Letter to Friedrich Engels, June 16, 1860

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MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 16 June 1860

Dear Frederick,

The £10 safely received. BEST THANKS. Your portrait is splendid. You shall have a similar one of me. The stuff from Lommel hasn't arrived yet. When he complained, he was told that a parcel of this kind (for economy reasons he had sent it par petite vitesse) always takes several weeks.

The following is an extract from Lommel's last letter:

'You will have seen the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung of 8 June. Reading between the lines, one perceives in its Berne report, presumably written by Tscharner, co-editor of the Bund, a denunciation by the Vogtians to their lord and master in Paris and thence, indirectly, to the Federal authorities in Berne, likewise to Germany's princely courts. It's the same old tale of conspiracy—German demagogues trying to stir up trouble between France and Germany in order to make possible a central republic. Vogtian intrigue no longer cuts any ice at all, either in Federal circles or in Geneva; nevertheless, it still appears to have some effect on the limited intelligence of the German princes. This conspiratorial bogey held up to them by Badinguet is actually said to have induced the timid fellows to grant him the audience in Baden-Baden he so ardently desired. For the past fortnight the Allgemeine has been quietly discarding the choicest of the notes I sent it from Savoy and Turin, and Vogt, who returned here ten days ago, has told a worker that a stop will soon be put to the activities of the fellows responsible for the scrawls in the German papers and that people will be in for more surprises before long.'

A pamphlet by About has now come out in Paris: Napoleon III et la Prusse. In the first place SOFT SAWDER for Germany. Her great men, he says, are all of them HOUSEHOLD WORDS in France, e.g. 'Goethe, Schiller, Humboldt, Vogt, Beethoven, Heine, Liebig, etc' France is completely disinterested, although constantly provoked. Then came some rubbish about German unity being brought about with the help of France. Then a highly superficial review of conditions obtaining in Prussia at present. (Even the Niegolewski affair is discussed at length!) The only way she can save herself is to side with France's 'democratic principle' against Austria's feudalism. In other words, this democratic principle consists in basing princely dictatorship on 'suffrage universel'. Satis superque!

However, it's capital that Royal Prussian court democracy should now be getting into a nasty fix; let's hope that the Prince Regent, too, will soon have compromised himself sufficiently.

Salut.

Your

K. M.