Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/148

 The enthusiastic elation was followed by a short time of anxious expectancy. At last came the report of the awful events that had taken place in the capital.

The king of Prussia, Frederick William IV., at first received the petitions rushing in upon him with sullen silence. He had so recently, and then so emphatically, even so defiantly, proclaimed his inflexible determination never to consent to any constitutional limitation of his kingly power, that the thought of yielding to popular pressure anything that he fancied should be only a free emanation of the royal will was well-nigh inconceivable to him. But the situation became more threatening from day to day. Not only the language of the deputations arriving from various parts of the kingdom constantly grew more and more impetuous and peremptory, but the people of Berlin began to hold mass meetings counting by thousands and to greet with thundering acclamations the political watchwords uttered by popular orators. The municipal authorities, too, were swept into the current and entreated the king to make concessions. At last he saw the necessity of yielding something. On the 14th of March he gave a “gracious” answer to an address presented by the city council, but that answer was still too evasive and indefinite to satisfy public opinion. Meanwhile bloody collisions occurred between the police supported by military detachments and the multitude thronging the public squares and streets, in which a merchant and a university student were killed. The bitterness of feeling caused by these events was somewhat assuaged by a rumor that the king had resolved upon further and more important concessions, which would be publicly announced on the 18th. He had indeed concluded to issue an edict opening a prospect of steps to be taken in favor of national unity and abolishing the censorship of the press.