Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/244

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THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ

at last an officer standing near the gate said: “I feel just as you do. I do not belong here and have tried all possible points where I thought I might slip through, but all in vain. We have to submit and remain.” Of Anneke I found no trace. He had either left the city or perhaps had not been in it at all.

Having given up all hope of escape, I reported myself to the Governor of the fortress, Colonel Tiedemann. He was a tall, slender man, with fine, regular features, and a bold, resolute expression of face. As the son of a privy counselor, a far-famed professor of medicine in Heidelberg, he had received a good education. In early youth his inclination led him into the army, and he followed to Athens the Bavarian Prince Otto, who became the first king of Greece. The revolution in Baden found him at home, and the provisional government entrusted to him the command of the fortress of Rastatt. He received me kindly, listened to my report, and attached me to his staff. As to my duties, I was to report to him the next morning. I received quarters in the house of a confectioner by the name of Nusser. My host and his wife, very kind and well-mannered people, welcomed me heartily and put at my disposal a pleasant room and a seat at their table. Also my servant, Adam, a young soldier from the Palatinate, who fortunately had followed me into the fortress, found shelter in the house.

All this looked cheerful enough. But when my host and Adam had left me alone and I could, in the silence of my chamber, think over the new situation, my heart became heavy. That our cause, unless a miracle happened, was lost, I could no longer conceal from myself; and what kind of a miracle it might be, my hopeful imagination failed to guess. Could it be the passing over of the Prussian Landwehr to the revolutionary army? That would have been possible at the

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