The Prussian general, Thielemann, who, with a few troops, had remained behind at Wavre in order, at great hazard, to deceive Grouchy into the belief that he was still opposed by Blucher"s entire force, acted a lesser, but equally honorable part on this great day. He fulfilled his commission with great skill, and so completely deceived Grouchy as to hinder his making a single attempt to throw himself in the way of the Prussians on the Paris road.
Blucher pushed forward without a moment"s delay, and, on the 29th of June, stood before Paris. Napoleon had, meanwhile, a second time abdicated, and had fled from Paris in the hope of escaping across the seas. Davoust, the ancient instrument of his tyranny, who commanded in Paris, attempting to make terms of capitulation with Blucher, was sharply answered, "You want to make a defence? Take care what you do.
You well know what license the irritated soldiery will take if your city must be taken by storm. Do you wish to add the sack of Paris to that of Hamburg, already loading your conscience?"[16] Paris surrendered after a severe engagement at Issy, and m.u.f.fling, the Prussian general, was placed in command of the city, July the 7th, 1815. It was on the occasion of a grand banquet given by Wellington shortly after the occupation of Paris by the allied troops that Blucher gave the celebrated toast, "May the pens of diplomatists not again spoil all that the swords of our gallant armies have so n.o.bly won!"
Schwarzenberg had in the interim also penetrated into France, and the crown prince of Wurtemberg had defeated General Rapp at Strasburg and had surrounded that fortress. The Swiss, under General Bachmann, who had, although fully equipped for the field, hitherto prudently watched the turn of events, invaded France immediately after the battle of Waterloo, pillaged Burgundy, besieged and took the fortress of Huningen, which, with the permission of the allies, they justly razed to the ground, the insolent French having thence fired upon the bridges of Basel which lay close in its vicinity. A fresh Austrian army under Frimont advanced from Italy as far as Lyons. On the 17th of July, Napoleon surrendered himself in the bay of Rochefort to the English, whose ships prevented his escape; he moreover preferred falling into their hands than into those of the Prussians. The whole of France submitted to the triumphant allies, and Louis XVIII. was reinstated on his throne. Murat had also been simultaneously defeated at Tolentino in Italy by the Austrians under Bianchi, and Ferdinand IV. had been restored to the throne of Naples. Murat fled to Corsica, but his retreat to France was prevented by the success of the allies, and in his despair he, with native rashness, yielded to the advice of secret intriguants and returned to Italy with a design of raising a popular insurrection, but was seized on landing and shot on the 13th of October.[17]
Blucher was greatly inclined to give full vent to his justly roused rage against Paris. The bridge of Jena, one of the numerous bridges across the Seine, the princ.i.p.al object of his displeasure, was, curiously enough, saved from destruction (he had already attempted to blow it up) by the arrival of the king of Prussia.[18] His proposal to punish France by part.i.tioning the country and thus placing it on a par with Germany, was far more practical in its tendency.
This honest veteran had in fact a deeper insight into affairs than the most wary diplomatists.[19] In 1815, the same persons, as in 1814, met in Paris, and similar interests were agitated. Foreign jealousy again effected the conclusion of this peace at the expense of Germany and in favor of France. Blucher"s influence at first reigned supreme. The king of Prussia, who, together with the emperors of Russia and Austria, revisited Paris, took Stein and Gruner into his council. The crown prince of Wurtemberg also zealously exerted himself in favor of the reunion of Lorraine and Alsace with Germany.[20] But Russia and England beholding the reintegration of Germany with displeasure, Austria,[21] and finally Prussia, against whose patriots all were in league, yielded.[22] The future destinies of Europe were settled on the side of England by Wellington and Castlereagh; on that of Russia by Prince John Razumowsky, Nesselrode, and Capo d"Istria; on that of Austria by Metternich and Wessenberg; on that of Prussia by Hardenberg and William von Humboldt. The German patriots were excluded from the discussion,[23] and a result extremely unfavorable to Germany naturally followed:[24] Alsace and Lorraine remained annexed to France. By the second treaty of Paris, which was definitively concluded on the 20th of November, 1815, France was merely compelled to give up the fortresses of Philippeville, Marienburg, Sarlouis, and Landau, to demolish Huningen, and to allow eighteen other fortresses on the German frontier to be occupied by the allies until the new government had taken firm footing in France. Until then, one hundred and fifty thousand of the allied troops were also to remain within the French territory and to be maintained at the expense of the people.
France was, moreover, condemned to pay seven hundred millions of francs toward the expenses of the war and to restore the _chef d"oeuvres_ of which she had deprived every capital in Europe. The sword of Frederick the Great was not refound: Marshal Serrurier declared that he had burned it.[25] On the other hand, however, almost all the famous old German ma.n.u.scripts, which had formerly been carried from Heidelberg to Rome, and thence by Napoleon to Paris, were sent back to Heidelberg. One of the most valuable, the Manessian Code of the Swabian Minnesingers, was left in Paris, where it had been concealed. Blucher expired, in 1819, on his estate in Silesia.[26]
The French were now sufficiently humbled to remain in tranquillity, and designedly displayed such submission that the allied sovereigns resolved, at a congress held at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the autumn of 1818, to withdraw their troops. Napoleon was, with the concurrence of the a.s.sembled powers, taken to the island of St. Helena, where, surrounded by the dreary ocean, several hundred miles from any inhabited spot, and guarded with petty severity by the English, he was at length deprived of every means of disturbing the peace of Europe.
Inactivity and the unhealthiness of the climate speedily dissolved the earthly abode of this giant spirit. He expired on the 5th of May, 1821. His consort, Maria Louisa, was created d.u.c.h.ess of Parma; and his son lived, under the t.i.tle of Duke of Reichstadt, with his imperial grandfather at Vienna, until his death in 1832. Napoleon"s stepson, Eugene Beauharnais, the former viceroy of Italy, the son-in-law to the king of Bavaria, received the newly-created mediatized princ.i.p.ality of Eichstadt, which was dependent upon Bavaria, and the t.i.tle of Duke of Leuchtenberg. Jerome, the former king of Westphalia, became Count de Montfort;[27] Louis, ex-king of Holland, Count de St. Leu.
[Footnote 1: From London, Frederick William went to Switzerland and took possession of his ancient hereditary territory, Walsch-Neuenburg or Neufchatel, visited the beautiful Bernese Oberland, and then returned to Berlin, where, on the 7th of August, he pa.s.sed in triumph through the Brandenburg gate, which was again adorned with the car of victory and the fine group of horses, and rode through the lime trees to an altar, around which the clergy belonging to every religious sect were a.s.sembled. Here public thanks were given and the whole of the citizens present fell upon their knees.--_Allgemeine Zeitung, 262_. On the 17th of September, the preparation of a new liturgy was announced in a ministerial proclamation, "by which the solemnity of the church service was to be increased, the present one being too little calculated to excite or strike the imagination."]
[Footnote 2: Oxford conferred a doctor"s degree upon Blucher, who, upon receiving this strange honor, said, "Make Gneisenau apothecary, for he it was who prepared my pills." On his first reception at Carlton House, the populace pushed their way through the guards and doors as far as the apartments of the prince-regent, who, taking his gray-headed guest by the hand, presented him to them, and publicly hung his portrait set in brilliants around his neck. On his pa.s.sing through the streets, the horses were taken from his carriage, and he was drawn in triumph by the shouting crowd. One fete succeeded another. During the great races at Ascot, the crowd breaking through the barriers and insisting upon Blucher"s showing himself, the prince-regent came forward, and, politely telling them that he had not yet arrived, led forward the emperor Alexander, who was loudly cheered, but Blucher"s arrival was greeted with thunders of applause far surpa.s.sing those bestowed upon the sovereigns, a circ.u.mstance that was afterward blamed by the English papers. In the Freemasons" Lodge, Blucher was received by numbers of ladies, on each of whom he bestowed a salute. At Portsmouth, he drank to the health of the English in the presence of an immense concourse of people a.s.sembled beneath his windows.--The general rejoicing was solely clouded by the domestic circ.u.mstances of the royal family, by the insanity of the aged and blind king and by the disunion reigning between the prince-regent and his thoughtless consort, Caroline of Brunswick.--Although the whole of the allied sovereigns, some of whom were unable to speak English, understood German, French was adopted as the medium of conversation.-- _Allgemeine Zeitung, 174._]
[Footnote 3: "There are moments in the life of nations on which the whole of their future destiny depends. The children are destined to expiate their fathers" errors with their blood. Germany has everything to fear from the foreigner, and yet she cannot arrange her own affairs without calling the foreigner to her aid.--Who, in the congress, chiefly oppose every well-laid plan? Who, with the dagger"s point pick out and reopen all our wounds, and rub them with salt and poison? Who promote confusion, provoke, insinuate, and attempt to creep into every committee, to interfere in every discussion? who but those sent thither by France?"--_The Rhenish Mercury._]
[Footnote 4: Fate willed that Stein should not be called upon to act with firmness, but Hardenberg to make concessions. Stein disappeared from the theatre of events and was degraded to a lower sphere.
Hardenberg was created prince.]
[Footnote 5: Napoleon had such good friends among the Rhenish confederated princes that Augustus, duke of Gotha, for instance, even after the second occupation of Paris, on the return of his troops in the November of 1815, prohibited any demonstrations of triumph and even deprived the _Landwehr_ of their uniforms, so that the poor fellows had to return in their shirt-sleeves to their native villages during the hard winter.--_Jacob"s Campaigns._]
[Footnote 6: An attack upon Berne had already been concerted. Colonel Bar marched with the people of Aargau in the night time upon Aarburg, but his confederates failing to make their appearance, he caused the nearest Bernese governor to be alarmed and hastily retraced his steps.
The Bernese instantly sent an armed force to the frontier, where, finding all tranquil, the charge of aggression was thrown upon their shoulders.]
[Footnote 7: Vide Muralt"s Life of Reinhard.]
[Footnote 8: Blucher was at Berlin at the moment when the news of Napoleon"s escape arrived. He instantly roused the English amba.s.sador from his sleep by shouting in his ear, "Have the English a fleet in the Mediterranean?"]
[Footnote 9: The blame was entirely upon the Prussian side. The Saxons, as good soldiers, naturally revolted at the idea that they would at once be faithless to their oath and mutinied. General m.u.f.fling was insulted for having spoken of "Saxon hounds." Blucher even was compelled secretly to take his departure. The Saxon troops were, however, reduced to obedience by superior numbers of Prussians, and their colors were burned. The whole corps was about to be decimated, when Colonel Romer came forward and demanded that the sentence of death should be first executed on him. Milder measures were in consequence reverted to, and a few of the men were condemned to death by drawing lots. Kanitz, the drummer, a youth of sixteen, however, threw away the dice, exclaiming, "It is I who beat the summons for revolt, and I will be the first to die." He and six others were shot. Borstel, the Prussian general, the hero of Dennewitz, who had steadily refused to burn the Saxon colors, was compelled to quit the service.]
[Footnote 10: For a refutation of Menzel"s absurdly perverted relation of these great events, the reader is referred not only to the Duke of Wellington"s despatches and to Colonel Siborne"s well-established account of the battles of Ligny, Wavre, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo, but also to those of his countrymen, m.u.f.fling, the Prussian general, and Wagner.--_Trans._]
[Footnote 11: Shortly before the battle, Bourmont, the French general, set up the white c.o.c.kade (the symbol of Bourbon) and deserted to Blucher, who merely said, "It is all one what symbol the fellows set up, rascals are ever rascals!"]
[Footnote 12: The surgeon, when about to rub him with some liquid, was asked by him what it was, and being told that it was spirits, "Ah,"
said he, "the thing is of no use externally!" and s.n.a.t.c.hing the gla.s.s from the hand of his attendant, he drank it off.]
[Footnote 13: Against all expectation to aid an ally who on the previous day had against all expectation been unable to give him aid, evinced at once magnanimity, sense, and good feeling.--_Clausewitz_.]
[Footnote 14: A Prussian battery, that on its way from Namur turned back on receiving news of this disaster and was taken by the French, is said to have chiefly led to the commission of this immense blunder by Napoleon.]
[Footnote 15: The Hanoverian legion again covered itself with glory by the steadiness with which it opposed the enemy. It lost three thousand five hundred men, the Dutch eight thousand; the German troops consequently lost collectively as many as the English, whose loss was computed at eleven or twelve thousand men. The Prussians, whose loss at Ligny and Waterloo exceeded that of their allies, behaved with even greater gallantry.]
[Footnote 16: The French were extremely affronted on account of this communication being made in German instead of French, and even at the present day German historians are generally struck with deeper astonishment at this sample of Blucher"s bold spirit than at any other.]
[Footnote 17: Ney, "the bravest of the brave," who dishonored his bravery by the basest treachery, met with an equally melancholy fate.
Immediately after having, for instance, kissed the gouty fingers of Louis XVIII. and boasting that he would imprison Napoleon within an iron cage, he went over to the latter. He was sentenced to death and shot, after vainly imploring the allied monarchs and personally pet.i.tioning Wellington for mercy.--Alexander Berthier, prince of Neufchatel, Napoleon"s chief confidant, had, even before the outbreak of war, thrown himself out of a window in a fit of hypochondriasis and been killed.]
[Footnote 18: Talleyrand begged Count von der Goltz to use his influence for its preservation with Blucher, who replied to his entreaties, "I will blow up the bridge, and should very much like to have Talleyrand sitting upon it at the time!" An attempt to blow it up was actually made, but failed.]
[Footnote 19: Many of whom were in fact wilfully blind. Hardenberg, by whom the n.o.ble-spirited Stein was so ill replaced, and who, with all possible decency, ever succeeded in losing in the cabinet the advantages gained by Blucher in the field, the diplomatic bird of ill omen by whom the peace of Basel had formerly been concluded, was thus addressed by Blucher: "I should like you gentlemen of the quill to be for once in a way exposed to a smart platoon fire, just to teach you what perils we soldiers have to run in order to repair the blunders you so thoughtlessly commit." An instructive commentary upon these events is to be met with in Stein"s letters to Gagern. The light in which Stein viewed the Saxons may be gathered from the following pa.s.sages in his letters: "My desire for the aggrandizement of Prussia proceeded not from a blind partiality to that state, but from the conviction that Germany is weakened by a system of part.i.tion ruinous alike to her national learning and national feelings."--"It is not for Prussia but for Germany that I desire a closer, a firmer internal combination, a wish that will accompany me to the grave: the division of our national strength may be gratifying to others, it never can be so to me." This truly German policy mainly distinguished Stein from Hardenberg, who, thoroughly Prussian in his ideas, was incapable of perceiving that Prussia"s best-understood policy ever will be to identify herself with Germany.]
[Footnote 20: Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 285.]
[Footnote 21: It was proposed that Lorraine and Alsace should be bestowed upon the Archduke Charles, who at that period wedded the Princess Henrietta of Na.s.sau. The proposition, however, quickly fell to the ground.]
[Footnote 22: Even in July, their organ, Gorres"s Rhenish Mercury, was placed beneath the censor. In August, it was said that the men, desirous of giving a const.i.tution to Prussia, had fallen into disgrace.--Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 249. In September, Schmalz, in Berlin, unveiled the presumed revolutionary intrigues of the _Tugendbund_ and declared "the unity of Germany is something to which the spirit of every nation in Germany has ever been antipathetic." He received a Prussian and a Wurtemberg order, besides an extremely gracious autograph letter from the king of Prussia, although his base calumnies against the friends of his country were thrown back upon him by the historians Niebuhr and Runs, who were then in a high position, by Schleiermacher, the theologian, and by others. The n.o.bility also began to stir, attempted to regain their ancient privileges in Prussia, and intrigued against the men who, during the time of need, had made concessions to the citizens.--Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 276.]
[Footnote 23: The Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 349, laughs at the report of their having withdrawn from the discussion, and says that they were no longer invited to take part in it.]
[Footnote 24: On the loud complaints of the Rhenish Mercury, of the gazettes of Bremen and Hanau, and even of the Allgemeine Zeitung, the Austrian Observer, edited by Gentz, declared that "to demand a better peace would be to demand the ruin of France."--Allgemeine Zeitung, Nos. 345, 365. On Gorres"s repeated demand for the reannexation of Alsace and Lorraine, of which Germany had been so unwarrantably deprived, the Austrian Observer declared in the beginning of 1816, "who would believe that Gorres would lend his pen to such miserable arguments. Alsace and Lorraine are guaranteed to France. To demand their restoration would be contrary to every notion of honor and justice." In this manner was Germany a second time robbed of these provinces. Washington Paine denominated Strasburg, "a melancholy sentry, of which unwary Germany has allowed herself to be deprived, and which now, accoutred in an incongruous uniform, does duty against his own country."]
[Footnote 25: The Invalids had in the same spirit cast the triumphal monument of the field of Rossbach into the Seine, in order to prevent its restoration. The alarum formerly belonging to Frederick the Great was also missing. Napoleon had it on his person during his flight and made use of it at St. Helena, where it struck his death-hour.]
[Footnote 26: He was descended from a n.o.ble race, which at a very early period enjoyed high repute in Mecklenburg and Pomerania. In 1271, an Ulric von Blucher was bishop of Batzeburg. A legend relates that, during a time of dearth, an empty barn was, on his pet.i.tioning Heaven, instantly filled with corn. In 1356, Wipertus von Blucher also became bishop of Ratzeburg, and, on the pope"s refusal to confirm him in his diocese on account of his youth, his hair turned gray in one night. Vide Kluwer"s Description of Mecklenburg, 1728.]
[Footnote 27: His wife, Catherine of Wurtemberg, was in 1814, attacked during her flight, on her way through France and robbed of her jewels.--_Allgemeine Zettung, No. 130._]
PART XXIII
THE LATEST TIMES
CCLXIV. The German Confederation
Thus terminated the terrible storms that, not without benefit, had convulsed Europe. Every description of political crime had been fearfully avenged and presumption had been chastised by the unerring hand of Providence. At that solemn period, the sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia concluded a treaty by which they bound themselves to follow, not the ruinous policy they had hitherto pursued, but the undoubted will of the King of kings, and, as the viceroys of G.o.d upon the earth, to maintain peace, to uphold virtue and justice. This Holy Alliance was concluded on the 26th of September, 1815. All the European powers took part in it; England, who excused herself, the pope, and the sultan, whose accession was not demanded, alone excepted.
The new part.i.tion of Europe, nevertheless, retained almost all the unnatural conditions introduced by the more ancient and G.o.dless policy of Louis XIV. and of Catherine II. Germany, Poland, and Italy remained part.i.tioned among rulers partly foreign. Everywhere were countries exchanged or freshly part.i.tioned and rendered subject to foreign rule.
England retained possession of Hanover, which was elevated into a German kingdom, of the Ionian islands, and of Malta in the Mediterranean. Russia received the grandduchy of Warsaw, which was raised to a kingdom of Poland, but was not united with Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia, and the Ukraine, the ancient provinces of Poland standing beneath the sovereignty of Russia, and Finland, for which Sweden received in exchange Norway, of which Denmark was forcibly dispossessed. Holland was annexed to the old Austrian Netherlands and elevated to a kingdom under William of Orange.[1] Switzerland remained a confederation of twenty-two cantons,[2] externally independent and neutral, internally somewhat aristocratic in tendency, the ancient oligarchy everywhere regaining their power. The Jesuits were reinstated by the pope. In Spain, Portugal, and Naples, the form of government prior to the Revolution was reestablished by the ancient sovereigns on their restoration to their thrones.
Alsace and Lorraine, Switzerland and the new kingdom of the Netherlands, the provinces of Luxemburg excepted, were no longer regarded as forming part of Germany. Austria received Milan and Venice under the t.i.tle of a Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, the Illyrian provinces also as a kingdom, Venetian Dalmatia, the Tyrol,[3] Vorarlberg, Salzburg, the Inn, and Hausruckviertel, and the part of Galicia ceded by her at an earlier period. The grandduchy of Tuscany and the duchies of Modena, Parma, and Placentia were, moreover, restored to the collateral branches of the house of Habsburg.[4]--Prussia received half of Saxony, the grand-duchy of Posen, Swedish-Pomerania,[5] a great portion of Westphalia, and almost the whole of the Lower Rhine from Mayence as far as Aix-la-Chapelle.[6] Since this period Prussia is that one which, among all the states of Germany, possesses the greatest number of German subjects, Austria, although more considerable in extent, containing a population of which by far the greater proportion is not German. Bavaria, in exchange for the provinces again ceded by her to Austria, received the province of Wurzburg together with Aschaffenburg and the Upper Rhenish Pfalz under the t.i.tle of Rhenish-Bavaria. Hanover received East Friesland, which had hitherto been dependent upon Prussia. Out of this important province, which opened the North Sea to Prussia, was Hardenberg cajoled by the wily English. The electorates of Hesse, Brunswick, and Oldenburg were restored. Everything else was allowed to subsist as at the time of the Rhenish confederation. All the petty princes and counts, then mediatized, continued to be so.
The ancient empire, instead of being re-established, was, on the 8th of June, 1815, replaced by a German confederation, composed of the thirty-nine German states that had escaped the general ruin; Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Wurtemberg, Baden, electoral Hesse, Darmstadt, Denmark on account of Holstein,[7] the Netherlands on account of Luxemburg, Brunswick, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Na.s.sau, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Gotha (where the reigning dynasty became extinct, and the duchy was part.i.tioned among the other Saxon houses of the Ernestine line), Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Hildburghausen, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Holstein-Oldenburg, Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt- Bernburg, Anhalt-Kothen, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg- Rudolstadt, Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Lichtenstein, Hohenzollern- Sigmaringen, Waldeck, Reuss the elder, and Reuss the younger branch,[8] Schaumburg-Lippe, Lippe-Detmold, Hesse-Homburg: finally, the free towns, Lubeck, Frankfort on the Maine, Bremen, and Hamburg.[9] At Frankfort on the Maine a permanent diet, consisting of plenipotentiaries from the thirty-nine states, was to hold its session. The votes were, however, so regulated that the eleven states of first rank alone held a full vote, the secondary states merely holding a half or a fourth part of a vote, as, for instance, all the Saxon duchies collectively, one vote; Brunswick and Na.s.sau, one; the two Mecklenburgs, one; Oldenburg, Anhalt, and Schwarzburg, one; the petty princes of Hohenzollern, Lichtenstein, Reuss, Lippe, and Waldeck, one; all the free towns, one; forming altogether in the diet seventeen votes. In const.i.tutional questions relating to regulations of the confederation the _plenum_ was to be allowed, that is, the six states of the highest rank were to have each four votes, the next five states each three, Brunswick, Schwerin, and Na.s.sau, each two, and all the remaining princes without distinction, each one vote.[10]--Austria held the permanent presidency. In all resolutions relating to the fundamental laws, the organic regulations of the confederation, the _jura singulorum_ and matters of religion, unanimity was required. All the members of the confederation bound themselves neither to enter into war nor into any foreign alliance against the confederation or any of its members. The thirteenth article declared, "Each of the confederated states will grant a const.i.tution to the people." The sixteenth placed all Christian sects throughout the German confederation on an equality. The eighteenth granted freedom of settlement within the limits of the confederation, and promised "uniformity of regulation concerning the liberty of the press." The fortresses of Luxemburg, Mayence, and Landau were declared the common property of the confederation and occupied in common by their troops.
A fourth fortress was to have been raised on the Upper Rhine with twenty millions of the French contribution money. It has not yet been erected.
This was the new const.i.tution given to Germany. According to the treaty of Paris it could not be otherwise modelled, and it is explained by the foreign influence that then prevailed. The diet a.s.sembled at Frankfort on the Maine, and was opened by Count Buol-Schauenstein with a solemn address, which excited no enthusiasm.
An orator in the American a.s.sembly at that time observed, "The non-development of the seed contained in Germany appears to be the common aim of a resolute policy."
All now united for the complete suppression of the German patriotic party. In the former Rhenish confederated states, it had been treated with open contempt[11] ever since Gentz had given the signal for persecution in Austria. Prussia, however, also drove all those who had most faithfully served her in her hour of need from her bosom. Stein was compelled to withdraw to Kappenberg, his country estate. Gruner was removed from office and sent as amba.s.sador to Switzerland, where he died. The Rhenish Mercury, that had performed such great services to Prussia, was prohibited, and Gorres was threatened with the house of correction.[12] All other papers of a patriotic tendency were also suppressed. In Jena, Oken and Luden, in Weimar, Wieland the younger, alone ventured for some time to give utterance to their liberal opinions, which were finally also reduced to silence.
Patriotic enthusiasm was, however, not so speedily suppressed amid the youthful students in the academies and universities. Jahn"s gymnastic schools (_Turnschulen_), the members of which were distinguished by the German costume, a short black frock coat, a black cap, linen trousers, a bare neck with turned-over shirt-collar, extended far and wide and were in close connection with the _Burschenschaften_ of the universities. The prescribed object of these _Turnschulen_ was the promotion of Christian, moral, German manners, the universal fraternization of all German students, the complete eradication of the provincialism and license inherent in the various a.s.sociations formed at the universities. They wore Jahn"s German costume and always acted publicly, until their suppression, when the remaining members formed secret a.s.sociations. On the 18th of October, 1817, the students of Jena, Halle, and Leipzig, and those of some of the more distant universities, a.s.sembled in order to solemnize the jubilee on the three hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, on the Wartburg, where, in imitation of Luther, they committed a number of servile works, inimical to the German cause, to the flames, as Gorres at that time said, "filled with anger that the same reformation required of the church by Luther should be sanctioned, but at the same time refused, by the state." The black, red, and yellow tricolor was hoisted for the first time on this occasion. These were in reality the ancient colors of the empire and were regarded as such by the patriotic students, but were purposely looked upon by the French and their adherents in Germany as an imitation of the tricolored flag of the French republic.