The bishop fancied that after enduring his twenty-four weeks of imprisonment he might hope for fresh air and liberty. That hopefulness was rather surprising. Instead of the accomplishment of this expectation, his house was stripped of its furniture (which was afterwards sold), and he himself was conveyed on very short notice to the fortress of Wesel, it being explicitly stated that this penalty was the consequence of the before-mentioned pastoral regarding the Old Catholics. The same sympathizing crowd met him on his way to the station, and his private secretary accompanied him by choice to the scene of his new imprisonment. It was on the 20th of January, 1875, that the bishop entered on the two months’ penalty at Wesel, and there he seems on the whole to have been better off than at Paderborn. He could walk freely on the ramparts, and enjoy to a certain extent social intercourse with the other prisoners, who were in most cases priests of his own diocese. Three cells were assigned to him for his use; the third was an act of thoughtfulness on the part of the commandant, who had reserved it for the bishop’s daily Mass. If, indeed, it had not been for the Holy Sacrifice—for every day, Dr. Martin remarks, “holy” Masses were said up till ten o’clock by the imprisoned priests[19]—the fortress would have borne a resemblance to the middle state where souls are detained for a time on account of their sins. The supervision exercised was slight, beyond the visitation of all the cells twice every day. Once when the bishop was taking exercise on the ramparts which overlooked the Rhine—in itself like the face of an old friend to Dr. Martin—some of the faithful who descried him in the distance knelt for his blessing. The act, the bishop knew not how, was communicated to the commandant, who forbade him in writing to repeat it. At Wesel correspondence was free, and even newspapers of all kinds were permitted. Feelers were sent out by the government to test the bishop’s sentiments with regard to his civil deposition, but his consent could never be obtained. And he was cheered and supported by an address which was brought to him towards the middle of March by a nobleman on the part of his diocese. It contained these words: “It is true that your lordship as bishop has been deposed by the Royal Court of Justice in Berlin, but you are, and will remain, our bishop, and we will be faithful to you until death.”[20] Two thick volumes bore the signatures to this statement, and they numbered ninety-six thousand.