After the Paris Commune shocked the world – including the state-led massacres of the Communards that followed right after – Karl Marx became a very famous person. The myth ran that he was the mastermind behind the uprising and the International Working Men's Association was a vast conspiratorial organization of destruction and nefarious violence.
Because of all this rumor-mongering going on – indeed, if you read Usenet, still going on – the reporters in the following pieces usually felt compelled to draw great attention to Marx's actual living conditions or his general demeanor – which hardly befit the "diabolical genius" they expected. As a British politician tells Queen Victoria's eldest daughter in a private letter (below), after doing a wee bit of spying for her and met with Marx:
"The face is somewhat round, the forehead well shaped and filled up – the eye rather hard but the whole expression rather pleasant than not, by no means that of a gentleman who is in the habit of eating babies in their cradles – which is I daresay the view the Police takes of him."
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Karl Marx:
New York World,
New York World,
Chicago Tribune,
A letter to Princess Victoria concerning Dr. Marx,
New York Sun,
Frederick Engels:
New Yorker Volkszeitung,
Reply to the Honourable Giovanni Bovio,
L'Eclair,
Le Figaro,
Daily Chronicle,