The councillors withdrew; Sand stood up a second time to greet them on their departure, as he had done on their entrance; then he sat down again pensively in his chair, by which Mr. G, the governor of the prison, was standing.  After a moment of silence, a tear appeared at each of the condemned man’s eyelids, and ran down his cheeks; then, turning suddenly to Mr. G——­, whom he liked very much, he said, “I hope that my parents would rather see me die by this violent death than of some slow and shameful disease.  As for me, I am glad that I shall soon hear the hour strike in which my death will satisfy those who hate me, and those wham, according to my principles, I ought to hate.”

Then he wrote to his family. 
“Mannheim

“17th of the month of spring, 1820

“Dear parents, brothers, and sisters,—­You should have received my last letters through the grand-duke’s commission; in them I answered yours, and tried to console you for my position by describing the state of my soul as it is, the contempt to which I have attained for everything fragile and earthly, and by which one must necessarily be overcome when such matters are weighed against the fulfilment of an idea, or that intellectual liberty which alone can nourish the soul; in a word, I tried to console you by the assurance that the feelings, principles, and convictions of which I formerly spoke are faithfully preserved in me and have remained exactly the same; but I am sure all this was an unnecessary precaution on my part, for there was never a time when you asked anything else of me than to have God before my eyes and in my heart; and you have seen how, under your guidance, this precept so passed into my soul that it became my sole object of happiness for this world and the next; no doubt, as He was in and near me, God will be in and near you at the moment when this letter brings you the news of my sentence.  I die willingly, and the Lord will give me strength to die as one ought to die.

“I write to you perfectly quiet and calm about all things, and I hope that your lives too will pass calmly and tranquilly until the moment when our souls meet again full of fresh force to love one another and to share eternal happiness together.

“As for me, such as I have lived as long as I have known myself—­that is to say, in a serenity full of celestial desires and a courageous and indefatigable love of liberty, such I am about to die.

“May God be with you and with me!—­Your son, brother, and friend, “Karl-Ludwig sand.”

From that moment his serenity remained un troubled; during the whole day he talked more gaily than usual, slept well, did not awake until half-past seven, said that he felt stronger, and thanked God for visiting him thus.

The nature of the verdict had been known since the day before, and it had been learned that the execution was fixed for the 20th of May—­that is to say, three full days after the sentence had been read to the accused.