Karl Ludwig Sand: Celebrated CrimesDumas, Alexandre
History
Karl Ludwig Sand: Celebrated Crimes
Dumas, Alexandre
Crime
Sand was carried to the hospital and guarded with the utmost strictness;
the wounds were serious, but, thanks to the skill of the physicians who
were called in, were not mortal; one of them even healed eventually; but
as to the second, the blade having gone between the costal pleura and
the pulmonary pleura, an effusion of blood occurred between the two
layers, so that, instead of closing the wound, it was kept carefully
open, in order that the blood extravasated during the night might be
drawn off every morning by means of a pump, as is done in the operation
for empyaemia.
Notwithstanding these cares, Sand was for three months between life and
death.
When, on the 26th of March, the news of Kotzebue’s assassination came
from Mannheim to Jena, the academic senate caused Sand’s room to be
opened, and found two letters—one addressed to his friends of the
Burschenschaft, in which he declared that he no longer belonged to their
society, since he did not wish that their brotherhood should include a
man about to die an the scaffold. The other letter, which bore this
superscription, “To my nearest and dearest,” was an exact account of
what he meant to do, and the motives which had made him determine upon
this act. Though the letter is a little long, it is so solemn and so
antique in spirit, that we do not hesitate to present it in its entirety
to our readers:—
“To all my own “Loyal and eternally cherished souls
“Why add still further to your sadness? I asked myself, and I hesitated
to write to you; but my silence would have wounded the religion of the
heart; and the deeper a grief the more it needs, before it can be
blotted out, to drain to the dregs its cup of bitterness. Forth from my
agonised breast, then; forth, long and cruel torment of a last
conversation, which alone, however, when sincere, can alleviate the pain
of parting.
“This letter brings you the last farewell of your son and your brother.
“The greatest misfortune of life far any generous heart is to see the
cause of God stopped short in its developments by our fault; and the
most dishonouring infamy would be to suffer that the fine things
acquired bravely by thousands of men, and far which thousands of men
have joyfully sacrificed themselves, should be no more than a transient
dream, without real and positive consequences. The resurrection of our
German life was begun in these last twenty years, and particularly in
the sacred year 1813, with a courage inspired by God. But now the house
of our fathers is shaken from the summit to the base. Forward! let us
raise it, new and fair, and such as the true temple of the true God
should be.
“Small is the number of those who resist, and who wish to oppose
themselves as a dyke against the torrent of the progress of higher
humanity among the German people. Why should vast whole masses bow
beneath the yoke of a perverse minority? And why, scarcely healed,
should we fall back into a worse disease than that which we are leaving
behind?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account