"We will hold these principles firmly and honourably; spread them by every possible means; and with all our power, now as youths, and hereafter as men, labour to bring them into exercise.
"When we quit the High School, and are invested with any office, be it high or low, we will fulfil the same honourably, true to Prince and Fatherland, and in such a manner administer it as shall be in accordance with the spirit of these principles.
"The law of the people shall be the will of the Prince. Liberty and Equality are the highest good; after which we have to strive, and from which strift no pious and honest German can ever desist.
"Every student who maintains honour and virtue, shall be a free German Bursche: subject to no one; inferior to no one; all shall be equal, obeying only the laws."
From this time forward the union laboured actively at throwing out and determining the principles of a future civil and ecclesiastical constitution for Germany, and in the dissemination of revolutionary writings. But unfortunately, as in all times of high excitement, spirits of a reckless and darker character mingled themselves with the nobler ones of liberty: for the realization of their intrinsically criminal wishes, criminal means also were necessary, and the spirit of youth was thus unconsciously conducted by fanaticism into unhallowed and bloodthirsty principles, and in the bosom of the Burschenschaft union, formed itself a closer union of The Unrestricted, whose name revealed sufficiently, that they would hesitate at no means by which they might arrive at their object. The misguided and blamable tendency of this spirit, to the horror of many who unconsciously implicated themselves in its criminal proceedings, was brought to light by some striking circumstances. On the 23d of March, 1810, the student Sand murdered the Russian Counsellor of State, Von Kotzebue, on no other ground than that he held him to be a spy of the Russian government, and an enemy of German liberty. He undertook the action with the full persuasion that it was a just and noble deed, and his trial revealed the horrible gulf of political immorality, unto the very brink of which was brought the youth of Germany. A somewhat particular account of this transaction, and of the circumstances of Sand's life, may fittingly here find a place: and which may be relied on, being derived from the relation published by the President of the Commission for the trial of Sand, the State Counsellor, Von Hohenhorst himself.
[CHAPTER V.]
KARL LUDWIG SAND.
Karl Ludwig Sand was born at Wunsiedel, a little town in the district of Baireuth, lying in the Fichtel Mountains, on the 5th of October, 1795. His father was pensionary officer of justice; and the family, which consisted of three sons and two daughters, lived in the most delightful domestic harmony. Sand grew up in his paternal city, under the most careful guidance of his parents, whose good and thorough education, and moral training, such are his own words, in comparison with that of many, he never was able sufficiently to praise. There lay in him the strongest and most delightful recollection of his birthplace. Its very situation, he asserted, in the bosom of noble mountains, in the midst of the great Fatherland, had wrought powerfully upon his disposition of mind, which, especially since much sickness in his early youth, had always been very still. In truth, Sand passed his years of childhood in great weakness and many bodily ailments. In his seventh year he took naturally the small-pox, and of a very bad kind, which left behind them serious effects, especially a dangerous ulcer in the head, of which the grisly scars always continued visible. On that account the physicians forbade all mental exercise, and his proper instruction could only be commenced at home in his tenth year. His father explained, that a dejection of mind which long clung to him was a consequence of the weakness which these complaints had left upon; and therefore, where parents in general would put restraint on young people of lively temperament, he, on the contrary, had always been anxious that his son's disposition should not be further depressed. After Sand had received his first instruction from the tutor, he was sent to the Lyceum, in Wunsiedel. He afterwards followed his teacher to the Gymnasium in Hof, there acquired the first elements of general education, and proceeded in the study of ancient languages. Even at this early period he entertained a vehement hatred to the French. As in the spring of 1812 a great military train passed through Hof, he would neither see the march of the French nor especially Napoleon, since he believed that he could not endure to be in the presence of the arch enemy of his native land, without an attempt to rush upon him and destroy him.
He returned thence to his parents, with whom he continued till they resolved to send him to Regensburg, where he proceeded towards the end of the year 1812, with his tutor Saalfranc, and always called to mind with extreme pleasure his abode there. The testimonies of his life and habits during his sojourn in Hof and Regensburg, are greatly to his credit His good capacity, his restless diligence, his deep study, and not less his highly moral conduct, were greatly applauded. In his 18th year awoke in Sand the resolve to co-operate in doing battle with the common foe of his country. He may speak for himself.
"As in the spring of 1813 the French fled homewards, and Germany began to rouse itself to take vengeance for the shame inflicted on it, there awoke in me a new-born joy, a fresh mind, a new life; and from that hour I doubted no more of a complete liberation from the old slavery, although the heavens became so unpropitious to the Germans. With eager heart and yet with all possible circumspection, I lived in the newspapers of the time; and in the autumn of 1813, which I spent at home, I obtained the permission to join myself to the host of Germany, when in the meantime, came the intelligence of the battle of Leipsic, which rendered my going forth unnecessary."