(A.S.)
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the revolution en permanence, war to the death of the last foe.
Caussidiere, the Prefect from the barricades, who was making
'order out of disorder,' did not know how to get rid of the dear preacher, and planned with Flocon to send him off to the Slavs in earnest, with a brotherly accolade and a conviction that there he would break his neck and be no more trouble. 'Que! homme!
que! homme!' Caussidiere used to say of Bakunin: 'On the first day of the revolution he is simply a treasure, but on the day after he ought to be shot!'S
When I arrived in Paris from Rome at the beginning of May 1 848, Bakunin was already holding forth in Bohemia, surrounded by Old Believer monks, Czechs, Croats and democrats, and he continued haranguing them until Prince \Vindischgratz put an end to his eloquence with cannon (and used this excellent opportunity to shoot his own wife by mistake on purpose) .6
Disappearing from Prague, Bakunin appeared again as military commandant of Dresden ; the former artillery officer taught the art of war to the professors, musicians and chemists who had taken up arms, and advised them to hang Raphael's Madonna and Murillo's pictures on the city walls and with them protect themselves from the Prussians, who were ::.u klassisch gebildet to dare to fire on Raphael.i
Artillery, on the whole, was apt to excite him. On the way from Paris to Prague he knocked up against a revolt of peasants somewhere in Germany; they were shouting and making an uproar before a castle, unable to do anything. Bakunin got out of his ,·chicle and, not having time to find out what the matter was, formed the peasants up and instructed them so adroitly that by the time he went to get in again to continue his journey the castle was blazing on all four sides.
5 'Tell Caussidii>re.' I said in jest to his friends. 'that the difference between Bakunin and h i m is that Caussidii>re. too. is a splendid fellow. but it would be better to shoot him the day bP/orP the rf'volution.' Later on in London, in the year 1 8-5+. I remindeZ! him of this. The Prefect in exile only smote "·ith l;is hugf' fist upon his mighty clwst with the force with which piles are driven into the earth, and said: 'I carry Bakunin's image here. here.'
6 \Vhile Austrian troops undf'r \Y. were putting down the rising in Prague in June 1 8·�8. \Y.'s wife went to the windo"· of their house and was mortall v woundf'd. (A .S. )
7 A centun� later thf' T\'azis mountPcl the "Baf'dekl'r bombings'" against Co,·entry. Bath. central London (a special f'ffort was made to destroy St.
Pau l 's cathedral. "·h ich miraculous!\· survived. but manv \Vren churches didn't ) , and otllf'r historic English beauty spots. The ;\larch of Progress has been swift and consistent-to the rear. ( D.M.)
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Some day Bakunin will conquer his sloth and keep his promise; some day he will tell the tale of the long martyrdom that began for him after the taking of Dresden. I recall here only the main points. Bakunin was sentenced to the scaffold. The Saxon king commuted the axe to imprisonment for life; and afterwards, with no ground for doing so, handed him over to Austria. The Austrian police thought to find out from him something about the intentions of the Slavs. They imprisoned Bakunin in the Hradcin, and getting nothing out of him they sent him . to Olmiitz. Bakunin was taken in fetters with a strong escort of dragoons; the officer who got into the conveyance with him loaded his pistol.
'What is that for?' Bakunin asked. 'Surely you don't think that I can escape under these conditions? '
'No, but your friends may try to rescue you ; the government has heard rumours to that effect, and in that case
'
'What then?'
'I have orders to put a bullet into your head
And the companions galloped off.
At Olmiitz Bakunin was chained to the wall, and in that situation he spent six months. At last Austria got tired of feeding a foreign criminal for nothing; she offered to give him up to Russia. N icholas did not need Bakunin at all, but he had not the strength to refuse. At the Russian frontier Bakunin's fetters were removed. Of that act of clemency I have heard many times ; the fetters were indeed taken off, but those who tell the tale have forgotten to add that others much heavier were put on instead.
The Austrian officer who handed over the prisoner demanded the return of the fetters as being Imperial and Royal government property.
Nicholas praised Bakunin's brave conduct at Dresden, and put him into the Alexeyevsky ravelin. There he sent Orlov to him with orders to tell him that he (Nicholas) desired from him an account of the German and Slav movement (the monarch was not aware that every detail of this had been published in the newspapers ) . This account he 'required not as his Tsar, but as his spiritual father.' Bakunin asked Orlov in what sense the Tsar understood the words 'spiritual father': did it imply that everything told in confession must be a holy secret? Orlov did not know what to say: in general, these people are more accustomed to ask questions than to answer them. Bakunin wrote8 a news-8 In the Peter-Paul Fortress, in the summPr of 1 85 1 , B. wrote for Nicholas I his 'Confession,' in which his Pan-Slav tendencies found full expression.
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paper 'leading article.' Nicholas was satisfied with this, too. 'He is a good, intelligent young fellow, but a dangerous man; he must be kept shut up,' and for three whole years after this approval from His Majesty, Bakunin was interred in the Alexeyevsky ravelin. His confinement must have been thorough, too, if even that giant was brought so low that he wanted to take his own life. In 1 854 Bakunin was transferred to the Schliisselburg.
Nicholas was afraid that Charles Napier would liberate him; but Charles Napier and Co. did not liberate Bakunin from the ravelin but Russia from Nicholas. Alexander I I, in spite of his fit of mercy and magnanimity, left Bakunin in the fortress till 1 857, and then sent him to live in Eastern Siberia. In Irkutsk he found himself free after nine years of imprisonment. Fortunately for him the governor of the region was an original person-a democrat and a Tatar, a liberal and a despot, a relation of Mikhail Bakunin's and of Mikhail Muravev's and himself a Muravev, not yet called 'of the Amur.' He gave Bakunin a chance to breathe, an opportunity to live like a human being and to read the newspapers and magazines; he even shared his dreams of future revolutions and wars. In gratitude to Muravev, Bakunin in his mind appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the future citizen army with which he proposed in his turn to annihilate Austria and found the Slav League.
In 1 860 Bakunin's mother petitioned the Tsar for her son's return to Russia ; the Tsar said that 'Bakunin should never be brought back from Siberia during his lifetime' but, that she might not be left without comfort and the Imperial clemency, he permitted her son to enter the civil service as a copying clerk.
Then Bakunin, taking into consideration - the Tsar's ruddy cheeks and his mere forty years of age, made up his mind to escape; I completely approve of this decision. Recent years have shown, better than anything else could have, that he had nothing to expect in Siberia. Nine years in a fortress and several years of exile were more than enough. It was not, as was said, because of his escape that things became worse for the political exiles, but because the times had grown worse, men had grown worse. What influence had Bakunin's escape on the infamous