He rose immediately from the fatal chair,begging Mr.G--to stand near enough to support him if he should chance to stagger.The precaution was unnecessary,Sand did not stagger.
After the judgment had been read,he sat down again and said in a laud voice,"I die trusting in God."But at these words Mr.G--interrupted him.
"Sand,"said he,"what did you promise?"
"True,"he answered;"I had forgotten."He was silent,therefore,to the crowd;but,raising his right hand and extending it solemnly in the air,he said in a low voice,so that he might be heard only by those who were around him,"I take God to witness that I die for the ******* of Germany."Then,with these words,he did as Conradin did with his glove;he threw his rolled-up handkerchief over the line of soldiers around him,into the midst of the people.
Then the executioner came to cut off his hair;but Sand at first objected.
"It is for your mother,"said Mr.Widemann.
"On your honour,sir?"asked Sand.
"On my honour."
"Then do it,"said Sand,offering his hair to the executioner.
Only a few curls were cut off,those only which fell at the back,the others were tied with a ribbon on the top of the head.The executioner then tied his hands on his breast,but as that position was oppressive to him and compelled him an account of his wound to bend his head,his hands were laid flat on his thighs and fixed in that position with ropes.Then,when his eyes were about to be bound,he begged Mr.Widemann to place the bandage in such a manner that he could see the light to his last moment.His wish was fulfilled.
Then a profound and mortal stillness hovered over the whole crowd and surrounded the scaffold.The executioner drew his sword,which flashed like lightning and fell.Instantly a terrible cry rose at once from twenty thousand bosoms;the head had not fallen,and though it had sunk towards the breast still held to the neck.The executioner struck a second time,and struck off at the same blow the head and a part of the hand.
In the same moment,notwithstanding the efforts of the soldiers,their line was broken through;men and women rushed upon the scaffold,the blood was wiped up to the last drop with handkerchiefs;the chair upon which Sand had sat was broken and divided into pieces,and those who could not obtain one,cut fragments of bloodstained wood from the scaffold itself.
The head and body were placed in a coffin draped with black,and carried back,with a large military escort,to the prison.At midnight the body was borne silently,without torches or lights,to the Protestant cemetery,in which Kotzebue had been buried fourteen months previously.A grave had been mysteriously dug;the coffin was lowered into it,and those who were present at the burial were sworn upon the New Testament not to reveal the spot where Sand was buried until such time as they were freed from their oath.Then the grave was covered again with the turf,that had been skilfully taken off,and that was relaid on the same spat,so that no new grave could be perceived;then the nocturnal gravediggers departed,leaving guards at the entrance.
There,twenty paces apart,Sand and Kotzebue rest:Kotzebue opposite the gate in the most conspicuous spot of the cemetery,and beneath a tomb upon which is engraved this inion:
"The world persecuted him without pity,Calumny was his sad portion,He found no happiness save in the arms of his wife,And no repose save in the bosom of death.
Envy dogged him to cover his path with thorns,Love bade his roses blossom;May Heaven pardon him As he pardons earth!"
In contrast with this tall and showy monument,standing,as we have said,in the most conspicuous spot of the cemetery,Sand's grave must be looked far in the corner to the extreme left of the entrance gate;and a wild plum tree,some leaves of which every passing traveller carries away,rises alone upon the grave,which is devoid of any inion.
As far the meadow in which Sand was executed,it is still called by the people "Sand's Himmelsfartsweise,"which signifies "The manner of Sand's ascension."Toward the end of September,1838,we were at Mannheim,where I had stayed three days in order to collect all the details I could find about the life and death of Karl-Ludwig Sand.But at the end of these three days,in spite of my active investigations,these details still remained extremely incomplete,either because I applied in the wrong quarters,or because,being a foreigner,I inspired same distrust in those to whom I applied.I was leaving Mannheim,therefore,somewhat disappointed,and after having visited the little Protestant cemetery where Sand and Kotzebue are buried at twenty paces from each other,I had ordered my driver to take the road to Heidelberg,when,after going a few yards,he,who knew the object of my inquiries,stopped of himself and asked me whether I should not like to see the place where Sand was executed.At the same time he pointed to a little mound situated in the middle of a meadow and a few steps from a brook.I assented eagerly,and although the driver remained on the highroad with my travelling companions,I soon recognised the spot indicated,by means of some relics of cypress branches,immortelles,and forget-me-nots scattered upon the earth.
It will readily be understood that this sight,instead of diminishing my desire for information,increased it.I was feeling,then,more than ever dissatisfied at going away,knowing so little,when I saw a man of some five-and-forty to fifty years old,who was walking a little distance from the place where I myself was,and who,guessing the cause that drew me thither,was looking at me with curiosity.
I determined to make a last effort,and going up to him,I said,"Oh,sir,I am a stranger;I am travelling to collect all the rich and poetic traditions of your Germany.By the way in which you look at me,I guess that you know which of them attracts me to this meadow.