1. Frederick William IV of Prussia came to the throne in 1840.

2. Look at those toads!

3. Frederick William IV of Prussia was influenced by the Romantic movement. It was his intention to revive an imaginary concept of the Middle Ages, with Estates of the Realm as his answers to the calls, which he opposed, for a Constitution.

4. Marx ironically calls the Prussians (Latin: Borussf) ‘Vorderrussen’ (anterior Russians) in order to associate them with the ‘Hinterrussen’ (Posterior Russians) of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia (1825–55). Nicholas I’s hatred and fear of revolution was one of the main considerations of his foreign policy.

5. The herd is silent, docile and obeys its stomach.

6. May there be no ill omen.

7. Étienne Cabet, Voyage en Icarie, Paris, 1842. This book is a description of a communist utopia.