46

THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

State.  With  several  other  influential  citizens  of  that  town,  he
formed  a  committee  of  resistance,  and  issued  proclamations
calling  on  the  people  to  collect  money  and  arms  in  order  to
oppose  the  government  In  November,  1848,  when  General
Drigalski  proclaimed  a  state  of  siege  in  Dusseldorf,  he  was
arrested  along  with  Cantador,  head  of  the  citizen  guard,  and
tried  for  having  instigated  civil  war.  It  was  not  until  the  3rd
of  May,  1849,  that  he  appeared  before  the  Court  of  Assizes,
when  he  defended  himself  with  a  boldness  and  an  eloquence
that  made  a  deep  impression  upon  the  jury.  He  fearlessly
invoked  the  principle  of  the  French  Revolution,  the  sovereignty
of  the  people.  “  I  have  neither  the  desire  nor  the  right  to  be
acquitted,”  he  exclaimed,  “  unless  you  admit  a  resort  to  arms
as  the  right  and  duty  of  the  people.”  Like  Robespierre,  he
scorched  with  his  burning  irony  the  partisans  of  “passive
resistance.”  “  That  is  the  act  of  men  who  feel  clearly  the  duty
of  resistance,  but  at  the  same  time  are  too  cowardly  to  imperil
their  lives  in  the  matter.  The  crown  conflscates  the  liberties
of  the  entire  nation,  and  what  does  the  National  Assembly  of
Prussia  decree?  Its  displeasure  I  It  is  impossible  to  understand ­
  how  an  assembly  composed  of  the  people’s  representatives ­
  can  descend  to  such  puerilities.”
He  was  acquitted  at  the  Assizes,  but  was  prosecuted  in  the
police  court  for  resistance  to  the  police,  and  condemned  to  six
months’  imprisonment.  He  employed  the  time  in  going
deeply  into  social  questions.  Almost  every  evening  a  workman ­
  named  Kichniawy  used  to  come,  after  his  day’s  work,  and
talk  with  him  on  these  subjects  till  far  into  the  night.
When  liberated,  he  threw  himself  eagerly  into  the  study  of
the  epoch  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany.  He  wished  to  understand ­
  how  it  was  that  the  religious  wars  had  weakened  his
country  by  dividing  it,  and  thus  to  discover  the  best  means
of  reconstituting  its  unity.  There  resulted  from  these  studies
a  drama  entitled  Franz  von  Sickingen,  mediocre  as  far  as
literary  merit  goes,  but  curious  as  a  political  essay.  He  there
unfolds  the  idea,  afterwards  reproduced  by  Prince  Bismarck,
that  great  historical  changes  are  always  accomplished  by  “  fire
and  sword.”  He  was  a  fanatic  on  the  subject  of  German  unity.