t miraculously from two dangers.
One day a hod full of plaster fell from a scaffold and broke at his
feet. Another day the Price of Coburg, who during the King of Prussia's
stay at the baths of Alexander, was living in the house of Sand's
parents, was galloping home with four horses when he came suddenly upon
young Karl in a gateway; he could not escape either on the right or the
left, without running the risk of being crushed between the wall and the
wheels, and the coachman could not, when going at such a pace, hold in
his horses: Sand flung himself on his face, and the carriage passed over
him without his receiving so much as a single scratch either from the
horses or the wheels. From that moment many people regarded him as
predestined, and said that the hand of God was upon him.

Meanwhile political events were developing themselves around the boy,
and their seriousness made him a man before the age of manhood. Napoleon
weighed upon Germany like another Sennacherib. Staps had tried to play
the part of Mutius Scaevola, and had died a martyr. Sand was at Hof at
that time, and was a student of the gymnasium of which his good tutor
Salfranck was the head. He learned that the man whom he regarded as the
antichrist was to come and review the troops in that town; he left it at
once and went home to his parents, who asked him for what reason he had
left the gymnasium.

"Because I could not have been in the same town with Napoleon," he
answered, "without trying to kill him, and I do not feel my hand strong
enough for that yet."

This happened in 1809; Sand was fourteen years old. Peace, which was
signed an the 15th of October, gave Germany some respite, and allowed
the young fanatic to resume his studies without being distracted by
political considerations; but in 1811 he was occupied by them again,
when he learned that the gymnasium was to be dissolved and its place
taken by a primary school. To this the rector Salfranck was appointed
as a teacher, but instead of the thousand florins which his former
appointment brought him, the new one was worth only five hundred. Karl
could not remain in a primary school where he could not continue his
education; he wrote to his mother to announce this event and to tell her
with what equanimity the old German philosopher had borne it. Here is
the answer of Sand's mother; it will serve to show the character of
the woman whose mighty heart never belied itself in the midst of the
severest