THE LAST DECADE 381more and the latest unhappy events have completely shattered me. I fear
that we old ones will not be experiencing much more good and I only
hope that our children will get through their lives more easily.'^4 In 1875 ,
the Marx family moved for the last time, into a smaller elegant terraced
house in the same road; and, although Marx still had to apply to Engels
lairly regularly to supplement his allowance,^5 the financial worries of the
past two decades were at an end.
The daughters married and the family consequently grew larger and
less close-knit. Laura and Paul Lafargue settled in London after their
return from Madrid following the Hague Congress. None of their
children survived: a son and a daughter, born in 1870 and 1871 , died while
small babies; and Charles-Etienne, Marx's first grandchild and named after
him, died in Madrid barely three years old. Disillusioned with medicine,
I'aul set up a photo-engraving firm in London. Competition from larger
firms and Paul's utter lack of business sense meant that the undertaking
had no chance of success, and throughout the 1870 s the Lafargues lived
(in very fair style) off Engels' contributions.^6
Lafargue was also responsible for Marx's one venture into practical
capitalist life. Lafargue had gone into partnership with Le Moussu, a
refugee from the Commune and an expert engraver, who had invented
a new copying machine. Together they intended to exploit the patent.
1'here was a third partner, George Moore, also an engraver. Lafargue
quarrelled with Le Moussu and his place was taken by Marx, whose share
was paid by Engels. Early in 1874 Marx and Le Moussu also quarrelled
about the ownership of the patent and in order to avoid an open law suit,
decided to submit their case to an arbitrator, Frederic Harrison, the
I'ositivist friend of Beesly, then practising as a barrister. Harrison related
111 his memoirs what followed:
liefore they gave evidence I required them in due form to be sworn on
the Bible, as the law then required for legal testimony. This filled both
of them with horror. Karl Marx protested that he would never so
degrade himself. Le Moussu said that no man should ever accuse him
of such an act of meanness. For half an hour they argued and protested,
each refusing to be sworn first in the presence of the other. At last I
obtained a compromise, that the witnesses should simultaneously 'touch
the book', without uttering a word. Both seemed to me to shrink
from the pollution of handling the sacred volume, much as Mephis-
topheles in the Opera shrinks from the Cross. When they got to argue
the case, the ingenious Le Moussu won, for Karl Marx floundered
about in utter confusion.^7Jenny, who was as fervently francophile as Tussy was pro-Irish, had
lollowed Laura's example by becoming engaged to a Frenchman, Charles