He describes himself as one of those natures which cannot in the long run endure the "solo music" of existence. "Symphonies of Beethoven or thunder-storms" were a necessity to him. He was one of the people who feel themselves out of place in a box at the theatre, who sit from choice in the pit, in the middle of the crowd.
It seemed to him as if in Germany the bullion of life were minted underground, in the silence of midnight, like counterfeiters' coin. Those who worked did not enjoy, and those who enjoyed, who in the light of day set the money in circulation that had been coined in fear and trembling in the darkness, did not work. In France a man of health and spirit lived a life like that of a king's messenger, who is sent with despatches to foreign towns, never twice to the same place, and who on his long journeys sees and enjoys life in its most different developments; in Germany he lived like a postilion, who is always taking the same short journey back and forwards between two post-houses, receiving a miserable tip from fortune for his trouble. The postilion was perfectly able to take the journey in his sleep; he knew every stone on his ten miles of road; and this in Germany was called thoroughness; but Börne, sitting in the little hotel in Soden, watching the geese fighting in the yard, and studying the jealousy of the turkey-cocks and the coquetry of the turkey-hens, was not grateful for the opportunity of remarkable thoroughness afforded him.[3]
When the news reached him that Polignac's ministry had issued the famous ordinances, had violated the constitution, he cried, anticipating all the consequences of this step: "And God said, let there be light!"
The news of the Revolution of July followed. Every day he awaited the hour of the arrival of the newspaper with impatience; he walked out the country road, on the lookout for the mail; if it delayed too long, he went all the way to Höchst, where the papers came from. Soon he felt unable to remain in Soden. He returned to Frankfort, and astonished, electrified his environment by his fire. The silent, invalid-looking Börne was unrecognisable; a miracle seemed to have happened; he was young and strong again. All his old dreams seemed to have become realities, and everything in him that he had been forcibly keeping down sprang up again like a spring when pressure is removed.
Frankfort did not long satisfy him; presently we hear of him in Paris.
On the 7th of September he writes from Strasburg: "The first French cockade I saw was on the hat of a peasant who passed me in Kehl coming from Strasburg. It seemed to me like a little rainbow after the flood of our time, a sign of peace from a reconciled God. But when the bright tri-coloured flag greeted my eyes—oh! words cannot express my emotion. My heart beat so violently that I was on the point of fainting.... The flag was on the middle of the bridge, its staff rooted in French ground, but part of the bunting waving in German air. Ask the first Secretary of Legation you meet if this is not a breach of international law. It was only the red stripe of the flag that fluttered over our native soil. And this is the one colour of French liberty that will be ours. Red, blood, blood—and alas! not blood shed on the battlefield."
Börne is here only the mouthpiece of a feeling which had taken possession of most of the many in Germany who were susceptible of enthusiasm. The heroism shown by the French students, polytechnicians, and working men during les trois jours glorieux was admired as much as in France itself, and doubly admired as the proof of an energy which the German people appeared to have lost. There was a universal inclination to drift into exaggerated contempt of their own want of political aptitude and insight, their own want of ability to act at the decisive moment.
Thus powerfully did events act upon characters like Börne, and upon the enthusiasts who were to be found in greatest numbers in the scholarly class. Let us complete the picture by observing their effect on the men of the reaction.
Gentz, who had at first exulted over Charles X.'s energy, grew anxious as the coup d'état approached. "I look upon the ordinance against newspapers and books," he writes, "as a tremendous venture, of the success of which I am as yet by no means assured.... Such weapons ought to be played with only by people who are sure of their strength and of the means at their disposal. To venture into such regions means ruin for men like Polignac and Peyronnet."[4]
As soon, however, as the first alarm had subsided, he and his spiritual kindred set to work to take advantage of every mistake made by the Liberals. Wisely turned to account, the after-effects of the Revolution of July in Germany, by the occasion they gave for ruthless repression and persecution, censorship, and imprisonment, might lame the German Liberal movement for many a day; might (as Metternich said a few years later of the Hambach Festival) make the anniversary of the Revolution a day of rejoicing for the good instead of for the bad. And only a year later, Gentz, who at times had seen the future in a very dark light, was able to write: "Away with all gloomy forebodings now! We are not to die, Europe is not to die, and what we love is not to die. I am proud of never having despaired."[5]