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304 JOHANNA KINKKL.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
* I<N • «»• The Decease Papers Of Johann...
nor omitting a single word , I ( the King ) believe that his life may be spared . "
On examining the date of this letter Frau Kinkel found that it had been written and sent before her husband ' s last trial . She
inquired whether the verdict of the court-martial could possibly be annulled , and learnt that its sentence was irreversible unless a
defect could be found in the form of the procedure . In an absolute country , as is well known , nothing is easier than to find
means to carry out a despotic measure in spite of the laws . The orthodox " reliious" partywho " could forgive Kinkel neither his
free theology nor g his marriage , with a Roman Catholic , displayed unremitting activity in saving his soulas they expressed themselves ,
, by destroying his body . The required defect in the procedure was soon discovered and Kinkel's life again endangered .
Our space does not allow us to enter into the particulars of the mediations and intrigues by which his pious adversaries tried to
achieve their end . Suffice it to say that they did not succeed , and that an interview was granted to Herr and Frau Kinkel before the
professor was taken to prison in Naugardt . By the king ' s especial favor , he was removed in April , 1850 , to the House , of Correction
( ZuchthausJ in Spandau . Frau Kinkel and her children lived with her parents at Bonn ,
and they saw the professor before he was taken to Spandau . Their meeting was heart-rending . Until they heard his voice the children
did not recognise their father with his shorn head and in his prison dress .
In Naugardt the professor had been permitted to write every week to his wife . From Spandau he dared send only one letter
every month . The officials read their correspondence and he was not allowed to allude by a single word to his sufferings . Like the
meanest criminal he had to spin wool to earn daily three silber groschen for the state and three-pence for himself . "When he fell
ill nobody took any notice of it . At last the miserable employment by which they tried to degrade the learned professor supplied the
means of his deliverance . Many a night the thread which he had spun hung out of the window to draw up the implements required
to effect his escape . On the 13 th of November , 1850 , the Berlin court was " alarmed
by the news that Kinkel had escaped . " He arrived safely in England , and hurried to Paris to meet his faithful wife and children .
They spent a week in this brilliant metropolis and Frau Kinkel wrote to a friend : "I have lived the happiest week of my life
in Paris . How we enjoyed together the treasures of art here collectedand how we roamed about from place to place ! Kinkel
does not , look so careworn as I anticipated ; his face shews indelible traces of his sufferings , but his features have preserved their
exno pression w a life began power of . " hard * * work * , bu * t also They of returned great happ to in London ess . , and
304 Johanna Kinkkl.
304 _JOHANNA KINKKL .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1859, page 304, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011859/page/16/
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