Читать книгу The Student-Life of Germany - William Howitt - Страница 19

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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."

Sand returned once more to Regensburg, and proceeded thence to the university of Tübingen. Here he passed quietly the winter half-year of 1814–15, and had begun the second half-year when Napoleon returned from Elba, and Sand felt himself called to stand forth with his countrymen in defence of Germany. His testimonies from Tübingen were highly creditable, yet they expressed suspicions that during his abode there he had been a member of a political union called Teutonia. Sand then first, on the day before his departure, announced to his parents his determination to enter into the army, and took farewell of them by letter. The style and tendency of his letter differ essentially from his subsequent compositions. We see in it only the youth full of zeal and fervour for his country,--who, pure, and without mixture of his subsequent political religious exaltation, avows his intimation to fight to the death for his country and kindred. "With an inward struggle," wrote he amongst other things, "held I myself back the last time when the liberation of Germany was at stake, and it was only the conviction that many thousands then stood in the field, eager for battle and victory for the welfare of Germany, that could detain me." In another place--"The spirit at home and in Bavaria may be as it will, I hold it for the highest duty to fight for the liberty of my German Fatherland; of my dear parents, brothers, and sisters; and of all the good people who love me; and, should numbers gain the advantage over us, to contend to the very last gasp, and triumph over a tyrant in death. Ever shall your beloved images hover round me; ever will I have God before my eyes and in my heart, that I may be strengthened to bear with serenity all the fatigues and dangers of this holy war. Yet wherefore make the hearts of each other so heavy? We alone have the right, the sacred cause. There is a righteous God, and how then shall we not have the victory?"

The letter concludes with the words of Theodore Körner, which Sand had often in his mouth--

Though rages hell itself,

God, thy mighty hand,

Hurls down the tower of lies.

Perchance high o'er the slaughtered foes The Star of Peace shall rise.

Sand set out with two friends on the way through Stuttgard to Heidelberg, where he stayed some days, and then went on to Mannheim, where he announced himself to the general staff of Graf Rechberg, and was received as cadet in the volunteer Jägers of the Rezat Circle. Before his departure from Tübingen, a friend presented him with a small riband which he continually wore during the campaign, and afterwards, at his arrest, it was still found round his neck. It was green and white. The troops, which Sand's brother also had now joined, already in Homberg, met the news of the victory of Waterloo; they marched forward, however, to Meaux, and into the neighbourhood of Fontainbleau, but soon after drew into cantonments in Auxurre, and from thence marched directly back, and entered Anspach the 2d of December, 1815. Sand remembered his military career with the highest dissatisfaction, since, as he expressed himself, he had never had the good fortune to kill a Frenchman. He had written upon his riband these words:--"With this dedicated I myself in 1815 to death. Was it not in earnest? Would I have recrossed the Rhine again except as a conqueror!"

Sand betook himself to Erlangen, and occupied himself there two years with the study of theology. Here it happened that in the summer of 1817, one of his dearest friends, while bathing, was drowned before his eyes, and he himself was in great danger of his life. This loss operated so strongly on his mind, that as he himself declared, he believed that the spring of life was now over, and that its summer had now shown itself. Consoled by his teachers and friends, he now gave the first proof of his talents for preaching in the High Church at Erlangen, continued there till the end of the half year, and then went to Jena. Sand conducted himself during his residence in Erlangen as exemplarily as before, yet he was at the same time an active member of the Teutonia there; in fact he was twice a leader of this union, and drew up a constitution for the Burschenschaft, under the title of the Erlangen Burschenschaft-Custom. From Erlangen and Jena he made several short journeys, and amongst them the one to Eisenach, which proved so influential on his future life. There he joined in the celebration of the festival on the Wartburg, on the 18th of October, 1817, and his part in this transaction he thus describes:--

"On the 17th of October I arrived in Eisenach, and was chosen on the festival-committee. I here helped to keep order; heard the speeches on the Wartburg, but did not speak myself; I went in the evening to the fire, and saw the books burnt. On the following morning I heard speeches for the reconcilement of the disputes of many of the student-quarrels of former years, and listened to the splendid orations on the Fatherland. I accompanied the Burschen to the church, and partook of the sacrament; then was the festival ended, and I returned to Jena." He adds, that it had been a festival simply for the elevation of the sacred cause, and that no determinate object besides had been contemplated.

In Jena, Sand continued to educate himself, in order, as he expressed himself, the better to look about himself, and to ground himself fairly in the different departments of knowledge; till suddenly the inner call for ever summoned him away. His teachers there gave their testimony that he always appeared as a grave, quiet, and discreet man, zealously striving after excellence. That he was accustomed to speak little, since speaking appeared a difficulty to him; but that what he did say, was always prudent, well-considered, and sensible, and that his deportment had nothing displeasing in it, although it was energetic and firm. During his abode in Jena, he was a member of the so-called Burschenschaft, but at the same time also of another company, which he termed a Literary Union. He made from Jena a journey into North Germany, and visited many of the most celebrated battle-fields of both past and modern times. After his return he proceeded again with his studies with unremitting diligence, and had obtained permission from his parents to continue another half-year in Jena, when he suddenly broke off, on the 9th of March, 1819, at four o'clock in the morning, and set out on his last fatally eventful journey towards Mannheim.

We have thus followed the thread of Sand's history to this period with sufficient minuteness, and we have permitted ourselves to sketch it with the more exactness, since it is particularly interesting to trace all the causes which could conduct a character, otherwise so excellent, to such a crime;--as, moreover, conjectures respecting these causes can only be rightly founded on a real knowledge of the circumstances of the case, and from these only can those conclusions be drawn, which were, though without effect, employed in the defence of this singular man. In his history we behold the fac-simile of the history of the whole Burschenschaft to which he belonged. A description of his person, from that officially drawn up, may precede the relation of his unhappy deed. In the protocol it stands thus:--

"Sand was in age twenty-three and a half years; stood five feet six inches high; had strong black hair and eyebrows; a high forehead, gray eyes, longish nose, mouth of middle size, dark-brown very weak beard, ordinary chin, broad countenance, tolerably healthy colour, with some pock-marks in the face." His look was open, and for the most part friendly, but not eminently intellectual; his physiognomy good-natured, but not especially interesting; his visage might be termed an involuntary mirror of his mind. So painted themselves wrath and scorn upon it, when the speech turned upon Kotzebue and his connexion with Germany; so might be read in it a painful, or an hostile feeling, when the principles of his system must be attacked; so that, in the end, very little attention became necessary to discern by it, when his answers did not contain the truth. The play of the muscles of his forehead was particularly strikingly acted upon by an internal feeling of resistance, which generally rose in him when he desired by some means to conceal the truth.

Kotzebue's writings had been long disliked by Sand. Many of his early assertions betray it. Such was his observation to his father:--"Of what use is the man's literary talent, when the German heart is wanting?" On the burning of his History of Germany, on the Wartburg, he became immediately watchful of him; but still more, when shortly afterwards his literary Wochenblatt, or weekly paper, appeared. In this publication, Kotzebue promulgated his opinions often and variously on the then state of German affairs, and many of his views must have given great displeasure. Thus, he contended especially against the promotion of a combined and constitutional government in Germany, and asserted that the loud demand for this was by no means the voice of the people, of whom he very much doubted, whether they wanted any constitution at all. For this bold assertion, Kotzebue was instantly attacked and ridiculed on all sides. A specimen of the missiles launched against him on the occasion, may be given from an article in the "Zeitung für die elegante Welt,"--News for the Elegant World, in the year 1818:--

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 constitution 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 multitude 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 multitude, by hissing out anti-constitutional pieces, declare for a constitution, 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 multitude now applauded or ran away, it would be the height of the ridiculous to give them a constitution, 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 constitution."^[6]

Sand assigned 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 asserted, 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 ambassador 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 God that this requisition might be allowed to pass 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 document 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 assert 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.