By contrast, the strict asceticism of our Orlando, like everything that is good and great, is subject to terrible temptations in times of peace.
Boiardo says in Canto 24:
Turpin behauptet, dass der Graivon Brava Jungfräulich war auf Lebenszeit und keusch.
Glaulot iLr davon, was euch beliebt, ibr Herren --[Turpin claims that the Count of Brava Was virginal and chaste his whole life long.
Of that you may believe, Sirs, what you will -- ]
But we also learn that later on Count Brava lost his reason at the sight of the beautiful Angelica and Astolf had to go to the moon to recover it for him, as Master Lodovico Ariosto so charmingly narrates. Our modern Orlando, however, mistook himself for the poet who tells how he, too, loved so greatly that he lost his reason and tried to find it with his lips and hands on the bosom of his Angelica and was thrown out of the house for his pains.
In politics the partisan leader will display his superiority in all matters of tactics. In conformity with the notion of a partisan he will go from one party to the next. Petty intrigues, sordid hole-and-corner activities, the occasional lie, morally outraged perfidy will be the natural symptoms of the noble consciousness. His faith in his mission and in the higher meaning of his words and deeds will induce him to declare emphatically:
"I never lie!" The idées fixes become a splendid cloak for his secret treachery and cause the simpletons of the Emigration, who have no ideas at all , to conclude that he, the man of fixed ideas, is simply a fool. And our worthy slyboots could desire nothing better.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza rolled into one, as muchinlove with his knapsack as with his idées fixes , with the free provisions of the itinerant knight as much as with renown, Willich is the man of the duodecimal [65] war and the microscopic intrigue.
He conceals his cunning beneath the mask of character. His real future lies in the prairies of the Rio Grande del Norte.
Concerning the relations between the two wings of the Emigration we have described, a letter from Mr. Goegg in the Deutsche Schnellpost in New York is very revealing:
"They (the South Germans) resolved to bolster up the reputation of the moribund central committee by attempting to unite with the other factions. But there is little prospect of success for this well intentioned idea. Kinkel continues to intrigue, has formed a committee consisting of his rescuer, his biographer and a number of Prussian lieutenants. Their aim is to work together in secret, to expand, if possible to gain possession of the democratic funds, and then suddenly tear off their mask and appear publicly as the powerful Kinkel party. This is neither honest nor just nor sensible!"The "honesty" of the intentions of the South Germans can be seen from the following letter from Mr. Sigel to the same newspaper:
"If we, the few men with honourable intentions, have in part resorted to conspiracies, this is due to the need to protect ourselves against the terrible perfidy and the presumptuousness of Kinkel and his colleagues and to show them that they are not born to rule. Our thief aim was to force Kinkel to come to a large meeting in order to prove to him and to what he calls his close political friends that not all that glitters is gold. The devil take the instrument" (i.e. Schurz), "and the devil take the singer too" [66] (i.e. Kinkel).
(Weekly edition of the New-Yorker Deutsche Zeitung , September 241851).
The strange constitution of the two factions that rebuke each other for being "north" and "south" can be seen from the fact that at the head of the South German elements stood the "mind" of Ruge, while at the head of the North German side were the "feelings" of Kinkel.
In order to understand the great struggle that was now waged we must waste a few words on the diplomacy of these two world-shaking parties.
Arnold (and his henchmen likewise) was concerned above all to form a "closed" society with the official appearance of "revolutionary activity". This society would then give birth to his beloved "Committee for German Affairs" and this committee would then propel Ruge into the European Central Committee. Arnold had been indefatigable in his efforts to realise this aim since the summer of 1850. He had hoped that the South Germans would provide "that happy medium where he could dominate in comfort".
The official establishment of the Emigration and the formation of committees was the necessary policy of Arnold and his allies.
Kinkel and his cohorts, on the other hand, had to try and undermine everything that could legitimise the position Ruge had usurped in the European Central Committee. In reply to his appeal for an advance of LLL500 sterling Kinkel had received the promise of some money from New Orleans, whereupon he had formed a secret finance committee together with Willich, Schimmelpfennig, Reichenbach, Techow and Schurz, etc. They reasoned: once we have the money we shall have the Emigration; once we have the Emigration we shall also have the govemment in Germany. Their aim, therefore, was to occupy the whole Emigration with formal meetings but to undermine any attempt at setting up an official society that went beyond a "loose organisation"and above all to undermine all proposals to form committees. This would delay the enemy faction, block their activities and enable them to manoeuvre behind their backs.
Both parties, i.e. all the "distinguished men" had one thing in common: they both led the mass of émigrés by the nose, they concealed from them their real objectives, used them as mere tools and dropped them as soon as they had served their purpose.
Let us take a look at these democratic Machiavellis, Talleyrands and Metternichs and take note of their actions.
