Jenny Marx in Post-Commune France
Introduction
The following provides an interesting glimpse into the personal life of the
Marxes after the Paris Commune -- when international rumors abounded about the
nefarious evil genius of Dr. Marx, and his maniacal machinations intent on
formenting bloodshed and destruction everywhere.
Herein, his daughters experience firsthand the paranoid, counter-revolutionary
police state. (Post-Paris Commune France's "law and order" government was
cracking the whip.)
Amongst their adventures... the young women encounter the dreaded strip search!
NOTE: Marx sent a cover letter to New York's Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly --
which is presented here also. Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly was an early feminist
periodical.
Zodiac
A short relation of my daughter Jenny on the persecutions... at the hands of the
French Government
September 23, 1871
Mesdames:
I have the honor to send you, for insertion in your Weekly -- if you judge the
contribution sufficiently interesting for your readers -- a short relation of my
daughter Jenny on the persecutions she and her sisters, during their stay at
Bagneres de Luchon (Pyrennes), had to undergo at the hands of the French
Government. This tragico-comical episode seems to me characteristic of the
Republic-Thiers....
I have the honor, Mesdames, to remain,
Yours most sincerely,
Karl Marx
Madame:
The following private letter (originally written to a friend) may serve the
public interest, if by means of it some light is thrown upon the arbitrary
proceedings of the present French Government, who, with supreme contempt for
personal security and liberty, do not scruple to arrest foreigners, as well as
natives, on altogether false pretenses:
Monsieur Lafargue, my brother-in-law, his wife and children, my youngest sister,
and myself, had spent the months of June and July at Bagneres de Luchon, where
we intended remaining until the end of September. I hoped, by a prolonged stay
in the Pyrennes, and by a daily use of the mineral waters for which Luchon is
famous, to recover from the effects of a severe attack of pleurisy. Mais dans la
Republique-Thiers l'homme propose et la police dispose. [But in Thiers'
Republic, man proposes and the policeman disposes.] On the first or second day
in August, M. Lafargue was informed by a friend that he might daily expect a
domiciliary visit of the police, when, if found, he would surely be arrested, on
the pretext that he had paid a short visit to Paris during the time of the
Commune, had acted as emissary of the International in the Pyrennes, and last,
but not least, because he is the husband of his wife, consequently the
son-in-law of Karl Marx. Knowing that under the present government of lawyers
the law is a dead letter, that persons are continually locked up, no reason
whatever being assigned for their arrest, M. Lafargue follows that advice given
him, crosses the frontier, and settles down at Bosost, a small Spanish town.
Several days after his departure, on the 6th of August, Madame Lafargue [second
daughter, Laura], her sister Eleanor, and I visit M. Lafargue at Bosost. Madame
Lafargue, finding her little boy is not well enough to leave Bosost on the same
day (she was very anxious on the child's account, having lost his brother a few
days before), resolved to remain with her husband for a day or two. My sister
Eleanor and I therefore returned alone to Luchon.
Without accident we succeeded in getting along the rugged Spanish roads, and
safely reached Fos. There the French customhouse officials ask us the usual
questions and look into our carriage to see whether there are any contraband
goods. As we have nothing but our cloaks with us, I tell the coachman to drive
on, when an individual -- no other than the Procureur de la Republique, M. le
Baron Desgarre -- steps forward, saying: "In the name of the republic, follow
me." We leave our carriage and enter a small room, where we find a
forbidding-looking creature -- a most unwomanly woman -- waiting to search us.
Not wishing to let this coarse-looking person touch us, we offer to take off our
dresses ourselves. Of this the woman will not hear. She rushes out of the room,
whither she soon returns, followed by the Procureur de la Republique, who in the
most ungentlemanly manner thus apostrophizes my sister: "If you still will not
allow this woman to search you, I shall do so." My sister [age 16] replies: "You
have no right to come near a British subject. I have an English passport."
Seeing, however, that an English passport does not inspire M. le Baron Desgarre
with much respect, for he looks as though he were in good earnest, ready to suit
his actions to his words, we allow the woman to have her way. She unpicks the
very seams of our dresses, makes us take off even our stockings. I fancy I can
still feel her spiderlike fingers running through my hair. Having only found a
newspaper on me and a torn letter on my sister, she runs with these to her
friend and ally, M. le Baron Desgarre. We are reconducted to our carriage -- our
own coachman, who had acted as our "guide" during our whole stay in the
Pyrennes, and had grown much attached to us, is forced away, replaced by another
coachman, two officers are installed in the carriage opposite us, and thus we
are driven off, a cartful of customhouse officers and police agents following
us. After a time, finding, no doubt, that after all we are not such very
dangerous characters, that we do not make any attempts to murder our sentinels,
our escort is left behind and we remain in the charge of the two officers in the
carriage. Thus guarded, we are driven through village after village, through St.
Beat, the inhabitants of which comparatively large town collect in crowds,
evidently taking us to be thieves, or at least smugglers.
At 8 o'clock, thoroughly tired out, we arrive at Luchon. cross the Quinconces,
where hundreds of people are assembled to listen to that band, it being Sunday
and the height of the season. Our carriage stops before the hotel of the
Prefect, M. le Comte de Keratry. That personage not being at home, still
guarded, we are kept waiting before his door for at least half an hour. At
length orders are given for us to be taken back to our house, which we find
surrounded by gendarmes. We at once go upstairs, wishing to refresh ourselves by
washing our faces (we had been out since 5 o'clock in the morning), but a
gendarme and an agent in plain clothes follow us even into our bedroom, we
return to the drawing room, unrefreshed, to await the arrival of the Prefect.
The clock strikes 9, 10; M. de Keratry has not come -- he is listening to the
band on the Quinconces, and, we hear, is determined to stay until the last chord
of the music has died away. Meanwhile, quantities of mouchards [police spies]
drop in, they walk into the rooms as if it were their own and make themselves
quite at home, settling down on our chairs and sofa. Soon we are surrounded by a
motley crowd of police agents, which devoted servants of the Republic, it is
easy to see, have served their term of apprenticeship under the Empire -- they
are masters of their honorable calling.
They have no recourse to impossible tricks and dodges to inveigle us into a
conversation, but, finding all their efforts to do so are vain, they stare at us
as only "professionals" can stare, until, at half-past ten, the Prefect puts in
an appearance, flanked by the Procureur General M. Delpech, the Juge
d'Instruction, Juge de Paix, the Commissaries of Toulousse and Luchon, etc. My
sister is told to step into an adjoining room, the Commissaire of Toulousse and
a gendarme accompany her. My interrogatory commences. I refuse to give any
information concerning my brother-in-law and other relatives and friends. With
regard to myself I declare I am under medical treatment, and have come to Luchon
to take the waters. For more than two hours M. de Keratry by turns exhorts,
persuades, and at length threatens me, that if I choose to persist in my refusal
to act as a witness, I shall be looked upon as an accomplice.
"Tomorrow," he says "the law will compel you to give your deposition on oath;
for, let me tell you, M. Lafargue and his wife have been arrested." At this I
felt alarmed, because of my sister's sick child.
At length, my sister Eleanor's turn comes. I am ordered to turn my back while
she speaks. An officer is placed in front of me lest I should attempt to make
some sign. To my annoyance I hear my sister is being led by degrees to say yes
or no to the numberless questions ...
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