Meanwhile, the reaction had been everywhere
gaining ground. In May, 1849, an insurrection in
Dresden for a moment made the revolutionaries masters
of the town. They held it for five days and
established a revolutionary government. Bakunin
was the soul of the defense which they made against
the Prussian troops. But they were overpowered,
and at last Bakunin was captured while trying to
escape with Heubner and Richard Wagner, the last
of whom, fortunately for music, was not captured.
Now began a long period of imprisonment in
many prisons and various countries. Bakunin was
sentenced to death on the 14th of January, 1850, but
his sentence was commuted after five months, and he
was delivered over to Austria, which claimed the
privilege of punishing him. The Austrians, in their
turn, condemned him to death in May, 1851, and
again his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for
life. In the Austrian prisons he had fetters on hands
and feet, and in one of them he was even chained to the
wall by the belt. There seems to have been some
peculiar pleasure to be derived from the punishment
of Bakunin, for the Russian Government in its turn
demanded him of the Austrians, who delivered him
up. In Russia he was confined, first in the Peter and
Paul fortress and then in the Schluesselburg.
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