Sand conducted himself during his residence in Erlangen as exemplarily as before, yet he was at the same time an active member of the Teutonia there; in fact he was twice a leader of this union, and drew up a constitution for the Burschenschaft, under the title of the Erlangen Burschenschaft-Custom. From Erlangen and Jena he made several short journeys, and amongst them the one to Eisenach, which proved so influential on his future life. There he joined in the celebration of the festival on the Wartburg, on the 18th of October, 1817, and his part in this transaction he thus describes:--
"On the 17th of October I arrived in Eisenach, and was chosen on the festival-committee. I here helped to keep order; heard the speeches on the Wartburg, but did not speak myself; I went in the evening to the fire, and saw the books burnt. On the following morning I heard speeches for the reconcilement of the disputes of many of the student-quarrels of former years, and listened to the splendid orations on the Fatherland. I accompanied the Burschen to the church, and partook of the sacrament; then was the festival ended, and I returned to Jena." He adds, that it had been a festival simply for the elevation of the sacred cause, and that no determinate object besides had been contemplated.
In Jena, Sand continued to educate himself, in order, as he expressed himself, the better to look about himself, and to ground himself fairly in the different departments of knowledge; till suddenly the inner call for ever summoned him away. His teachers there gave their testimony that he always appeared as a grave, quiet, and discreet man, zealously striving after excellence. That he was accustomed to speak little, since speaking appeared a difficulty to him; but that what he did say, was always prudent, well-considered, and sensible, and that his deportment had nothing displeasing in it, although it was energetic and firm. During his abode in Jena, he was a member of the so-called Burschenschaft, but at the same time also of another company, which he termed a Literary Union. He made from Jena a journey into North Germany, and visited many of the most celebrated battle-fields of both past and modern times. After his return he proceeded again with his studies with unremitting diligence, and had obtained permission from his parents to continue another half-year in Jena, when he suddenly broke off, on the 9th of March, 1819, at four o'clock in the morning, and set out on his last fatally eventful journey towards Mannheim.
We have thus followed the thread of Sand's history to this period with sufficient minuteness, and we have permitted ourselves to sketch it with the more exactness, since it is particularly interesting to trace all the causes which could conduct a character, otherwise so excellent, to such a crime;--as, moreover, conjectures respecting these causes can only be rightly founded on a real knowledge of the circumstances of the case, and from these only can those conclusions be drawn, which were, though without effect, employed in the defence of this singular man. In his history we behold the fac-simile of the history of the whole Burschenschaft to which he belonged. A description of his person, from that officially drawn up, may precede the relation of his unhappy deed. In the protocol it stands thus:--
"Sand was in age twenty-three and a half years; stood five feet six inches high; had strong black hair and eyebrows; a high forehead, gray eyes, longish nose, mouth of middle size, dark-brown very weak beard, ordinary chin, broad countenance, tolerably healthy colour, with some pock-marks in the face." His look was open, and for the most part friendly, but not eminently intellectual; his physiognomy good-natured, but not especially interesting; his visage might be termed an involuntary mirror of his mind. So painted themselves wrath and scorn upon it, when the speech turned upon Kotzebue and his connexion with Germany; so might be read in it a painful, or an hostile feeling, when the principles of his system must be attacked; so that, in the end, very little attention became necessary to discern by it, when his answers did not contain the truth. The play of the muscles of his forehead was particularly strikingly acted upon by an internal feeling of resistance, which generally rose in him when he desired by some means to conceal the truth.
Kotzebue's writings had been long disliked by Sand. Many of his early assertions betray it. Such was his observation to his father:--"Of what use is the man's literary talent, when the German heart is wanting?" On the burning of his History of Germany, on the Wartburg, he became immediately watchful of him; but still more, when shortly afterwards his literary Wochenblatt, or weekly paper, appeared. In this publication, Kotzebue promulgated his opinions often and variously on the then state of German affairs, and many of his views must have given great displeasure. Thus, he contended especially against the promotion of a combined and constitutional government in Germany, and asserted that the loud demand for this was by no means the voice of the people, of whom he very much doubted, whether they wanted any constitution at all. For this bold assertion, Kotzebue was instantly attacked and ridiculed on all sides. A specimen of the missiles launched against him on the occasion, may be given from an article in the "Zeitung für die elegante Welt,"--News for the Elegant World, in the year 1818:--
This serious doubt (that of Kotzebue) has fallen heavily on the heart. We have, therefore, with eagerness undertaken the following proposal for its solution. In Kotzebue's right hand lies, in fact, the means to bring the matter to a tolerable certainty. If that gentleman will in future take the field against the clamour for a constitution in all his Plays with the same sober earnestness, and jibe and joke, with which he has powerfully and perseveringly attacked other follies, then will the success or the failure of his piece throw great light on the sentiments of the people; and the multitude who, Herr von Kotzebue so justly says, remain silent on the matter in debate--that means, they print nothing on it--will certainly, by applauding or censuring, clapping or hissing, speak out. Should the multitude, by hissing out anti-constitutional pieces, declare for a constitution, so might the theatre immediately furnish the government with a proof whether the declaration was worthy of notice. They might now, as was done in Paris, after the acting of Germanica, march soldiers--actual soldiers--upon the stage, and let them present arms to the pit. If the multitude now applauded or ran away, it would be the height of the ridiculous to give them a constitution, since it would be manifest that they had not courage to maintain themselves against the hand of power. But hissed and clamoured they still, it would be time "to prepare the demanded preparations for the preparation of a constitution."[6]
Sand assigned the ground of his hate against Kotzebue, immediately in the opening of his trial, and he reiterated the same as his actuating motive at its close; namely,--in the evening after the murder, having lost his voice, and being only able to express himself by signs, he requested paper, and wrote with a blacklead pencil these scarcely legible words:--"August von Kotzebue is the corrupter of youth,"-- alluding to Kotzebue's frequently slippery writings, as 'Barth with the Iron Brow,' and such like,--"the slanderer of our people's history, and the Russian spy upon our Fatherland."
Sand asserted, that by the insight which he had obtained into the character and position of Kotzebue, he immediately perceived that it was impossible that he could much longer continue to live in that manner; but the resolution to destroy him with his own hand did not awake suddenly in him, it demanded gradual growth, and came not to maturity without a severe strife in his own bosom. The well-known history of the discovered bulletin at length threw unquenchable fuel on his burning hatred against Kotzebue.
Kotzebue was, in fact, commissioned by the Russian government to furnish it with full reports on the political affairs and relations of Germany, on the predominant popular opinion, and on its literary transactions. He could, in truth, no more be styled a spy than an ambassador can; but the reports which he delivered--the false and detestable statements regarding Germany which he made in them, deserve the severest condemnation. No one was aware of this secret practice of Kotzebue's, till, through the faithlessness of a copyist, such a bulletin was sent to the well-known historian Luden, then the editor of the Jena "Nemesis," a literary paper. The bulletin contained sixteen paragraphs upon Steffens (a writer on the state of those times), Schmalz, Crome, the Allemannia, an opposition paper, the Nemesis, Jung Stilling, English newspapers, mischievous nature of freedom of the press, and, finally, a sort of apology for serfdom. Monarchy was panegyrized in this bulletin, and Luden was represented as a learned man, who, with others of the learned, longed heartily for a revolution, that they might play their parts as popular speakers, deputies, and representatives. Luden, enraged at these calumnies, published the bulletin in the Nemesis, and commented on it in the most amusing manner. Kotzebue, who had immediate information of this fact, procured an order from the Weimar government