IN ZALT-BOMMEL 
{London,} 17 July 1861 

My sweet little Cousin, 

I hope you will not have mis-interpreted my long silence. 
During the first time I did not exactly know where to direct my 
letters to, whether to Aachen or to Bommel. Then, there came a 

* See this volume, pp. 264-65. - > An allusion to Batrachomyomachia (The Battle of 
the Frogs and the Mice), a Greek poem which parodies Homer’s Iliad, and also to 
G. Rollenhagen’s poem Froschmeuseler, der Frisch und Meuse wunderbare Hofhaltunge. - 
© Kinkel. Marx refers to ‘De: deutsche Mann. Ein Spielzeug für Wortklauber’, 
Kladderadatsch, No. 29-30, 30 June 1861. 

heavy pressure of business, and during the last 2 or 3 weeks I 
laboured under a most disgusting inflammation of the eyes which 
very much limited the time I had disposable for writing or 
reading. So, my dear child, if I must plead guilty, there are many 
attenuating circumstances which I trust you, as a gracious judge, 
will allow to influence your sentence. At all events, you would do 
me great wrong in supposing that during all that time one single 
day had passed away without the remembrance, on my part, of my 
dear little friend. 

My Berlin affair has not yet been brought to a definite issue. 
You will remember that during my stay in the Prussian metropolis 
the Hohenzollern authorities seemed to yield, and even furnished 
me with a passport for one year. Yet hardly had I turned my back 
upon them, when Lassalle, to his utter astonishment, received a 
letter from the Polizeiprasident v. Zedlitz to the purpose that I 
could not be ‘renaturalised’ because of my ‘politische Bescholtenheit’* 
At the same time the Prussian government declared that all the 
Political Refugees, having been absent from Prussia for more than 
10 years, had lost their right of citizenship, had become 
foreigners, and would, consequently, like all other foreigners, only 
be re-naturalised at the pleasure of the king. In other words, they 
declared their so-called amnesty” to be a mere delusion, sham and 
share. This was a point I had tried to drive them to during my 
Berlin stay, and it was more than even the Prussian press and the 
Prussian chamber of deputies were able to bear silently with. 
Consequently, the case gave rise to bitter discussions in the 
journals, and to an interpellation of the cabinet in the Abgeord- 
netenhaus.© For the nonce the ministry escaped by means of some 
equivocous and contradictory statements, but the whole affair 
contributed not a little to disillusion people in Germany as to the 
‘new era’ inaugurated by what the Berliners irreverently call the 
‘Schéne Wilhelm’.?°** Lassalle, with his usual stubbornness, tried 
hard to get the better of the authorities. First he rushed to Zedlitz 
and made him such a scene that the Freiherr got quite frightened 
and called his secretary for assistance. A few weeks later, Zedlitz 
having been removed from his post, in consequence of hostile 
demonstrations against him by the Berlin mob, Lassalle called 
upon Geheimrath! Winter, the successor of Zedlitz, but the 
“successor’ declared that his hands were bound by the decision of 

@ political unreliability - > See this volume, pp. 248-49. - © Chamber of Deputies - 
4 ‘Handsome William’ - © Baron - £ Privy Councillor 

his ‘predecessor’. Lassalle, lastly, caught hold of Count Schwerin, 
the minister of the Interior who, to escape from the violent 
expostulations of my representative, promised him to leave the 
whole case to the decision of the Berlin magistrate—a promise he 
is, however, not very likely to keep.**° As to myself, I have attained 
at least the one success of forcing the Berlin government to throw 
off its liberal mask. As to my return to Berlin, if I should think 
proper to go there before May 1862, they could not prevent it 
because of the passport granted to me. If I should delay my 
return, things will perhaps have so altered in Prussia, that I shall 
not want their permission. It is really ridiculous that a government 
should make so much fuss, and compromise itself so much, for 
fear of a private individual. The conscience of their weakness must 
be awful. 

At the same time I had the good fortune of being honoured by 
the singular attention of the French government. A person at 
Paris whom I do not know, had a translation of my pamphlet Herr 
Vogt already in print, when an order on the part of M. de 
Persigny forbade him going on with the translation. At the same 
time a general warning was communicated to all the booksellers at 
Paris against selling the German original of Herr Vogt. I got only 
acquainted with this occurrence by a Paris correspondence 
published in the Allgemeine Augsburger Zeitung? 

From the Grafin Hatzfeldt I have received a letter filling 16 
pages.” Take an example of this, my dear child. She has gone—of 
course, in company of Lassalle—to a bathing place near Frankfurt 
on the Main. Thence they will proceed to Switzerland, and, after a 
month’s sojourn there, to Italy. She feels much ennuyée* and thinks 
herself much to be pitied, because she has no other business on 
hand save that of amusing herself. It is in fact a bad plight for an 
active, stirring and rather ambitious woman whose days of 
flirtation are gone by. 

A propos. I have sent from Manchester to August the two 
volumes of Lassalle’s new juridical work‘ and should like to hear 
whether the packet has found out its address. From Jacques‘ I 
have heard nothing. 

I think not, my dear child, that Mrs Marx and her daughters 
will find an occasion of paying this year a visit to Bommel, because 
the Doctor thinks a seabath during the hot season would be the 

a See this volume, p. 290. - b Sophie von Hatzfeldt’s letter to Marx of 14 June 
1861 - © bored - ¢ August Philips - © F. Lassalle, Das System der erworbenen Rechte. - 
f Jacques Philips 

best she could do for getting rid of the remainders of the terrible 
disease that befell her last autumn.* On the other hand, I hope you 
will not forget your promise to visit London where all the 
members of the family will feel happy to receive you. As to myself, 
I need not tell you that nothing in the world would give me 
greater pleasure. 

I hope, my sweet little charmer, you will not prove too severe, 
but, like a good Christian, send me very soon one of your little 
letters without revenging yourself for my too long protracted 
silence. 

Recommend me to your father, to my friend ‘Jettchen’, the 
Doctor,” your brother Fritz and the whole family, and believe me 
always 

Your most sincere admirer 
Charles Marx 

I am quite astonished at the news of the attentat on his Prussian 
Majesty,”*° alias ‘Der sch6ne Wilhelm’. How could any person of 
common understanding risk his own head in order to kill a 

brainless ass?