The Proclamation was to take place in front of Christiansborg Castle on December 16th, at 11 o'clock. I was fetched to it by a student of the same age, the present Bishop Frederik Nielsen. The latter had made my acquaintance when a Free-thinker, but fortunately he recognised his errors only a very few years later, and afterwards the valiant theologian wrote articles and pamphlets against the heretic he had originally cultivated for holding the same opinions as himself. There is hardly anyone in Denmark who persists in error; people recognise their mistakes in time, before they have taken harm to their souls; sometimes, indeed, so much betimes that they are not even a hindrance to their worldly career.
The space in front of the Castle was black with people, most of whom were in a state of no little excitement. Hall, who was then Prime Minister, stepped out on the balcony of the castle, grave and upright, and said, first standing with his back to the Castle, then looking to the right and the left, these words: "King Frederik VII is dead. Long live King Christian IX!"
Then the King came forward. There were loud shouts, doubtless some cries of "Long live the King," but still more and louder shouts of: "The Constitution forever!" which were by no means loyally intended. At a distance, from the Castle balcony, the different shouts could, of course, not be distinguished. As the King took them all to be shouts of acclamation, he bowed politely several times, and as the shouts continued kissed his hand to right and left. The effect was not what he had intended. His action was not understood as a simple-hearted expression of pure good-will. People were used to a very different bearing on the part of their King. With all his faults and foibles, Frederik VII was always in manner the Father of his people; always the graceful superior; head up and shoulders well back, patronisingly and affectionately waving his hand: "Thank you, my children, thank you! And now go home and say 'Good-morning' to your wives and children from the King!" One could not imagine Frederik VII bowing to the people, much less kissing his hand to them.
There was a stormy meeting of the Students' Union that evening. Vilhelm Rode made the principal speech and caustically emphasised that it took more than a "Kiss of the hand and a parade bow" to win the hearts of the Danish people. The new dynasty, the head of which had been abused for years by the National Liberal press, especially in The Fatherland, who had thrown suspicion of German sympathies on the heir-presumptive, was still so weak that none of the students thought it necessary to take much notice of the change of sovereigns that had taken place. This was partly because since Frederik VII's time people had been accustomed to indiscriminate free speech concerning the King's person--it was the fashion and meant nothing, as he was beloved by the body of the people --partly because what had happened was not regarded as irrevocable. All depended on whether the King signed the Constitution, and even the coolest and most conservative, who considered that his signing it would be a fatal misfortune, thought it possible that Christian IX. would be dethroned if he did not. So it is not difficult to form some idea of how the Hotspurs talked. The whole town was in a fever, and it was said that Prince Oscar was in Scania, ready at the first sign to cross the Sound and allow himself to be proclaimed King on behalf of Charles XV. Men with Scandinavian sympathies hoped for this solution, by means of which the three kingdoms would have been united without a blow being struck.
In the middle of the meeting, there arrived a message from Crone, the Head of Police, which was delivered verbally in this incredibly irregular form--that the Head of Police was as good a Scandinavian as anyone, but he begged the students for their own sakes to refrain from any kind of street disturbance that would oblige him to interfere.
I, who had stood on the open space in front of the Castle, lost in the crowd, and in the evening at the meeting of the students was auditor to the passionate utterances let fall there, felt my mood violently swayed, but was altogether undecided with regard to the political question, the compass of which I could not fully perceive. I felt anxious as to the attitude of foreign powers would be in the event of the signing of the Constitution. Old C.N. David had said in his own home that if the matter should depend on him, which, however, he hoped it would not, he would not permit the signing of the Constitution, were he the only man in Denmark of that way of thinking, since by so doing we should lose our guarantee of existence, and get two enemies instead of one, Russia as well as Germany.
The same evening I wrote down: "It is under such circumstances as these that one realises how difficult it is to lead a really ethical existence. I am not far-sighted enough to perceive what would be the results of that which to me seems desirable, and one cannot conscientiously mix one's self up in what one does not understand. Nevertheless, as I stood in the square in front of the Castle, I was so excited that I even detected in myself an inclination to come forward as a political speaker, greenhorn though I be."
XIII.
On the 18th of November, the fever in the town was at its height. From early in the morning the space in front of the Castle was crowded with people. Orla Lehmann, a Minister at the time, came out of the Castle, made his way through the crowd, and shouted again and again, first to one side, then to the other:
"He has signed! He has signed!"