The Shield of the Dynasty

** Cologne, 9 June. As German journals report, Herr Camphausen, before
No. 10, 10 June 1848
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
his conciliators on the 6th inst., poured out his overflowing heart. He
delivered “a speech not so much brilliant as much more flowing from the innermost sources of his heart, a speech reminiscent of Paul, where he says:
‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
love, I am become as sounding brass!’ His speech was rich in that sacred
emotion which we call love – – it spoke inspiringly to the inspired, the
applause was endless … and a longer pause was necessary to surrender
oneself to its whole impression and to absorb it.”

And who was the hero of this speech, gushing from the source of the heart,
abounding in love? Who was the theme that so inspired Herr Camphausen
that he spoke inspiringly to the inspired? Who the Aeneas of this Aeneid of
6 June?

Who else but the Prince of Prussia!

Let one read in the shorthand report how the poetical council-president
depicts the voyages of the modern son of Anchises;
how, when the day came
– when holy Ilium sank,
Priam too and the people of the spear-skilled king,
how after the fall of Junker-like Troy, after long wanderings
by water and land, he was finally driven to the shore of modern Carthage
and most amicably received by Queen Dido;
how he fared better than Aeneas I, since a Camphausen was found, who
restored Troy as far as possible and rediscovered the sacred “legal ground”;
how Camphausen finally let his Aeneas return home to his penates, and how
now joy reigns once more in the halls of Troy. All this and countless
poetic embellishments one must read to feel what it means when an inspirer
speaks to the inspired.

This whole epic, moreover, serves Herr Camphausen merely as a pretext
for a dithyramb upon himself and his own ministry. “Yes – he exclaims – we
believed it was in keeping with the spirit of the constitutional constitution
that we should put ourselves in the place of an exalted personage, that we
should present ourselves as the personalities against whom all attacks should
be directed … So it has happened. We have placed ourselves as a shield before
the dynasty and diverted all dangers and attacks upon ourselves!”

What a compliment for the “exalted personage”, what a compliment
for the “dynasty”! Without Herr Camphausen and his six paladins the
dynasty was lost. For what a robust, for what a “dynasty deeply rooted in
the people” must Herr Camphausen hold the House of Hohenzollern, to
speak thus! Truly, had Herr Camphausen spoken less “inspiringly to the
inspired”, had he been less “rich in that sacred emotion which we call love”,
or had he merely let his Hansemann speak, who contents himself with the
“sounding brass”, it would have been better for the dynasty!

“But, gentlemen, I do not say this with defiant pride, but with the
humility that springs from the consciousness that the great task set before
you and us can only be solved if the spirit of gentleness and conciliation
descends also upon this Assembly, if we find, alongside your justice, also
your forbearance!”

Herr Camphausen is right to ask for gentleness and forbearance for
himself from an Assembly that stands itself so much in need of the gentleness
and forbearance of the public!