{London,] 10 January 1857 
9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, 
Haverstock Hill 

Dear Frederic, 

D’abord’ my best wishes for the New Year, albeit retrospective. 
As a result of watery ink and several nights’ writing, one of my 
eyes is so inflamed that writing is irksome to me. 

Both the £5 (the second) and the Mountain Warrare” received. 
For both of them my Best THANKS. 

Is it true that Lupus has again been attacked and robbed by 
Manchester highwaymen? Or is the rumour circulating here 
simply an indiscriminate rehash of the old story? 

The best thing old Hill can do is retire, either to paradise or to 
some idyllic Swiss u11, so that he has to be replaced once and for 
all in your office and can no longer saddle you with double the 
work under the FALSE PRETENCE Of his ‘temporary’ illnesses. 

The Neuchatel question '' isn’t quite so close to settlement as 
some papers make out. Both sides may already have gone too far 
with their braggadocio. Both have already brought discredit upon 
themselves: our Hohenzollern‘ with his déférence for Bonaparte, 
the Swiss with their ‘dignified’ attitude. Thus the rascals have 
deported several hundred factory workers to Piedmont because of 
their propagandist demonstrations. In this way the ‘lenders’ ‘ hope to 
secure the esteem of Bonaparte and of Austria, too. What do you 
make of Lamoriciére and Bedeau offering their épées* to the Swiss 
burghers? Obviously just an anti-Bonaparte gesture, since the 

a First - > F. Engels, ‘Mountain Warfare in the Past and Present’. - ¢ Frederick 
William IV - 4 Here and further in the text Marx puns on the words Borger (lenders) 
and Bürger (citizens, also burghers). The allusion is to the Swiss bankers who extended 
loans to French manufacturers. - ¢ swords 

fellows could be sure the lenders of Switzerland would not take them 
at their word. 

There is great excitement in the petite démocratie. Just the kind 
of clash they want. On top of that, of course, your South German 
patriot regards the Swiss as kinsmen and in fact sees in the present 
clash nothing but a sequel to the 1849 campaign for the 
Constitution.’”* In addition, risings are expected in the Black 
Forest, etc. The Prussian, for his part, is certainly doing 
everything in his power to prevent A ‘BREACH OF THE PEACE’. That is why 
Fatty* wrote to his brother-in-law’ in Petersburg in terms 
reminiscent of the man who bade his wife stay him lest he jump 
out of the window. ‘Stay me!’ is a call our hereditary monarch has 
addressed to each of the great powers in turn. The question is 
whether they want to ‘hold him back’ and whether East and West, 
delighting equally in his discomfiture, will not add fuel to the 
flames. Whichever way the thing turns out, there will be no lack of 
red faces. 

Proudhon is in process of bringing out an ‘economic bible’* in 
Paris. Destruam et aedificabo.. The first part, or so he says, was set 
forth in the Philosophie de la misére.© The second he is about to ‘reveal’. 
The scribble is appearing in German, translated by Ludwig Simon 
now duly installed as clerk with Konigsw4arter (or some such name, 
the well-known banker to the National) in Paris. I have here 
a recent piece by one of Proudhon’s disciples: De la Réforme des 
Banques par Alfred Darimon, 1856. Same old tale. The démonétisa- 
tion de lor et de l’argent, or rather que toutes les marchandises should be 
transformed into instruments d’échange au méme titre que l’or et l’argent. 
The piece has an introduction by Emil Girardin and betrays evident 
admiration for Isaac Péreire. Hence it enables one to get some idea 
of the kind of socialist coups d’état Bonaparte thinks himself capable 
of resorting to, even at the eleventh hour. 

I have a whole Lot or) pamphlets written by Bruno Bauer during 
the Russian war.'!” Feeble and pretentious. In company with his 
brother Egbert the worthy fellow has now rented from the Berlin 
municipality 50 acres of land outside Berlin. The intention is that 
the London Edgar’s mother-in-law—an old washerwoman or 

a Frederick William IV -> Alexander II-¢ This presumably refers to 
P. J. Proudhon’s Manuel du spéculateur @ la bourse. - 4 I shall destroy and I shall 
build. - © P. J. Proudhon, Systéme des contradictions économiques, ou Philosophie de la 
misére, Tomes I-H. - f The demonetisation of gold and silver, or rather that all 
merchandise should be transformed into instruments of exchange in the same way as 
gold and silver. - § Edgar Bauer 

SOMETHING OF THE sort—should look after the ‘market side’. Bruno 
has written to Edgar telling him that this is the way to 
‘independence’. He is paying a rent of 5 reichstalers Per acre, i.e. 
250 reichstalers a year. It’s old fallow land. Bruno hopes that the 
profit and the produce from this land will enable him to write at 
leisure his Geschichte des Urchristentums, intended as an ‘historical’ 
test-piece for his critique of the Gospels.* Nice critical fantasies 
these, and to some extent Bruno may have been influenced by the 
recollection that in Part 2 Faust becomes a land-owner.’ Only he 
forgets that Faust obtained the money for that transformation 
from the Devil. 

Lallerstedt, La Scandinavie, ses craintes et ses espérances, Swedish 
pendant to Mieroslawski’s book.‘ Contains one or two racrs of 
interest. In particular Lallerstedt recognises that, during the last 
century, England was constantly playing Russian tricks on Sweden. 
Recounts how Admiral Norris, sent by England on an ostensibly 
anti-Russian mission after the death of Charles XII, was bribed by 
Peter I with a precious stone of great value. Also has new material 
that throws light on the behaviour of Bernadotte. 

Nothing new here. I go out little and hear little. 

Salut. 

Your 
K. M. 

Mr Faucher from Berlin is one of the principal sus-editors of The 
Morning Star. In a diatribe against Lupus in the London Illustrated 
News, Horace Mayhew writes inter alia: 

* ‘Symptoms of being a confirmed old Bachelor: When a man cannot 
go anywhere without his umbrella, that’s a symptom. When a man thinks every 
one is cheating him, that’s a symptom. When a man does all the shopping himself 
etc.’ *4