Exile
In 1844, Jenny traveled alone with her baby, "Jennychen", to visit her mother, the Baroness Caroline. In 1845, the French political police expelled Karl Marx and the pregnant Jenny: thus the birth of Laura took place in Brussels.
In 1848 the Brussels police detained Jenny and served an expulsion order. The Marxes returned to Paris and then moved to Cologne.
Revolutionary upsurges took place in many European countries in 1848, including the German states. The Prussian authorities had Karl Marx deported to France. He then left with his family for London in England.
Around 1849–1850 the Marxes lived at Dean Street in London. In 1856 the Marxes moved to Grafton Terrace, near Hampstead Hill in London, thanks to the money given to Jenny by her mother when she died (1856). 9 Grafton Terrace, then at the outskirts of "civilized" London, had a small garden and two floors with seven rooms, including the kitchen. Jenny wrote: "we are walking now steadfast to become bourgeois". Philosopher Leszek Kolakowski would write of the Marx family's time in London, " Marx was notoriously incapable of keeping accounts, and Jenny was a regular customer of the London pawnbrokers."
In later years Jenny Marx suffered from internal pains, diagnosed as liver cancer. Following a family visit to France, she died in London at the age of 67 on 2 December 1881. The family buried her in Highgate Cemetery, London.
Read more about this topic: Jenny Von Westphalen
Famous quotes containing the word exile:
“Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say “death”;
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death. Do not say “banishment!””
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Public employment contributes neither to advantage nor happiness. It is but honorable exile from one’s family and affairs.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The exile is a singular, whereas refugees tend to be thought of in the mass. Armenian refugees, Jewish refugees, refugees from Franco Spain. But a political leader or artistic figure is an exile. Thomas Mann yesterday, Theodorakis today. Exile is the noble and dignified term, while a refugee is more hapless.... What is implied in these nuances of social standing is the respect we pay to choice. The exile appears to have made a decision, while the refugee is the very image of helplessness.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)