of the time to sink into utter worthlessness.  On my return to Dresden the realisation of my complete loneliness came over me for the first time with full consciousness, as I could not help knowing that with the loss of my mother every natural bond of union was loosened with my brothers and sisters, each of whom was taken up with his or her own family affairs.  So I plunged dully and coldly into the only thing which could cheer and warm me, the working out of my Lohengrin and my studies of German antiquity.

Thus dawned the last days of February, which were to plunge Europe once more into revolution.  I was among those who least expected a probable or even possible overthrow of the political world.  My first knowledge of such things had been gained in my youth at the time of the July Revolution, and the long and peaceful reaction that followed it.  Since then I had become acquainted with Paris, and from all the signs of public life which I saw there, I thought all that had occurred had been merely the preliminaries of a great revolutionary movement.  I had been present at the erection of the forts detaches around Paris, which Louis Philippe had carried out, and been instructed about the strategic value of the various fixed sentries scattered about Paris, and I agreed with those who considered that everything was ready to make even an attempt at a rising on the part of the populace of Paris quite impossible.  When, therefore, the Swiss War of Separation at the end of the previous year, and the successful Sicilian Revolution at the beginning of the New Year, turned all men’s eyes in great excitement to watch the effect of these risings on Paris, I did not take the slightest interest in the hopes and fears which were aroused.  News of the growing restlessness in the French capital did indeed reach us, but I disputed Rockel’s belief that any significance could be attached to it.  I was sitting in the conductor’s desk at a rehearsal of Martha when, during an interval, Rockel, with the peculiar joy of being in the right, brought me the news of Louis Philippe’s flight, and the proclamation of the Republic in Paris.  This made a strange and almost astonishing impression on me, although at the same time the doubt as to the true significance of these events made it possible for me to smile to myself.  I too caught the fever of excitement which had spread everywhere.  The German March days were coming, and from all directions ever more alarming news kept coming in.  Even within the narrow confines of my native Saxony serious petitions were framed, which the King withstood for a long time; even he was deceived, in a way which he was soon to acknowledge, as to the meaning of this commotion and the temper that prevailed in the country.