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The world of the German literati consisted solely in bringing the

new French ideas into harmony with their ancient philosophical

conscience, or rather, in annexing the French ideas without

deserting their own philosophic point of view.

This annexation took place in the same way in which a foreign

language is appropriated, namely, by translation.

It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic

Saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of

ancient heathendom had been written. The German literati reversed

this process with the profane French literature. They wrote their

philosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For instance,

beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money,

they wrote "Alienation of Humanity," and beneath the French

criticism of the bourgeois State they wrote "dethronement of the

Category of the General," and so forth.