The political atmosphere constantly grew darker and more threatening. Throngs of people had streamed from all the provinces to attend Ottilie's funeral, all with the same sorrow, the same rancor; and, after the obsequies were over, they assembled for consultations of the most serious nature, and these consultations resulted in resolutions. Unions were formed and dissolved, deputations sent and dismissed, the press rose and was suppressed. The evidences of the advancing movement became more and more decided, the measures of the government yet more stringent.

Suddenly a shout rang through the whole country.

"Count Ottmar has formed an opposition in the ministry! Count Ottmar has declared for the constitution!" The news ran like wildfire. Ottmar, who had been so long hated as the enemy of all progress, the powerful favorite of the prince, suddenly threw influence, position, and authority into the wavering scale, and acknowledged before the world the cause against which he had so long battled. No one took time to question the motive of this sudden change; enough that it was so, it was help in the hour of the utmost need; and new courage animated the elastic minds of the people. Ottmar was now the centre of universal attention; the last hope was bound up in him. This consciousness gave him a dignity which pervaded his whole character. He was once more the old Ottmar, who strode on haughtily erect, in triumph; but another and a nobler triumph was now depicted in his sparkling eyes, his lofty bearing; it was not the victory of subtle arts over the hearts of feeble women, credulous princes, and less gifted diplomats; but the conquest of a manly action upon minds, and the pride of an honest purpose in lieu of treacherous fascinations.

He was animated with new life. The conflict between his principles and his course of action, as well as that between his love and his career, which Cornelia so greatly feared, had arisen; and although the first impulse to his new deeds, as in the case of Albert's liberation, had been merely the selfish desire to enter the path upon which he might hope to find Cornelia, he again felt with great satisfaction the blessing of his good action.

There is scarcely any soil more favorable for the efforts of man than to represent a nation, be it in whatever form it may, none in which the noblest and purest philanthropy can be better developed; but there is also none from which personal vanity reaps a more abundant harvest. Cornelia knew this, and therefore had sought to lead Ottmar into this career. Vanity was the tie by which she endeavored to unite the egotist to a great cause, until its own nature could enter into him and raise him above himself. The moment had now arrived when her expectation began to prove itself correct. Heinrich found himself obtaining an importance in the eyes of the whole country, which he had hitherto possessed only within the narrow circle of the court; saw himself beloved where he had formerly been hated; surrounded with shouts of joy, instead of having men shrink from him in fear, and he would have been unnatural if it had not both flattered him and stirred the silent chords of benevolence within him. Thus the way was opened which he must follow if his opposition in the ministry succumbed, and he sacrificed the portfolio to his new confession of faith.

"Cornelia, wonderful woman, what have you made me?" he said to himself a hundred times, while his breast heaved with a sigh of longing. He pressed his hand upon his heart, which he felt more and more to be the centre of gravity of his nature; where the head whose lofty ideas had given him new life had so often rested and thought. "When shall I hide you here again? When, after all these tumultuous conflicts, shall I hold quiet, blissful intercourse with you? When will your sparkling eyes rest lovingly upon me, and say, I am satisfied with you, Heinrich'?"

Weeks elapsed, and the people still hoped, while Ottmar saw the catastrophe he expected approach nearer and nearer,--for he knew the situation of affairs too well to believe for a moment that his opposition would effect anything more than to give him the confidence he needed for his new career, and make his change of opinion easier. He was not mistaken. From the moment he acknowledged his real views he was excluded from all personal intercourse with the prince, and the majority in the ministry was against him. The prince, calm and immovable in his convictions, did not suspect that in Ottmar alone lay the pledge of his security; his eyes, which were constantly gazing into the obscurity of a long-buried past, did not perceive the feeling of the nation which had assembled menacingly about the liberal minister. But Ottmar felt this invisible power hovering around his brow with whispers of promise, and knew that he was the real ruler of the moment; for with him fell the last barrier that withheld the rising flood from the steps of the throne, and with a proud smile he at last hailed his overthrow in the ministry as the first real triumph of his life.

"May you never be compelled by force, your Highness, to acknowledge the spirit you now deny!" were his last words, as he left the council of ministers. He did not suspect how soon, for the first time, he was to know and estimate at its full power the spirit that, with scornful menace, he had held up as a ghost before the eyes of the prince.

On the evening of the same day the rumor that Ottmar had sent in his resignation spread through the city, so that undoubtedly the question of the constitution had been unfavorably decided. The streets were deserted, but the public-houses were filled to overflowing; conversations were carried on a low tone, and several arrests were made.

The next morning the newspapers confirmed the report that Count Ottmar's resignation had been sent in and accepted; and further remarked that the government, spite of its eagerness to accede to all just and reasonable demands, could not suffer itself to be borne on by the extreme views of this man, etc.

This was too hard a blow for the newly-excited hopes of the nation.

Ottmar himself, by his previous conduct, had unconsciously increased its expectations to such an extent that they could only be crushed by a terrible rebuff, but not subside peacefully.

A nation which has long pleaded and had its most reasonable demands rejected, its highest expectations disappointed, is a terrible power when, with its last hope, its last fear is cast aside. Scarcely had the news of Ottmar's withdrawal from the ministry spread abroad, when all the machines stood still, all the looms stopped. A strange bustle began to make itself heard in the streets. Workmen ran busily to and fro, groups formed and separated. Crowds of men, engaged in earnest conversation, surged up and down. Towards evening the strange mysterious rabble, the vermin which always crawl forth when the soil of popular order is disturbed, began to mingle with the throng. The questions and interference of the police were answered with contempt or a slap in the face. At last, with the gathering darkness, the aimless tumult assumed purpose and direction; Ottmar's house was the point towards which the pulsing life of the whole City streamed. A cheer was raised for the discharged minister, the fallen representative of the people. A few hasty charges from the patrol dispersed the scarcely organized, defenceless crowd; but the result was that the following day it assembled again, and the scene was repeated; this time with a cheer for Ottmar and a hiss for the government. The advancing soldiers found a part of the crowd armed, and a struggle ensued. When the first wounded man fell a furious yell burst forth, and the resistance became desperate, until a second detachment of mounted gendarmes dashed upon the combatants with drawn sabres and forced them asunder.

The first blow dealt upon such occasions opens the artery of a whole nation, and the wild blood streams forth until strength is utterly exhausted, and the arm yields feebly to the bandage which often only conceals a new fetter.

On the third day the City looked as if some public festival were being celebrated. An inexplicable concourse of strangers thronged the streets; the trains arrived crowded with the inhabitants of the provinces; new bands constantly flocked to the City; the soldiers were consigned to the barracks, the places of business closed.

Still the demon of insurrection, imprisoned in every throbbing heart, waited until the scattered masses obtained a definite form, and then burst forth with all his long-repressed power; one mind in a many-limbed, gigantic body. Roaring and shouting he rushed forward with the wings of the storm, ever swelling and increasing, destroying all peaceful life as he dashed along. The breezes fled before and around him, the earth shook and whirled its stones upward to the glittering palaces; while shattering and crashing, groaning and roaring, was the accompanying harmony to the terrible, howling, and shouting song of fury of the unchained revolution.

Pale terror stared hollow-eyed at the passing desolation, while the Nemesis of the insulted law dashed after on snorting steeds. But the ghost of fratricide rested with paralyzing power upon the pursuers, and unreached, unchecked, a part of the mighty crowd rushed on to the arsenal. The guard stationed for its defense fell at the first tremendous assault; the huge doors yielded, and with an exultant roar of "Arms!" the combatants rushed in over the treasured emblems of battle-traditions centuries old, to prepare for the most important conflict--the victory of the new over the old time.

Vengeance hastened after with lightning and thunder; and the infuriated forces, crashing and shrieking, rushed upon each other and struggled in the most terrible of all conflicts--the narrow, crowded battle of the streets. Repeated volleys of artillery and new bands of soldiers at last forced a way through the throng before the arsenal was plundered. But, as a wave which the tempest lashes asunder always rushes together with redoubled violence, the crowd divided and grew denser here and there before the regular weapons of the troops. Hotter and more deadly grew the struggle. Darkness was gradually added to the thick smoke of the powder, which enveloped the noisy city and absorbed every ray of light. Barricades, those terrible fortifications of the populace, had risen, and around them the conflict raged, so that the walls of the houses groaned and trembled, and with the last gleam of day the last appearance of definite purpose vanished, darkness shrouded the heated brains, and both within and without all outline of form and plan vanished. Murder was no longer committed for the sake of a certain object, but became the object itself. Nature asserted her rights, not in a peaceful, normal manner, but with horrible degeneracy,--stupefaction in the place of sleep, the delirium of fury instead of dreams. The animal developed itself in forms of hideous distortion, and the most dangerous madness took possession of the soul: joy in cruelty, pleasure in destruction. Hour after hour elapsed in a wild tumult of excesses and crimes; anarchy writhed and twisted horribly beneath the superior force of fresh bodies of troops, clung giddily to her bulwarks, and defended them with convulsive energy as her last support. The struggle now became monotonous. Signals, volleys of artillery, and fierce howls, like those of wild beasts, alternated at regular intervals, while above them rose the notes of the alarm-bells, and only the crash of falling barricades, the glare of burning houses, interrupted the terrible rhythm with which the yielding revolution was uttering its last sighs. Limb after limb began to die, street after street became quiet.

At last, towards morning, the over-taxed strength was exhausted, the thirst for blood slaked. Death was gleaning in the houses where battle had cast its mangled victims, and trembling hands were busied in binding up wounds, while compassion and horror struggled for the mastery. The last shot died away, the insurrection was quelled. Silence spread over the scene the lassitude of death. Slowly the ever-patient heavens flushed with the rosy hues of dawn, and the still reeking city lay purple in its blood.

Ottmar stood at the window gazing silently, now at the glowing sky and now at the blood-stained earth. Horror had stupefied him. In the angles of the streets soldiers, who had fallen asleep while standing in the ranks, leaned against each other, shoulder to shoulder. Now and then a body covered with straw was borne past; pallid women stepped noiselessly over the barricades, urged on by the courage of despair, and crept along the streets to seek their husbands and sons; invisible angels of death floated through the air, guided them into the right path, and hovered around them when, in some lifeless body, they were forced to recognize a relative.

Heinrich gazed motionless at these changing scenes of misery; but his inmost heart was strangely stirred. The spirit of murdered freedom celebrated in him its resurrection, built a temple in his soul, raised its arches heavenward, and led him away from this sorrowful scene of his former unhallowed labors to his own home, where the lists stood open to the missionaries of national happiness, where he could obey the call which had appealed to his conscience in the death-cry of an ill-used country. All the frivolity and brilliancy that had formerly charmed him was swallowed up in the streams of blood he had seen flow,--all striving and struggling to assert his own merits vanished in the newly-awakened consciousness of the duties devolving upon every talented man for the development and culture of the masses. The solemnity of the moment had seized upon him and stripped off all that was false and superficial. He could not answer with sophisms the great question propounded by the times; he must at last be himself again, must acknowledge the truth, and from amidst all the horrors of vengeance, the rushing streams of blood, once more arose in its pure beauty the thought of the eternal rights of man he had so grievously profaned.