AT LE PERREUX 
London, 22 July 1892 

My dear Lafargue, 

Let’s hope that this time the Battle of Ey/au will not, like its prede- 
cessor, be a prawn Battle >? and that whatever Mr Weinschenk decants 
for you will be wine of a respectable sort.” I begin to understand 

* E, Aveling and E. Marx - Aveling, ‘Die Wahlen in Großbritannien’, Die Neue Zeit, 
10. Jg. 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 45.-” A pun in the original: verser means ‘to decant’ and ‘to 
invest capital’, Weinschenk is a surname and also means ‘vintner’. 

French anti-Semitism when I see how these Jews of Polish origin with 
German names are insinuating themselves everywhere, claiming 
everything as their own, pushing themselves forward even to the ex- 
tent of shaping public opinion in the City of Light,* a city of which 
your Parisian simpleton is so proud that he believes it to be the su- 
preme power in the universe. 

At all events, it’s not a symptom to be overlooked if these gentle- 
men are now of the opinion that a socialist newspaper is a sound in- 
vestment. We’re quoted on the Stock Exchange! That really is a sign 
of progress. 

I believe Millerand is right in advising you to deposit 25 or, better 
still, 50 thousand fr. in your name at a good bank. That is the only 
guarantee, but take care that the bank places it to your credit without 
any conditions. They should send you a formal letter, stating that the 
sum of... has been placed to your credit and that you are at liberty to 
dispose of it whenever you wish. Moreover, in the contract with you 
and Guesde, Weinschenk should authorise you to withdraw this sum 
in the event of his breaking the contract. For otherwise the private contract 
between him and the two of you would not be binding on the com- 
pany to be floated — unless the latter had expressly accepted it. But 
these are legal niceties and Millerand will doubtless advise you prop- 
erly. 

As regards the cholera, it is virtually certain to arrive here. Mean- 
while it is completing the work of peace begun in 1891 by the famine 
in Russia.” What is beyond my comprehension is the stupidity of your 
French bourgeois who evidently believes that Russia is a power capa- 
ble of doing anything whatever for France. If he had only a modi- 
cum of common sense he would see that at this moment the alliance 
with France is absolutely indispensible to Russia and that whatever 
France wanted, Russia would have to concede. But in all western 
countries the attitude of our official politicians to Russia is stupid 
beyond belief. France, in the shape of her army, has all the safeguards 
she needs. I have been reading an article by an English officer, not 
one of your generals of the old school, who owe their promotion to 
their ignorance, but a colonel who knows his business and who speaks 
of the French army with an envy that is genuinely felt — he is envious 
because he knows that the advantages it enjoys are impracticable in 
England by reason of the fundamental difference between the two mil- 

* Paris-” See this volume, pp. 242, 343-44 and 374-75. 

itary institutions. But he says that the French army is truly democrat- 
ic—in the regiments, namely its vital organisation —, that officers 
and men respect one another and work together towards the same 
end, that all ranks know their trade, that even the territorials °?° 
have made better soldiers than might have been expected, that real 
discipline is excellent and based on the good will of all, that military 
training is confined to things which are really necessary in war, but 
that within those limits such training is perfectly adequate, and that 
all superfluous parades are rigidly eschewed. In short, if you except 
the better training received by the French, 2¢ is a description of the Prus- 
stan army as reorganised after 1807 under Scharnhorst and that’s the 
greatest compliment one could pay the French army. I’m beginning 
to believe that battalion for battalion it’s just as good as the German 
army, if not better. The Germans’ superiority lies in the large number 
of officers on the reserve, the superiority of the French in the good re- 
lationship between the men and their officers. In our case the men are 
shamefully ill treated. 

You are right. Next week I am off to Ryde.°?° Louise departs next 
Sunday for Vienna and I shall probably depart on Wednesday.’ So if 
you write after Tuesday, the address is: The Firs, Brading Road, 
Ryde. 

I trust Laura is well; we haven’t heard a word from her.5*! Since 
distance precludes my giving her a kiss, give her a kiss on my behalf. 

My regards, Mr Wandering Jew,?°? 

F. E.