Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4

by Wolfgang Menzel

CCXLVII. German Jacobins

In Lorraine and Alsace, the Revolution had been hailed with delight by the long-oppressed people. On the 10th of July, 1789, the peasants destroyed the park of the bishop, Rohan, at Zabern, and killed immense quantities of game. The chateaux and monasteries throughout the country were afterward reduced to heaps of ruins, and, in Suntgau, the peasants took especial vengeance on the Jews, who had, in that place, long lived on the fat of the land. Mulhausen received a democratic constitution and a Jacobin club. In Strasburg, the town-house was assailed by the populace,[1] notwithstanding which, order was maintained by the mayor, Dietrich. The unpopular bishop, Rohan, was replaced by Brendel, against whom the people of Colmar revolted, and even assaulted him in the church for having taken the oath imposed by the French republic, and which was rejected by all good Catholics. Dietrich, aided by the great majority of the citizens of Strasburg, long succeeded in keeping the sans culottes at bay, but was at length overcome, deprived of his office, and guillotined at Paris, while Eulogius Schneider, who had formerly been a professor at Bonn, then court preacher to the Catholic duke, Charles of Wurtemberg,[2] became the tyrant of Strasburg, and, in the character of public accuser before the revolutionary tribunal, conducted the executions. The national convention at Paris nominated as his colleague Monet, a man twenty-four years of age, totally ignorant of the German language, and who merely made himself remarkable for his open rapacity.[3] This was, however, a mere prelude to far greater horrors. Two members of the convention, St. Just and Lebas, unexpectedly appeared at Strasburg, declared that nothing had as yet been done, ordered the executions to take place on a larger scale, and, A.D. 1793, imposed a fine of nine million livres on the already plundered city. The German costume and mode of writing were also prohibited; every sign, written in German, affixed to the houses, was taken down, and, finally, the whole of the city council and all the officers of the national guard were arrested and either exiled or guillotined, notwithstanding their zealous advocacy of revolutionary principles, on the charge of an understanding with Austria, without proof, on a mere groundless suspicion, without being permitted to defend themselves, for the sole purpose of removing them out of the way in order to replace them with trueborn Frenchmen, a Parisian mob, who established themselves in the desolate houses. Schneider and Brendel continued to retain their places by means of the basest adulation. On the 21st of November, a great festival was solemnized in the Minster, which had been converted into a temple of Reason. The bust of Marat, the most loathsome of all the monsters engendered by the Revolution, was borne in solemn procession to the cathedral, before whose portals an immense fire was fed with pictures and images of the saints, crucifixes, priests' garments, and sacred vessels, among which Brendel hurled his mitre. Within the cathedral walls, Schneider delivered a discourse in controversion of the Christian religion, which he concluded by solemnly renouncing; a number of Catholic ecclesiastics followed his example. All the statues and ecclesiastical symbols were piled in a rude heap at the foot of the great tower, which it was also attempted to pull down for the promotion of universal equality, an attempt which the extraordinary strength of the building and the short reign of revolutionary madness fortunately frustrated. All the more wealthy citizens had, meanwhile, been consigned either to the guillotine or to prison, and their houses filled with French bandits, who revelled in their wealth and dishonored their wives and daughters. Eulogius Schneider was compelled to seek at midnight for a wife, suspicion having already attached to him on account of his former profession. It was, however, too late. On the following morning, he was seized and sent to Paris, where he was guillotined. All ecclesiastics, all schoolmasters, even the historian, Friese, were, without exception, declared suspected and dragged to the prisons of Besançon, where they suffered the harshest treatment at the hands of the commandant, Prince Charles of Hesse. In Strasburg, Neumann, who had succeeded Schneider as public accuser, raged with redoubled fury. The guillotine was ever at work, was illuminated during the night time, and was the scene of the orgies of the drunken bandits. On the advance of the French armies to the frontiers, the whole country was pillaged.[4]

In other places, where the plundering habits of the French had not cooled the popular enthusiasm, it still rose high, more particularly at Mayence. This city, which had been rendered a seat of the Muses by the elector, Frederick Charles, was in a state of complete demoralization. On the loss of Strasburg, Mayence, although the only remaining bulwark of Germany, was entirely overlooked. The war had already burst forth; no imperial army had as yet been levied, and the fortifications of Mayence were in the most shameful state of neglect. Magazines had been established by the imperial troops on the left bank of the Rhine, seemingly for the mere purpose of letting them fall into the hands of Custine: but eight hundred Austrians garrisoned Mayence; the Hessians, although numerically weak, were alone sincere in their efforts for the defence of Germany. Custine's advanced guard no sooner came in sight than the elector and all the higher functionaries fled to Aschaffenburg. Von Gymnich, the commandant of Mayence, called a council of war and surrendered the city, which was unanimously declared untenable by all present with the exception of Eikenmaier, who, notwithstanding, went forthwith over to the French, and of Andujar, the commander of the eight hundred Austrians, with whom he instantly evacuated the place. The Illuminati, who were here in great number, triumphantly opened the gates to the French, A.D. 1792. The most extraordinary scenes were enacted. A society, the members of which preached the doctrines of liberty and equality, and at whose head stood the professors Blau, Wedekind, Metternich, Hoffmann, Forster, the eminent navigator, the doctors Böhmer and Stamm, Dorsch of Strasburg, etc., chiefly men who had formerly been Illuminati, was formed in imitation of the revolutionary Jacobin club at Paris.[5] These people committed unheard-of follies. At first, notwithstanding their doctrine of equality, they were distinguished by a particular ribbon; the women, insensible to shame, wore girdles with long ends, on which the word "liberty" was worked in front, and the word "equality" behind. Women, girt with sabres, danced franticly around tall trees of liberty, in imitation of those of France, and fired off pistols. The men wore monstrous mustaches in imitation of those of Custine, whom, notwithstanding their republican notions, they loaded with servile flattery. As a means of gaining over the lower orders among the citizens, who with plain good sense opposed their apish tricks, the clubbists demolished a large stone, by which the Archbishop Adolphus had formerly sworn, "You, citizens of Mayence, shall not regain your privileges until this stone shall melt." This, however, proved as little effective as did the production of a large book, in which every citizen, desirous of transforming the electorate of Mayence into a republic, was requested to inscribe his name. Notwithstanding the threat of being treated, in case of refusal, as slaves, the citizens and peasantry, plainly foreseeing that, instead of receiving the promised boon of liberty, they would but expose themselves to Custine's brutal tyranny, withheld their signatures, and the clubbists finally established a republic under the protection of France without the consent of the people, removed all the old authorities, and, at the close of 1792, elected Dorsch, a remarkably diminutive, ill-favored man, who had formerly been a priest, president.

The manner in which Custine levied contributions in Frankfort on the Maine,[6] was still less calculated to render the French popular in Germany. Cowardly as this general was, he, nevertheless, told the citizens of Frankfort a truth that time has, up to the present period, confirmed. "You have beheld the coronation of the emperor of Germany? Well! you will not see another."

Two Germans, natives of Colmar in Alsace, Rewbel and Hausmann, and a Frenchman, Merlin, all three members of the national convention, came to Mayence for the purpose of conducting the defence of that city. They burned symbolically all the crowns, mitres, and escutcheons of the German empire, but were unable to induce the citizens of Mayence to declare in favor of the republic. Rewbel, infuriated at their opposition, exclaimed that he would level the city to the ground, that he should deem himself dishonored were he to waste another word on such slaves. A number of refractory persons were expelled from the city,[7] and, on the 17th of March, 1793, although three hundred and seventy of the citizens alone voted in its favor, a Teuto-Rhenish national convention, under the presidency of Hoffmann, was opened at Mayence and instantly declared in favor of the union of the new republic with France. Forster, in other respects a man of great elevation of mind, forgetful, in his enthusiasm, of all national pride, personally carried to Paris the scandalous documents in which the French were humbly entreated to accept of a province of the German empire. The Prussians, who had remained in Luxemburg (without aiding the Austrians), meanwhile advanced to the Rhine, took Coblentz, which Custine had neglected to garrison (a neglect for which he afterward lost his head), repulsed a French force under Bournonville, when on the point of forming a junction with Custine, at Treves, expelled Custine from Frankfort,[8] and closely besieged Mayence, which, after making a valiant defence, was compelled to capitulate in July.

Numbers of the clubbists fled, or were saved by the French, when evacuating the city, in the disguise of soldiers. Others were arrested and treated with extreme cruelty. Every clubbist, or any person suspected of being one, received five and twenty lashes in the presence of Kalkreuth, the Prussian general. Metternich was, together with numerous others, carried off, chained fast between the horses of the hussars, and, whenever he sank from weariness, spurred on at the sabre point. Blau had his ears boxed by the Prussian minister, Stein.[9] A similar reaction took place at Worms,[10] Spires, etc.

The German Jacobins suffered the punishment amply deserved by all those who look for salvation from the foreigner. Those who had barely escaped the vengeance of the Prussian on the Rhine were beheaded by their pretended good friends in France. Robespierre, an advocate, who, at that period, governed the convention, sent every foreigner who had enrolled himself as a member of the Jacobin club to the guillotine, as a suspicious person, a bloody but instructive lesson to all unpatriotic German Gallomanists.[11]

The victims who fell on this occasion were, a prince of Salm-Kyrburg, who had voluntarily republicanized his petty territory, Anacharsis Cloots,[12] and the venerable Trenk, who had so long pined in Frederick's prisons. Adam Lux, a friend of George Forster, was also beheaded for expressing his admiration of Charlotte Corday, the murderess of Marat. Marat was a Prussian subject, being a native of Neufchâtel. Göbel von Bruntrut, uncle to Rengger,[13] a celebrated character in the subsequent Swiss revolution, vicar-general of Basel, a furious revolutionist, who had on that account been appointed bishop of Paris, presented himself on the 6th of November, 1793, at the bar of the convention as an associate of Cloots, Hebert, Chaumette, etc., cast his mitre and other insignia of office to the ground, and placing the bonnet rouge on his head, solemnly renounced the Christian faith and proclaimed that of "liberty and equality." The rest of the ecclesiastics were compelled to imitate his example; the Christian religion was formally abolished and the worship of Reason was established in its stead. Half-naked women were placed upon the altars of the desecrated churches and worshipped as "goddesses of Reason." Göbel's friend, Pache, a native of Freiburg, a creature abject as himself, was particularly zealous, as was also Proli, a natural son of the Austrian minister, Kaunitz. Prince Charles of Hesse, known among the Jacobins as Charles Hesse, fortunately escaped. Schlaberndorf,[14] a Silesian count, who appears to have been a mere spectator, and Oelsner, a distinguished author, were equally fortunate. These two latter remained in Paris. Reinhard, a native of Wurtemberg, secretary to the celebrated Girondin, Vergniaud, whom he is said to have aided in the composition of his eloquent speeches, remained in the service of France, was afterward ennobled and raised to the ministry. Felix von Wimpfen, whom the faction of the Gironde (the moderates who opposed the savage Jacobins) elected their general, and who, attempting to lead a small force from Normandy against Paris, was defeated and compelled to seek safety by flight. The venerable Lukner, the associate of Lafayette, who had termed the great Revolution merely "a little occurrence in Paris," was beheaded. The unfortunate George Forster perceived his error and died of sorrow.[15] Among the other Rhenish Germans of distinction, who had at that time formed a connection with France, Joseph Görres brought himself, notwithstanding his extreme youth, into great note at Coblentz by his superior talents. He went to Paris as deputy of Treves and speedily became known by his works (Rubezahl and the Red Leaf). He also speedily discovered the immense mistake made by the Germans in resting their hopes upon France. It was indeed a strange delusion to suppose the vain and greedy Frenchman capable of being inspired with disinterested love for all mankind, and it was indeed a severe irony, that, after such repeated and cruel experience, after having for centuries seen the French ever in the guise of robbers and pillagers, and after breathing such loud complaints against the princes who had sold Germany to France, that the warmest friends of the people should on this occasion be guilty of similar treachery, and, like selecting the goat for a gardener, entrust the weal of their country to the French.

The people in Germany too little understood the real motives and object of the French Revolution, and were too soon provoked by the predatory incursions of the French troops, to be infected with revolutionary principles. These merely fermented among the literati; the Utopian idea of universal fraternization was spread by Freemasonry; numbers at first cherished a hope that the Revolution would preserve a pure moral character, and were not a little astonished on beholding the monstrous crimes to which it gave birth. Others merely rejoiced at the fall of the old and insupportable system, and numerous anonymous pamphlets in this spirit appeared in the Rhenish provinces. Fichte, the philosopher, also published an anonymous work in favor of the Revolution. Others again, as, for instance, Reichard, Girtanner, Schirach, and Hoffmann, set themselves up as informers, and denounced every liberal-minded man to the princes as a dangerous Jacobin. A search was made for Crypto-Jacobins, and every honest man was exposed to the calumny of the servile newspaper editors. French republicanism was denounced as criminal, notwithstanding the favor in which the French language and French ideas were held at all the courts of Germany. Liberal opinions were denounced as criminal, notwithstanding the example first set by the courts in ridiculing religion, in mocking all that was venerable and sacred. Nor was this reaction by any means occasioned by a burst of German patriotism against the tyranny of France, for the treaty of Basel speedily reconciled the self-same newspaper editors with France. It was mere servility; and the hatred which, it may easily be conceived, was naturally excited against the French as a nation, was vented in this mode upon the patient Germans,[16] who were, unfortunately, ever doomed, whenever their neighbors were visited with some political chronic convulsion, to taste the bitter remedy. But few of the writers of the day took a historical view of the Revolution and weighed its irremediable results in regard to Germany, besides Gentz, Rehberg, and the Baron von Gagern, who published an "Address to his Countrymen," in which he started the painful question, "Why are we Germans disunited?" The whole of these contending opinions of the learned were, however, equally erroneous. It was as little possible to preserve the Revolution from blood and immorality, and to extend the boon of liberty to the whole world, as it was to suppress it by force, and, as far as Germany was concerned, her affairs were too complicated and her interests too scattered for any attempt of the kind to succeed. A Doctor Faust, at Buckeburg, sent a learned treatise upon the origin of trousers to the national convention at Paris, by which Sansculottism had been introduced; an incident alone sufficient to show the state of feeling in Germany at that time.

The revolutionary principles of France merely infected the people in those parts of Germany where their sufferings had ever been the greatest, as, for instance, in Saxony, where the peasantry, oppressed by the game laws and the rights of the nobility, rose, after a dry summer by which their misery had been greatly increased, to the number of eighteen thousand, and sent one of their class to lay their complaints before the elector, A.D. 1790. The unfortunate messenger was instantly consigned to a madhouse, where he remained until 1809, and the peasantry were dispersed by the military. A similar revolt of the peasantry against the tyrannical nuns of Wormelen, in Westphalia, merely deserves mention as being characteristic of the times. A revolt of the peasantry, of equal unimportance, also took place in Buckeburg, on account of the expulsion of three revolutionary priests, Froriep, Meyer, and Rauschenbusch. In Breslau, a great émeute, which was put down by means of artillery, was occasioned by the expulsion of a tailor's apprentice, A.D. 1793.