was suddenly distracted by seeing Bakunin emerge from his hiding-place and wander among the barricades in a black frockcoat.  But I was very much mistaken in thinking he would be pleased with what he saw; he recognised the childish inefficiency of all the measures that had been taken for defence, and declared that the only satisfaction he could feel in the state of affairs was that he need not trouble about the police, but could calmly consider the question of going elsewhere, as he found no inducement to take part in an insurrection conducted in such a slovenly fashion.  While he walked about, smoking his cigar, and making fun of the naivete of the Dresden revolution, I watched the Communal Guards assembling under arms in front of the Town Hall at the summons of their commandant.  From the ranks of its most popular corps, the Schutzen-Compagnie, I was accosted by Rietschel, who was most anxious about the nature of the rising, and also by Semper.  Rietschel, who seemed to think I was better informed of the facts than he was, assured me that he felt his position was a very difficult one.  He said the select company to which he belonged was very democratic, and as his professorship at the Fine Arts Academy placed him in a peculiar position, he did not know how to reconcile the sentiments he shared with his company with his duty as a citizen.  The word ‘citizen’ amused me; I glanced sharply at Semper and repeated the word ‘citizen.’  Semper responded with a peculiar smile, and turned away without further comment.

The next day (Friday the 5th of May), when I again took my place as a passionately interested spectator of the proceedings at the Town Hall, events took a decisive turn.  The remnant of the leaders of the Saxon people there assembled thought it advisable to constitute themselves into a provisional government, as there was no Saxon government in existence with which negotiations could be conducted.  Professor Kochly, who was an eloquent speaker, was chosen to proclaim the new administration.  He performed this solemn ceremony from the balcony of the Town Hall, facing the faithful remnant of the Communal Guards and the not very numerous crowd.  At the same time the legal existence of the Pan-German Constitution was proclaimed, and allegiance to it was sworn by the armed forces of the nation.  I recollect that these proceedings did not seem to me imposing, and Bakunin’s reiterated opinion about their triviality gradually became more comprehensible.  Even from a technical point of view these reflections were justified when, to my great amusement and surprise, Semper, in the full uniform of a citizen guard, with a hat bedecked with the national colours, asked for me at the Town Hall, and informed me of the extremely faulty construction of the barricades in the Wild Strufergasse and the neighbouring Brudergasse.  To pacify his artistic conscience as an engineer I directed him to the office of the ’Military Commission for the Defence.’  He followed my advice with conscientious satisfaction; possibly he obtained the necessary authorisation to give instructions for the building of suitable works of defence at that neglected point.  After that I never saw him again in Dresden; but I presume that he carried out the strategic works entrusted to him by that committee with all the conscientiousness of a Michael Angelo or a Leonardo da Vinci.