London, 23 February [1851] 

Dear Engels, 

For a week you’ve had no news of me, firstly because I was 
awaiting the documents from Cologne” and wished to tell you 
about them, secondly because I had to wait for further details 
about our ‘exrrienp’. The former have not yet arrived. As to the 
latter, I am now rather better informed. 

Harney received your letter all right. 

a Meanwhile, greetings. - > i.e. Willich’s letters which were to be sent to Marx by 
Johann Becker (see this volume, pp. 273, 282, 284). 

According to what I am told by Tessier du Mothay, who is now 
here, the Louis Blanc affair originated as follows: 

The association in Church Street*? gave itself out to be a 
philanthropic association for assistance to French political réfugiés. 
Ledru-Rollin, L. Blanc, Adam, everyone, in short, made this a 
pretext for participating in it. Politics were banned by the statutes. 
Then 24 February* hove into view. As you know, when presented 
with the opportunity of making themselves important, the French 
prepare for it as Jong in advance and treat it with as much 
solemnity as the prospective lying-in of a pregnant woman. Even if 
the association was merely a philanthropic one, so the argument 
ran, its members in their capacity as Frenchmen must nevertheless 
celebrate 24 February. A definite evening was fixed for a debate 
on this important matter. On that evening both Ledru and Blanc 
were present. The latter delivered a carefully prepared, spuriously 
temperate, jesuitical speech, in which he sought to prove that a 
political banquet contravened the association’s statutes, that it 
would simply make France aware of their dissensions, etc., and, 
amidst much pious talk of fraternité, the Corsican mandrake, 
vented his chagrin at not having been included in the provisional 
government’ by Ledru and Mazzini. He got his answer. Despite 
his speech, which none admired more sincerely than he did, it was 
decided to hold the banquet. 

And what does la blanche Louise? do now? She declares that, as a 
result of this decision, the association has dissolved itself thereby 
restoring to each his individual freedom, and that he will make 
use of this restitution of his ‘free will’ and organise a banquet 
without any spirit of faction, pure fraternité and other delectable 
tidbits. 

His eyes turned naturally to Barthélemy, knowing as he did that 
the latter, the Germans, Poles, etc., together formed a compact 
mass. On the other hand Landolphe, le bel homme, was entrusted 
with the mission of winning over our pear Harney. L. Blanc was 
even gracious enough to invite Harney to the dinner, though, 
during the past six months, he and Landolphe have been 
consigning him to the devi]. What magnanimity! 

On the other hand L. Blanc drafted a manifesto which, as our 
pear Would say, is our anp our. You will have read it in The Friend of 
the People. It even repudiates the ‘aristocracy of the mind’, thereby on 

a the anniversary of the February 1848 revolution in France - white Louise (Louis 
Blanc) - © the fine figure of a man 

the one hand ostensibly providing a motive for condescending to 
the dit minorum gentium and, on the other, holding out to 
Schapper & Co. the immediate and cheerful prospect of an 
‘aristocracy of stupidity. But this manifesto—feeble platitudes, 
naturally—is regarded by L. Blanc as the ‘wisest possible thing’ to 
which human nature, under the most Happy circumstances, could 
aspire. It was intended not only to astound the whole of Europe 
but also and more particularly to give Ledru-Roilin a slap in the 
face, and to lead all the Blanquists in France to believe that, out of 
sheer intrepidity of principle, the incorrurrmLe titre man had 
disassociated himself from Church Street. 

Thus the worthy Harney has made himself the tool of a vulgar 
intrigue and, what is more, an intrigue directed against Ledru- 
Rollin to whom, at the same time, he goes running and whose 
banquet he will also honour with his presence tomorrow. In order 
further to nettle this, despite his qualités trés aimables and 
respectables,” highly impressionable plebeian—impressionable, that is, 
to famous names, in whose shadow he feels touched and 
honoured—and in order at the same time to show Ledru-Mazzini 
that the Napoleon of socialism cannot be thwarted with impunity, 
the little man goes and solicits the felicitations of the Parisian 
workers. These ‘Parisian workers’, whose appearance on the scene 
was bound to make the blood rise to our pear’s head, are, of 
course, none other than the notorious 25 délégués des Luxembourg, 
who have never been delegated by anyone, and who, throughout 
Paris, are the object, now of the hatred, now of the risée of the 
other workers,— fellows whose importance is no greater than that 
of the members of the Pre-parliament or the Committee of Fifty 
in Germany.*” They feel a need for a petit bon dieu quelconques a 
fetish, and there is something monstrous about the little man’s 
appearance which all along has made it a suitable object of 
worship. He for his part assures them that they are the greatest 
men and the truest socialists on earth. And had he not already 
nominated them pairs of the future Workers’ Republic? Hence, 
whenever he raises a finger, they offer their felicitations and, 
whenever they offer their felicitations, he publicly expresses his 
heartfelt thanks. And he raised a finger this time. In these 
professional felicitators Harney, of course, sees Paris, the whole of 
Paris. 

Before I take leave of the mandrake, two more items which I 

* second-rate luminaries (literally: gods of the minor nations) - » most amiable and 
respectable qualities - < ridicule - ¢ a little god of some sort - ¢ peers 

learned from Tessier, both of them highly characteristic of this 
fausse pleureuse. 

Louise never speaks extempore. He writes down every word of 
his speeches and learns them by heart in front of the looking-glass. 
Ledru, on the other hand, always improvises and, on important 
occasions, confines himself to a few matter or ract notes. Hence, 
quite aside from the difference in personal appearance, Louise is 
completely incapable of making the slightest impression when 
alongside Ledru. He therefore welcomed any pretext that permit- 
ted him to avoid comparison with this dangerous rival! 

So far as his historical works are concerned, he wrote them in 
the same way that A. Dumas wrote his feuilletons. He never 
studies more material than is needed for the next chapter. This is 
how such books as the Histoire des dix ans are produced. In this 
way it lends a certain freshness to his accounts. For what he’s 
conveying is at least as new to him as it is to the reader; on the 
other hand the thing as a whole is weak. 

So much for L. Blanc. Now for our pear. 

He was not content with merely attending the fellows’ meeting. 
Indeed not. He has turned their banquet of 24 February which, 
without him, would have been a complete fiasco, into a London 
event. A thousand tickets have already been sold for the banquet, 
which is being held in the City. It was Harney who placed the 
majority of the tickets, as Jones informed me the day before 
yesterday. O’Connor, Reynolds, hundreds of Chartists will be 
there. Harney has been drumming them up. Again according 
to Jones, he is en route” all day, carrying out L. Blanc’s orders. 

He has even perpetrated a little piece of perfidy with regard to 
Jones by getting him to translate L. Blanc & Co.’s manifesto and 
then asking him whether he would have any objection to being 
named as the translator. That was on Wednesday.© So by then 
he already had your letter, although he gave no hint of this to 
Jones. Jones saw in his question merely an appeal to his own 
‘socialist’ sentiments—and naturally replied that he had no 
objection. 

Jones told me that, as a result of my arguments, he might stay away 
from the banquet, though he couldn’t say for certain. The reason 
for his indecision’ is perfectly sensible. Were he not to turn up, he 
would forfeit some of his popularity since, thanks to our pxar, this 
banquet has become a Chartist occasion. He is also afraid that 
Reynolds might intrigue behind his back. 

4 crocodile - > on the go - ¢ 18 February 

Jones disapproves of the behaviour of our pear, whom I have 
not ‘seen again’. He tried to excuse it on the grounds that, if the 
Chartists failed to attend either of the banquets, they would be 
accused of political apathy, or of antipathy towards the foreign 
revolutionaries. To this I replied that in that case Harney, etc., 
should have held a Chartist meeting to celebrate the rotten 24 
February instead of constituting a pedestal for a dwarf and half a 
dozen jackasses—a dwarf who never describes Harney as anything 
but a ‘brave gargon’* and who, if a movement were to go into 
action in London tomorrow, or in one year’s or 20 years’ time, 
would produce official documents to prove that he had set these 
pauvres Anglais dans la route du progres,” a path which led from 
1688 to 24 February 1851, when Louis Blanc heard himself 
acclaimed by the whole of London, as once before by 50,000 
workers in the courtyard of the Réforme, which holds barely 50 
men. And how many crocodile’s tears about this event that never 
happened will he consign to paper! 

Harney has become embroiled in this business, firstly, because of 
his inordinate admiration for official great men, which we have 
often derided in the past. Secondly, because he loves theatrical 
effects. He is truly avid of applause, if not actually vaniteux.© There 
is no disputing that he himself is profoundly susceptible to the 
stock phrase and generates the most copious and impassioned gas. 
Is more deeply bogged in the democratic mire than he would care 
to admit. He has a twofold spirit, one inculcated by Frederick 
Engels, and one that is all his own. The former is for him a kind 
of straitjacket. The latter is he himself in puris naturalibus. But 
there is in addition a third, a spiritus familiaris, and that is his 
worthy spouse.’ She has a great predilection for gants jaunes a la 
Landolphe and Louis Blanc. She hates me, for one, as a frivolous 
fellow who might endanger her ‘property to BE WATCHED upon’. I have 
irrefutable proof that this female has more than one of her long 
plebeian fingers in this pie. The extent of Harney’s thraldom to 
this spirttus familiaris, and of the petty Scottish wiliness with which 
she conducts her intrigues, will be apparent to you from the 
following: You will recall how on New Year’s Eve she insulted Miss 
Macfarlane in the presence of my wife. Later she told my wife, 
with a smile on her lips, that Harney had not seen Miss 
Macfarlane throughout the evening. Later she told him that she 

a good lad -> poor English on the path of progress - © vain-4 in a state of 
nature - © familiar spirit - £ Mary - 8 dandies 

had pecunep her acquaintanceship because the cleft dragoon had 
evoked the dismay and ridicule of the whole company and of my 
wife in particular. And Harney was idiotic and cowardly enough 
not to give Miss Macfarlane a chance to avenge the insult, thus 
breaking in the most unworthy manner with the only collaborator 
on his insignificant little rag* who really had any ideas. On his rag, 
a rara avis. 

What lends added weight to this meeting is the stir created in 
London by uitrie jounny’s resignation and the avénement’ of 
Stanley-d’Israehi.?” 

There’s nothing the Frencumen fear more than a general 
amnesty. It would rob all the local cardboard heroes of their 
halos. 

A. Ruge, in company with Struve, Kinkel, Schramm,‘* Bucher, 
etc., has been trying to bring into being a Volksfreund or, as our 
Gustav’ would have it, a Deutscher Zuschauer. Came to nought. 
Some of the others did not want Winkelried’s patronage, some, 
like the ‘easy-going’ Kinkel, demanded payment in cash, ce qui ne 
fait pas le compte de M. Ruge." His chief aim was, as you will know, 
to extract money from the reading public. This was frustrated by 
Julius, since he too wants to bring out a paper here. 

K. Heinzen is redacteur en chef’ of the bankrupt New York 
Schnellpost and has entered into a hair-raising polemic with 
Weitling. 

You would do well to write sometime soon to Red Becker! in 
New York and inform him about l’état actuel des choses. 

Enclosed a letter from Dronke. Send it back to me by return; if 
you wish to write yourself with it, tant mieux: 

Your remittance was a great help to me as I couldn't possibly go 
on owing the bel homme™ a rartuine any longer. 

In my next letter, something about French literature of 1830-48. 

Write, too, and tell me whether my sums are right. 

Your 
K. M. 

a The Friend of the People-» rare bird - © John Russell - 4 accession to power - 
€ Rudolf Schramm - £ Gustav Struve - 8 Arnold Ruge (nicknamed Winkelried after 
a semi-legendary Swiss warrior whose name was Arnold) - » which doesn’t suit Mr 
Ruge’s book - } editor-in-chief - i probably Max Joseph Becker - * the present state 
of things - ' so much the better - ™ that fine figure of a man (Landolphe—see this 
volume, pp. 284, 286) 

Incidentally, in our dealings with our pear—for he will seek to 
come back as soon as he has done with this great historical 
event *”'—we must assume an air of superiority and make him feel 
that he has ‘lost’. 

Apropos! Harney has had himself elected to a Chartist 
deputation to Church Street, whence, having made his entrée, he 
will repair to the City, where he will make himself at home. 

Since, incidentally, there was nothing naive about his action, it 
follows that he arranged everything with the ‘bel’ homme behind my 
back and was no less reticent towards yourself.