AT LE PERREUX 

London, 4 February 1889 

My dear Laura, 

The news about the Egalité (ominous name, égalité devant la mort 
I hope not!) is good news indeed and I await anxiously the results.>° 
That the Blanquists would be brought to their senses, as to the extent of 
their journalistic capacities, was pretty clear—but that this necessary 
experience would eat up the necessary funds for a paper, was clearer still. 

4 Anna Schliiter — > equality before death 

So it’s well that another speculative bailleur de fonds* has turned up. That 
our people can make a paper a success they have proved at the Citoyen 
and the Cri where in both cases other intruders tried to make capital out 
of our people’s success and came to grief. And the composition of the 
comité is in their favour, the Blanquists secure them the majority on 
economic questions, and the Hovelacque elements will help holding 
Blanquist madcap notions in check. But how long will these various 
elements hold together? Anyhow, let us wait till everything is shipshape. 
The Boulanger election*“ J cannot look upon otherwise than as a 
distinct revival of the Bonapartist element in the Parisian character. In 
1798, 1848 and 1889 this revival arose equally from discontent with the 
bourgeois republic, but it took this especial direction—appeal to a 
saviour of society—entirely in consequence of a chauvinistic current. 
And what is worse: in 1798 Napoleon had to make a coup d’état to 
conquer those Parisians he had shot down in Vendémiaire;>*° in 1889 the 
Parisians themselves elect a butcher of the Commune. To put it mildly, 
Paris has, at least temporarily, abdicated as a revolutionary city; abdi- 
cated, not before a victorious coup d’état and in the midst of war, as in 
1798; not six months after a crushing defeat, as in December 1848; but in 
the midst of peace, 18 years after the Commune, and on the eve of a 
probable revolution. And when Bebel says in the Vienna Gleichheit: 

‘Die Pariser Arbeiter haben sich in ihrer Mehrheit einfach erbarmlich 
benommen — mitt ihrer sozialistischen und klassenbewussten 
Gesinnung muss es sehr traurig stehn, wenn nur 17,000 Stimmen auf 
einen sozialistischen Kandidaten fallen und ein Hanswurst und dema- 
gog wie Boulanger 244,000 Stimmen erhalt’> 55” 

— Nobody can say that he is wrong. The effect upon our party every- 
where has been that if Floquet has suffered a crushing defeat, so have we. 
Cutting off your nose to spite your face is no doubt also a sort of policy, 
but what sort? 

Well, Boulanger is now sure to be master of France unless he commits 
some egregious blunder, and the Parisians will have their bellyful of him. 
If the thing goes off without war being brought on, it will be something 
gained—but the danger is great. Bismarck has every reason to hurry on 

4 investor (Jules Roques) ~ > “The majority of Paris workers behaved downright 
despicably — their socialist and class consciousness must be ina sorry state indeed 
if a socialist candidate only gets 17,000 votes and a clown and demagogue like 
Boulanger polls 244,000 votes.’ 

a row, because William? is doing his best to ruin the German army by 
putting his favourites in the places of the old generals, and if he is 
allowed to proceed, in five years hence the Germans will be led by noth- 
ing but nincompoops and conceited jackasses. And how Boulanger, once 
in power, can outlive the effects of the universal désillusionnement which 
he must produce, without going to a war—that is more than I can see. 

In all this mess it is but a poor consolation that the Possibilists have 
ruined themselves a little sooner than they would have done otherwise. 
But such as it is, let us rejoice over it. I send you two Recht voor Allen 
in which you see how they are getting treated by the very mass who 
insisted on their presence at the Congress.°*** Bernstein has given it them 
this week in the Sozialdemokrat too, and even Hyndman has not the 
courage to stick up for them in Justice. To take his revenge, he writes a 
letter to Bax (5 Canning Road, Croydon) and asks him what it was that 
he, Bax, said about this point at the office of the Sozialdemokrat and 
what was repeated to me yesterday by Joos (one of the men there). I 
should be the more glad of this, as Bax was here yesterday too and never 
mentioned a word to me about it—it came out only after he had left. He 
can tell Bax that I told him so. 

Well, I hope the new paper‘ will come out; we must take the situation 
as it is and make the best of it. When Paul gets to work at a paper again, 
he will brace himself up for the fight and no longer say despondingly: i/ 
n’y a pas a aller contre le courant.4 Nobody asks of him to stop the 
current, but if we are not to go against the popular current of momen- 
tary tomfoolery, what in the name of the devil is our business? The 
inhabitants of the Ville lumiére* have proved to evidence that they are 2 
million ‘mostly fools’ as Carlyle says, but that is no reason why we 
should be fools too. Let the Parisians turn reactionists if they cannot be 
happy otherwise—the social revolution will go on in spite of them, and 
when it’s done they can cry out: Ah tiens! C’est fait—et sans nous—qui 
Paurait imaginé! 

With Nim’s love 

Ever yours 
EE. 

Doesn’t Paul want any cash? 
4 William II - > E. Bernstein, ‘Boulanger’s Sieg in Paris,’ Der Sozialdemokrat, 3 

February 1889 — ° Egalité — 4 there is no going against the current - ¢ Luminary 
City ~ f Just look! It’s done — and without us — who could have imagined it!