with joyful anticipations at his coronation--"The path of a king is full
of sorrow, unless his people stand by him with loyal heart and mind."

His people did not do that, and it was well for them; for the path
indicated by the royal hand would have led them to darkness and to the
indignity of ever-increasing bondage, mental and temporal.

The prince himself is entitled to the deepest sympathy. He wished to do
right, and was endowed with great and noble gifts which would have done
honour to a private individual, but could not suffice for the ruler of a
powerful state in difficult times.

Hardly had the king opened the General Assembly in April, 1848, and, for
the relief of distress among the poorer classes in the capital, repealed
the town dues on corn, when the first actual evidences of discontent
broke out. The town tax was so strictly enforced at that time at all
the gates of Berlin that even hacks entering the city were stopped and
searched for provisions of meat or bread--a search which was usually
conducted in a cursory and courteous manner.

In my sister Paula's journal I have an almost daily account of that
period, with frequent reference to political events, but it is not my
task to write a history of the Berlin revolution.

Those of my sister's records which refer to the revolutionary period
begin with a mention of the so-called potato revolution, which occurred
ten days after the opening of the General Assembly, though it had no
connection with it.

[Excessive prices had been asked for a peck of potatoes, which