"Fellow-citizens! Before leaving the town of Freiburg and the duchy of Baden, on the night of the 28th June, I informed the president of the constitutional assembly that it was my intention to justify my conduct towards the people of Baden, but not towards an assembly that had treated me with outrage. If I did not do this at the time I left the country for which I have acted all through with a clear conscience, and from which I was driven by a tyrannical and selfish party, it was because I wished to see what this party would say against the absent. To-day I have seen their accusation, and no longer delay my defence, in order that you may judge whether I have merited the title of traitor; or whether the people's cause--the cause of freedom, for which your sons, your brothers, have bled--can prosper in the hands of men who only seek to hide personal cowardice by barbarity, mental incapacity by lies, and low selfishness by hypocrisy. "Fellow-citizens! Since the month of February I have strained every nerve in the cause of freedom. Since the month of February, I have sacrificed my own affairs to the defence of persecuted republicans. I have willingly stood up for all who claimed my assistance; and let any say if I have been reimbursed one kreutzer of the hundreds I have expended. Fellow-citizens! I am loath to call to mind the sacrifices I have made; but a handful of men are shameless enough to call me traitor; a handful of men, partly those in whose defence I disinterestedly strained every nerve, would have me brought to 'well-deserved punishment:' these men, whose sole merit consists in tending to bring discredit on freedom's cause, through their incapacity, barbarity, and terrorism; and whose unheard-of extravagance has brought us to the brink of ruin. "I did not return home after Fickler's trial. The exertion I had used in his defence had injured my health, and I went for medical advice to Baden-Baden. On the 14th of May, I was fetched from my bed; but, in spite of bodily weakness, I was unwilling to remain behind. I wished to see the cause of freedom free from all dirty machinations, I wished to prevent the holy cause from falling into disrepute through disgraceful traffic; I wished to keep order, and to protect life and property. For some time I was enabled to effect this: I endeavoured to prevent injustice of all kinds, and in every place, and whenever I was called on; I strove to protect the innocent against force, and to prove that even the complete overthrow of the government could be accomplished without allowing anarchy to reign in its stead.