"Die elysäischen Felder entlang,
Durch des Triumphes Bogen,
Wohl durch den Nebel, wohl über den Schnee
Kam langsam der Zug gezogen...."[4]
And then think of the scene (from the Reisebilder) on the battlefield of Marengo. The Russian asks Heine: "Are you a good Russian?" And Heine answers: "Yes, I am a good Russian." For, he goes on to explain, the incessant change of war-cries and of representatives in the great struggle has now led to this—that the most enthusiastic friends of the Revolution look for the salvation of the world from the domination of Russia, look upon the Emperor Nicholas as the standard-bearer of liberty in Europe. The Russian government is permeated with Liberal ideas, its absolutism is simply a dictatorship, which gives it the power to put these ideas into practice, &c., &c.
The mistake is colossal in its simplicity. But for our present purpose this is of no consequence. What interests us is the fact that Russian absolutism, thus understood by Heine, received from him the same measure of approval and sympathy as he had formerly bestowed on the rule of Napoleon. Give this due consideration. Heine, the most advanced representative of Radicalism among the poets of his time, declares the Emperor Nicholas, the most tyrannical autocrat of his time, to be the standard-bearer of liberty! Can this be the same man who took a childish pleasure in invariably associating in his mind the thought of royal or imperial rank with the thought of the guillotine? Remember his words to Barbarossa: "Du wirst hier an ein Brett geschnallt—das senkt sich, &c., &c." (They fasten you to a plank—it is lowered, &c), and the concluding apostrophe to the venerable old emperor: "Die Republikaner lachen uns aus—sehn sie an unserer Spitze—so ein Gespenst mit Scepter und Krön." (The Republicans will laugh us to scorn, if they see us led by an old spectre like you, with sceptre and crown). We see that he sets some value on the opinion of the Republicans, sees things to a certain extent from their standpoint.
Or again, think of that extraordinarily witty poem "1649-1793-?" which first treats of the short and sharp justice meted out to kings in the English and French Revolutions, and then prophesies the impending German revolution, but declares that:
"Der Deutsche wird die Majestät
Behandeln stets mit Pietät.
In einer sechsspännigen Hofkarosse,
Schwarz panaschirt und beflort die Rosse—
Hoch auf dem Bock mit der Trauerpeitsche
Der weinende Kutscher—so wird der deutsche
Monarch einst nach dem Richtplatz kutschirt,
Und unterthänigst guillotinirt."[5]
If this is not simply playing with words and with feelings, there must be an explanation of it, a key to it which Heine himself did not possess. For that there is self-contradiction in such words is undeniable.
The explanation is that Heine was at one and the same time a passionate lover of liberty and an out-and-out aristocrat. He had the freedom-loving nature's thirst for liberty, pined and languished for it, and loved it with his whole soul; but he had also the great nature's admiration for human greatness, and the refined nature's nervous horror of the rule of mediocrity.
In other words, there was not a drop of conservative blood in Heinrich Heine's heart. His blood was revolutionary. But neither was there a drop of democratic blood in his heart. His blood was aristocratic, his desire was to see genius acknowledged as leader and ruler.
When, in his historical retrospects or previsions, he sees a worthless king or emperor guillotined, he applauds. But he would give to Cæsar that which is Cæsar's. Apodote ta Kaisaros Kaisari is the saying of Jesus which is most deeply engraved on his mind. He does not dread a condition of liberty, to which any liberty we have yet known on earth is child's play; but he does not believe that liberty would result from the realisation of the Philistine ideals of the average mind. All mediocrity, Liberal and Republican mediocrity included, he abhors, as inimical to great individuality, to great liberty.
Hence his distrust of the North American Republic, his want of enthusiasm for its liberty: