¶ It was a curious situation. Bismarck was both rude and crude!
His style of delivery was lame, his voice improperly placed, his mannerisms grotesque. Despite his hobbling oratory, however, Bismarck was soon a marked man; he held his audience by his sensational ideas and his dogged courage!
¶ Why did Bismarck vote against every new privilege? This may not be decently answered in a word; you must read on in detail; there was a great principle behind Bismarck’s political attitude. True, it was crudely conceived and expressed, at this period; but he will improve with time.
¶ Bismarck well remembered the excesses of German Jacobins, in the southwest, during the turbulent years of the French Revolution. Alsace and Lorraine had welcomed massacres as signs of political equality; mob leaders destroyed castles and monasteries; Jew-baiters went mad; Schneider, the tyrant of Strassburg, took charge of the guillotine, but not making enough blood flow, was soon aided by professional executioners, straight from Paris.
¶ There was also the lunatic “Feast of Reason.” Stark-mad Germans paraded with Marat’s statue, attacked churches, wrecked altars, heaped up images of saints, crosses, pews, pulpits, and priests’ garments, touched the match, and danced around the fire;—while Schneider harangued the mob on the joys of reason, as against revealed religion; solemnly assuring his thousands of listeners that Christianity was now a thing of the past.
¶ Thus the mad war of liberty burst forth, accompanied by many extraordinary episodes. Nor were the followers confined exclusively to the rabble; we find many noted teachers, scholars and politicians endorsing the French guillotine as a remedy for all political ills—men like Blau, Wedekind, Hoffmann, Foster, Stamm, Dorsch, not overlooking the spectacular John Mueller, who in the cause of the people committed unheard-of follies with his pen, as a necessary support for the sword.
¶ There was also a stark-mad leader named Cloots, who usually signed his bulletins “Cloots, Personal Enemy of Jesus of Nazareth.” His object was the union of all mankind, literally speaking; no halfway measures for him, no long delays; he wanted his political salvation here and now.
¶ So inflamed were the people that the discharge of a tailor’s apprentice, in Breslau, precipitated a riot and the artillery was brought into play.
¶ In Saxony, 18,000 peasants demanded a democratic constitution; but the authorities replied by sending the messenger to a mad-house.