In the following year the Burschenschaft, which Jahn desired to form, began to take shape, and to increase the alarm of the lovers of peace at all costs. Metternich rose to the occasion; and boasted that he had become a moral power in Europe, which would leave a void when it disappeared. In March, 1819, the event took place which at last gave this "moral power" a success that seemed for the moment likely to be lasting. Ludwig Sand, a young man who had studied first at Erlangen and afterwards at Jena, went, on March 23rd, 1819, to the house of Kotzebue at Mannheim, and stabbed him to the heart. It was said, truly or falsely, that a paper was found with Sand, declaring that he acted with the authority of the University of ----. It was said also that Sand had played a prominent part in the Wartburg celebration. With the logic usual with panic-mongers, Metternich was easily able to deduce from these facts the conclusion that the Universities must, if left to themselves, become schools of sedition and murder. The Duke of Weimar, with more courage, perhaps, than tact, had anticipated the designs of Metternich by a proclamation in favour of freedom of thought and teaching at the Universities, as the best security for attaining truth. This proclamation strengthened still further the hands of Metternich. Abandoning the position which he had assumed at the Congress of Vienna, of champion of the smaller States of Germany, he appealed to the King of Prussia for help to coerce the Duke of Weimar, and the German Universities. Frederick William, in spite of his support of Schmalz, was still troubled by some scruples of conscience. In May, 1815, he had made a public promise of a Constitution to Prussia; Stein and Humboldt were eager that he should fulfil this promise, and even the less scrupulous Hardenberg held that it ought to be fulfilled sooner or later. But Metternich urged upon the King that he had allowed dangerous principles to grow in Prussia; that his kingdom was the centre of conspiracy against the peace and order of Germany, and that, if he once conceded representative government, the other Powers would be obliged to leave him to his fate. The King, already alarmed by the course which events were taking, was easily persuaded by Metternich to abandon a proposal which seemed to have nothing in its favour except the duty of keeping his word. Arndt was deprived of his professorship, and tried by commission on the charge of taking part in a Republican conspiracy; Jahn was arrested, and Görres fled from the country, to reappear at a later time in Bavaria as a champion of Ultramontanism against the hateful influence of Prussia.