the duty of devotion to the cause
of the country, now endeavored, by praises of the Emperor, to check the
desire of the students for immediate action; but he was shouted down.

Hye then appealed to them to wait a few days, in hopes of a further
answer from the Emperor. They answered with a shout that they would not
wait an hour; and then they raised the cry of "Landhaus!" Breaking loose
from all further restraint they set out on their march, and as they went
numbers gathered round them. The people of Vienna had already been
appealed to, by a placard on St. Stephen's Church, to free the good
Emperor Ferdinand from his enemies; and the placard further declared
that he who wished for the rise of Austria must wish for the fall of the
present ministers of state.

The appeal produced its effect; and the crowd grew dense as the students
marched into the narrow Herren Gasse. They passed under the archway
which led into the courtyard of the Landhaus; there, in front of the
very building where the Assembly was sitting, they came to a dead halt;
and, with the strange hesitation which sometimes comes over crowds, no
man seemed to know what was next to be done. Suddenly in the pause which
followed, the words "_Meine Herren_" were heard from a corner of the
crowd. It was evident that some one was trying to address them; and the
students nearest to the speaker hoisted him upon their shoulders. Then
the crowd saw a quiet-looking man, with a round, strong head,
short-cropped hair, and a thick beard. Each man eagerly asked his
neighbor who this could be; and, as the speech proceeded, the news went
round that this was Doctor Fischhof, a man who had been very little
known beyond medical circles and hitherto looked upon as quite outside
political movements. Such was the speaker who now uttered what is still
remembered as the "first free word" in Vienna.

He began by dwelling on the importance of the day and on the need of
"encouraging the men who sit there," pointing to the Landhaus, "by our
appeal to them, of strengthening them by our adherence, and leading them
to the desired end by our cooeperation in action. He," exclaimed
Fischhof, "who has no courage on such a day as this is only fit for the
nursery." He then proceeded to dwell at some length on the need for
freedom of the press and trial by jury. Then, catching, as it were, the
note of Kossuth's speech of March 3d, he went on to speak of the
greatness which Austria might attain by