AT LE PERREUX 

London, 27 November 1891 

My dear Laura, 

You need not be afraid that it ever entered my mind to think Paul 
capable of a wilfully mean and dishonorable action. That is entirely 
out of the question. But the man may be the very soul of honour, and 
yet commit an éfourderte,* the consequences of which may be incal- 
culable. And my letters contain no charge against Paul except the ex- 
pression of the possibility that he may have been led into such an étour- 
derte, and, besides, the attempt, supposing that to be the case, to help 
him out of it as much as lay in my power. To do which, it was abso- 
lutely necessary to make clear to him the full portée” of the words 
put into his mouth. 

Now you yourself admit that it is just possible he may have been led 
to commit such a blunder. 

To recall the facts. On Monday evening * The Evening Standard con- 
tains the Reuter ? which showed to me the necessity of immediate ac- 
tion, 1) to obtain authentic information, 2) to prevent further blun- 
ders, in case one had been committed. Hence my letter to you 153 
which I hope you will, on re-reading, find less unjustifiable than 
when you had read it first. Well, the same night, or next morning at 
latest, I receive from you 1) the enclosed cutting from a paper not 
named — from which report Reuter had evidently abridged, 2) an Jn- 
transigeant 25. Novembre where under the heading: ‘Le cit. Lafargue 
a Bordeaux’, it is equally stated that on 22 November Paul, before 
a meeting of cing ou six cents personnes ... dans la salle 
des Chats, said qu’a différentes reprises il avait (en 1870) remis a 
M. Rance, alors directeur de la Stireté générale, divers plans et documents 
importants sur la situation des armées allemandes qui lu 
avaient été commumqués par des socialistes allemands et qui au- 
raient pu changer la face des choses etc. etc. 

 error-> meaning-° 23 November -° ..,five or six hundred people in the Chats hall, 
said that he (in 1870) provided M. Ranc, the then chief of the Secret Police, with diffe- 
rent plans and important documents pertaining to dislocations of the German armies 

From that I was forced to conclude that_you knew the contents of 
these two reports, and that the very fact of your sending them to me 
without a word of comment, implied a tacit acknowledgement that they 
were in substance correct. On that conclusion, and moreover remem- 
bering certain expressions in the Lille speech, equally sent by you, 
and which expressions I considered at least uncalled for, I could not 
act otherwise than write to Paul my letter of Wednesday 25th.!°3 

Now of course I see that you had never read a report of Paul’s 
speech, and that my letters to you and to Paul gave you the first inti- 
mation of what had been put into his mouth. But now you will also 
see that this is a matter which must be attended to; that the statement 
about the action of some German socialists during the war of 
1870/71—-whether substantially true or substantially false—ought 
never under any circumstances to have been made, if it was made, and 
ought to be clearly and unmistakably disavowed, at once, if it was not 
made; that so long as this report is not completely and absolutely dis- 
posed of, it will be absurd to expect our German friends to place any 
confidence in our French friends; and that the government and bour- 
geois in Germany will at once exploit this report against our German 
party in a way which is absolutely incalculable; if it leads to nothing 
more than a renewal of the old Socialist law,!! 7 will be lucky! 

So if Paul has been slandered, if he is prepared to declare publicly 
that he never said a word implying in any way the assertion that Ger- 
man socialists, eether in or out of Germany, provided him with military 
statements, plans, news or anything of the kind for the use of the 
French government during the war 1870/71—then let him send me 
that declaration af once and in a registered letter. But it must be plain, 
without reservation or qualification of any kind, or it will be useless 
and may turn out worse than useless. 

If that plain declaration cannot, for one reason or another, be 
made, then I see no other way out of the mess but that you and Paul 
come over here at once and discuss by word of mouth such matters as 
will evidently be fitted for that mode of settlement alone. Your pres- 
ence will be almost as necessary as his, to moderate our hot heads and 
to give us the views of your cool head on the situation in France; and 
also to help us in finding ‘the way out’ by your feminine sagacity and 
souplesse,* in cases where we male clumsy stick-in-the-muds are left in 

which he received from the German socialists and which could have changed the course 
of events. 
* pliancy 

the dark. You see I am anxious as anxious can be, to keep Paul out of 
the difficulty if he has got himself into one; but the very first thing is 
to prevent the commission of fresh mistakes in case one has already 
been committed. Tomorrow his election 3°° will be settled, on Mon- 
day at latest I shall have the first reports from Germany on the effect 
of this thunderbolt from a clear sky, so if you come on Sunday, to be 
here in the evening, we might succeed in dispersing at least the worst 
of the clouds on Monday. A telegram ‘Coming to-night’ would be 
agreeable, as we receive no letters on Sunday. And under all and 
any circumstances I do hope Paul will not take any public steps in 
a matter deeply concerning other people without first consulting 
these people, the slightest blunder might be fatal to himself, and he 
will see, I hope too, that this is no joking matter and must be got out 
of the world as soon as possible. 

Ever yours affectionately, 
F.E.