Complete Plays, Lenz, and Other Writings by Georg Buchner

Author:Georg Buchner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2008-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

THE HESSIAN MESSENGER

GEORG BÜCHNER / LUDWIG WEIDIG

THE HESSIAN MESSENGER1

First Message2

Darmstadt, July 18343

Preface4

The aim of this pamphlet is to convey the truth to the people of Hessen, but they that speak the truth are hanged; yes, even they that read the truth may well suffer punishment from perfidious judges. Recipients of the pamphlet must therefore observe the following precautions:

1. They must conceal the pamphlet from the police, carefully and well away from their homes;

2. they should pass it on only to trusted friends;

3. they should pass it only anonymously to anyone they do not trust as they trust themselves;

4. should the pamphlet none the less be found in the possession of someone who has read it, he must declare that he was about to hand it to the district authorities;

5. anyone not having read the pamphlet when it is found in his possession is, of course, guiltless.

Peace to the peasants! War on the palaces!5

In the year 1834 it might seem as if the Bible stood convicted of lying. It might seem as if God created peasants and labourers on the fifth day, and princes and gentry6 on the sixth, and as if the good Lord said to the latter, ‘Have dominion over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth’,7 and counted peasants and burghers amongst the worms. The life of the gentry is one long Sunday, they live in fine houses, wear elegant clothes, have over-fed faces and speak their own language; but the people lie before them like dung on the fields. Behind the plough go the peasants, but behind the peasants go the gentry, driving them on together with the oxen, stealing the grain and leaving them the stubble. The life of the peasant is one long work-day; strangers devour his land in his presence,8 his whole body is a callus, his sweat is the salt on the gentry’s table.

In the Grand Duchy of Hessen there are 718,373 inhabitants, who each year pay 6,363,364 gulden to the state, as follows:

1.

Direct taxes

2,128,131

gulden

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