Marschall von Bieberstein immediately proposed to accompany me.  I welcomed his offer, as he was an officer of the provisional government, and was consequently more fitted than I was to communicate orders.  This man, who had been almost extravagant in his enthusiasm before, was now utterly exhausted by sleeplessness, and unable to emit another word from his hoarse throat.  He now made his way with me from the Town Hall to his house in the suburb of Plauen by the devious ways that had been indicated to us, in order to requisition a carriage for our purpose from a coachman he knew, and to bid farewell to his family, from whom he assumed he would in all probability have to separate himself for some time.

While we were waiting for the coachman we had tea and supper, talking the while, in a fairly calm and composed manner, with the ladies of the house.  We arrived at Freiberg early the following morning, after various adventures, and I set out forthwith to find the leaders of the reservist contingent with whom I was already acquainted.  Marschall advised them to requisition horses and carts in the villages wherever they could do so.  When they had all set off in marching order for Dresden, and while I was feeling impelled by my passionate interest in the fate of that city to return to it once more, Marschall conceived the desire to carry his commission further afield, and for this purpose asked to be allowed to leave me.  Whereupon I again turned my back on the heights of the Erzgebirge, and was travelling by special coach in the direction of Tharand, when I too was overcome with sleep, and was only awakened by violent shouts and the sound of some one holding a parley with the postillion.  On opening my eyes I found, to my astonishment, that the road was filled with armed revolutionaries marching, not towards, but away from Dresden, and some of them were trying to commandeer the coach to relieve their weariness on the way back.

‘What is the matter?’ I cried.  ‘Where are you going?’

‘Home,’ was the reply.  ’It is all over in Dresden.  The provincial government is close behind us in that carriage down there.’

I shot out of the coach like a dart, leaving it at the disposal of the tired men, and hurried on, down the steeply sloping road, to meet the ill-fated party.  And there I actually found them—­ Heubner, Bakunin, and Martin, the energetic post-office clerk, the two latter armed with muskets—­in a smart hired carriage from Dresden which was coming slowly up the hill.  On the box were, as I supposed, the secretaries, while as many as possible of the weary National Guard struggled for seats behind.  I hastened to swing myself into the coach, and so came in for a conversation which thereupon took place between the driver, who was also the owner of the coach, and the provisional government.  The man was imploring them to spare his carriage, which, he said, was very lightly sprung and quite unequal to carrying such a load; he begged that the people should