THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
tion. Only a few days after the matter had been resolved upon in a confidential circle Kinkel broke off his activity as a teacher in London—a very great sacrifice for him thus to expose his family to new hazards—and departed for America. I, being still quite young and inexperienced, was sanguine enough to consider the success of such an undertaking possible, and went into it with zeal. I was considered capable of doing some diplomatic service and therefore charged with the task of traveling to Switzerland in order to win the assent of the prominent refugees living there, and so to prepare the foundation for a general organization. This task I assumed with pleasure, and on the way paid a visit to Paris, of which I did not, however, advise the polite prefect of police, and soon met my old friends in Zürich.
For these, I had become, because of the liberation of Kinkel, an entirely new person since my departure a year before. They now attributed to me a great deal more insight and skill than I possessed, and my diplomatic mission, therefore, met with but little difficulty—that is to say, the prominent refugees, in the expectation that a national loan would, through Kinkel's agitations in America, turn out a great success, readily declared their willingness to join the proposed movement.
The most important man, and at the same time the most stubborn doubter, I found there, was Loewe von Calbe. As the last president of the German National Parliament he had gone in the spring of 1849 with the remnant of that assembly from Frankfurt to Stuttgart and there he had, arm in arm with the old poet Uhland, led the procession of his colleagues to a new meeting place, when it was dispersed by a force of Würtemberg cavalry. He was a physician by profession, and had acquired a large treasure of knowledge in various directions by extensive studies. He made the impression of a very calm, methodical
[ 374 ]
