An immense number of visitors from all parts of Germany came to Eisenach, situated at the foot of the Wartburg, and delegations of students from all German universities, adorned with their German colors and carrying black, red and gold banners with patriotic inscriptions, assembled on the historic ground and participated in the festivities, for which an elaborate programme had been arranged. The greatest enthusiasm prevailed, and for the time being all those petty jealousies which had so often disturbed the cordial fellowship of the inhabitants of different German states had disappeared, and all those present revelled in the exuberance of patriotic sentiment; they were all the children of one great fatherland, a great united nation! The songs and the speeches repeated and echoed this one thought. It lived uppermost in the hearts of those young enthusiasts, but presented itself to their minds rather as a vague poetic ideal than as a stern political reality. Among the thousands of visitors there was, perhaps, not one who had seriously thought of the political realization of the dream. Imprudent as these too boisterous demonstrations had been during the day, there was enacted late in the evening, when most of the guests had already left the famous castle, a sort of theatrical performance, which irritated the conservative and reactionary classes exceedingly and resulted disastrously for the Burschenschaft. This performance was gotten up in imitation of a famous scene in Luther’s life—the burning of the papal bull. Massmann, a student of the university of Jena, represented the Luther of the nineteenth century. A large bonfire was built, and amidst boundless enthusiasm a number of books and other materials, odious to the students, were thrown into the flames and destroyed. Among the books was Kotzebue’s “History of the German Empire,” Haller’s “Restoration of Political Science,” Section 13 of the Federal Constitution, etc. Besides the books, a corset such as used to be worn by the officers of the Prussian guards, a Hessian queue, and an Austrian corporal’s mace were also thrown into the fire.
The Wartburg celebration produced tremendous excitement throughout Germany. The reactionary elements were wild with indignation. They accused not only the managers of the festivity and the Burschenschaft of revolutionary tendencies, but they included in this charge all the young men of the Empire, averring that they had grown up under the influence of the pernicious doctrines of the French Revolution and French armies of occupation, and wanted now to apply those doctrines to the reorganization of German institutions. They also demanded that the organizers of the Wartburg celebration should be prosecuted and punished as traitors. All the conservative and government papers opened a regular war upon the seditious and revolutionary tendencies of the universities, and the agitation reached its climax by the publication of a memorandum addressed by Baron Stourdza, a Russian councillor of state, to the Emperor Alexander, in which he predicted that a bloody revolution would result unless these seditious tendencies were speedily repressed. The Stourdza memorandum had originally been intended for the use of the governments only. The Czar had sent a copy to each European government, but one copy of it had found its way to the office of a Paris newspaper and had been published. The excitement among the German students rose to the boiling-point, and their wrath was concentrated against Russia. It was only too well known that Russia had in her employ a number of spies scattered throughout the German states, who kept her government well posted on the political and social currents. The most prominent of these spies was August von Kotzebue, a man of great literary talent and distinguished as the author of many comedies and dramas, but politically of extreme conservative views. The attacks of the liberal press were therefore mainly directed against Kotzebue, whose reports to the Russian government were supposed to have inspired Stourdza’s memorandum.
At that time there was at Jena a student of the University, of irreproachable character, excellent conduct, not especially distinguished by eminent ability or talent, but inclined to religious and patriotic exaltation. His name was Carl Ludwig Sand; he came from Wunsiedel, the birthplace of the famous German humorist, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. He had been a volunteer in the war against France and had embraced the doctrines of the Burschenschaft with the greatest enthusiasm. The denunciations of the German students in Stourdza’s memorandum filled him with profound indignation, especially against Kotzebue, whom he blamed as the principal sinner. Moreover the frivolous, half indecent character of many of Kotzebue’s plays had often revolted Sand’s moral sentiment. He considered him a source of corruption for the young men and women of the nation, and when to this wrong the charge of political treason and espionage was added, Sand thought that nothing but death was an adequate punishment for Kotzebue. He considered also that it was not only a moral, but a patriotic duty to inflict upon him that punishment. He knew that the act would cost him his life, but that consideration did not for a moment deter him from undertaking it. He did not consult with anybody about it, but he conceived, planned, and executed it all alone.
On the ninth of March, 1819, Sand left Jena and proceeded to Mannheim, where Kotzebue lived. Two weeks later, on the twenty-third of March, 1819, a young stranger appeared at the Kotzebue residence, and said that he wished to see the councillor in order to hand him personally a letter of introduction. The servant delivered the message, and after a few minutes Kotzebue himself appeared in the hall and invited Sand—for it was he—to come in. Sand handed him the letter; but no sooner had Kotzebue opened it and begun to read it than Sand plunged a long dirk-knife into his breast with the words, “Take this as your reward, traitor to your country!” And he stabbed him again and again with fatal effect. Thereupon he thrust the knife into his own breast, but had strength enough to run out into the hall, where he handed the astounded servant a sealed document containing a well-written justification of his murderous act, and inscribed: “Death Punishment for August von Kotzebue in the name of virtue.” Running out into the street, where a crowd of people assembled, attracted by the screams of the servant, he called out in a loud voice: “Long live my German fatherland!” and kneeling down he forcibly plunged the knife into his breast once more, exclaiming: “Great God, I thank thee for this victory.”
Sand’s wound was serious, but a skilful operation saved his life. On the twentieth of May, 1820, he was executed at Mannheim, after a lengthy trial and a painstaking investigation, in the course of which the German and the Russian police made great efforts to discover accessories to his crime. All these efforts failed, however, and the murder of Kotzebue could be accounted only an individual act of patriotic exaltation. The result of Sand’s self-sacrifice was very different from what he had expected. In fact, Kotzebue’s assassination proved disastrous to the liberal movement throughout Germany; it furnished a welcome pretext for the most repressive measures against the press, against the universities, against the Burschenschaft, against liberty in whatever shape or form it might manifest itself. That long era of political reaction was inaugurated against which the German people rebelled with only partial success in 1848 and 1849, and from which only the ejection of Austria and the reorganization of a new German Empire on a more liberal basis in 1871 gave them permanent relief.
CHAPTER XXI
DUC DE BERRY
