Only a few days elapsed before the execution of this little plan; but they were destined to be momentous ones.  On the 1st of May the Chambers were dissolved by the new Beust ministry, which the King had charged with carrying out his proposed reactionary policy.  This event imposed upon me the friendly task of caring for Rockel and his family.  Hitherto his position as a deputy had shielded him from the danger of criminal prosecution; but as soon as the Chambers were dissolved this protection was withdrawn, and he had to escape by flight from being arrested again.  As I could do little to help him in this matter, I promised at least to provide for the continued publication of his popular Volksblatt, mainly because the proceeds from this would support his family.  Scarcely was Rockel safely across the Bohemian frontier, while I was still toiling at great inconvenience to myself in the printer’s office, in order to provide material for an issue of his paper, when the long-expected storm burst over Dresden.  Emergency deputations, nightly mob demonstrations, stormy meetings of the various unions, and all the other signs that precede a swift decision in the streets, manifested themselves.  On the 3rd May the demeanour of the crowds moving in our thoroughfares plainly showed that this consummation would soon be reached, as was undoubtedly desired.  Each local deputation which petitioned for the recognition of the German constitution, which was the universal cry, was refused an audience by the government, and this with a peremptoriness which at last became startling.  I was present one afternoon at a committee meeting of the Vaterlands-Verein, although merely as a representative of Rockel’s Volksblatt, for whose continuance, both from economic as well as humane motives, I felt pledged.  Here I was at once absorbed in watching the conduct and demeanour of the men whom popular favour had raised to the leadership of such unions.  It was quite evident that events had passed beyond the control of these persons; more particularly were they utterly at a loss as to how to deal with that peculiar terrorism exerted by the lower classes which is always so ready to react upon the representatives of democratic theories.  On every side I heard a medley of wild proposals and hesitating responses.  One of the chief subjects under debate was the necessity of preparing for defence.  Arms, and how to procure them, were eagerly discussed, but all in the midst of great disorder; and when at last they discovered that it was time to break up, the only impression I received was one of the wildest confusion.  I loft the hall with a young painter named Kaufmann, from whose hand I had previously seen a series of cartoons in the Dresden Art Exhibition, illustrating ‘The History of the Mind.’  One day I had seen the King of Saxony standing before one of these, representing the torture of a heretic under the Spanish Inquisition, and observed him turn away with a disapproving shake