London, 23 February 1852 
28 Dean Street, Soho 

Dear Lassalle, 

I should greatly like to know whether my second letter™ 
similarly failed to arrive. Knowing how punctilious you are about 
answering, I can only attribute the delay in hearing from you to 
some accident. 

Since I last wrote my state of health has again improved, 
although I am still having much trouble with my eyes. My social 
circumstances, on the other hand, have deteriorated. I have had a 
definite refus” from the publisher in respect of my Economy *’; my 
anti-Proudhon manuscript,, which for the past year has been 
wandering around Germany, has likewise failed to find a berth; 
the financial crisis has finally reached a level comparable only to 
the commercial crisis now making itself felt in New York and 
London. Unlike the gentlemen of commerce, I cannot, alas, even 
have recourse to bankruptcy. Mr Bonaparte was in similar straits 
when he chanced his coup d’état. 

@ beasts - > rejection - © K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy. 

As to this Mr Bonaparte, I feel I can do no better than give you 
extracts from a letter conveyed to me by a friend in Paris,* un ami 
qui est trés sceptique et qui ne partage pas les opinions les plus favorables 
sur le peuple. Maintenant, écoutez?: 

‘All in all, the mood of the Parisian public has experienced a noticeable change 
and, even though it has as yet not gone beyond resignation, this last is felt all the 
more genuinely and grimly, and far more generally. The main reason for this, 
among the middle and lower classes, is that trade and hence employment, despite 
initial favourable appearances, simply cannot be got going, whereas those same 
classes had sacrificed all other considerations to the hope that these things would 
improve. And then the slow-witted majority of the less advanced workers —which 
places more hope in the Republic than in the monarchies of long and _ bitter 
memory—has, as a result of Napoleon’s decrees, gradually come to realise that the 
President is in no way concerned with the preservation of the Republic; and he has 
done himself great harm in the eyes of property owners by confiscating the 
Orleans’ estates, a measure which, after all, sets a dangerous official example. 
Chaps such as Fould, de Morny and Dupin—for reasons of private interest of 
course-—have even refused to subscribe to this measure, a fact al] the more striking 
on account of their spotless antecedents, which are more or less common 
knowledge. As for Dupin, the President of the defunct National Assembly, it has 
since been learnt that his last pretty move was to suppress, on the morning of 2 
December and with the connivance of Bonaparte, a letter from the Archbishop of 
Paris inviting the representatives to assemble in the church of Notre Dame while he 
himself intended to stand in the porch to protect them, in their capacity as the 
representatives of popular sovereignty, against the soldiers of the usurper. This might 
have given quite a different turn to the whole thing, the more so since the haute cour de 
justice had assembled at the same time and had already begun to register a protest 
against the coup d’état. 

‘As for de Morny, the minister who resigned with Dupin, he was known as the 
escroc4 of his mistress’ (Countess Lehon’s) husband, a circumstance which caused 
Emile de Girardin’s wife to say that while it was not unprecedented for 
governments to be in the hands of men who were governed by their wives, none 
had ever been known to be in the hands of hommes entretenus.© Well, at present this 
same Countess Lehon holds a salon where she is one of Bonaparte’s most 
vociferous opponents and it was she who, on the occasion of the confiscation of the 
Orleans’ estates, let fall the well-known witticism: “C'est le premier vol de Vaigle.”! 
Because of this remark of his wife’s, Emile de Girardin was expelled. Rémusat’s 
expulsion is attributed to a similar cause. The latter is said to have arrived one 
morning at the Ministry of the Interior where Morny had installed young Lehon as 
Chef de Bureau; upon catching sight of Rémusat, Lehon rudely asked him his 
name, whereat R. replied: “Monsieur, dans ma famille on porte le nom de son pére, c’est 
pourquoi je me nomme de Rémusat.” 8 At much the same time Lehon is said to have 

@ Reinhardt - > a friend who is very sceptical and does not have the highest 
opinion of the people. Now, listen: - © High Court of Justice - 4 swindler - © kept 
men - f ‘It is the first flight (theft) of the eagle.’ (This witticism and Madame de 
Girardin’s remark cited above are used by Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis 
Bonaparte, see present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 196-97.) - 8 ‘In my family, sir, we bear 
our father’s name. That’s why I am called de Rémusat.’ 

had another row, on this occasion in Ham. When he gave General Le FIé official 
notification of expulsion, the general threw him out, shouting: “Comment, c’est vous, 
gredin, qui osez venir m’annoncer mon exil?’? In such circumstances, it is not difficult 
to assess how much respect a fledgling government will continue to command, even 
from the most mediocre of honnétes gens.» A lady known to me personally, a ward 
of Napoleon’s, who had been in close contact with him ever since she was a child, 
told him on 2 December that she would have nothing more to do with him, adding 
that he and his associates were a gouvernement de voleurs et d’assassins© True, the 
real plutocrats continue to adhere to Napoleon as being the only possible 
expression of authority just now and the last bulwark of existing society, but their 
faith in the possible durability of his régime has been much undermined by his 
measures, with the result that, after a brief interval, they have again begun to hug 
their money, as is evident from the stagnant Bourse and the check to the revival of 
trade. Thus the President’s only real following consists of those who are bound to 
him by the most blatant self-interest, along with the privileged clerical clique and 
the army, although considerable dissatisfaction and a feeling of uncertainty and 
irresolution has crept into the latter as a result of the many dismissals of Orleanist 
officers, a state of affairs which enormously impairs its power. Moreover, 
personally and in private, the President is said to be most anxious and downcast. 
Indeed, in this changed climate of opinion, all that is needed is the removal of his 
sorry person and everything would be thrown into chaos again without any effort. 
Little or no attempt would be made at resistance. In this connection the remark by 
the experienced Guizot, on learning of the successful coup d’état, is worthy of note: 
“Crest le triomphe complet et définitif du socialisme!” 4 

‘Having both before and after fallen out with every party without exception, 
Bonaparte is seeking a counterbalance by means of this or that popular 
measure—vast expansion of public works, prospects of a general amnesty for the 
participants of 2 December, etc.—just as he will soon attempt something similar by 
means of this or that measure in favour of chis or that class, and all without 
consistency of purpose. And what matters most of all is his failure to win back the 
masses, since he is unable to give them bread, i.e. any source of labour for their 
livelihood, and has actually deprived them of their favourite pastime, the innocent 
consolation they derived from the trees of liberty and the republican inscriptions in 
the streets; similarly they can no longer while away an hour in the wine and coffee 
shops, since all political discourse is strictly prohibited there. The peaceable 
bourgeois are angered by the loss of their hobby-horse, the National Guard... Nor 
do they fancy those aristocratic routs, the state balls, from which they stay away; 
thus, apart from foreigners and two or three Parisian exceptions, the only people 
to attend the last, splendide, Tuileries ball were ladies of doubtful virtue. The 
reckless squandering that goes on is a source of disquiet to the thrifty citizens, who 
look ahead to the day when the Orléans funds will be exhausted. 

‘What particularly offends all who have a modicum of intelligence is the 
destruction of the Press. 

‘Again, the organisation of the resuscitated Police Ministry and the spy system 
associated with it generates bad blood throughout the départements. The Parisian 
salons are again full of distinguished, unsuspected informers, just as in the days of 
the Empire. 

‘And all the time much tripotage* on the Bourse on the part of those who, in 

a ‘What, it’s you, you scoundrel, who dares to come and tell me of my 
expulsion?’ - > respectable people - © government of thieves and murderers - 4 ‘It 
is the total and definitive victory of socialism!’ - © sharp practice 

one way or another, arbitrarily grant or withdraw concessions for railways, etc., the 
instructions about which they alone had knowledge of, and upon which they 
speculate the previous day. It was believed that a secret college of Jesuits, headed 
by Montalembert, who had always been on terms of some intimacy with the 
President, exerted direct and immediate influence on his decisions; but as for 
Montalembert, it soon emerged that, after availing himself of his advice, Bonaparte 
suddenly dismissed him from his presence never to receive him again, so that ever 
since they have been the bitterest of enemies, and M., personally no less misérable, 
used the Orleans decree merely as a pretext for dissociating himself officially with 
honour. Now there is talk of nothing but B.’s craving for conquest. It will be his 
complete undoing.’ 

So much for my ami. 

The important news from here is that the Tories have replaced 
the Whigs, and formed a ministry headed by the Earl of Derby 
(Lord Stanley). This événement* is splendid. In England our 
movement can progress only under the Tories. The Whigs 
conciliate all over the place and lull everyone to sleep. On top of 
that there is the commercial crisis, which is looming ever closer 
and whose early symptoms are erupting on every hand. Les choses 
marchent.” If only we can manage tant bien que mal‘ through the 
interim period! It is nearly time for the post. I must close. 

Salut. 

K. Marx