French criticism of society has, at least, in part the great merit of 
having shown up the contradictions and unnaturalness of modern 
life not only in the relationships of particular classes, but in all 
circles and forms of modern intercourse. And it has done that in 
accounts evincing the warmth of life itself, broadness of view, 
refined subtlety, and bold originality of spirit, which one will seek 
in vain in any other nation. Compare the critical writings of Owen 
and Fourier, for example, so far as they concern the relationships 
of life, to gain an idea of this superiority of the French. It is by no 
means only to the French “socialist” writers proper that one must 
look for the critical presentation of social conditions; but to writers 
in every sphere of literature, and in particular of novels and 
memoirs. In a few excerpts on suicide from the “Memoires tires des 
Archives de la Police etc.” par Jacques Peuchet I shall give an example 
of this French criticism. It may at the same time show what 
grounds there are for the idea of the philanthropic bourgeois that 
it is only a question of providing a little bread and a little 
education for the proletarians, and that only the worker is stunted 
by the present state of society, but otherwise the existing world is 
the best of all possible worlds. 

With Jacques Peuchet, as with many of the older, now almost 
extinct, French professional men, who have lived through the 
numerous upheavals since 1789, the numerous disappointments, 
enthusiasms, constitutions, rulers, defeats and victories, criticism of 
the existing property, family, and other private relations, in a 
word of private life, appears as the necessary outcome of their 
political experiences. 

Jacques Peuchet (born 1760) proceeded from belles lettres to 
medicine, from medicine to law, from law to administration and 
the police. Before the outbreak of the French Revolution he was 
working with Abbé Morellet on a Dictionnaire du commerce, of 
which, however, only the prospectus was published, and at that 
time he was occupied mainly with political economy and adminis- 
tration. Peuchet was an adherent of the French Revolution for only 
a very short time; he very soon turned to the royalist party, for a 
time held the editorship of the Gazette de France and later even 
took over the notorious royalist Mercure from Mallet du Pan. 
Nevertheless, he wound his way very cleverly through the revolu- 
tion, sometimes persecuted, sometimes occupied in the Depart- 
ment of Administration and the Police. The Géographie commer- 
gante, 5 vol. in folio, which he published in 1800, attracted the 
attention of Bonaparte, the First Consul, and he was appointed a 
member of the Conseil de commerce et des arts. Later he occupied a 
higher position in the administration under the ministry of 
Francois de Neufchateau. In 1814 the Restoration appointed him 
censor. During the 100 days? he retired. At the restoration of 
the Bourbons he was given the post of keeper of archives in the 
Paris police prefecture, which he held until 1827. Peuchet was not 
without influence, both directly and as a writer, on the speakers in 
the Constituent Assembly, the Convention, the Tribunate,? and 
the Chambers of Deputies under the Restoration. The best known 
of his many, mostly economic, works apart from the Geography of 
Commerce already referred to, is his statistics of France* (1807). 

Peuchet wrote his memoirs, the materials for which he gathered 
partly from the Paris police archives, partly from his long practical 
experience in police and administration, as an old man and had 
them published only after his death, so that in no circumstances can 
he be counted among the “hasty’ Socialists and Communists, who 
are known to lack so completely the marvellous thoroughness and 
comprehensive knowledge of the general run of our writers, 
officials and professional citizens. 

Let us listen to our archive-keeper of the Paris police prefecture 
on suicide! 

“The annual number of suicides, which is, as it were, normal and recurrent 
among us, must be regarded as a symptom of the faulty organisation of our 
society; for at times when industry is at a standstill and in crisis, in periods of dear 
food and hard winters, this symptom is always more conspicuous and assumes an 

epidemic character. Prostitution and theft then increase in the same proportion. 
Although poverty is the greatest source of suicide, we find it in all classes, among 

2 J. Peuchet, Statistique élémentaire de la France.—Ed. 

Peutidbes 

Birgerbud 

fir 1845. 

herausgegeben 

§. Püttmann. 

Darmstadt, 1845. 
Drud und Verlag von CG BW. ese. 

Cover of the journal Deutsches Bürgerbuch, to which Engels contributed 

Has 

Westphälische Dampfboot. 

Cine Monatsschrift. 

Redigirt 

Dr. Otto Lining. 

Sweiter Jahrgang. 

ro ~ -- 
-y v 
= 2) 

Vielefeld, 1846. 
Verlag von A. Helmidh. — Dru von 3. D. Kister, Witwe. 

Cover of the journal Das Westphdlische Dampfboot, to which Engels contributed 

» 

LP” Lelisey 

Nienatlicr erscheint ein ‘Sejt. Der Preis tes Dabreence von swelf Seiten it in allen 
Budhanttingen aur 2 Chir., bet Ben prengiychen Pelkmtern 2 Chir. 10 Sgr. — 
SSE” Cinseine Hefte find 27/7, Sse. in slen BudyanMunsen su heben. 

Cover of the journal Gesellschaftsspiegel, to which Engels contributed 

Peuchet: On Suicide 603 

the idle rich as well as among artists and politicians. The variety of the causes 
which give rise to it seems to mock the monotonous and callous condemnation of 
the moralists. 

“Consumptive diseases, towards which science is at present indifferent and 
ineffectual, abused friendship, deceived love, frustrated ambition, family suffering, 
repressed rivalry, dissatisfaction with a monotonous life, suppressed enthusiasm, 
are indubitably the causes of suicide in more generously endowed natures, and the 
love of life itself, this energetic driving force of personality, very often leads to 
putting an end to a detestable existence. 

“Madame de Staél,? whose greatest merit is to have expressed commonplaces in 
brilliant style, has attempted to show that suicide is an act contrary to nature, and 
that it cannot be regarded as a deed of courage; she claims in particular that to 
fight despair is more worthy than to succumb to it. Such arguments little affect 
souls which are overwhelmed by misfortune. If they are religious, they look 
forward to a better world; if, on the contrary, they do not believe in anything, they 
seek the calm of Nothing. Philosophical tirades have no value in their eyes and are 
a poor refuge from suffering. It is above all in bad taste to maintain that an act so 
frequently committed is contrary to nature; suicide is in no way contrary to nature, 
since we witness it daily. What is against nature does not happen. On the contrary, 
it is in the nature of our society to produce many suicides, while Tartars do not kill 
themselves. Hence all societies do not have the same products. That is what we must tell 
ourselves, so as to work for the reform of our society and make it rise to a higher 
stage. As for courage, if it is considered courageous to defy death in broad daylight 
on the battlefield, under the domination of every form of excitement, there is 
nothing to prove lack of courage in one who administers death to himself in dark 
solitude. Such a debatable question is not disposed of by insulting the dead. 

“Everything that has been said against suicide goes round and round in the same 
circle of ideas. People cite against it the decrees of Providence, but the existence of 
suicide is itself an open protest against her indecipherable decrees. They talk to us 
of our duties to this society without explaining or implementing our own claims on 
society, and finally they exalt the thousand times greater merit of overcoming pain 
rather than succumbing to it, a merit as sad as the prospects it opens up. In short, 
they make of suicide an act of cowardice, a crime against the law, society and 
honour. 

‘Why is it that in spite of so many anathemas people kill themselves? Because the 
blood of men in despair does not run through their veins in the same way as that 
of the cold beings who take the time to coin all those fruitless phrases. Man seems to 
be a mystery to man; he can only be blamed, he is not known. When we see how 
light-mindedly the institutions under whose domination Europe lives dispose of the 
blood and life of the nations, how civilised justice surrounds itself lavishly with 
prisons, chastisements and instruments of death so as to sanction its insecure 
decisions; when we see the numerical immensity of the classes which on all sides 
are left in misery, and the social pariahs who are battered by brutal contempt, 
meant to be preventive, perhaps to save the trouble of lifting them out of their 
squalor; when we see all this, we fail to understand what entitles us to command 
the individual to respect in himself an existence which our customs, our prejudices, 
our laws and our morals generally trample underfoot. 

“It was thought that it would be possible to prevent suicide by degrading 
punishments and by branding the memory of the culprit with infamy. What can 

4 Marx’s italics here and below.— Ed. 
> The word “society” is added by Marx.— Ed. 

604 . Karl Marx 

one say of the unworthiness of such branding of people who are no longer there to 
plead their case? The unfortunates, by the way, are little worried by that; and if 
suicide accuses anybody, it accuses above all the people who are left behind, 
because there is not one in this multitude who deserves that anyone should stay 
alive for him. Have the childish and cruel means devised been victorious against 
the whisperings of despair? What does he who wants to flee the world care about 
the insults which the world promises to his corpse? He only sees in them yet 
another act of cowardice on the part of the living. What kind of society is it, indeed, 
where one finds the profoundest solitude in the midst of millions; where one can be 
overwhelmed by an irrepressible desire to kill oneself without anybody being aware of it? This 
society is no society, it is as Rousseau says, a desert inhabited by wild animals In the 
positions which I held in the police administration suicides were part of my 
responsibility; I wished to learn whether among the causes motivating them there 
were any whose effect could be obviated. I undertook extensive work on the 
subject.” I found that any attempts short of a total reform of the present order of society 
would be in vain." 

“Among the causes of despair which induce nervous, very excitable persons, 
passionate beings with deep feelings, to seek death, I discovered as the predomin- 
ant factor the maltreatment, the injustices, the secret punishments, which hard 
parents and superiors inflict on persons dependent on them. The revolution has not 
overthrown all tyrannies; the evils of which the arbitrary authorities were accused persist in 
the family, where they cause crises analogous to those of revolutions. 

“The relations between interests and temperaments, the true relations among 
individuals, have first to be created among ourselves from the very foundations and 
suicide is only one of the thousand and one symptoms of the universal social struggle which 
is for ever spurrtng on to fresh deeds and from which so many fighters withdraw 
because they are tired of being counted among the victims, or because they rebel 
against the thought of occupying a place of honour among the hangmen. If you 
want a few examples, I will cull them from authentic protocols. 

“In the month of July 1816 the daughter of a tailor became engaged to a 
butcher, a young man of good morals, thrifty and hardworking, very devoted to his 
beautiful bride, who in turn was very fond of him. The young girl was a seamstress; 
she enjoyed the respect of all who knew her, and the bridegroom’s parents loved 
her dearly. These good people missed no opportunity to hasten the day when they 
would have her as their daughter-in-law; they gave parties at which she was the 
queen and idol. 

“The time of the marriage approached; all arrangements between the two 
families had been made and the contracts concluded. On the eve of the day fixed 
for the visit to the registrar, the young daughter and her parents were to have 
supper with the family of the bridegroom; an insignificant incident unexpectedly 
prevented this. Orders which had to be met for rich customers kept the tailor and 
his wife at home. They sent their apologies; but the butcher’s mother came herself 
to fetch her daughter-in-law, who was given permission to go with her. 

“Despite the absence of two of the principal guests the meal was one of the 
gayest. Many family jokes were told, which the prospect of a marriage makes 
permissible. They drank, they sang; they spoke about the future. The joys of a 
good marriage were eagerly discussed. They were still at table very late at night. By 
an easily explained indulgence the parents of the young man closed their eyes to 

“This conclusion from the arguments of the author of the Mémoires is 
formulated by Marx himself. Instead of this sentence Peuchet says: “Without 
engaging in any theoretical investigation, I shall try to adduce facts.” — Ed. 

Peuchet: On Suicide 605 

the silent understanding of the engaged couple. Their hands sought each other, 
love and intimacy went to their heads. Besides, the marriage was considered as 
accomplished and these young people had been visiting each other for quite a long 
time without giving cause for the slightest reproach. The emotion of the 
bridegroom’s parents, the advanced hour, the mutual longing desire, loosed by the 
indulgence of their mentors, the unrestrained gaiety which always prevails at such 
meals, all this combined with the opportunity which offered itself smilingly, and the 
wine which was effervescing in the head, everything favoured an outcome which 
may be imagined. The lovers met again in the dark, when the lights had gone out. 
Everyone pretended not to notice, to suspect nothing. Their happiness had only 
friends here, no enviers. 

“The young daughter only returned to her parents the next morning. A proof of 
how little guilty she believed herself to be lies in the fact that she returned alone. 
She slipped into her room and prepared her toilette; but no sooner did her parents 
notice her, than with fury they heaped the most shameful names and abuses on 
their daughter. The neighbourhood witnessed it, the scandal had no bounds. 
Imagine the shock which this child suffered from her modesty and the outrageous 
violation of her secret. In vain did the bewildered girl put it to her parents that 
they themselves were bringing her into disrepute, that she admitted her wrong, her 
folly, her disobedience, but that everything could be put right again. Her 
arguments and her grief failed to disarm the tailor couple.” 

The most cowardly, unresisting people become implacable as 
soon as they can exercise their absolute parental authority. The abuse of 
this authority is, as it were, a crude compensation for all the 
submissiveness and dependence to which they abase themselves 
willy-nilly in bourgeois society. 

“Busybodies of both sexes came running to the scene and joined in the clamour. 
The feeling of shame caused by this abominable scene brought the child to the 
decision to take her own life. She hurried downstairs, through the crowd of the 
abusive and swearing neighbours; her eyes clouded with madness,” she rushed to 
the Seine “and threw herself into the river. Boatmen brought her out of the water, 
dead, still in her wedding finery. Needless to say, those who at first had shouted 
against the daughter at once turned against her parents; this catastrophe fright- 
ened their empty souls.* A few days later the parents came to the police to claim a 
golden chain which the child had worn round her neck, a present from the future 
father-in-law, a silver watch and various other small pieces of jewelry, all of which 
had been deposited with the police. I did not fail to reproach these people 
energetically for their stupidity and barbarity. To say to these mad people that they 
would have to render account to God would have made very little impression on 
them in view of their egoistic prejudices and the peculiar kind of rengionty which 
prevails in the lower mercantile classes. 

“Greed had brought them to me, not the desire to ee two or three 
keepsakes; I thought I could punish them through their greed. They were claiming 
their daughter’s jewels; I refused these to them; I kept the certificates which they 
needed to reclaim these effects from the office where they had been deposited 
according to custom. So long as I held this post, their claims were in vain, and I 
found pleasure in defying their insults. 

“In the same year there appeared in my office a young creole of attractive 

* Peuchet has “this catastrophe struck fear into their souls” —Ed. 

606 | Karl Marx 

appearance from one of the richest families of Martinique. He objected most 
emphatically to the handing over of the corpse of a young woman, his sister-in-law, 
to the claimant, his own brother and her husband. She had drowned herself. This 
kind of suicide is the commonest. Her body had been found not far from the 
Gréve d’Argenteuil by the officials employed to recover corpses. From one of the 
well-known instincts of modesty which prevail in women even in the blindest 
despair, the drowned woman had wound the seam of her skirt carefully round her 
feet. This modest precaution proved her suicide beyond doubt. As soon as she had 
been found she was taken to the morgue. Her beauty, her youth, her rich apparel 
gave rise to a thousand speculations as to the cause of this catastrophe. The despair 
of her husband, who was the first to identify her, was boundless; he did not fathom 
this calamity, at least so I was told. I myself had not seen him before. I put it to the 
creole that the claims of the husband had precedence over all others; he was 
already having a magnificent marble tombstone erected for his unfortunate wife. 
‘After he has killed her, the monster!’ shouted the creole, rushing to and fro in 
his rage. 

“From the excitement and despair of this young man, from his urgent pleading 
to grant his request, from his tears, I believed I could conclude that he was in love 
with her, and I told him so. He admitted his love; but with the most ardent 
assurances that his sister-in-law had never known of it. He swore to that. He 
wanted to bring to light the barbarities of his brother, even if it meant putting 
himself in the dock, only to save the reputation of his sister-in-law, whose suicide 
public opinion would, as usual, attribute to an intrigue. He begged me for my 
support. What I could gather from his fragmentary, passionate declarations was 
this: Monsieur de M..., his brother, rich and a connoisseur of the arts, a friend of 
luxury and high society, had married this young woman about a year earlier, 
apparently from mutual inclination; they were the most beautiful couple you could 
see. After the marriage a blood defect, perhaps hereditary, in the constitution of 
the young husband had broken out suddenly and violently. Formerly so proud of 
his handsome appearance and his elegant figure, an excellence, a matchless 
perfection of form, this man suddenly fell a prey to an unknown scourge against 
whose devastations science was powerless; from head to foot he was most horribly 
disfigured. He had lost all his hair, his spine had grown crooked. Day by day 
emaciation and wrinkles changed him most strikingly, at least for others; for his 
self-love tried to deny the obvious. Yet all this did not make him take to his bed; an 
iron strength seemed to triumph over the attacks of the scourge. He vigorously 
survived his own ruination. His body became a wreck, and his soul remained 
buoyant. He continued to give banquets, to preside over hunting parties and to 
lead the rich and magnificent way of life which seemed to be the law of his 
character and his nature. But the insults, the jibes, the taunts of schoolboys and 
street urchins when he exercised his horse in the promenades, the rude and 
mocking laughter, solicitous warnings of friends about the countless occasions on 
which he exposed himself to ridicule by insisting on gallant manners towards ladies, 
eventually dispelled his illusion and made him cautious about himself. As soon as 
he admitted to himself his ugliness and deformity, as soon as he was conscious of it, 
his character became embittered; he became dejected. He seemed less keen on 
taking his wife to parties, to balls, to concerts; he fled to his country residence; he 
put an end to all invitations, avoided people under a thousand pretexts, and the 
compliments his friends paid to his wife, which he had tolerated as long as his 
pride gave him the certainty of his superiority, made him jealous, suspicious and 
violent. He detected in all who insisted on visiting him the firm resolve to conquer 
the heart of his wife, who was his last pride and his last consolation. At this time 
the creole arrived, from Martinique with business whose success seemed to be 

Peuchet: On Suicide 607 

favoured by the restoration of the Bourbons to the French throne. His sister-in-law 
received him with cordiality, and in the shipwreck of innumerable connections 
which she had contracted the newcomer preserved the advantage which his title of 
brother quite naturally gave him with Monsieur de M.... The creole foresaw the 
loneliness which would surround the household both as a result of the direct 
quarrels which his brother had with several of his friends and through a thousand 
indirect incidents which drove away and discouraged visitors. Without being clearly 
aware of the motives of love which made him jealous too, the creole approved 
these measures of isolation and encouraged them by his own advice. Monsieur de 
M... finished up by withdrawing entirely into a beautiful house in Passy, which in a 
short time became a desert. Jealousy feeds on the smallest things; when it does not 
know whereon to fasten, it turns against itself and becomes inventive; everything 
serves to sustain it. Perhaps the young woman longed for the pleasures of her age. 
Walls obstructed the view of neighbouring residences; the shutters were closed 
from morning to night.” 

The unfortunate wife was sentenced to the most intolerable 
slavery, and this slavery was only enforced by Monsieur de M... on 
the basis of the Code civil and the right of property, on the basis of 
social conditions which render love independent of the free 
sentiments of the lovers and allow the jealous husband to 
surround his wife with locks as the miser does his coffers; for she 
is only a part of his inventory. 

“At night Monsieur de M... prowled round the house armed, making his rounds 
with dogs. He imagined he saw tracks in the sand and was misled into strange 
suspicions on the occasion of a ladder having been moved by a gardener. The 
gardener himself, a drunkard of almost 60, was placed as guard at the gate. The 
spirit of exclusion knows no bounds to its extravagances, it goes on to the 
absurd. The brother, innocent accomplice in all this, at last understood that he 
was assisting in making the misfortune of the young woman who, day by day kept 
under guard, insulted, bereft of everything which can divert a rich and happy 
imagination, became as gloomy and melancholy as she had been free and gay. She 
cried and concealed her tears, but their traces were visible. The creole was plagued 
by his conscience. Determined to declare himself openly to his sister-in-law and to 
make amends for his mistake, which had surely originated in his furtive feeling of 
love, he crept one morning into a small wooded pleasure garden where the 
prisoner went from time to time to get fresh air and look after her flowers. We 
must take it that availing herself of this very limited freedom she knew that she 
remained under the eyes of her jealous husband; for on seeing her brother-in-law, 
who for the first ttme had come face to face with her unexpectedly, the young 
woman displayed the greatest dismay. She wrung her hands. ‘Go away, in heaven’s 
name,’ she cried to him in fright, ‘go away!’ 

“And indeed, scarcely had he time to hide in a greenhouse, when Monsieur de 
M... suddenly appeared. The creole heard cries, he tried to listen; the beating of 
his heart prevented him from understanding the least word of an explanation to 
which his concealment, should the husband discover it, could give a deplorable 
outcome. This event spurred on the brother-in-law; he saw the need henceforth to 
be the protector of a victim. He resolved to abandon al] restraint of his love. Love 
can sacrifice everything but its right to protect, for this last sacrifice would be that 
of a coward. He continued to visit his brother, ready to speak to him openly, to 

608 . Karl Marx _ 

reveal himself to him, to tell him everything. Monsieur de M... had as yet no 
suspicion of him, but his brother’s insistence aroused it. Without being entirely 
clear on the causes of this interest, Monsieur de M... mistrusted them, anticipating 
where it might lead. The creole soon saw that his brother was not always absent, as 
he afterwards maintained, when people rang in vain at the gate of the house in 
Passy. A locksmith’s apprentice made him keys after the models of those which his 
master had made for Monsieur de M.... After an interval of ten days, the creole, 
embittered by fear and tormented by the maddest imaginings, climbed the walls at 
night, smashed a railing in front of the main yard, reached the roof by a ladder 
and slid down the drain-pipe to below the window of a store-room. Violent cries 
caused him to creep unnoticed as far as a glass door. What he saw rent his heart. 
The light of a lamp shone in an alcove. Behind the bed-curtains, hair dishevelled 
and face purple with fury, Monsieur de M..., crouching half-naked near his wife on 
the bed which she dared not leave though half and half wresting herself from him, 
was heaping on her the most biting reproaches and seemed like a tiger ready to 
tear her to pieces. ‘Yes,’ he said to her, ‘I am ugly, I am a monster and, I know it 
only too well, I inspire fear in you. You wish to be freed of me so that the sight of 
me may no longer be a burden to you. You are longing for the moment which will 
make you free. And don’t tell me the opposite, I guess your thoughts in your fright 
and your resistance. You blush at the unworthy laughter which I arouse, you 
inwardly rebel against me! You no doubt count the minutes, one by one, which 
must elapse until I no longer beleaguer you with my weaknesses and my presence. 
Stop! I am seized with horrible desires, the frenzied wish to make you like myself, to 
disfigure-you, so that you can no longer hope to console yourself with lovers for 
the misfortune of having known me. I shall break all the mirrors in this house so 
that they shall not reproach me with the contrast, so that they cease to nurture 
your pride. Perhaps I should take you out into the world, or let you go there, to 
see how everybody encourages you to hate me? No, no, you shall not leave this 
house until you have killed me. Kill me, anticipate what I am tempted to do every 
day!’ And the savage rolled on the bed with loud cries, gnashing his teeth, 
foaming at the mouth, with a thousand symptoms of madness, and striking himself 
in his fury, near this unfortunate woman who wasted on him the tenderest caresses 
and the most pathetic entreaties. At last she calmed him. No doubt, pity had 
replaced love, but that was not enough for this man who had become so terrible to 
look at, whose passion had retained so much energy. A long spell of depression was 
the sequel to this scene, which petrified the creole. He shuddered and did not 
know to whom to turn to save the unfortunate woman from this deadly 
martyrdom. This scene was apparently repeated every day, since for the convul- 
sions which followed Madame de M. had recourse to bottles of medicine prepared 
for the purpose of restoring a little calm to her torturer. 

“The creole was the only representative of the family of Monsieur de M. in Paris 
at the time. It is in such cases above all that one wants to curse the slowness of 
judicial procedure and the callousness of the laws which nothing can divert from 
their nicely arranged routine, particularly when it is a question only of a woman, a 
being whom the legislator surrounds with the least guarantees. A warrant for an 
arrest, some drastic measure, would alone have prevented the disaster which the 
witness of this madness foresaw too well. He decided, however, to risk everything, 
to take all consequences upon himself, since his wealth enabled him to make 
enormous sacrifices and not to fear responsibility for any risk involved. Already 
several doctors among his friends, determined like himself, were preparing to 
obtain entrance into Monsieur de M.’s house so as to diagnose these fits of 
madness and to separate the two spouses by direct force, when the occurrence of 
the suicide justified the belated preparations and put an end to the problem. 

Peuchet: On Suicide 609 

“Certainly, for anybody who does not limit the entire spirit of words to their 
letter, this suicide was a treacherous murder committed by the husband; but it was 
also the outcome of an extraordinary fit of jealousy. The jealous man needs a 
slave, the jealous man can love, but the love he feels is only a luxurious counterpart 
for jealousy; the jealous man is above all a private property-owner.’ I prevented the 
creole from making a useless and dangerous scandal, dangerous above all to the 
memory of his loved one, for the idle public would have accused the victim of an 
adulterous connection with her husband’s brother. I witnessed the funeral. Nobody 
but the brother and myself knew the truth. Around me I heard discreditable 
murmurings about this suicide and I despised them. One blushes for public 
opinion when one sees it close at hand with its cowardly embitterment and its dirty 
insinuations. Opinion is too much divided by people’s isolation, too ignorant, too 
corrupt, because each is a stranger to himself and all are strangers to one another. 

“Incidentally, few weeks passed without bringing me more revelations of the 
same kind, In the same year I registered love liaisons caused by the parents’ refusal 
to give their consent, and which ended with a double pistol shot. 

“I also recorded suicides of men of the world reduced to impotence in the 
flowering of their age, whom the abuse of enjoyment had thrown into insuperable 
melancholy. 

“Many people, after long and useless torture by harmful prescriptions, end their 
days dominated by the belief that medicine is incapable of freeing them from their 
ills. 

“One could make a remarkable collection of quotations from famous authors and 
of poems written by despairing people preparing for their death with a certain 
ostentation. During the marvellously cold-blooded moment which follows the 
decision to die, a kind of infectious enthusiasm is exhaled from these souls and 
flows on to paper, even among classes which are bereft of all education. While they 
compose themselves for the sacrifice, whose depth they are pondering, all their 
strength is concentrated so as to gush out in a warm and characteristic expression. 

“Some of these poems, which are buried in the archives, are masterpieces. A 
ponderous bourgeois, who puts his soul into his business and his god into 
commerce, may find all this very romantic and by his scornful laughter deny 
suffering which he does not understand: his disdain does not surprise us.” 

What else can one expect of three-percenters, who do not even 
suspect that daily, hourly, piece by piece, they are murdering 
themselves, their human nature! 

“But what shall one say of the good people who pass for devout and educated, 
and who echo such filth? Without doubt it is of great importance that the poor 
devils should endure life, if only in the interests of the privileged classes of this 
world, which a general suicide of the trash would ruin; but is there no other means 
of making the existence of this class bearable than insults, sneers and fine words? 
Besides, there must exist a certain greatness of soul in these wretches who, 
determined as they are to die, destroy themselves.and do not take the way of 
suicide by the detour of the scaffold. It is true that, the more our commercial 

“ This sentence was taken by Marx from the description of another case of 
suicide given by Peuchet below (cf. t. IV, p. 159).—Ed. 

© The last sentence is taken by Marx from the description of another case of 
suicide given by Peuchet below (cf. t. IV, p. 167). Marx gave a free rendering and 
added the concluding words: “because each is a stranger to himself and all are 
strangers to one another.”—Ed. 

epoch progresses, the rarer these noble suicides of misery become. Conscious 
hostility takes their place, and the miserable one inconsiderately runs the risk of 
theft and murder. It is easier to receive the death penalty than to get work. 

“In rummaging through the police archives I have come across only one single 
case of cowardice in the list of suicides. That was a young American, Wilfrid 
Ramsay, who killed himself in order to avoid a duel. 

“The classification of the various causes of suicide would be the classification of 
the very defects of our society. One killed himself because he was robbed of an 
invention by intriguers, on which occasion the inventor, thrown into the direst 
poverty as a consequence of the lengthy scientific investigations to which he had to 
devote himself, was not even in a position to buy himself a patent. Another killed 
himself to avoid the enormous costs and the degrading legal prosecution conse- 
quent on monetary embarrassments which, by the way, are so common that men 
entrusted with the conduct of the general interest are not in the least concerned 
about them. Another again killed himself because he could not find work, after he 
had groaned for a long time under the insults and the stinginess of those in our 
midst who are the arbitrary distributors of work. eee 

“One day a doctor consulted me about a death of which he accused himself of 
having been the cause. 

“One evening, returning to Belleville, where he lived, he was stopped by a veiled 
woman in the dark, in a narrow street from which his house stood off aside. She 
begged him in a tremulous voice to listen to her. At some distance a person whose 
features he could not distinguish was walking up and down. She was being watched 
by a man. ‘Sir,’ she told the doctor, ‘Iam pregnant, and when this is discovered I shall 
be disgraced. My family, public opinion, people of honour will not pardon me. The 
woman whose confidence I have betrayed would lose her reason, and without 
doubt would divorce her husband. I am not defending my case. I am the centre of 
a scandal which only my death could prevent from becoming public. I wanted to 
kill myself, people want me to live. I have been told that you have compassion, and 
this convinced me that you will not want to be an accomplice in the murder of a 
child, even if this child is not yet in the world. You see, it is a question of an 
abortion. I shall not debase myself by pleading extenuation for something I regard 
as the most reprehensible crime. In presenting myself to you I have merely yielded 
to the pleadings of others; for I shall know how to die. I shall summon death 
myself, and I need nobody for that. One can pretend to find pleasure in watering 
the garden; one can put on wooden clogs for it; one can choose a slippery plac 
where one fetches water every day; one can arrange to disappear in the depth 
the well; and people will say that it was an ‘accident’. I have foreseen everythi: 
Sir. I wish it could be the morning after, I would like to go with all my hea .. 
Everything has been prepared so that it will happen just like that. I have bee~ id 
to say this to you, and I have done so. You have to decide whether one muiuer 
shall occur or two. Because of my cowardice I had to swear that I would without 
reservation abide by your decision. Decide!’ 

“*This choice,’ the doctor continued, ‘horrified me. The voice of this woman 
had a pure and harmonious sound; her hand, which I held in mine, was fine and 
delicate; her frank and determined despair bespoke an excellent spirit. But the 
point at issue was one that really made me shudder; although in a thousand cases, 
in difficult deliveries, for example, when the surgeon’s choice lies between saving 

*“ Peuchet writes: “les époques d’incrédulité”.—Ed. 
Marx omits the description of the case given by Peuchet in his Mémoires, t. IV, 
pp. 143-68; the text that follows is taken by Marx from the concluding part of the 
chapter. p. 169 et seq.—Ed. 

Peuchet: On Suicide 611 

the mother or the child, either politics or humaneness decides at will, without 
scruple.’ 

“Flee abroad,’ I said. ‘Impossible,’ she replied, ‘it is not to be contemplated.’ 

“*Take the proper precautions.’ 

“I can’t, I sleep in the same alcove as the woman whose friendship I have 
betrayed.’ ‘She is your relative?’ ‘I must not tell you any more.’ 

“‘T would have given my heart’s blood,’ the doctor continued, ‘to save this 
woman from suicide or crime, or that she might escape this conflict without 
needing me. I charged myself with barbarism because I shrank from complicity in 
a murder. The struggle was terrible. Then a demon whispered to me that one does 
not kill oneself merely because one wishes to die; that compromised people can be 
forced to renounce their vices if their power to do evil is taken from them. I 
guessed luxury from the embroideries with which her fingers played, and the 
resources of wealth from the elegant diction of her speech. We believe that we owe 
less compassion to the rich; my self-esteem revolted against the thought of being 
tempted with gold, although up till then this matter had not been touched on, 
which was one more sign of delicacy and proof that my character was respected. 
My reply was a refusal; the lady went quickly away; the noise of a cabriolet 
convinced me that I would be unable to remedy what I had done. 

““A fortnight later the newspapers gave me the solution of the mystery. The 
young niece of a Paris banker, 18 years old at the most, the beloved ward of her 
aunt, who since the death of her mother had not let the girl out of her sight, had 
slipped and fallen into a brook on the estate of her guardians at Villemomble and 
had drowned. Her guardian was inconsolate; in his capacity of uncle the cowardly 
seducer could give way to his grief before the world.’ 

“One perceives that for want of something better, suicide is the extreme resort 
against the evils of private life. 

“Among the causes of suicide I have very often found dismissal from office, 
refusal of work, or a sudden reduction in salary, as a consequence of which families 
can no longer procure the means of subsistence, the more so since most of them 
live from hand to mouth. 

“At the time when the guards in the royal palace were being reduced, a good 
man was dismissed like the rest without more ado. His age and his lack of influence 
made it impossible for him to have himself transferred back into the army; 
industry was closed to him by his lack of knowledge. He tried to enter the civil 
service; competitors, numerous here as everywhere, stood in his way. He fell into 
gloomy distress and killed himself. In his pocket were found a letter and 
information about his circumstances. His wife was a poor seamstress; their two 
daughters, 16 and 18 years old, worked with her. Tarnau, our suicide, said in the 
papers he left behind that, ‘since he could no longer be of use to his family and 
was compelled to be a burden on his wife and children, he considered it his duty to 
take his life so as to relieve them of this additional burden. He recommended his 
children to the Duchess of Angouléme; he hoped that in her goodness this princess 
would have compassion on so much misery.’ I made a report to police prefect 
Anglés, and when the necessary formalities were completed the duchess had 600 
francs sent to the unfortunate Tarnau family. 

“Sad aid indeed, after such a loss. But how could one family* help all the 
unfortunate, since when everything is taken into account, the whole of France in its 
present state could not feed them. The charity of the rich would not suffice even if 
our whole nation were religious, which is far from the case. Suicide solves the worst of 
the difficulty, the scaffold the rest. Sources of income and real wealth can be expected only 

* Peuchet writes “the royal family” —Ed. 

from a recasting of our general system of agriculture and industry. It is easy to proclaim 
constitutions on paper, the right of every citizen to education, to work, and above 
all to a minimum of the means of subsistence. But it is not enough to write these 
generous wishes on paper, the proper task is to fructify these liberal ideas with 
material and intelligent social* institutions. 

“The ancient world, paganism, has thrown up magnificent creations on the 
earth; will modern liberty lag behind her rival? Who will weld together these two 
splendid elements of might?” 

Thus far Peuchet. 

In conclusion we shall give one of his tables on the annual suicides 
in Paris. 

From another of the tables given by Peuchet we learn that from 
1817 to 1824 (inclusive) 2,808 suicides occurred in Paris.’ Actually, 
of course, the figure was larger. In particular, as regards drowned 
persons whose bodies are exhibited in the morgue it is known in 
only very rare cases whether they were suicides or not. 

Table of Suicides in Paris in the year 1824 

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MI INATTICO? «shoe acc te ecebi ste paetev eau radi ap tad enbost eu eitnes oa Flag aad ab Acosta 207 
1 Eg Lac 0 RRS Re a oe ER Ne ee Er Sr ee eg ee 164 
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By Cutenng Instr ue nes icc ileieeneiec iemsererierdcer ence nine 40 
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death As POISON 14 ct eairsaeyst oa sarctsleceasuaneseetoicsntacduesesteeaasesd oan steers 28 
#8 COAL TUMES c. sexcccssbsdeccss als Goines ews cece aseek ek Cesaw on a tewat baa gece isGasendwasotente 61 
Suffocation by voluntary plunge into water .............ccesccceeeeeeeeeees 115 
Passionate love, domestic quarrels and grief uo... cceeeeseeees 71 
Illness, weariness of life, unsound Mind ........ cooceeeccccecececcececeeecees 128 

Mate Misbehaviour, gaming, lotteries, fear of accusations and pun- 
PSIAIM EN ES 550.025 558525 edd cacedesva cutovsaccostoacsdccaceni pst canssdcecsdoaedd Secuatwene ves 53 
Misery, poverty, loss of position, loss Of JOD ............c:ccseeeeseeeeeee 59 
WAKO Whee, es hs scSaee e secede chino 65 fees anc Sed da onc ten dee ee Sead eeeieduaet aoe 60