Mackey – Encyclopedia Of Freemasonry Vol. 1

258 SECRET SOCIETIESthe rulers " restored " to them, appears from the fact that"Young Germany" amused itself on the king's (of Prussia)birthday with shooting at his portrait . Their statutes werevery severe against treason, or even mere indiscretion . ADr. Breidenstein wrote to Mazzini in June 1834 that oneStrohmayer, a member of the society, had been sentenced todeath, not that he was a traitor, but his indiscretion was tobe feared . Sixteen months after, on the morning of 4thNovember 1835, a milkman found the body of the studentLouis Lessing, pierced with forty-nine dagger wounds, inthe lonely Sihl valley, near Zurich . Though the legal investigationdid not positively prove it, yet it was the generalopinion that Lessing had acted as spy on the "GermanYouth" society, and been sentenced to death by them .Still, what those obscure students aimed at is now anaccomplished fact ; and the prediction of Carl Julius Weberin his "Democritos" (published in 1832), that Prussia, unitedwith the smaller German states, would be the dictator ofEurope, a reality . But a sad reality for Europe, since it has" Thrust back this age of sound industriousnessTo that of military savageness 1 "Yes, Germany seems to be retrograding to the days ofHildebrand ; for has not Bismarck gone to Canossa, in spiteof his assertion he would not do so? and has not themighty emperor-king knelt to the Pope ?649 . German Feeling against Napoleon .-Napoleon, whilsthe could in Germany form a court composed 'of kings andprinces obedient to his slightest nod, also found implacableand incorruptible individualities, who swore undying hatredto him who ruled half the world . Still, those who opposedthe French emperor had no determined plan, and were misledby fallacious hopes ; and the leaders, always clever in takingadvantage of the popular forces, threw the more daring onesin front like a vanguard, whose destruction is predetermined,in order to fill up the chasm that separates the main bodyfrom victory .650 . Formation and Scope of Tugendbund.-Two of themen who were the first, or amongst the first, to meditate thedownfall of the conqueror before whom all German governmentshad fallen prostrate, were Count Stadion, the soul ofAustrian politics, and Baron Stein,' a native of Nassau, who1 The original MS. of the great reorganisation projects for the PrussianState, 1807, was found in 1882, in the gartenhaus of the Stein family, at Gross-Kochberg, Saalfeld, in Thuringia .