[ Deutsche-Briisseler-Zeitung No. 73, September 12, 1847] 

Songs about the Poor Man begins with a song to a wealthy house. 
TO THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD 

To prevent misunderstandings, the poet addresses God as 
“LORD” and the house of Rothschild as Lord. 

Right at the beginning he records his petty-bourgeois illusion that 
the “rule of gold” obeys Rothschild’s “whims”; an illusion which 
gives rise to a whole series of fancies about the power of the house of 
Rothschild. 

It is not the destruction of Rothschild’s real power, of the social 
conditions on which it is based, which the poet threatens; he merely 
desires it to be humanely applied. He laments that bankers are not 
socialist philanthropists, not enthusiasts for an ideal, not benefactors 
of mankind, but just—bankers. Beck sings of the cowardly petty- 
bourgeois wretchedness, of the “poor man”, the pauvre honteux with 
his poor, pious and contradictory wishes of the “little man” in all his 
manifestations, and not of the proud, threatening, and revolutionary 
proletarian. The threats and reproaches which Beck showers on the 
house of Rothschild, sound, for all his good intentions, even more 
farcical to the reader than a Capuchin’s sermon. They are founded 
on the most infantile illusion about the power of the Rothschilds, on 
total ignorance of the connection between this power and existing 
conditions, and on a complete misapprehension about the means 
which the Rothschilds had to use to acquire power and to retain 
power. Pusillanimity and lack of understanding, womanish senti- 
mentality and the wretched, prosaically sober attitudes of the petty 
bourgeoisie, these are the muses of this lyre, and in vain they do 
violence to themselves in an attempt to appear terrible. ‘They only 
appear ridiculous. Their forced bass is constantly breaking into a 
comic falsetto, their dramatic rendering of the titanic struggle of an 

Enceladus only succeeds in producing the farcical, disjointed jerks of 
a puppet. 

The rule of gold obeys your whims 

Oh, would your works could be as splendid 

And your heart as great as is your power! (p. 4). 

_It is a pity that Rothschild has the power and our poet the heart. 
“Were but the two of them one, it had been too much for the earth.” 
(Herr Ludwig of Bavaria.) 

The first figure with whom Rothschild is confronted is of course 
the minstrel himself, to be precise, the German minstrel who dwells in 
“lofty, heavenly garrets”. 

Singing of justice, light and freedom, 
The one true GOD in trinity, 
The lute of the bards is with melody inspired: 

Now men with listening ears will follow 
The spirits (p. 5). 

This “GOD”, borrowed from the Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung's 
motto,!© precisely because of his existence as a trinity, has no effect on 
the Jew Rothschild but produces quite magical effects on German 
youth. 

Restored to health, youth speaks a warning 

And the fertile seed of inspiration 
Sprouts up in myriad splendid names (p.[p. 5-]6). 

Rothschild’s verdict on the German poets is different: 
The song the spirits had us sing, 
You call it hunger for fame and food [p. 6]. 

Although youth is speaking a warning and its myriad splendid 
names are sprouting up, their splendour consisting in the very fact 
that they never get further than mere inspiration, although “the 
bugles bravely sound for battle” and “the heart beats so loud at 
night”, ; 

The foolish heart, it feels the stress 
Of a celestial impregnation (p. 7). 

That foolish heart, that Virgin Mary!—although 

Youth like a sombre Saul (by Karl Beck,? published 
by Engelmann, Leipzig, 1840), 
At odds with GOD and with itselt |p. 8.], 
for all that and all that, Rothschild maintains the armed peace which, 

as Beck believes, depends on him alone. 

The newspaper report that the Holy See has sent Rothschild the 
Order of the Redeemer provides our poet with the chance to 
demonstrate that Rothschild is no redeemer; similarly it could just as 
well have been the occasion for the equally interesting proof that 
Christ, Redeemer though he was, was nevertheless not a knight of © 
the Order of the Redeemer. 

You, a redeemer? (p. 11). 

And he then proves to him that unlike Christ he never wrestled in 
bitter night, he never sacrificed proud earthly power 

For a merciful gladdening mission 
To you entrusted by the great SPIRIT (p. 11). 

It must be said of the great SPIRIT that it does not exhibit much 
spiritual sagacity in its choice of missionaries and has approached the 
wrong man for acts of mercy. The only great thing about it is its block 
capitals. 

Rothschild’s paucity of talent as a redeemer is amply demonstrated 
to him by means of three examples: how he reacted towards the July 
Revolution, the Poles and the Jews. 

Up rose the dauntless scion of the Franks (p. 12), 
in a word, the July Revolution broke out. 

Were you prepared? Did your gold resound 

Happy as the twittering of larks in welcome 

To the springtime stirring in the world? 

Which made young again those yearning hopes 
Sleeping deeply buried in our breasts, 

And brought them back into the living world? (p. 12). 

The springtime that was stirring was the springtime of the 
bourgeoisie, to whom gold, Rothschild’s gold as much as any other, 
does indeed resound happy as the twittering of larks. To be sure, the 
hopes which at the time of the Restoration were sleeping deeply 
buried not only in the breast but also in the Carbonari Ventes’ were 
at that time made young again and brought back into the living 
world, and Beck’s poor man was left to pick up the crumbs. But as 
soon as Rothschild had convinced himself that the new goverr:ment 
had firm foundations, he was happy enough to set his larks 
twittering—at the usual interest rates, of course. 

Just how completely Beck is entangled in petty-bourgeois illusions 
is shown by the saintly status Laffitte is accorded in comparison with 
Rothschild: 

Close-nestling beside your much-coveted halls 
Is a burgher’s dwelling of holy repute (p. 13), 

in other words, Laffitte’s dwelling. The inspired petty bourgeois is 
proud of the bourgeois character of his house compared with the 
much-coveted halls of the Hotel Rothschild. His ideal, the Laffitte of 
his imagination, must naturally also live in true bourgeois simplicity; 
the Hotel Laffitte shrinks into a German burgher’s dwelling. Laffitte 
himself is depicted as a virtuous householder, a man pure in heart, 
he is compared with Mucius Scaevola and is said to have sacrificed his 
fortune in order to put mankind and the century (is Beck perhaps 
thinking of the Paris Siéclé?) back on their feet again. He is called a 
youthful dreamer and finally a beggar. His funeral is touchingly 
described: 

Accompanying the funeral cortége 
Marched with muffled tread the Marseillaise (p. 14). 

Alongside the Marseillaise went the carriages of the royal family, 
and right behind them M. Sauzet, M. Duchatel and all the ventr 
and loups-cerviers> of the Chamber of Deputies. 

How the Marseillaise really must have muffled her tread, though, 
when Laffitte led his compere,< the Duke of Orléans, in triumph to the 
Hotel de Ville after the July revolution and made the striking 
statement that from now on the bankers would rule? 

In the case of the Poles, criticism goes no further than that 
Rothschild did not show enough charity to the emigrés. The attack 
on Rothschild is here reduced to the level of a small-town anecdote 
and quite loses the appearance of an attack on the power of money in 
general which is represented by Rothschild. We all know how the 
bourgeoisie has welcomed the Poles with open arms and even with 
enthusiasm wherever it is in power. 

An example of this compunction: enter a Pole, begging and 
praying. Rothschild gives him a silver coin, the Pole 

Trembling with joy accepts the silver coin 
And speaks his blessing on you and your line [p. 16], 

a predicament from which the Polish Committee in Paris has so far 
on tie whole saved the Poles. Fhe whole episode with the Pole only 
serv:?s tO permit our poet to strike an attitude: 

But I hurl back that beggar’s happiness 
Contemptuously into your money-bag, 
Avenging thus mankind offended! (p. 16), 

such a bull’s-eye at the money-bag requiring much practice and skill 
in throwing. Finally Beck insures himself against proceedings for 
assault and battery by acting not in his own name but in that of 
mankind. 

As early as p. 9 Rothschild is taken to task for accepting a patent of 
citizenship from Austria’s fat imperial city, 

Where your much-harassed fellow-Jews 
Pay for their daylight and their air. 

Beck really believes that with this Viennese patent of citizenship 
Rothschild has obtained the blessings of freedom. 

Now, on p. 19, he is asked: 

Have you set your own people free 
That ever hopes and meekly suffers? 

Rothschild ought then to have become the redeemer of the Jews. 
And how ought Rothschild to have set about this? The Jews had 
chosen him as king because his gold weighed the heaviest. He should 
have taught them how to despise gold, “how to suffer deprivation 
for the world’s sake” (p. 21). 

He ought to have wiped their memories clean of selfishness, 
cunning and the practice of usury, in short, he ought to have 
appeared in sackcloth and ashes as a preacher of morality and 
atonement. Our poet’s daring demand is the equivalent of requiring 
Louis-Philippe to teach the bourgeoisie of the July revolution to 
abolish property. If either were so insane, they would lose their 
power forthwith, but the Jews would not wipe their memories clean 
of haggling, nor the bourgeoisie theirs of property. 

On p. 24 Rothschild is criticised for bleeding the bourgeoisie 
white, as though it were not desirable that the bourgeoisie should be 
bled white. 

On p. 25 he is said to have led the princes astray. Ought they not to 
be led astray? 

We have already evidence enough of the fabulous power Beck 
attributes to Rothschild. But he goes on in a crescendo. Having 
indulged on p. 26 in fantasies as to all the things he (Beck) would do 
if he were propriétaireof the sun, that is, not even the hundredth part of 
what the sun is doing without him—it suddenly occurs to him that 
Rothschild is not the only sinner, but that other wealthy men exist be- 

sides him. However: 
You occupied in eloquence the teacher’s chair, 
Attentively the rich sat as your pupils; 
Your task: to lead them out into the world, 
Your role: to be their conscience. 
They have gone wild—and you looked on, 
They are corrupted—and yours is the blame (p. 27). 

So Lord Rothschild could have prevented the development of 
trade and industry, competition, the concentration of property, the 
national debt and agiotage, in short, the whole development of 
modern bourgeois society, if only he had had somewhat more 
conscience. It really requires toute la désolante naiveté de la poésie 
allemandé for one to dare to publish such nursery tales. Rothschild is 
turned into a regular Aladdin. 

Still not satisfied, Beck confers on Rothschild 

The dizzy grandeur of the mission 

The whole world’s sufferings to assuage [p. 28], 
a mission which all the capitalists in the whole world are not remotely 
capable of fulfilling. Does our poet not realise then that the more 
sublime and awe-inspiring he attempts to appear, the more 
ridiculous he becomes? that all his criticisms of Rothschild are 
transmuted into the most slavish flattery? that he is extolling 
Rothschild’s power as the most cunning panegyrist could not have 
extolled it? Rothschild must congratulate himself when he sees what 
a monstrous form his puny personality assumes as reflected in the 
mind of a German poet. 

After our poet has so far versified the romantic and ignorant 
fantasies of a German petty bourgeois concerning what is within the 
power of a big capitalist if only he were a man of good will, after he 
has puffed up the fantasy of this power as far as it will go in the 
puffed-up dizzy grandeur of his mission, he gives vent to the moral 
indignation of a petty bourgeois at the discrepancy between ideal 
and reality, in an emotional paroxysm which would give rise to fits of 
laughter even in a Pennsylvanian Quaker: 

Alas, alack, when in long night (December 21) 
I pondered with a fevered brow 

Then did my locks: rear up conven: 

Methought I was at GOD’s own heartstrings tugging, 

A bellman at the fire-bell (p. 28), 
which must surely have been the last nail in the old man’s coffin. He 
thinks the “spirits of history” have thus entrusted him with ideas, 
which he is not permitted either to whisper or proclaim aloud. In fact 
he comes to the desperate decision to dance the cancan in his grave: 

But when in mouldering shroud I lie, 

My corse shall shake with joyful tremors, 

When down to me (the corse) the tiding comes 
That victims on the altars smoke (p. 29). 

I begin to find young Karl disturbing.? 

Thus ends the song about the House of Rothschild. There now 
follows, as is customary with modern lyric poets, a rhymed reflection 
on this canto and the role the poet has played in it. 

I know your mighty arm 
Can chastise me till the blood does flow (p. 30), 

in other words, he can give him fifty of the best. The Austrian never 
forgets the birch. In the face of this danger, a feeling of exaltation 
gives him strength: 

At GOD’s command and without fear 
I sang full freely what I knew [p. 30}. 

The German poet always sings to command. Of course, the master 
is responsible and not the servant, and so Rothschild has to face up to 
GOD and not to Beck, his servant. It is indeed the general practice of 
modern lyric poets: 

1. To boast of the danger they think they are exposing themselves 
to in their harmless songs; 

2. to take a thrashing and then commend themselves to God. 

The song “To the House of Rothschild” closes with a few stirring 
sentiments about the aforementioned song, which is here slander- 
ously described in the following terms: 

Free it is and proud, it may command you, 
Tell you the things by which in faith it swears (p. 32), 

that is, by its own excellence, as instanced in this conclusion. We fear 
that Rothschild may take Beck to court, not on account of the song, 
but on account of this piece of perjury. 

[ Deutsche-Briisseler-Zeitung No. 74, September 16, 1847]