He then indulged in an explanation of his reasons for having voted with the opposition. He possessed the art of repeating the speeches of others as if they were his own. He repeatedly used the expression "a free church in a free state," and several times used the word "republic," when he would immediately correct himself in an ironical manner, and to the great delight of many of his auditors.
Funk's words filled me with indignation.
When I beheld him standing up before this audience and expressing such sentiments, I felt as if it were a punishment that I had richly deserved; for in his case I had assisted a man in whom I had not full confidence, to a position of honor and importance. I was so occupied with thoughts of the speaker that I hardly noticed what he was saying, until I was aroused by hearing him defend me against the charge of being a Prussian.
"And even if he were a Prussian, we should not forget that the Prussians are Germans as well as the rest of us. We are far ahead of them, and for that very reason it is our duty to help them." And then he began to praise me again, and told them what a noble action it was that a man who had a pastor for one son-in-law, and one of the first nobles in the land for another, whose son was to-day a professor, and might to-morrow be a minister, to receive into his house a girl who had come to him naked and destitute.
Uproarious laughter followed these words, and Funk exclaimed:
"O you rogues! you know well enough that when I said 'naked and destitute,' I only meant poor and without family connections."
He described me and my wife as the noblest of beings, and repeatedly referred to Martella.
I asked myself what could have been his reason for introducing Martella's name before this audience; and then it occurred to me that he had cherished hopes that my son Ernst would have married his daughter, who was at that time receiving her education at a school in Strasburg.
He closed by proposing cheers in my honor. They were immediately followed by cries of "Hurrah for citizen Funk!"
Funk was impudent enough to walk up to me afterwards and offer me his hand, while he assured me that he had put a quietus on the opposition of the stupid bushmen, a term which he was fond of using when referring to the farmers.