Dearest Friend!
Heavy at heart, yet firmly resolved, I turn to you to-day once again for help and counsel in deed and word. The great storm, which at last broke after a long period of almost unbearable sultry heat, was so violent and so awful in its effects that none surely who were near the storm centre can have remained untouched in character and soul. I hope [...] you and your family have escaped unharmed from the Dresden catastrophe. Both chance and my own sympathies involved me in many ways. As long as I was able to understand the Dresden Rising, I was, as a matter of course, in full sympathy with it, a fact which I did not, indeed, reveal by any overt act to the masses, though I expressed my mind to certain individuals. I held no brief for the Red Republican fables but, open-eyed, I saw the banner of the "German Constitution" (it was not for this the masses stood up to be shot, I grant you!) as the symbol of the very natural indignation of citizens and people against a prince who called in foreign troops to coerce public opinion, and also of the fury of local patriotism at seeing Prussia of all countries, to whom Saxony has lost so much already, stepping in to take the rest of the country. No man of sense will believe that the revolution was deliberately planned, as had this been so, at any rate the most important strategical positions in the town would not have been left from the first to the military. The storming of the Arsenal was the violent act of an unarmed people, who felt themselves betrayed when the parade of the City Militia was prohibited. I was a close and exceedingly anxious spectator of every overt act, particularly the setting up of a Committee of Public Safety at the Town Hall which, after the terrible things that had occurred, seemed to me to hold out hope of keeping the movement within proper bounds in the sense that the remarkable unanimity of magistrates and people might not only render further bloodshed impossible, but might also lead to opportune yielding on the part of the King. With this idea in mind, on the second day, when the town had already been barricaded, I directed my individual energies as far as I could do so (without publicly putting myself to the fore) to preventing further conflicts between the people and the military. I suggested to a couple of soldiers, whom I came across at the barracks near the Arsenal, that when next they found themselves face to face with the people they had only to tell them they would be with them when foreign troops were to be dealt with. I said the same to the men at the barricades as I passed, pointing out that instead of irritating the military they should simply ask them whether they would hold for them against foreign troops. This question was actually written on a placard and affixed to the barricade. To me it seemed of the first importance that by this means, or some other, fraternisation should be brought about between the troops and the people, not only that a Prussian invasion might be successfully withstood, but more particularly that the Movement might be set from the first upon the right lines as regards internal affairs. Only common opposition to the Prussian invasion and common support of the German Constitution could have brought about a real alliance of the Saxon troops with the Saxon people. Combined representations made to the King of Saxony from both army and people must necessarily have had the desired result of freeing him from stifling Prussian influences and thereby effectively preventing the whole Movement from excesses in other directions. I also told one of the Town Councillors whom I have long known intimately of my emphatic wish that someone would negotiate with the Military Governor to get a detachment of the military attached to the Committee of Public Safety. The election of a Provisional Government did not at first alarm me, as Heubner and Todt offered guarantees not to let the Movement deviate from its true end and to conduct appropriate negotiations with the King. Indeed, I felt absolutely blissful when I discovered that half the Arsenal had been conceded to the occupation of the City Militia and I had high hopes that the conspiracy of the Prussian Cabinet would be broken by Saxony—perhaps even without bloodshed. However, the third day was to annihilate my hopes. An armistice was proclaimed, Prussian troops arrived, and our troops joined with them against the people. There were no bounds to the bitterness of feeling aroused by this and, though I was not from then on so close a spectator, I can assure you absolutely that the subsequent embittered and ruthless resistance of the holders of the barricades was due, not to Red Republicans or Blue, not to Poles or Russians, but simply and solely to the subjective, personal rage of citizens and people against the military. This fury was nourished by more particular hatred of the Riflemen's Guild from Leipzig who as a corps, in their turn, cherished rancour (unnaturally fostered by their officers) against the Dresdeners, to whom they had had to give place at one time in 1830. On Saturday and Sunday I was an inactive spectator of the struggle from the most advantageous view-point possible—the tower of the Kreuzkirche—since despite my wife's entreaties I could not stay quietly at home. Early on Monday I once more tried at the Town Hall to get information as to the state of affairs, and saw that there was at any rate a great change. The pressure of circumstances and the necessity of conducting the defence on absolutely military lines had led to a search for strategists, for the Commandant of the Civil Militia appeared to lack capacity and energy. A certain Pole was recommended as versed in strategy and urgently pressed to undertake the preparation of a military plan of defence. It is untrue that Poles took part from the first. Irresolute, uncertain as to my own present attitude to the Movement, I left the town on Monday morning at 8 o'clock and took my wife (who had already packed) to Chemnitz, to one of my married sisters there. On the way we were met by numbers of men riding in from the most outlying parts of the country, and the keenness, courage and endurance which I found on all hands quite overcame me. We interchanged news, I told them what I knew of the state of the struggle in Dresden, and the naked truth served to fire them to a swifter march. Towards evening I met the whole Communal Guard of Chemnitz, who surrounded our carriage asking for news from Dresden. To my communications some of them replied that they had quite different news, namely, that Dresden was already in the hands of the Prussians. They compelled me to go to the Town Hall to prove my words and there I realised that I had to do with people who had been forced to set out for Dresden and had now eagerly seized upon false rumours as a pretext for an immediate return home. My news upset their plans and they wanted to arrest me on suspicion of being a deserter. I could only clear myself of this by promising to return to Dresden next morning after having escorted my wife to Chemnitz. My word of honour was demanded and I could not go back on it, but, apart from this, I felt it necessary to return to Dresden to look after some relatives there and to see how matters stood. The mail-coach took me as far as the Feldschlösschen and there I found that one might safely get to the Town Hall, though not to other quarters of the town. Arrived at the Town Hall, I had the opportunity of learning the true state of affairs. The timorous Todt and the cowardly Tzchirner had fled, and the leader of the Left Centre, Heubner, was the only one who had remained on the spot, showing dignity, persistence and presence of mind. An affecting incident gave me the opportunity of getting to know Heubner a little. A member of the Communal Guard belonging to the personnel of the Theatre, came and begged me to intercede for young Fürstenau, who had been seized by the people on suspicion of having fired upon them from a window and had been placed under arrest. I at once asked Heubner for an audience and on various grounds which I put before him tried to induce him to share my own conviction of the prisoner's innocence. Heubner reassured me and promised me that the affair should be satisfactorily settled. After an hour's stay, as my way to my relatives was barred to me, I looked for an opportunity of returning to Chemnitz, but how to accomplish this by night and with the impossibility of getting carriage or mail-coach? An acquaintance of mine of the University, now adjutant of the Civil Militia Commando, was ordered to go as courier with all speed to Freiberg to bid the Chemnitz Communal Guard make all speed upon their march. To this end he received power to commandeer mail-coach and horses and I made use of this circumstance to get away. The next day but one I went back again, to discover what had occurred during the night and travelled by the mail-coach which was returning empty from Freiberg to Tharandt. Halfway I was suddenly met by some 2000 men in perfectly orderly retreat from the barricades. I get out, manage to reach Heubner's carriage, and learn that the intention is to make Freiberg the seat of the Provisional Government. Outside Freiberg an emissary of the Chemnitz Civil Militia meets Heubner and invites him to establish the Provisional Government at Chemnitz. Besieged by wealthy Freibergers imploring him not to ruin their city, Heubner gives way and lets the Volunteer corps proceed to Chemnitz after a short halt, while he himself, hoping at last to be able to snatch a few hours' rest in a bed, hurries on ahead to Chemnitz, gives his name at the city gate (partly because he thought it unnecessary to assume disguise, partly because it seemed to him unworthy to do so) and settles down with a few companions to sleep at the inn. Thereupon the rich manufacturers of Chemnitz have him waked by gendarmes, taken to Altenburg, and handed over to the Prussian military authorities.
Sudden and brief as was our acquaintance, the warmest personal interest binds me to Heubner. He was the noblest, the most steadfast, the most honourable and the most unfortunate hero of the Revolution. I am bitterly grieved for him. Bakunin, with his terrible forcefulness, was thrust upon him by sheer pressure of circumstances at a time when everything was crumbling about him. At a moment which called for energy and nothing but energy he could not drive the man from him, extreme as was the goal he aimed at compared with Heubner's own. But had Heubner been himself a sheer naked revolutionary, determined on victory and on victory alone (the only type which will be victorious in future!), had he taken no notice of the whimperings of the rich bourgeoisie of Freiberg or Chemnitz, but let the terrible logic of revolution take its course, he would not have fallen and the Cause would not have been lost. All this, however, has shown me that we are none of us revolutionaries, I least of all. We want a Revolution in order to be able quickly to build up something good upon it, and for this cause Revolution disowns us utterly. The true, the victorious revolutionary must desire destruction only, and his strength must be found in hate alone, not in the love which governed us.—
I begin by giving you this exact account so that you may have an accurate idea of my part in what occurred. I followed the rising at first with full sympathy, on the two middle days with exasperation, and on the last two days with the most intense excitement and curiosity, but at no time did I take active part either by deeds or public speaking and I never had any official standing under the Provisional Government. I have, however, no difficulty in guessing at what will be the reactionary party's capacity for baseness and perfidy under the shelter of Prussian bayonets in Saxony, and I have already felt a sense of insecurity at Chemnitz with my relatives. A certain section of the Civil Militia, now very much to the fore, have charged me with high treason in the matter of my meeting with them upon the road. News from my Leipzig relatives goes to prove that there too I am being cried down and denounced. My return to Dresden, therefore, is not to be thought of at present on grounds of safety, and the present state of affairs will probably endure for a considerable time. Other considerations, however, press me to come to a decision now as to my future. You know that the way of art which I have chosen is a thorny one. I would not mind the scratches but I can no longer look on indifferently while my whole artistic nature is crushed to powder. My disgust at my official position, the oppression under which I languished because of it, the paltriness of official undertakings, all combined, years ago, to reduce me to a state of despondency which could only increase with time. The only thing which really kept me alive was my creative artistic work—in any case the very mainspring of my existence. This too was being injured by time and circumstances. My new opera [Lohengrin] was finished two years ago, yet I have nowhere received any encouragement to produce it, and for two years I have frittered away my creative powers without object or satisfaction. Thus I at length became a revolutionary—if not in deed, yet in opinion—and cannot recapture any joy in creation. The late catastrophe has partially brought me to myself by making me fully aware of my unhappy and disordered condition and at first I hoped nothing, desired nothing but to get away somewhere quietly with my poor hardly-tried wife and just pass my life away without action, yet also without guilt.—
Arrived in Weimar, however, certain friends I had won through Tannhäuser immediately set my feet on another road. Liszt, who has in this matter the concurrence and support of the Grand Duchess, told me at once that I must go to Paris and London—that my place was now there, to work for the future and use my powers for the present, too, away from Germany where—as I have myself felt recently—I—or at least the artist in me—was surely being stultified. Means and influential support of other kinds are offered me to pursue my aims in these places and, to all appearances, quickly to attain them. Now, hard as it seems to me to enter upon an existence away from Germany, I yet feel that intense artistic activity is the only thing that matters in my life. In its present horrible confusion Germany offers no fruitful home for the artist and perhaps may not do so for a long time. It is sad comfort, yet it is comfort, to be able to bear away its art, at least, to the safety of foreign soil. As regards my lost means of livelihood too, only the energetic employment of my talents can give me any prospect of a better future. I have therefore decided to accept the invitations and proffers of my friends here, and after a few preparations shall set out on my journey, probably first to London. The only remaining question is, what is to be my attitude to Dresden? I should already have felt obliged to break with Dresden completely if I did not feel assured that, however fiercely I am being accused at present, the matter is bound to be cleared up as no actually punishable crime can be laid to my charge. I am quite certain that if it is thought necessary to treat me as a criminal, even according to the ideas of the party victorious at the moment, half the inhabitants of Saxony will have to come under the same strict condemnation. It would therefore be well to try to discover indirectly, on the basis of the true statement I send you here, whether there is sufficient ground for proceeding against me at law. No one but yourself [...] can be in a position to adopt the right line of action and take all possible steps to preserve for me the right of return to my Fatherland, perhaps even with retention of my appointment there. If all goes well the form of the compact should run somewhat as follows: that leave of absence be granted me for the ensuing half-year to go to London and Paris and supervise the production of my operas at the theatres there, and to negotiate for the production of a new opera in one of these places. My immediate object is to get my latest opera Lohengrin translated into English and first performed in London. Let us suppose that the present storm will pass and that I shall probably soon appear far less deeply compromised politically than is the case at the moment—then why should an artistic institution of Dresden dismiss me finally, pending a time when it may very likely contribute to its honour that one of its members should have won fame in the greatest cities of the world? I at least with my whole heart offer Dresden my hand on it to return later, and I think the latter would not have to regret having accepted that hand. It is clear what a support and comfort that would be to me—only now, now let me be free, free in every respect. God knows if all these proposals may not come far too late—whether already I may not have been foolishly condemned as a traitor, or the like! I have absolutely no news from Dresden and also none for four days of my poor wife, which makes me exceedingly anxious.
Ah, my dear Devrient, don't be angry with me now for the wild, disturbing friendship with myself into which I have dragged you! Do what you can to make it possible for me to be just the artist again—nothing but artist and man—and then you will be better pleased with me.
Send me a letter under cover to Liszt here at Weimar. It will either find me here or be forwarded after me. But soon—soon some news! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 149