“We were at Vyler, the last Prussian station from which the boundary, marking the frontier, could be seen; we thought we were at the end of our troubles, but we had reckoned without the station officer. ‘Your papers,’ said he. Each of us showed what the official who searched us at Cologne had left us. ‘Not in order,’ he declared. ‘I shall have to report the matter. In the meantime you must be searched,’ and for a second time, men and women, we were obliged to undress completely and to undergo a more minute search than one could possibly imagine. They even looked between our toes. The brims of our hats were turned back. The insoles of our shoes were lifted up. My watch was opened and the glass of it broken.
“Once more I protested. Police officers, revolver in belt and rifle in hand, surrounded me and commanded me to keep silent. The official came towards me. My last papers and documents were seized and even my private letters were taken…
“The official took leave of me, saying, ‘I shall return all this to you at Düsseldorf when you come back.’
“After a few more minutes waiting we were allowed to cross the frontier. We were free. On my arrival in Holland I noticed that the soldiers who had searched me had taken 90 marks in gold which happened to be in my pocket.”
M. René d’Hennezel, French Vice-Consul at Mannheim, left his post under similar circumstances. At Immendigen a non-commissioned officer and four men burst into his carriage. He examined M. d’Hennezel’s passports and those of M. Lancial, diplomatic attaché, had their luggage carefully searched, and passed on to them the word to follow him to the captain. On the platform the crowd shouted angrily and the non-commissioned officer sneered at them.
The captain questioned them fiercely and declared that their passports were not in order. He prevented them leaving and had them brought back to the station-master’s office, where a fresh examination of their luggage was made in his presence. Finally, he consented to let them travel by Constance, saying, “Above all things, mind what you are about, and take very good care that I hear no complaint of you, or you will immediately be shot. You must get into the luggage van.”
M. Armez, French Consul at Stuttgart, during the last days of his stay received all his correspondence “unsealed as a military safeguard.”
On the 3rd August he was ordered to leave his post within three hours, and to bring only hand luggage. He was stopped at the first station as a spy, and threatened with death by the other passengers, in the presence of a menacing crowd. It was only after many anxieties of every kind and not without having received several blows and even having been wounded, that he succeeded in reaching Constance in Swiss territory.