Deutsche-Französische Jahrbücher

To Julius Fröbel in Zurich

in the journal Voprosy istorii KPSS No. 4
Translated into English by Jack Cohen for the Collected
Works.

Paris, November 21, 1843

rue Vanneau, No. 31, Faub. St. Germain

Dear Friend,

Your letter has just arrived, but with some
very strange symptoms.

1) Everything which you say you enclosed is missing with
the exception of Engels' article. This, however, is all in pieces
and is therefore useless. It begins with No. 5.

2) The letters for Mäurer and myself were wrapped up in the enclosed
envelope which is postmarked St. Louis. The few pages of Engels' article
were in the same wrapper.

3) Mäurer's letter, which, like mine, I found open in the enclosed
envelope, is also superscribed in a strange hand. I enclose the page with
the writing.

Hence there are only two possibilities.

Either the French Government opened and seized your letters and
your packet. In which case return the enclosed addresses. We will then
not only initiate proceedings against the French Post-Office but,
at the same time, publicise this fact in all the opposition papers. In
any event it would be better if you addressed all packets to a French
bookshop. However, we do not believe that the French Government has
perpetrated the kind of infamy which so far only the Austrian Government
has permitted itself.

There thus remains the second possibility, that your Bluntschli
and associates have played this police-spy trick. If this is so, then (1)
You must bring proceedings against the Swiss and (2) Mäurer as a French
citizen will protest to the Ministry.

As far as the business itself is concerned, it is now necessary:

a) To ask Schuller not to issue the aforesaid document for the
time being, as this must be the principal ornament of our first number.

b) Send the whole of the contents to Louis Blanc's address. No.
2 or 3, rue Taitbout.

c) Ruge is not yet here. I cannot very well begin printing until
he has arrived. I have had to reject the articles so far sent to me by
the local people (Hess, Weill, etc.) after many protracted discussions.
But Ruge is probably coming at the end of this month, and if at that time
we also have the document you promised, we can begin with the printing.
I have written to Feuerbach, Kapp and Hagen. Feuerbach has already replied.

d) Holland seems to me to be the most suitable place providing
that your police spies have not already been in direct touch with the government.

If your Swiss people have perpetrated the infamy I will not only
attack them in the Réforme, the National, the Démocratie
pacifique, the Siecle, Courrier, La Presse, Charivari, Commerce
and the Revue indépendante, but in the Times as well, and,
if you wish, in a pamphlet written in French.

These pseudo-Republicans will have to learn that they are not
dealing with young cowhands, or tailors' apprentices.

As to the office, I will try to acquire one along with
the new lodging into which I intend moving. This will be convenient from
the business and financial viewpoint.

Please excuse this scraggy letter. I can't write for indignation.

Yours, Marx

In any case, whether the Paris doctrinaires or the Swiss peasant
lads were responsible for the trick, we will get Arago and Lamartine
to make an intervention in the Chamber. If these gentlemen want to make
a scandal, ut scandalum fiat. Reply quickly for the matter is pressing.
Since Mäurer is a French citizen, the plot on the part of the Zurichers
would be a violation of international law, with which the cowhands shall
not get away.

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