JIN MANCHESTER 

{London,] 10 February 1851 
28 Dean Street, Soho 

Dear Engels, 

When you wrote saying that it would soon be time to attack 
Louis Blanc, you were a clairvoyant, to say the least. 

Now hearken to the following story: 

A few days or perhaps a week ago, I ran into Landolphe and, 
from the embarrassed way in which he greeted me and my wife, 
noted that there was something ‘rotten’ in the state* of our ami 
chevaleresque,” our Bayard of the Montagne.” Eh bien!‘ Landolphe 
and Louis Blanc have joined up with the Willich-Schapper 
committee, from which Mr Adam has resigned! And only a 
fortnight previously Landolphe had been raving and ranting about 
Barthélemy and [ had been telling him about the affair of Messrs 
Willich and Schapper. Qu’en dis-tu?? Not a word from these 
worthies to apprise me of it. 

The nub of the matter is as follows: 

On 24 February Church Street *” are holding a banquet to which 
they have invited Blanc and Ledru-Rollin and, among others, 
Landolphe. Louis Blanc, anxious to show Ledru-Rollin that he too 
has a cosmopolitan committee behind him, and to punish Church 
Street for treating him and Ledru as ‘of equal importance’, rallied 
his army from Great Windmill Street**’ and from the pub where 
the feckless Poles foregather. 

Encore un coup! Qu’en dis-tur* 

A few days ago Church Street received a printed circular 
(combining a manifesto) with an invitation to a monster banquet 
on 24 February, and signed primo’ Landolphe and, immediately 
after, Schapper, L. Blanc. Intense indignation in Church Street! 
Intense delight in Great Windmill Street! 

In the circular-manifesto Louis Blanc does not speak in the 
name of a nation, but in the name and on behalf of the eternal 
formula: liberté, égalité, fraternité! The only fly in the ointment so 

a Cf. ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’, Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, 
Scene 4. - > chivalrous friend - © Well now! - 4 What do you say to that? - € Yet 
another coup! What do you say to that? - f first 

ii* 

far as I’m concerned is that I still owe Landolphe £1.10s. which 
ought now to be sent him forthwith through Wolff.’ 

You can easily imagine how greatly Willich and Schapper have 
grown in their own esteem and how they fancy us beaten! 

But we'll beat them in a different sense. We are well on the 
way to driving Corporal and Carpenter Willich” mad, literaliter” 
mad. 

You will recall the letter written to Willich by Schramm on 
Becker’s behalf,© in which he offered him military dictatorship, 
abolished the press, and cast mild aspersions on Schapper’s moral 
character. 

Eh bien! Willich, the uneducated, four times cuckolded jackass, 
fell into the trap. He has been bombarding Becker with letters, 
already has an envoy awaiting dispatch, treats Schapper de haut en 
bas,’ ignores, insults and intrigues against that worthy man in 
every possible manner, has already adopted the overbearing 
manner of a Cromwell II, has grown irascible, no longer tolerates 
contradiction, and has entrusted Becker with the task of starting a 
revolution in Cologne, after which he declares himself ready to 
assume the supreme leadership. 

A short time ago, while in company, he suddenly jumped up 
shouting that his letters from Paris and Cologne had not yet 
arrived—it was on the occasion of the last French ministerial 
crisis—complained that his (stupid head) was in a whirl, whirl, 
whirl, dashed off to Bond Street and had a bucket of water 
poured over it. I now have a showerbath prepared for him which 
should have quite the opposite effect. In a few days’ time Becker is 
going to let me have Willich’s letters and then I shall spring the 
mine. 

A fresh swarm of democratic scallywags here, Frenchmen driven 
out of Brussels, Heise from Cassel, Oppenheim from Brussels, 
Ginther from Frankfurt, etc. Fortunately, however, I have seen 
none of the latter. 

You did receive my last letter, didn’t you? 

Your 
K. M.