LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

not until it has completed the task of adjusting a German constitution," observed the professor.

      "Which is just saying the same thing in different words. But, pray, what is exciting this storm of wrath in the bosom of the respectable Mr Simon?"

      "He is merely denouncing the sovereigns and the aristocracy. It is a favourite topic. But look there! that is a great man – ah, a very great man indeed!"

      Without challenging the claim of the individual indicated to greatness, I am committing no libel when I designate him as the very ugliest man in Europe. The broad arch of his face was fringed with a red bush of furzy hair. His eyes were inflamed and pinky, like those of a ferret labouring under opthalmia, and his nose, mouth, and tusks, bore a palpable resemblance to the muzzle of the bulldog. Altogether, it is impossible to conceive a more thoroughly forbidding figure. This was Robert Blum, the well-known publisher of Leipzig, who has put himself prominently forward from the very commencement of the movement; and who, possessing a certain power of language which may pass with the multitude for eloquence, and professing opinions of extreme democratic tendency, has gained a popularity and power in Frankfort, which is not regarded without uneasiness by the members of the more moderate party. As this worthy was a bookseller, and Klingemann still in possession of piles of unpublished manuscript, I could understand and forgive the enthusiasm and veneration of the latter.

      Simon having concluded his inflammatory harangue, the tribune was next occupied by a person of a different stamp. He was, I think, without any exception, the finest-looking man in the Assembly – in the prime of manhood, tall, handsome, and elegantly dressed, and bearing, moreover, that unmistakeable air which belongs to the polished gentleman alone. His manner of speaking was hasty, and not such as might be approved of by the practised debater, but extremely fluent and energetic; and it was evident that Simon and his confederates writhed under the castigation which, half-seriously, half-sarcastically, the bold orator unsparingly bestowed. Judging from the occasional hisses, the speaker seemed no favourite either with the members of the extreme left or with the galleries; but probably he was used to such manifestations, for he went through his work undauntedly. I asked his name. It was Felix, Prince of Lichnowsky.

      Poor Lichnowsky! a few weeks after I saw him in the Assembly, he was barbarously and brutally murdered by savages at the gate of Frankfort – the flesh cut off his arms with scythes – his body put up as a target for their balls – and every execrable device of ingenuity employed to prolong his suffering. O ye who wink at revolutions abroad, and who would stimulate the populace to excess – ye who, in days past, have written or been privy to letters from the Home Office, conniving at undeniable treason – think of this scene, and repent of your miserable folly! In a civilised city – among a Christian and educated population – that deed of hideous atrocity was perpetrated at noon-day: the young life of one of the most accomplished and chivalrous cavaliers of Europe was torn from him piecemeal, in a manner which humanity shudders to record, and for no other reason than because he had stood forth as the advocate of constitutional order! Liberal historians, in their commentaries upon the first French Revolution, spare no pains to argue us into the conviction that such tragedies as that of the Princess de Lamballe could not be enacted save amongst a people degraded and brutalised by long centuries of misgovernment, oppression, and superstition. They have lied in saying so. A pack of famished wolves is not so merciless as a human mob, when drunk with the revolutionary puddle; and were the strong arm of the law once paralysed in Britain, we should inevitably become the spectators, if not the victims, of the same butcheries which have disgraced almost every country in Europe now clamouring for independence and unity. The sacerdotal robes of the Archbishop of Paris – the gray hairs of Major von Auerswaldt – the station and public virtue of the Counts of Lamburg, Zichy, and Latour – could not save these unhappy men from a fate far worse than simple assassination: and this century and year have likewise been reserved for the unexampled abomination of Christian men adopting cannibalism, and feeding upon human flesh, as was the case not a month ago at Messina! Well might Madame Roland exclaim, "O Liberty! what things are done in thy name!" Poor Lichnowsky! Better had he fallen on the fields of Spain, in the combat for honour and loyalty, with the red steel in his hand, and the flush of victory on his brow, than have perished so miserably by the hands of the cowardly and rascal rout of the free city of Frankfort!

      "That's Zitz of Mayence," said the professor, as a heavy-looking demagogue stumbled clumsily up to the tribune.

      "Oh! that's Zitz, is it?" replied I. "Well, professor, I think I have had quite enough of the Assembly for one morning, and as I feel a certain craving for a cigar, I think I shall leave you for the present."

      "Won't you dine to-day at the Swan?" said Klingemann, "most of my friends of the left frequent the table-d'hote there, and I should like to introduce you to Zitz."

      "Thank you!" said I, "I shall be punctual, and pray keep a place for me;" and so for the present we parted.

      "The dunderheads!" thought I, as I emerged into the street and lit an undeniable havannah, "here is a nation which, for thirty years past, has been eating its sauer-kraut and sausages in peace, paying almost no taxes, and growing its own wine and tobacco, about to be plunged into irretrievable misery and ruin, by a set of selfish hounds who look to nothing beyond their stipend of five florins a-day! Heaven help the idiots! what would they be at? They have got all manner of constitutions, liberty of the press – though there is not a man in Germany who could write a decent leading article – and a great deal more freedom than is good for them already. And now the world is to be turned upside down, because a parcel of trash, not a whit more respectable than Cuffey and his confederates, and very nearly as stupid, have taken the notion of unity into their heads, and are resolved to build up, with rotten bricks, the ricketty structure of an empire. Nicholas, my dear friend, there is work chalked out for you, and ready. If these scum presume to meddle with their neighbours, they must be crushed like a hive of hornets; and I do not know any foot so heavy and elephantine as your own!"

      Pondering these things deeply, I strolled on from shop to shop, gleaning everywhere as I went statistics touching the manner in which our free-trade innovations have affected the industry of Great Britain. For a year and a half, the boot and shoe trade has been remarkably thriving; the London market being the most profitable in the world, and nothing but British gold exported in return. As to cotton manufactures, Belgium and Switzerland have the monopoly of Southern Germany. The trade in Bohemian glass is rapidly superseding at home the labour of the silversmith. A complete service, so beautiful that it might be laid out on the table of a prince, costs about thirty pounds; and the names of the British magnates, which the dealer pointed to with ineffable triumph as purchasers, were so numerous as to convince me that the deteriorating influence of free trade was rapidly rising upwards. The same may be said of the cutlery, which is now sent to undersell the product of the British artisan in his own peculiar market. When we couple those facts, which may be learned in every Continental town, with the state of our falling revenue, and the grievous direct burden which is imposed upon us in the shape of property and income tax, it is difficult for any Briton to understand upon what grounds the financial reputation of Sir Robert Peel is based, or to comprehend the wisdom of adhering to a system which sacrifices every thing in favour of the foreigner, and brings us in return no earthly recompense or gain.

      I duly kept my engagement at the Swan, and was introduced by the Professor to Zitz, Gervinus, and some more of the radical party. The dinners at the Swan are unexceptionable; indeed, out of Paris, it is impossible to discover better.

      "What do you think of our German parliament?" asked a deputy of the name of Neukirch, next whom I was seated. "It must be an interesting sight for an Englishman to behold the aspirations of our rising freedom."

      "Oh, charming!" I replied: "and such splendid oratory – we have nothing like it in the House of Commons."

      "Do you really think so?" said Neukirch, looking absurdly gratified.

      "I do indeed. The speech which I had the privilege of hearing this morning from the gentleman opposite – " here I bowed to Simon of Treves, who was picking the backbone of a pike – "was equal to the most elaborate efforts of our greatest orator, Mr Chisholm Anstey. It is not often that one has the fortune to listen to such talent combined with patriotism!"

      "You speak like a man of sense," said the flattered

Скачать книгу