Letter to Friedrich Engels, July 20, 1852

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To Engels in Manchester

London, 20 July 1852

28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,

Dronke will be bringing you the manuscript on Görgey, admittedly a wretched, muddled affair; likewise the Neveu de Rameau and Jacques le fataliste in the original.

Yesterday received a letter from Bermbach in Cologne, the gist of which is as follows:

‘Latterly they have been visiting all sorts of people in various places in an attempt to find correspondence from you which, they are convinced, was to be conveyed through the agency of these persons to democrats in the Rhineland. Your friends in Cologne are at last to be brought before the Court of Assizes. The bill of indictment, a most compendious work, has been drawn up, the date for the public hearing has been fixed for the 28th of this month, and the usual preliminaries are under way. They will be tried according to the Code pénal, since their offence antedates the new Prussian Statute Book.164 As I understand the case they are, legally speaking, in an exceptionally good position but, as you will know, before a jury the moral standpoint is all important, and in this respect there can be no denying the danger for some of the accused. For the principal defendants, Röser, Bürgers, Nothjung and Reiff, have given away far too much: they have admitted a connection with specific tendencies over a definite period; have talked of the enrolment of new members attended by certain formalities and pledges, and other such things, which in themselves do not constitute a crime, but may, depending on circumstances, have an adverse effect on the jurymen, most of whom have been chosen from the peasantry—particularly when there is such evident lack of respect for God and landed property. Grave difficulties will also arise in connection with the defence; the advocates know nothing about such matters, most are hostile on principle and dread the thought of the ten-day sitting fixed for the case. Freiligrath will be beheaded in contumaciam.

‘I have just read the bill of indictment which contains no less than 65-70 pages. If they’re convicted, these people have only their own statements to blame. I doubt [there] can be any more consummate jackasses than these German working men: Reiff made some statements that were regular denunciations, and various others behaved no less ineptly. One sees what a dangerous business it is to establish connections with working men, when those connections are supposed to be kept secret. Small wonder that the fellows were so much harassed; the longer they were held in solitary confinement, the more satisfactory statements they made. That aside, facts don’t come into it and, if the accused had not for the most part themselves talked so readily, there would be nothing whatever to go on. The bill of indictment contains all kinds of incidental details from which it transpires that, with the help of spies and intercepted letters, a fairly accurate knowledge has been gained of certain persons and relationships.’

So much for Bermbach.

Vis-à-vis Schimmelpfennig, Willich has retracted his statement about the B[rüningk] woman. Schimmelpfennig has now put it about that he was seeking to destroy Mrs Brüningk’s virtue by magnetising her. The vertueux Willich.

A certain Coeurderoy (d’ailleurs très bon républicain). who has already published a little pamphlet against Mazzini, Ledru, L. Blanc, Cabet, etc., is about to bring out what amounts to a book on the entire French emigration. Proudhon is publishing a new work. Religion, the State, etc., having become impossible, only ‘individuals’ remain, a discovery he has lifted from Stirner.

That jackass W[eydemeyer]’s impardonable procrastination has put me in such straits that today I can’t even afford a STAMP for this letter.

Your

K. M.