[Manchester,] 1 May 1851 

Dear Marx, 

Within a few days, a week at the most, you will receive another 
£5—TId have sent it today, had I not just had to pay out £10 in 
cash. 

For the past few days I have been vainly searching for the 
letters from Lupus* and Dronke. You must have taken them both 
with you.*' If you find them, send them to me by return and I 
shall then write at once. Nor have I been able to find Fischer’s 
letter from New Orleans. 

Ne nous plaignons pas trop de la mauvaise queue. I happen to have 
Savary’s memoirs‘ at home. Heaven knows, Napoleon was 
similarly afflicted. Savary himself providing a splendid example. 
Nothing could be more mediocre than this fellow. Just as some 
people think they’re up to THE mark, yet don’t even understand the 
Communist Manifesto," so too Savary imagines that he’s got the 
measure of Napoleon, that he’s one of the few elect who can 
comprehend the full greatness of the fellow, and yet he has failed 
to comprehend one single campaign- or battle-plan. When he 
wrote these memoirs, virtually no proper account of these 
campaigns had been written and, since the thing’s an apologia 
both for Napoleon and for himself, he would certainly not have 
failed to do his best in this respect; instead, we find nothing but a 
few general platitudes and a disconnected jumble of detail as seen 
through the eyes of a subordinate. All the fellow knows about 
Austerlitz,* for instance, is that the enemy was surprised by a 
flanking march, and was split up into as many fragments as there 
were French columns—a _ word-for-word copy of Napoleon’s 
bulletin. But how it happened, he has no idea. For the rest, a vast 
amount of Empire and Consulate tittle-tattle; a real prize crapaud,° 

a Wilhelm Wolff (see this volume, p. 333) - & Let us not complain too much about our 
poor following. - © A.-J.-M.-R. Savary, Mémoires du duc de Rovigo... - 4 K. Marx and 
F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party. - © philistine 

boastful, mendacious, servile, positively revelling in the noble 
activities of the policeman, both as regards the pleasures of spying 
and the delight in wielding authority when making an arrest; at 
the same time lending himself to all manner of tomfooleries and 
intrigues, yet so mediocre, so obsequious and so blinkered that he 
had always to be kept on a short rein and issued with definite 
orders. Enfin,? a far from impressive character, au fond,” neither 
better nor worse, neither more reliable nor more shady than 
certain amici,“ and yet in course of time Napoleon made a passable 
machine of him, a Duke of Rovigo and a courtier who did him 
no discredit with the Tsar of Russia.‘ But indeed fellows such as 
these have to be bought, and that means above all money and 
power. 

Savary’s memoirs, which were pretty well known in France, 
have, by the way, been copied by the worthy Thiers with an 
effrontery which, in terms of plagiarism, yields nothing to that of 
the English economists, and this not only where tittle-tattle is 
concerned. Here and there he also uses Mr Savary as his main 
source on questions of administration, etc., etc. 

To go by The Times, things must be pretty terrible in London 
now that the Tatars, French, Russians and other barbarians have 
taken complete possession of it. And, withal, the prospect of 
brigades of informers arriving from all parts of the world, and 
even Prussian gendarmes, not to speak of German democratic 
friends a la Otterberg, who'll be turning up in June to see the 
Great Exhibition’ and the great men. A fine how-d’ye-do. If 
you’re not careful, you'll have foisted upon you people, with or 
without letters of introduction, who will demand to be shown 
Ledru, Mazzini, L. Blanc and Caussidiére and who, once back in 
Germany, will grumble furiously because you failed to procure 
them an invitation to dinner with Feargus O’Connor. There'll be 
people coming to you and saying: ‘Mr Marx?—Delighted— You'll 
have heard of me, I’m Neuhaus, leader of the Thuringian 
movement!’ 

You probably read about the fracas in the Cologne City Council 
over Deputy Burgomaster Schenk’s address to the Prince of 
Prussia, and also about the latter’s insolent speech.*” ‘The press is 
bad, the press in Cologne has got to improve!’" Ce pauvre' 
Brüggemann—he, of course, is seizing on the occasion to write a 

a In brief -> at bottom - © friends -¢ Alexander I-¢ A. Thiers, Histoire du 
Consulat et de UEmpire. - § in London in 1851 - & Wilhelm I - » ‘Kéln, 24. April’, 
Kélnische Zeitung, No. 99, second edition, 25 April 1851. -' poor 

lot of twaddle such as, in all modesty and with the best intentions, 
one used to take the immense liberty of writing under the 
censorship. But now ‘our Stupp’ is burgomaster into the bargain, 
and the greatest man in Cologne, while your brother-in-law* is 
confiscating books with praiseworthy zeal. My only fear is that en 
Brutus prusso-bureaucrate” he will soon be laying violent hands on 
your stuff, and that might put an unwelcome stop to the payment 
of fees. This noble fellow’s other brother-in-law, what-you-may- 
call-him Florencourt, has, as announced in the German papers, 
betaken himself tambour battant et méche allumée‘ to the bosom of 
the Catholic Church. Your family is at least interesting, whereas in 
mine it’s I alone who have to cut the capers. 

Apropos, you’d do me a very great favour if you would arran- 
ge for Daniels, or anyone else you think suitable in Cologne, to 
send me a letter (direct here and so with a Cologne postmark) 
as soon as possible, in which he acknowledges receipt of two 
five-pound notes, as well as one sent previously, that is, £15 in all, 
adding that he paid this money to specific individuals in 
accordance with my instructions, and that my accounts with 
various people in Cologne are settled in full. He could throw in a 
few casual remarks, greetings, etc., so that the letter doesn’t look 
contrived. For I foresee a discussion about the monies that have 
been raised, and hence must have a document which will help me 
if necessary to prove that I have paid debts in Cologne. The 
sooner I have the letter the better. How you broach the matter I 
leave entirely to you, and I would rather it was you who procured 
the document for me, since the business we two transact between 
us concerns nobody else. For all I care, you can write and say that 
it was women who got me into debt, or that, for League purposes, 
I once stood security for this sum and have now been compelled 
to pay up, or anything else you choose—n‘importe’ The letter will, 
by the way, be returned promptly in June to the writer. The main 
thing is the Cologne postmark, date-stamped sometime in the first 
half of May. 

How goes it with your household? My regards to your wife and 
children, and write soon. 

Your 
F. E. 

@ Ferdinand von Westphaien - > like a Prusso-bureaucratic Brutus - © with drums 
beating and flags flying - 4 no matter 

I have just found the letters from Lupus and Fischer—but I 
can’t find the one from Dronke. I shall write to Lupus today.* | 
When you write to Cologne, it would be a good idea to press them 
for Lupus’ fare—you know what these Cologne people” are!