London, 5 December 1890 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W. 

Dear Citizen Vaillant, 

Very many thanks for your letter of the 28th ult. and your good 
wishes. On that day I was overwhelmed with honours by socialists of 
all countries. Fate has decreed that, in my capacity as survivor, 
I should glean the honours due to the works of my deceased contem- 
poraries, above all those of Marx. Believe me, I harbour no illusions 
whatever about that, or about the tiny portion of all this homage that 
falls to me by right. 

I am also grateful for the sympathy you express concerning the 
death of dear Helene, thanks to whose care I was able to work in peace 
for seven years. For me it is a very sad loss. But we are still right in the 
midst of the struggle and, with the enemy before us, looking back too 

often is forbidden. If ’'m not mistaken the battle is approaching 
a crisis. In your country the collapse of Boulangism has, on the one 
hand, rid the opportunist government, °* corrupted and corrupting, 
of all those enemies who might be immediately dangerous, and has 
reopened the market in which France is sold to the sharks of the Stock 
Exchange. On the other, however, that collapse has released elements 
of the revolutionary opposition who had gone astray and who, having 
regrouped —- after the removal of the chief traitors—, should again 
take the field reunited in one way or another with the mass of revolu- 
tionaries who have remained faithful to their traditions. After the 
farce, the tragedy. 

In Germany the rapid advance of the Socialist Party should quickly 
dispel young William’s* illusions about the power of attraction 
he fondly imagines he exercises on the working class. That, too, 
should lead to a crisis; and the longer it is delayed, the more severe 
it will be. 

Accordingly, in four or five years time at the most, we shall have 
the crisis which will, I trust, lead to victory. And I hope I shall live to 
see that fin de sidcle”! 

Please remember me kindly to Mrs Vaillant and your mother. 

Yours affectionately, 

F. Engels