MARX TO ENGELS” 

[London,] 14 February 1858 

Dear Engels, 

You had promised to send me the Guardian. I was therefore 
expecting to get it today since France is now the only possible 
topic for reports and the fellows prefer a few gossipy anecdotes to 
ANY AMOUNT OF IDEAS. J] assume the numbers you promised me will 
arrive tomorrow but would most urgently beg that in future you 
always let me have the things for Thursday or for Friday at the. 
latest. After the appointed day they are, or course, no longer of any 
use to me for my reports. 

For 3 days I shall now be on tenterhooks until I know whether 
or not my bill, which does not appear to have been despatched 

from here until several weeks Arrer irs prawinc, has been honoured. 
At very best I shan’t be able to draw anything more on the 
Tribune against the articles I have sent in until the matter with 
Appleton is serrten* My estimate of the value of the last goods 
despatched to him was badly out. Moreover, a longish article on 
‘Bolivar’ elicited objections from Dana because, he said, it is 
written IN A PARTISAN STYLE and he asked me to cite my AUTHORITIES. 
This I can, of course, do, although it’s a singular demand. As 
regards the ParrisaNn STYLE, it is true that I departed somewhat from 
the tone of a cyclopaedia. To see the most dastardly, most 
miserable and meanest of blackguards described as Napoleon I was 
altogether too much. Bolivar is a veritable Soulouque.?”” 

I CONGRATULATE YOU UPON YOUR EQUESTRIAN PERFORMANCES. Only don’t take 
too many breakneck jumps, as there will soon be more important 
occasion for risking your neck. You seem To RIDE SOMEWHAT HARD THIS 
Hobby-Horse. In any case I don’t believe that the cavary is the 
speciality in which you will be of the greatest service to Germany. I 
would venture another little objection, viz. whether over-EXERTION IN 
ANY LINE is compatible with your health.’ Aurea medtocritas‘ in all 
types of exertion, or so at least a doctor assures me, should remain 
the norm for you for some time yet. 

-The Bonaparte affair had indeed put a sorry end to the 
proposed Prussian amnesty.”” Louis, by the way, is merely aping 
his putative uncle.” He is, in fact, not only Napoléon le Petit (in 
Victor Hugo’s sense* as opposed to Napoléon le Grand) but he 
PERSONATES IN A MOST ADMIRABLE WAY THE LITTLENESS Of the great Napoleon. 
I have looked up Cobbett for 1802-03 where I discover that the 
‘DEN OF ASSASSINS’ AND ALL THAT LITERALLY appeared in the Moniteur of 
that time.” Inter alia, the Moniteur of 9 August 1802 declares 
word for word: 

*‘Kither the English government authorises and tolerates these public and 
private crimes, in which case it cannot be said that such conduct is consistent with 
British generosity, civilisation, and honour; or it cannot prevent them, in which 

case it does not deserve the name of government; above all, if it does not possess 
the means of repressing assassination and calumny and protecting social order. *¢ 

Salut. : 

Your 
K. M. 

a See this volume, p. 251. - > K. Marx, ‘Bolivar y Ponte’. -¢ The golden mean - 
4 V. Hugo, Napoléon le petit (Hugo first used the phrase in a speech in the Legislative 
Assembly in 1851). - ¢- This passage from an article in Le Moniteur universel, No. 320, 
9 August 1802 (datelined ‘Paris, le 19 thermidor’) is quoted by Marx in English 
according to Cobbett’s Annual Register. From July to December, 1802, Vol. II. 

If you haven’t yet sent off the back numbers of the Guardian, try 
and let me have them by Monday, and the next ones by Friday.