Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/413

 I certainly had not taken part in any political movement in France. In Paris I had only been an observer and a student. I did not doubt that while I was in prison the police would search the papers in my room, but that could not disquiet me, as I knew that nothing could be found there except some historical notes, a few literary sketches and some letters from friends of an entirely harmless nature. All the papers which might in any way have been considered questionable, as well as the pistols which I had carried with me during the Kinkel affair, I had been cautious enough to entrust to one of my friends for safekeeping. Nothing remained but the suspicion that I had been taken into custody at the instance of the Prussian government. But would the French Republic be capable of surrendering me to Prussia? This I deemed impossible; and thus I looked the future calmly in the face. But I was stung by a feeling of the degradation inflicted upon me by shutting me up in the same room with a common thief. It revolted my self-respect. And this could happen in a republic!

My indignation rose the following morning when I still failed to receive information about the cause of my arrest. At an early hour the thief was taken out of the cell and I remained alone. I asked the turnkey for paper, pen and ink, and in my best French I wrote a letter to the prefect, in which, in the name of the laws of the country, I demanded that I be informed why I had been deprived of my liberty. The turnkey promised to transmit the letter, but the day passed without an answer, and so another day, and still another. Neither did I receive a word from my friends, and I hesitated to write to any of them, because the receipt of a letter from me might have embarrassed them. In those few days I learned to understand something of the emotions which may torment the soul of a prisoner—a feeling of bitter wrath against the brutal power