CHAPTER XXVI.

A parting glance at other Universities German and Foreign

* * *

The General Beer-Comment of Heidelberg

LIST OF GERMAN SONGS.

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH.

1. The Sword Song

2. The German Fatherland

3. The Union Song

4. Are German Hearts

5. We Builded Ourselves

6. The Fox-Ride

7. Free is the Bursch

8. The Wirthin's Daughter

9. God greet Thee, Brother Straubinger

10. True Love

11. The Departure

12. The Gallant Ship is going

13. The Four Elements

14. There Twinkle Three Stars

15. Roundelay

16. The Kraehwinkler Landsturm

17. The Binschgauer's Pilgrimage

18. Drinking Song

19. The Pope

20. Drinking Song

21. Rhine-Wine

22. Prince Eugene

23. Commers Song

24. An Unbounded Jollity

25. Gaudeamus Igitur

26. Old Noah

27. Old-fashioned Bursch

28. The Travel Song

29. The Landsfather

30. Prince of Fools

31. Ways of the Students

32. Crambambuli

33. Song of Wine

34. The Departing Bursch

35. The Old Bursch

THE

STUDENT LIFE OF GERMANY.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL PLAN, OFFICERS, AND COURTS, OF A GERMAN UNIVERSITY

Jerusalem beautifully observes, that the barbarism which often springs

up behind the loveliest and most richly-coloured flower of knowledge,

may be a kind of strengthening mud-bath, to prevent the over-delicacy

which threatens the flower; and I fancy that one who reflects how far

knowledge usually climbs in a student, will allow the so-called

Burschen life to the Sons of the Muses, as a kind of barbarous

Middle-age, which may so far fortify them as to prevent this delicacy

of refinement exceeding its due bounds.--_Jean Paul Richter's Quintus

Fichslein_.

Student Life! Burschen Life! What a magic sound have these words for

him who has learnt for himself their real meaning! What a swarm of

recollections come over him who has once visited that land, however

long it may be since he returned homeward to a safer haven! Youth flies

on wings of impatience towards this happy time; age, though indeed it

may smile over the recollection of many a folly, recalls its memory

with delight.

We hear two old men, who in later life recognise each other in civil

office, and loaded with honourable duties. They speak of those

beautiful dreams of youth with enthusiasm, like two old veterans

rejoicing themselves in the recollections of the campaigns in which

they have served, and the battles which they have fought together. "To

the old times!" cry they, touching their glasses together, filled with

noble Rhein wine, and with their joy sorrowfully mingles itself the

memory of the many companions of those times, who have already quitted

this life; for it is a fine characteristic of the heart of man, that

while enjoying the highest happiness of the present, or when joyfully

calling to remembrance that once enjoyed, in such moments it feels most

painfully the absence of distant friends.

The stranger who should hear the conversation of these old gentlemen;

as he saw how they became young again in spirit, and how their forms,

bent with years, they raised again erect as they conversed, would

gladly linger near them, and would certainly say, "Those must indeed

have been delightful times!"

Yes, they were--and they are, for those who know how to enjoy them.

Stranger, thou who hast never known this beautiful life; and thou who

wouldst willingly experience more of it,--to you hope we to be able to

reveal many an attractive feature, and you shall behold many a scene,

as we venture to predict, snatched fresh and living from the heart

of this existence. Follow us into the City of the Muses--to the

strife-place of this passion-driven life; there will we teach thee more

nearly to observe the peculiar constitution of this student state, and

the habits of its citizens, which thou hast perhaps observed many a

time with amazement. Many a foreigner has even probably been for a

short period a citizen of this state, without having penetrated deeply

into its constitution and all its peculiarities. To him also will these

pages afford information and entertainment,

Plunge boldly into actual human life,--

Every man lives it; few men know it well;

And where you seize it, there you make it tell.

_Prologue to Goethe's Faust_.

We have here in the very outset used the expressions "student" and

"bursche," and shall find ourselves necessitated still oftener to use

them; we will, therefore, at once give a few sentences in explanation

of their meaning. By student, we understand one who has by

matriculation acquired the rights of academical citizenship; but, by

bursche, we understand one who has already spent a certain time at the

university--and who, to a certain degree, has taken part in the social

practices of the students. How and when he acquires a real claim to

this title, we shall hereafter have occasion to show. We will here only

make one observation regarding the origin of this term.

In order to render a university education available to men of little or

no property, in the twelfth century colleges were founded, where poor

youths received free lodging, maintenance, and money, and lived under

the strict superintendence of one or more teachers. This became

extensively the case in the thirteenth century, and still more general

in the fourteenth. Private persons of wealth were mostly the

benefactors, when such institutions were founded and endowed. In

Germany such colleges were called _bursen_, whence comes the term

_bursche_. This name, given at that time to such as dwelt together in

such a burse, was, at a later period, restricted to those only who had

for a longer time taken a more immediate part in the associate life of

the students. The signification of the terms--student life, burschen

life--thence derived, is plain enough of perception. Before, however,

we conduct the reader into this burschen life, in order to give him a

clearer understanding of it, we will say a few words on the

constitution of universities; on the surveillance which the state

exercises over them, and on the relation of teachers and university

officers to the students.

The right to found universities--to dissolve them again--to unite them

with others, and so on--belongs at the present time only to the

respective sovereign princes, who have held these prerogatives from the

dissolution of the German empire. Prior to this, they centred in the

Emperor, and before the Reformation, in the Pope. The universities

stand under the particular protection of the state, which superintends

and conducts them by jurisdiction thereunto especially organized. The

interests of the universities are protected by a representative in the

Landtag, the second chamber of the state. Should a university have

causes of complaint against the prince, it must appeal to the

Bundestag, that is, the court established between the different German

states, to decide all questions between those states, or between the

prince and people of any one of them.

At the head of a German university stands the rector, or more commonly,

the prorector, since the rectorate is generally retained by the

sovereign princes in their own hands, as is the case in Baden. With the

rector or prorector is associated the Academical Senate, as a permanent

court of administration. The prorector is annually chosen at Easter, by

the Great Senate, out of the body of professors. He is then proposed to

the curator, formerly termed throughout Germany, the chancellor, and

still so styled in Wirtemberg. On the motion of this officer, he is

confirmed by the prince. His duty is to promote, as far as in him lies,

the prosperity and object of the High School generally, and especially

the moral and literary education of the students; the enforcement of

the academical laws and statutes; and to watch over the official

proceedings of the curatorship, and the resolutions of the Senate. He

thus presides over the Great, and Select or Lesser Senate, where he

also exercises the right of proposition; opens all propositions or

memorials; collects the votes; and, according to the majority, decides.

He is entitled to be present at the assembly of the Ephorats. At the

expiration of his prorectorate, he continues in the senate a year,

where, in the absence of the prorector, he occupies his place.

The Senate is divided into the Select and Great Senate. The first

consists of the prorector, the ex-prorector, and four ordinary

professors, each section furnishing one. At the end of every half-year

three members go out. Their successors are appointed from the

curatorium--the office of the curator. The period of office is for a

year. The Select Senate corresponds with the curatorium, and it is the

business of the prorector to lay before this body all current

communications from the curatorium: in ordinary cases, at its ordinary

sittings; or in emergencies, at extraordinary ones. The Select Senate

lays before the Great Senate all such concerns as have been brought

under its own consideration, or such as at least two-thirds of its

members shall deem of sufficient importance to require reference to

this larger body. The Select Senate assembles regularly every

fortnight. Extraordinary meetings are called by the prorector. In cases

of an equality of votes, the prorector gives the casting voice.

The Great Senate consists of all the ordinary professors. To this

senate belongs the election of prorector, and other officers of the

university, so for as the university right extends, and the management

of the affairs consigned to their care by the Select Senate. The Great

Senate has, therefore, no fixed days of assembly. The four faculties of

theology, law, medicine, and philosophy, which last includes in itself

all that is not comprehended under the other three, as mathematics,

political and states' economy, history, language, etc. etc., constitute

the main learned and scientific fabric of the university.

The teachers are divided into ordinary professors; such teachers as

occupy the established professorships, with the emoluments and duties

thereunto belonging; and the extraordinary professors, such teachers as

possess only such salary as the prince bestows. These do not always

hold an actual professorship--and in this respect, resemble a third

class, the so-called _Privat Docenten_; that is to say, gentlemen who

devote themselves to an academical career, who have taken the degree of

doctor, and through a public disputation have acquired the right to

deliver lectures on subjects connected with their particular department

of science. The last receive no salary, but depend upon the

remuneration derived from their classes.

This institution of private teachers forms a nursery, out of which the

High School can advantageously recruit itself with able professors; and

we shall have occasion presently to show the great benefit derived from

this regulation, especially when compared with the arrangements of the

French universities.

All the ordinary professors are members of the faculty by virtue of

their office. Their rank in the faculty determines itself by the number

of years during which they have occupied regular professorships,

whether in that in which they reside, or in some other university of

Germany. The oldest member of each faculty becomes, according to

established rule, its head, with the title of Dean. To him it belongs

to bring forward all affairs of the faculty; to superintend the

examination of the students, as well as to issue the diplomas conferred

on them.

The same honorarium which the docenten or tutors receive, receive also

all the teachers of a university, from those students who attend their

classes. There are regular receivers, quaestors, appointed for the

reception of the honorarium, or charge for the attendance of lectures,

to whom especially belongs the reception of all money belonging to the

administration of the university, and attention to every thing

connected with the financial department.

The universities possess funds of their own, which are derived from

ancient grants from the princes, and from private legacies. To this

fund the government adds an annual determinate contribution; and from

this united income are defrayed the total expenses of the High School;

as the salaries of teachers and officers, and the management of its

subordinate institutions. Besides this financial administration of the

university, it has also a building and economy commission. The

building-commission has the superintendence of the new building and

necessary repairs in the university, and under its direction is placed

the building inspector with a yearly salary. In the economy department

of the university, the commission, in all that falls under its

management, has to maintain a correspondence with, and receive the

approval of the curatorial office. It assembles once a month under a

director, who is selected from the members in routine. The cashier of

the university has a seat in the commissions, and he is at the same

time secretary, and draws up and signs the decrees of the senate.

As the university has its own Board of Finance, so has it also its

Court of Justice. The peculiar life of the universities--their peculiar

relation to the state--the members of such societies--flowing together,

as they did and do, from such different countries, to combine

themselves, so to say, into an _imperium in imperio_; into a small

state, in fact, which must enjoy a certain, and, indeed, ample degree

of freedom, and yet must be made subordinate to the great state,--all

this made the princes in the times immediately succeeding the founding

of the universities, feel it necessary to grant to them their own

courts of justice. So received these institutions peculiar privileges.

Individual laws were given, till their number became so great that it

was requisite to collect them into a code. These laws, as they at

present exist, have been revised by the government, in conjunction with

the senates of the universities, and confirmed. They bear especially

upon the following points. First, upon the acquisition and forfeiture

of the rights of academical citizenship. Candidates for matriculation

must, upon an appointed day, and at an appointed hour, appear before

the board of matriculation, and lay before it their certificates of

learning and morals. If these are found satisfactory, the board

delivers to the candidate the printed academical regulations. Hereupon

must he sign what is called the reverse; that is, an attached form of

declaration, binding himself to take no part in any prohibited

_verbindung_, or union, or in any designs of a demagogue

burschenschaft, but to conform himself to the academical laws. The

new candidate thereupon gives to the prorector what is called the

hand-geluebde, or literally, hand-oath; that is, he gives him his hand,

pronounces what is above stated, and then receives the matriculation

certificate, or diploma, which confers upon him the enjoyment of all

the rights of academical burgership. Through this he acquires a claim

on the academical court of justice, on the protection of the academical

laws, as well as the right to enjoy the benefit of the library and the

learned institutions.

No one who has not matriculated can attend the public lectures, except

the tutors, companions or attendants, appointed by parents or guardians

to students--these, of course, also paying the regular fees--and such

persons not studying in the universities as are so far advanced in life

as to put matriculation out of the question. This right of academical

citizenship continues five years, provided it be not voluntarily

relinquished or penally forfeited. The laws extend themselves to the

relations between the students and the heads, professors, and

subordinate officers of the university, as well as towards other

officers of the state or city. For instance, the penalties are stated,

for offences against these various officers, as also the duties of the

students in regard to their studies. A long series of laws defines the

penalties for the peculiar offences of students, as for games of

hazard, real and verbal injuries to one another, especially for the

duel, under its various forms; for breaking the peace, drunkenness,

tumults and uproars, interdicted assembling of themselves together,

secret combinations of students, etc. It is further declared, that

public processions are only permitted under certain conditions, and

that the wearing of colours is forbidden. Further declarations regard

the debts of the students; and lastly, the regulations under which the

advantages of the university library are to be enjoyed are made known.

The oversight and penal jurisdiction over the students are exercised by

the academical senate, the prorector, and the amtmann, or magistrate of

the university. The ephorat is a peculiar board, consisting of select

professors, which only in the sphere of fatherly and friendly

admonition exercises its superintendence chiefly over the moral conduct

of the students when occasion requires; exhorting them to diligence and

good behaviour, and putting itself, if necessary, in correspondence

with their parents. The magistrate exercises the jurisdiction in the

first instance. In criminal cases, he draws the process, and sends it,

not to the court of justice of the university, but to the ordinary

tribunal of the state; in affairs of discipline he conducts the

inquiry, and pronounces all academical penalties, with the exception of

the _consilium abeundi_. The proceeding in the inquiry is summary, and,

in cases where the ordinary oath is administered to people in general,

is the _ehrenwort_, or word of honour of the student demanded. To the

condemned it is neither allowed to look into the proceedings against

him, nor is the name of his accuser revealed. He must even submit

himself to the judgment of the senate, without the power to insist that

the ground of its judgment shall be made known. The appeal from the

sentence of the amtmann, lies to the senate, which also pronounces the

_consilium abeundi_ and the relegation, on the motion of the amtmann.

The appeal from the sentence of the senate lies to the minister of the

interior.

For the administration of the academical laws and acts of justice,

especial police officers, and beadles, upper and inferior, are

maintained. The chief beadle in pressing cases, has the right to cite

before him, and to arrest without warrant, but must immediately make

announcement thereof to the amtmann.

The chief beadle, who lives near the college, has at the same time, the

care of the prison, which is in the upper part of his house. Two

beadles do duty in the university library. In the scale of academical

punishments, first stands reproof, then pecuniary fine, then

incarceration. The signing of the _consilium abeundi_, includes a

solemn promise not to suffer himself to become guilty in future of any

offence, even of smaller moment. He who, notwithstanding, breaks this

promise, and becomes guilty of an offence which would draw upon another

at least eight days' imprisonment, can meet with no lighter punishment

than the _consilium abeundi_. This _consilium abeundi_ consists in

expulsion out of the district of the court of justice within which the

university is situated. This punishment lasts a year; after the

expiration of which the banished student can renew his matriculation.

The relegation is the punishment next in severity. It has two degrees.

First, the simple relegation. This consists in expulsion out of the

aforesaid districts, for a period of from two to three years; after

which the offender may indeed return, but can no more be received as an

academical burger. Secondly, the sharper relegation, which adds to the

simple relegation an announcement of the fact to the magistracy of the

place of abode of the offender; and according to the discretion of the

court, a confinement in an ordinary prison, previous to the banishment

is added; and also the sharper relegation can be extended to more than

four years, the ordinary term, yes, even to perpetual expulsion. Loss

of honour is one of a class of severe penalties which can only be

pronounced by a civil court of justice. Previous to any _consilium

abeundi_ and relegation, the university amtmann must send intelligence

to all the German universities, and to the city magistrates, of the

cause of the prosecution, together with the signature of the culprit,

and also must affix a copy of the sentence on the black board, that is,

a black tablet, or board, in the university, to which all the

announcements to its members are attached; and at the same time must

advertise the parents, or those standing in their relation, of the

same. Causes of complaint, which a student considers himself to have

against an academical officer, must be laid before the academical

amtmann, if such officer belong to the inferior class of the servants

of the High School. When it affects a head or teacher, then before the

academical senate; if it affects the prorector, or academical senate,

then it must be carried to the curator of the university, who must

receive it, and lay it before the minister of the interior.

* * *

Through these brief sketches we hope to have given to the reader a

clear notion of the constitution of a German university, in reference

to its financial and judicial administration. We have so far had

Heidelberg in our eye, and may be allowed to do this, since however

different the universities of Germany may otherwise be, in spirit and

manners, in these respects they resemble each other. Upon the

conformity of their present constitution to their purpose, we may leave

the reader to make his own reflections. This is a subject upon which

recently so much discussion has taken place, and so many proposals have

been made; not indeed so jocose as that of Lichtenberg, where he says,

"every university should have an ambassador at the other universities

for the purpose of keeping up the friendships as well as the enmities;"

we shall moot this point as opportunity occurs, we will at present make

only a few observations on the constitution of the universities, as

regards the course of studies.

The annual courses of instruction are divided into summer and winter

half-years; betwixt come Easter and Michaelmas as vacations. The

lectures, which in these annual courses are delivered, comprehend in

themselves the whole doctrines which belong to the circle of the four

faculties. The professors are bound by the state, by which they are

paid, to deliver the necessary lectures, but they are allowed a certain

freedom in the distribution of these lectures amongst the members of

the faculty. Every teacher is bound during three times each week, to

deliver a public lecture, gratis, on which occasion he either makes an

examination of the students on the subject of his regular course, or

lectures on an interesting but generally minor topic of his branch of

science or literature, which possibly the students would hesitate to

attend were they obliged to pay for it, and which yet may be important

to the creditable discharge of their future profession. Every lecturer

is in duty bound to devote twelve hours per week to his regular course,

that is, to the lectures for which he receives a proportionate

honorarium from the students; these twelve hours being divided into two

or three lectures, according as the extent of their matter may require.

Besides this, it is the duty of each lecturer, so far as his other

obligations permit, to be ready to deliver any lecture which lies

within the sphere of his department of teaching, when, out of the

ordinary course, such is desired of him by a number of the students, so

soon as those who seek it assure him of a proportionate remuneration

for his trouble. To these _Privatissimi_, as they are called, or

especially private lectures, being once agreed upon, no other auditors

can be admitted. Lectures are delivered every day, Sundays and holidays

excepted; each delivery continuing only one hour, so that one may not

prevent another. The majority of the lectures are delivered in German,

partly extempore and partly from the written notes; the latter

practice, however, becoming daily more rare. A certain time before the

new course begins, a list is sent round, on which each lecturer puts

down the lectures be intends to give. The hours of delivery are next

added, in order to avoid collision. After its receiving the approval of

the curator, it is published under the direction of a commissioner

appointed by him. The list is in German. The commencement of each

course, as well as other particulars connected with it, is made known

on the black board. It is at the option of each student which course or

courses of lectures he will attend during the current half-year, and he

gives notice accordingly to the professor who has announced that

course. Yet is the student in the German states obliged, within the

period of his whole university study, to attend a certain number of

lectures, if he wishes to be admitted to a state's examination. Those

lectures which bear upon the peculiar profession at which he aims, are

prescribed to him by the state to which he belongs. He must obtain from

the respective lecturers, testimonies that he has diligently studied

every lecture of that kind. A copy of these testimonies is contained in

the so-called departure-certificate, without which no one can be

admitted to the state's examination; and this certificate is sent

directly by the prorector to the board of examination. This

departure-certificate is, in fact, on the student's quitting the High

School, drawn up, and signed by the prorector and amtmann of the

university, and contains the date of matriculation, the continuance of

his abode at the college--a certain term of abode being prescribed by

the government for the student of each particular profession,--the

attendance of lectures, a statement of his behaviour, what punishments

he has become amenable to. The certificate expressly announces whether

the student has taken part in any interdicted combination or not;

whether he even were suspected of such participation, and on what

grounds.

The university buildings themselves contain the lecture-rooms; and the

greater part of those lectures which are likely to draw the largest

audiences are there delivered. The warming of the rooms, and their

lighting up for the evening lectures, are the care of the nearest

dwelling chief-beadle. These buildings contain also a larger hall, in

which the public celebrations of university affairs and events are

held. In this hall, for example, are annually delivered, publicly and

solemnly, the gold medals to those who have best answered the

prize-questions propounded by each faculty. The professors also

frequently lecture in their own houses. The medical and natural history

lectures are mostly in these buildings, where those collections of

specimens and subjects belonging to the university, which are necessary

to demonstration, are deposited. Amongst these are the apparatus for

the physical sciences, the chemical laboratory, the zoological and

mineralogical cabinets, the cabinet of models, the buildings in the

botanical gardens, and school of anatomy. The lectures also on

pathology, surgery, and obstetrics, are delivered in the respective

hospitals of these departments. Besides the professors in the

university, also other teachers of physical exercises, as the

riding-master, fencing-master, dancing and swimming masters, receive

small salaries, that students may not lose the opportunity of

perfecting themselves in these arts.

In order to make support at the university easy to those without

property, many regulations are established. To those who can bring

certificates of inability to pay, the lecture-fees are remitted.

Besides this, in the different universities exist endowments, derived

in part from an ancient period, for such as cannot support the cost of

a university life. Many universities are rich in such endowments, or

stipends. It is a popular joke, that any student who arrives at

Greifswald, well known as the smallest Prussian university, is asked at

the gate whether he will accept a stipend; and if he declines, they

hesitate to admit him; since, unless students enow will come and take

them, the university does not know what to do with its endowments. The

candidates to obtain stipends must submit to an examination, and then

receive half-yearly a fixed sum, which however, in case of ill conduct,

can at the end of any half-year be withdrawn. These endowments are in

the management of several professors of the academy. The various

seminaries possess the like; in particular, the preacher seminary,

where the young theologians are prepared for their future calling. They

live in a large building at free cost, and under stricter oversight

than the rest of the students. Every student who is in circumstances to

pay the college fees, must make half-yearly, a small contribution to

the sick union, out of which sum such of the poor students as become

ill are furnished with all necessary attendance in particular

apartments in the hospital. For this union a commission is named,

consisting of several of the professors, and some students.

These slight notices may be sufficient to give us a conception of the

internal arrangements of one of the German universities, which proudly

may the German say, though they may indeed have their defects, yet

stand far above all foreign ones. What country can show an institution

so well organized and ordered as our High Schools? Truly does it excite

admiration and delight to see so small a state, even as Baden, whose

peculiar aim is the diffusion of knowledge. On the one hand, teachers

paid by the state, that they may, freed from all the pressure of

affairs, be able to dedicate their lives entirely to the office of

teaching; and on the other, scholars flocking from every country, to

avail themselves of their instructions.

How many great men have already gone forth out of this school! What

beneficent influence such an association exerts on the whole life with

which it is surrounded, we see strikingly when we turn our eyes

elsewhere, when we compare the fresh and living spirit which a

university inspires, with the unintellectual existence of a mere

mercantile city. Most true are the words of Goethe:--"That academical

life, even if we cannot ourselves boast of participation of its

peculiar diligence, yet in every species of accomplishment yields

incalculable advantages, since we are perpetually surrounded by men who

either possess knowledge, or seek it, so that, from such an atmosphere,

even while unconscious of it, we draw actual nourishment."--_Goethe's

Leben Wahrheit und Dichtung_.

And this fountain of all high knowledge, we may assert it with joy,

flows not only for the wealthy and the lords of broad lands. No! it

stands open to the poorest amongst the people, that it may call forth

talent and spiritual endowments to their highest accomplishment!

Through this becomes it possible to the humblest individual, in the

lowest condition of society, on the wings of merit to soar up, and that

no heaven-gifted head shall be lost to the service of mankind. However

high in Germany the advantages of a university education are rated, and

as some may possibly imagine overrated, yet this fact has sprung from

it,--that the richest and most independent must pass some years at one

of the High Schools. God be praised! the number of those is few who

look upon knowledge as a milch-cow, from which they may draw their

daily living, and on the university as a stall, in which that useful

beast is reared and cherished. Men have learned to perceive that the

possession of knowledge is desirable to every one, even if he draw no

direct worldly advantage therefrom. A noble rivalry to push discovery

farther and higher, through the power of the human mind, and to dig

after the truth, has diffused itself far and wide. The times are gone

by, against which Rabener directed the fire of his Satires. I recollect

where Sancho Panza in the discussion on proverbs says gravely--"Beside

the watchman I know no one in our city who has attained his office in a

creditable manner, and in passing must I also remember, that he is the

only one in our place that had understanding before he had his office."

It is only by merit that a German can now acquire an honourable

position in society; nay, the rich and the noble feel a pride in

showing the world that in them these merits are not wanting. Here is an

example of this honourable sentiment.

"Shall you soon depart to your estate?" inquired a foreigner of the

Graf von Sch----, one of the richest nobles of Germany, who studied

jurisprudence in Heidelberg.

"No," replied the Graf, "I shall first submit myself to a state's

examination."

"Indeed!" replied the foreigner, "will you then really become a legal

practitioner?"[2]

"No; but I will show to the world, that without my possessions I could

have made my way by my acquirements."

And to this diffusion and recognition of the claims of knowledge, to

the scattering abroad of science amongst the people, what has more

contributed than the foundation of our universities? Out of them go

forth the distinguished men who guide the helm of the state with

circumspection; out of them the teachers of the pulpit and the

folks-schools,--to diffuse light and improvement throughout society.

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL VIEW OF STUDENT-LIFE.

The word freedom sounds so sweetly that we could not be without it,

even did it indicate errors--_Goethe's Leben Wahrheit und Dichtung_.

"Free is the Bursch!" exclaims a beautiful student-song--a song beaten

so threadbare with continual singing, that now we seldom bear it sung

by the student himself. And true is the cry; or tell me who is freer

than he? Where see we the idea of freedom so beautifully realized as in

the German student-life? He who has learnt to know this life, may even

doubt the truth of that otherwise so true expression of Schiller's--

Freedom is only in the realm of dreams.

The life of the university is an admirable school, which brings the

young man quickly to a sense of self-dependence, which in a few years

brings him to manly knowledge, and builds him up to a fitness for

intercourse with other men. The freedom which the student enjoys in a

high degree, is truly a strong touchstone,--a dangerous rock, on which

many a one splits,--but it is the only ground on which genuine

knowledge can attain its noblest bloom. Suddenly liberated from the

fetters of school, from the strict oversight of parents, steps the

young man into this life. He is distant from the friends who, as it

were, shaped his early being,--from his nearest relatives. His whole

life's plan must be now fashioned after his own judgment; he may enjoy

his pleasures with a freer, choice, and pursue his studies in a great

measure according to his own discretion. He stands free to choose his

friends from his numerous fellows; and it is only by his own qualities

and endowments, that he can convert them into friends. When entering on

this new scene of life, may he never forget the words of Goethe--

No single thing can suit itself to all.

Let each look to his ways,

Where he goes, and where he stays;

And he that stands, take heed he do not fall.

There is a prejudice which yet prevails abroad, that the student,

especially the foreigner, is exposed to many unpleasantnesses through

the necessary intercourse with his companions; the obligation to take

part in their customs and amusements, which are often denounced as

sufficiently rough and barbarous. This prejudice is totally groundless,

at least in the present times. The necessity of intercourse, the

compulsion, have no existence whatever. On the contrary, every one lets

another act as he likes, and troubles himself no further about him,

than as his society may be desirable to the individual himself. It is

perfectly at the option of the new comer whether he will isolate

himself, or in what society he will live; whether he will participate

to a certain degree in the student life, or even enter into one of

their Chores. If he seeks not the society of the students, he is

perfectly secure not to be sought after himself. Nor let any one,

especially the foreigner, imagine that he may claim distinction on

account of his wealth, or his high birth; or that he may expect from

his university acquaintance particular homage on that account; thereby

would he certainly expose himself to ridicule and annoyances. Nobility

holds in Germany no longer such absurd estimation; few Germans seek a

man's acquaintance exclusively on account of its possession, and those

few are despised. This is a necessary consequence of the constitutional

structure of our German states; and hence are the Germans freer than

the English, who pride themselves so much on their political liberty,

and yet are such slaves to the nobility. This singularity of the

English often becomes very ludicrously conspicuous in constitutional

Baden, to whose cities they so numerously resort; and the students of

Heidelberg have often made themselves merry over it, especially when

the English families in a neighbouring city have, each term, picked out

the address calendar of the university--a list of the students

published each half year--those names which had any mark of nobility

about them, and invited these _elite_ to their entertainments. If this

is a prominent feeling throughout Germany, it is in the universities,

at least in the majority of them, the ruling one; and to make clear

what I have here said, I may quote the following words of Lichtenberg.

"An equality like that of the French people, exists amongst the

students of the universities. The poorest thinks himself as good as the

Graf, and stoops not to him, though he freely leaves him to enjoy any

advantages that he may possess. Should he set up haughty pretensions,

that were the way effectually to ensure a denial of any claim. They are

only proud assumptions, that are intolerable to the free man; for the

rest, he is thoroughly disposed to allow to him every distinction that

he deserves, and what these distinctions are, he has generally correct

means of determining."

The academical freedom is a possession dear to the student. He has

defended it with zeal from the ancient times; and a conceived

encroachment upon his privileges has often occasioned general risings

of the whole student body against the infringing power, which though

they may not be wholly commendable as excesses, were always highly

remarkable, and indicate vividly the spirit of student life. We allude

to the marching forth from the university cities, and the denunciations

which the students have sometimes pronounced, as a severe bann upon

them. But of this more anon. This freedom has the most beneficial

influence on the prosecution of the study, and the manifold

accomplishments of the students. This has become perceived and

acknowledged by the greatest men; and it has made itself conspicuous

that exactly in those colleges which enjoy the highest degree of

freedom, amongst which Heidelberg is numbered, there also prevails

the most active pursuit of every academical advantage. This free

associate-life of the students has, moreover, the most decided

influence on the general cultivation of mind and manners. Flowing from

different countries, these diverse elements meet in the most varied

points of contact, and mutually impart their experience and their

customs. The author of the article on Heidelberg in the Halle

Year-Book, speaks of Heidelberg in this respect, thus:--

The variety of nationalities which meet in Heidelberg give an

intellectual activity to the associate-life of that student-world; and

preserve it, at least, from the eternal monotony of fixed conventional

forms, stale jests, _fade_ word-wit, and bookworm pedantry. The

happy-spirited, practical, intelligent Palatine; the simple, honest

Swabian, who has seen only the world which lies between his own

mountains, but with his sound, clear intellect, penetrates through

every thing; the open Rhinelander; the pithy Hessian; the polite,

socially-accomplished, well-bred, reserved North-German; and the grave,

self-confident Hanseat;--each brings a different style of

accomplishments, a different view of life, different experience;--each

race maintains its own natural character, without withdrawing itself,

however, from the impressions of the other nationalities, and the

equipoising influence of the common elements of their confluent

existence. Add to these, the numerous foreigners--Swiss, French,

Belgian, English, Spanish, who soon find themselves disposed to attach

themselves in preference to one of the German races, and ready, through

the common medium of social life, to receive somewhat from all, and

give to all somewhat, as it may happen. And herewith is connected this

important consideration, that these foreign frequenters of the

university of Heidelberg are almost wholly connected by birth with the

higher classes of society, and are impelled by their professional views

towards the interests and the movements of social life. They all bring

thither cultivated mind, and a broad grasp of observation of life and

manners; for the increase of which, neither internal impulse nor

external means are wanting. It is indispensable to good _ton_ amongst

the students of Heidelberg, more or less to have travelled. The

vicinity of the Rhine, of France, of Switzerland, excite to still

further excursions, for which the vacation affords a favourable

opportunity; and those thus returning from distant regions, from Paris,

from the Alps, or from the sea, bring with them new and very varied

impressions,--whose communication, exchange, and turning to account,

again for a long time fill up and refresh the intellectual life, not

only of the individual, but of the meetings of the national Chores, the

associations formed from the general body of the students.

He who would dispute the great advantages derived directly from the

social life of the students--to which belong not only different

nations, but different faculties, especially in rapidly developing the

intellect--would deny the advantages of social life altogether; but wo

to the man who is disposed to act upon such a notion, and lead an

eremitical life in accordance with it; such one-sidedness of judgment

must inflict upon him the severest penalty. The necessity for social

union has always been the more sensibly felt, since countrymen and

friends who pursue different studies, are thereby much separated from

each other. The division into such unions, according to nations and

landsmanships, was the dictate of nature herself. Their existence was

acknowledged by the state, and honoured by it as a very ancient

arrangement. Out of these combinations sprung, about the end of the

sixteenth, and beginning of the seventeenth century, the so-called

Orders. When at length their aim began to appear not wholly pure, they

met with government opposition; and in their place again stood forth

the landsmanschafts, similar to the early national divisions, but so

far different, that to the landsmanschafts belonged not only the

students who were actually natives of the country whose name the union

bore, but all who chose to enter the same, and submit themselves to its

regulations, were received by it. All these landsmanschafts from 1815,

amalgamated themselves into one common Burschenschaft; till the bloody

act of Sand, in 1819, drew the attention of government upon that union,

and became the occasion that the greater number of persons withdrew

from the burschenschaft, and again resolved themselves into particular

landsmanschafts; or, declining to belong to extensive unions, lived

politically isolated. Those societies which had in the course of time

assumed so many different forms, now began to frame their own laws, and

to choose their own leaders. The members of each association had their

peculiar badge of distinction, others wore their colours; and in the

very nature of things, the constitution of such unions became more

elaborate; their regulations increased in number; and ceremonies, in

order to give to the whole exterior pomp and circumstance, could not be

long wanting. The rulers of an earlier age saw with approval that the

studentships showed themselves in the greatest possible splendour on

public and solemn occasions; and the services which in times of war the

student youth rendered to the state, increased their consideration. In

those days, the carrying of weapons was conditionally permitted. So is

it declared in an early ordinance published at Heidelberg:--"But it is

expressly forbidden at evening, and after the tolling of the bell which

calls the night-watch to their duty, to go about the city with arms."

To which is added the menace, "that if any one dares to transgress this

regulation, neither the rector nor the high school shall be allowed to

liberate or to defend him."

The people, on all occasions, have delighted especially in investing

public acts with pageantry; as for instance, in the conferring of the

doctoral degree. This was attended with great ceremony, and without

sparing of cost. The costume of professors and directors was a peculiar

one; and the latter even in recent years, in many of the High Schools,

were expected to appear in black silk stockings, short breeches, a

two-pointed hat, and a sword by the side. We see a remains of this

ceremonial yet in the public solemnities of the universities, as in

Heidelberg, on the birthday of the Grand Duke. On this occasion a

procession, composed of the academical professors and of a deputation

from the students, proceeds from the hall of the universities to a

public solemn service in the church, and afterwards concludes the

festival by a dinner.

But to return to the unions. Thus were these sanctioned by the state,

and their rules acknowledged by it. This relation betwixt them and the

state yet continues in Bavaria, where the Chores are bound to join

themselves to the public processions in foil costume, in order to

enhance their splendour. We have alluded to the original division of

these into natural landsmanschafts; to their combination into one

burschenschaft, or burschenship; but in all these, recent times have

produced a great change. The greater part of the German governments

have strictly prohibited the existence of any unions whatever, bear

what name they may. The ground of this prohibition we will inquire more

nearly into in another place. We will not here inquire whether the

teachers of the universities were at all secretly concerned or

concurrent in this measure; whether it be possible, at once, to

extirpate, trunk and stalk, these unions, which are as fast rooted as

the duel itself. We will not ask whether these unions do not yet

continue to exist in secret; and whether in Heidelberg, with whose

students we are seeking in these pages more particularly to make

ourselves acquainted, this possibly be still the case. But, as in other

universities, they actually do yet exist, and as it is so recently that

they have been generally forbidden, we will, for once, regard them as

existing, and notice more particularly their constitution.

This constitution is become by degrees very elaborate, and that

necessarily so, in order to uphold the tottering fabric, since Chore

life no longer retains the freshness of its early days. In the olden

time, when every academician belonged to these unions, they stretched

the authority of their laws over every student. But this is no longer

the case. Now, the smaller proportion of the students only enter into

these unions, which nevertheless represent, to a certain degree, the

studentship; and wherever it becomes necessary to defend the interests

of Studentdom, the whole body is ready to join them. Certain of their

laws, whether descending from the early times, and which are,

therefore, faithfully maintained by the Chore members, or those which

have been enacted in modern times by the Chores, yet equally extend to

the whole body, and possess an influence which can be denied by none,

since it is equally exerted by the Chores over all.

It is only through these greater organized masses that it is possible

for studentship to proceed in its oneness. The internal arrangements of

a Chore possess, on this one account, an interest, and deserve our

attention the more, inasmuch as we have already said these Chores exert

an influence over the rest of the students; and this renders it

incumbent that before we speak of the students at large, we should

acquaint ourselves more intimately with the present Chore life.

CHAPTER III.

THE CHORE.

Now first of all, to drive scholastic folly,

I'll bring thee to a jovial set, and jolly.

_Goethe's Faust_.

The different Chores have adopted their names, exactly like the early

landsmanschafts, from the different German nations. Yet are these, as

we have already hinted, no longer so scrupulous in the reception of the

new members as those were, to which none could belong but the actual

natives of that country whose appellation the union bore. If any man

would still persuade himself that the ancient practice is yet

continued, he must construct in his own head a very peculiar geography.

As these unions bear the names of the different nations, so the members

of each wore publicly their respective colours, which, since the

interdict against them, of course, is no longer the case. These colours

were not only displayed on the cap, but also on a broad band which was

worn over the breast. The prohibition of the Chore colours was a severe

blow to the unions, and the students sought in various ways waggishly

to surmount it. Instead, therefore, of one student, as before, wearing

the three united colours, as it might be green, white, and black,--each

Chore having, for the most part, like its nation, three,--now went

three students arm in arm, each of them wearing one of the three

colours, so that the whole three colours were combined in three

friends. This attempt, however, led its authors no further than into

the student-prison.

The principal of the regular Chores are--

The Rhenish, whose colours are--blue, red, and white.

The Hanseatic, " " white, red, and white.

The Westphalian, " " green, white, and black.

The Swabian, " " black, yellow, and white.

The Nassau, " " blue, white, and orange.

The Swiss, " " green, red, and gold.

The Sachsen-Borussen, or Prussian, white, green, black and white.

The English, in Leipsic only.

Besides this, each Chore has its sign, or token; that is, certain

letters curiously interwoven, with which it signs its documents, and

which is known to all the other Chores. The number of these Chores is

not always the same in the universities. Now one dissolves itself on

account of the fewness of its members; and now a new one shows itself.

When a number of students find themselves together, who regard

themselves numerous enough to constitute a Chore, and are desirous to

become such, the first thing which they proceed to do is to elect their

leaders. These, as the representatives of the new union, appear before

the S. C.--that is, the senior convent, or assembly of seniors--which

is the highest tribunal of the students for the settlement of all

affairs occurring amongst them. This tribunal inquires into the

sufficiency of the aspirants, and if the result is satisfactory, gives

its consent. The Chore appears as such at the next _Allgemeine_. By the

_Allgemeine_ is understood the meeting of the whole united Chores,

which takes place from time to time in an _Allgemeine Kneipe_, or

general drinking company, in the same manner as each particular Chore

holds, every evening, its meeting, where the members drink, sing, and

entertain each other. In this _Allgemeine_, or general meeting, the

members of the different Chores have a fine opportunity to pick

quarrels with one another,--in student phrase, to _touchiren_ each

other; that is, to give offence, so that the swords may not rust. The

newly established Chore now takes the customary course. It strikes up a

friendly alliance with one of the already existing Chores, in which its

members find the greatest number of their acquaintances, at the same

time that it assumes a hostile attitude to another. It falls into

dispute with the hostile Chore, and what is called the _Chore-hatze_, a

regular Chore-baiting, breaks out; that is, there ensues a general

challenging between the members of the two Chores.

The duels thus originated are fought in succession, and the Chore is

said to _pawk_ itself out; that is, to drum or fight itself forward.

Hereby it testifies its mastership with its weapons, and intense is the

interest which hangs on the result of the _Paw-kereien_, or fights,

between the leaders of each Chore. The conquerors have their victory

celebrated by their companions the same evening in the Kneipe, where

they triumph over their antagonists. When a Chore has thus proved

itself, it holds its _Antritt-Commers_--entrance, or opening commerce,

or festivity, of which more hereafter; and to which the new Chore

invites the leaders of the other Chores. The qualifications by which a

member of a Chore can raise himself in it, are practice in the exercise

of arms, bodily and intellectual dexterity in general; a good stomach,

that he may be able to carry plenty of beer; and, besides these, a

powerful voice is a grand requisite. As observed, the members of the

Chore elect their leaders. The first of these is the _Senior_. He must

possess the qualifications we have mentioned in a preeminent degree,

and must have already passed through the other offices of the Chore, as

here following. He possesses a great and scarcely limited power, and

his duty in return is to advance every where the interests of the

Chore, to exert himself for its credit in connexion with and in

reference to the other Chores, and thus to maintain its respect, so as

much as possible to raise its splendour and reputation; in short, he

must, on every occasion, defend the honour of the Chore. He who

possesses the next place of honour is called the _Consenior_, or

_Zweiter Chargirte_, that is, holder of the second charge; and next to

him stands the _Dritte Chargirte_, or third officer. The _Consenior_

is, as it were, war-minister and general in the same person. All that

relates to weapons and their use belongs to his department; he has

therefore the care of the Fecht-boden, or fencing-school, and the

weapons of the duel. He must be a good swordsman, as he is bound to act

as second in every occurring case, when any one fights with the weapons

of the Chore, and no other able swordsman is ready to do the duty of

his office; he must be careful to have the weapons of the Chore, that

is, an armoury of all things which belong to the different species of

duel, always in the best condition. The _Dritte Chargirte_ represents

the finance-minister. He has to manage all the money affairs of the

Chore, and the Chore treasury is under his superintendence. This

is, in fact, a treasury, into which every member of the Chore

pays a determinate sum, out of which all expenses of the union are

defrayed. The remainder of the members of the Chore are styled

Chore-Burschen, and _Renoncen_; and to these, lastly, add themselves

the _Mit-kneipanten_, or boon-companions, who belong not properly to

the Chore itself. These are such students as join themselves to the

Chore, frequent the meetings at the _Kneipe_, and take part in their

other pleasures, without involving themselves with the affairs of the

Chore. They maintain a friendly intercourse with the students of the

Chore, augment the appearance of the Chore by their numbers, and in

return enjoy from the union a certain degree of protection, with whose

weapons they also fight. They pay less for the loan of the weapons than

the other students and are allowed to use them for a fixed sum for a

whole course, that is, for the half-year.

On the very lowest step of the Chore stands the _Renoncen_, who has

neither seat nor voice in the _Chore-Convent_, or official meeting of

the Chore. The _Renoncen_ are for the most part harassed with menial

services. They must convey the weapons--which are usually kept in the

place of contest, locked up, those of each Chore in its own chest--in

case of danger from the authorities, or of any necessity, to a place of

safety; when there is singing in the _Kneipe_, they must hand round the

_Commers-Books_, the song-books; and besides this, on occasion of every

duel that is to be fought with the weapons of the Chore, they must go

at night, after the _Kneipe_ is over, to the house of the Pawk-doctor,

the surgeon of the students, who is always in attendance at the

duels--and announce to him the fact, with the time at which it is to

take place. In all the Chores they are bound to appear at the _Kneipe_,

on certain days, and failing in this respect, are mulct in a pecuniary

fine. In different Chores this attendance of the _Renonce_ is

different: in some, it must be daily; in others, three or four times a

week; and is not to be omitted without substantial reason.

Between the _Renoncen_ and the _Chore-Burschen_, stands the

_Fuchs-major_--the greater Fox--who is always the oldest _Renonce_, and

has the right to go into the _Chore-Convent_, but is not entitled there

to speak. If the _Renonce_ will advance to the rank of _Chore-Bursch_,

it is indispensable that he shall have fought three duels.

The _Chore-Bursch_ has this peculiar duty; he must settle and determine

with the strange _Kneipe_; that is, when a duel is to be fought with

the weapons of his Chore, he must seek out him who has challenged, in

his _Kneipe_, and announce to him the spot and hour at which the duel

is to take place. One of the _Chore-Burschen_ must always be present at

every duel which is fought with the weapons of their Chore. When the

_Dritte-Chargirte_, that is, the treasurer, is unable, from any cause,

to fulfil the duties of his office, the oldest _Chore-Bursch_ must

officiate for him; so also in cases of similar emergency, the

_Dritte-Chargirte_ steps into the place of the second, and he into that

of the _Senior_. Besides the obligation to appear on the appointed

_Kneipe_ days, the Chore members must also, at the fixed hours, attend

the fencing-school, or pay a pecuniary penalty. The reception of a

_Renonce_ into the Chore, as well as his advancement to the rank of

_Bursch_, is accompanied by certain solemnities, and by the reading of

the constitution of the union. This constitution is held profoundly

secret, and cannot pass out of the hands of the three _Chargirten_, who

received it at the opening of the Chore, from the _Senioren-Convent_,

or official meeting of the _Seniors_ of the different Chores--the

so-called S. C. Every Chore has its weekly _Chore-Convent_, wherein the

_Senior_ presides, and the _Chore-Burschen_ are present. Here the

affairs of the Chore are discussed, and resolutions passed. The

_Consenior_ opens these resolutions to the _Renouncen_, in the likewise

weekly held _Renoncen-Convent_, or official meeting of the _Renoncen_,

which has to carry them into effect, without power to alter them.

As the _Chore-Convent_ in each Chore is, so to say, its first board of

Administration, so there is a supreme board over all the Chores, and

thus, to a certain degree, over the whole body of students. It

constitutes the highest court of honour of the students. It is composed

of the whole _Chargirten_ of the whole Chores. Each Chore possesses, in

alphabetical rotation, the presidency; and the _Convents_, or meetings,

held at the _Kneipe_-room of that Chore which at that time is in power.

The presidency changes monthly, so that, as the court is held four

times in each month, it falls four times in each Chore, which has to

defray the cost of the beer that is therein drunk. The _Senior_

of this Chore is president, the _Consenior_ vice-president, and the

_Dritte-Chargirte_ secretary. Under the jurisdiction of this court fall

general affairs, those which affect the interests of all students; and

it passes all the resolutions, to which the whole student-body of the

university must submit itself. It keeps what students call _Allgemeine

Comment_, that is, the student code of laws. It addresses itself, to

protect their rights from all encroachments. It hurls the terrors of

its _Bannstrahl_, that is, of its power of excommunication, upon

students or citizens, upon individuals or large bodies. When a burger

of the university city, or of the vicinity, whose trade derives benefit

from the students--for example, an innkeeper, or a shopkeeper--treats a

student harshly or unjustly, the complaint must lay his charge before

this court. His memorial to the S. C. must be drawn up in due form,

according to the nature of its contents, and established custom, and

must bear the signature of one of the Seniors. The S. C. now makes

inquiry into the guilt or innocence of the accused. If he be found

guilty, it decrees the punishment, which consists in proscription, for

a longer or shorter period. This state of proscription, or being under

the bann, is very exactly determined in years, months, weeks, and days;

and during this period no student, be he in Chore or not in Chore, dare

to purchase any thing from the condemned, or enter his house, otherwise

he exposes himself to the certain danger of being also laid under the

bann, and the Chores regularly send their people to see whether any

violation of their edict take place. For instance, should a proscribed

innkeeper have a ball or dance in his house, the Chore emissaries will

be there to see whether any student shows himself at it. The student

falls under similar punishment who is accused and found guilty of

refusing to give satisfaction by duel to another that he has insulted.

Yet is no one compelled to the duel by this regulation. If a student

will not fight, whether from a principle against it, or any other

cause, he must, once for all, announce this fact to the S. C, and he

stands exempt, only, he cannot be allowed to make any exception to the

rule which he has himself thus laid down. If he commits assault or

aggression against any student or students, having thus sheltered

himself from the necessity of the duel, though he be no longer amenable

to this particular law of the student world, he is still amenable to

the laws of his country, and may be summoned before the amtmann to

answer for his offence. Should he meanly avail himself of such a

declaration against fighting, and yet permit himself to insult or annoy

his fellow-students, so cunningly as not to come within the operation

of any civil statute, and yet to be offensive and obnoxious to the

rules and maxims of social life, he will be shunned and despised by the

students, and will find himself pretty much in the same situation as he

who is actually under the bann. The bann is chiefly launched against

students for such offences as are considered to amount to loss of

honour--such as one student giving another a box on the ear, or a

student committing a theft; and therefore to him who lies under the

_Verruf_, or proscription, on such account, there remains scarcely an

alternative but to quit the university, where every channel of

intercourse would be closed against him, and where he would be shunned

by all. Whole university cities have at times been laid under the bann,

examples of which we shall give as we proceed.

The _Chargirten_ watch over the institutions of the Chores and of the

students in general,--or, in other words, over the so-called

_Allgemeine Comment_. They settle also the time, place, and manner of

all the public festivities and celebrations. They determine whether,

and in what style, a torch-train, or a "Vivat," shall be got up; in

what manner a deceased member of the Chore shall be interred; and how

the studentship shall be represented in the public solemnities of the

High School. They direct the choice of the ball directors, who take

part in the direction of the public balls, as, for instance, in those

at the Museum at Heidelberg. The presiding Chore fixes the Allgemeine,

or general assembly, and announces it to the other Chores.

Besides this court of honour, there also exists a Beer court, which has

to settle all contentions that arise in the drinking companies on

points of drinking etiquette, which, as we shall hereafter find, are no

few in number. To the constitution of this beer court, one man is

chosen out of each Chore, and the oldest Chore-Bursch is generally

elected for this purpose. It is held in regular routine at every

Kneipe-room of the Chores in succession. Of the beer court generally we

shall, anon, speak more particularly, and here need say no more than

that before the principal Beer court, the accuser must have two

witnesses, who must give their statements on their word of honour,[3]

and the accused must in his defence be supported by two witnesses also.

Thus constitute, as may be seen from what is already stated, these

unions, an aristocracy amongst the students, which exercises a certain

influence over the general academical class; which contributes to

establish a principle of unity amongst them; and whose members are

ready to give up some portion of their personal freedom, for the

consideration and authority which they acquire in the social system;

and so alluring is the feeling of the members of Chores in public

processions, _Commerses_,--parties which they make to some place in the

country for a day's jollification, and whither they go in a long train

of carriages with outriders; and in _Comitaten_,--processions formed to

accompany a departing fellow-student with public honour out of the

city,--being enabled to play the gentleman, and to _renommiren_, or in

English popular phrase, "to cut a swell," that members are never

wanting to these societies.

There yet remains to be mentioned the numerous class of students

termed, in student phrase, Camels--amongst whom are again

contemptuously distinguished those who live totally isolated and

retired, and never on any occasion, or on any account, visit the

Chores, their _Kneips_, or take any part in their festivities and

processions, and are therefore ignominiously dubbed _Kettles_,

Bookworms, etc. In conclusion, we must employ a few sentences on the

early Burschenschaft and the modern fragments of its wreck.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BURSCHENSCHAFT.

But nothing comes up to our pleasant self-satisfaction, when we erect

ourselves into judges of the high and the distinguished, of Princes and

Statesmen; find public institutions clumsy and absurd; observe only

possible and actual impediments; and acknowledge neither the greatness

of the intention, nor the co-operation, which in every undertaking are

to be expected from time and circumstances.

_Hauff's Memoirs of Satan_.

We have already traced the derivation of the word "Bursche," and

observed that the first unions of the students were designated

"Landsmanschafts" and "Orders." The origin of the first actual

Burschenschaft is to be sought in the times when, on the establishment

of the Rhenish Prince-league, which placed itself submissively under

the sceptre of Napoleon, and the consequent abdication of the imperial

throne of Germany by Francis II. in 1806, every heart that beat with a

German feeling must have been seized with the deepest sorrow at the

fall and dashing to pieces of the Fatherland. An earnest desire to be

able to give help to the outraged country--the belief in a God who

alone was able to free it from its oppressions--filled the heart of the

patriot, and must have roused him to a tone of mind, than which nothing

could be farther from that serene enjoyment of life, often bordering on

actual frivolity, to which the members of academical unions were not

rarely accustomed to resign themselves. A patriotic spirit, a zealous,

earnest aspiration, had already proclaimed itself in the latter

years of the former century. Already in its seventieth year had the

Poet-league at Goettingen organized itself under Klopstock. John

Heinrich Voss, the two Grafs Stollberg, Hoelty, and others, belonged to

it. At the same time tumbled that fabric which the Order of Jesus had

artfully raised, and the German language was finally established in

those rights, out of which it had so long been expelled. The lachrymose

tribe of common tragedies, and the moving comedies with which Kotzebue

and Iffland overflowed the stage,[4] were compelled to give place to

knightly dramas, and Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen became for the

hundredth time imitated. The German Muse attained a higher flight

through Lessing, and finally displayed herself to the world in the two

noble forms of Schiller and Goethe. The first, far from all lightness,

full of deep earnestness and noble sentiment, sought chiefly to effect

the moral elevation and intellectual accomplishment of youth; and the

youthful freshness of his language gave to his often more philosophical

than poetical reflections and sentences, an irresistible charm for

young minds. Goethe moved in a contrary direction. With a predominant

sentiment for beauty, and an eminent talent for imitation, he sported

through every department of literature, and floated perpetually with

the current of the intellectual tendency of the age. By such men the

German language was speedily advanced to its point of perfection; the

French language ceased to be the conversation language of the court and

of the polite circles. Joseph II. introduced the German language into

the court of Vienna; after the death of Frederick II. it became

acknowledged as that of the court of Prussia. For a long time Weimar

became pre-eminently the capital city of German accomplishment; and

Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Herder, and other distinguished men, found

in the court of Weimar, a sphere of action as honourable for themselves

as advantageous to the literature of their country. The French

ascendency in literature had thus ceased at the very point of time when

the French political ascendency came to lie heavy and oppressively on

the nation; the literary honour sharpened that bitter feeling of

political shame, and the more the German people learned to feel it, the

stronger became its impatience to liberate itself from that condition

into which it had been reduced by the French. But on whom must this

feeling have seized more powerfully than on the student? To whom must

the situation of Germany have occasioned more serious apprehensions

than to him? On the one hand, sufficiently instructed to perceive the

dangers which threatened the political and literary liberty of Germany;

on the other, full of youthful spirit, and of desires to help the

oppressed Fatherland,--such sentiments must have weaned the students

from the trivial pursuit of Landsmanships and Orders, and accordingly

those of the same sentiment united themselves into a Burschenschaft.

The object of this first union was noble; namely, to rescue the

Fatherland; and in order to be able to do this worthily, to raise up

men strengthened to the utmost completeness of both moral and physical

constitution. Thence came it, that bodily exercises, especially

gymnastics, rose into new existence; that the Burschen sought to

invigorate themselves by hardships of every kind; thence, that they

strove after the greatest possible purity of manners, and displayed a

spirit of hostility towards the less pure tendencies of the yet

existing orders. Germany's noblest sons belonged then to the

Burschenschafts. These unions had their leaders and laws, much in the

same manner as the Chores. Their leaders were the so-called

_Ruegemeister_, monitors, or judges, and had their speaker, who, in the

assembly, made statement to the people of whatever affairs appeared of

importance to them. In these companies ruled no aristocratic power, as

was the case in those of the Chores, especially towards the younger

members. To establish a thorough union amongst the students, was a main

object of the Burschenschaft. On this account the duel was not

permitted between the members of the union; and duels between the

members of the orders were very much circumscribed, and only in cases

of real injuries, or gross offences, and then under certain conditions,

permitted by the court of honour. The Burschenschafts of different

university cities stood in combination with each other, and members

from one city were in the habit of making visits to the members of the

other university cities. The Burschenschafts, as then constituted, were

in most places allowed, or at least, tolerated. They celebrated often,

and with the consent of the prorector, their so-called foundation-day,

or anniversary, with great banqueting, public processions, music, and

torch-trains. The members of these companies conducted themselves so

discreetly, that people willingly suffered them, and any little

distinctions which might gratify youthful vanity--the wearing of the

old German costume, the short coat, the broad out-lying shirt-collar,

with the open breast, the cap which but scantily covered the long

down-hanging hair, and which, as well as the coat, was mostly of black

velvet--such old Germanisms and peculiar attire--were cheerfully

conceded to them. Hitherto must the life and movements of the

Burschenschaft be styled noble. With enthusiasm its members received

the call to the fight of freedom, which resounded from Prussia in the

year 1813; and from all the universities streamed forth volunteers, to

join themselves to the German host, which was to do battle with the

oppressors of the Fatherland. Theodore Koerner has immortalized in his

songs the feelings and sentiments of the German youth at that glorious

crisis. Many Burschen died, like him, the hero's death, inspired with

equal zeal for the good cause, though it was alone permitted to the

poet to flash radiantly forth, as from a mirror, the inner glow of his

spirit in patriotic song.

THE SWORD SONG.

Sword on my left side gleaming,

What means thy clear eyes' beaming?

Thou look'st with love on me,

And I have joy in thee.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

A soldier bears me dearly,

Hence beam I forth so cheerly;

I am a free man's choice,

Which makes the Sword rejoice.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Good Sword! yes, free I hold thee,

And in hearths love enfold thee,

As if thou wert allied

To me, a lovely bride.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Already it is tendered,

To thee my life surrendered;

Ah! were we so allied;

When wilt thou fetch thy bride?

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

The bridal night's red morning

Breaks to the trumpet's warning;

When cannon peals begin,

Fetch I the loved-one in.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

O sweet embrace! untiring,

I tarry still desiring;

Then bridegroom fetch thou me,

My garland waits for thee.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Why in thy scabbard ringing,

Thou Iron-joy art springing

In such wild battle-glow?

My Sword, why ring'st thou so?

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Ah! in the scabbard ringing,

I long to be forth springing,

Right wild with battle-glow;

Hence, soldier, clink I so!

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Wait in thy chamber narrow,

What wouldst thou here, my marrow?

Wait in thy chamber, wait;

I'll fetch thee, ere 'tis late.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Leave me not long in sadness,

Thou garden of love's gladness,

Where blood-red roses breathe,

And blossom flowers of death.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Unsheathe thee then, thou treasure,

Of soldier's eyes the pleasure;

Come forth, my Sword, come forth,

On! to the father's hearth!

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Aha! the glorious wedding,

Here through the free air treading!

How flames in sunshine bright,

The steel so bridal white!

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

On, on, ye brave contenders!

Ye German true defenders!

And if your hearts be cold,

The loved-one to them hold!

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

While on the left side sitting,

Shy are her looks and flitting;

But on the right, the bride

Trusts God in all her pride.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

To iron mouth love-glowing,

The bridal kiss bestowing,

Be every lip applied;

Curst he who leaves the bride!

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Now let the loved-one sing forth!

The dazzling flashes spring forth!

Fast dawns the marriage tide,

Hurrah, thou Iron Bride!

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

The battle of the people at Leipsic, in the year 1814, freed Germany

from its chains. For the complete liberation of Europe, and for the

restoration of state relations on a firm foundation, a Congress was

determined upon, which in the same year was held in Vienna. The task

which this congress had to discharge was the more difficult, in that

the people, inspired with a new spirit, in the consciousness of the

mighty exertions that they had made, cherished hopes and desires whose

realization did not coincide with the interests of Princes. The

settlement of territorial relations, and organization of a new general

constitution for all Germany, engrossed its deliberations. The

restoration of the German empire, which was demanded by a majority of

voices, was rendered impossible by the jealousy on the part of the

kings of the Rhine-league of their sovereignties. As those states which

had sprung up and become great under the former German empire, were now

become independent, there remained no alternative, if they were to

submit themselves anew to a paternal authority, but, instead of the old

German empire, to substitute a sort of family compact The return of

Napoleon hastened the settlement of the fundamental principles of a

German international-compact; and after eleven sittings, on the 8th of

June, 1815, the _Bundes-Acte_, or Act of Convention, was signed and

published.

With the rising of the people against Napoleon, a greater life and

cordiality of religious faith had come back. This expressed itself in

the Holy Alliance. For the maintenance of European peace, the three

powers--Austria, Russia, and Prussia--not only renewed their alliance,

but based it again upon a religious foundation. On the 26th Sept. 1815,

the Holy Alliance was concluded by the three monarchs themselves,

without assistance or advice of a minister. By this they bound

themselves, the contracting parties, both in the management of their

kingdoms and in their transactions with other states, to take alone as

their guides the precepts of the Christian religion, the commands of

justice, of love, and peace. They expressed a firm resolution, in

accordance with the Sacred Writings, to continue in the covenant of a

true and indissoluble brotherly love; that national divisions and

national animosity should thenceforward retreat before the

consideration that their people were the common members of one and the

same Christian empire; the princes themselves should acknowledge that

the great Christian nation to which they and their people belonged, had

in reality no other rulers than Him from whom alone power doth proceed,

that is God, and the Saviour Jesus Christ. At the same time were all

states solicited to give in their concurrence, and were assured that on

recognition of these avowed principles of this Alliance, with alacrity

and love they would be received into the sacred covenant. The Holy

Alliance found numerous participants. Most of the European states sent

in their formal adhesion in the course of the year 1816. One might

imagine that all parties--princes and people--were about to co-operate

in the sentiment so finely expressed in Arndt's famous song--

THE GERMAN'S FATHERLAND.

Which is the German's Fatherland;

Is't Prussian-land? Is't Swabian-land?

Is't where on Rhine the red grapes hang?

Where o'er the Baltic sea-mews clang?

Oh no! oh no! oh no! oh no!

His Fatherland must wider go!

Which is the German's Fatherland?

Is't Styrian, or Bavarian land?

Is't where the Marsen's herds do wind?[4]

I'st where the Markers iron find[5]

Oh no! etc.

Which is the German's Fatherland?

Westphalian, or Pomerian land?

Is't where the sand from sea-down blows?

Is't where the Danube foaming flows?

Oh no! etc.

Which is the German's Fatherland?

So name to me the mighty land.

The land of Hofer?--or of Tell?

Both land and people love I well.

Oh no! etc.

Which is the German's Fatherland?

So name to me that mighty land.

The Austrian land it sure must be,

With glory crowned and victory!

Oh no! etc.

Which is the German's Fatherland?

So name to me that mighty land.

Is't what the Princes' hollow theft,

From Emperor and from Empire reft?

Oh no! etc.

Which is the German's Fatherland?

So name me finally that land!

Wide as the German tree tongue springs,

And hymns to God in heaven sings!

That shall it be! that shall it be!

That land brave German's giv'n to thee!

That is the German's Fatherland,

Where oaths are sworn by grasp of hand;

Where in all eyes clear truth doth shine;

Where in warm hearts sits love benign.

That shall it be! etc.

That is the German's Fatherland,

Where foreign folly scorn doth brand;

Where all that's base 'neath hate must bend;

Where all that's noble name we Friend.

That shall it be! that shall it be!

That whole, the German land shall be!

That whole, the German land shall be!

O God of Heaven! hither see!

And give us genuine German soul,

That we may love it high and whole.

That shall it be! etc.

But with the peace which succeeded the second overthrow of Napoleon,

the expectations of the German nation began to exhibit themselves more

clearly; and out of the disproportion between them and that which was

done to satisfy them, sprang the germs of mistrust between the princes

and the people. The opening of the _Bundesversammlung_, or confederated

assembly, Nov. 5, 1816, betrayed not only the imperfection of the

constitution, which had been thrown together in a hurry, but also the

uncertainty of the assembly itself, of the extent of its delegated

powers. Its declaration that Germany was not to be considered as a

united state, but as a confederation of states--(nicht als ein

Bundesstaat, sondern als ein Staaten-bund)--gave the less satisfaction,

as it was just contrary to what was desired. The nation desired

earnestly a common all-embracing bond of union and communion, and not

merely a confederacy of their sovereign princes, which the interests of

the moment, as they had originated it, would also dissolve again.

The general excitement in Germany received a palpable point of demand

in the thirteenth article of the Act of Confederation. In most of the

German states the anxiety for a representative constitution displayed

itself in such a manner as rendered in the highest degree difficult an

accordance between princes and subjects.

In Prussia especially, the constitution of the monarchy opposed so many

difficulties to the establishment of a national representation, that

its postponement was inevitable; and passionate discontent saw in the

impracticability nothing but an evil disposition. In the other German

states, the steps made towards the passing of a constitution conducted

to as little result; the princes and popular representatives could not

agree, since the first were as sparing in their concessions as the

latter were unbounded in their demands. But the spirit which was in

Germany striving after the constitutional organization of states, had

not every where confined itself within due bounds. The secret unions

which were formed during the ascendency of Napoleon still continued.

The excitement of the public mind, which at an earlier period had been

favoured even by the government itself, so far from having subsided,

had rather received a new impulse, and as it had now necessarily lost

its outward tendency, it sought to take effect in the heart of Germany.

The government saw with suspicion the drift of the secret unions, and

their influence on the Gymnastic schools and universities; they heard

with astonishment, the bold language of the rising generation

approximating itself to political fanaticism. The German Confederation

satisfied not these heads on fire with ideas of one and a free Germany.

The restoration of the empire, in connexion with one of the prevailing

theories of conformable national representation, was the master desire

of a numerous party, which was spread wide through Germany, and

rendered the universities the seminaries of their doctrines. The youth

entered with pride into the idea, that they were called to work out

their salvation, from the circumstances to which their fathers had

reduced them. Political notions of the Middle Ages mingled themselves

in the heads of the student youth, with the revolutionary doctrines of

modern times, and received, moreover, from religious enthusiasm, a dark

addition. Thus degenerated the Burschenschaft, in a manner most deeply

to be deplored, and demonstrated in a melancholy degree how near to

each other lie the boundaries of truth and falsehood. Noble patriotism

metamorphosed itself into a gloomy fanaticism,--zeal for religion and

morals, into a hollow hypocrisy, and into a still more dangerous

pseudo-philosophy. The landsmannschafts became continually weaker in

the German universities, and the young men every day added themselves

to the burschenschaft in greater numbers. Truly the greater number of

them never dreamed to what lengths such a political fanaticism could

lead them; and only by degrees and unobserved mounted the arrogance of

an inconsiderate youth, till at length it persuaded itself that it

alone had fought out the liberation war, and therefore was now called

to give to Fatherland a new constitution.

These perilous imaginations grew continually faster and faster into

that horrible avalanche which threatened to overwhelm every thing. What

a difference between the years 1816 and 1817, when one compares the

celebration of the peace anniversary of 1816, with that of the

celebration of the October days of 1817!

On the 18th, 19th, and 20th of January, 1816, Jena, amongst other

universities, celebrated the peace-festival in a style and manner,

which, say the newspapers of the time, deserve to be published and

handed down to posterity.

The report of this festival stands thus:--On the 16th day of January

was issued from the grand-ducal police commission, and the city council

of Jena, a public programme in regard to this festival. In pursuance of

its ordinations, on the 17th, all the bells were rung at noon. Before

and after the ringing, mortars and cannon were fired at the outer gate.

At eight o'clock in the evening the Landsturm beat tattoo with music.

On the 18th, in the morning, solemn music sounded from the towers, with

drum and trumpet, and firing of cannon. At nine o'clock assembled at

the council-house, the clergy, the city authorities, and the elder

burgers not belonging to the Landsturm, whither also an hour later

proceeded the whole body of school youth with their teachers. At ten

o'clock, the assembled company moved thence in procession to the city

church. A division of the Landsturm, as the procession arrived before

the church, made way for it Behind this division walked, as leader of

the whole procession, the depositor, or master of the ceremonies, in a

black dress, and next to him went the academical officials. Behind

these came two beadles, with silver sceptres, and cloaks of red cloth,

preceding the then prorector regens, Herr Hofrath Dr. Seidenstecker,

the prorector being, however, as well as the prorector designatus, Herr

Hofrath Dr. Voigt, who followed him, supported by two students. To the

prorectors succeeded the deacons of the four faculties, two and two,

and then followed the senate, the professors, the docenten, and the

students, whose banner was borne before them. As the train came in

front of the council-house, that of the city authorities joined it and

proceeded with it to the church, in which each party took their

respective seats. A second division of the Landsturm brought up the

rear of the train. All conducted themselves with the decorum and

dignity befitting this day, and the appearance of the whole

congregation excited a lively feeling of something high and important.

When the service was concluded, the train quitted the church in the

same order in which it had entered it. At the council-house, the

procession of the city authorities, and those who had joined them,

separated from that of the academicians, who directed their course

again to the university, where they broke off.

The students now betook themselves to the market-place, and after the

public appointed religious service which they had just attended,

performed a private act of devotion, which in its simplicity and

unostentatiousness was extremely striking and affecting. Ranged in a

circle, the banner and the leaders of the procession in its centre with

uncovered heads, they sung a hymn, written for the occasion by Herr

Ullmann of Liefland, with such truth and depth of feeling, that Herr

Hofrath Gabler, who with other professors, was present at this

solemnity, seized with enthusiastic emotion by its power, thanked the

students with heart-enkindled words for the elevation of soul that they

had occasioned. A beautiful conclusion of all the religious and public

solemnities of this day! for that many houses in the evening,

especially in the market-place, were found illuminated, was rather a

testimony of individual joy, which took this way to display itself.

The following day, the 19th of January, only was left to the students

to make their arrangements for their peace anniversary. And now once

more, in how German, how brave, how noble a style was every festive

preparation completed!

In the Rau-Thal, through which the haughty enemy of the German name had

formerly led his robber-horde to victory, an Oak was selected, that,

the witness of former overthrow, it might now, as a memorial of the

achieved liberty of Germany--of new flourishing man's strength, be

planted on that spot which, ten years before, on the most unfortunate

of all days, covered with rubbish and ashes, had been consecrated to a

dreadful remembrance. On the morning of the 19th, the oak was taken

from its old location, and towards noon brought to the city, where it

was received by the students with joyful hearts, and in procession of

two and two, conducted with music to the square, the scene of former

desolation. On the platz, a division of the Landsturm had stationed

itself, and assisted to form the circle; a division of the mounted

Landsturm had ridden in advance of the tree, A vast body of spectators

stood round the platz! many of the professors, and those who took

interest in the scene, stationed themselves near the oak.

When all was ready for the planting of the oak, a hymn composed for the

occasion by Herr Goering, from Weimar, to a tune furnished by Herr

Cotta, of Eisenach, was sung by the students, fervently and solemnly,

with uncovered heads as on the day before; then stepped Herr Horn of

Mechlenberg forth from the inner circle, and delivered a pregnant and

powerful speech with equal animation and grace. The attention and

silence of the vast throng of spectators during the delivery of this

speech, testified the impression it produced, to say nothing of its

subsequent influence. The speech ended; the planting of the oak was

performed, accompanied by the singing of a hymn, also composed by Herr

Goering, to a tune by Herr Cotta. The professors present testified

their interest and delight in the transaction, by each of them

scattering three handfuls of earth on the roots of the planted oak. But

numbers of the maidens and young ladies bound ribands on the

significant tree, eloquent with so many significations, thereby

proclaiming the strength, the desires, the sentiments, and hopes of

their hearts.

As now the oak, to which we will all wish a joyful and prosperous

growth, especially in its national indications, was planted, Herr Horn

pronounced the iambics written for the occasion by Herr Ullmann, with

the tone and feeling appropriate to their office and contents. The

whole transaction was concluded by the singing of hymns, composed by

Herr Neidhart, the elder of Ebersdorf in Voigtland, and breathing a

noble, powerful spirit, for right and freedom, which animated the whole

nation, and in its own language awarded to festival its high and

significant value. The occasion thus brought to its close--a solemnity

which our grandchildren may well hold sacred--the students marched in

procession of two to the market-place, where they excited one another

in brotherly union, with Arndt's thrilling hymn, to unity of spirit and

faithful confidence in the sentiments then and there implanted.

THE UNION SONG.

In happy hour have we united,

A mighty and a German choir!

And hence from every soul excited,

Burst hymns of praise to God once more;

Since we stand here o'er high things musing,

With feelings holy and profound,

So the full heart its joy diffusing,

Must swell with all its chords the sound.

To whom shall first our thanks be pealed?

To God's most high and wondrous name,

Who in our shame's long night revealed,

Arose before us all in flame.

Who blasted all our foes' disdaining;

Our strength and beauty all restored;

Who on the stars for ever reigning,

Sits there from age to age adored.

Our second wish--to whom then flies it?

To Fatherland's high glory whole.

Perdition seize all who despise it,

Hail! he who yields it life and soul!

Through virtues pass it still be-wondered;

Beloved for honesty and right,

Proud from year-hundred to year-hundred,

In strength and honour ever bright.

To joys of German men,--a measure!

One third--in clearer joy and thanks;

For freedom is the German pleasure;

For freedom leads our German ranks.

For it to live, for it to perish,--

Each German bosom burns for this;

For this the hero-death to cherish,

Is German honour, German bliss.

The fourth--in solemn consecration,--

Hands, hearts aloft together go!

Thou ancient truth--and of our nation,

Thou faith, united--"live ye hoch!"

With these all doubts and fears we banish,

These of our bond are rock and shield;

The world indeed itself must vanish,

When men their plighted word shall yield.

Close in,--the sacred circle throng now,

And raise the clash of triumph strong;

From heart to heart, from tongue to tongue now,

Like lightning send this joyful song:--

The Word that knits our bond for ever;

The Good no fiend can from us rend,--

Nor tyrant villany can sever,--

Believe!--maintain it to the end!

The afternoon and evening were dedicated by them to joyous

entertainment at the Feurstenkeller, and with testimonies of love and

respect towards their teachers, that remarkable and distinguished day

terminated. The sacred celebration of the peace-festival on the part of

the university, was held on Sunday, the 21st February. The church

service itself was very simple, but highly solemn, and worthy of the

high thoughts which the celebration of such a day could not fail to

call forth. There remained nothing to desire, but that the noble spirit

and sterling sentiments which had every where displayed themselves so

luminously on that day, should continue to be the universal ruling

ones.

So details a newspaper of the time, the celebration of this beautiful

festival. But the concluding wish found not its fulfilment in the

following year--for in the year 1817 was held the festival on the

Wartburg; in the next year the congress of the Burschenschaft at Jena;

and in 1819 transpired the bloody deed of Sand, a warning sign of the

progress of political fanaticism from its innocent commencement, to

that act which found its just reward on the scaffold.

In the year 1817 the celebration of the reformation anniversary falling

in conjunction with the anniversary of the Leipsic Folksbattle, it was

too exciting an occasion for the young state reformers not to seize on

it for the demonstration of their views and aims. The festival was

therefore celebrated on the 18th of October, by the students of most of

the German universities on the Wartburg, in a manner which quickly

excited the attention of the governments. The Prussian government, in

particular, ordered the trial of all those who had taken part in the

festival; and several professors who had been present, particularly

Fries, came under judicial examination. From these trials it was made

obvious that the few only were in the secret of the proposed auto-da-fe

to be held in Eisenach, but that the majority regarded it as a

desirable opportunity for drawing the Burschenschaft into a more

intimate and close union, so that it might the more powerfully operate

against the landsmanschafts.

The festival was, like the prior one of October, celebrated with much

enthusiasm, with sacred service, with singing of Fatherland hymns, and

other solemnities: but speeches were delivered, on this occasion, which

had not a thoroughly correct tendency, and must appear the more

unfitting from the mouth of a teacher of youth. On the evening of the

18th of October, as formerly on that night, fires blazed up on every

hill top; but those of the Burschenschaft who had stationed themselves

around the fire on the Wartburg, cast into the flames the German

History of Kotzebue, as well as some other detested writings. None of

the professors, however, were present at this transaction, and none of

the speeches connected therewith were delivered by them. That the acts

of the Congress of Vienna had been also burnt there, was proved by the

inquiry to be false.

The Wartburg festival was concluded on the 19th of October by the

assembled participants, to the number of about 600, taking the

sacrament in the church. The consequence of this festival was the

promotion of the idea here conceived, of one universal German

Burschenschaft; that the union of the whole body of student youth must

pervade, and be the means of working out, the union of the whole

Fatherland.

On the 21st of October, 1818, at Jena, a congress of students, from

fourteen universities, was held; then and there the union of the

Burschenschafts was discussed, and its constitution established. "One

Empire, one Religion, Freedom and Equality!" This was the watchword of

the combination, which, since the Wartburg festival, had exchanged its

former colours, namely, green, blue, and white, for the union badge,

black, red, and a metallic or embroidered oak leaf in the cap. To this

circumstance alludes the following celebrated song--

ARE GERMAN HEARTS.

Are German hearts with strength and courage beating?

There to the clang of beakers gleams the sword,

And true and steadfast in our place of meeting,

We peal aloud in song the fiery word!

Though rocks and oak trees shiver,

We, we will tremble never!

Strong like the tempest see the youths go by,

For Fatherland to combat and to die!

Red, red as true-love, be the brother token,

And pure like gold the soul within imprest,

And that in death our spirits be not broken,

Black be the ribbon bound about the breast

Though rocks, etc.

We know the strength in honest swords residing,

Bold is the brow, and strong the arm to smite;

We fail not, faint not, in the right confiding,

When calls the Fatherland his sons to fight.

Though rocks, etc.

So, on the German sword, to this alliance,

In life and death let solemn faith he vow'd!

Up, Brothers, up! the Fatherland's reliance,

And to the blood-red morning cry aloud.

Though rocks, etc.

And thou, Beloved, who in hours the dearest,

Hast nerved thy friend with many a look and tone,

For thee my heart will beat when death comes nearest,

For unto true love change is never known.

Though rocks, etc.

And now, since fate may tear us from each other,

Let each man grasp of each the brother-hand,

And swear once more, O every German Brother,

Truth to the bond, truth to the Fatherland!

Though rocks and oak-trees shiver,

We, we will tremble never!

Strong like the tempest see the youths go by,

For Fatherland to combat and to die!

The laws of the Burschenschaft, or its constitution, bore the

name--"Custom of the Burschenschaft." Amongst other things stand the

following:

"In the German Fatherland we will live and move. We will perish with

it, or die free in it, if God's great call ordain. Live the German

speech for ever! Flourish the true chivalry! Let Germany be free!

"He who avows these ideas, and is willing to contend for their

advancement, is our beloved brother. To accomplish these high

endeavours, there must be a universal free Burschenschaft throughout

all Germany.

"There can no salvation come to our beloved Germany unless through such

a free and universal Burschenschaft, in which Germany's noblest youth

continues intimately fraternized, in which every one learns to know his

duty--and which Burschenschaft shall always find the Gymnastic schools

its defence and alarm-post.

"We will never apply the word Fatherland to that state in which we were

born: Germany is our Fatherland; the state in which we are born is our

Home.

"We will hold these principles firmly and honourably; spread them by

every possible means; and with all our power, now as youths, and

hereafter as men, labour to bring them into exercise.

"When we quit the High School, and are invested with any office, be it

high or low, we will fulfil the same honourably, true to Prince and

Fatherland, and in such a manner administer it as shall be in

accordance with the spirit of these principles.

"The law of the people shall be the will of the Prince. Liberty and

Equality are the highest good; after which we have to strive, and from

which strift no pious and honest German can ever desist.

"Every student who maintains honour and virtue, shall be a free German

Bursche: subject to no one; inferior to no one; all shall be equal,

obeying only the laws."

From this time forward the union laboured actively at throwing out and

determining the principles of a future civil and ecclesiastical

constitution for Germany, and in the dissemination of revolutionary

writings. But unfortunately, as in all times of high excitement,

spirits of a reckless and darker character mingled themselves with the

nobler ones of liberty: for the realization of their intrinsically

criminal wishes, criminal means also were necessary, and the spirit of

youth was thus unconsciously conducted by fanaticism into unhallowed

and bloodthirsty principles, and in the bosom of the Burschenschaft

union, formed itself a closer union of _The Unrestricted_, whose name

revealed sufficiently, that they would hesitate at no means by which

they might arrive at their object. The misguided and blamable tendency

of this spirit, to the horror of many who unconsciously implicated

themselves in its criminal proceedings, was brought to light by some

striking circumstances. On the 23d of March, 1810, the student Sand

murdered the Russian Counsellor of State, Von Kotzebue, on no other

ground than that he held him to be a spy of the Russian government, and

an enemy of German liberty. He undertook the action with the full

persuasion that it was a just and noble deed, and his trial revealed

the horrible gulf of political immorality, unto the very brink of which

was brought the youth of Germany. A somewhat particular account of this

transaction, and of the circumstances of Sand's life, may fittingly

here find a place: and which may be relied on, being derived from the

relation published by the President of the Commission for the trial of

Sand, the State Counsellor, Von Hohenhorst himself.

CHAPTER V.

KARL LUDWIG SAND.

Karl Ludwig Sand was born at Wunsiedel, a little town in the district

of Baireuth, lying in the Fichtel Mountains, on the 5th of October,

1795. His father was pensionary officer of justice; and the family,

which consisted of three sons and two daughters, lived in the most

delightful domestic harmony. Sand grew up in his paternal city, under

the most careful guidance of his parents, whose good and thorough

education, and moral training, such are his own words, in comparison

with that of many, he never was able sufficiently to praise. There lay

in him the strongest and most delightful recollection of his

birthplace. Its very situation, he asserted, in the bosom of noble

mountains, in the midst of the great Fatherland, had wrought powerfully

upon his disposition of mind, which, especially since much sickness in

his early youth, had always been very still. In truth, Sand passed his

years of childhood in great weakness and many bodily ailments. In his

seventh year he took naturally the small-pox, and of a very bad kind,

which left behind them serious effects, especially a dangerous ulcer in

the head, of which the grisly scars always continued visible. On that

account the physicians forbade all mental exercise, and his proper

instruction could only be commenced at home in his tenth year. His

father explained, that a dejection of mind which long clung to him was

a consequence of the weakness which these complaints had left upon; and

therefore, where parents in general would put restraint on young people

of lively temperament, he, on the contrary, had always been anxious

that his son's disposition should not be further depressed. After Sand

had received his first instruction from the tutor, he was sent to the

Lyceum, in Wunsiedel. He afterwards followed his teacher to the

Gymnasium in Hof, there acquired the first elements of general

education, and proceeded in the study of ancient languages. Even at

this early period he entertained a vehement hatred to the French. As in

the spring of 1812 a great military train passed through Hof, he would

neither see the march of the French nor especially Napoleon, since he

believed that he could not endure to be in the presence of the arch

enemy of his native land, without an attempt to rush upon him and

destroy him.

He returned thence to his parents, with whom he continued till they

resolved to send him to Regensburg, where he proceeded towards the end

of the year 1812, with his tutor Saalfranc, and always called to mind

with extreme pleasure his abode there. The testimonies of his life and

habits during his sojourn in Hof and Regensburg, are greatly to his

credit His good capacity, his restless diligence, his deep study, and

not less his highly moral conduct, were greatly applauded. In his 18th

year awoke in Sand the resolve to co-operate in doing battle with the

common foe of his country. He may speak for himself.

"As in the spring of 1813 the French fled homewards, and Germany began

to rouse itself to take vengeance for the shame inflicted on it, there

awoke in me a new-born joy, a fresh mind, a new life; and from that

hour I doubted no more of a complete liberation from the old slavery,

although the heavens became so unpropitious to the Germans. With eager

heart and yet with all possible circumspection, I lived in the

newspapers of the time; and in the autumn of 1813, which I spent at

home, I obtained the permission to join myself to the host of Germany,

when in the meantime, came the intelligence of the battle of Leipsic,

which rendered my going forth unnecessary."

Sand returned once more to Regensburg, and proceeded thence to the

university of Tuebingen. Here he passed quietly the winter half-year of

1814-15, and had begun the second half-year when Napoleon returned from

Elba, and Sand felt himself called to stand forth with his countrymen

in defence of Germany. His testimonies from Tuebingen were highly

creditable, yet they expressed suspicions that during his abode there

he had been a member of a political union called Teutonia. Sand then

first, on the day before his departure, announced to his parents his

determination to enter into the army, and took farewell of them by

letter. The style and tendency of his letter differ essentially from

his subsequent compositions. We see in it only the youth full of zeal

and fervour for his country,--who, pure, and without mixture of his

subsequent political religious exaltation, avows his intimation to

fight to the death for his country and kindred. "With an inward

struggle," wrote he amongst other things, "held I myself back the last

time when the liberation of Germany was at stake, and it was only the

conviction that many thousands then stood in the field, eager for

battle and victory for the welfare of Germany, that could detain me."

In another place--"The spirit at home and in Bavaria may be as it will,

I hold it for the highest duty to fight for the liberty of my German

Fatherland; of my dear parents, brothers, and sisters; and of all the

good people who love me; and, should numbers gain the advantage over

us, to contend to the very last gasp, and triumph over a tyrant in

death. Ever shall your beloved images hover round me; ever will I have

God before my eyes and in my heart, that I may be strengthened to bear

with serenity all the fatigues and dangers of this holy war. Yet

wherefore make the hearts of each other so heavy? We alone have the

right, the sacred cause. There is a righteous God, and how then shall

we not have the victory?"

The letter concludes with the words of Theodore Koerner, which Sand had

often in his mouth--

Though rages hell itself,

God, thy mighty hand,

Hurls down the tower of lies.

* * *

Perchance high o'er the slaughtered foes

The Star of Peace shall rise.

Sand set out with two friends on the way through Stuttgard to

Heidelberg, where he stayed some days, and then went on to Mannheim,

where he announced himself to the general staff of Graf Rechberg, and

was received as cadet in the volunteer Jaegers of the Rezat Circle.

Before his departure from Tuebingen, a friend presented him with a small

riband which he continually wore during the campaign, and afterwards,

at his arrest, it was still found round his neck. It was green and

white. The troops, which Sand's brother also had now joined, already in

Homberg, met the news of the victory of Waterloo; they marched forward,

however, to Meaux, and into the neighbourhood of Fontainbleau, but soon

after drew into cantonments in Auxurre, and from thence marched

directly back, and entered Anspach the 2d of December, 1815. Sand

remembered his military career with the highest dissatisfaction, since,

as he expressed himself, he had never had the good fortune to kill a

Frenchman. He had written upon his riband these words:--"With this

dedicated I myself in 1815 to death. Was it not in earnest? Would I

have recrossed the Rhine again except as a conqueror!"

Sand betook himself to Erlangen, and occupied himself there two years

with the study of theology. Here it happened that in the summer of

1817, one of his dearest friends, while bathing, was drowned before his

eyes, and he himself was in great danger of his life. This loss

operated so strongly on his mind, that as he himself declared, he

believed that the spring of life was now over, and that its summer had

now shown itself. Consoled by his teachers and friends, he now gave the

first proof of his talents for preaching in the High Church at

Erlangen, continued there till the end of the half year, and then went

to Jena. Sand conducted himself during his residence in Erlangen as

exemplarily as before, yet he was at the same time an active member of

the Teutonia there; in fact he was twice a leader of this union, and

drew up a constitution for the Burschenschaft, under the title of the

Erlangen Burschenschaft-Custom. From Erlangen and Jena he made several

short journeys, and amongst them the one to Eisenach, which proved so

influential on his future life. There he joined in the celebration of

the festival on the Wartburg, on the 18th of October, 1817, and his

part in this transaction he thus describes:--

"On the 17th of October I arrived in Eisenach, and was chosen on the

festival-committee. I here helped to keep order; heard the speeches on

the Wartburg, but did not speak myself; I went in the evening to the

fire, and saw the books burnt. On the following morning I heard

speeches for the reconcilement of the disputes of many of the

student-quarrels of former years, and listened to the splendid orations

on the Fatherland. I accompanied the Burschen to the church, and

partook of the sacrament; then was the festival ended, and I returned

to Jena." He adds, that it had been a festival simply for the elevation

of the sacred cause, and that no determinate object besides had been

contemplated.

In Jena, Sand continued to educate himself, in order, as he expressed

himself, the better to look about himself, and to ground himself fairly

in the different departments of knowledge; till suddenly the inner call

for ever summoned him away. His teachers there gave their testimony

that he always appeared as a grave, quiet, and discreet man, zealously

striving after excellence. That he was accustomed to speak little,

since speaking appeared a difficulty to him; but that what he did say,

was always prudent, well-considered, and sensible, and that his

deportment had nothing displeasing in it, although it was energetic and

firm. During his abode in Jena, he was a member of the so-called

Burschenschaft, but at the same time also of another company, which he

termed a Literary Union. He made from Jena a journey into North

Germany, and visited many of the most celebrated battle-fields of both

past and modern times. After his return he proceeded again with his

studies with unremitting diligence, and had obtained permission from

his parents to continue another half-year in Jena, when he suddenly

broke off, on the 9th of March, 1819, at four o'clock in the morning,

and set out on his last fatally eventful journey towards Mannheim.

We have thus followed the thread of Sand's history to this period with

sufficient minuteness, and we have permitted ourselves to sketch it

with the more exactness, since it is particularly interesting to trace

all the causes which could conduct a character, otherwise so excellent,

to such a crime;--as, moreover, conjectures respecting these causes can

only be rightly founded on a real knowledge of the circumstances of the

case, and from these only can those conclusions be drawn, which were,

though without effect, employed in the defence of this singular man. In

his history we behold the fac-simile of the history of the whole

Burschenschaft to which he belonged. A description of his person, from

that officially drawn up, may precede the relation of his unhappy deed.

In the protocol it stands thus:--

"Sand was in age twenty-three and a half years; stood five feet six

inches high; had strong black hair and eyebrows; a high forehead, gray

eyes, longish nose, mouth of middle size, dark-brown very weak beard,

ordinary chin, broad countenance, tolerably healthy colour, with some

pock-marks in the face." His look was open, and for the most part

friendly, but not eminently intellectual; his physiognomy good-natured,

but not especially interesting; his visage might be termed an

involuntary mirror of his mind. So painted themselves wrath and scorn

upon it, when the speech turned upon Kotzebue and his connexion with

Germany; so might be read in it a painful, or an hostile feeling, when

the principles of his system must be attacked; so that, in the end,

very little attention became necessary to discern by it, when his

answers did not contain the truth. The play of the muscles of his

forehead was particularly strikingly acted upon by an internal feeling

of resistance, which generally rose in him when he desired by some

means to conceal the truth.

Kotzebue's writings had been long disliked by Sand. Many of his early

assertions betray it. Such was his observation to his father:--"Of what

use is the man's literary talent, when the German heart is wanting?" On

the burning of his History of Germany, on the Wartburg, he became

immediately watchful of him; but still more, when shortly afterwards

his literary _Wochenblatt_, or weekly paper, appeared. In this

publication, Kotzebue promulgated his opinions often and variously on

the then state of German affairs, and many of his views must have given

great displeasure. Thus, he contended especially against the promotion

of a combined and constitutional government in Germany, and asserted

that the loud demand for this was by no means the voice of the people,

of whom he very much doubted, whether they wanted any constitution at

all. For this bold assertion, Kotzebue was instantly attacked and

ridiculed on all sides. A specimen of the missiles launched against him

on the occasion, may be given from an article in the "Zeitung fuer die

elegante Welt,"--News for the Elegant World, in the year 1818:--

This serious doubt (that of Kotzebue) has fallen heavily on the heart.

We have, therefore, with eagerness undertaken the following proposal

for its solution. In Kotzebue's right hand lies, in fact, the means to

bring the matter to a tolerable certainty. If that gentleman will in

future take the field against the clamour for a constitution in all his

Plays with the same sober earnestness, and jibe and joke, with which he

has powerfully and perseveringly attacked other follies, then will the

success or the failure of his piece throw great light on the sentiments

of the people; and the multitude who, Herr von Kotzebue so justly

says, remain silent on the matter in debate--that means, _they print

nothing on it_--will certainly, by applauding or censuring, clapping

or hissing, speak out. Should the multitude, by hissing out

anti-constitutional pieces, declare for a constitution, so might the

theatre immediately furnish the government with a proof whether the

declaration was worthy of notice. They might now, as was done in Paris,

after the acting of Germanica, march soldiers--actual soldiers--upon

the stage, and let them present arms to the pit. If the multitude now

applauded or ran away, it would be the height of the ridiculous to give

them a constitution, since it would be manifest that they had not

courage to maintain themselves against the hand of power. But hissed

and clamoured they still, it would be time "to _prepare_ the demanded

_preparations_ for the _preparation_ of a constitution."[6]

Sand assigned the ground of his hate against Kotzebue, immediately in

the opening of his trial, and he reiterated the same as his actuating

motive at its close; namely,--in the evening after the murder, having

lost his voice, and being only able to express himself by signs, he

requested paper, and wrote with a blacklead pencil these scarcely

legible words:--"August von Kotzebue is the corrupter of youth,"--

alluding to Kotzebue's frequently slippery writings, as 'Barth with the

Iron Brow,' and such like,--"the slanderer of our people's history, and

the Russian spy upon our Fatherland."

Sand asserted, that by the insight which he had obtained into the

character and position of Kotzebue, he immediately perceived that it

was impossible that he could much longer continue to live in that

manner; but the resolution to destroy him with his own hand did not

awake suddenly in him, it demanded gradual growth, and came not to

maturity without a severe strife in his own bosom. The well-known

history of the discovered bulletin at length threw unquenchable fuel on

his burning hatred against Kotzebue.

Kotzebue was, in fact, commissioned by the Russian government to

furnish it with full reports on the political affairs and relations of

Germany, on the predominant popular opinion, and on its literary

transactions. He could, in truth, no more be styled a spy than an

ambassador can; but the reports which he delivered--the false and

detestable statements regarding Germany which he made in them, deserve

the severest condemnation. No one was aware of this secret practice of

Kotzebue's, till, through the faithlessness of a copyist, such a

bulletin was sent to the well-known historian Luden, then the editor of

the Jena "Nemesis," a literary paper. The bulletin contained sixteen

paragraphs upon Steffens (a writer on the state of those times),

Schmalz, Crome, the Allemannia, an opposition paper, the Nemesis, Jung

Stilling, English newspapers, mischievous nature of freedom of the

press, and, finally, a sort of apology for serfdom. Monarchy was

panegyrized in this bulletin, and Luden was represented as a learned

man, who, with others of the learned, longed heartily for a revolution,

that they might play their parts as popular speakers, deputies, and

representatives. Luden, enraged at these calumnies, published the

bulletin in the Nemesis, and commented on it in the most amusing

manner. Kotzebue, who had immediate information of this fact, procured

an order from the Weimar government for the seizure of these sheets, at

the moment they should be ready for issue: but Wieland, the editor of

the opposition paper, had already received proof-sheets of the article,

and caused it to appear at the same time in the People's Friend, which

he edited, with still more biting remarks; since Luden, in the Nemesis,

had expressed some doubts whether Kotzebue were really the author of

these malicious calumnies. A long legal process took place between

Kotzebue and the learned editors, and proceedings were laid before the

Spruch Collegium--College of Arbitration of the University of Leipsic.

These gentlemen were declared by this tribunal, guilty of a literary

robbery upon Kotzebue, since the bulletin was not intended or delivered

out by him for publication; but after the death of Kotzebue in the

following year, they were declared free from all penalty by the High

Court of Appeal in Weimar.

The fact, however, which finally and at once sealed the determination

of Sand, was the appearance of the work of Stourdze, and Kotzebue's

standing forth as his defender. Stourdze, a Russian, published a most

odious and miserable volume, in which he lauded absolute monarchy,

railed against freedom of the press, misrepresented the spirit of the

German High Schools in the most abominable terms, and at the same time

advised that they should be stripped of all their rights and

privileges, and laid under the strictest discipline. The author was

formally accused by the Burschenschaft of Jena for his calumnies, to

the Grand Duke of Weimar, who laid the case before the _Bundestag_.

Stourdze defended himself in the public papers; two youths, not

students, but belonging to the Burschenschaft, afterwards challenged

him to single combat, whom, however, he answered only with words in the

newspapers.

Sand now brooded a whole half-year in irresolution over this

thought--whether he should devote himself as the instrument for taking

out of the way this, in his eyes, so dangerous an enemy of the weal of

the German people. "The determination," said he, "must first progress

in myself to a greater maturity, since I have partly to contend in

myself with the natural shrinking from the performance of such a deed,

and partly with the oft recurring thought that I am worthy of and

qualified for something better, by the character of my mind, and my

already acquired accomplishments. I have also waited for a third, since

I had as good a right to wait for a third, as he to wait for me. But as

I found no one, this was likewise a ground of determination for myself.

Oft have I thought--'thou canst quietly live on, if but a third person

undertake the deed.' This waiting was thus properly only a wish that

another might step before me; for the rest, however, I knew no such

third."

Sand often prayed to God that this requisition might be allowed to

pass from him, and that he might be left to pursue his ordinary duties.

But in this inward warfare, the inner voice perpetually returned,

saying--"Thou hast promised so much, and hast yet done nothing." The

projected work stood thenceforth so vividly before his eyes, that his

imagination enabled him to sketch out a drawing of the murder-scene

beforehand, which was found amongst some indifferent pen-and-ink

outlines amongst his papers in Jena. Still he continued to waver, till

the newspapers brought a report, that Kotzebue intended to return to

Russia; and then stood forth Sand's resolution to murder the traitor,

let it turn out as it would, and though he should himself lead the way

to death for him. Besides this it was part of his plan to make a

confession, to bring the Death-Blow to the knowledge of the people. His

original plan was, after the accomplishment of the deed, to betake

himself to his weapons, and to make his escape if possible, so that

provided he effected his own retreat, self-destruction formed no part

of the scheme. While he brooded over his enterprise, he prepared the

instruments of his design. He made choice, to that end, of a smaller

and a greater dagger. The latter he called the small sword, and had it

made in Jena after a model in wax, prepared by his own hand, and from

his own drawing. For the carrying of these weapons he made a hole in

the breast of his waistcoat, in which on account of its weight, this

dagger hung; but for the lesser one he had a small hook sewed into the

left-arm sleeve of his coat, which by a small eye secured the sheath

there. Before setting out on his expedition of death, he completed his

Death-Blow, or Confession, prepared the fair copy, which after the

accomplishment of the act, he purposed to stick up in some public

place; then the original of the same, as he called it, and numerous

transcripts of the same. This Death-Blow was a document on which Sand

long laboured, and for the promulgation of which, after the deed, he

had taken measures. It was designed to be a call to the people to rise

and assert their liberty. As this composition not only places in the

clearest light the then overstrained state of Sand's mind, but also

gives us glimpses of many ideas of the Burschenschaft at that period,

which the government were afterwards obliged to hold in check, it shall

here find a place.

DEATH-BLOW TO AUGUST VON KOTZEBUE!

"ONLY IN VIRTUE, UNITY."

"Our days demand a decision for the law which God has written in

flaming characters in the hearts of his men. Prepare yourselves! decide

for life and for death!

"Open nightly profligacy is not the corruption which rages in our

blood, but vice devours around him only the more hideously under the

mantle of an accustomed pious politeness: falsehood masks itself under

a thousand assumed holy forms; and the condition of the people should

be the blossom of so many sacrifices, and is the state of the old

miserable laxity.

"Half-accomplished fools, and the stunted overwise, for ever deride the

truth, which unadorned and simple, throws itself on the human mind, and

they cripple and distort her use in life. The moral strength of the

Germans is split on the Babel of foreign affectation, and keeps itself

no longer in the house-life. The will is wanting in us for the deed.

The Fatherland fails the youth. Courtiers and money-service rule,

instead of that honour-firm integrity which has resigned itself to the

influence of time, and is become mouldy in it.

"The virtue of the burger class bends itself servilely at the nod of

the great, and rushes, with already gripped clutch, at the gold-bag.

The idleness of servants devours our bones; courage and hero-mind

display themselves alone in paper panoply amongst the whole people in

empty vapouring; and since they glow not as pure flames in every heart,

we find them not even in ourselves.