Arnold's particular aim was to impose a levy on the Reading Circle, a club of German watchmakers, well-paid workers and petty bourgeois, but in this too he was frustrated.
But soon there arose another opportunity for Arnold to make one of his "frequent appearances". Ledru and his supporters among the French émigrés could not let 24 February (1851) [53] pass without celebrating a "Fraternal Feast" of the nations of Europe.
In fact only the French and the Germans attended. Mazini did not come and excused himself by letter: Gottfried who was present went home fuming because his mute presence failed to produce the magical effect he expected; Arnold lived to see the day when his friend Ledru pretended not to know him and became so confused when he arose to speak that he kept quiet about the French speech he had prepared and which had been approved in high places;he just stammered a few words in German and retreated precipitately, exclaiming:
À la restauration de la révolution! to the accompaniment of a general shaking of heads.
On the same day a rival banquet took place under the auspices of the competing committee referred to above. Annoyed that the Mazzini-Ledru committee had not invited him to join them from the beginning Louis Blanc took himself off to the refugee mob, declaring that "the aristocracy of talent must also be abolished". The whole lower emigration was thus assembled.
The chivalrous Willich presided. The hall was festooned with flags and the walls were emblazoned with the names of the greatest men of the people:
Waldeck between Garibaldi and Kossuth, Jacoby between Blanqui and Cabet, Robert Blum between Barbès and Robespierre. That coquettish ape Louis Blanc read out in a whining voice an address from his old Eeyore brothers, the future peers of the social republic, the delegates of the Luxemburg of 1848. Willich read out an address from Switzerland the signatures to which had partly been collected under false presences. Later he was indiscreet enough to publish the address, which resulted in the mass expulsion of the signatories. From Germany no message had arrived. Then speeches.
Despite the eternal brotherhood boredom could be seen on every face.
The banquet gave rise to a highly edifying scandal which like the heroic deeds of the European central mob-committee, unfolded within the pages of the counter-revolutionary press. It had struck observers as very strange that during the banquet a certain Barthélemy should have given an extremely grandiose eulogy of Blanqui in the presence of Louis Blanc. The puzzle was now elucidated. The Patrie printed a toast that Blanqui had sent from Belle-Île in response to a request from the orator at the banquet. In the toast he aimed some rough blows at the whole provisional government of 1848 and at Louis Blanc in particular.
The Patrie expressed astonishment that this toast had been suppressed in the course of the banquet. Louis Blanc at once wrote to The Times declaring that Blanqui was an abominable intriguer and had never sent such a toast to the Banquet committee. The committee consisting of Messrs, Blanc, Willich, Landolphe, Schapper, Barthélemy and Vidil, announced simultaneously in the Patrie that they had never received the toast. The Patrie , however, did not allow the declaration to be printed until they had made inquiries of M. Antoine, Blanqui's brother-in-law, who had given them the text of the toast. Beneath the declaration of the Banquet committee they printed M. Antoine's reply: he had sent the toast to Barthélemy, one of the signatories of the declaration and had received an acknowledgement from him. Whereupon Mr. Barthélemy was forced to admit that it was true that he had lied. He had indeed received the toast but had thought it unsuitable and so had not informed the committee of it. But before this, behind Barthélemy's back his co-signatory, the French ax-captain Vidil had also written to the Patrie saying that his honour as a soldier and his sense of truth compelled him to confess that not only he but also Louis Blanc, Willich and all the other signatories of the first declaration had lied. The committee had consisted of 13 members and not 6. They had all seen Blanqui's toast, they had discussed it and after a long debate agreed to suppress it by a majority of 7 votes to 6. He had been one who had voted in favour of reading it in public.
It is easy to imagine the joy of the Patrie when it received Barthélemy's declaration after Vidil's letter. They printed it with this preface:
"We have often asked ourselves, and it is a difficult question to answer, whether the demagogues are notable more for their stupidity or their boastfulness.
A fourth letter from London has increased our perplexity. There they are, we do not know how many poor wretches, who are so tormented by the longing to write and to see their names published in the reactionary press that they are undeterred even by the prospect of infinite humiliation and mortification. What do they care for the laughter and the indignation of the public -- the Journal des Débats , the Assemblée rationale and the Patrie will find space for their stylistic exercises; to achieve this no cost to the cause of cosmopolitan democracy can be too high.... In the name of literary commiseration we include the following letter from 'Citizen' Barthélemy -- it is a novel, and, we hope, the last proof of the authenticity of Blanqui's famous toast whose existence they first all denied and now fight among themselves for the right to acknowledge."
