Friedrich Engels to Emil Blank  
in London  
Paris, 28 March 1848  

Dear Emil,  
I have today received the first four halves of the 4 £5 notes and request immediate dispatch of the other halves as I must leave as soon as possible. I thank you very much for your readiness to come to my aid quickly in this emergency. Your subscription for the Rhein[ische] Ztg is registered.  

As regards the local parties, there are actually three main ones, not counting the small ones (Legitimists and Bonapartists, who merely intrigue, mere sects, without influence among the people, partly rich, but without any hope of victory). These three are firstly the defeated of 24 February, i.e. the big bourgeois, the stock-exchange speculators, bankers, manufacturers and great merchants, the old Conservatives and Liberals. Secondly the petty bourgeois, the middle class, the mass of the National Guard who on 23 and 24 February went over to the side of the people, the “sensible radicals”, the men of Lamartine and the *National*. Thirdly the people, the Paris workers, who now hold Paris with armed force.  

The big bourgeois and the workers stand directly opposed to each other. The petty bourgeois play a mediating, but very miserable role. These latter, however, have the majority in the provisional government (Lamartine, Marrast, Dupont de l’Eure, Marie, Garnier-Pagès and sometimes || also Crémieux). They, and with them the provisional government, waver very much. The quieter everything becomes, the more the government and the petty-bourgeois party incline towards the big bourgeoisie; the more restless it gets, the more they again side with the workers. Thus recently, when the bourgeois had again become terribly insolent, and even undertook a National Guard procession of 8,000 men to the Hôtel de Ville to protest against a decree of the provisional government and especially against energetic measures by Ledru-Rollin, they actually succeeded in intimidating the majority of the government and especially the flabby Lamartine, so that he publicly disavowed Ledru. But the very next day, 17 March, 200,000 workers marched to the Hôtel de Ville, declared their unconditional confidence in Ledru-Rollin, and forced the majority of the government and Lamartine to recant. For the moment, therefore, the people of the *Réforme* (Ledru-Rollin, Flocon, L. Blanc, Albert, Arago) have the upper hand again. Of the whole government, they still represent the workers most, and are communists without knowing it. Unfortunately, little Louis Blanc is disgracing himself greatly by his vanity and his crazy plans. He will soon experience a dreadful disgrace. But Ledru-Rollin is conducting himself very well.  

The greatest misfortune is that the government, on the one hand, has to make promises to the workers, and on the other hand can keep none because it lacks the courage to secure the necessary funds through revolutionary measures against the bourgeois, heavy progressive taxes, inheritance taxes, confiscation of the property of all emigrants, prohibition of the export of money, a state bank, etc. The people of the *Réforme* are allowed to promise, and then they are rendered unable to keep what they promised by highly insipid, conservative decisions.  

In the National Assembly a new element is now added: the peasants, who constitute ⁷/₈ of the French nation and are for the party of the *National*, of the petty bourgeois. It is very probable that this party will win, that the people of the *Réforme* will fall, and then there will be a revolution again. It is also possible that the deputies, once in Paris, will see how things stand here and that only the people of the *Réforme* are sustainable in the long run. This is, however, not likely.  

The postponement of the elections by 14 days is likewise a victory of the Paris workers over the bourgeois party.  

The people of the *National*, Marrast and his associates, are also making a very bad showing. || They live it up and procure palaces and good positions for their friends. Those of the *Réforme* are quite different. I have been a few times to see old Flocon, the fellow lives as before in a poor apartment on the fifth floor, smokes ordinary shag in an old clay pipe, and has only bought himself a new dressing gown. Otherwise just as republican in his way of life as when he was still editor of the *Réforme*, also just as friendly, cordial and open-hearted. He is one of the most decent fellows I know.  

Recently I lunched in the Tuileries in the apartments of the Prince de Joinville with old Imbert, who was a refugee in Brussels and is now governor of the Tuileries. In the rooms of Louis-Philippe, the wounded are now lying on the carpets and smoking short pipes. In the throne room, the pictures of Soult and Bugeaud have been torn down and shredded, and that of Grouchy cut to pieces.  

Just now the funeral procession of a worker who died of his wounds is passing by to the strains of the Marseillaise. At least 10,000 National Guards and armed people accompany him, and the young dandies from the Chaussée d’Antin have to accompany the procession as mounted National Guards. The bourgeois are fuming that such final honours are being shown to a worker.  

Yours,  
F. E.  
Paris 28 March 1848.  

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to Adalbert von Bornstedt  
in Paris  
Paris, 1 April 1848  

Copy  

In reply to the note deposited this morning at Marx’s by Messrs Bornstedt etc., the following serves as answer:  

1) It does not occur to Marx by any means to answer to anyone for any German newspaper articles.  

2) It does not occur to Marx by any means to answer to a committee or a deputation of the German Democratic Society, with which he has nothing to do.  

3) If Messrs Bornstedt and Herwegh personally, and not as members of any committee or any society, demand explanations, Mr Bornstedt has already been told once privately and once publicly to whom they must address themselves.  

Paris 1 April 1848  
22 rue neuve Saint Augustin  

Messrs Bornstedt etc.  

Monsieur  
Monsieur Bornstedt