Letter to Friedrich Engels, October 9, 1867

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 9 October 1867


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


MARX TO ENGELS[1]

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 9 October 1867

DEAR FRED,

Borkheim is expecting a letter from you first that you are willing to be co-guarantor.[2]

Poor Lafargue is in the final throes today, putting Borkheim's preface into decent French (insofar as that is possible!). The latter has baptised his opus: 'Ma perle devant le Congrès de Genève.[3]

Curious how the itch for literary fame can make a FOOL of an otherwise quite intelligent garçon[4] !

So, yesterday, Fox was to decapitate Eccarius.[5] The former took more than 1 hour to speak his indictment. He had most maliciously assembled the worst passages and displayed all the arts of an Old Bailey[6] barrister, also continually attacking me. In my riposte I dealt him such telling blows that in his final REPLY he quite lost his composure and self-control. Everyone joined in the discussion. The outcome: my MOTION (or amendment RATHER) 'to proceed to the order of the day' was accepted by an enormous majority. Nevertheless, Eccarius got a regular dressing down in the course of the debate.

You must read the piece 'Le troisième larron' I have marked in the Courrier[7] that you will get at the same time (splendid that the French are already sans gêne[8] calling their Bonaparte one of the larrons[9] ).[10] As soon as I have the numbers back from Lormier, I shall send the interesting COMMUNICATIONS about the MEXICAN affair.[11]

Salut

Your

K. M.

Apropos. Strohn spent the day here yesterday. He fancies you meant to slight him on his last visit to Manchester, with your remark, 'Yes, in Bradford the commis voyageur[12] still counts for something.' I tried to drive this nonsense out of his mind.— He says Dronke had procured the British associé for the copper company himself. He had probably demanded to be indemnified for it, and no doubt he had based himself on spurious but legally defensible claims when appropriating or laying his hands on a portion of the copper passing through his hands. He did not believe that Dronke had unwarrantedly frisé[13] the code pénal directly. Tant mieux[14]

  1. ↑ Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in Karl Marx, On the First International. Arranged and edited, with an introduction and new translations by Saul K. Padover, New York, 1973.
  2. ↑ See previous letter.
  3. ↑ Marx made a number of critical comments on the text of the speech prepared by Borkheim for the constituent congress of the League of Peace and Freedom in Geneva (see Note 461). Having delivered the speech at the congress, Borkheim then published it in French under the tide of 'Ma perle devant le congrès de Genève' and also in German.
  4. ↑ fellow
  5. ↑ A reference to the meeting of the General Council of the International on 8 October 1867 (see this volume, pp. 434-35).
  6. ↑ Old Bailey—Central Criminal Court in London
  7. ↑ Le Courrier français
  8. ↑ without inhibition
  9. ↑ thiefs
  10. ↑ The title of this article which was published in Le Courrier français, No. 113 of 8 October 1867, contains an allusion to La Fontaine's fable Les voleurs et l'âne.
  11. ↑ In December 1861 France started an armed intervention in Mexico, joindy with Britain and Spain, to overthrow the progressive government of Benito Juarez and turn the Mexican republic into a colony of European powers. The invaders also intended to use Mexican territory as a spring-board for intervening in the US Civil War on the side of the slaveholding Southern States. In the summer of 1863 the French occupied the city of Mexico (Britain and Spain recalled their troops in April 1862 because of contradictions with France) and declared Mexico an empire with Napoleon Ill's henchman, the Archduke of Austria Maximilian, at its head. However, the Mexican people put up a stubborn resistance to the French colonialists and inflicted a heavy defeat on them. In March 1867 they were compelled to withdraw.
  12. ↑ commercial traveller
  13. ↑ infringed
  14. ↑ So much the better.