Under the auspices of the Burschenschaften hundreds of students from many German universities met in Eisenach October 18, 1817, to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Leipsic and the tercentenary of the Protestant Reformation. There were appropriate exercises in the town and in the Hall of the Minnesingers at the Wartburg Castle, and when evening came all gathered about a huge bonfire for more speeches and singing. Suddenly Massmann appeared with friends carrying bundles of waste-paper done up and labeled to represent books. After recalling Luther’s burning of the papal bull he read off from a prepared list the titles of certain reactionary writings hostile to German unity, constitutional government, and free institutions; and as each item was reached the corresponding bundle was pitchforked into the fire with suitable comments. Common opinion credited Jahn with being the real originator of this student prank. It naturally aroused the anger of the authors concerned, among whom Kotzebue and Kamptz deserve mention here since their names appear again in the next paragraph. Metternich saw in the performance the indication of a widespread conspiracy.[49] A conference of monarchs at Aix-la-Chapelle in the fall of 1818 did much to confirm Frederick-William III of Prussia in his suspicions of intrigue. Metternich also laid before Prince Wittgenstein, the Prussian Minister of State, a memorial in which he declared that the _Burschenschaften_ were nurseries of revolution and the _Turnplätze_ preparatory schools for university disorders; both must be suppressed, for no palliative measures would suffice. A more forcible argument was the assassination of the German dramatist Kotzebue by Karl Ludwig Sand at Mannheim, on the 23d of March, 1819. Kotzebue was a paid spy of Russia and a reactionary writer who had attacked with especial bitterness the student unions and the turners. Sand was a turner, and had visited Jahn and others in Berlin the year before; he was a member of the Jena _Burschenschaft_, and had been present at the Wartburgfest. Without any proof of the fact, it was assumed that he had carried out the decision of an organization. On the night of July 13-14 Jahn was arrested and taken to the fortress of Spandau, on suspicion of “secret and most treasonable associations.” Meanwhile Kamptz had been made Prussian Minister of Police and clothed with extraordinary powers, and a special commission had been charged with the prosecution of demagogues. A little later a conference of German ministers adopted the oppressive Carlsbad Decrees, which were ratified by the Frankfort Diet September 20. These provided for censorship of the press, police supervision of the universities, and a central commission of seven to search out “the origin and ramification of revolutionary conspiracies and demagogic associations.” The _Burschenschaft_ was dissolved, and January 2, 1820, Frederick-William