“Silent and uncomplaining, the lady sat upon the ensanguined snow, her

tall, dignified form supported against an overturned cart, her child

clasped in her arms. The shot had shattered both her feet, but her

infant appeared unhurt, and anxiously clasped its mother’s neck with its

little hands. None thought of succouring the poor creatures; all were

too engrossed with their own selfish misery, and few vouchsafed her more

than a passing glance as they struggled onwards. She would hardly have

escaped being trampled under foot, had not her wounded horse, lashing

out convulsively in the agonies of death, cleared a space around her.

Whilst Bernard supported his trembling sister, Ludwig and Regnard

attempted to climb over the cart which intervened between them and the

wounded lady. But at that moment the noble sufferer took a strong

hair-chain from her neck, twisted it, before any could stay her hand,

around her infant’s throat, and with a sudden exertion of strength drew

it tight. The little creature drooped its head and fell strangled on its

mother’s knees. In a last frantic convulsion, the unhappy parent clasped

her child to her bosom, gave an agonised sigh, a glance to heaven, and

fell back, dead. At that moment Ludwig and Regnard reached her, but it

was too late. Bianca hid her face in her brother’s bosom.”

A fragment of a shell knocks over the faithful Willhofen. The fire from

the Russian batteries becomes more terrible than ever, the crowd more

agitated and frantic.

“‘Let us keep together!’ cried Regnard—‘once separated, we shall never

meet again.’ And he stretched out his hand to grasp that of Ludwig, when

a ball passed between them, overthrowing the colonel.

“‘Regnard!’ cried Ludwig, springing to his assistance, ‘are you badly

hit?’

“Bernard raised the wounded man by the shoulders, and bent over him.

“‘I have got my allowance,’ said Regnard, faintly. ‘Where is my little

daughter?’

“Shuddering, but with resolute step, Bianca came forward, the child in

her arms. She kneeled beside the dying soldier and held it out to him.

Regnard looked mournfully at the little creature so soon to be an

orphan.

“‘Farewell!’ he said, kissing it for the last time. ‘You have no longer

a father—but a mother—has she not?’ added he, imploringly to Bianca.

‘Greetings to Rasinski, if he still lives to receive them. Long live the

Emperor!’

“Upon this last exclamation, uttered in a hoarse soldier-like tone, the

final breath of the dying man was expended. The next instant his soul

had fled.”

From the heights of Studianka the beaten French now pour down, and

Bianca loses her female attendant, who perishes miserably, crushed by a

gun-carriage. It will be seen that there is a considerable accumulation

of horrors at this part of the romance; but tender-hearted persons, whom

narratives of human suffering too painfully affect, will naturally avoid

a book founded on such a campaign as that of 1812. The passage of the

Beresina has been too often described to be worth dwelling upon here;

and the more so as Mr Rellstab very judiciously has not attempted to

alter or improve upon the reality, of itself sufficiently extraordinary

and harrowing. He makes Rasinski execute the famous feat of Jacqueminot,

Oudinot’s aide-de-camp, who, after swimming the Beresina in spite of the

piercing cold and of the floating blocks of ice that bruised and cut his

horse’s chest and flanks, galloped after the stragglers from Tchaplitz’s

retreating column, caught one, disarmed him, put him before him on his

horse and swam back with him to Napoleon, who had expressed a wish for a

prisoner from whom to get information.

Hopeless of crossing the crowded bridge, where a fearful struggle for

precedence now goes on amongst the mob of desperate fugitives, Bianca

and her two companions take their course up stream, still bearing with

them Regnard’s orphan daughter, and hoping to find rest and shelter by

passing themselves off as Russians. At last, seeing no signs of house or

village, they sit down in despair upon the snow and await their fate;

when, in accordance with Mr Rellstab’s practice of bringing about

opportune meetings, Rasinski and his handful of lancers ride up to them,

and after the due amount of kisses and tears, a Lithuanian peasant

guides them to a ford, and they get through the river in safety. At

Zembin they procure a small sledge, and Bernard and Ludwig urge Bianca

to hurry forward to Wilna. Neither of them offer to accompany her, which

they might with great propriety have done, seeing that they are

dismounted and useless, but propose confiding her to a wounded dragoon,

a proposal which she naturally enough declines, and declares she will

stick to the ship—in other words to the regiment—and rough it with the

rest. After which plucky decision there is no more talk of parting

company till they reach Wilna. Before getting there, however, there is

much to be gone through. For winter sets in, and the tortures of cutting

cold are added to those previously endured, slaying the sick and wounded

by hundreds of a night. Overpowered by the fatigues of the day, they lie

down to sleep beside their watchfires, and in the morning are stiff and

cold. The north-west wind suddenly surrounds the harassed Frenchmen with

the terrible atmosphere of the north pole, the air is filled with an icy

dust, lips and cheeks crack and blister, the eyes are inflamed by the

glittering whiteness of the snow. The horses die from extreme cold, and

it is just as well for their riders, who would otherwise be frozen in

their saddles. Thus Rasinski and his comrades find themselves

dismounted, and Bianca’s sledge becomes useless. They pursue their way

on foot, amidst scenes of inconceivable suffering and woe. Few of those

around them show fortitude in this extremity of misery. In some

instances despair and madness lead to violence and shameful excesses.

Bianca, whose courage rises with the necessity for exertion, is walking

supported by Ludwig’s arm, and Bernard follows at a short distance,

carrying the infant, who, unconscious of the danger, smiles cheerily in

his face, when the following incident occurs.

“At this moment a hoarse firm voice was heard in rear of Bernard.

“‘Stop, dog!’ it exclaimed. ‘Your cloak, or I shoot you dead!’

“Bernard stopped and looked round. A soldier, scantily attired in

wretched rags, his features distorted, his beard long and tangled, his

face black with earth and smoke, his eyes, frightfully inflamed, rolling

wildly in their orbits, stood before him and covered him with his

musket.

“‘What would you, wretched man?’ cried Bernard, horror-struck and

stepping backwards. The child screamed with terror, clasped its arms

around him, and hid its little head in his breast.

“‘Your warm cloak, or I shoot you down!’ shouted the frantic soldier.

‘No more comrades here; I’ve as good a right to save myself as you.’

“Bernard saw himself almost alone with the assassin; although thousands

were within hail, the bullet would be quicker than their aid, supposing

even that one amongst them had sufficient pity for another’s peril to

turn aside for a moment, and thus lengthen his journey and sufferings by

a few painful paces. There was nothing for it but to yield to the menace

and give up his warm wrapper, although he well knew that with it he gave

up his life.

“‘You would murder a comrade to prolong your own life?’ said Bernard, in

a tone of dignified determination; ‘be it so, but you will profit little

by the deed. Your hour will overtake you the sooner.’

“‘Quick, death gripes me already!’ cried the madman, his musket still

levelled and his bloodshot eyes wildly rolling.

“Bernard stooped to put down the child, which impeded him in pulling off

his coat; as he did so, he heard a loud cry, and turning, he beheld

Bianca, who threw herself weeping at the feet of the furious soldier.

“‘Take this gold, these jewels!’ she exclaimed; ‘this warm cloak is

yours, but let my brother live!’ And, with the quickness of thought, she

tore the rich chain from her neck and the furs from her shoulders,

leaving her arms and delicate frame exposed with slight covering to the

rigour of that horrible climate. The soldier gazed at her for a moment

with fixed and straining eyes, then his arms slowly sank; letting the

musket fall to the ground, he pressed both hands to his face, and broke

out in loud weeping and whimpering. By this time Ludwig came up, and he

and Bernard lifted up Bianca, who was still kneeling on the frozen

ground, and extending her arms with the proffered gifts.

“‘Wild beast that I am!’ suddenly exclaimed the stranger; ‘no, I cannot

survive this shame. Forgive me; you knew me once a better man, before

suffering drove me mad! But no matter; I know my duty.’

“He stooped to pick up his musket. Bernard kept his eyes fixed upon him,

and racked his memory for the features, which, wild and distorted though

they now were, still seemed familiar to him.

“‘Where have I known you?’ he asked, as the man resumed his erect

position.

“‘I don’t wonder you’ve forgotten me,’ was the gloomy reply; ‘I have

forgotten myself. Alive, I am no longer worthy of the Order!’ cried he

wildly, tearing from his rags the ribbon of the Legion of Honour and

throwing it upon the snow. ‘I will try to earn it again, that you may

lay it upon my body. I am my own judge, and I show no favour.’

“Setting the butt of his musket firmly on the earth, he pressed his

breast against the muzzle and touched the trigger with his foot. The

piece went off, and its unfortunate owner fell heavily to the ground.

“‘Gracious God!’ exclaimed Bianca, sinking senseless into Ludwig’s arms.

“Bernard was at the side of the fallen man, supporting his head. A last

spark of life still remained. ‘If you get to France,’ gasped the

suicide, ‘a word to my wife and children—Sergeant Ferrand—of Laon,’ and

the spirit departed. As he closed his eyes, Bernard remembered him. It

was the same Sergeant Ferrand whose humanity saved him and Ludwig from

perishing during their imprisonment at Smolensko. Military honour was

the condition of the veteran’s existence; he thought himself degraded

beyond redemption by the murderous aggression to which misery, pain, and

despair, had driven him; a woman had surpassed him in courage, and that

was more than he could bear. A rigorous judge, he had pronounced his own

doom, and executed it with his own hand.

“Deeply moved, Bernard knelt beside the body; he gathered up the scrap

of tarnished ribbon which the departed soldier had prized above all

earthly goods, and laid it upon the breast of the corpse.

“‘Who shall deprive you of it?’ he said. ‘May it adorn you beyond the

grave, amidst the throng of the valiant who have preceded you!’

“And they continued their journey, for the times admitted not of delay.”

That night they have to fight for their quarters in the village of

Malodeczno, and use their artillery for the last time, being compelled

to abandon it for the want of horses. Boleslaw is killed in the action.

Soon afterwards, the Emperor leaves the army, and his departure

dispirits even those who admit its propriety. Things get worse and

worse. Often, after a fatiguing day’s march, no shelter is obtainable,

and Bianca and her tender charge are fain to brave the inclemency of the

bivouac, whilst the men watch by turns to keep off wolves and marauders.

One night, when performing this duty, Jaromir is startled by a loud

laugh, sounding strangely horrible in that scene of misery and

desolation.

“From out of the surrounding darkness a grim figure stalked into the

circle of fire-light. It was a gigantic cuirassier, wrapped in a

tattered cloak, a bloody cloth bound round his head beneath his helmet.

In his hand he carried a young fir tree, as a staff to support his

steps.

“‘Good evening,’ he said, in a hollow voice to Jaromir. ‘Good evening,

comrade. You seem merry here.’

“‘What seek you?’ demanded Jaromir, amazed at this hideous apparition!

‘There is no place for you here. Begone!’

“The cuirassier stared at him with his hollow eyes, twisted his mouth

into a frightful grin, and gnashed his teeth like some infuriated beast.

“‘Ha, ha, ha!’ he laughed, or rather yelled; ‘Sleep you then so sound,

ye idlers?’ And as he spoke he stamped with his foot on a frozen corpse

upon which he stood. ‘Awake, awake!’ he cried, ‘and come with me!’

“For a moment he stood as if listening to some distant sound, then

tottered painfully forward to the fire.

“‘Back!’ cried Jaromir, ‘Back, or I shoot you on the spot!’ And he drew

a pistol; but his hand, trembling with fever, had not strength to level

it.

“The lunatic stared at him with stupified indifference, his sunken

features varying in their expression from a ghastly smile to the deepest

misery. Jaromir gazed at him in silent horror. The huge figure stretched

its lean arms out from under the cloak, and made strange and

unintelligible gestures.

“‘Ho! I am frozen!’ howled the human spectre at last, and shook himself.

Then he clutched at the flames with his fingers, like an infant, and

staggered nearer and nearer till he stood close to the circle of

sleepers, far within which he extended his arms. For the first time he

now seemed to feel the warmth of the fire. A low whining noise escaped

him, then he suddenly exclaimed, in tones between laughing and crying,

‘To bed! to my warm bed!’ tossed his fir-tree staff far from him,

stumbled forwards over the sleeping soldiers, and threw himself, in his

raging madness, into the centre of the glowing pile.

“‘Help, help!’ cried Jaromir, his hair erect with horror, and seizing

Rasinski, he shook him with all his remaining strength.

“‘What is it?’ cried Rasinski, raising himself.

“‘There, there!’ stammered his friend, pointing to the flames, in which

the unhappy cuirassier lay writhing and bellowing with agony. Rather

conjecturing than comprehending what had occurred, Rasinski started up

to rescue the sufferer. But it was too late. The heat had already

stifled him; he lay motionless, the flame licking greedily round his

limbs, and a thick nauseous smoke ascending in clouds from his funeral

faggots. Rasinski stepped shudderingly backward, and turned away his

face to conceal his emotion; then he observed that all around him lay

buried in a deathlike sleep. Not one had been aroused by the terrible

catastrophe that had occurred in the midst of so many living men.”

After those long days of hunger and fatigue, the bonds of slumber were

of iron strength, and difficult to loosen. And it was even more

dangerous than difficult to rob the survivors of the Grand Army of that

brief repose, often their sole solace and refreshment during the

twenty-four hours. In his turn overtaken by delirium, Jaromir’s cries

and complaints at last awoke the whole party round the fire. A low

murmur arose amongst the soldiers, and rapidly increased. Soon they cast

ominous and threatening glances at the young Pole, and at last their

discontent found a voice.

“‘Who is the madman, and what ails him?’ savagely exclaimed a bearded

grenadier. ‘He robs us of our precious sleep! Thrust him from the

fire—let him freeze if he cannot be still!’

“‘Ay, thrust him out!’ was the universal cry; and several sprang to

accomplish the barbarous deed. Bianca uttered a cry of terror; Ludwig

caught her in his right arm, and with his left kept off the assailants.

Rasinski, who at once saw the greatness of the peril, left Jaromir in

Bernard’s care, and leaped with flashing eyes into the midst of the

circle. Ever prompt and decided, he snatched a half consumed branch from

the fire, waved it above his head, and shouted with that lion’s voice so

often heard above the thunder of the battle, ‘Back, knaves! The first

step forward costs one of you his life.’

“The angry soldiers hesitated and hung back, yielding to Rasinski’s

moral ascendency as much as to his threat of punishment. But then the

grenadier drew his sabre and furiously exclaimed:—

“‘What, dastards, are ye all afraid of one man? Forward! Down with the

Polish dogs!’

“‘Down thyself, inhuman ruffian!’ thundered Rasinski, and sprang to meet

his foe. Adroitly seizing the soldier by the wrist of his uplifted arm,

so that he could not use his weapon, he struck him over the head with

the burning branch so violently, that the charred wood shivered, and a

cloud of sparks flew out. But the blow, heavy as it was, was deadened by

the thick bearskin cap, and served only to convert the angry

determination of the grenadier into foaming fury. Of herculean build,

and at least half the head taller than his opponent, he let his sabre

fall, and grappled Rasinski with the intention of throwing him into the

flames. The struggle lasted but for a moment before Rasinski tottered

and fell upon his knees. To all appearance his doom was sealed, the hero

succumbed before the overpowering strength of the brute, when Ludwig

flew to his assistance, dragged the soldier backwards, and fell with him

to the ground. Rasinski picked up the sabre, with his left hand dashed

the bearskin from the head of the fallen grenadier, and with the right

dealt him a blow that clove his skull in twain. Then, erecting his

princely form, he advanced, with the calm dignity that characterised

him, into the midst of the astounded bystanders. ‘Throw the corpse into

the snow,’ commanded he: ‘lie down again and sleep. It matters no more

than if I knocked a wolf upon the head.’

“As if he had no longer occasion for it, he threw the sabre

contemptuously from him. None dared to murmur, but two soldiers

obediently raised the bloody corpse of the fallen man, carried it a few

paces, and threw it upon the snow-covered ground.”

The following evening the little band of friends reached Wilna, but

without Jaromir, who had expired on the road. Wilna, the first inhabited

town the French army had seen since their entrance into Russia, had been

looked forward to by the fugitives who escaped from the terrible passage

of the Beresina, as a refuge and a resting-place. There they fondly

expected shelter from the cold, food for the famishing, bandages and

medicine for the wounded and the sick. But their arrival took the

Lithuanian capital by surprise. The inhabitants were still without any

certain accounts of the disasters of the French, when suddenly they

beheld their streets invaded by forty thousand ragged wretches, in whom

it was impossible to recognise the remains of those magnificent troops

which had passed through with Napoleon in the previous month of July.

The very impatience of the men to get into the comfortable quarters they

had promised themselves (but which few of them found, for the

inhabitants shut their doors, and the commissaries, although their

stores were crammed with bread and meat, refused to serve out those much

needed provisions without a host of formalities rendered impossible by

the general disorganisation) was the destruction of thousands. They all

rushed in at one entrance,—the narrow suburb became blocked up with men,

horses, and vehicles, and numbers perished of cold and of suffocation.

When the survivors got through, their despair was terrible on finding

themselves every where repulsed, from hospital and barracks, from the

provision-store and the private dwelling. The hospitals and barracks,

where there were neither beds or straw, were converted into

charnel-houses, heaped with human bodies. “At last,” says Ségur, “the

exertions of certain chiefs, such as Eugene and Davoust, the pity of the

Lithuanians and the avarice of the Jews, opened places of refuge. Then

it was strange to behold the astonishment of these unfortunates on

finding themselves at last in inhabited houses. What delicious food a

loaf of bread appeared, what inexpressible pleasure did they find in

eating it seated, and with what admiration were they struck by the sight

of a single weak battalion, still armed and uniformly clothed. They

seemed to return from the extremity of the world, so completely had the

violence and duration of their sufferings detached them from all their

former habits.”

Bianca, her brother and friends, skirt the town to avoid the throng, and

get in by an unencumbered entrance. In the streets, however, Rasinski is

separated from his three companions, who find shelter in the house of a

former servant of Bianca, and there meet with Ludwig’s sister Marie, and

the Countess Micielska, a widowed sister of Rasinski, whom we have not

had occasion previously to mention, although she is a fine enthusiastic

character, and plays no unimportant part in the earlier scenes of the

book. On learning, by letters from their brothers, the burning of Moscow

and probability of retreat, the two ladies braved the severity of a

Lithuanian winter, and left Warsaw for Wilna, where their arrival

coincides with that of Napoleon’s disordered cohorts. Their joy at

meeting Ludwig and Bernard is greatly overcast by the loss of Jaromir

and Boleslaw, and by the absence of Rasinski, whom the two young Germans

vainly seek in the crowded town, until at last, overcome with weariness,

they retire to rest, dissembling, for his sister’s sake, their

uneasiness touching his fate. Scarcely in bed, however, they are aroused

by Paul, their host, who calls their attention to groans and

lamentations in the street without. Arming themselves, they hurry forth

to investigate the cause.

“Paul, bearing a lantern, preceded them to the spot whence the piteous

sounds proceeded. It was a narrow lane, running parallel to the city

wall, and inhabited entirely by Jews. Just as they turned into it they

were challenged by a manly and well-known voice in their rear. ‘Who goes

there? What is this disturbance?’

“‘Rasinski!’ exclaimed Ludwig. Paul turned, and, as the light fell upon

the face of the new comer, the features of the noble Pole were revealed

to his friends.

“‘Rasinski! you here, and alive!’ cried Ludwig, throwing himself into

the Count’s arms.”

Here follows, of course, _more Rellstab_, half a page of tender embraces

and gratulations. Then, the groans and lamentations continuing, the

friends again move forward.

“The lane was narrow and crooked, so that they could not see far before

them. On passing an abrupt bend, they distinguished several figures,

which fled noiselessly before them, like night-birds frightened by the

sudden light, keeping close in the shadow of the wall.

“‘Who goes there?’ cried Rasinski in Russian. ‘Stand, or I fire!’

“But the shadows flew onwards, grazing the wall, and gliding over the

snow. Rasinski rushed after them, stumbled over an object in his path,

fell, and, in his fall, his pistol went off. Ludwig and Bernard, close

at his heels, would have stopped to help him up—

“‘Forward, forward!’ he cried: ‘follow and catch them.’

“They hurried on, but only one figure was now visible. They called to

him to stop; he heeded them not. A shot fired by Bernard missed its

mark, but the whistle of the bullet discomposed the fugitive, who, in

stooping his head, slipped and fell. Ludwig was upon him in an instant,

inquiring who he was, and why he fled. The stranger, who wore a sort of

long black caftan, replied in piteous and terrified tones.

“‘God of my fathers!’ he cried: ‘have compassion, gracious sir! Why

persecute the poor Jew, who does harm to no one?’

“‘Paul, a light!’ cried Bernard, who just then came up. ‘Let us see who

it is that is in such haste to crave mercy. His conscience seems none of

the best.’

“Paul lifted the lantern, casting the light full on the Jew’s visage.

“‘The devil!’ cried Bernard. ‘I should know that face. Where have I seen

the accursed mask? To be sure, those red-bearded Lithuanians are all as

like each other as bullets. But I greatly err, Jew, or you are the spy

with whom we have an account to settle, that has stood over for the last

five months.’

“A shout from Rasinski interrupted the speaker.

“‘Hither, friends!’ he cried; ‘your help here!’ The three hastily obeyed

the summons, dragging the Jew with them in spite of his struggles and

cries.

“‘Here has been the most villanous crime the world ever witnessed!’

exclaimed Rasinski, pale with horror and indignation, as his friends

joined him. ‘Behold our comrades, driven out naked in this deadly cold,

plundered, strangled, hurled from the windows! Inhuman monster!’ he

cried in a terrible voice to the trembling Jew, ‘if you have shared in

this work, I will have you torn by dogs. See! here they lie. Horrible,

horrible!’

“In a nook formed by the recession of a house from the line of street,

lay eight human bodies, half naked, some with only a shirt or a few

miserable rags to cover them. Over one of these unfortunates, who was

still alive, Rasinski had thrown his furred cloak, to protect him from

the piercing cold. Ludwig and Bernard shuddered at this lamentable

spectacle.

“‘God of Abraham!’ cried the Jew, ‘to thee I lift up my right hand, and

swear that I am innocent of this deed. May I be accursed with my

children and my grandchildren if I know aught of it! May the ravens pick

out my eyes, and the flesh of my hand wither, if I speak not the truth.’

“‘He was amongst the murderers,’ the wounded man faintly gasped out: ‘he

was about to cut my throat, when the fall from the window did not kill

me, and because I called for help. Only your arrival saved me.’

“‘Fiend, inhuman fiend! the unspeakable misery that might draw tears

from a demon could not touch you.’ Thus spoke Rasinski between his set

teeth, and raised his sabre to split the skull of the Jew. In

convulsions of terror the miserable wretch embraced his knees, and

prayed for pity.

“‘God—Jehovah—mercy, noble Count, mercy!’

“Ludwig held back Rasinski’s arm. ‘Sully not your good blade with the

monster’s blood,’ he said, earnestly and solemnly. ‘Leave him to the

justice of an omnipotent Avenger.’

“‘You are right,’ replied Rasinski, quickly resuming his habitual

composure. ‘Think you I have forgotten?’ said he, with an expression of

the deepest loathing, to the Jew, who still clasped his feet in agony of

fear. ‘I know you well for the base and double traitor who once already

escaped well-merited death. Nothing could save you now, were it not that

even a villain like yourself may be made useful. Begone, and warn your

fellow-assassins, that if to-morrow I find a single dead body, a single

mark of violence in one of their houses, I lay the whole quarter in

ashes,—men, women, and habitations; and I myself will be the first to

hurl the sucking-babe into the devouring flames! Away, dog! Yet will I

mark thee, that thou mayest not escape.’

“And raising his foot, he stamped thrice upon the face of the prostrate

Jew, who bellowed like a wild beast, whilst his blood reddened the snow.

Nevertheless, the murderer managed to scramble to his feet, and reach an

adjacent house door, where he stood knocking and calling upon his fellow

Israelites for help and compassion.”

Count Ségur tells us, that the Jews enticed the unfortunate wounded into

their houses to despoil them, and afterwards, in sight of the Russians,

threw them, naked and dying, out of the doors and windows, leaving them

to perish of cold.

We approach the final chapters of Mr Rellstab’s romance. Bianca, whose

quality of a Russian noble suffices to protect her and her attendants,

remains with Ludwig, Marie, and her brother at Wilna, after the French

leave it. They then post to Germany without further adventure. Their

last sight of Rasinski is when, mounted on a Cossack horse, by the side

of Marshal Ney, he heads a scanty but determined band, covering the

retreat of the French. He subsequently falls at Leipzig, fighting with

his wonted gallantry under the orders of his countryman Poniatowski.

From the glimpses of the plot and numerous extracts we have given, the

reader will have small difficulty in forming his own estimate of the

faults and merits of “1812.” We have already commented upon both: upon

the spirit and power often conspicuous in the dialogue and description,

as well as upon the excess of forced coincidences, and upon the

occasional long-windedness and super-sentimentality. However the

interest may here and there, by reason of prolixity, be found to flag,

the book, when once begun, is not likely to be laid aside unfinished.

This alone is saying much for a historical romance in four very long

volumes. There are not many German writers, in that style, of whose

works we would venture the like prediction. And just at present Mr

Rellstab need not apprehend fresh rivals. The year 1848 is unfavourable

to German literature. The country is far too busy revolutionising to

care about belles-lettres. Fictions are ousted by realities, novels by

newspapers, trim octavos by uncouth twopenny pamphlets, polemical and

satirical, attacking and defending, supporting and tearing to pieces,

the numerous schemes afoot for the regeneration of Fatherland. In due

time it will be seen whether the literature of the country is to share

the general improvement so sanguinely anticipated from the recent

changes in a system, under which Germany undeniably has long enjoyed a

very large share of tranquillity and happiness.

WHAT WOULD REVOLUTIONISING GERMANY BE AT?

Many a confirmed wanderer upon Continental highways and byways may have

been long since wearied by the conceitedly-vulgar airs in which old

Father Rhine has indulged himself in latter years, and heartily tired of

his bald vineyards, his melodramatic old ruins, and the make-believe

majesty of his so-called mountains. But still there remained a sort of

spurious halo about his very name; some kindly reminiscence of the time

when, as an enthusiastic youth just escaped from the supposed

commonplace of England, one gazed for the first time upon this famed

show-stream of the Continent, and wondered, and admired, and poetised in

spite of one’s-self, may have cast a charm of early memory upon its

overrated allurements; and, of a surety, there must have been brought a

comfortable glow of pleasure to the heart of any one, except that

nearly-exploded animal, the exclusive exquisite, either male or female,

in witnessing the happy gaping faces of the touristic hordes, who

paddled up and down the well-known old banks—a feeling of ease, comfort,

and even homeishness, in the modern luxuries of the hundred

palace-hotels of the Rhenish towns and villages, in the contented aspect

of the thriving landlord, welcoming the guests who brought him wealth,

and in the ready alertness of the active and obsequious waiters. Well,

Germany has taken into its head to follow in the lead which distracted

France gave, when it madly beckoned with frantic finger to all the

Continent to follow in its wild dance. Germany has caught the St Vitus

of revolution, and danced off, if not as distractedly, at all events in

less connected step, and less defined figure, than its neighbour: and in

this revolutionary frenzy Germany has assumed so ungenial an aspect—a

manner so doubtful, so unpromising, so uncertain, as regards the next

step it may be inclined to take in the jerkings of its abrupt and

unregulated dance—that the gentle tourist-seekers of ease and pleasure

have turned away in disgust from this heavy Meg Merrilees, who has

forgotten even her scraps of song, and her long-pretended spirit of

romance, and declined to visit her until she shall have somewhat

recovered from her drunken fit of revolution, and become more decently

behaved. The Rhine, then, has lost the last charm of foreign bustle and

movement, with which he decked his old head, as with a crown of wild

flowers, not unbecoming his gray hairs. He looks sad, sober,

discontented, disappointed, mourning his lost old joys, and his lost

glories, of which young Germany, in its revolutionary excitement, has

despoiled him. His hotels are empty; landlords, too, have a forlorn air,

and take to rattling their last _groschen_ in their pockets; and unhappy

waiters get fat upon their inactivity, but, at the same time, pale with

ill-humour at their diminished _trinkgelder_, and apprehension of losing

their places altogether. Travellers’ visits have grown, like those of

angels, “few and far between;” and as angels do the poor scanty tourists

appear to be regarded—as munificent beings, in fact, from whom too much

cannot be demanded and expected; for the Rhenish hotel-keepers, in

pursuance of the system adopted by Parisian shopkeepers, in these days

of revolutionary scarcity and destitution, seem determined to make those

unhappy beings, who fall into their clutches, redeem the debt they

appear to consider due to them from those absent tourists, who have not

come to enjoy all the splendours prepared for them. Since Germany, with

its newborn cry for imperial unity, has appeared inclined to turn back

again, in new revolutionary spirit, to old feudal times, the Rhenish

hotel-keepers seem to think that they ought to appear in the characters

of the old robber-knights. This consideration, perfectly personal to a

poor tourist, who has lately paid his _löse-geld_ at many a modern

robber’s stronghold on the Rhine, brings him round, however, to the

question which he has been putting to himself, at every step he has been

taking in Germany—“What would revolutionising Germany be at?”

What would revolutionising Germany be at? It is a question easily put,

but very difficult to answer. The old joke, lately “freshed-up” to be

applied to the French—namely, that “they don’t know what they want, and

won’t be easy till they get it,” may, with still deeper truth, be

applied to the Germans. In spite of much inquiring conversation with all

men of all ranks, and in all positions of life, it has been quite

impossible for an unimaginative English understanding to discover

exactly, in the midst of all the vague rhapsody, florid discourse, and

poetical politics with which it has been assailed, “what they want.” To

judge by the fermenting spirit every where prevalent, the bombastic and

unpractical dreams—for plans they are not—formed as regards the future,

it would be difficult also not to suppose that “they won’t be easy till

they get it.”

What would revolutionising Germany be at? In spite of all one sees and

hears, or rather does not hear, it is impossible not to recur to the

question again and again; for, after all, in Germany we are among

thinking men, and, children as they may be in political life, _thinking

men_ they _are_; and, surely, thinking men must have some definite end

and aim to which their thoughts, their hopes, their aspirations, and

their efforts are directed. All the Utopian schemes, all the unpractical

theories of all parties, who put themselves forward in the revolutionary

movement, be their tendencies monarchic, constitutional, or republican,

aspire, then, to the setting up of the ill-defined idol of modern German

political fancies—“German unity”—“One great and powerful united

Germany”—“One great united German Empire”—or whatever name, designation,

or varied shade of name the idol, whose pedestal is “Union,” may bear.

This was the great fancied panacea for all evils, for which men

clamoured, when, in imitation of that distracted city of Paris—so worthy

of imitation, forsooth!—they got up revolutions, and tried their hands

at building barricades. This has been, in truth, long since the

watchword of the German student, when, in the recesses of his

beer-cellar at the university, he collected a set of fellow _fancied_

enthusiasts around the beer-jugs, imagined this species of club to be a

wonderful conspiracy, because he designated it by the forbidden name of

“_Burschenschaft_,” and deemed himself a notable and formidable

conspirator, because he drank off his _krug_ of beer to the cry of

“Perish all Princes—_es lebe hoch das Deutsche Vaterland_!” The princes,

by the way, were highly complimentary to such conspirators, in

considering them dangerous, and forbidding the existence of the

_Burschenschaften_, which were pretty safety-valves enough to let off

the exuberance of studentic steam. Whether the cry for a “United

Germany” first proceeded again from the mouths of these fantastic

enthusiasts, who, when they found out, to their surprise, that the parts

they had been acting in their mimic dramas of the beer-cellars might be

acted to the life and under the open sky of heaven, became in most parts

of Germany the leaders of the mobs, or the heroes of the barricades,

matters but little; nothing is more like a flock of sheep—although the

term of “a pack of wolves” might often appear more applicable—than the

general herd of men in moments of revolutionary excitement; whatever

conclusion, however far-fetched and fantastic, any old revolutionary

bell-wether may jump at, the flock is sure to follow and jump after him.

It matters, then, but little how or by whom the cry of “United Germany”

was first raised—the whole revolutionary flock immediately set up the

same “baa!” and in each convulsion of each German State, great or small,

in which a revolution may be said to have taken place, among the

grievances which mobs, deputations, or delegates laid before German

princes, as necessary to be forthwith amended and rectified, was the

immediate and indispensable want of a “United Germany.” A somewhat more

decided and definite step towards the possible realisation of this

tolerably vague and indefinite _desideratum_, in the amendment of

people’s wrongs, was taken by the call for the meeting of one united

German parliament, for the purpose of considering and regulating the

affairs of all Germany in this revolutionary crisis; but more especially

of effecting that union in one empire, under one head, or under one form

of government, which appeared to be the great desire of those who now

put themselves forward as the expression of the will of all the German

nation, either as a whole, or in its parts; and which seemed to be

considered as the great unknown remedy for all evils, real or imaginary.

The meeting of the first illegal and self-constituted body, which, in

its impatience to be ruling the destinies of the nation, assembled at

Frankfort under the name of a _Vor-Parlement_, or preliminary

parliament, and, although originally only emanating from a club of

revolutionary spirits at Heidelberg, contrived to impose itself upon

Germany and its princes, and sway the destinies of the land, in

opposition to the old German Diet assembled in the same place—the

proceedings of the _Ausschuss_, or select committee, which the members

of this _Vor-Parlement_ left behind them, to follow up their assumed

authority, when they themselves dispersed,—the constitution of the

present National Assembly, sanctioned by most of the German princes, and

acknowledged as fully legal and supreme in its authority, its members

being elected by universal suffrage,—and its meeting in time to put a

stop to the wild democratic tendencies and reckless proceedings of the

_Ausschuss_, are all matters of newspaper history, and need here no

further detail; they are mentioned only to show what revolutionising

Germany fancies and pretends it would be at, as far as any idea can be

formed from its actions—and the means it would employ to arrive at its

ends. We have got thus far, then, in the solution of our question.

Revolutionising Germany desires, above all things, one great and

powerful union of all its several parts,—the how, when, where, &c.,

being as yet very indefinite and unintelligible; and the General

National Assembly is there to settle those important preliminaries. Let

us content ourselves awhile with this very vague and uncertain answer,

and return to old Father Rhine and his neighbourhood, to have some

further idea of the physiognomy of the country under the present

revolutionary auspices, and with the soothing hopes of the realisation

of the grand desideratum of union before the country’s eyes. After

taking this superficial survey of the “outward man,” and judging as far

as we can of his character and temper therefrom, we may then speculate,

perhaps, a little upon his tendencies in his present course; and even go

so far as to attempt to take his hand, and try a trick or two of

palmistry in fortune-telling—not pretending, however, in true gipsy

spirit, to infallibility in foretelling the future, however knowingly

and mysteriously we may shake our heads in so doing.

Although the Germans cannot be said to have the capabilities of acting

any new part, that they may pretend to take upon themselves, to the

life—and even to the death—with all that reality and energy for which

the French have such an inborn talent, yet they may be looked up to as a

still more symbol-loving people than the latter; and although perhaps

not quite so much “up to” correctness of costume, at least quite as fond

of parading the dress of the new part upon all occasions. The first

thing, consequently, that strikes the tourist, on entering the Germany

of 1848, is the ostentatious display of the new-old imperial, so-called

national cockade, the red, black, and gold colours of the old German

empire. It is not only upon the caps of vapouring students, who begin to

consider themselves more or less the masters of the world, or upon the

hats of hot-headed, _soi-disant_-enthusiastic, poetico-political young

men that the new cockade is now to be seen; it stares you in the face

from the head and breast of almost every man you meet—gray-beard,

middle-aged, or youngster. It is generally from the centre of the cap or

hat, and thus just upon the forehead, that it glares upon you, like the

dark, red, gleaming eye of a new race of Cyclops: almost every male

individual looks like a political Polyphemus. The soldiers are, one and

all, adorned with two cockades, the one of the colours of the individual

country they serve, the other of those of Imperial United Germany. They

have thus two staring, distorted, and unmatched eyes, one over the

other, in the centre of their foreheads. With their two eyes they ought,

one would suppose, to see farther in the mist of the political storm

than other people. The military, however, influenced perhaps by the

example of their aristocratic young officers, have shown themselves,

generally speaking, and markedly so in Prussia, where the revolutionary

movement has been the most decided, recalcitrant towards the so-called

progress of the day, anti-popular in their sympathies, attached only to

the king and individual country they serve, disdainful of the new

central power, the authority of which they do not and will not

comprehend, and of its representatives, whom they regard as a herd of

insolent _schwätzer_, or chatterers—in fact, anti-revolutionary, or, as

it is called in the pet political phrases of the day, which the Germans

have, now more than ever, shown themselves so foolishly eager to borrow

of the French—_retrograd_ and _reactionär_.

This position of the military, which appears, generally speaking, to be

the same all over the country, is, to say the best, a very ticklish and

equivocal one, and promises but little for the future internal peace of

United Germany. Orders, however, have been given by such authorities as

still are,—and in the first instance by weak, uncertain, vacillating,

and now disappointed Prussia,—that the military should do their homage

to the ideas of the day, by wearing the imperial cockade, if not in lieu

of, at all events in addition to, that which they had heretofore

considered as their national symbol: and the double Polyphemus eye of

the soldier is one of the most striking and startling evidences of the

unsteady and contending spirit of the times, that meet the eye of the

tourist in Germany of to-day. Even more than the students—who are still,

however, sufficiently remarkable both in costume and manner in these

days of unrestricted movement and opinion—you will find a certain set of

men, whose physiognomy of race is so strongly marked by some

indescribable peculiarity of type, whatever be their colour or form of

feature, as to render them unmistakeable, and who make the most flaring

display of the imperial national colours, now so strangely converted

into the symbol of a revolutionary spirit, be it in cockade, or band, or

button-hole decoration. These are the Jews. They are positively lavish

in their display of ribbon. Ever since the revolution has begun its

dubious and unsteady course throughout Germany, it has been, invariably

and everywhere, the Jews who have displayed the strongest revolutionary

spirit, the most decided republican tendencies, the most acrimonious

hatred against the “powers that be,” and the most virulent efforts

towards the subversion of the existing state of things. What may have

been the cause of the outburst of this spirit in an essentially trading

and money-getting people, whose commercial advantages, in whatever

branch they may lie, must be so completely compromised, if not

altogether ruined, by revolutionary movements and their consequences, it

would be difficult in a superficial sketch to say: it may be conjectured

to have arisen simply from a spirit of revenge against the exclusive

upper classes of Germany, who have so long treated their sect, proud of

its wealth, and seeking influence from its power, with cutting repulsion

and contempt. The fact, however, is as stated; the most active

revolutionary spirits engaged in the task of pulling down and

destroying, as far as was possible, have been every where the Jews; the

avowed republicans may chiefly be found among men of their persuasion;

the clamour, the attack, and the denunciation, chiefly still proceed

from Jewish mouths and Jewish pens. Those who now march forward, then,

the most boldly, hand in hand in strange conjunction, along the

precipitous path of revolutionary movement, are the students and the

Jews. If you unwisely allow one of the latter to lay hold of an unlucky

button of your coat in a steamboat, he will be sure to endeavour, with

his peculiar twang, to insinuate into you all the wildest

ultra-revolutionary doctrines: the former will keep more apart from you,

and herd in knots; but, when they get drunk, instead of vapouring vague,

incomprehensible, _soi-disant_ Kantian philosophy, as of yore, they will

bellow still more vague and incomprehensible political theories about

United Germany. It is these two classes of beings, then, who make the

most ostentatious parade of the national cockades that flash across our

eyesight.

The fate of this cockade has been a very strange one, by the way, in

latter years. The red, black, and gold combination was long formally

proscribed in universities, as deleterious and dangerous, and typical of

the forbidden _Burschenschaften_: it was worn only in secret and by

stealth, by recalcitrant would-be revolutionary students. All on a

sudden it has been raised on high in flag and banner, waving not only in

revolutionary procession, but from palace walls, and tops of public

buildings. The cockade has not only been authorised, but enjoined; and

in a late reactionary movement in Berlin,—when, out of jealousy and

spite towards a central power, that had chosen its executive head from

southern and not northern Germany, a considerable public feeling was

exhibited against the imperial national flag, and in favour of the

Prussian colours exclusively—the government, or rather the king himself,

was obliged, for fear of an outbreak of the students, to command the

resumption of those colours in flag and cockade, which, but a little

while ago, he himself had proscribed. The pride of the young

_soi-disant_ heroes at being openly able to parade that symbol which

they cherished only heretofore as fancied conspirators, may be easily

conceived: and, now these boy-men find that they can dictate to the

princes of the earth, not only upon the matter of flags and cockades,

but upon matters of far graver note, there is no knowing to what height

of presumption this pride may not still further lead them.

If, now, we look around us to note the general physiognomy of the

people, we shall find many other little traits, that mark these

revolutionary times in Germany. The common people, more especially upon

the Rhine, and in many parts of the duchy of Baden—the common people,

formerly so smiling, so ready, so civil, perhaps only too obsequious in

their signs of respect, have grown insolent and rude: ask them a

question, and they will scarcely deign to bestow upon you an answer: in

many instances they will shrug their shoulders, laugh in your face, and

then turn their back upon you. On the contrary the public officials, the

government _beamten_, have considerably lowered that arrogance of tone

for which they formerly possessed a not unmerited evil repute, and will

answer your inquiries with civil words and smiling faces. Such, however,

is the natural see-saw movement of manners in revolutionary times, in

the lower and lower-middle classes; and as far as regards the latter

effect of revolutionary movement, no tourist in Germany will be disposed

to complain of the change.

Over the middle and upper classes, at the same time, there has fallen a

very visible gloom. That uncertainty of the future, which is

proverbially far more difficult for moral strength to bear than any

certain evil, has had the very evident effect, to the least observant

eye, of depressing the spirits of “all manner of men.” The _hope_

appears to exist only in the theoretical fancies of the excited liberal

politician,—the _enthusiasm_ only in the wild dreams of the declaiming

student. The prevailing impression is one of all the dulness of doubt

and the stupor of apprehension. Talk to people of the state of the

country, and they will either shake their heads with a grunt, or openly

express their fears about the future: and those fears are none the less

active because they are so vague—none the less depressing because they

wear the mysterious, visionary, and consequently awful form which the

dim distance of complete uncertainty imparts.

Another change, again, in the manners of the people, is in the

politicising spirit, so uncongenial in times gone by to the Germans,

which, in most great towns, seems now to have so completely absorbed

them. It is to be found not only in the low clubs, and in the insensate

pothouse debates, but in the eagerness to crowd round the revolutionary

addresses, which are posted by ultra-liberals at street corners, in the

anxiety to read the last revolutionary disquisition of the new radical

journal, in all its glory of large sheet and full columns, which has

taken the place of the innocent and patriarchal little _Volks-blatt_,

that was before the study and delight of the humble burgher; and in the

malicious enjoyment with which the political caricature, railing at

prince or men in power, is studied at the shop window, and the feverish

importance that is attached to it.

All these characteristic signs and changes will meet the eye of the

tourist if he even go no farther than the confines of the Rhine, and the

old city of Cologne. There at once is that depression visible to which

allusion has already been made. It is visible in the aspect of the

fallen half-ruined shopkeeper, of the disconsolate master of the hotel,

and, above all, of the anxious labourer upon the progress of that mighty

work, the completion of which evil times seem again to render an

impossible task—the Cologne cathedral. Funds for the further progress of

the great undertaking already begin to fail; and these are not times to

seek them from the munificence either of states or private individuals.

The _Baumeister_, who has spent the greater part of a life upon the

wonderful task of working out the completion of this miracle of Gothic

art,—whose whole soul has been concentrated upon this one object,—the

breath of whose very existence seems to depend upon the growth of this

foster-child of his fancy, for which alone he has lived,—now shakes his

head, like the consumptive man whose presentiments tell him that his

last hour is nigh, and who despairs of escaping his doom. The

revolutionary wind has blown like the plague-blast over the land: he

feels that his hand must soon fall powerless before the neglect, or even

ill-will of the newborn age of revolutionary liberty, and that he must

disperse abroad that band of artist-workmen whom he has fashioned and

educated to the noble work, and whom, in their completeness of artistic

intelligence, none perhaps, in future years, may be able again to

collect together. The cathedral, however, has proceeded to a certain

point, at which the whole interior may be enclosed; and there, in all

probability, the progress of the works will be checked for the present.

The consecration of the new part of the building, in this state, has

already taken place; but, even in these ceremonies, the revolutionary

modern spirit of Germany has not forgotten to assert its influence: the

deputation sent to them by the Prussian Assembly refused to join to

itself a Catholic ecclesiastic; and yet it was seriously proposed at the

same time, by the arrangers of the ceremonial _programme_, that the

monarchs who were expected to be present upon the occasion should mount

upon the roof of the cathedral, and there take an oath to preserve the

unity of Germany, which oath was to be blessed and ratified by the Pope,

who was to be invited to come over to Cologne for the purpose. The Pope

has had other deeds and other revolutionary tendencies to bless or to

ban in his own dominions; but this little trait, culled from the first

_programme_ of the consecration of the Cologne cathedral, may be taken,

at the same time, as a slight specimen of the wild poetico-political

freaks of theoretically revolutionising Germany.

Let us wend our way a little farther. Without attempting to take any

precise survey of Prussia and Austria, the continued fermenting and

agitated state of which countries is the topic of every-day newspaper

notice, and consequently without venturing upon any description of the

poisonous and ulcerating sores continually breaking out upon the face of

the fair and once healthy cities of Berlin and Vienna, the ignorant

tumult of the parliamentary meetings assembled in them, the noisy

fermentation of the ultra-revolutionary and republican clubs, the

symbolical but dangerous demonstrations of hot-headed students and other

unripe and unquiet spirits, the continual struggle and clash of parties

accusing each other reciprocally of utterly subversive or

counter-revolutionary and reactionary tendencies, and the constantly

threatened danger of fresh convulsions, with further ruin to trade, and

consequently to the well-being of the country at large—without, then,

painting to ourselves a well-known and notorious picture, let us cast

our eyes over the outward aspect of some of the smaller states.

Nothing, in the first place, can be more uneasy and disquieting than the

appearance of the Duchy of Baden. In Heidelberg, ultra-revolutionary

students have come to a total schism with their moderately and vaguely

revolutionary professors; and it is at present difficult to see how any

understanding is to be effected between teacher and scholar, so as to

render the university a seat of learning of any other kind than that of

subversive principles. In this part of Germany the revolutionary

fermentation appears far more active, and is far more visible in the

manner, attitude, and language of the lower classes, than even in those

hotbeds of revolutionary movement, Austria and Prussia. To this state of

things the confinity with agitated France, and consequently a more

active affinity with its ideas, caught like a fever from a next-door

neighbour’s house, the agency of the emissaries from the

ultra-republican Parisian clubs, who find an easier access across the

frontiers—not without the cognisance, and, it would now seem, as was

long suspected, with the aid also of certain influential members of the

Provisional Government of France—and the fact also that the unhappy

duchy has been, if not the native country, at least the scene of action

of the republican insurgents Hecker and Struve—have all combined to

contribute. It is impossible to enter the duchy and converse with the

peasant population, formerly and proverbially so peacefully disposed in

patriarchal Germany, without finding the poison of these various

influences gathering and festering in all their ideas, words, and

actions. The prostration of spirit, generally speaking, among the middle

and trading classes, the discouragement, the uncertain fear, are even

still more apparent here than on the lower Rhine; and the gloom appears

the greater, from all we see and hear, the higher we mount upon the

social ladder. The proud and exclusive German nobility, who have so long

slept cradled in the pride and exclusiveness of their courtly

prerogatives and privileges, now waken to see an abyss before and behind

them, a precipice at every step. How far they may have merited the

terrors of utter ruin to their fortunes as well as their position, by

their long contemptuous exclusion from their intercourse and society of

all who had not the magic key to secure admission to them, in the shape

of the privileged particle denoting nobility, whatever was the talent

and the worth of the despised unprivileged—and to this state of things,

even up to the present day, there have been very few exceptions at

German courts, and much less in German high society—how far they have

themselves prepared the way for their present position, by their wilful

blindness to the progress of ideas in the world, are not questions to be

discussed here. Their present apprehension and consternation are very

apparent in every word and action, however much the younger generation,

and especially those of it who may be military men, may bluster and talk

big, and defy: they fly away to their country houses, if they have them,

economise, retrench, and pinch, in preparation for that change in

circumstances and position which seems to be approaching them like a

spectre. The little capitals of Carlsruhe and Stuttgardt, with their

small ducal and royal courts, certainly never exhibited any picture of

great animation or bustle even in their most flourishing times; but the

gloom that now hangs over them is assuredly very different from the

peaceful, although somewhat torpid quietude in which they heretofore

reposed: their dulness has become utter dreariness; their lady-like

old-maidish decent listlessness a sort of melancholy bordering upon

despair. Princes and people look askance at one another: people suffer;

and princes think right to retrench. The theatres of these little

capitals are about to be closed, because they are considered to be too

expensive popular luxuries in the present state of things, and onerous

appendages to court charges. Sovereigns cut down their households and

their studs; and queens shut themselves close up in their summer

residences, declaring themselves too poor to visit German

watering-places, and support the expenses of regal _toilette_. In

Stuttgardt these symptoms are all peculiarly visible. Spite of the

long-acquired popularity of the King of Wurtemberg, as a liberal,

well-judging, and rightly-minded monarch towards his subjects, the wind

of revolution, that has blown in such heavy gusts in other parts of

Germany, has not wholly spared that kingdom; and before accomplishing

the intention attributed to him of retiring, in order to avoid those

revolutionary demands which, in spite of his best intentions, he

declares himself unable conscientiously to meet, the present king puts

in practice those measures of retrenching economy, which add to the

gloom of his capital and the disconsolate look of the court-attached and

commercial portion of his subjects. It is scarcely possible, however, to

suppose that the King of Wurtemberg can seriously think of abdicating in

favour of a son whose youthful actions have always rendered him highly

unpopular, all the more so as he is married to a Russian archduchess,

whose birth must render her _suspecte_ to the liberals of the day.

Another cause, which contributes to the melancholy and deserted air of

these capitals of the smaller German courts, is the retirement of the

ambassadors and diplomatic agents of the other German courts, who, if

not already recalled from their posts, will probably shortly be so, to

meet the views of German unity, which needs but one representative in

common. This unhappy look of the little German capitals is one of the

most melancholy signs of the times in these smaller states. In Hanover

and Brunswick the apparent resolution of their present rulers, to resist

the power of the new Central Government of would-be united Germany,

occasions agitation, uncertainty, and fear, which make themselves as

fully apparent in outward symptoms as elsewhere. Bavaria alone appears

to preserve an exceptional position. Bavaria also has had her

revolution, to be sure; but, strange to say, the revolution was

occasioned by the manœuvres of the anti-liberal, or, in that country,

Jesuitical party, against the liberal tendencies of a wild woman’s

influence over the mind of the king; and, singular as was the nature and

cause of this revolution, singular has remained the situation of

Bavaria, quiet, unagitated, and seemingly contented, in the midst of the

convulsive hurly-burly passing every where around it.

After this cursory survey of the outward aspect of a great part of

Germany, let us turn our eyes to Frankfort, the present central point of

all interest and attention; for there sits the General National

Assembly; there is to be brewed, by whatever recipe, or in whatever

manner it may be, that fancied panacea for all evils, the Union of

Germany: there, then, we may probably best learn what revolutionising

Germany would be at, or, at all events, best see the means employed to

arrive at something like a consummation. Let us first look at the cooks

at their work; and then taste the nature of the brew, as far as their

political culinary efforts have gone to “make the medley slab and good.”

Let us enter, then, that plain, dry, and harsh-looking circular

building, which is the Lutheran Church of St Paul; it is there the

Assembly holds its sittings. The interior arrangement has been fashioned

entirely upon the plan of the French Chambers. The President’s tribune,

the lower tribune of the orator before it, the gradually rising and

diverging amphitheatre of seats for the members, are all entirely French

in their plan. Completely French also, and with similar designation, is

the political shading of the members according to their seats; the

_Droit_, the _Centre_ in its variety of progressing _nuances_, and the

_Gauche_ and _Extreme Gauche_ have the same signification in the German

Assembly as in the French. Nor does the resemblance cease here; the

constitution of the Assembly, in its various elements, has a strong

affinity to that of the present French National Assembly. The majority

of the members are evidently concentrated in the different shades of the

_Centre_. The old conservatives of the right have but little influence,

except as a make-weight against the ultra-liberals. The centre consists

chiefly of the old liberals, and opposition leaders in the different

chambers of such of the German states as possessed constitutions of one

modification or another—men who have now, in turn, in their position

towards the ultra-revolutionary spirits, that tendency which may be

called liberal conservative: they are the men of progress, who, in the

present hurricane of revolutionary ideas, endeavour to guide the helm so

as to avoid the very rocks they have had so great a hand in raising, and

to restrain the very waves which their own breath has so greatly

contributed to lash into fury! They are the Odillon Barrots, and

suchlike old liberals of Germany. They find that the task before them is

one of far ruder difficulty than in their theoretical fancies they had

first imagined; and many of them there may be, who cannot but

acknowledge to themselves, however little they may be inclined to

acknowledge it to the world, that the business of a vast nation is not

to be conducted by inexperienced heads, however talented, however well

they may have conducted the business of a counting-house, or taught

theories from a professor’s chair—in fact, that theory and practice will

not walk hand in hand without a long process of amalgamating experience.

The left is occupied by the men of revolutionary utopics and crude

subversive opinions; and in its extreme by the ardent republicans and

tribunes of the people, whom the revolution has caused to spring out of

the political soil like mushrooms. These are the men who complain, in

speech or in journal, that the Assembly is wasting its time in vain

vapid disputations—an accusation, by the way, by no means unfounded—and

yet themselves, when ever they mount into the tribune, indulge, more

than any others, in declamatory would-be poetical phrases, “full of

sound and fury, signifying nothing,” and containing not one practical

idea, or feasible proposal. They seem to think that, by ringing the

changes upon certain pet words, such as “patriotism” and “nationality,”

they have said great things and done great deeds for the good of the

country; and, as far as such clap-trap efforts to gain popular applause

go, they may fairly be said to obtain their ends. In this again they

have a strong “cousin-german” resemblance with the French ultras in a

similar position—and no less so in their endeavours to overawe and

browbeat the majority of the Assembly by noisy exclamations, and even

uproarious riot. The German ultras, however, have succeeded, to a great

extent, in a manœuvre in which their French brethren have failed,

although supported in it, at first, by a certain reckless member of the

Provisional Government—that is to say, in packing the public galleries

with acolytes, said to be paid, who, while they applaud all

ultra-revolutionary speeches “to the echo,” endeavour to put down the

conservative orators by tumult, or violent hissings, and are of course

vaunted forth in the ultra-liberal journals as “the expression of the

will of the nation.” Be it said, at the same time, _en passant_, that

this manner of applauding by the clapping of hands, and expressing

disapproval by hissing, has been borrowed from a habit of the members of

the Assembly themselves, which has certainly a very unparliamentary

appearance and sound to English eyes and ears. This use of the public

galleries, which, in spite of the regulations of the Assembly, it has

been found impossible altogether to put down, has assuredly a certain

influence in overawing and intimidating some of the members of the

majority. Two causes, however, have contributed to preserve the Assembly

from utter anarchy and confusion. The first of these, a negative one,

consists in the fact that Frankfort is not a great noisy stirring

capital of a great country, where a mob is always at hand to be used as

a tyrannical influence by the leaders of the people, and that there are

no suburbs filled with a working population, whence, as in Paris, an

insurgent army may be suddenly recruited to work mischief, when it may

have no other work to do. The second, a direct and active one, arises

from the personality of the President of the Assembly; and certainly it

is in the personal qualities and physical advantages of the Herr von

Gagern, as much as in his position, and from the esteem in which he is

held, that his power to dominate, control, and will to order, very

greatly consists.

The President Gagern, long known as the most talented and leading

opposition member of the Darmstadt Chamber, has passed his life in his

energetic attempts to further those constitutional liberties, which he

would now check with powerful hand, that they may not go too far.

Disappointed and disgusted with his fruitless efforts to promote what he

considered the interests of his country, the Herr von Gagern had

retired, for some time past, into private life, when, upon the breaking

forth of the revolutionary storm, he was called upon by his prince to

take the helm of affairs, and, as minister, to steer the bark along the

current by which he might avoid the Scylla of ultra-democracy as much as

the Charybdis of resistance to the progress of the age. In this new

character he again appeared upon the stage of the political world; and

he has only retired from his post, as he has since refused to accept

office as minister of the new central executive power of all Germany, in

order to maintain the position, to which he was raised by acclamation,

as the controlling head of that Assembly which was to decide the

destinies of the country, and from the councils of which he himself had

fondly hoped to see emanate the welfare of united Germany.

Tall and stout, with a face which possesses a decision and firmness of

character, much aided by a pair of very broad black brows, Herr von

Gagern has, at the same time, a bold dignity of manner and gesture,

which is well calculated to rule an Assembly, and a powerful voice,

which knows how to make itself heard in a storm: a ready and simple

eloquence, and a clear good sense, which fastens upon the right point at

the right moment, are combined with these advantages of exterior

appearance; and as he rises, in cases of emergency, to display a vigour

of energy, rather than that system of conciliation so fatally used in

France, and so impracticable amidst all the clashing party opinions of a

revolutionary Assembly, he shows himself to be the man of the moment,

and of the place. He may be said to be the saviour of the German

National Assembly, inasmuch as his personal influence may be considered

to have rescued it from that state of anarchy and confusion which now

disgraces the French chamber, and into which the German Assembly, with

its conflicting elements, and its still greater inexperience, seemed at

first about to fall.

As it is, the German National Assembly can by no means be looked upon as

a model of parliamentary order: it is still noisy, ill-regulated, and

uncertain in its movements. It cannot be denied, at the same time, that

sufficient individual talent may be found among its members. Among the

rising men of the day, the orators of Prussia and the smaller northern

states, (for Southern Germany has as yet produced but little striking

talent,)—along with those young, ardent, and energetic men who, the

conspirators and insurgents of a few months ago, have gone over to the

liberal conservative majority, and the people’s orators, who aim at

being the O’Connells of Germany, as their phraseology goes, and who, in

spite of the impracticable nature of their tenets, and the frequently

vapid nature of their declamation, have a certain, rude ready eloquence,

that strives to be poetical—there are also a few practised statesmen, a

few wary old men of action, and several well-known authors and poets,

such as old Uhland, whose democratic ardour still keeps, him upon the

benches of the left, and the Count Auersperg, well known under the name

of Anastatius Grün, whom disappointments in his position, in society are

supposed also to have driven into the ultra-democratic ranks. But there

seems to be an utter want of purpose in most of the speeches which

emanate from the lips of these men of talent. Proverbially vague in

their philosophical theories, even when they make most pretensions to

clearness, the Germans show themselves still more so in their political

views. The speeches not only of the ultra-liberals, but of the would-be

statesmen of the centre, appear mere compilations of “words, words,

words,” without any tangible argument or practical proposal: it is

rarely that it is possible to sift from the readily flowing, but

generally most muddy stream, a sand of gold, that may be used as one of

sterling worth in the crown of unity which the hands of the Assembly

would be forging. In all that emanates from the Assembly, either in

debate or in decree, there is generally a lamentable want of correctly

defined purpose: and, in fact, to return to the point from which we have

started, it is as difficult to discover from the vague, wavering,

boggling proceedings of the Assembly, as from any other quarter, or from

any other movement, precisely what revolutionising Germany would be at.

Up to the present time, like the Provisional Government of France, it

has rather attempted to rule aristocratically itself, than to prepare

the way, as was its object, for the future definitive constitution of

Germany. The only definite step it has yet taken towards that vague

_desideratum_, a “United Germany,” has been in the appointment of a

Provisional Executive Head, and of a cabinet of ministers at its

direction.

Except in as far as regards the jealousy of Prussia, disappointed in its

hopes of itself giving the head to the Imperial government, and inclined

in consequence to quarrel with the dictates of that central power, for

which it clamoured, and which it at least accepted not ungraciously, as

long as it thought, with true Prussian conceit, that the head must

necessarily emanate from itself—a jealousy to which reference will be

made further on—the choice of the Austrian Archduke John, as

Administrator or Protector of the Government of United Germany, whatever

his charge may be called, (for the German term “Reichs Verweser”

expresses in itself both these attributive designations,) cannot be

looked upon as one of any political weight. As a prince, enjoying for

many years past a certain popularity, more perhaps from a feeling of

opposition, because he was considered as living upon ill terms with the

Imperial court of Austria, than from any personal attachment to himself,

the Archduke John may be considered to be well selected as a popular and

generally accepted head of Germany: whether he possesses either the

talent or the energy to fill so strange and awfully responsible a post

in the present disturbed state of Germany is another question, which

only those who have known him in the retirement of private life can

answer. The political writer who designated him as the Duke of Sussex of

Austria, made a happy hit in thus classifying him. The Archduke John has

rendered himself popular by his patronage and furtherance of scientific

institutions: but he has been too little known, otherwise than as the

discarded and disgraced of the Imperial family, to be called in any way

“the man of the people.” The marriage, which was the cause of his

disgrace, was thus, likewise, the cause of his popularity, such as it

was: the union of an Imperial prince with a girl of comparatively humble

birth—a union about the origin of which so many absurdly fabulous tales

have been told—flattered the instincts of the middle and lower classes.

The Archduchess, however, who now finds herself elevated still more, to

a pinnacle to which her wildest dreams could scarcely have led her, and

who is now flattered, caressed, and done homage to, as she was before

set aside, is said to reveal nothing of any humble origin, and to be as

lady-like as sensible in manner. Upon the whole, then, it is not in the

wholly provisional and most unstable appointment of the Archduke John as

“Reichs Verweser” that we shall find any solution to the inquiry as to

the more certain revolutionary tendencies of Germany.

Assuredly more ought to be gathered from the appointment of the new

central cabinet, and more especially of its Minister for Foreign Affairs

and leading member, Prince Leiningen: and naturally we look to the

recent manifesto of the prince as a document from which we may best

learn “what revolutionising Germany would be at.” Sensible and clear, or

at all events as little confused as is possible in the present confused

state of all theories, plans, and reasonings in Germany, the manifesto,

in doing no more than pointing out two methods towards effecting the

reconstruction of Germany, leaves every thing as regards the future in

as vague and uncertain a state as before. It only states a dilemma—it

does not attempt to resolve it. It puts Germany in a cleft stick, or

rather, at the division of two paths, the greater merit or

practicability of either of which it does not attempt to show very

decisively, by its concluding words, “_Entweder, Oder!_ choose!” In

fact, it does no more than ask with ourselves, “What would

revolutionising Germany be at?”

It may be surmised, certainly, from the manifesto of Prince Leiningen,

that he himself is really inclined towards the going forward in the

uncertain course of doing _something_ towards the effectuation of the

desired union, although he by no means pretends to recommend _how_ this

is to be done. He seems—and his acceptation of office would in itself

appear to confirm the fact—a partisan of what he defines somewhat

confusedly as “an actual union of all the component parts of the whole,

in such a manner as to avert the possibility of any dispute between the

whole and the parts;” for he adds, “If any other course be pursued, not

singleness or unity, but discord and separation will be established.”

But in the alternative which he places before Germany, of either

returning to the past, or of realising the uncertain and as yet

undefined desideratum of a great union for the future, it would seem,

whatever be the prince’s own meaning, or whatever may be supposed to be

the means used by the Assembly to produce a united whole, that he only

places before it at the same time the alternative of a civil war, at

which he himself hints, or a republican constitution, which must appear

to be the result of the progress in its present sense, of

revolutionising Germany.

When we hear that “to retrograde to a confederation of states, or to

establish a weak federal state, by a powerfully impressed independence

of the individual states, would only be to create a mournful period of

transition to fresh catastrophes and new revolutions;” that from such a

course of proceeding would result the danger “of harbouring in Germany

revolutionary movements, or perchance civil war, for a series of years;”

that the nation would arrive at “the most undesirable consummation of

rendering itself ridiculous for ever by trumpeting to the world German

unity and German power, and presenting in reality a spectacle the very

reverse”—when we hear that “no dynastic interests can be taken into

consideration if the nation wills unity;” that “to construct a new

empire, and at the same time to permit an organisation tending to an

inevitable contest for the supreme sovereignty between the individual

states, would be to sow disunion instead of unity, to create weakness

instead of power;” and that, consequently, “the imperial power must, in

a degree, absorb in itself the sovereignty of the individual states,

abolish the diplomatic intercourse of the individual states at home and

abroad, and concentrate it in its own hands, appropriate to itself the

unconditional disposal of the national forces, and not allow governments

or their constituent State Assemblies to occupy themselves with affairs

appertaining to the National Assembly alone, since a perfectly

established central state, in which other perfectly established states

are encased, would be virtually a monstrosity,”—when we hear all these

things, and weigh the tendency of their views, we can see in them no

other result than the abasement of the individual sovereigns, an

absorption of their power, which would leave them no more than useless

and ridiculous puppets, and, consequently, their inevitable overthrow in

the course of time, and the establishment of republican institutions,

whatever the name given to the new form of republic, whatever the title

bestowed upon its head, be it even Emperor, or _Reichs Verweser_,

Regent, Protector, Administrator, or President.

On the other hand, when we are told—although “jealousies between

individual states, and revilings of the northern by the southern parts

of the empire” are stigmatised as “criminal absurdities”—that, “if the

many collateral and coexistent interests are too preponderant to be

sacrificed to German unity, if the old spirit of discord and separation

is still too powerfully at work, if the jealousy between race and race,

between north and south, is still too strongly felt, the nation must

convince itself of the fact, and return to the old federal system,”

already hinted at as _impossible_ without fresh revolutions or long

civil wars; and when we know, at the same time, that these jealousies

between state and state not only _do_ exist, but continue to increase

and ferment still more in the present state of things,—that in fact, the

old spirit of discord and separation is still more powerfully at work

than ever,—what can we look forward to? Only the other alternative to

which we have alluded—those civil wars which the manifesto of Prince

Leiningen itself hints at so cautiously.

Since, from the very first commencement of the revolution in Germany,

the jealous spirit between the northern and southern states broke out in

a decided form, it has only increased instead of diminishing. When the

vacillating but ambitious King of Prussia, desirous of coming forward as

the “man of Germany” of the day, but “infirm of purpose,” attempted to

direct the revolutionary movement in his own states by accepting the

call for a United German Empire, and by placing himself, although

unavowedly, at its head, the Austrian _Official_ Gazette immediately

fulminated a severe, damning, and, under the circumstances, almost cruel

manifesto against the ambitious Prussian monarch; in Bavaria, the young

men of the upper classes burnt his majesty in effigy in the public

market-place of Munich; at Stuttgardt, the picture of the offending

sovereign was as publicly hung by the neck to a gallows. Southern

Germany was indignant at the thought that an upstart King of Prussia

should attempt to lead the movement for a new United Empire of Germany,

and presume even to dream of being its future emperor. But when, in the

course of events, the provisional head of the newly constituted central

power was chosen by the assembly from among the princes of Southern

Germany, it was the turn of Prussia to exhibit its spite and anger: its

jealousy was not to be concealed. The result of the disappointed

ambition of Prussia was exhibited, as already alluded to, in a

reactionary feeling against that central power, which it would have

accepted probably with acclamation, and been the first to applaud and

support, had it emanated from its own country. The exhibition of this

feeling in some violent outbreak was so much dreaded upon the occasion

of the military homage appointed to be shown to the _Reichs Verweser_ at

Berlin, that the ceremony, as is well known, was obliged to be

countermanded. The feeling is now still continuing to be shown in a

constant exhibition of mistrust on the part of Prussia towards the

National Assembly, and as well as in the counter-accusation of that new

and vaguely defined political crime “reaction,” laid by the journals of

the moderate party, as well as by the ultra-liberals, to the charge of

Prussia. With all these conflicting elements at work between the various

parts of Germany, and again between these various parts and the central

power, placed in the hands of the Assembly, it is very difficult to look

clearly as yet towards any possible constitution of that unity which

would appear to be the most vague end and aim of the revolution in

Germany. To those who attempt to look into the mist of the future, and

see visions, and dream dreams—for, in the present state of the cloudy

and wavering political horizon, it would seem that all political

foresight can pretend to no better name than that—the nearer of the two

alternatives to be deduced from Prince Leiningen’s manifesto, would

appear to be the disunion, the total rupture, the civil war.

The other alternative, however, seems not without its chances; for,

although the old liberals of republican tendencies, the suspected and

imprisoned, have now been brought round, for the most part, into the

ranks of the moderately progressive party, in the natural course of

revolutionary changes, or even been called to the councils of the kings

and princes who rejected and persecuted them; yet, on the other hand,

the exertions of the moderate party, in spite of the clog that they

would now put upon the too rapid course of ultra-democracy, appear to

tend, in the efforts made, and the views entertained respecting the

unity of Germany, towards the very republican institutions which they

disavow, and suppose themselves endeavouring to avoid. The real

republicans, at the same time, although without any present weight among

the political spirits of the day, are yet composed, as elsewhere, of the

young, hot-headed, reckless, active, stirring elements of the time, and

are always ready to make up, by violence and headlong precipitation, for

what they want in importance and experience. They are aided also in

their views by a certain party of the liberal press, which is always

preaching the imitation of French institutions and the conduct of the

present leading men in France,—as if France and the French did not hold

up a lesson and a warning instead of models for imitation—and consoling

Germany with the idea, that although it does not possess such enviable

men or measures, the men must shortly rise upon the political surface,

and that the measures will follow behind them. By a great portion of the

press, even that of the moderate party also, a continual irritation of

suspicion and mistrust is being kept up against the still reigning

sovereigns of Germany; and the cry of that very vague accusation

“reaction,” the name of which alone, however, is considered sufficiently

damning, is constantly raised upon every movement, of whatever nature it

may be, which those sovereigns may make. The moderate party may be

acquitted of republican tendencies in their hearts; but they seem to

ignore the old proverb, “give a dog a bad name,” and the consequences;

and they will make “sad dogs” out of the sovereigns, until at last the

consequences will threaten more and more nearly.

Between these two alternatives, however, Germany seems to think that it

may find a middle course, and establish its theoretical and vaunted

unity without exciting civil dissension, or plunging into the depths of

republicanism. May it prove right in its as yet uncertain hopes; but

certainly the means by which this desired consummation is to be arrived

at, are not in the least degree visible: it remains as yet the vaguest

of vague fancies—the how, the where, the when, and even the why, are as

yet matters of doubt: not only deeds but principles, not only principles

but plans, to this intent, are as yet utterly absent. In fact our

question, after all, remains unanswered; and, beyond the main point of

“unity,” to be effected somehow or other, revolutionising Germany seems

utterly unable to tell us, as we vainly endeavour to find out

definitively, “what it would be at?”

_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._

-----

Footnote 1:

See our No. for March 1848.

Footnote 2:

Hide—from _cacher_.

Footnote 3:

Carrion.

Footnote 4:

In Frémont’s expedition to California, on a somewhat similar occasion,

two mountaineers, one the celebrated Kit Carson, the other a St Louis

Frenchman named Godey, and both old trappers, performed a feat

surpassing the one described above, inasmuch as they were but two, who

charged into an Indian village to rescue some stolen horses, and

avenge the slaughter of two New Mexicans who had been butchered by the

Indians; both which objects they effected, returning to camp with the

lost animals and a couple of propitiatory scalps.

Footnote 5:

The Mexicans call the Indians living near the Missions and engaged in

agriculture, _mansos_, or _mansitos_, tame.

Footnote 6:

From a manuscript obtained in Santa Fé of New Mexico, describing the

labours of the missionaries Fray Augustin Ruiz, Venabides, and Macos,

in the year 1585.

Footnote 7:

“Some were so barbarous as to eat their own species.” The sentence

refers to the Scythians, and is in Strabo. I mention the authority,

for Strabo is not an author that any man engaged on a less work than

the History of Human Error is expected to have by heart.

Footnote 8:

_Memoirs of the Reign of George II., from his Accession to the Death

of Queen Caroline._ By JOHN LORD HERVEY. Edited, from the original

MSS. at Ickworth, by the Right Hon. J. W. CROKER. 2 vols. Murray,

London: 1848.

Footnote 9:

“Upon the evening of this long day’s march, the imperial column

approaching Gjatz was surprised to find upon the road the bodies of

Russians quite recently slain, all with their heads cloven in the same

manner, and with their brains scattered around. It was known that two

thousand prisoners preceded the column, escorted by Spaniards,

Portuguese, and Poles. Various opinions were emitted; some were

indignant, others approved or remained indifferent, according to the

character of each. Around the Emperor these different impressions

found no voice, until Caulaincourt burst out and exclaimed, ‘that it

was an atrocious cruelty. This, then, is the civilisation we bring to

Russia! What effect would this barbarity have upon the enemy? Did we

not leave him our wounded and a host of prisoners? Would he lack the

opportunity of horrible reprisals?’ Napoleon maintained a gloomy

silence, but upon the morrow these murders had ceased. The unfortunate

prisoners were allowed to die of hunger in the enclosures into which,

at night, they were huddled like cattle. Doubtless it was still a

barbarity; but what could be done? Exchange them? The enemy refused.

Set them free? They would have hastened to proclaim our destitution,

and soon they would have returned with their companions to harass our

march. In this unsparing war, to have given them life would have been

to sacrifice ourselves. We were cruel from necessity. The fault was,

to have ever placed ourselves in so terrible an alternative.

“On the other hand, during our march into the interior of Russia, our

captive soldiers were not treated more humanely, although the Russians

had not imperious necessity for an excuse.”—SÉGUR, vol. ii. p. 149.

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