Dear Marx

Day after day the accursed commerce has kept me from writing. I have now three lads to keep in order, and there is no end of revising, correcting, scolding and commanding. Add to that the struggle with the manufacturers over bad yarns or slow deliveries, and my own work. I wish it might please Mr Bonaparte to rid France of himself and me of this turmoil.

This Bonaparte, by the by, is in a damned deep mess. Those stories about the placards and the agitation among the workers, which the *Times* correspondent dished up in such lots when, following the *Moniteur* article, he received orders *de parler plus haut*, have made an enormous impression on the English Philistines here. Everyone believes in his speedy downfall. The sudden discovery that the fellow is *au fond* an ass, and of a very ordinary sort at that, is explained thus: formerly he was a genius, but now he is so ruined by a dissolute way of life that his brain is affected. There may be something in that, but on the whole the fellow has remained quite consistent, and only the English Philistines can perceive a qualitative difference between the former and the present one.

In today’s *Guardian* there is an interesting statistic on bankruptcies in France, I am sending it to you.

The financial crisis seems, with a few fluctuations and a gradually increasing severity, to be dragging itself chronically through the winter. This would make it significantly worse by spring than if an acute outbreak had occurred now. The more calls are paid on the companies that so far largely exist on paper, the more floating capital is fixed, the better. So long as the discount rate does not drop below 7%—and the last rise is evidence that it must be raised still further—there is no prospect that three or four calls can be met on even half of the swindle companies. The Austrian Crédit Mobilier cannot already get the 2nd call paid, and at the same time the Austrian government is making contracts by which it forces the bank to resume cash payments!—I wish I had the money it must have cost Bonap. to keep the rentes above 66% for the past six weeks; precisely on account of these great exertions, I consider the day when the rentes fall below 66 a turning-point.

The longer this chronic pressure lasts, the more dirty tricks of the Bonapartist clique must come to light, and the greater the fury of the workers must become, to whom the details could not so far be known. This Morny is really a masterpiece of a *souteneur*; the fellow seems to have no desire to return to Paris either, and the Russian railways and government securities are certainly the most suitable way for him to invest his money.

The Revolution will not easily again find such a fine *tabula rasa* as this time. All socialist dodges exhausted, the forced employment of the workers for the past 6 years anticipated and exploded, no possibility of making new experiments and phrases. On the other hand, however, the difficulties are quite naked and unveiled; the bull must be taken quite directly by the horns, and I’d really like to see the next French Provisional Government and how they’ll break their teeth on it. Fortunately this time only the most reckless courage can accomplish anything, for one will no longer have to fear such a rapid ebb as in 1848.

Strohn was here these days, had heard various things from the Little One; the man (*entre nous*) is seriously thinking of setting up on his own account! He imagines he could lure the customers away from his present principal with his little phrases.

I am now reading James’s Naval history of England 1792–1820, mainly on account of the ships against walls. It emerges from it that the English had to fight very hard for their naval superiority over the French and especially the Spanish. With equal forces, in the first years of the war the French and Spanish were a match for the English almost every time, and a host of ships were taken from the latter. I am only up to ’96; but I can already see that the French fleet under Napoleon was at its very lowest ebb, and probably not without his fault. – The main superiority of the English lies in better shooting at sea; the French always shot too high, the Spaniards already much better. The story about the *Vengeur*, which is supposed to have sunk on 1 June 1794 *au cri de vive la république*, is, by the way, a fable. The *Vengeur* surrendered to the English, but before it was actually taken into possession, some French ships approached again; it once more hoisted the French flag, the succour was beaten off, the English closed in, but the ship went down, and the crew were for the most part rescued. It sank 4–6 hours after the end of the battle.

Best greetings to wife and children.

Yours
F. E.