have undertaken the execution of the judgment. But these
expectations were deceived: the skill of the doctor defeated, not indeed
the wound, but death: Sand did not recover, but he remained alive; and it
began to be evident that it would be needful to kill him.

Indeed, the Emperor Alexander, who had appointed Kotzebue his councillor,
and who was under no misapprehension as to the cause of the murder,
urgently demanded that justice should take its course. The commission of
inquiry was therefore obliged to set to work; but as its members were
sincerely desirous of having some pretext to delay their proceedings,
they ordered that a physician from Heidelberg should visit Sand and make
an exact report upon his case; as Sand was kept lying down and as he
could not be executed in his bed, they hoped that the physician's report,
by declaring it impossible for the prisoner to rise, would come to their
assistance and necessitate a further respite.

The chosen doctor came accordingly to Mannheim, and introducing himself
to Sand as though attracted by the interest that he inspired, asked him
whether he did not feel somewhat better, and whether it would be
impossible to rise. Sand looked at him for an instant, and then said,
with a smile--

"I understand, sir; they wish to know whether I am strong enough to mount
a scaffold: I know nothing about it myself, but we will make the
experiment together."

With these words he rose, and accomplishing, with superhuman courage,
what he had not attempted for fourteen months, walked twice round the
room, came back to his bed, upon which he seated himself, and said:

"You see, sir, I am strong enough; it would therefore be wasting precious
time to keep my judges longer about my affair; so let them deliver their
judgment, for nothing now prevents its execution."

The doctor made his report; there was no way of retreat; Russia was
becoming more and more pressing, and an the 5th of May 1820 the high
court of justice delivered the following judgment, which was confirmed on
the 12th by His Royal Highness the Grand-Duke of Baden:

"In the matters under investigation and after administration of the
interrogatory and hearing the defences, and considering the united
opinions of the court of justice at Mannheim and the further
consultations of the court of justice which declare the accused, Karl
Sand of Wonsiedel, guilty of murder, even on his own confession, upon the
person of the Russian impe