Letter to Peter Imandt, around June 13, 1871

Author(s) Jenny von Westphalen
Written 13 June 1871


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 33, Moscow, 1964
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


JENNY MARX TO PETER IMANDT

IN DUNDEE

[London, around 13 June 1871]
1 Maitland Park Road

My dear Mr Imandt,

I have just received your letter and make all haste to let you know that Moor is 'ALL RIGHT'. The rumours are just a lot of police fabrications which Stieber has invented in league with those French scoundrels.[1] You will be receiving COPIES of the Address of the International[2] today. Perhaps you can arrange for something from it to appear in the press. The girls[3] have been with Laura for the past 6 weeks.[4] They were in Bordeaux at first. But then things got too hot for Lafargue. They made their escape from there and are now close to the Spanish border; SAFE, I hope.

Your brother also wrote briefly yesterday about Moor's arrest. Please tell him what you know. I have my hands full today.

You cannot imagine, dear Mr Imandt, what we have been through, all the misery and anger, during the last few weeks. It took more than 20 years to develop such brave, able, heroic men, and now almost all of them are lost. There is still hope for some, but the best have been murdered. Varlin, Jaclard, Rigault, Tridon.[5] And above all the true heroes, who fought on without leaders for 8 days in Villette, Belleville and St Antoine[6] : workers, both men and women!![7] The despicable loudmouths like Félix Pyat will probably save their skins. Others are still in hiding, but I am afraid that the bloodhounds will hunt them down.

With best regards.

Yours,

Jenny Marx

  1. ↑ A number of European newspapers announced that Marx had been arrested in Holland. A statement to this effect appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette, No. 1970, 7 June 1871, in the article 'The Interregnum'. Marx replied with a letter to the editor of The Pall Mall Gazette exposing this falsehood (see present edition, Vol. 22, p. 360).
  2. ↑ K. Marx, The Civil War in France.
  3. ↑ Jenny and Eleanor Marx
  4. ↑ Towards the end of April 1871 Marx's daughters Jenny and Eleanor set out for Bordeaux to visit Laura and Paul Lafargue; in June all of them moved to Bagnères-de-Luchon. Early in August, fearful of persecution, Lafargue left for Spain and Laura followed him. Jenny and Eleanor were arrested in Luchon and later expelled from France. On this see K. Marx, 'Letter to the Editor of The Sun, Charles Dana' and Jenny Marx's Letter to the Editor of Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly (present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 396-99, 622).
  5. ↑ The information concerning Charles Victor Jaclard and Edme Marie Gustave Tridon proved erroneous. Jaclard escaped from prison on 7 October 1871, and Tridon emigrated to Brussels, where he died on 31 August 1871.
  6. ↑ working class quarters in Paris
  7. ↑ In the original, this sentence is given as a postscript.