After the important events accomplished in France, the position 
taken by the Belgian people and government is of a greater interest 
than in ordinary times. I hasten, therefore, to inform your readers of 
what has happened since Friday, 25th of February. 

The excitement and inquietude was universal in this town on the 
evening of that day. All sorts of rumours were spread, but nothing 
was really believed. The railway station was full of a crowd of people 
of all classes, anxious for the arrival of news. The French 
Ambassador, ex-Marquis de Rumigny, himself was there. At 
half-past twelve at night, the train arrived, with the glorious news of 
Thursday’s revolution, and the whole mass of people shouted, in one 
sudden outburst of enthusiasm: Vive la République! The news spread 
rapidly all over the town. On Saturday all was quiet. On Sunday, 
however, the streets were crowded with people, and every one was 
curious to see what steps would be taken by two societies—the 
Association Démocratique and the Alliance.*!’ Both bodies assem- 
bled in the evening. The Alliance, a set of middle-class Radicals, 
resolved to wait, and thus retired from the movement. The 
Association Démocratique, however, took a series of most important 
resolutions, by which this body placed itself at the head of the 
movement. They resolved to meet daily, instead of weekly; to send a 
petition to the town-council, reclaiming the arming, not only of the 
middle-class Civic Guard, but of all citizens in districts. In the 
evening some rioting took place in the streets. The people cried: Vive 
la République, and assembled in masses around the Town Hall. 
Several arrests took place, but nothing of any consequence occurred. 

Among the individuals arrested, there were two Germans—a 
political refugee, M. Wolff, and a working man. Now, you must 

know that there existed here, in Brussels, a German working men’s 
society,” in which political and social questions were discussed, and 
a German democratic newspaper.* The Germans, resident in 
Brussels, were known for being generally very active and uncompro- 
mising democrats. They were almost all members of the Democratic 
Association, and the vice-president of the German society, Dr. Marx, 
was also vice-president of the Democratic Association. 

The government, perfectly aware of the narrow sentiment of 
nationalism prevalent among a certain class of the population of a 
small country like Belgium, immediately profited by these circum- 
stances, in order to spread the rumour that the whole agitation for 
the Republic had been got up by the Germans—men who had 
nothing to lose, who had been expelled from three or four countries 
for their turpitudes, and who intended to place themselves at the 
head of the intended Belgian Republic. This precious piece of news 
was reported on Monday through the whole town, and in less than 
a day the whole mass of the shopocracy, who form the body of 
the Civic Guard, raised one unanimous outcry against the 
German rebels, who wanted to revolutionise their happy Belgian 
fatherland. 

The Germans had fixed a place of meeting in a coffee-house, 
where every one of them was to bring the latest news from Paris. But 
the outcry of the shopocrats was so great, and the rumours of 
government measures against the Germans were so manifold, that 
they were obliged to give up even this innocent means of 
communicating with each other. 

On Sunday evening already the police had succeeded in prevailing 
upon the publican, proprietor of the German society’s room, to 
refuse them the room for any future meeting. 

The Germans behaved perfectly well during these times. Exposed 
to the most petty persecutions of the police, they yet rested at their 
post. They assisted every evening at the meeting of the Democratic 
Association. They abstained from all tumultuous crowding in the 
streets, but they showed, though personally exposing themselves, 
that in the hour of danger they would not abandon their Belgian 
brethren. 

When, after a few days, the extraordinary agitation of Sunday and 
Monday had ceased, when the people had returned to their work, 
when the government had recovered from their first terror, then 
commenced another series of persecutions against the Germans. The 
government published orders, according to which all foreign 

working men, from the moment they had no work, were to be 
expelled the country; and all foreigners indiscriminately, whose 
passports were out of order, were to be treated in the same way. 
Thus, while they took these measures, they excited, by the rumours 
they spread, the masters against all foreign working men, and made 
it impossible to any German to find work. Even those who had work 
lost it, and were, from that moment, exposed to an order of 
expulsion. 

Not only against working men out of work, but also against 
women, they commenced their persecution. A young German 
Democrat, who lives, according to the French and Belgian custom, 
with a French lady, just as married people live—and whose presence 
at Brussels appears to have importuned the police—was suddenly 
exposed to a series of persecutions, directed against his mistress. She 
having no passport—and who ever before thought in Belgium of 
asking passports from a woman?—was threatened with immediate 
expulsion! and the police declared that it was not for her sake, but 
for the sake of the individual with whom she lived. Seven times in 
three days, the Commissary of Police was at her house; she had to 
pass at his office several times, and was sent to the central police 
office, escorted by an agent—and if an influential Belgian Democrat 
had not interposed, she would certainly have been obliged to leave. 

But all this is nothing. The persecutions against working 
men,—the spreading of rumours about such and such an individual 
to be arrested, or about a general chase after the Germans to be 
made in all public houses of the town on Tuesday evening, all this is 
nothing compared with what I have now to report. 

On Friday evening,* Dr. Marx, amongst others, received a royal 
ordinance, ordering him to quit the country within twenty-four 
hours. He was engaged in arranging his trunks for the journey, 
when, at one o’clock in the morning, and in spite of the law which 
forbids the violation of the dwelling of a citizen from sunset to 
sunrise, ten police agents, armed, headed by a commissary of police, 
broke into his house, seized upon him and led him to the Town Hall 
prison. No reason was given but that his passport was not in order, 
though he presented them at least three passports, and though he 
had resided in Brussels for three years! He was led off. His wife, 
seized with terror, instantly ran to see a Belgian lawyer, who always 
offered his services to persecuted foreigners—the same whose 
friendly interposition has been mentioned above,—M. Jottrand, 
President of the Democratic Association. On her return, she met 

with a friend, a Belgian, M. Gigot. He accompanied her home. At the 
door of Dr. Marx’s house, they found two of the policemen who had 
' arrested her husband. Where have you taken my husband? asked 
she. Why, if you will follow us we will show you where he is. They led 
her, along with M. Gigot, to the Town Hall, but instead of fulfilling 
their promise, they delivered up both of them to the police, and they 
were put into prison. Mrs. Marx, who had left her three little children 
at home, with a servant only, was led into a room where she found a 
set of prostitutes of the lowest order, with whom she had to pass the 
night. Next morning she was led into a room where she had to stay 
three hours without fire, shivering with cold. M. Gigot was also 
detained. M. Marx had been put into a room with a raving madman, 
whom he was obliged to fight every moment. The most brutal 
treatment on the part of the jailors was joined to this infamous 
conduct. 

At three o’clock in the afternoon, at last, they were conducted 
before the judge, who very soon ordered their liberation. And of 
what had Mrs. Marx and M. Gigot been-indicted? Of vagabondage, 
because neither of them had a passport in their pockets! 

M. Marx was equally liberated, and ordered to leave the country 
the same evening. Thus, after having been wantonly imprisoned 
during eighteen of the twenty-four hours left him to settle his affairs; 
after having had not only himself, but also his wife, separated for all 
that time from his three children, the eldest of whom has not 
attained her fourth year, he was sent away without a minute to put 
his affairs in order. : 

M. Gigot, on his arrest, had only left the prison the day before. He 
had been seized, along with three democrats from Liége, at six 
o’clock on Monday morning, in an hotel, and arrested for vag- 
abondage, because they had no passports. They were ordered to 
be liberated on Tuesday, but yet detained till Thursday against all 
law. One of them, M. Tedesco, is yet in prison, accused of nobody 
knows what. Both he and M. Wolff will be either liberated or placed 
before the tribunal in the course of this week. 

I must say, however, that the Belgian working men and several 
other democrats of that nation, particularly M. Jottrand, have 
behaved exceedingly well towards the persecuted Germans. They 
have shown themselves quite above all petty sentiments of nationali- 
ty. They saw in us not foreigners but democrats. 

I hear that there is an order of arrest out against a Belgian working 
man and brave democrat, M. de Guasco. Another, M. Dassy, arrested 

on Sunday last, for rebellion, was before the tribunal yesterday; his 
judgment is not yet pronounced. 

I am daily and hourly expecting my order of expulsion, if not 
worse, for nobody can foretell what this Belgio-Russian government 
is about to dare. I hold myself ready to leave at a moment’s notice. 
Such is the position of a German democrat in this free country, which, 
as the papers say, has nothing to envy in the French Republic. 

Salutation and Fraternity. 

Your old Friend 
Brussels, March 5th 

No. 544, March 25, 1848 

Karl Marx