He obtains a hearing, but not without difficulty.

You complain that the Government, he says, has not cast more cannon.

Where were the artillerymen?
(Ourselves.) But three months ago you were citizens, you were not soldiers.

In making you march and counter-march in the streets and on the ramparts you have been converted into soldiers.

The Government was right therefore to wait.
(Murmurs.) The orator is not angry with the German nation; he is angry only with the potentates who force the people to kill each other; and he hopes that the day will come when the European nations will shake hands over the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Balkan, and the mountains of Carpathia.
(Feeble applause and murmurs.) A citizen begs the audience to have patience with the Citizen Strassnowski, who is a worthy man and a volunteer; but the citizen then reproaches the worthy man for having attempted to defend a Government whose incapacity is a matter of notoriety.