This look at the last weeks of the Lafargues includes Paul’s letter of final instructions to his gardener, Ernest Doucet.

‘Paul and Laura Lafargue Preparing for Death’ from The New York Call. Vol. 4 No. 352. December 18, 1911.

(Special to The Call.) DRAVEIL, Nov. 27, 1911. At what hour and how Paul and Laura Lafargue died will never be known. But that is not of any importance.

The most that is known is very little. They had passed the day together in Paris. They returned to Draveil at 9:30 in the evening. When they reached their home they chatted with the gardener, Doucet, and his family. They talked gaily of the day they had passed. They said that they had been at a moving picture show and had dined informally upon cakes. And their manner and appearance was, the same happy, familiar way.

And yet it was for them the last contact with living beings.

And they knew it. They had wished to have it so, had so arranged it–a long time before.

For lack of other proof which might be obtained by deduction, the material proofs, written, witness to the fact with convincing eloquence.

I refer to the certificates left by Paul Lafargue for the maid servant and for his gardener. With one exception, the certificate for the cook, which is dated November 25, the day of the suicide, these documents are all dated prior to the fatal date.

And the gardener, Ernest Doucet, found in an envelope bearing his name a letter and a certificate. The certificate, bearing witness to the honesty of that excellent man, who was both a good servant and a devoted friend to our friends, is dated September 28, 1911.

The letter is dated later, but yet it was written on October 18 last.

And this letter is so touching in its simplicity, it reveals with so much good feeling all the familiar generosity in the heart of our dear Lafargue–who was often the most misunderstood and perhaps the most injured of men–that I cannot refrain from reproducing it in full.

“My dear Ernest–You will send at once the telegram to Doctor Edgar Longuet and take the letter to the Mayor.

“In this envelope you will find 609 francs, 100 of which are for your wife and the children. This is a memento.

“I ask you to carry out exactly these last wishes of mine.

“You with M. Besnard and M. Huet, of the Villa, will divide into three parts, as equal as possible, the chickens. ducks, pigeons and rabbits in the poultry yard.

“You are to take one lot for yourself, but from your lot you are to give one pair of fowls to your mother-in-law, another pair to Huet, the plumber, one fowl to Madame Flevee and another to Mlle. Flore Tinionier.

“Mm. Besnard and Huet will distribute one of the lots between the members of the Draveil Branch. Demichy, who is a Flechard, will choose one pair of La Fleche.

“The third lot is for our nephews.

“You are to take from the cellar twenty-five bottles of wine for yourself and five for your brother-in-law, Paul.

“Mm. Besnard and Huet are to take fifty bottles, which they will distribute among the members of the branch.

“I ask Huet to take Fido, to take care of him, or else to give him to some one who will treat him well. He is a gentle dog who does not need to be whipped, to make him mind it is only necessary to raise the voice. He likes to be talked to.

“Goodby, my dear Ernest, goodby to your wife and to the three children.

“PAUL LAFARGUE.

“Draveil, October 18, 1911.”

October 18: How is that possible? September 28 the date of the certificate: As early as that date–as long ago, certainly, but even before that date our dear friends had arranged their departure. And with what minutia, with what care, that their last wishes should be of the same kind as the fraternal good will which animated all their lives.

We cannot think without pain to-day that when we saw Lafargue at the newspaper office, at the Permanent Executive Committee, always gay, still alert, so full of life, so clear in his ideas, when we met him on November 1 and 2 last at the National congress of the party, so pugnacious, so like himself, this cheerful old man already knew, because he had already made his arrangements and preparations, that he had only a few more days to live.

And now that we know all that we can understand, though with sadness, how a man like him, a woman like her, did not wish to be delivered over to a very old age, which robs before it kills. At the hour when they feared that they were ceasing to be what they formerly were, they, who loved so to think and to struggle–they went away.

They died quickly without suffering, in the evening after a last stroll, almost as if escaping, taking care that the should not be surprised, that there should be no confusion.

And yet, in spite of all these things, there is confusion, at least in the hearts of all of us.

There is profound emotion throughout the Socialist world, in the branch at Draveil, which Lafargue founded and the meetings of which he attended assiduously, and also among all French Socialists, nay, the Socialists of the world.

The New York Call was the first English-language Socialist daily paper in New York City and the second in the US after the Chicago Daily Socialist. The paper was the center of the Socialist Party and under the influence of Morris Hillquit, Charles Ervin, Julius Gerber, and William Butscher. The paper was opposed to World War One, and, unsurprising given the era’s fluidity, ambivalent on the Russian Revolution even after the expulsion of the SP’s Left Wing. The paper is an invaluable resource for information on the city’s workers movement and history and one of the most important papers in the history of US socialism. The paper ran from 1908 until 1923.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1911/111218-newyorkcall-v04n352.pdf