Part 5 (1/2)
This serious doubt (that of Kotzebue) has fallen heavily on the heart.
We have, therefore, with eagerness undertaken the following proposal for its solution. In Kotzebue's right hand lies, in fact, the means to bring the matter to a tolerable certainty. If that gentleman will in future take the field against the clamour for a const.i.tution in all his Plays with the same sober earnestness, and jibe and joke, with which he has powerfully and perseveringly attacked other follies, then will the success or the failure of his piece throw great light on the sentiments of the people; and the mult.i.tude who, Herr von Kotzebue so justly says, remain silent on the matter in debate--that means, _they print nothing on it_--will certainly, by applauding or censuring, clapping or hissing, speak out. Should the mult.i.tude, by hissing out anti-const.i.tutional pieces, declare for a const.i.tution, so might the theatre immediately furnish the government with a proof whether the declaration was worthy of notice. They might now, as was done in Paris, after the acting of Germanica, march soldiers--actual soldiers--upon the stage, and let them present arms to the pit. If the mult.i.tude now applauded or ran away, it would be the height of the ridiculous to give them a const.i.tution, since it would be manifest that they had not courage to maintain themselves against the hand of power. But hissed and clamoured they still, it would be time ”to _prepare_ the demanded _preparations_ for the _preparation_ of a const.i.tution.”[6]
Sand a.s.signed the ground of his hate against Kotzebue, immediately in the opening of his trial, and he reiterated the same as his actuating motive at its close; namely,--in the evening after the murder, having lost his voice, and being only able to express himself by signs, he requested paper, and wrote with a blacklead pencil these scarcely legible words:--”August von Kotzebue is the corrupter of youth,”-- alluding to Kotzebue's frequently slippery writings, as 'Barth with the Iron Brow,' and such like,--”the slanderer of our people's history, and the Russian spy upon our Fatherland.”
Sand a.s.serted, that by the insight which he had obtained into the character and position of Kotzebue, he immediately perceived that it was impossible that he could much longer continue to live in that manner; but the resolution to destroy him with his own hand did not awake suddenly in him, it demanded gradual growth, and came not to maturity without a severe strife in his own bosom. The well-known history of the discovered bulletin at length threw unquenchable fuel on his burning hatred against Kotzebue.
Kotzebue was, in fact, commissioned by the Russian government to furnish it with full reports on the political affairs and relations of Germany, on the predominant popular opinion, and on its literary transactions. He could, in truth, no more be styled a spy than an amba.s.sador can; but the reports which he delivered--the false and detestable statements regarding Germany which he made in them, deserve the severest condemnation. No one was aware of this secret practice of Kotzebue's, till, through the faithlessness of a copyist, such a bulletin was sent to the well-known historian Luden, then the editor of the Jena ”Nemesis,” a literary paper. The bulletin contained sixteen paragraphs upon Steffens (a writer on the state of those times), Schmalz, Crome, the Allemannia, an opposition paper, the Nemesis, Jung Stilling, English newspapers, mischievous nature of freedom of the press, and, finally, a sort of apology for serfdom. Monarchy was panegyrized in this bulletin, and Luden was represented as a learned man, who, with others of the learned, longed heartily for a revolution, that they might play their parts as popular speakers, deputies, and representatives. Luden, enraged at these calumnies, published the bulletin in the Nemesis, and commented on it in the most amusing manner. Kotzebue, who had immediate information of this fact, procured an order from the Weimar government for the seizure of these sheets, at the moment they should be ready for issue: but Wieland, the editor of the opposition paper, had already received proof-sheets of the article, and caused it to appear at the same time in the People's Friend, which he edited, with still more biting remarks; since Luden, in the Nemesis, had expressed some doubts whether Kotzebue were really the author of these malicious calumnies. A long legal process took place between Kotzebue and the learned editors, and proceedings were laid before the Spruch Collegium--College of Arbitration of the University of Leipsic.
These gentlemen were declared by this tribunal, guilty of a literary robbery upon Kotzebue, since the bulletin was not intended or delivered out by him for publication; but after the death of Kotzebue in the following year, they were declared free from all penalty by the High Court of Appeal in Weimar.
The fact, however, which finally and at once sealed the determination of Sand, was the appearance of the work of Stourdze, and Kotzebue's standing forth as his defender. Stourdze, a Russian, published a most odious and miserable volume, in which he lauded absolute monarchy, railed against freedom of the press, misrepresented the spirit of the German High Schools in the most abominable terms, and at the same time advised that they should be stripped of all their rights and privileges, and laid under the strictest discipline. The author was formally accused by the Burschenschaft of Jena for his calumnies, to the Grand Duke of Weimar, who laid the case before the _Bundestag_.
Stourdze defended himself in the public papers; two youths, not students, but belonging to the Burschenschaft, afterwards challenged him to single combat, whom, however, he answered only with words in the newspapers.
Sand now brooded a whole half-year in irresolution over this thought--whether he should devote himself as the instrument for taking out of the way this, in his eyes, so dangerous an enemy of the weal of the German people. ”The determination,” said he, ”must first progress in myself to a greater maturity, since I have partly to contend in myself with the natural shrinking from the performance of such a deed, and partly with the oft recurring thought that I am worthy of and qualified for something better, by the character of my mind, and my already acquired accomplishments. I have also waited for a third, since I had as good a right to wait for a third, as he to wait for me. But as I found no one, this was likewise a ground of determination for myself.
Oft have I thought--'thou canst quietly live on, if but a third person undertake the deed.' This waiting was thus properly only a wish that another might step before me; for the rest, however, I knew no such third.”
Sand often prayed to G.o.d that this requisition might be allowed to pa.s.s from him, and that he might be left to pursue his ordinary duties.
But in this inward warfare, the inner voice perpetually returned, saying--”Thou hast promised so much, and hast yet done nothing.” The projected work stood thenceforth so vividly before his eyes, that his imagination enabled him to sketch out a drawing of the murder-scene beforehand, which was found amongst some indifferent pen-and-ink outlines amongst his papers in Jena. Still he continued to waver, till the newspapers brought a report, that Kotzebue intended to return to Russia; and then stood forth Sand's resolution to murder the traitor, let it turn out as it would, and though he should himself lead the way to death for him. Besides this it was part of his plan to make a confession, to bring the Death-Blow to the knowledge of the people. His original plan was, after the accomplishment of the deed, to betake himself to his weapons, and to make his escape if possible, so that provided he effected his own retreat, self-destruction formed no part of the scheme. While he brooded over his enterprise, he prepared the instruments of his design. He made choice, to that end, of a smaller and a greater dagger. The latter he called the small sword, and had it made in Jena after a model in wax, prepared by his own hand, and from his own drawing. For the carrying of these weapons he made a hole in the breast of his waistcoat, in which on account of its weight, this dagger hung; but for the lesser one he had a small hook sewed into the left-arm sleeve of his coat, which by a small eye secured the sheath there. Before setting out on his expedition of death, he completed his Death-Blow, or Confession, prepared the fair copy, which after the accomplishment of the act, he purposed to stick up in some public place; then the original of the same, as he called it, and numerous transcripts of the same. This Death-Blow was a doc.u.ment on which Sand long laboured, and for the promulgation of which, after the deed, he had taken measures. It was designed to be a call to the people to rise and a.s.sert their liberty. As this composition not only places in the clearest light the then overstrained state of Sand's mind, but also gives us glimpses of many ideas of the Burschenschaft at that period, which the government were afterwards obliged to hold in check, it shall here find a place.
DEATH-BLOW TO AUGUST VON KOTZEBUE!
”ONLY IN VIRTUE, UNITY.”
”Our days demand a decision for the law which G.o.d has written in flaming characters in the hearts of his men. Prepare yourselves! decide for life and for death!
”Open nightly profligacy is not the corruption which rages in our blood, but vice devours around him only the more hideously under the mantle of an accustomed pious politeness: falsehood masks itself under a thousand a.s.sumed holy forms; and the condition of the people should be the blossom of so many sacrifices, and is the state of the old miserable laxity.
”Half-accomplished fools, and the stunted overwise, for ever deride the truth, which unadorned and simple, throws itself on the human mind, and they cripple and distort her use in life. The moral strength of the Germans is split on the Babel of foreign affectation, and keeps itself no longer in the house-life. The will is wanting in us for the deed.
The Fatherland fails the youth. Courtiers and money-service rule, instead of that honour-firm integrity which has resigned itself to the influence of time, and is become mouldy in it.
”The virtue of the burger cla.s.s bends itself servilely at the nod of the great, and rushes, with already gripped clutch, at the gold-bag.
The idleness of servants devours our bones; courage and hero-mind display themselves alone in paper panoply amongst the whole people in empty vapouring; and since they glow not as pure flames in every heart, we find them not even in ourselves.
”Deep based on equally vile sentiments in the people, stands the most sensual government; and unrestrained arbitrary power needs no other protection than these;--_the separation fraternal hearts by the means of jealously-guarded frontiers_, of the leading-strings of strict and public surveillance; of _cradle-songs, and the sermons of sloth_; and it rests itself as upon very sufficient props, on the wages and the oaths of police and soldiers. Many amongst the great German people may stand far before me; but _I also hate nothing more than the cowardice and effeminacy of this day_. I must give an example of this. I must proclaim myself against this laxity; and I know nothing n.o.bler to achieve than to strike down the arch-slave, and _great advocate of this mercenary time, the corrupter and betrayer of my people--August von Kotzebue!_
”Thou, my German People, exalt thyself, to a higher moral worth of manhood; of the free spirit of man, and his creative strength! My German People! thou hast no realler nor n.o.bler possession; it is thy highest good. Honour, guard this faith--this thy love to G.o.d. Let thy sanctuary no more be trodden under foot.
”Man, be he born in the most miserable and abject condition, is created to become an image of G.o.d. Rely on the promised Christian freedom.
Honour and trust only the free man. Detest the traitors, the slaves in soul, the false teachers, who will not have this. Hate the dastardly poets of half-measures, the preachers of cowardice, the hirelings who hold thee back from every bold enterprise. Detest and murder all those who lift themselves so high in their villanous and despotic fancies that they forget the G.o.dlike in thee, and hold and drive thee, the mad mult.i.tude, in their high-wise hands, as a complex wheel.
”Free conscience! free speech! Man shall solace himself at his own free pleasure in the divine light, of which the fountain is in him. He shall strive after the highest discoveries, and shall be able, unburdened by those of others, to prove and build up his own convictions. But man also shall verify these opinions; he shall live and act; he shall exercise his divine creative power--his will, and shall make it availing. It is for this that we have received the whole might of will--not that we may suffer others to decide what they please concerning us, as over a piece of a field, but that in every condition of life we may determine for ourselves; and therein all virtue demonstrates itself--that we, in every thing which concerns the people, shall take a lively interest, and so act upon our own resolves, each as we will, and not as another compels.
”_Finally, make free your wills!_
”This is the sole, purely human, this the necessary foundation for every human society: this must be won for the German Empire! Only when this sole and righteous condition is achieved, then only can be the discussion on further undertakings.