al economy, I was not yet freed from
metaphysical abstraction, and my socialism was only instinctive.... It
was precisely at this epoch that he elaborated the first fundamentals of
his present system. We saw each other rather often, for I respected him
deeply for his science and for his passionate and serious devotion,
although always mingled with personal vanity, to the cause of the
proletariat, and I sought with eagerness his conversation, which was
always instructive and witty--when it was not inspired with mean hatred,
which, too often, alas, was the case. Never, however, was there frank
intimacy between us. Our temperaments did not allow that. He called me a
sentimental idealist, and he was right; I called him a vain man,
perfidious and artful, and I was right also."[2] This mutual dislike and
even distrust subsisted to the end.

Certain events in 1848 widened the gulf between them. At the news of the
outbreak of the revolution in Paris, hundreds of the restless spirits
hurried there to take a hand in the situation. And after the
proclamation of the Republic they began to consider various projects of
carrying the revolution into their own countries. Plans were being
discussed for organizing legions to invade foreign countries, and a
number of the German communists entered heartily into the plan of
Herwegh, the erratic German poet--"the iron lark"--who led a band of
revolutionists into Baden. "We arose vehemently against these attempts
to play at revolution," says Engels, speaking for himself and Marx. "In
the state of fermentation which then existed in Germany, to carry into
our country an invasion which was destined to import the revolution by
force, was to injure the revolution in Germany, to consolidate the
governments, and ... to deliver the legions over defenseless to the
German troops."[3] Wilhelm Liebknecht, then twenty-two years of age, who
was in favor of Herwegh's project, wrote afterward of Marx's opposition.
Marx "understood that the plan of organizing 'foreign legions' for the
purpose of carrying the revolution into other countries emanated from
the French bourgeois-republicans, and that the 'movement' had been
artificially inspired with the twofold intention of getting rid of
troublesome elements and of carrying off the foreign laborers whose
competition made itself doubly felt during this grave business
crisis."[4]

Undeterred by Marx, Herwegh marshaled his "legions" and entered Baden,
to be utterl