After the christening of Anna the family spent some delightful weeks in lovely Ilsenburg. The winter was passed in cheerful sociability and quiet enjoyment of their first-born, till in February, 1848, all other interests were entirely overshadowed by the news of the revolution at Paris. Lepsius had already foreseen when in Paris the downfall of the citizen king Louis Philippe, and though he hoped that the next movement for freedom in France would be of benefit to the political development of Germany and Prussia, yet he feared that in those countries also violent uprisings of the people would be unavoidable. Each day was filled with increasing anxiety, the danger approached more closely, and yet,--a notable sight--there was no break in the fulfillment of the husband’s duties, and everything held its accustomed course in the household, as well as in the social life of the capital. Apprehension was aroused for Vienna, on account of the dreadful Metternich administration; all ears were on the watch for every rumor. The Emperor of Russia was said to have been poisoned, Metternich to have been seized with an apoplectic fit in consequence of the news from Paris, and the Pope to have taken flight, and abandoned Rome. In spite of the tumult of the people on the streets during every evening of this remarkably beautiful month of March, anxiety for Berlin was dissipated, as in well informed circles they believed it certain that the King was inclined to make great concessions. At last political interests overcame all others, and the grave academical instructor Lepsius, in his private lectures conversed with his pupils on the events of the day, instead of discussing Egyptology. Then on the eighteenth of March the Berlin revolution broke out, in the midst of the concessions of the King, and the rejoicing of the populace. We are in possession of interesting information on the course of this revolution, from the husband as well as from the wife. In those days politics had such power over every true man that even Lepsius took part in them incidentally. When Abeken brought him a paper much needed just at that time, a good concise proclamation for the Prince of Prussia, whom Lepsius especially esteemed, he immediately carried it to the press which was working for him, and had the foreman print, post, and distribute it. He understood perfectly that the revolution indicated a great step forward in the political life of his Fatherland, and his wife says that the Kreuzzeitung people, in an underhand way, placed them in a false position. The Bismarck family had lived in the same house with the Lepsiuses, and once when popular songs of liberty and “Not yet, not yet, is Poland lost,” had been sung during a social evening at their rooms, Frau Elizabeth writes: “Thank God that the Bismarcks have left, or he would have got us into the Kreuzzeitung as Republicans.” How times and men change! These latter, fortunately, sometimes to better and greater.