The Northern Star in its report of the Dijon banquet criticises the 
speech of Louis Blanc in remarks with which we completely concur. 
The union of the democrats of different nations does not exclude 
mutual criticism. It is impossible without such criticism. Without 
criticism there is no understanding and consequently no union. We 
reproduce the remarks of The Northern Star in order that we too, for 
our part, may protest against preconceptions and illusions which are 
in direct and hostile opposition to the trends of modern democracy 
and which should be abandoned if the union of democrats of 
different nations is to remain more than an empty phrase. 

At the Dijon banquet, M. Blanc said: 

‘“‘We want union in Democracy. And no one may deceive himself about this, we do 
not think and labour for France only, but for the whole world, because the future of 
France contains in it the future of mankind. In fact, we are placed in this admirable 
position, that, without ever ceasing to be national, we are necessarily cosmopolite, and 
are even more.cosmopolite than national. Whoever would call himself a Democrat, and 
be at the same time an Englishman, would give the lie to the history of his own country, 
for the part which England has always played in history has been the struggle for ego- 
tism against ‘fraternité’. In the same manner, he whois a Frenchman, and would not be 
a cosmopolite, would give the lie to his country’s past; for France never could make 
predominant any idea, except it was for the benefit of the whole world. Gentlemen, at 
the time of the Crusades, when Europe went to conquer the grave of Christ, it was 
France who took the movement under her wing. Afterwards, when the priests would 
impose upon us the yoke of Papist supremacy, the Gallican bishops defended the 
rights of conscience. And in the last days of the ancient monarchy, who supported 
young, republican America? France, always France! And what was true of 
monarchical France, how should it not be true of republican France? Where, in the 
book of history, do we find anything resembling that admirable, self-sacrificing 
disinterestedness of the French Republic, when, exhausted by the blood she had shed 
on our frontiers and on the scaffold, she found yet more blood to shed for her 

410 | Frederick Engels 

Batavian brethren? When beaten or victorious, she enlightened her very enemies by 
the sparks of her genius! Let Europe send us sixteen armies, and we shall send her 
liberty in return.” 

The Northern Star says with regard to this: 

“Now, without intending to deprecate in any manner the heroic 
efforts of the French Revolution, and the immense gratitude the 
world owes to the great men of the Republic, we think that the 
relative position of France and England, with regard to cosmopolit- 
ism, is not at all justly delineated in the above sketch. We entirely 
deny the cosmopolitic character ascribed to France before the 
revolution, and the times of Louis XI and Richelieu may serve as 
proofs. But what is it M. Blanc ascribes to France? That she never 
could make predominant any idea, except it was to benefit the whole 
world. Well, we should think M. Louis Blanc could not show us any 
country in the world which could do otherwise than France is said to 
have done. Take England, for instance, which M. Blanc places in 
direct opposition to France. England invented the steam-engine; 
England erected the railway; two things which, we believe, are worth 
a good many ideas. Well, did England invent them for herself, or for 
the world? The French glory in spreading civilisation everywhere, 
principally in Algiers. Well, who has spread civilisation in America, 
Asia, Africa, and Australia, but England? Who founded the very 
Republic, in the freeing of which France took some part? Eng- 
land—always England. If France assisted in freeing the American 
Republic from English tyranny, England freed the Dutch Republic, 
just two hundred years sooner, from Spanish oppression. If France 
gave, at the end of the last century, a glorious example to the whole 
world, we cannot silently pass by the fact that England, a hundred 
and fifty years sooner, gave that example, and found at that time, not 
even France prepared to follow. And, as far as ideas are concerned, 
those very ideas, which the French philosophers of the 18th 
century—which Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, D’Alembert, and 
others, did so much to popularise—where had these ideas first been 
originated, but in England? Let us never forget Milton, the first 
defender of regicide, Algernon Sydney, Bolingbroke, and Shaftes- 
bury, over their French more brilliant followers. 

““If an Englishman would call himself a democrat he would give 
the lie to the history of his own country,’ says M. Blanc. 

“Well, we consider it as the veriest proof of sterling democracy, 
that it must give the he to its country, that it must repudiate all 
responsibility for a past filled up with misery, tyranny, class 
oppression, and superstition. Let the French not make an exception 

Louis Blanc’s Speech at the Dijon Banquet 411 

to the other democrats; let them not take the responsibility for the 
doings of their kings and aristocrats of former times. What 
M. Blanc thinks a disadvantage to English democrats, we think to be 
a great advantage, that they must repudiate the past, and only look to 
the future. 

“A Frenchman is necessarily a cosmopolite,’ says M. Blanc. Yes, in 
a world ruled over only by French influence, French manners, 
fashions, ideas, politics. In a world in which every nation has adopted 
the characteristics of French nationality. But that is exactly what the 
democrats of other nations will not accept. Quite ready to give up the 
harshness of their own nationality, they expect the same from the 
French. They will not be satisfied in the assertion, on the part of the 
French, that they are cosmopolites by the mere fact that they are 
French, an assertion which amounts to the demand urged upon all 
others to become Frenchmen. 

“Compare Germany. Germany is the fatherland of an immense 
number of inventions—of the printing press, for instance. Germany 
has produced—and this is recognised upon all hands—a far greater 
number of generous and cosmopolitic ideas than France and 
England put together. And Germany, in practice, has always been 
humiliated, always been deceived in all her hopes. She can tell best 
what French cosmopolitism has been. Just as France had to complain 
of the treachery of English policy, Germany experienced an equally 
treacherous policy on the part of France, from Louis XI down to 
Louis Philippe. If we were to apply the measure of M. Louis Blanc, 
the Germans would be the true cosmopolites. However the German 
democrats are far from having any such pretensions.” 

Frederick Engels