Works of Karl Marx 1849
Source: MECW Volume 9, p. 480;
Written: about July 27, 1849;
First published: in La Presse July 30, 1849.
Your item published in La Presse of July 26 concerning my stay in Paris, which has been reprinted word for word by other newspapers, contains such erroneous assertions that I am compelled to write a few lines in reply.
In the first place, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, of which I was the owner [401] and editor-in-chief, was never banned. Its publication was suspended only for five days because of the state of siege. When the state of siege was lifted, the newspaper reappeared, and continued to appear during the following seven months. Since the Prussian Government could not see any possibility of legally prohibiting the newspaper it had recourse to a strange measure: It got rid of the owner, that is to say, it forbade me to reside in Prussia. As regards the legality of this measure, this will be decided by the Prussian Chamber of Deputies which is ‘ shortly to meet.
After being forbidden to stay in Prussia, I went first of all to the Grand Duchy of Hesse, in which — as in other parts of Germany — I was not forbidden to reside. I did not go to Paris as a refugee, as your newspaper asserts, but of my own accord with a regular passport and with the sole aim of collecting additional material for my work on the history of political economy, which I had begun already five years earlier. [402]
Neither was I ordered to leave Paris immediately; on the contrary, I was given time to address a complaint to the Minister of the Interior. This complaint has been handed in and I now await the result.[403]
Kindly accept etc.,
Dr. K. Marx