London, 2 September 1870 

Dear Frep, 

Arrived here the evening before last. Today I shall go to see 
Dr Maddison. 

Yesterday evening the enclosed note came from The Pall Mall 
Gazette together with a cheque. Should I endorse the latter on 
your behalf and send it to Manchester, or cash it and send 
banknotes? 

After the spectacular confirmation of your first article on 
MacMahon! it would be a good moment to begin your next 
article with a summary of your own Notes on the War.’? As you 
know, the English need to have their noses rubbed in the ‘points’, 
and too much reticence with regard to furnishing information witt 
NoT DO With Full-Mouthed John Bull. The female members of the 
family are furious to find your articles plundered by all the 
London papers, but never quoted. 

In my view the entire perence of Paris is nothing but a police 
farce, put on to keep the Parisians happy until the Prussians are 
standing at the gates, ready to restore order, viz., the dynasty and 
its mamelukes. 

The wretched spectacle which Paris presents at this moment, 
and I mean by that throughout the entire war, shows that France 
had to be taught a tragic lesson if she was to be saved. 

The declaration that no one can defend his ‘fatherland’ except 
in a uniform is an authentic piece of Prussianism! 

The Prussians should surely have learned from their own 
history that it is not possible to achieve ‘eternal’ security from a 
defeated enemy through dismemberment, etc. And even after the loss 

of Alsace-Lorraine, France will not be battered as badly sy rar as 
Prussia was by Napoleon’s horse-cure at Tilsit.°? And how much 
did Napoleon I benefit from that? It just helped Prussia onto her 
feet again. 

I do not believe that Russia has actively intervened in this war 
up to now. I don’t believe that she is prepared for such 
intervention, but it is a diplomatic master coup for her to have 
proclaimed herself France’s saviour already at this stage.” 

In my detailed reply to the Brunswick Committee* I have once 
and for all abolished the fulsome ‘identity’ of interests between 
him and myself which our Wilhelm? invents to others whenever it 
suits his purposes. It is a good thing that his initiative should have 
given me the opportunity to make an official statement for once 
about this malentendu‘ fostered by him so intentionally and with a 
bad conscience. 

What do you think of Freiligrath as a family poet? Even 
historical catastrophes like the present one do no more than 
provide an opportunity for him to extol his own srats. In the 
process the vo.unTeer ‘medical orderly’ is transformed into a 
‘surczon’ for the benefit of the English.” 

The correspondence between the former Swabian seminarist 
David Strauss and the former French pupil of the Jesuits, Renan, is 
an entertaining episode.* Once a priest, always a priest. The history 
course of Mr Strauss seems to have its roots in Kohlrausch or a 
similar. school textbook. 

Addio! 
Your 

K. M. 

The Prussians do seem to have told infamous lies after all about 
the bombardment of Saarbrücken. 

In Paris farcical episodes follow thick and fast. But the nicest of 
all is that of the soldiers who march out of one gate and march in 
again by the next. 

Enclosed a letter from Laura.* The fools’ dawdling over their 
retreat to Bordeaux is unforgivable.