und great crowds listening to bearded
orators, who told them of the revolution in Paris and of the addresses to
the king--how they had passed hither and thither, and how they had been
received. They had all contained very much the same demands--freedom of
the press, representatives of the people to be chosen by free election,
all religious confessions to be placed on an equal footing in the
exercise of political rights, and representation of the people in the
German Confederacy.

These demands were discussed with fiery zeal, and the royal promise, just
given, of calling together the Assembly again and issuing a law on the
press, after the Confederate Diet should have been moved to a similar
measure, was condemned in strong terms as an insufficient and half-way
procedure--a payment on account, in order to gain time.

On the 15th the particulars of the Vienna revolution and Metternich's
flight reached Berlin; and we, too, learned the news, and heard our
mother and her friends asking anxiously, "How will this end?"

Unspeakable excitement had taken possession of young and old--at home, in
the street, and at school--for blood had already flowed in the city. On
the 13th, cavalry had dispersed a crowd in the vicinity of the palace,
and the same thing was repeated on the two following days. Fortunately,
few were injured; but rumour, ever ready to increase and enhance the
horrible desire of many fanatics to stir up the fire of discontent, had
conspired to make wounded men dead ones, and slight injuries severe.

These exaggerations ran through the city, arousing indignation; and the
correspondents of foreign papers, knowing that readers often like best
what is most incredible, had sent the accounts to the provinces and
foreign countries.

But blood had flowed. Hatred of the soldiery, to which, however, some
among the insurgents had once been proud to belong, grew with fateful
rapidity, and was still further inflamed by those who saw in the military
the brazen wall that stood between them and the fulfillment of their most
ardent wishes.

A spark might spring the open and overcharged mine into the air; an
ill-chosen or misunderstood expression, a thoughtless act, might bring
about an explosion.

The greatest danger threatened from fresh conflicts between the army and
the people, and it was to the fear of this that various young or elderly
gentlemen owed their office of going about wherever a crowd was assembled
and urging