[Footnote 9: Either the Prussian minister who afterward gained such celebrity or one of his relations.]
[Footnote 10: Here Skekuly forced the German clubbists, with the lash, to cut down the tree of liberty.]
[Footnote 11: Forster wrote from Paris, "Suspicion hangs over every foreigner, and the essential distinctions which ought to be made in this respect are of no avail." Thus did nature, by whom nations are eternally separated, avenge herself on the fools who had dreamed of universal equality.]
[Footnote 12: Cloots had incessantly preached war, threatened all the kings of the earth with destruction, and, in his vanity, had even set a price upon the head of the Prussian monarch. His object was the union of the whole of mankind, the abolition of nationality. The French were to receive a new name, that of "Universel." He preached in the convention: "I have struggled during the whole of my existence against the powers of heaven and earth. There is but one God, Nature, and but one sovereign, mankind, the people, united by reason in one universal republic. Religion is the last obstacle, but the time has arrived for its destruction. J'occupe la tribune de l'univers. Je le repète, le genre humain est Dieu, le Peuple Dieu. Quiconque a la débilité de croire en Dieu ne sauroit avoir la sagacité de connaitre le genre humain, le souverain unique," etc.—Moniteur of 1793, No. 120. He also subscribed himself the "personal enemy of Je«us of Nazareth.">[
[Footnote 13: Whose nephew, the celebrated traveller, Rengger, was, with Bonpland, so long imprisoned in Paraguay.]
[Footnote 14: He had been already imprisoned and was ordered to the guillotine, but not being able to find his boots quickly enough, his execution was put off until the morrow. During the night, Robespierre fell, and his life was saved. He continued to reside at Paris, where he never quitted his apartment, cherished his beard, and associated solely with ecclesiastics.]
[Footnote 15: After an interview with his wife, Theresa (daughter to the great philologist, Heyne of Grottingen), on the French frontier, he returned to Paris and killed himself by drinking aquafortis. Vide Crome's Autobiography. Theresa entered into association with Huber, the journalist, whom she shortly afterward married. She gained great celebrity by her numerous romances.]
[Footnote 16: The popular work "Huergelmer" relates, among other things, the conduct of the Margrave of Baden toward Lauchsenring, his private physician, whom he, on account of the liberality of his opinions, delivered over to the Austrian general, who sentenced him to the bastinado.]
[Footnote 17: Schnelter says: "The first great conspiracy was formed in the vicinity of the throne, A.D. 1793. The chief conspirator was Hebenstreit, the commandant, who held, by his office, the keys to the arsenal, and had every place of importance in his power. His fellow conspirators were Prandstätter, the magistrate and poet, who, by his superior talents, led the whole of the magistracy, and possessed great influence in the metropolis, Professor Riedl, who possessed the confidence of the court, which he frequented for the purpose of instructing some of the principal personages, and Häckel, the merchant, who had the management of its pecuniary affairs. The rest of the conspirators belonged to every class of society and were spread throughout every province of the empire. The plan consisted in the establishment of a democratic constitution, the first step to which appears to have been an attempt against the life of the imperial family. The signal for insurrection was to be given by firing the immense wood-yards. The hearts of the people were to be gained by the destruction of the government accounts. The discovery was made through a conspiracy formed in Denmark. The chief conspirator was seized and sent to the gallows. The rest were exiled to Munkatch, where several of them had succumbed to the severity of their treatment and of the climate when their release was effected by Bonaparte by the peace of Campo Formio, which gave rise to the supposition that the Hebenstreit conspiracy was connected with the French republicans and Jacobins. The second conspiracy was laid in Hungary, by the bishop and abbot, Josephus Ignatius Martinowits, a man whom the emperors Joseph, Leopold, and Francis had, on account of his talent and energy, loaded with favors. The plan was an actionalis conspiratio, for the purpose of contriving an attempt against the sacred person of his Majesty the king, the destruction of the power of the privileged classes in Hungary, the subversion of the administration, and the establishment of a democracy. The means for the execution of this project were furnished by two secret societies." Huergelmer relates: "A certain Dr. Plank somewhat thoughtlessly ridiculed the institution of the jubilee; in order to convince him of its utility, he was sent as a recruit to the Italian army, an act that was highly praised by the newspapers." On the 22d of July, 1795, a Baron von Riedel was placed in the pillory at Vienna for some political crime, and was afterward consigned to the oblivion of a dungeon; the same fate, some days later, befell Brand-Btetter, Fellesneck, Billeck, Ruschitiski (Ephemeridae of 1796). A Baron Taufner was hanged at Vienna as a traitor to his country (E. of 1796).]
[Footnote 18: "The increase of crime occasioned by the artifices of the police, who thereby gained their livelihood, rendered an especial statute, prohibitory of such measures, necessary in the new legislature. Even the passing stranger perceived the disastrous effect of their intrigues upon the open, honest character and the social habits of the Viennese. The police began gradually to be considered as a necessary part of the machine of government, a counterbalance to or a remedy for the faults committed by other branches of the administration. Large sums, the want of which was heavily felt in the national education and in the army, were expended on this arsenal of poisoned weapons."—Hormayr's Pocket-Book, 1832. Thugut is described as a diminutive, hunchbacked old man, with a face resembling the mask of a fawn and with an almost satanic expression.]