Sand was lifted out of the carriage, and mounted the scaffold and mounted the scaffold himself, supported by the arms of the two Bridewell masters. Arrived upon it, he turned himself round towards the crowd, then threw the handkerchief, which he held in his hand, forcibly down, with rolling eyes; lifted his hand on high, as if he swore an oath, turned his eyes towards heaven, and then caused himself to be led to the chair of execution, where at his particular request, he remained standing till the preparations of the execution were completed. The sentence of death was thereupon read with a loud voice by the actuary, and then the hands and body of the delinquent fast bound to the pillar. As the executioner bound his hands, Sand said to him in a low voice, "Don't bind me too fast, or it will hurt me." After his eyes were bound the sentence was completed, his head being severed from his body at one blow, and hung only by a part of the skin, which was immediately divided by the sword.
The whole passed over with the greatest order, and with the deepest silence of the spectators, except that at the moment of the fatal blow, was heard exclamations of pity. Many students and other spectators rushed to the scaffold, in order to dip their handkerchiefs in Sand's blood, or to cut small pieces of wood from the scaffold as mementos.
Sand had addressed through the whole time nothing to the public. A short time before his execution, he was heard alone to speak as to himself,--"God give me in my death much gladness--it is completed--I die in the mercy of my God!"
He died with much fortitude and presence of mind, at half-past five o'clock. His corpse with the severed head was soon after laid in the prepared coffin, and this was immediately nailed up. The military then guarded the remains back to the House of Correction; and on the following night at eleven o'clock they were buried in the cemetery of the Lutheran church near the House of Correction.
Kotzebue's dwelling, and the chamber where the murder was committed, are yet shown in Mannheim; and it is said that the spots of blood on the wall have continually reappeared in spite of being many times painted over.
The scaffold, according to custom, became the perquisite of the executioner, who came from Heidelberg. The stranger may observe a small garden-house which was built out of this material, as he goes towards the Bierhälter-hof, by the way of "The Three Troughs," as it is called. To this house for some years, the Burschenschaft were accustomed to go on the anniversary of Sand's execution, in procession, and there with singing, and probably an oration, paid their respect to his memory. Even those who did not approve of murder as a mere political reform, yet were glad that Kotzebue was out of the way, and pitied and even honoured Sand as a devoted and high-minded, though misguided martyr to their cause.
If the act of Sand, perpetrated upon a man who neither in public nor in private life enjoyed its respect, excited in the public mind so much just displeasure, how much more must that have been the case on the villanous attack upon the life of one whom so many social virtues adorned. The attempt to murder Ibell, the President of the First Chamber of Nassau, in the following year, by the fanatic Löning, increased the consternation of the rulers and the credibility of the charge that Germany, and especially its rising generation, was seized with a revolutionary dizziness. It appeared clear that the spirit which had formerly arisen from the salvation of the governments, had now taken a decided tendency to their destruction; and instead therefore of attempting to conciliate by liberal concessions, necessity commanded towards it a system of vigorous repression. The congress of sovereigns assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, had already turned its attention to the critical state of feeling in Germany. Whilst France had become so quiet that the Congress ordered its evacuation by the army of occupation, Germany became a new subject of anxiety. It was Sand's mad murder-deed which first made this manifest, and produced this reaction on the part of the governments. In August, 1819, many German ministers and diplomatists met on this subject at Karlsbad. The excellent Karlsbad resolutions, which were framed at this meeting, were on the 20th of September of the same year, published by the Confederation of States, as the Confederation Resolutions. These, in order to prevent the aberrations of the youth, ordained a strict oversight over both teachers and learners in this respect, and that a government inspector extraordinary should be appointed to every university to observe the teachers, and to restrain the scholars within the bounds of discipline and order.
The Karlsbad resolutions in reference to unions, and especially the Burschenschaft, say:--"The long existing laws against both secret and unauthorized unions in the universities, shall be maintained in their greatest force and stringency, and particularly shall be the more vigorously exercised towards the union instituted within these few years, under the name of a universal Burschenschaft: as at the foundation of this union lies the totally inadmissible presupposition of a lasting association and correspondence between the different universities. The government inspectors shall make it a duty to exercise an especial watchfulness in regard to this point. The governments are agreed upon this, that individuals who, after the publication of these resolutions, shall be found to have remained members of such secret or unauthorized unions, or shall have entered into such, shall not be permitted to hold any public office." Thus, the act of Sand, as is uniformly the case with wild and fanatical deeds of violence, had the very contrary effect to that which he purposed, and instead of serving and establishing the Burschenschaft, hastened its public denouncement and suppression. In all the German states, the freedom of the press was, moreover, abolished, so that in no German state could a manuscript be submitted to the press without censorship. Finally, also, a central commission of inquiry was established in Maintz for the finding out of all demagogical schemes. The Prussian government in particular went to work with pre-eminent energy and vigour, and, by its persecution of many distinguished men, forfeited a portion of that public respect which it had acquired through its strenuous exertions for the liberation of Germany from the French, and through other popular endeavours.
The repose of Germany during the political storms which in the following years shook foreign countries, at length put an end to the government alarms from demagogical agitations. The political inquisitions and persecutions ceased by degrees; the punishment suspended over the erring, became so much the milder as fewer aberrations, in consequence of the established regulations, arose to demand the care of the administrations. If therefore the impulse which the German spirit had acquired in the Liberation War had caused it to rush over its appropriate limits, the German nature yet returned speedily to its inherent morality and propriety; and by its unshakable loyalty to its hereditary princes, and relations, verified that old praise,--that in Germany good morals have more power than elsewhere good laws.