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I was informed of his presence in Dresden one day by Rockel, after the latter had become a rampant republican. He had taken the Russian into his house, and invited me to come and make his acquaintance.
As soon as he realised that I was making sympathetic inquiries about Rockel, he drew back frightened, and said to me in tones of the deepest anxiety: 'But, conductor, have you no thought for your position, and what you may lose by exposing yourself in this fashion? This remark had the most drastic effect upon me; I burst into a loud laugh, and told him that my position was not worth a thought one way or the other.
August Rockel, his son, who was still a young man, by helping his father in these and similar undertakings, had gained practical experience as a musician. As his father's business had for some time even extended to England, August had won practical knowledge of all sorts by contact with many men and things, and in addition had learned French and English.
Rockel considered this article a true inspiration from the Angel of Propitiation, but as he feared that it would not meet with proper recognition and appreciation in the paper, he urged me to lecture on it publicly at the next meeting of the Vaterlands-Verein for he attached great importance to my discoursing on the subject personally.
The Vaterlands-Verein had elected a committee for carrying into execution a plan for arming the populace; this included Rockel and other thoroughgoing democrats, and, in addition, certain military experts, among whom was my old friend Hermann Muller, the lieutenant of the Guards who had once been engaged to Schroder-Devrient.
My lodgings were full to overflowing with excited women who had collected round Minna; among them the panic-stricken wife of Rockel, who suspected her husband of being in the very thick of the fight, as she thought that on the receipt of the news that Dresden had risen he would probably have returned.
In this work I no longer gave a thought to the Dresden or any other court theatre in the world; my sole preoccupation was to produce something that should free me, once and for all, from this irrational subservience. As I could get nothing more from Rockel in this connection, I now corresponded exclusively with Eduard Devrient on matters connected with the theatre and dramatic art.
Your ZURICH, September 8th, 1852 After my last letter you will think that I am quite mad. Lord knows how I wrote myself into such a fury. Today follows something very sober, a troublesome thing for you. Frau Rockel sent me the letter of her poor husband, without giving me his address. H. was really to have the score, but must resign it to the poor prisoner.
Genast, the stage manager, in particular, aroused great excitement by spreading the report that Rockel, who was well known at Weimar, had been guilty of arson. Liszt must soon have gathered from my conversation, in which I did not take the trouble to dissimulate, that I too was suspiciously connected with these terrible events, though my attitude with regard to them misled him for some time.
Rockel canvassed passionately for the latter, as he seemed to have lost all confidence in the monarchy. The poor fellow was, indeed, in a very bad way.
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