Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/456

 there, too, the troops had remained masters of the field. Then the soldiery rushed into the houses and murdered without discrimination or compassion. At last there was the quiet of the graveyard in the great city. The popular rising had been comparatively insignificant and powerless. The usurper who had but recently been represented as a weak-minded adventurer, the mere “nephew of his uncle,” had succeeded in subjugating Paris. The departments did not move; there was no doubt the Republic was at an end, and with its downfall vanished also the prospect of the new revolutionary upheaval, which, on the impulse coming from France, was expected to spread over the whole European continent.

Stunned by all these terrible reports, and mentally as well as physically exhausted, we quietly returned to our quarters. After I had recuperated from this consuming excitement by a long sleep I tried to become clear in my mind about the changed situation of things. It was a foggy day, and I went out because I found it impossible to sit still within my four walls. Absorbed in thought, I wandered on without any definite aim, and found myself at last in Hyde Park, where, in spite of the chilly air, I sat down on a bench. In whatever light I might consider the downfall of the republic and the advent of a new monarchy in France, one thing seemed to me certain: All the efforts connected with the revolution of 1848 were now hopeless; a period of decided and general reaction was bound to come, and whatever the future might bring of further developments in the direction of liberal movement must necessarily have a new starting-point.

With this conviction my own situation became equally clear to me. It would have been childish to give myself up to further illusory hopes of a speedy return to the Fatherland. To continue our plottings and thereby bring still more mischief