treats too 
seriously, f.i. Odilon Barrot, la nullité grave What he lacks, is the 
knowledge of the finer nuances de classe represented, more or less 
unconsciously, as in the case of Ledru-Rollin, by those provisional," 
but not providential men. Il y a quelque chose qui cloche'— his 
continuous attempt at revindicating, and in a very clever way too, 
that strange mixture of the chevalier d’industrie,) the utopian, and 
the critic. I have named E. Girardin. As to his criticism, not of 
men, but of measures, l’ignorance et l’arrogance Proudhoniennes peep 
out at every instant. 

As to the ouvrter artiste, he is not my man. The only thing I like, 

a Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II, Act III, Scene 2 - » the crux of the matter 
(Horace, De Arte Poetica) - ¢ See this volume, p. 243. - 4 The reference is to the 
second edition of Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. - ¢ Marx 
is referring to Charles Etienne Lafargue -£ A. Vermorel, Les Hommes de 
1848 - 8 absolute nonenty - } The reference is to Ledru-Rollin and other members 
of the Provisional Government of the French Republic of 1848. - | There are some 
things that don’t go well. - ) adventurer 

is the portrait of Blanqui which I have sent to Beesly, to cure him 
of the strange prejudices he has imbibed in the book of that vieille 
cocotte, Danie) Stern.* When we had him at dinner, he naively 
asked me whether Blanqui was not one of those irrespectable men, 
like Bradlaugh. I could not but chuckle in my sleeves at this truly 
John Bullian appreciation of revolutionary characters. I asked 
him, whether his hero, Catiline,?> had been a ‘respectable’ man? 

The thing that amuses me most in Le Peuple is the cir- 
cumstance—a good sample of historical irony—that these learned 
Proudhonians are forced to come out as gens de lettre,” a part which 
they despise so much, and which, nevertheless, is their only true 
réle, the only thing they are fit for. 

As to Paul’s lively narration of his adventure with Mlle Royer,” 
it has tickled Engels and my humble self. I was not at all 
astonished at his failure. He will remember that, having read her 
preface to Darwin,‘ I told him at once she was a bourgeois. Darwin 
was led by the struggle for life in English society—-the competition 
of all with all, bellum omnium contra omnes‘—to discover competi-' 
tion to [...] as the ruling Jaw of ‘bestial’ and vegetative life. The 
Darwinism,’ conversely, considers this a conclusive reason for 
human society never to emancipate itself from its bestiality. 

As to La Misére de la Philosophie, I do really not see what I can 
further do in this affair. The mass has been spoilt from the 
beginning. The books ought to have been thankfully received at 
once, but it is now too late to mend. I have written to Meissner ™ 
to look after Vogler, but we will hardly gain anything by finding 
out that vagabond. The worst is that Vieweg not only keeps, but 
sequestrates the book. If he advertises it anew, at 2 fcs per piece, 
he might sell it—perhaps. Lafargue ought to speak with him in 
that sense.” 

I fear I cannot do much for the new paper contemplated.” At 
al] events, I shall try my best. Cowell Stepney will never advance 
£12,000. He is a well-meaning fool who fritters away his means in 
a most grotesque way. The Social Economist, a most stupid 
publication by old Holyoake, who is his own Cromwell—lives 
upon Stepney’s pocket. There is no sham philanthropical pie he 
has not his hand, or rather his pocket, in. So, if you want him to 

a D. Stern, Histoire de la révolution de 1848 -» Marx is referring to Beesly’s article 
‘Catiline as a Party Leader’, The Fortnightly Review, Vol. I, 15 May-1 August 
1865, - © men of letters - ¢ Ch. Darwin, De lorigine des espéces ou des lois du progrés chez 
les étres organisés...-¢ the war of all against all (Th. Hobbes, Leviathan..., 
Ch. 13) - Marx is referring to social Darwinism. 

come out on a larger scale, he has neither the will nor the power 
to do so. 

Our International makes great strides in Germany. Our new 
plan, proposed by myself, to allow only individual membership, 
and sell at ld the cards, on whose back our principles are printed 
in German, French and English—works well. Jung becomes every 
day more and more a little master. The unction, affectation, and 
self-importance with which he drops his golden words and spins 
his long narrative yarn, grow really insupportable. So Dupont told 
him, adding that he (Jung) was even given, while speaking, to the 
habitude of putting his hands in his pockets and making jingle his 
purse. But he is really not so bad as that. 

The old acquaintance of mine—the Russian Bakunin—had 
started a little nice conspiracy against the International. Having 
fallen out with and seceded from, the Ligue de la Paix et de la 
Liberté, on their last Berne Congress,”™ he entered the Romande 
Section of our Association at Geneva. He very soon inveigled 
brave old Becker,* always anxious for action, for something 
stirring, but of no very critical cast of mind, an enthusiast like 
Garibaldi, easily led away. Well, Bakunin hatched the plan of 
L’Alliance Internationale de la Démocratie Socialiste, which was to 
form at the same time a branch of our International, and a new 
independent International Association ‘with the special mission to 
elaborate the higher philosophical etc. principles’? of the pro- 
letarian movement, and, in point of fact, would, by a clever trick, 
have placed our society under the guidance and supreme initiative 
of the Russian Bakunin. The way in which they set to business, 
was quite characteristic. They sent their new programme,”*” with 
old Becker’s name at the head of the signatures—and they sent 
emissaries too—behind our back, to Paris, Brussels, etc. Only in 
the Jast moment, they communicated the documents to the 
London General Council. By a formal judgment‘ we annulled and 
stifled the Muscovite nursling. All our branches approved the 
decision. Of course, old Becker bears me now a grudge (and so 
does Schily on his account), but with all my personal friendship 
for Becker I could not allow this first attempt at disorganising our 
society to succeed. 

Has Dupont told you that gallant Vésinier has been expulsed 
from the illustrious French Branch as a calumniator vile and 

a Johann Philipp Becker - > Marx is quoting Programme et Réglement de Alliance 
internationale de la Démocratie Socialiste (see present edition, Vol. 21, 
p. 207). - © K. Marx, The International Working Men’s Association and the International 
Alliance of Socialist Democracy (see also this volume, pp. 190-93, 202). 

base?* En revanche,” he has become the acknowledged hero of La 
Cigale, which has openly turned against ‘l’équivoque Conseil Général 4 
Londres et ses acolytes a Bruxelles’. 

And now, my dear children, farewell, kiss little Fouchtra‘ in my 
name, and remember 

Old Nick