These exaggerations ran through the city, arousing indignation; and the correspondents of foreign papers, knowing that readers often like best what is most incredible, had sent the accounts to the provinces and foreign countries.

But blood had flowed.  Hatred of the soldiery, to which, however, some among the insurgents had once been proud to belong, grew with fateful rapidity, and was still further inflamed by those who saw in the military the brazen wall that stood between them and the fulfillment of their most ardent wishes.

A spark might spring the open and overcharged mine into the air; an ill-chosen or misunderstood expression, a thoughtless act, might bring about an explosion.

The greatest danger threatened from fresh conflicts between the army and the people, and it was to the fear of this that various young or elderly gentlemen owed their office of going about wherever a crowd was assembled and urging the populace to keep the peace.  They were distinguished by a white band around the arm bearing the words, “Commissioner of Protection,” and a white rod a foot and a half long designed to awaken the respect accorded by the English to their constables.  We recognized many well-known men; but the Berlin populace, called by Goethe insolent, is not easily impressed, and we saw constables surrounded by street boys like an owl with a train of little birds fluttering teasingly around it.  Even grown persons called them nicknames and jeered at their sticks, which they styled “cues” and “tooth-picks.”

A large number of students, too, had expressed their readiness to join this protective commission, either as constables or deputies, and had received the wand and band at the City Hall.

How painful the exercise of their vocation was made to them it would be difficult to describe.  News from Austria and South Germany, where the people’s cause seemed to be advancing with giant strides to the desired goal, hourly increased the offensive strength of the excited populace.

On the afternoon of the 16th the Potsdam Platz, only a few hundred steps from our house, was filled with shouting and listening throngs, crowded around the sculptor Streichenberg, his blond-bearded friend, and other violently gesticulating leaders.  This multitude received constant reenforcements from the city and through Bellevuestrasse.  On the left, at the end of the beautiful street with its rows of budding chestnut-trees, lay “Kemperhof,” a pleasure resort where we had often listened to the music of a band clad in green hunting costume.  Many must have come thence, for I find that on the 16th an assemblage was held there from which grew the far more important one on the morning of the 17th, with its decisive conclusion in Kopenickerstrasse.

At this meeting, on the afternoon of the 17th, it was decided to set on foot a peaceful manifestation of the wishes of the people, and a new address to the king was drawn up.  It was settled that on the 28th of March, at two o’clock, thousands of citizens with the badges of the protective commission should appear before the palace and send in a deputation to his Majesty with a document which should clearly convey the principal requirements of the people.