ENGELS TO MARX” 

[Manchester,] 3 December 1851 

‘Représentants de la France, délibérez en paix!’ And where can the 
gentlemen deliberate more peacefully than in the Caserne d’Orsay, 
guarded by a battalion of chasseurs de Vincennes! 

The history of France has entered a stage of utmost comicality. 
Can one imagine anything funnier than this travesty of the 18th 
Brumaire, effected in peacetime with the help of discontented 
soldiers by the most insignificant man in the world without, so far 
as it has hitherto been possible to judge, any opposition 
whatsoever? And how beautifully have all the old jackasses been 
caught! The slyest fox in the whole of France, old Thiers, the 
astutest advocate of the barreau,” Mr Dupin, caught in the trap set 
for them by the most notorious blockhead of the century; caught 
as easily as Mr Cavaignac’s inflexible republican virtue and as that 
braggart of a Changarnier! And to complete the tableau, a rump 
parliament with Odilon Barrot as ‘L6we of Calbe’’™: and, in view 
of this violation of the Constitution, the said Odilon demands to 
be arrested and cannot contrive to get himself hauled off to 
Vincennes! The whole thing is as if expressly invented for the 

a ‘Representatives of France, hold your deliberations in peace!’—from Changar- 
nier’s speech in the Legislative Assembly on 3 June 1851 in reply to one by 
President Louis Bonaparte in Dijon on | June containing concealed threats to the 
Assembly. - > at the Bar 

benefit of red Wolff*; henceforward he alone will be capable of 
writing the history of France. Has ever a coup been effected with 
more fatuous proclamations than this one? And the ludicrous 
Napoleonic apparatus, the anniversary of the coronation and of 
Austerlitz,>? the provocation against the consular Constitution and 
so on—the fact that anything of this kind could succeed even for 
a day—does indeed lower Messieurs les Franguis to a level of 
puerility that 1s without parallel. 

Wonderful, the arrest of those great, loud-mouthed advocates of 
order,** of little Thiers first and foremost, and of the bold 
Changarnier. Wonderful, the sitting of the rump parliament in the 
10th Arrondissement, with Mr Berryer yelling ‘Vive la République’, 
out of the window, until finally the whole lot were apprehended 
and shut up in a barrack square among the soldiers. And then the 
stupid Napoleon, who at once packed his bags to move into the 
Tuileries. Even though one racked one’s brains for a whole year, 
one couldn’t think up a prettier comedy. 

And that evening, when ‘the stupid Napoleon at last flung 
himself down on the long coveted bed in the Tuileries, the 
numskull must really have been at a loss to know what he was 
about. Le consulat sans premier consul!” Internal difficulties no 
greater than they had been, generally speaking, for the past three 
years, no exceptional financial straits, not even as regards his 
private purse, no coalition on the borders, no St Bernard to be 
crossed, no Marengo to be won.*” It’s enough to make one 
despair. And now there’s no longer even a National Assembly to 
foil the great schemes of this unappreciated man; nay, for the 
time being at least the jackass is as free, as untrammelled, as 
absolute as the old man on the night of the 18th Brumaire, so 
completely unrestrained that he can’t help coming the jackass on 
each and every occasion. Appalling, a prospect devoid of conflict! 

Mais le peuple, le peuple!—Le peuple se fiche pas mal de toute cette 
boutique, are happy as children over the franchise accorded to 
them and which, indeed, they will probably make use of like 
children.” What can result from these ridiculous elections a week 
on Sunday, if in fact it ever comes to that? No press, no meetings, 
martial law enough and to spare and, on top of it all, the order to 
produce a deputy within 14 days. 

@ Ferdinand Wolff - & The consulate without the First Consul! - © But the people, 
the people! The people don’t care a damn for all this business 

What is to come of the whole business? ‘If we adopt the 
standpoint of world history’,* we are presented with a splendid 
subject for declamation. Thus, e.g.: it remains to be seen whether 
the Praetorian regime of the time of the Roman Empire, for 
which the prerequisite was an extensive state organised on strictly 
military lines, a depopulated Italy and the absence of a modern 
proletariat, is possible in a geographically compact, densely 
populated country such as France, which has a large industrial 
proletariat. Either: Louis Napoleon has no party of his own; 
having spurned the Orleanists and Legitimists, he must now turn 
towards the left. Turning towards the left implies an amnesty, an 
amnesty implies a collision, etc. Or else: Universal suffrage is the 
basis of Louis Napoleon’s power, he cannot attack it, and universal 
suffrage is now incompatible with a Louis Napoleon. And other 
suchlike conjectural theses which would lend themselves splendidly 
to prolixity. But, after what we saw yesterday, there can be no 
counting on the peuple, and it really seems as though old Hegel, in 
the guise of the World Spirit, were directing history from the 
grave and, with the greatest conscientiousness, causing everything 
to be re-enacted twice over, once as grand tragedy and the second 
time as rotten farce,>?' Caussidiére for Danton, L. Blanc for 
Robespierre, Barthélemy for Saint-Just, Flocon for Carnot, and 
the moon-calf” together with the first available dozen debt- 
encumbered lieutenants for the little corporal and his band of 
marshals. Thus the 18th Brumaire would already be upon us. 

The people of Paris have behaved with childish stupidity. Cela 
ne nous regarde pas; que le président et V'assemblée s’entre-tuent, peu nous 
importe!* But that the army should presume to foist a govern- 
ment—and what a government!—on France, that undoubtedly 
does concern them, and the mob will wonder what kind of a ‘free’ 
universal suffrage it is they are now to exercise ‘for the first time 
since 1804’! 

How much longer the World Spirit, clearly much incensed at 
mankind, is going to continue this farce, whether within the year 
we shal] see Consulate, Empire, Restoration and all pass by before 
our eyes, whether, too, the Napoleonic dynasty must first be 
thrashed in the streets of Paris before it is deemed impossible in 

a Engels quotes the Left-wing deputy Wilhelm Jordan (cf. also Engels’ article “The 
Frankfurt Assembly Debates the Polish Question’). - Louis Bonaparte - © Napoleon 
Bonaparte - 4 That is no concern of ours; that the President and the Assembly should 
massacre each other is of small moment to us! 

France, the devil only knows. But it strikes me that things are 
taking a remarkably lunatic turn and that the crapauds’? are 
heading for an astonishing humiliation. 

Even assuming that Louis Napoleon momentarily consolidates 
his position, such stuff and nonsense can hardly endure, despite 
the fathomless depths to which the French have sunk. But what 
then? There’s damned little red in prospect, that much is clear, 
and if Mr Blanc and Ledru packed their bags at midday yesterday, 
they may as well begin unpacking them again. La voix tonnante du 
peuple ne les rappelle pas encore? 

Here and in Liverpool the affair suddenly brought business to a 
standstill, but today in Liverpool they are already briskly 
speculating again. And French funds have only fallen by 2 per 
cent. 

In the circumstances any attempt to intercede for the Cologne 
people‘ in the British press must, of course, be postponed. 

With regard to the articles for the Tribune,’ which have 
obviously already appeared in it, write to the editor of the Tribune 
in English. Dana may well be away, and a business letter will 
certainly be answered. * Tell him that he must distinctly state per 
next returning steamer what has become of these papers, and in 
case they have been made use of, he is requested to send by the 
same opportunity copies of the Tribune containing them, as no 
copy has been kept here and without having the articles already 
sent, again before our eyes, we cannot, after such a lapse of 
time, undertake to go on with the following numbers of the 
series.* 

The news from France must have had a jolly effect on the 
European émigré rabble. I’d like to have witnessed it. 

En attendant tes nouvelles 

Your 
F. E.