The Communist Manifesto 1848) in Ghent to establish a branch of the Democratic Association there. Subsequently, having not heard from Marx for nearly two months, the Central Committee of the Communist League sent him an ultimatum on 24 or 26 January, demanding he submit the completed manuscript by 1 February. This imposition spurred Marx on, who struggled to work without a deadline, and he seems to have rushed to finish the job in time. (For evidence of this, historian Eric Hobsbawm points to the absence of rough drafts, only one page of which survives.) In all, the "Manifesto" was written over 6–7 weeks.
Revolution of 1848 in Luxembourg belonged to the same social milieu: they were members of the same clubs and associations, and would meet in Masonic lodges. The different families of the bourgeoisie were all linked by intermarriage. The rest of the country, farmers, artisans, and workers, remained as excluded from political life as they had been before 1848: the Revolution changed little for them. Several of the achievements of the Revolution of 1848, including the Constitution itself, proved to be quite short-lived. William II died in 1849, to be succeeded by his rather more reactionary son, William III, who described the Constitution of 1848 as