Qyy>S'n-C€/^ 
 
 "Mel^t^oc/i^-
 
 HISTORY OF GERMANY, 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 AVOLFGANG MENZEL. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FOURTH GERMAN EDITION, 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. GEORGE HORROCKS. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. TIJ. ' :" 
 
 LONDON : 
 HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 MDCCCXLIX.
 
 JOHN CHILUS AND SON. r.UNGAY. 
 
 fanaHiaaaB
 
 HISTORY OF GERMAKY. 
 
 mi 
 
 V.3 
 
 FOURTH PERIOD.— CONTINUED. 
 
 MODERN TIMES. 
 
 CCXXXI. Charles the Sixth. 
 
 Charles, Joseph the First's younger brother, had [a. d. 
 1 704] been sent into Spain for the purpose of setting up his 
 claim as the rightful heir of the house of Habsburg in opposition 
 to that of the usurper Philip. It had been decided that Spain 
 should, under Charles, remain separate from Austria under Jo- 
 seph, the union of so many crowns on one head, as formerly on 
 that of Charles V., being viewed with jealousy by the English, 
 the Dutch, and the empire. Charles had, like his brother, been 
 surrounded from his birth with the stiff ceremonial of the old 
 Spanish court and with a gorgeous magnificence that flimsily 
 veiled the absence of genuine grandeur. Charles, like Joseph 
 during the Landau campaign, was accompanied in his joui'ney 
 to Spain by a suite of the most useless description, such as 
 butlers, clerks of the kitchen, plate-cleaners, etc. He tra- 
 velled through Holland to England, where he was conducted 
 through rows of beautiful girls to Queen Anne's bed-cham- 
 ber, where she presented to him the most beautiful of her 
 ladies-in-waiting, each of whom he honoured with a salute. 
 He was at that time unmarried, but shortly afterwards 
 Elisabeth * of Wolfenblittel was sent to him as a bride. From 
 
 * A Lutheran princess. Elisabeth was well received at Vienna, but, in 
 Brunswick, the superintendent, Nitsch, said from the pulpit, "One princess 
 have we sacrificed to Popery, a second to Paganism, (a Russian prince,) 
 and, were the devil to come to-morrow, we should give him a third." 
 
 ™^-- 42?89l
 
 ^ ■■ CHARLES THE SIXTH. 
 
 England he went to Lisbon, Portugal sujjporting the house of 
 Habsburg through dreail or ih'^, united power of France and 
 Spain. An aimy, composed of Daich and English, was also 
 assembled at Lisbon for the purpose of enforcing Charles's 
 claims, and Prince George of Darmstadt, who had for some 
 time resided in Spain, would have been its well-chosen com- 
 mander, had not his nomination been opposed by English 
 jealousy. He it was who, acquainted with the negligent man- 
 ner in which Gibraltar, otherwise impregnable, was guarded, 
 and seconded by the united fleets of England and Holland 
 under Rook, took that fortress, but was compelled to endure 
 the shame of beholding the British flag, instead of that of 
 Charles, planted on the summit of the rock. A fresh troop 
 of English auxiliaries, under Lord Peterborough, placed 
 Charles [a. d. 1704] completely under the guardianship of 
 England. Barcelona, where Prince George had some old 
 connexions, and whence it was hoped to raise the whole of 
 Catalonia against Philip, w^as besieged from the sea ; the first 
 assault, led by George, was, however, unsupported, from a 
 motive of jealousy, by Lord Peterborough, and the life of the 
 gallant prince was sacrificed. The town fell, eventually, into 
 the hands of the Enghsh, and Charles figured there as a phan- 
 tom monarch ; but, anxious to conceal his utter dependence 
 upon Lord Peterborough, he had the folly ever to oppose his 
 wisest and most necessary measures. The French, taken by 
 surprise, were repulsed on every side, and the king, Philip, 
 a mere puppet of state, fled from Madrid.* Charles refused 
 to enter IMadi-id on account of the want of a state-carriage, 
 and, by his folly, delayed the performance of a ceremony, 
 which would have made the deepest impression upon the 
 Spaniards, and the junction of the troops concentrated at 
 Lisbon and Barcelona. The French again took breath ; 
 Marshal Berwik was victorious at Almanza, A. D. 1707, and 
 Charles was speedily shut up in Barcelona. 
 
 It was not until 1710, that the allies again assembled their 
 forces, the Germans under the gallant Count von Stahremberg, 
 the English under Stanhope, and reopened the campaign. They 
 gained a signal victory at Saragossa; Philip was a second 
 
 * The Spanish crown diamonds (an incredible number) ■were, on this 
 occasion, sent to Paris, and were seized by Louis in payment for the aid 
 granted by him.
 
 CHARLES THE SIXTH. «> 
 
 time put to fliglit, and King Charles at length entered Madrid, 
 where the people, jealous of his dependence upon the Englisli 
 heretics, received him with ominous silence. The pope and 
 the Jesuits secretly worked against him. The moment when 
 he would have been welcomed with open arms had been irre- 
 trievably neglected. France sent reinforcements and her best 
 general, Vendome. At this critical moment, Stanhope separ- 
 ated from the Germans and allowed himself and the whole of 
 his army to be made prisoners at Brihuega. Stahremberg, 
 for whom Vendome had prepared a similar fate, kept the 
 enemy, greatly his superior in number, in check at Villavi- 
 ciosa ; Charles was, nevertheless, once more limited to Barce- 
 lona, and the death of his brother recalling him to Germany, 
 he returned thither, a. r>. 1711, and received the imperial 
 crown at Frankfurt. His consort, Elisabeth, and Stahremberg 
 remained for two years longer at Barcelona, but were finally 
 compelled to abandon that town, and unhappy Catalonia fell 
 a prey to the cruel vengeance of Philip's adherents. 
 
 Charles was the only remaining prince of the house of 
 Habsburg, his brother, Joseph, having died without issue. 
 He united all the crowns of Habsburg on his head, and the 
 hope of placing that of Spain, independent of the German 
 hereditary provinces, on the head of a younger branch of that 
 family, was, consequently, frustrated. This circumstance en- 
 tirely changed the aspect of affairs. England, who was imi- 
 tated by the allies of lesser importance, deemed Germany 
 and Spain more dangerous when united under one head than 
 France and Spain under two and unexpectedly declared in 
 Philip's favour. Torrents of blood were again fruitlessly 
 shed, and France, aided by all the other European powers, 
 once more grasped her prey. 
 
 In England, the popular rights of the Anglo-Saxons had 
 been forcibly suppressed by the Gallo-Norman feudal aristo- 
 cracy. Since the Reformation, the popular element had, how- 
 ever, again risen, a reaction had taken place, and, in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, had produced a great revo- 
 lution, which cost Charles I. his head, a deed of blood which 
 raised enmity and engendered suspicion between his descend- 
 ants, the Stuarts, and the people. The Stuarts were expelled, 
 and William of Orange was called to the throne. Amongst those 
 who, in the parliament and in the ministry, contended for the 
 
 B 2
 
 ■i CHARLES THE SIXTH. 
 
 control of the state, two parties had formed, the Tories or 
 ancient Norman feudal aristocracy, who, although upholding 
 their' aristocratic privileges, were devoted to the monarchy, of 
 which tliey made use for the suppression of popular liberty ; 
 and the Whigs, or Anglo-Saxon freemen, who, enriched by 
 trade, proud of their marshal deeds, obstinately defended their 
 ancient rights, were ever on the watch for the legal acquisition 
 of fresh ones, and were no less devoted to the monarchy, by 
 means of which, in their turn, they sought to overthrow the 
 Tories. The Tories had naturally befriended the Stuarts ; 
 William, and, after him, Anne, were, consequently, supported 
 by the Whigs. Dependence on a popular faction was, how- 
 ever, in this, as it has been in all ages, a royal bugbear, and 
 the Tories merely awaited a fitting opportunity to eject their 
 opponents from the queen's privy-council. 
 
 This opportunity offered on the death of the emperor Jo- 
 seph. The Tories, under pretext of the over-preponderance 
 of Germany and Spain when united under one head, ranged 
 themselves on the side of France, who rewarded their neutral- 
 ity with commercial advantages that flattered the material 
 interests of the people and reduced the Whig opposition to 
 silence. They were, moreover, seconded by a court-intrigue. 
 The Duchess of IMarlborough, rendered insolent by the fame 
 and wealth of her husband, whose noble qualities were ob- 
 scured by excessive covetousness,* wounded the queen's vanity 
 by refusing to give her a handsome pair of gloves, to which 
 she had taken a fancy, and by other acts of impoliteness ; she 
 was, in consequence, dismissed, and had the barefaced impu- 
 dence suddenly to draw the whole of the enormous sums she 
 had placed in the Bank of England, in order to produce a 
 scarcity of gold, which, however, simply caused her husband, 
 notwithstanding the laurels he had gained, to be prosecuted 
 on a charge of embezzlement. His friends shared his foil ; the 
 Whigs lost office and were succeeded by a Tory government. 
 
 Prince Eugene hastened to London, ])ut his friend IMarlbo- 
 rough was already undergoing his trial, and, altliough Queen 
 
 * Marlborough possessed great financial as well as military talent. In 
 unison with the Jew, Medina, for inslance, he set up stock-jobbing or 
 commercial transactions with government paper, which afterwards be- 
 came general throughout Europe ; he, moreover, defrauded the public 
 treasury by lowering the pay of his troops, etc.
 
 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 5 
 
 Anne gave him a polite reception and presented him with a 
 diamond-hilted sword, he was refused a second interview, and 
 liis supplications in Marlborough's favour proved ineffectual. 
 The people gave him an enthusiastic welcome, and such was 
 the popular rage against the Tories, tliat [a. u. 1712] one of 
 his nephews was killed in a street-fight. The Earl of Ormond 
 replaced Marlborough as commander-in-chief of the British 
 troops in the Netherlands, but, no sooner was battle offered, 
 than he retreated under pretext of obeying secret orders. The 
 Dutch under Albemarle, in consequence of this faithless de- 
 sertion, suffered a defeat, and Eugene found himself compelled 
 to retire from his position at Quesnoy.* 
 
 The Tories, after playing this shameful part, threw off the 
 mask and concluded a private treaty, the peace of Utrecht, 
 A. D. 1713, with France, the stipulations of which were, the 
 possession of Gibraltar, the key to the Mediterranean, of IVIi- 
 norca and St. Christopher, the demolition of the fortress of 
 Dunkirk, ever an eye-sore to the English, and free trade with 
 all the Spanish colonies, in return for which they recognised 
 Philip as king of Spain. The Dutch also endeavoured to make 
 peace by a speedy accession to the articles under negotiation, 
 but were, nevertheless, compelled to purchase it by a shameful 
 humiliation. The coachman of the Dutch plenipotentiary, 
 Count von Eechtern, having bestowed a box on the ear on an 
 insolent French lacquey, the ambassadors of the states-general 
 were forced to apologize in person. 
 
 The German empire, although abandoned by England and 
 Holland, might still have compelled France to listen to reason 
 had not her poliarchical government put every strong and 
 combined movement out of the question. Prince Eugene 
 vainly depictured the power of unity and conjured the German 
 Estates to rise en masse. He thundered at Mayence — to deaf 
 
 * The Grisons afforded a striking example of the mode in which French 
 influence gained ground. Thomas Massner, a councillor of Chur, whose 
 son had been carried off as an hostage by tlie French in the vicinity of 
 Geneva, in retaliation, seized the person of the grand-prior of Vendome, 
 who was then on his way through Switzerland, a. d. 1710. His just 
 demand for an exchange of prisoners was disregarded, and, in 1712, he was 
 forced by his own countrymen, through dread of France, to deliver up 
 the grand-prior ; nay, they accused him of fomenting disturbances, com- 
 pelled him to flee the country, quartered him in effigy, and allowed him 
 to die in misery, whilst his son was detainod a prisoner in France. The 
 family of Salis headed the French faction in the Grisons.
 
 6 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 
 
 ears. The emperor's exhortations to the imperial diet were 
 equally futile : " His Majesty doubts not but that every true 
 patriot will remember that not exclusively the country and the 
 people, but, in reality, the grandeur and liberty of his father- 
 land, consequently, the eternal loss of his lionour and rights 
 and his unresisting submission to foreign insolence, are at 
 stake." The imperial Estates remained unmoved and tardily 
 contributed the miserable sum of 200,000 dollars towards the 
 maintenance of the imperial army, whilst Villars continued to 
 collect millions on the Rhine and in Swabia. Van der Harsch 
 alone distinguished himself by the gallant defence of Freiburg 
 in the Breisgau. 
 
 Eugene found himself compelled to enter into negotiation 
 with Villars. The French, however, were so insolent in their 
 demands that Eugene, acting on his own responsibility, quitted 
 Rastadt, whei'e the congress was being held, upon which the 
 aged despot at Paris, fearing lest rage might at length rouse 
 Germany from her torpor, yielded ; Eugene returned and 
 peace was concluded in the neighbouring town of Baden, a. d. 
 1714. The treaty of Utrecht was recognised ; Philip re- 
 mained in possession of Spain, England in that of Gibraltar, 
 etc. The emperor, Charles VI., on the other hand, retained 
 all the Spanish possessions in Italy, Naples, Milan, Sardinia, 
 besides the Netherlands and the fortresses of Kehl, Freiburg, 
 and Breisach, and the territory hitherto possessed by the 
 French on the right bank of the Rhine, for which France was 
 indemnified by the cession of Landau. The island of Sar- 
 dinia was, in the ensuing year, given by Austria in exchange 
 for Sicily to the duke of Savo}-, who took the title of King of 
 Sardinia. The emperor, as sovereign of the Netherlands, now 
 concluded a treaty with Holland, according to which the for- 
 tresses on the French frontier were to be garrisoned and de- 
 fended by both Austrians and Dutch. Prussia came into 
 possession of Neufchatel, as nearest of kin to Maria of Nemours, 
 its former mistress, who was allied by blood to that royal house. 
 
 This peace was partially concluded by Eugene for the em- 
 peror, independent of the empire. The lesser powers, never- 
 tlieless, acceded to it, France brutally declaring her intention 
 to carry on the war against all recusants. The elector of the 
 Pfalz, to whom the possession of the Upper Pfalz had been 
 already assured, was frustrated in his expectations, the traitors
 
 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 7 
 
 of Bavaria and Cologne regaining their possessions and being 
 released from the bann.* Marlborough, consequently, lost 
 Mindelheim ; he was, however, restored to favour in England. 
 Prince Eugene merely regarded the peace as a necessary evil, 
 to which he unwillingly yielded. He clearly foresaw that, 
 instead of bringing security to Germany, it would lead to 
 fresh attacks and losses. " We somewhat resemble," he wrote 
 at that period, " a fat cow, which is only made use of so long 
 as she has a drop of superfluous milk. The word ' peace' has 
 an agreeable sound, but only differs from ' war' as the present 
 does from the future. He whose vocation it is, after war, to 
 collect the chips, alone sees the heaps of wood that have been 
 fruitlessly cut. The best peace with France is a mute war. 
 France will seize the first opportunity to rend a fresh piece 
 from the empire. When the ^Netherlands shall have been re- 
 duced to submission, the Rhine will be made the frontier and 
 the foundation of a fresh peace. The abbess of Buchau wished 
 me joy of the blessed peace. I am, on all sides, persecuted 
 with congratulations of this sort. Amid all my misfortunes 
 it is often difficult to refrain from laughter." 
 
 In the following year [a. d. 1715] Louis XIV., the vain, 
 licentious despot, whose tyranny over Germany covered her 
 with far deeper shame than her submission to the genius of 
 Napoleon, expired. Anne, queen of England, also died, with- 
 out issue, and was succeeded by the next heir, George, elector 
 of Hanover, whose mother was the daughter of Frederick, 
 king of Bohemia, and of Elisabeth, the daughter of James I. 
 of England. George favoured the Whigs. Peace had, how- 
 ever, been unalterably concluded with France. 
 
 * The order of the golden fleece was even bestowed by the emperor 
 upon Charles Albert, the son of Maximilian Emanuel of Bavaria. In the 
 curious folio, " Fortitudo leonina i\Iax. Emanuelis,'' published, at that 
 period, by the Jesuits, the scene is allegorically represented. The im- 
 perial eagle hangs his head and looks down with lamentable condescen- 
 sion on the Bavarian lion, who regards him with insolent contempt. 
 Among the engravings, with which this work abounds, there is one in 
 which the genius of the Society of Jesus is represented with the I. H. S. 
 on his breast, ofi'ering his humble thanks to the statue of Max. Emanuel 
 aJid pointing to a large donation-plate containing twelve magnificenl Je- 
 suit houses, which the elector had built for them at the expense of the 
 people. The elector himself, attired in the imperial robes of Rome, sits 
 on horseback with an enormous allonge peruke on his head. His coun- 
 tenance is that of a satyr.
 
 8 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 
 
 Tranquillity had scarcely been restored to the empire than 
 she was again attacked by the Turks, and Prince Eugene once 
 more took the field. Supported by Stahremberg and Charles 
 Alexander of Wurtemberg,* he defeated them [a. d. 1716] 
 in a bloody engagement near Peterwardein, where the grand 
 visir fell, and a second time at Belgrade, when they sued for 
 peace, which was concluded at Passarowitz, a. d. 1718. The 
 emperor was confirmed in the possession of Belgrade, a part of 
 Servia and Wallachia. The establishment of the Granitzers 
 or military colonies on the Turkish frontier was a fresh proof 
 of Eugene's genius. 
 
 Venice still retained her enmity towards the emperor, by 
 whom she had been unaided in her war with the Turks, during 
 which she had lost the Morea. In retaliation, she entered into 
 a fresh intrigue against him with Alberoni, the Spanish 
 minister. The re-annexation of Italy to Spain was again 
 attempted. A Spanish army occupied Sicily, a. d. 1718. The 
 impatience with which Spain had, since the death of Louis 
 XIV., borne the tutelage of France, had, however, inclined 
 the prince regent, Philip of Orleans, in favour of a quadruple 
 alliance with the emperor, England, and Holland, by which 
 Spain was compelled to withdraw her troops from Sicily and 
 Alberoni to resign. The Venetians were, at that conjuncture, 
 commanded by Count von Schulenburg, the same who had so 
 repeatedly been defeated by Charles XII. in Poland. The 
 same ill-success attended him in his Venetian command, during 
 which he merely distinguished himself by raising the excellent 
 
 * This prince turned Catholic when in the emperor's service. On one 
 occasion, when at Venice, the haughty nobles boasting, in his hearing, of 
 their superior state of civilization, and ridiculing the Germans as barba- 
 rians, he invited them to a banquet on the evening fixed by him for his 
 departure, and gave them the following theatrical entertainment. It was 
 night time ; a single lamp glimmered in the street, where Cicero's ghost 
 ■was seen wandering up and down. A German traveller entered, and, 
 finding all the doors closed, drew out his watch to see the hour, then a 
 printed book, with which he amused himself for some time, and at length, 
 in his impatience, fired off" a pistol in order to wake the sleeping Italians. 
 Cicero's ghost now advanced, demanded an explanation of the watch, the 
 printed book, and the gunpowder, expressed his astonishment on finding 
 that these great inventions had been discovered by the barbarians of the 
 North, and inquisitively demanded "what things of still greater importance 
 the Italians had invented, if barbarians had distinguished themselves so 
 highly? " Upon which a Savoyard appeared, crying, " Heckles ! Heckles ! " 
 for sale. The curtain dropped ; the prince was already gone.
 
 CHARLES THE SIXTH. ^ 
 
 fortifications of Corfu, and those on the Dalmatian coast, des- 
 tined, on the loss of the ]\Iorea, to protect Venice against 
 Turkish agaression. 
 
 Charles VI. was the last of the male line of the house 
 of Habsburg. His only son died during infancy, and his 
 whole care was the inheritance of all his crowns by his 
 daughter, Maria Theresa, whose hand he had bestowed on 
 Francis, the youthful duke of Lorraine, an object he hoped to 
 secure by means of the Pragmatic Sanction, a guarantee pur- 
 chased from all the great European powers. Blinded by 
 paternal affection, he imagined that the sovereigns of Europe 
 would consider a treaty binding, an example of naivete re- 
 markable in the midst of the faithlessness of the age. His 
 efforts proved vain. After carrying on a long and futile ne- 
 gotiation, he discovei'ed that England, France, and Spain 
 (afterwards Saxon -Poland also) had confederated [a. d. 1729] 
 at Seville against the Pragmatic Sanction. Frederick William 
 I., who succeeded Frederick I. on the throne of Prussia, actu- 
 ated by a feeling of German nationality and by his private an- 
 tipathy to George, king of England, alone remained true to the 
 emperor and fulfilled the ti-eaty concluded with him, in 1726, at 
 Wusterhausen ; the accession of the other powers to the Sanc- 
 tion was purchased at an enormous sacrifice. France was pro- 
 mised Lorraine ; Spain was bribed with Tuscany, Parma, and 
 Placentia ; England and Holland were gained by the abolition 
 of the commercial society of Ostend, which dealt a fatal blow 
 to Dutch trade, A. d. 1731. The grand pensionary of Hol- 
 land, Slingelandt, Heinsius's powerful successor, displayed 
 great activity in the conduct of this affair. Augustus of 
 Saxon-Poland Avas gained over by the assurance of the suc- 
 cession of the crown of Poland to his son, Augustus III. On 
 the death of Augustus II. [a, d. 1733] the Poles proceeded 
 to a fresh election ; Stanislaus Lescinsky again set himself up 
 as a candidate for the crown, and, although the Polish nobility 
 evinced little inclination to favour the youthful Augustus, the 
 emperor, true to his plighted word, exerted his utmost influ- 
 ence in his behalf 
 
 The empress Anne, the widow of the duke of Courland, tlie 
 last but one of the house of Kettler, and niece to Peter the 
 Great, had governed Russia since 1730. That empire had long 
 harboured the most inimical projects against Poland, and, as
 
 10 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 
 
 early as 1710, had proposed the partition of that kingdom to 
 the emperor and to Prussia. Anne, on the present occasion, 
 despatched her favourite, Marshal Munnich, at the head of 
 forty thousand men, to Poland, for the purpose of securing 
 the election of Augustus, that tool of Russian diplomacy. Her 
 deep interest in this affair and her contempt of Saxony are 
 clearly proved by the fact of her having expelled Maurice the 
 Strong, marshal of Saxony, who had been elected duke of 
 Courland,* and bestowing the ducal mantle on her paramour, 
 Biron, or, more properly, Bliren, the grandson of an ostler. 
 Stanislaus fled to Dantzig, where he was protected by the 
 faithful citizens, but the city being bombarded by Miinnich, 
 he escaped across the flooded country in a boat, in order to 
 save the city from utter destruction, and Miinnich's departure 
 was purchased with two million florins by the citizens. Sta- 
 nislaus found a hospitable reception at the court of Frederick 
 William I., who was beyond the sphere of Russian influence. 
 France, Spain, and Sardinia (Savoy) now unexpectedly 
 declared war against Charles VI. on account of his inter- 
 ference in favour of Augustus. War was not declared against 
 Augustus himself and against Russia. It was simply an open 
 pretext for again plundering the empire. England and Hol- 
 land remained neutral. The Russians sent thirty thousand 
 men to the aid of the emperor, who actually reached the 
 Rhine, but too late, peace having been already concluded. 
 The loss of the French marshal, Berwik, in the commence- 
 ment of the campaign, before Philippsburg, greatly facilitated 
 Eugene's endeavours (he was now worn out and past service) 
 to maintain himself on the Rhine. In Italy, Villars, now a 
 veteran of eighty, gained, but with immensely superior forces, 
 
 * Ferdinand, the last of the Kettler family, died, a. d. 1725. Anna, 
 the widow of his predecessor, Frederick William, became enamoured of 
 Maurice, for whose election she at first exerted her utmost influence. It 
 so happened, however, that Maurice had, at that time, a liaison with 
 Adrienne Le Couvreux, the beautiful Parisian actress, who had piven 
 him the whole of her jewels and fortune in order to furnish him with the 
 means of forwarding his interest in Courland ; he, moreover, seduced one 
 of Anna's ladies-in-waiting, which so greatly enraged her, that her love 
 changed to hate, and Maurice was compelled to flee from Courland. He 
 went to Paris, Avhere his faithful and beautiful Adrienne, the darling of 
 the Parisians, was poisoned by a duchess, who had also become en- 
 amoured of her handsome lover. See Espagnac's Life of Maurice and 
 Forster's Augustus II.
 
 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 
 
 11 
 
 a battle near Parma, in which Mercy, the imperialist general, 
 {'ell. His successor, Konigsegg, had the good fortune to sur- 
 prise the enemy on the Secchia near Quistello, and to capture 
 the whole of his camp together with five hundred and seventy 
 guns. He was, however, unsuccessful in a subsequent en- 
 gagement at Guastalla, owing to the want of reinforcements and 
 money. Don Carlos of Spain also went [a. d. 1734] to Sicily 
 and took possession of the whole of the kingdom of Naples. 
 
 These circumstances were, as if by miracle, not turned to 
 advantage by France, which would probably have been the 
 case had not Louis XV. preferred mistresses and barbers to 
 military achievements. A truce was concluded, and the 
 former stipulations made by the emperor were accepted. Don 
 Carlos retained possession of Naples ; Tuscany and Parma 
 fell to Lorraine, which was bestowed upon Stanislaus Lescin- 
 sky, [a. d. 1736,] on whose death it was to revert to France. 
 Stanislaus was named the benefactor of Lorraine ; he was a 
 kind-hearted and generous man, who smoked his pipe and 
 was the sincere well-wisher of the people amid whom fate 
 had cast him on his expulsion from the throne of Poland. 
 He died in 1766, and Lorraine became henceforward French. 
 The Lothi'ingians had long and gloriously defended them- 
 selves under their ancient dukes against the French. They 
 had been shamefully abandoned by the empire, and, without 
 any blame attaching to them, been made the victims of family 
 policy. They deserved a better fate than that of sinking into 
 the insignificance inseparable from a state half French, half 
 German. 
 
 The Genoese had remained true to the emperor, by whom 
 they were supported against the Corsicans, who refused to 
 submit to the republic of Genoa, with a German force under 
 Prince Louis of Wurtemberg,* who, more by gentle measures 
 than by violence, restored tranquillity to Corsica, A. d. 1732. 
 On his departure, the contest Avas renewed by a German ad- 
 venturer, Theodore von Neuhof, a Westphalian nobleman, 
 who had been educated by the Jesuits at Miinster, whence he 
 had fled on account of a duel to Holland, and, after entering 
 the Spanish service, had visited Africa, been taken prisoner, 
 become agent of the dey of Algiers, by whom he was de- 
 
 * Brother to Max. Emanuel, who was taken prisoner at Pultowa, the 
 son of Frederick Charles, Eberhard Louis's uncle and guardian.
 
 12 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 
 
 spatched at the head of a body of troops to the island of Cor- 
 sica, for the purpose of liberating the inhabitants from the 
 Genoese yoke. He rendered himself extremely popular and 
 became king of Corsica, a. d. 1736. But, whilst travelling in 
 Europe for the purpose of seeking for a recognition of his au- 
 thority and for aid, the French landed in Corsica and forced 
 the islanders once more to recognise the supremacy of Genoa. 
 Theodore took refuge in England, where he died a prisoner 
 for debt.* 
 
 Prince Eugene had, meanwhile, continued to guard the 
 frontiers of the empire. A thorough German, f ever bent 
 upon the promotion of the glory and welfare of Germany, he 
 beheld her downward course with heart-felt sorrow, of which 
 his letters give abundant and often touching proof He was 
 misunderstood by all except by his soldiery, who, in those 
 wretched times, were by him inspired with an enthusiasm, 
 and who fought with a spirit worthy of a better age. But 
 the fine army, disciplined by him, was shamefully neglected 
 on the death of its commander. Favourites, men of undoubted 
 incapacity, were appointed to the highest military posts, the 
 number of which was immensely multiplied. There were no 
 fewer than nineteen imperial field-marshals and a still greater 
 number of field-lieutenant-raarshals, mastei's of the ordnance, 
 etc., all of whom were in the receipt of large salaries, were 
 utterly devoid of military knowledge, and refused to recognise 
 each other's authority. The war establishment was reckoned 
 from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty thou- 
 sand men, but forty thousand alone had been levied and those 
 were allowed to starve. The whole of the pay flowed into the 
 pockets of the superior officers. The military court-council 
 and the field-marshals played into each other's hands, and the 
 officers, from the highest to the lowest, emulated each other in 
 dishonesty and fraud. The emperor, notwithstanding these 
 abuses, deemed it possible, with an armj' of this description, to 
 make great conquests in Turkey capable of repaying his losses 
 
 * On the accession of Jerome, Napoleon's brother, to the throne of 
 Westphalia, it was said, " It is but just that a Corsican nobleman should 
 become king of Westphalia, a Weslphalian nobleman having been king 
 of Corsica." 
 
 t The counts of Savoy boasted of their descent from the ancient Saxon 
 line of Wittekind.
 
 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 13 
 
 in tlie West. Count Seckendorf, a Protestant, (the prototype 
 of the chattering oracles and busy speculators, who were, at a 
 later period, looked up to as prodigies in Catholic countries, 
 merely on account of their being Protestants,) was placed at 
 the head of the army, which was also accompanied by Francis 
 of Lorraine as voluntary field-marshal. The Turks, ever ac- 
 customed to make the attack, were taken by surprise. Secken- 
 dorf [a. d. 1737] took the important fortress of Nissa, but his 
 further operations were so clumsily conducted and the army 
 was in such a state of demoralization that all speedily went 
 wrong. IMoney and provisions became scarce, then failed al- 
 together ; the soldiery murmured ; the jealous Catholic gener- 
 als refused obedience to the Protestant generalissimo. General 
 Doxat yielded Nissa without a blow on the approach of the 
 Turks ; an oifence for which he afterwards lost his head. 
 Seckendorf, accused by his enemies, was recalled and thrown 
 into prison, and the emperor, like Fei'dinand II. in Wallen- 
 stein's case, denied the commands, imposed by himself on his 
 general, and threw the whole blame upon him alone. Secken- 
 dorf remained a prisoner until the emperor's death. 
 
 The campaign of 1738 was opened by Kcenigsegg, who, 
 unexpectedly penetrating into the country, was successful 
 at Kornia, but was left without reinforcements and speedily 
 recalled. He was replaced by Wallis, who blindly obeyed 
 the senseless orders of the military court-council, and, taking 
 up a most unfavourable position, placed himself in the 
 poAver of the Turks, who, commanded by French officers, 
 among others by Bonneval, who had been raised to the dig- 
 nity of pacha, crushed him by their superior numbers at 
 Kruska. He lost twenty thousand men, and retreated in dis- 
 may, leaving Belgrade, whither he could have retired in per- 
 fect safety, behind him. General Schmettau hurried to Vi- 
 enna and offered to defend Belgrade, but exhorted to speedy 
 measures. The emperor, however, trusted neither him nor 
 Kcenigsegg, in fact, no one who discovered energy or a love of 
 honour. Schmettau was commissioned to bear to General 
 Succow, an officer utterly incompetent to fill the office, his 
 confirmation in the command of Belgrade. Wallis received 
 full power to negotiate terms and instantly offijred to yield 
 Belgrade, a step to which necessity alone could have induced 
 the emperor to accede. Immediately after this, the emperor
 
 14 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 
 
 sent a second ambassador, Neipperg, who, ignorant of the 
 negotiations entered into by Wallis, refused to sacrifice Bel- 
 grade, and was, consequently, treated with every mark of in- 
 dignity by the Turks, who spat in his fiice, supposing him to 
 be a spy. Bound in chains, in momentary expectation of 
 death, Neipperg also lost his presence of mind, offered to 
 yield Belgi'ade, and, through the mediation of the French 
 ambassador, the Marquis de Villeneuve, to whom Russia had 
 also given carte blanche on this occasion, concluded the 
 scandalous peace of Belgrade, by which Belgrade, Servia, and 
 Wallachia were once more delivered up to Turkey. Succow, 
 notwithstanding Schmettau's i-emonstrances, yielded Belgrade, 
 [a. d. 1739,] before the ratification of the treaty at Vienna. 
 Wallis and Neipperg suffered a short imprisonment, but were, 
 on account of their connexion with the aristocracy, at that 
 period omnipotent, shortly restored to favour and reinstated 
 in their offices. Schmettau entered the Prussian service. 
 
 The house of Habsburg became extinct in 1749. Charles 
 conduced, even in a greater degree than his father, to stamp 
 the Austrians, more especially the Viennese, with the charac- 
 ter by which they are, even at the present day, distinguished. 
 The Austrians were formerly noted for their chivalric spi- 
 rit and still more so for their constitutional liberty. During 
 the unhappy struggle for liberty of conscience their character 
 became deeply tragical and parallel in dignity to that of any 
 other nation ennobled by misfortune, but, during the reign of 
 Charles VL, it took a thoughtlessly good-humoured, frivolous, 
 almost burlesque tone. The memory of their ancestors' rights 
 had faded away, the horrid butchery was forgotten ; the 
 education of the Jesuits had, in the third generation, eradicat- 
 ed every serious thought, had habituated the people to blind 
 obedience, whilst they amused them, like children, with spi- 
 ritual comedies, to which the great comedy, acted by the 
 court, was a fitting accompaniment. The person of the mon- 
 arch was, it is true, strictly guarded by Spanish etiquette, 
 but his innumerable crowd of attendants, fattening in idle- 
 ness and luxury, ere long infected the whole nation with their 
 licence and love of gaiety. The court of Vienna was entirely 
 on a Spanish footing ; the palace, the pleasure-grounds, the 
 Prater, an imitation of the Prado at Madrid, the ceremo- 
 nies, even the dress, notwithstanding the ill accordance be-
 
 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 15 
 
 tween the great Spanish hat and drooping feathei'S and tlie 
 short mantle with the allonge peruke lately introduced by the 
 French. The emperor was beheld with distant awe as a being 
 superior to the rest of mankind ; he was, even in privacy, 
 surrounded by pomp and circumstance ; his name coukl not 
 be uttered without a genuflection. He was surrounded by 
 a court consisting of no fewer than forty thousand indi- 
 viduals, all of whom aided in the consumption of the public 
 revenue. The six offices filled by the lord chief steward, the 
 lord chief chamberlain, the lord chief marshal, the lord chief 
 equerry, the lord chief master of the chase, and the lord chief 
 master of the falcons, each of whom superintended an im- 
 mensely numerous royal household, took precedence. There 
 were, for instance, two hundred and twenty-six chamberlains. 
 Then followed twelve offices of state, the privy council, (the 
 highest government office,) the military council, the imperial 
 council, three councils of finance, (the court of conference, the 
 exchequer, and board of revenues,) a chief court of justice, 
 (into which the provincial government of Lower Austria had 
 been converted,) and five especial governments for Spain, the 
 Netherlands, Hungary, Transylvania, and Bohemia, all of 
 which resided at Vienna. There were, besides these, the em- 
 bassies, a prodigious number, every count, prelate, baron, and 
 city of the empire having, at that period, an agent in Vienna. 
 The whole of the year was unalterably prearranged, every court 
 f^te predetermined. Then came a succession of church festivals, 
 with solemn processions, festivals of the knights of the golden 
 fleece, and that of the ladies of the order of the cross, instituted 
 [a. d. 1688] by Eleonora, the consort of Ferdinand IH., etc.; 
 tasteless family f^tes, with fire-works, senseless allegories, and 
 speeches in an unheard-of bombastical style, imitated from the 
 half-oriental one of Spain. The machinery of this world of 
 wonder was managed by the prime minister. Count Sinzendorf, 
 an execrable statesman but — an admirable cook. Half Vienna 
 was fed from the imperial kitchens and cellars. Two casks of 
 Tokay were daily reckoned for softening the bread for the 
 empress's parrots ; twelve quarts of the best wine for the em- 
 press's night-draught, and twelve buckets of wine for her daily 
 bath. 
 
 The people were reduced to the lowest grade of servility. 
 The Lower Austrian Estates, on the occasion of taking the
 
 16 CHARLES THE SIXTH. 
 
 oath of allegiance, thus addressed Charles VI. : " The light of 
 heaven is obscured by your Majesty's inimitable splendour. 
 The universe is not spacious enough to be the scene of such 
 events, when your most faithful and obedient Estates reach 
 the height of happiness by casting themselves at the feet of 
 your Majesty. The ancient golden age is iron in comparison 
 with the present one illumined by the sun of our prosperity. 
 Your faithful and submissive Estates would, on this account, 
 have erected a splendid temple, like that of Augustus, conse- 
 crated to returning peace and prosperity, could any thing have 
 been any where discovered that was not already possessed by 
 your imperial Majesty." Conlin, in the notes to his Poetical 
 Biography of Charles VI., gives an account of the reception of 
 the empress at Linz, which is equally entertaining. In Vienna, 
 the numerous sinecures enabled adventurers, tlie upper and 
 lower lacqueys, to live a riotous life, which affected the morals 
 of the people. Eating and drinking became an affair of the 
 utmost importance ; adultery and immorality among the no- 
 bility a mark of bon ton ; the search after amusement the 
 citizen's sole occupation. The Spanish austerity of the court 
 had, notwithstanding, prevented immorality, under the name of 
 philosophy, from supplanting religion, as had been the case 
 in France. Frivolity was confined to the limits of a jest re- 
 concilable with the established piety . or rather bigoti'y, and 
 thus came into vogue, Stranitzki, in the Leopoldstadt theatre, 
 by means of this tone exciting the inextinguishable laughter 
 of the populace, and Father Abraham making use of it in his 
 sermons at Santa Clara. 
 
 Vienna, on the reconciliation between the emperor and the 
 pope, was erected into a bishopric, A. d. 1772. The emperor, 
 like his predecessors, was a slave to the priests and expended 
 as much upon church festivals as upon court fetes. The most 
 extraordinary splendour was displayed in 1729, on the canon- 
 ization of St. John von Nepomuk by the pope. The festival, 
 which lasted eight days, was participated in by the whole of the 
 Austrian monarchy, nay, by the whole of Catholic Christendom. 
 Vienna was the scene of unusual pomp ; the interior of St. 
 Stephen's was hung with purple ; the courtiers and citizens 
 vied with each other in splendour. Almost the whole popula- 
 tion of Bohemia poured into Prague ; more than four hundred 
 processions of townships bearing offerings, as to a pagan sa-
 
 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 17 
 
 orifice ; Altbunzlau with garnets and rubies, Koenigsgrajtz 
 with pheasants, Chrudim with crystals, Czaslau with silver, 
 Kaurziem with evergreen plants, Bechin with salmon, Prachin 
 with pearls and gold sand, Pilsen with a white lamb, Saaz with 
 ears of corn, Leitmeritz with wine, Rakonitz with salt, etc. 
 The whole of the city and its innumerable towers were splen- 
 didly illuminated. An immense procession marched to Ne- 
 pomuk, the saint's birth-place, with numbers of figures and 
 pictures of the Virgin and saints, banners and dramatic repre- 
 sentations, taken from the life of the saint.* At that pious 
 
 period lived the Tyrolean Capuchin, Father Gabriel Ponti- 
 feser, who enjoyed great repute as confessor to Maria Anna, 
 queen of Spain, consort to Charles II., the last of the Habs- 
 burg dynasty, but who refused every post of honour and con- 
 tented himself with erecting a Capuchin monastery in his native 
 town, Clausen, with Spanish gold. The queen adorned it with 
 valuable pictures, etc., part of which were [a. d. 1809] carried 
 to Munich. At that time also died at Cappel in the Pazuaun- 
 thal the pious pastor, Adam Schmid, who was so beloved by 
 the people that numerous tapers are still kept burning around 
 his tomb as around that of a saint.j 
 
 CCXXXII. The courts of Germany. 
 
 Augustus of Saxony expired a. d. 1733, leaving three 
 hundred and fifty-two children, amongst whom, Maurice, 
 known as the marshal of Saxony, the son of the beautiful 
 Aurora, Countess of Kflenigsmark,;]: equalled him in extraordi- 
 nary physical strength and surpassed him in intellect, but, as 
 a French general, turned the talents which, under other cir- 
 cumstances, he might have devoted to the service of his coun- 
 try, against Germany. Flemming, the powerful minister, also 
 died, leaving sixteen million dollars, of which he had robbed 
 the country, and half of which his widow was compelled to 
 relinquish. The most notorious of the king's mistresses, 
 
 * See Schottky, The Carlovingian Age. 
 
 t Beda, Weber's Tyrol. 
 
 X She was cold, intriguing, and busied herself, as her Memoirs show, 
 with money matters. She became provostess of Quedlinburg, " for 
 which," as Uffenbach writes in his Travels, " her fine, large, majestic 
 figure, but not her well-known character, M'ell suited." 
 
 VOL. III. c
 
 18 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 
 
 Countess Cosel, had drawn from liim twenty million dollars. 
 Saxony had fallen a prey to the most depraved of both sexes. 
 The whole of these shameful acts are recounted in the " Gal- 
 lant Saxon" of Baron von PciUnitz and in the Memoirs of the 
 Margravine of Bayreuth. The descriptions of the f6tes given 
 at Morizburg to the Countess Aurora von Kcenigsmark or in 
 honour of foreign princes, his guests, graphically depicture 
 the luxury of this royal debauche. Mythological representa- 
 tions were performed on an immense scale, festivals of Venus in 
 the pleasure-gardens, festivals of Diana in the forests, festivals 
 of Neptune on the Elbe, on which occasions a Venetian Bu- 
 centaur, frigates, brigantines, gondolas, and sailors dressed in 
 satin and silk stockings, were paraded ; festivals of Saturn in 
 the Saxon mines ; besides tournaments, peasants' f^tes, fairs, 
 masquerades, and fancy balls, in which the army as well as 
 the whole court sustained a part. He kept Janissaries, Moors, 
 Heiducken,* Swiss, a name now signifying body -guardsmen or 
 porters, and put the common soldiers and court-menials during 
 the celebration of ft'tes into such varied disguises, as, in a certain 
 degree, to transform the whole country into a theatre. In Wack- 
 erbarth's biography, there is a description of a firework, for 
 which eighteen thousand trunks of trees were used, and of a gi- 
 gantic allegorical picture which was painted upon six thousand 
 ells of cloth. One party of pleasure at Mlihlberg cost six million 
 dollars. Architecture was rendered subservient to these follies. 
 The Japan palace alone contained genuine Chinese porcelain 
 to the amount of a million dollars, besides sumptuous carpets 
 composed of feathers. At Dresden, a hall is still shown com- 
 pletely furnished with the ostrich and heron plumes used at 
 these fetes. Luxury and a tasteless love of splendour were 
 alone fostered by this unheard-of extravagance, and it was 
 merely owing to a happy chance that the purchase of the 
 Italian antiques and pictures, which laid the foundation to the 
 magnificent Dresden gallery, flattered the pride of king Au- 
 gustus. His private treasury, the celebrated green vaults, 
 were, like his f^^tes, utterly devoid of taste. There were to be 
 seen immense heaps of precious stones, gold and silver, a 
 room full of pearls, columns of ostriches' eggs, curious works 
 of art, clocks, and all manner of toys, each of which cost enor- 
 
 * Attendants in the Hunsarian costume. Translatou.
 
 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 19 
 
 mous sums. One of these costly pieces, clever enough, repre- 
 sents a harlequin cudgelling a peasant, each of the figures being 
 formed out of a single pearl of immense size. This was, in point 
 of fact, the only relation between the prince and the people. 
 The cries of the people were unheard ; of the provincial 
 Estates a servile committee alone acted ; and Augustus, in the 
 plenitude of his condescension, in return for the enormous con- 
 tributions granted by his Estates, yielded, after a parley of 
 twenty-nine years, to the desire of his people, and published 
 new reformed regulations for the diet, intended to stop the 
 mouths of all malcontents, which, with open mockery, he re- 
 served to himself the power, " in his paternal love for his peo- 
 ple, of altering and improving." 
 
 Augustus III., his son and successor on the throne of Sax- 
 ony, although personally more temperate, allowed his favour- 
 ite, Briihl, on whom he bestowed the dignity of Count, to 
 continue the old system of dissipation. Briihl, who had an 
 annual salary of 50,000 dollars, without reckoning the im- 
 mense landed property bestowed upon him, erected his palace 
 in the vicinity of the royal residence, and, like a major-domo 
 or grand visir, surpassed his royal master in luxury of every 
 description. He held a numerous court, and, as he ever placed 
 his servants in the highest and most lucrative offices, the 
 nobility contested for the honour of sending their sons, as 
 pages, into his service. His wardrobe was the most mag- 
 nificent in the empire ; he had always a hundi-ed pair of shoes, 
 and other articles of dress in hundreds by him, all of which 
 were made in Paris. He had a cabinet filled with Parisian 
 perukes. Even the pastry on his table was sent from Paris. 
 In order to raise the sums required for his maintenance, he 
 seized all deposits, even the money belonging to wards, and, 
 under the title of "contributions," made great loans from 
 wealthy individuals, particularly at Leipzig, for which he gave 
 bank-bills, which speedily fell so much in value as to be 
 refused acceptance. He also established a general property 
 tax and continually alienated crown property. He was, more- 
 over, pi-ofessionally a traitor to his country and sold his 
 master to the highest bidder. At that period, the petty col- 
 lateral Saxon line of Merseburg, founded, A. d. 1G53, by 
 Christian, a son of John George, became extinct. The last 
 duke was such a fiddle-fancier that he was always accom- 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 
 
 panied by a carriage filled with those instruments, and so im- 
 becile, that his wanton consort, on the birth of an illegitimate 
 child, pacified him by declaring that the infant had brought 
 with it into the world a gigantic bass-viol, which she had 
 ordered to be made for him. 
 
 The Saxon dukes of the Ernestine line were divided into 
 several houses. Ernest, duke of Weimar, a. d. 1736, for- 
 bade his subjects " to reason under pain of correction." Fre- 
 derick, duke of Gotha, gave the first example of the shame- 
 ful traffic in men, afterwards so often imitated, by selling 
 [a. d. 1733] four thousand impressed recruits to the em- 
 peror for 120,000 florins, and, in 1744, three regiments to 
 the Dutch. He occupied Meiningen with his troops and 
 supported the nobles in their rebellion against his cousin, 
 Antony Ulric, who had persuaded the emperor to bestow 
 upon his consort, Elisabeth Ca3sar,* a handsome chamber- 
 maid, the rank of princess, and to declare his children capable 
 of succeeding to his titles. The nobility triumphed, and the 
 children were, by a shameful decree of the Estates of the em- 
 pire, declared incapable of succeeding to their father's pos- 
 sessions ; the hopes of Gotha were, nevertheless, frustrated, 
 Antony Ulric instantly contracting a second marriage with a 
 princess of Hesse, who brought him a numerous family. 
 
 In Bavaria, Maximilian Emanuel II. reigned until 1726. 
 He was the author of great calamities. It was entirely owing 
 to his disloyalty, to the treacherous diversion raised by him 
 to the rear of the imperial army, that France was not com- 
 pletely beaten in the commencement of the war of succession. 
 Nor was his close alliance with France merely transient, for, 
 in the ensuing century, his became the ruling policy of almost 
 every court in Western Germany. The elector, perverted by 
 Villars and others of the French courtiers, solely made use 
 of the French tongue, and, surrounded by female singers and 
 dancing-girls, imitated every Parisian vice. His consort, 
 Theresa Cunigunda, the daughter of Sobieski, the noble 
 
 * Frederick William, the reigning duke, Antony Ulric's elder brother, 
 disapproved of this marriage, and, on the death of Elisabeth, who, hap- 
 pily for herself, died early, allowed her coffin to remain unburied, merely 
 sprinkled over witli sand. On his death, he was treated with similar 
 indignity by his brother, who left both coffins standing side by side in this 
 condition during a year.
 
 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 21 
 
 sovereign of Poland, filled with disgust at the licentious man- 
 ners of the court, became, under the guidance of the Jesuit, 
 Schmacke, a strict devotee. The elector, in order to escape 
 the reproaches of his Bavarian subjects, chiefly resided, in his 
 quality of stadthoklcr of the Netherlands, at Brussels, where, 
 in one continued maze of pleasure, he lavished on his mis- 
 tresses and expended in horses, of which he kept twelve 
 hundred, and in pictures, which he had a good opportunity to 
 collect in the Netherlands, such enormous sums, as to render 
 the imposition of triple taxes necessary in Bavaria. The pro- 
 vincial diet had not been consulted since 1699. His son, 
 Charles Albert, who reigned until 1746, was equally the slave 
 of luxury. He was passionately fond of hunting, and kept, 
 besides his mistresses, an immense number of dogs. Keyssler, 
 who, in the course of his interesting travels, visited Bavaria 
 in 1729, gives the following account; "The electoress, Maria 
 Amelia, a little and delicate lady, shoots well at a mark, and 
 often wades up to her knees in a bog whilst following the 
 chace. Her shooting-dress is a green coat and trowsers and a 
 little white peruke. She has a great fancy for dogs, which is 
 plainly evident at Nymphenburg by the bad smell of the red 
 damask carpets and beds. The little English greyhounds are 
 valued most highly. The electoress, when at table, is sur- 
 rounded by a good number of them, and one sits on either 
 side of her, seizing every thing within their reach. Near her 
 bed a dog has a little tent with a cushion, and on one side 
 
 hangs a bust of Christ with the crown of thorns. There is 
 
 a couch for a dog close to the elector's bed, and there are 
 couches for twelve more in the fine writing-room adjoining." 
 The electoress becoming jealous of her husband's mistresses, 
 a terrible quarrel ensued, in which he physically ill-treated 
 her. Sophia von Ingenheim was his favourite. He estab- 
 lished the lotteries, so destructive to the morals of the people, 
 in Bavaria. 
 
 The other Wittelsbach branch in the Pfalz pursued a similar 
 career. The elector, Philip William, who succeeded to the go- 
 vernment, A. D. 1685, died in 1690. His son, John William, 
 fled, on account of the disturbances during the war, from the 
 Upper Rhine to Diisseldorf, the capital of Juliers, where he fol- 
 lowed in the steps of his cousin Maximilian at Brussels, kept a 
 harem and made a valuable collection of pictures. On his death,
 
 22 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 
 
 in 1716, his bvotlier, Charles Philip, assisted by the Jesuit, 
 Usleber, inflicted the most terrible cruelties on the Pfalz and 
 renewed [a. d. 1742] the violent religious persecution, whilst 
 indulging in passions that disgraced his years, until death re- 
 lieved the afllicted country tVom this monster, and Charles 
 Theodore, of the line of Sulzbach, a sensualist of a milder na- 
 ture, succeeded to the government. Gustavus Samuel, duke 
 of Pfalz-Zweibriicken, had, [a. d. 1696,] during a visit to Rome, 
 turned Catholic, in order to obtain a divorce from his wife 
 and permission to wed a daughter of one of his servants, 
 named Hoffman. 
 
 Hesse gained the county of Hanau in 1736. The last count, 
 John Reinhard, died ; his daughter, Charlotte, married 
 Prince Louis of Darmstadt ; the county was, nevertheless, 
 divided between Darmstadt and Cassel. During the life of 
 William, Landgrave of Cassel, his son, the hereditary prince, 
 Frederick, secretly turned Catholic. His father, however, 
 frustrated the plans of the Jesuits by convoking the provincial 
 Estates, demanding a guarantee from the Protestant princes, 
 binding the hei'editary prince by a will whereby tiie Catholics 
 were deprived of all their hopes, and separating the prince from 
 his sons, who were brought up in the Protestant faith. 
 
 Licence was carried to the greatest excess in Baden-Dur- 
 lach, where the Margrave, Charles William, built Carlsruhe 
 in the midst of the forests, a. d. 1715, and, in imitation of the 
 celebrated French deer-pai'ks, kept a hundred and sixty garden 
 nymphs, who bore him a countless number of children. The 
 scandal caused by this conduct induced him, in ] 722, to dis- 
 miss all except sixty or seventy of the most beautiful. He 
 kept his favourites shut up in the celebrated leaden tower, 
 which still forms the handle to the great double fan, formed 
 half by the streets of Carlsruhe, half by the alleys stretching 
 through the forest contiguous to the palace. During his pro- 
 menades and journeys he was accompanied by girls disguised 
 as Heiducks. 
 
 In Wlirtemberg, the duke, Everard, left, A. D. 1674, a son, 
 William Louis, vvho dying A. D. 1677, his brother, Frederick 
 Charles, undertook the guardianship of his son, Everard 
 Louis, then in his first year.* This regent discovered ex- 
 
 * Everard's brother's son, Sylvius Nimrod, married a dautjhter of 
 the hist duke of Munsterberg, a. d. 1617, of the house of Podiebrad, in
 
 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 23 
 
 treme imbecility, and, after the shameful seizure of the city 
 of Strassburg by Louis XIV., visited Paris for the purpose of 
 paying his respects to that monarch, notwithstanding, or 
 rather on account of which, the French king allowed Melac 
 to plunder the territory of Wiirtemberg. What was there to 
 be apprehended from a coward ? Everard Louis, who attained 
 his majority in 1693, instead of healing the wounds of his coun- 
 try, extended his household, gave magnificent fetes, grandes 
 battues, and [a. d. 1702] founded the order of St. Hubert, 
 the patron of the chace, etc. What reason had he for con- 
 straint, when the Tubingen theologians carried on a violent 
 dispute with the Dillinger Jesuits, whether the Catholic or 
 the Lutheran faith was more advantageous for princes, and 
 the Tiibingen chancellor, PfafF, gained the victory by clearly 
 demonstrating that no faith allowed more latitude to princes 
 than the Lutheran. In the absence of native nobility, who 
 had, under Ulric, duke of Wiirtemberg, abandoned tlie coun- 
 try, foreign nobles were attracted to the court for the purpose 
 of heightening its splendour. It was in this manner that a 
 Mademoiselle von Grisvenitz, accompanied by her brother, 
 came from Mecklenburg to Stuttgard, and, ere long, became 
 the declared mistress of the duke. •• Nay, a clergyman was 
 even found, although the duke was already married, to perform 
 the marriage ceremony. This open bigamy scandalized both 
 the emperor and the empire. The departure of Gra;venitz 
 was insisted upon, but was refused by the duke until the pro- 
 vincial Estates had, by way of compensation, voted a sum of 
 200,000 florins. But, scarcely had the duke received the 
 money than Grasvenitz returned, apparently married to a 
 Count Wiirben, a Viennese, who had lent himself for a con- 
 sideration to this purpose, and who, after being created grand 
 provincial governor of Wiirtemberg, was sent out of the coun- 
 try. His wife, the grand provincial governess, remained for 
 twenty years in undisputed possession of the duke, and go- 
 verned the country in his name. Her brother figured as prime 
 minister, and, as she furnished the court of Vienna with money 
 and the king of Prussia from time to time with giants for his 
 guard, she was protected by foreign powers. She was named, 
 
 whose right he laid claim to the Silesian duchy of CEls, which the dukes 
 of Miinsterberg had received, a. d. 1495, from'Wladislaw, king of Bohe- 
 mia, in exchange for the demesne of Podiebrad in Bohemia.
 
 24 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 
 
 and with truth, the destroyer of the country, for she sold offices 
 and justice, commuted all punishments byline, extorted money 
 by tlireats, bestowed the most important commercial monopo- 
 lies on Jews,* mortgaged and sold the crown lands, etc. She 
 managed the duke's treasury and — her own. His was ever 
 empty, hers ever full ; she lent money to the duke, who repaid 
 her in land. By means of spies, the violation of private cor- 
 respondence, and a strict police, she suppressed the murmurs 
 of the people. Osiander, the churchman, alone had the courage 
 to reply, on her demanding to be included in the prayers of 
 the church, " Madame, we pray daily, ' O Lord, preserve us 
 from evil.'" It was forbidden under pain of punishment to 
 speak ill of her. The provincial Estates attempting to defend 
 themselves from the enormous exactions, the duke threatened 
 the "individuals," in case the assembly any longer opposed his 
 demands. During the famine of 1713, the peasants were com- 
 pelled to plant great part of their land with tobacco. On the 
 increasing discontent of the people and of the Estates, which 
 showed itself more particularly at Stuttgard, tlie duke quitted 
 that city and erected a new residence, Ludwigsburg, a. d. 1716, 
 at an immense expense. On laying the foundation-stone, he 
 caused such a quantity of bread to be thrown to the assembled 
 multitude that several people narrowly escaped being crushed to 
 death. The general w^ant increased, and, in 1717, the first great 
 migration of the people of Wiirtemberg to North America took 
 place. The countess at length demanded as her right as pos- 
 sessor of the lordship of Welzheim a seat and a vote on the 
 Franconian bench of counts of the empire, which being granted 
 in her stead to her brother, a quarrel ensued, and he took part 
 with her enemies against her. She also ventured to treat the 
 duke with extreme insolence. Her beauty had long passed 
 away with her youth, and, on the presentation of the beautiful 
 Countess Wittgenstein, her empire completely ended. She 
 w^as imprisoned and deprived of her immense demesnes. On 
 
 * On one occasion she seized a quantity of English goods for her 
 wardrobe, and the duke wore some of the stolen gold brocade in public. 
 On another occasion, a person offering her 5000 florins for an apothecary's 
 licence, she took the money, gave a receipt, but did not send the patent. 
 The person called in order to freshen her memory. The countess could 
 not recall the circumstance, demanded the receipt in proof, took it away 
 and did not reappear. The person in question received neither the money 
 nor the patent.
 
 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 25 
 
 the death of the duke, she lost still more of her ill-gotten wealth, 
 and the court Jew, Siiss, her agent, also privately robbed her. 
 Everard Louis expired A. D. 1733, leaving no issue, and 
 was succeeded by his Catholic cousin, Charles Alexander, who, 
 although a distinguished officer, was totally inept for govern- 
 ment. He intrusted the helm of state to his court Jew, SUss 
 Oppenheimer, who shamelessly robbed the country. He estab- 
 lished a "gratification court," where all the offices of state 
 were sold to the highest bidder ; " a court of exchequer," 
 where justice was put up to auction. To those who were un- 
 able to pay he lent money at the rate of a gros per florin (the 
 Jews' groschen). He also kept a large shop, from which he 
 furnished the court wardrobes, and established a lottery for his 
 private gain. He, moreover, extended the system of mono- 
 poly to leather, groceries, coffee-houses, even to the cleaning 
 of chimneys, as well as the right of pre-emption, as, for instance, 
 in regard to wood ; and, lastly, burthened the country, even 
 foreigners during their residence in it, with a heavy protec- 
 tion, income, and family tax, A. d. 1736. He also gave way 
 to the most unbridled licence, and either by fraud or by vio- 
 lence disturbed the peace of families. The patient endur- 
 ance of the people and the example of the Pfalz inspired the 
 Jesuits with the hope of recatholicizing Wurtemberg by means 
 of her Catholic duke. The first step was to place the Catho- 
 lics on an equal footing with the Protestants, and a con- 
 spiracy, in which Siiss took part, was entered into for that 
 purpose. Troops were expected from the bishop of Wiirz- 
 burg. Orders were prepared for the Wurtemberg household 
 troops. The people were to be disarmed under pretext of 
 putting a stop to poaching. The duke, who, it was probably 
 feared, might, if present, oppose severe measures, was to be 
 temporarily removed. The ancient constitution was to be 
 done away with ; " The hydra head of the people shall be 
 crushed," wrote General Remchingen, one of the chief con- 
 spirators, to Fichtel, the duke's privy-counsellor. But, during 
 the night of the 13th of March, 1737, the duke suddenly ex- 
 pired, a few hours before the time fixed for his departure. 
 He was long supposed to have been assassinated, but, most 
 probably, died of apoplexy. His cousin, Charles Rudolph, 
 undertook the government during the minority of his son, 
 Charles Eugene, who was then in his ninth year. The Ca-
 
 26 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 
 
 tholic conspiracy fell to the ground ; Remcliingen fled ; the 
 Jew, Siiss, was exposed on the gallows* in an iron cage. 
 
 The first elector of Hanover, Ernest Augustus, who sud- 
 denly restored the power of the divided and immoral Guelphic 
 house, was not free from the faults of the age. Although the 
 champion of the honour of Germany, he was a slave to French 
 fashions, unprincipled and licentious, fiiithless and ungrateful 
 to his noble consort, Sophia, in whose right his son mounted 
 the throne of Great Britain, and built Montbrilland for his 
 mistress, Madame von Kielmansegge, and the Fantaisie for 
 the other, the Countess Platen. His Italian chapel-director, 
 Stephani, controlled the government. His neglected consort, 
 Sophia, a woman of high intelligence, consoled herself by her 
 friendship for Leibnitz, the greatest genius of the day. George, 
 his son and successor, married a near relation, Sophia Doro- 
 thea, the daughter of the last duke of Celle, who, becoming 
 enamoured of a Count Kocnigsmark, attempted to fly with him 
 in the design of turning Catholic. Her plan was discovered 
 and frustrated ; the count was beheaded and she was detained 
 a prisoner for life, a. u. 1691. The elector, notwithstanding 
 the severity with which he visited adultery in his wife, was 
 not free from a similar imputation. He kept numerous mis- 
 tresses, among others, Irmengarde Melusina von Schulenburg, 
 who gained such undisputed sway over him, that he took her 
 to England on his accession to the throne, created her duchess 
 of Kendal, and induced Charles VI. to bestow upon her the 
 title of Eberstein as princess of the empire. He mounted the 
 British throne, A. D. 1714, and, in order to confirm his seat, 
 completely devoted himself to the interests of Great Britain. 
 Hanover Avas utterly neglected and converted into an English 
 province, a stepping-stone for England into the German em- 
 pire. The fact that the absence of the prince afforded no 
 alleviation of the popular burthens is characteristic of the 
 times. The electoral household, notwithstanding the unvary- 
 ing absence of the elector, remained on its former footing for 
 
 * These gallows wore made of the iron which Hoiiauer had attempted 
 to turn into gold. Honauer first adorned them in 1597, then the Jew 
 Siiss, three alchyniists, Montani, Mnschelcr, and Von Miihlcnfels, a 
 Stuttgard incendiary, and, lastly, a thief, who had attempted to steal the 
 iron from the same gallows. They were very high and weighed thirty- 
 six hundred weight and twelve pounds.
 
 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 27 
 
 the purpose of imposing upon the multitnde and of assuring 
 lucrative appointments to the nobility. The palace bore no 
 appearance of being deserted ; except the elector himself, not 
 a courtier, not a single gold-laced lacquey, was wanting to 
 complete the court ; the horses stamped in the stalls, nay, 
 the fiction of the royal presence was carried to such a degree 
 that the Hanoverians were cited for their devotion to roy- 
 alty and for their rage for titles. The courtiers, resident 
 in Hanover, assembled every Sunday in the electoral palace. 
 In the hall of assembly stood an arm-chair, upon which the 
 monarch's portrait was placed. Each courtier on entering 
 bowed low to this portrait, and the whole assembly, as if awe- 
 struck by the presence of Majesty, conversed in low tones 
 for about an hour, when the banquet, a splendid repast pre- 
 pared at the elector's expense, was announced. The cle- 
 mency, whereby the fate of the subjects of other states is 
 sometimes alleviated, had, however, disappeared with the 
 monarch, and to this may be attributed the rude arrogance 
 of the nobility and the cruelty of legislature, which, even 
 up to the present time, retained the use of torture. The ex- 
 ample olFered by the people and parliament of England might 
 have been followed, but the Hanoverian diet had slumbered 
 since 1657 and merely vegetated in the form of an aristocratic 
 committee. The minister, von Miinchhausen, was the first 
 who governed, as far as the spirit and circumstances of the 
 times allowed, in a patriotic sense. He gained great distinc- 
 tion by founding the university of Ga^ttingen, which he richly 
 endowed, a. d. 1737. Royal Hanover no longer condescended 
 to send her subjects to the little university of Helmstaedt in 
 Wolfenbiittel. 
 
 In Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel, the aged duke, Antony Ulric, 
 who gave way to unbridled licence in his palace of Salzdahlum, 
 but who promoted science by the extension of the celebrated 
 Wolfenbiittel library,* turned Catholic when nearly eighty, in 
 order to testify his delight at the marriage of his grand- 
 daughter with the emperor, Charles VI. His son, Augustus 
 William, imitated his luxury, and, guided by a certain von 
 Dehn, gave himself up to all the fashionable vices of the day 
 and persecuted ^Miinchhausen. He was succeeded by his bro- 
 ther, Louis Rudolph, [a. d. 1731,] by whom order was restored. 
 * Better than by his wearisome romances and his expensive Italian opera.
 
 28 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 
 
 He left no issue, and was succeeded [a. d. 1735] by Fer- 
 dinand Albert von Bevern, (a younger branch, founded by a 
 brother of Antony Ulric,) a learned collector of scientific ob- 
 jects, who was shortly afterwards succeeded by his son, 
 Charles. 
 
 In Mecklenburg, the scandalous government of Charles 
 Leopold was succeeded by the milder one of his brother, Chris- 
 tian Louis, A. D. 1719. 
 
 In East Frizeland, George Albert, the son of Christian 
 Everard, continued the contest with the Estates and the city 
 of Emden, and created, in opposition to the ancient Estates or 
 malcontents, fresh and obedient ones. Right was in this 
 instance again unprotected by the emperor and the empire, by 
 whom the ancient Estates were denounced as rebels. Emden 
 resisted, several bloody battles took place, but at length the 
 Danes came to the count's assistance, the ancient Estates were 
 suppressed, and the property of the malcontents was confis- 
 cated. Charles Edzard, the count's son, married [a. d. 1727] 
 a princess of Bayreuth, and entered into an agreement by 
 which, on his dying without issue, in 1744, East Frizeland 
 was annexed to Prussia. 
 
 In Denmark, Frederick IV. married Anna Sophia, the 
 beautiful daughter of his chancellor, Reventlow. Extrava- 
 gant devotion was brought into vogue during the reign of his 
 son, Christian VI., by his consort, Sophia Magdalena, a 
 princess of Bayreuth, and by her court chaplain, Blume, a. d. 
 1746. The celebrated minister, Bernstorf, commenced a 
 beneficial reform in the administration under his son, Frede- 
 rick V. 
 
 Holstein had severely suffered during the war and under 
 the licentious government of Count Gortz, after whose execu- 
 tion the affairs of state were conducted almost equally ill by 
 the family of Bassewitz in the name of the youthful duke. 
 The nobility were extremely cruel and intractable. In 1721, 
 a Ranzau caused his elder brothers to be assassinated ; another, 
 in 1722, starved several of his serfs to death in prison. Both 
 were merely punished by a short imprisonment. A third 
 member of this family had, however, as early as 1688, offered 
 a very contrary example, by being the first to liberate the 
 serfs on his estates. A controversy among the priesthood 
 caused the citizens of Kiel [a. d. 1708] to rise in open insur-
 
 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 29 
 
 rection. The Ditmarsch peasantry revolted [a, d, 1740] on 
 account of the abuses to which the levy of recruits gave rise. 
 
 Leopold von Dessau was the only one among the fallen princes 
 of the house of Anhalt who earned distinction. He reformed 
 the Prussian army, introduced the use of metal ramrods and a 
 rapid movement of closed columns, and prepared Prussia for 
 the great part she was henceforward to perform on the theatre 
 of war in Europe.* He was extremely rough in his manners, 
 was subject to ungovernable fits of fury, was, moreover, a 
 drunkard, and tyrannized over the people of Dessau. He, 
 nevertheless, lived in great harmony with the beautiful daugh- 
 ter of an apothecary, f who was recognised by the emperor. 
 
 A collateral branch of the house of Hohenzollern-Branden- 
 burg, the reigning one of Prussia, continued to reign in the 
 Margraviates of Bayreuth and Ansbach. Christian Ernest 
 of Bayreuth [a. d. 1712] created the alchymist, Krohnemann, 
 prime minister, but sent him, nevertheless, to the gallows for 
 his ill-success in discovering the secret of making gold. His 
 son, George William, founded the far-famed Hermitage, where 
 the hermit passed his days in wanton luxury. His son, 
 Frederick, married the celebrated princess, Frederica Sophia 
 Wilhelmina of Prussia, sister to Frederick the Great, whose 
 Memoirs so graphically depicture the times. She has un- 
 hesitatingly and unsparingly described both her father's and 
 husband's court and related all the events of that period : the 
 fact that a princess could thus speak of her own relations is a 
 strong proof, were any wanting, of the prevalence of French 
 frivolity. Her husband had [a. d. 1743] founded the uni- 
 versity of Erlangen, but was, notwithstanding, a mere lover 
 of the chace, and was first misled by her to spend sums in the 
 erection of palaces, theatres, etc., ill-suited to the revenue of 
 his petty territory. 
 
 Charles William Frederick von Ansbach, who succeeded to 
 the government in 1729, was feared as a madman and a ty- 
 rant. He intrusted the administration to the nobility, more par- 
 
 * He was the darling of the soldiery, and the Dessau march, long after 
 his time, led the Prussians to victory. 
 
 t Anna Louisa Fbhse, the apotliecary's daughter, had steadily refused 
 to become his mistress. He remained, on his side, faithful to her during 
 his campaigns and married her on succeeding to the government. She 
 bore him ten children, five of whom were sons. Three fell and the other 
 two were severely wounded during the seven years' war.
 
 30 THE COURTS OF GERMANY. 
 
 ticularly to the family of Seckendorf, whilst he gave himself 
 up to the pleasures of the chace, to a couple of mistresses, and 
 to fits of rage, which caused him to imbrue his hands in the 
 blood of others. He was for some time completely guided by 
 a Jew, named Isaac Nathan, who practised financial swindling, 
 and, for a short period, solely reigned under tlie title of 
 " resident." The little Margrave, wishing to bestow a great 
 honour on the English monarch, sent Jiim the red order of the 
 eagle set in brilliants. The Jew, Ischerlein, avIio was on an 
 understanding with Nathan, undertook the commission and 
 falsified the diamonds, which was instantly perceived by King 
 George, who accordingly neglected to send a reply to the Mar- 
 grave. An inquiry took place and the imposition Avas discovered. 
 The Margrave instantly sent for the Jew and for a headsman. 
 Ischerlein came, was bound down to a chair, but no sooner 
 caught sight of the headsman, than, springing up, he ran, witli 
 the chair attached to him, round the long table standing in the 
 middle of the hall, until the headsman, encouraged by the 
 Margrave, at length contrived to strike off his head across the 
 table. Nor did the resident escape the Margrave's Avrath ; 
 he was closely imprisoned, deprived of the whole of his ill- 
 gotten wealth, and [a. t>. 1740] expelled the country. The 
 Margrave, during another of his fits of rage, shot the keeper of 
 his hounds. He died of apoplexy, caused by the fury to 
 which he was roused by the conduct of Mayer, the Prussian 
 general, who, at that period, A. d. 1757, chastised the petty 
 
 ])rinces of the empire. These Margraves of Ansbach and 
 
 Bayreuth appeared as protectors of Protestantism in opposition 
 to the princes of Hohenlohe, (Bartenstein and Schillingsfiirst,) 
 wlio, as Catholics, tyrannized over their Protestant relatives, 
 the Counts von Hohenlohe, (ffihringen,) attempted to abro- 
 gate the consistory at OEhringen and to extirpate Protestant- 
 ism. The Margrave's troops compelled the princes to remain 
 tranquil, and, notwithstanding the loud complaints of the 
 Bavarian Jesuits, to make full restitution. 
 
 CCXXXIII. T/ie ecclesiastical courts. — The Salzburg 
 emigration. 
 
 The archbishops and prince-bishops of the Catholic church, 
 instead of being taught by the great lesson inculcated by the
 
 THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS. 31 
 
 Reformation, emulated the temporal princes in luxury and 
 licence. Clement of Cologne, brother to the elector of Bava- 
 ria, had fixed his voluptuous court at Bonn. Here, French 
 alone was spoken, and luxury was carried to such a height 
 that even during Lent there were no fewer than twenty dishes 
 on the archiepiscopal table. This gallant churchman had 
 a hundred and fifty chamberlains and passed great part of his 
 time at Paris, where he associated with the licentious courtiers 
 and acted in a manner that inspired even the French Avith 
 astonishment. Duclos relates, " It was very strange to see 
 the elector of Cologne, who resided at Paris, standing in the 
 royal presence, the king sitting in an arm-chair, and, when 
 dining with the Dauphin, sitting among the courtiers at the 
 lowest end of the table. When at Valenciennes, he caused 
 his intention of preaching on the first of April to be proclaimed. 
 The church was thronged on the given day. The elector 
 mounted the pulpit, gravely bowed to the assembly, made 
 the sign of the cross, and exclaiming, ' April fools all of ye ! ' 
 descended amid the sound of trumpets, hunting-horns, and 
 kettle-drums, and quitted the church." The city of Cologne 
 was completely ruined under his government. The religious 
 persecution drove all the industrious manufacturers and traders 
 into the neighbouring country and enriched Miihlheim, Dus- 
 seldorf, and Elberfeld at the expense of Cologne, which was 
 at length almost solely inhabited by monks and beggars. 
 
 The bishops, to whom the venerable episcopal cities and 
 cathedrals offered a silent reproof, withdrew, for the more un- 
 disturbed enjoyment of their pleasures, to more modern resi' 
 dences, where they revelled in magnificence and luxury. Bonn, 
 Bruchsal, and Dillingen severally afforded a voluptuous retreat 
 to the archbishops of Cologne, Spires, and Augsburg. John 
 Philip Francis, bishop of Wiirzburg, a scion of the noble house 
 of Schonborn, held an extremely splendid court. His palace 
 and the buildings appertaining to it were built on the plan of 
 Versailles, and are, even at the present day, objects of admir- 
 ation.* He was, moreover, bishop of Bamberg, where he held 
 
 * One of his predecessors, Peter Philip von Dornbach, had [a. d. 1669] 
 thrown the cornet, Eckhard von Peckern, a handsome youth, whose 
 attractions were, in tlie eyes of a Madame von Polheim, superior to those 
 of the bishop, into prison and starved him to death. See Schramberg's 
 article concerning the family of Dornbach.
 
 32 THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS. 
 
 a separate court, to which no less than thirty chamberlains 
 belonged. Father Horn, who ventured to preach against 
 ecclesiastical luxury and licence, languished for twenty years 
 chained in a deep dungeon at Wiirzburg, until 1750, when 
 death released him from his suiFerings. The archbishop of 
 Salzburg had twenty-three chamberlains and sixteen courtiers, 
 the chateaux of Mirabella, Klessheim, and Hellbriinn, estab- 
 lishments, completely on a temporal footing, with pleasure- 
 gardens, basons, fountains, grottos with statues of naked 
 divinities, nymphs and satyrs, a menagerie, orangery, and tlie- 
 atre. Luxury was here hereditary and was transmitted from 
 one archbishop to anotlier. In 1699, for instance, the arch- 
 bishop, John Ernest, entertained the consort of Joseph, the 
 Roman king, with f^tes ; among others, with a grande battue, 
 in which bulls, bears, wild boars, deer, etc., wei'e driven into 
 a narrow circle and torn to pieces by large hounds, and with 
 a ball, on the conclusion of which he presented her with a sil- 
 ver table and a costly mirror for her morning toilette. 
 
 This example was followed by numerous other bishops, 
 princely abbots, and prelates of every description. Augustin, 
 abbot of Altaich, had an annual income of 100,000 florins and 
 expended 300,000. The priests of the Teacher of humility 
 paraded in gilt carriages drawn by six stallions, Heiducks 
 standing behind, footmen running before, followed by a train 
 of gay cavaliers, chased the wild-boar in their forests or 
 lounged in luxurious boudoirs, their fat fingers gleaming witli 
 diamonds, on soft cushions, their mistresses around, a dainty 
 banquet before them. Their luxury had long become pro- 
 verbial. The episcopal cellars abounded with the good things 
 of this world, and men, bound by a vow of denial and poverty, 
 unhesitatingly named their store-places, the cellar of God the 
 Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, of all saints, etc. 
 The depravity, especially of the women, in all the episcopal 
 demesnes and cities was proverbial. The spiritual fathers 
 took their daughters to their bosom and servihty boasted of 
 the honour. 
 
 The rich benefices, the offices in the cathedrals and other 
 establishments, were, like all the higher civil and military 
 posts, monopolized by the nobility. In order to secure the 
 exclusion of the burghers, those alone Avho counted a certain 
 number of ancestors or who paid a considerable sum of money,
 
 THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS. 33 
 
 could be admitted. An ill-successful applicant said, on one 
 occasion, " I am not rich enough to take the vow of poverty ! " 
 The nobility, habituated from their birth to luxury and li- 
 cence, continued the same practices in the establishments of 
 the church. 
 
 Deep amid the mountains of Salzburg dwelt a pious com- 
 munity, which, since the time of the first Reformation, had 
 secretly studied the German Bible, and, unaided by a priest- 
 hood, obeyed the precepts of a pure and holy religion. The 
 gradual extension of this community at length betrayed its 
 existence to the priests, and, in 1685, the first cruel persecu- 
 tion commenced in the Tefferekerthal, and, on the failure of 
 the most revolting measures for the conversion of the wi'etch- 
 ed peasants to Popery, they were expelled their homes and 
 sent to wander o'er the wide world, deprived even of a pa- 
 rent's joy, their children being torn fx'om them in order to be 
 educated by the Jesuits. In the ensuing year, a number of 
 mountaineers with their preacher, Joseph Schaidberger, were 
 also compelled to quit their native country. 
 
 The secret church, however, far from being annihilated by 
 these measures, rapidly increased her number of proselytes. 
 The purity and beauty of a religion free from the false dog- 
 mas of a grasping hierarchy offered irresistible attractions to 
 the hardy and free-spirited mountaineers ; the persecution, the 
 licence permitted at the ecclesiastical court of their spiritual 
 sovereign, the utter depravity pervading the whole of the up- 
 per classes, the church, and the army, filled them with the 
 deepest disgust and caused them to cling with still greater 
 tenacity to their secret persuasion. Divine service was per- 
 formed during the silent night in the depths of the forest or 
 •in the hidden recesses of the mountains. They buried their 
 Bibles in the forest, and, at first, refused to confide the place 
 of their concealment to their wives and daughters. By prac- 
 tising the external ceremonies of the Catholic church, they 
 remained, notwithstanding their numbers, long undiscovered. 
 A trifling incident at. length disclosed the whole. One of their 
 number, shocked at the profanation of the Saviour's name by 
 the use of the Catholic salutation, " Praised be Jesus Christ," 
 by drunkards and gamesters, refused to reply to it, and, being 
 imitated by the rest of his persuasion, a discovery took place.
 
 34 THE SALZBURG EMIGRATION. 
 
 The brutal archbishop, Leopold Antony von Firmian,* con- 
 demned the first who refused to return this salutation to be 
 cruelly beaten, to be bound up awry with dislocated limbs, to 
 be exposed during the depth of winter to hunger and cold, in 
 order to compel them to recant. They remained firm. The 
 miserable peasants imagined in their simplicity that the diet 
 would exert itself in their favour ! They still harboured a 
 hope that the interests of the great German nation, of which 
 they formed a part, might be represented in the diet ! But 
 their deputation found that in Eatisbon affairs dragged slowly 
 on, and that whilst the lawyers scribbled the bishop acted. 
 The Protestant deputies, who had taken up the cause of the 
 Salzburg peasantry, allowed themselves to be led astray by 
 the sophistry, evasions, and impudent assertions of the Baron 
 von Zillerberg, Firmian's subtle agent at Eatisbon. The de- 
 putation was, on its return, thrown into prison, and the per- 
 secution was carried on with unrelenting cruelty. Physical 
 torture proving ineffectual, the archbishop tried the effect of 
 enormous fines. This measure proved equally futile. En- 
 raged at his ill success, he at length sent a commission to find 
 out the numbers of the heretics, and, on being informed that 
 they amounted to twenty thousand, observed, "It does not 
 matter, I will clear the country of the heretics although it 
 may hereafter produce but thorns and thistles." The com- 
 missioners asked the people whether they were Lutheran or 
 Zwinglian. The simple-minded peasants had never heard of 
 either ; they had only studied the Bible, and replied, " We 
 are evangelical." They were now irremediably lost. How- 
 ever, putting their trust in God, they formed a great con- 
 federacy at Schwarzach, August the 5th, 1731, and swore to 
 lay down their lives rather than deny their faith. Each man, 
 
 * Firmian had given the pope 100,000 dollars for the Pallium. His 
 attendants and associates were chiefly Italians, and he -would follow the 
 chace for days together. The rest of his time was devoted to the Countess 
 Arco at the chateau of Elesheim, and the government was intrusted to 
 his chancellor, a poor Tyrolese, named Christian, a native of Eiill, who 
 Italianized his name and termed himself Christian! da Rallo. The pope 
 bribed him with 50,000 dollars to gain the archbishop over to his inter- 
 ests — Panse, History of the Salzburg Emigration. Part of the city of 
 Salzburg had been buried, shortly before these events, [a. d. 1669,] by 
 the fall of a mountain.
 
 THE SALZBURG EMIGRATION. 35 
 
 on taking this oath, stuck liis finger into a salt-cellar, whence 
 the confederacy received the appellation of the Salzhund of 
 God, possibly a play upon the name of tlieir country or upon 
 the biblical saying, "Ye are the salt of the earth," or, what is 
 still more probable, in allusion to the mysteries taught by 
 Theophrastus Paracelsus, who had died at Salzburg and had 
 recognised a divine primordial faculty in salt. The smith, 
 Stullebner of Hlittau, Avas the most remarkable among their 
 leaders. He preached so eloquently that the whole of his 
 congregation generally hurried to embrace him at the conclu- 
 sion of his discourse. A parody upon his sermons has been 
 published by the Jesuits. The peasants were also encouraged 
 by their poet, Loinpacher, one of whose songs has been pre- 
 served by Vierthaler. 
 
 The confederacy, in point of fact, possessed sufficient 
 strength, especially in the mountains, to defend itself against 
 the archbishop and his myrmidons, but the Catholics cun- 
 ningly represented these peasants, who were neither Catholics, 
 nor Lutherans, nor Zwunglians, and consequently belonged to 
 none of the privileged churches, as political rebels, in order to 
 deprive them of the protection of the Protestant princes ; and 
 it was principally on this account, if not from an enthusiastic 
 notion of religious humility, that they formed the determin- 
 ation not to oppose violence to violence, to the great discom- 
 titure of the archbishop and of Rail, who had already promul- 
 gated a report of their being in open rebellion.* The emperor, 
 Charles VI., meanwhile, alarmed lest the contagion might 
 spread among his own subjects in the mountains, lent a willing 
 ear to the tale which furnished him with a ready pretest for 
 taking the severest measures. The deputation, sent by the 
 Salzburg peasantry to beg for his interference, was, by his 
 orders, imprisoned at Linz ; a decree, commanding the uncon- 
 ditional submission of the Salzburg rebels, was published, and 
 six thousand men were sent into the mountains in order to 
 enforce obedience. The soldiers, incited by their officers and 
 by the priests, fell upon the peasantry like hounds upon the 
 timid deer. They were dragged from their homes, cruelly 
 
 * The arsenal at Werfen was plundered during the night time, it was 
 ere long, however, clearly proved to have been done by suborned Catho- 
 lics. Altliough, as Casparis relates, all the peasantry were, like the Tyro- 
 lese, sharp-shooters, they unresistingly alloMed themselves to be disarmed. 
 
 d''2
 
 36 THE SALZBURG EMIGRATION. 
 
 beaten, together with their wives and children, and plundered. 
 For upwards of a month, during September and October, A, d. 
 1731, these crimes were countenanced by the archbishop, who 
 tortured the heads of the communes in prison whilst the vil- 
 lagers fell a prey to the licence of the soldiery. The peasantry, 
 nevertheless, still continued stedfast in their faith, and the 
 king of Prussia threatening to treat his Catholic subjects as 
 Firmian treated his Protestant ones. Rail became alarmed lest 
 the wretched peasant might in the end find a protector, (the 
 emperor also being compelled on account of the Pragmatic 
 Sanction to keep on good terms with the Protestant princes,) 
 and came to the determination of expelling every Protestant 
 from the country, as, at the same time, the most convenient 
 method of contenting the pope, of extirpating heresy in the 
 mountains, and of pacifying the king of Prussia, to whom the 
 colonization of the wide uncultivated tracts in his territories 
 was an object of no small importance. Recourse was, how- 
 ever, again had to every devisable method for the conversion 
 of the peasantry, in order to guard, if possible, against the 
 entire depopulation of the country by emigration. The most 
 scandalous measures were resorted to, but in vain. The sen- 
 tence of banishment was passed, and, although the laws of the 
 empire assured free egress to all those emigrating on account of 
 religion together with the whole of their property, they were 
 totally disregarded by the archbishop and the imperial troops, 
 and the peasantiy were hunted down in every direction. Those 
 at work in the fields were seized and carried to the frontier 
 without being allowed to return home, even for the purpose 
 of fetching their coats. Men were in this manner separated 
 from their wives, parents from their children. They were 
 collected in troops and exposed to the gibes of the priests, the 
 soldiers, and the Catholic inhabitants, who assembled around 
 them as they were hurried along. Besides being thus com- 
 pelled to abandon their homes, they were deprived by the 
 commissioners of any sums of money they happened to possess, 
 and were merely given a meagre and insuflicient allowance for 
 the expenses of the journey. 
 
 These cruelties were, however, unfelt when compared with 
 the deprivation of their children. Upwards of a thousand 
 children were torn from their parents. Some of the peasants, 
 broken-hearted at this calamity, forgot their oath and begged
 
 THE SALZBURG EMIGRATION. 37 
 
 to be allowed to remain in order to avoid separation from their 
 children ; they were mercilessly beaten, driven out of the 
 country, sometimes obliged to stand helplessly by whilst their 
 unhappy children were tortured and ill-treated. Complaints 
 were unavailing. " We obey the emperor's command," was 
 the sole reply. Frederick William I., the noble-hearted king 
 of Prussia, was the only German prince who exerted himself 
 in their favour, and even threatened the archbishop with re- 
 prisals ; but he was too distant ; the inhuman separation of 
 the children from their parents, a barbarity worthy of canni- 
 bals and of the savages of the wild, not of a civilized nation, 
 so deeply revolted the Prussian monarch that he despatched 
 commissioners to Salzburg in the hope of saving some of the 
 children by this exertion of his authority, but in vain. Some 
 of the boys, more courageous than the rest, afterwards suc- 
 ceeded in escaping from the hands of the Jesuits, and in 
 begging their way to the new settlements on the Baltic. 
 
 The expelled peasantry were, ere long, followed by crowds 
 of voluntary emigrants, more particularly from Berchtesgaden. 
 They were mocked and ill-treated during their passage through 
 the Catholic countries, but found a friendly reception in WUr- 
 temberg, Nuremberg, and Hesse. A part of them went to 
 Holland and North America, but the greater number, amount- 
 ing to sixteen thousand three hundred souls, went into Prus- 
 sia and settled in the dwelling-places assigned to them by the 
 king on the Niemen near to Tilsit, where their descendants 
 still flourish. 
 
 The pope bestowed high encomium and the title of eccelsus 
 on the archbishop. The establishment of a fresh Inquisition 
 completely extinguished the liberty of conscience still feebly 
 glimmering in the mountains. The more wealthy inhabitants 
 were, notwithstanding the religious test, exposed to suspicion 
 and to the consequent confiscation of their property. Mis- 
 sionaries travelled from house to house, listened to the guile- 
 less talk of the women and children, and then followed confis- 
 cation, scourging, imprisonment, or banishment. The Reck 
 or rack-tower in the fortress of Werfen was destined exclu- 
 sively for heretics, who were slung at an immense depth by 
 long chains. According to the assertion of a traitor, named 
 Vitus Loitscherger, no fewer than two hundred persons were, 
 in 1743, delivered to the Inquisition. 
 
 427891
 
 38 THE SALZBURG EMIGRATION. 
 
 A similar persecution, though not to such an extent, befell 
 the secret Protestants in Austria at about the same period. 
 The mountaineers in the Salzkaramergut were [a. d. 1733] 
 first treacherously examined under an assurance of liberty of 
 conscience and then carried away by the soldiery and trans- 
 ported to Transylvania. The twelve hundred first sent away 
 were, in 1736, followed by three hundred more. But when, 
 in 1738, a great number of Protestants were discovered in the 
 Traun district and in Kremsmlinster, permission to emigrate 
 was refused and some hundreds of them were shut up in a 
 crooked position, exposed to the inclemency of the weather 
 and miserably fed ; many of them died. In 1740, Count voa 
 Seckau banished eight hundred men, but retained their wives 
 and families, whom he compelled to embrace Catholicism. 
 
 In 1660, the rebellion of the peasantry belonging to the 
 countship of Wied on the Rhine, and, in 1680, that of the 
 Bohemian peasants against the heavy soccage-service occa- 
 sioned its limitation by the emperor to a certain number of 
 days. The people of Hauenstein in the Black Forest also re- 
 fused to remain bound as serfs to the monastery of St. Blase, 
 and, in 1728 and 1730, formed a secret confederation, under 
 the name of saltpetres, for the recovery of tlieir liberty, and, 
 in fact, purchased their freedom from the abbot in 1738. In 
 1757, the Styrian peasantry rebelled against the heavy aver- 
 age-service.*. In 1665, the citizens of Llibeck, in 1708, those 
 of Hamburg, in 1720, those of Brussels, opposed the usurpa- 
 tions of the city oligarchy, which secretly managed the go- 
 vernment and practised usury. In 1716, the citizens of 
 Spires again rebelled against their bishop, who threatened to 
 take summary vengeance on one of their number, who is said 
 to have spoken ill of him. His fellow-citizens took his part 
 and prevented the bishop from executing his threat, until the 
 
 * On Uie 7tli of August, 1704, the peasantry attacked the unpopular 
 Count von Wurmbrand in his castle in Styria, dragged him forth and 
 murdered him, each man dealing him a blow in order that all might, with- 
 out exception, participate in the murder. In 1709, a noble clerk was 
 beaten to death with flails by tlie peasantry. The nobles still possessed 
 sufficient power to tyrannize. A Count von Drostc-Vischering in the 
 Bergland, being obstructed when hunting by a smithy, had it razed to the 
 ground. The proprietor complained and received full compensation for 
 his loss, but was not allowcnl to rebuild the smithy. See Montanus, 
 Olden Times in Cleve and Berg.
 
 THE SALZBURG EMIGRATION. 39 
 
 peasantry, at his instigation, suddenly attacked the city, killed 
 numbers of the citizens and disarmed the rest. This martial 
 bishop was named Henry Hartard von Rollingen. 
 
 Since the great revolt of the peasantry in Switzerland, the 
 people had, from time to time, vainly sought to shake off the 
 yoke of the city aristocracy. After a long fermentation, Tog- 
 genburg, so long enslaved by the Catholic cantons and by the 
 abbot of St. Gall, was, [a. d, 1707,] on the intercession of 
 Zurich and Berne, restored to the enjoyment of religious li- 
 berty. The entry of the Zurichers into Toggenburg and the 
 acts of violence committed by the Reformers of Toggenburg in 
 a Catholic chui'ch, however, again roused the ancient religious 
 feud. The Catholic population, who had risen for the abbot, 
 tore their leader, Felber, whom they suspected of treachery, 
 to pieces. The anger of the Catholic cantons was roused. 
 At Schwyz, the brave Stadler, who spoke in favour of the 
 rights of the people of Toggenburg, was beheaded. War 
 broke out. At Bremgarten, the vanguard of the Catholics 
 was beaten by the Bernese. The Catholics, doubly enraged 
 at this repulse and animated by the nuntio and by the monks, 
 rose en masse and overwhelmed the Bernese vanguard at 
 Muri ; three hundi-ed of the Bernese were burnt to death in 
 the church and on the tower of Merischwarden, where they had 
 long defended themselves ; the wounded were torn to pieces 
 by dogs. A second decisive battle was fought [a. d. 1712] 
 at Villmergen, where a contest had formerly taken place for 
 a similar cause. The Reformed cantons were victorious. The 
 Bernese generals, Tscharner and Diessbach, being dangerously 
 wounded, Frisching, the mayor, a man seventy-four years of 
 age, took the command and gained the day. The Catholics 
 left between two and three thousand men dead on the field. 
 Peace was made at Aarau, and the confederation remained 
 unbroken notwithstanding the attempt made by Louis XIV., 
 shortly before his death, to divide it into two independent 
 parts according to their confession of faith, in order to rule 
 with greater facility over both. A dispute that not long 
 afterwards broke out between Lucerne, ever so zealously Ca- 
 tholic, and the pope contributed, no less than the defeat at 
 Villmergen, to promote toleration towards the Reformers. On 
 the occasion of the consecration of the church at Udligenswyl, 
 in 1725, dancing was prohibited by the clergyman, Ander-
 
 40 THE SALZBURG EMIGRATION. 
 
 natt, but being allowed by the temporal authorities, Andernatt 
 appealed to his spiritual superiors and protested against the 
 permission. He was suspended and banished by the council 
 of Lucerne, but was protected by Passionei, the nuntio, who 
 quitted Lucerne and removed his residence to Altorf. The 
 dispute increased in virulence ; the pope threatened, but the 
 five Catholic cantons assembling and declaring in favour of 
 the council of Lucerne, he was compelled to yield, and Ander- 
 natt remained in banishment, A. d. 1731. Shortly after this, 
 the same council of Lucerne, by way of compensation to the 
 pope, condemned an unlucky peasant, Jacob Schmidli of Sul- 
 zig, for reading the Bible and expounding it to others, to the 
 stake and his house to be levelled with the ground, a. d. 1747. 
 
 The Swiss governments, at that period, relieved themselves 
 from their discontented subjects by sending them into foreign 
 service. The higher posts in the army were hereditary in 
 the aristocratic families and were extremely lucrative. From 
 1742 to 1745 there were twenty-two thousand Swiss serving 
 in France, twenty thousand in Holland, thirteen thousand six 
 hundred in Spain, four thousand in Sardinia, two thousand 
 four hundred in the imperial army, besides several regiments 
 at Naples and the old Swiss guard at Rome. 
 
 In Berne, the power became gradually more firmly centred 
 in a few of the great aristocratic burgher families. Besides 
 the actual reigning council there was another seeming one, in 
 which the young patricians managed all the business, in order 
 to learn the art of government ; the rest of the citizens were 
 excluded from all participation in public affairs. The material 
 comfort of the citizens was well attended to by the aristocracy, 
 and Berne consequently excelled almost all her sister cities in 
 wealth and luxury ; but the mind of the citizen was enslaved, 
 and the insolence with which the patricians and their wives 
 treated their fellow-citizens surpassed even the brutality of the 
 coxcombs attached to the worst of the German courts. A 
 conspiracy, set on foot by Henzi, the Bernese captain, was 
 discovered, and he was executed together with two of his 
 associates. The headsman several times missing his stroke 
 and hacking him on the neck, he cried out, " Every thing, 
 down to the headsman, is bad in this republic ! " His charge 
 against the aristocracy, in which he describes the manners 
 of that time, is a masterly production. His death has been 
 immortalized by Lessing.
 
 PART XXL 
 
 THE RISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 CCXXXIV. Frederick William the First. 
 
 The Reformation had been converted by Luther into a cause 
 of the princes, but they knew not how to improve the power 
 placed by him in their hands. Saxony at first took the lead, 
 but speedily retrograded, and Denmark, the successor to her 
 forsaken power, ever actuated by an unholy motive, merely 
 aimed, under pretence of protecting religious liberty, at ex- 
 tending her sway over the cities and provinces of Germany. 
 A separation, consequently, ere long again took place between 
 her and Sweden, but the death of Gustavus Adolphus proved 
 a death-blow to every hope, and Sweden imitated the mean 
 policy of Denmark. The Guelphic house, when scarcely 
 settled and promoted to the electoral dignity, emigrated to 
 England, and Luther's great bequest was transferred solely 
 to the house of Brandenburg, 
 
 Frederick L, although fond of pomp and luxury and often- 
 times misled, was fully conscious of the value of sowing for 
 the future. The assumption of the royal dignity was simply 
 an outward sign of future and still unobtained grandeur, a hint 
 to posterity. The improvement of the Prussian army by 
 Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, who benefited Prussia with 
 the science he had acquired under Eugene, whose military 
 creations in Austria had died with him, was of far greater 
 importance, and no less so was the toleration with which the 
 king favoured liberty of thought in the new university of 
 Halle, although, it may be, simply owing to his desire to raise 
 its fame by that means above that so long enjoyed by the 
 Saxon universities. 
 
 Leibnitz, although indubitably the greatest genius of the 
 age, was, owing to his works being written either in Latin or 
 in French, his high favour with the electoral house of Hano- 
 ver, and his courtly habits, destitute of influence over the 
 people. A few of the learned men of the times met with better
 
 42 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE FIRST. 
 
 success in supplying the real wants of the people, which was 
 principally done by the professors of the university of Halle, 
 Thomasius and Franke, both of whom formerly belonged to 
 that of Leipzig. Thomasius felt that Germany must be roused 
 before she could be drawn from her state of deep degradation ; 
 he consequently rejected the Latin pedantry hitherto fostered 
 by the universities and demanded that the learned men of 
 Germany should again speak and write in pure German, the 
 first step towards the enlightenment of the people, the banish- 
 ment of the ancient superstitions, of the thousandfold preju- 
 dices, and of the slavish fear, by which his countrymen were 
 artificially bound. He appealed to reason and at the same 
 time inculcated true Christian benevolence, respect for the 
 natural rights of man. To his eloquence was it entirely owing 
 that a stop was almost every where put to the burning of 
 witches. He spoke with equal warmth against torture and 
 the other pi'actices of the Roman law, by which German liberty 
 was ignominiously converted into slavery. But in this he was 
 unsuccessful ; priestly prejudices were voluntarily sacrificed, 
 but those in which temporal tyranny found an advantage were 
 held sacred. He no sooner interfered with political matters 
 than he fell under the bann. In Saxony, he was the first who 
 ventured to reveal the base policy of the long deceased Hoe 
 von Hoenegg. Justly roused to anger, he dared to maintain, 
 in defiance of the Danish court-chaplain, Masius, who, like 
 PfafF in Tiibingen, had recommended Lutheranism, on account 
 of its servility, to all princes, that religion was of too holy a 
 nature to be degraded to a mere political tool. This assertion 
 was the signal for persecution. In Copenhagen, his controver- 
 sial works were burnt by the hangman. At Leipzig, an attempt 
 was made to seize his person and the whole of his property 
 was confiscated. He found an asylum at Halle and a noble 
 patron in Frederick I., who gave his pen unshackled liberty. 
 He was accompanied in his retreat from Leipzig by the 
 pious Franke, the founder of the celebrated Orphan Asylum at 
 Halle. He was Thomasius's best friend, and not only shared 
 his views on education, but sought to realize them by the in- 
 troduction, for the first time, of solid instruction into his orphan 
 school, where, besides the Latin and theological pedantry of 
 the schools, to which all instruction had been hitherto re- 
 stricted, the German language, modern tongues, mathematics.
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE FIRST. 43 
 
 natural philosophy, and history were taught. But Franke 
 was also a pietist or disciple of the school of piety founded by 
 Spener. Sound human reason and genuine feeling had at 
 that time leagued against the pedantry of the schools, which 
 was as remarkable for want of sense as for its cold heartless- 
 ness, and even a cursory glance at the immense revolution ef- 
 fected since this period by enlightenment and, it may be, no 
 less by sentiment, at once demonstrates the importance of 
 the protection granted by Prussia to the first prophets of mo- 
 dern ideas. 
 
 Frederick I. was succeeded [a. d. 1730] by his son, Fre- 
 derick William I., who, although an enemy to freedom of 
 thought and the persecutor of Thomasius's successor, the phi- 
 losopher. Wolf, whom he threatened with the gallows and ex- 
 pelled Halle, was an excellent guardian over the material 
 interests and morals of his subjects. His first step immedi- 
 ately on his accession to the throne, was the reduction of his 
 father's court, which was placed on an extremely simple and 
 economical footing. Gold embroidered dresses and enormous 
 perukes were no longer tolerated. The king appeared in a 
 little blonde peruke, a tight-fitting dark-blue uniform turned 
 up with red, with his sword at his side and a strong bamboo 
 in his hand. The French, their licence, and their manners 
 were so hateful to him, that, in order to render them equally 
 unpopular with the people of Berlin, he ordered the provosts 
 and gaolers to be dressed in the last French fashion, and " The 
 Marquis dismissed with Blows," a piece eminently anti-Gallic, 
 to be represented on the stage. Often, when, like the other 
 German princes, tempted by the crafty French court, would 
 he exclaim, " I will not be a Frenchman. I am thoroughly 
 German and would be content were I but president of the 
 imperial court of finance." On another occasion, he said, " I 
 will place pistols and swords in my children's cradles and 
 teach them to keep the foreigner out of Germany." 
 
 He believed and often declared himself to be "only the first 
 servant of the state," and excused his excessive despotism on 
 the score of duty.* This also accorded with his religious no- 
 
 * Among the executions that took place at his command, that of the 
 intrigant, Clement, who, by stirring up the cabinets of Austria and Prus- 
 sia, sought to fish in troubled waters, has attracted most attention. The 
 most remarkable among them was, however, that of a Count von Schlu-
 
 44 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE FIRST. 
 
 tions. He considered himself as a servant of God and wished 
 to be the faithful shepherd of his flock. Endowed with great 
 personal activity, he tolerated idleness in no one, and would 
 sometimes bestow a hearty whipping with his own hand on 
 the loungers at the street corners in Berlin. Manly and 
 courageous, he had a horror of effeminacy and cowardice, and, 
 on one occasion, gave a Jew a good thrashing for dreading 
 the whip. He bore an almost implacable hatred to his own 
 son, afterwards Frederick the Great, merely because he sus- 
 pected him of cowardice. 
 
 He habituated his subjects to labour and industry, and pro- 
 moted their welfare to an extraordinary degree, whilst at the 
 same time he filled the exchequer. Partly for the purpose of 
 depriving the people of Berlin of other modes of extravagance, 
 partly for that of concentrating the whole power of the state 
 by the foundation of a large metropolis, he compelled the peo- 
 ple to build new houses in Berlin, in the Friedrichsstadt. 
 The purport of his decree ran simply thus, " The fellow is 
 rich, let him build." Simplicity of dress and manners, econo- 
 my, thrift, public morality, health, honesty, and truth, were 
 strictly enjoined. In his daily intercourse with the people, he 
 praised industrious workmen and clean housewives, scolded 
 the idle and dirty. House thieves were mercilessly hanged 
 before the house-door. In his own person he offered an ex- 
 ample of economy. Whilst other princes gave expensive fetes 
 to their foreign guests and ambassadors, Frederick William 
 conducted them to his smoking-room and invited them to 
 smoke and drink beer with him. This chamber was often 
 the scene of important negotiations. Even Francis of Lor- 
 raine, who subsequently mounted the imperial throne, was a 
 frequent visitor to this smoking-room for the purpose of gain- 
 ing the vote of Prussia for the approaching election. Still, 
 the coarse amusements of this monarch, who took delight in 
 
 beutli, who had treated his sei-fs ■with extreme cruelty. He set the king 
 at defiance, and said, " It is not the fashion to hang a noble." He was, 
 nevertheless, hanged on the ensuing morning. When the king for the 
 first time introduced the taxation of the nobility and was opposed in this 
 measure by the Estates of Eastern Prussia, he boldly prosecuted his in- 
 tended reforms, and wrote, " J establish my sovereignty like a rock in 
 bronze." He set a great value on his giant-guard, and, on one occa- 
 sion, thrashed the whole of his military council for condemning one of 
 them to death for thieving. — Stetizel, History of Prussia.
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE FIRST. 45 
 
 plying his foreign guests with beer until drunkenness ensued, 
 and in rendering them sick to death with the unaccustomed 
 fumes of tobacco, his utter contempt of learning, as shown by 
 his treatment of the learned Gundling* as a court-fool, and 
 the brutal jokes passed upon him and others for the amuse- 
 ment of his boon companions, but too forcibly indicate a re- 
 currence to the uncouth mauners of the preceding century. 
 
 The army, excellently organized by Dessau, was the object 
 of the king's greatest care, and it was from him (he always 
 wore an uniform) that the whole state and population took the 
 martial appearance still forming their strongest characteristic, 
 and which, at that time, was alone able to enforce respect. 
 Germany had, for a century, been plundered by the foreigner. 
 Arms alone were wanting for her defence and the terrors of 
 war would again march in her van. The formation of an 
 army was consequently the grand desideratum, and Frederick 
 William may therefore be pardoned for his Potsdam hobby,| 
 his grenadier guard, composed of men of gigantic stature, 
 whom he collected from every quarter of the globe, either 
 received in gift or carried away by force. His recruiting 
 officers were every where notorious for the underhand means 
 by which they gained recruits, and were often exposed to 
 the greatest peril when engaged in pressing men into the 
 service. In Holland, one of them was, sa7is ceremo/iie, hang- 
 ed. Hanover threatened Prussia with war on account of the 
 subjects stolen from her territory. There was, moreover, a 
 feud between the king of Prussia and George, king of Eng- 
 land and elector of Hanover, the latter having wedded the 
 Margravine of Anspach, the object of Frederick William's 
 affection, and having bestowed upon him in her stead his 
 sister, Sophia Dorothea, to whom, like a good and steady 
 citizen, he nevertheless remained faithful. 
 
 * Gundling, although created a baron, a member of every council of 
 slate, and, moreover, president of the Academy of Sciences, was compelled 
 to permit an ape, dressed like himself, to be seated at his side at table, 
 mustachios to be painted on his face, etc. etc. His body was, after his 
 decease, notwithstanding the protest of the clergy, buried, at the royal 
 command, in a cask instead of a coffin. The king, on one occasion, 
 compelled the Frankfurt professors to dispute with his court-fools over 
 the thesis, " Savants are fools." 
 
 t He greatly extended and beautified Potsdam on account of the re- 
 fusal of the Berlinese to maintain too numerous a garrison.
 
 46 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE FIRST. 
 
 The sound sense that rendered this gallant monarch the 
 irreconcilable enemy of France also guided him in his policy 
 towards Poland. Instead of acceding to the partition of that 
 kingdom, of contenting himself with her smallest division, and 
 of exposing the frontiers of Germany to the colossal power of 
 Russia, he endeavoured to raise her as a bulwark against the 
 hostile North and strenuously counselled the Polish nobility 
 to remain united, to keep themselves free from foreign influ- 
 ence, and to elect as their sovereign one of their own order, 
 no foreigner, least of all one recommended by Russia. Well 
 may Germany revere this noble prince ! His policy was, as 
 that of all her sovereigns ought ever to have been and to be, 
 genuinely German. The straight-forward German honesty 
 of the father was, nevertheless, destined to cede to the foreign 
 tastes of the son. 
 
 The young crown prince, Frederick, was extremely beau- 
 tiful during his infancy and early evinced the rarest intelli- 
 gence. The timidity inspired by the severity of his father 
 was mistaken by the latter for cowardice and hypocrisy, and 
 the terms on which they lived became daily worse. The son 
 devoted the whole of his leisure to the study of French works, 
 which, owing to their lightness and wit, naturally presented 
 far greater attractions to his young and imaginative mind 
 than the heavy German literature of the day, with the best of 
 which he was, moreover, unacquainted, studies of that nature 
 being unpatronized at courts, and Frederick's sole guide being 
 the young and libertine Lieutenant von Katt, who initiated 
 him in modei-n French philosophy. Voltaire at that time 
 reigned supreme. His ideas, his Avit, his style, were the de- 
 light of his contemporaries. Diminutive, horribly ugly, a 
 devil's mask under an enormous peruke, he was the ape of 
 our great Luther, and the eiFect he produced upon France, a 
 caricature of the Reformation in which German dignity and 
 depth of thought were parodied by French flippancy and fri- 
 volity. Like Luther, he waged war with the priesthood, and, 
 by ridiculing their depravity, ruined them in the opinion of 
 the public. But, instead of confining his attack to the abuses 
 in the church, he directed it against Christianity itself. In- 
 stead, of seeking to heal the diseases of the churcli, he attempt- 
 ed to destroy all she still retained of holy, sound, or good. 
 He sought to replace the strict and moral precepts of the
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE FIRST. 47 
 
 ancient religion by a modern and frivolous philosophy, by 
 which men were taught to disbelieve the promises of the Sa- 
 viour, were relieved from every fear of eternal punishment, 
 and were permitted to follow their own inclinations in this 
 world. Virtue and vice both disappeared and were replaced 
 by wit and dulness. The witling was never in the wrong, 
 might act as he pleased, and was ever the more amiable the 
 more he laughed at others. Although guilty of the most 
 abominable crimes, he Avas ever an excellent wit, courted by 
 all and tolerated every where. The simplicity of virtue was 
 the climax of ridicule, a scorn and an obloquy. Morality was 
 treated with open contempt, and the most barefaced licence 
 was practised under pretence of obeying the laws of nature. 
 The youthful prince heard, on the one hand, the brutal invec- 
 tives of his father, long-winded discourses from the pulpit, 
 which, in the bombastic and insipid style of the day, prohibited 
 the most innocent enjoyments ; and, on the other hand, read 
 the most ravishing descriptions of scenes of sensual delight 
 and the delusive phrases of the convenient philosophy of the 
 day, which dissolved every tie of duty by the pretended boon 
 of liberty, and all this in the honied words of Voltaire. The 
 contrast was too forcible. The seci-ecy with which the prince 
 was compelled to prosecute his French studies naturally added 
 to their zest. He was as if inspired and began to write, to 
 philosophize, and to poetize completely in Voltaire's style ; nor 
 did he neglect to put his precepts into practice, and his youth 
 and health ere long fell a prey to the consequences of vice.* 
 
 His father, on discovering these proceedings, punished him 
 unmercifully with his cane. The royal youth attempted to 
 escape, during a journey through Franconia, to the English 
 court, which, on account of his engagement to one of the 
 English princesses, seemed to offer the safest asylum ; his de- 
 sign was, however, discovered ; he was seized at Frankfurt 
 and cai'ried into the presence of his father, who personally 
 ill-treated him, and, drawing his sword, was on the point of 
 running him through, when he was prevented by General 
 Mosel. The prince and his accomplice, Katt, were, however, 
 condemned to death for desertion, and the execution of the 
 
 * Hence his imblessed marriage at a later period, his separation from 
 his ■wife and the companions of his youth, and his solitary existence in 
 the palace of Sanssouci.
 
 48 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE FIRST. 
 
 sentence was merely prevented by the representations of the 
 foreign courts. Frederick pined for several weeks in prison 
 with a Bible and a book of hymns for reci-eation. A scaffold 
 was erected opposite his prison window, and he was compelled 
 to witness the execution of his ill-chosen friend and counsel- 
 lor, Katt. Nor was the lesson without effect. On his release, 
 he passed gradually through the different offices in chancery, 
 and made himself acquainted with all the minutire of the bu- 
 siness of the state. While thus occupied, he discovered so 
 much talent that a complete reconciliation took place between 
 him and his father, who gave him the Rheinsperg for his re- 
 sidence, where, without neglecting political science, he culti- 
 vated the muses and carried on a correspondence with Voltaire 
 and other celebrated French philosophers and poets. Both 
 father and son learnt to regard each otlier with mutual esteem, 
 and the latter, on mounting the throne, far from recalling his 
 former ill-treatment, ever spoke with reverence and gratitude 
 of the parent, who so well prepared him for a period replete 
 with peril. 
 
 CCXXXV. Maria Theresa. 
 
 Charles VI. expired a. d. 1 740. The inutiUty of the Prag- 
 matic Sanction became instantly apparent, each of the parties 
 interested in its revocation forgetting their oath, and the Habs- 
 burg possessions were alone saved from dismemberment by 
 Maria Theresa, Charles VI. 's daughter, a woman distinguished 
 for beauty and for a character far surpassing in vigour that of 
 her father and those of many of her ancestors. 
 
 Charles Albert, the licentious elector of Bavaria, quitted 
 the arms of his mistresses, Moravika and the Countess Fug- 
 ger, in order to set up a claim to the whole of the Habsburg 
 possessions. He not unjustly maintained that if the property 
 were to pass into the female line, his claim, as the direct de- 
 scendant of Albert, duke of Bavaria, who had married a 
 daughter of Ferdinand I., was superior to that of Maria The- 
 resa herself. For the better success of his project, he entered 
 into alliance with France,* the ancient foe, and with Prussia, 
 the modern rival of the house of Habsburg. 
 
 * He wrote in the basest terms to the French king, as, for instance, 
 " Je regarderai S. M. toujours comme men seul souticn et men unique
 
 MARIA THERESA. 49 
 
 Frederick William of Prussia also expired A. r>. 1740, 
 leaving to his son Frederick II. thirty million dollars in the 
 exchequer and a well-disciplined army, amounting to seventy- 
 two thousand men. The moment seemed propitious, and Fre- 
 derick, without waiting for Bavaria or France, invaded Sile- 
 sia during the autumn under pretext of making good his 
 ancient but hitherto unasserted claim upon the duchies of 
 Leignitz, Wohlau, Brieg, and Ja^gerndorf. Xhe Austrians 
 under Neipperg, taken by surprise, were defeated at Molwitz 
 near Brieg by the Count von Schwerin, Frederick merely act- 
 ing the part of a spectator in this first engagement. The re- 
 sult of this success was a treaty, at Nymphenburg, with 
 France* and Bavaria, which was also joined by Saxony, and 
 the elector of Bavaria, with a numerous Fi-ench army under 
 Belleisle and a Saxon force under Rutowski, the natural son 
 of Augustus, entered Bohemia and was proclaimed king at 
 Prague, the Bohemians, as Frederick said, gladly seizing the 
 opportunity to free themselves from the unpopular rule of the 
 Habsburg. Even the Catholic clergy in Silesia, whom Fre- 
 derick gi'eatly flattered, were opposed to the Habsburg. The 
 Catholic church was not only permitted to retain the whole of 
 her immense revenue, but was prohibited by Frederick to send 
 any portion of it to Rome. The Catholic faith was, at the same 
 time, protected, and the Catholics had every reason to be con- 
 tented with the Prussian monarch. 
 
 Maria Theresa was exposed to the utmost peril. Hungary, 
 where but shortly before the sovereignty of the Habsburg had 
 been confirmed amid torrents of blood, alone remained true to 
 her cause. She convoked the proud magnates to the diet and 
 appeared among them attired in the Hungarian costume, the 
 sacred crown upon her head, the sabre girded to her side, 
 radiant with beauty and spirit, and called upon them, on their 
 duty as cavaliers, to stand up in her cause. The whole as- 
 semblage, lired with enthusiasm by her charms, exclaimed with 
 
 appui. Si vous me faites monter, s'il etoit possible, sur ce trone impe- 
 rial, je n'ai point de tcrmes qui puissent exprimer toute I'etendue de ma 
 reconnoissaiice." He promised, " Je taclierai toujours d'unir les intercts 
 de I'empire a ceux de la France. Je verrai le jour de mou elevation de- 
 venir I'epoque la plus glorieuse de voire minister e." — Schlosser's History 
 of the Eighteenth Century. 
 
 * The French king had the impudence at the time that he recognised 
 the elector as emperor, to nominate him his lieutenant-general. 
 
 VOL. lU E
 
 50 MARIA THERESA. 
 
 one voice, " Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria Theresa ! " 
 (Let us die for our king, Maria Theresa !) and took the field 
 at the head of their serfs, thirty thousand cavahy, and wild 
 hordes of Pandurs and Croats, which, leaving the French at 
 Prague, moved upon Bavaria. The circumstance of the elec- 
 tor being at that conjuncture at Frankfurt* for the purpose 
 of solemnizing his coronation as Charles VII., emperor of 
 Germany, inflamed the Hungarians with still greater fury. 
 Bavaria was terribly devastated, particularly by Menzel, 
 general of the hussars, a Saxon by birth, who took Munich 
 [a. d. 1742] on the same day on which the elector was crown- 
 ed at Frankfurt, revived all the horrors of the thirty years' 
 war, and, on the Bavarians threatening to rise en masse, gave 
 orders that " all those taken with arms in their hands should 
 be compelled to cut off each other's noses and ears, and should 
 then be hanged." f Biirnklau (or, more properly, Percklo, 
 Baron von Schcinreuth) and Trenk with the Pandurs com- 
 mitted equal excesses, and the peasants, driven to despair, rose 
 against them. The inhabitants of Cham and INIainburg were 
 cut down to a man, those of Landsberg kept their ground, and 
 those of Tolz succeeded in depriving the Pandurs of great part 
 of their booty. Lukner, who afterwards became a field-mar- 
 shal in the French service, chiefly distinguished himself among 
 the Bavarians. Seckendorf, now an old man and an Austrian 
 exile, was raised to the command of the Bavarian troops, but 
 effected little. Btirnklau took Ingolstadt, hitherto deemed 
 impregnable. Khevenhiiller shut up sixteen thousand French, 
 who had, under Segur, ventured from Bohemia into Austria, 
 in Linz, and took them prisoner,;]: before Frederick, who had 
 invaded Moravia and taken Olmlitz, could advance to their 
 assistance. 
 
 On the second defeat of the Austrians under Charles of 
 Lorraine, (in whose name Browne commanded,) at Chotusiz, 
 by Frederick, Maria Theresa offered [a, d. 1742] to cede 
 
 * Charles was crowned by his brother of Cologne. Belleisle, the 
 French ambassador, phvyed the chief part, and, formally taking upon him- 
 self the character of protector, took precedence of all the German princes. 
 
 f When the French cried out " Pardon, Monsieur!" the hussars re- 
 sponded with " Mors ! Mors ! " cut ofl" their heads at a blow, stuck them 
 on their sabre points, and carried them about in triumph. 
 
 X Scgur's wife was received on her appearance in the theatre at Paris 
 with the derisive cry of " Linz ! Linz ! " and died of shame and terror.
 
 MARIA THERESA. 51 
 
 Silesia to him on condition of his withdrawal from the treaty 
 of Nymphenburg. The offer was instantly accepted and peace 
 was concluded at Breslau. Saxony was also gained over by 
 the gift, on the part of Maria Theresa, of rich lands in Bohe- 
 mia to Count Brlihl. 
 
 The next step was the expulsion of the French from 
 Prague. Belleisle was closely shut up. A fresh French army 
 under Harcourt approached to his relief and drove the Aus- 
 trians out of Bavaria, but fell a prey to cold and famine. A 
 third army under Maillebois penetrated as far as Bohemia, 
 but retraced its steps, being forbidden by the miserable petti- 
 coat-government under Louis XV. to hazard an engagement. 
 Belleisle, driven desperate by famine, at length made a vigor- 
 ous sally and fought his way through the Austrians, but al- 
 most the whole of his men fell victims during the retreat to 
 the severity of the winter. The Bavarians under Seckendorf 
 and twenty thousand French under Broglio, who attempted to 
 come to his relief, were defeated by Khevenhiiller at Braunau. 
 
 Fortune declared still more decidedly during the campaign 
 of 1743 in Maria Theresa's favour, George II., king of Eng- 
 land, (who, not long before, through fear of losing Hanover, 
 had yielded to the counsels of France and Prussia and had 
 voted in favour of Charles VII.,) actuated by a double jea- 
 lousy, on account of England against France and on account 
 of Hanover against Prussia, bringing a pragmatic army levied 
 in Northern Germany* to her aid. Notwithstanding his bad 
 generalship, he was victorious at Dettingen, not far from 
 AschafFenburg, over the French, who were still worse com- 
 manded by Noailles. In the ensuing year, Charles of Lor- 
 raine crossed the Rhine at the head of the whole Austrian 
 army and laid Alsace and Lorraine waste.f 
 
 These successes were beheld with impatience by Frederick, 
 who plainly foresaw the inevitable loss of Silesia, should for- 
 
 * Among which were twenty thousand Swiss mercenaries and six hun- 
 dred Hessians whom he had purchased from the Landgrave of Hesse, 
 who had also sold six thousand of his subjects to Charles VH. It was 
 merely owing to a favourable chance that the unfortunate Hessians were 
 not compelled to fight each other. 
 
 t The Sultan Mahmud V. attempting to make peace between the con- 
 tending parties, the French ambassador at the Hague remarked, " The 
 Turks begin to think like Christians." "And the Christians," replied 
 the grand pensionary, Fagel, " act, none the less, like Turks." 
 
 E 2
 
 52 MARIA THERESA. 
 
 tune continue to favour Maria Theresa. In Austria, public 
 opinion was decidedly opposed to the cession of that province. 
 In order to obviate the danger with which he was threatened, 
 he once more unexpectedly took up arms and gained a bril- 
 liant victory at Hohenfriedberg in Silesia, and another at 
 Sorr in Bohemia, where Prince Lobkowitz, in attempting to 
 rally his troops, cut down three Austrian captains, but was 
 liimself thrown down and cast into a ditch. Schwerin took 
 Prague. The now venerable Dessau was again victorious at 
 Kesselsdorf in Saxony, and Maria Theresa was compelled by 
 the treaty of Dresden [a. d. 1745] once more to cede Silesia 
 
 to the victorious Prussian. The war with France was still 
 
 carried on. The IMarchioness of Pompadour at that time go- 
 verned Louis XV. and bestowed the highest offices in the 
 army on her paramours. She was at length seized with a 
 whim to guide the operations of the campaign in person and 
 took the field with an immense army, (among which were 
 twenty-two thousand Swiss,) commanded by Noailles. The 
 campaign was, however, a mere fete for the king and his mis- 
 tresses, and nothing of importance was in consequence efiected. 
 The vanguard under Segur was defeated at Piaftenhofen, and 
 some skirmishing parties were cut to pieces by the peasantry 
 in the forest of Bregenz. The main body was retained by the 
 siege of Freiburg in the Breisgau, where it lost twelve thou- 
 sand men, a. d. 1744. Charles VII. expired in the ensuing 
 year, and his youthful son and successor, Maximilian Joseph, 
 being inclined to peace, Bavaria being, moreover, a scene of 
 fearful desolation and Seckendorf neglected by the French, 
 the treaty of Fiissen, which restored every thing to its ancient 
 footing, was concluded [a. d. 1745] between Bavaria and 
 
 Austria. The French instantly withdrew from the Upper 
 
 Rhine to prosecute the war with redoubled fury in the Nether- 
 lands, where they were served by IMaurice of Saxony, who 
 had a theatre in his camp and made life one long f^te diver.si- 
 fied by victories. He was opposed by the English under the 
 Duke of Cumberland and by the Dutch under Waldeck. He 
 defeated them at Fontenoy and took Ghent, Briigge, and 
 Brussels, where Louis XV. made a triumphal entry, A. v. 
 1745. In the following year, Charles of Lorraine entered the 
 Netherlands with an imperial auxiliary force, but was again 
 beaten by Rancoux and Cumberland at Lafield, A. D, 1746.
 
 MARIA THERESA. 53 
 
 Maurice* also took Maestriclit. And all these deeds were 
 done for France ! This attack had, like its predecessors, the 
 effect of placing a Prince of Orange at the head of the array 
 and of the state. On William's accession to the British throne, 
 and on his dying without issue, the house of Orange was re- 
 presented by a side-branch, John "William Friso, stadtholder of 
 Frizeland. He was drowned, and his posthumous son, Wil- 
 liam IV., succeeded [a. d. 1711] to the hereditary stadtholder- 
 
 ship. France also at that time created a diversion for 
 
 England. Charles Edward Stuart,! the grandson of the ex- 
 iled king, James II., aided by French gold, raised a rebellion 
 in Scotland in the hope of expelling the house of Hanover 
 from the throne of Britain, but was defeated at CuUoden, 
 A. D. 1746. 
 
 In Italy, the Austrians under Lobkowitz also opposed the 
 French, Spanish, and Neapolitans, whilst an English fleet 
 struck Naples with terror. It was not, however, until 1746, 
 that the war was decided by the arrival of strong reinforce- 
 ments from Austria. Browne was victorious at Guastalla, 
 Lichtensteiu at Piacenza, and Provence was on the point of 
 being invaded, when the population of Genoa, hitherto staunch 
 imperialists, rebelled against General Botta, who had con- 
 demned some of the citizens to the lash and had demanded a 
 contribution of twenty-five millions as well as all their arms, 
 and, headed by a Doria, drove the imperialists, after a battle 
 that lasted several days, out of the city, December, 1746. The 
 war was at length terminated by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 Each party remained in statu quo, Maria Theresa alone 
 ceding Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla to a Spanish prince, 
 with the proviso of their reversion to Austria in case of his 
 dying without issue. Her husband, Francis I., was recog- 
 nised emperor by all the European powers. On his corona- 
 tion [a. d. 1746] at Frankfurt, INIaria Theresa withdrew in 
 order that all the honour might be conferred upon him alone, 
 
 *" The French had the impudence to speak of him as "ce brave Comte 
 de Saxe, qui lave si bien par sa valeur la honte d'etre ne Allemand." 
 Maurice wrote a work on the science of war. He died a. d. 1750, and 
 was buried at Strassburg. 
 
 t He afterwards married the Countess Stolberg, so celebrated for her 
 beauty, who, under the title of Duchess of Albany, lived imhappily with 
 this simple prince. She was termed "la reine des cceurs," on account 
 of her amiability. She was the friend of the Italian poet, Alfieri.
 
 54 MARIA THERESA. 
 
 and no sooner was the ceremony concluded, than, stepping on 
 the balcony, she motioned to the people and was the first to 
 cry "Vivat!" Francis, nevertheless, was merely invested 
 v/itli the imperial dignity, and Maria Theresa reigned alone, 
 aided by her subtle minister Kaunitz. Francis, although 
 totally devoid of ambition, possessed great mercantile inclina- 
 tions and amused himself with secretly transacting money busi- 
 ness. He had the merit of reforming the imperial household 
 and of putting a stop to the lavish expenditure that had been 
 allowed under Charles VI. 
 
 Frederick II., after gaining laurels in the field, equally 
 distinguished himself as a statesman and a bel esprit. Like 
 his father, absolute in his sovereignty, he brought the machine 
 of state, alone subservient to his will, to a higher degree of 
 perfection. His administration was unparalleled. Tlie in- 
 crease of the wealth of the country by the cultivation of waste 
 land and by industry, a limited expenditure, and the strict ob- 
 servance of economy and order, formed the basis of his plan. 
 He equally aimed at order, simplicity, and strict justice in legal 
 matters, and, in 1746, caused the corjms jtiris Fridericianum, 
 the basis of the provincial law of Prussia, to be drawn up by 
 Cocceji. The use of torture was abolished. The strictness 
 with which the public officers were disciplined was as flatter- 
 ing to the people as the fame they had lately gained dui'ing 
 the war and the acquisition of the fine and fertile province of 
 Silesia. Frederick, although at that period at the height of 
 his popularity, withdrew [a. d. 1747] from public to private 
 life. In the lonely solitudes of Sans Souci, a palace built by 
 him in the vicinity of Berlin, he lived separate from his con- 
 sort, Elisabeth Christina of Wolfenbiittel, and devoted him- 
 self to the state and to the study of French literature. With 
 the exception of his generals and ministers, the blind instru- 
 ments of his will, he was surrounded by Frenchmen. He 
 founded an academy of sciences, presided over by Maupertius 
 and almost totally composed of Frenchmen.* Frederick both 
 
 * His favourite, Voltaire, visited him in 1745, and again in 1750, with 
 the intention of remaining with him ; tiie two philosophers did not, how- 
 ever, long agree. Frederick sometimes set a limit to the pretensions of 
 the vain, mean, and grasping Frenchman, who treated the Germans with 
 unheard-of insolence. On one occasion, when at table with the king, ho 
 called one of the royal pages a Pomeranian beast. The king, shortly 
 afterwards, making a journey through Pomcrania with Voltaire in his
 
 MARIA THERESA. 55 
 
 wrote and composed in French. He also played well on 
 the flute. . 
 
 While Prussia was thus rising in the scale of European 
 powers, Saxony was reduced by her ministei', Brlihl, to the 
 verf e of ruin. He had already burthened her with a debt of 
 a hundred million dollars, fur two years he had withheld the 
 public salaries, and these measures proving insufficient, he had 
 sold Saxon troops to the Dutch and English for the defence 
 of their colonies, A. r>. 1751. Josepha, princess of Saxony, 
 had, four years earlier, been married to tlie French Dauphin, 
 to whom she bore three kings, Louis XVI., Louis XVIH., 
 and Charles X., whose sad fate might well result from the 
 union of two courts governed by a Pompadour and a Brlihl. 
 
 The deep dungeons of the Konigstein, the Sonnenstein, 
 
 and the Pleissenburg were crowded with malcontents. These 
 horrors occasioned the retreat of Count Zinzendorf from the 
 world, and, in 1722, his oiler of an asylum in the Herrnhut 
 to persons equally piously disposed. He named himself " the 
 assembler of souls." He was banished as a rebel by Briihl, 
 but was [a. d. 1747] permitted to return and to continue his 
 pious labours. 
 
 The rising prosperity of Prussia, the superior talents and 
 statemanship of her king and his unsparing ridicule had gained 
 for hira the enmity of all his brother sovereigns. The men- 
 tion of Silesia filled Maria Theresa alternately with rage and 
 sorrow, and her subtle minister ingratiated himself ever the 
 more deeply in her favour by his unwearying endeavours to 
 regain possession of that rich and fertile country. Elisabeth, 
 empi-ess of Russia, enraged at Frederick's biting satire on her 
 unbridled licence, was, notwithstanding the little interest felt 
 by Russia in the aggrandizement of Austria, ready to lend her 
 aid. England was, on account of her ancient alliance with 
 
 suite, the page in revenge spread a report of his being the king's ape, and 
 the peasants, deceived by his extraordinary ugliness, assembled in crowds 
 round his carriage, from which they would not allow him to descend, 
 teasing him as if he were m reality an ape. Voltaire at length fied from 
 the Pnissian court, carrying away with him some interesting papers be- 
 longing to the king. He was deprived of them at Frankfurt on the 
 Maine, and was allowed to depart. A correspondence, nevertheless, con- 
 tinued to be carried on between him and the king, who again esteemed 
 him as a man of talent, when no longer reminded of his puerilities by his 
 presence.
 
 56 MARIA THERESA. 
 
 Austria, pointed to as a third ally. France, on the eve of de- 
 claring war with England on account of her colonies, sought, 
 as formerly, to form a confederacy with Prussia. Mons. de 
 Rouille said to Kniphausen, the Prussian ambassador at Paris, 
 " Write to your king that he must aid us against Hanover ; 
 there is plenty to get ; the king has only to make the attack ; 
 he will have a good haul." Frederick had, however, no in- 
 tention to quarrel with England, and before the French minis- 
 ter had recovered from his astonishment at the refusal, Kau- 
 nitz* unexpectedly proposed an alliance between Austria and 
 France, and Maria Theresa was actually induced, in her 
 anxiety to gain over Louis XV., to send a confidential letter 
 to Sladame de Pompadour, whom she addressed as her cousin. 
 France, independent of the condescension of the Austrian 
 empress, naturally lent a willing ear to the proposal, nor will 
 she at any time refuse her aid to one German potentate against 
 another so long as her interest is promoted by civil dissensions 
 in Germany. The possession of a German province would 
 again have rewarded France had not the league, notwithstand- 
 
 * Prince Kaunitz's policy to raise France at the expense of the empire 
 ran exactly counter to that of Frederick William of Prussia and offers a 
 rare example of depravity. Kaunitz founded the Vienna chancery of 
 state, the wheel by which the mechanism of government was turned. 
 He was the oracle of the diplomatic world and was long termed " the 
 European coachman." He, however, forgot that the policy of the Ger- 
 man emperor ought also to be German. He was one of those wiseacres 
 of his time who overlooked the real wants, powers, and limits of the na- 
 tions under his rule, and who formed artificial states in defiance of nature. 
 Countries appertaining to one another, nations similar in descent, were 
 torn asunder ; others, separated by nature or diftering in origin, were 
 pronounced one. Enmity was sown between the most natural political 
 allies, and those whom nature had intended for opponents were joined 
 together in alliance. The greater the inconsistency the more indubitable 
 the talent of the diplomatist. Kaunitz was a thorough personification 
 of this unnatural policy. He was even in his person a caricature. His 
 admirer, Hormayr, relates of him, " He never enjoyed or could endure 
 the open air. If, during the summer heats, when not a leaf stirred, he, 
 by chance, sat in his arm-chair in the chancery garden adjoining the 
 Bastei or passed thence, a few steps further, to the palace, he carefully 
 guarded his mouth with his handkerchief. He always dressed according 
 to the weatlier and had his rooms well furnished with thermometers and 
 barometers. In the autographic instructions given to each of his lec- 
 turers, he begged of them never to mention in his hearing these two words, 
 ' death and small-pox.' His highest expression of praise was ever, ' My 
 God ! I could not have done it better myself.' "
 
 MARIA THERESA. 57 
 
 ing its strength, been overthrown. Austria deprived herself 
 of her glorious title of defender of Germany against France, 
 and for the future lost the right of reproaching other states 
 for their unpatriotic policy.*' On the second of May, A. v. 
 1756, the treaty of Versailles was concluded between Austria 
 and France. According to the terms of this treaty, France 
 was to bring one hundred and live thousand men into the field 
 and to take ten thousand Bavarians and Wiirtembergers into 
 her pay against Prussia, besides paying an annual subsidy of 
 twelve million francs to Austria, in return for which she was 
 to hold part of the Netherlands with the harbour of Ostend. 
 The rest of the Netherlands (Luxemburg excepted) was be- 
 stowed upon a French prince, Philip of Parma. The fortress 
 of Luxemburg was to be razed to the ground. Austria, on 
 the other hand, was to hold Silesia and Parma ; Saxony, 
 Magdeburg, the circle of the Saal, and Halberstadt ; Sweden, 
 Pomerania ; Poland, at that time in alliance with Saxony, the 
 kingdom of Prussia ; Russia, Courland and Semgallen, Cleve 
 
 was also to be severed from Prussia. This treaty was, 
 
 however, merely provisional. The alliance between the two 
 empresses and France, (the Marquise de Pompadour,) termed 
 by Frederick " 1' alliance des trois cotillons," was still by no 
 means concluded. Negotiations with Russia were still pend- 
 ing. Saxony, although destined to play a part of such im- 
 
 * Keith, the English ambassador, did not fail to represent the iniquitous 
 conduct of France against the German empire to the empress, Maria 
 Theresa. In reference to the possibility that France might repay herself 
 for her alliance with a province of Western Germany, Maria Theresa 
 declared her policy to be that of the house of Habsburg, not that of Ger- 
 many : " I can take little interest in distant provinces; I must confine my- 
 self to the defence of the hereditar}' states, and have but two enemies to 
 dread, Turkey and Prussia." Frederick was, in point of fact, as little 
 German in his policy. He would unhesitatingly have rewarded France 
 for her aid with a German province, nor was it owing to him that, at all 
 events, part of the Netherlands did not fall under her rule. Once only, 
 during the seven years' war, was he struck with the folly of two German 
 powers fighting for the advantage of France. " Imagine, my Lord," ■«T0tc 
 Mitchel, " the vvTctched state of Europe. The two principal powers of 
 Germany have almost succeeded in ruining each other, whilst France 
 looks on with secret delight, apparently aiding one and perhaps stirring 
 up the other in order to accelerate the downfal of both. Would it were 
 possible to reconcile Prussia and Austria, and to turn both against France ! 
 Senseless and impossible as this project may appear, it was, nevertheless, 
 assented to by Frederick II. in a conference before the battle of Prague."
 
 58 MARIA THERESA. 
 
 portance, had not yet been consulted.* Her adherence, as 
 well as that of Sweden, was deemed certain, Briihl, the Saxon 
 minister, bearing a personal hatred to Frederick on account of 
 tlie scorn with which he had been treated by that monarch. 
 
 The news of the treaty of Versailles found Frederick pre- 
 pared for the event. Clearly foreseeing the certain and speedy 
 coalition of his enemies, he determined to be the first in the 
 field and to surprise them ere they had time to coalesce. Deeply 
 sensible of the hazard of his position, he carried poison on his 
 person during the whole of the protracted war, being firmly 
 resolved not to survive the loss of his possessions. To appeal 
 to God and to the justice of his cause was denied him, for his 
 sufferings were merely a retaliation of those he had inflicted 
 upon others. The partition of Prussia in 1756 was equally 
 just with that of Austria in 1741. National enthusiasm was 
 a thing unknown, for the people were slaves accustomed to be 
 passed from one hand to another. Frederick's sole resource 
 lay in his genius, and in this he alone confided for success as 
 he courageously unfurled his flag before Austria had armed 
 or war had been declared by France. A man of a less deci- 
 sive character would have hesitated, would still have hoped, 
 negotiated, or have made concessions to such overwhelming 
 opponents instead of boldly taking the initiative and proving 
 to the astonished world that peril, however great, may be 
 surmounted by courage and decision. Frederick's enemies in- 
 tended to bring against him a force of five hundred thousand 
 men, to surround and crush him. This force had, however, 
 still to be levied ; the object of Frederick's whole policy was 
 consequently the prevention of the coalition of the forces of 
 his opponents in order to attack them singly. The pretendetl 
 
 * The proof is contained in the documents concerning the occasion of 
 the seven years' war; Leipzig, Teubner, 1841. When Austria, in 1746, 
 laid the preliminaries to an alliance with Russia against Prussia, into 
 which she attempted to draw Saxony, Saxony refused her participation 
 and was consequently not admitted into the negotiations secretly carried 
 on, at a later period, by Austria with France and Russia. Tlie revela- 
 tions, asserted by Frederick the Great to have been made to him by 
 Mentzel, the clerk of the Saxon chancery, from papers out of the secret 
 cabinet, were, consequently, by no means the principal cause of the war. 
 Frederick learnt the most important secrets from Vienna and Petersburg. 
 Maria Theresa also committed the imprudence of solemnizing the festi- 
 val of St. Hedwig, the protectress of Silesia, with remarkable pomp at 
 Vienna.
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 59 
 
 discovery of papers in Berlin, disclosing the whole plan of the 
 coalition, provided liira with a pretext for the declaration of 
 war, and the diplomatic world was by this means led to believe 
 in the reality of the manoeuvres he had merely foreseen. His 
 denunciation of a coalition, still formally unconcluded, was in- 
 stantly productive of the catastrophe. 
 
 England, deluded by a pretended alliance between France and 
 Prussia, joined Austria and Russia, an alliance that was viewed 
 with pleasure by George II., between whom and Frederick a 
 personal dislike existed. The deception was, however, no 
 sooner discovered than the parliament and the prime minister, 
 Pitt, ranged themselves on the side of Prussia, and the king 
 was compelled to yield. Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick, Gotha, 
 and Lippe also joined Prussia. The rest of the empire, al- 
 lured by bribery, sided with Austria and France. Bavaria, 
 apparently the least likely of all the European powers torjoin 
 AA-ith Austria for the destruction of Prussia, had, since 1750, 
 received monthly from France (from the secret fund) the sum 
 of 50,000 livres, amounting in all to 8,700,000 livres. The 
 Pfalz also received 1 1,300,000 ; Pfalz-Zweibriicken, 4,400,000; 
 Wiirtemberg, 10,000,000 ; Cologne, 7,300,000 ; Mayenceonly 
 500,000 ; Ansbach, Bayreuth, Darmstadt about 100,000 ; 
 Liege, Mecklenbui'g, Nassau, something more, altogether 
 3,000,000 ; even the petty principality of Waldeck received 
 50,000. The empire was in this manner bought. France 
 had so much superfluous wealth that she also paid a subsidy 
 of 82,700,000 livres to Austria, and another of 8,800,000 to 
 Saxony, towards the expenses of the war with Prussia. 
 
 CCXXXVI. The Seven Years' War. 
 
 In the autumn of 1756, Frederick, unexpectedly and with- 
 out previously declaring war, invaded Saxony, of which he 
 speedily took possession, and shut up the little Saxon army, 
 thus taken unawares, on the Elbe at Pirna. A corps of 
 Austrian?, who were also equally unprepared to take the field, 
 hastened, under the command of Browne, to their relief, but 
 were, on the 1st of October, defeated at Lowositz, and the 
 fourteen thousand Saxons under Rutowsky at Pirna were in 
 consequence compelled to lay down their arms, the want to 
 which they were reduced by the failure of their supplies having
 
 60 THE SEVEN YEARS' y/AR. 
 
 already driven them to the necessity of eating hair-powder 
 mixed with gunpowder. Augustus III. and Briihl fled with 
 such precipitation that the secret archives were found by 
 Frederick at Dresden . The electress vainly strove to defend 
 them by placing herself before the chest ; she was forcibly 
 removed by the Prussian grenadiers, and Frederick justified 
 the suddenness of liis attack upon Saxony by the publication 
 of the plans of his enemies. He remained during the whole 
 of the winter in Saxony, furnishing his troops from the re- 
 sources of the country. It was here that his chamberlain, 
 Glasow, attempted to take him off' by poison, but, meeting by 
 chance one of the piercing glances of the king, tremblingly let 
 fall the cup and confessed his criminal design, the induce- 
 ment for which has ever remained a mystery, to the astonish- 
 ed king. 
 
 The allies, surprised and enraged at the suddenness of the 
 attack, took the field, in the spring of l7o7, at the head of an 
 enormous foi'ce. Half a million men were levied, Austria 
 and France furnishing each about one hundred and fifty 
 thousand, Russia one hundred thousand, Sweden twenty 
 thousand, the German empire sixty thousand. These masses 
 were, however, not immediately assembled on the same spot, 
 were, moreover, badly commanded and far inferior in discij^line 
 to the seventy thousand Prussians brought against them by 
 Frederick. The war was also highly unpopular and created 
 great discontent among the Protestant party in the empire. 
 On the departure of Charles of Wlirtemberg for the imperial 
 army, his soldiery mutinied, and, notwithstanding their re- 
 duction to obedience, the general feeling among the imperial 
 troops was so much opposed to the war, that most of the 
 troops deserted and a number of the Protestant soldiery went 
 over to Frederick. The Prussian king was put out of the 
 bann of the empire by the diet, and the Prussian ambassador 
 at Ratisbon kicked the bearer of the decree out of the door, 
 
 Frederick was again the first to make the attack, and, in 
 the spring of- 1757, invaded Bohemia. The Austrian army 
 under Charles of Lorraine lay before Prague. The king, re- 
 solved at all hazards to gain the day, led his troops across the 
 marshy ground under a terrible and destructive fire from the 
 enemy. His gallant general, Schwerin, remonstrated with 
 liim. "Are you afraid?" was the reply. Schwerin, who
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 61 
 
 had already served under Charles XII. in Turkey and liad 
 grown grey in the field, stung by this taunt, quitted his sad- 
 dle, snatched the colours and shouted, " All who are not cow- 
 ards, follow me ! " He was at that moment struck by several 
 cartridge-balls and fell to the ground enveloped in the colours. 
 The Prussians rushed past him to the attack. The Austri- 
 ans were totally routed ; Browne fell, but the city was de- 
 fended with such obstinacy, that Daun, one of Maria Theresa's 
 favourites, was, meanwhile, able to levy a fresh body of 
 troops. Frederick, consequently, raised the siege of Prague 
 and came upon Daun at Collin, where he had taken up a 
 strong position. Here again were the Prussians led into the 
 thickest of the enemy's fire, Frederick shouting to them, on 
 their being a third time repulsed with fearful loss, " Would 
 ye live for ever?" Every effort failed, and Benkendorf's 
 charge at the head of four Saxon regiments, glowing with re- 
 venge and brandy, decided the fate of the day. The Prus- 
 sians were completely routed. Frederick lost his splendid 
 guard and the whole of his luggage. Seated on the verge of 
 a fountain and tracing figures in the sand, he reflected upon 
 the means of re-alluring fickle fortune to his standard. 
 
 A fresh misfortune befell him not many weeks later. 
 England had declared in his favour, but the incompetent 
 English commander, nicknamed, on account of his immense 
 size, the Duke of Cumberland, allowed himself to be beaten by 
 the French at Hastenbek and signed the shameful treaty of 
 Closter Seeven, by which he agreed to disband his troops.* 
 This treaty was not confirmed by the British monarch. Tlie 
 Prussian general, Lewald, who had merely twenty thousand 
 men under his command, was, at the same time, defeated at 
 Gross-Zagerndorf by an overwhelming Russian force under 
 Apraxin. Four thousand men were all that Frederick was 
 able to bring against the Swedes. They were, nevertheless, 
 able to keep the field, owing to the disinclination to the war 
 evinced by their opponents. 
 
 Autumn fell, and Frederick's fortune seemed fading with 
 the leaves of summer. He had, however, merely sought to 
 gain time in order to recruit his diminished army, and Daun 
 
 * The Hanoverian nobility, -svho hoped thereby to protect their pro- 
 perty, were implicated in this affair. They were shortly afterwards well 
 and deservedly punished, being laid under contribution by the French.
 
 62 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 
 
 having, with his usual tardiness, neglected to pursue him, he 
 suddenly took the field against the imperialists under the duke 
 of Saxon -Hildburghausen and the French under Soubise. 
 The two armies met on the oth of November, 1757, on the 
 broad plain around Leipzig, near the village of Rossbach, not 
 far from the scene of the famous encounters of earlier times. 
 The enemy, three times superior in number to the Prussians, 
 lay in a half-circle with a view of surrounding the little Prus- 
 sian camp, and, certain of victory, had encumbered themselves 
 with a numerous train of women, wig-makers, barbers, and 
 modistes from Paris. The French camp was one scene of 
 confusion and gaiety. On a sudden, Frederick sent General 
 Seidlitz with his cavalry amongst them, and an instant dis- 
 persion took place, the troops flying in every direction with- 
 out attempting to defend themselves ; some Swiss, who refused 
 to yield, alone excepted. The Germans on both sides showed 
 their delight at the discomfiture of the French. An Austrian 
 coming to the rescue of a Frenchman, who had just been cap- 
 tured by a Prussian, " Brother German," exclaimed the latter, 
 " let me have this French rascal ! " " Take him and keep 
 him ! " replied the Austrian riding off. The scene more resem- 
 bled a chace than a battle. The imperial army {Reichsarmee) 
 was thence nicknamed the runaway (^Reissaus) army. Ten 
 thousand French were taken prisoners. The loss on the side 
 of the Prussians merely amounted to one hundred and sixty 
 men. The booty chiefly consisted in objects of gallantry be- 
 longing rather to a boudoir than to a camp. The French 
 array perfectly resembled its mistress, the Marquise de Pom- 
 padour.* 
 
 The Austrians had, meanwhile, gained great advantages to 
 the rear of the Prussian army, had beaten the king's favourite, 
 General Winterfeld, at Moys in Silesia, had taken the important 
 fortress of Schweidnitz and the metropolis, Breslau, whose com- 
 mandant, the Duke of Bevern, (a collateral branch of the house 
 
 * Seidlitz, -who covered himself with glory on this occasion, was the 
 best horseman of the day. He is said to have once ridden under the sails 
 of a windmill when in motion. One day, when standing on the bridge 
 over the Oder at Frankfurt, being asked by Frederick what he would do 
 if blocked up on both sides by the enemy, he leaped, without replying, 
 into the deep current and swam to shore. The Black Hussars with the 
 death's head on their caps chiefly distinguished themselves during this
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 63 
 
 of Brunswick,) had fallen into their hands whilst on a recon- 
 noitring expedition. Frederick, immediately after the battle 
 of Rossbach, hastened into Silesia, and, on his march thither, 
 fell in with a body of two thousand young Silesians, who had 
 been captured in Schweidnitz, but, on the news of the victory 
 gained at Rossbach, had found means to regain their liberty 
 and had set off to his rencontre. The king, inspirited by this 
 reinforcement, hurried onwards, and, at Leuthen, near Bres- 
 lau, gained one of the most brilliant victories during this war 
 over the Austi'ians. Making a false attack upon the right 
 wing, he suddenly turned upon the left. " Here are the Wiir- 
 tembergers," said he, '•' they will be the first to make way for 
 us !" He trusted to the inclination of these troops, who were 
 zealous Protestants, in his favour. They instantly gave way 
 and Daun's line of battle was destroyed. During the night, 
 he threw two battalions of grenadiers into Lissa, and, accom- 
 panied by some of his staff, entered the castle, where, meeting 
 with a number of Austrian generals and officers, he civilly 
 saluted them and asked, "Can one get a lodging here too?" 
 The Austrians might have seized the whole party, but were 
 so thunderstruck that tliey yielded their swords, the king 
 treating them with extreme civility. Charles of Lorraine, 
 weary of his unvarying ill-luck, resigned the command and 
 was nominated stadtholder of the Nethei'lands, where he gained 
 great popularity. At Leuthen twenty-one thousand Aus- 
 trians fell into Frederick's hands ; in Breslau, which shortly 
 afterwards capitulated, he took seventeen thousand more, so 
 that his prisoners exceeded his army in number. 
 
 Fresh storms rose on the horizon and threatened to over- 
 whelm the gallant king, who, unshaken by the approaching 
 peril, firmly stood his ground. The Austrians gained an ex- 
 cellent general in the Livonian, Gideon Laudon, whom Fre- 
 derick had refused to take into his service on account of his 
 extreme ugliness, and who now exerted his utmost endeavours 
 to avenge the insult. The great Russian army, which had 
 until now remained an idle spectator of the war, also set it- 
 self in motion. Frederick advanced, in the spring of 1758, 
 against Laudon, invaded Moravia, and besieged Olmiitz, but 
 without success ; Laudon ceaselessly harassed his troops and 
 seized a convoy of three hundred waggons. The king was 
 finally compelled to retreat, the Russians, under Fermor
 
 64 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 
 
 crossing the Oder, murdering and burning on their route, con- 
 verting Custrin, which refused to yield, into a heap of rubbisli, 
 and threatening Berlin. They were met by the enraged king 
 at Zorndorf. Although but lialf as numerically strong as the 
 Russians, he succeeded in beating them, but with the loss of 
 eleven thousand of his men, the Russians standing like walls. 
 The battle was carried on with the greatest fury on both sides ; 
 no quarter was given ; and men were seen, when mortally 
 wounded, to seize each other with their teeth as they rolled 
 fighting on the ground. Some of the captured Cossacks were 
 presented by Frederick to some of his friends with the remark, 
 " See, with what vagabonds I am reduced to fight ! " He 
 had scarcely recovered from this bloody victory, than he was 
 again compelled to take the field against the Austrians, who, 
 under Daun and Laudon, had invaded the Lausitz. He, for 
 some time, watched them without hazarding an engagement, 
 under an idea that they were themselves too cautious and 
 timid to venture an attack. He was, however, mistaken. 
 The Austrians surprised his camp at Hochkirch during the 
 niglit of October the 14th. The Prussians, the hussar troop 
 of the faithful Ziethen, whose warnings had been neglected by 
 the king, alone excepted, slept, and were only roused by the 
 i*oaring of their own artillery, which Laudon had already 
 seized and turned upon their camp. The excellent discipline 
 of the Prussian soldiery, nevertheless, enabled them, half- 
 naked as they were, and notwithstanding the darkness of the 
 night, to place themselves under arms, and the king, although 
 with immense loss, to make an orderly retreat. He lost nine 
 thousand men, many of his bravest officers, and upwards of a 
 hundred pieces of artillery. The principal object of the Aus- 
 trians, that of taking the king prisoner or of annihilating his 
 army at a blow, was, however, frustrated. Frederick eluded 
 the pursuit of the enemy and went straight into Silesia, whence 
 he drove the Austrian general, Harsch, who was besieging 
 Neisse, across the mountains into Bohemia. The approach of 
 winter put a stop to hostilities on both sides. 
 
 During this year, Frederick received powerful aid from 
 Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick, brother to Charles, the reign- 
 ing duke, Avho replaced Cumberland in the command of the 
 Hanoverians and Hessians, with great ability covered the right 
 flank of the Prussians, manceuvred the French, under their
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 65 
 
 wretched general, Richelieu, who enriched himself with 
 the plunder of Halberstadt, across the Khine, and defeated 
 Clermont, Richelieu's successor, at Crefeld. His nephew, the 
 crown prince, Ferdinand, served under him with distinction. 
 Towards the conclusion of the campaign, an army under 
 Broglio again pushed forward and succeeded in defeating the 
 Prince von Ysenburg, who was to have covered Hesse with 
 seven thousand men, at Sangerhausen ; another body of troops 
 under Soubise also beat Count Oberg on the Lutterberg. 
 The troops on both sides then withdrew into winter quarters. 
 The Fi'ench had, during this campaign, also penetrated as far 
 as East Frizeland, whence they were driven by the peasantry 
 until WUrmser of Alsace made terms Avith them and main- 
 tained the severest discipline among his troops. 
 
 The campaign of 1759 was opened with great caution by 
 the allies. The French reinforced the army opposed to the 
 duke of Brunswick and attacked him on two sides, Broglio 
 from the Maine, Contades from the Lower Rhine. The duke 
 was pushed back upon Bergen, but nevertheless gained a 
 glorious victory over the united French leaders at Minden. 
 His nephew, the crown prince, Ferdinand, also defeated ano- 
 ther French army under Brissac, on the same day, at Herford. 
 The imperial army, commanded by its newly nominated leader, 
 Charles of Wiirtemberg, advanced, but was attacked by the 
 crown prince, whilst its commander was amusing himself at 
 a ball at Fulda, and ignominiously put to flight. Frederick, 
 although secure against danger from this quarter, was threat- 
 ened with still greater peril by the attempted junction of the 
 Russians and Austrian?, who had at length discovered that 
 the advantages gained by Frederick had been mainly owing to 
 the want of unity in his opponents. The Russians under Solti- 
 kow, accordingly, approached the Oder. Frederick, at that 
 time fully occupied with keeping the main body of the Aus- 
 trians under Daun at bay in Bohemia, had been unable to 
 hinder Laudon from advancing with twenty thousand men 
 for the purpose of forming a junction with the Russians. In 
 this extremity, he commissioned the youthful general, Wedel, 
 to use every exertion to prevent the further advance of the 
 Russians. Wedel was, however, overwhelmed by the Rus- 
 sians near the village of Kay, and the junction with Laudon 
 took place. Frederick now hastened in person to the scene of 
 VOL. ra. F
 
 66 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 
 
 danger, leaving his brother, Henry, to make head against 
 Daun. On the banks of the Oder at Cunnersdorf, not far 
 from Frankfurt, the king attempted to obstruct the passage of 
 the enemy, in the hope of annihihiting him by a bold mancBu- 
 vre, which, however, failed, and he suffered the most terrible 
 defeat that took place on either side during this war, August 
 the 12th, 1759. He ordered his troops to storm a sand 
 mountain, bristling with batteries, from the bottom of the 
 valley of the Oder ; they obeyed, but were unable to advance 
 through the deep sand, and were annihilated by the enemy's 
 fire. A ball struck the king, whose life was saved by the 
 circumstance of its coming in contact with an etui in his waist- 
 coat pocket. He was obliged to be carried almost by force 
 off the field when all was lost. The poet, Kleist, after storm- 
 ing three batteries and crushing his right hand, took his sword 
 in his left hand and fell, whilst attempting to carry a fourth, 
 Soltikow, fortunately for the king, ceased his pursuit. 
 The conduct of the Russian generals was, throughout this 
 war, often marked by inconsistency. They sometimes left 
 the natural ferocity of their soldiery utterly unrestrained, at 
 others, enforced strict discipline, hesitated in their movements, 
 or spared their opponent. The key to this conduct was their 
 dubious position with the Russian court. The empress, 
 Elisabeth, continually instigated by her minister, BestuschetF, 
 against Prussia, was in her dotage, was subject to daily 
 fits of drunkenness, and gave signs of approaching dissolution. 
 Her nephew, Peter, tlie son of her sister, Anna, and of 
 Charles Frederick, Prince of Holstein Gottorp, the heir to the 
 throne of Russia, was a profound admirer of the great Prus- 
 sian monarch, took him for his model, secretly corresponded 
 with him, became his spy at the Russian court, and made no 
 secret of his intention to enter into alliance with him on the 
 death of the empress. The generals, fearful of rendering 
 themselves obnoxious to the future emperor, consequently 
 showed great remissness in obeying BestuscheflTs commands. 
 Frederick, however, although unharassed by the Russians, 
 was still doomed to suffer fresh mishaps. His brother, Henry, 
 had, with great prudence, cut off the magazines and convoys 
 to Daun's rear, and had consequently hampered his move- 
 ments. The king was, notwithstanding, discontented, and, 
 unnecessarily fearing lest Daun might still succeed in effect-
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 67 
 
 ing a junction with Soltikow and Laudon, recalled liis bro- 
 ther, and by so doing occasioned the very movement it was 
 his object to prevent. Daun advanced ; and General Fink, 
 whom Frederick had despatched against him at the head of 
 ten thousand men, fell into his hands. Shut up in Maxeu, 
 and too weak to force its w^iy through the enemy, the wdiole 
 corps was taken prisoner. Dresden also fell ; Schmettau, the 
 Prussian commandant, had, up to this period, bravely held out, 
 notwithstanding the smallness of the garrison, but, dispirited 
 by the constant ill success, he at length resolved, at all events, 
 to save the military chest, which contained three million 
 dollars, and capitulated on a promise of fi*ee egress. By this 
 act he incurred the heavy displeasure of his sovereign, 
 who dismissed both him and Prince Henry.* Fortune, hoAv- 
 ever, once more favoured Frederick ; Soltikow separated his 
 troops from those of Austria and retraced his steps. The 
 Russians always consumed more than the other troops, and 
 destroyed their means of subsistence by their predatory 
 habits, f Austria vainly offered gold ; Soltikow persist- 
 ed in his intention and merely replied, " My men cannot 
 eat gold." Frederick was now enabled, by escaping the 
 vigilance of the Austrians, to throw himself upon Dresden, 
 for the purpose of regaining a position indispensable to him 
 on account of its proximity to Bohemia, Silesia, the Mere 
 or Saxony. His project, however, failed, notwithstand- 
 ing the terrible bombardment of the city, and he vented his 
 wrath at this discomfiture on the gallant regiment of Bern- 
 burg, which he punished for its want of success by stripping 
 it of every token of military glory. The constant want of 
 ready money for the purpose of recruiting his army, terribly 
 thinned by the unceasing warfare, compelled him to circulate 
 a false currency, the English subsidies no longer covering the 
 expenses of the war and his own territory being occupied by 
 the enemy. Saxony consequently suffered, and was, owing to 
 this necessity, completely drained, the town-council at Leip- 
 
 * Frederick the Great has been ever charged with ingratitude for this 
 treatment of his brotlier, who expired during the ensuing year. Schmettau 
 is the same officer who had risen to such distinction during the war witli 
 Turkey. 
 
 t Frederick replied to the loud complaints, " We have to do with 
 barbarians, foes to humanity. We ought, however, rather to seek a re- 
 medy for the evil tlian to give way to lamentations." — Klober.
 
 68 ' THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 
 
 zig being, for instance, shut up in the depth of winter without 
 bedding, light, or firing, until it had voted a contribution of 
 eight tons of gold ; the finest forests were cut down and sold, 
 etc. Berlin, meanwhile, fell into the hands of the Russians, 
 who, on this occasion, behaved with humanity. General Tott- 
 leben even ordered his men to fire upon the allied troop, con- 
 sisting of fifteen thousand Austrians, under Lascy and Brent- 
 ano, for attempting to infringe the terras of capitulation by 
 plundering the city. The Saxons destroyed the chateau of 
 Charlottenburg and the superb collection of antiques contain- 
 ed in it, an iri-eparable loss to art, in revenge for the destruc- 
 tion of the palaces of Briihl by Frederick. No other treasures 
 of art were carried away or destroyed either by Frederick in 
 Dresden or by his opponents in Berlin. — This campaign 
 offered but a single pleasing feature, tlie unexpected relief of 
 Colberg, who was hard pushed by the Russians in Pomerania, 
 by the Prussian hussars under General Werner. 
 
 Misfortune continued to pursue the king throughout the 
 campaign of 1760. Fouquet, one of his favourites, was, with 
 eight thousand men, surprised and taken prisoner by Laudon 
 in the Giant jMountains near Landshut ; the mountain coun- 
 try was cruelly laid waste. The important fortress of Glatz 
 fell, and Breslau was besieged. This city was defended by 
 General Tauenzien, a man of great intrepidity. The cele- 
 brated Lessing was at that time his secretary. With merely 
 three thousand Prussians, he undertook the defence of the 
 extensive city, within whose walls were nineteen thousand 
 Austrian prisoners, and, on Laudon threatening to storm the 
 place and not even to spare the child within its mother's womb, 
 he coolly replied, " Neither I nor my men happen to be in 
 the family way." He maintained the city until relieved by 
 Frederick. The king hastened to defend Silesia, for which 
 Soltikow's procrastination allowed him ample opportunity. 
 Daun had, it is true, succeeded in forming a junction with 
 Laudon at Liegnitz, but their camps were separate, and the 
 two generals were on bad terms. Frederick advanced close 
 in their vicinity. An attempt made by Laudon, during the 
 night of the 15th of August, to repeat the disaster of Hoch- 
 kirch, was frustrated by the secret advance of the king to his 
 rencontre, and a brilHant victory was gained by the Prussians 
 over their most danirerous anta2:onist. The sound of the ar-
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 69 
 
 tillery being carried by the wind in a contrary direction, the 
 news of the action and of its disastrous termination reached 
 Daun simultaneously ; at all events, he put this circumstance 
 forward as an excuse, on being, not groundlessly, suspected of 
 having betrayed Laudon from a motive of jealousy. He re- 
 treated into Saxony. The regiment of Bernburg had greatly 
 distinguished itself in this engagement, and on its termination, 
 an old subaltern officer stepped forward and demanded from 
 the king the restoration of its military badges, to which Fre- 
 derick gratefully acceded. 
 
 Scarcely, however, were Breslau relieved and Silesia de- 
 livered from Laudon's wild hordes, than his rear was again 
 threatened by Daun, who had fallen back upon the united 
 imperial army in Saxony and threatened to form a junction 
 with the Russians then stationed in his vicinity in the Mere. 
 Frederick, conscious of his utter inability to make head against 
 this overwhelming force, determined, at all risks, to bring 
 Uaun and the imperial army to a decisive engagement before 
 their junction with the Russians, and, accordingly, attacked 
 them at Torgau. Before the commencement of the action, he 
 earnestly addressed his officers and solemnly prepared for 
 death. Daun, naturally as anxious to evade an engagement 
 as Frederick was to hazard one, had, as at Collin, taken up an 
 extremely strong position, and received the Prussians with a 
 well-sustained fire. A terrible havoc ensued ; the battle 
 raged with various fortune during the whole of the day, and, 
 notwithstanding the most heroic attempts, the position was 
 still uncarried at fall of night. The confusion had become so 
 general, that Prussian fought with Prussian, whole regiments 
 had disbanded, and the king was wounded, when Ziethen, the 
 gallant hussar general, who had during the niglit cut his way 
 through the Austrians, who were in an equal state of disorder, 
 and had taken the heights, rushed into his presence. Ziethen 
 had often excited the king's ridicule by his practice of brand- 
 ishing his sabre over his head in sign of the cross, as an in- 
 vocation for the aid of Heaven, before making battle ; but 
 now, deeply moved, he embraced his deliverer, whose work 
 was seen at break of day. The Austrians were in full re- 
 treat. This bloody action, by which the Prussian monarchy 
 was saved, took place on the 3rd of November, 1 760. 
 
 George II., king of England, expired during this year. His
 
 70 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 
 
 grandson, George III., the son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, 
 who had preceded his fatlier to the tomb, at first declared in fa- 
 vour of Prussia, and fresh subsidies were voted to her monar(;h 
 by the English parliament, which at the same time expressed 
 " its deep admiration of his unshaken fortitude and of the inex- 
 haustible resources of his genius." Female influence, however, 
 ere long placed Lord Bute in Pitt's stead at the helm of state, 
 and the subsidies so urgently demanded by Prussia wei'e with- 
 drawn. The duke of Brunswick was, meanwhile, again vic- 
 torious at Billinghausen over the French, and covered the 
 king 09 that side. On the other hand, the junction of the 
 Austrians with the Russians was effected in 1761 ; the allied 
 army amounted in all to one hundred and thirty thousand men, 
 and Frederick's army, solely consisting of fifty thousand, would 
 in all probability have been again annihilated, had he not 
 secured himself behind the fortress of Schweidnitz, in the strong 
 position at Bunzelwitz. Butterlin, the Russian general, was 
 moreover little inclined to come to an engagement on account of 
 the illness of the empress and the favour with which Frede- 
 rick was beheld by the successor to the throne. It was in vain 
 that Laudon exei'ted all the powers of eloquence, the Russians 
 remained in a state of inactivity and finally withdrew. Lau- 
 don avenged himself by unexpectedly taking Schweidnitz 
 under the eyes of the king by a clever coup-de-main, and had 
 not an heroic Prussian artillery-man set fire to a powder ma- 
 gazine, observing as he did so, " All of ye shall not get into 
 the town !" and blown himself with an immense number of 
 Austrians into the air, he would have made himself master of 
 this important strong-hold almost without losing a man. Fre- 
 derick retreated upon Breslau. 
 
 The empress, Elisabeth, expired in the ensuing year, A. D. 
 1762, and was succeeded by Peter III., who instantly ranged 
 himself on the side of Prussia. Six months afterwards he was 
 assassinated, and his widow seized the reins of government 
 under the title of Catherine II. Frederick was on the eve of 
 giving battle to the Austrians at Reichenbach in Silesia and 
 the Russians under Czernitscheff were under his command when 
 the news arrived of the death of his friend and of the inimical 
 disposition of the new empress, who sent Czernitscheff instant 
 orders to abandon the Prussian banner. Such was, however, 
 Frederick's influence over the Russian general, that he pre-
 
 THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR, 
 
 71 
 
 ferred hazarding his head rather than abandon the king at 
 this critical conjuncture, and, deferring the publication of the 
 empress's orders for three days, remained (juietly within the 
 camp. Frederick meanwhile was not idle, and gained a com- 
 plete victory over the Austrians, the 21st of July, 1762. The 
 attempt made by a Silesian nobleman, Baron Warkotsch, to- 
 gether with a priest named Schmidt, secretly to carry off the 
 king from his quarters at Strehlen, failed. In the autumn, 
 Frederick besieged and took Schweidnitz. The two most 
 celebrated French engineers put their new theories into prac- 
 tice on this occasion ; Lefevre, for the Prussians against the 
 fortress, Griboval, for the Austrians engaged in its defence. 
 Frederick's good fortune was shared by Prince Henry, who 
 defeated the imperial troops at Freiburg in Saxony, and by 
 Ferdinand of Brunswick, who gained several petty advantages 
 over the French, defeating Soubise at Wilhelmsthal and the 
 Saxons on the Lutterbach. The spiritless war on this side 
 was finally terminated during the course of this year, a. d. 
 1 762, by a peace between England and France.* Golz had 
 at the same time instigated the Tartars in Southern Russia to 
 revolt, and was on the point of creating a diversion with fifty 
 thousand of them in Frederick's favour. Frederick, with a 
 view of sti'iking the empire with terror, also despatched Ge- 
 neral Kleist into Franconia, with a flying corps, which no soon- 
 er made its appearance in Nuremberg "j" and Bamberg than the 
 whole of the South was seized with a general panic, Charles, 
 duke of Wiirtemberg, for instance, preparing for instant flight 
 from Stuttgard. Stiirzebecher, a bold cornet of the Prussian 
 huzzars, accompanied by a trumpeter and by five and twenty 
 men, advanced as far as Rothenburg on the Tauber, where, 
 forcing his way through the city gate, he demanded a contri- 
 bution of 80,000 dollars from the town -council. The citizens 
 of this town, which had once so heroically opposed the whole 
 of Tilly's forces, were chased by a handful of huzzars into the 
 Bockshorn, and were actually compelled to pay a fine of 
 
 * This campaigTi was merely a succession of manoeuvres and skir- 
 mishes, in which Lukner and his huzzars chiefly distinguished themselves 
 against the French, whose service Lukner afterwards entered. He had, 
 at an earlier period, headed the Bavarians against Austria. 
 
 t Nuremberg liad never before yielded. Frederick observed on this 
 occasion, " Kleist has snatched the maiden wreath from the grey locks of 
 that ancient virgin."
 
 T2 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. 
 
 40,000 florins, with which the cornet scoffingly withdrew, car- 
 rying off with him two of the town-councillors as hostages. 
 So deeply had the citizens of the free towns of the empire at 
 that time degenerated. 
 
 Frederick's opponents at length perceived the folly of 
 carrying on war without the slightest prospect of success. 
 The necessary funds were, moreover, wanting. France was 
 weary of sacrificing herself for Austria. Catherine of Russia, 
 who had views upon Poland and Turkey, foresaw that the aid 
 of Prussia would be required in order to keep Austria in 
 check and both cleverly and quickly entered into an under- 
 standing with her late opi^onent. Austria was, consequently, 
 also compelled to succumb. The rest of the allied powers had 
 no voice in the matter. Peace was concluded at Huberts- 
 burg, one of the royal Saxon residences, February the 15th, 
 1763. Frederick retained possession of the whole of his do- 
 minions. The machinations of his enemies had not only been 
 completely frustrated, but Prussia had issued from the seven 
 years' war with redoubled strength and glory ; she had con- 
 firmed her power by her victories, had rendered herself feared 
 and respected, and had raised herself from her station as one 
 of the principal potentates of Germany on a par with the great 
 powers of Europe. 
 
 CCXXXVII. — Frederick Sanspareil. 
 
 The Prussian king, who well deserved his soubriquet of 
 Sanspareil, devoted himself, on his return to Sanssouci, to the 
 occupations of peace, in which he might also serve as a model 
 to all other princes. Every thing prospered under his foster- 
 ing care. The confidence inspired by his government attracted 
 numbers of foreigners into the country, where he placed 
 waste lands in a state of cultivation, built numerous villages, 
 made roads and canals, and promoted agriculture and indus- 
 try. Prussia quickly recovered from the calamities of war, 
 and the royal exchequer and the wealth of the country in- 
 creased at an equal ratio. Among his economical measures, 
 the monopolies in tobacco and coffee are alone reprehensible. 
 The cultivation of the potato, against which there existed a 
 popular prejudice, in Prussia and afterwards throughout Ger- 
 many, was mainly forwarded by him. The importance of
 
 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. 73 
 
 this root as an article of food had been strikingly proved 
 (luring the seven years' war. In Silesia, where its cultivation 
 liiul been enforced by Count Schlaberndorf, the Prussian 
 minister, the famine, caused by the failure of the crops in 
 1770, had been, notwithstanding the immense concourse of 
 poor, felt with far less severity than in the neighbouring 
 countries ; in Saxony, where one hundred thousand, in 
 Bohemia, where one hundred and eighty thousand men per- 
 ished of hunger, and whence twenty thousand persons mi- 
 grated to Prussia, the land of potatoes. The new monopo- 
 lies or regie were more particularly unpopular on account of 
 the persons employed in their administration being brought 
 from France by the king, who thus virtually exposed the 
 brave victors of Rossbach to the chicanery of their con- 
 quered foe. 
 
 The army next occupied his attention. In the autumn and 
 spring he held great reviews for the sake of practice, and 
 perfect order and discipline were maintained during the whole 
 of his reign. The faults in the internal organization of the 
 army were first discovered after his death. Frederick, al- 
 though personally a patron of art and a promoter of civiliza- 
 tion, greatly depreciated the progress of enlightenment in 
 Germany, nor did he perceive that the bourgeoisie, whom he 
 had, on his accession to the throne, found in a state of ignor- 
 ance and discouragement, had gradually risen to one of great 
 moral and mental refinement, whilst the nobility, whom, at 
 least in Prussia, he had found, during his earlier years, simple 
 in their habits and fitted for the duties of their station, had, 
 as gradually, sunk in luxury and become totally incapable 
 of mental exertion. His exclusive nomination of nobles to all 
 the higher posts in the army was at first natural, the peasant- 
 recruits being already accustomed, in their native provinces, 
 to the sway of the nobility ; but his total exclusion, at a later 
 period, of the whole of the citizen class, was productive of im- 
 mense evils to his successor. The system of flogging was 
 another abuse. Severe punishments had formerly been found 
 necessary among the infantry on account of the inclination of 
 the homeless mercenary to desert his colours or to plunder ; 
 but the infliction of corporeal punishment first became general 
 in the array on the enrolment of the peasant serfs, when the 
 system of flogging, prevalent in the villages, was introduced
 
 74 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. 
 
 into the army. This system, consequently, merely prevailed 
 in Prussia and Austria, Slavonian provinces long sunk in the 
 deepest slavery. Other states followed their example, but 
 were unable to carry this system into effect wherever a spark 
 of honour still glowed in the bosoms of the people.* The re- 
 tention of the unsuitable military dress, introduced by his 
 father, of pigtails, powdered hair, tight breeches, etc., was an- 
 other of Frederick's caprices. 
 
 The simple and strict administration of justice continually 
 occupied the attention of the king. The Codex Frid. formed 
 the basis of the provincial law of Prussia, Xvhich was not, how- 
 ever, completed until after his death, by Carmer, a. d. 1794. 
 The injustice enacted in other countries was viewed by him 
 with deep abhorrence, and never was his anger more highly 
 excited than when he imagined that his name had been abused 
 for the purpose of passing an iniquitous judgment. A wind- 
 mill, not far from Sanssouci, obstructed the view, but the miller 
 threatening to lay a complaint against him in his own court of 
 justice, he chose rather to endure the inconvenience than to 
 resort to violence. Another miller, Arnold, charging a noble- 
 man with having diverted the water from his mill, Frederick, 
 anxious to act with strict justice, sent a confidential officer to 
 the spot to investigate the affiiir. The officer, either owing to 
 negligence or to some private reason, pronounced in favour of 
 the miller, who was actually in the wrong, and the king instantly 
 deprived three of his chief justices and a number of the lower 
 officers of the law of their appointments and detained the for- 
 mer for some time in prison. Still, notwithstanding his arbi- 
 trary and, on some occasions, cruel decisions, he inspired the 
 law officers witli a wholesome fear, and by the commission of 
 one injustice often obviated that of many others. His treat- 
 ment of Colonel Trenck, an Austrian, whom he detained a close 
 prisoner at Magdeburg for eighteen years, made much noise. 
 This handsome adventurer had secretly carried on an intercourse 
 with the king's sister, had mixed himself up with politics, 
 
 * Louis XV. attempted to introduce the Prussian military system, 
 and, with it, that of flogging, into the French army, but the soldiers mu- 
 tinied, shot the subalterns, who liad ventured to use the cane, and one of 
 the latter, on being ordered to give the lash to one of the privates, in- 
 stantly ripped up his own belly. This fact is relat(!d by Schubart, at that 
 time one of the brightest ornaments of Germany, who concludes with the 
 exclamation, "Wh;U a disgrace for Germany ! "
 
 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. i i> 
 
 devised intrigues, and a bare-faced indiscretion had occasioned 
 .his long imprisonment, whence he was Hberated on Frederick's 
 
 death. The manner in which the king answered all the 
 
 cases and petitions presented to him, by a short marginal note, 
 was extremely characteristic, his remarks and decisions being 
 generally just, but witty, satirical, often cruel, and always bad- 
 ly written, on account of his imperfect knowledge of his mother 
 tongue. 
 
 He was equally laconic in conversation and sharp in manner. 
 With a large three-cornered laced hat on his head, rather 
 stooping shoulders, a thread-bare blue uniform with red facings 
 and broad skirts, a long pig-tail hanging behind, the front of 
 his waistcoat covered with snuff, which he took in enormous 
 quantities, short black breeches and long boots, his sword 
 buckled to his side and his celebrated crutch-cane in his hand, 
 he inspired all whom he addressed with awe. No one, how- 
 ever, possessed in a higher degree the art of pleasing, when- 
 ever he happened to be surrounded by persons of congenial 
 taste and pursuits, or that of acquiring popularity.* 
 
 Frederick exercised immense influence on the spirit of the 
 times, the general impulse towards enlightenment. The age 
 had indeed need of assistance in its attempts to repel the mists of 
 ignorance and superstition by which it was obscured. The pe- 
 dantry of the schools had already partially yielded before the at- 
 tacks of Thomasius, who had been the first to tear asunder the veil 
 and to admit the light, which, under Frederick's administration, 
 now poured freely in on all sides. The influence of the French 
 philosophers of the day necessarily preponderated. Fortunately, 
 they were not all as frivolous as Voltaire, and the more fervid 
 enthusiasm of Rousseau, the clear political views of Montes- 
 
 * Innumerable anecdotes are related of him. During the seven j'ears' 
 war, a Croat aiming at him from behind a bush, he looked sternly at him, 
 shook his cane (which he carried even when on horseback) at him, and 
 
 the Croat fled The people of Potsdam had stuck up a caricature in 
 
 which he was represented witha coff'ee-mill in his lap, at the street corner ; 
 he saw it as he passed along and told the bystanders to hang it lower 
 down and they would see it with greater convenience. — —One of the 
 subalterns of his guard, being too poor to buy a watch, attached a bullet 
 to his chain and wore it in his pocket. This was perceived by the king, 
 who one day purposely asked him what time it was. The officer, unable 
 to evade an expose, drew forth the bullet, saying as he did so, " My watch 
 points but to one hour, that in which I die for your Majesty." Frederick 
 instantly presented him with his own watch, set in brilliants.
 
 'J'6 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. 
 
 quieu, were far better suited to the gravity of the German. 
 Still, notwithstanding the influence of Frederick the Great, Gal- 
 lomania did not long characterize our literature. Gottsched 
 at Leipzig attempted its establishment, but it was completely 
 overthrown by Lessing at "NVolfenbiittel, and to it succeeded 
 Graecomania and Anglomania, a predilection for the ancient 
 authors of Greece and Rome, first tastefully displayed by 
 Heyne at Gcittingen, and for the liberal and manly literature 
 of England, with which a closer acquaintance had been formed 
 since the accession of the house of Hanover to that throne. 
 The patriotic pride of Lessing, the study of the classics and of 
 English literature, served as a guard against French exagger- 
 ation, which, nevertheless, exercised but too powerful an in- 
 fluence upon the German character. Voltaire first taught the 
 German to form hasty and superficial ideas upon religion, and 
 Rousseau first enervated his honest heart by false and sickly 
 sentimentality. During the first stage of his progress towards 
 the enlightenment he so much needed, he was but a contempt- 
 ible and ridiculous caricature of his French model. 
 
 The enlightenment of the past century, about which so much 
 has been said and written, demanded a religion of love and 
 toleration, (the demand of the first Pietists, who afterwards 
 became noted for intolerance,) in the place of the religion of 
 intolerance hitherto inculcated by the church, the equality of 
 all confessions of faith, (as established in North America,) the 
 conformity of the dogma of the church with the demands of 
 sound human reason, (rationalism,) or the total proscription 
 of the dogma in so far as they were incompatible with what it 
 pleased the philosophers of the day to consider natural and rea- 
 sonable (natural religion. Deism). The result of these demands 
 was absolute infidelity, which rejected every religion as equally 
 false and even denied the existence of a deity, (Atheism,) the 
 adoration of nature and the most extravagant sensuality (ma- 
 terialism). 
 
 The beneficent government of humane sovereigns, wise 
 guardians of the people, was demanded instead of the despot- 
 ism that had hitherto prevailed, and the future happiness of 
 the human race was declared to be the infallible result of this 
 blessed change in the administration. On the separation of the 
 North American colonies from England, their parent country, 
 and their formation into a republic, republican notions began
 
 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. i i 
 
 : I spread ; they were, moreover, greatly fostered by the ex- 
 ample of the ancients, whose histories were diligently studied, 
 and by the contrat social of Rousseau, which reproduced the 
 ancient German political principle of a constitution based upon 
 the union of free and equal members of society as a new dis- 
 covery. At first, the general demand was for that best of all 
 repubhcs, the sovereignty of virtue ; but, by degrees, the re- 
 public became a matter of speculation for vices impatient of 
 the restraint imposed by laws. 
 
 The immorality that, like a pestilence, had spread from 
 France and infected the courts and the higher classes in Ger- 
 many, took shelter beneath the new doctrines of humanism. 
 Open profligacy was, it is true, discouraged, but the weak- 
 nesses of the heart, as they were termed, served as an excuse 
 for the infraction of the Catholic vow of celibacy and of the 
 strict moral tenets of the Protestant church. The tears of the 
 sentimentalist atoned for the weakness of the flesh. An in- 
 credible increase in the production and study of romances na- 
 turally followed. The unprincipled sentimentality of the 
 middle classes was even more pernicious in effect than the 
 open profligacy of the nobility and of the courts. It was 
 owing to this cause alone that Germany, at the outbreak of 
 the French Revolution, at a time that called for energy and for 
 the exertion of every manly virtue, contained so many cowards. 
 
 Good and evil advanced hand in hand as enlightenment 
 progressed. Men, confused by the novelty of the ideas pro- 
 pounded, were at first unable to discern their real value. 
 The transition from ancient to modern times had, however, 
 become necessary, and was greatly facilitated by the tolerance 
 of the great sovereign of Prussia, wdio, notwithstanding that, 
 by his predilection for French philosophy and his inclination 
 towards rationalism, he at first gave a false bias to the moral 
 development of Germany, greatly accelerated its progress. He 
 gave his subjects full liberty to believe, think, say, write, and 
 publish whatever they deemed proper, extended his protection 
 to those who sought shelter within his territories from the 
 persecution of the priests, and enforced universal toleration. 
 On one occasion alone, one that escaped the observation of the 
 sovereign, did the censor, Justi, dare to suppress a work, the 
 " Letters on Literature," in w'hich his own dull productions 
 were severely criticised. The works, printed in Prussia from
 
 t^ FREDERICK S2\.NSPAREIL. 
 
 1740 to 178G, offer a convincing proof of tlie unparalleled 
 liberality of this absolute sovereign. The freedom from re- 
 striction greatly favoured tlie progress of German literature, 
 but still more so the personal indifference of the king, which 
 prevented it from becoming servile. How insignificant was 
 Ramler, whom he appointed poet laureat ! how great was 
 Lessing, who never paid court to or was noticed by him ! 
 
 Frederick was, in his private hours, chiefly sui'rounded by 
 foreigners. Maupertius, the ]\Iarquis d'Argens, Algarotti, 
 Mitchel, the English ambassadoi-, Marshal Keith, a Scotch- 
 man, a proscribed partisan of the exiled Stuart, such a noble- 
 hearted man, that Frederick said of him, " Le bon Milord me 
 force de croire a lavertu," General Lentulus, and the notorious 
 De la Mettrie.* He carried on a frequent correspondence 
 with Voltaire f and D'Alembert, the latter of whom he appointed 
 president to the Royal Academy of Berlin. Raynal and Rous- 
 seau, two of the noblest of the French writers, took refuge 
 within his states, one at Berlin, the other at Neufchatel, from 
 the persecution to which the freedom of their opinions bad 
 exposed them. Frederick was himself an author of no mean 
 talent ; in his youth he wrote an " Antimachiavel," in which 
 he recommended to princes a moral policy, never followed by 
 himself, and several poems ; at a later period, the " History of 
 his Own Times ;" that of the "Seven Years' War ;" "Con- 
 siderations, Financial and Political, on the State of Europe ;" 
 " Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg ;" besides numerous 
 spirited letters, which were collected after his death. 
 
 * Who wrote openly, " that there is no God, no immortality, that man 
 is intended to follow every natural impulse, that sensual pleasure is his 
 only aim in life, that virtue is a ridiculous dream destructive of enjoy- 
 ment, and that death is the end of all things." His depraved course of 
 life was consistent with his principles. Frederick, nevertheless, appoint- 
 ed him his lecturer. Mitchel relates, that Frederick always spoke of Vol- 
 taire as a rogue, although he continued to correspond with him. This 
 taste may, perhaps, be physically accounted for ; Zimmermann says, that 
 during the latter part of Frederick's life, he could not touch a dish with- 
 out first seasoning it with immense quantities of Cayenne. 
 
 t Voltaire compared Frederick with the emperor Julian the Apostate, 
 who abolished Christianity and restored Paganism. He generally con- 
 cluded his confidential letters with the words " ecrasez I'inftimc," mean- 
 ing Christianity. On the 24th of July, 1763, he wrote to D'Alembert 
 that surely five or six men of genius like them could overthrow a religion 
 founded by twelve beggars. He greatly complained of Frederick's want 
 of energy in the cause.
 
 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. 79 
 
 The fall of the Jesuits was the first great result of the advance 
 of enliglitenment. One extreme is ever productive of another. 
 The dissolution of these guardians of ignorance was perhaps 
 alone rendered possible by the existence of an equal degree of 
 exaggeration on the side of their opponents. The policy of 
 the times, moreover, favoured the general inclination. The 
 princes greedily grasped at tlie church property that had 
 escaped the genei'al plunder during the Reformation. In 
 France, Spain, and Portugal, the ancient bulwarks of Catholi- 
 cism, ministers rose to office, who, convinced of the excellence 
 of Frederick's policy, kept pace with their times, and followed 
 as zealously in his footsteps as the German princes formerly 
 had in those of Louis XIV. In Austria, the Archduke Jo- 
 seph, the eccentric son of Maria Theresa, glowed for an Uto- 
 pia of liberty and justice, and Kaunitz persuaded the otherwise 
 bigoted empress to pursue the old Ghibelline policy by which 
 the pope was rendered subordinate to the head of the empire. 
 Pope Clement XIV., a man of great enlightenment, also filled 
 St. Peter's chair at that time, and hence it happened that the 
 notorious Society of Jesus was solemnly dissolved in all Ca- 
 tholic countries by a papal bull, A. d. 1773. The unfortunate 
 pope was instantly poisoned by the revengeful Jesuits. Fre- 
 derick, true to his principle of universal toleration * and de- 
 sirous of displaying his independence, f permitted them to 
 retain their former footing in Catholic Silesia. On the disso- 
 lution of the Society, the most scandalous deeds were brought 
 to light. The attention of the public was taken up with judi- 
 cial proceedings and satirical writings. A scandalous lawsuit, 
 that of father Mareellus at Augsburg, for unnatural crimes 
 committed in the school under the control of the Jesuits, the 
 opening of the prisons of the Society at Munich, where twelve 
 skeletons were discovered attached to chains, created the great- 
 est noise. The history of the Society, and the principles oa 
 
 * He often said, " In my states every one can go liis own vay to 
 heaven." 
 
 t The Jesuits ■vrere so delighted, that they spread a report that the 
 king was on the point of turning Catholic. The ex-jesuit Demelmaier 
 declared from the pulpit at Straubing, that the king's coach-horses had 
 fallen on their knees before the pyx. Shortly afterwards, on Frederick's 
 siding with Bavaria against Austria, as Dohm relates, his picture was 
 seen in a Bavarian village at the side of that of a saint, with a lamp be- 
 neatli it.
 
 80 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. 
 
 which it was based, were now thoroughly investigated and 
 criticised. It is, however, probable that some of the govern- 
 ments would not have so readily assented to its dissolution but 
 for the extraordinary wealth it possessed. The courts were in 
 want of money, and, on this occasion, made a truly royal booty, 
 of which but a small portion was set aside for educational pur- 
 poses. The Emperor Joseph appears to have had this booty 
 very much in view. His mother, Maria Theresa, who, in 
 1748, had, in her right as queen of Hungary, assumed the title 
 of Apostolical Majesty, and, in 1752, had driven four thousand 
 Protestants out of Styria, was merely induced to give her con- 
 sent to the dissolution of the Society on moral grounds. A 
 written document, containing the substance of her confessions 
 to her Jesuit confessor, was sent to her from Madrid, a proof 
 of perfidy by which she was first convinced of the immorality, 
 according to their statutes, legally practised by the members 
 of the Society. 
 
 At the very time that Germany was delivered from the curse 
 of Jesuitism, the crime, termed by way of distinction the crime 
 of the age, was committed against Poland, and distinctly shows 
 the moral principle by which the statesmen of that time were 
 guided. Virtue was never the object of their policy, but simply 
 a means for the success of some political scheme. " Do not 
 talk to me of magnanimity," said Frederick, " a prince can 
 only study his interest." Poland, like Germany, owed the loss 
 of her unity to her aristocracy ; but the Waiwodes and Sta- 
 rosts, instead of founding petty states, like the German dukes 
 and counts, and of allowing the formation of a civic class, be- 
 came utterly ungovernable, and, too jealous to place the crown 
 on the head of one of their own number, continued, from one 
 generation to another, to elect a foi'eigner for their king. As 
 long as Poland still maintained a shadow of her ancient digni- 
 ty, her choice was free and unbiassed and ever fell upon some 
 weak prince, as, for instance, the Elector of Saxony ; but, as 
 her internal dissensions became more frequent, she allowed her 
 potent neighbour to impose a sovereign upon her. On the 
 demise of Augustus III., [a. d. 1763,] Catherine II. of Rus- 
 sia effected the election of one of her numerous paramours, the 
 handsome Stanislaus Poniatowski, a Pole by birth and her 
 servile tool. A foreboding of the dreadful doom awaiting 
 their country was roused by this stroke of Russian policy in
 
 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. 81 
 
 the bosom of some patriotic Poles, who confederated for the 
 purpose of dethroning the favourite of the foreign autocrat. 
 Catherine, however, sent one of her armies into the wretclied 
 country, which was by her orders, by the orders of the self- 
 termed female philosopher, laid waste with most inhuman bar- 
 barity. Cannibals could not have perpetrated more cold- 
 blooded acts of cruelty than the Russians, whom the noble and 
 gallant Pulawski vainly opposed, a. d. 1769. Catherine, fear- 
 ing lest the Turks might aid the unfortunate Poles, attacked 
 them also, and victoriously extended her sway to the South. 
 
 The whole of the states of Europe, although threatened by 
 the increasing power of Russia, remained inactive. England 
 was occupied with her colonies, France with her mistresses 
 and fetes, Sweden was powerless. Austria and Prussia, the 
 most imminently threatened, might, if united, have easily pro- 
 tected Poland, and have hindered the advance of Russia to- 
 wards the Black Sea, but they were filled with mutual distrust. 
 In 1769, Frederick II. and Joseph held a remarkable confer- 
 ence at Neisse, in Silesia, when an attempt was made to place 
 German policy on a wider basis. Who could withstand, was 
 it said, a coalition between all the powers of Germany ? "I 
 think," said Frederick the Great, " that we Germans have 
 long enough spilt German blood ; it is a pity that we cannot 
 come to a better understanding." Joseph lamented the unpa- 
 triotic alliance between Austria and France, and even Prince 
 Kaunitz, the propounder of that alliance, declared that the 
 cession of Lorraine to France was a political blunder that 
 never could have taken place had he been in office at that 
 period. And yet, in despite of these declarations, the sove- 
 reigns came to no understanding ; nor was a second confer- 
 ence held in the ensuing year at Mtihrisch-Neustadt, notwith- 
 standing the five protestations reiterated on this occasion, 
 more effective.* The want of concord was entirely owing to 
 Frederick's disbelief in the sincerity of Austria. Austria had 
 
 * Frederick, on seeing Laudon, ■whom he had formerly despised on 
 account of his ugliness, and who had bitterly enough avenged the insult, 
 among Joseph's suite, took him by the arm and placed him next to him 
 at table, — " Sit do^vn here, sit down here, I would rather have you at ray 
 side than opposite to me." AtNeustadt, Frederick is said to have observed 
 to the emperor, whilst reviewing the assembled troops, " The most extra- 
 ordinary thing in our interview is, that all these thousands should fear 
 us two ! "
 
 82 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. 
 
 already bestowed the hand of an archduchess on the king of 
 Poland and had tendered her aid to the overwhelming Ca- 
 tholic party among the Polish nobility. Had Prussia united 
 with Austria for the rescue of Poland, the influence of 
 Russia would, it is true, have been Aveakened whilst that of 
 Austria would have been thereby strengthened, without her 
 having gained the slightest advantage. These grounds de- 
 termined Frederick not only to leave Russia unopposed, but 
 even to make use of her against Austria, and his brother, 
 Henry, whom he sent to St. Petersburg, accordingly, carried 
 on negotiations to this intent. . The Austrians, upon this, 
 held a council of war, in which the question, whether it was 
 advisable to declare war with Russia in case Prussia sided 
 against them with Russia, was agitated. The question was 
 negatived, [a. r>. 1771,] and, from this moment, the partition 
 of Poland was determined upon. Austria, no longer desirous 
 of driving the Russians out of Poland, was merely intent upon 
 sharing the booty, and, abandoning her ancient character as 
 the protectress of that ill-fated country, was the first to make 
 the attack by formally taking possession of the Zips, to which 
 she asserted her ancient right, before Russia, notwithstanding 
 her arbitrary rule in Poland, had formally declared the incor- 
 poration of the Polish provinces with the Russian empii-e. 
 Prussia, meanwhile, cleverly made use of the reciprocal 
 jealousy between Russia and Austria to secure her portion of 
 the booty. The three powers bargained with each other for 
 Poland like merchants over a bale of goods, and Russia, the 
 originator of the whole scheme and the first possessor of the 
 country, retained by far the largest share.* The negotiations 
 were brought to a close, August the 5th, 1773 ; the Austri- 
 ans and Prussians entered Poland, of which the Russians had 
 already taken possession, and proclaimed her partition, "in 
 the name of the indivisible Trinity," to which Catherine more 
 particularly added, " for the restoration of the prosperity of 
 Poland." Russia seized almost the whole of Lithuania ; 
 Austria, Galicia ; Prussia, the province of the Lower Vistula, 
 under the name of Western Prussia. The rest of Poland 
 
 * Gregory Orlow, CatlicriTie's favourite, was of opinion that the Rus- 
 sian ministers, who had concurred in the partition, deserved to be de- 
 prived of their heads for not having kept the whole of Poland for his 
 mistress.
 
 FREDERICK SANSPAREIL. 83 
 
 was bestowed upon the wretched king, Stanislaus, under 
 the name of the republic of Poland, on which the laws pre- 
 scribed by the three powers were imposed, and which was so 
 constituted as to render unity for the future impracticable in 
 Poland and to favour the wildest anarchy. Every noble had 
 the liberum veto, that is, the power of annihilating the de- 
 cisions of the diet by his single vote. With a constitution of 
 this nature, Poland naturally sank ever deeper into the abyss 
 of ruin. 
 
 Two voices alone throughout Germany ventured to protest 
 against this political murder. Maria Theresa had in her old 
 age committed the control of foreign affairs to her son Joseph 
 and to Kaunitz, but she no sooner learnt the partition of 
 Poland than she thus addressed the latter : " When the whole 
 of my possessions were disputed and I no longer knew where to 
 sit down in peace, I placed my trust in the justice of my cause 
 and in the aid of Heaven. But, in this affair, where injured 
 right not only openly cries for vengeance against us, but in 
 wliich all justice and sound reason are opposed to us, I must 
 affirm, that never throughout the whole course of my existence 
 have I been so pained, and that I am ashamed to be seen. 
 Let the prince reflect what an example we offer to the whole 
 world by hazarding our honour and reputation for the sake of 
 a miserable bit of Poland. I see plainly that I am alone and 
 am no longer en vigueur, and I therefore let the matter, 
 though not without the greatest sorrow, take its own coui'se." 
 She signed her name with these words, " Placet, as so many 
 and learned men desire it ; but when I have been long dead, 
 tlie consequences of this violation of all that until now has 
 been deemed holy and j ust will be experienced." The other 
 voice was that of the Swabian, Schubart, who ventured, 
 even at that period, to lament the fate of '•' Poland pale with 
 woe " in one of his finest poems. 
 
 Prussia had, moreover, come off the worst in the partition, 
 the other powers refusing at any price to permit her occupa- 
 tion of Dantzig. The object of this refusal on the part of 
 Russia was to prevent the whole commerce of Poland from 
 falling into the hands of Prussia. Frederick revenged him- 
 self by the seizure of Neufahrwasser, the only navigable en- 
 trance into the harbour of Dantzig, and by the imposition of 
 oppressive duties. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 JOSEPH THE SECOND. 
 
 CCXXXVIII. Joseph the Second. 
 
 This emperor, who so zealously aided in the annihilation of 
 an innocent nation and thus repaid John Sobieski's noble 
 devotion with most unexampled ingratitude to his descendants, 
 who evinced such utter want of feeling in his foreign policy, 
 was, to the astonishment of the whole world, in his own do- 
 minions, the greatest enthusiast for popular liberty and the 
 greatest promoter of national prosperity that ever sat upon a 
 throne. On the death of his father, Francis I., A. d. 1765,* 
 he became co-regent with his mother, and, although at first 
 merely intrusted with the war administration, ere long inter- 
 fered in every state affair, in Avhich he Avas especially sup- 
 ported by the prime minister, Kaunitz, who, whilst apparently 
 siding with him against the caprice or too conscientious 
 scruples of his mother, rendered him his tool. The contra- 
 diction apparent in Joseph's conduct, the intermixture of so 
 much injustice with his most zealous endeavours to do right, 
 are simply explained by the influence of Kaunitz, who, like 
 an evil spirit, ever attended him. 
 
 For the better confirmation of the unnatural alliance be- 
 tween Austria and France, Maria Antonia, (named by the 
 French, Marie Antoinette,) Maria Theresa's lovely and ac- 
 complished daughter, was wedded [a. d. 1770] to the Dau- 
 phin, afterwards the unfortunate Louis XVI. She was 
 
 * Frederick II. writes of this puppet sovereign, — "The emperor, 
 not daring to interfere in state matters, amused himself with the transac- 
 tion of mercantile business. He laid by large sums from his Tuscan 
 revenues in order to speculate in trade. He always retained alchymists 
 in his service engaged in the search for the philosopher's stone, and he 
 attempted by means of burning glasses to dissolve several small diamonds 
 into one large one. He established manufactures, lent money on mort- 
 gages, and undertook to furnish the whole of the imperial army with uni- 
 forms, arms, horses, and liveries. In partnership with a certain Count 
 Bolza and a tradesman named Schimraelmann, he farmed the Saxon 
 customs, and, in 1756, even supplied the Piiissian army with forage and 
 flour. Although his consort passionately loved him and was a pattern of 
 conjugal tenderness, she bore his ever-recurring infidelities without a mur- 
 mui'. The day before his death, he presented his mistress, the Princess 
 von Auersberg, with a bill for 200,000 florins. The validity of a gift of 
 this description was questioned, but Maria Theresa ordered the bill to be 
 duly honoured.
 
 JOSEPH THE SECOND. 85 
 
 received at Strassburg by the gay bishop, Cardinal Eoban, 
 with the words, " The union of Bourbon with Habsburg must 
 restore the golden age." Seven hundred and twelve people 
 were crushed to death during the wedding festivities in 
 Paris. 
 
 The emperor Joseph, during his mother's life-time, estab- 
 lished beneficial laws, abolished the use of torture, [a. d. 1774,] 
 and, by the publication of an Urbarium, sought more particu- 
 larly to improve the condition of the peasantry. The collec- 
 tion of the taxes and the lower jurisdiction were to be under- 
 taken by the state whenever the noble was unable to defray 
 the expenses of the administration, and villages, consisting of 
 more than one hundred and twenty houses, were raised to the im- 
 portance of country towns and were granted several immunities. 
 The government also entered into negotiation with the nobi- 
 lity on account of the gradually increasing pressure of soc- 
 cage-service. The cautious nobles, however, declared to the 
 empress, that they would not voluntarily yield, but would 
 submit were arbitrary measures resorted to. These Maria 
 Theresa refused to adopt, and the Bohemian peasantry, to 
 whom hopes of redress had been held out, rose in open insur- 
 rection, which was quelled by force, A. D. 1775. Their lead- 
 er, Joseph Czerny, and three others were hanged, one in 
 each of the four quarters of the city of Prague. 
 
 Joseph was, shortly after this occurrence, again seized with 
 a strong desire to extend his dominions. On the death of 
 Maximilian Joseph, elector of Bavaria, without issue, a. d. 
 1777, the next heir, the weak and licentious Charles Theodore, 
 of the collateral branch of the Pfalz, evincing a disinclination 
 to Bavaria on account of his predilection for his natural chil- 
 dren and for his residence, Mannheim, which he had greatly 
 beautified, Joseph persuaded him to cede Lower Bavaria to 
 Austria. This cession was, however, viewed with equal dis- 
 pleasure by the next of kin, Charles, duke of Pfalz-Zweibrlick- 
 en, and by the Bavarians, who still retained their ancient ha- 
 tred of Austria. j\Iaria Anna, the talented widow of Duke 
 Clement, Chai-les Theodore's sister-in-law, placed herself at 
 the head of the Bavarians, supported by Count Gortz, whom 
 Frederick II., who sought at every hazard to prevent the ag- 
 grandizement of Austria, had sent to her aid. The opposing 
 armies took the field, but no decisive engagement was fought,
 
 86 JOSEPH THE SECOND. 
 
 and this war was jestingly termed the potato war, the soldiers 
 being chiefly engaged in devouring potatoes within the camps. 
 Frederick the Great said that the war had brought him more hay 
 than laurels, as it almost entirely consisted in foraging excur- 
 sions. Ferdinand, the hereditary prince of Brunswick, main- 
 tained himself in a strong position at Troppau. Wurmser, the 
 imperial general, surprised the enemy at Habelschwert and 
 gained a trifling advantage. Neither side was in earnest ; Fi'e- 
 derick was old and sickly, — Maria Theresa so timid that she 
 secretly negotiated with Frederick behind her son's back by 
 means of Baron Thugut, who had formerly been an orphan 
 lad. France was in a state of indecision. Austria is said to 
 have promised to cede to her a part of the Pfalz, which Louis 
 .XVI., on the contrary, aided with a subsidy ; but however that 
 may be, France did not come openly forward. Russia, on the 
 other hand, threatened Austria, who at length consented, by 
 the treaty concluded at Teschen, [a. d. 1779,] to accept the 
 province of the Inn and to relinquish the rest of Bavaria. 
 
 Maria Theresa expired a. d. 1780.* Joseph II. no sooner 
 became sole sovereign than he began a multitude of I'eforms. 
 With headlong enthusiasm, he at once attempted to uproot 
 every ancient abuse and to force upon his subjects liberty and 
 enlightenment, for which they were totally unfitted. Regard- 
 less of the power of hereditary prejudice, he arbitrarily upset 
 every existing institution, in the conviction of promoting the 
 real welfare of his subjects. His principal attack was directed 
 against the hierarchy. On the assassination of the unfortunate 
 pope, Clement VII., by the Jesuits, Pius VI., a handsome and 
 rather weak-headed man, well fitted for performing a part in 
 church exhibitions, and a tool of the ex- Jesuits, was placed on 
 the pontifical throne. Joseph was by chance at Rome during 
 his election, on which he exercised no influence, although the 
 Romans enthusiastically greeted him as their emperor, A. D. 
 
 * She was remarkably beautiful in her youth, but later in life became 
 extremely corpulent and was disfigured by the small-pox. She retain- 
 ed her liveliness of disposition to the last. With the same spirit as when 
 at Frankfurt, beaming with delight, she stepped upon the balcony and 
 was the first to cry " Vivat" at the moment of the coronation of her hus- 
 band, did she in the Burg theatre at Vienna, on receiving the news of the 
 birth of her first grandson, afterwards the emperor Francis 11., rise from 
 her seat and call out joyfully, in the Viennese dialect, to the parterre, 
 " der Lepold hot an Buabn !" " Leopold has a boy !"
 
 JOSEPH THE SECOND. 87 
 
 1774. Pius instantly checked every attempt at reform, evinced 
 great zeal in holding church festivals, processions, and other 
 spectacles, in which he could show off his handsome person, 
 and did his utmost to displease the emperor. He even recog- 
 nised Frederick the Great as king of Prussia, on account of 
 the protection accorded by him to the Jesuits. Joseph, how- 
 ever, treated him with contempt, and openly showed his inde- 
 pendence of the pontifical chair by declaring the Papal bull 
 invalid throughout his states unless warranted by the placet 
 regmm. He completely abolished the begging orders and 
 closed six hundred and twenty-four monasteries ; he also 
 placed the more ancient monastic orders under the superintend- 
 ence of the bishops, and finally published an edict of toler- 
 ation, by which the free exercise of religion was granted 
 to all,* except to the Deists, (who believed in one God ac- 
 cording to rational ideas, not according to revelation,) whom 
 he condemned to receive five-and-twenty strokes, the number 
 sacred to the Austrian bastinado. He also emancipated 
 the Jews. The German hymns of the ex-Jesuit, Denis, 
 were introduced into the Catholic churches. Hieronymus, 
 archbishop of Salzburg, and the bishops of Laibach and Ko- 
 nigsgrajtz supported the emperor ; but Cardinal Migazzi,f 
 archbishop of Vienna, and Cardinal Bathyany, archbishop of 
 Gran, ranged themselves beneath the papal banner. Pius VI., 
 terrified at these numerous innovations, crossed the Alps in 
 person to Vienna, A. d. 1782, for the purpose of moderating 
 the emperor's zeal. His path was lined with thousands, who 
 
 * In the Styrian mountains, whole villages suddenly confessed the 
 Lutheran faith they had for a century past professed in secret. In 1793, 
 there were no fewer than twenty-two thousand Protestants in Carinthia. 
 Many of the commimes at first suspected the edict of toleration of being 
 another crafty method of insnaring them, by encouraging them to con- 
 fess their real faith for the purpose of destroying them, and it was not 
 without difficulty that they became convinced of the emperor's sincerity. 
 — Travels into the Interior of Germany. 1798. 
 
 t Joseph's want of tact was never more truly displayed than in his 
 treatment of Migazzi. The Jansenist priest, Blaarer, ofBriinn, becom- 
 ing an object of his persecution, Joseph summoned Blaarer to Vienna 
 and made him superintendent of the seminary of priests, a post hitherto 
 held by Migazzi. On the arrival of the pope at Vienna, Migazzi 
 was compelled to quit the city and to pay 2700 florins to a house 
 of correction for having carried on an illegal correspondence with 
 him.
 
 88 JOSEPH THE SECOND. 
 
 on their knees received his blessing. He was, nevertheless, 
 rendered bitterly sensible of the inopportunity of his visit by 
 the emperor and by Kaunitz. The emperor did not honour 
 the great mass performed by him with his presence. No one 
 was allowed to speak with him without special permission from 
 the emperor, and, in order to guard against secret visits, every 
 entrance to his dwelling was walled up, with the exception of 
 one which was closely watched. Whenever the pope attempted 
 to discuss business matters with the emperor, the latter de- 
 clared that he understood nothing about them, must first con- 
 sult his council, and requested that the affair might be con- 
 ducted in writing. Kaunitz, instead of kissing the hand 
 extended to him by the pope, shook it heartily ; he also neg- 
 lected to visit him, and, on the pope's paying him a visit under 
 pretext of seeing his pictures, received him in a light robe-de- 
 chambre. The pope, after spending four weeks without effect- 
 ing any thing, at length found himself constrained to depart. 
 The emperor accompanied him as far as Mariabronn, and two 
 hours afterwards ordered that monastery to be closed in order 
 to sliow how little the pope had influenced him. The people 
 and the clergy Avere, however, dazzled by the appearance of 
 the holy father, and Joseph, fearful of irritating them too 
 greatly, in reality put a transient stop to his reforms. The 
 pope passed through ]Munich, where he was received with 
 every demonstration of respect by Charles Theodore, and by 
 Augsburg * through the Tyrol, where a monument on the 
 high road near Innsbriich tells to this day of the enthusiasm 
 with which his presence inspired the mountaineers. On his 
 return to Rome, a. d. 1783, he was reproached for having 
 made so many concessions, and was persuaded to refuse his 
 recognition of the archbishop of ^lilan nominated by Joseph. 
 The emperor was, in return, unsparing of his threats, and un- 
 expectedly appeared at Rome in person, a. d. 1783. The 
 archbishop of Milan was confirmed in his dignity, and the 
 Roman populace evinced the greatest enthusiasm for Joseph, 
 in whose honour the cry, " Evviva nostro imperatore ! " con- 
 tinually resounded in the streets. The pope, nevertheless, 
 
 * He -wrote triumphantly to the cardinals, that he had dispensed his 
 blessing to countless thousands from the windows of the same house 
 whence teterrima ilia Atigustana confessio had been first proclaimed. 
 — Acta Hist. Eccl. nostri Temp.
 
 JOSEPH THE SECOND. S9 
 
 recovered from his terror, and created a new nunciature for 
 Munich as a bulwark of the hierarchy in Germany, upon 
 which Joseph deprived the nuncios of all the privileges they 
 had hitherto enjoyed, which had bestowed upon the provincial 
 bishops, more particularly upon those of Germany, whom he 
 sought by these means to place in opposition to the bishop of 
 Rome. In effect, Mayence, Treves, Cologne, and Salzburg 
 held a congress, a. d. 1785, at the bath of Ems, and declared 
 in favour of the emperor's principles. Frederick II., (Prussia 
 and the ex- Jesuits were at that time in close alliance,) how- 
 ever, encouraged the pope, through his agent, Ciofani, 
 at Rome, to make a vigorous opposition. John jNIiiller, the 
 Swiss historian, also turned his cheaply-bribed pen against 
 the reforms attempted by Joseph, whom he libels as a despot, 
 and whose good intentions he cunningly veils. The most 
 violent opposition was that raised in Austria. In the more 
 distant provinces, the clergy accused him of attempting the 
 overthrow of Christianity. In Lemberg, a monk plotted 
 against his life : Joseph had him imprisoned in a mad-house. 
 In Innsbruch, a popular disturbance took place on account of 
 an alteration being made in one of the church altars, the priests 
 having spread a report of the emperor's intention to destroy 
 all altars. At Villach, a figure, intended to represent Dr. 
 Luther, was carried about on a wheelbarrow and cast into the 
 Danube. In several places, the Protestants were ill-treated. 
 Freedom of the press being granted by Joseph, the most violent 
 and abusive charges against him were published by the clergy 
 and publicly sold by Wucherer, the Viennese bookseller, who 
 made a large profit by them. Joseph's enemies were, how- 
 ever, less injurious to him than his false friends, who inces- 
 santly loaded him with praise and spread the most unchris- 
 tian, atheistical, and immoral ideas ; Blumauer, for instance, 
 who wrote in imitation of Voltaire, and whose impudent and 
 shallow works found a great sale. In many places, this party 
 ventured to treat church ceremonies with open ridicule, and 
 Joseph was repeatedly compelled to protest against the mis- 
 interpretation of the edict of toleration and the unbounded 
 licence, by which means, as Dohm well observes, he was no 
 longer beheld with awe by the one party or with confidence by 
 the other. 
 
 Notwithstanding the congress of Ems, he was opposed not 
 only by the Austrian clergy, but also by tliat of the empire,
 
 90 JOSEPH THE SECOND. 
 
 on which he had, moreover, made a violent attack, by sepa- 
 rating all the portions of the bishoprics of Passau, Chur, Con- 
 stance, and Liege, lying witliin his hereditary states, and 
 placing them within the jurisdiction of the bishoprics within 
 his territories. Olmiitz was erected into an archbishopric ; 
 Brlinn was formed into a new diocese. 
 
 Joseph's reforms extended to the state as well as to tlie 
 church, and every where met Avith the same opposition. His 
 attempt to give unity to the state, to establish uniform laws 
 and an uniform administration,* was contravened by the di- 
 verse nationalities and by the difference in the state of civil- 
 ization of the various nations beneath his rule. His attempt 
 to confer the boon of liberty on the lower class, to humble the 
 unrestricted power of the nobility, to establish equality before 
 the law and an equal taxation, was opposed not only by the 
 hitherto privileged classes, but also by the peasantry, who 
 either ignorantly misunderstood his intention, or were pur- 
 posely misled in order to check the progress of his reforms by 
 excesses, as was, for instance, the case among the Wallachian 
 population of Transylvania, where a certain Horja, who gave 
 himself out for a plenipotentiary of the emperor, excited the 
 peasantry to revolt against the nobility, assassinated one hun- 
 dred and twenty nobles, destroyed two hundred and sixty- 
 four castles, and the emperor was finally compelled to put him 
 down by force. He and his colleague Kloczka were condemned 
 to the wheel, and two thousand of the Wallachian prisoners were 
 compelled to behold their execution ; one hundred and fifty 
 were, according to the custom of tlieir country, impaled alive. 
 And yet Joseph's clemency had been so great as to inspire him 
 with a desire to abolish the punishment of death. Thus did 
 his subjects deceive his belief in their capability for improve- 
 ment. The nobility were rendered his mortal enemies by the 
 condemnation of Colonel Szekuly to exposure in the pillory 
 for swindling, and by that of Prince Podstatsky-Lichtenstein, 
 for forging bank-notes, to sweep the public streets. Among other 
 offences against the nobility was that of throwing open to the 
 public the great Prater, which had hitherto been the exclu- 
 
 * He simplified it first of all in Vienna, by the abolition of the abuses 
 introduced by the multiplicity of writing in all the public and government 
 offices. In Moser's Patriot. Archiv. the Viennese snail's pace before the 
 time of Joseph H. is fully described ; a petition or an account had to pass, 
 in the course of being copied, registered, answered, signed, etc., through 
 no fewer than eighty-five hands.
 
 JOSEPH THE SECOXD. 91 
 
 sive resort of the court and nobility. The higher nobility, 
 protesting against this innovation, received the following cha- 
 racteristic reply from the emperor : " "Were I only to asso- 
 ciate with my equals, I should be compelled to descend into 
 my family vault and to spend my days amid the dust of my 
 ancestors." The nobility was also deeply wounded by the law 
 empowering natural children to inherit the property of their 
 unmarried fathers, which had been established by Joseph as a 
 protection to the daughters of the citizens against their se- 
 ductive artifices. He also ennobled a number of meritorious 
 citizens and even created Fries, the manufacturer, who had 
 greatly distinguished himself by his commercial enterprise and 
 patriotism, count. 
 
 In 1785, he was, for a third time, led by his fixed idea for 
 the extension of his domains, so little consistent with his cha- 
 racter, so noted for humanity in all other respects, to renew 
 negotiations with Charles Theodore for the possession of Ba- 
 varia. A German confederacy, set on foot by Frederick II., 
 however, set a limit to his pretensions ; and, in his displeasure 
 at this frustration of his plans, he Avas induced by the in- 
 triguing Russian empress to join her in the conquest of the 
 East. A personal interview took place between the two 
 powers at Cherson.* The partition of Turkey, like that of 
 Poland, formed the subject of their deliberations. A diver- 
 sion made to their rear by Gustavus III. of Sweden, however, 
 compelled Catherine to recall the greater portion of her 
 troops. Russia, since the days of Peter the Great, had been 
 a field of speculation for Germans, who, to the extreme detri- 
 ment of their native country, increased the power of Russia by 
 filling the highest civil and military posts. A Prince Charles 
 of Nassau- Siegen, who served at this period as Russian admi- 
 ral, was shamefully defeated by the Swedes, lost fifty-five 
 ships and twelve thousand men, and was forced to fly for his 
 life in a little boat. The Turkish campaign was, owing to 
 these disadvantageous circumstances, far from brilliant. The 
 Russians merely took Oczakow by storm and fixed them- 
 
 * He had, in 1780, visited her at St. Petersburg and had treated her 
 so flatteringlj', that, on his offering to kiss her hand, she threw her arms 
 round his neck. She travelled in the same carriage with him to Smo- 
 lensk. Her coachman boasted, on this occasion, of driving two powers, 
 for whom the whole universe was not wide enough, in such a narrow 
 space.
 
 92 JOSEPH THE SECOND. 
 
 selves, as the Austrians should have done in their stead, close 
 to the mouths of the Danube. Joseph was even less success- 
 ful. The extreme heat of the summer of 1788 produced a 
 pestilence, which carried off thirty-three thousand Austrians. 
 The bad inclination generated among the lower class by the 
 nobility and clergy had crept into the army. At Caransebes, 
 the troops were seized with a sudden panic and took to flight, 
 carrying the emperor along with them, without an enemy be- 
 ing in sight. The Turks, commanded by French officers, 
 were several times victorious. Sick and chagrined, the em- 
 peror returned to Vienna, and it was not until the ensuing 
 year that the honour of the imperial arms was restored by 
 Laudon, (who had fallen into neglect,) aided by the Duke of 
 Coburg and General Clairfait. He retook Belgrade, but his 
 further progress was checked by the negotiation of peace. 
 Hungary was in a state of disturbance, the Netherlands in re- 
 volt, the emperor ill, and peace with foreign powers indis- 
 pensable. 
 
 The nobility and clergy triumphed, and hunted the unfor- 
 tunate emperor, who had returned from the Turkish cam- 
 paign suffering from an illness from Avhich he never recovered, 
 completely to death. Irritated by their opposition and by 
 their strong position in the Hungarian diet, he dissolved that 
 assembly, carried the sacred crown of Hungary to Vienna, 
 abolished all the privileges of that country, and placed the 
 Magyars on a level with his German subjects. The people 
 were too dull of comprehension to perceive the advantage 
 they thereby gained or were deceived by the nobility and 
 clergy, who described the emperor as a heretic and de- 
 claimed against the violation of popular rights whilst skilfully 
 concealing the interests of their order beneath the mask of 
 the national pride of Hungary. The chief points most 
 sturdily opposed by the nobility were the liability, hitherto 
 unknown, of their order to taxation and the alleviation of 
 the burthens borne by the misera contribuens plebs, as the 
 Hungarian serfs were officially termed. 
 
 The Netherlands were in a still more violent state of fer- 
 mentation. Joseph, confiding in his alliance with France, 
 which he had, at an earlier period, visited * for the purpose of 
 
 * The extreme splendour of the French court struck him with aston- 
 ishment and he earnestly warned his sister of the result. His simple 
 attire as, under the incognito of Count Falkenstein, he visited the public
 
 JOSEPH THE SECOND. 93 
 
 seeing his sister Marie Antoinette, compelled the Dutch [a. 
 D. 1781] to annul the barrier-treaty and to withdraw their 
 garrisons from the fortresses of the Austrian Netherlands. 
 The occupation of the fortresses of a powerful emperor by the 
 Dutch, who, moreover, kept them in a bad state of repair, was 
 certainly wholly unfitting, but they were equally neglected by 
 Joseph, who caused almost the whole of them to be razed to 
 the ground as no longer necessary for the defence of the 
 frontier against France. He then demanded from Holland 
 the opening of the Scheldt. His demand was by no means 
 unjust ; by what right do the Dutch close the mouths of the 
 rivers of Germany ? Joseph, however, contented himself with 
 threats and with sending down the river two ships, upon which 
 the Dutch fired.* War was, nevertheless, averted by a gift of 
 
 buildings, etc. and mingled with the people, attracted universal admiration. 
 He was praised at the expense of his corpulent and thick-headed brother- 
 in-law, Louis XVI. : 
 
 A nos yeux etonnes de sa simplicite 
 Falkenstein a montre la majeste sans faste. 
 Chez nous, par un honteux contraste 
 Qu' a-t-il trouve ? du faste sans majeste. 
 
 Joseph visited several distinguished men during his stay in Paris, among 
 others, Buffon, the great naturalist, to whom he said, " I beg j'ou will 
 give me the copy of your work forgotten by my brother." His brother, 
 Maximilian of Cologne, had rudely refused a copy offered to him by 
 Buffon, with the remark, " I will not rob you of it." The emperor also 
 mounted to Rousseau's wretched garret, where he found him occupied 
 in copying notes, for he was no longer the lion of the day. On his return to 
 his dominions, he neglected, when at Geneva, to visit Voltaire, whose immo- 
 ralit}' he detested. The philosopher was mortally wounded by this proof 
 of disrespect. Joseph, on the other hand, did not fail to honour Albert 
 von Haller, the eminent poet and physician, with a visit on his route 
 through Berne. Van Erlach, the high-born mayor of Berne, also aMaited 
 his arrival in his castle with planted cannon and a great display of mag- 
 nificence, and had himself announced under the title of Count ; Jo- 
 seph, however, merely sent him his verbal excuses, " that he was too 
 dusty from travelling to visit such a fine gentleman." A good lesson for 
 the republicans I 
 
 * Kaunitz had vainly attempted to dissuade the emperor from this 
 scheme and had always said, " They will fire upon them," which Joseph 
 refused to believe. The event had no sooner answered Kaunitz's expect- 
 ation than he informed the emperor of the fact in a laconic note, merely 
 containing the words " They have fired." This oft-related anecdote is 
 not so much to the point as the information given by Sinclair, (the first 
 political economist, who visited the emperor in 1786,) concerning Joseph's 
 displeasure against England. The English, offended at the impolitic
 
 94 JOSEPH THE SECOND. 
 
 9,000,000 florins from the Dutch to the emperor, whose con- 
 duct on this occasion was construed as a sign of weakness by 
 the Austrian Netherlands, where the powerful and influential 
 clergy seized every opportunity to raise enemies against him. 
 AYhen, in 1786, Joseph abolished the ecclesiastical schools as 
 dens of the grossest darkness and ordered a great universal 
 seminary for fifteen hundred scholars to be founded on entirely 
 modern principles, a popular tumult, which was only put down 
 by the militaiy, ensued. The fermentation, however, con- 
 tinued. During the war with Turkey, Joseph allowed the 
 affixirs in the Netherlands to take their own course, but, in 1789, 
 commenced acting with great energy, and General d'Alton 
 was compelled to have recourse to force and to dissolve the 
 Estates. The civil governor, Count Trautmannsdorf, a man 
 of great weakness of character, in the hope of winning over 
 the people by kindness, relaxed the reins of government, ren- 
 dered it contemptible, and frustrated every measure taken by 
 d'Alton. The opposition instantly regained courage. Van 
 der Noot, a lawyer of deep cunning, had, during his secret visits 
 to the Hague and to Berlin, secured the aid of Holland and 
 Prussia, the latter of which sent General Schonfeld to take 
 the command of the insurgents. Cardinal Frankenberg, 
 archbishop of Mechlin, a stately political puppet, was placed 
 at the head of the new government constituted at Breda, and 
 the officers and young men, who were already infected with 
 republicanism, were called to arms. D'Alton, unable to main- 
 tain Brussels, laid down the command. Ghent was taken by 
 stratagem. The insurgents, disguising themselves in the 
 uniforms belonging to an Austrian regiment which had been 
 dispersed and partly taken prisoner, marched to Ghent, were 
 allowed to enter by the deceived garrison, and took the city. 
 The Austrians under General Bender alone retained possession 
 of Luxemburg. On the 11th January, 1790, the whole of 
 the Netherlands, under the name of " United Belgium," de- 
 clared itself independent. A dispute, however, arose among 
 the victors. The hierarchical faction, to which Van der Noot 
 belonged, attacked the weaker democratical party, the Vonck- 
 ists, so called from its principal leader, Vonck, which had 
 
 alliance between Austria and France, were unsparing in their attacks 
 upon 'the emperor both in parliament and by the press, and undeniably 
 encoui'aged the Dutch to fire upon the imperial ships.
 
 JOSEPH THE SECOND. 95 
 
 countenanced the insurrection in the hope of the establishment 
 of a republic ; they were, moreover, followers of the modern 
 French philosophers and the avowed enemies of the priest- 
 hood. Their houses were plundered ; their general, Mersch, 
 a devoted partisan of the democratical cause, was divested of 
 the command ; several persons were cruelly murdered ; one, 
 for instance, who mocked a procession, had his head sawn off.* 
 Joseph's unpopularity in the !Xetherlands was chiefly occa- 
 sioned by his offer to cede them to Bavaria. How could his 
 zeal for the welfare of his subjects find credence when he at- 
 tempted to sell them to another sovereign ? 
 
 About the same time, the Hungarian nobility took up such 
 a threatening attitude and found means to rouse the people to 
 such a pitch of excitement, that Joseph was compelled to re- 
 voke the whole of his ordinances for the welfare of Hungary. 
 On hearing that even the peasantry, on whom he had at- 
 tempted to bestow such immense benefits, had risen against 
 him, he exclaimed, "I shall die, I must be made of wood if 
 this does not kill me !" and three weeks afterwards he expired, 
 after revoking his most important reforms for the sake of 
 avoiding the necessity of having recourse to extreme measures. 
 He died at Vienna on the 20th February, 1790, as Jellenz 
 observed, "a century too early," and as Remer said, "mis- 
 taken by a people unworthy of such a sovereign." 
 
 Joseph 11. {der Andre) was handsome in his person ; his 
 eyes were blue and expressive, hence the saying " Imperial 
 blue," in order to denote that colour in the eye. Frederick 
 the Great thus spoke of him in a letter to Voltaire, " Educated 
 amid bigotry, he is free from superstition ; habituated to 
 pomp, his habits are simple ; grown up amidst flattery, he is 
 still modest." 
 
 His bronze statue at Vienna bears the following just inscrip- 
 tion : " Josepho Secundo, qui saluti publicae vixit non diu sed 
 totus." Shortly before his death, he wrote, " Although there 
 have formerly been Neros and a Dionysius, although there 
 have been tyrants who abused the power delivered to them 
 
 * In the insurgent army, a capuchin was to be seen ■n-earins' a high black 
 cap to which an enormous cockade was attached ; in his hands he carried 
 a sabre and a crucifix ; in his yellow girdle, pistols, a knife and a 
 rosary ; his gown was se-wn up between his legs, which were stuck bare 
 into short boots.
 
 96 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE SECOND. 
 
 by fate, is it on that account just, under pretence of guarding 
 a nation's rights for the future, to place every imaginable ob- 
 stacle in the way of a prince, the measures of whose govern- 
 ment solely aim at the welfare of his subjects ? I know my 
 own heart ; I am convinced of the sincerity of my intentions, 
 of the uprightness of my motives, and I trust, that when I shall 
 no longer exist, posterity will judge more justly and more im- 
 partially of my exertions for the welfare of my people." 
 
 His brother and successor, Leopold III., whose government 
 of Tuscany offered a model to princes, made every concession 
 to the nobility and clergy, in order to conciliate his subjects, 
 and restored the ancient regime throughout Austria. The 
 whole of the monasteries were not, however, reopened ; in 
 Bohemia, bondage was not reinforced ; and the Lutherans and 
 Reformers were also tolerated. All the other privileges of the 
 nobility and clergy were restored. Tuscany fell to Ferdinand, 
 Leopold's second son. The Dutch were granted an amnesty 
 and the full enjoyment of their ancient privileges, but they 
 had already become habituated to the independence they had 
 asserted and refused to submit. General Schonfeld, the leader 
 placed at the head of the insurgents by Prussia, at first main- 
 tained a haughty demeanour, but, on the reconciliation of Aus- 
 tria with Prussia at the congress of Reichenbach, he appears to 
 have acted under contrary orders and to have made use of his 
 position to ruin the cause he pretended to uphold. Avoiding 
 an engagement, he marched up and down the country until 
 the imperialists were reinforced, when he retreated and threw 
 up the command. General Kohler, who was appointed to re- 
 place him, fled to Brussels, where his troops, assisted by the 
 populace, stormed the house of assembly, plundered the arsenal 
 and magazines and decamped, leaving the Austrians to enter 
 the country unopposed. 
 
 CCXXXIX. Frederick William the Second. 
 
 " Old Fritz," as the Prussians named their great monarch, 
 had expired, a. d. 1786. He retained his faculties to the 
 last ; his eccentricities had, however, increased, and, in his con- 
 tempt for the whole human race, he expressed a wish to be 
 buried among his favourite greyhounds. 
 
 His nephew, Frederick William II., was an additional proof
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE SECOND. 97 
 
 of the little resemblance existing bet\veen the different mon- 
 archs of Prussia. He left the machine of government, ar- 
 ranged by his uncle, unaltered, but intrusted its management 
 to weak and incompetent ministers, who encouraged his fond- 
 ness for the sex, his inclination to bigotry, and his belief in 
 apparitions. Frederick's faithful servant, Herzberg, the aged 
 minister, was removed from office and replaced by WoUner, 
 a wretched charlatan, who strengthened the king's belief in 
 ghosts by means of optical glasses ; by General Bischofswer- 
 der, a priestly slave, who opposed toleration ; by Luchesini 
 and Lombard, weak diplomatists, who unnerved the policy of 
 Prussia by their want of decision, their impolitic want of faith ; 
 and by the two mistresses of the king, Madame Rietz, created 
 Countess Lichtenau, and the Fraulein von Voss, created 
 Countess Ingenheim. These favourites were utterly devoid 
 of talent and merely rendered the business of state a mass of 
 inextricable confusion. Documents and letters of the utmost 
 importance lay carelessly scattered over the royal apartments, 
 to which women, pages, sycophants of every description had 
 free ingress. The highest offices of state were bestowed by 
 favour ; the royal treasury, containing seventy millions, was 
 so lavishly scattered as to be speedily replaced by an equal 
 amount of debt. The order of merit, with which Frederick 
 had decorated merely seventy of the heroes of the seven years' 
 war, was now showered indifferently upon the lounging cour- 
 tiers. The crown lands, the object of the late king's care, 
 were given away or made use of as a means of ennobling a 
 number of most unworthy personages. Complaisant lacqueys, 
 chambermaids' favourites, expert rogues, ready to lend their 
 services on all occasions, were placed on an equality with the 
 ancient nobility. These newly-dubbed nobles were mockingly 
 termed the freshly-baked or the six-and-eighty. Mirabeau, 
 who was at that time French agent at Berlin, wrote the fol- 
 lowing laconic account of the new Prussian court : " A de- 
 creased revenue, an increased expenditure, genius neglected, 
 fools at the helm. Never was a government nearer ruin. I 
 am returning to Paris, for I will no longer be condemned to 
 act the part of a beast and crawl through the dirty, crooked 
 paths of a government which daily gives fresh proof of its 
 ignorance and servility." 
 
 The king, notwithstanding these defects, was not devoid of 
 
 VOL. III. H
 
 98 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE SECOND. 
 
 military ambition, and an opportunity for its display was not 
 long wanting. Like Joseph, he was tempted to the attack 
 by the weakness of Holland. William IV., the first hereditary 
 stadtholder, expired A. d. 1751. Louis Ernest, duke of 
 Brunswick, whose pride rendered him highly unpopular, 
 reigned for some time in the name of the youthful heir, 
 William V. The ancient spirit of the people had insensibly 
 decayed. The great wealth of the inhabitants had engendered 
 habits of luxury. In the East Indian colonies, the governor, 
 Valckenier, gained an evil fiime by the cold-blooded murder 
 of twelve thousand Chinese, who had ventured to complain of 
 his tyrannical conduct. On the conquest of Bengal [a. d. 
 1757] by the English, the expulsion of the Dutch from the 
 Indian continent was planned, but the first outbreak of the 
 war was occasioned in 1780, by the public sale in Holland of 
 English ships captured by North American privateers. A 
 small Dutch fleet and a number of Dutch merchantmen were 
 seized by the English. The weakness of the navy was, with 
 great justice, laid to the charge of the duke of Brunswick, who 
 had neglected it in order to set the army on a better footing, and 
 he was compelled to resign his authority. The Dutch, never- 
 theless, twice succeeded in repulsing the English fleet on the 
 Doggersbank and on its way to the Sound ; but they suffered 
 terrible losses in the colonies. They were also abandoned by 
 France and Russia, the chief authors of the war, and were 
 finally compelled, by the peace of Versailles [a. d. 1783], to 
 cede Negapatnam, their principal settlement on the Indian 
 continent, several African colonies, and even their ancient 
 maritime privilege, which protected the cargo beneath their 
 flag. This ill-starred peace increased the unpopularity of the 
 hei'editary stadtholder, who was completely ruled by the duke 
 of Brunswick. His open attempts to usurp monarchical power, 
 in which he was encouraged by his consort, Wilhelmina, the 
 sister of Frederick William II., by Count Goertz, the Prussian 
 ambassador, and by Harris, the malicious English envoy, 
 added to the popular exasperation, and the storm, which the 
 French had also greatly fomented, at length burst forth.* On 
 
 * Sinclair, the celebrated Scotch political economist, who was at that 
 time travelling through Holland, expressed himself strongly against the 
 intrigues of France. Dutchmen were bribed with money previously bor- 
 rowed from their coimtrymen ; the house of the French ambassador was
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE SECOND. 99 
 
 the 4th of September, 1786, Gyzelaar of Dordrecht declared 
 in the states-general that all the evil tliat had befallen the re- 
 public took its rise in the bosom of the first servant of the 
 state, the hereditary stadtholder. These words vi^ere a signal 
 for revolt. • The armed burgher guard dissolved the councils, 
 all of which favoured the house of Orange, at Uti-echt, Am- 
 sterdam, Rotterdam, etc. The province of Holland first de- 
 clared the deposition of the stadtholder, wlio took refuge in 
 the fortress of Nimwegen and supplicated aid trom Prussia. 
 Frederick William hesitated and was at first unwilling to have 
 recourse to violence, upon which Wilhelmina, the consort of 
 the stadtholder, quitted Nimwegen, and, as Gccrtz in his Me- 
 moirs says, " took the bold but well-planned step" of returning 
 to Holland solely for the purpose of allowing herself to be in- 
 sulted by the rebels in order to rouse the vengeance of her 
 brother. The Princess was, in fact, stopped on the frontier and 
 treated with little reverence by the citizen soldiery ;* she was, 
 however, restored to liberty. This insult offered to a Prus- 
 sian princess decided the king, and he sent Fei'dinand, duke 
 of Brunswick, (the same who had distinguished himself when 
 hereditary prince in the seven years' war, and again in 1778, by 
 his gallantry in the camp of Troppau, and Avho now held the 
 appointment of generalissimo of the Prussian forces,) with an 
 army into Holland, which he speedily, and almost without op- 
 position, reduced to submission. Count Sahn, who had been 
 charged with tlie defence of Uti'echt, secretly withdrew. The 
 reaction was complete, and [a. d. 1787] all the patriots or 
 anti-Orangemen were deprived of their offices. 
 
 Prussia was, in her foreign policy, peculiarly inimical to 
 Joseph II. Besides supporting the Dutch insurgents, she 
 instigated the Hungarians to rebellion and even concluded 
 an alliance with Turkey, which compelled Josepli's successor, 
 the emperor Leopold, by the peace of Szistowa, A. d. 1791, to 
 
 restore Belgrade to the Porte. The revolt of the people of 
 
 Liege, A. D. 1789, against their bishop, Constantine Francis, 
 also gave Prussia an opportunity to throw a garrison into that 
 
 a temple of Venus, to •whom virtue was sacrificed ; abusive and immoral 
 pamphlets found a large sale. — Shiclair's Life. 
 
 * The ofQcer, by whom she had been arrested, refused to quit her room 
 and regaled himself witli beer and tobacco in her presence. — Jacobi, 
 History of the Disturbances in the Netherlands.
 
 100 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE SECOND. 
 
 city under pretext of aiding the really oppressed citizens, but, 
 in reality, on account of the inclination of the bishop to favour 
 Austria. When, not long after this, Prussia united with 
 Austria against France, the restoration of the bishop was 
 quietly tolerated. 
 
 Frederick William II., although misled by WoUner and 
 Bischofswerder to publish [a. d. 1788] edicts* of censure 
 and religious ordonnances contrary to the spirit of the times and 
 threatening to impede the progress of enliglitenment, abstained 
 from enforcing them, and the French philosophy, patronized 
 by Frederick II., continued to predominate under the auspices 
 of the Duke of Brunswick, the grand-master of the masonic 
 lodges in Germany. 
 
 The secret society of freemasons had in the commencement 
 of this century spread from England over Germany and 
 greatly promoted the progress of civilization. In England, 
 the ancient corporation of stone-masons had insensibly been 
 converted into a loyal club, which no longer practised ar- 
 chitecture, but retained its symbols and elected a prince of 
 the blood-royal as its president. After the execution of 
 Charles I., Ramsey, preceptor to the children of Charles II., 
 during his exile made use of th.e Scottish masons in order 
 to pave the way for the restoration of the Stuarts. Hiram, the 
 builder of the temple of Solomon, under whose mystical name 
 the Saviour, the builder of the Christian church, was general- 
 ly understood, was now supposed to represent Charles I., 
 and was honoured as the " murdered master." The Jesuits 
 played a principal part in this Scottish masonry and trans- 
 ferred much that was Jesuitical to masonry (freemasonry or 
 the royal art). On the second fall of the Stuarts, the new 
 Hanoverian dynasty established an English Protestant lodge 
 in opposition to that of Scotland and gave it, as its principal 
 symbol, the letter G (George) in a sun. Freemasonry now 
 rapidly spread among the Protestants, gained a footing, in 
 1733, in Hamburg, in 1740, in Berlin, and ere long became 
 
 * In Berlin, Schulz, kno%%'n as the pigtail minister, was deprived of 
 his othce for venturing to exchange the stately ecclesiastical peruke for a 
 fashionable queue and for preaching Rationalism instead of Christianity. 
 The edicts were bnital in their denunciations, nor was the horror tliey 
 inspired diminished by the knowledge that the religions and moral regu- 
 lations contained in them proceeded from the lacqueys of a Lichtenau.
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE SECOND. 101 
 
 the centre of civilization in its nobler and moral sense. Fre- 
 derick 11. favoured the sc-ciot.y Jin^ became a. member. 
 The aim of this society was the erection of the invisible tem- 
 ple of humanity, and its .allegorical symbol?., tli-e trov.-el, the 
 square, the leather apron, weie boivowed from the tools used 
 in common masonry. The object, promised but never attain- 
 ed by the church, the conferment of happiness on the human 
 race by the practice of virtue and by fraternity, by the demoli- 
 tion of all the barriers that had hitherto separated nations, 
 classes, and sects, was that for which this society laboured. In 
 Germany, freemasonry had ever a moral purpose. It was only 
 in France that it became matter for speculation and vanity, and 
 it was merely owing to the rage for imitating every French 
 folly that French freemasonry, with its theatrical terrors, its 
 higher degrees sold to the credulous for solid gold, and its new 
 rites of the self-denominated Templars,* intended as a bait 
 to the nobility, gained a footing in Germany. Adventurers 
 of every description practised upon the credulity of the rich 
 and noble and defrauded them of their gold. The Sicilian, 
 Cagliostro, was the prince of impostors. 
 
 The society of freemasons was prohibited by the Catholic 
 states of Southern Germany, where another secret society of a 
 far more dangerous character was, however, formed. In the 
 Protestant countries, the advance of civilization had been gra- 
 dual, the seed had slowly ripened in the fostering bosom of futu- 
 rity. But, in Bavaria, but one step was made from the ridiculous 
 stories of Father Kochem to the infidelity of Voltaire, and the 
 rising generation, emancipating itself from the yoke of the 
 Jesuits, instantly fell into the opposite extreme and attempted 
 to annihilate by force not merely the church but every positive 
 religion. It was in this spirit that Professor Weishaupt found- 
 ed, at Ingolstadt, [a. d. 1776,] the order of the Illuminati, 
 to which he gave the old Jesuitical constitution, that is, the 
 initiated took the oath of unconditional obedience to their se- 
 cret superiors. This fanatical conspiracy against religion no 
 sooner became known to the numerous free-thinkers of North- 
 ern Germany than they sedulously endeavoured to enter into 
 connexion with it, and, by the intervention of the notorious 
 
 * Freemasonry was alleged to have been first practised by the ancient 
 Templars.
 
 102 FREDERICK WILLIAM THE SECOXD. 
 
 Baron von Knigge, a Hanoverir.n adventurer noted for talent 
 and depravity, the lllrawii^f-tl beoame connected with the free- 
 masons, and, by means of Nicolai, the Berlin bookseller, the 
 editor .of (he/Univcri^ai-Gerraar: Lib}'ary, they had a public or- 
 gan at once bold and vv^aiy. The Illuminati were, notwith- 
 standing, decidedly antipathetical to the great majority of free- 
 masons in Northern Germany. Ferdinand, duke of Brunswiclc, 
 in his quality as grand-master, convoked all the German free- 
 masons to a great congress at Wilhelmsbad near Ilanau, a. d. 
 1782, by which the contradictions that had hitherto appeared 
 in eclectic freemasonry, as it was termed, were as far as possi- 
 ble removed. In the ensuing year, the great lodge of the 
 Three Globes at Berlin discovered far greater energy by de- 
 claring every person, who attempted to degrade freemasonry 
 to a society inimical to Christianity, incapable of becoming or 
 of remaining a member. The society of the Illuminati in Ba- 
 varia was, two years later, discovered and strictly persecuted, 
 A. D, 1785. Weishaupt fled to Gotha, where he was protect- 
 ed by the duke, Louis Ernest. Some of the members were 
 imprisoned, deprived of their offices, etc. This also served as 
 a lesson to the freemasons, who were thoroughly reformed by 
 the celebrated actor, Schroder, in Hamburg, and Felzler, for- 
 merly a capuchin, in Berlin, by on the one hand checking the 
 inclination to irreligion, on the other, by banishing display and 
 superstition and by restoring the ancient simple English sys- 
 tem, in a word, by regermanizing gallicized freemasonry. 
 
 The society of the Illuminaii continued, meanwhile, to ex- 
 ist under the name of the German Union, and, as a proof of 
 its power, the innumerable satires published against Zimmer- 
 raann in Hanover on his raising its mask, may be adduced. In 
 Mayence, the coadjutor of the archbishopric, von Dalberg, 
 had established an academy, which rivalled those of the Pro- 
 testants. Here dwelt Forster, the celebrated discoverer, the 
 witty Ileinse, John IMiiller, the Swiss historian, etc., and it 
 was here that Illuminatism took refuge ; Dalberg himself took 
 the oaths and entered the society under the name of Crescens. 
 Weishaupt was named Spartacus ; Knigge, Philo ; Louis Ernest, 
 duke of Gotha, Timoleon ; Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick, who 
 had refused entirely to renounce his connexion witli the Illumi- 
 nati, Aaron ; von demBusche, Bayard; Bode, Amelius; Nicolai, 
 Lucian, etc. The society was, however, first essentially
 
 GERMAN IXFLUENCE IX SCAXDIXAVIA. 103 
 
 raised in importance by its connexion with Mirabeau, the 
 talented but unprincipled French agent at Berlin and Bruns- 
 wick ; and Bode, a privy-councillor of the duke of Weimar, 
 Weishaupt's successor, and von dem Busche visited Paris " for 
 the purpose of illuminating France." Philip, duke of Orleans, 
 at that time grand-master of the French lodges, received them 
 with open arms. Their path had already been long smoothed 
 by another German, von Hollbach, a wealthy nobleman of the 
 Pfalz, who had formed a secret society, of which Voltaire was 
 the honorary president and Diderot the most active member, 
 and who dissipated his wealth in order to inundate the world 
 with licentious and atheistical works. He was the author of 
 that scandalous work, " Le Systeme de la Nature." The dead- 
 ly hatred with which Philip of Orleans viewed the French king, 
 whose throne he coveted, the condemnation of the revolution- 
 ary principles of the secret societies by Frederick the Great and 
 still more strongly by Frederick William II., and, finally, the 
 deep resentment of the Illuminati on account of their persecution 
 in Bavaria, caused the society to rest its hopes on popular 
 agitation, and, aided by French freemasonry, it spread the ideas 
 of the liberty and equality of mankind, of the establishment of 
 an universal republic, of the fall of royalty, and of the abolition 
 of Christianity. The favourite saying of the Illuminati was, 
 " The last king ought to be hanged with the entrails of the 
 last priest." These ideas, unable to take root in Germany, 
 secretly spread and rankled throughout France, the native soil 
 to which they had returned. 
 
 CCXL. German influence in Scandinavia and Russia. 
 
 Whilst Germany was thus a prey to French influence in 
 her western provinces, her native influence had spread towards 
 the east and north. Scandinavia had borrowed from her Lu- 
 theranism and fresh royal dynasties. The house of Oklenburg 
 reigned over Sweden and Norway. Under Frederick V., the 
 Hanoverian, Jolm Hartwig Ernest, Count von Bernstorffj 
 became prime minister, [a. d. 1750,] and bestowed great be- 
 nefits upon the country. Denmark remained, nevertheless, 
 faithful to her unneighbourly policy towards Germany, and 
 took advantage of the confusion that universally prevailed dur- 
 ing the seven years' war to extort a million from the citizens of
 
 104 GERMAN INFLUENCE IN 
 
 Hamburg. Frederick V. expired A. u. 1766. His son and 
 successor, Christian VII., a being both mentally and physical- 
 ly degraded, the slave of low debauchery and folly, married 
 Caroline Matilda, an English princess, to whose beauty and 
 mental charms he, however, remained totally indifferent. In 
 the hope that travelling might wean him fi'om his gross pur- 
 suits, he was persuaded to make a tour through Europe. On 
 the journey, his private physician, a young man named Struen- 
 see, the son of a clergyman of Halle in Saxony, succeeded in 
 gaining his confidence. On the return of the king, whose 
 manners had not been improved by his travels, Struensee in- 
 oculated the crown prince for the small-pox, and by that means 
 placed himself on a more intimate footing with the queen, who 
 constantly watched by the cradle of her child, and they formed 
 a plan to place the king entirely beneath their influence and 
 to govern in his name. The old ministers, and among them 
 BernstortF, were removed ; the nobility lost their influence at 
 court ; Struensee became prime minister, and, in conjunction 
 with his friend Brand, took upon himself the whole weight of 
 the government. He concentrated the power of the state, 
 effected the most beneficial reforms, more especially in the 
 financial department, which Avas in a state of extreme dis- 
 order, and released Denmark from the shameful yoke hitherto 
 imposed upon her by the arbitrary Russian ambassador, 
 Philosophow. Russia was not slow in plotting the ruin of the 
 bold German, who had thus ventured to withdraw Denmark 
 from her influence. Juliana, the queen-dowager, and her son, 
 Frederick, step-brother to the reigning monarch, were easily 
 gained. Tlie banished councillors, the neglected Danish nobility, 
 and even the officers of the guard aided in the machinations 
 devised against the queen and Struensee. Struensee, rendered 
 incautious by success, treated the queen with too great famili- 
 arity in public, published mandates of the highest importance 
 without the king's signature, and offended the guard by at- 
 tempting to disband them. The irritated soldiery mutinied ; 
 blood was shed, and Struensee gave proof of his weakness by 
 yielding and retaining the guard around the king's person. 
 This success increased the audacity of the conspirators ; 
 after a splendid court ball, in the January of 1772, Colonel 
 KoUer threw his regiment into the palace, and, on the follow- 
 ing morning, astonished Copenhagen learnt that a great change
 
 SCANDIXAYIA AND RUSSIA. 105 
 
 in tlie government had taken place ; the king, terrified at the 
 threats of the conspirators, had signed a warrant for the arrest 
 of the queen, Struensee, and Brand, and had been placed in 
 honourable imprisonment under the care of his step-brother, 
 who governed in his name. The queen, Caroline Matilda, 
 was dragged from her bed, and, notwithstanding her violent 
 struggles, (she is said to have thrown down the officer who 
 seized her,) was thrown into prison. Struensee met with 
 similar treatment. He was told that by a confession of having 
 carried on an improper intercourse with the queen he could 
 alone save his life. The queen's enemies required this con- 
 fession in order to proceed against her, Struensee is said to 
 have been induced through fear of death to make this shame- 
 ful confession (it was perhaps forged). The queen was now 
 told that the only means of saving Struensee's life was by a 
 confession of adultery, which is said to have been drawn from 
 her by her compassion for him. She is also said to have 
 fainted when confessing her guilt. That an innocent woman 
 would thus consent to her own dishonour is more than im- 
 probable, and the only inference to be drawn from the cir- 
 cumstance is, either that of her guilt or of the imposition of a 
 false confession. Struensee was, in consequence of this con- 
 fession and of the charge made against him of his former il- 
 legal assumption of authority, sentenced to be deprived of his 
 right hand and of his head. Brand suffered the same punish- 
 ment, A. D. 1772. The queen was separated from her hus- 
 band and banished to Zelle, where, three years afterwards, she 
 died of a broken heart, in her 24th year, asserting her inno- 
 cence with her latest breath, a. d. 1775. The king remained, 
 until 1784, under the guardianship of his step-brother, in a 
 half idiotic state, and died at a great age, A. d. 1808. Frede- 
 rick VI. was his son and successor. Peter Andrew, Bern- 
 storif's nephew, succeeded in rising to the head of the govern- 
 ment, in the conduct of which he displayed great talent and 
 merit. He it was who first abolished feudal bondage in Den- 
 mark and the slave-trade in the colonies. The cession of 
 Holstein to the Russian line of the house of Oldenburg took 
 place immediately after the catastrophe of 1772. 
 
 In Sweden, on the extinction of the house of Wittelsbach 
 in the person of Charles XII., and after the ensuing disputes 
 for the succession, during which Frederick of Hesse for some
 
 106 GERMAN INFLUENCE IN 
 
 time wore the crown, Adolphus Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp, 
 a collateral branch of the house of Oldenburg, had mounted 
 the throne, A. d. 1743. The government w^as, however, en- 
 tirely in the hands of the nobility, by whom, on the death of 
 Charles XII., the honour of Sweden had been already sold 
 and the conquests had been ceded without a blow, and who, 
 in pursuance of their own petty private interests, were split 
 into a French and Russian faction, the former of which was 
 denominated the Hats, the other the Caps. Gustavus III., 
 Adolphus Frederick's youthful and high-spirited successor, by 
 a sudden revolution put an end to this wretched aristocratic 
 government and declared himself sole sovereign, a. d. 1771. 
 His first step was the restoration of the ancient glory of Swe- 
 den by a declaration of war with Russia for the rule of the 
 Baltic. The war had been carried on at sea with various 
 fortune since 1788, when, in 1792, the king was shot at a 
 masked ball at Stockholm by one Ankarstrom, an accomplice 
 of the nobility, who aided him by surrounding the person of 
 their victim. His brother, Charles, duke of Siidermania, un- 
 dertook the government during the minority of his nephew, 
 Gustavus Adolphus IV.* Germany exercised no control 
 over Sweden, which still retained possession of Riigen and 
 Upper Pomerania. Her influence extended far more widely 
 over Russia, where Peter the Great had given his new me- 
 tropolis, Petersburg, a German name, and whither he had in- 
 vited great numbers of Germans for the purpose of teaching 
 his wild subjects arts and sciences, military tactics, and navi- 
 gation. A German, the celebrated girl of Marienburg, whom 
 he raised to his bed and throne, became, on his death, in 172o, 
 czarina and autocrat of all the Russias, under the name of 
 Catherine I. She was succeeded by Peter II., the grandson of 
 Peter the Great, the son of the unfortunate Alexis. Alexis was, 
 like his father, subject to violent fits of fury, but was totally 
 unendowed with his intellect. Peter, naturally fearing lest 
 his reforms and regulations might, on his son's elevation to 
 the throne, be choked in the bud, condemned him to lose his 
 head for the good of his country. Alexis had married the 
 Princess Charlotte Christina Sophia of Brunswick-Wolfen- 
 biittel, whose history might well form a subject for romance. 
 
 * The best account of this event is to be met -^-ith in Amdl's Swedish 
 History. Leipzig, 1839.
 
 SCANDIXAVIA AND RUSSIA. 107 
 
 Unable to endure his violence, she gave herself out for dead 
 and secretly escaped to North America, where, on her hus- 
 band's death, she married Lieutenant D'Auband, a man of 
 great personal merit, with whom she returned to France, his 
 native country, whence she accompanied him to the Mauritius 
 or Isle de France, where he held an appointment. On his 
 death, she returned to Paris, where she ended her adventurous 
 life at a great age. 
 
 Peter II. owed his succession to the throne to the influence 
 of the old Russian party among the nobility, particularly to 
 that of Prince Dolgorouky, by whom the Germans were re- 
 garded with feelings of the deepest hostility. He expired 
 A. u. 1730, and, with the consent of Anna and Elisabeth, the 
 two surviving daughters of Peter the Great, one of his nieces 
 was raised to the Russian throne. Ivan, the brother of Peter 
 the Great, had left two daughters, Catherine, married to Charles, 
 the unworthy duke of Mecklenburg, and Anna, married to the 
 last of the Kettler family, Frederick William, duke of Cour- 
 land.* Anna was, at this conjuncture, a widow, and the 
 reigning duchess of Courland. She resided in great privacy 
 at ^Mitau with her paramour, Ernest von Biron, the grandson 
 of an ostler, whose wife she retained near her person as a 
 cloak to their intercourse. The weakness of Anna's conduct 
 had pointed her out as a proper tool to the old Russian faction, 
 as a puppet in whose name they could reign. These expecta- 
 tions were, however, deceived ; Anna, on mounting the throne, 
 discovered the utmost energy and decision, intrusted the 
 administration of the empire to Germans distinguished for 
 talent and humbled the old Russian faction among the no- 
 bility. Biron, whom she created duke of Courland, was, it is 
 true, a better lover than statesman, but she repaired that Aveak- 
 ness by placing an intelligent theologian, Ostermann, a native 
 of Mark, who had been compelled to flee his country on ac- 
 count of a duel, and who had been the instructor of her youth, 
 at the head of diplomatic affairs, and Munnich, a nobleman 
 from Oldenburg, who had fought at Malplaquet and had after- 
 wards planned the great Ladoga canal at Petersburg, a man 
 
 * On the occasion of this wedding, Peter the Great had all the dwarfs 
 in his immense empire collected. There were seventy-two of them. 
 The two ugliest were compelled to marry, and the ceremony was performed 
 amid the jokes and jeers of the assembled court.
 
 108 GERMAN INFLUENCE IN 
 
 remarkable for energy and activity, at the head of the army. 
 Both these men followed in the footsteps of Peter the Great, 
 snatched Russia from her ancient state of incivilization and 
 developed her immeasurable power without regard for the 
 injury they might thereby inflict upon their native coun- 
 try. Milnnich, by the expulsion of Stanislaus Lescinsky. 
 first rendered Poland dependent upon Russia. He also gained 
 great victories over the Turks and Tartars and extended the 
 southern frontier of Russia. An insurrection of the Russian 
 nobility against his rule and that of Ostermann was powerfully 
 and prudently quelled, and was punished by numerous execu- 
 tions and sentences of banishment. 
 
 The Russian nobility speedily revenged themselves on the 
 death of Anna in 1740. Anna's sister, Catherine, duchess of 
 Mecklenburg, left a daughter Anna, who married Antony 
 Ulric, duke of Brunswick. Her son, Ivan, then two months 
 old, was elected emperor and placed under the guardianship 
 of Biron and of the German faction; but, in the following year, 
 the Russians raised Elisabeth, the youngest daughter of Peter 
 the Great, to the throne, banished all the Germans, Biron, 
 Ostermann, IMiinnich, and even the unoffending duke, Antony 
 Ulric, to Siberia, and allowed the youthful Ivan to pine to 
 death in prison. Elisabeth, who inherited the coarseness 
 without the virtues of her father, gave way to the most revolt- 
 ing excesses and placed the administration in the hands of 
 the old Russian faction.* She was succeeded, A. d. 1762, by 
 her nephew, Peter III., the son of her sister, Anna, and of 
 Charles Frederick, duke of Holstein-Gottorp. Peter was a Ger- 
 man both by birth and education and an enthusiastic admirer 
 of Frederic the Great. The German exiles were instantly re- 
 called from Siberia. During Biron's banishment, Charles of 
 Saxony had been raised by Russian influence to the govern- 
 ment of Courland. The favours showered by Peter upon the 
 Germans, numbers of whom he invited into the country for 
 the purpose of bestowing upon them the highest offices in the 
 
 * Among the soldiers of the guard, all of whom were her paramours, 
 and to whose attachment she mainly owed her elevation to the throne, 
 there wore, however, two Germans, the musician, Schwartz, and the sub- 
 altern, Grundstein, whom she especially favoured. They were ennobled, 
 raised to high rank and granted immense possessions, but were afterwards 
 banished. A German valet, named Sievers, was also created count of 
 the empire and supreme court marshal.
 
 SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA. 109 
 
 army and in the state, rendered him hateful to the Russian 
 nobility. The despotic temper he had inherited from liis 
 grandfather and his contemptuous treatment of his consort, 
 Catherine, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst,* I'aised enemies around 
 his person, and Catherine, an imperious and ambitious woman, 
 placed herself at the head of the conspirators, took him prison- 
 er and poisoned him, A. d. 1762.f She mounted the throne 
 of Russia under the name of Catherine II., surrounded her- 
 self with Russian and German talent, and, in imitation of Fre- 
 derick the Great, played the philosopher whilst enacting the 
 despot. Her most celebrated ministers and generals were at 
 the same time her lovers ; still, notwithstanding her licentious 
 manners, she had a highly cultivated mind (she corresponded 
 by letter with the most distinguished savants and poets of Eu- 
 rope) and discovered equal energy and skill as a diplomatist. 
 By the partition of Poland, by fresh conquests on the Turkish 
 frontier, and by her encouragement of civilization in the inte- 
 rior of her unwieldy empire, she increased the power of Rus- 
 sia to an extraordinary degree, and for this purpose made use 
 of a multitude of Germans, who unceasingly emigrated to 
 Russia, there to seek tlieir fortune. Among others, her cousin 
 William Augustus, duke of Holstein-Gottoi'p, studied naviga- 
 tion on board the Russian fleet, but, falling from the mast- 
 head, when sailing in the Baltic, was drowned, A. d. 1774. 
 Noble German families from Esthonia and Courland took their 
 place beside the ancient Russian nobility in all offices civil or 
 military. German savants guided the internal civilization of 
 the empire, her academies, her mines, that ever fruitful source 
 of Russia's wealth. German intelligence was in every direction 
 actively employed in moulding the rude natural powers of the 
 country and of the people into a fearful weapon against Ger- 
 many. 
 
 * An alliance had formerly been attempted to be formed between him 
 and Amelia, the daughter of Frederick William I. of Prussia, but had 
 been prevented by the declaration of that king, that he should deem him- 
 self dishonoured by her adoption of the Greek faith. 
 
 t She had borne him a son, whom he refused to acknowledge, and who 
 first mounted the imperial throne as Paul I., on the death of his mother. 
 He married [a. d. 1776] the Princess Dorothea Augusta Sophia of Wiir- 
 temberg, who, on her marriage, was re-baptized by the Greek church, 
 Maria Fedcrowna. She became the mother of the emperors Alexander 
 and Nicolas, of the grand-dukes Constantino and Michael, of Catherine, 
 queen of Wiirtcmberg, and of Anna, Princess of Orange.
 
 110 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 
 
 The German element still continued to preponderate in the 
 German provinces on the Baltic, Livonia, Esthonia, and Cour- 
 land, which, either at an earlier or at the present period, fell under 
 Russian rule. The civil privilegesof the cities, particularly those 
 of Riga, solely underwent a change. The constitutions of the 
 free towns ill accorded with the Russian mode of government 
 and [a. d. 1785] were forcibly exchanged for the political and 
 financial regulations of the governors. The nobility alone 
 retained the whole of its ancient privileges, owing to the pre- 
 dominance of the aristocratic as well as that of the autocratic 
 principle in Russia. A revolt of the Lettish peasantry, who 
 had imagined that the new crown-tax, imposed upon them by 
 the government, was intended to liberate them from their an- 
 cient obligations to the native German nobility, was suppress- 
 ed by force, A. d. 1783. Even under the reign of the emperor 
 Alexander, Baron Ungern- Sternberg, an Esthonian noble, 
 followed the profession of the robber-knights of old, by means 
 of false signals drew ships upon sandbanks and rocks, pillaged 
 them, and murdered those of the crew who escaped drowning. 
 He was at length captured and condemned to the mines.* 
 
 CCXLI. The lesser German Courts. 
 
 Whilst Austria and Prussia pursued a new political path 
 under Joseph and Frederick, the courts of lesser importance 
 persevered for the greater part in their ancient course or 
 sought to heighten the luxury they had learnt from Louis 
 XIV. by imitating the military splendour of Frederick IL 
 The predilection of the Prussian monarch for the Frencli lan- 
 guage had, moreover, brought it, together with French man- 
 ners and customs, into vogue at all the German courts and 
 among the whole of the German nobility. Every young man 
 of family was sent to Paris to finish his education, to be initi- 
 ated into every description of vice, and to acquire hon ton, as 
 it was termed, all of which they were assisted on their return 
 in disseminating throughout Germany by French ambassadors, 
 spies, teachers of French and dancing, hair-dressers, and go- 
 vernesses.f The use of tlie German language Avas considered 
 
 * Vide Petri, Pictures of Livonia and Esthonia, a rich source of inform- 
 ation concerning those countries. 
 
 t The French governesses reproved their German pupils with, " fi, on
 
 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. ^ 1 1 
 
 a mark of the lowest vulgarity. French alone was tolerated. 
 And it was by this perverted, unpatriotic nobility that the 
 weak princes were led still further astray and Germany was 
 misgoverned. 
 
 Augustus III. and Brlihl had, after the peace of Huberts- 
 bui'g, returned to Saxony, where, unmoved by the sufferings 
 of the people during the war, they continued their former lux- 
 urious liabits. Their first business was a splendid represent- 
 ation of Thalestris, an opera composed by the Princess Maria 
 Antonia. Augustus was succeeded [a. d. 1763] by Frede- 
 rick Augustus, a prince morally well-disposed, whose sole 
 noxious amusement was his passion for the chace, so detri- 
 mental to the peasantry. He was also devoid of the ambitious 
 pretension of grasping at the crown of Poland. The court was, 
 nevertheless, kept up from habit on its foi'mer extensive scale, 
 whilst the diet merely served as a protection to the overdrawn 
 privileges of the nobility. 
 
 Among the Saxon duchies, Weimar presented an honour- 
 able contrast with almost all the other petty states. The 
 Duchess Amalia and her son, Charles Augustus, formed a court, 
 like that of Hermann, the venerable Landgrave of Thuringia, 
 an assemblage of beaux esprits. Here Wieland, Herder, Goethe, 
 Schiller, resided beneath the most liberal patronage ever grant- 
 ed to the children of song. Ernest, duke of Gotha, although 
 also highly refined in his tastes, dwelt in greater seclusion. 
 The dukes of Coburg and Hildburghausen were overwhelmed 
 with debt. 
 
 In Bavaria, the emperor, Charles VII., left a debt of forty 
 millions. Maximilian Joseph was, on the contrary, extremely 
 economical, permitted Sterzinger to attack superstition, the II- 
 luminati to spi'ead enlightenment, and attempted to simplify 
 the law by the introduction of Kreitmayr's new criminal code, 
 which was, however, still too deeply imbued with blood. But, 
 whilst Thiirriegel, the Bavarian, transformed the Sierra Mo- 
 rena in Spain from a wilderness into a fertile province, the soil 
 of Bavaria still lay partially unreclaimed. The bad government 
 also recommenced under her next sovereign, Charles Theodore, 
 who mounted the Bavarian throne, a. d. 1777. This prince 
 had, at an earlier period, held a splendid court at Mannheim. 
 
 vous prendroit pour une Allemande," or said in their praise, " c 'est un 
 tresor que la Demoiselle. EUe ne fait pas un mot d' AUemaud."
 
 112 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 
 
 He established the first German theatre. French theatres and 
 Italian operas had been hitherto solely patronized by the Ger- 
 man courts. He also greatly enriched the picture gallery at 
 DUsseldorf. His luxury was embellished by taste. He suc- 
 ceeded to Bavaria in his fifty-third year. In order to satisfy 
 his predilection for the Rhine, he offered his new possession 
 for sale to Austria, and, on finding himself compelled to retain 
 it, transported his luxurious court fi'om Mannheim to Munich. 
 Rumford, an Englishman, embellished the latter city and was 
 the inventor of the celebrated soup, named after him, for the 
 poor, which had become indeed necessary, the misery of the 
 people being considerably increased by the badness of the 
 govei'nment. . A Countess Torring-Seefeld was the favourite 
 of the elector, who was, moreover, governed by his confessor, 
 the ex-Jesuit, Frank, who also conducted the great persecu- 
 tion of the lUuminati. Appointments were shamefully sold ; 
 brutality and stupidity were the characteristics of the ruling 
 powers ; the oppression was terrible. The elector was compelled 
 to undertake a petty campaign against a bold robber, the no- 
 torious Hiesel, one of those spirits called forth by tyrannical 
 
 stupidity on the part of a government. The Pfalzgrave 
 
 Charles, of the collateral line of Pfalz-Zweibrlicken, commonly 
 resided on the Carlsberg near Zweibrlicken, where he kept 
 fifteen hundred horses, and a still greater number of dogs and 
 cats, which required the attention of a numerous household. 
 He collected upwards of a thousand pipe-heads and innu- 
 merable toys. Every passer-by was compelled to doff his hat 
 on coming in sight of the Carlsberg ; a foreigner, ignorant of 
 the law, was, on one occasion, nearly beaten to death. 
 
 In Wiirtemberg, the duke, Charles Eugene, reigned from 
 1744, when he attained his majority, until 1793. He was, 
 in many respects, extremely remarkable. Learned, and gifted 
 with taste and talent, he was the slave of luxury and vice. 
 He spent enormous sums on the army. He sought to unite 
 Louis XV. and Frederick II. in his own person. Educated 
 in the academy of Frederick the Great at Berlin, he was, on 
 account of the excellency of his conduct, declared by that 
 monarch fit to assume the reins of government, in his seven- 
 teenth year ; but he had no sooner returned to Stuttgard than, 
 with his friend Count Pappenheim, he committed the most 
 boyish acts of folly, rousing the inhabitants with false cries of
 
 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 113 
 
 alarm during the night, and throwing hoops over the heads of 
 those who ventured to peep from their windows, etc. etc. 
 Frederick II. had bestowed upon him the hand of his niece, 
 Elisabeth Frederica Sophia of Bayreuth, notwithstanding 
 which Charles embraced the imperial cause during the seven 
 years' war, in order to bribe the empress and the imperial 
 Aulic council to overlook the crimes committed by him against 
 his country. He also, at that time, accepted enormous sums 
 of money from France, trusting to whose support, he divorced 
 his guiltless consort on a craftily laid charge of infidelity. 
 A certain Rieger led him to expend immense sums on military 
 show. The best artists of Rome and Paris, Jomelli, Noverre, 
 Vestris, were in his salary. He built the Solitude, in which 
 he placed a complete and separate establishment, with a church, 
 etc., on a forest-grown mountain, and rendered the whole year 
 a succession of fetes, operas, ballets, grandes battues, etc. etc. 
 Montmartin, the prime minister, a Frenchman, who treated 
 the servile Germans with the scorn they so richly merited, 
 extorted their money by the most barefaced exactions of 
 eveiy description, by taxes, by the sale of public offices, and was 
 faithfully aided by Wittleder, a Thuringian, wlio had come 
 into the country as a Prussian subaltern to give lessons in 
 drilling, and had become director of the ecclesiastical council 
 and enriched himself with plundering the property of "the church. 
 This wretch, who was authorized to sell all civil appointments, 
 for which he was to receive 10 per cent., usually said to the 
 applicant, " Give the duke 500 florins and me 1000 ! " In 
 order to render this source of revenue still more lucrative, he 
 created a number of new appointments and rendei'ed affiiirs 
 so uselessly complex that the Wiirtemberg system became 
 henceforward a proverbial nuisance. 
 
 Wiirtemberg still possessed her ancient provincial diet, 
 but its power was sadly crippled. A select committee had 
 seized the whole control over the affairs of the state, which 
 it administered in secret without rendering an account to 
 the people. Montmartin's order to the provincial collectors, 
 Hoffmann and Staudlin, to deliver up to him the whole of their 
 funds, first roused them to opposition. The duke, however, 
 surrounded the house of assembly with his troops and seized 
 the whole contents of the treasury, a. d. 1758. The author of the 
 submissively couched protest of the diet, the provincial-counsel-
 
 114 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 
 
 lor, John Jacob Moser, the best head and the honestest man 
 in the country, was arrested, and pined unheard for five 
 years in the fortress of Hohentviel. Montmartin declared to 
 the Estates, " that the duke was far too lofty-minded ever to 
 allow laws to be prescribed to him by people like them." He 
 established a great lottery, a. d. 1762, compelled the people 
 to purchase tickets and sent two hundred lots for sale to the 
 diet, and, on its protesting against it, the drawing of the lot- 
 tery was, in defiance, fixed to take place within the house of as- 
 sembly. He finally projected an income-tax, which drew at least 
 15 kreutzers* annually from the most indigent among the po- 
 pulation, and rose at an equal ratio. Hiiber, the grand bailiff 
 of Tiibingen, protested against this imposition. A deputation 
 of the citizens hastened into the duke's presence and repre- 
 sented to him the misery of the country. His only reply was 
 the exclamation, " Country ! what country ? I am the coun- 
 try ! " and an order for the instant march of several regiments 
 into Tubingen. Hiiber and the most respectable amongst 
 the citizens were carried prisoners to the citadel, and the tax 
 was levied by force. The Estates carried their complaint be- 
 fore the supreme court of judicature, and, owing to the ener- 
 getic support granted to them by Frederick II., gained their 
 cause. The duke was sentenced by the imperial Aulic coun- 
 cil instantly to liberate Moser, to desist from every species of 
 violence, and within the space of two months to enter into a 
 constitutional agreement with the Estates. Moser was set at 
 liberty.f The duke instantly took his revenge on the city of 
 Stuttgart, which had sided with Tiibingen, by migrating [a. 
 D. 1764] with his whole court to Ludwigsburg, where he re- 
 mained for several years, deceiving the Estates with mock 
 promises whilst endeavouring, by means of Montmartin, whom 
 he despatched for that purpose to Vienna, to give a more 
 favourable turn to his cause. He was, however, finally com- 
 pelled to obey the decision of the Aulic council. Montmartin 
 and Wittleder were dismissed ; the latter was, moreover, de- 
 
 * About 5 pence English money. — Translator. 
 
 t Dann of Tubingen and other members of the diet having attempted 
 to bring the committee of the Estates to account for its former secret and 
 arbitrary proceedings, concerning which Moser had it in his power to 
 give full information, the committee dreaded his liberation and would 
 willingly have prevented it. 
 
 J
 
 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 115 
 
 prived of a large sum of money ; the theatrical corps was re- 
 duced to one half, and some other trifling modes of economy 
 were resolved upon. The hereditary compact, as it was 
 termed, was at length concluded, a. d. 1771 ; by it, the power 
 of the duke was for the future to be restrained within consti- 
 tutional limits ; all the servants of the state were to be sworn 
 on the constitution ; the nomination of foreigners to public posts 
 was to be avoided ; the ancient mode of taxation and the church- 
 property were to be restored ; the army was to be diminished ; 
 several noxious monopolies and the lotteries were to be abolish- 
 ed ; the game-laws to be restricted ; and, on the other hand, the 
 forests, which had been dreadfully thinned, to be spared. The 
 duke, nevertheless, refused to accede to this compact or to re- 
 turn to Stuttgart until the Estates and the city had each pre- 
 sented him with a sum of money. He had, moreover, little 
 intention to keep the terms of compact. Money was again 
 extorted, the depredations countenanced by the game-laws 
 were carried to a greater extent than ever ; every transgres- 
 sion was, however, winked at by the committee, which dreaded 
 the convocation of a new diet, by which its power would be 
 controlled. For twenty years the diet had not sat, and the 
 committee poured into the ducal coffers all the money that 
 could be drawn from the country, and, among other things, 
 paid the duke 50,000 florins on condition of his not forming a 
 matrimonial alliance with an Austrian princess. He con- 
 tracted a left-handed marriage with Francisca von Bernedin, 
 whom he created Countess von Hohenheim, and, on his fiftieth 
 birthday, A. d. 1778, promised in a naive proclamation, which 
 was read from every pulpit in his dominions, henceforth to 
 lead a better life and to devote himself solely and wholly to 
 the welfare of his subjects. The committee, deeply moved by 
 his protestations, instantly voted him a sum of money, with 
 which he built the magnificent chateau of Hohenheim for his 
 bride. Records of every clime and of every age were here 
 collected. ■ A Turkish mosque contrasted its splendid dome 
 with the pillared Roman temple and the steepled Gothic church. 
 The castled turret rose by the massive Roman tower ; the 
 low picturesque hut of the modern peasant stood beneath the 
 shelter of the gigantesque remains of antiquity ; and imitations 
 of the pyramids of Cestius, of the baths of Diocletian, a Ro- 
 man senate-house and Roman dungeons, met the astonished 
 
 I 2
 
 116 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 
 
 eye. The pious-minded prince also established a new lottery, 
 and [a. d. 1787] in order to raise funds, sold a thousand of 
 his subjects to the Dutch, who sent them to the Indies, whence 
 but few of them returned. They were, moreover, cheated of 
 their legal pay. The sale of public appointments also recom- 
 menced. The duke had, since 1770, occupied himself with the 
 Charles College, so called after him, where the scholars, who 
 were kept with military severity, received excellent instruc- 
 tion in all the free sciences. This academy produced many 
 men of talent. The curse of tyranny, nevertheless, lay over 
 the country, and one of the students belonging to the academy, 
 the gi'cat Frederick Schiller, grew up in hatred of the yoke 
 and fled. Schubart, an older and equally liberal poet, was 
 treacherously seized and confined by the duke for ten years on 
 the Hohenasberg. 
 
 In Baden, the Margrave, Charles Frederick, became cele- 
 brated for tlie mildness and beneficence of his government. 
 He abolished feudal service, a. d. 1783. 
 
 In Hesse-Cassel reigned the Landgrave Frederick, who 
 sought to raise Cassel to a residence of the first rank, expected 
 palaces and chateaux, laid out pleasure-grounds, founded 
 academies, immense museums, etc., and was ever in want of 
 money. Among other public nuisances, he established a lot- 
 tery, and, after draining the purses of his miserable subjects, 
 enriched himself by selling their persons. In 1776, he con- 
 cluded a treaty with England, by which he agreed to furnish 
 twelve thousand Hessians for the service of her colonies.* 
 Hesse-Cassel, at that period, merely contained four hundred 
 thousand inhabitants. English commissioners visited Cassel 
 
 * " Almost all the princes are marcha7ids d'kommes for the powers that 
 pay them highest for the men and take them ou the easiest conditions." — 
 
 M'etnoires de Feuqxderes " A couple of a thousand years ago it was 
 
 said of the Tyrians, ' that their merchants were princes.' We can say 
 with equal truth, ' our princes have become merchants, they offer every 
 thing for sale, rank, decorations, titles, law, and justice, and even the per- 
 sons of their subjects.' " " There is a Hessian prince of high dis- 
 tinction. He has magnificent palaces, pheasant-preserves at Wilhelms- 
 bad, operas, mistresses, etc. These things cost money. He has, more- 
 over, a hoard of debts, the result of the luxury of his sainted forefathers. 
 What does the prince do in tliis dilemma I He seizes an unlucky fel- 
 low in the street, expends fifty dollars in his equipment, sends him out of 
 the country, and gets a hundred dollars for him in exchange." — Huer- 
 gelmer.
 
 THE LESSER GERMAX COURTS. 117 
 
 and examined the men purcliased by tlieir government; as if 
 they had been cattle for sale. The complaints of parents for 
 the loss of their sons were severely punished, the men -were 
 imprisoned, the women sent to the penitentiary. This human 
 traffic was also carried on during the reign of George William, 
 Frederick's son and successor. The last Hessians sent to the 
 colonies were four thousand in number, a. d. 1794. The 
 celebrated Seume relates in his biography : " No one was at 
 that time safe from the understrappers of this trafficker in the 
 bodies and souls of men. Every means were resorted to ; 
 persuasion, cunning, fraud, violence. Foreigners of every 
 sort were seized, thrown into prison, and sold. My academical 
 inscription, the only proof of my legitimation, was torn to 
 pieces." Seume was sent out of the country with the Hessians 
 to fight for England against the Americans during tlie war of 
 independence. His daily recreation, the study of Horace, at- 
 tracted the attention of his superiors and he was made 
 sergeant. An enthusiastic republican, he was compelled to 
 serve against those who so gloriously asserted their freedom 
 
 and their rights. Hanau also furnished one thousand two 
 
 hundred ; Waldeck, several hundred German slaves ; Wiirtem- 
 berg, Saxe-Gotha, and the bishop of Mlinster followed their 
 example. Louis IX. of Hesse-Darmstadt, the best drummer 
 in the holy Roman empire, expired, A. D. 1790. 
 
 Frederick, ]\Iargrave of Bayreuth, expended the whole re- 
 venue of his petty territory in buikling, in theatres, and fetes. 
 Frederick II., his brother-in-law, on viewing the splendid 
 plan of the Hermitage, observed, " In this I cannot equal you." 
 He died A. d. 1763, without issue, and Bayreuth fell to Alex- 
 ander, Margrave of Ansbach, wlio was completely governed 
 by his misti'ess, an English- worn an. Lady Craven, and who 
 sold fifteen hundred of his subjects to England for colonial 
 service. On their refusal to march, he sent them out of the 
 country in chains. His frequent travels, in whicli he was 
 accompanied by Lady Craven, cost the country enormous sums, 
 and he at length, first secretly, then openly, ceded the 
 whole territory together with its inhabitants to Prussia. The 
 Margraviate would, on account of the failure of legitimate 
 issue, independently of this cession, have reverted to the 
 Prussian line. The excellent administration of the minister.
 
 118 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 
 
 Hardenberg, had, since 1792, consoled the people for the 
 miseries they had so long endured. 
 
 Charles, duke of Brunswick, who reigned during the seven 
 years' war, was a spendthrift, paid Niccolini, the ballet-master, 
 a salary of 30,000 dollars, sold his subjects, and was ever on 
 bad terms witli his Estates. His brothers, Anthony Ulric, who 
 espoused a niece of Anna, empress of Russia, and whose son 
 mounted the Russian throne, Louis, who acquired such un- 
 popularity in Holland, and Ferdinand, the great leader in the 
 seven years' war, gained greater celebrity. , Two of his bro- 
 tiiers also fell during the seven years' war, Albert at Sorr, 
 Frederick at Hochkirch. His sister, Elisabeth Christina, 
 was consort to Frederick I. His son and successor, Ferdinand, 
 who had greatly distinguished himself in the field, introduced 
 a better system. His refined and cultivated mind and bene- 
 volent heart rendered him the idol of the freemasons, who 
 elected him their grand-master in Germany, His court was 
 constantly visited by foreigners of note. He, however, evinced 
 too great partiality for tlie French.* He also sold, owing to 
 his connexion with England, four thousand men for her colo- 
 nial service. His brother, Frederick Augustus, came into 
 possession of CEls in right of his wife, a princess of Wiirtem- 
 berg. His second brother, Leopold, was drowned [a. d. 1785] 
 in a flood at Frankfort on the Oder, whilst nobly attempting 
 to save the lives of the citizens. 
 
 England raised troops in Hanover and sent four thousand 
 men to Gibraltar, whilst the Germans, purchased from Hesse, 
 etc., were despatched to the East Indies, there to gain un- 
 grateful laurels in the war with Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib. 
 Hanover was governed by Field-marshal Freitag, who intro- 
 duced English Toryism into Germany and gave the first 
 example of the ministerial and aristocratic pride, now almost, 
 as it were, hereditary in that state. Zimmermann, a Swiss 
 physician, a man distinguished hitherto for the liberality of 
 his opinions, was transformed into a servile critic. His other 
 distinguished compatriots, John Miiller and Girtanner, also 
 sold themselves, soul and body, to the despotic foreigner. The 
 elector, George III., sat on the throne of England, the slave of 
 
 * On one occasion, his table being solely occupied by French guests, 
 one of them impudently told him that he was the only foreigner present. 
 
 I
 
 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 119 
 
 insolent ministers and of a factious mob. His life was often 
 attempted by madmen. His own mind became at length 
 affected. He was also afflicted with an hereditary disorder in 
 the eyes, and, after having for some time discovered iBdubitable 
 signs of mental derangement, entirely lost [a. d. 1811] his 
 eyesight and his senses. He lived until 1820 in complete se- 
 clusion, his son George, who succeeded him as George IV., the 
 finest gentleman, the most immoral character, and the greatest 
 monarch of his times, governing in his stead as Prince Regent.* 
 
 Oldenburg ceased [a. d. 1773] to be a province of Den- 
 mark and became one of Russia, the Holstein-Gottorp branch 
 of the ancient house of Oldenburg, reigning in Russia, ceding 
 Holstein in exchange to the branch of that house on the throne 
 of Denmark. Oldenburg was created a duchy by the Rus- 
 sian emperor and declared the hereditary property of Frederick 
 Augustus, prince of Holstein. Germany suffered another loss 
 by the reannexation of Holstein to Denmark. Peter, the only 
 eon of the duke, was tormented by rehgious scruples and fled 
 from his bride, the Pi'incess Sophia of Darmstadt, on their 
 wedding-day. He became completely deranged and was 
 finally compelled to yield the reins of government to his cousin, 
 Peter Frederick Louis. 
 
 The most terrible abuses were committed in the lesser states, 
 where they attracted less notice. Count William von Schaum- 
 burg-Lippe, who gained great distinction as field-marshal in 
 the Portuguese service and was in his own country honoured 
 as the father and benefactor of his people, offers an honour- 
 able exception. Tlie rest of the petty piinces imitated the 
 extravagance of their more powerful neiglibours. Frederick 
 Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst dissipated the revenue of his petty 
 territory in France, never returned home, and forbade, under 
 pain of punishment, petitions to be sent to him. Haase, the 
 privy-counsellor, governed in his stead, and shamelessly de- 
 frauded the people by artfully multiplying his ofl[ices to such 
 a degree, that Sintenis, the author, for instance, was compelled 
 to appeal from Haase, the privy-counsellor, through Haase, 
 
 * The mental malady of his royal father, ■wliich had been for some 
 time suspected, was placed beyond all doubt by his address to the House 
 on opening parliament, which he gravely commenced with the words — 
 " My lords, gentlemen, and woodcocks, cocking up your tails ! " and 
 proceeded witliout a single deviation through the remainder of the speech.
 
 120 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 
 
 the privy-counsellor, to Haase, the privy-counsellor. He also 
 sold twelve hundred men for the service of the English 
 colonies. Frederick Augustus, on learning the execution of 
 the French king, refused to take food and died in great mental 
 agony. In Anhalt-Bernburg, the peasantry rebelled on ac- 
 count of the devastation caused by tlie strict protection of the 
 game, a. d. 1752. Charles William of Nassau beat a peasant, 
 accused of poaching, to death with his own hand, and was in 
 consequence banished by Joseph II. for some years from his 
 own dominions. 
 
 The follies perpetrated in almost all the petty countships, 
 several of which were gradually raised to principalities, are 
 perfectly incredible. Barons of tlie empire even held a petty 
 court and aped the pretensions and titles, nay, the military 
 show of their powerful neighbours. A Count von Limburg- 
 Styrum kept a corps of hussars, which consisted of one 
 colonel, six officers, and two privates. There were court- 
 counsellors attached to the smallest barony belonging to tlie 
 empire, and, in Franconia and Swabia, the petty lords had 
 their private gallows, the symbol of high jurisdiction. These 
 vanities were however expensive, and the wretched serfs, 
 •whose few numbers rendered the slightest impost burthen- 
 some, were compelled to furnish means for the lavish expendi- 
 ture of their haughty lords.* 
 
 The ecclesiastical courts had long fallen into the lowest 
 depths of depravity. Their temporal luxury had increased. 
 Frederick Charles, of the family of Erthal, elector of May- 
 ence, acted the part of a Leo X., patronized the arts and 
 sciences, but lived so openly with his mistresses, that May- 
 ence, infected by the example of the court, became a den of 
 infamy.f The ecclesiastical princes plainly perceived the ira- 
 
 * Vide the account of these miniature courts in Weber's Democritus. 
 
 t " Incredible things take place here in Mayence. A prize thesis, in 
 proof of the excellency of celibacy, has just been proposed by a prince, 
 around whose tlirone stand three mistresses." — Letter i of a travelling 
 Dane. " I saw the elector in his box at the theatre, surrounded by ladies 
 in full dress, whom I was told were actually court-ladies, court-ladies of 
 an archbishop ! On Dalberg's nomination as coadjutor to the arch- 
 bishopric, a triumphal arch was erected in his honour with the inscrip- 
 tion ' Immortalitati ' in a transparency. Either accidentally or purposely 
 the letter t in the third syllable was omitted." — Travels of a French Emi- 
 grant. " On the publication of Heinse's obscene romance, Ardinghello, 
 the archbishop sent him 20 louis d'or, and appointed him his lecturer. A
 
 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 121 
 
 possibility of the restoration of ancient episcopal simplicity, 
 and, unconscious of their approaching fall, pursued a common 
 plan, that of rounding off their territories, (Cologne had al- 
 ready annexed to itself Miinster, Mayence Worms,* Treves, 
 Augsburg,t and "NViirzburg Bamberg,) and, as a next step, 
 declaring themselves, like the Gallic church, independent of 
 Kome. Since the expulsion of the Jesuits, they had the im- 
 perial house (in Cologne, Joseph's brother Maximilian became 
 [a. d. 1780] coadjutor and shoi'tly afterwards archbishop 
 elector) and the enlightenment of the age, moreover, on 
 their side. As early as 1763, Ilontheim, the suftVagan-bishop 
 of Treves, had, under the name of Justus Febronius, pub- 
 lished a work " concerning the state of the church and the 
 legal power of the pope," which had excited general attention, 
 and [a. d. 1785] the German archbishops in the congress of 
 Bad Ems had, notwitlistanding the opposition raised by Pacca, 
 the papal legate, (tlie same who, at a later period under 
 Napoleon, accompanied the pope into exile,) attacked the 
 primacy of Rome, the false decretals of Isidore, and all the 
 rights so long exercised by the pope over the German church, 
 on the grounds set forth in that work. Eybel's work, " (Juid 
 est Papa ? " was condemned by a papal bull. 
 
 The ecclesiastical states were, if possible, worse administer- 
 ed than the temporal ones. The proverb " It is good to dwell 
 beneath the crosier" was no longer verified. The people were 
 oppressed and reduced to the most abject poverty. The bi- 
 shop of Miinster sold his subjects to heretical England. And 
 yet this bishop, Francis Frederick William von FLirstenberg,^ 
 
 Jew at Mayence kept a subscription library, full of the most immoral and 
 licentious works, under the protection of the police." — liemaiks on a 
 Journey from Strassbourff to the Baltic. The archbishops were kept in 
 countenance by the aristocratic canons, who accumulated benefices to 
 such a degree, that one of the provosts of the cathedral, for instance, a 
 Count von Elz, drew an annual income of 75,000 goldens from the church. 
 The Favorite, a chateau built in the French style, was erected by the 
 elector Lothar Francis von Stadion Lang's Travels on the lilnne, 1805. 
 
 * In this city there was not a pretty girl who had not been cither 
 "niece or sister "to some ecclesiastic. The peasants here also rebelled 
 on account of the game-laws. Vide Travels of a Female Emigrant. 
 
 t A governor of Augsburg arrested all pedestrian travellers and sold 
 them to the Prussian recruiting sergeants. — Schlozer. 
 
 X Of the Westphalian baronial family. He published the IMonumenta 
 Paderbornensia immediately on his nomination to the bishopric of Pader-
 
 122 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 
 
 was celebrated for his learning and founded the MUnster uni- 
 versity, [a. d. 1773,] at the time of the expulsion of the Jesuits. 
 The Baron von Brabeck, a member of the diet, opposed the 
 bad government of Francis Egon, Count von Fiirstenberg, of 
 the Swabian line, Bishop of Hildesheim, but was persecuted 
 as a revolutionist. The bishop of Spires, who was on bad 
 terms with his chapter, constantly resided at his chateau 
 at Bruchsal.* The bishop of Liege was expelled by a popular 
 outbreak, caused by the great revenue drawn by him from the 
 gaming tables established at Spa — a scandalous mode of in- 
 creasing his income, against which the Estates had vainly pro- 
 tested. Philip, elector of Treves, built [a. d. 1763] the cha- 
 teau of Philippsfreude, besides the sumptuous residence at 
 Coblentz. Clement Augustus, the luxurious archbishop of 
 Cologne, built the royal residence at Bonn, the chateaux of Pop- 
 pelsdorf, Briihl, and Falkenlust. His successor, INIaximilian Fre- 
 derick, expended the confiscated wealth of the Jesuits more use- 
 fully in the foundation of an academy. Bonn remained, notwith- 
 standing, the abode of luxury. The last elector, Maximilian 
 Francis, brother to Joseph II., kept one hundred and twenty- 
 nine chamberlains. Joseph, bishop of Passau, one of the 
 
 Auersperg family, built a theatre and the chateau of Freuden- 
 hayn, where he expired, A. d. 1 795. The French clergy were 
 still more depraved. Cardinal Rohan, bishop of Strassburg, 
 canned an innocent girl away from her parents and kept her, 
 together with several others, imprisoned in his harem at Za- 
 bern. She escaped, and, although a regular search after her 
 was set on foot throughout the country, did not again fall into 
 his hands. The matter, however, excited such general in- 
 dignation that he was compelled to take refuge in Paris, where 
 he courted the queen, Marie Antoinette, and was mixed up with 
 the celebrated story of the necklace. f The whole of the upper 
 clergy battened on the sufferings of the people. The popular 
 saying, "Where you see people with their clothes worn out at the 
 elbow, you are on church property ; where you see people with 
 their clothes worn out beneath the arm, you are in a temporal 
 
 born. Sclilozer quotes a curious episcopal rescript of 1783, concerning 
 tlie preservation of game and the punishment of poachers. 
 
 « " Never ^vas a sliepherd less careful of his flock, never was there a 
 flock less attached to its shepherd! " — Travels of a Female Emigrant. 
 
 t See Riem's Journey through France.
 
 THE LESSER GERMAN COURTS. 123 
 
 state," truly tells the difference existing between temporal 
 and ecclesiastical principalities. The statistics of the mon- 
 asteries abolished by Joseph II. demonstrate how the monks 
 and nuns feasted on the sweat of the people. In the Clarisser 
 nunnery were found 919 casks of wine, in the Dominican nun- 
 nery at Imbach 3655, and in the establishment of canonesses 
 at Himmelporten as many as 6800. The people in the eccle- 
 siastical states were totally uneducated, stupid, and bigoted. 
 In 1789, the populace of Cologne attempted to assassinate all 
 the Protestant inhabitants on account of the intention of the 
 imperial Aulic council to grant to tliem liberty of conscience. 
 
 Frederick, duke of York, the second son of George III. 
 
 of England, was, [a. d. 1764,] when six months old, created 
 bishop of Osnabrlick, which was alternately governed by a 
 Catholic and a Lutheran bishop. During his administration, 
 a socman was condemned to draw the plough for life for having 
 ventured to box a steward's ears for taking his affianced bride 
 from him by force and bestowing her on another.* 
 
 Alsace and Lorraine fell beneath the intolerable despotism 
 exercised by the French court in unison with the degenerate 
 clergy and nobility. Strassburg was, in the most shameless 
 manner, plundered by the prajtor, Klinglin. On the visit of 
 Louis XY. [a. d. 1744] to that city, he compelled the citi- 
 zens to paint, ornament, and illuminate their houses, to wear 
 curious uniforms, according to their rank and trades, arranged 
 the women and children in fantastical troops of shepherd- 
 esses and Swiss, caused the fountains to flow with wine, 
 and strictly prohibited the presence of sick, diseased, or poor 
 persons, for the purpose of impressing the monarch with 
 the wealth and prospei'ity of the people. Schopflin, the au- 
 thor of Ahatia illustrata, had on this occasion the meanness to 
 address the cowardly, dull-witted, luxurious king, who, to the 
 scandal of his subjects, was openly accompanied by his mistress, 
 the ]\Iarquise de Pompadour, and whose unprincipled govern- 
 ment mainly brought about the French Revolution, as " the 
 father of the country, the patron of the muses, the liberator of 
 Alsace, and a great hero." Friese, in his excellent history of 
 Strassburg, exclaims, " The fine, honest character of the people 
 of Strassburg had within the last sixty-three years (the period 
 of their submission to the French yoke) indeed deeply dege- 
 nerated ! " The whole of the festivities on the occasion of 
 * See Sclilozcr's State Archives.
 
 124 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 this royal visit were at the expense of the impoverished city, 
 whicli, moreover, paid an annual tax of 1,000,000 livres to 
 the royal exchequer. Klinglin and Paul Bek, the adminis- 
 trators of the public revenues, also filled their own purses, sold 
 the town property, the forests, appointments, and justice to 
 the highest bidder, and were at length only dismissed from 
 office by the skill with which Gail, the mayor, Faber, the 
 chief magistrate, and other patriotic citizens, took advantage 
 of a dispute between the minister, d'Argenson, with Sillery, 
 the intendant of Alsace. lOinglin died in prison, A. d. 1753 ; 
 Bek was branded and sent to the galleys. 
 
 Lorraine, Alsace, Switzerland, and Holland were not only 
 excluded from the rest of Germany, but the states still apper- 
 taining to the empire were also closed one against the other. 
 Bad roads,* a wretched postal system,! senseless prohibitions i 
 in regard to emigration or to marrying out of the country, as, 
 for instance, in the bishopric of Spires, and, more than all, the 
 incredible number of inland duties, checked the natural inter- 
 course of the Germans. From Germersheim to Rotterdam 
 there were no fewer than twenty-nine custom-houses, at all 
 of which vessels were stopped for dues ; between Bingen and 
 Coblentz alone there were seven. 
 
 CCXLII. The last days of the Empire. 
 
 The dissolution of the German empire approached. The 
 princes, powerful or weak, great or petty, had each assumed 
 sovereign sway. The bond of union between them and the 
 empire became daily more and more fragile. Ratisbon, al- 
 though still the seat of the diet, was no longer visited by the 
 emperor or by the princes. All affairs of moment were trans- 
 acted by the courts of Vienna, Berlin, Munich, etc. ; the 
 members of the diet occupied themselves with empty formal- 
 ities, such as precedence at table, the colour, form, and position 
 of their seats in the diet, concerning which no fewer than ten 
 official documents, in settlement of a dispute, appeared in 1748. 
 
 * From Stuttgard to Tubingen, now half a day's post, two days were 
 formerly requisite. People prepared with the greatest anxiety for a 
 journey to the nearest towns. Bad roads and overturned carriages play 
 a prominent part in the romances of the time. 
 
 t Vide the complaints concerning it in SchliJzer's state-papers. 
 
 \ For instance, in Bavaria. Whoever attempted to induce others to 
 emigrate was hanged, 1764. — History of Nuremberg.
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE. 125 
 
 At a congress held at Offenbach, [a. d. 1740,] the petty princes 
 made an unsuccessful attempt to place themselves on an equal- 
 ity with the electors and to interfere with the election of the 
 emperor. The collegium of the imperial free towns, whenever 
 it ventured upon opposition, was generally outvoted at the 
 diet by those of the princes and electors, and had lost all its 
 influence. Wetzlar was still the seat of the imperial chamber, 
 which was also far from securing the slightest legal protection 
 to the German people and became gradually more completely 
 absorbed with formalities, in proof of which a single example 
 suffices, the lawsuit brought before it [a. d. 1549] by the city 
 of Gelnhausen, which was not terminated until 1 734. Cramer 
 has filled one hundred and twenty-eight volumes (Wetzlar 
 Leisure-hours) with the most important lawsuits of the empire, 
 which are only striking on account of their extreme unimport- 
 ance. The same may be said of the imperial Aulic council at 
 Vienna. Prince Colloredo, the imperial vice-chancellor, when 
 complaints against the unjust imprisonment of Moser, the 
 counsellor of the diet, were brought before the imperial cham- 
 ber, sent directions to Wetzlar for their suppression.* The 
 imperial Aulic council was equally suborned ; in 1765, one of 
 the members declared at Prince CoUoredo's table, " that no 
 proceedings could be taken against Louis IX., Landgrave of 
 Hesse, for the sake of a couple of Frankfort merchants." All 
 the complaints made against this luxurious despot by his cre- 
 ditors were, in fact, unheeded, nor was it until 1779 that his 
 creditors were half satisfied by a composition. When, in 1 729, 
 the youthful son and heir of one of the lords of Aufsess in 
 Franconia was carried by force to Bamberg and by threats 
 and ill-treatment compelled to embrace Catholicism, his mo- 
 ther, who had narrowly escaped sharing his fate, filled the 
 empire with her ci'ies for justice and vengeance, the imperial 
 Aulic council passed a vei'dict in her favour- — which was never 
 carried into effect. Joseph II., moved by the petitions of his 
 people, was the first who attempted to restore power and dig- 
 nity to the general courts of judicature throughout the empire, 
 but his intended visitation fell to the ground, and all remained 
 as before. The imperial army, an assemblage of small, and 
 extremely small, contingents, had, more especially since the 
 seven years' war, naturally become an object of ridicule. A 
 * Moser, Political Truths.
 
 126 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 petty prince or count furnished the lieutenant, another the 
 captain, a monastery furnished the horse-soldier, a nunnery 
 the horse ; a most remarkable diversity in weapons and uni- 
 forms naturally resulted from the subdivision of the empire 
 into petty states. 
 
 The power no longer lay in the organization of the empire 
 and with the Estates, but solely in the new principalities and 
 their bureaucratic governments. All the great states of 
 Germany were first formed on a French, afterwards, on a 
 Prussian model. From Louis XIV. the princes learnt despot- 
 ism, the art of rendering the Estates, the nobility, the church, 
 and the cities subservient to their will ; from Frederick II. 
 they acquired a regulated form of government, the art of con- 
 centrating the power of the state in the finances and in the 
 army, in which the French system was far surpassed by that 
 of Prussia. In Fi-ance, the convenient system of farming the 
 state prevailed ; all the offices of state were either sold or 
 farmed, which consequently gave rise to a competition, which 
 raised the prices of the offices, between the government 
 and the officers, who sought to reimburse themselves by in- 
 creasing the burthens of the people. In Germany, the more 
 honest, but at tlie same time more troublesome, system of con- 
 trol prevailed. The systematic love for detail characteristic of 
 the German gave rise to that artificial bureaucracy or su- 
 premacy of the clerk's office, which, under the name of the 
 strictest justice, has perhaps proved the most oppressive of 
 tyrannies. The ministry, actuated by a pure love of justice or 
 by paternal solicitude, ere long sought to know and to guide 
 every thing from the palace down to the lowest peasant's hut ; 
 the want of money also obliged them to make themselves 
 acquainted with, to watch, and to tax the smallest source 
 of private revenue ; these systematic heads were ere long 
 merely occupied with regulating and filling in their regis- 
 ters, as if the state solely existed in their tables, and finally, 
 increasing political agitation heightened the power of the 
 police, by whom the system of espionage was carried to the 
 greatest extreme. 
 
 Besides the new and Argus-eyed governments, shadows of 
 diets still existed in Wiirtemberg, Saxony, Mecklenburg, An- 
 halt, Lippe, and Reuss. The nobility were every where still 
 extremely powerful, but solely by means of the posts held by
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE. 127 
 
 them at court, in the government and army. Their personal 
 privileges had increased at the expense of their political and 
 corporate rights. The cities had also lost all political power, 
 but the citizens had begun by their talents to gain an influence in 
 the service of the state. The peasantry were almost more op- 
 pressed by the new system of taxation than they had formerly 
 been by the nobility and were universally poor and harassed ; 
 the government, nevertheless, gradually released them from 
 their feudal bonds, promoted the progress of enlightenment, 
 and by so doing prepared them for a complete emancipation 
 from their yoke. 
 
 The church played a most lamentable part. "Whilst in the 
 Catholic, more particularly in the petty states, the influence of 
 the Jesuits was preserved by the child-like piety and super- 
 stitious belief of the people, by fetes and processions, mum- 
 meries, etc.,* the ecclesiastical princes, as has been already 
 shown, gave way to the most open profligacy, and Eome was 
 deprived of her ancient support in the German empire by the 
 abolition of the order of Jesus, the reforms of Joseph II., and 
 by the congress of Ems. The church had never been so 
 powerless. The princes exercised increased power over 
 
 * The largest collection of these religions mummeries is to be met 
 with in the numerous works of the Illuminati and in Weber's " Ger- 
 many." Religion had degenerated to childish ceremonies. The Mother 
 of God was dressed up like a doll in order to appear in gala on festive oc- 
 casions. Pretty girls appeared on asses in processions as living Madon- 
 nas, and doves were let loose in the churches as living representatives of 
 the Holy Ghost. On the great pilgrimages of the people of Mayenc*, 
 Fulda, and Eichsfeld, to Waldlhiiren, the priest bearing the pyx was re- 
 ceived with due solemnity by a well-dressed angel, who delivered an ora- 
 tion. — Schlozer's State Archives. In 1790, the procession of blood, an an- 
 cient ceremony performed by all the authorities and inliabitants of the 
 neighbourhood, was solemnized at Constance ; seven thousand horsemen, 
 bearing naked swords and rosaries, accompanied a drop of the Saviour's 
 blood around the fields for the purpose of preserving them against injury 
 from the weather. Vide Swabian Mercury, 1838. Religious comedies 
 witli allegorical representations, pilgrimages, processions of brotherhoods 
 in honour of particular saints, were all calculated upon as means of work- 
 ing upon the senses of the multitude, who, on these occasions, usually 
 gave way to unbounded licence. The pilgrimages were especially notori- 
 ous for immoral results. The numerous, well-fed, and idle clergy con- 
 trived by means of ceremonies of this nature to creep into houses and to 
 seduce the innocent and unwary. No domestic affair could be arranged 
 without the interference of a priest. They blessed the stable, the table 
 and the bed, the field and the cattle, even the daily food, etc. etc.
 
 128 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 the Lutheran and Reformed churches within their demesnes. 
 The sovereign possessed the Jus majestaticum circa Uturgiam, 
 that is, the triple right ; 1st, of granting the free exercise of 
 religion according to a certain confession of faith, Xhe jus con- 
 cedendi; 2nd, of internal inspection {inspectio) ; 3rd, of ex- 
 ternal protection (advocatlo). 
 
 In Lutheran Saxony, where the sovereign belonged to the 
 Catholic, in Lutheran Prussia, to the Reformed, church, these 
 princes fur some time granted, from a political motive, full 
 liberty to the Lutheran clergy, and, in order to avoid raising 
 any unnecessary excitement among the people, but little inter- 
 fered with ecclesiastical affairs. The new system had, how- 
 ever, scarcely come into play, than Frederick William I. made 
 a powerful attack upon the church, convoked a synod of the 
 whole of the Prussian clergy [a, d. 1737] at Koslin, regu- 
 lated the Lutheran service by cabinet orders, abolished the use 
 of tapers, white dresses for the choristers, etc., the collection of 
 money within the church ; placed restrictions on the adminis- 
 tration of the holy sacrament, as, for instance, to the impenitent, 
 and even prescribed rules for preaching. The whole of his de- 
 crees were calculated for the promotion of religion and morality. 
 His son, Frederick IL, acted with equal despotism but with a con- 
 trary purpose. His object was to relax, not to heighten, religious 
 austerity. AVith this intent, he neutralized one confession of faith 
 by the other by tolerating them all and by encouraging modern 
 French intidelity by his kno\\Ti principles and by his writings. 
 With this intent, he abolished his father's ordinances, permit- 
 ted all who chose to carry tapers and to wear white robes, 
 whilst all confessions were equally the objects of his ridicule. 
 On the introduction of a new psalm-book, against which se- 
 veral of the communes protested, by the consistory in 1780, 
 he wrote, " Every body may do as he chooses in this matter ; 
 every one is at liberty to sing, ' Now may all the forests rest,' 
 or any other silly thing that may suit his taste." With this 
 intent, he abolished public penance in churches and essentially 
 restricted the power of the church in awarding punishment in 
 cases of immorality. With this intent, he diminished the num- 
 ber of church festivals, notwithstanding the few that still re- 
 mained, and, in order to prevent the clergy from ever again 
 becoming an obstacle in his way, gave them a new constitution, 
 by which their collegiate ties were dissolved, which isolated 
 
 I
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE. 129 
 
 and placed them under the control of a supreme consistory en- 
 tirely dependent upon the crown. The lower clergy were also 
 utterly demoralized by the system of patronage. The candi- 
 date served for years as a tutor, bore every species of humili- 
 ation, and was tinally rewarded by the gift of a living on the 
 property of his noble patron. The new pastor was often com- 
 pelled to bind himself to make a transfer of the property and 
 privileges attached to the living. As early as 1558, conse- 
 quently in the earliest period of the Reformation, one of the 
 church ordonnances in Brandenburg ran as follows : " Some of 
 the noble patrons not being in the habit of keeping a pastor, 
 a portion of the revenue of the living must, in consideration 
 thereof, be kept back for them," etc. This brietly explains the 
 poverty of the majority of the livings.* The custom was also 
 introduced by the licentious nobility of disposing of their cast- 
 off mistresses together with a living or of attaching the gift 
 to the hand of the widow or daughter of the deceased pastor, 
 in order to spare themselves the inconvenience of providing 
 for her maintenance. In 1746, the following oath was, at 
 Hildburghausen, imposed upon the clergy on their installation 
 into a living, " I swear that, as a means of gaining this appoint- 
 ment, a certain woman has not been offered to me in marriage." 
 The lower clergy, notwithstanding their oppressed state and 
 their poverty, have, however, generally maintained their re- 
 putation and by their piety and morality frustrated the 
 attempts made to reduce them to the lowest depths of de- 
 gradation, in the same manner that the people have never been 
 wholly perverted by the pernicious example of their rulers. 
 
 Among the Lutheran states, AVlirtemberg was chiefly 
 
 distinguished for the comparative independence of her clergy, 
 who, reared from early youth in monastic academies, and, last- 
 ly, in the college at TUbingen, formed a class, at once influen- 
 tial on account of its learning and its corporative spirit and of 
 the church property it still possessed. It was represented in 
 the diet by fourteen prelates. 
 
 The dead-letter spirit, which had become prevalent among 
 the Protestants, which had again degraded theology to mere 
 scholasticism and had not only maintained but strengthened 
 the ancient superstition of the crowd, as, for instance, in 
 
 * Concerning the State of Religion in the Prussian States. Leipzig, 
 1779. 
 
 VOL. III. K
 
 130 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 respect to witchcraft, had gradually vanished as knowledge 
 was increased by the study of the classics and of natural 
 philosophy. Halle became for this second period of the Re- 
 formation what Wittenberg had been for the first. As Luther 
 formerly struggled against the monks and monkish super- 
 stition, Thomasius [a. d. 172S] combated Lutheran ortho- 
 doxy, overthrew the belief in witchcraft, and reintroduced the 
 use of the German language into the cathedral service, whence 
 it had long been expunged. He was succeeded [a. d. 1754] 
 by the philosopher, ^\'oif, the scholar of the great Leibnitz, 
 who beneficially enlightened the ideas of the theological stu- 
 de-nts. Before long, neology or the critical study of the Bible, 
 and a positive divinity, which sought to unite the Bible with 
 philosophy, prevailed. The founders of this school were 
 Michaelis at Gcittingen, Semler at Halle, and Ernesti at Leip- 
 zig. Mosheim at Berlin and Gellert at Leipzig greatly ele- 
 vated the tone of morality. Spalding * already attempted to 
 check the erratic progress of enlightenment. Voltaire's lam- 
 poons against Christianity had at that period spread over 
 Germany, and Berlin had become the elysium of free-thinkers. 
 Besides Frederick, Lessing exercised great influence on this 
 party. Nicolai, the noted Berlin bookseller, in his Universal 
 German Library, began a criticism upon all the works pub- 
 lished in Germany.f Shortly before this, Thunimel had, also 
 at Berlin, brought forward the degraded state of the Protest- 
 ant clergy in his excellent poem " Wilhelmina ;" Xicolai con- 
 tinued the subject in a romance, " Sebaldus Nothanker," in 
 which he gave a masterly description of the state of the Pro- 
 testant church at that time and excited a feeling of hatred and 
 contempt against the reigning consistories, with which the 
 wearing of perukes was. among other things, a point of high 
 importance. The Catholic clergy had disdained their adop- 
 tion ; their Protestant brethren, however, opposed them in 
 this as in aU other matters, and no Lutheran preacher con- 
 sequently durst make liis appearance in public unperuked. 
 Heaps of controversial works were published on this subject. 
 
 * John Joachim Spalding, a celebrated Swedish divine and author, 
 born 1714. He •«Tote several able works: the " Destination of Man;" 
 " Religion the most important Affair of Mankind," etc. Died 1804. — 
 Matinder's Biographical Treasury. 
 
 t This work was continued forty years, though Nicolai ceased to edit 
 it at the end of the hundred and seventh volume, in 1792 — Trakslator.
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIEE. 131 
 
 Mauvillon, "Wiinsch, and, more especially. Paalzow, ■wrote 
 
 with great fanaticism against tlie Christian religion. Schum- 
 mel, at Breslau, warned against free-thinking in a romance, 
 entitled " The little Voltaire," which affords a deep insight 
 into the wild confusion of ideas at that time prevalent, and 
 describes the writings, secret societies, and intrigues of the 
 free-thinkers. Barth, at Halle, by means of his popnlar 
 works, attempted to spread among the people tlie ideas at 
 that time convulsing the learned world, but was with his Ra- 
 tionalism, which he sought to set up in opposition to Chris- 
 tianity, too shallow and coarse to be attractive. 
 
 Liberty of thought had degenerated to free-thinking, and, 
 like every abuse, speedily produced a reaction. ' John Arndt, 
 a native of Aniialt, published his popular treatise " On true 
 Christianity," in the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
 The learned divines were, notwithstanding, first led to teach 
 a religion of the heart, instead of inculcating a mere dead- 
 letter belief, by Spener, who [a. D. 1670] founded a collegium 
 pietatis at PVankfurt a i\I., and [a. d. 170.5] was appointed 
 chaplain to the court at Dresden and provost at Berlin. He 
 replaced Christian love on her rightful throne, and to him is 
 the Protestant church i'ar more deeply indebted than to the 
 philosophers of the day, although his tine and comprehensive 
 ideas were carried but little into practice. He demanded to- 
 leration of every confession of faith and their union by Chris- 
 tian love ; he rejected the sovereignty assumed by the state 
 over the church as well as the authority of the consistories 
 and faculties, and aimed at the emancipation of tlie Christian 
 commonwealth.* His followers, the Pietists, who have been 
 greatly calumniated, were grievously persecuted on account of 
 their extravagant tendencies. One of their number, Gichtel, 
 the proctor of the imperial chamber, founded the sect of the 
 Engelsbriider. Hoburg, the Anabaptist, Petersen, the poly- 
 grapher, the ill-fated Kuhlmann, who attempted to blend all 
 religions into one but was burnt alive at ^loscow, [a. d. 1G89,] 
 and several female seers drew general attention. Franke, 
 the worthy founder of the orphan school at Halle, followed in 
 Spener's steps. Pietism took a pecuhar form at Herrnhut, 
 where Count Zinzendorf founded a new church of love and 
 fraternity, the members of which obeyed particular laws 
 
 * Vide Hossbach, Spener. 
 K -2
 
 132 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 and wore a particular dress. The gentleness and simplicity 
 of this community strongly contrasted with the wild licence 
 prevalent in Saxony during the reign of Augustus, the reac- 
 tion to which had given them bii'th. They termed themselves 
 the Moravian Brethren, some remnants of the ancient Huss- 
 ites having passed over to them. The accession of numbers of 
 Bohemians belonging to the Lichtenstein estates drew a re- 
 clamation from the Saxon government. A number of the 
 Bohemians took refuge in Prussia, and Zinzendorf, who was 
 banished Saxony for ten years, established himself in the an- 
 cient Konneburg in the AV'etterau. By his conference with 
 Frederick WiUiam I., who learnt to esteem him highly, by his 
 connexion with several other religiously inclined persons of 
 high rank, the Counts Reuss and Dohna, the lords of Seidlitz 
 in Silesia, etc., by his frequent travels and his extreme pru- 
 dence, he, nevertheless, speedily succeeded in regaining his 
 former footing. As early as 1733, he sent numbers of pil- 
 grims into distant countries for the purpose of propagating re- 
 ligion and of converting the heathen. He twice visited the 
 savages of North America as a missionary. The resolute 
 piety, which induced so many homely artificers to quit all for 
 the sake of propagating the gospel amid the snows of Green- 
 land and Lapland or in the burning climes of the East, where 
 they succeeded in converting great numbers, affords at once a 
 touching and instructive lesson. By means of their colonies, 
 they formed important commercial connexions, created a 
 market for home produce, and, by the credit they acquired by 
 their reputation for the strict uprightness of their dealings, 
 gained immense riches. Their prosperity put their opponents 
 to the blush ; they were ridiculed and esteemed. Spangen- 
 berg succeeded Zinzendorf as head of the society, whose mem- 
 bers are said to have amounted, at the commencement of the 
 present century, to half a million. Their principal to\\Tis are 
 Herrnhut, Barby, Neuwied, and Ziest near Utrecht ; most of 
 those of lesser note are distinguished by religious or biblical 
 names, such as Gnadenberg, (Gfiode, grace,) Gnadenfeld, 
 Gnadenfrei, Gnadenhlitte, Gnadenau, Friedenthal, (valley of 
 peace,) Friedenberg, etc., Bethlehem, Nazareth, Salem, Beth- 
 any, etc. The child-like simplicity and gentleness of the 
 Herrnhuters highly recommended them as instructors of the
 
 LIBERAL TENDENCY OF THE UNIVERSITIES. 133 
 
 female sex, and, even at the present day, families, not belong- 
 ing to their society, send their daughters to be educated in 
 
 these asylums of innocence and piety. Pietism spread 
 
 simultaneously into the Bergland, where it still flourishes in 
 the Wupperthal. 
 
 CCXLIII. The liberal tendency of the Universities. 
 
 Ix proportion as the universities shook off the yoke imposed 
 by theological and juridical ignorance, {vide the trials for 
 witchcraft,) tiie study of philosophy, languages, history, and 
 the natural sciences gained ground. A wide range was thus 
 opened to learning, and a spirit of liberality began to pre- 
 vail, which, as the first effect of its cosmopolital tendency, 
 completely blunted the patriotic feelings of the German, by 
 rendering his country a mere secondary object of interest and 
 inquiry. 
 
 The struggle between modern ideas and ancient usage be- 
 gan also in the lower academies. Kousseau proposed the 
 fundamental transformation of the human race and the crea- 
 tion of an ideal people by means of education. John Bernard 
 Basedow attempted to put his novel plans of education into 
 practice by the seminary, known as " the Philantliropinum," 
 established by him at Dessau, in which many excellent teachers 
 were formed, and by which great good was effected. Basedow, 
 nevertheless, speedily became bankrupt, to the great delight 
 of the pedants. Salzmann, in his academy of Schnepfenthal 
 near Gotha, stands almost alone in his plan for uniting phy- 
 sical exercise witli mental improvement for the attainment of 
 practical ends, for rendering the student a useful citizen, not a 
 mere bookworm. Kochow published his celebrated "Children's 
 Friend," which, together with Gellert's Fables, became a 
 favourite book for the instruction of youth, and involuntarily 
 compelled teachers not merely to inculcate blind belief and to 
 enforce the study of the dead languages, but also to form their 
 pupils' minds by awakening the imagination and strengthen- 
 ing their moral feelings by good examples. This literary at- 
 tempt, however, speedily degenerated ; Weisse published at 
 Leipzig a large " Children's Friend" in 24 volumes, for chil- 
 dren of good families, full of unchildlike absurdities, Campe,
 
 134 THE LIBERAL TENDENCY 
 
 by his " New Robinson Crusoe," * estranged the rising gener- 
 ation in their early childhood from their country and inspired 
 thf'in, perfectly in the spirit of the times, with a love of enter- 
 prise and a desire to carry their energies to some foreign or 
 far distant land. Funke taught every thing by rote and 
 smothered originality by assiduously teaching every thing, 
 even how to play. In the popular schools, the catechism, and 
 in the learned academies, grammatical pedantry, were, never- 
 theless, still retained. The best description of the state of the 
 schools in Germany, during the latter part of the past century, 
 is to be found in Schummers " Pointed Beard." The new 
 l)lans of education adopted by a few private establishments 
 and recommended in tlie numerous new publications on tiie 
 subject more particularly owed their gradual adoption to the 
 tutors, who, in their freer sphere of action, bestowed their at- 
 tention upon the arts most useful in practical life, and, out of 
 respect for the parents, introduced a more humane treatment 
 of the children. The biography of " Felix Kaskorbi," a tutor 
 aged forty, graphically depictures the torments to which he 
 and his colleagues were often exposed in their arduous and 
 useful calling. 
 
 Private and individual efforts would, however, have but 
 little availed without the beneficial reformation that took 
 place in the public academies. In England, the study of the 
 ancient classics, so well suited to the stern character and 
 liberal spirit of the people, had produced men noted for depth 
 of learning, by whom the humanities and the spirit of an- 
 tiquity were revived. Their influence extended to Hanover. 
 At Gottingen, Heyne created a school, which opposed the 
 spirit to the dead letter, and, in the study of the classics, 
 sought not merely an acquaintance with the lauguage but 
 also with the ideas of ancient times, and Winckelmann visited 
 Italy in order to furnish Germany with an account of the relics 
 of antiquity and to inspire his countrymen with a notion of 
 their sublimity and beauty. The attention of the student was 
 drawn to mythology, to ancient history, and an acquaintance 
 with the lives of the ancients led to the knowledge of modern 
 history and geography. 
 
 * Which was founded on the popular work of Defoe. — Translator.
 
 OF THE UNIVERSITIES. 135 
 
 The study of history became universal. The history of the 
 world succeeded to the records of monasteries, cities, and 
 states. The first manuals of universal history were, it must 
 be confessed, extremely dry and uninteresting, whilst the 
 great historical dictionaries of Iselin,* etc., and the collections 
 of histories of all the nations of the earth, either translated or 
 continued from the English, in which Schlcizerf already dis- 
 covered excessive sceptical severity, were, on the other hand, 
 abundantly copious. Ecclesiastical history was also briefly 
 and clearly reviewed by Spittler, and claborateh- continued by 
 Mosheim, Schrtikh, Plank, etc. Arnold | published an excel- 
 lent history of the heretics and of different sects. The first 
 geographical antiquities are collected in the Chronicon Gott- 
 wicense ; the best maps were given by Ilomann. The system- 
 atic books of instruction in geography by Hiibner, Biisching, 
 (to whom the science of statistics is greatly indebted,) Ilassel, 
 !Mannert, etc., were afterwards continued on a more extensive 
 scale. The newspapers al.«o increased in importance. The 
 Frankfurt Journal was commenced, a. i>. 161. 5, by Emel, and 
 was followed by the Postavise and the FuldaPostrcuter. The 
 Hamburg Correspondent was first published in 1710. The 
 history of the day was continued from 1617 to 1717, in the 
 Theatrum Europeum, commenced by Gottfried ; in the Diari- 
 um Europa?um of Elisius, (Meyer,) from 16o7 to 1681 ; 
 Valckenier het verwaerd Europa, from 1664 to 1676, con- 
 tinued by A. ^Miiller ; Cramer's History, from 1694 to 1698; 
 Lamberty's Memoirs, from 1700 to 1718; the Mercure His- 
 torique, Bousset, recueils des actes, from 1713 to 1748. The 
 Frankfurt Reports and the new Historical Gallery opened at 
 Nuremberg between the thirty and seven years' wars. The 
 great collection of treaties of Du Mont, from 1731 to the year 
 1800 ; the lesser one of Schmauss ; that of "Wcnk up to 1772 ; 
 the European Fama, up to the seven years' war. Scliulz von 
 Ascherode, from 1750 to 1763 ; Count Herzberg, from 1756 
 to 1778. Dohm's Memorabilia, from 1778 to 1806; Geb- 
 
 • Professor of historj' and antiquities at Marburg. Born at Basil, a. 
 D. 1681. — Transl.\tor. 
 
 t Professor of philosophy and politics at GlJttingen. Born 1737. — 
 Translator. 
 
 t Professor of poetry, history, and rhetoric at Altorf. Born 1G27.— 
 Translator.
 
 136 THE LIBERAL TENDENCY 
 
 hard, recueil des traites de 1792 to 1795. Koch and Scholl, 
 histoire des traites, up to 1815. 
 
 For German history in particular much was done first of 
 all by the great collections of tlie ancient unprinted chronicles, 
 the Scriptorcs rerum Gernianicaritm, made byEccard, Hahn, 
 Lf'ibnitz, Ludwig, Llinig, Lundorp, Meichelbek, Menken, 
 Rauch, Schannat, Schilter, »Schottgen and Kreusig, Senken- 
 berg, Soramersberg, etc. ; by the glossaries of Scherz and Ilal- 
 taus, by the collection of old German laws by Georgisch, etc. ; 
 by the histories of the empire by Struve, Iliiberlin, Piitter, 
 etc. The iirst voluminous history of Germany was written 
 by Schmidt, an enlightened Catholic. Maskou produced an ex- 
 cellent work on the ancient liistories of Germany. The best 
 provincial histories were that of Croatia by Valvasor, of Ca- 
 rinthia by Megiser, of Styria by Ciisar, of Bohemia by Pelzel, 
 of Transylvania by Schlozer, of Silesia by Kltiber, of Prussia 
 by Petri and Baczko, of Saxony by Weisse, of Anhalt by 
 l^ekmann, of Thuringia by Falkenstein, of Brunswick by 
 Ilehtraeycr, Spittler, of Westphalia by Justus Closer, of Hol- 
 stein by Christiani, of Ditmarsch by Dankwerth, Bolten, of 
 Frizeland by Wiarda, of the circle of the Saal by Dreihaupt, 
 of Alsace by Schopflin, of AViirtemberg by Sattler, of Swit- 
 zerland by Tscharner, John I^Iiiller, etc. ; John ]\Iiiller at- 
 tempted a style in imitation of Tacitus and introduced a bom- 
 bastical, affected manner, which created more astonishment 
 than admiration. He, moreover, solely aimed at representing 
 the Swiss as totally distinct from the rest of the great German 
 nation, as a petty nation fallen as it were from the skies, and 
 by so doing gave rise to a number of other provincial histories, 
 which rendered every petty principality in Germany uncon- 
 nected with the history of the empire and described them as 
 having been eternally independent and insulated. Provincial 
 
 feuds and neighbourly hatred were by this means fed. 
 
 Pollnitz, Wackerbarth, Frederick the Great, his sister, the 
 [Margravine of Bayreuth, Dohm, Gortz, Schmettau, and Schu- 
 
 lenburg wrote their memoirs. There were also numerous 
 
 histories of towns, as, for instance, that of Spires by Lehmann, 
 of Dantzig by Curiken, of Augsburg by Stetten, of Ratisbon by 
 Gemeiner, of Magdeburg by Rathmann, of Strassburg by 
 Friese, of Berlin by an anonymous author, published a. d. 
 1 792, of Breslau by Klose. 
 
 4
 
 OF THE UNIVERSITIES. 137 
 
 The Dutch took the lead in political science. As earlv as 
 1638, Althausen laid the majestas populi down as a principle, 
 and Hugo Grotius laid the first foundation to the law of na- 
 tions. |n Lutheran and Catholic Germany, on the other hand, 
 merely " works on the Art of Government," " IMirrors of 
 Honour," etc. were published, in which the adulation preva- 
 lent in France was zealously emulated, and the whole of an- 
 cient Olympus was plundered for the purpose of adorning each 
 sacred aUonge-peruke with emblems and divine attributes. 
 The jealousy between the houses of Hohenzollern and Ilabs- 
 burg, nevertheless, permitted Pufendorf, a Brandenburg privy- 
 counsellor, to commence a tolerably liberal criticism on the 
 German constitution, in which he was speedily imitated by the 
 Prussians, Cocceji and Gundling. J. J. Moser took a still 
 more independent view of the reigning political evils in Ger- 
 many, and Schlozer was, shortly anterior to the French Revo- 
 lution, equally liberal in his state-papers. The learned Piitter 
 at Gcittingen was more an historical than a political writer, and, 
 generally speaking, the literature of the day rarely touched 
 upon the political misfortunes of Germany, In proportion as 
 the empire lost one province after another were the people 
 gradually deprived of their ancient privileges, still no one 
 spoke, and the additional burthens on the peasantry, the in- 
 creased taxation, tlie sale of men for service in the Indies, 
 the inactivity of the provincial Estates, etc., excited as little 
 
 discussion as the impudent seizure of Strassburg. Heinec- 
 
 cius and Bohmer, in Austria, Sonncnfels, who aided Joseph 
 II. in his reforms, were distinguished professors of juris- 
 prudence. 
 
 The study of mathematics was greatly promoted by Lieb- 
 nitz, the inventor of ditferential-calculus, and was canned to 
 higher perfection by Lambert of Alsace, by the family of Ber- 
 nouilli of Basle, Euler, etc. The Germans made great dis- 
 coveries in astronomy. Scheiner [a. d. 1650] discovered the 
 spots in the sun ; Hevel [a. d. 1687] and Dorfel found out the 
 paths of the comets ; Eimmart of Nuremberg measured several 
 of the fixed stars. Herschel [born A. d. 1740, ob. A. D. 1822] 
 discovered, with his giant telescope in England, [a. d. 1781,] 
 the planet LTranus, nebulous stars, planetary nebuL-e, etc. 
 Huygens improved the telescope, Liiwenhoek and Hontsoecker 
 the microscope (in Holland). Lieberkiihn of Breslau in-
 
 138 THE LIBERAL TENDENCY 
 
 vented the solar microscope; Tschirnhausen, burning-glasses; 
 Snell discovered the laws of refraction. Tlie study of physics 
 was greatly promoted by Otto von Guericke, burgomaster of 
 Magdeburg, [a, d. 1686,] the inventor of the air-pump and 
 of the electrifying machine; by Sturm, [a. d. 1703,] the 
 founder of experimental physics ; by Fahrenheit, who [a. d. 
 1714] invented the thermometer ; by Kircher, the inventor of 
 the speaking-trumpet; by Ilausen, Wilke, Cuniius, Muschen- 
 broek, who improved the electrifying machine. Among the 
 chemists, before whose science alchymy fled, Glauber, who 
 gave his name to a celebrated salt, Becher, Stahl, Brand, the 
 discoverer of phosphorus, and Gmelin, merit particular men- 
 tion. Werner acquired great note as a mineralogist in Saxon 
 Freiberg at the close of the eighteenth century. Botany was 
 industriously studied by Haller of Switzerland, Volckamer of 
 Nuremberg, etc. ; Rumpfs "Herbarium Amboinense" con- 
 tains the most valuable botanical collection of this period. 
 Klein, the noted travellers, Pallas, Blumenbach, and Bech- 
 stein, were celebrated as zoologists. The first great phy- 
 siological periodical works were the curious Medic. Phys. 
 Ephemerida?, written in Latin, in which Christian Mentzel, 
 the celebrated linguist and naturalist, private physician to the 
 great elector, diligently recorded his observations, and the 
 " Breslau Collections." 
 
 Geography and natural history were greatly promoted by 
 travels undertaken for scientific purposes. Reinhold and 
 George Forster accompanied Cook round the world, a. d. 
 1772. The noted traveller, Kiimpfer, went with the Dutch 
 to Japan, a. d. 1716. Montanus, Neuhof, etc., wrote accounts 
 of the Dutch embassies to China, whence much information 
 was also sent by the Jesuits,* among whom, Tieffenthaler, the 
 Tyrolese, gained great fame at the commencement of the 
 eighteenth century by being the first, and, up to the present 
 period, the only European who travelled over-land from 
 China to India, and who first saw the Dawalagiri, the highest 
 mountain in the world. Carsten Niebuhr was the most cele- 
 brated among the travellers in Persia and Arabia. Pallas and 
 
 * Jesuits have continually distinguished themselves at Peking as 
 Mandarins, guardians of the observatory and presidents of an academy of 
 sciences, as, for instance, Goggeisl, a. d. 1771, and again in 1780, Father 
 Hallerstein of Swabia. 
 
 J
 
 OF THE UNIVERSITIES. 139 
 
 Gmelin explored Siberia. Samuel Theophilus Gnielin, the 
 noted naturalist, nephew to the above-mentioned botanist 
 and geographer, travelled for the empress, Catherine II. of 
 Russia, Whilst travelling [a. d. 1774] in Tartary, he was 
 thrown into prison by one of the chiefs, who demanded 30,000 
 roubles for his ransom, which Catherine refused and he died in 
 prison. Egede and Kranz, Ilerrnhut missionaries, have given 
 an account of icy Greenland, Dobrizhofer, the Jesuit, another 
 of torrid Paraguay, etc. 
 
 In pharmacology the Germans have done more than any 
 other nation ; after them, the Dutch. Helmont, although 
 not free from the alchymical prejudices of his age, did much 
 good by his dietary method, all diseases, according to him, 
 proceeding from the stomach. Hermann Boerliaave, the 
 most eminent physician of his time, encouraged by the ana- 
 tomical discoveries of Lowenhoek and Ruysch, careiully inves- 
 tigated the internal formation of the human body in search of 
 the primary causes of diseases, but was led astray by the me- 
 chanical notion that all diseases originated in tlie improper 
 circulation or diminution of the humours of the body.* In 
 Germany proper, medicine was not brought to any degree of 
 perfection until a later period. Frederick Ilotlman, in pur- 
 suance of the system of Leibnitz, ascribed all diseases to mo- 
 tion and treated them simply as cramps. His suggestions 
 greatly advanced the science of pathology. Stahl, the Pietist, 
 opposed this mechanical theory and founded a mystical sys- 
 tem, which recognised the soul as forming the strength of 
 the body, the blood as the eternal foe of the divine power in- 
 herent in man, and therefore recommended its constant re- 
 striction and purification by means of bleeding. Albert von 
 Ilaller, the poet and naturalist, brought forward the system 
 of nervous pathology, which was carried still further by 
 Christopher Louis Hoffman, who ascribed all diseases to the 
 dissolution of the solids by the corruption of the humours. 
 Stoll, the empiric, opposed the whole of these theories, and 
 was the first who noted the impossibility of accounting for 
 the diseases by which nations were visited in various climes 
 
 * Boerhaave's numerous •works are, nevertheless, still regarded as text- 
 books by the profession ; his knowledge as an anatomist, chemist, and 
 botanist, as well as of the causes, nature, and treatment of diseases, was 
 unrivalled. — Translator.
 
 HO THE LIBERAL TENDENCY 
 
 and at various periods ; he, nevertheless, chiefly considered 
 tlie gall bladder as the seat of infection, which he sought to 
 palliate by tlie use of emetics. Reil practised a more refined 
 
 empiricism. The discovery of animal magnetism by Mes- 
 
 mer [a. d. 1775] was an important one, not only in medicine, 
 but more particularly in psychology. It was first studied as 
 a science by John Frederick Gmelin, professor of chemistry 
 and natural history at Gottingen, and has since engaged the 
 attention of numerous physicians and psychologists. A mira- 
 culous property has been attributed to this discovery, which 
 is certainly one of the most extraordinary ever made ki in- 
 ventive Germany. Sommering was the most eminent of the 
 Ciorman anatomists. Gall gained a transient fame by his 
 novel phrenological ideas, and Lavater of Zurich by his science 
 of physiognomy. The belief in apparitions was again spread 
 throughout the Protestant world by this pious enthusiast and 
 by Jung Stilling, whilst Father Gassner, at the same time, 
 about A. D. 1770, inspired the Catholic population of Upper 
 Swabia with terror by his exorcism. 
 
 Philosophy gave, however, at that period, the tone to learn- 
 ing. The eighteenth century was termed the age of philoso- 
 phy, being that in which the French began in their Encyclo- 
 pedia to regard all human knowledge in an independent point 
 of view, neither ecclesiastical nor Christian. The Germans, 
 although borrowing their frivolous mock-enlightenment from 
 France, imitated the English in the serious study of philoso- 
 phy and philology. Under the protection of the king of 
 England, tlie Baron von Leibnitz, the celebrated mathemati- 
 cian and philosopher, shone at Hanover, like Albertus Mag- 
 nus, in every branch of learning. Llis system was a union of 
 the Christian mysticism of former times and of the scholastic 
 scientific modern philosophy, the result of the study of mathe- 
 matics and of the classics. According to him, an infinite num- 
 ber of worlds are possible in the Divine understanding ; but, 
 of all possible ones, God has chosen and formed the best. 
 Each being is intended to attain the highest degree of happi- 
 ness of which it is capable, and is to contribute, as a part, to 
 the perfection of the whole. The gradual deviation of phi- 
 losophy from Christianity, and the increasing siniilai'ity be- 
 tween it and heathenism, were in accordance with the spirit of 
 the age. In 1677, Spinosa, the Dutch Jew, reproduced, with
 
 OF THE UNIVERSITIES. 141 
 
 subtle wit, the old doctrine of the mystic, Valentine Weigel, 
 concerning the original contradictions apparent in the world, 
 which he explained, not by a Cliristian idea of love, but by a 
 mathematical solution.* Leibnitz had numerous followers, 
 among whom, Bilfinger attempted by pure mathematical rea- 
 soning, unaided by revelation, to explain its most inexplicable 
 secret, the origin of evil, and AVolf converted his master's 
 theories into a convenient scholastic system, completely devoid 
 of mysticism and merely retaining the ideas consonant with 
 the doctrine of common Rationalism. He gained immense 
 fame by his opposition to the orthodox theologians. Mathe- 
 matical reasoning was certainly useful ibr the proper arrange- 
 ment of ideas, but was essentially devoid of purport. In 
 England, it led to mere scepticism, to a system of doubt and 
 negation, whence, instead of returning to the study of the- 
 ology, the English philosophers turned to a zealous research 
 in psychology, in which they were imitated by the Germans, 
 Platner, Keimarus, Mendelsohn, the physician Zimmermann, 
 etc. ; all of whom were surpassed by Kant in 1804, at Kiinigs- 
 berg, in his " Critical Inquiry into the Nature of Pure Rea- 
 son," which contains a critical analysis of every mental faculty. 
 His influence over his fellow countrymen was unlimited, owing 
 to his placing reason above all else, whilst he, at the same 
 time, strongly marked the moral necessities and duties of man, 
 and paid homage to the enlightenment, then in general vogue, 
 and to moral sobriety, the permanent national characteristic 
 of the German. 
 
 CCXLIV. Art and Fashion. 
 
 ALTHoron art had, under French influence, become un- 
 natural, bombastical, in fine, exactly contrary to every rule 
 of good taste, the courts, vain of their collections of works of 
 art, still emulated each other in the patronage of the artists 
 of the day, whose creations, tasteless as they were, never- 
 theless aflbrded a species of consolation to the people, by divert- 
 ing their thoughts from the miseries of daily existence. 
 
 * Spinosa renounced the Jewish religion for that of Calvin. He after- 
 wards became a Mennonist, and at last fell into the most dangerous scep- 
 ticism, if not downright atheism. — Translator.
 
 142 ART AND FASHION. 
 
 Architecture degenerated in the greatest degree. Its sub- 
 limity was gradually lost as the meaning of the Gothic style 
 became less understood, and a tasteless imitation of the Roman 
 style, like that of St. Peter's at Rome, was brought into vogue 
 by the Jesuits and by the court-architects, by whom the cha- 
 teau of Versailles was deemed the highest chef-d'ceuvre of art. 
 This style of architecture was accompanied by a style of 
 sculpture equally unmeaning and forced ; saints and Pagan 
 deities in theatrical attitudes, fat genii, and coquettish nymphs 
 peopled the roofs of the churches and palaces, presided over 
 bridges, fountains, etc. Miniature turnery-ware and micro- 
 scopical sculpture also came into fashion. Such curiosities 
 as, for instance, a cherry-stone, on which Pranner, the 
 Carintliian, had carved upwards of a hundred faces; a chess- 
 board, the completion of whicli had occupied a Dutchman for 
 eighteen years ; golden carriages drawn by fleas ; toys com- 
 posed of porcelain or ivory in imitation of Chinese works of 
 art ; curious pieces of mechanism, musical clocks, etc., were 
 industriously collected into the cabinets of the wealthy and 
 powerful. This taste was, however, not utterly useless. The 
 l)redilection for ancient gems promoted the study of the remains 
 of antiquity, as Stosch, Lippcrt, and "Winekelmann prove, and 
 that of natural history was greatly facilitated by the collec- 
 tions of natural curiosities. 
 
 The style of painting was, however, still essentially Ger- 
 man, although deprived by the Reformation and by French 
 influence of its ancient sacred and spiritual character. Nature 
 was now generally studied in the search after the beautiful. 
 Among the pupils of Rubens, the great founder of the Dutch 
 school, Jordaens was distinguished for brilliancy and force of 
 execution, Van Dyk [a. d. 1o41] for grace and beauty, al- 
 though pi'incipally a portrait painter and incapable of ideal- 
 izing his subjects, in which Rembrandt, [a. d. 1674,] who 
 chose more extensive historical subjects, and whose colouring 
 is remarkable for depth and eflfect, was equally deficient. 
 Rembrandt's pupil, Gerhard Douw, introduced domestic 
 scenes ; his attention to the minutiae of his art was such that 
 he is said to have worked for three days at a broom-stick, in 
 order to represent it with perfect truth. Denner carried ac- 
 curacy still further ; in his portraits of old men every hair
 
 AET AND FASHION. 143 
 
 in the beard is carefully imitated. Francis and "William* 
 Mieris discovered far greater talent in their treatment of social 
 and domestic groups ; Terbourg and Netscher, on the other 
 hand, delighted in the close imitation of velvet and satin 
 draperies ; and Schalken, in the effect of shadows and lamp- 
 light. Honthorstf attempted a higher style, but Van der 
 Werf's small delicious nudities and Van Loos's luxurious 
 pastoral scenes were better adapted to the taste of the times. 
 Whilst these painters belonged to the higher orders of society, 
 of which their works give evidence, numerous others studied 
 the lower classes with still greater success. Besides Van der 
 Meulen and Rugendas, the painters of battle-pieces, Wouwer- 
 mann chiefly excelled in the delineation of horses and groups 
 of horsemen, and Teniers, Ostade, and Jan Steen became 
 famous for tlie surpassing truth of their peasants and domes- 
 tic scenes. To this low but hajjpily-treated school also be- 
 longed the cattle-jjieces of Berchem and Paul de Potter, whose 
 "Bull and Cows" were, in a certain respect, as much the 
 ideal of the Dutch as the Madonna had formerly been that of 
 the Italians or the Venus di Medici that of the ancients. 
 
 Landscape-painting alone gave evidence of a higher style. 
 Nature, whenever undesecrated by the vulgarity of man, is 
 ever sublimely simple. The Dutch, as may be seen in the 
 productions of Breughel, called, from his dress, "Velvet 
 Breughel," and in those of Elzheimer, termed, from his atten- 
 tion to minutia^, the Denner of landscape-painting, were at 
 first too careful and minute ; but Paul Brill [a. d. 1626] was 
 inspired with finer conceptions and formed the link between 
 preceding artists and the magnificent Claude Lorraine, (so 
 called from the place of his birth, his real name being Claude 
 Gelee,) who resided for a long time at Munich, and who first 
 attempted to idealize nature as the Italian artists had formerly 
 idealized man. Everdingen and Ruysdael, on the contrary, 
 studied nature in her simple northern garb, and the sombre pines 
 of the former, the cheerful woods of the latter, will ever be at- 
 
 * AI30 his brother John, who painted willi equal talent in the same 
 style. — Translatou. 
 
 t Called also Gerardo dalle Notti from his subjects, principally night- 
 scenes and pieces illuminated by torch or candle-light. His most cele- 
 brated picture is that of Jesus Christ before the Tribunal of Pilate. — 
 Translator.
 
 144 ART AND FASHION. 
 
 tractive, like pictures of a much-loved home, to the German. 
 Bakliuysen's sea-pieces and storms are faithful representations 
 of the Baltic. In the commencement of last century, land- 
 scape-painting also degenerated and became mere ornamental 
 flower-painting, of which the Dutch were so passionately fond 
 that tliey honoured and paid the most skilful artists in this 
 style like princes. The dull prosaic existence of the merchant 
 called for relief. Huysum was the most celebrated of the 
 flower-painters, with Rachel Ruysch, AVilliam von Arless, and 
 others of lesser note. Fruit and kitchen pieces were also greatly 
 admired. Ilondekotter was celebrated as a painter of birds. 
 
 Painting was, in this manner, confined to a slavish imitation 
 of nature, for whose lowest objects a predilection was evinced 
 until the middle of the eighteenth century, when a style, half 
 Italian, half antique, was introduced into Germany by the 
 operas, by travellers, and more particularly by the galleries 
 founded by the princes, and was still further promoted by the 
 learned researches of connoisseurs, more especially by those of 
 AVinckelmann. Mengs, the Raphael of Germany, Oeser, 
 Tischbein, the landscape-painters Seekatz, Hackert, Rein- 
 haidt, Koch, etc., formed the transition to the modern style. 
 Frey, Chodowiecki, etc. gained great celebrity as engravers. 
 
 Architecture flourished during the middle ages, painting at 
 the time of the Reformation, and music in modern times. The 
 same spirit that spoke to the eye in the eternal stone now 
 breathed in transient melody to the ear. The science of 
 music, transported by Dutch artists into Italy, had been there 
 assiduously cultivated ; the Italians had speedily surpassed 
 their masters, and had occupied themselves with the creation 
 of a peculiar church-music and of the profane opera, whilst 
 the Netherlands and the whole of Germany was convulsed by 
 bloody religious wars. After the peace of Westphalia, the 
 national music of Germany, with the exception of the choral 
 music in the Protestant churches, was almost silent, and 
 Italian operas were introduced at all the courts, where Italian 
 chapel-masters, singers, and performers were patronized in 
 imitation of Louis XIY., who pursued a similar system in 
 France. German talent was reduced to imitate the Italian 
 masters, and, in 1628, Sagittarius produced at Dresden the 
 first German opera in imitation of the Italian, and Keyser 
 published no fewer than one hundred and sLsteen. 
 
 I
 
 ART AND FASHION. 145 
 
 The German musicians were, nevertheless, earlier than the 
 German poets, animated with a desire to extirpate the foreign 
 and degenerate mode fostered by the vanity of the German 
 princes, and to give free scope to their original and native talent. 
 This regeneration was effected by the despised and simple or- 
 ganists of the Protestant churches. In 1717, Schroeder, a na- 
 tive of Hohenstein in Saxony, invented the pianoforte and im- 
 proved the organ. Sebastian Bach, in his colossal fugues, 
 like to a pillared dome dissolved in melody,* raised music 
 by his compositions to a height unattained by any of his suc- 
 cessors. He was one of the most extraordinary geniuses that 
 ever appeared on earth. Handel, whose glorious melodies en- 
 tranced the senses, produced the grand oratorio of the " Mes- 
 siah," which is still performed in both Protestant and Catholic 
 cathedrals ; and Graun, with whom Frederick the Great 
 played the flute, brought private singing- into vogue by his 
 musical compositions. Gluck was the first composer who in- 
 troduced the depth and pathos of more solemn music into the 
 opera. He gained a complete triumph at Paris over Piccini, 
 the celebrated Italian musician, in his contest respecting the 
 comparative excellencies of the German and Italian schools. 
 Haydn introduced the variety and melody of the opera into 
 the oratorio, of which his " Creation " is a standing proof. In 
 the latter half of the foregoing century, church music has 
 gradually yielded to the opera. Mozart brought the operatic 
 style to perfection in the wonderful compositions that eternal- 
 ize his fame. 
 
 The German theatre was, owing to the Gallomania of the 
 period, merely a bad imitation of the French stage. Gott- 
 sched,"!" who greatly contributed towards the reformation of 
 German literature, still retained the stilted Alexandrine and 
 the pseudo-Gallic imitation of the ancient dramatists to which 
 Lessing put an end. Lessing wrote his " Dramaturgy " at 
 Hamburg, recommended Shakspeare and other English au- 
 thors as models, but more particularly, nature. The celebrated 
 Eckhof, the father of the German stage, who at first travelled 
 about with a company of actors and finally settled at Gotha, 
 was the first who followed this innovation. He was succeeded 
 
 * Gothic architecture has been likened to petrified music, 
 t He was assisted in his dramatic ■writings by his wife, a woman of 
 splendid talents — Translatok. 
 
 VOL. in. L
 
 146 INFLUENCE OF THE BELLES-LETTRES. 
 
 by Schroeder in Hamburg, who was equally industrious as a 
 poet, an actor, and a freemason. In Berlin, wliere Fleck had 
 already paved the way, Iffland, who, like Schroeder, was both 
 a poet and an actor, founded a school, which in every respect 
 took nature as a guide, and which raised the German stage to 
 its well-merited celebrity. 
 
 At the close of the eighteenth century, men of education 
 were seized with an enthusiasm for art, which showed itself 
 principally in a love for the stage and in visits for the promo- 
 tion of art to Italy. The poet and the painter, alike dissatis- 
 iied witli reality, sought to still their secret longings for the 
 l)eautiful amid the unreal creations of fancy and the records 
 of classical antiquity. 
 
 Fashion, tliat masker of nature, that creator of deformity, 
 had, in truth, arrived at an unparalleled pitch of ugliness. The 
 German costume, although sometimes extravagantly curious 
 (luring the middle ages, had nevertheless always retained a 
 certain degree of picturesque beauty, nor was it until the 
 reign of Louis XIV. of France, that dress assumed an un- 
 natural, inconvenient, and monstrous form. Enormous al- 
 longe-perukes and ruffles, the fontange, (high head-dress,) 
 hoops, and high-heels, rendered the human race a caricature 
 of itself. In the eighteenth century, powdered wigs of extra- 
 ordinai-y shape, hairbags and queues, frocks and frills, came 
 into fashion for the men ; powdered head-dresses, an ell in 
 height, diminutive waists, and patches for the women. The 
 deformity, unhealthiness, and absurdity of this mode of attire 
 were vainly pointed out by Salzmann, in a piece entitled, 
 " Charles von Carlsberg, or Human Misery." 
 
 CCXLV. Influence of the Belles- Lettres. 
 
 The German, excluded from all participation in public af- 
 fjiirs and confined to the narrow limits of his family circle and 
 profession, followed his natural bent for speculative philosophy 
 and poetical reverie ; but whilst his thoughts became more ele- 
 vated and the loss of his activity was, in a certain degree, 
 compensated by the gentle dominion of the muses, the mitiga- 
 tion thus aiforded merely aggravated the evil by rendering him 
 content with his state of inaction. Ere long, as in the most 
 degenerate age of ancient Rome, the citizen, amused by so-
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE BELLES-LETTRES. 147 
 
 phists and singers, actors and jugglers, lost the remembrance 
 of his former power and rights and became insensible to his 
 state of moral degradation, to which the foreign notions, the 
 vain and frivolous character of most of the poets of the day, had 
 not a little contributed. 
 
 After the thirty years' war, the Silesian poets became re- 
 markable for Gallomania or the slavish imitation of those of 
 France. Unbounded adulation of the sovereign, bombastical 
 carmina on occasion of the birth, wedding, accession, victories, 
 f^tes, treaties of peace, and burial of potentates, love-couplets 
 equally strained, twisted compliments to female beauty, with 
 pedantic, often indecent, citations from ancient mythology, 
 chiefly characterized this school of poetry. ^Martin Opitz. 
 [a. d. 1639,] the founder of the first Silesian school,* notwith- 
 standing the insipidity of the taste of the day, preserved the 
 harmony of the German ballad. His most distinguished fol- 
 lowers were Logau, celebrated for his Epigrams ; f Paul Ger- 
 hard, who, in his fine hymns, revived the force and simplicity 
 of Luther ; Flemming, a genial and thoroughly German poet, 
 the companion of Oleariusj during his visit to Persia ; the 
 gentle Simon Dach, whose sorrowing notes bewail tlie miser- 
 ies of the age. He founded a society of melancholy poets at 
 Kcinigsberg, in Prussia, the members of which composed 
 elegies for each other ; Tscherning and Andrew Gryphius, 
 the Corneille of Germany, a native of Glogau, whose dramas 
 are worthy of a better age than the insipid century in which 
 they were produced. The life of this dramatist was full of 
 incident. His father was poisoned ; his mother died of a 
 broken heart. He wandered over Germany during the thirty 
 years' war, pursued by fire, sword, and pestilence, to the lat- 
 ter of which the whole of his relations fell victims. He tra- 
 velled over the whole of Europe, spoke eleven languages, and 
 became a professor at Leyden, where he taught history, geo- 
 graphy, mathematics, physics, and anatomy. These poets 
 were, however, merely exceptions to the general rule. In the 
 
 * He -was a friend of Grotius and is called the father of German po- 
 etry. — Translator. 
 
 t Of -which an edition, much esteemed, was published by Lessing and 
 Ramler. 
 
 X Adam CElschlager or Olearius, an eminent traveller and mathema- 
 tician, a native of Anhalt. He became secretary to an embassy sent to 
 Russia and Persia by the duke of Holstein. — Translator. 
 
 l2
 
 148 INFLUENCE OF THE BELLES-LETTRES. 
 
 poetical societies, the " Order of the Palm " or " Fructiferous 
 Society," founded A. d. 1617, at Weimar, by Caspar von Teut- 
 leben, the " Upright Pine Society," established by Rempler of 
 Lowenthal at Strassburg, that of the " Roses," founded a. d. 
 1643, by Philip von Zesen, at Hamburg, the" Order of the 
 Pegnitz-shepherds," founded A. d. 1644, by Harsdiirfer, at Nu- 
 remberg, the spirit of the Italian and French operas and aca- 
 demies prevailed, and pastoral poetry, in which the god of 
 Love was represented wearing an immense allonge-peruke, 
 and the coquettish immorality of the courts was glowingly de- 
 scribed in Arcadian scenes of delight, was cultivated. The 
 fantastical romances of Spain were also imitated, and the in- 
 vention of novel terms was deemed the highest triumph of the 
 poet. Every third word was either Latin, French, Spanish, 
 Italian, or English. Francisci of Liibeck, who described all the 
 discoveries in the New World in a colloquial romance contain- 
 ed in a thick folio volume, was the most extravagant of these 
 scribblers. The romances of Antony Ulric, duke of Bruns- 
 wick, who embraced Catholicism on the occasion of the mar- 
 riage of his daughter with the emperor Charles VI., are 
 equally bad. Lauremberg's satires, written A. D. 1654, are 
 excellent. He said with great truth, that the French had de- 
 prived the German muse of her nose and had patched on another 
 quite unsuited to German ears. IMoscherosch (Philander von 
 Sittewald) wrote an admirable and cutting satire upon the 
 manners of the age, and Greifenson von Hirschfeld is worthy 
 of mention as the author of the first historical romance, that 
 gives an accurate and graphic account of the state of Germany 
 during the thirty yeai's' war. 
 
 This first school was succeeded by a second of surpassing 
 extravagance. Hoifman von Hoffniannswaldau, [a. d. 1679,] 
 the founder of the second Silesian school, was a caricature of 
 Opitz, Lohenstein of Gryphius, Besser of Flemming, Talan- 
 der and Ziegler of Zesen, and even Francisci was outdone by 
 that most intolerable of romancers, Happel. This school was 
 remarkable for the most extravagant licence and bombastical 
 nonsense, a sad proof of the moral perversion of the age. The 
 German character, nevertheless, betrayed itself by a sort of 
 naive pedantry, a proof, were any wanting, that tlie ostenta- 
 tious absurdities of the poets of Germany were but bad and 
 paltry imitations. The French Alexandrine was also brought
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE BELLES-LETTRES. 149 
 
 into vogue by this school, whose immorality was carried to 
 the highest pitch by Gunther, the lyric poet, who, in the 
 commencement of the eighteenth century, opposed marriage, 
 attempted the emancipation of the female sex, and, with 
 criminal geniaUty, recommended his follies and crimes, as 
 highly interesting, to the world. To him the poet, Schnabel, 
 the author of an admirable romance, the " Island of Felsen- 
 burg," the asylum, in another hemisphere, of virtue, exiled 
 from Europe, offers a noble contrast. 
 
 Three Catholic poets of extreme originality appear at the 
 close of the seventeenth century, Angelus Silesius, (Scheffler 
 of Breslau,) who gave to the world his devotional thoughts in 
 German Alexandrines ; Father Abraham a Sancta Clara, 
 (Megerle of Swabia,) a celebrated Viennese preacher, who, 
 with comical severity, wrote satires abounding with wit and 
 humorous observations ; and Balde, who wrote some fine Latin 
 poems on God and nature. Priitorius, [a. d. 1680,] the first 
 collector of the popular legendary ballads concerning Riibe- 
 zahl and other spirits, ghosts and witches, also deserves men- 
 tion. The Silesian, Stranizki, who [a. d. 1708] founded the 
 Leopoldstadt theatre at Vienna, which afterwards became so 
 celebrated, and gave to it the popular comic style, for which 
 it is famous at tlie present day, was also a poet of extreme 
 originality. Gottsohed appeared as the hero of Gallomania, 
 which was at that time threatened with gradual extinction by 
 the Spanish and Hamburg romance and by Viennese wit. 
 Assisted by Neubei", the actress, he extirpated all that was 
 not strictly Fi-ench, solemnly burnt harlequin in effigy at 
 Leipzig, [a. d. 1737,] and laid down a law for German po- 
 etry, which prescribed obedience to the rules of the stilted 
 French court-poetry, under pain of the critic's lash. He and 
 his learned wife guided the literature of Germany for several 
 years. 
 
 In the midst of these literary aberrations, during the first 
 part of the foregoing century, Thomson, the English poet, 
 Brokes of Hamburg, and the Swiss, Albert von Haller, gave 
 their descriptions of nature to the world. Brokes, in his 
 "Earthly Pleasures in God," was faithful, often Homeric, in 
 his descriptions, whilst Haller depictured his native Alps 
 with unparalleled sublimity. The latter was succeeded by a 
 Swiss school, which imitated the witty and liberal-minded
 
 loO INFLUENCE OF THE BELLES-LETTRES. 
 
 criticisms of Addison and other English writers, and opposed 
 French taste and Gottsched. At its head stood Bodnier and 
 Breitinger, who recommended nature as a guide, and instead 
 of the study of French literature, that of the ancient classics 
 and of English authors. It was also owing to their exertions 
 that Miiller published an edition of Rudiger Maness's collec- 
 tion of Swabian Minnelieder, the connecting link between 
 modern and ancient German poetry. Still, notwithstanding 
 thf'ir merit as critics, they were no poets, and merely opened 
 to otliers the road to improvement. Ilagedorn, although fri- 
 volous in his ideas, was graceful and easy in his versification ; 
 but the most eminent poet of the age was Gellert of Leipzig, 
 [a. d. 1769,] whose tales, fables, and essays brought him into 
 such note as to attract the attention of Frederick the Great, 
 wIk), notwithstanding the contempt in which he held the po<ts 
 of Germany, honoured him witli a personal visit. 
 
 Poets and critics now rose in every quarter and pitilessly 
 assailed Gottsched, the champion of Gallomania. They were 
 themselves divided into two opposite parties, into Angloman- 
 ists and Grajcomanists, according to their predilection for mo- 
 dern English literature or for that of ancient Greece and 
 liome. England, grounded, as upon a rock, on her self-gained 
 constitution, produced men of the rarest genius in all the 
 higher walks of science and literature, and her philosophers, 
 naturalists, historians, and poets exercised the happiest influ- 
 ence over their Teutonic bretiiren, who sought to regain from 
 them the vigour of which they had been deprived by France. 
 The power and national learning of Germany break forth in 
 Klopstock, whose genius vainly sought a natural garb and was 
 compelled to assume a borrowed form. He consecrated his muse 
 to the service of religion, but, in so doing, imitated the Homeric 
 hexameters of ^lilton ; he sought to arouse the national pride 
 of his countrymen by recalling the deeds of Hermann ( Armin) 
 and termed himself a bard, but, in the Horatian metre of his 
 songs, imitated Ossian, the old Scottish bard, and was con- 
 sequently laboured and atfected in his style. Others took the 
 lesser English poets for their model, as, for instance, Kleist, 
 who fell at Kunersdorf, copied Thomson in his " Spring ;" 
 Zacharia, Pope, in his satirical pieces ; Hermes, in " The Travels 
 of Sophia," the humorous romances of Richardson ; Miiller 
 von Itzehoe, in his "Siegfried von Lindenberg," the comic
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE BELLES-LETTRES. 151 
 
 descriptions of Smollett. The influence of the celebrated 
 English poets, Shakspeare, Swift, and Sterne, on the tone of 
 German humour and satire, "was still greater. Swift's first 
 imitator, Liscow, discovered considerable talent, and Rabener, 
 a great part of whose manuscripts was burnt during the siege 
 of Dresden in the seven years' war, wrote witty, and at the 
 same time instructive, satires on the manners of his age. 
 Both were surpassed by Lichtenberg, the little hump-backed 
 philosopher of Gottingen, whose compositions are replete with 
 grace. The witty and amiable Thiimmel was also formed on 
 an English model, and Archenholz solely occupied himself 
 with transporting the customs and literature of England into 
 Germany. If Shakspeare has not been without influence 
 upon Goethe and Schiller, Sterne, in his " Sentimental Jour- 
 ney," touched an echoing chord in the German's heart by 
 blending pathos with his jests, llippel was the first who, 
 like him, united wit with pathos, mockery with tears. 
 
 In Klopstock, Anglo and Graicomania were combined. 
 The latter had, however, also its particular school, in which 
 each of the Greek and Roman poets found his imitator. Voss, 
 for instance, took Homer for his model, Ramler, Horace, Gleim, 
 Anacreon, Gessner, Theocritus, Cramer, Pindar, Lichtwer, 
 ^sop, etc. The Germans, in the ridiculous attempt to set 
 themselves up as Greeks, were, in truth, barbarians. But all 
 was forced, unnatural, and perverted in tiiis aping age. AVie- 
 land alone was deeply sensible of this want of nature, and 
 hence arose his predilection for the best poets of Greece and 
 France. The German muse, led by his genius, lost her an- 
 cient stiffness and acquired a pliant grace, to which the stern- 
 est critic of his too lax morality is not insensible. Some lyric 
 poets, connected with the Gntcomanists by the Gottingen 
 Hainlmnd, preserved a noble simplicity, more particularly 
 Sabs and Holty, and also Count Stolberg, wherever he has 
 not been led astray by Voss's stilted manner. !Matthison is, 
 on the other hand, most tediously affected. 
 
 The German, never more at home than when abroad, boast- 
 ed of being the cosmopolite he had become, made a virtue of 
 necessity, and termed his want of patriotism, justice to others, 
 humanity, philanthropy. Fortunately for him, there were, 
 besides the French, other nations on which he could model 
 himself, the ancient Greeks and the English, from each of
 
 152 INFLUENCE OF THE BELLES-LETTRES. 
 
 whom he gathered something until he had converted himself 
 into a sort of universal abstract. The great poets, who 
 shortly before and after the seven years' war, put an end to 
 mere partial imitations, were not actuated by a reaction of 
 nationality, but by a sentiment of universality. Their object 
 was, not to oppose the German to the foreign, but simply the 
 human to the single national element, and, although Germany 
 gave them birth, they regarded the whole world equally as 
 their country. 
 
 Lessing, by his triumph over the scholastic pedants, com- 
 pleted what Thomasius had begun, by his irresistible criticism 
 (h'ove French taste from the literary arena, aided Winckelmann 
 to promote the study of the ancients and to foster the love of 
 art, and raised the German theatre to an unprecedented height. 
 His native language, in which lie always wrote, breathes, 
 1 ven in his most trifling works, a free and lofty spirit, wliich, 
 fascinating in every age, was more peculiarly so at that emas- 
 culated period. He is, however, totally devoid of patriotism. 
 In his " !Minna von Barnhelm,'' he inculcates the finest feel- 
 ings of honour ; his " Nathan " is replete with the wisdom 
 "that Cometh from above" and with calm dignity; and, in 
 " Emilia Galotti," he has been the first to draw the veil, 
 hitherto respected, from scenes in real life. His life was, like 
 his mind, independent. He scorned to cringe for favour, even 
 disdained letters of recommendation when visiting Italy, 
 (Winckelmann had deviated from the truth for the sake of 
 pleasing a patron,) contented himself with the scanty lot of a 
 librarian at AVolfenbiittel, and even preferred losing that ap- 
 pointment rather than subject himself to the censorship. He 
 was the boldest, freest, finest spirit of the age. 
 
 Herder, although no less noble, was exactly his opposite. 
 Of a soft and yielding temperament, unimaginative, and gifted 
 with little penetration, but with a keen sense of the beautiful 
 in others, lie opened to his fellow countrymen with unremit- 
 ting diligence the literary treasures of foreign nations, ancient 
 classical poetry, that, hitherto unknown, of the East, and 
 rescued from obscurity the old popular poetry of Germany. 
 In his " Ideas of a Philosophical History of Mankind," he at- 
 tempted to display in rich and manifold variety the moral 
 character of every nation and of every age, and, whilst thus 
 creating and improving the taste for poetry and history, ever,
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE BELLES-LETTRES. 153 
 
 with child-like piety, sought for and revered God in all his 
 works. 
 
 Goethe, with a far richer imagination, possessed the elegance 
 but not the independence of Lessing, all the softness, pathos, 
 and universality of Herder, without his faith. In the treat- 
 ment and choice of his subjects he was indubitably the great- 
 est poet of Germany, but he was never inspired with enthu- 
 siasm except for himself. His personal vanity was excessive. 
 His works, like the lights in his apartment at Weimar, which 
 were skilfully disposed so as to present him in the most 
 favourable manner to his visitors, but artfully reflect upon 
 self. The manner in which he palliated the weaknesses of 
 the heart, the vain inclinations, shared by his contemporaries 
 in common with himself, rendered him the most amiable and 
 popular author of the day. French frivolity and licence had 
 long been practised, but they had also been rebuked. Gccthe 
 was tlie tirst who gravely justified adultery, rendered the 
 sentimental voluptuary an object of enthusiastic admiration, 
 and deified tlie heroes of the stage, in whose imaginary for- 
 tunes the German forgot sad reality and the wretched fate of 
 his country. His fade assumption of dignity, the art with 
 which he threw the veil of mystery over liis frivolous tenden- 
 cies and made his common-place ideas pass for something in- 
 credibly sublime, naturally met with astonishing success in his 
 wonder-seeking times. 
 
 Rousseau's influence, the ideas of universal reform, the ex- 
 ample of England, proud and free, but still more, the enthu- 
 siasm excited by the American war of independence, inflamed 
 many heads in Germany and raised a poetical opposition, 
 which began with the bold-spirited Schubart, whose liberal 
 opinions threw him into a prison, but whose spirit still breathed 
 in his songs and roused that of Iiis great countryman, Schil- 
 ler. The first cry of the oppressed people was, by Schiller, 
 repeated with a prophet's voice. In him their woes found an 
 eloquent advocate. Lessing had vainly appealed to the un- 
 derstanding, but Schiller spoke to the heart, and if the seed, 
 sown by him, fell partially on corrupt and barren ground, it 
 found a fostering soil, in the warm, unadulterated hearts of the 
 youth of both sexes. He recalled his fellow men, in those 
 frivolous times, to a sense of self-respect, restored to innocence 
 the power and dignity of which she had been deprived by
 
 154 INFLUENCE OF THE BELLES-LETTRES. 
 
 ridicule, and became the champion of liberty, justice, and 
 his country, things from which the love of pleasure and the 
 aristocratic self-complacency, exemplified in Goethe, had gra- 
 dually and completely weaned succeeding poets. Klinger, at 
 the same time, coarsely portrayed the vices of the church and 
 state, and Meyern extravagated in his romance "Dya-Na- Sore" 
 on Utopian happiness. The poems of Miiller, the painter, are 
 full of latent warmth. Biirger, Pfeffel, the blind poet, and 
 Claudius, gave utterance, in Schubart's coarse manner, to a 
 few tame truisms. Musfeus was greatly admired for his 
 amusing popular stories. As for the rest, it seemed as though 
 the spiritless writers of that day had found it more con- 
 venient to be violent and savage in their endless chivalric 
 pieces and romances than, like Schiller, steadily and courage- 
 ously to attack the vices and evils of their age. Their fire 
 but ended in smoke. Babo and Ziegler alone, among the 
 dramatists, have a liberal tendency. The spirit tliat liad been 
 called forth also degenerated into mere bacchanalian licence, 
 and, in order to return to nature, the limits set by decency 
 and custom were, as by Heinse, for instance, who thus dis- 
 graced his genius, wantonly overthrown. 
 
 In contradistinction to these wild spirits, which, whether 
 borne aloft by their genius or impelled by ambition, quitted 
 the narrow limits of daily existence, a still greater number of 
 poets employed their talents in singing the praise of common 
 life, and brought domesticity and household sentimentality 
 into vogue. The very prose of life, so unbearable to the 
 former, was by them converted into poetry. Although the 
 ancient Idylls and the family scenes of English authors were 
 at first imitated, this style of poetry retained an essentially 
 German originality ; the hero of the modern Idyll, unlike his 
 ancient model, was a fop tricked out with wig and cane, and 
 the domestic hero of the tale, unlike his English counterpart, 
 was a mere political nullity. It is perhaps well when domes- 
 tic comforts replace the want of public life, but these poets 
 hugged the chain they Imd decked with flowers, and forgot 
 the reality. They forgot that it is a misfortune and a dis- 
 grace for a German to be without a country, without a great 
 national interest, to be the most unworthy descendant of the 
 greatest ancestors, the prey and the jest of the foreigner ; to this 
 they were indifferent, insensible ; they laid down the maxim,
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 155 
 
 that a German has nothing more to do than " to provide for" 
 himself and his family, no other enemy to repel than domestic 
 trouble, no other duty than " to keep his German wife in or- 
 der," to send his sons to the university, and to marry his 
 daughters. These common-place private interests were with- 
 al merely adorned with a little sentimentality. No noble mo- 
 tive is discoverable in Yoss's celebrated " Louisa " and Goe- 
 the's " Hermann and Dorothea." This style of poetry was so 
 easy, that hundreds of weak-headed men and women made it 
 their occupation, and family scenes and plays speedily surpassed 
 the romances of chivalry in number. The poet, nevertheless, 
 exercised no less an influence, notwithstanding his voluntary 
 renunciation of his privilege to elevate the sinking minds of 
 his countrymen by the great memories of the past or by ideal 
 images, and his degradation of poetry to a mere palliation of 
 the weaknesses of humanity. 
 
 PART XXII. 
 
 THE GREAT WARS AVITH FRANCE. 
 
 CCXLVI. The French Revolution. 
 
 In no other European state had despotism reached to such a 
 pitch as in France ; the people groaned beneath the heavy 
 burthens imposed by the court, the nobility, and the clergy, 
 and against these two estates there was no appeal, their tyranny 
 being protected by the court, to which tliey had servilely sub- 
 mitted. The court had rendered itself not only unpopular, 
 but contemptible, by its excessive licence, which had also 
 spread downwards among the higher classes ; the government 
 was, moreover, impoverished by extravagance and weakened 
 by an incapable administration, the lielm of state, instead of 
 being guided by a master-hand, having fallen under Louis XV. 
 into that of a woman. 
 
 In France, where the ideas of modern philosophy emanated
 
 156 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 from the court, they spread more rapidly than in any other coun- 
 try among the tiers-etat, and the spirit of research, of improve- 
 ment, of ridicule of all that was old, naturally led the people 
 to inquire into the administration, to discover and to ridicule 
 its errors. The natural wit of the people, sharpened by daily 
 oppression and emboldened by Voltaire's unsparing ridicule of 
 objects hitherto held sacred, found ample food in the policy 
 pursued by the government, and ridicule became the weapon 
 with Avhich the tiers-etat revenged the tyranny of the higher 
 classes. As learning spread, the deeds of other nations, who 
 had happily and gloriously cast off the yoke of their oppressors, 
 became known to the people. Tlie names of the patriots of 
 Greece and Rome passed from mouth to mouth, and their ac- 
 tions became the theme of the rising generation ; but more 
 powerful than all in effect, was the example of the North 
 Americans, who [a. d. 1783] separated themselves from their 
 mother-country, England, and founded a republic. France, 
 intent upon weakening her ancient foe, lent her countenance 
 to the new republic, and numbers of her sons fought beneath 
 her standard and bore the novel ideas of liberty back to their 
 native land, where they speedily produced a fermentation 
 among their mercurial countrjTnen. 
 
 Louis XV., a voluptuous and extravagant monarch, was 
 succeeded by Louis XVI., a man of refined habits, pious and 
 benevolent in disposition, but unpossessed of the moral power 
 requisite for the extermination of the evils deeply rooted in 
 the government. His queen, !Marie Antoinette, sister to 
 Joseph II., little resembled her brother or her husband in her 
 tastes, was devoted to gaiety, and, by her example, counten- 
 anced the most lavish exti'avagance. The evil increased to 
 a fearful degree. The taxes no longer sufficed ; the ex- 
 chequer was robbed by privileged thieves ; an enormous debt 
 continued to increase ; and the king, almost reduced to the 
 necessity of declaring the state bankrupt, demanded aid from 
 the nobility and clergy, who, hitherto free from taxation, had 
 collected the whole wealth of the empire into their hands. 
 The aristocracy, ever blind to their true interest, refused 
 to comply, and, by so doing, compelled the king to have re- 
 course to the tiers-etat. Accordingly, a. d. 1789, he con- 
 voked a general assembly, in which the deputies sent by the 
 citizen and peasant classes were not only numerically equal
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 157 
 
 to those of the aristocracy, but were greatly superior to them 
 in talent and energy, and, on the refusal of the nobility and 
 clergy to comply with the just demands of the tiers-etat, or 
 even to hold a common sitting with their despised inferiors, 
 these deputies declared the national assembly to consist of 
 themselves alone, and proceeded, on their own responsibility, 
 to scrutinize the evils of the administration and to discuss 
 remedial measures. The whole nation applauded the manly 
 and courageous conduct of its representatives. The Pai'isians, 
 ever in extremes, revolted, and murdered the unpopular pub- 
 lic officers ; the soldiers, instead of quelling the rebellion, 
 fraternized with the people. The national assembly, em- 
 boldened by these first successes, undertook a thorough trans- 
 formation of the state, and, in order to attain tlie object for 
 which they had been assembled, that of procuring supplies, 
 declared the aristocracy subject to taxation, and sold the 
 enormous property belonging to the church. They went still 
 further. The people was declared the only true sovereign, 
 and the king the first servant of the state. All distinctions 
 and privileges were abolished, and all Frenchmen were de- 
 clared equal. 
 
 The nobility and clergy, infuriated by this dreadful humili- 
 ation, imbittered the people still more against them by their 
 futile opposition, and, at length convinced of the hopelessness 
 of their cause, emigrated in crowds and attempted to form 
 another France on the borders of their country in the German 
 Rhenish provinces. Worms and Coblentz were their chief 
 places of resort. In the latter city, they continued their 
 Parisian mode of life at the expense of the avaricious elector 
 of Treves, Clement "Wenzel, a Saxon prince, by whose power- 
 ful minister, Dominique, they were supported, and acted with 
 unparalleled impudence. They were headed by the two 
 brothers of the French king, who entered into negotiation 
 with all the foreign powers, and they vowed to defend the 
 cause of the sovereigns against the people. Louis, who for 
 some time wavered between the national assembly and the 
 emigrants, was at length persuaded by the queen to throw 
 himself into the arms of the latter, and secretly fled, but was 
 retaken and subjected to still more rigorous treatment. The 
 emigrants, instead of saving, hurried him to destruction. 
 
 The other European powers at first gave signs of inde-
 
 158 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 cision. Blinded by a policy no longer suited to the times, they 
 merely beheld in the French Revolution the ruin of a state 
 hitherto inimical to them, and rejoiced at the event. The pros- 
 pect of an easy conquest of the distracted country, however, 
 ere long led to the resolution on their part of actively inter- 
 fering with its aifairs. Austria was insulted in the person of 
 the French queen, and, as head of the empire, was bound to 
 protect the rights of the petty Rhenish princes and nobility, 
 who possessed property and ecclesiastical or feudal rights * on 
 French territory, and had been injured by the new constitu- 
 tion. Prussia, habituated to despotism, came forward as its 
 champion in the hope of gaining new laurels for her unem- 
 ployed army. A conference took place at Pillnitz in Saxony, 
 A. D. 1791, between the emperor Leopold and king Frederick 
 William, at which the count D' Artois, the youngest brother 
 of Louis XVI., Avas present, and a league was formed against 
 the Revolution. The old ministers strongly opposed it. In 
 Prussia, Herzberg drew upon himself the displeasure of 
 his sovereign by zealously advising a union with France 
 against Austria. In Austria, Kaunitz recommended peace, 
 and said that were he allowed to act he would defeat the im- 
 petuous French by his " patience ;" that, instead of attacking 
 France, he would calmly watch the event and allow her, like a 
 volcano, to bring destruction upon herself Ferdinand of 
 Brunswick, field-marshal of Prussia, was equally opposed to 
 war. His fame as the gi-eatest general of his time had been 
 too easily gained, more by his manoeuvres than by his vic- 
 tories, not to induce a fear on his side of being as easily 
 deprived of it in a fresh war ; but the proposal of the revo- 
 lutionary party in France, within whose minds the memory 
 
 * To the archbishopric of Cologne belonged the bishopric of Strasburg, 
 to the archbishopric of Treves, the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, Verdun, 
 Nancy, St. Diez. Wiirtemberg, Baden, Darmstadt, Nassau, Pfalz-Zwei- 
 briicken, Leiningen, Salm-Salm, Hohenlohe-Bartenstein, Lbwenstein- 
 Wertheim, the Teutonic order, the knights of St. John,the immediate no- 
 bility of the empire, the bishop of Basle, etc., had, moreover, feudal rights 
 ■within the French territory. The arch-chancellor, elector of Mayence, 
 made the patriotic proposal to the imperial diet, that the empire should, 
 now that France had, by the violation of the conditions of peace, in- 
 fringed the old and shameful treaties by which Germany had been de- 
 prived of her provinces, seize the opportunity also on her part to refuse 
 to recognise those treaties, and to regain what she had lost. This sens- 
 ible proposal, however, found no one capable of carrying it into effect.
 
 THE FRENCH REYOLUTIOX. 159 
 
 of Eossbacli was still fresh, mistrustful of French skill, to 
 nominate him generalissimo of the troops of the republic, con- 
 spired with the incessant entreaties of the emigrants to re- 
 animate his courage ; and he finally declared that, followed by 
 the famous troops of the great Frederick, he would put a 
 speedy termination to the French Revolution. 
 
 Leopold II. was, as brother to Marie Antoinette, greatly 
 imbittered against the French. The disinclination of the 
 Austrians to the reforms of Joseph II. appears to have chiefly 
 confirmed him in the conviction of finding a sure support in 
 the old system. He consequently strictly prohibited the 
 sHghtest innovation and placed a power hitherto unknown in 
 the hands of the police, more particularly in those of its secret 
 functionaries, who listened to every word and consigned the 
 suspected to the oblivion of a dungeon. This mute terrorism 
 found many a victim. This system was, on the death of 
 Leopold II., A. D. 1792,* publicly abolished by his son and 
 successor, Francis II., but was ere long again carried on in 
 secret. 
 
 Catherine II., with the view of seizing the rest of Poland, 
 employed every art in order to instigate Austria and Prussia 
 to a war with France, and by these means fully to occupy 
 them in the West. The Prussian king, although aware of 
 her projects, deemed the French an easy conquest, and that 
 in case of necessity his armies could without difficulty be 
 thrown into Poland. He meanwhile secured the popular feel- 
 ing in Poland in his favour by concluding [a. d. 1790] an 
 alUance with Stanislaus and giving his consent to the im- 
 proved constitution established in Poland, a. D. 1791. Herz- 
 berg had even counselled an alliance with France and Poland, 
 the latter was to be bribed with a promise of the annexation 
 of Gallicia, against Austria and Russia ; this plan was how- 
 ever merely whispered about for the purpose of blinding the 
 Poles and of alarming Russia. 
 
 The bursting storm was anticipated on the part of the 
 French by a declaration of war, a. d. 1792, and whilst Austria 
 
 * His sons were the emperor Francis II., Ferdinand, grand-duke of 
 Tuscany, the arch-duke Charles, celebrated for his military talents, Jo- 
 seph, palatine of Hungary', Antony, grand-master of the Teutonic order, 
 ■who died at Vienna, a. d. 1835, John, a general, (he lived for many 
 years in Stj-ria,) the present imperial vicar-general of Germany, and 
 Ila)-ner, viceroy of Milan. — Translator.
 
 160 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 still remained behind for the purpose of watching Russia, Po- 
 land, and Turkey, and the unwieldy empire was engaged in 
 raising troops, Ferdinand of Brunswick had already led the 
 Prussians across the Rhine. He was joined by the emigrants 
 under Conde, whose army almost entirely consisted of officers. 
 The well-known manifesto, published by the duke of Bruns- 
 wick on his entrance into France, and in which he declared 
 his intention to level Paris with the ground should the French 
 refuse to submit to the authority of their sovereign, was com- 
 posed by Renfner, the counsellor of the embassy at Berlin. 
 The emperor and Frederick William, persuaded that fear 
 would reduce the French to obedience, had approved of this 
 manifesto, which was, on the contrary, disapproved of by the 
 duke of Brunswick, on account of its barbarity and its ill-ac- 
 cordance with the rules of war.* He did not, however, with- 
 draw his signature on its publication. The effect of this mani- 
 festo was, that the French, instead of being struck with terror, 
 were maddened with rage, deposed their king, proclaimed a 
 republic, and flew to arms in order to defend their cities 
 against the barbarians threatening them with destruction. 
 The Orleans party and the Jacobins, who were in close alli- 
 ance with the German Illuminati, were at that time first able 
 to gain the mastery and to supplant the noble-spirited consti- 
 tutionists. A Prussian baron, Anacharsis Cloots,f was even 
 elected in the national convention of the French republic, 
 where he appeared as the advocate of the whole human race. 
 These atheistical babblers, however, talked to little purpose, 
 but the national pride of the troops, hastily levied and sent 
 against the invaders, effected wonders. 
 
 * Gentz, Avlio afterwards -wrote so many manifestoes for Austria,"prac- 
 tically remarks that this celebrated manifesto was in perfect conformity 
 with the intent, and that the only fault committed was the non-fulfilment 
 of the threats therein contained. 
 
 t From Cleve. He compared himself with Anacharsis the Scj-thian, 
 a barbarian, who visited Greece for the sake of learning. He sacriiiced 
 the whole of his property to the Revolution. Followed by a troop of men 
 dressed in the costumes of different nations, of whom they were the pre- 
 tended representatives, he appeared before the convention, from which 
 he demanded the liberation of the whole world from the yoke of kings 
 and priests. He became president of the great Jacobin club, and it was 
 principally owing to his instigations that the French, at first merely in- 
 tent upon defence, were roused to the attack and inspired with the desire 
 for conquest.
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTIOX. 161 
 
 The delusion of the Prussians was so complete that 
 Bischofswerder said to tlie officers, "Do not purchase too 
 many horses, the affiiir will soon be over ;" and the duke of 
 Brunswick remarked, " Gentlemen, not too much baggage, 
 this is merely a military trip." 
 
 The Prussians, it is true, wondered that the inhabitants 
 did not, as the emigrants had alleged they would, crowd to 
 meet and greet them as their saviours and liberators, but at 
 first they met with no opposition. The noble-spirited La- 
 fayette, who commanded the main body of the French army, 
 had at first attempted to march upon Paris for the purpose of 
 saving the king, but the troops were already too much repub- 
 licanized and he was compelled to seek refuge in the Nether- 
 lands, where he was, together with his companions, seized by 
 command of the emperor of Austria, and thrown into prison 
 at Olmiitz, where he remained during five years under the 
 most rigorous treatment merely on account of the liberality of 
 his opinions, because he wanted a constitutional king, and 
 notwithstanding his having endangered his life and his honour 
 in order to save his sovereign. Such was the hatred with 
 which high-minded men of strict principle were at that period 
 viewed, whilst at the same time a negotiation was carried on 
 with Dumouriez,* a characterless Jacobin intriguant, Avho had 
 succeeded Lafayette in the command of the French armies. 
 
 Ferdinand of Brunswick now became the dupe of Du- 
 mouriez, as he had formerly been that of the emigrants. In 
 the hope of a counter-revolution in Paris, he procrastinated 
 his advance and lost his most valuable time in the siege of 
 fortresses. Verdun fell : three beautiful citizens' daughters, 
 who had presented bouquets to the king of Prussia, were 
 afterwards sent to the guillotine by the republicans as traitor- 
 esses to their country. Ferdinand, notwithstanding this suc- 
 cess, still delayed his advance in the hope of gaining over the 
 wily French commander and of thus securing beforehand his 
 triumph in a contest in which his ancient fame might other- 
 
 * Dumouriez proposed as negotiator John Miillcr, vlio was at that 
 time teaching at Mayence, and ■who was in secret correspondence with 
 him. Vide Memoirs of a Celebrated Statesman, edited by Kiider. Eiider 
 remarks that John Miiller is silent in his autobiogi-aphy concerning his 
 correspondence with the Jacobins, for which he might, under a change 
 of circumstances, have had good reason. 
 
 VOL. HI. M
 
 162 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 wise be at stake. The impatient king, who had accompanied 
 the army, spurred him on, but was, owing to his ignorance of 
 military matters, again pacified by the reasons alleged by the 
 cautious duke. Dumouriez, consequently, gained time to col- 
 lect considerable reinforcements and to unite his forces with 
 those under Kellermann of Alsace. The two armies came 
 within sight of each other at Valmy ; the king gave orders 
 for battle, and the Prussians were in the act of advancing 
 against the heights occupied by Xellerraann, when the duke 
 suddenly gave orders to halt and drew oif the troops under a 
 loud vivat from the French, who beheld this movement with 
 astonishment. The king was at first greatly enraged, but 
 was afterwards persuaded by the duke of the prudence of this 
 extraordinary step. Negotiations were now carried on with 
 increased spirit. Dumouriez, who, like Kaunitz, said that 
 the French, if left to themselves, would inevitably fall a prey 
 to intestine convulsions, also contrived to accustom the king 
 to the idea of a future alliance with France. The result of 
 these intrigues was an armistice and the retreat of the Prus- 
 sian army, which dysentery, bad weather, and bad roads ren- 
 dered extremely destructive. 
 
 Austria was now, owing to the intrigues of the duke of 
 Brunswick and the credulity of Frederick William, left unpro- 
 tected. As early as June, old ^Marshal Lukner invaded 
 Flanders, but, being arrested on suspicion, was replaced by 
 Dumouriez, who continued the war in the Netherlands and 
 defeated the stadtholdei", Albert, duke of Saxon- Teschen, (son- 
 in-law to IMaria Theresa, in consideration of which he had 
 been endowed with the principality of Teschen and the stadt- 
 holdership at Brussels,) at Jemappes, and the whole of the 
 Netherlands fell into the hands of the Jacobins, who, on the 
 14th of November, entered Brussels, where they proclaimed 
 liberty and equality. A few days later (19th November) the 
 national convention at Paris proclaimed liberty and equality 
 to all nations, promised their aid to all those who asserted 
 their liberty, and threatened to compel those who chose to 
 remain in slavery to accept of liberty. As a preliminary, 
 however, the Netherlands, after being declared free, were 
 ransacked of every description of movable property, of which 
 Pache, a native of Freiburg in Switzerland, at that time the 
 French minister of war, received a large share. The fluctua-
 
 GERMAN JACOBINS. 163 
 
 tions of the vrar, however, speedily recalled the Jacobins. 
 Another French army under Custines, which had marched to 
 the Upper Rhine, gained time to take a firm footing in 
 Mayence, 
 
 CCXLVII. German Jacobins. 
 
 In Lorraine and Alsace, the Revolution had been hailed 
 with delight by tlie long-oppressed people. On the 10th of 
 July, 1789, the peasants destroyed the park of the bishop, 
 Rohan, at Zabern, and killed immense quantities of game. 
 The chateaux and monasteries throughout the country were 
 afterwards reduced to heaps of ruins, and, in Suntgau, the 
 peasants took especial vengeance on the Jews, who had, in that 
 place, long lived on the fat of the land. Miilhausen received 
 a democratic constitution and a Jacobin club. In Strassburg, 
 the town-house was assailed by the populace,* notwithstand- 
 ing which, order was maintained by the mayor, Dietrich. The 
 unpopular bishop, Rohan, was replaced by Brendel, against 
 whom the people of Colmar revolted, and even assaulted him 
 in the church for having taken the oath imposed by the 
 French republic, and which was rejected by all good Catholics. 
 Dietrich, aided by the great majority of the citizens of Strass- 
 burg, long succeeded in keeping the sans culottes .at bay, but 
 was at length overcome, deprived of his office, and guillotined 
 at Paris, whilst Eulogius Schneider, who had formerly been 
 a professor at Bonn, then court preacher to the Catholic duke, 
 Charles of Wiirtemberg,f became the tyrant of Strassburg, 
 and, in the character of public accuser before the revolution- 
 ary tribunal, conducted the executions. The national con- 
 vention at Paris nominated as his colleague Monet, a man 
 twenty-four years of age, totally ignorant of the German lan- 
 guage, and who merely made himself remarkable for his open 
 
 * Oberlin, the celebrated philologist, an ornament to German learning, 
 a professor at Strassburg, rescued, at the risk of his life, a great portion 
 of the ancient city archives, which had been thrown out of the windows, 
 by re-collecting the documents with the aid of the students. On account 
 of this sample of old German pedantry, he pined, until 1793, in durance 
 vile at Metz, and narrowly escaped being guillotined. 
 
 t At Bonn he had the impudence to say to the elector, " I cannot pay 
 you a higher compliment than by asserting that you are no Catholic." — 
 Van Alpen, History of Rhenish Franconia. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 GERMAN JACOBINS. 
 
 rapacity.* This was, however, a mere prelude to far greater 
 horrors. Two members of the convention, St. Just and Lebas, 
 unexpectedly appeared at Strassburg, declared that nothing 
 had as yet been done, ordered the executions to take place on 
 a larger scale, and [a. d. 1793] imposed a fine of 9,000,000 
 livres on the already plundered city. The German costume 
 and mode of writing were also prohibited ; every sign, written 
 in German, affixed to the houses, was taken down, and, finally, 
 the whole of the city council and all the officers of the national 
 guard were arrested and either exiled or guillotined, notwith- 
 standing their zealous advocacy of revolutionary principles, on 
 the charge of an understanding with Austria, without proof, 
 on a mere groundless suspicion, without being permitted to 
 defend themselves, for the sole purpose of removing them out 
 of the way in order to replace them with true-born French- 
 men, a Parisian mob, who established themselves in the deso- 
 late houses. Schneider and Brendel continued to retain 
 their places by means of the basest adulation. On the 21st 
 of November, a great festival was solemnized in the Min- 
 ster, which had been converted into a temple of Reason. 
 The bust of Marat, the most loathsome of all the monsters 
 engendered by the Revolution, was borne in solemn pro- 
 cession to the cathedral, before whose portals an immense 
 fire was fed with pictures and images of the saints, cruci- 
 fixes, priests' garments, and sacred vessels, among which 
 Brendel hurled his mitre. Within the cathedral walls, Schnei- 
 der delivered a discourse in controversion of the Christian re- 
 ligion, which he concluded by solemnly renouncing ; a num- 
 ber of Catholic ecclesiastics followed his example. All the 
 statues and ecclesiastical symbols were piled in a rude heap at 
 the foot of the great tower, which it was also attempted to 
 pull down for the promotion of universal equality, an attempt, 
 which the extraordinary strength of the building and the short 
 reign of revolutionary madness fortunately frustrated. All 
 the more wealthy citizens had, meanwhile, been consigned 
 either to the guillotine or to prison, and their houses filled 
 with French bandits, who revelled in their wealth and dis- 
 
 * He mulcted the brewers to the amount of 255,000 livres, " on ac- 
 count of their well-knoAvn avarice," the bakers and millers to that of 
 314,000, a publican to that of 40,000, a baker to that of 30,000. "because 
 he was an enemy of mankind," etc. — Vide Friese's History of Strassburg.
 
 GERMAN JACOBINS. 165 
 
 honoured their wives and daughters. Eulogius Schneider was 
 compelled to seek at midnight for a wife, suspicion having al- 
 ready attached to him on account of his former profession. 
 It was, however, too late. On the following morning, he was 
 seized and sent to Paris, where he was guillotined. All eccle- 
 siastics, all schoolmasters, even the historian, Friese, were, with- 
 out exception, declared suspected and dragged to the prisons 
 of Besan^on, where they suifered the harshest treatment at 
 the hands of the commandant. Prince Charles of Hesse. In 
 Strassburg, Neumann, who had succeeded Schneider as pub- 
 lic accuser, raged with redoubled fury. The guillotine was 
 ever at work, was illuminated during the night-time, and was 
 the scene of the orgies of the drunken bandits. On the ad- 
 vance of the French armies to the frontiers, the whole country 
 was pillaged.* 
 
 In other places, where the plundering habits of the French 
 had not cooled the popular enthusiasm, it still rose high, more 
 particularly at INIayence. This city, which had been rendered 
 a seat of the Muses by the elector, Frederick Charles, was in 
 a state of complete demoralization. On the loss of Strassburg, 
 Mayence, although the only remaining bulwark of Germany, 
 was entirely overlooked. The war had already burst forth ; 
 no imperial army had as yet been levied, and the fortifications 
 of IMayence were in the most shameful state of neglect. Ma- 
 gazines had been established by the imperial troops on the 
 left bank of the Rhine, seemingly for the mere purpose of 
 letting them fall into the hands of Custine ; but eight hun- 
 dred Austrians garrisoned Mayence ; the Hessians, although 
 numerically weak, were alone sincere in their efforts for the 
 defence of Germany. Custine's advanced guard no sooner 
 came in sight than the elector and all the higher functionaries 
 fled to Aschaffenburg. Von Gymnich, the commandant of 
 Mayence, called a council of war and surrendered the city, 
 which was unanimously declared untenable by all present with 
 the exception of Eikenmaier, who, notwithstanding, went forth- 
 with over to the French, and Andujar, the commander of the 
 eight hundred Austrians, with whom he instantly evacuated 
 the place. The Illurainati, who were here in great number, 
 
 * It was asserted that the Jacobins had formed a plan to depopulate 
 the whole of Alsace and to divide the country among the bravest soldiers 
 belonging to the republican armies.
 
 166 GERMAN JACOBINS. 
 
 triumphantly opened the gates to the French, A. d. 1792. 
 The most extraordinary scenes were enacted. A society, the 
 members of which preached the doctrines of liberty and equal- 
 ity, and at whose head stood the professors Blau, Wedekind, 
 Metternich, Ilotfmann, Foi'Ster, the eminent navigator, the 
 doctors Bohmer and Stamra, Dorsch of Strassburg, etc., 
 chiefly men who had formerly been lUuminati, was formed in 
 imitation of the revolutionary Jacobin club at Paris.* These 
 people committed unheard of follies. At first, notwithstand- 
 ing their doctrine of equality, they were distinguished by a 
 particuhir ribbon ; the women, insensible to shame, wore gir- 
 dles with long ends, on which the word " liberty" was worked 
 in front, and the word "equality" behind. Women, girt with 
 sabres, (hmced franticly around tall trees of liberty, in imita- 
 tion of those of France, and fired oft' pistols. The men wore 
 monstrous moustaches in imitation of those of Custine, whom, 
 notwithstanding tlieir republican notions, they loaded with 
 servile flattery. As a means of gaining over the lower or- 
 ders among the citizens, who with plain good sense opposed 
 their apish tricks, the clubbists demoHshed a large stone, by 
 which the Archbishop Adolphus had formerly sworn, " You, 
 
 * John Miiller played a remarkable part. This thoroughly deceptive 
 person had, by his commendation of tlie ancient Swiss in his affectedly 
 written History of Switzerland, gained the favour of the friends of liberty, 
 and, at the same time, that of the nobility by his encomium on the de- 
 generate Swiss aristocracy. Whilst with sentimental phrases and fine 
 words he pretended to be one of the noblest of mankind, he was addicted 
 to the lowest and most monstrous vices. His immorality brought him 
 into trouble in Switzerland, and the man, who had been, apparently, 
 solely inspired with the love of republican liberty, now paid court, for the 
 sake of gain, to foreign princes ; the adulation that had succeeded so well 
 Mith all the lordlings of Switzerland was poured into the ears of all the 
 potentates of Europe. He even rose to great favour at Rome by his flat- 
 tery of the pope in a work entitled " The Travels of the Popes." He 
 published the most virulent sophisms against the beneficial reforms of 
 the emperor Joseph, and cried up the League, for which he was well 
 paid. He contrived, at the same time, to creep into favour with the 
 lUuminati. He was employed by the elector of Mayence to carry on 
 negotiations with Dumouriez, got into office under the French republic, 
 and afterwards revisited Mayence for the express purpose of calling upon 
 the citizens, at that time highly dissatisfied with the conduct of the 
 French, to unite themselves with France. Vide Forster's Correspondence. 
 Dumouriez shortly afterwards went over to the Austritins, and Miiller 
 suddenly appeared at Vienna, adorned with a title and in the character 
 of an Aulic counsellor.
 
 GERMAN JACOBINS. 167 
 
 citizens of Mayence, shall not regain your privileges until 
 this stone shall melt." This, however, proved as little effective 
 as did the production of a large book, in which every citizen, 
 desirous of transforming the electorate of ^Mayence into a 
 republic, was requested to inscribe his name. Notwithstand- 
 ing the threat of being treated, in case of refusal, as slaves, 
 the citizens and peasantry, plainly foreseeing that, instead of 
 receiving the promised boon of liberty, they would but ex- 
 pose themselves to Custine's brutal tyranny, withheld their 
 signatures, and the clubbists finally established a republic 
 under the protection of France without the consent of the 
 people, removed all the old authorities, and, at the close of 
 1792, elected Dorsch, a remarkably diminutive, ill-favoured 
 man, who had formerly been a priest, president. 
 
 The manner in which Custine levied contributions in Frank- 
 furt on the !Maine,* was still less calculated to render the 
 French popular in Germany. Cowardly as this general was, 
 he, nevertheless, told the citizens of Frankfurt a truth that 
 time has, up to the present period, confirmed. " You have 
 beheld the coronation of the emperor of Germany? Well! 
 you will not see another." 
 
 Two Germans, natives of Colmar in Alsace, Rewbel and 
 Hausmann, and a Frenchman, jNIerlin, all three members of 
 the national convention, came to iSIayence for the purpose of 
 conducting the defence of that city. They burnt symbolically 
 all the crowns, mitres, and escutcheons of the German empire, 
 but were unable to induce the citizens of Mayence to declare 
 in favour of the republic. Rewbel, infuriated at their opposi- 
 tion, exclaimed, that he would level the city with the ground, 
 that he should deem himself dishonoured were he to waste 
 another word on such slaves. A number of refractory persons 
 were expelled the city,f and, on the 17th of March, 1793, al- 
 
 • Wliilst in his proclamations he swore by all that was sacred (wliat 
 was so to a Frenchman ? ) to respect the property of the citizens and 
 that France coveted no extension of territory. 
 
 t Forster was so blinded at that time by his enthusiasm that he wrote, 
 " all of those among us who refuse the citizenship of France, are to be 
 expelled the city, even if complete depopulation should be the result." 
 He relates : " I summoned, at Griinstadt, the Counts von Leiningen to 
 acknowledge themselves citizens of France. They protested against it, 
 caballed, instigated the citizens and peasantry to revolt ; one of my 
 soldiers was attacked and wounded. I demanded a reinforcement, took
 
 168 GERMAN JACOBINS. 
 
 thougli three hundred and seventy of the citizens alone voted 
 in its favour, a Teuto-Rhenish national convention, under the 
 presidency of Hoffmann, was opened at Mayence and in- 
 stantly declared in favour of the union of the new republic 
 with France. Forster, in other respects a man of great eleva- 
 tion of mind, forgetful, in his enthusiasm, of all national pride, 
 personally carried to Paris the scandalous documents in which 
 the French were humbly entreated to accept of a province of 
 the German empire. The Prussians, who had remained in 
 Luxemburg, (without aiding the Austrians,) meanwhile ad- 
 vanced to the Rhine, took Coblentz, wliich Custine had neg- 
 lected to garrison, (a neglect for whicli he afterwards lost his 
 liead,) repulsed a French force under Bournonville, when on 
 the point of forming a junction with Custine, at Treves, ex- 
 pelled Custine from Frankfurt,* and closely besieged !May- 
 ence, which, after making a valiant defence, was compelled to 
 capitulate in July. 
 
 Numbers of the clubbists fled, or were saved by the French 
 when evacuating the city, in the disguise of soldiers. Others 
 were arrested and treated with extreme cruelty. Every club- 
 bist, or any person suspected of being one, received five and 
 twenty lashes in the presence of Kalkreuth, the Prussian 
 general. !Metternich was, together with numerous others, 
 carried off, chained fast between the horses of the hussars, 
 and, whenever he sank from weariness, spurred on at the sabre 
 point. Blau had his ears boxed by the Prussian minister, 
 Stein. f A similar reaction took place at Worms,^ Spires, etc. 
 
 The German Jacobins suffered the punishment amply 
 deserved by all those who look for salvation from the foreigner. 
 Those who had barely escaped the vengeance of the Prussian 
 on the Rhine were beheaded by their pretended good friends 
 in France. Robespierre, an advocate, who, at that period, 
 
 possession of both the castles, and placed the counts under guard. To- 
 day I sent them with an escort to Landau. This has been a disagree- 
 able duty, but we must reduce every opponent of the good cause to 
 obedience." 
 
 * Where the weak garrison left by the French was disarmed by the 
 workmen. 
 
 t Either the Prussian minister who afterwards gained such celebrity, 
 or one of his relations. 
 
 X Where Skekuly forced the German clubbists, with the lash, to cut 
 down the tree of liberty.
 
 GERMAN JACOBINS. 169 
 
 governed the convention, sent every foreigner who had en- 
 rolled himself as a member of the Jacobin club, to tlie guillo- 
 tine, as a suspicious person, a bloody but instructive lesson to 
 all unpatriotic German Gallomanists.* The victims who fell 
 on this occasion were, a prince of Salm-Kyrburg, who had 
 voluntarily repubhcanized his petty territory, Anacharsis 
 Cloots.f the venerable Trenk, who had so long pined in 
 Frederick's prisons. Adam Lux, a friend of George Forster, 
 was also beheaded for expressing his admiration of Charlotte 
 Corday, the murderess of Marat. Marat was a Prussian sub- 
 ject, being a native of XeufchAtel- Gobel von Bruntrut, uncle 
 to Rengger,J a celebrated character in the subsequent Swiss 
 revolution, vicar-general of Basle, a furious revolutionist, 
 who had on that account been appointed bishop of Paris, 
 presented himself on the 6th of November, 1793, at the bar of 
 the convention as an associate of Cloots, Hcbert, Chaumette, 
 etc., cast his mitre and other insignia of office to the ground, 
 and placing the bonnet rouge on his head, solemnly renounced 
 the Christian fitith and proclaimed tiiat of "liberty and 
 equality." The rest of the ecclesiastics were compelled to 
 imitate his example ; the Christian religion was formally 
 abolished and the worship of Reason was established in its 
 stead. Half-naked women were placed upon the altars of the 
 desecrated churches and worshipped as "goddesses of Reason." 
 
 * Forster wTotc from Paris, " Suspicion hangs over every foreigner, 
 and the essential distinctions which ought to be made in this respect are 
 of no avail." Thus did nature, bywhom nations are eternally separated, 
 avenge herself on the fools who had dreamed of universal equality. 
 
 t Cloots had incessantly preached war, threatened all the kings of the 
 earth with destruction, and, in his vanity, had even set a price u])on the 
 head of the Prussian monarch. His object was the union of the whole 
 of mankind, the abolition of nationality. The French were to receive a 
 new name, that of " Univcrsel." He preached in the convention : " I 
 have struggled during the whole of my existence against the powers of 
 heaven and earth. There is but one God, Nature, and but one sovereign, 
 mankind, the people, united by reason in one universal republic. Re- 
 ligion is the last obstacle, but the time has arrived for its destruction. 
 J'occupe la tribune de I'univers. Je le repfete, le genre humain est Dieu, 
 .e Peuple Dieu. Quiconque a la d^bilite de croire en Dieu ne sauroit 
 avoir la sagacite de connaitre le genre humain, le souverain unique," etc. 
 ■ — Moniteur of 1793. No. 120. He also subscribed himself the "personal 
 enemy of Jesus of Nazareth." 
 
 + Whose nephew, the celebrated traveller, Rengger, was, with Bonp- 
 land, so long imprisoned in Paraguay.
 
 170 GERMAN JACOBINS. 
 
 Gobel's friend, Pache, a native of Freiburg, a creature abject 
 as himself, was particularly zealous, as was also Proli, a natural 
 son of the Austrian minister, Kaunitz. Prince Charles of 
 Hesse, known among the Jacobins as Charles Hesse, fortu- 
 nately escaped. Schlaberndorf,* a Silesian count, who appears 
 to have been a mere spectator, and Oelsner, a distinguished 
 author, were equally fortunate. These two latter remained 
 in Paris. Reinhard, a native of WUrtemberg, secretary to the 
 celebrated Girondin, Vergniaud, whom he is said to have 
 aided in the composition of his eloquent speeches, remained in 
 the service of France, was afterwards ennobled and raised to 
 the ministry. Felix von "VVimpfen, whom the faction of the 
 Gironde (the moderates who opposed the savage Jacobins) 
 elected their general, and who, attempting to lead a small 
 force from Normandy against Paris, was defeated and com- 
 pelled to seek safety by flight. The venerable Lukner, the 
 associate of Lafayette, who had termed the great Revolution 
 merely "a little occurrence in Paris," was beheaded. The 
 unfortunate George Forster perceived his error and died of 
 sorrow.f Among the other Rhenish Germans of distinction, 
 who had at that time formed a connexion with France, Joseph 
 Giirres brought himself, notwithstanding his extreme youth, 
 into great note at Coblentz by his superior talents. He went 
 to Paris as deputy of Treves and speedily became known by 
 his works (Riibezahl and the Red Leaf.) He also speedily 
 discovered the immense mistake made by the Germans in rest- 
 ing their hopes upon France. It was indeed a strange delu- 
 sion to suppose the vain and greedy Frenchman capable of 
 being inspired with disinterested love for all mankind, and it 
 was indeed a severe irony, that, after such repeated and cruel 
 experience, after having for centuries seen the French ever 
 
 * He had been already imprisoned and was ordered to the guillotine, 
 but not being able to find his boots quickly enough, his execution was put 
 off until the morrow. During the night, Robespierre fell, and his life 
 was saved. He continued to reside at Paris, where he never quitted his 
 apartment, cherished his beard, and associated solely with ecclesiastics. 
 
 t After an interview with his wife, Theresa, (daughter to the great 
 philologist, Heyne of Gottingen,) on the French frontier, he returned to 
 Paris and killed himself by drinking aquafortis. Vide Crome's Auto- 
 biography. Theresa entered into association with Huber, the journalist, 
 whom she shortly afterwards married. She gained great celebrity by 
 her numerous romances.
 
 GERMAN JACOBINS. 171 
 
 in the guise of robbers and pillagers, and after breathing such 
 loud complaints against the princes who had sold Germany to 
 France, that the warmest friends of the people should on this 
 occasion be guilty of similar treachery, and, like selecting the 
 goat for a gardener, intrust the weal of their country to the 
 French. 
 
 The people in Germany too little understood the real mo- 
 tives and object of the French Revolution, and were too soon 
 provoked by the predatory incursions of the French troops, to 
 be infected with revolutionary principles. These merely fer- 
 mented among the literati ; the Utopian idea of universal fra- 
 ternization was spread by free-masonry ; numbers at first 
 cherished a hope that the Revolution would preserve a pure 
 moral character, and were not a little astonished on beholding 
 the monstrous crimes to which it gave birth. Others merely 
 rejoiced at the fall of the old and insupportable system, and 
 numerous anonymous pamphlets in this spirit appeared in the 
 Rhenish provinces. Fichte, the philosopher, also published 
 an anonymous work in favour of the Revolution. Others 
 again, as, for instance, Reichard, Girtanner, Schirach, and 
 Hoffmann, set themselves up as informers, and denounced 
 every liberal-minded man to the princes as a dangerous Jaco- 
 bin. A search was made for Cripto-Jacobins, and every 
 honest man was exposed to the calumny of the servile news- 
 paper-editors. French republicanism was denounced as cri- 
 minal, notwithstanding the favour in which the French language 
 and French ideas were held at all the courts of Germany. 
 Liberal opinions were denounced as criminal, notwithstanding 
 the example first set by the courts in ridiculing religion, in 
 mocking all that was venerable and sacred. Nor was this re- 
 action by any means occasioned by a burst of German patriot- 
 ism against the tyranny of France, for the treaty of Basle 
 speedily reconciled the self-same newspaper-editors with 
 France. It was mere servility ; and the hatred which, it 
 may easily be conceived, was naturally excited against the 
 French as a nation, was vented in this mode upon the patient 
 Germans,* who were, unfortunately, ever doomed, whenever 
 
 * The popular work " Huergehner " relates, among other things, the 
 conduct of the Margrave of Baden towards Lauchsenriiig, his private 
 physician, whom he, on account of the liberality of his opinions, deli- 
 vered over to the Austrian general, who sentenced him to the bastinado.
 
 172 GERMAN JACOBINS. 
 
 their neighbours were visited with some political chronic con- 
 vulsion, to taste the bitter remedy. But few of the writers of 
 the day took an historical view of the Revolution and weighed 
 its irremediable results in regard to Germany, besides Gentz, 
 Rehberg, and the Baron von Gagern, who published an 
 " Address to his Countrymen," in which he started the painful 
 question, " Why are we Germans disunited ?" The whole of 
 these contending opinions of the learned were, however, 
 equally erroneous. It was as little possible to preserve the 
 Revolution from blood and immorality, and to extend the boon 
 of liberty to the whole world, as it was to suppress it by 
 force, and, as far as Germany was concerned, her affairs were 
 too complicated and her interests too scattered for any attempt 
 of the kind to succeed. A Doctor Faust, at Biickeburg, sent a 
 learned treatise upon the origin of trowsers to the national 
 convention at Paris, by which Sans-culottism had been intro- 
 duced ; an incident alone sufficient to show the state of feeling 
 in Germany at that time. 
 
 The revolutionary principles of France merely infected the 
 people in those parts of Germany where their sufferings had 
 ever been the greatest, as, lor instance, in Saxony, where the 
 peasantry, oppressed by the game-laws and the rights of the 
 nobility, rose, after a dry summer, by which their misery had 
 been greatly increased, to the number of eighteen thousand, 
 and sent one of their class to lay their complaints before the 
 elector, a. d. 1790. The unfortunate messenger was in- 
 stantly consigned to a mad-house, where he remained until 
 1809, and the peasantry were dispersed by the military. A 
 similar revolt of the peasantry against the tyrannical nuns of 
 Wormelen, in Westphalia, merely deserves mention as being 
 characteristic of the times. A revolt of the peasantry, of 
 equal unimportance, also took place in Biickeburg, on account 
 of the expulsion of three revolutionary priests, Froriep, 
 Meyer, and Rauschenbusch. In Breslau, a great emeute, 
 which was put down by means of artillery, was occasioned by 
 the expulsion of a tailor's apprentice, a. d. 1793. 
 
 In Austria, one Hebenstreit formed a conspiracy, which 
 brought him to the gallows, A. d. 1793. That formed by 
 Martinowits, for the establishment of the sovereignty of the peo- 
 ple in Hungary and for the expulsion of the magnates, was of 
 a more dangerous character. Martinowits was beheaded A. D.
 
 GERMAN JACOBINS. 1T3 
 
 1 793, with four of his associates.* These attempts so greatly 
 excited the apprehensions of the government, that the reaction, 
 already begun on the death of Joseph II., was brought at once to 
 a climax ; Thugut, the minister, established an extremely active 
 secret police and a system of surveillance, which spread terror 
 throughout Austria and was utterly uncalled for, no one, 
 with the exception of a few crack-brained individuals, being 
 in the slightest degree infected with the revolutionary mania.f 
 
 * Schneller says, " The first great conspiracy was formed in the vi- 
 cinity of the throne, a. d. 1793. The chief conspirator was Hebenstreit, 
 the commandant, who held, by his office, the keys to the arsenal, and had 
 ever}' place of importance in his power. His fellow conspirators were, 
 PrandstJitter, the magistrate and poet, who, by his superior talents, led 
 the whole of the magistracy, and possessed great influence in llie metropo- 
 lis, Professor Riedl, who possessed the confidence of llie court, which 
 he frequented for the purpose of instructing some of the principal person- 
 ages, and H'ackel, the merchant, who had the management of its 
 pecuniary affairs. The rest of the conspirators belonged to every class 
 of society and were spread tliroughout every province of the empire. The 
 plan consisted in the establishment of a democratic constitution, the first 
 step to which appears to have been an attempt against the life of the im- 
 perial family. The signal for insurrection was to be given by firing the 
 immense wood-yards. The hearts of the people were to be gained by the 
 destruction of the government accounts. The discovery was made 
 through a conspiracy formed in Denmark. The chief conspirator was 
 seized and sent to the gallows. The rest were exiled to Munkatch, where 
 several of them had succumbed to the severity of their treatment and of the 
 climate when their release was effected by Buonaparte by the peace of 
 Campo Formio, which gave rise to the supposition that the Hebenstreit 
 
 conspiracy was connected with the French republicans and Jacobins 
 
 The second conspiracy was laid in Hungary, by the bishop and abbot, 
 Josephus Ignatius Martinowits, a man whom the emperors Joseph, Leo- 
 pold, and Francis had, on account of his talent and energy, loaded with 
 favours. The plan was an actionalis conspiratio, for the purpose of con- 
 triving an attempt against the sacred person of his Majesty the king, the 
 destruction of the power of the privileged classes in Hungary, the subver- 
 sion of the administration, and the establishment of a democracy. The 
 means for the execution of this project were furnished by two secret 
 societies. Huergelmer relates : " A certain Dr. Plank somewhat thought- 
 lessly ridiculed the institution of the jubilee; in order to convince him of 
 its utility, he was sent as a recruit to the Italian army, an act that was 
 highly praised by the newspapers." On the 22nd July, ] 795, a Baron 
 von Riedel was placed in the pillory at Vienna for some political crime, 
 and was afterwards consigned to the oblivion of a dungeon ; the same fate, 
 some days later, befell Brandstettcr, Fellesneck, Billeck, Ruschitiski 
 (Ephemeridae of 1795). A Baron Taufner was hanged at Vienna as a 
 traitor to his country (E. of 1796). 
 
 t " The increase of crime occasioned by the artifices of the police, who
 
 174 LOSS OF THE LEFT BANK OF THE RHINE. 
 
 It may be recorded as a matter of curiosity, that, during the 
 blood-stained year of 1793, the petty prince of Schwarzburg- 
 Rudolstadt held, as though in the most undisturbed time of 
 peace, a magnificent tournament, and the fetes customary on 
 such an occasion. 
 
 CCXLVIII. Loss of the left bank of the Rhine. 
 
 The object of the Prussian king was either to extend his 
 conquests westwards or, at all events, to prevent the advance 
 of Austria. The war with France claimed his utmost atten- 
 tion, and, in order to guard his rear, he again attempted to 
 convert Poland into a bulwark against Russia. 
 
 His ambassador, Lucchesini, drove Stackelberg, the Rus- 
 sian envoy, out of Warsaw, and promised mountains of gold 
 to the Poles, who dissolved the perpetual council associated by 
 Russia with the sovereign, freed themselves from the Russian 
 guarantee ; aided by Prussia, compelled the Russian troops to 
 evacuate the country ; devised a constitution, which they laid 
 before the cabinets of London and Berlin ; concluded an offen- 
 sive and defensive alliance with Prussia on the 29th of March, 
 1790, and, on the 3rd of May, 1791, carried into effect the 
 new constitution ratified by England and Prussia, and ap- 
 proved of by the 'emperor Leopold. During the conference, 
 held at Pilnitz, the indivisibility of Poland was expressly 
 mentioned. The constitution was monarchical. Poland was, 
 for the future, to be an hereditary instead of an elective mon- 
 archy, and, on the death of Poniatowsky, the crown was to fall 
 to Saxony. The modification of the peasants' dues and the 
 power conceded to the serf of making a private agreement 
 with his lord also gave the monarchy a support against the 
 aristocracy. 
 
 thereby gained their livelihood, rendered an especial statute, prohibitory' of 
 such measures, necessary in the new legislature. Even the passing stranger 
 perceived the disastrous effect of their intrigues upon the open, honest 
 character and the social habits of the Viennese. The police began 
 gradually to be considered as a necessary part of the machine of govern- 
 ment, a counterbalance to or a remedy for the faults committed by other 
 branches of the administration. Large sums, the want of which was hea- 
 vily felt in the national education and in the army, were expended on this 
 arsenal of poisoned weapons." — Hormayr's Pocket-book, 1832. Thugut 
 is described as a diminutive, hunch-backed old man, with a face resem- 
 bling the mask of a fa^vn and with an almost satanic expression.
 
 LOSS OF THE LEFT BANK OF THE RHINE. ITo 
 
 Catherine of Russia, however, no sooner beheld Prussia 
 and Austria engaged in a war with France, than she com- 
 menced her operations against Poland, declared the new 
 Polish constitution French and Jacobinical, notwithstanding its 
 abolition of the Ubenim veto and its extension of the prero- 
 gatives of the crown, and, taking advantage of the king's ab- 
 sence from Prussia, speedily regained possession of the coun- 
 try. What was Frederick William's policy in this dilemma ? 
 He was strongly advised to make peace with France, to throw 
 himself at the head of the whole of his forces into Poland, and 
 to set a limit to tlie insolence of the autocrat ; but — he 
 feared, should he abandon the Rhine, the extension of the 
 power of Austria in that quarter, and — calculating that Ca- 
 therine, in order to retain his friendship, would cede to him a 
 portion of her booty,* unhesitatingly broke the faith he had 
 just plighted with the Poles, suddenly took up Catherine's 
 tone, declared the constitution, he had so lately ratified, Jaco- 
 binical, and despatched a force under jMiillendorf into Poland 
 in order to secure possession of his stipulated prey. By the 
 second partition of Poland, which took place as rapidly, as 
 violently, and, on account of the assurances of the Prussian 
 monarch, far more unexpectedly than the first, Russia receiv- 
 ed the whole of Lithuania, Podolia, and the Ukraine, and 
 Prussia, Thorn and Dantzig, besides Southern Prussia (Posen 
 and Calisch). Austria, at that time fully occupied with 
 France, had no participation in this robbery, which was, as it 
 were, committed behind her back. 
 
 Affairs had worn a remarkably worse aspect since the cam- 
 paign of 1792. The French had armed themselves with all 
 the terrors of offended nationalism and of unbounded, intoxi- 
 cating liberty. All the enemies of the Revolution within the 
 French territory were mercilessly exterminated, and hundreds 
 of thousands were sacrificed by the guillotine, a machine in- 
 vented for the purpose of accelerating the mode of execution. 
 The king was beheaded in this manner in the January of 
 1793, and the queen shared a similar fate in the ensuing Oc- 
 tober.l Whilst Robespierre directed the executions, Carnot 
 
 * Prussia chiefly coveted the possession of Dantzijr, which the Poles 
 refused to give or the English to grant to him, and which he could only 
 seize by the aid of Russia. 
 
 t After having been long retained in prison, ill fed and ill clothed, afler
 
 176 LOSS OF THE LEFT BANK OF THE RHINE. 
 
 undertook to make preparations for war, and, in the very 
 midst of this immense fermentation, calmly converted France 
 into an enormous camp, and more than a million Frenchmen, 
 as if summoned by magic from the clod, were placed under 
 arms. 
 
 The sovereigns of Europe also prepared for war, and [a. d. 
 1793] formed the first great coalition, at whose head stood 
 England, intent upon the destruction of the French navy. 
 The English, aided by a large portion of the French popula- 
 tion, devoted to the ancient monarchy, attacked France by sea, 
 and made a simultaneous descent on the northern and southern 
 coasts. The Spanish and Portuguese troops crossed the Py- 
 renees ; the Italian princes invaded the Alpine boundary ; 
 Austria, Prussia, Holland, and the German empire threaten- 
 ed the Rhenisli frontier, whilst Sweden and Russia stood 
 frowning in the back-ground. The whole of Christian Eu- 
 rope took up arms against France, and enormous armies ho- 
 vered, like vultures, around their prey. 
 
 The duke of Coburg commanded the main body of the 
 Austrians in the Netherlands, where he was at first merely 
 opposed by the old French army, whose general, Dumouriez, 
 after unsuccessfully grasping at the supreme power, entered 
 into a secret agreement with the coalition, allowed himself to 
 be defeated at Aldenhoven * and Neerwinden, and finally de- 
 serted to the Austrians. At this moment, when the French 
 army was dispirited by defeat and without a leader, Coburg, 
 who had been reinforced by the English and Dutch under the 
 Duke of York, might, by a hasty advance, have taken Paris 
 by surprise, but both the English and Austrian generals solely 
 owed the command, for which they were totally unfit, to their 
 high birth, and Colonel Mack, the most prominent character 
 among the officers of the staff, was a mere theoretician, who 
 could cleverly enough conduct a campaign — upon paper, Clair- 
 fait, the Austrian general, beat the disbanded French army un- 
 der Dampiere at Famars, but temporized instead of following up 
 
 supporting, -with unbending dignity, the unmanly insults of the republican 
 mob before whose tribunal she was dragged. The young dauphin ex- 
 pired under the ill-treatment he received from his guardian, a shoemaker. 
 His sister, the present Duchess d'Angouleme, was spared. 
 
 * Where the peasantry, infuriated at the depredations of the French, 
 cast the wounded and the dead indiscriminately into a trench. — Benzen- 
 berg's Letters.
 
 LOSS OF THE LEFT BANK OF THE RHINE. 1T7 
 
 his victory. Coburg, in the hope of the triumph of the moder- 
 ate party, the Girondins, published an extremely mild and 
 peaceable proclamation, which, on the fall of the Gironde, was 
 instantly succeeded by one of a more tlireatening character, 
 which his want of energy and decision in action merely render- 
 ed ridiculous. No vigorous attack was made, nor was even a vi- 
 gorous defence calculated upon, not one of the frontier forts in 
 the Netherlands, demolished by Joseph II., having been rebuilt. 
 The coalition foolishly trusted that the French would be annihi- 
 lated by their inward convulsions, whilst they were in reality 
 seizing the opportunity granted by the tardiness of their foes 
 to levy I'aw recruits and exercise them in arms. The principal 
 error, however, lay in the system of conquest pursued by both 
 Austria and England. Conde, Valenciennes, and all towns 
 within the French territory taken by Coburg were compelled 
 to take a formal oath of allegiance to Austria, and England 
 made, as the condition of her aid, that of the Austrians for the 
 conquest of Dunkirk. The siege of this place, which was 
 merely of importance to England in a mercantile point of 
 view, retained the armies of Coburg and York, and the 
 French were consequently enabled, in the mean time, to con- 
 centrate their scattered forces and to act on the offensive. 
 Ere long, Houchard and Jourdan pushed forwards with their 
 wild masses, which, at first undisciplined and unsteady, were 
 merely able to screen themselves from the rapid and sustained 
 fire of the British, by acting as tirailleurs, (a mode of warfare 
 successfully practised by the North Americans against the 
 serried ranks of the English,) became gradually bolder, and 
 finally, by their numerical strength and republican fury, 
 gained a complete triumph. Houchard, in this manner, de- 
 feated the English at Hondscoten, (September 8th,) and 
 Jourdan drove the Austrians off the field at AYattignies on 
 the 16th of October, the day on which the French queen was 
 beheaded. Coburg, although the Austrians had maintained 
 their ground on every other point, resolved to retreat, not- 
 withstanding the urgent remonstrances of the youthful arch- 
 duke, Charles, who had greatly distinguished himself. Dur- 
 ing the retreat, an unimportant victory was gained at Menin 
 by Beaulieu, the imperial general.* His colleague, Wurmser, 
 
 * The Hanoverian general, Hammerstein, and his adjutant Scharn- 
 horst, who after^va^ds becanje so noted, made a gallant defence. When 
 VOL. in. N
 
 178 LOSS OF THE LEFT BANK OF THE RHINE. 
 
 nevertheless maintained with extreme difficulty the line ex- 
 tending from Basle to Luxemburg, which formed the Prussian 
 outposts. A French troop under Delange advanced as far as 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, where they crowned the statue of Charle- 
 magne with a bonnet rouge. 
 
 Mayence was, during the first six months of this year, be- 
 sieged by the main body of the Prussian army under the 
 command of Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick. The Austrians, 
 when on their way past Mayence to Valenciennes with a 
 quantity of heavy artillery destined for the reduction of the 
 latter place, (which they afterwards compelled to do homage 
 to the emperor,) refusing the request of the king of Prussia 
 for its use en passant for the reduction of Mayence, greatly 
 displeased that monarch, who clearly perceived the common 
 intention of England and Austria to conquer the north of 
 France to the exclusion of Prussia, and consequently re- 
 venged himself by privately partitioning Poland with Russia, 
 and refusing his assistance to General Wurms in the Vosges 
 country. The dissensions between the allies again rendered 
 their successes null. The Prussians, after the conquest of 
 Mayence, [a. d. 1793,] advanced and beat the fresh masses 
 led against them by Moreau at Pirmasens, but Frederick Wil- 
 liam, disgusted with Austria and secretly fixr from disinclined 
 to peace with France, quitted the army, (which he maintained 
 in the field, merely from motives of honour, but allowed to 
 remain in a state of inactivity,) in order to visit his newly ac- 
 quired territory in Poland. 
 
 The gallant old Wurmser was a native of Alsace, where he 
 had some property, and fought meritoriously for the German 
 cause, whilst so many of his countrymen at that time ranged 
 themselves on the side of the French.* His position on the 
 
 the city became no longer tenable, they boldly sallied forth at the head 
 of the garrison and escaped. 
 
 * Rewbel, one of the five directors of the great French republic, and 
 several of the most celebrated French generals, Germany's unwearied 
 foes, were natives of Alsace, as, for instance, the gallant Westermann, 
 one of the first leaders of the republican armies ; the intrepid Keller- 
 mann, the soldier's father ; the immortal Kleber, generalissimo of the 
 French forces in Egj'pt, who fell by the dagger of a fanatical Mussulman ; 
 and the undaunted Rapp, the hero of Dantzig. The lion-hearted Ney, 
 justly designated by the French as the bravest of the brave, was a native 
 of Lorraine. These were, one and all, men of tried metal, but whose 
 German names induce the demand, " Why did they fight for France ? "
 
 LOSS OF THE LEFT BANK OF THE RHINE. 179 
 
 celebrated "Weissenburg line was, owing to the non-assistance 
 of the Prussians, replete with danger, and he cohsequently 
 endeavoured to supply his want of strength by striking his 
 opponents with terror. His Croats, the notorious Rothmchit- 
 ler, are charged with the commission of fearful deeds of 
 cruelty. Owing to his system of paying a piece of gold for 
 every Frenchman's head, they would rush, when no legitimate 
 enemy could be encountered, into the first large village at 
 hand, knock at tlie windows and strike otF the heads of the 
 inhabitants as they peeped out. The petty principalities on 
 the German side of the Rhine also complained of the treatment 
 they received from the Austrians. But how could it be other- 
 wise ? The empire slothfuUy cast the whole burthen of the 
 war upon Austria. Many of the princes were terror-stricken 
 by the French, whilst others meditated an alliance with that 
 power, like that formerly concluded between them and Louis 
 XIY. against the empire. Bavaria alone was, but with great 
 difficulty, induced to furnish a contingent. The weak imperial 
 free towns met with most unceremonious treatment at the 
 hands of Austria. They were deprived of their artillery and 
 treated with the utmost contempt. It often happened that 
 the aristocratic magistracy, as, for instance, at Ulni, sided with 
 the soldiery against the citizens. The slothful bishops and 
 abbots of the empire were, on the other hand, treated with 
 the utmost respect by the Catholic soldiery. The infringe- 
 ment of the law of nations by the arrest of Semonville, the 
 French ambassador to Constantinople, and of Mai-et, the 
 French ambassador to Naples, and the seizure of their papers 
 on neutral ground, in the Veltlin, by Austria, created a far 
 greater sensation. 
 
 The duke of Brunswick, who had received no orders to 
 retreat, was compelled bongre-malgre, to hazard another en- 
 gagement with the French, who rushed to the attack. He 
 was once more victorious, at Kaiserslautern, over Hoche, whose 
 untrained masses were unable to withstand the superior dis- 
 ciphne of the Prussian troops. AVurmser took advantage of 
 the moment when success seemed to restore the good humour 
 of the allies to coalesce with the Prussians, dragging the un- 
 wilUng Bavarians in his train. This junction, however,, 
 
 \V urmser belonged to tlie same old Strassburg family wliich had given 
 birth to Wurmser, the celebrated court-painter of the emperor, Charles IV. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 LOSS OF THE LEFT BANK OF THE RHINE. 
 
 merely liad the effect of disclosing the jealousy rankling on 
 every side. The greatest military blunders were committed 
 and each blamed the otiier. Landau ought to and might have 
 been rescued from the French, but this step was procrastinated 
 until the convention had charged Generals Hoche and Piche- 
 gru, " Landau or death." These two generals brought a fresh 
 and numerous army into the field, and, in the very first en- 
 gagements, at Worth and Frcischweiler, tlie Bavarians ran 
 away and the Austrians and Prussians were signally defeated. 
 The retreat of Wurmser, in high displeasure, across the 
 Rhine afforded a welcome pretext to the duke of Brunswick 
 to follow his example and even to resign the command of the 
 army to Mollendorf. In this shameful manner was the left 
 bank of the Rhine lost to Germany. 
 
 In the spring of the ensuing year, 1794, the emperor Francis 
 11. visited the Netherlands in person, with the intent of push- 
 ing straight upon Paris. This project, practicable enough dur- 
 ing the preceding campaign, was, however, now utterly out of 
 the question, the more so, on account of the retreat of the 
 Prussians. The French observed on this occasion with well- 
 merited scorn : " The allies are ever an idea, a year and an 
 array behindhand." The Austrians, nevertheless, attacked 
 the whole French line in March and were at first victorious 
 on every side, at Catillon, where Kray and Wernek distin- 
 guished themselves, and at Landrecis, where the Archduke 
 Charles made a brilliant charge at the head of the cavalry. 
 Landrecis was taken. But this was all. Clairfait, whose 
 example might have animated the inactive Duke of York, 
 being left unsupported by the British, was attacked singly at 
 Kortryk by Pichegru and forced to yield to superior numbers. 
 Coburg fought an exti'emely bloody but indecisive battle at 
 Doornik, (Tournay,) where Pichegru ever opposed fresh 
 masses to the Austrian artillery. Twenty thousand dead 
 strewed the field. The youthful emperor, discouraged by the 
 coldness displayed by the Dutch, whom he had expected to 
 rise en masse in his cause, returned to Vienna. His departure 
 and the inactivity of the British commander completely dis- 
 pirited the Austrian troops, and on the 26th of June, 1794,* 
 
 * The Austrian generals, Beaulieu, Quosdanowich, and the Archduke 
 Charles, who, at that period, laid the foundation to his future fame, had 
 pushed victoriously fonvards and taken Fleurus, when the ill-timed
 
 LOSS OF THE LEFT BANK OF THE RHINE. 181 
 
 the duke of Coburg was defeated at Fleurus by Jourdan, the 
 general of the republic. This success was immediately fol- 
 lowed by that of Pichegru, not far from Breda, over the in- 
 efficient English general,* who consequently evacuated the 
 Netherlands, which were instantly overrun by the pillaging 
 French. And thus had the German powers, notwithstanding 
 their well-disciplined armies and their great plans, not only 
 forfeited their military honour, but also drawn the enemy, 
 and, in his train, anarchy with its concomitant horrors, into 
 the empire. The Austrians had rendered themselves univers- 
 ally unpopular by their arbitrary measures, and each province 
 remained stupidly indifferent to the threatened pillage of its 
 neighbour by the victorious French. Jourdan but slowly 
 tracked the retreating forces of Coburg, whom he again beat 
 at Sprimont, where he drove him from the Maese, and at Al- 
 denhoven, where he drove him from tlie Roer. Frederick, 
 Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, capitulated at Maestricht, with 
 ten thousand men, to Kleber ; and the Austrians, with the 
 exception of a small corps under the Count von Erbach, sta- 
 tioned at DUsseldorf, completely abandoned the Lower Rhine. 
 The disasters suffered by the Austrians seem at that time 
 to have flattered the ambition of the Prussians, for Mollen- 
 dorf suddenly recrossed the Rhine and gained an advantage 
 at Kaiserslautern, but was, in July, 1794, again repulsed at 
 Trippstadt, notwithstanding which he once more crossed the 
 Rhine in September, and a battle was won by the Prince von 
 Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen at Fischbach, but, on the coalition of 
 Jourdan with Hoche, who had until then singly opposed him, 
 MoUendorf again, and for the last time, retreated across the 
 Rhine. The whole of tlie left bank of the Rhine, Luxemburg 
 and Mayence alone excepted, were now in the hands of the 
 French. Resius, the Hessian general, abandoned the Rhein- 
 
 orders, as they are deemed, of the generalissimo Coburg compelled them 
 to retreat. Quosdanowich dashed his sabre furiously on the ground and 
 exclaimed, " The army is betrayed, the victory is ours, and yet we must 
 resign it. Adieu, thou glorious land, thou garden of Europe, the house 
 of Austria bids thee eternally adieu ! " The French had, before and 
 during the action, made use of a balloon for the purpose of watcliing the 
 movements of the enemy. 
 
 * The worst spirit prevailed among the British troops; the officers 
 were wealthy young men, who had purchased their posts and were, in the 
 highest degree, licentious. Vide Dietfurth's Hessian Campaigns.
 
 182 LOSS OF THE LEFT BANK OF THE RHINE. 
 
 fels with the wliole garrison, without striking a blow in its 
 defence. He was, in reward, condemned to perpetual impri- 
 sonment.* Jourdan converted the fortress into a ruined heap. 
 The whole of the fortifications on the Rhine were yielded for 
 the sake of saving Mannheim from bombardment. 
 
 In the Austrian Netherlands, the old government had al- 
 ready been abolished, and the wliole country been transformed 
 into a Belgian republic by Dumouriez. The reform of all the 
 
 * Peter Hammer, in his " Description of the Imperial Army," pub- 
 lished A. D. 179G, at Cologne, graphically depictures the sad state of the 
 empire. The imperial troops consisted of the dregs of the populace, so 
 viiriously arranged as to justify the remark of Colonel Sandberg of Baden, 
 that the only thing wanting was their regular equipment as jack-puddings. 
 A monastery furnished two men; a petty barony, the ensign; a city, the 
 captain. The arms of each man differed in calibre. No patriotic spirit 
 animated these defenders of the empire. The anonymous author re- 
 marks: " For love of one's country to be felt, there must, tirst of all, be a 
 country; but Germany is split into petty useless monarchies, chiefly 
 characterized by their oppression of their subjects, by pride, slavery, and 
 unutterable weakness. Formerly, when Germany was attacked, each 
 of her sons made ready for battle, her princes were patriotic and brave. 
 Now, may Heaven have pity on the land; the princes, the counts, and 
 nobles march hence and leave their country to its fate. The Margrave of 
 Baden — I do not speak of the prince bishop of Spires and of other spiritual 
 lords whose profession forbids their laying hand to sword — the Land- 
 grave of Darmstadt and other nobles fled on the mere report of an in- 
 tended visit from the French, by which they plainly intimated that they 
 merely held sovereign rule for the purpose of being fattened by their sub- 
 jects in time of peace. Danger no sooner appears than the miserable 
 subject is left to his own resources. Germany is divided into too many 
 petty states. How can an elector of the Pfalz, or indeed any of the still 
 lesser nobility, protect the country ? Unity, moreover, is utterly wanting. 
 The Bavarian regards the Hessian as a stranger, not as his countryman. 
 Each petty territory has a diflerent tariff, administration, and laws. The 
 subject of one petty state cannot travel half a mile into a neighbouring 
 one without leaving behind him great part of his property. The bishop 
 of Spires strictly forbids his subjects to intermarry with those of any other 
 state. And patriotism is expected to result from these measures ! The 
 subject of a despot, Avhose revenues exceed tliose of his neighbours by a 
 few thousand florins, looks down with contempt on the slave of a poorer 
 prince. Hence the boundless hatred between the German coiirts and 
 their petty brethren, hence the malicious joy caused by the mishaps of a 
 neighbouring dynasty." Hence the wretchedness of the troops. " With 
 the exception of the troops belonging to the circle, there were none to de- 
 fend the frontiers of the empire. Grandes battues, balls, operas, and 
 mistresses, swallowed up the revenue, not a farthing remained for the 
 erection of fortresses, the want of which was so deeply felt, for the de- 
 fence of the frontiers."
 
 THE DEFECTION OF PRUSSIA. 183 
 
 ancient evils, so vainly attempted but a few years before by the 
 noble-spirited emperor, Joseph II., was successfully executed 
 by this insolent Frenchman, who also abolished with them all 
 that was good in the ancient system. The city deputies, it is 
 true, made an energetic but futile resistance.* After the 
 flight of Dumouriez, fresh depredations were, with every fresh 
 success, committed by the French. Liege was reduced to the 
 most deplorable state of desolation, the cathedral and thirty 
 splendid churches were levelled with the ground by the ancient 
 enemies of the bishop. Treves was also mercilessly sacked 
 and converted into a French fortress. 
 
 CCXLIX. The defection of Prussia. The Archduke Charles. 
 
 Frederick William's advisers, who imagined the violation 
 of every principle of justice and truth an indubitable proof 
 of instinctive and consummate prudence, unwittingly played 
 a high and hazardous game. Their diplomatic absurdity, 
 which weighed the fate of nations against a dinner, found a 
 confusion of all the solid principles on which states rest as 
 stimulating as the piquant ragouts of the great Ude. Luc- 
 chesini, with his almost intolerable airs of sapience, as artfully 
 veiled his incapacity in the cabinet as Ferdinand of Brunswick 
 did his in the field, and to this may be ascribed the measures 
 which but momentarily and seemingly aggrandized Prussia 
 and prepared her deeper fall. Each petty advantage gained 
 by Prussia but served to raise against her some powerful foe, 
 
 * " How can France, with her solemn assurances of liberty, arbitra- 
 rily interfere with the government of a country already possessing a re- 
 presentative elected by the people ? How can she proclaim us as a free 
 nation, and, at the same moment, deprive us of our liberty? Will she 
 establish a new mythology of nations and divide the different people on the 
 face of the earth, according to their strength, into nations and half- 
 nations?" — Protest of the provisional Council of the City of Brussels. 
 
 The president, Theodore Dotrenge " Every free nation gives to itself 
 
 laws, does not receive them from another." — Protest of the City of Ant- 
 werp. President of the Council, Van Dun "You confiscate alike 
 
 public and private property. That have even our former tyrants never 
 ventured to do when declaring us rebels, and you say that you bring to 
 
 us liberty." — Protest of the Hennec/au. The most copious account of 
 
 the revolutionizing of the Netherlands is contained in Rau's History of 
 the Germans in France, and of the French in Germany. Frankfurt a M., 
 1794 and 95.
 
 184 THE DEFECTION OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 and finally, when placed by lier policy at enmity with every 
 sovereign of Europe, she was induced to trust to the shallow 
 friendship of the French republic. 
 
 The Poles, taken unawares by the second partition of their 
 country, speedily recovered from their surprise and collected 
 all their strength for an energetic opposition. Kosciuszko, 
 Avho had, together with Lafayette, fought in North America 
 in the cause of liberty, armed his countrymen with scythes, 
 put every Russian who fell into his hands to death, and at- 
 renipted the restoration of ancient Poland. How easily might 
 not Prussia, backed by the enthusiasm of the patriotic Poles, 
 have repelled the Russian colossus, already threatening Eu- 
 rope ! But the Berlin diplomatists had yet to learn the 
 homely truth, that " honesty is the best policy." They aided 
 in the aggrandizement of Russia, drew down a nation's curse 
 upon their heads for the sake of an addition to the territory 
 of Prussia, the maintenance of which cost more than its revenue, 
 and violated the Divine commands during a period of storm 
 and convulsion, when the aid of Heaven was indeed required. 
 The ministers of Frederick William II. were externally re- 
 ligious, but those of Frederick William I., by whom the Polish 
 question had been so justly decided, were so in reality. 
 
 The king led his troops in person into Poland, and, in June, 
 1794, defeated Kosciuszko's scythemen at Szczekociny, but 
 met with such strenuous opposition in his attack upon Warsaw 
 as to be compelled to retire in September.* On the retreat 
 of the Prussian troops, the Russians, who had purposely 
 awaited their departure in order to secure the triumph for 
 themselves, invaded the country in great force under their 
 bold general, vSuwaroiF, who defeated Kosciuszko, took him 
 prisoner, and besieged Warsaw, which he carried by storm. 
 On this occasion, termed by Reichard " a peaceful and merci- 
 ful entry of the clement victor," eighteen thousand of the in- 
 habitants of every age and sex were cruelly put to the sword. 
 The result of this success was the third partition or utter 
 
 * The following trait proves the complete stagnation of chivalric feel- 
 ing in the army. Szekuli, colonel of tlie Prussian hussars, condemned 
 several patriotic ladies, belonging to the highest Polish families at Zna- 
 \vrazlaw, to be placed beneath the gallows, in momentary expectation of 
 death, until it, at length, pleased him to grant a reprieve, couched in the 
 most offensive and indecent terms.
 
 THE DEFECTION OF PRrSSIA. 185 
 
 annihilation of Poland. Russia took possession of the whole 
 of Lithuania and Volhynia, as far as the Riemen and the Bug ; 
 Prussia, of the whole country west of the Riemen, including War- 
 saw; Austria, of the whole country south of the Bug [a. d. 1 795]. 
 An armyof German officials, who earned for themselves not the 
 best of reputations, settled in the Prussian division. They were 
 ignorant of the language of the country, and enriched them- 
 selves by tyranny and oppression. Von Treibenfeld, the coun- 
 sellor to the forest-board, one of Bischofswerder's friends, 
 bestowed a number of confiscated lands upon his adherents. 
 
 The ancient Polish feof of Courland was, in consequence 
 of the annihilation of Poland, incorporated with the Russian 
 empire, Peter, the last duke, the son of Biron, being compelled 
 to abdicate, a. d. 1795. 
 
 Pichegi'u invaded Holland late in the autumn of 1794. 
 The Duke of York had already returned to England. A line 
 of defence was, nevei'theless, taken up by the British under 
 Wallmoden, by the Dutch under their hereditaiy stadtholder, 
 William V. of Orange, and by an Austrian cor])s under Al- 
 vinzi ; the Dutch were, however, panic-struck, and negotiated 
 a separate treaty with Pichegru,* who, at that moment, solely 
 aimed at separating the Dutch from their allies ; but when, in 
 December, all the rivers and canals were suddenly frozen, and 
 nature no longer threw unconquerable obstacles in his path, 
 regardless of the negotiations then pending in Paris, he un- 
 expectedly took up arms, marched across the icebound waters, 
 and carried Holland by storm. With him marched the anti- 
 Orangemen, the exiled Dutch patriots, under General Daen- 
 dels and Admiral de Winter, with the pretended view of re- 
 • storing ancient republican liberty to Holland and of expelling 
 the tyrannical Orange dynasty. The British (and some Hes- 
 sian troops) were defeated at Thiel on the Waal ; Alvinzi met 
 with a similar fate at Pondern and was compelled to retreat 
 into Westphalia. Some English ships, which lay frozen up 
 in the harbour, were captured by the Fi-ench hussars. A most 
 
 * A most disgraceful treaty. William's enemies, the fugitive patriots, 
 had promised the French, in return for their aid, sixty million florins of 
 the spoil of their country. William, upon this, promised to pay to France 
 a subsidy of eighty millions, in order to guarantee the security of his fron- 
 tier, but was instantly outbid by the base and self-denominated patriots, 
 who offered to France a hundred million florins in order to induce her 
 to invade their country.
 
 186 THE DEFECTION OF TRUSSIA. 
 
 manly resistance was made ; but no aid was sent from any 
 quarter. Prussia, who so shortly before had ranged herself 
 on the side of the stadtholder against the people, was now an 
 indifferent spectator. William V. was compelled to flee to 
 England. Holland was transformed into a Batavian republic. 
 Hahn, Hoof, etc. were the first furious Jacobins by whom 
 every thing was there formed upon the French model. The 
 Dutch were compelled to cede Maestricht, Venloo, and Vlies- 
 singen ; to pay a hundred millions to France, and, moreover, 
 to allow their country to be plundered, to be stripped of all 
 the splendid works of art, pictures, etc, (as was also the case 
 in the Netherlands and on the Rhine,) and even of the valu- 
 able museum of natural curiosities collected by them with such 
 assiduity in every quarter of the globe. These depredations 
 were succeeded by a more systematic mode of plunder. Hol- 
 land was mercilessly drained of her enormous wealth. All 
 the gold and silver bullion was first of all collected ; this was 
 followed by the imposition of an income-tax of six per cent., 
 which was afterwards repe<ated, and was succeeded by a sliding 
 income-tax from three to thirty per cent. The British, at the 
 same time, destroyed the Dutch fleet in the Texel commanded 
 by de Winter, in order to prevent its capture by the French, 
 and seized all the Dutch colonies, Java alone excepted. The 
 flag of Holland had vanished from the seas. 
 
 In August, A. D. 1794, the reign of terror in France 
 reached its close. The moderate party which came into 
 power gave hopes of a general peace, and Frederick William 
 n. without loss of time negotiated a separate treaty, suddenly 
 abandoned the monarchical cause which he had formerly so 
 zealously upheld, and offered his friendship to the revolution- 
 ary nation, against which he had so lately hurled a violent 
 manifesto. The French, with equal inconsistency on their part, 
 abandoned the popular cause, and, after having murdered their 
 own sovereign and threatened every European throne witli 
 destruction, accepted the alliance of a foreign king. Both par- 
 ties, notwitlistanding the contrariety of their principles and 
 their mutual animosity, were conciliated by their political in- 
 terest. The French, solely bent upon conquest, cared not for 
 the liberty of other nations ; Prussia, intent upon self-aggran- 
 dizement, was indifferent to the fate of her brother sovei'eigns. 
 Peace was concluded between France and Prussia at Basle,
 
 THE DEFECTION OF PRUSSIA. 187 
 
 April 5, 1795. By a secret article of this treaty, Prussia 
 confirmed the French republic in the possession of the whole 
 of the left bank of the Rhine, whilst France in return richly 
 indemnified Prussia at the expense of the petty German states. 
 This peace, notwithstanding its manifest disadvantages, was 
 also acceded to by Austria, which, on this occasion, received the 
 unfortunate daughter of Louis XVI. in exchange for Semon- 
 viile and Maret, the captive ambassadors of the republic, and 
 the members of the Convention seized by Dumouriez. Han- 
 over* and Hesse-Cassel participated in the treaty and were 
 included within the line of demarcation, which France, on her 
 side, bound herself not to transgress. 
 
 The countries lying beyond this line of demarcation, the Ne- 
 therlands, Holland, and Pfalz-Juliers, were now abandoned to 
 France, and Austria, kept in check on the Upper Rhine, was 
 powerless in their defence. In this manner fell Luxemburg 
 and Diisseldorf. All the Lower Rhenish provinces wei'e sys- 
 tematically plundered by the French under pretext of estab- 
 lishing liberty and equality.f The Batavian republic was 
 permitted to subsist, but dependent upon France ; Belgium 
 Avas annexed to France, a. d. 1795. 
 
 * Von Berlepsch, the counsellor of administration, proposed to the Ca- 
 lemberg diet to declare their neutrality in deliance of England, and, in 
 case of necessity, to place " the Calembcrg Nation " under the protection 
 of France. — Havematm. 
 
 t " Wherever these locusts appear, every thing, men, cattle, food, pro- 
 perty, etc., is carried off. These thieves seize every thing convertible 
 into money. Nothing is safe from them. At Cologne, they filled a church 
 "with coffee and sugar. At Aix-la-Chapelle, they carried off the finest 
 pictures of Rubens and Van Dyck, the pillars from the altar, and the 
 marble-slab from the tomb of Charlemagne, all of which they sold to 
 some Dutch Jews." — Posselfs Atinals of 1796. At Cologne, the nuns 
 were instantly emancipated from their vows, and one of the youngest and 
 most beautiful afterwards gained great notoriety as a bar-maid at an inn. 
 This scandalous story is related by Kleber in his Travels on the Rhine. 
 In Bonn, Glcicli, a man who had formerly been a priest, placed himself 
 at the head of the French rabble and planted trees of liberty. He also 
 gave to the world a decade, as he termed his publication. — Muller, History 
 of Bonn. " The French proclaimed war against the palaces and peace to 
 the huts, but no hut was too mean to escape the rapacity of these birds of 
 prey. The first-fruits of liberty was the pillage of every corner." — Schwa- 
 beti's History of Siegbtirg. The brothers Boisseree afterwards collected 
 a good many of the church pictures, at that period carried away from 
 Cologne and more particularly from the Lower Rhine. They now adorn 
 Mimich and form the best collection of old German paintings now existing.
 
 188 THE DEFECTION OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 On the retreat of the Prussians, Mannheim was surrendered 
 without a blow by the electoral minister, Oberndorf, to the 
 French. Wurmser arrived too late to the relief of the city. 
 Quosdanowich, his lieutenant-general, nevertheless, succeeded 
 in saving Heidelberg by sheltering himself behind a great 
 abattis at Handschuchsheion, whence he repulsed the enemy, 
 who were afterwards almost entirely cut to pieces by General 
 Klenau, whom he sent in pursuit with the light cavalry. 
 General Boros led another Austrian corps across Nassau to 
 Ehrenbreitstein, at that time besieged by the French under 
 their youthful general, Marceau, who instantly retired. 
 Wurmser no sooner arrived in person than, attacking the 
 French before Mannheim, he completely put them to the rout 
 and took General Oudinot prisoner. Clairfait, at the same 
 time, advanced unperceived upon Mayence, and unexpectedly 
 attacking the besieging French force, carried off one hundred 
 and thirty-eight pieces of heavy artillery. Pichegru, who had 
 been called from Holland to take the command on the Upper 
 Rhine, was driven back to the Vosges. Jourdan advanced to 
 his aid from the Lower Rhine, but his van-guaixl under Mar- 
 ceau was defeated at Kreuznach and again at Meissenheim. 
 Mannheim also capitulated to the Austrians. The winter was 
 now far advanced ; both sides were weary of the campaign, 
 and an armistice was concluded. Austria, notwithstanding 
 her late success, was, owing to the desertion of Prussia, in a 
 critical position. The imperial troops also refused to act. 
 The princes of Southern Germany longed for peace. Even 
 Spain followed the example of Prussia and concluded a treaty 
 with the French republic. 
 
 The consequent dissolution of the coalition between the 
 German powers had at least the effect of preventing the form- 
 ation of a coalition of nations against them by the French. 
 Had the alliance between the sovereigns continued, the French 
 would, from political motives, have used their utmost endea- 
 vours to revolutionize Germany ; this project was rendered 
 needless by the treaty of Basle, which broke up the coalition 
 and confirmed France in the undisturbed possession of her 
 liberties ; and thus it happened, that Prussia unwittingly 
 aided the monarchical cause by involuntarily preventing the 
 promulgation of the revolutionary principles of France. 
 
 Austria remained unshaken, and refused either to betray
 
 THE ARCHDUKE CHARLES. 189 
 
 the monarchical cause by the recognition of a revolutionary 
 democratical government, or to cede the frontiers of the em- 
 pire to the youthful and insolent generals of the republic. 
 Conscious of the righteousness of the cause she upheld, she 
 intrepidly stood her ground and ventured her single strength 
 in the mighty contest, which the campaign of 1796 was to de- 
 cide. The Austrian forces in Germany were commanded by 
 the emperor's brother, the Archduke Charles ; those in Italy, 
 by Beaulieu. The French, on the other hand, sent Jourdan 
 to the Lower Rhine, Moreau to the Upper Rhine, Buona- 
 parte to Italy, and commenced the attack on every point witli 
 their wonted impetuosity. 
 
 The Austrians had again extended their lines as far as the 
 Lower Rhine. A corps under Prince Ferdinand of WUrtem- 
 berg was stationed in the Bergland, in the narrow corner still 
 left between the Rhine and the Prussian line of demarcation. 
 Marceau forced him to retire as far as Altenkirchen, but the 
 Archduke Charles hastening to his assistance, encountered 
 Jourdan's entire force on the Lahn near Kloster Alteuberg, 
 and, after a short contest, compelled it to give way. A great 
 part of the Austrian army of the Rhine under Wurmser, hav- 
 ing been, meanwhile, drawn off and sent into Italy, the arch- 
 duke was compelled to turn hastily from Jourdan against 
 Moreau, who had just despatched General Ferino across the 
 lake of Constance, whilst he advanced upon Strassburg. A 
 small Swabian corps under Colonel Raglowich made an ex- 
 traordinary defence in Kehl, (the first instance of extreme 
 bravery given by the imperial troops at that time,) but was 
 forced to yield to numbers. The Austrian general, Sztarray, 
 was, notwithstanding the gallantry displayed on the occasion, 
 also repulsed at Sasbach ; the Wlirtemberg battalion was also 
 driven from the steep pass of the Kniebes,* across which Mo- 
 reau penetrated through the Black Forest into the heart of 
 Swabia, and had already reached Freudenstadt, when the 
 Austrian general, Latour, marched up the Murg. He was, 
 however, also repulsed. The Archduke Charles now arrived in 
 
 > * " Had Wiirtemberg possessed but six thousand well-organized 
 troops, the position on the Roszbuhl might have been maintained, and the 
 country have been saved. The millions since paid by Wiirtemberg, and 
 which she may still have to pay, would have been spared." — Appendix to 
 the History of the Campaign of 1 796.
 
 190 THE ARCHDUKE CHARLES. 
 
 person in the country around Pforzheim, (on the skirts of the 
 Black Forest,) and sent forward his columns to attack the 
 French in the mountains, but in vain ; the French were vic- 
 torious at Rothensol and at Wildbad. The archduke retired 
 behind the Neckar to Cannstadt ; his rear-guard was pursued 
 through the city of Stuttgard by the van-guard of the French. 
 After a short cannonade, the archduke also abandoned his po- 
 sition at Cannstadt. The whole of the Swabian circle sub- 
 mitted to the French. Wiirtemberg was noAv compelled to 
 make a formal cession of IMiimpelgard, which had been for 
 some time garrisoned by the French,* and, moreover, to pay a 
 contribution of four million livres ; Baden was also mulcted 
 two millions, the other states of the Swabian circle twelve 
 millions, the clergy seven millions, altogether twenty-five mil- 
 lion livres, without reckoning the enormous requisition of pro- 
 visions, horses, clothes, etc. The archduke, in the mean time, 
 deprived the troops belonging to the Swabian circle of their 
 arms at Biberach, on account of the peace concluded by their 
 princes with the French, and retired behind the Danube by 
 Donauwoerth. Ferine had, meanwhile, also advanced from 
 HUningen into the Breisgau and to the lake of Constance, had 
 beaten the small corps under General Frohlick at Herbolsheim 
 and the remnant of the French emigrants under Conde at 
 Mindelheim,f and joined Moreau in pursuit of the archduke. 
 His troops committed great havoc wherever they appeared. J 
 
 * The duke. Charles, had, in 1791, visited Paris, donned the national 
 cockade, and bribed Mirabeau ^\'ith a large sum of money to induce the 
 French government to purchase Miimpelgard from him. The French, 
 however, -were quite as well aware as the duke that they would ere lon^ 
 possess it gratis. 
 
 t Moreau generously allowed all his prisoners, who, as ex-nobles, 
 were destined to the guillotine, to escape. 
 
 J Armbruster's "Register of French Crime" contains as follows: 
 " Here and there, in the neighbouring towns, there were certainly symp- 
 toms of an extremely favourable disposition towards the French, which 
 
 would ill deserve a place in the annals of German patriotism and of 
 
 German good sense. This disposition was fortunately far from general. 
 The appearance of the French in their real character, and the barbarous 
 excesses and heavy contributions by which they rendered the people sen- 
 sible of their presence, speedily effected their conversion." The French, 
 it is true, neither murdered the inhabitants nor burnt the villages as they 
 had during the previous century in the Pfalz, but they pillaged the coun- 
 try to a "greater extent,- shamefully abused the women, and desecrated the 
 churches. Their licence and the art with which thev extorted the last
 
 THE ARCHDUKE CHARLES. 191 
 
 Jourdan had also again pushed forwards. The archduke had 
 merely been able to oppose to him on the Lower Rhine thirty 
 thousand men under the Count von Wartensleben, which, owing 
 to Jourdan's numerical superiority, had been repulsed across 
 both the Lahn and Maine. Jourdan took Frankfurt by 
 bombardment and imposed upon that city a contribution of 
 six millions. The Franconian circle also submitted and paid 
 sixteen millions, without reckoning the requisition of natural 
 productions and the merciless pillage.* 
 
 The Archduke Charles, too weak singly to encounter the 
 armies of Moreau and Jourdan, had, meanwhile, boldly re- 
 solved to keep his opponents as long as possible separate, and, 
 on the first favourable opportunity, to attack one with the 
 whole of his forces, whilst he kept the other at bay with a 
 small division of his army. In pursuance of this plan, he 
 sent Wartensleben against Jourdan, and, meanwhile, drew 
 Moreau after him into Bavaria, where, leaving General La- 
 tour with a small corps to keep him in check at Rain on the 
 Lech, he recrossed the Danube at Ingolstadt with the flower 
 of his army and hastily advanced against Jourdan, who was 
 thus taken unawares. At Teiningen, he surprised the French 
 avant-garde under Bernadotte, which he compelled to retire. 
 At Amberg, he encountered Jourdan, whom he completely 
 routed, a. d. 1796. The French retreated through the city, 
 on the other side of which they formed an immense square 
 
 penny from the wretched people surpassed all belief. " Not satisfied 
 with robbing the churches, they especially gloried in giving utterance to 
 the most fearful blasphemies, in destroying and profaning the altars, in 
 overthrowing the statues of saints, in treading the host beneath their feet 
 
 or casting it to dogs At the village of Berg in Wcingarten, they set up 
 
 in the holy of holies the image of the devil, which they had taken from 
 the representation of the temptation of the Saviour in the wilderness. In 
 the village of Boos, they roasted a crucifix before a fire." — Vide Hurler's 
 Memorabilia, concenmig the French allies in Sicabia, who attempted to 
 found an Alemannic Republic. Schaffhausen, 1840. Moreau reduced 
 them to silence by declaring, " I have no need of a revolution to the rear 
 of my army." 
 
 * Notwithstanding Jourdan's proclamation, promising protection to 
 all private property, Wiirzburg, 'Schweinfurt, Bamberg, etc. were com- 
 pletely pillaged. The young girls fled in hundreds to the woods. The 
 churches were shamelessly desecrated. When mercy in God's name was 
 demanded, the plunderers replied, " God ! we are God ! " They would 
 dance at night-time around a bowl of burning brandy, whose blue flames 
 they called their etre supreme. — The French in Franconia, by Cotmt Soden.
 
 192 THE ARCHDUKE CHARLES. 
 
 against the imperial cavalry undei' Wernek ; it was broken on 
 the third charge, and a terrible slaughter took place, thi'ee thou- 
 sand of the French being killed and one thousand taken pri- 
 soner. The peasantry had already flown to arms, and assisted 
 in cutting down the fugitives. Jourdan again made a stand at 
 WUrzburg, where Wernek stormed his batteries at the head of 
 his grenadiers and a complete rout ensued, September 3rd. The 
 French lost six thousand dead and two thousand prisoners. The 
 peasantry rose en masse, and hunted down the fugitives.* On the 
 Upper Rhone, Dr. Roder placed himself at the head of the pea- 
 santry, but, encountering a superior French corps at IMellrich- 
 stadt, was defeated and killed. The French suffered most in 
 the Spessart, called by them, on that account, La petite Vendee. 
 The peasantry were here headed by an aged forester, named 
 Philip Witt, and, protected by their forests, exterminated 
 numbers of the flying foe. The imperial troops were also un- 
 remitting in their pursuit, again defeated Bernadotte at As- 
 chaffenburg and chased Jourdan through Nassau across the 
 Rhine. Marceau, who had vainly besieged IMayence, again 
 made stand at AUerheim, where he was defeated and killed. f 
 
 Moreau, completely deceived by the archduke, had, mean- 
 while, remained in Bavaria. After defeating C4eneral Latour 
 at Lechhausen, instead of setting off in pursuit of the arch- 
 duke and to Jourdan's aid, he was, as the archduke had fore- 
 seen, attracted by the prospect of gaining a rich booty, in an 
 opposite direction, towards Munich. Bavaria submitted to 
 the French, paid ten millions, and ceded twenty of the most 
 valuable pictures belonging to the Diisseldorf and Munich 
 galleries. The news of Jourdan's defeat now compelled Mo- 
 reau to beat a rapid retreat in order to avoid being cut off by 
 the victorious archduke. Latour set off vigorously in pursuit, 
 
 * " They deemed the assassination of a foreig^ncr a meritorious "work." 
 — Ephemeridm of 1797. " The peasantry, roused to fury by the disorderly 
 and cruel French, whose excesses exceeded all belief, did not even extend 
 mercy to the wounded ; and the French, with equal barbaiity, set whole 
 villages on fire." — Appendix to the Campaign 0/1796. 
 
 t When scarcely in his twenty-seventh year. He was one of the most 
 distinguished heroes of the Revolution, and as remarkable for his generosity 
 to his weaker foes as for his moral and chivalric principles. The Arch- 
 duke Charles sent his private physicians to attend upon him, and, on the 
 occasion of his burial, fired a salvo simultaneously with that of the French 
 stationed on the opposite bank of the Rhine. — Miissinan.
 
 BONAPARTE. 193 
 
 came up with him at Ulm and again at Ravensburg, but was 
 both times repulsed, owing to his numerical inferiority. A 
 similar fate awaited the still smaller imperial corps led against 
 the French by Nauendorf at Rothweil and by Petrosch at 
 Villingen, and INIoreau led the main body of his army in 
 safety through the deep narrow gorges of the Hollenthal in 
 the Black Forest to Freiburg in the Breisgau, where he came 
 upon the archduke, who, amid the acclamations of the armed 
 peasantry, (by whom the retreating French* were, as in the 
 Spessart, continually harassed in their passage through the 
 Black Forest,) had hurried, but too late, to his encounter. 
 Moreau had already sent two divisions of his army, under 
 Ferino and Desaix, across the Rhine at Hliningen and Brei- 
 sach, and covered their retreat witii the third by taking up a 
 strong position at Schliesgen, not far from Freiburg, whence, 
 after braving a first attack, he escaped during the night to 
 Hiiningen. This retreat, in which he had saved his army 
 with comparatively little loss, excited general admiration, but 
 in Italy there was a young man, who scornfully exclaimed, 
 " It was, after all, merely a retreat ! " 
 
 CCL- Bonaparte. 
 
 This youth was Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of a lawyer 
 in the island of Corsica, a man of military genius, who, when 
 a mere lieutenant, had raised the siege of Toulon, had after- 
 wards served the Directory by dispersing the old Jacobins with 
 his artillery in the streets of Paris, and had been intrusted 
 with the command of the ariny in Italy. Talents, that under 
 a monarchy would have been doomed to obscurity, were, 
 under the French republic, called into notice, and men of de- 
 cided genius could, amid the general competition, alone attain 
 to power or retain the reins of government. 
 
 Bonaparte was the first to take the field. In the April of 
 
 * The peasants of the Artenau and the Kinzigthal were commanded 
 by a wealthy farmer, named John Baader. Besides several French 
 generals, Hausmann, the commissary of the government, who accom- 
 panied Moreau's army, was taken prisoner. — Miissinan, History of the 
 French War of 1795, etc. A decree, published on the 18th of September 
 by Frederick Eugene, Duke of Wiirtemberg, in which he prohibited his 
 subjects from taking part in the pursuit of the French, is worthy of re- 
 mark.
 
 194 BONAPARTE. 
 
 1 796, he pushed across the Alps and attacked the Austrian?. 
 Beaulieu, a good general but too old for service, (he was then 
 72, Napoleon but 27,) had incautiously extended his lines too 
 far in order to preserve a communication with the English 
 fleet in the jNIediterranean. Bonaparte defeated his scattered 
 corps at Montenotte and Millesimo, between the 10th and 
 loth of April, and, turning sharply upon the equally scattered 
 Sardinian force, beat it in several engagements, the principal 
 of which took place at Mondovi, between the 19th and 22nd 
 of April. An armistice was concluded with Sardinia, and 
 Beaulieu, who vainly attempted to defend the Po, was de- 
 feated on the 7th and 8th of May, at Fombio. The bridge 
 over the Adda at Lodi, three hundred paces in length, ex- 
 tremely naiTow and to all appearance impregnable, defended 
 by his lieutenant Sebottendorf, was carried by storm, and, on 
 the loth of May, Bonaparte entered IMilan. Beaulieu took 
 up a position behind the Mincio, notwithstanding which, 
 Bonaparte carried the again ill-defended bridge at Borghetto 
 by stoi'm. AVhilst in this part of the country, he narrowly 
 escaped being taken prisoner by a party of skirmishers, and 
 was compelled to fly half-naked, with but one foot booted, 
 from his night-quarters at St. Georgio. 
 
 Beaulieu now withdrew into the Tyrol. Sardinia made 
 peace, and terms were offered by the pope and by Naples. 
 Leghorn was garrisoned with French troops ; all the English 
 goods lying in this harbour, to the value of twelve million 
 pounds, were confiscated. The strongly fortified city of Mantua, 
 defended by the Austrians under their gallant leader. Canto 
 dTrles, was besieged by Bonaparte. A fresh body of Austrian 
 troops under Wurmser, crossed the mountains to their relief; 
 butWurmser, instead of advancing with his whole force, incau- 
 tiously pressed forward with thirty-two thousand men through 
 the valley of the Etsch, while Quasdanowich led eighteen thou- 
 sand along the western shore of the lake of Garda. Bona- 
 parte instantly perceived his advantage, and, attacking the 
 latter, defeated him, on the 3rd of August, at Lonato. Wurmser 
 had entered Mantua unopposed on the 1st, but, setting out in 
 search of the enemy, was unexpectedly attacked, on the 5th of 
 August, by the whole of Bonaparte's forces at Castiglione, and 
 compelled, like Quasdanowich, to seek slielter in the Tyrol. 
 This senseless mode of attack had been planned by Weirotter,
 
 BONAPARTE. 195 
 
 a colonel belonging to the general staff. Wurmser now re- 
 ceived reinforcements, and Laner, the general of the engineers, 
 was intrusted with the projection of a better plan. He again 
 weakened the army by dividing his forces. In the beginning 
 of September, Davidowich penetrated with twenty thousand 
 men through the valley of the Etsch and was defeated at Eo- 
 veredo, and Wurmser, who had, meanwhile, advanced with an 
 army of twenty-six thousand men through the valley of the 
 Brenta, met with a similar fate at Bassano. He, nevertheless, 
 escaped the pursuit of the victorious French by making a cir- 
 cuit, and threw himself by a forced march into Mantua, where 
 he was, however, unable to make a lengthy resistance, the city 
 being over-populated and provisions scarce. A fresh army of 
 twenty-eight thousand men, under Alvinzi, sent to his relief* 
 through the valley of the Brenta, was attacked in a strong posi- 
 tion at Arcole, on the river Alpon. Two dams protected the 
 bank and a narrow bridge, which was, on the loth of Novem- 
 ber, vainly stormed by the French, although General Augereau 
 and Bonaparte, with the colours in his hand, led the attack. 
 On the following day, Alvinzi foolishly crossed the bridge and 
 took up an exposed position, in which he was beaten, and, on 
 the third day, he retreated. Davidowich, meanwhile, again ad- 
 vanced from the Tyrol and gained an advantage at Rivoli, but 
 was also forced to retreat before Bonaparte. Wurmser, when 
 too late, made a sally, which was, consequently, useless. The 
 campaign was, nevertheless, for the fifth time, renewed. Al- 
 vinzi collected reinforcements and again pushed forward into 
 the valley of the Etsch, but speedily lost courage and suffered 
 a fearful defeat, in which twenty thousand of his men were 
 taken prisoners, on the 14th and 1 5th of January, a. d. 1797, 
 at Rivoli. Provera, on whom he had relied for assistance 
 from Padua, was cut off and taken prisoner with his entire 
 corps. Wurmser capitulated at jMantua with twenty-one 
 thousand men. 
 
 The spring of 1797 had scarcely commenced when Bona- 
 parte was already pushing across the Alps towards Vienna. 
 Hoche, at the same time, again attacked the Lower and Mo- 
 
 * Clausewitz demands with great justice, why the Austrians so greatly 
 divided their forces on this occasion for the sake of saving Italy, as they 
 had only to follow up their successes vigorously on the Rhine in order to 
 gain, in that quarter, far more than they could lose on the Po. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 BONAPARTE. 
 
 reau the Upper Rliine. Bonaparte, the nearest and most 
 dangerous foe, was opposed by the archduke, whose army, 
 composed of the remains of Alvinzi's disbanded and discour- 
 aged troops, called forth the observation from Bonaparte, 
 " Hitherto I have defeated armies without generals, now I am 
 about to attack a general without an army !" A battle took 
 place at Tarvis, amid the highest mountains, whence it was 
 afterwards known as "the battle above the clouds." The 
 archduke, with a handful of Hungarian hussars, valiantly de- 
 fended the pass against sixteen thousand F'rench under Mas- 
 sena, nor turned to fly until eight only of his men remained. 
 Generals Bayalich and Ocskay, instead of supporting him, had 
 yielded. The archduke again collected five thousand men 
 around him at Glogau and opposed the advance of the im- 
 mensely superior French force until two hundred and fifty of 
 his men alone remained. The conqueror of Italy rapidly ad- 
 vanced through Styria upon Vienna. Another French corps 
 under Joubert had penetrated into the Tyrol, but had been so 
 vigorously assailed at Spinges by the brave peasantry * as to be 
 forced to retire upon Bonaparte's main body, with which he 
 came up at Villach, after losing between six and eight thou- 
 sand men during his retreat through the Pusterthal. The 
 rashness with which Bonaparte, leaving the Alps to his rear 
 and regardless of his distance from France, penetrated into the 
 enemy's country, had placed him in a position affording every 
 facility for the Austrians, by a bold and vigorous stroke, to 
 cut him off and take him prisoner. They had garrisoned 
 Trieste and Fiume on the Adriatic and formed an alliance 
 with the republic of Venice, at that time well supplied with 
 men, arms, and gold. A great insurrection of the peasantry, 
 infuriated by the pillage of the French troops, had broken out 
 
 * At Absom, in the valley of the Inn, a peasant girl had, at that time, 
 discovered a figure of the Virgin in one of the panes of glass in her cham- 
 ber window. This appearance being deemed miraculous by the simple 
 peasantry, the authorities of the place investigated the matter, had the 
 glass cleaned and scraped, etc., and at length pronounced the indelible 
 figure to be simply the outline of an old coloured painting. The pea- 
 santry, however, excited by the appearance of the infidel French, per- 
 sisted in giving credence to the miracle and set up the piece of glass in 
 a church, which was afterwards annually visited by thousands of pilgrims. 
 In 1407, the celebrated pilgrimage to Waldrast, in the Tyrol, had been 
 founded in a similar manner by the discovery of a portrait of the Virgin, 
 which had been grown up in a tree, by two sliepherd lads.
 
 BONAPARTE. 197 
 
 at Bergamo. The gallant T}Tolese, headed by Count Lehr- 
 bach, and the Hungarians, had risen en masse. The victori- 
 ous troops of the Archduke Charles were en route from the 
 Rhine, and Mack had armed the Viennese and the inhabitants 
 of the thickly-populated neighbourhood of the metropolis. 
 Bonaparte was lost should the archduke's plan of operations 
 meet with the approbation of the Viennese cabinet, and, 
 perfectly aware of the fact, he made proposals of peace under 
 pretence of spai-ing unnecessary bloodshed. The imperial 
 court, stupified by the late discomfitui-e in Italy, instead of 
 regarding the proposals of the wily Frenchman as a confession 
 of embarrassment, and of assailing him with redoubled vigour, 
 acceded to them, and, on the 18th of April, Count Cobenzl, 
 Thugut's successor, concluded the preliminaries of peace at 
 Leoben, by which the French, besides being liberated from 
 their dangerous position, were recognised as victors. The 
 negotiations of peace were continued at the chateau of Campo 
 Formio, where the Austrians somewhat regained courage, and 
 Count Cobenzl* even ventured to refuse some of the articles 
 proposed. Bonaparte, irritated by opposition, dashed a valu- 
 able cup, the gift of the Russian empress, violently to the 
 ground, exclaiming, " You wish for war ? Well ! you shall 
 have it, and your monarchy shall be shattered like that cup." 
 The armistice was not interrupted. Hostilities were even 
 suspended on the Rhine. The archduke had, before quitting 
 that river, gained the tetes de po?it of Strassburg (Kehl) and 
 of Hiiningen, besides completely clearing the right bank of 
 the Rhine of the enemy. The whole of these advantages 
 were again lost on his recall to take the field against Napoleon. 
 The Saxon troops, which had, up to this period, steadily sided 
 with Austria, were recalled by the elector. Swabia, Fran- 
 conia, and Bavaria were intent upon making peace with France. 
 Baron von Fahnenberg, the imperial envoy at Ratisbon, bit- 
 terly reproached the Protestant estates for their evident in- 
 
 * Cobenzl was a favourite of Kaunitz and a thorough courtier. At 
 an earlier period, when ambassador at Petersburg, he wrote French 
 comedies, which were performed at the Hermitage in the presence of the 
 empress Catherine. The arrival of an unpleasant despatch being ever 
 followed by the production of some amusing piece as an antidote to care, 
 the empress jestingly observed, " that he was no doubt keeping his best 
 piece until the news arrived of the French being in Vienna." He expired 
 in the February of 1809, a year pregnant with fate for Austria.
 
 198 BONAPARTE. 
 
 clination to follow the example of Prussia by siding with the 
 French and betraying their fatherland to their common foe, 
 but, on applying more particularly for aid to the spiritual 
 princes, wlio were exposed to the greatest danger, he found 
 them equally lukewarm. Each and all refused to furnish 
 troops or to pay a war-tax. The imperial troops were, conse- 
 quently, compelled to enforce their maintenance, and naturally 
 became tlie objects of popular hatred. In this wretched 
 manner was the empire defended I The petty imperial corps 
 on the Rhine were, meanwhile, compelled to retreat before an 
 enemy vastly their superior in number. "Wernek, attempting 
 with merely twenty-two thousand men to obstruct the ad- 
 vance of an army of sixty-five thousand French under Hoche, 
 was defeated at Neuwied and deprived of his command.* 
 Sztarray, who charged seven times at the head of his men, 
 was also beaten by JNIoreau at Kehl and Diersheim. At this 
 conjuncture, the armistice of Leoben was published. 
 
 A peace, based on the terms proposed at Leoben, was form- 
 ally concluded at Campo Formio, Oct. 17th, 1797. The tri- 
 umph of the French republic was confirmed, and ancient 
 Europe received a new form. The object for which the 
 sovereigns of France had for centuries vainly striven was 
 won by the monarchless nation ; France gained the pre- 
 ponderance in Europe. Italy and the whole of the left bank 
 of the Rhine were abandoned to her arbitrary rule, and this 
 fearful loss, far from acting as a warning to Germany and 
 promoting her union, merely increased her internal dissen- 
 sions and offered to the French republic an opportunity for 
 intervention, of which it took advantage for purposes of gain 
 and pillage. 
 
 The principal object of the policy of Bonaparte and of the 
 French Directory, at that period, was, by rousing the ancient 
 feelings of enmity between Austria and Prussia, to eternalize 
 the disunion between those two monarchies. Bonaparte, after 
 efiectuating the peace by means of terror, loaded Austria with 
 flattery. He flattered her religious feelings by the moderation 
 of his conduct in Italy towards the pope, notwithstanding the 
 disapprobation manifested by the genuine French republicans, 
 and her interests, by the offer of Venice in compensation for 
 
 * He indignantly refused the stipend offered to him on tliis occasion 
 and protested against the injustice of his condemnation.
 
 BONAPARTE. 199 
 
 the loss of the Netherlands, and, making a slight side-mo%'e- 
 ment against that once powerful and still wealthy republic, 
 reduced it at the first blow, nay, by mere threats, to submis- 
 sion ; so deeply was the ancient aristoci'acy here also fallen. 
 The cession of Venice to the emperor was displeasing to the 
 French republicans. They were, however, pacified by the 
 delivery of Lafayette, wlio had been still detained a prisoner 
 in Austria after the treaty of Basle. Kapoleon said in vindi- 
 cation of his policy, " I have merely lent Venice to the em- 
 peror, he will not keep her long." He, moreover, gratified 
 Austria by the extension of her western frontier, so long the 
 object of her amljition, by the possession of tlie archbishopric 
 of Salzburg and of a part of Bavaria with the town of 
 "NVasserburg.* The sole object of these concessions was pro- 
 visionally to dispose Austria in favour of France, f and to 
 render Prussia's ancient jealousy of Austria implacable. :j: 
 Hence the secret ai'ticles of peace by which France and 
 Austria bound themselves not to grant any compensation to 
 Prussia. Prussia was on her part, however, resolved not to 
 be the loser, and, in the summer of 1797, took forcible pos- 
 session of the imperial free town of Nuremberg, notwith- 
 standing her declaration made just three years previously 
 through Count Soden to the Franconian circle, "that the 
 
 • Bavaria regarded these forced concessions as a bad rcAvard for her 
 fidelity to Austria. Napoleon appears to have calculated upon re- 
 lighting by this means the flames of discord, •whence he well knew how 
 to draw an advantage, between Bavaria and Austria. 
 
 t " Thus the emperor also now abandoned the empire by merely bar- 
 gaining with the enemy to quit his territories, and leaving the wretched 
 provinces of the empire a prey to war and pillage. And if the assurances 
 of friendship, of conhdeiice, and of affection between Austria and Venice 
 are but recalled to mind, the contrast was indeed laughable when the em- 
 peror was pleased to allow that loyal city to be ceded to him. The best 
 friend was in this case the cloth from which the emperor cut himself an 
 equivalent." — Httergelmer. 
 
 X A curious private memoir of Talleyrand says: " J'ai la certitude 
 que Berlin est le lieu, ou le traite du 26 Vendemiaire, (the reconciliation 
 of Austria with France at Campo Formio,) aura jetie le plus d'etonne- 
 ment, d'embarras et de crainte." He then explains that now that the Ne- 
 therlands no longer belong to Austria, and that Austria and France no 
 longer come into collision, both powers would be transformed from na- 
 tural foes into natural friends and would have an equal interest in weak- 
 ening Prussia. Should Russia stir, the Poles could be roused to insur- 
 rection, etc.
 
 200 BONAPARTE. 
 
 king had never harboured the design of seeking a compensa- 
 tion at the expense of the empire, whose constitution had ever 
 been sacred in his eyes ! " and to the empire, " He deemed it 
 beneath his dignity to refute the reports concerning Prussia's 
 schemes of aggrandizement, oppression, and secuhirization." 
 Prussia also extended her possessions in Franconia* and 
 AVestphalia, and Hesse-Cassel imitated her example by the 
 seizure of a part of Schaumburg-Lippe. The diet ener- 
 getically remonstrated, but in vain. Pamphlets spoke of the 
 Prussian reunion-chambers opened by liardenberg in Fran- 
 conia. An attempt was, however, made to console the circle 
 of Franconia by depicturing the fi\r worse sufferings of that 
 of Swabia under the imperial contributions. The petty 
 Estates of the empire stumbled, under these circumstances, 
 upon the unfortunate idea " that the intercession of the Rus- 
 sian court should be requested for the maintenance of the in- 
 tegrity of the German empire and for that of her constitu- 
 tion ;" the intercession of the Russian court, which had so 
 lately annihilated Poland ! 
 
 Shortly after this, [a. d. 1797,] Frederick William II., 
 who had, on his accession to the throne, found seventy-two 
 millions of dollars in the treasury, expired, leaving twenty- 
 eight millions of debts. His son, Frederick William III., 
 placed the Countess Lichtenau under arrest, chased Wollner, 
 and abolished the unpopular monopoly in tobacco, but re- 
 tained his father's ministers and continued the alliance, so 
 pregnant with mischief, with France. This monarch, well- 
 meaning and destined to the severest trials, educated by a 
 peevish valetudinarian and ignorant of affairs, was first 
 taught by bitter experience the utter incapacity of the men 
 at that time at the head of the government, and after, as will 
 be seen, completely reforming the court, the government, and 
 
 * " Exactly at this period, when the empire's common foe was plunder- 
 ing the Franconian circle, when deeds of blood and horror, when misery 
 and want had reached a fearful height, the troops of the Elector of Bran- 
 denburg overran the cities and villages. The inhabitants were con- 
 strained to take the oath of fealty, the public officers, who refused, were 
 dragged away captive, etc. EUingen, Stopfenheim, Absperg, Eschen- 
 bach, Niiremberg, Postbaur, Vimsperg, Oettingen, Dinkelspiihl, Ritzen- 
 hausen, Gelchsheim, were scenes of brutal outrage." — The History of the 
 Usurpation of Brandeiihxirg , a. d. 1797, with the original Documents, 
 published by the Teutonic Order.
 
 BONAPARTE. 201 
 
 the army, surrounded himself with men, who gloriously de- 
 livered Prussia and Germany from all the miseries and 
 avenged all the disgrace, which it is the historian's sad office 
 to record. 
 
 Austria, as Prussia had already done by the treaty of Basle, 
 also sacrificed, by the peace of Campo Formio, the whole of 
 the left bank of the Rhine and abandoned it to France, the 
 loss thereby suffered by the Estates of the empire being in- 
 demnified by the secularization of the ecclesiastical property 
 in the interior of Germany and by the prospect of the seizure 
 of the imperial free towns. Mayence was ceded without a 
 blow to France. Holland was forgotten. The English, under 
 pretext of opposing France, destroyed [a. d. 1797] the last 
 Dutch fleet, in the Texel, though not without an heroic and 
 determined resistance on the part of the admirals de Winter 
 and Reintjes, both of whom were severely wounded, and the 
 latter died in captivity in England. Holland was formed into 
 a Batavian, Genoa into a Ligurian, Milan with the Veltlin 
 (from which the Grisons was severed) into a Cisalpine re- 
 public. Intrigues were, moreover, set on foot for the form- 
 ation of a Roman and Neapolitan republic in Italy and of a 
 Rhenish and Swabian one in Germany, all of which were to 
 be subordinate to the mother republic in France. The pro- 
 clamation of a still-born Cisrhenish republic, (it not having 
 as yet been constituted when it was swallowed up in the great 
 French republic,) in the masterless Lower Rhenish provinces 
 in the territory of Treves, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Cologne, 
 under the influence of the French Jacobins and soldiery, was, 
 however, all that could at first be openly done. 
 
 The hauteur with which Bonaparte, backed by his devoted 
 soldiery, had treated the republicans, and the contempt mani- 
 fested by him towards the citizens, had not failed to rouse the 
 jealous suspicions of the Directory, the envy of the less suc- 
 cessful generals, and the hatred of the old friends of liberty, 
 by whom he was already designated as a tyrant. The re- 
 publican party was still possessed of considerable power, and 
 the majority of the French troops under Moreau, Jourdan, 
 Bernadotte, etc., were still ready to shed their blood in the 
 cause of liberty. Bonaparte, compelled to veil his ambitious 
 projects, judged it more politic, after sowing the seed of dis- 
 cord at Campo Formio, to withdraw awhile, in order to await
 
 202 BONAPARTE. 
 
 the ripening of the plot and to return to reap the result. lie, 
 accordingly, went meantime [a. d. 1798] with a small but 
 well-picked army to Egypt, for the ostensible purpose of open- 
 ing a route overland to India, the sea-passage having been 
 closed against France by the British, but in reality, for the 
 purpose of awaiting there a turn in continental affairs, and, 
 moreover, by his victories over the Turks in the ancient land 
 of fable, to add to the marvel it was ever his object to inspire. 
 On his way thither, he seized the island of Malta and com- 
 pelled Baron Hompesch, the grand-master of the order of the 
 Knights of Malta, to resign his dignity, the fortress being 
 betrayed into his hands by the French knights. 
 
 At Kastadt, near Baden, wliere the compensation mentioned 
 in the treaty of Campo Forinio was to be taken into consider- 
 ation, tlie terrified Estates of tlie empire assembled for the 
 purpose of suing the French ambassadors for the lenity they 
 
 had not met with at the hands of Austria and Prussia. 
 
 The events that took place at Rastadt are of a description 
 little calculated to flatter the patriotic feelings of the German 
 historian. The soul of the congress was Charles ]\Iaurice 
 Talleyrand-Perigord, at one time a bishop, at the present 
 period minister of the French republic. His colloquy with 
 the German ambassadors resembled that of the fox with the 
 gee.se, and he attuned their discords with truly diabolical art. 
 Whilst holding Austria and Prussia apart, instigating them 
 one against the other, flattering both with the friendship of 
 the republic and with the prospect of a rich booty by the 
 secularization of the ecclesiastical land.^, he encouraged some 
 of the petty states with the hope of aggrandizement by an 
 alliance with France,* and, with cruel contempt, allowed others 
 awhile to gasp for life before consigning them to destruction. 
 The petty princes, moreover, who liad been deprived of their 
 territory on the other side of the Rhine, demanded lands on 
 this side in compensation ; all the petty princes on this side 
 consequently trembled lest they should be called upon to make 
 compensation, and each endeavoured, by bribing the members 
 of the congress, Talleyrand in particular, to render himself 
 an exception. The French minister was bribed not by gold 
 alone ; a considerable number of ladies gained great notoriety 
 
 * His secret memoirs, even at that period, designate Baden, 'NV'iirtem- 
 berg, and Darmstadt as states securely witliin the grasp of France.
 
 BOXAPARTE. 203 
 
 by their liaison with the insolent republican, from -whom they 
 received nothing, the object for whioh they sued being sold by 
 him sometimes even two or three times. Momus, a satirical 
 production of this period, relates numerous instances of crime 
 and folly that are perfectly incredible. The avarice manifested 
 by the French throughout the whole of the negotiations was 
 only surpassed by the brutality of their language and be- 
 haviour. Robert, Bonnier, and Jean de Bry, the dregs of the 
 French nation, treated the whole of the German empire on 
 this occasion en canaille, and, whilst picking the pockets of the 
 Germans, were studiously coarse and brutal ; still the trifling 
 opposition they encountered, and the total want of spirit in the 
 representatives of the great German empire, whom it must, 
 in fact, have struck them as ridiculous to see thus liumble<l 
 at their feet, forms an ample excuse for their demeanour. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus IV., who mounted the throne of 
 Sweden in 1796, distinguished himself at that time among 
 the Estates of the empire, when Duke of Pomerania and 
 Prince of Riigen, by his solemn protest against tlie depreda- 
 tions committed by France, and by his summons to every 
 member of the German empire to take the field against their 
 common foe. Plesse-Cassel was also remarkable for the war- 
 like demeanour and decidedly anti-Gallic feeling of her popul- 
 ation ; and "VViirtemberg, for being the first of the German 
 states that gave the example of making concessions more in 
 accordance with the spirit of the times. By the abolition of 
 ancient abuses alone could the princes meet the threats used 
 on every occasion by the French at Kastadt to revolutionize 
 the people unless their demands were fully complied with. In 
 WUrtemberg, the duke, Charles, had been succeeded [a. d. 
 1793] by his brothei", Louis Eugene, who banished licence 
 from his court, but, a foe to enlightenment, closed the Charles 
 college, placed monks around his person, was extremely 
 bigoted, and a zealous but powerless friend to France. He 
 expired, a. d. 1795, and was succeeded by the third brother, 
 Frederick Eugene, who had been during his youth a canon at 
 Salzburg, but afterwards became a general in the Prussian 
 service, married a princess of Brandenburg, and educated his 
 children in the Protestant ft\ith in order to assimilate the re- 
 ligion of the reigning family with that of the people. His 
 mild government terminated in 1797. Frederick, his talented
 
 204 BOXAPARTE. 
 
 son and successor, mainly frustrated the projected establisli- 
 ment of a Swabian republic, which was strongly supported by 
 the French, by his treatment of the provincial Estates, the 
 modification of the rights of chace, etc., on which occasion he 
 took the following oath : " I repeat the solemn vow, ever to 
 hold the constitution of this country sacred and to make the 
 weal of my subjects the aim of my life." He nevertlieless 
 appears, by the magnificent fetes, masquerades, and pastoral 
 festivals given by him, as if in a time of the deepest peace, at 
 Hohenheim, to have trusted more to his connexion with Eng- 
 land, by his marriage with the princess royal, iNIatilda,* with 
 Russia, and with Austria, (the emperor Paul, Catherine's suc- 
 cessor, having married the princess Maria of Wiirtemberg, 
 and the emperor Francis II., her sister Elizabeth,) than to the 
 constitution, which he afterwards annihilated. 
 
 The weakness displayed by the empire and the increasing 
 disunion between Austria and Prussia encouraged the 
 French to further insolence. Not satisfied with garrisoning 
 every fortification on the left bank of the Rhine, they boldly 
 attacked, starved to submission, and razed to the ground, 
 during peace-time, the once impregnable fortress of Ehren- 
 breitstein, on the right bank of the Rhine, opposite Coblentz.| 
 Not content with laying the Netherlands and Holland com- 
 pletely waste, they compelled the Hanse towns to grant them 
 a loan of eighteen million livres. Liibeck refused, but Ham- 
 burg and Bremen, more nearly threatened and hopeless of 
 aid from Prussia, were constrained to satisfy the demands of 
 the French brigands. In the Netherlands, the German fac- 
 tion once more rose in open insurrection ; in 1798, the young 
 men, infuriated by the conscription and by their enrolment 
 into French regiments, flew to arms, and torrents of blood 
 were shed in the struggle, in which they were unaided by 
 their German brethren, before they were again reduced to 
 submission. The English also landed at Ostend, but for the 
 sole purpose of destroying the sluices of the canal at Brugge. 
 
 * He fled on Moreau's invasion to England, ■where he formed this al- 
 liance. There was at one time a project of creating him elector of 
 Hanover and of partitioning Wiirtembcrg between Bavaria and Baden. 
 
 t The commandant, Faber, defended the place for fourteen months 
 ■with a garrison of 2000 men. During the siege, the badh'-disciplined 
 French soldiery secretly sold provisions at an exorbitant price to the 
 starving garrison. 
 
 I
 
 BONAPARTE. 205 
 
 The French divided the beautiful Rhenish provinces, 
 yielded to them almost without a blow by Germany, into four 
 departments : 1st, Roer, capital Aix-la-Chapelle ; besides 
 Cologne and Cleve. 2ndly, Donnersberg, capital Mayence ; 
 besides Spires and Zweibriicken. 3rdly, Saar, capital 
 Treves. 4thly, Rhine and ]\Ioselle, capital Coblentz ; besides 
 Bonn. Each department was subdivided into cantons, each 
 canton into communes. The department was governed by a 
 prefect, the canton by a sub-prefect, the commune by a mayor. 
 All distinction of rank, nobility, and all feudal rights were 
 abolished. Each individual was a citizen, free and equal. 
 All ecclesiastical establishments were abandoned to plunder, 
 the churches alone excepted, they being still granted as places 
 of worship to believers, notwithstanding the contempt and 
 ridicule into which the clergy had fallen. The monasteries 
 were closed. The peasantry, more particularly in Treves, 
 nevertheless, still manifested great attachment to Popery. 
 Guilds and corporations were also abolished. The introduc- 
 tion of the ancient German oral law formerly in use through- 
 out the empire, the institution of trial by jury, which, to the 
 disgrace of Germany, the Rhenish princes, after the lapse of 
 a thousand years, learnt from their Gallic foe, was a great 
 and signal benefit. 
 
 Liberty, equality, and justice were, at that period, in all 
 other respects, mere fictions. The most arbitrary rule in 
 reality existed, and the new provinces were systematically 
 drained by taxes of every description, as, for instance, register, 
 stamp, patent, window, door, and land taxes : there was also 
 a tax upon furniture and upon luxuries of every sort; a poll- 
 tax, a per centage on the whole assessment, etc. ; besides ex- 
 tortion, confiscation, and forced sales. And woe to the new 
 citizen of the great French republic, if he failed in paying 
 more servile homage to its ofiicers, from the prefect down to 
 the lowest underling, than had ever been exacted by tlie 
 princes ! * Such was the liberty bestowed by republican 
 
 * Klebe gave an extremely detailed account of the French govern- 
 ment : " It is, for instance, well knowTi that a pastrj' cook was nominated 
 lord high warden of the forests over a whole department, and a jeweller 
 
 was raised to the same office in another. The documents proving the 
 
 cheating and underselling carried on by Pioc, the lord high warden of 
 the forests, and by his assistant, Gauthier, in all the forests in the depart-
 
 206 THE PILLAGE OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 France ! Thus were her promises fulfilled ! The German 
 illuminati were tearfully undeceived, particularly on ))prceiv- 
 ing how completely their hopes of universally revolutionizing 
 Germany were frustrated by the treaty of Basle. The French, 
 who had proclaimed liberty to all the nations of the earth, 
 now offered it for sale. The French character was in every 
 respect the same as during the reign of Louis XIV. The only 
 principle to which they remained ever faithful was that of rob- 
 bery. Switzerland was now, in her turn, attacked, and 
 
 vengeance thus overtook every province that had severed it- 
 self from the empire, and every part of the once magnificent 
 empire of Germany was miserably punished for its want of 
 unity. 
 
 CCLI. The pillage of Switzerland. 
 
 Peace had reigned tliroughout Switzerland since the battle 
 of Villmergen, A. d. 17 12, which had given to Zurich and Berne 
 the preponderance in the confederation. The popular discon- 
 tent caused by the increasing despotism of the aristocracy had 
 merely displayed itself in petty conspiracies, as, for instance, 
 that of Henzi, in 1749, and in partial insurrections. In all 
 
 ment of the Rhine and Moselle, are detailed at full length in Riibezahl, 
 a sort of monthly magazine. It is astonishing to see with what bound- 
 less impudence these people have robbed the country Still greater 
 
 rascalities were carried on on the right bank of the Rhine. Gauthier 
 robbed from Coblentz down to the Prussian frontiers." These allega- 
 tions are confirmed by Gbrres in a pamphlet, " Results of my Mission to 
 Paris," in which he says, " The Directory had treated the four depart- 
 ments like so many Paschalics, which it abandoned to its Janissaries 
 and colonized with its favourites. Every petition sent by the inhabitants 
 was thrown aside with revolting contempt ; every thing was done that 
 could most deeply wound their feelings in regard to themselves or to their 
 country." " The secret history of the government of the country between 
 the Rhine and the Moselle," sums up as follows : " All cheated, all 
 thieved, all robbed. The cheating, thieving, and robbing were perfectly 
 terrible, and not one of the cheats, thieves, or robbers seemed to have an 
 idea tliat tliis country formed, by the decree of union, a part of France." 
 A naive confession ! The French, at all events, acted as if conscious that 
 the land was not theirs. The Rhenish Jews, who, as early as the times 
 of Louis XIV., had aided the French in plundering Germany, again acted 
 as tlieir blood-hounds, and, by accepting bills in exchange for their real 
 or supposed loans, at double the amount, on wealthy proprietors, speedily 
 placed themselves in possession of the finest estates. Vide Reichardt's 
 Letters from Paris.
 
 THE PILLAGE OF SYv^TZERLAND. 207 
 
 the cantons, even in those in which the democratic spirit was 
 most prevalent, the chief autliority had been seized by the 
 wealthier and more ancient families. All the offices were in 
 their hands, the higher posts in the Swiss regiments raised 
 for the service of France w^ere monopolized by the younger 
 sons of the more powerful families, who introduced the social 
 vices of France into their own country, where they formed 
 a strange medley in conjunction with the pedantry of the 
 ancient oligarchical form of government. In the great canton 
 of Berne, the council of two hundred, which had unlimited 
 sway, w^as solely composed of seventy-six reigning families. 
 In Zurich, the one thousand nine hundred townsmen had un- 
 limited power over the country. For one hundred and lifty 
 years no citizen had been enrolled amongst them, and no son 
 of a peasant had been allowed to study for, or been nominated 
 to, any office, even to that of preacher. In Solothurn, but 
 one half of the eight hundred townsmen were able to carry 
 on the government. Lucerne was governed by a council of 
 one hundred, so completely monopolized by the more powerful 
 families, that boys of twenty succeeded their fathers as coun- 
 cillors. Basle was govern vi l-j- a council of two hundred and 
 eighty, which Avas entirely formed out of seventy wealthy 
 mercantile families. Seventy-one families had usurped the 
 authority at Friburg. A similar oligarchical government pi'e- 
 vailed at St. Gall and Schaffhausen. The Junker, in the latter 
 place, rendered themselves especially ridiculous by the in- 
 numerable offices and chambers in which they transacted their 
 useless and prolix affiiirs. In all these aristocratic can- 
 tons, the peasantry were cruelly harassed, oppressed, and, in 
 some parts, kept in servitude by the provincial governors. 
 The wealthy provincial governments were monopolized by the 
 great aristocratic families.* Even in the pure democracies, 
 the provincial communes were governed by powerful peasant 
 families, as, for instance, in Glarus, and the tyranny exercised 
 by these peasants over the territory beneath their sway far ex- 
 ceeded that of the aristocratic burgesses in their provincial 
 governments. The Italian valleys groaned beneath the yoke 
 
 * " The peasant, -when summoned into the presence of a governor, lord 
 of the council, head of a guild, or preacher, stood there, not as a free 
 Swiss, but as a criminal trembling before his judge." — Lehmann on the 
 imaginary Freedom of the Swiss. 1 799.
 
 208 THE PILLAGE OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 of the original cantons, particularly under that of Uri,* the 
 seven provincial governments in Unterwallis under that of 
 Oberwallis, the countship of Werdenberg under that of the 
 Glarner, Veltlin under that of the Grisons.f The princely 
 abbot of St. Gall was unlimited sovereign over his territory. 
 Separate monasteries, for instance, Engelberg, had feudal 
 sway over their vassals. 
 
 Enlightenment and liberal opinions spread also gradually 
 over Switzerland, and twenty years after Henzi's melancholy 
 death, a disposition was again shown to oppose the tyranny of 
 the oligarchies. In 1792, Lavater and Fiiszli were banished 
 Zurich for venturing to complain of the arbitrary conduct of 
 one of the provincial governors ;|: in 1779, a curate named 
 Waser, a man of talent and foe to the aristocracy, was be- 
 headed on a false charge of falsifying the archives ; § in 
 1794, the oppressed peasantry of Lucerne revolted against the 
 
 * " The important office of provincial secretary was, in this manner, 
 hereditary in the family of the Beroldingen of Uri." — Lehmann. 
 
 t " In the Grisons, the constitution was extremely complicated. The 
 lordships of Meycnfeld and Aspermont were, for instance, subject to the 
 three confederated cantons and under the control of tlie provincial 
 governors nominated by tliem ; they were at the same time members of 
 the whole free state, and, as such, had a right of lordship over the sub- 
 ject provinces, over which they, in their turn, appointed a governor." — 
 Meyer von Knonau's Geography. 
 
 % The best information concerning the authority held by the provincial 
 governors, who enjoyed almost unlimited sway over their districts, is to be 
 met with in the excellent biography of Solomon Landolt, the provincial 
 governor of Zurich, by Da\id Hesz. Landolt was the model of an able 
 but extremely tyrannical governor (he ruled over Greisensee and Egli- 
 sau) and gained great note by his salomonic judgments and by his quaint 
 humour. He founded the Swiss rifle clubs and introduced that national 
 weapon into modern warfare. He was also a painter and had the 
 v.'him, notwithstanding the constant triumph of the French, ever to re- 
 present them in his pictures as the vanquished party. 
 
 \ Hirzel wrote at that time, in his " Glimpses into the History of the 
 Confederation," that Captain Henzi had been deprived of his head be- 
 cause he was the only man in the country who had one. Zimmerman 
 says in his " National Pride," " A foreign philosopher visited Switzerland 
 for the purpose of settling in a coimtry where thought was free; he re- 
 mained ten days at Zurich and then went to — Portugal." In 1774, the 
 clocks at Basle, which, since the siege of Rudolph of Habsburg, had re- 
 mained one hour behindhand, were, after immense opposition, regulated 
 like those in the rest of the world. Two factions sprang up on this occa- 
 sion, that of the Spieszburghers or Lalleburghers, (the ancient one,) and 
 that of the Francemen or new-modellers (the modern one). 
 
 I
 
 THE PILLAGE OF SWITZERLAND. 209 
 
 aristocracy ; in the same year, the peasantry in Schwyz, 
 roused by the insolence of the French recruiting officers, re- 
 volted, and, in the public provincial assembly, enforced the re- 
 call of all the people of Schwyz in the French service, besides 
 imposing a heavy tine upon General Reding on his return. In 
 1781, a revolt of the Friburg peasantry, occasioned by the 
 tyranny of the aristocracy, was quelled with the aid of Berne ; 
 in 1784, Suter, the noble-spirited Landummann of Appen- 
 zell, fell a sacrifice to envy. His mental and moral superiority 
 to the rest of his countrymen inspired his rival, Geiger, with 
 the most deadly hatred, and he persecuted him with the ut- 
 most rancour. He was accused of being a free-thinker , 
 documents and protocols were falsified ; the stupid populace 
 was excited against him, and, after having been exposed on 
 the pillory, publicly whipped, and tortured on the rack, he was 
 beheaded, and all intercession on his behalf was prohibited 
 under pain of death. Solothurn, on the other hand, was freed 
 from feudal servitude in 1785. The popular feeling at that 
 time prevalent throughout Switzerland, was, however, of far 
 greater import than these petty events. The oligarchies had 
 every where suppressed public opinion ; the long peace had 
 slackened the martial ardour of the people ; the ridiculous af- 
 fectation of ancient heroic language brouglit into vogue by 
 John ]\Iiiller rendered the contrast yet more striking, and, on 
 the outburst of the French Revolution, the tyrannized Swiss 
 peasantry naturally threw themselves into the arms of the 
 French, the aristocracy into those of the Austrians. 
 
 The oppressed peasantry revolted as early as 1790 against 
 the ruling cities, the vassal against the aristocrat, in Schaff- 
 hausen, on account of the tithes ; in Lower Valais, on account 
 of the tyranny of one of the provincial governors. These 
 petty outbreaks and an attempt made by Laharpe to render 
 Vaud independent of Berne* were suppressed, A. D. 1791. 
 The people remained, nevertheless, in a high state of ferment- 
 ation. The new French republic at first quarrelled with the 
 ancient confederation for having, unmindful of their origin, 
 descended to servility. The Swiss guard had, on the 16th of 
 August, A. D. 1792, courageously defended the palace of the 
 unfortunate French king and been cut to pieces by the 
 
 * Laharpe was at the same time a demagogue in the ^aud and tutor 
 to the emperor Alexander at Petersburg. 
 VOL. m p
 
 210 THE PILLAGE OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 Parisian mob. At a later period, the Austrians had seized 
 the ambassadors of the French republic, Semonville and 
 Maret, in the Veltlin, in the territory of the Grisons. Tlie 
 Swiss patriots, as they were called, however, gradually fo- 
 mented an insurrection against the aristocrats and called the 
 French to their aid. In 1793, the vassals of the bishop of 
 Basle at Pruntrut had already planted trees of liberty and 
 placed the bishopric, under the name of a Ilauracian republic, 
 under the protection of France, chiefly at the instigation of 
 Gobel, who was, in reward, appointed bishop of Paris, and 
 whose nephew, Kengger, shortly afterwards became a mem- 
 ber of the revolutionary government in Berne. In Geneva, 
 during the preceding year, the French faction had gained the 
 upper hand. The fickleness of the war kept the rest of the 
 patriots in a state of suspense, but, on the seizure of the left 
 bank of the Rhine by the French, the movements in Switzer- 
 land assumed a more serious character. The abbot, Beda, of 
 St. Gall, [a, d. 1795,] pacified his subjects by concessions, 
 which his successor, Pancras, refusing to recognise, he was, in 
 consequence, expelled. The unrelenting aristocracy of Zurich, 
 upon this, took the field against the restless peasantry, sur- 
 rounded the patriots in Stiifa, threw the venerable Bod- 
 mer and a number of liis adherents into prison, and inflicted 
 upon them heavy fines or severe corporeal chastisement. 
 
 The campaign of 1796 had fully disclosed to Bonaparte 
 the advantage of occupying Switzerland with his troops, 
 whose passage to Italy or Germany would be thereby facili- 
 tated, whilst the line of communication would be secured, and 
 the danger to which he and !Moreau had been exposed 
 through want of co-operation, would at once be remedied. 
 He first of all took advantage of the dissensions in the Grisons 
 to deprive that republic of the beautiful Veltlin,* and, even 
 at that time, demanded pei'mission from the people of Valais 
 
 * Veltlin with Chiavenna and Bormio (Cleve and Worms) were ill- 
 treated by the people of the Grisons. Offices and justice were regularly 
 jobbed and sold to the highest bidder. The people of Veltlin hastily en- 
 tered into alliance with P" ranee, whUst the oppressed peasantry in the 
 Grisons rebelled against the ruling family of Salis, which had long been 
 in the pay of the French kings and had, since the revolution, sided with 
 Austria. John Miiller appeared at Basle as Thugut's agent for the pur- 
 pose of inciting the confederation against France. — Ochs's History of 
 Basle. 
 
 i
 
 THE PILLAGE OF SWITZERLAND. 211 
 
 to build the road across the Simplon, which he was, however, 
 only able to execute at a later period. On his return to 
 Paris from the Italian expedition, he passed through Basle,* 
 where he was met by Talleyi-and. Peter Ochs, the chief 
 master of the corporation, was, on this occasion, as he himself 
 relates in his History of Basle, won over, as the acknow- 
 ledged chief of the patriots, to revolutionize Switzerland and 
 to enter into a close alliance with France. The base charac- 
 ters, at that time the tools of the French Directory, merely 
 acceded to the political plans of Bonaparte and Talleyrand in 
 the hope of reaping a rich harvest by the plunder of the 
 federal cantons, and the Swiss expedition was, consequently, 
 determined upon. The people of Valais, whose state of op- 
 pression served as a pretext for interference, revolted, under 
 Laharpe, against Berne, [a. d. 1798,] and demanded the in- 
 tervention of the French republic, as heir to the dukes of 
 Savoy, on the strength of an ancient treaty, which had, for 
 that purpose, been raked up from the ashes of the past. 
 Nothing could exceed the miserable conduct of the diet at 
 that conjuncture. After having already conceded to France 
 her demand for the expulsion of the emigrants and having ex- 
 posed its weakness by this open violation of the rights of hos- 
 pitality, it discussed tlie number of troops to be furnished by 
 each of the cantons, when the enemy was already in the coun- 
 try. Even the once haughty Bernese, who had set an army, 
 thirty thousand strong, on foot, withdrew, under General AVysz, 
 from Valais to their metropolis, where they awaited the attack 
 of the enemy. There was neither plan f nor order ; the 
 patriots rose in every quarter and struck terror into the 
 aristocrats, most of whom were now rather inclined to yield 
 and impeded by their indecision the measures of the more 
 spirited party. In Basle, Ochs deposed the oligarchy ; in 
 Zurich, the government was induced, by intimidation, to re- 
 
 * Whilst here, he gave Fesch, the pastry-cook, whose brother, a Swiss 
 lieutenant, was the second husband of Bonaparte's maternal grand- 
 mother, a very friendly reception. The offspring of this second marriage 
 was the future Cardinal Fesch, Letitia's half-brother and Napoleon's 
 uncle, whom Napoleon attempted to create primate of Germany and to 
 raise to the pontifical throne. 
 
 t Some of the cantons imagined that France merely aspired to the 
 possession of Valais, and, jealous of the prosperity and power of Berne, 
 willingly permitted her to suffer this humiliation. — Meyer von Knonau. 
 
 p 2
 
 212 THE PILLAGE OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 store Bodmerand his fellow-prisoners to liberty. In Friburg, 
 Lucerne, SchaflTliausen, and St. Gall the oligarchies resigned 
 their authority ; Thurgau asserted its independence. 
 
 Witliin Berne itself", tranquillity was with difficulty pre- 
 served by Steiger, the venerable mayor, a man of extreme 
 firmness of character, A French force under Brune had al- 
 ready overrun Vaud, which, under pretext of being delivered 
 from oppression, was laid under a heavy contribution ; the 
 ancient charnel-house at Murten was also destroyed, because 
 the French had formerly been beaten on this spot by the Ger- 
 mans. But few of the Swiss raarclietl to the aid of Berne ; two 
 hundred of the people of Uri, arrnycd in the armour of their 
 ancestors, some of the peasantry of Glarus, St. Gall, and Fri- 
 burg.* A second French force under Schauenburg entered 
 Switzerland by Basle, defeated the small troops of Bernese sent 
 to oppose it at Dornach and Langnau, and took Solothurn, 
 where it liberated one hundred and eighty self-styled patriots 
 imprisoned in that place. The patriots, at this conjuncture, 
 also rose in open insuiTection in Berne, threw every thing into 
 confusion, deposed the old council, formed a provisional govern- 
 ment, and checked all tiie preparations for defence. The 
 brave peasantry, basely betrayed by the cities, were roused to 
 fury. Colonels Ryhiner, Stettler, Crusy, and Goumorcs were 
 murdered by them upon mere suspicion, (their innocence was 
 afterwards proved,) and boldly following their leader, Grafen- 
 ried, against the French, they defeated and repulsed the whole 
 of Brune's army and captured eighteen guns at the bridge of 
 Neuenegg. But a smaller Bernese corps, which, under Steiger, 
 the mayor, opposed the army of Schauenburg in the Grauen 
 Holz, was routed after a bloody struggle, and, before Erlach, 
 the newly-nominated generalissimo, could hurry back to Berne 
 Avith the victors of Neuenegg, the patriots, who had long been 
 in the pay of France, threw wide the gates to Schauenburg. 
 All was now lost. Erlach fled to Thun, in order to place 
 himself at the head of the people of the Oberland, who de- 
 scended in thick masses from the mountains ; but, on his ad- 
 dressing the brave Senn peasantry in French, according to 
 
 * Two Bernese, condemned to work in the trenches at Yferten, on 
 beinfc liberated by the Frencli, returned voluntarily to Berne, in order to 
 aid in the defence of the city. A rare trait, in those times, of ancient 
 Swiss lidelity. 
 
 J
 
 THE PILLAGE OF SWITZERLAND. 213 
 
 tlie mal-practice of the Bernese, they mistook him for a 
 French spy and struck him dead in his carriage. The loss 
 of Berne greatly dispirited them and they desisted from 
 further and futile opposition. Steiger escaped. Hotze, a 
 gallant Austrian general, who, mindful of his Swiss origin, 
 had attempted to place himself at the head of his countrymen, 
 was compelled to retrace his steps. In Berne, the French 
 meanwhile pillaged the treasures of the republic* Besides 
 the treasury and the arsenal, estimated at twenty-nine million 
 livres, they levied a contribution of sixteen million. Brune 
 planted a tree of liberty, and Frisching, the president of the 
 provisional government, had the folly to say, " Hez'e it 
 stands ! may it bear good fruit ! Amen ! " 
 
 Further bloodshed was prevented by the intervention of 
 the patriots. The whole of Switzerland, Schwyz, Upper 
 Valais, and Unterwalden alone excepted, submitted, and, on 
 the r2th of April, the federal diet at Aarau established, in 
 the stead of the ancient federative and oligarchical govern- 
 ment, a single and indivisible Helvetian repubhc, in a strictly 
 democratic form, with five directors, on the French model. 
 Four new cantons, Aargau, Leman (Vaud), the Bernese 
 Oberland, and Tliurgau, were annexed to the ancient ones. 
 Schwyz, ITri, U nderwalden, and Zug were, on the other hand, 
 to form but one canton. Kapinat, a bold bad man, Kewbel's 
 brother-in-law, who was at that time absolute in Switzerland, 
 seized every thing that had escaped the pillage of the soldiery 
 in Berne and Zurich, sacked Solothurn, Lucerne, Friburg, etc., 
 and hunted out the hidden treasures of the confederation, 
 which he sent to France. The protestations of the directors. 
 Bay and Pfyffer, were unheeded ; Rapinat deposed them by 
 virtue of a French warrant and nominated Ochs and Bolder 
 in their stead. The patriotic feelings of the Swiss revolted 
 at this tyranny ; Schwyz rose in open insurrection ; the 
 peasantry, headed by Aloys Reding, seized and garrisoned 
 Lucerne and called the whole country to arms against the 
 French invader. The peasantry of the free cantons also march- 
 ed against Aarau, but were defeated by Schauenburg at Iliick- 
 lingen ; two hundred of their number fell, among others, a 
 
 • A good deal of it was spent by Bonaparte during his expedition into 
 Egypt, and, even at the present day, the Bernese bear is to be seen on 
 coins still in circulation on the banks of the Nile. — Meyer von Knonau.
 
 214 THE PILLAGE OF SWITZERLAND. 
 
 priest bearing the colours. Schauenburg then attacked the 
 people of Scliwyz at Richtenschwyl, where, after a desperate 
 combat that lasted a whole day, he at length compelled them 
 to give way. They, nevertheless, speedily rallied, and two 
 engagements of equal obstinacy took place on the Schinde- 
 leggy and on the mountain of Etzel. The flight of Herzog, 
 the pastor of Einsiedeln, was the sole cause of the discomfiture 
 of the Swiss. Reding, however, reassembling his forces at 
 the Red Tower, in the vicinity of the old battle-field of Mor- 
 garten, the French, unable to withstand tlieir fury, were re- 
 pulsed with immense loss. They also suffered a second 
 defeat at Arth, at the foot of the Rigi. The Swiss, on their 
 part, on numbering their forces after the battle, found their 
 strength so terribly reduced, that, although victors, tliey were 
 unable to continue the contest, and voluntarily recognised the 
 Helvetian republic. The rich monastery of Einsiedeln was 
 plundered and burnt ; the miraculous picture of the Virgin 
 was, however, preserved. Upper Valais also submitted, after 
 Sion and the whole of the valley having been plundered and 
 laid waste. Tlie peasantry defended themselves here for 
 several weeks at the precipice of the Dala. Unterwalden 
 offered the most obstinate resistance. The peasantry of this 
 canton were headed by LUssi. The French invaded the 
 country simultaneously on diflerent sides, by water, across 
 the lake of the four cantons, and across the Briinig from the 
 Haslithal ; in the Kernwald they were victorious over the 
 masses of peasantry, but a body of three or four thousand 
 French, which had penetrated further down the vale, was 
 picked off by the peasantry concealed in the woods and be- 
 hind the rocks. A rifleman, stationed upon a projecting 
 rock, shot more than a hundred of the enemy one after an- 
 other, his wife and children, meanwhile, loading his guns. 
 Both of the French corps coalesced at Stanz, but met with 
 such obstinate resistance from the old men, women, and girls 
 left there, that, after butchering four hundred of them, they 
 set the place in flames.* The sturdy mountaineers, although 
 
 * The venerable Pestalozzi assembled the orphans and founded his 
 celebrated model academy at Stanz. Seventy-nine women and girls 
 were found among the slain. A story is told of a girl, who, being at- 
 tacked, in a lonely house, by two Frenchmen, knocked their heads to- 
 gether with such force that they dropped down dead. 
 
 i
 
 THE PILLAGE OF SWITZERLAND. 215 
 
 numerically weak, proved themselves worthy of their ancient 
 
 fame. Tlie four JValdstdtte were thrown into one canton, 
 
 Waldstatten ; Glarus and TojrgenburG; into another, Linth ; 
 Appenzell and St. Gall into that of Siintis. The old Italian 
 prefectures, with the exception of the Yeltlin, were formed 
 into two cantons, Lusano and Bellinzona (afterwards the 
 canton of Tessin). Tlie canton of Vaud also finally acceded 
 to this arrangement, but was shortly afterwards, as well as 
 the former bishopric of Basle, Pruntrut,* and the city and re- 
 public of Genoa, incorporated with France. 
 
 The levy of eighteen tliousand men (the Helvetlers, Gallo- 
 schwyzers or eighteen batzmen) for the service of the 
 Helvetian republic occasioned fresh disturbances in the 
 beginning of 1799. The opposition was so great that the re- 
 cruits were carried in chains to Berne. The Bernese Ober- 
 land, the peasantry of Basle, Solothurn, Toggenburg, Ap- 
 penzell, and Glarus rose in open insurrection, but were again 
 reduced to submission by the military. The spirit of the 
 mountaineers was, however, less easily tamed. In April, 
 1799, the people of Schwyz took four hundred French 
 prisoner ; those of Uri, under their leader, Vincenz Schmid, 
 stormed and burned Altorf, the seat of the French and their ad- 
 herents ; those of Valais, under the youthful Count Courten, 
 drove the French from their valleys, and those of the Grisons 
 surprised and cut to pieces a French squadron at Dissentis. 
 General Soult took the field with a strong force against them 
 in May and reduced them one after the other, l)ut with great 
 loss on his side, to submission. Twelve hundred French fell 
 in Valais, which was completely laid waste by fire and sword ; 
 "in Uri, stones and rocks were hurled upon them by the infu- 
 riated peasantry as they defiled through the narrow gorges ; 
 Schmid was, however, taken and shot ; Schwyz was also re- 
 duced to obedience ; in the Grisons, upwards of a thousand 
 French fell in a bloody engagement at Chur, and the magnifi- 
 cent monastery of Dissentis was, in revenge, burnt to the 
 ground. The beautiful Bergland was reduced to an inde- 
 scribable state of misery. Tlie villages lay in ashes ; the 
 people, that had escaped the general massacre, fell victims to 
 
 * Not far from Pnmtrut is the hill of Terri, said to have been formerly 
 occupied by one of Ctesar's camps. The Frciuh named it Mont Terri- 
 ble and created a department du Mont Terrible. Vide Meyer von 
 Kuonau's Geography.
 
 216 THE SECOND COALITION. 
 
 famine. In tliis extremity, Zschokke, at that time Helvetic 
 governor of the Waldstatte, proposed the complete expulsion 
 of the ancient inhabitants and the settlement of French 
 colonists in the fatherland of AVilliam Tell.* 
 
 The imperial free town of ]\liihlhausen in the Suntgau, the 
 ancient ally of Switzerland, fell, like her, into the hands of the 
 French. Unable to preserve her independence, she com- 
 mitted a singular political suicide. The whole of the town 
 property was divided amongst the citizens. A girl, attired in 
 the ancient Swiss costume, delivered the town keys to the 
 French commissioner ; the city banner and arms were buried 
 with great solemnity.f 
 
 The French had also shown as little lenity in their treat- 
 ment of Italy. Rome was entered and garrisoned with French 
 troops ; the handsome and now venerable puppet. Pope Pius 
 VI., was seized, robbed, and personally mal-treated, (his ring 
 was even torn from his hand,) and dragged a prisoner to 
 France, where he expired in the August of 1799. 
 
 CCLII. The second coalition. 
 
 Prussia looked calmly on, with a view of increasing her 
 power by peace whilst other states ruined themselves by war, 
 and of offering her arbitration at a moment when she could 
 turn their mutual losses to advantage. Austria, exposed to 
 immediate danger by the occupation of Switzerland by the 
 Fi-ench, remained less tranquil and hastily formed a fresh 
 coalition with England and Russia. Catherine II. had ex- 
 pired, A. D. 1796. Her son, Paul I., cherished the most am- 
 bitious views. His election as grand-master of the Maltese" 
 order dispersed by Napoleon had furnished him with a sort 
 of right of interference in the affairs of the Levant and of 
 Italy. On the 1st of March, 1799, the Ionian Islands, Corfu, 
 
 * In his " Political Remarks touching the Canton of Waldst'atten," 
 dated the 23rd of June, 1799, he says: "Let us imitate the politica. 
 maxims of the conquerors of old, who drove the inhabitants most inimical 
 to them into foreisrn countries and established colonies, composed of 
 families of their own kin, in the heart of the conquered provinces. " His 
 proposal remaining unseconded, he sought to obliterate the bad impres- 
 sion it had made, by publishing a proclamation, calling upon the charit- 
 ably inclined to raise a subscription for the unfortimate inhabitants of the 
 Wa'ldstatte. 
 
 t Vide Grafs History of Miihlhausen.
 
 THE SECOND COALITION. 217 
 
 etc., were occupied by Russian troops, and a Russian army, 
 under the terrible Suwarow, moved, in conjunction with the 
 troops of Austria, upon Italy. The project of the Russian 
 czar was, by securing his footing on the INIediterranean and 
 at the same time encircling Turkey, to attack Constantinople 
 on both sides, on the earliest opportunity. Austria was 
 merely to serve as a blind tool for the attainment of his 
 schemes. Mack was despatched to Naples for the purpose of 
 bringing about a general rising in soutliern Italy against the 
 French, and England lavished gold. The absence of Bona- 
 parte probably inspired several of the allied generals with 
 greater courage, not the French, but he, being the object of 
 their dread. The conduct of the French at Rastadt had re- 
 volted every German and had justly raised their most im- 
 placable hatred, which burst forth during a popular tumult at 
 Vienna, when the tricolour, floating from the palace of 
 General Bernadotte, the French ambassador, was torn down 
 and burnt. The infamous assassination of the French ambas- 
 sadors at Rastadt also took place during this agitated period. 
 Bonnier, Roberjot, and Jean de Bry quitted Rastadt on the 
 breaking out of war, and were attacked and cut to pieces by 
 some Austrian hussars in a wood close to the city gate. Jean 
 de Bry alone escaped, although dangerously wounded, with 
 his life. Tiiis atrocious act was generally believed to have 
 been committed through private revenge, or, what is far more 
 probable, for the purpose of discovering by the papers of the 
 ambassadors the truth of the reports at that time in circula- 
 tion concerning the existence of a conspiracy and projects for 
 the establishment of republics throughout Germany. The 
 real motive was, however, not long ago,* unveiled. Austria 
 had revived her ancient projects against Bavaria, and, as 
 early as 1798, had treated with the French Directory for the 
 possession of that electorate in return for her toleration of 
 the occupation of Switzerland by the troops of the republic. 
 The venerable elector, Charles Theodore, who had been al- 
 ready persuaded to cede Bavaria and to content himself with 
 Franconia, dying suddenly of apoplexy whilst at the card- 
 table, was succeeded by his cousin, Maximilian Joseph von 
 Pfalz-Zweibriicken, from whom, on account of his numerous 
 
 * Scenes during the War of Liberation.
 
 218 THE SECOND COALITION. 
 
 family, no voluntary cession was to be expected either for the 
 present or future. Thugut and Lehrbach, the rulers of the 
 Viennese cabinet, in the hope of compromising and excluding 
 liim, as a traitor to the empire, from the Bavarian succession, 
 by the production of proofs of his being the secret ally 
 of France, hastily resolved upon the assassination of the 
 Frencli ambassadors at Rastadt, on the bare supposition of 
 their having in their possession documents in the hand-writ- 
 ing of the elector. None were, liowever, discovered, the 
 French envoys having either taken the precaution of destroy- 
 ing them or of committing them to the safe keeping of the 
 Prussian ambassador. Tliis crime was, as Hormayr observes, 
 at the same time, a political blunder. This horrible act was 
 perpetrated on the 28th of April, 1799. 
 
 The campaign had, a month anterior to this event, been 
 opened by the French, who had attacked the Austrians in 
 their still scattered positions. Disunion prevailed as usual in 
 the Austrian military council. The Arciiduke Charles pro- 
 posed the invasion of France from the side of Swabia. The 
 occupation of Switzerland by the troops of Austria was, 
 nevertheless, resolved upon, and General Auffenberg, accord- 
 ingly, entered the Grisons. The French instantly perceived 
 and hastened to anticipate the designs of the Austrian cabi- 
 net. Auffenberg was defeated by Massena on the St. Lucien- 
 steig and expelled the Grisons, whilst Hotze on the Vorarlberg 
 and Bellegarde in the T^^•ol looked calmly on at the head of 
 fifteen thousand men. The simultaneous invasion of Swabia 
 by Jourdan now induced the military council at Vienna to ac- 
 cede to the proposal formerly made by the Archduke Charles, 
 who was despatched with the main body of the army to Swa- 
 bia, where, on the 2oth of March, 1799, he gained a complete 
 victory over Jourdan at Ostrach and Stockach.* The Grisons 
 were retaken in May by Hotze, and, in June, the archduke 
 joining him, JMassena was defeated at Zurich, and the steep 
 passes of Mont St. Gothard were occupied by Haddik. Mas- 
 sena was, however, notwithstanding the immense numerical 
 superiority of the archduke's forces, who could easily have 
 driven him far into France, allowed to remain undisturbed at 
 
 * Jourdan might easily have been annihilated during his retreat by 
 the imperial cavalry, twenty-seven thousand strong, had his strength and 
 position been better known to his pursuers. 
 
 I
 
 THE SECON^D COALITION. 219 
 
 Bremgarten, The French, under Scherer, in Italy, had, 
 meanwhile, been defeated, in April, by Kray, at Magnano. 
 This success was followed by the arrival of Melas from Vi- 
 enna, of Bellegarde from the Tyrol, and lastly, by that of the 
 Russian van-guard under Siiwarow, who took the chief com- 
 mand and beat the whole of the French forces in Italy ; Mo- 
 reau, at Cassano and ^Marengo, in May ; IMacdonald, on his 
 advance from Lower Italy, on the Trebbia, in June ; and 
 finally, Joubert, in the great battle of Novi, in wliich Joubert 
 was killed, August the loth, 1799. Dissensions now broke 
 out among the victors. A fourth of the forces in Italy belonged 
 to Austria, merely one fifth to Russia; the Austrian?, conse- 
 quently, imagined that the war was merely carried on on their 
 account. The Austrian forces were, against Suwarow's ad- 
 vice, divided, for the purpose of reducing Mantua and Ales- 
 sandria and of occupying Tuscany. The king of Sardinia, 
 whom Suwarow wished to restore to his throne, was forbidden 
 to enter his states by the Austrians, who intended to retain 
 possession of them for some time longer. The whole of Italy, 
 as far as Ancona and Genoa, was now freed from tlie French, 
 whom the Italians, embittered by their predatory habits, had 
 aided to expel, and Suwarow received orders to join his forces 
 witli those under Korsakow, who was then on the Upper 
 Rhine with thirty thousand men. The archduke might, even 
 without this fresh reinforcement, have already anniliilated 
 Massena had he not remained for three months, from June 
 to August, in a state of complete inactivity ; at the very 
 moment of Suwarow's expected arrival, he allowed the im- 
 portant passes of the St. Gothard to be again carried by a 
 coup de main by the French under General Lecourbe, who 
 drove the Austrians from the Simplon, the Furca, the Grim- 
 sel, and the Devil's bridge. The archduke, after an unsuc- 
 cessful attempt to push across the Aar at Dettingen, suddenly 
 quitted the scene of war and advanced down the Rliine for 
 the purpose of supporting the English expedition under the 
 Duke of York against Holland. This unexpected turn in 
 affairs proceeded from Vienna. Tiie Viennese cabinet was 
 jealous of Russia. Suwarow played the master in Italy, 
 favoured Sardinia at the expense of the house of Ilabsburg, 
 and deprived the Austrians of the laurels and of the advantages 
 they had won. The archduke, accordingly, received orders
 
 220 THE SECOND COALITION. 
 
 to remain inactive, to abandon the Russians, and finally to 
 withdraw to the north ; by this movement Suwarow's triumph- 
 ant proprress was checked, he was compelled to cross the Alps 
 to the aid of Korsakow and to involve himself in a mountain 
 warfare ill-suited to the habits of his soldiery.* Korsakow, 
 wiioni Bavaria had been bribed with Russian gold to furnish 
 with a corps one thousand strong, was solely supported by 
 Kray and Ilotze with twenty thousand men. IMassena, taking 
 advantage of the departure of the archduke and the non-ar- 
 rival of Suwarow, crossed the Limniat at Dietikon and shut 
 Korsakow, who had imprudently stationed himself with his 
 whole army in Zurich, so closely in, that, after an engagement 
 that lasted two days, from the lotii to the 17th of September, 
 the Russian general was compelled to abandon his artillery 
 and to force his way through the enemy. Ten thousand men 
 were all that escaped. f Hotze, who had advanced from the 
 Grisons to Schwyz to Suwarow's rencontre, was, at the same 
 time, defeated and killed at Schannis. Suwarow, although 
 aware that the road across the St. Gothard was blocked 
 by the lake of the four cantons, on which there were no boats, 
 had the folly to attempt the passage. In Airolo, he was ob- 
 stinately opposed by the French under Lecourbe, and, al- 
 though Schweikowski contrived to turn this strong position by 
 scaling the pathless rocks, numbers of the men were, owing 
 to Suwarow's impatience, sacrificed before it. On the 24th of 
 September, 1799, he at length climbed the St. Gothard, and a 
 bloody engagement, in which the French were worsted, took 
 place on the Oberalpsee. Lecourbe blew up the Devil's 
 bridge, but, leaving the Urnerloch open, the Russians pushed 
 through that rocky gorge, and, dashing through the foaming 
 Reuss, scaled the opposite rocks and drove tiie French from 
 their position behind the Devil's bridge. Altorf on the lake 
 was reached in safety by the Russian general, who was com- 
 pelled, owing to tlie want of boats, to seek his way through 
 the valleys of Shachen and Muotta, across the almost impass- 
 
 * Scenes during the War of Liberation. 
 
 t The celebrated Lavater was, on this occasion, mortally ■wounded by 
 a French soldier. The people of Zurich were heavily mulcted by Mas- 
 sena for having aided the Austrians to the utmost in their power. 
 Zschokkc, who was at that time in the pay of France, wrote against the 
 " Imperialism " of the Swiss. Vide Haller and Landolt's Life by Hess. 
 
 I
 
 THE SECOND COALITION. 221 
 
 able rocks, to Schwyz. The heavy rains rendered the under- 
 taking still more arduous ; the Russians, owing to the badness 
 of the road, were speedily barefoot ; the provisions were also 
 exhausted. In this wretched state they readied Muotta on 
 the 29th of September and learnt the discouraging news of 
 Korsakow's defeat. jNIassena had already set oil' in the hope 
 of cutting oiF Suwarow, but had missed his way. He reached 
 Altorf, where he joined Lecourbe on the 29th, when Suwarow 
 was already at Muotta, whence IMassena found on his arrival 
 he had again retired across the Bragelberg, through the Klon- 
 thal. He was opposed on the lake of Klonthal by ]\Iolitor, 
 who was, however, forced to retire by Autl'enberg, who had 
 joined Suwarow at Altorf and formed his advanced guard, 
 Rosen, at the same time, beating off jNIassena with the rear- 
 guard, taking live cannons and one thousand of his men pri- 
 soners. On the 1st of October, Suwarow entered Glarus, 
 where he rested until the 4th, wiien he crossed tlie Panixer 
 mountains through snow two feet deep to the valley of the 
 Rhine, which he reached on the 10th, after losing the whole 
 of his beasts of burthen and two hundred of his men down 
 the precipices ; and here ended his extraordinary march, 
 which had cost him the whole of his artillery, almost all his 
 horses, and a third of his men. 
 
 The archduke had, meanwhile, tarried on the Rhine, where 
 he had taken Pliilippsburg and jNIannlieiin, but had been un- 
 able to prevent the defeat of the English expedition under the 
 Duke of York by General Brune at Bergen, on tlie 19th of 
 September. The archduke now, for tlie first time, made a 
 retrograde movement, and approached Korsakow and Suwa- 
 row. The different leaders, however, merely reproached each 
 other, and the czar, perceiving his project frustrated, suddenly 
 recalling his troops, the campaign came to a close. The 
 archduke's rear-guard was defeated in a succession of petty 
 skirmishes at Heidelberg and on the Neckar by the French, 
 who again pressed forward.* These disasters were counter- 
 balanced by the splendid victory gained by IMelas in Italy, at 
 Savigliano, over Championnet, who attempted to save Genoa. 
 
 * Concerning the wretched provision for the Austrian army, the em- 
 bezzlement of the supplies, the bad management of the magazines and 
 hospitals, see " llepresentation of the Causes of the Disasters suffered by 
 the Austrians, etc." 1802.
 
 222 THE SECOND COALITION. 
 
 Austrici was no sooner deprived in Suwarow of the most 
 efficient of her allies than she was attacked by her most dan- 
 gerous foe. Bonaparte returned from Egypt. The news of the 
 great disasters of the French in Italy no sooner arrived, than 
 he abandoned his army and hastened, completely unattended, 
 to France, through the midst of the English fleet, then sta- 
 tioned in the ^Mediterranean. His arrival in Paris was in- 
 stantly followed by his public nomination as generalissimo. 
 He alone liad the power of restoring victory to the standard of 
 the republic. Tlie ill success of his rivals liad greatly in- 
 creased his popularity ; he had become indispensable to his 
 countrymen. His power was alone obnoxious to tlie weak 
 government, which, aided by the soldiery, he dissolved on the 
 9th of November (the 18th Brumaire, by the modern French 
 calendar) ; he then bestowed a new constitution upon France 
 and placed himself, under the title of First Consul, at the head 
 of the republic. 
 
 In the following year, A. D. 1800, Bonaparte made prepara- 
 tions for a fresh campaign against Austria, under circum- 
 stances similar to those of the first. But this time he was 
 more rapid in his movements and performed more astonishing 
 feats. Suddenly crossing the St. Bernard, he fell upon the 
 Austrian flunk. Genoa, garrisoned by INIassena, had just 
 been forced by famine to capitulate. Ten days afterwards, 
 on tlie 14th of June, Bonaparte gained such a decisive victory 
 over Melas, the Austrian general, at Marengo,* that he and 
 the remainder of his army capitulated on the ensuing day. The 
 whole of Italy fell once more into the hands of the French. 
 jMoreau had, at the same time, invaded Germany and defeated 
 the Austrians under Kray in several engagements, principally 
 at Stockach and Moskirch,f and again at Biberach and Hdch- 
 
 * The contest lasted the -whole day : the French already gave way on 
 every side, when Desaix led the French centre with such fury to the 
 charge, that the Austrians, surprised by the suddenness of the movement, 
 were driven back and thrown into confusion, and the French, rallying 
 at that moment, made another furious onset and tore the victory from 
 their grasp. 
 
 t The impregnable fortress of Hohcntwicl, formerly so gallantly de- 
 fended by Widerhold, was surrendered without a blow by the cowardly 
 commandant, Bilfinger. Rotenburg on the Tauber, on the contrary, 
 wiped off the disgrace with wliich she had covered herself during the 
 thirty years' war. A small French skirmishing party demanded a con- 
 tribution from this city ; the coimcil yielded, but the citizens drove off 
 the enemy with pitch-forks.
 
 THE SECOND COALITION. 223 
 
 stiidt, laid Swabia and Bavaria under contribution, and taken 
 Ratisbon, the seat of the diet. An armistice, negotiated by 
 Kray, was not recognised by the emperor, and he was replaced 
 in his command by the Archduke John, (not Charles,) who 
 was, on the 3rd of December, totally routed by IMoreau's 
 manoeuvres during a violent snow-storm, at Hohenlinden. 
 A second Austrian army, despatched into Italy, was also de- 
 feated by Brune on the Mincio. These disasters once more 
 inclined Austria to peace, which was concluded at Luneville, 
 on the 9th of Februaiy, 1801. The Archduke Charles seized 
 this opportunity to propose tlie most beneficial reforms in the 
 war administration, but was again treated with contempt. 
 In the ensuing year, a. d. 1802, England also concluded peace 
 at Amiens. 
 
 The whole of the left bank of the Rhine was, on this occa- 
 sion, ceded to the French republic. The petty republics, 
 formerly established by France in Italy, Switzerland, and 
 Holland, were also renewed and were recognised by the al- 
 lied powers. The Cisalpine republic was enlarged by the 
 possessions of the grand-duke of Tuscany and of the duke 
 of Modena, to whom compensation in Germany was guaranteed. 
 Suwarovv's victories had, in the autumn of 1799, rendered a 
 conclave, on the death of the captive pope, Pius VI., in France, 
 possible, for the purpose of electing his successor, Pius VII., 
 who was acknowledged as such by Bonaparte, whose favour 
 he purchased by expressing his approbation of the seizure of 
 the property of the church during the French Revolution, and 
 by declaring his readiness to agree to the secularization of 
 church property, already determined upon, in Germany. 
 
 The Helvetian Directory fell, like that of France, and was 
 replaced by an administrative council, composed of seven 
 members, a. d. 1800. The upholders of ancient cantonal 
 liberty, now known under the denomination of Federalists, 
 gained the upper hand, and Aloys Reding, who had, shox-tly 
 before, been denounced as a rebel, became Landamman of 
 Switzerland. Bonaparte even invited him to Paris in order 
 to settle with him the future fate of Switzerland. Reding, how- 
 ever, showing an unexpected degree of firmness, and, un- 
 moved by either promises or threats, obstinately refusing to 
 permit the annexation of Valais to France, Bonaparte with- 
 drew his support and again favoured the Helvetlers. Dolder
 
 224 THE SECOND COALITION. 
 
 and Savari, who had long been the creatures of France, fail- 
 ing in their election, were seated by Verninac, the French 
 ambassador, in the senate of the Helvetian republic, and 
 Reding, who was at that moment absent, was divested of his 
 office as Landamman. Keding protested against this arbitrary 
 conduct and convoked a federal diet to vSchwyz. Andermatt, 
 general of the Helvetian republic, attempted to seize Zurich, 
 which had joined the federalists, but was compelled to with- 
 draw, covered with disgrace. An army of federalists under 
 General Bachmann repulsed the Helvetlers in every direction 
 and drove them, together with the French envoys, across the 
 frontier. Bonaparte, upon this, sent a body of thirty to forty 
 thousand men, under Ney, into Switzerland, which met with 
 no opposition, the federalists being desirous of avoiding useless 
 bloodshed and being already ac(j[uainted with Bonaparte's se- 
 cret projects. He would not tolerate opposition on their part, 
 like that of Reding : he had resolved upon getting possession 
 of Valais at any price, on account of the road across the 
 Simplon, so important to him as affording the nearest com- 
 munication between Paris and ^lilan : in all other points, he 
 perfectly coincided with the federalists and was willing to grant 
 its ancient independence to every canton in Switzerland, where 
 disunion and petty feuds placed the country the more securely 
 in his hands. With feigned commiseration for the ineptitude 
 of the Swiss to settle their own disputes, he invited deputies 
 belonging to the various factions and cantons to Paris, lec- 
 tured them like school-boys, and compelled them by the Act 
 of Mediation, under his intervention, to give a new constitu- 
 tion to Switzerland. Valais was annexed to France in ex- 
 change for the Austrian Frickthal. Nineteen cantons were 
 created.* Each canton again administered its internal 
 
 * The ancient ones, Berne, Zurich, Basle, Solothurn, Fryburg, Lu- 
 cerne, Schaffliausen ; the re-established ones, Uri, Sch'wyz, Unter- 
 walden, Zug, Glarus, Appenzcll, St. Gall, (instead of Waldstattcn, 
 Linth, and S'antis,) Valais, (instead of Leman,) Aararau, Thurgau, Ori- 
 sons, Tessin (instead of Lu2;ano and Bellinzona). The Bernese Ober- 
 land again fell to Berne. The ambassador, attempting to preserve its 
 independence, was asked bj' Napoleon : " Where do you take your 
 cattle, your cheese, etc. ? " "A Berne," was the reply. " Whence do 
 you get your grain, cloth, iron, etc." " De Berne." " Well," con- 
 tinued Napoleon, " de Berne, a Berne, you consequently belong to 
 
 Berne." The Bernese were highly delighted at the restoration of 
 
 their independence, and the re-erection of the ancient arms of Beme
 
 THE SECOND COALITION. 225 
 
 affairs. Bonaparte was never weary of painting the happy 
 lot of petty states and the deliglits of petty citizenship. " But 
 ye are too weak, too helpless, to defend yourselves ; cast 
 yourselves therefore into the arms of France, ready to protect 
 you whilst, free from taxation and from the burthensome 
 maintenance of an army, ye dwell free and independent in 
 your native vales." The Swiss, although no longer to have 
 a national army, were, nevertheless, compelled to furnish a 
 contingency of eighteen thousand men to that of France, and, 
 whilst deluded by the idea of their freedom from taxation, the 
 fifteen million of French hons given in exchange for the 
 numerous Swiss loans were cashiered by Bonaparte, under 
 pretext of the Swiss having been already sufficiently paid by 
 their deliverance fi-om their enemies by the French.* The 
 true Swiss patriots implored the German jiowers to protect 
 their country, the bulwark of Germany against France ; but 
 Austria was too much weakened by her own losses, and 
 Prussia handed the letters addressed to her from Switzerland 
 over to the First Consul. 
 
 The melancholy business, commenced by the empire at the 
 congress of Rastadt, and which had been broken off by the 
 outbreak of war, had now to be recommenced. Fresh com- 
 pensations had been rendered necessary by the robberies com- 
 mitted upon the Italian princes. The churcli property no 
 longer sufficed to satisfy all demands, and fresh seizures had 
 become requisite. A committee of the diet was intrusted 
 with the settlement of the question of compensation, which 
 was decided on the 2.5th of February, 1803, by a decree of 
 the imperial diet. All the great powers of Germany had 
 not suffered ; all had not, consequently, a right to demand 
 compensation, but, in order to appease their jealousy, all were 
 to receive a portion of the booty. The three spiritual elector- 
 ates, IMayence, Treves, and Cologne, were abolished, their posi- 
 tion on the other side of the Rhine including them within the 
 
 became a joyous f&te. A gigantic black bear tliat ■Nvas painted on the 
 broad -walls of the castle of Trachselwald was visible far down the 
 valley. 
 
 * Murald, in his Life of Reinhard, records an instance of shameless 
 fraud, the attempt made during a farewell banquet at Paris to cozen 
 the Swiss deputies out of a million. After plying them well with wine, 
 an altered docimient was offered tliem for signature ; Reinhard, tlic only 
 one who perceived the fraud, fmstrated the scheme. 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE SECOND COALITION. 
 
 French territory. The archbishop of Mayence alone re- 
 tained his dignity, and was transferred to Ratisbon. The 
 whole of the imperial free cities were moreover deprived of 
 their privileges, six alone excepted, LiJbeck, Hamburg,* Bre- 
 men, Frankfurt, Augsburg, and Nuremberg. The unsecular- 
 ized bishoprics and abbeys were abolished. The petty 
 princes, counts and barons, and the Teutonic order were still 
 allowed to exist, in order ere long to be included in the 
 general ruin. 
 
 Prussia retained the bishoprics of Hildesheim and Pader- 
 born, a part of MUnster, numerous abbeys and imperial free 
 towns in AVestphalia and Thiu'ingia, more particularly Er- 
 furt. Bavaria had ever suffered on the conclusion of peace 
 between F' ranee and Austria; in 1797, she had ceded the 
 Rhenish Pfalz to France and a province on the Inn to 
 Austria ; by the treaty of Luneville, she had been, moreover, 
 compelled to raze the fortress of Ingoldstadt.f The inclina- 
 tion for French innovations displayed by the reigning duke, 
 Maximilian Joseph, who surrounded himself with the old il- 
 luminati, caused her, on this occasion, by Bonaparte's aid, to 
 be richly compensated by the annexation of the bishoprics of 
 Bamberg, Wlirzburg, Augsburg, and Freisingen, with several 
 small towns, etc. ; all the monasteries were abolished. Bavaria 
 had formerly supported the institutions of the ancient church 
 of Rome more j&rmly than Austria, where reforms had already 
 been begun in the church by Joseph II. Hanover received 
 Osnabriick ; Baden, the portion of the Pfalz on this side the 
 Rhine, the greatest part of the bishoprics of Constance, Basle, 
 Strassburg, and Spires, also on this side the Rhine ; WUrtem- 
 berg, both Hesses (Cassel and Darmstadt) ; and Nassau, all 
 the lands in the vicinity formerly belonging to the bishopric 
 of Mayence, to imperial free towns and petty lordships. 
 Ferdinand, grand-duke of Tuscany, younger brother to the 
 emperor, Francis II., was compelled to relinquish his heredit- 
 ary possessions in Italy,! and received in exchange Salzburg, 
 
 * Hamburg was, however, compelled to pay to the French 1,700,000 
 marcs banco, and to allow Rumbold, the English agent, to be arrested by 
 them within the city walls. 
 
 t The university had been removed, in 1800, to Landshut. 
 
 X Bonaparte transformed them into a kingdom of Etruria, which he 
 bestowed upon a Spanish prince, Louis of Parma, who shortly after- 
 wards died and his kingdom was annexed to France.
 
 THE SECOND COALITION. 227 
 
 Eiclistadt, and Passau. Ferdinand, duke of Modena, uncle 
 to the emperor Francis II. and younger brother to the 
 emperors Leopold II. and Joseph IL, also resigned his 
 duchy,* for which he received the Breisgau in exchange. 
 William V., hereditary stadtholder of Holland, who had been 
 expelled his states, also received, on this occasion, in com- 
 pensation for his son of like name, (he was himself already 
 far advanced in years.) the rich abbey of Fulda, which was 
 created the principality of Orange-Fulda.f The electoral 
 dignity was at the same time bestowed upon the Archduke 
 Ferdinand, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the duke of 
 Wiirtemberg, and the ^largrave of Baden. 
 
 Submission, although painful, produced no opposition. The 
 power of the imperial free cities had long passed away,^ and 
 the spiritual princes no longer wielded the sword. The man- 
 ner in which the officers of the princes took possession, the 
 insolence with which they treated the subject people, the fraud 
 and embezzlement that was openly practised, are merely ex- 
 cusable on account of the fact that Germany was, notwith- 
 standing the peace, still in a state of war. The decree of 
 the imperial diet can scarcely be regarded as the ignominious 
 close of a good old time, but rather as a violent but beneficial 
 incisure in an old and rankling sore. With the petty states, 
 
 * He was son-in-law to Hercules, the last duke of Modena, who still 
 lived, but had resigned his claims in his favour. This duke expired 
 A. D. 1805. 
 
 t Which he speedily lost by rejoining Napoleon's adversaries. Adal- 
 bert von Harstall, the last princely abbot of Fulda, was an extremely 
 noble character ; he is almost the only one among the princes who re- 
 mained firmly by his subjects when all the rest fled and abandoned theirs 
 to the French. After the edict of secularization he remained firmly at his 
 post until compelled to resign it by the Prussian soldiery. 
 
 t The citizens of Esslingen were shortly before at law" \vith their 
 magistrate on account of his nepotism and tjTanny, without being able 
 
 to get a decision from the supreme court of judicature Quedlinburg 
 
 had also not long before sent envoys to Vienna with heavy complaints of 
 the insolence of the magistrate, and the envoys had been sent home with- 
 out a reply being vouchsafed, and were threatened with the house of cor- 
 rection in case they ventured to return. Vide Hess's Flight through 
 Germany, 1793. Wimpfen also carried on a suit against its magis- 
 trate. In 1784, imperial decrees were issued against the aristocracy of 
 Ulm. In 1786, the people of Aix-la-Chapelle rose against their magis- 
 trate. Nuremberg repeatedly demanded the production of the public 
 accounts from the aristocratic town-council. The people of Hildesheim 
 also revolted against their council. Vide Schlozer, State-archives. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 FALL OF THE HOLY 
 
 a mags of vanity and pedantry disappeared on the one side, 
 pusillanimity and servility on the other ; the ideas of the sub- 
 jects of a large state have naturally a wider range ; the monas- 
 teries, those dens of superstition, the petty princely residences, 
 those hotbeds of French vice and degeneracy, the imperial 
 free towns, those abodes of petty burgher prejudice, no longer 
 existed. The extension of the limits of the states rendered 
 the gradual inti'oduction of a better administration, the laying 
 of roads, the foundation of public institutions of every descrip- 
 tion, and social improvement, possible. The example of France, 
 the ever-renewed warfare, and the conscriptions, created, more- 
 over, a martial spirit among the people, which, although far 
 removed from patriotism, might still, when compared with the 
 spirit formerly pervading the imperial army, be regarded as a 
 first step from efleminacy, cowardice, and sloth, towards true, 
 unflinching, manly courage. 
 
 CCLIII. Fall of the holy Roman- Germanic empire. 
 
 A GREAT change had, meanwhile, taken place in France. 
 The republic existed merely in name. The first consul, Bona- 
 parte, already possessed regal power. The world beheld with 
 astonishment a nation that had so lately and so virulently 
 persecuted royalty, so dearly bought and so strictly enforced 
 its boasted liberty, suddenly forget its triumph and restore 
 monarchy. Liberty had ceased to be in vogue, and had yielded 
 to a general desire for the acquisition of fame. The equality 
 enforced by liberty was offensive to individual vanity, and 
 the love of gain and luxury opposed republican poverty. 
 Fame and wealth were alone to be procured by war and con- 
 quest. France was to be enriched by the plunder of her 
 neighbours. Bonaparte, moreover, promoted the prosperity 
 and dignity of the country by the establishment of manufac- 
 tures, public institutions, and excellent laws. The awe with 
 which he inspired his subjects insured their obedience ; he 
 was universally feared and reverenced. In whatever age this 
 extraordinary man had lived, he must have taken the lead 
 and have reduced nations to submission. Even his adversaries, 
 even those he most deeply injured, owned his influence. His 
 presence converted the wisdom of the statesman, the know- 
 ledge of the most experienced general, into folly and ignor-
 
 ROMAN-GERMANIC EMPIRE. 229 
 
 ance ; the bravest armies fled panic-struck before his eagles ; 
 the proudest sovereigns of Europe bowed their crowned heads 
 before the little hat of the Corsican. He was long regarded 
 as a new saviour, sent to impart happiness to his people, and, 
 as though by magic, bent the blind and pliant mass to his will. 
 But philanthropy, Christian wisdom, the virtues of the Prince 
 of peace, were not his. If he bestowed excellent laws upon 
 his people, it was merely with the view of increasing the 
 power of the state for military purposes. He was ever pos- 
 sessed and tormented by the demon of war. 
 
 On the 18th of May, 1804, Bonaparte abolished the French 
 republic and was elected hereditary emperor of France. On 
 the 2nd of December, he was solemnly anointed and crowned 
 by the pope, Pius VII., who visited Paris for that purpose. 
 The ceremonies used at the coronation of Charlemagne were 
 revived on this occasion. On the loth of jMarch, 1805, he 
 abolished the Ligurian and Cisalpine republics, and set the an- 
 cient iron crown of Lombardy on his head, with his own hand, 
 as king of Italy. He made a distinction between la France and 
 Vempire, the latter of which was, by conquest, to be gradu- 
 ally extended over the whole of Europe, and to be raised by 
 him above that of Germany, in the same manner that the 
 western Roman-Germanic empire had formerly been raised 
 by Charlemagne above the eastern Byzantine one. 
 
 The erection of France into an empire was viewed with dis- 
 trust by Austria, whose displeasure had been, moreover, roused 
 by the arbitrary conduct of Napoleon in Italy. Fresh disputes 
 had also arisen between him and England ; he had occupied 
 the whole of Hanover, which Wallmoden's* army had been 
 powerless to defend with his troops, and violated the Baden 
 territory by the seizure of the unfortunate Due d'Enghien, a 
 prince of the house of Bourbon, who was carried into France 
 and there shot. Prussia offered no interference, in the hope of 
 receiving Hanover in reward for her neutrality. f Austria, on 
 
 * He capitulated at Suhlingen on honourable terms, but was deceived 
 by General Mortier, the French general, and Napoleon took advantage of 
 a clause not to recognise all the terms of capitulation. The Hanoverian 
 troops, whom it was intended to force to an unconditional surrender to 
 the French, sailed secretly and in separate divisions to England, where 
 they were formed into the German Legion. 
 
 t England offered the Netherlands instead of Hanover to Prussia ; to 
 this Russia, however, refused to accede. Prussia listened to both sides,
 
 230 FALL OF THE HOLY 
 
 her part, formed a third coalition with England, Russia, and 
 Sweden.* Austria acted, undeniably, on this occasion, with 
 impolitic haste ; she ought rather to have waited until Prussia 
 and public opinion throughout Germany had been ranged 
 on her side, as sooner or later must have been the case, by the 
 brutal encroachments of Napoleon. Austria, unaided by 
 Prussia, could scarcely dream of success.f But England, at 
 that time fearful of Napoleon's landing on her coast, lavished 
 persuasive gold. 
 
 The Archduke Ferdinand was placed at the head of the 
 Austrian troops in Germany ; the Archduke Charles at that 
 of those in Italy. Ferdinand commanded the main body and 
 was guided by Mack, who, without awaiting the arrival of 
 the Russians, advanced as far as Ulm, pushed a corps, under 
 Jellachich, forward to Lindau, and left the whole of his right 
 flank exposed. He, nevertheless, looked upon Napoleon's 
 defeat and the invasion of France by his troops as close at 
 hand. He was in ill health and highly irritable. Napoleon, 
 in order to move with greater celerity, sent a part of his troops 
 by carriage through Strassburg, declared to the Margrave of 
 Baden, the duke of Wlirtemberg, and the elector of Bavaria, 
 his intention not to recognise tliem as neutral powers, that 
 they must be either against him or with him, and made them 
 such brilliant promises, (they were, moreover, actuated by dis- 
 trust of Austria,) that they ranged themselves on his side. 
 Napoleon instantly sent orders to General Bernadotte, who 
 was at that time stationed in Hanover, to cross the neutral 
 Prussian territory of Anspach,| without demanding the per- 
 
 and acted with such duplicity, that Austria was led by the false hope of 
 being seconded by her to a too early declaration of war. — Scenes during 
 the War of Liberation. 
 
 * Gustavus Adolphus IV. of Sweden, who had wedded a princess of 
 Baden, was at Carlsruhe at the very moment that the Due d'Enghien 
 was seized as it were before his eyes. This circumstance and the 
 ridicule heaped upon him by Napoleon, w-ho mockingly termed him the 
 Quixote of the North, roused his bitter hatred. 
 
 t Bulow -wTote in his remarkable criticism upon this war : " The hot 
 coalition party — that of the ladies — of the empress and the queen of 
 Naples — removed Prince Charles from the army and called Mack from 
 oblivion to daylight ; Mack, whose name in the books of the prophets in 
 the Hebrew tongue signifies defeat." 
 
 X Napoleon gained almost all his victories either by skilfally separat- 
 ing his opponents and defeating them singly with forces vastly superior
 
 ROMAN-GERMANIC EMPIRE. 231 
 
 mission of Prussia, to Mack's rear, in order to form a junction 
 with the Bavarian troops. Other corps were at the same time 
 directed by circuitous routes upon the flanks of the Austrian 
 army, which was attacked at Memmingen by Soult, and was 
 cut otf to the north by Ney, who carried the bridge of Elchin- 
 gen * by storm. . Mack had drawn his troops together, but 
 had, notwithstanding the entreaties of his generals, refused to 
 attack the separate French corps before they could unite and 
 surround him. The Archduke Ferdinand alone succeeded in 
 fighting his way with a part of the cavalry through the 
 enemy.j Mack lost his senses and capitulated on the 1 7th of 
 October, 1805. With him fell sixty thousand Austrians, the 
 elite of the army, into the hands of the enemy. Napoleon 
 could scarcely spare a sufficient number of men to escort this 
 enormous crowd of prisoners to France. Wernek's corps, 
 which had already been cut off, was also compelled to yield 
 itself prisoner at Trochteltingen, not far from Heidenheim. 
 
 Napoleon, whilst following up his success with his custom- 
 ary rapidity and advancing with his main body straight upon 
 Vienna, despatched Ney into the Tyrol, where the peasantry, 
 headed by the Archduke John, made an heroic defence. The 
 advanced guard of the French, composed of the Bavarians 
 under Deroy, were defeated at the Strub pass, but, notwith- 
 standing this disaster, Ney carried the Schaai'nitz by storm 
 and reached Innsbruck. The Archduke John was compelled 
 to retire to Carinthia in order to form a junction with his 
 brother Charles, who, after beating Massena at Caldiero, had 
 been necessitated by Mack's defeat to hasten from Italy for 
 the purpose of covering Austria. Two corps, left in the hurry 
 of retreat too far westward, were cut off and taken prisoner, 
 that undei' Prince Rohan at Castellfranco, after having found 
 its way from Meran into the Venetian territory, and that 
 under Jellachich on the lake of Constance ; Kinsky's and 
 Wartenleben's cavalry threw themselves boldly into Swabia 
 
 in number, or by creeping round the concentrated forces of the enemy 
 and placing them beUveen two fires. 
 
 * Ney was, for this action, created Duke of Elchingen. 
 
 t Klein, tlie French general, also a German, allowed himself to be kept 
 in conversation by Prince, afterwards field-marshal Schwarzenberg, who 
 had been sent to negotiate terms with him, imtil the Austrians had reached 
 a place of safety. — Prokesch, Schioarzenberg' s Memorabilia.
 
 232 FALL OF THE HOLY 
 
 and Franconia, seized the couriers and convoys to the French 
 rear, and escaped unhurt to Bohemia. 
 
 Davoust had, in the mean while, invaded Styria and defeated 
 a corps under IMeerveldt at MariazeU. In November, Napo- 
 leon had reached Vienna, neither Linz nor any other point 
 having been fortitied by the Austrians. The great Russian 
 ai'my under Kutusow appeared at this conjuncture in Mo- 
 ravia. Tlie czar, Alexander I., accompanied it in person, 
 and the emperor, Francis II., joined him with his remaining 
 forces. A bloody engagement took place between Kutusow 
 and the French at Diirrrenstein on the Danube, but, on the 
 loss of Vienna, the Russians retired to ^Moravia. The sove- 
 reigns of Austria and Russia loudly called upon Prussia to 
 renounce her alliance with France, and, in this decisive mo- 
 ment, to aid in the annihilation of a foe, for whose false friend- 
 ship she would one day dearly pay. The violation of the 
 Prussian territory by Bernadotte had furnished the Prussian 
 king with a pretext for suddenly declaring against Napoleon. 
 The Prussian army was also in full force. The British and 
 the Hanoverian legion had landed at Bremen and twenty 
 thousand Russians on Riigen ; ten thousand Swedes entered 
 Hanover ; electoral Hesse was also ready for action. The 
 king of Prussia, nevertheless, merely confined himself to 
 threats, in the hope of selling his neutrality to Napoleon for 
 Hanover, and deceived the coalition.* The emperor Alex- 
 ander visited Berlin in person for the purpose of rousing 
 Prussia to war, but had no sooner returned to Austria in order 
 to rejoin his army than Count Haugwitz, the Prussian minister, 
 was despatched to Napoleon's camp with express instructions 
 not to declare war. The famous battle, in which the three em- 
 perors of Christendom were present, took place, meanwhile, at 
 Austerlitz, not far from Briinn, on the 2nd of December, 1805, 
 and terminated in one of Napoleon's most glorious victories.f 
 This battle decided the policy of Prussia, and Haugwitz con- 
 
 * " Prussia made use of the offers made by England (and Russia) to 
 stipulate terms with France exactly subversive of the object of the nego- 
 tiations of England (and Russia)." — The Manifest of England against 
 Prussia. Allgemeine Zeitung, No. L32. 
 
 t On the 4th of December, Napoleon met the emperor Francis in the 
 open street in the village of Nahedlowitz. That the impression made by 
 the former upon the latter was far from favourable is proved by the 
 emperor's observation, " Now that I have seen him, I shall never be able
 
 EOMAN-GERMANIC EMPIRE. 233 
 
 firmed her alliance with France by a treaty, by which Prussia 
 ceded Cleve, Anspach, and Xeufchatel to France in exchange 
 for Hanover.* This treaty was published with a precipitation 
 equalling that with which it had been concluded, and seven 
 hundred Prussian vessels, whose captains were ignorant of the 
 event, were seized by the enraged English either in British har- 
 bours or on the sea. The peace concluded by Austria, on the 26th 
 of December, at Presburg, was purchased by her at an enorm- 
 ous sacrifice. Napoleon had, in the opening of the campaign, 
 when pressing onwards towards Austria, compelled Charles 
 Frederick, elector of Baden, f Frederick, elector of Wiirtemberg, 
 and Maximilian Joseph, elector of Bavaria, (in whose mind the 
 
 to endure him ! " On the 5th of December, the Bavarians under Wrede 
 "were signally defeated at Iglau by the Archduke Ferdinand. 
 
 * " After the commission of such numerous mistakes, 1 must neverthe- 
 less praise the minister, Von Haugwitz, for having, in the first place, 
 evaded a war unskilfully managed, and, in the second, for having annexed 
 Hanover to Prussia, although its possession, it must be confessed, is some- 
 what precarious. Here, however, I hear it said, that the commission of 
 a robbery at another's suggestion is, in the first place, the deepest of de- 
 gradations, and, in the second place, \mparallcled in history." — Von. 
 Bulow, The Campaign of 1805. It has been asserted that Haugwitz had, 
 prior to the battle of Austerlitz, been instructed to declare war against Na- 
 poleon in case the intervention of Prussia should be rejected by him. Still, 
 had Haugwitz overstepped instructions of such immense importance, he 
 would not immediately afterwards, on the l'2th of January, 1^06, have 
 received, iis was actually the case, fresh instructions, in proof that he had 
 in no degree abused the confidence of his sovereign. Haugwitz, by not 
 declaring war, husbanded the strength of Prussia and gained Hanover ; 
 and, by so doing, he fufilled his instructions, which were, to gain Hanover 
 without making any sacrifice. His success gained for him the applause 
 of his sovereign, who intrusted him, on account of his skill as a diplo- 
 matist, with the management of other negotiations. Prussia at that time 
 still pursued the system of the treaty of Basle, was unwilling to break with 
 France, and was simply bent upon selling her neutrality to the best advant- 
 age. Instead, however, of being able to prescribe terms to Napoleon, she 
 ■was compelled to accede to his. Napoleon said to Haug^vitz, " Jamais on 
 n'obtiendra de moi ce qui pourrait blesser ma gloire." Haugwitz had 
 been instructed through the duke of Brunswick : " Pour le cas que vos 
 soins pour retablir la paix echouent, pour le cas ou I'apparition de la 
 Prusse sur le the&tre de la guerre soil jugee inevitable, mettez tons vos 
 soins pour conserver a la Prusse I'epee dans le fourreau jusqu'au 22 
 Decembre, et s'il se peut jusqu'a un terme plus recule encore." — Extract 
 from the Memoirs of the Count von Haugwitz. 
 
 t He married a Mademoiselle von Geyer. His children had merely 
 the title of Counts von Hochberg, but came, in 1830, on the extinction of 
 the Agnati, to the government.
 
 234 FALL OF THE HOLY 
 
 memory of the assassination of the ambassadors at Rastadt, 
 the loss of Wasserburg, the demolition of Ingolstadt, etc. still 
 rankled,) to enter into his alliance ; to which they remained 
 zealously true on account of the immense private advantages 
 thereby gained by them, and of the dread of being deprived 
 by the haughty victor of the whole of their possessions on the 
 first symptom of opposition on their part. Napoleon, with a view 
 of binding them still more closely to his interests by motives 
 of gratitude, gave them on the present occasion an ample 
 share in the booty. Bavaria was erected into a kingdom,* 
 and received, from Prussia, Anspach and Bayreuth ; from 
 Austria, the whole of the Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Lindau, the 
 Margraviate of Burgau, the dioceses of Passau, Eichstiidt, Tri- 
 ent, and Brixen, besides several petty lordships. Wiirtemberg 
 was raised to a monarchy and enriched with the bordering 
 Austrian lordships in Swabia. Baden was rewarded with the 
 Breisgau, the Ortenau, Constance, and the title of grand- 
 duke. Venice Avas included by Napoleon in his kingdom of 
 Italy, and, for all these losses, Austria was merely indemnified 
 by the possession of Salzburg. Ferdinand, elector of Salz- 
 burg, the former grand-duke of Tuscany, was transferred to 
 Wiirzburg. Ferdinand of ^lodena lost the whole of his pos- 
 sessions. 
 
 The imperial crown, so well maintained by Napoleon, now 
 shone with redoubled lustre. The petty republics and the 
 provinces dependent upon the French empire were erected 
 into kingdoms and principalities and bestowed upon his rela- 
 tives and favourites. His brother Joseph was created king 
 of Naples ; his brother Louis, king of Holland ; his step-son 
 Eugene Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy ; his brother-in-law 
 Murat, formerly a common horse-soldier, now his best general 
 of cavaliy, grand-duke of Berg; his first adjutant, Berthier, 
 prince of Neufchatel ; his uncle, Cardinal Fesch, was nomin- 
 ated successor to the elector of INIayence, then resident at 
 Ratisbon. In order to remove the stigma attached to him as 
 
 * On the 1st of January, 1806 ; the Bavarian state-newspaper an- 
 nounced it at New-year with the words, " Long live Napoleon, the 
 restorer of the kingdom of Bavaria ! " Bavarian authors, more particu- 
 larly Pallhausen, attempted to prove that the Bavarians had originally 
 been a Gallic tribe under the Gallic kings. It was considered a dishon- 
 our to belong to Germany.
 
 EOMAN-GERMAXIC EMPIRE. 235 
 
 a parvenu, Napoleon also began to form matrimonial alliances 
 between his family and the most ancient houses of Europe. 
 His handsome step-son, Eugene, married the Princess Au- 
 gusta, daughter to the king of Bavaria ; his brother Hieron}^- 
 mus, Catherine, daughter to the king of Wiirtemberg; and his 
 niece, Stephanie, Charles, hereditary prince of Baden. All 
 the new princes were vassals of the emperor Napoleon, and, 
 by a family decree, subject to his supremacy. All belonged 
 to the great empire. Switzerland was also included, and but 
 one step more was wanting to complete the incorporation of 
 half the German empire with that of France. 
 
 On the 12th of July, 1806, sixteen princes of Western 
 Germany concluded, under Napoleon's direction, a treaty, ac- 
 cording to which they separated themselves from the German 
 empire and founded the so-called Rhenish alliance, which it 
 was their intention to render subject to the supremacy of the 
 emperor of the French.* On the 1st of August, Napoleon 
 declared that he no longer recognised the empire of Germany ! 
 No one ventured to oppose his omnipotent voice. On the 6th 
 of August, 1806, the emperor, Francis II., abdicated the im- 
 perial crown of Germany and announced the dissolution of 
 the empire in a touching address, full of calm dignity and 
 sorrow. The last of the German emperors had shown him- 
 self, throughout the contest, worthy of his great ancestors, 
 and had, almost alone, sacrificed all in order to preserve the 
 honour of Germany, until, abandoned by the greater part of 
 the German princes, he was compelled to yield to a power 
 superior to his. The fall of the empire that had stood the 
 storms of a thousand years, was, however, not without dig- 
 nity. A meaner hand might have levelled the decayed fabric 
 
 * In 1797, the anonymous statesman, in tlie dedication " to the congress 
 of Rastadt," foretold the formation of the Rhenish alliance as a necessary 
 result of the treaty of Basle. " The electors of Brandenburg, Hanover, 
 Hesse-Cassel, and all the princes, who defended themselves behind the 
 line of demarcation against their obligations to the empire, and tranquilly 
 awaited the issue of the contest between France and that part of the 
 empire that had taken up arms ; all those princes to whom their private 
 interests were dearer than those of the empire, who, devoid of patriotism, 
 formed a separate party against Austria and Southern Germ;iny, from 
 which they severed and isolated themselves, could, none of them, arrogate 
 to themselves a voice in the matter, if Southern Germany, abandoned, by 
 them, concluded treaties for herself as her present and future interests 
 demanded."
 
 236 FALL OF THE HOLY 
 
 with the dust, but fate, that seemed to honour even the faded 
 majesty of the ancient Csesars, selected Napoleon as the exe- 
 cutioner of her decrees. The standard of Charlemagne, the 
 greatest hero of the first Christian age, was to be profaned 
 by no hand save that of the greatest hero of modern times. 
 
 Ancient names, long venerated, now disappeared. The 
 holy Roman-German emperor was converted into an emperor 
 of Austria, the electors into kings or grand-dukes, all of whom 
 enjoyed unlimited sovereign power and were free from sub- 
 jection to the supremacy of the emperor. Every bond of 
 union was dissolved with the diet of the empire and with 
 the imperial chamber. The barons and counts of the empire 
 and the petty princes were mediatised ; the princes of Ho- 
 henlohe, Oettingen, Schwarzenbei'g, Thurn, and Taxis, the 
 Truchsess von AValdburg, Flirstenberg, Fugger, Leiningen, 
 Lowenstein, Solms, Hesse-Homburg, AVied-Runkel, and 
 Orange-Fulda became subject to the neighbouring Rhenish 
 confederated princes. Of the remaining six imperial fi-ee 
 cities, Augsburg and Nuremberg fell to Bavaria ; Frankfurt, 
 under the title of grand-duchy, to the ancient elector of May- 
 ence, who was again transferred thither from Ratisbon. The 
 ancient Hanse-towns, Hamburg, Liibeck, and Bremen alone 
 retained their freedom. 
 
 The Rhenish confederation now began its wretched existence. 
 It was established on the basis of the Helvetian republic. 
 The sixteen confederated princes were to be completely inde- 
 pendent and to exercise sovereign power over the internal 
 affairs of their states, like the Swiss cantons, but were, in all 
 foreign affairs, dependent upon Napoleon as their protector.* 
 The whole Rhenish confederation became a part of the French 
 empire. The federal assembly was to sit at Frankfurt, and 
 Dalberg, the former elector of Mayence, now grand-duke of 
 Frankfurt, was nominated by Napoleon, under the title of Prince 
 Primate, president. Napoleon's uncle, and afterwards his step- 
 son, Eugene Beauharnais, were his destined successors, by 
 which means the control was placed entirely in the hands of 
 France. To this confederation there belonged two kings, those 
 
 * " Oldenburg affords a glaring proof of the insecurity and meanness 
 characteristic of the Rhenish alliance. The relation even with Bavaria 
 ■was not always the purest, and I have sometimes caught a near glimpse 
 of the claws." — Gagern's Share in Politics.
 
 EOMAX-GERMANIC EMPIRE. 23 < 
 
 of Bavaria and Wiirtemberg, five grand-dukes, those of 
 Frankfurt, Wiirzburg, Baden, Darmstadt, and Berg, and ten 
 princes, tw'o of Nassau, two of HohenzoUern, two of Salm, 
 besides those of Aremberg, Isenburg, Lichtenstein, and Ley- 
 en. Every trace of the ancient free constitution of Germany, 
 her provincial Estates, was studiously annihilated. The Wiir- 
 temberg Estates, with a spirit worthy of their ancient fame, 
 alone made an energetic protest, by which they merely suc- 
 ceeded in saving their honour, the king, Frederick, dissolving 
 them by force and closing their chamber.* An absolute, de- 
 spotic form of government, similar to that existing in France 
 under Napoleon, was established in all the confederated states. 
 The murder of the unfortunate bookseller. Palm of Nurem- 
 berg, who was, on the 2oth of August, 1806, shot by Napo- 
 leon's order, at Braunau, for nobly refusing to give up the 
 author of a patriotic work published by him, directed against 
 the rule of France, and entitled, " Germany in her deepest 
 Degradation," furnished convincing proof, were any wanting, 
 of Napoleon's supremacy. 
 
 * No diet had, since 1770, been held in AViirtemberg, only the com- 
 mittee had continued to treat secretly with the duke. In 1797, Frederick 
 convoked a fresh diet and swore to hold the constitiition sacred. Some 
 modern elements appeared in this diet ; the old opposition was strength- 
 ened by men of the French school. Disputes, consequently, ere long 
 arose between it and the duke, a man of an extremely arbitrary dispo- 
 sition. The Estates discovered little zeal for the war with France, at- 
 tempted to economize in the preparations, etc., whilst the duke made 
 great show of patriotism as a prince of the German empire, nor gave 
 the slightest symptom of his one day becoming an enemy to his country, a 
 member of the Rhenish alliance, and the most zealous partisan of France. 
 Moreau, however, no sooner crossed the Rhine than the duke fled, aban- 
 doned his states, and afterwards not only refused to bear the smallest share 
 of the contributions levied upon the country by the French, but also 
 seized the subsidies furnished by England. The duke, shortly after this, 
 quarrelling with his eldest son, William, the Estates sided with the latter 
 and supplied him with funds, at the same time refusing to grant any of 
 the sums demanded by the duke, who, on his part, omitted the confirma- 
 tion of the new committee, and ordered Grosz, the counsellor, Stock- 
 maier, the secretary of the diet, and several others, besides Batz, the agent 
 of the diet at Vienna, to be placed under arrest, their papers to be seized, 
 and a sum of money to be raised from the church property, a. d. 1805. 
 Not long after this, rendered insolent by the protection of the great despot 
 of France, he utterly annihilated the ancient constitution of Wiirtem- 
 berg.
 
 238 PRUSSIA'S DECLARATION OF WAR, 
 
 CCLIV. Prussians declaration of war, and defeat. 
 
 Prussia, by a timely declaration of war against France 
 before the battle of Austerlitz, might have turned the tide 
 against Napoleon, and earned for herself the glory and the 
 gain, instead of being, by a false policy, compelled, at a later 
 period, to make that declaration under circumstances of ex- 
 treme disadvantage. Her maritime commerce suffered extreme 
 injury from the attacks of the English and Swedes. War was 
 unavoidable, either for or against France. The decision was 
 replete with difficulty. Prussia, by continuing to side with 
 France, was exposed to the attacks of England, Sweden, and 
 probably, Russia ; it was, moreover, to be feared that Napoleon, 
 who had more in view the diminution of the power of Prussia 
 than that of Austria, might delay his aid. During the late 
 campaign, the Prussian territory had been violated and the fort- 
 ress of Wesel seized by Napoleon, who had also promised the 
 restoration of Hanover to England as a condition of peace. 
 He had invited Prussia to found, besides the Rhenisli, a north- 
 ern confederation, and had, at the same time, bribed Saxony 
 with a promise of the royal dignity, and Hesse with that of 
 the annexation of Fulda, not to enter into alliance with Prus- 
 sia. Prussia saw herself scorned and betrayed by France. 
 A declaration of war with France was, howevei", surrounded 
 with tenfold danger. The power of France, unweakened by 
 opposition, had reached an almost irresistible height. Austria, 
 abandoned in every former campaign and hurried to ruin by 
 Prussia, could no longer be reckoned on for aid. The whole 
 of Germany, once in favour of Prussia, now sided with the 
 foe. Honour at length decided. Prussia could no longer 
 endure the scorn of the insolent Frenchman, his desecration 
 of the memory of the great Frederick, or, with an army im- 
 patient for action, tamely submit to the insults of both friend 
 and foe. The presence of the Russian czar, Alexander, at 
 Berlin, his visit to the tomb of Frederick the Great, rendered 
 still more popular by an engraving, had a powerful effect upon 
 public opinion. Louisa, the beautiful queen of Prussia and 
 princess of Mecklenburg, animated the people with her words 
 and roused a spirit of chivalry in the army, which still deemed 
 itself invincible. The younger officers were not sparing of
 
 AND DEFEAT. 239 
 
 their vaunts, and Prince Louis vented his passion by break- 
 ing the windows of the minister Haugwitz. John Miiller, 
 who, on the overthrow of Austria, had quitted Vienna and 
 had been appointed Prussian historiographer at Berlin, called 
 upon the people, in the preface to the " Trumpet of the Holy 
 War," to take up arms against France. 
 
 War was indeed declared, but with too great precipitation. 
 Instead of awaiting the arrival of the troops promised by 
 Russia or until Austria had been gained, instead of manning 
 the fortresses and taking precautionary measures, the Prussian 
 army, in conjunction with that of Saxony, which lent but com- 
 pulsory aid, and with those of Mecklenburg and Brunswick, 
 its voluntary allies, advanced without any settled plan, and 
 suddenly remained stationary in the Thuringian forest-, 
 like Mack two years earlier at Ulm, waiting for the appear- 
 ance of Napoleon, a. d. 1806. The king and the queen ac- 
 companied the army, which was commanded by Ferdinand, 
 duke of Brunswick, a veteran of seventy-two, and by his 
 subordinate in command, Frederick Louis, prince of Hohen- 
 lohe-Ingelfingen, who ever opposed his measures. In the 
 general staff, the chief part was enacted by Colonel IMassen- 
 back, a second Mack, whose counsels were rarely followed. 
 All the higher officers in the army were old men, promotion 
 depending not upon merit but upon length of service. The 
 younger officers were radically bad, owing to their airs of 
 nobility and licentious garrison life ; their manners and prin- 
 ciples were equally vulgar. Women, horses, dogs, and 
 gambling formed the staple of their conversation ; they de- 
 spised all solid learning, and, when decorated on parade, in 
 their enormous cocked hats and plumes, powdered wigs and 
 queues, tight leather breeches and great boots, they swore at 
 and cudgelled the men, and strutted about with conscious 
 heroism. The arms used by the soldiery were heavy and apt 
 to hang fire, their tight uniform was inconvenient for action 
 and useless as a protection against the weather, and their food, 
 bad of its kind, was stinted by the avarice of the colonels, 
 which was carried to such an extent, that soldiers were to be 
 seen, who, instead of a waistcoat, had a small bit of cloth 
 sewn on to the lower part of the uniform where the waistcoat 
 was usually visible. Worst of all, however, was the bad 
 spirit that pervaded the army, the enervation consequent
 
 240 PRUSSIA'S DECLARATION OF WAR, 
 
 upon immorality. Even before the opening of the war, 
 Lieutenant Henry von Bulow, a retired officer, the greatest 
 military genius at that period in Germany, and, on that ac- 
 count, misj[nderstood, foretold the inevitable defeat of Prussia, 
 and, although far from being a devote, declared, " The cause 
 of the national ignorance lies chiefly in the atheism and de- 
 moralization produced by the government of Frederick II. 
 The enlightenment, so highly praised in the Prussian states, 
 simply consists in a loss of energy and power." 
 
 The main body of the Prussian array was stationed around 
 Weimar and Jena, a small corps under General Tauen- 
 zien was pushed forward to cover the rich magazines at Hot", 
 and a reserve of seventeen thousand men under Eugene, duke 
 of AViirtemberg, lay to the rear at Halle. It was remarked 
 that this position, in case of an attack being made by Napo- 
 leon, was extremely dangerous, the only alternatives left for 
 the Prussian army being, either to advance, form a junction 
 ■with the gallant Hessians and render the Rhine the seat of 
 war, or, to fall back upon the reserve and hazard a deci- 
 sive battle on the plains of Leipsig. That intriguing im- 
 postor, Lucchesini, the oracle of the camp, however, purposely 
 declared that he knew Napoleon, that Napoleon would most 
 certainly not attempt to make an attack. A few days after- 
 wards. Napoleon, nevertheless, appeared, found the pass at 
 Kosen open, cut off the Prussian army from the right bank of 
 the Saal, from its magazines at Hof and Naumburg, which he 
 also seized, from the reserve corps stationed at Halle, and from 
 Prussia. Utterly astounded at the negligence of the duke of 
 Brunswick, he exclaimed, whilst comparing him with ]\Iack, 
 "Les Prussiens sont encore plus stupides que les Autrichiens ! " 
 On being informed by some prisoners that the Prussians ex- 
 pected him from Erfurt when he was already at Naumburg, 
 he said, " lis se tromperont furieusement, ces perruques." He 
 would, nevertheless, have been on his part exposed to great 
 peril, had the Prussians suddenly attacked him with their 
 whole force from Weimar, Jena, and Halle, or had they in- 
 stantly retired into Franconia and fallen upon his rear ; but 
 the idea never entered the heads of the Prussian generals, who 
 tranquilly waited to be beaten by him one after the other. 
 
 After Tauenzien's repulse, a second corps under Prince 
 Louis of Prussia, which had been pushed forward to Saalfeld,
 
 AND DEFEAT. 241 
 
 imprudently attempting to maintain its position in the narrow 
 valley, was surrounded and cut to pieces. The prince refused 
 to yield, and, after a furious defence, was killed by a French 
 horse-soldier. The news of this disaster speedily reached 
 the main body of the Prussians. The duke of Brunswick, 
 at that time holding a military council in the castle of Weimar, 
 so entirely lost his presence of mind as to ask in the hearing 
 of several young officers, and with embarrassment depicted 
 on his countenance, " "What are we to do ? " This veteran 
 duke would with painful slowness write down in the neatest 
 hand the names of the villages in which the various regi- 
 ments were to be quartered, notwithstanding which, it some- 
 times happened that, owing to his topographical ignorance, 
 several regiments belonging to different corps d' armee were 
 billetted in the same village and had to dispute its pos- 
 session. He would hesitate for an hour whether he ought 
 to write the name of a village Miinchenholzen or MUncli- 
 holzen. 
 
 The Prussian army was compared to a ship with all sail 
 spread lying at anchor. The duke was posted with the main 
 body not far from Weimar, the Saxons at the Schnecke on the 
 road between Weimar and Jena, the prince of Hohenlohe at 
 Jena. Mack had isolated and exposed his different corps d' 
 armee in an exactly similar manner at Ulra. Hohenlohe again 
 subdivided his corps and scattered them in front of the con- 
 centrated forces of the enemy. Still, all was not yet lost, the 
 Prussians being advantageously posted in the upper valley, 
 whilst the French were advancing along the deep valleys of the 
 Saal and its tributaries. But, on the 13th of October, Tauen- 
 zien retired from the vale, leaving the steeps of Jena, which 
 a hundred students had been able to defend simply by rolling 
 down the stones there piled in heaps, open, and, during the 
 same night, Napoleon sent his artillery up and posted himself 
 on the Landgrafenberg. There, nevertheless, still remained 
 a chance ; the Dornberg, by which the Landgrafenberg was 
 commanded, was still occupied by Tauenzien, and the Wind- 
 knollen, a still steeper ascent, whence Hohenlohe, had he not 
 spent the night in undisturbed slumbers at Capellendorf, 
 might utterly have annihilated the French army, remained 
 unoccupied. The thunder of the French artillery first roused 
 Hohenlohe from his couch, and, whilst he was still under the
 
 242 PRUSSIA'S DECLARATION OF WAR, 
 
 hands of his barber, Tauenzien was driven from the Dorri- 
 berg. The duties of the toilette at length concluded, Ho- 
 henlohe led his troops up the hill-side with a view of re- 
 taking the position he had so foolishly lost ; but his serried 
 columns were exposed to the destructive fire of a body of 
 French tirailleurs posted above, and were repulsed with im- 
 mense loss. General Riichel arrived, with his corps that had 
 been uselessly detached, too late to prevent the flight of the 
 Hohenlohe corps, and, making a brave but senseless attack, 
 was wounded and defeated. A similar fate befell the unfor- 
 tunate Saxons at the Schnecke and the duke of Brunswick at 
 Auerstadt. The latter, although at the head of the strongest 
 division of the Prussian army, succumbed to the weakest 
 division of the French army, that commanded by Davoust, 
 who henceforward bore the title of duke of Auerstadt, and 
 was so suddenly put to the rout that a body of twenty thou- 
 sand Prussians under Kalkreuth never came into action. The 
 duke was shot in both eyes. This incident was, by his ene- 
 mies, termed fortune's revenge, "as he never would see when 
 he had his eyes open."* 
 
 Napoleon followed up his victory with consummate skill. 
 The junction of the retreating corps d'armee and their flight 
 by the shortest route into Prussia were equally prevented. 
 The defeated Prussian army was in a state of indescribable 
 confusion. An immensely circuitous march lay before it be- 
 fox'e Prussia could be re-entered. A number of the regiments 
 disbanded, particularly those whose officers had been the first 
 to take to flight or had crept for shelter behind hedges and 
 walls. An immense number of officers' equipages, provided 
 with mistresses, articles belonging to the toilette, and epicu- 
 rean delicacies, fell into Napoleon's hands. Waggons laden 
 with poultry, complete kitchens on wheels, wine casks, etc., 
 had followed this luxurious army. The scene presented by 
 the battle-field of Jena widely contrasted with that of Ross- 
 bach, whose monument was sent by Napoleon to Paris as the 
 
 * On the 14tli of October. On this unlucky day, Frederick the Great 
 had, in 1758, been surprised at Hoclikirch, and Mack, in 1805, at Ulm. 
 On this day, the peace of Westphalia -R-as, a. d. 1648, concluded at Osna- 
 briick, and, in 1809, that of Vienna. It was, however, on this day that 
 the siege of Vienna was, in 1529, raised, and that, in 1813, Napoleon 
 was shut up at Leipzig.
 
 AND DEFEAT. 243 
 
 most glorious part of the booty gained by liis present easy 
 victory.* 
 
 The fortified city of Erfurt was garrisoned witli fourteen 
 thousand Prussians under MoUendorf, who, on the first sum- 
 mons, capitulated to Murat, the general of the French cavalry. 
 The hereditary Prince of Orange was also taken prisoner on 
 tliis occasion. Von Helhvig, a lieutenant of the Prussian 
 hussars, boldly charged the French guard escorting the four- 
 teen thousand Prussian prisoners of war from Erfurt, at the 
 head of his squadron, at Eichenrodt in the vicinity of Eisen- 
 ach, and succeeded in restoring them to liberty. The liber- 
 ated soldiers, however, instead of joining the main body, dis- 
 persed. Eugene, duke of Wlirtemberg, was also defeated at 
 Halle, and, throwing up his command, withdrew to his states. 
 Histoiy has, nevertheless, recorded one trait of magnanimity, 
 that of a Prussian ensign fifteen years of age, who, being 
 pursued by some French cavalry not far from Halle, sprang 
 with the colours into the Saal and was crushed to death by a 
 mill-wheel. 
 
 Kalkreuth's corps, that had not been brought into action 
 and was the only one that remained entire, being placed 
 under the command of the prince of Hohenlohe, its gallant 
 commander, enraged at the indignity, quitted the army. 
 Hohenlohe's demand, on reaching Magdeburg, for a supply of 
 ammunition and forage, was refused by the commandant. 
 Von Kleist, and he hastened helplessly forward in the hope of 
 reaching Berlin, but the route was already blocked by the 
 enemy, and he was compelled to make a fatiguing and circuit- 
 ous march to the west through the sandy Mark. Magdeburg, 
 although garrisoned with twenty-two thousand Prussians, de- 
 fended by eight hundred pieces of artillery and almost im- 
 pregnable fortifications, capitulated on the 11th of November 
 to Ney, on his appearance beneath the walls with merely ten 
 thousand men and a light field-battery. Kleist, in exculpa- 
 tion of his conduct, alleged his expectation of an insurrection 
 of the citizens in case of a bombardment. Magdeburg con- 
 
 • The -whole of these disasters had been predicted by Henry von 
 Biilow, whose prophecies had brought him into a prison. On learning 
 the catastrophe of Jena, he exclaimed, " That is the consequence of 
 throwing generals into prison and of placing idiots at the head of the 
 army ! " 
 
 R 2
 
 244 PRUSSIA'S DECLARATION OF WAR, 
 
 tained at that time three thousand unarmed citizens. It is 
 not known whether Kleist had been bribed, or whether he 
 was simply infected with the cowardice and stupidity by 
 which the elder generals of that period were distinguished ; 
 it is, however, certain that among the numerous younger 
 officers serving under his command, not one raised the slight- 
 est opposition to this disgraceful capitulation.* 
 
 The Hohenlohe corps, which consisted almost exclusively 
 of infantry, was accompanied in its flight by BlUcher, the 
 gallant general of the hussars, with the elite of the remaining 
 cavalry. Bliicher had, however, long borne a grudge against 
 his pedantic companion, and, mistrusting his guidance, soon 
 quitted him. Being surrounded by a greatly superior French 
 force under Klein, f he contrived to escape by asserting with 
 great earnestness to that general, that an armistice had just 
 been concluded. When afterwards urgently entreated by 
 Hohenlohe to join him with his troops, he procrastinated too 
 long, it may be, owing to his desire to bring Hohenlohe, who, 
 by eternally retreating, completely disheartened his troops, to 
 a stand, or, owing to the impossibility of coming up with 
 greater celerity.! He had, indubitably, the intention to join 
 Hohenlohe at Prenzlow, but unfortunately arrived a day too 
 late, the prince, whose ammunition and provisions were com- 
 pletely spent, and who, owing to the stupidity of Massenbach, 
 who rode up and down the Ucker without being able to dis- 
 cover whether he was on the right or left bank, had missed 
 the only route by which he could retreat, having already 
 fallen, with twelve thousand men, into the enemy's hands. 
 This disaster was shortly afterwards followed by the capture 
 of General Hagen with six thousand men at Pasewalk and 
 that of Bila with another small Prussian corps not far from 
 
 * The young "vons," on the contrary, capitulated with extreme 
 readiness, in order to return to their pleasurable habits. Several of 
 them set a great shield over their doors, with the inscription, " Herr von 
 N. or M., prisoner of war on parole." In all the capitulations, the com- 
 mandants and officers merely took care of their own persons and equi- 
 pages and sacrificed the soldiery. Napoleon, who was well aware of 
 this little wealcness, always offered them the most flattering personal 
 terms. 
 
 t The same man who had been imposed upon by a similar ruse at 
 Ulm, by the archduke Ferdinand. Napoleon dismissed him the service. 
 
 J Massenbach published an anonymous charge against Bliicher, 
 which that general publicly refuted.
 
 AXD DEFEAT. 245 
 
 Stettin. Blliclier, strengthened by the corps of the duke of 
 Weimar and by numerous fugitives, still kept the field, but 
 was at length driven back to Llibeck, where he was defeated, 
 and, after a bloody battle in the very heart of the terror- 
 stricken city, four thousand of his men were made prisoners. 
 He fled with ten thousand to Eadkan, where, finding no ships 
 to transport him across the Baltic, he was forced to capitulate. 
 
 The luckless duke of Brunswick was carried on a bier from 
 the field of Jena to his palace at Brunswick, which he found 
 deserted. All belonging to him had fled. In his distress he 
 exclaimed, '•! am now about to quit all and am abandoned by 
 all ! " His earnest petition to Napoleon for protection for 
 himself and his petty territory was sternly refused by the 
 implacable victor, who replied, that he knew of no reigning 
 duke of Brunswick, but only of a Prussian general of that 
 name, who had, in the infamous manifest of 1792, declared 
 his intention to destroy Paris and was undeserving of mercy. 
 The blind old man fled to Ottensen, in the Danish territory, 
 where he expired. 
 
 Napoleon, after confiscating sixty millions worth of English 
 goods on his way through Leipzig, entered Berlin on the 17th 
 of October, 1806. The defence of the city had not been even 
 dreamt of; nay, the great arsenal, containing five hundred 
 pieces of artillery and immense stores, the sword of Frederick 
 the Great, and the private correspondence of the reigning 
 king and queen, were all abandoned to the victor.* Although 
 the citizens were by no means martially disposed, the author- 
 ities deemed it necessary to issue proclamations to the people, 
 inculcatory of the axiom, " Tranquillity is the first duty of the 
 citizen." Napoleon, on his entry into Berlin, was received, 
 not, as at Vienna, with uiutc rage, but with loud demonstra- 
 tions of delight. Individuals belonging to the highest class 
 
 * Whilst the unfortunate Henry von Biilow, whose ■«ise counsels had 
 been despised, was torn from his prison to be delivered to the Russians, 
 whose behaviour at Austerlitz he had blamed. On his route he was ma- 
 liciously represented as a friend to the French and exposed to the insults 
 of the rabble, who bespattered him with mud, and to such brutal treat- 
 ment from the Cossacks, that he died of his wounds at Riga. Never had 
 a prophet a more ungrateful country. He was delivered by his fellow- 
 citizens to an ignominious death for attempting their salvation, for point- 
 ing out the means by which alone their safety could be insured and for 
 exposing the wretches by whom they were betrayed.
 
 246 PRUSSIA'S DECLARATION OF WAR, 
 
 Stationed themselves behind the crowd and exclaimed, " For 
 God's sake, give a hearty hurrah ! Cry, Vive I'empereur ! or 
 we are all lost." On a demand, couched in the politest tenus, 
 for the peaceable delivery of the arms of the civic guard, being 
 made by Hulin, the new French commandant, to the magis- 
 trate, the latter, on his own accord, ordered the citizens to 
 give up their arms "under pain of death." Numerous indi- 
 viduals betrayed the public money and stores, that still re- 
 mained concealed, to the French. Hulin replied to a person, 
 who had discovered a large store of wood, " Leave the wood 
 untouched ; your king will want a good deal to make gallows 
 for traitorous rogues." Napoleon's reception struck him with 
 such astonishment that he declared, " I know not whether to 
 rejoice or to feel ashamed." At the head of his general staif, 
 in full uniform and with bared head, he visited the apartment 
 occupied by Frederick the Great at Sans Souci and his tomb. 
 He took possession of Frederick's sword and declared in the 
 army bulletin, " I would not part with this weapon for twenty 
 millions." Frederick's tomb afforded him an opportunity for giv- 
 ing vent to the most unbecoming expressions of contempt against 
 his unfortunate descendant. He pubhcly aspersed the fame 
 of the beautiful and noble-hearted Prussian queen, in order to 
 deaden the enthusiasm she sought to raise. But he deceived 
 himself Calumny but increased the esteem and exalted the 
 enthusiasm \vith which the people beheld their queen and 
 kindled a feeling of revenge in their bosoms. Napoleon be- 
 haved, nevertheless, with generosity to another lady of rank. 
 Prince Hatzfeld, the civil governor of Berlin, not having 
 quitted that city on the entry of Napoleon, had been disco- 
 vered by the spies and been condemned to death by a court- 
 martial. His wife, who was at t!mi time enceinte, threw her- 
 SClf «t r^apoieon's feet. With a smile, he handed to her the 
 paper containing the proof of her husband's guilt, which she 
 instantly burnt, and her husband was restored to liberty. 
 John Miiller was among the more remarkable of the servants 
 of the state who had remained at Berlin. This sentimental 
 parasite, the most despicable of them all, whose pathos sub- 
 limely glossed over each fresh treason, was sent for by Napo- 
 leon, who placed him about his person. Among other things, 
 he asked him, " Is it not true ? the Germans are somewhat 
 thick-brained?" to which the fawning professor replied with
 
 AJN'D DEFEAT. 247 
 
 a smile. In return for the benefits he had received from the 
 royal family of Prussia, he delivered, before quitting Berlin, 
 an academical lecture upon Frederick the Great, in the 
 presence of the French general officers, in which he artfully 
 (the lecture was of course delivered in the French language) 
 contrived to flatter Napoleon at the expense of that monarch.* 
 Prince Charles von Isenburg raised, in the very heart of 
 Berlin, a regiment, composed of Prussian deserters, for the 
 service of France. f 
 
 The Prussian fortresses fell, meanwhile, one after the other, 
 during the end of autumn and during the winter, some from 
 utter inabihty, on account of their neglected state, to main- 
 tain themselves, but the greater part, owing to their being 
 commanded by old villains, treacherous and cowardly as the 
 commandant of ]Magdeburg. The strong fortress of Hameln 
 was in this manner yielded by a Baron von Schiiler, Plassen- 
 burg by a Baron von Becker, Nimburg on the Weser by a 
 Baron von Dresser, Spandau by a Count von Benkendorf. 
 The citadel of Berlin capitulated without a blow, and Stettin, 
 although well provided with all the materiel of war, was de- 
 livered up by a Baron von Romberg. Custrin, one of the 
 strongest fortified places, was commanded by a Count von 
 Ingersleben. The king visited the place during his flight 
 and earnestly recommended him to defend this place, which, 
 sooner than yield, had, during the seven years' war, allowed 
 itself to be reduced to a heap of ruins, to the last. AVhen 
 standing on one of the bastions, the king inquired its name. 
 The commandant w-as ignorant of it. Scarcely had the king 
 quitted the place, than a body of French huzzars appeared 
 before the gates, and Ingersleben instantly capitulated. 
 
 • In the " Trumpet of the Holy War," he had summoned the nation 
 to take up arms against the heathens (the French). He breathed war 
 and flames. In his address to the king, he said, " The idle parade of the 
 ruler during a long peace has never maintained a state ! " He incited the 
 hatred of the people against the French, telling them to harbour " such 
 hatred against the enemy, like men ■who knew how to hate ! " After thus 
 aiding to kindle the flames of war, he went over to the French and wrote 
 the letter to Bignon, which that author has inserted in his History of 
 France : " Like Ganymede to the seat of the gods, have I been borne by 
 the eagle to Fontainebleau, there to serve a god." 
 
 t The conduct of these deserters, how, decorated with the French 
 cockade, they treated the German population with unheard of insolence, 
 is given in detail by Seume.
 
 248 PRUSSIA'S DECLARATION OF WAR, 
 
 Silesia, although less demoralized than Berlin, viewed these 
 political changes with even greater apathy. This fine pro- 
 vince had, during the reign of Frederick the Great, been 
 placed under the government of the minister, Count Hoym, 
 whose easy disposition had, like insidious poison, utterly en- 
 ervated the people. The government officers, as if persuaded 
 of the reality of the antiquarian whim which deduced the 
 name of Silesia from Klysiuni, dwelt in placid self-content, 
 unmoved by the catastrophes of Austerlitz or Jena. No mea- 
 sures were, consequently, taken for the defence of the country, 
 and a flying corps of Bavarians, AViirtembergers, and some 
 French under Vandamnie, speedily overran tlie whole pro- 
 vince, notwithstanding the number of its fortresses. At 
 Glogau, the commandant, Von Reinhardt, unhesitatingly de- 
 clared his readiness to capitulate and excluded the gallant 
 Major von Putlitz, who insisted upon making an obstinate 
 defence, " as a revolutionist," from the military council. Be- 
 ing advised by one of the citizens to fire upon the enemy, he 
 rudely replied, " Sir, you do not know what one shot costs 
 the king." In Breslau, the Counts von Thiele and Lindner 
 made a terrible fracas, burnt down the fine faubourgs, and 
 blew up the powder-magazine, merely in order to veil the dis- 
 grace of a hasty capitulation, which enraged the soldiery to 
 such a pitch, that, shattering their muskets, they heaped im- 
 precations on their dastard commanders, and, in revenge, 
 plundered the royal stores. Brieg was ceded after a two 
 days' siege, by the Baron von Cornerut. The defence of the 
 strong fortress of Schweidnitz, of such celebrated importance 
 during the seven years' war, had been intrusted to Count von 
 Haath, a man whose countenance even betokened imbecility. 
 He yielded the fortress without a blow, and, on the windows 
 of the apartment in which he lodged in the neighbouring 
 town of Jauer being broken by the patriotic citizens, he went 
 down to the landlord, to whom he said, " My good sir, you 
 must have some enemies !" The remaining fortresses made 
 a better defence. Glatz was taken by surprise, the city by 
 storm. The fortress was defended by the commandant, Count 
 Gbtzen, until ammunition sufficient for twelve days longer 
 alone remained. Neisse capitulated from famine ; Kosel was 
 gallantly defended by the commandant, Neumann ; and Silber- 
 berg, situated on an impregnable rock, refused to surrender.
 
 AND DEFEAT. 249 
 
 The troops of the Rhenish confederation, encouraged by the 
 bad example set by Vandamme and by several of the superior 
 officers, committed dreadful havoc, plundered the country, 
 robbed and barbarously treated the inhabitants. It was quite 
 a common custom among the officers, on the conclusion of a 
 meal, to carry away with them the whole of their host's table- 
 service. The filthy habits of the French officers were notori- 
 ous. Their conduct is said to have been not only countenanced 
 but commanded by Napoleon, as a sure means of striking the 
 enervated population with the profoundest terror ; and the 
 panic in fact almost amounted to absurdity, the inhabitants of 
 this thickly-populated province no where venturing to rise 
 against the handful of robbers by whom they were so cruelly 
 persecuted. A Baron von Piickler oifered an individual excep- 
 tion : his endeavours to rouse the inert masses met with no suc- 
 cess, and, rendered desperate by his failure, he blew out his 
 brains. When too late, a prince Yon Anhalt-Pless assembled 
 an armed force in Upper Silesia and attempted to relieve Bres- 
 lau, but Thiele neglecting to make a sally at the decisive 
 moment, the Poles in Prince Pless's small army took to 
 flight, and the whole plan miscarried. A small Prussian 
 corps, amounting to about five hundred men, commaridcd by 
 Losthin, afterwards infested Silesia, surprised the French 
 under Lefebvre at Kanth and put them to the rout, but 
 were a few days after this exploit taken prisoners by a 
 superior French force. 
 
 Attempts at reforms suited to the 'spirit of the age had, 
 even before the outbreak of war, been made in Prussia by 
 men of higher intelligence ; Menken, for instance, had 
 laboured to effi^ct the emancipation of the peasantry, but had 
 been removed from office by the aristocratic party.' During 
 the war, the corruption pervading every department of the 
 government, whether civil or military, was fully exposed, 
 and Frederick William III. was taught by bitter experience 
 to pursue a better system, to act with decision and patient 
 determination. The Baron von Stein, a man of undoubted 
 talent, a native of Nassau, was placed at the head of the 
 government ; two of the most able commanders of the day, 
 Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, undertook the reorganization of 
 the army. On the 1st of December, 1806, the king cashiered 
 every commandant who had neglected to defend the fortress
 
 250 PRUSSIA'S DECLARATION OF WAR, 
 
 intrusted to his care and every officer guilty of desertion or 
 cowardly flight, and the long list of names gave disgraceful 
 proof of the extent to which the nobility were compromised. 
 One of the first measures taken by the king was, conse- 
 quently, to throw open every post of distinction in the army 
 to the citizens. The old inconvenient uniform and fire-arms 
 were at the same time improved, the queue was cut off, the 
 cane abandoned. The royal army was indeed scanty in 
 number, but it contained within itself germs of honour and 
 patriotism that gave promise of future glory. 
 
 The reform, however, but slowly progressed. Ferdinand 
 von Schill, a Prussian lieutenant, who had been wounded at 
 Jena, formed, in Pomerania, a guerilla troop of disbanded 
 soldiery and young men, who, although indifferently provided 
 with arms, stopped the French convoys and couriers. His 
 success was so extraordinary, that he was sometimes enabled 
 to send sums of money, taken from the enemy, to the king. 
 Among other exploits, he took prisoner Marshal Victor, who 
 was exchanged for Bllicher. Bliicher assembled a fresh body 
 of troops on the island of Rligen. Schill, being afterwards 
 compelled to take refuge from the pursuit of the French in 
 the fortress of Colberg, the commandant, Loucadou, placed 
 him under arrest for venturing to criticise the bad defence of 
 the place. 
 
 The king of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus IV., might with 
 perfect justice have bitterly reproached Prussia and Austria 
 for the folly with which they had, by their disunion, con- 
 tributed to the aggrandizement of the power of France. He 
 acted nobly by affording a place of refuge to the Prussians at 
 Stralsund and Riigen. 
 
 Colberg was, on Loucadou's dismissal, gloriously defended 
 by Gneisenau and by the resolute citizens, among whom 
 Nettelbek, a man seventy years of age, chiefly distinguished 
 himself. Courbiere acted with equal gallantry at Graudenz. 
 On being told by the French that Prussia was in their hands 
 and that no king of Prussia was any longer in existence, he 
 replied, " Well, be it so ! but I am king at Graudenz." 
 Pillau was also successfully defended by Herrmann.* Polish 
 
 * Courbiere, Herrmann, and Neumann of Cosel "were bourgeois : the 
 commandants of the other fortresses, so disgracefully ceded, were, with- 
 out exception, nobles.
 
 A>"D DEFEAT. 251 
 
 Prussia naturally fell off on the advance of the French. 
 Kalisch rose in open insurrection ; the Prussian authorities 
 were every where compelied to save themselves by flight from 
 the vengeance of the people. Poland had been termed the 
 Botany Bay of Prussia, government officers in disgrace for 
 bad conduct being generally sent there by way of punishment. 
 No one voluntarily accepted an appointment condemning 
 him to dwell amid a population inspired by the most ineradi- 
 cable national hatred, glowing with revenge, and unable to 
 appreciate the benefits bestowed upon them in their ignor- 
 ance and poverty by the wealthier and more civilized Prus- 
 sian. 
 
 The king had withdrawn with tlie remainder of his troops, 
 which were commanded by the gallant L'Estoc, to Konigs- 
 berg, where he formed a junction with the Russian army, 
 which was led by a Hanoverian, the cautious Benuigsen, 
 and accompanied by the emperor Alexander in person. Na- 
 poleon expected that an opportunity would be atforded for 
 the repetition of his old manccuvre of separating and falling 
 singly upon his opponents, but Bennigsen kept his forces to- 
 gether and offered him battle at Eylau, in the neighbourhood 
 of Kiinigsberg; victory still wavered, when tlie Prussian troops 
 under L'Estoc fell furiously upon Marshal Ney's flank, whilst 
 that general was endeavouring to surround the Russians, and 
 decided the day. It was the 8th of February, and the snow- 
 clad ground was stained with gore. Napoleon, after this ca- 
 tastrophe, remained inactive, awaiting the opening of spring 
 and the arrival of reinforcements. Dantzig, exposed by the 
 desertion of the Poles, fell, although defended by Kalkreuth, 
 into his hands, and, on the 14th of June, 1807, the anniver- 
 sary, so pregnant with important events, of the battle of 
 Marengo, he gained a brilliant victory at Friedland, which 
 was followed by General Rachel's abandonment of Konigs- 
 berg with all its stores. 
 
 The road to Lithuania now lay open to tlie French, and 
 the emperor Alexander deemed it advisable to conclude 
 peace. A conference was held at Tilsit on the Riemen be- 
 tween the sovereigns of France, Russia, and Prussia, and a 
 peace, highly detrimental to Germany, was concluded on the 
 9th of July, 1807. Prussia lost half of her territory, was 
 restricted to the maintenance of an army merely amounting
 
 252 PRUSSIA'S DECLARATION OF WAR, 
 
 to forty-two thousand men, was compelled to pay a contribu- 
 tion of one hundred and forty millions of francs to France, 
 and to leave her most important fortresses as security for 
 payment in the hands of the French. These grievous terms 
 were merely acceded to by Napoleon " out of esteem for his 
 Majesty the emperor of Kussia," who, on his part, deprived 
 his late ally of a piece of Prussian-Poland (Bialystock) and 
 divided the spoil of Prussia with Napoleon.* Nay, he went, 
 some months later, so far in his — generosity, as, on an 
 understanding with Napoleon and without deigning any ex- 
 planation to Prussia, arbitrarily to cancel an article of the 
 peace of Tilsit, by which Prussia was indemnified for the loss 
 of Hanover with a territory containing four hundred thou- 
 sand souls. 
 
 The Prussian possessions on the left bank of the Elbe, 
 Hanover, Brunswick, and Hc?se-Cassol,f were converted by 
 Napoleon into the new kingdom of AVestphalia, which he be- 
 stowed upon his brother Jerome and included in the Rhenish 
 confederation. East Frizeland was annexed to Holland. Poland 
 was not restored, but a petty grand-duchy of Warsaw was 
 
 * Bignon remarks that the queen, Louisa, ■who left no means imtried 
 in order to save as miich as possible of Prussia, came somewhat too late, 
 ■when Napoleon had already entered into an agreement ■with Russia. 
 Hence Napoleon's inflexibility, which was the more insulting owing to 
 the apparently yielding silence with which, from a feeling of politeness, 
 he sometimes received the personal petitions of the queen, to which he 
 would afterwards send a ■vvTittcn refusal. The part played in this affair 
 by Alexander was far from honourable, and Bignon says with great jus- 
 tice, " The emperor of Russia must at that time have had but little judg- 
 ment, if he imagined that taking Prussia in such a manner under his 
 protection would be honourable to the protector." With a view of ap- 
 peasing public opinion in Germany and influencing it in favour of the 
 alliance between France and Russia, Zchokke, who was at that time in 
 Napoleon's pay, published a mean-spirited pamphlet, entitled, " Will 
 tlie human race gain by the present political changes ?" 
 
 t The elector, William, who had solicited permission to remain neu- 
 tral, having made great military preparations and received the Prussians 
 with open arms, was, in Napoleon's twenty-seventh bulletin, deposed 
 with expressions of the deepest contempt. " The house of Hesse-Cassel 
 has for many years past sold its subjects to England, and by this means 
 has the elector collected his immense wealth. May this mean and avari- 
 cious conduct prove the ruin of his house." Louis, Landgrave of 
 
 Hesse-Darmstadt, was threatened with similar danger for inclining on 
 the side of Prussia, but perceived his peril in time to save himself from 
 destruction.
 
 AND DEFEAT. 253 
 
 erected, which Fi'ederick Augustus, elector of Saxony, re- 
 ceived, together with the royal dignity. Prussia, already 
 greatly diminished in extent, was to be still further en- 
 croached upon and watched by these new states. The ex- 
 ample of electoral Saxony was imitated by the petty Saxon 
 princes, and Anhalt, Lippe, Schwarzburg, Reuss, Mecklen- 
 burg, and Aldenburg joined the Rhenish confederation. Dant- 
 zig became a nominal free-town with a French garrison.* 
 
 The brave Hessians resisted this fresh act of despotism. 
 The Hessian troops revolted, but were put down by force, 
 and their leader, a serjeant, rushed franticly into the enemy's 
 fire. ■ The Hessian peasantry also rose in several places. The 
 Hanse towns, on the contrary, meekly allowed themselves to 
 be pillaged and to be robbed of their stores of English goods. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus IV. of Sweden, who had neglected to 
 send troops at an eai'licr period to the aid of Prussia, now 
 offered the sturdiest resistance and steadily refused to nego- 
 tiate terms of peace or to recognise Napoleon as emperor. His 
 generals, Armfeldtf and Essen, made some successful inroads 
 from Stralsund, and, in unison with the EngHsh, might have 
 effected a strong diversion to Napoleon's rear, had their move- 
 ments been more rapid and combined. On the conclusion of 
 the peace of Tilsit, a French force under IMortier appeared, 
 drove the Swedes back upon Stralsund, and compelled the 
 king, in the August of 1807, to abandon that city, which the 
 new system of warfare rendered no longer tenable. 
 
 CCLV. The Rhenish Confederation. 
 The whole of western Europe bent in lowly submission be- 
 
 * Marshal Lefebvre, who had taken the city, was created duke of 
 Dantzig. The city, however, did not belong to him, but became a re- 
 public ; notwithstanding which, it was at first compelled to pay a contri- 
 bution, amounting to twenty million francs, to Napoleon, to maintain a 
 strong French garrison at its expense, and was fleeced in every imagina- 
 ble way. A stop was consequently put to trade, the wealthiest merchants 
 became bankrupt, and Napoleon's satraps established their harems and 
 celebrated their orgies in their magnificent houses and gardens, and, by 
 their unbridled licence, demoralized to an almost incredible degree the 
 staid manners of the quondam pious Lutheran citizens. Vide Blech, 
 The Miseries of Dantzig, 1815. 
 
 t One of the handsomest men of his time and the Adonis of many a 
 princely dame.
 
 254 THE RHENISH CONFEDERATION. 
 
 fore the genius of Napoleon ; Russia was bound by the silken 
 chains of flattery ; England, Turkey, Sweden, and Portugal, 
 alone bade him defiance. England, whose fleets ruled the 
 European seas, who lent her aid to his enemies, and instigated 
 their opposition, was his most dangerous foe. By a gigantic 
 measure, known as the continental system, he sought to under- 
 mine her power. The whole of the continent of Europe, as far 
 as his influence was felt, was, by an edict, published at Berlin 
 on the 21st of November, 1806, closed against British trade; 
 nay, he went so far as to lay an embargo on all English goods 
 lying in store and to make prisoners of war of all the English 
 at that time on the continent. All intercourse between Eng- 
 land and the rest of Europe was prohibited. But Napoleon's 
 attempt to ruin the commerce of England was merely pro- 
 ductive of injury to himself; the promotion of eveiy branch 
 of industry on the continent could not replace the loss of its 
 foreign trade ; the products of Europe no longer found their 
 way to the more distant parts of the globe to be exchanged 
 for colonial luxuries, which, with the great majority of the 
 people, more particularly with the better classes, had become 
 necessaries, and numbers, who had but lately lauded Napo- 
 leon to the skies, regarded him with bitter rage on being com- 
 pelled to relinquish their wonted coffee and sugar. 
 
 Napoleon, meanwhile, undeterred by opposition, enforced 
 his continental system. Russia, actuated by jealousy of Eng- 
 land and flattered by the idea, with which Napoleon had, at 
 Tilsit, inspired the emperor Alexander, of sharing with him 
 the empire of a world, aided his projects. The first step was 
 to secure to themselves possession of the Baltic ; the king of 
 Sweden, Napoleon's most implacable foe, was to be dethroned, 
 and Sweden to be promised to Frederick, prince-regent of 
 Denmark, in order to draw him into the interests of the allied 
 powers of France and Russia. The scheme, however, trans- 
 pired in time to be frustrated. An English fleet, with an army, 
 amongst which was the German Legion, composed of Hano- 
 verian refugees, on board, attacked, and, after a fearful bom- 
 bardment, took Copenhagen, and either destroyed or carried 
 off the whole of the Danish fleet, Sept. 1807.* The British 
 fleet, on its triumphant return through the Sound, was saluted 
 
 * See accounts of this affair in the Recollections of a Legionary, 
 Hanover, 1826, and in Beamisch's History of the Legion.
 
 THE RHENISH CONFEDERATION. 2oo 
 
 at Helsingfors by the king of Sweden, who invited the ad- 
 mirals to breakfast. The island of Heligoland, which be- 
 longed to Holstein and consequently formed part of the pos- 
 sessions of Denmark, and which carried on a great smuggling 
 trade between that country and the continent, was at that 
 time also seized by the British. 
 
 Napoleon revenged himself by a bold stroke in Spain. He 
 proposed the partition of Portugal to that power, and, under 
 that pretext, sent troops across the Pyrenees. The licentious 
 queen of Spain, Maria Louisa Theresa of Parma, and her para- 
 mour, Godoy, who had, on account of the treaty between France 
 and Spain, received the title of Prince of Peace, reigned at 
 that time in the name of the imbecile king, Charles IV, His 
 son, Ferdinand, placed himself at the head of the democratic 
 faction, by whom Godoy was regarded with the most deadly 
 hatred. Both parties, however, conscious of their want of 
 power, sought aid from Napoleon, who flattered each in turn, 
 with a view of rendering the one a tool for the destruction of 
 the other. The Prince of Peace was overthrown by a popular 
 tumult ; Ferdinand VII. was proclaimed king, and his father, 
 Charles IV., was compelled to abdicate. These events were 
 apparently countenanced by Napoleon, who invited the youth- 
 ful sovereign to an interview ; Ferdinand, accordingly, went 
 to Bayonne and was — taken prisoner. The Prince of Peace, 
 on the eve of flying from Spain, where his life was no longer 
 safe, with his treasures and with the queen, persuaded the old 
 king, Charles, also to go to Bayonne, where his person was 
 instantly seized. Both he and his son were compelled to re- 
 nounce their right to the throne of Spain and to abdicate in 
 favour of Joseph, Napoleon's brother, the oth of May, 1 808. 
 The elevation of Joseph to the Spanish throne was followed 
 by that of Murat to the throne of Naples. The haughty 
 Spaniard, however, refused to be trampled under foot, and his 
 proud spirit disdained to accept a king imposed upon him by 
 such unparalleled treachery. Napoleon's victorious troops 
 were, for the first time, routed by peasants, an entire army 
 was taken prisoner at Baylen, and another, in Portugal, was 
 compelled to retreat. Napoleon's veterans were scattered by 
 monks and peasants, a proof, to the eternal disgrace of every 
 subject people, that the invincibility of a nation depends but 
 upon its will.
 
 256 THE RHENISH COXFEDERATIOX. 
 
 Napoleon did not conduct the war in Spain in person dur- 
 ing the first campaign ; the tranquillity of the North had first 
 to be secured. For this purpose, he held a personal confer- 
 ence, in October, 1808, with the emperor Alexander at Erfurt, 
 whither the princes of Germany hastened to pay their devoirs, 
 humbly as their ancestors of yore to conquering Attila. The 
 company of actors brought in Napoleon's train from Paris 
 boasted of gaining the plaudits of a royal parterre, and a 
 French sentinel happening to call to the watch to present 
 arms to one of the kings there dancing attendance was re- 
 proved by his officer with the observation, "Ce n'est qu'un 
 roi." * Both emperors, for the purpose of offering a marked 
 insult to Prussia, attended a great hare-hunt on the battle- 
 field of Jena. It was during this conference, that Napoleon 
 and Alexander divided between themselves the sovereignty of 
 
 * A graphic description of these times is to be met with in Joanna 
 Schopenhauer's Tour on the Lower Rhine. The kings of Bavaria, 
 Wiirtemberg, Westphalia, Saxony, the prince primate, the hereditary 
 prince of Baden and of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the duke of Weimar, the 
 princes of Hohenzollem, Hesse-Rotenburg, and Hesse-Philippsthal, 
 were present. No one belonging to the house of Austria was there : of 
 that of Prussia there was Prince William, the king's brother. The All- 
 gemeine Zeitung of that day wrote : " The fact of Napoleon's sending 
 for the privj'-counsellor, Von Goethe, into his cabinet, and conversing 
 with him for upwards of an hour, appears to us well worthy of mention. 
 What German Avould not rejoice that the great emperor should have en- 
 tered into such deep conversation ■«'ith such a fitting representative of 
 our noblest, and now, alas, sole remaining national possession, our 
 art and learning, by whose presenation alone can our nationality be 
 saved from utter annihilation." Notwithstanding which, the company of 
 actors belonging to the theatre at Weimar, which was close at hand and 
 had been under Goethe's instruction, was not once allowed to perform on 
 the Erfurt stage, which Napoleon had supplied with actors from Paris. 
 Wieland was also compelled to remain standing for an hour in Napoleon's 
 presence, and when, at length, unable, owing to the weakness of old age, 
 to continue in that position, he ventured to ask permission to retire, Na- 
 poleon is said to have considered the request an unwarrantable liberty. 
 The literary heroes of Weimar took no interest in the country from which 
 they had received so deep a tribute of admiration. Not a patriotic senti- 
 ment escaped their lips. At the time when the deepest wound was in- 
 flicted on the Tyrol, GcEthe gave to the world his frivolous " Wahlver- 
 wandschaften," which was followed by a poem in praise of Napoleon, of 
 ■whom he says : 
 
 " Doubts, that have bafHed thousands, he has solved ; 
 Ideas, o'er which centuries have brooded, 
 His giant mind intuitively compassed."
 
 THE RHENISH CONFEDERATION. 257 
 
 Europe, Russia undertaking the subjugation of Sweden and 
 the seizure of Finnland, France the conquest of Spain and 
 Portugal. 
 
 The period immediately subsequent to the fall of the an- 
 cient empire forms the blackest page in the history of Ger- 
 many. The whole of the left bank of the Rhine was annexed 
 to France. The people, notwithstanding the improvement 
 that took place in the administration under Bon Jean St. 
 Andre, groaned beneath the exorbitant taxes and the con- 
 scription. The commerce on the Rhine had almost entirely 
 ceased.* The grand-duchy of Berg was, until 1808, go- 
 verned with great mildness by Avar, the French minister. 
 
 Holland had, since 1801, remained under the administration 
 of her benevolent governor, Schimmelpenninck, but had been 
 continually drained by the imposition of additional income- 
 taxes, which, in 1804, amounted to 6 per cent, on the capital 
 in the country. Commerce had entirely ceased, smuggling 
 alone excepted. In 1806, the Dutch Avere commanded to en- 
 treat Napoleon to grant them a king in the person of his 
 brother Louis, who tixed his residence in the venerable 
 council-house at Amsterdam, and, it must be confessed, en- 
 deavoured to promote the real interests of his new subjects.f 
 
 The Swiss, with characteristic servility, testified the great- 
 est zeal on every occasion for the emperor Napoleon, cele- 
 brated his fete-day, and boasted of his protection ;}: and of the 
 freedom they were still permitted to enjoy. Freedom of 
 thought was expressly prohibited. Sycophants, in the pay 
 of the foreign ruler, as, for instance, Zschokke, alone guided 
 public opinion. In Zug, any person who ventured to speak 
 disparagingly of the Swiss in the service of France, was de- 
 clared an enemy to his country and exposed to severe punish- 
 
 * The great and dangerous robber bands of the notorious Damian 
 Hessel, and of Schinderhannes, afford abundant proof of the demoralized 
 condition of the people. 
 
 t On the 12th of January, 1807, a ship laden with four hundred quin- 
 tals of gunpowder blew up in the middle of the city of Leyden, part of 
 which was thereby reduced to ruins, and one hundred and fifty persons, 
 among others, the celebrated professors, Luzac and Kleit, were killed. 
 
 + On the opening of the federal diet in ] 806, the Landamman lauded 
 "the omnipotent benevolence of the gracious mediator." In earlier 
 limes, the Swiss would, on the contrary, have boasted of their affording 
 protection to, not of receiving protection from, France. 
 
 VOL. III. s
 
 258 THE RHENISH CONFEDERATION. 
 
 ment.* The Swiss shed their blood in each and all of Napo- 
 leon's campaigns and aided him to reduce their kindred 
 nations to abject slavery.f 
 
 The Rhenish confederacy shared the advantages of French 
 influence to the same degree in which they, in common with 
 the old states on the left bank of the Rhine, were subject to 
 ecclesiastical corruption or to the upstart vanity incidental 
 to petty states. Wherever enlightenment and liberty had 
 formerly existed, as in Protestant and constitutional Wurtem- 
 berg, the violation of the ancient rights of the people was 
 deeply felt, and the new aristocracy, modelled on that of 
 France, appeared as unbearable to the older inhabitants of 
 Wiirtemberg as did the loss of their ancient independence to 
 the mediatized princes and lordlings. King Frederick, not- 
 withstanding his refusal to send troops into Spain, was com- 
 pelled to furnish an enormous contingent for the wars in 
 eastern Europe ; the conscription and taxes were heavily felt, 
 and the peasant was vexed by the great hunts, celebrated by 
 Matthisson, the court-poet, as festivals of Diana.} In Ba- 
 
 * Allgemeine Zeitung of 1810, No. 90. " In order to prove of what 
 importance they considered the benevolent protection of Napoleon the 
 Great." 
 
 t Their general, Von der Wied, who was taken prisoner at Talavera 
 in Spain and died shortly afterwards of a pestilential disease, had done 
 signal service to France, in 1798 in Switzerland, in 1792 in Italy, in 1805 
 in Austria, in 1806 in Prussia, and finally in Spain. — Allgemeine 
 Zeitung 0/1811, No. 46. 
 
 X Pei'sonal freedom was restricted by innumerable decrees. Freedom 
 of speech, formerly great in Wiirtemberg, was strictly repressed; all 
 social confidence was annihilated. A swarm of informers insnared 
 those whom the secret police w-ere imable to entrap. The secrecy of 
 letters was violated. Trials in criminal cases were no longer allowed to be 
 public. The sentence passed upon the accused was, particularly in cases 
 of the highest import, not delivered by the judge as dictated by the law, 
 but by the despot's caprice. The conscription was enforced with in- 
 creased severity and tyranny. The natural right of emigration was 
 
 abolished. The people were disarmed, and not even the inhabitants 
 
 of solitary farms and hamlets were allowed to possess arms in order to 
 defend themselves against wolves and robbers. A man was punished 
 for killing a mad dog, because the gun used for that purpose had been 
 illegally secreted. Pass-tickets were given to and returned by all de- 
 sirous of passing the gates of the pettiest town. The members of the 
 higher aristocracy were compelled, under pain of being deprived of the 
 
 third of their income, to spend three months in the year at court. 
 
 The citizen was oppressed by a variety of fresh taxes, by the newly- 
 
 I
 
 THE RHENISH CONFEDERATION. 259 
 
 varia, the administration of Maximilian Joseph and of his 
 minister, Montgelas, although arbitrary in its measures, 
 promoted, like that of Frederick II. and Joseph II., the ad- 
 vance of enlightenment and true liberty. The monasteries 
 were closed, the punishment of the rack was abolished, unity 
 was introduced in the administration of the state ; the schools, 
 the police, and the roads were improved, toleration was estab- 
 lished ; in a word, the dreams of the illuminati, diirty years 
 before this period, were, in almost every respect, realized. 
 But, on the other hand, patriotism was here more unknown 
 than in any other part of Germany. Christopher von Aretin 
 set himself up as an apparitor to the French police, and, in 
 1810, published a work against the few German patriots still 
 remaining, whom he denounced, in the fourteenth number of 
 the Literary Gazette of Upper Germany, as " Preachers of 
 Germanism, criminals and traitors, by whom the Rhenish con- 
 federation was polluted." The crown-prince of Bavaria, who 
 deeply lamented the rule of France and the miseries of Ger- 
 many, offers a contrary example. A constitution, naturally 
 a mere tool in the hand of the ministry, was bestowed, in 
 1808, upon Bavaria. 
 
 The government of Charles von Dalberg, the prince-primate 
 and grand-duke of Frankfurt, was one of the most despicable 
 of those composing the Rhenish confederation. Equally insensi- 
 ble to the duties attached to his high name and station,* he 
 flattered the foreign tyrant to an extent unsurpassed by any of 
 the other base sycophants at that time abounding in the em- 
 pire ; with folded hands would he at all times invoke the bless- 
 ing of the Most High on the head of the almighty ruler of 
 the earth, and celebrate each of his victories with hymns of 
 
 created monopolies of tobacco, salt, etc., and colonial imposts, by the ten- 
 fold rise of the excise and custom-house dues, etc. Vide Zahn in the 
 Wiirtemberg Annual. Zschokke, meanwhile, in his pamphlet, already 
 mentioned, " Will the human race gain," etc., advocated republican 
 equality and liberty under a monarchical constitution. 
 
 * The Von Dalbergs of Franconia were the first hereditary barons 
 of the Holy Roman Empire, and one of their race was dubbed knight at 
 each imperial coronation. Hence the demand of the imperial herald, "Is 
 no Dalberg here ? " And a Dalberg it was, who, in Napoleon's name, de- 
 clared to the German emperor that he no longer recognised an emperor 
 
 of Germany In 1797, Dalberg had, at the diet, and again in 1805, 
 
 expressed himself with great zeal against France ; on the present occa- 
 sion he was Naj)oleon's first satrap.
 
 260 THE RHENISH CONFEDERATION. 
 
 gratitude and joy, whilst his ministers misruled and tyrannized 
 
 over the country,* whose freedom they loudly vaunted. f 
 
 In Wiirzburg, the French ambassador reigned with the des- 
 potism of an eastern satrap. if Saxe-Coburg§ and Anhalt- 
 Gotha, II where the native tyrant was sheltered beneath the 
 
 wing of Napoleon, were in the most lamentable state. In 
 
 Saxony, the government remained unaltered. Frederick Au- 
 gustus, filled with gratitude for the lenity with which he had 
 been treated after the war and for tlie grant of the royal dig- 
 nity, remained steadily faithful to Napoleon, but introduced no 
 internal innovations into the government. The adhesion of 
 Saxe-Weiraar to the Rhenish confederation was of deplorable 
 consequence to Germany, the great poets assembled there by 
 the deceased Duchess Amalia also scattering incense around 
 Napoleon. 
 
 The kingdom of Westphalia was doomed to taste to the dregs 
 the bitter cup of humiliation. The new king, Jerome, who 
 declared, " Je veux qu'on respecte la dignite de 1' homme et du 
 citoyen," bestowed, it is true, many and great benefits upon 
 his subjects ; the system of flogging, so degrading to the sol- 
 dier, was abolished, the judicature was improved, the adminis- 
 tration simplified, and the German in authority, notwithstaud- 
 
 * They sold the demesnes of Hanau and Fulda and received the sums 
 produced by the sale in gift from the grand-duke. — G'unes's Rhenish 
 Mercury, a. d. 1814, No. 168. 
 
 t They were barefaced enough to bestow a constitution, and, in 1810, 
 to open a diet at Hanau, although all the newspapers had, five days pre- 
 viously, been suppressed, and orders had been issued that the editor of 
 the only newspaper permitted for the future was to be appointed by the 
 police. — Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 294. 
 
 j Count Montholon-Semonville sold justice and mercy. Vide Brock- 
 haus's Deutsche Blatter, 1814, No. 101. 
 
 § The duke, Francis, allowed the country to be mercilessly drained 
 and impoverished by the minister, Von Kretschfnann. He lived on ex- 
 tremely bad terms with his uncle, Frederick Josias, duke of Coburg, the 
 celebrated Austrian general. Francis died in 1806. Ernest, his son and 
 successor, delivered the country, a. d. 1809, from Kretschmann's tyranny, 
 and, in 1811, bestowed upon it a constitution, which was, nevertheless, 
 merely an imitation of that of Westphalia. 
 
 II The prince, Augustus Christian Frederick, contracted debts to an 
 enormous amount, completely drained his petty territory, and even seized 
 bail-money. Military amusements, drunkenness and other gross excesses, 
 the preservation of enormous herds of deer which destroyed the fields of 
 the peasantry, formed the pleasures of this prince. — Stenzel's History of 
 Anhalt.
 
 THE RHENISH CONFEDERATION. 261 
 
 ing his traditionary gruffness, became remarkable for urbanity 
 towards the citizens and peasants. But Napoleon's despotic 
 rule ever demanded fresh sacrifices of men and money and 
 increased severity on the part of the police, in order to quell 
 the spii'it of revolt. Jerome, conscious of being merely his 
 brother's representative, consoled himself for his want of in- 
 dependence in his gay court at Cassel.* He had received but 
 a middling education, and had, at one period, held a situation 
 in the marine at Baltimore in North America. Whilst still 
 extremely young, placed unexpectedly upon a throne, more as 
 a splendid puppet than as an independent sovereign, he gave 
 way to excesses, natural, and, under the circumstances, almost 
 excusable. It would be ungenerous to repeat the sarcasms 
 showered upon him on his expulsion. The execrations 
 heaped, at a later period, upon his head, ought with far greater 
 justice to have fallen upon those of the Germans themselves, 
 and more particularly upon those of that portion of the aris- 
 tocracy who vied with the French in enriching the chronique 
 scandaleuse of Cassel, and upon those of the citizens who, under 
 Bongars, the head of the French police, acted the part of spies 
 upon and secret informers against their wretched countrymen. 
 
 The farcical donation of a free constitution to the people 
 
 put a climax to their degradation. On the 2nd of July, 1808, 
 Jerome summoned the Westphalian Estates to Cassel and 
 opened the servile assembly, thus arbitrarily convoked, with 
 extreme pomp. The unfortunate deputies, who had, on the 
 conclusion of the lengthy ceremonial, received an invitation 
 assister au repas at the palace and had repaired thither, their 
 imaginations, whetted by hunger, i-evelling in visions of gas- 
 tronomic delight, were sorely discomfited on discovering that 
 they were simply expected " to look on whilst the sovereign 
 feasted." The result of this assembly was, naturally, an 
 unanimous tribute of admiration and an invocation of bless- 
 ings on the head of the foreign ruler, the principal part in 
 which was played by John Midler, who attempted to convince 
 
 * Napoleon nicknamed him roi de coulisses, and gave him a guardian 
 in his ambassador, lleinhard, a person of celebrity during the Revolution. 
 Jerome's first ministers were friends of his youth; the Creole, Le Camus, 
 who was created Count Fiirstenstcin, and Malchus, whose office it was 
 to fill a bottomless treasury. Vide Hormayr, Archive 5. 458, and the 
 Secret History of the Court of Westphalia, a. d. 1814.
 
 262 THE RHENISH CONFEDERATION. 
 
 his fellow countrymen that by means of the French usurpa- 
 tion they had first received the boon of true liberty. This 
 cheaply-bought apostate said, in his usual hyperbolical style, 
 " It is a marked peculiarity of the northern nations, more 
 especially of those of German descent, that, whenever God 
 has, in his wisdom, resolved to bestow upon them a new kind 
 or a higher degree of civilization, the impulse has ever 
 been given from without. This impulse was given to us by 
 Napoleon, by him before whom the earth is silent, God having 
 given the whole world into his hand, nor can Germany at the 
 present period have a wish ungratified, Napoleon having re- 
 organized her as the nursery of European civilization. Too 
 sublime to condescend to every-day polity, he has given dura- 
 bility to Germany ! Happy nation ! what an interminable 
 vista of glory opens to thy view !" Thus spoke John Miiller. 
 Thousands of Germans had been converted into abject slaves, 
 but none otlier than he was there ever found, with sentimental 
 phrases to gild the chains of his countrymen, to vaunt servility 
 as liberty and dishonour as glory.* John Miiller 's unprincipled 
 
 * Vide Strombeck's Life and llie Allgemeine Zeitung of Sept., 1808. 
 Besides John Miiller and Aretin, mention may, with equal justice, be 
 made of Crome of Geissen and Zschokke, a native of Magdeburg natur- 
 alized in Switzerland, who, in 1807, ventured to declare in public that 
 Napoleon had done more for Swiss independence tlian William Tell five 
 hundred years ago ; who, paid by Napoleon, defamed the noble-spirited 
 Spaniards and Tyrolese in 1815, decried the enthusiastic spirit animating 
 Germany, and afterwards whitewashed himself by his liberal tirades. With 
 these may also be associated INIurhard, the publisher of the Motiiteur 
 Westphalien, K. J. Schiitz, the author of a work upon Napoleon, the 
 Berlinese Jew, Saul Asher, the author of a scandalous work, entitled 
 " Germanomanie," and of a slanderous article in Zsehokke's Miscellanies 
 against Prussia, Kosegarten the poet, who, in 1809, delivered a speech 
 in eulogy of Napoleon, far surpassing all in bombast and mean adulation. 
 Benturini, at that time, also termed Napoleon the emanation of the uni- 
 versal Spirit, a second incarnation of the Deity, a second saviour of the 
 world. In Posselt's European Annals of 1807, a work by a certaLu W. 
 upon the political interests of Germany appeared, and concluded as fol- 
 lows : " Let us raise to him (Napoleon) a national monument, worthy of 
 the first and only benefactor of the nations of Germany. Let his name 
 be engraved in gigantic letters of shining gold on Germany's highest and 
 steepest pinnacle, whence, lighted by the eflulgent rays of morn, it may 
 be visible far over the plains on which he bestowed a happier futurity ! " 
 This writer also drew a comparison between Napoleon and Charlemagne, 
 in which he designated the latter a barbarous despot and the former the 
 new savioiu: of the world. He says, " Napoleon first solved the enigma
 
 RESUSCITATION OF PATRIOTISM IN GERMANY. 263 
 
 address formed, as it were, the turning-point of German 
 affairs. Self-degradation could go no further. The spirit of 
 the sons of Germany henceforward rose, and, with manly 
 courage, they sought, by their future actions, to wipe off the 
 deep stain of their former guilt and dishonour. 
 
 CCLVI. Resitscitation of patriotism throughout Germany. 
 Austria's demonstration. 
 
 The general slavery, although most severely felt in Eastern 
 Germany, bore there a less disgraceful character. Austria 
 and Prussia had been conquered, pillaged, reduced in strength 
 and political importance, whilst the Rhenish states, forgetful 
 that it is ever less disgraceful to yield to an overpowering 
 enemy than voluntarily to lend him aid, had shared in and 
 profited by the triumph of the empire's foe. Austria and 
 Prussia suffered to a greater extent than the Rhenish confe- 
 deration, but they preserved a higher degree of independence. 
 Prussia, although almost annihilated by her late disasters,* still 
 
 of equality and liberty — his chief aim was the prevention of despotism — 
 his chief desire, to eternalize the dominion of virtue." In the course of 
 1808, it was said in the essay " on the Regeneration of Germany," that 
 the Germans were still children whom it was solely possible for the 
 French to educate : " Our language is also not logical like French — if 
 we intend to attain unity, we must adhere with heart and soul to him 
 who has smoothed tlie path to it, to him, our securest support, to him, 
 whose name outshines that of Charlemagne, — foreign princes in German 
 countries are no proof of subjection, they, on the contrary, most surely 
 warrant our continued existence as a nation." In France sixty authors 
 dedicated their works, within the space of a year, to the emperor Napo- 
 leon, — in Germany, ninety. 
 
 * The whole of the revenues of Prussia were confiscated by the French 
 until 1808. The contribution of one hundred and forty millions was, 
 nevertheless, to be paid, and the French garrisons in the Prussian fort- 
 resses of Glogau, Kiistrin, and Stettin were to be maintained at the ex- 
 pense of Prussia. The suppression of the monasteries in Silesia was far 
 from lucrative, the commissioners, who were irresponsible, carrying on a 
 system of pillage, and landed property having greatly fallen in value. 
 The most extraordinary imposts of every description were resorted to 
 for the purpose of raising a revenue, among other means, a third of all 
 the gold and silver in the coimtry was called in. A coinage, still more 
 debased, was issued, and one more inferior still was smuggled into the 
 country by English coiners. In 1808, silver money fell two-thirds of its 
 
 current value and was even refused acceptance at that price. The 
 
 French, moreover, lorded over the country with redoubled insolence.
 
 264 RESUSCITATION OF PATRIOTISM 
 
 dreamt of future liberation. Austria had, notwithstanding 
 her successive and numerous defeats, retained the greater 
 share of independence, but her subjection, although to a lesser 
 degree, was the more disgraceful on account of her former 
 military glory and her preponderance as a political power in 
 Germany. With steady perseverance and unfaltering courage 
 she opposed the attacks of the foreign tyrant against the em- 
 pire, and, France's first and last antagonist, the most faithful 
 champion of the honour of Germany, she rose, with redoubled 
 vigour, after each successive defeat, to renew the unequal 
 struggle. 
 
 Prussia had been overcome, because, instead of uniting 
 with the other states of Germany, she had first abandoned 
 them to be afterwards deserted by them in her turn, and be- 
 cause, instead of arming her warlike people against every 
 foreign foe, she had habituated her citizens to unarmed ef- 
 feminacy and had rested her sole support on a mercenary 
 army, an artificial and spiritless automaton, separated from 
 and unsympathizing witli the people. The idea that the sal- 
 vation of Prussia could now alone be found in her reconcilia- 
 tion with the neighbouring powers of Germany, in a genei'al 
 confederation, in the patriotism of her armed citizens, had 
 already arisen. But, in order to inspire the citizen with 
 enthusiasm, he must first, by the secure and free possession 
 of his rights and by his participation in the public weal, be 
 deeply imbued with a consciousness of freedom. The slave 
 has no country ; the freeman alone will lay down his life in 
 its defence. In those times of Germany's deepest degrada- 
 tion and suffering, men for the first time again heard speak 
 of a great and common fatherland, of national fame and hon- 
 our ; and liberty, that glorious name, was uttered not only by 
 those who groaned beneath the rule of the despotic foreigner, 
 but even by those who deplored the loss of the internal liberty 
 of their country, the gradual subjection of the proud and 
 free-spirited German to native tyranny. The king of Prus- 
 
 broke every treaty, increased their garrisons, and occasionally laid the 
 most inopportune commands, in the form of a request, upon the king, 
 as, for instauce, to lay under embargo and deliver up to them a number 
 of English merchantmen that had been driven into the Prussian harbours 
 bv a dreadful storm. Bliicher, at that time governor of Pomerania, re- 
 strained his fiery nature and patiently endured their insolence, whilst 
 silently brooding over deep and implacable revenge.
 
 THROUGHOUT GERMAN Y. 265 
 
 sia, not content with morally reorganizing his army, also be- 
 stowed wise laws, which restored the citizen and the peasant 
 to their rights, to their dignity as men, of which they had for 
 so long been deprived by the nobility, the monopolizers of 
 every privilege. The emancipation of the peasant essentially 
 consisted in the abolition of feudal servitude and forced labour ; 
 that of the citizen, in the donation of a free municipal con- 
 stitution, of self-administration, and freedom of election. The 
 nobility were, at the same time, despoiled of the exclusive 
 appointment to the higher civil and military posts and of the 
 exclusive possession of landed property. Each citizen pos- 
 sessed the right, hitherto strictly prohibited, of purchasing 
 baronial estates, and the nobility were, on their part, permitted 
 to exercise trades, which a miserable prejudice had hitherto 
 deemed incompatible with noble birth. These new institu- 
 tions date from 1808 and are due to the energy of the min- 
 ister, Stein. 
 
 This noble-spirited German was the founder of a secret 
 society, the Tugendbund, by which a general insurrection 
 against Napoleon was silently prepared throughout Germany. 
 Among its members were numerous statesmen, officers, and 
 literati. Among the latter, Arndt gained great note by his 
 popular style, Jahn by his influence over the rising genera- 
 tion. Jahn reintroduced gymnastics, so long neglected, into 
 education, as a means of heightening moral courage by the 
 increase of physical strength.* Scharnhorst, meanwhile, 
 although restricted to the prescribed number of troops, cre- 
 ated a new army by continually exchanging trained soldiers 
 for raw recruits, and secretly purchased an immense quantity 
 of arms, so that a considerable force could, in case of neces- 
 sity, be speedily assembled. He also had all the brass battery 
 guns secretly converted into field-pieces and replaced by iron 
 guns. Napoleon's spies, however, came upon the trace of the 
 Tugendbund. Stein, exposed by an intercepted letter, was 
 outlawed | by Napoleon and compelled to quit Prussia. He 
 
 * When marcliiiig with his pupils out of Berlin, he would ask the 
 fresh ones as he passed beneath the Brandenburg gate, " What are you 
 thinking of now ? " If the boy did not know what to answer, he would 
 give him a box on the ear, saying as he did so, " You should think of 
 this, how you can bring back the four fine statues of horses that once 
 stood over this gate and were carried by the French to Pai-is." 
 
 t Decree of 16th December, 1808 : " A certain Stein, who is attempt-
 
 266 AUSTRIA'S DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 was succeeded by Hardenberg, by whom the treaty of Bask^ 
 had formerly been concluded and whose nomination was pub- 
 licly approved of by Napoleon. Scharnhorst and Julius 
 Gruner, the head of the Berlin police, were also deprived of 
 their offices. The Berlin university, nevertheless, continued 
 to give evidence of a better spirit. Enlightenment and learn- 
 ing, on the decrease at Frankfurt on the Oder, here found 
 their head-quarters. Halle had become Westphalian, and the 
 universities of Rinteln and Helmstadt had, from a similar 
 cause, been closed. 
 
 Austria also felt her humiliation too deeply not to be in- 
 spired, like Prussia, with an instinct of self-preservation. 
 The imperial dignity and Catholicism were here closely as- 
 sociated with the memory of the middle ages, whose magnifi- 
 cence and grandeur were once more disclosed to the people in 
 the masterly productions of the writers of the day. Hence the 
 unison created by Frederick Schlegel between the romantic 
 poets and antiquarians of Germany and Viennese policy. 
 The predilection for ancient German art and poetry had, in 
 the literary world, been merely produced by the reaction of 
 German intelligence against foreign imitation ; this literary 
 reaction, however, happened coincidently with and aided that 
 in the political world. The Nibelungen, the Minnesingers, 
 the ancient chronicles, became a popular study. The same 
 enthusiasm inspired the liberal-spirited poets, Tieck, Arnim, 
 and Brentano ; Fouque charmed the rising generation and the 
 multitude with his extravagant descriptions of the age of 
 chivalry; the learned researches of Grimm, Hagen, Biis- 
 ching. Grater, etc., into German antiquity, at that time, ex- 
 cited general interest, but the glowing colours in which 
 Joseph Gorres, himself a former Jacobin, and amid the half 
 Gallicized inhabitants of Coblentz, revived, as if by magic, the 
 middle age on the ruin-strewed banks of the Rhine caused 
 the deepest delight. Two men. Stein, now a refugee in 
 Austria, and Count IMiinster, first of all Hanoverian minister 
 and afterwards English ambassador at Petersburg, who kept 
 
 ing to create disturbances, is herewith declared the enemy of France ; his 
 property shall be placed under sequestration, and his person shall be 
 secured." The Allgemeine Zeitung warns, at the same time, in its .330th 
 number, all German savants not to give way to patriotic enthusiasm 
 and to follow in John Miiller's footsteps.
 
 AUSTRIA'S DEMONSTRATION. 267 
 
 up a constant correspondence with Stein and conducted the 
 secret negotiations in the name of Great Britain, were un- 
 wearied in their endeavours to forge arms against Napoleon. 
 In Austria, Count John Philip von Stadion, who had, since 
 the December of 1805, been placed at the head of the minis- 
 try, had both the power and the will to repair the blunders 
 committed by Thugut and Cobenzl. 
 
 The Russo-gallic alliance was viewed with terror by 
 Austria. Europe had, to a certain degree, been partitioned 
 at Erfurt, by Napoleon and Alexander. Fresh sacrifices were 
 evidently on the eve of being extorted from Germany. Russia 
 had resolved at any price to gain possession of either the 
 whole or a part of Turkey, and offered to confirm Napoleon 
 in that of Bohemia, on condition of being permitted to seize 
 Moldavia and Wallachia.* The danger was urgent. Austria, 
 sold by Russia to France, could alone defend herself against 
 both her opponents by an immense exertion of the national 
 power of Germany. The old and faulty system had been 
 fearfully revenged. The disunion of the German princes, the 
 despotism of the aristocratic administrations, the estrangement 
 of the people from all public affairs, had all conduced to the 
 present degradation of Germany. Necessity now induced an 
 alteration in the system of government and an appeal to the 
 German people, whose voice had hitherto been vainly raised. 
 The example set by Spain was to be followed. Stein, who 
 was at that time at Vienna, kindled the glowing embers to a 
 flame. The military reforms begun at an earlier period by 
 the Archduke Charles were carried on on a wider basis. 
 A completely new institution, that of the Land-icehr or 
 armed citizens, in contradistinction with the mercenary sol- 
 diery, was set on foot. Enthusiasm and patriotism were not 
 wanting. The circumstance of the pope's imprisonment in 
 Rome by Napoleon sufficed to rouse the Catholics. Every 
 thing was hoped for fi-om a general rising throughout Gei'many 
 against the French. Precipitation, however, ruined all. 
 Prussia was still too much weakened, her fortresses were still 
 in the hands of the French, and Austria inspired but little 
 confidence, whilst the Rhenish confederation solely aimed at 
 aggrandizing itself by fresh wars at the expense of that em- 
 pire, and, notwithstanding the inclination to revolt evinced by 
 * Bignon's History of France.
 
 268 AUSTRIA'S DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 the people in different parts of Germany, more particularly in 
 Westphalia, the terror inspired by Napoleon kept them, as 
 though spell-bound, beneath their galling yoke. 
 
 Whilst Napoleon was engaged in the Peninsula, Austria 
 levied almost the whole of her able-bodied men and equipped 
 an army, four hundred thousand strong, at the head of which 
 no longer foreign generals, but the princes of the house of 
 Habsburg, were placed. The Archduke Charles* set off, in 
 1809, for the Rhine, John for Italy, Ferdinand for Poland. The 
 first proclamation, signed by Prince Rosenberg and addressed 
 to the Bavarians, was as follows : " You are now beginning 
 to perceive that we are Germans like yourselves, that the 
 general interest of Germany touches you more nearly than 
 that of a nation of robbers, and that the German nation can 
 alone be restored to its former glory by acting in unison. Be- 
 come once more what you once were, brave Germans ! Or 
 have you, Bavarian peasants and citizens, gained aught by 
 your prince being made into a king ? by the extension of his 
 authority over a few additional square miles ? Have your 
 taxes been thereby decreased ? Do you enjoy greater security 
 in your persons and property ?" The proclamation of the 
 Archduke Charles "to the German nation," declared : "We 
 have taken up arms to restore independence and national honour 
 to Germany. Our cause is the cause of Germany. Show your- 
 selves deserving of our esteem ! The German, forgetful of 
 what is due to himself and to his country, is our only foe." 
 An anonymous but well-known proclamation also declared : 
 
 * He undertook the chief command ■n-ith extreme unwillingness and 
 had long advised against the war, the time not having yet arrived, Prus- 
 sia being still adverse, Germany not as yet restored to her senses, and ex- 
 perience having already proved to him how little he could act as his 
 judgment directed. How often had he not been made use of and then 
 suddenly neglected, been restrained, in the midst of his operations, by 
 secret orders, been permitted to conduct the first or only the second part 
 of a campaign, been placed in a subaltern position when the chief com- 
 mand was rightfully his, or been forced to accept of it when all was ir- 
 remediably lost. Even on this occasion the first measure advised by 
 him, that of pushing rapidly through Bohemia and Franconia, met with op- 
 position. On the Maine and on the Weser alone was there a hope of in- 
 spiring the people with enthusiasm, not in Bavaria, where the hatred of 
 the Austrians was irradicably rooted. It, nevertheless, pleased the mili- 
 tary advisers of the emperor at Vienna, to order the army to advance 
 slowly through Bavaria.
 
 AUSTRIA'S DEMONSTRATION. 269 
 
 " Austria beheld — a sight that drew tears of blood from the 
 heart of every true-born German — you, O nations of Ger- 
 many ! so deeply debased as to be compelled to submit to the 
 legislation of the foreigner and to allow your sons, the youth 
 of Germany, to be led to war against their still unsubdued 
 brethren. The shameful subjection of millions of once free- 
 born Germans will ere long be completed. Austria exhorts 
 you to raise your humbled necks, to burst your slavish 
 chains ! " And in another address was said : " How long shall 
 Hermann mourn over his degenerate children ? "Was it for 
 this that the Cherusci fought in the Teutoburger forest ? Is 
 every spark of German courage extinct ? Does the sound of 
 your clinking chains strike like music on your ears ? Ger- 
 mans, awake ! shake off your death-like slumber in the arms 
 of infamy ! Germans ! shall your name become the derision 
 of after ages ? " 
 
 The Austrian army, instead of vigorously attacking and 
 disarming Bavaria, but slowly advanced, and permitted the 
 Bavarians to withdraw unharassed for the purpose of forming 
 ajunction with the other troops of the Rhenish confederation 
 under Napoleon, who had hastened from Spain on the first 
 news of the movements of Austria. The hopes of the 
 German patriots could not have been more fearfully dis- 
 appointed or the German name more deeply humiliated than 
 by the scorn with wliich Napoleon, on this occasion, placed 
 himself at 'the head of the nations of western Germany, by 
 whose arms alone, for he had but a handful of French with 
 him, he overcame their eastern brethren at a moment in 
 which the German name and German honour were more 
 loudly invoked. " I have not come among you," said Napoleon 
 smilingly to the Bavarians, Wurtembergers, etc., by whom he 
 was surrounded, " I am not come among you as the emperor 
 of France, but as the protector of your country and of the 
 German confederation. No Frenchman is among you ; you 
 alone shall beat the Austrians."* The extent of the blind- 
 
 * " None of my soldiers accompany me. Yoii ^vill know how to value 
 this mark of conlidence." — Napoleoii's Address to the Bavarians. B'6l- 
 derndorfs Bavarian Campaigns. " I am alone among you and have not 
 a Frenchman around my person. This is an imparalleled honour paid 
 by me to you." — Napoleon' s Address to the Wurtetnberg troops. Arndt 
 wrote at that time :
 
 270 AUSTRIA'S DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 ness of the Rhenish confederation* is visible in their pro- 
 clamations. The king of Saxony even called Heaven to his 
 flid, and said to his soldiers, " Draw your swords against 
 Austria with full trust in the aid of Divine providence I"t 
 
 In the April of 1809, Napoleon led the Rhenish confeder- 
 ated troops, among which the Bavarians under General 
 Wrede chiefly distinguished themselves, against the Austri- 
 ans, who had but slowly advanced, and defeated them in five 
 battles, on five successive days, the most glorious triumph of 
 his surpassing tactics, at Pfalfenhofen, Thann, Abensberg, 
 Landshut, Eckmiihl, and Ratisbon. The Archduke Charles 
 retired into Bohemia in order to collect reinforcements, but 
 General Hiller was, on account of the delay in repairing the 
 
 " By idle words and dastard ^v•iles 
 
 Hath he the mastery pained ; 
 He holds our saered fatherland 
 
 In slavery enchained. 
 Fear hath rendered truth discreet, 
 And Honour croucheth at his feet. 
 Is this his ■work ? <ah no ! 'tis thine ! 
 
 This thou alone hast done. 
 For him thy banner waved, for him 
 
 Thy sword the battle won. 
 By thy disputes he gaineth strength, 
 
 By thy disgrace full honour, 
 And 'neath the German hero's arm 
 
 His weakness doth he cover : 
 Glittering erewhile in borrowed show, 
 The Gallic cock doth proudly crow." 
 * The states of Wiirtemberg imparted, among other things, the follow- 
 ing piece of information to the house of Habsburg : " That the heads of 
 a democratical government should spread principles destructive to order 
 among its neighbours was easily explicable, but that Austria should take 
 advantage of the war to derange the internal mechanism of neighbour- 
 ing states was inexcusable." — Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 113. The Ba- 
 varian proclamation {Allgemeine Zeitutig, No. 1-35) says, " Princes of 
 the blood royal imblushingly subscribed to proclamations placing them 
 on an equality with the men of the Revolution of 1793." The Moniteur, 
 Napoleon's Parisian organ, said in August, 1809, after the conclusion of 
 the war, " The mighty hand of Napoleon has snatched Germany from the 
 revolutionary abyss about to engulf her." 
 
 t Posselt's Political Annals at that time contained an essay, in which 
 the attempt made by the Austrian cabinet to call the Germans to arms 
 was designated as a " crime " against the sovereigns " among whom Ger- 
 many was at that period partitioned, and in whose hearing it was both 
 foolish and dangerous to speak of Germany." Derision has seldom been 
 carried to such a pitclx
 
 AUSTRIA'S DEMOXSTRATION. 271 
 
 fortifications of Linz, unable to maintain that place, the pos- 
 session of which was important on account of its forming a 
 connecting point between Bohemia and the Austrian Ober- 
 land. Hiller, however, at least saved his honoux* by pushing 
 forward to the Traun, and, in a fearfully bloody encounter at 
 Ebelsberg, capturing three French eagles, one of his colours 
 alone falling into the enemy's hands. He was, nevertheless, 
 compelled to retire before the superior forces of the French, 
 and Napoleon entered Vienna unopposed. A few balls from the 
 walls of the inner city were directed against the faubourg in 
 his possession, but he no sooner began to bombard the palace 
 than the inner city yielded. The Archduke Charles arrived, 
 when too late, from Bohemia. Both armies, separated by the 
 Danube, stood opposed to one another in the vicinity of the 
 imperial city. Napoleon, in order to bring the enemy to a 
 decisive engagement, crossed the river close to the great 
 island of Lobau. He was received on the opposite bank near 
 Aspern and Esslingen by the Archduke Charles, and, after a 
 dreadful battle, that was carried on with unwearied animosity 
 for two days, the 21st and 22nd of May, 1809, was for the 
 first time completely beaten* and compelled to fly for 
 refuge to the island of Lobau. The rising stream had, mean- 
 while, carried away the bridge. Napoleon's sole chance of 
 escape to the opposite bank. For two days he remained on the 
 island with his defeated troops, without provisions, and in 
 hourly expectation of being cut to pieces ; the Austrians, 
 however, neglected to turn the opportunity to advantage and 
 allowed the French leisure to rebuild the bridge, a work of 
 extreme difficulty. During six weeks afterwards the two 
 armies continued to occupy their former positions under the 
 walls of Vienna on the right and left banks of the Danube, 
 narrowly watching each other's movements and preparing for 
 a final struggle. 
 
 * The finest feat of arms was that performed by the Austrian infantry, 
 who repulsed twelve French regiments of cuirassiers. This picked body 
 of cavalry was mounted on the best and strongest horses of Holstein and 
 Mecklenburg, (for Napoleon overcame Germany principally by means of 
 Germany,) and bore an extremely imposing appearance. The Austrian 
 infantry coolly stood their charge and allowed them to come close upon 
 them before firing a shot, when, taking deliberate aim at the horses, 
 they and their riders were rolled in confused heaps on the ground. 
 Three thousand cuirasses were picked up by the victors after the battle.
 
 272 AUSTRIA'S DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 Tlie Archduke John had successfully penetrated into Italy, 
 where he had defeated the viceroy, Eugene, at Salice and 
 Fontana fredda. Favoured by the simultaneous revolt of 
 the Tyrolese, his success appeared certain, when the news of 
 his brother's disaster compelled him to retreat. He Avithdrew 
 into Hungary,* whither lie was pursued by Eugene, by whom 
 he was, on the 14th of June, defeated at Raab. The Arch- 
 duke Ferdinand, who had advanced as far as Warsaw, had 
 been driven back by the Poles under Poniatowski and by a 
 Russian force sent by the emperor Alexander to their aid, 
 which, on this success, invaded Galicia. Napoleon rewarded 
 the Poles for their aid by allowing Russia to seize "VVallachia 
 and INIoldavia. 
 
 The fate of Austria now depended on the issue of the 
 struggle about to take place on the Danube. The archduke's 
 troops were still elate with recent victory, but Napoleon had 
 been strongly reinforced and again began the attack at Wag- 
 ram, not far from the battle-ground of Aspern. The contest 
 lasted two days, the 5th and 6th of July. The Austrians 
 fought with great personal gallantry, lost one of their colours, 
 but captured twelve golden eagles and standards of the enemy; 
 but the reserve-body, intended to protect their left wing, fail- 
 ing to make its appearance on the field, they were outflanked 
 by Napoleon and driven back upon Moravia. Every means of 
 conveyance in Vienna was put into requisition for the trans- 
 port of the forty-five thousand men, wounded on this occasion, 
 to the hospitals, and this heart-rending scene indubitably con- 
 tributed to strengthen the general desire for peace. An armis- 
 tice was, on the 12th of July, concluded at Znaym, and, after 
 long negotiation, followed, on the 10th of October, by the 
 treaty of Vienna. Austria was compelled to cede Carniola, 
 Trieste, Croatia, and Dalmatia to Napoleon, Salzburg, Berch- 
 toldsgadeu, the Innviertel, and the Hausruckviertel to Bava- 
 ria, a part of Galicia to AVarsaw and another part to Russia. 
 Count Stadion lost office and was succeeded by Clement, 
 
 Count von INIetternich. Frederick Stabs, the son of a 
 
 preacher of Naumburg on the Saal, formed a resolution to 
 poniard Napoleon at Schonbrunn, the imperial palace in the 
 neighbourhood of A'^ienna. Rapp's suspicions became roused, 
 
 * Napoleon proclaimed independence to the Hungarians, but was un- 
 able to gain a single adherent among them.
 
 AUSTRIA'S DEMONSTRATION, 273 
 
 and the young man was arrested before his purpose could be 
 effected. He candidly avowed his intention. " And if I grant 
 you your life ?" asked Napoleon. " I would merely make use 
 of the gift to rob you, on the first opportunity, of yours," was 
 the undaunted reply. Four and twenty hours afterwards the 
 young man was shot.* The ancient German race of Gots- 
 cheer in Carniola and the people of Istria rose in open insur- 
 rection against the French and were only put down by force. 
 Although Prussia had left Austria unsuccoured during this 
 war, many of her subjects were animated with a desire to aid 
 their Austrian brethren. Schill, unable to restrain his im- 
 petuosity, quitted Berlin on the 28th of April, for that pur- 
 pose, with his regiment of hussars. His conduct, although 
 condemned by a sentence of the court-martial, was univ^ersally 
 applauded. Dornberg, an officer of Jerome's guard, revolted 
 simultaneously in Hesse, but was betrayed by a false friend 
 at the moment in which Jerome's person was to have been 
 seized and was compelled to fly for his life. Schill merely 
 advanced as far as Wittenberg and Halberstadt, was again 
 driven northwards to Wismar, and finally to Stralsund, by the 
 superior forces of Westphalia and Holland. In a bloody 
 street-fight at Stralsund he split General Carteret's, the Dutch 
 general's, head, and was himself killed by a cannon-ball. 
 Thus fell this young hero, true to his motto, " Better a terri- 
 ble end than endless terror." The Dutch cut off his head, 
 preserved it in spirits of wine, and placed it publicly in the 
 Leyden library, where it remained until 1837, when it was 
 buried at Brunswick in the grave of his faithful followers. 
 Five hundred of his men, under Lieutenant Brunow, escaped 
 by forcing their way through the enemy. Of the prisoners 
 taken on this occasion, eleven officers were, by Napoleon's 
 command, shot at Wesel, fourteen subalterns and soldiers 
 at Brunswick, the rest, about six hundred in number, 
 were sent in chains to Toulon and condemned to the gal- 
 
 * Aretin about this time published a " Representation of the Patriots 
 of Austria to Napoleon the Great," in -which that great sovereign was 
 entreated to bestow a new government upon Austria and to make that 
 country, like the new kingdom of Westphalia, a member of his family of 
 states. A fitting pendant to John Miiller's state-speech, and so much 
 the more uncalled for as it was exactly the Austrians who, during this 
 disastrous period, had, less than any of the other races of Germany, lost 
 their national pride. 
 
 VOL. III. T
 
 274 AUSTRIA'S DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 leys.* Dornberg fled to England. Katt, another patriot, 
 assembled a number of veterans at Stendal and advanced as 
 far as Magdeburg, but was compelled to flee to the Brunswick- 
 ers in Bohemia. What might not have been the result had 
 the plan of the Archduke Charles to march rapidly through 
 Franconia been followed on the opening of the campaign ? 
 
 William, duke of Brunswick, the son of the hapless duke 
 Ferdinand, had quitted Oels, his sole possession, for Bohemia, 
 where he had collected a force two thousand strong, known as 
 the black Brunswickers on account of the colour of their uni- 
 form and the death's head on their helmets, with which he 
 resolved to revenge his father's death. Victorious in petty 
 engagements over the Saxons at Zittau and over the French 
 urider Junot at Berneck, he refused to recognise the armis- 
 tice between Austria and France, and, fighting his way 
 through the enemy, surprised Leipzig by night and there 
 provided himself with ammunition and stores. He was 
 awaited at Halberstadt by the Westphalians under Wellinge- 
 rode, whom, notwithstanding their numerical superiority, he 
 completely defeated during the night of the 30th of July. 
 Two days later he was attacked in Brunswick, in his father's 
 home, by an enemy three times his superior, by the Westpha- 
 lians under Reubel, who advanced from Celle whilst the 
 Saxons and Dutch pursued him from Erfurt. Aided by his 
 brave citizens, many of whom followed his fortunes, he was 
 again victorious and was enabled by a speedy retreat, in 
 which he bi'oke down all the bridges to his rear, to escape to 
 Elsfleth, whence he sailed to England. 
 
 In August, an English army, forty thousand strong, landed 
 on the island of Walcheren and attempted to create a diver- 
 sion in Holland, but its ranks were speedily thinned by 
 disease, it did not venture up the country and finally returned 
 to England. The English, nevertheless, displayed hencefor- 
 ward immense activity in the Peninsula, where, aided by the 
 brave and high-spirited population,! they did great detriment 
 to the French. In the English army in the Peninsula were 
 
 * They were afterwards condemned to hard labour in the Hieres isles, nor 
 was it until 1814 that the survivors, one hundred and twenty in number, 
 were restored to their homes. — Allgemeine Zeitung, 1814. Appendix 2\. 
 
 t Vide Napier's Peninsular War for an account of the military achieve- 
 ments of the Spaniards. — Transl.\tor.
 
 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 2/0 
 
 several thousand Germans, principally Hanoverian refugees. 
 There were also numerous deserters from the Ehenish con- 
 federated troops, sent by Napoleon into Spain. 
 
 During the war in June, the king of Wiirtemberg took 
 possession of Mergentheim, the chief seat of the Teutonic 
 order, which had, up to the present period, remained unsecu- 
 larized. The surprised inhabitants received the new Pro- 
 testant authorities with demonstrations of rage and revolted. 
 They were the last and the only ones among all the secular- 
 ized or mediatized Estates of the empire that boldly at- 
 tempted opposition. They were naturally overpowered with- 
 out much difficulty and were cruelly punished. About thirty 
 of them were shot by the soldiery ; six were executed ; 
 several wealthy burgesses and peasants were condemned as 
 criminals to work in chains in the new royal gardens at Stutt- 
 gart. Thus miserably terminated the celebrated Teutonic order. 
 
 CCLVII. Revolt of the Ttjrolese. 
 
 The Alps of the Tyrol had for centuries been the asylum of 
 liberty. The ancient German communal system had there 
 continued to exist even in feudal times. Exactly at the time 
 when the house of Habsburg lost its most valuable posses- 
 sions in Switzerland, at the time of the council of Constance, 
 Duke Frederick, surnamed Friedel with the empty purse, was 
 compelled by necessity and for the sake of retaining the affec- 
 tion of the Tyrolese, to confirm them by oath in the possession 
 of great privileges, which his successors, owing to a whole- 
 some dread of exciting the anger of the sturdy mountaineers, 
 prudently refrained from violating. The Tyrol was extern- 
 ally independent and was governed by her own diet. No 
 recruits were levied in that country by the emperor, except- 
 ing those for the rifle corps, which elected their own com- 
 manders and wore the Tyrolese garb. The imposts were 
 few and trifling in amount, the administration was simple. 
 The free-born peasant enjoyed his rights in common with the 
 patriarchal nobility and clergy, who dwelt in harmony with 
 the people ; in several of the valleys the public affairs were 
 administered by simple peasants ; each commune had ita 
 peculiar laws and customs. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 
 
 The first invasion of the Tyrol, in 1703, by the Bavarians, 
 was successfully resisted. The Bavarians were driven, with 
 great loss on their side, out of the country. A somewhat 
 similar spirit animated the Tyrolese in 1805, and their anger 
 was solely appeased by the express remonstrances of the 
 Archduke John, whom the inhabitants of the Austrian Tyrol 
 treated with the veneration due to a father. They now fell 
 under the dominion of Bavaria, whose benevolent sovereign, 
 Maximilian Joseph, promised, under the act dated the 14th 
 of Januai'y, 1806, "not only strongly to uphold the constitu- 
 tion of the country and the well-earned rights and privileges 
 of the people, but also to promote their welfare :" but, led 
 astray by his, certainly noble, enthusiasm for the rescue of 
 his Bavarian subjects from Jesuit obscurantism, he imagined 
 that similar measures might also be advantageously taken in 
 the Tyrol, where the mountaineers, true to their ancient sim- 
 plicity, were revolted by the severity of the cure, attempted 
 too by a physician of whose intentions they were mistrustful. 
 Bavaria was overrun with rich monasteries ; the Tyrol, less 
 fertile, possessed merely a patriarchal clergy, less numerous, 
 more moral and active. There was no motive for inter- 
 ference. The conscription that, by converting the idle youth 
 of Bavaria into disciplined soldiery, was a blessing to the 
 martial-spirited and improvident population, was imprac- 
 ticable amid the well-trained Tyrolese, and, although the 
 control exercised by a well-regulated bureaucracy might be 
 beneficial when viewed in contradistinction with the ancient 
 complicated system of government and administration of 
 justice during the existence of the division into petty states 
 and the manifold contradictory privileges, it was utterly 
 uncalled for in the simple administration of the Tyrol. For 
 what purpose were mere presumptive ameliorations to be im- 
 posed upon a people thoroughly contented with the laws and 
 customs bequeathed by their ancestors ? The attempt was 
 nevertheless made, and ancient Bavarian official insolence 
 leagued with Fi'ench frivolity of the school of Montgelas to 
 vex the Tyrolese and to violate their most sacred privileges. 
 The numerous chapels erected for devotional purposes were 
 thrown down amid marks of ridicule and scorn ; the ignorance 
 and superstition of the old church was at one blow to yield
 
 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 277 
 
 to modern enlightenment.* The people shudderingly beheld 
 the crucifixes and images of saints, so long the objects of their 
 deepest veneration, sold to Jews. Notwithstanding the late 
 assurances of the Bavarian king, the Tyrolean diet was, more- 
 over, not only dissolved, but the country was deprived of its 
 ancient name and designated " Southern Bavaria," and the castle 
 of the Tyrol that had defied the storms of ages, and whose 
 possessor, according to a sacred popular legend, had alone a 
 right to claim the homage of the country, was sold by auction. 
 The national pride of the Tyrolese was deeply and bitterly 
 wounded, their ancient rights and customs were arbitrarily in- 
 fringed, and, instead of the great benefits so recently promised, 
 eight new taxes were levied, and the tax-gatherers not unfre- 
 quently rendered themselves still more obnoxious by their 
 brutality. Colonel Dittfurt, who, during the winter of 1809, 
 acted with extreme inhumanity in the Fleimser-Thal, where 
 the conscription had excited great opposition, and who pub- 
 licly boasted that with his regiment alone he would keep the 
 whole of the beggarly mountaineers in subjection, drew upon 
 himself the greatest share of the popular animosity. 
 
 Austria, when preparing for war in 1809, could therefore 
 confidently reckon upon a general rising in the Tyrol. An- 
 drew Hofer, the host of the Sand at Passeyr, (the Sandwirth,) 
 
 went to Vienna, where the revolt was concerted. f A con- 
 
 • 
 
 * Without any attempt being made on the part of the government to 
 prepare the minds of the people by proper instruction, the children were 
 taken away by force in order to be inoculated for the small-pox. The 
 mothers, under an idea that their infants were being bewitched or 
 poisoned, trembled with rage and fear, while the Bavarian authorities 
 and their servants mocked their dismay. 
 
 t Hofer was, in 1790, as the deputy of the Passeyrthal, a member of 
 the diet at Innsbruck which so zealously opposed the reforms attempted 
 by Joseph II. ; he had fought, as captain of a rifle corps, against the 
 French in 1796, and, in 1805, when bidding farewell to the Archduke 
 John on the enforced cession of the Tyrol by Austria to Bavaria, had re- 
 ceived a significant shake of the hand with an expressed hope of seeing 
 him again in better times. Hofer traded in wine, corn, and horses, was 
 well known and highly esteemed as far as the Italian frontier. He 
 had a Herculean form and was remarkably good-looking. He wore a 
 low-crowned, broad-brimmed black Tyrolean hat, ornamented with 
 green ribbons and the feathers of the capercalzie. His broad chest was 
 covered with a red waistcoat, across which green braces, a hand in 
 breadth, were fastened to black chamois-leather knee-breeches. His 
 knees were bare, but his well-developed calves were covered with red
 
 ^ I » REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 
 
 spiracy was entered into by the whole of the Tyrolese pea- 
 santry. Sixty thousand men, on a moderate calculation, 
 were intrusted with the secret, which was sacredly kept, not 
 a single townsman being allowed to participate in it. Kinkel, 
 the Bavarian general, who was stationed at Innsbruck and 
 narrowly watched the Tyrol, remained perfectly uncon- 
 scious of the mine beneath his feet. Colonel Wrede, his 
 inferior in command, had been directed to blow up the im- 
 portant bridges in the Pusterthal at St. Lorenzo, in order to 
 check the advance of the Austrians, in case of an invasion. 
 Several thousand French were expected to pass through the 
 Tyrol on their route from Italy to join the array under Na- 
 poleon. No suspicion of the approach of a popular outbreak 
 existed. On the 9th of April, the signal was suddenly given ; 
 planks bearing little red flags floated down the Inn ; on the 
 10th, the storm burst. Several of the Bavarian sappers sent 
 at day-break to blow up the bridges of St. Lorenzo being 
 killed by the bullets of an invisible foe, the rest took to flight. 
 Wrede, enraged at the incident, hastened to the spot at the 
 head of two battalions, supported by a body of cavalry and 
 some field-pieces. The whole of the Pusterthal had however 
 already risen at the summons of Peter Kemnater, the host of 
 Schabs,* in defence of the bridges. Wrede's artillery was 
 captured by the enraged peasantry and cast, together with the 
 artillery-men, into tlie river. Wrede, after sufieriffg a ter- 
 rible loss, owing to the skill of the Tyrolean riflemen, who 
 never missed their aim, was completely put to rout, and, 
 although he fell in with a body of three thousand French 
 under Brisson on their route from Italy, resolved, instead of 
 returning to the Pusterthal, to withdraw with the French to 
 Innsbruck. The passage through the valley of the Eisack 
 had, however, been already closed against them by the host of 
 Lechner, and the fine old Roman bridge at Laditsch been 
 blown up. In the pass of the Brixen, where the valley closes, 
 
 stockings. A broad black leathern girdle clasped his muscular form. 
 Over all was thrown a short green coat without buttons. His long- 
 dark -brown beard, that fell in rich curls upon his chest, added dignity to 
 his appearance. His full, broad countenance was expressive of good 
 humour and honesty. His small, penetrating eyes sparkled with vivacity. 
 * A youth of two and twenty, slight in person and extremely hand- 
 some, at that time a bridegroom, and inspired by the deepest hatred of 
 the Bavarians, by whose officers he had been personally insulted.
 
 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 279 
 
 the French and Bavarians suffered immense loss ; rocks and 
 trees were rolled on the heads of the appalled soldiery, num- 
 bers of whom were also picked off by the unerring rifles of 
 the unseen peasantry. Favoured by the open ground at the 
 bridge of Laditsch, they constructed a temporary bridge, 
 across which they succeeded in forcing their way on the 11th 
 of April. Hofer had, meanwhile, placed himself, early on 
 the 10th, at the head of the brave peasantry of Passeyr, 
 Algund, and Meran, and had thrown himself on the same road, 
 somewhat to the north, near Sterzing, where a Bavarian bat- 
 talion was stationed under the command of Colonel Barnklau, 
 who, on being attacked by him, on the 1 1th, retreated to the 
 Sterzinger Moos, a piece of table-land, where, drawn up in 
 square, he successfully repulsed every attempt made to dis- 
 lodge him until Hofer ordered a waggon, loaded with hay and 
 guided by a girl,* to be pushed forward as a screen, behind 
 which the Tyrolese advancing, the square was speedily broken 
 and the whole of Barnklau's troop was either killed or taken 
 prisoner. 
 
 The whole of the lower valley of the Inn had, on the self- 
 same day, been raised by Joseph Speckbacher, a wealthy pea- 
 sant of Rinn, the greatest hero called into existence by this 
 fearful peasant war. The alarm-bell pealed from every church 
 tower throughout the country. A Bavarian troop, at that time 
 engaged in levying contributions at Axoms as a punishment 
 for disobedience, hastily fled. The city of Hall was, on the 
 ensuing night, taken by Speckbacher, who, after lighting 
 about a hundred watch-fires in a certain quarter, as if about 
 to make an attack on that side, crept, under cover of the dark- 
 ness, to the gate on the opposite side, where, as a common 
 passenger, he demanded permission to enter, took possession 
 of the opened gate, and seized the four hundred Bavarians 
 stationed in the city. On the 12th, he appeared before Inns- 
 bruck. Kinkel was astounded at the audacity of the peasants, 
 whom Dittfurt glowed with impatience to punish. But the 
 people, shouting "Vivat Franzl ! Down with the Bavarians !" 
 again rushed upon the guns and turned them upon the Bava- 
 rians, who were, moreover, exposed to a murderous fire poured 
 upon them from the windows and towers by the citizens, who 
 
 * The daughter of a tailor, named Camper. As the balls flew around 
 her, she shouted, " On with ye ! who cares for' Bavarian dumplings ! "
 
 280 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 
 
 had risen in favour of the peasantry. The people of the upper 
 valley of the Inn, headed by Major Teimer, also poured to the 
 scene of carnage, Dittfurt performed prodigies of valour, but 
 every effort was vain. Scornfully refusing to yield to the 
 canaille, he continued, although struck by two bullets, to fight 
 with undaunted courage, when a third stretched him on the 
 ground ; again he started up and furiously defended himself v 
 until a fourth struck him in the head. He died four days 
 afterwards in a state of wild delirium, cursing and swearing. 
 Kinkel and the whole of the Bavarian infantry yielded them- 
 selves prisoners. The cavalry attempted to escape, but were 
 dismounted with pitch-forks by the peasantry, and the re- 
 mainder were taken prisoners before Hall. 
 
 Wrede and Brisson, meanwhile, crossed the Brenner. At 
 Sterzing, every trace of the recent conflict had been carefully 
 obliterated, and Wrede vainly inquired the fate of Barnklau. 
 He entered the narrow pass, and Hofer's riflemen spread 
 death and confusion among his ranks. The strength of the 
 allied column, nevertheless, enabled it to force its way through, 
 and it reached Innsbruck, where, completely surrounded by 
 the Tyrolese, it, in a few minutes, lost several hundred men, 
 and, in order to escape utter destruction, laid down its arms. 
 The Tyrolese entered Innsbruck in triumph, preceded by the 
 military band belonging to the enemy, which was compelled to « 
 play, followed by Teimer and Brisson, in an open carriage, and 
 with the rest of their prisoners guarded between their ranks. 
 Their captives consisted of two generals, ten staff-officers, above 
 a hundred other officers, eight thousand infantry, and a thou- 
 sand cavalry. Thi'oughout the Tyrol, the arms of Bavaria 
 were cast to the ground and all the Bavarian authorities were 
 removed from office. The prisoners were, nevertheless, treated 
 with the greatest humanity, the only instance to the contrary 
 being that of a tax-gatherer, who, having once boasted that 
 he would grind the Tyrolese down until they gladly ate hay, 
 was, in revenge, compelled to swallow a bushel of hay for his 
 dinner. 
 
 It was not until after these brilliant achievements on the 
 part of the Tyrolese that Lieutenant Field-Marshal von Chas- 
 teler, a Dutchman, and the Baron von Hormayr, the imperial 
 civil intendant, entered Innsbruck with several thousand 
 Austrians, and that Hormayr assumed the reins of govern-
 
 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 281 
 
 ment. Two thousand French, under General Lemoine, at- 
 tempted to make an inroad from Trient, but were repulsed by 
 Hofer and his ally, Colonel Count Leiningen, who had been 
 sent to his aid by Chasteler. The advance of a still stronger 
 force of the enemy under Baraguay d' Hilliers a second time 
 against Botzen called Chasteler in person into the field, and 
 the French, after a smart engagement near Yolano, where the 
 Herculean Passeyrers carried the artillery on their shoulders, 
 were forced to retreat. It was on this occasion that Leiningen, 
 who had hastily pushed too far forwards, was rescued from 
 captivity by Hofer.* The Voi'arlberg had, meanwhile, also 
 been raised by Teimer. A Dr. Schneider placed himself at 
 the head of the insui-gents, whose forces already extended in 
 this direction as far as Lindau, Kempten, and Memmingen. 
 
 Napoleon's success, at this conjuncture, at Ratisbon, enabled 
 him to despatch a division of his army into the Tyrol to quell 
 the insurrection that had broken out to his rear. AVrede, who 
 had been quickly exchanged and set at liberty, speedily found 
 himself at the head of a small Bavarian force, and succeeded 
 in driving the Austrians under Jellachich, after an obstinate 
 and bloody resistance, out of Salzburg, on the 29th of April. 
 Jellachich withdrew to the pass of Lueg for the purpose of 
 placing himself in communication with the Archduke John, 
 who was on his way from Italy. An attack made upon this 
 position by the Bavarians being repulsed. Napoleon despatched 
 Marshal Lefebvre, duke of Dantzig, from Salzburg with a 
 considerable force to their assistance. Lefebvre spoke Ger- 
 man, was a rough soldier, treated the peasants as robbers in- 
 stead of legitimate foes, shot every leader who fell into his 
 hands, and gave his soldiery licence to commit every descrip- 
 tion of outrage on the villagers. The greater part of the 
 Tyrolese occupying the pass of Strub having quitted their 
 post on Ascension day in order to attend divine service, the 
 rest were, after a gallant resistance, overpowered and merci- 
 lessly butchered. Chasteler, anxious to repair his late negli- 
 gence, advanced against the Bavarians in the open valley of 
 the Inn and was overwhelmed by superior numbers at Worgl. 
 
 * The Austrian general, Marschall, who had been sent to guard the 
 Southern Tyrol, was removed for declaring that he deemed it an insult 
 for the military to make common cause with peasants and for complain- 
 ing of his being compelled to sit down to table with Hofer.
 
 282 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 
 
 Speckbaclier, followed by his peasantry, again made head 
 against the enemy, whom, notwithstanding the destruction 
 caused in his ranks by their rapid and well-directed fire, he 
 twice drove out of Schwatz. The Bavarians, nevertheless, 
 succeeded in foi'cing an entrance into the town, which they 
 set on fire after butchering all the inhabitants, hundreds of 
 whom were hanged to the trees or had their hands nailed to 
 their heads. These cruelties were not, even in a single in- 
 stance, imitated by the Tyrolese. The proposal to send their 
 numerous Bavarian prisoners home maimed of one ear, as a 
 mode of recognition in case they should again serve against the 
 Tyrol, was rejected by Hofer. The unrelenting rage of the 
 Bavarians was solely roused by the unsparing ridicule of the 
 Tyrolese, by whom they were nicknamed, on account of the 
 general burlyness of their figures and their fondness for beer, 
 Bavarian hogs, and who, the moment they came within hear- 
 ing, would call out to them, as to a herd of pigs, " Tschu, 
 Tschu, Tschu — Natsch, Natsch." The Bavarians, intoxicated 
 with success, advanced farther up the country, surrounded 
 the village of Vomp, set it on fire amid the sound of kettle- 
 drums and hautboys, and shot the inhabitants as they at- 
 tempted to escape from the burning houses. Chasteler and 
 Hormayr were, during this robber-campaign, as it was termed 
 by the French, proscribed as chefs de brigands by Napoleon. 
 Count Tannenberg, tlie descendant of the oldest of the ba- 
 ronial families in the Tyrol, a blind and venerable man, who 
 was also taken prisoner en route, replied with dignity to the 
 censure heaped upon him by Wrede, and, at Munich, defended 
 his countiy's cause before the king.* The officers, whom he 
 had treated with extreme politeness, rose from his hospitable 
 board to set fire to his castle over his head. The Scharnitz 
 was yielded, and the Bavarians under Arco penetrated also 
 
 on that side into the country. Jellachich, upon this, retii'ed 
 
 upon Carinthia, and was followed through the Pusterthal by 
 Chasteler, who dreaded being cut off. The peasants, incredu- 
 lous of their abandonment by Austria, implored, entreated 
 him to remain, to which, for the sake of freeing himself from 
 
 * Proclamation of the emperor Francis to the Tyrolese : " Willingly 
 do I anticipate your wish to be regarded as the most faithful subjects of 
 the Austrian empire. Never again shall the sad fate of being torn from 
 my heart befall you."
 
 REVOLT OF TILE TYROLESE. 283 
 
 their importunities, he at length consented, but they had no 
 sooner dispersed in order to summon the people again to the 
 conflict than lie retired. Hofer, on returning to the spot, 
 merely finding a small body of troops under the command 
 of General Buol, who had received orders to bring up the 
 rear, threw himself in despair on a bed. Eisenstecken, his 
 companion and adjutant, however, instantly declared that the 
 departure of the soldiers must, at all hazards, be prevented. 
 The officers signed a paper by which they bound themselves, 
 even though contrary to the express orders of the general, 
 to remain. Buol, upon this, yielded and remained, but, during 
 the fearful battle that ensued, remained in the post-house on 
 the Brenner, inactively watching the conflict, which terminated 
 in the triumph of the peasantry. Hormayr completely ab- 
 sconded and attempted to escape into Switzerland. 
 
 Innsbruck was surrendered by Teimer to the French, on 
 the 19th of May. Napoleon's defeat, about this time, at 
 Aspern having however compelled Lefebvre to return hastily 
 to the Danube, leaving merely a part of the Bavarians with 
 General Deroy in Innsbruck, the Tyrolese instantly seized 
 the opportunity, and Hofer, Eisenstecken, and the gallant 
 vSpeckbacher boldly assembled the whole of the peasantry on 
 the mountain of Isel. Peter Thalguter led the brave and 
 gigantic men of Algund. Haspinger, the Capuchin, nick- 
 named Redbeard, appeared on this occasion for the first time 
 in the guise of a commander and displayed considerable mili- 
 tary talent. An incessant struggle was carried on from the 
 2oth to the 29th of May.* Deroy, repulsed from the moun- 
 tain of Isel with a loss of almost three thousand men, simu- 
 lated an intention to capitulate, and withdrew unheard during 
 the night by muffling the horses' hoofs and the wheels of the 
 artillery carriages and enjoining silence under pain of death. 
 Speckbacher attempted to impede his retreat at Hall, but 
 arrived too late.f Teimer was accused of having been remiss 
 in his duty through jealousy of the common peasant leaders. 
 
 * The Count von Stachelburg from Meran, who fought as a vohinteer 
 among the peasantry, fell at that time. He was the last of his race. 
 
 t He was joined here by his son Anderl, a child ten years of age, who 
 collected the enemy's balls in his hat, and so obstinately refused to quit 
 the field of battle that his father was compelled to have him carried hy 
 force to a distant Alp.
 
 284 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 
 
 Arco escaped by an artifice similar to that of Deroy and 
 abandoned the Scharnitz. The Vorarlbergers again spread 
 as far as Kempten. Hormayr also returned, retook the reins 
 of government, imposed taxes, flooded the country with use- 
 less law-scribbling, and, at the same time, refused to grant 
 the popular demand for the convocation of the Tyrolean diet. 
 After the victory of Aspern, the empei'or declared, " My faith- 
 ful county of Tyrol shall henceforward ever remain incorpor- 
 ated with the Austrian empire, and I will agree to no treaty 
 of peace save one indissolubly uniting the Tyrol with my 
 monarchy." During this happy interval, Speckbacher be- 
 sieged the fortress of Cuifstein, where he performed many 
 signal acts of valour.* 
 
 .The disaster of Wagram followed, and, in the ensuing 
 armistice, the Emperor Francis Avas compelled to agree to 
 the withdrawal of the whole of his troops from the Tyrol. 
 The Archduke John is said to have given a hint to General 
 Buol to remain in the Tyrol as if retained there by force by 
 the peasantry, instead of which both Buol and Hormayr hur- 
 ried their retreat, after issuing a miserable proclamation, in 
 which they " recommended the Tyrolese to the care of the 
 duke of Dantzig." Lefebvre actually again advanced at the 
 head of thirty to forty thousand French, Bavarians, and Sax- 
 ons. The courage of the unfortunate peasantry naturally 
 sank. Hofer alone remained unshaken, and said, on bidding 
 Hormayr farewell, " Well then, I will undertake the govern- 
 ment, and, as long as God wills, name myself Andrew Hofer, 
 host of the Sand at Passeyr, Count of the Tyrol." Hormayr 
 
 laughed. A general dispersion took place. Hofer alone 
 
 remained. When, resolute in his determination not to aban- 
 don his native soil, he was on his way back to his dwelling, 
 
 * He paid a visit, in disguise, to the commandant within the fortress, 
 extinguished a grenade with his hat, crept undiscovered into the fortress 
 and spoilt the fire engines, cut loose the ships moored beneath the walls, 
 etc. Joseph Speckbacher of the Innthal was an open-hearted, fine- 
 spirited fellow, endowed with a giant's strength, and the best marksman 
 in tlie country. His clear bright eye could, at the distance of half a mile, 
 distinguish the bells on the necks of the cattle. In his youth, he was 
 addicted to poaching, and being, on one occasion, when in the act of 
 roasting a chamois, surprised by four Bavarian Jiager, he unhesitatingly 
 dashed the melted fat of the animal into their faces, and, quick as light- 
 ning, dealt each of them a death-blow with the butt-end of his rifle.
 
 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 285 
 
 he encountered Speckbacher hurrying away in a carriage in 
 the company of some Austrian officers. " Wilt thou also de- 
 sert thy country?" was Hofer's sad demand. Buol, in order 
 to cover his retreat, sent back eleven guns and nine hundred 
 Bavarian prisoners to General Rusca, who continued to 
 threaten the Pusterthal. 
 
 In the mountains all was tranquil, and the advance of the 
 French columns was totally unopposed. Hofer, concealed 
 in a cavern amid the steep rocks overhanging his native vale, 
 besought Heaven for aid, and, by his enthusiastic entreaties, 
 succeeded in persuading the brave Capuchin, Joachim Has- 
 pinger, once more to quit the monastery of Seeben, whither 
 he had retired. A conference was held at Brixen between 
 Haspingei", Martin Schenk, the host of the Kriig, a jovial 
 man of powerful frame, Kemnater, and a third person of 
 similar calling, Peter Mayer, host of the ]\Iare, who bound 
 themselves again to take up arms in Eastern Tyrol, whilst 
 Hofer, in person, raised the Western Tyrol. Speckbacher, 
 to the delight of the three confederates, unexpectedly made 
 his appearance at this conjuncture. Deeply wounded by the 
 reproach contained in the kw words addressed to him by 
 Hofer, he had, notwithstanding the urgent entreaties of his 
 companions, quitted them on arriving at the nearest station 
 and hastened to retake his post in defence of his country. 
 
 Lefebvre had already entered Innsbruck, and, according to 
 his brutal custom, had plundered the villages and reduced 
 them to ashes ; he had also published a proscription-list* in- 
 
 * He cited the follo'w'ing names immortal in the Tyrol, A. Hofer, 
 Straub of Hall, Reider of Botzen, Bombardi, postmaster of Salurn, 
 Morandel of Kaltem, Resz of Fleims, TschoU of Meran, Frischmann of 
 Schlanders, Senn, sheriif of Nauders, Fischer, actuary of Landek, Strehle, 
 burgomaster of Imbst, Plawen, governor of Reutti, Major Dietrich of 
 Lermos, Aschenbacher, governor of the Achenthal, Sieberer of Cufstein, 
 Wintersteller of Kisbiichl, Kolb of Lienz, Count Sarntheim, Peer, coun- 
 sellor to the court of appeal. Count Sarntheim was taken prisoner and 
 carried into Bavaria, together with the heroic Baroness of Sternbach, 
 ■who, mounted on horseback and armed with pistols, accompanied the 
 patriot force and aided in the command. She was seized in her castle 
 of Miihlan, imprisoned in a house of con-ection at Mimich, and after- 
 wards carried to Strassburg, was deprived of the whole of her property, 
 ignominiously treated, and threatened with death, but never lost courage. 
 — Beda, Weber's Tyrol. Wintersteller was a descendant of the brave 
 host of the same name who, in 1703, adorned his house, which was after- 
 wards occupied by Wintersteller, with the trophies won from the Ba- 
 varians.
 
 286 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 
 
 stead of the amnesty. A desperate resistance now commenced. 
 The whole of the Tyrol again flew to arms ; the young men 
 placed in their green hats the bunch of rosemaiy gathered by 
 the girl of their heart, the more aged a peacock's plume, the 
 symbol of the house of Habsburg, all carried the rifle, so 
 murderous in their hands : they made cannons of larch-wood, 
 bound with iron rings, which did good service ; they raised 
 abattis, blew up rocks, piled immense masses of stone on 
 the extreme edges of the precipitous rocks commanding the 
 narrow vales, in order to hurl them upon the advancing foe, 
 and directed the timber-slides in the forest-grown mountains, 
 or those formed of logs by means of which the timber for 
 building was usually run into the valleys, in such a manner 
 upon the most important passes and bridges, as to enable 
 them to shoot enormous trees down upon them with tremen- 
 dous velocity. 
 
 Lefebvre resolved to advance with the main body of his 
 forces across the Brenner to Botzen, whither another corps 
 under Burscheidt also directed its way through the upper 
 valley of the Inn, the Finstermiinz, and Meran, whilst a thii-d 
 under Rusca came from Carinthia through the Pusterthal, 
 and a fourth under Peyry was on the march from Verona 
 through the vale of the Adige. These various corps d'armee, by 
 which the Tyrol was thus attacked simultaneously on every 
 point, were to concentrate in the heart of the country. Le- 
 febvre found the Brenner open. The Tyrolese, headed by 
 Haspinger, had burnt the bridges on the Oberau and awaited 
 the approach of the enemy on the heights commanding the 
 narrow valley of Eisach. The Saxons under Rouyer were 
 sent in advance by Lefebvre to shed their blood for a 
 foreign despot. Rocks and trees hurled by the Tyrolese into 
 the valley crushed numbers of them to death. Rouyer, after 
 being slightly hurt by a rolling mass of rock, retreated after 
 leaving oi'ders to the Saxon regiment, composed of contingents 
 from Weimar, Gotha, Coburg, Hildburghausen, Altenburg, 
 and Meiningen, commanded by Colonel Egloffstein, to retain its 
 position in the Oberau. This action took place on the 4th 
 of August. The Saxons, worn out by the fatigue and danger 
 to which they were exposed, were compelled, on the ensuing 
 day, to make head in the narrow vale against overwhelming 
 numbers of the Tyrolese, whose incessant attacks rendered a 
 moment's repose impossible. Although faint with hunger
 
 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 287 
 
 and with the intensity of the heat, a part of the troops under 
 Colonel Egloffstein succeeded in forcing their way through, 
 though at an immense saci'ifice of life,* and fell back upon 
 Rouyer, who had taken up a position at Sterzing without 
 fighting a stroke in their aid, and who expressed his astonish- 
 ment at their escape. The rest of the Saxon troops were 
 taken prisoners, after a desperate resistance, in the dwelling- 
 houses of Oberau.f They had lost nearly a thousand men. 
 The other corps (Tarmee met with no better fate. Burscheidt 
 merely advanced up the valley of the Inn as far as the bridges 
 of Pruz, whence, being repulsed by the Tyrolese and dread- 
 ing destruction, he retreated during the dark night of the 8th 
 of August. His infantry crept, silent and unheard, across the 
 bridge of Pontlaz, of such fatal celebrity in 1703, which was 
 strictly watched by the Tyrolese. The cavalry cautiously 
 followed, but were betrayed by the sound of one of the 
 horse's feet. Rocks and trees were in an instant hui'led upon 
 the bridge, crushing men and horses and blocking up the 
 way. The darkness that veiled the scene, but added to its 
 horrors. The whole of the troops shut up beyond the bridge 
 were either killed or taken prisoner. Burscheidt reached 
 Innsbruck with merely a handful of men, completely worn out 
 by the incessant pursuit. Rusca was also repulsed, between 
 the 6th and the 1 1th of August, (particularly at the bridge of 
 Lienz,) in the Pusterthal by brave Antony Steger. Rusca had 
 set two hundred farms on fire. Twelve hundred of his men 
 were killed, and his retreat was accelerated by Steger's threat 
 to roast him, in case he fell into his hands, like a scorpion, 
 
 * When incessantly pursued and ready to drop -with fati^ie, they 
 found a cask of wine, and a drummer, knocking off it i head, stooped 
 do-wn to drink, when he was pierced with a bullet, and his blood mingled 
 with the liquor, which was, nevertheless, greedily swallowed by the 
 famishing soldiery. — Jacob's Campaign of the Gotha-AUenburgers. 
 
 t The Tyrolese aimed at the windows and shot every one who 
 looked out. As soon as the houses were, by this means, filled with 
 the dead and wounded, they stormed them and took the survivors 
 prisoner. Two hundred and thirty men of Weimar and Coburg, com- 
 manded by Major Germar, defended themselves to the last ; the house 
 in which they were being at length completely surrounded and set on fire 
 by the Tyrolese, they surrendered. This spot was afterwards known 
 as the " Sachsenklemme.^' Seven hundred Saxon prisoners escaped 
 from their guards and took refuge on the Krimmer Tuiiern, where they 
 were recaptured by the armed women and girk.
 
 288 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 
 
 within a fiery circle. Peyry did not venture into the 
 country. 
 
 Lefebvre, who had followed to the rear of the Saxon troops 
 from Innsbruck, bitterly reproached them for their defeat, 
 but, although he placed himself in advance, did not succeed 
 in penetrating as far as they had up the country. At Mauls, 
 his cavalry were torn from their saddles and killed with 
 clubs, and he escaped, with great difficulty, after losing his 
 cocked hat. His corps, notwithstanding its numerical strength, 
 was unable to advance a step farther. The Capuchin harassed 
 his advanced guard from Mauls and was seconded by Speck - 
 bacher from Stilfs, whilst Count Arco was attacked to his 
 rear at Schonberg by multitudes of Tyrolese. The contest 
 was carried on without intermission from the 5th to the 10th 
 of August. Lefebvre was finally compelled to retreat with 
 his thinned and weary troops.* On the 1 1th, Deroy posted 
 himself with the rear-guard on the mountain of Isel. The 
 Capuchin, after reading mass under the open sky to his fol- 
 lowers, again attacked him on the 13th. A horrible slaughter 
 ensued. Four hundred Bavarians, who had fallen beneath the 
 clubs of their infuriated antagonists, lay in a confused heap. 
 The enemy evacuated Innsbruck and the whole of the Tyrohl 
 Count Arco was one of the last victims of this bloody cam- 
 paign. 
 
 The Sandwirth placed himself at the head of the govern- 
 ment at Innsbruck. Although a simple peasant and ever 
 faithful to the habits of his station, J he laid down some ad- 
 
 * Bartholdy relates that Lefebvre, disguised as a common soldier, 
 mingled with the cavalry in order to escape the balls of the Tyrolese 
 sharpshooters. A man of Passeyr is said to have captured a three- 
 pounder and to have carried it on his shoulders across the mountain. 
 The Tyrolese would even carry their wounded enemies carefully on their 
 shoulders to their villages. A Count Mohr greatly distinguished himself 
 among the people of Vintschgau. The spirit shown by an old man above 
 eighty years of age, who, after shooting a number of the enemy from a 
 rock on wliich he had posted himself, threw himself, exclaiming " Juhhe ! 
 in God's name!" down the precipice, with a Saxon soldier, by whom he 
 had been seized, is worthy of record. 
 
 t Von Seebach, in his History of the Ducal Saxon Regiment, graphic- 
 ally describes the flight. During the night-time, all the mountains around 
 the beautiful valley of Innsbruck were lit up with watch-fires. Lefebvre 
 ordered his to be kept brightly burning whilst his troops silently with- 
 drew. 
 
 X He did not set himself above his equals and followed his former
 
 REVOLT OF THE TYEOLESE. 289 
 
 mirable rules, convoked a national assembly, and raised the 
 confidence of the people of Carinthia, to whom he addressed 
 a proclamation, remarkable for dignity. He hoped, at that 
 time, by summoning the whole of the mountain tribes to arms 
 and leading them to Vienna, to compel the enemy to accede to 
 more favourable terms of peace. Speckbacher penetrated into 
 the district of Salzburg, defeated the Bavarians at Lofers and 
 Unken, took one thousand seven hundi*ed prisoners, and ad- 
 vanced as far as Eeichenhall and INIelek. The Capuchin pro- 
 posed, in his zeal, to storm Salzburg and invade Carinthia, 
 but was withheld by Speckbacher, Avho saw the hazard at- 
 tached to the project, as well as the peril that would attend 
 the departure of the Tyrolese from their country. His plan 
 merely consisted in covering the eastern frontier. His son, 
 Anderle, who had escaped from his secluded Alp, unexpectedly 
 joined him and fought at his side. Speckbacher was stationed 
 at Melek, where he drove Major Riimmele with his Bavarian 
 battalion into the Salzach, but was shortly afterwards sur- 
 prised by treachery. He had already been deprived of his 
 arms, thrown to the ground, and seriously injured with 
 blows dealt with a club, when, furiously springing to his feet, 
 he struck his opponents to the earth and escaped with a hun- 
 dred of his men across a wall of rock unscaleable save by the 
 foot of the expert and hardy mountaineer. His young son 
 was torn from his side and taken captive. The king, Maxi- 
 
 simple mode of life. The emperor of Austria sent liim a golden chain 
 and three thousand ducats, the first money received by the Tyrol from 
 Austria ; but Hofer's pride was not raised by this mark of favour, and 
 the naivete of his reply on this occasion has often been a subject of ridi- 
 cule : " Sirs, I thank you. I have no news for you to-day. I have, it is 
 true, three couriers on the road, the Watscher-Hiesele, the Sixten-Seppcle, 
 and the Memmele-Franz, and the Schwanz ought long to have been here, 
 I expect the rascal every hour." The honest fellow permitted no pillage, 
 no disorderly conduct ; he even guarded the public morals with such 
 strictness as to publish the following orders against the half-naked mode, 
 imported by the French, at that time followed by the women : " Many of 
 my good fellow-soldiers and defenders of their country have complained 
 that the women of all ranks cover their bosoms and arms too little, or 
 with transparent dresses, and by these means raise sinful desires highly 
 displeasing to God and to all piously-disposed persons. It is hoped that 
 they will, by better behaviour, preserve themselves from the punishment 
 of God, and, in case of the contrary, must solely blame themselves should 
 
 they find themselves disagreeably covered with . Andre Hofer, 
 
 chief in command in the Tyrol." 
 
 VOL. III. u
 
 290 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 
 
 milian Joseph, touched bj his courage and beauty, sent for 
 
 him and had him well educated. The Capuchin, who had 
 
 reached Muhrau in Styria, was also compelled to retire. 
 
 The peace of Vienna, in which the Tyrolese were not even 
 mentioned, was meanwhile concluded. The restoration of the 
 Tyrol to Bavaria was tacitly understood, and, in order to re- 
 duce the country to obedience, three fresh armies again ap- 
 proached the frontiers, the Italian, Peyry, from the south 
 through the valley of the Adige, and Baraguay d' Hilliers 
 from the west through the Pusterthal ; the former suffered a 
 disastrous defeat above Trieut, but was rescued from utter 
 destruction by General Vial, who had followed to his rear, 
 and who, as well as Baraguay, advanced as far as Brixen.* 
 Drouet d' Erlon, with the main body of the Bavarians, came 
 from the north across the Strub and the Loferpass, and gained 
 forcible possession of the Engpass. Hofer had been persuaded 
 by the priest, Donay, to relinquish the anterior passes into the 
 country and Innsbruck, and to take up a strong position on 
 the fortified mountain of Isel. Speckbacher arrived too late 
 to defend Innsbruck, and, enraged at the ill-laid plan of de- 
 fence, threw a body of his men into the Zillerthal in order to 
 prevent the Bavarians from falling upon Hofer's rear. He 
 was again twice wounded at the storming of the Kemmberg, 
 which had already been fortified by the Bavarians. On the 
 25th of Octobex', the Bavarians entered Innsbruck and sum- 
 moned Hofer to capitulate. During the night of the 30th, 
 Baron Lichtenthurm appeared in the Tyrolese camp, an- 
 nounced the conclusion of peace, and delivered a letter from 
 the Archduke John, in which the Tyrolese were commanded 
 peaceably to disperse and no longer to offer their lives a use- 
 less sacrifice. There was no warrant for the future, not a 
 memoiy of an earlier pledge. The commands of their beloved 
 master were obeyed by the Tyrolese with feelings of bitter 
 regret, and a complete dispersion took place. Speckbacher 
 alone maintained his ground, and repulsed the enemy on the 
 2nd and 3i-d of November, but, being told, in a letter, by 
 Hofer, " I announce to you, that Austria has made peace with 
 France and has forgotten the Tyrol," he gave up all further 
 
 * During the pillage of the monastery of Seeben by the French, a 
 nun, in order to escape from their hands, cast herself from the summit 
 of the rock into the valley.
 
 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 291 
 
 opposition, and INIayer and Kemnater, who had gallantly made 
 head against General Rusca at the MUhlbacher Klause, fol- 
 lowed his example. 
 
 The tragedy drew to a close. Hofer returned to his native 
 vale, where the people of Passeyr and Algund, resolved at all 
 hazards not to submit to the depredations of the Italian 
 brigands under Rusca, flocked around him and compelled him 
 to place himself at their head for a last and desperate struggle. 
 Above Meran, the French were tin-own in such numbers from 
 the Frcmzosenbiihl, which still retains its name, that "they 
 fell like a shower of autumnal leaves into the city. The 
 hoi'ses belonging to a division of cavalry intended to surround 
 the insurgent peasantry were all that returned ; tlieir riders 
 had been shot to a man. Rusca lost five hundred dead and 
 one thousand seven hundred prisoners. The Capuchin was 
 also present, and generously saved the captive Major Doreille, 
 whose men had formerly set fire to a village, from the hands 
 of the infuriated peasantry. But a traitor guided the enemy 
 to the rear of the brave band of patriots ; Peter Thalguter 
 
 fell, and Hofer took refuge amid the highest Alps. Kolb, 
 
 who was by some supposed to be an English agent, but who 
 was simply an enthusiast, again summoned the peasantry 
 around Brixen to arras. The peasantry still retained such a 
 degree of courage, as to set up an enormous barn-door as a 
 target for the French artillery, and at every shot up jumped 
 a ludicrous figure. Resistance had, however, ceased to be 
 general ; the French pressed in ever increasing numbers 
 through the valleys, disarmed the people, the majority of 
 whom, obedient to Hofer's first mandate, no longer attempted 
 opposition, and took their leaders captive. Peter Mayer was 
 shot at Botzen. His life was offered to him on condition of 
 his denying all participation in the patriotic struggles of his 
 countrymen, but he disdained a lie and boldly faced death. 
 Those among the peasantry most distinguished for gallantry 
 were either shot or hanged. Baur, a Bavarian author, who 
 had fought against the Tyrolese and is consequently a trusty 
 witness, remarks, that all the Tyrolese patriots, witliout 
 exception, evinced the greatest contempt of death. The 
 struggle recommenced in the winter, but was merely confined 
 to the Pusterthal. A French division under Broussier was 
 
 u 2
 
 292 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 
 
 cut off on the snowed-up roads and shot to a man by the 
 peasantry. 
 
 Hofer at first took refuge witli his wife and child in a 
 narrow rocky hollow in the Kcllerlager, afterwards in the 
 highest Alpine hut, near the Oetzthaler Firner in the wintry 
 desert. Vainly was he implored to quit the country ; his I'e- 
 solution to live or to die on his native soil was unchangeable. 
 A peasant, named Eatfel, unfortunately descrying the smoke 
 from the distant hut, discovered his place of concealment, and 
 boasted in different places of his possession of the secret of his 
 hiding-place. This came to the ears of Father Donay, a traitor 
 in the pay of France ;* Eatfel was arrested, and, in the night 
 of the 27th of January, 1810, guided one thousand six hun- 
 dred French and Italian troops to the mountain, whilst two 
 thousand French were quartered in the circumjacent country. 
 Ilofer yielded himself prisoner with calm dignity. The 
 Italians abused him personally, tore out his beard, and dragged 
 him pinioned, half naked and barefoot, in his night-dress, 
 over ice and snow to the valley. He was then put into a 
 carriage and carried into Italy to the fortress of Mantua. No 
 one interceded in his behalf. Napoleon sent orders by the 
 Paris telegraph to shoot him within four and twenty hours. 
 He prepared cheerfully for death. | On being led past the 
 other Tyrolese prisoners, they embraced his knees, weeping. 
 He gave them his blessing. His executioners halted not far 
 from the Porta Chiesa, where, placing himself opposite the 
 twelve riflemen, selected for the dreadful office, he refused 
 
 * Dona)' had devoted himself to the service of the church, but having 
 committed a theft, had been refused ordination. Napoleon rewarded him 
 for his treachery with — ordination and Uie appointment of chaplain in the 
 Santa Casa at Loretto. 
 
 t Four hours before his execution he wrote to his brother-in-law, 
 Pohler, " My beloved, the hostess, is to have mass read for my soul at St. 
 Marin by the rosy-coloured blood. She is to have prayers read in both 
 parishes, and is to let the sub-landlord give my friends soup, meat, and 
 half a bottle of wine each. The money I had with me I have distributed 
 to the poor ; as for the rest, settle my accounts with the people as justly 
 as you can. All in the world adieu, until we all meet in heaven eter- 
 nally to praise God. Death appears to me so easy that my eyes have not 
 once been wet on that account. Written at five o'clock in the morning, 
 and at nine o'clock I set oft' with the aid of all the saints on my journey 
 to God."
 
 REVOLT OF THE TYROLESE. 293 
 
 either to allow himself to be blindfolded or to kneel. " I 
 stand before my Creator,*' he exclaimed with a firm voice, 
 " and standing will I restore to him the spirit he gave ! " He 
 gave the signal to fire, but the men, it may be, too deeply 
 moved by the scene, missed their aim. The first fire brought 
 him on his knees, the second stretched him on the ground, and 
 a corporal, advancing, terminated his misery by shooting him 
 through the head, February the 29th, 1810.* 
 
 Haspinger, the brave Capuchin, escaped unhurt to Vienna, 
 in which Joseph Speckbacher, the greatest hero of this war, 
 also succeeded, after unheard-of suflering and peril.| 
 
 * At a later period, -when Mantua again became Austrian, the Tyrolese 
 bore his remains back to his native Alps. A handsome monument of 
 ■white marble was erected to his memory in the church at Innsbruck; 
 his family was ennobled. Count Alexander of "Wi^irtemberg has poetically 
 described the restoration of his remains to the Tyrol, for which he so , 
 nobly fought and died. 
 
 " How was the gallant hunter's breast 
 
 With mingled feelings torn, _ ' 
 
 As slowly winding 'mid the Alps, 
 
 His hero's corpse was borne ! 
 
 The ancient Gletcher, glowing red, 
 Though cold their wonted mien. 
 Bright radiance shed o'er Hofer's head. 
 Loud thundered the lavine ! " 
 
 t The Bavarians in pursuit of him searched the mountains in troops, 
 and vowed to " cut his skin into boot-straps, if they caught him." Speck- 
 bacher attempted to escape into Austria, but was unable to go beyond 
 Dux, the roads being blocked up with snow. At Dux, the Bavarians 
 came upon his trace, and attacking the house in which he had taken 
 refuge, he escaped by leaping through the roof, but again wounded him- 
 self. During the ensuing twenty-seven days, he wandered about the 
 snow-clad forests, exposed to the bitter cold and in danger of starvation. 
 During four consecutive days he did not taste food. He at length found 
 an asylum in a hut in a high and exposed situation at Bo'.derberg, 
 where he by chance fell in with his wife and children, who had also 
 taken refuge there. The watchful Bavarians pursued him even here, and 
 he merely owed his escape to the presence of mind with which, taking a 
 sledge upon his shoulders, he advanced towards them as if he had been 
 the servant of the house. No longer safe in this retreat, he hid himself in 
 a cave on the Gemsliaken, whence he was, in the beginning of spring, 
 carried by a siiow-lavine a mile and a half into the valley. He contrived 
 to disengage himself from the snow, but one of his legs had been dislo- 
 cated and rendered it impossible for him to regain his cave. Suffering 
 unspeakable anguish, he crept to the nearest hut, where he found two 
 men, who carried him to his own house at Rinn, whither his wife had
 
 294 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 
 
 CCLVIII. Napoleon's supremacy. 
 
 Napoleon liad, during the great war in Austria, during the 
 intermediate time between the battles of Aspern and Wagram, 
 caused the person of the pope, Pius VII., to be seized, and 
 had incorporated the state of the church with his Italian king- 
 dom. The venerable pope, whose energies were called forth 
 by misfortune, astonished Christendom by his bold opposition 
 to the ruler over the destinies of Europe, before whom he had 
 formerly bent in humble submission, and for whose coronation 
 he had condescended to visit Paris in person. The re-estab- 
 lishment of Catholicism in France by Napoleon had rendered 
 the pope deeply his debtor, but Napoleon's attempt to deprive 
 him of all temporal power, and to render him, as the first 
 bishop of his realm, subordinate to himself, called forth a 
 sturdy opposition. Napoleon no sooner spoke the language of 
 Charlemagne, than the pope responded in the words of Gregory 
 VII. and of Innocent IV. : " Time has produced no change 
 in the authority of the pope ; now as ever does the pope reign 
 supreme over the emperors and kings of the earth." The 
 diplomatic dispute was carried on for some time owing to Na- 
 poleon's expectation of the final compliance of the pope.* But 
 on his continued refusal to submit, the peril with which Na- 
 poleon's Italian possessions were threatened by the landing of 
 a British force in Italy and by the war with Austria, induced 
 
 returned. But Bavarians were quartered in the house, and his 
 only place of refuge was the cow-shed, where Zoppel, his faithful serv- 
 ant, dug for him a hole beneath the bed of one of the cows, and daily 
 brought him food. The danger of discovery was so great that his wife 
 was not made acquainted with his arrival. He remained in this half- 
 buried state for seven weeks, until rest had so far invigorated his frame 
 as to enable him to escape across the high mountain passes, now freed by 
 the May sun from the snow. He accordingly rose from liis grave and 
 bade adieu to his sorrowing wife. He reached Vienna without encoun- 
 tering further mishap, but gained no thanks for his heroism. He was 
 compelled to give up a small estate that he had purchased with the re- 
 mains of his property, the purchase-money proving insiilRcient, and he 
 would have been consigned to beggary, had not Hofer's son, who had 
 received a fine estate from the emperor, engaged him as his steward. 
 
 * The pope, among other things, long refused his consent to the 
 second marriage of the king of Westphalia, although that prince's first 
 wife was merely a Protestant and an American citizen.
 
 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 295 
 
 him, first of all, to throw a garrison into Ancona, and after- 
 wards to take possession of Rome, and, as the pope still con- 
 tinued obstinate, finally to seize his person, to carry him off 
 to France, and to annex the Roman territory to his great 
 empire. The anathema hurled by the pope upon Napoleon's 
 head, had at least the effect of creating a warmer interest in 
 behalf of the pontiff" in the hearts of the Catholic population 
 and of increasing their secret antipathy towards his anta- 
 gonist. 
 
 In 1810, Napoleon annexed Holland and East Friesland 
 " as alluvial lands" to France. His brother Louis, who had 
 vainly laboured for the welfare of Holland, selected a foreign 
 residence and scornfully refused to accept the pension settled 
 upon him by Napoleon. The first act of the new sovereign 
 of Holland was the imposition of an income tax of fifty per 
 cent. Instruction in the French language was enforced in all 
 tlie schools, and all public proclamations and documents were 
 drawn up in both Dutch and French.* Holland was formed 
 into two departments, which were vexed by two prefets, the 
 Conte de Celles and Baron Staffart, Belgian renegades and 
 blind tools of the French despot, and was, moreover, harassed 
 by the tyrannical and cruel espionage under Duvillieres, 
 Duterrage, and Marivaux, which, in 1812, occasioned several 
 ineffectual attempts to throw off" the yoke.f In 1811, Hol- 
 land was also deprived of Batavia, her sole remaining colony, 
 by the British. 
 
 Lower Saxony, as far as the Baltic, the principalities of 
 Oldenburg, Salm, and Aremberg, the Hanse towns, Hamburg, 
 Bremen, and LUbeck, were, together with a portion of the 
 kingdom of Westphalia, at the same time also incorporated by 
 Napoleon with France, under pretext of putting a stop to the 
 contraband trade carried on on those coasts, more particularly 
 from the island of Heligoland. He openly aimed at convert- 
 ing the Germans, and they certainly discovered little disin- 
 clination to the metamorphosis, into French. He pursued 
 
 * Bilderdyk, whom the Dutch consider as tlieir greatest poet, was, 
 nevertheless, at that time, Napoleon's basest flatterer, and ever expressed 
 an hypochondriacal and senseless antipathy to Germany. 
 
 t At Amsterdam, in 1811; in the district around Leyden, in 1812. 
 Insurrections of a similar character were suppressed in April, 181], in the 
 country around Liege; in December, 1812, at Aix-la-Chapelle ; the East 
 Frieslanders also rebelled against the conscription.
 
 296 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 
 
 the same policy towards the Italians, and, had he continued to 
 reign, would have followed a similar system towards the 
 Poles. The subjection of the whole of Italy, Germany, and 
 Poland lay within his power, but, to the nations inhabiting 
 those countries he must, notwithstanding their incorporation 
 with his universal empire, have guaranteed the maintenance 
 of their integrity, a point he had resolved at all hazards not to 
 concede. He, consequently, preferred to divide these nations 
 and to allow one half to be governed by princes inimical to 
 liim, but whose power he despised. His sole dread was 
 patriotism, the popular love of liberty. Had he placed him- 
 self, as was possible in 1809, on the imperial throne of Ger- 
 many, the consequent unity of that empire must, even under 
 foreign sway, have endangered the ruler : he preferred gradu- 
 ally to gallicize Germany as she had been formerlj^ romanized 
 by her ancient conquerors. His intention to sever the Rhen- 
 ish provinces and Lower Saxony entirely from Germany was 
 clear as day. They received French laws, French governors, 
 no German book was allowed to cross their frontiers without 
 previous permission from the police, and in each department 
 but one newspaper, and that subject to the revision of the 
 
 prefet, was allowed to be published.* Madame de Stael 
 
 was exiled for having spoken favourably of the German 
 character in her work " de 1' Allemagne," and the work itself 
 was suppressed ; Napoleon, on giving these orders, merely 
 said, " Ce livre n' est pas Frangais." 
 
 His treatment of Switzerland was equally unindulgent. 
 The Valais, which, although not forming part of Switzerland, 
 
 * In Hamburg, one Baumhauer was arrested for an anti-gallic expres- 
 sion and thrown into the subterranean dungeons of Magdeburg, where 
 iie pined to death. The same tyranny was exercised even on the German 
 territory belonging to the Rhenish confederation. Becker, privy-coun- 
 sellor of the duke of Gotha, was transported beyond the seas for having 
 published a pamphlet against France. Several authors were compelled 
 to retire into Sweden and Russia ; several booksellers were arrested, 
 numerous books were confiscated. Not the most trifling publication was 
 permitted within the Rhenish confederated states that even remotely op- 
 posed the interests of France. The whole of the princes of the Rhenish 
 confederation were, consequently, under the surveillance of French cen- 
 sors and of the literary spies of Germany in the pay of France. Hor- 
 mayr's Archives contain a pamphlet well worthy of perusal, in which an 
 account is given of all the arrests and persecutions that took place on ac- 
 count of matters connected with the press.
 
 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 297 
 
 Still retained a sort of nominal independence, was formally 
 incorporated by France ; the canton of Tessin was, as arbi- 
 trarily, occupied by French troops, an immense quantity of 
 British goods Avas confiscated, the press was placed under the 
 strictest censorship, the Erzdhler of jNIliller-Freidberg, the 
 only remaining Swiss newspaper of liberal tendency, was 
 suppressed, whilst Zschokke unweariedly lauded Napoleon 
 to tiie skies as the regenerator of the liberties of Switzerland 
 and as the saviour of the world. A humble entreaty of the 
 Swiss for mercy was scornfully refused by Napoleon. In- 
 stead of listening to their complaints, he reproached their en- 
 voys, who were headed by Reinhard of Zurich, in the most 
 violent terms, charged the Swiss with conspiracy, and said, 
 that a certain Sydler had ventured to speak against him in 
 the federal diet, etc. ; nor could his assumed anger be pacified 
 save by the instant dissolution of the federal diet, by the ex- 
 tension of the levy of Swiss recruits for the service of France, 
 and by the threat of a terrible punisliment to all Swiss who 
 ventui'ed to enter the service of England and Spain. The 
 Swiss merely bound their chains still closer without receiving 
 the shghtest alleviation to their sufferings. Reinhard wrote 
 in 1811, the time of this ill-successful attempt on the part of 
 the Swiss, "a petty nation possesses no means of procuring 
 justice." Why then did the great German nation scatter itself 
 into so many petty tribes ? 
 
 The marriage of Napoleon on the 2nd of April, 1810, vrith 
 Maria Louisa, the daughter of the emperor of Austria, sur- 
 rounded his throne with additional splendour. This marriage 
 had a double object ; that of raising an heir to his broad em- 
 pire, his first wife, Josephine Beauharnois, whom he di- 
 vorced, having brought him no children, and that of legiti- 
 mating his authority and of obliterating the stain of low 
 birth by intermingling his blood with that of the ancient race 
 of Habsburg. Strange as it must appear for the child of 
 revolution to deny the very principles to which he owed his 
 being and to embrace the aristocratic ideas of a bygone age, 
 for the proud conqueror of all the sovereigns of Europe 
 anxiously to solicit their recognition of him as their equal in 
 birth, these apparent contradictions are easily explained by 
 the fact that men of liberal ideas were the objects of Napo- 
 leon's greatest dread and hatred, and that he was consequently
 
 298 NAPOLEON'S SUPEEMACY. 
 
 driven to favour the ancient aristocracy, as he had formerly 
 favoured the ancient church, and to use them as his tools. 
 Young and rising nations, not the ancient families of Europe, 
 threatened his power, and he therefore sought to confirm it by 
 an alliance against the former with the ancient dynasties.* The 
 nuptials were solemnized with extraordinary pomp at Paris. 
 The conflagration of the Austrian ambassador's, Prince von 
 Schwarzenberg's, house during a splendid fete given by him 
 to the newly-wedded pair, and which caused the death of 
 several persons, among others, of the Princess Pauline 
 Schwarzenberg, the ambassador's sister-in-law, who rushed 
 into the flaming building to her daughter's rescue, clouded 
 the festivities with ominous gloom. In the ensuing year, 1811, 
 the youthful empress gave birth to a prince, Napoleon Francis, 
 who was laid in a silver cradle, and provisionally entitled 
 "King of Rome," in notification of his future destiny to suc- 
 ceed his father on the throne of the Roman empire. | 
 
 Austria offered a melancholy contrast to the magnificence 
 of France. Exhausted by her continual exertions for the 
 maintenance of the war, the state could no longer meet its 
 obligations, and, on the loth of March, 1811, Count AVallis, 
 the minister of finance, lowered the value of one thousand 
 and sixty millions of bank-paper to two hundred and twelve 
 millions, and the interest upon the whole of the state-debts to 
 half the new paper-issue. This fearful state-bankruptcy was 
 accompanied by the fall of innumerable private firms ; trade 
 was completely at a stand-still, and the contributions demanded 
 by Napoleon amounted to a sum almost impossible to realize. 
 
 * It was during this year that Napoleon caused the seamless coat of 
 the Saviour, which had, during the Revolution, taken refuge at Augsburg, 
 to be borne in a magnificent procession to Treves and to be exposed 
 for eighteen days to public view. The pilgrims amounted to two hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand. Hormayr, who had, during the foregoing 
 
 year, summoned the Tyrolese to arms against Napoleon, said in his An- 
 nual for 1811, " By the marriage of the emperor Napoleon with Maria 
 Louisa, the Revolution may be considered as completely terminated and 
 peace durably settled throughout Europe." 
 
 t His birth was celebrated by numerous German poets and by 
 general public rejoicings, but with the basest adulation in Switzerland. 
 Meyer of Knonau relates in his History of Switzerland, that the king of 
 Rome was at one of the festivals termed " the blessed infant." Goethe's 
 poem in praise of Napoleon appeared at this time. The clergj' also 
 emulated each other in servility.
 
 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 299 
 
 Prussia, especially, suffered from the drain upon her resources. 
 The beautiful and high-souled queen, Louisa, destined not to 
 see the day of vengeance and of victory, died, in 1810, of a 
 broken heart.* 
 
 Whilst Germany lay thus exhausted and bleeding in her 
 chains. Napoleon and Alexander put the plans, agreed to be- 
 tween them at Erfurt, into execution. Napoleon threw him- 
 self with redoubled violence on luckless Spain, and the Russians 
 invaded Sweden. 
 
 The Germans acted a prominent part in the bloody wars 
 in the Peninsula. Four Swiss regiments, that had at an earlier 
 period been in the Spanish service, and the German legion, 
 composed of Hanoverian refugees to England, upheld the 
 Spanish cause, whilst all sorts of troops of the Rhenish con- 
 federation, those of Bavaria and Wurtemberg excepted, several 
 Dutch and four Swiss regiments, fought for Napoleon. 
 
 The troops of the Rhenish confederation formed two corps. 
 The fate of one of them has been described by Captain Rigel 
 of Baden. The Baden regiment was, in 1808, sent to Biscay 
 and united under Lefebvre with other contingents of the 
 Rhenish confederation, for instance, with the Nassauers under 
 the gallant Von Schiifer, the Dutch under General Chasse, 
 the Hessians, the Primates (Frankfurters), and Poles. As 
 early as October, they fought against the Spaniards at Zor- 
 noza, and at the pillage of Portugalete first became acquainted 
 with the barbarous customs of this terrible civil war. The 
 most implacable hatred, merciless rage, the assassination of 
 prisoners, plunder, destruction, and incendiarism, equally dis- 
 tinguished both sides. The Germans garrisoned Bilboa, gained 
 some successes at Molinar and Valmaseda, were afterwards 
 placed under the' command of General Victor, who arrived 
 with a fresh army, were again victorious at Espinosa and 
 Burgos, formed a junction with Soult and finally Avith Napo- 
 leon, and, in December, 1808, entered Madrid in triumph. 
 
 In January, 1809, the German troops under Victor again ad- 
 vanced upon the Tagus, and, after a desperate conflict, took 
 the celebrated bridge of Almaraz by storm. This was followed 
 by the horrid sacking of the little town of Arenas, during 
 
 * At that time the noble-hearted poet, Seume, who had formerly been 
 a victim of native tyranny, died of sorrow and disgust at the rule of the 
 foreigner in Germany, at Toeplitz, a. d. 1810.
 
 300 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 
 
 which a Nassauer, named Hornung, not only, like a second 
 Scipio, generously released a beautiful girl who had fallen 
 into his hands, but sword-in-hand defended her from his 
 fellow-soldiers. In the following March, the Germans were 
 again brought into action, at Mesa de Ibor, where Schafer's 
 Nassauers drove the enemy from their position, under a fear- 
 ful fire, which cut down three hundred of their number ; and 
 at Medelin, where they were again victorious and massacred 
 numbers of the armed Spanish peasantry. Four hundred 
 prisoners were, after the battle, shot by order of Marshal 
 Victor. Among the wounded on the field of battle there lay, 
 side by side, Preusser, the Nassauer, and a Spanish corporal, 
 both of whom had severely suffered. A dispute arose between 
 tliem, in the midst of which they discovered that thej^ were 
 brothers. One had entered the French, the other the Spanish 
 service. A Dutch battalion under Storm de Grave, aban- 
 doned at INIerida to the vengeance of the enraged people, was 
 furiously assailed, but made a gallant defence and fought its 
 way through the enemy. 
 
 In the commencement of 1809, Napoleon had again quitted 
 Spain in order to conduct the war on the Danube in person. 
 His marshals, left by him in different parts of the Peninsula, 
 took Saragossa, drove the British under Sir John Moore out 
 of the country, and penetrated into Portugal, but were ere long 
 again attacked by a fresh English army under the Duke of 
 Wellington. This rendered the junction of the German 
 troops with the main body of the French army necessary, and 
 they consequently shared in the defeats of Talavera and Al- 
 moncid. Their losses, more particularly in the latter en- 
 gagement, were very considerable, amounting in all to two 
 thousand six hundred men ; among others, General Porbeck 
 of Baden, an officer of noted talent, fell : five hundred of their 
 wounded were butchered after the battle by the infuriated 
 Spaniards. But Wellington suddenly stopped short in his vic- 
 torious career. It was in December, 1809, when the news of 
 the fresh peace concluded by Napoleon with Austria arrived. 
 On the Spaniards hazarding a fresh engagement, Wellington 
 left them totally unassisted, and, on the 19th of November, 
 they suffered a dreadful defeat at Ocasia, where they lost 
 twenty-five thousand men. The Rhenish confederated troops 
 wei'e, in reward for the gallantry displayed by them on this
 
 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 301 
 
 occasion, charged with the transport of the prisoners into 
 France, and were exposed to the whole rigour of the chmate 
 and to every sort of deprivation whilst the French withdrew 
 into winter quarters. The fatigues of this service greatly 
 thinned their ranks. The other German regiments were sent 
 into the Sierra Morena, where they were kept ever on the 
 alert guarding that key to Spain, whilst the French under 
 Soult advanced as far as Cadiz, those under Massena into 
 Portugal, but Soult being unable to take Cadiz and Massena 
 being forced by the Duke of Wellington to retire, the German 
 troops were also driven from their position, and, in 1812, 
 withdrew to Valencia, but, in the October of the same year, 
 again advanced with Soult upon Madrid. 
 
 The second corps of the Rhenish confederated troops was 
 stationed in Catalonia, where they were fully occupied. Their 
 fate has been described by two Saxon officers, Jacobs and von 
 Seebach. In the commencement of 1809, Reding the Swiss, 
 ,who had, in 1808, chiefly contributed to the capture of the 
 French army at Baylen, commanded the whole of the Spanish 
 forces in Catalonia, consisting of forty thousand Spaniards 
 and several thousand Swiss ; but these guerilla troops, almost 
 invincible in petty warfare, were totally unable to stand in 
 open battle against the veterans of the French emperor, and 
 Reding was completely routed by St. Cyr at Taragona. In 
 St. Cyr's army were eight thousand Westplialians under 
 General Morio, three thousand Berglanders, fifteen hundred 
 WUrzburgers, from eight to nine hundred men of Schwarz- 
 burg, Lippe, Waldeck, and Reuss, all of whom were employed 
 in the wearisome siege of Gerona, which was defended by 
 Don Alvarez, one of Spain's greatest heroes. The popular 
 enthusiasm was so intense, that even the women took up 
 arms (in the company of St. Barbara) and aided in the defence 
 of the walls. The Germans, ever destined to head the assaidt, 
 suffered immense losses on each attempt to carry the place by 
 storm. In one attack alone, on the 3rd of July, in which they 
 met with a severe repulse, they lost two thousand of their 
 men. Their demand of a truce for the purpose of carrying their 
 wounded off the field of battle, was answered by a Spaniard, 
 Colonel Bias das Furnas, " A quarter of an hour hence not 
 one of them will be alive ! " and the whole of the wounded 
 men were, in fact, murdered in cold blood by the Spaniards.
 
 302 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 
 
 During a second assault on the 19th of September, sixteen 
 hundred of their number and the gallant Colonel Neuff, an 
 Alsacian, who had served in Egypt, fell. Gerona was finally 
 driven by famine to capitulate, after a sacrifice of twelve 
 thousand men, principally Germans, before her walls. Of the 
 eight thousand Westphalians but one battalion remained. St. 
 Cyr was, in 1810, replaced by Marshal Augereau, but the 
 troops were few in number and worn out with fatigue ; a 
 large convoy was lost in an unlucky engagement, in which 
 numbers of the Germans deserted to the Spanish, and Auge- 
 reau retired to Barcelona, the metropolis of Catalonia, in 
 order to await the arrival of reinforcements, among which was 
 a Nassau regiment, one of Anhalt, and the identical Saxon 
 corps that had so dreadfully suffered in the Tyrol.* The 
 Saxon and Nassau troops, two thousand two hundred strong, 
 under the command of General Schwarz, an Alsacian, ad- 
 vanced from Barcelona towards the celebrated mountain of 
 Montserrat, Avhose hermitages, piled up one above another 
 en amphitheatre, excite the traveller's wonder. Close in its 
 vicinity lay the city of IManresa, the focus of the Catalonian 
 insurrection. The German troops advanced in close column, 
 although surrounded by infuriated multitudes, by whom every 
 straggler was mercilessly butchered. The two regiments, 
 nevertheless, succeeded in making themselves masters of 
 Manresa, where they were instantly shut in, furiously assailed, 
 and threatened with momentary destruction. The Anhalt 
 troops and a French corps, despatched by Augereau to their 
 relief, were repulsed with considerable loss. Schwarz now 
 boldly sallied forth, fought his way through the Spaniards, 
 and, after losing a thousand men, succeeded in reaching Bar- 
 celona, but was shortly afterwards, after assisting at the taking 
 of Hostalrich, surprised at La Bisbal and taken prisoner with 
 almost all the Saxon ti'oops. The iQ\^ that remained fell 
 victims to disease, f The fate of the prisoners was indeed 
 
 * This regiment was merely rewarded by Napoleon for its gallantry 
 with 15 gros (Is. Glc?.) per man, in order to di^ink to his health on his birth- 
 day. — Von Seebach. 
 
 t What the feeling among the Germans was is plainly shown by the 
 charge agauist General Benrmann for general ill-treatment of his country- 
 men, whom he was accused of ha\-ing allowed to perish in the hospitals, 
 in order to save the expense of their return home. Out of seventy oflScers 
 and two thousand four hundred and twenty-three privates belonging to
 
 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 303 
 
 melancholy. Several thousand of them died on the Balearic 
 islands, chiefly on the island of Cabrera, where, naked and 
 houseless, they dug for themselves holes in the sand and died 
 in great numbers of starvation. They often also fell victira-s 
 to the fury of the inhabitants. The Swiss, engaged in the 
 Spanish service, sometimes saved their lives at the hazard of 
 their own. 
 
 Opposed to them was the German legion, composed of the 
 brave Hanoverians, who had preferred exile in Britain to sub- 
 mission to Jerome, and had been sent in British men-of-war 
 to Portugal, whence they had, in conjunction with the troops 
 of England and Spain, penetrated, in 1808, into the interior of 
 Spain.* At Benavente, they made a furious charge upon the 
 French and took their long-delayed revenge. Linsingen's 
 cavalry cut down all before them ; arms were severed at a 
 blow, heads were split in two ; one head was found cut in two 
 across from one ear to the other. A young Hanoverian 
 soldier took General Lefebvre prisoner, but allowed himself to 
 
 be deprived of his valuable captive by an Englishman. 
 
 The Hanoverians served first under Sir John JNIoore. On 
 the death of that commander at Corunna, the troops under his 
 command returned to England. A ship of the line, with two 
 Hanoverian battalions on board, was lost during the passage. 
 The German legion afterwards served under the Duke of 
 Wellington, and shared the dangers and the glory of the war 
 in the Peninsula. " The admirable accuracy and rapidity of 
 the German artillery under Major Hartmann greatly con- 
 tributed to the victory of Talavera, and received the personal 
 encomiums of the Duke." Langwerth's brigade gained equal 
 glory. The German legion was, however, never in full force 
 in Spain. A division was, in 1809, sent to the island of Wal- 
 cheren, but shared the ill-success attending all the attempts 
 made in the North Sea during Napoleon's reign. The con- 
 quest and demolition of Vliessingen in August, was the only 
 
 the Saxon regiment, but thirty-nine officers and three hundred and nine- 
 teen privates returned to their native country. Vide Jacob's Campaigns 
 of the Gotha-Altenburgers and von Seebach's History of the Campaigns 
 of the Saxon Infantry. Von Seebach, who was taken prisoner on his re- 
 turn from Manresa, has given a particularly detailed and graphic account 
 of the campaign. 
 
 * Beamish has recounted their exploits in detail. The " Recollections 
 of a Legionary," Hanover, 1826, are also worthy of perusal.
 
 304 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 
 
 result. A pestilence broke out among the troops, and, on 
 Napoleon's successes in Austria, it was compelled to re- 
 turn to England. A third division, consisting of several 
 Hanoverian regiments, was sent to Sicily, accompanied the 
 expedition to Naples in 1809, and afterwards guarded the 
 rocks of Sicily. The Hanoverians in Spain were also separated 
 into various divisions, each of which gained great distinction, 
 more particularly so, the corps of General Alten in the 
 storming of Ciudad-Rodrigo. In 1812, the Hanoverian cavalry 
 broke three French squares at Garcia Hernandez. 
 
 The Russians had, meanwhile, invaded Sweden. Gustavus 
 Adolphus, hitherto Russia's firmest ally, was suddenly and 
 treacherously attacked. General Buxhovden overran Finn- 
 land, inciting the people, as he advanced, to revolt against 
 their lawful sovereign. But the brave Finnlanders stoutly 
 resisted the attempted imposition of the yoke of the barbarous 
 Russ, and, although ill-supported by Sw^eden, performed pro- 
 digies of valour. Gustavus Adolphus was devoid of military 
 knowledge, and watched, as if sunk in torpor, the ill-planned 
 operations of his generals. Whilst the flower of the Swedish 
 troops was uselessly employed against Denmark and Norway, 
 Finnland was allowed to fall into the grasp of Russia.* The 
 Russians were already expected to land in Sweden, when a 
 conspiracy broke out among the nobility and officers of the 
 army, which terminated in the seizure of the king's person 
 and his deposition, March, 1809. His son, Gustavus Yasa, 
 the present ex-king of Sweden, was excluded from the suc- 
 cession, and his uncle Charles, the imbecile and unworthy 
 duke of Sudermania,"!' was proclaimed king under the title of 
 Charles XIII. He was put up as a scarecrow by the con- 
 spirators. Gustavus Adolphus IV. had, at all events, shown 
 himself incapable of saving Sweden. But the conspirators 
 were no patriots, nor was their object the preservation of their 
 country ; they were merely bribed traitors, weak and incapa- 
 ble as the monarch they had dethroned. They were com- 
 
 * The gallant acts of the Finnlanders and the brutality of the Russians 
 are brought forward in Arndt's " Swedish Histories." 
 
 t When regent, on the death of Gustavus III., he had spared his mur- 
 derers and released those criminated in the conspiracy. On the present 
 occasion, he yielded in every thins? to the aristocracy, and voted for the 
 detlironement of his own house, which, as he had no childi'en, infallibly 
 ensued on the exclusion of the youtliful Gustavus.
 
 NAPOLEON'S SUPREMACY. 305 
 
 posed of a party among the ancient nobility, impatient of the 
 restrictions of a monarchy, and of the younger officers in the 
 army, who ^A•ere filled with enthusiasm for Napoleon. The 
 rejoicings on the occasion of the abdication of Gustavus 
 Adolphus were heightened by the news of the victory gained 
 by Napoleon at Ratisbon, which, at the same time, reached 
 Stockholm. The new and wretched Swedish government in- 
 stantly deferred every thing to Napoleon and humbly solicited 
 his favour ; but Napoleon, to whom the friendship of Eussia 
 was, at that time, of higher importance than the submission 
 of a handful of intriguants in Sweden, received their homage 
 with marked coldness. Finnland, shamefully abandoned in 
 her hour of need, was immediately ceded to Russia, in con- 
 sideration of which, Napoleon graciously restored Rugen and 
 Swedish-Pomerania to Sweden. Charles XIII. adopted as 
 his son and successor. Christian Augustus, prince of Holstein- 
 Augustenburg, who, falling dead off his horse at a review,* 
 the aged and childless monarch was compelled to make a 
 second choice, which fell upon the French general, Berna- 
 dotte, who had, at one time, been a furious Jacobin and had 
 afterwards acted as Napoleon's general and commandant in 
 Swedish-Pomerania, where he had, by his mildness, gained 
 great popularity. The majority in Sweden deemed him merely 
 a creature of Napoleon, whose favour they hoped to gain by 
 this flattering choice ; others, it may be, already beheld in 
 him Napoleon's future foe, and knew the value of the sagacity 
 and wisdom with which he was endowed and of which the 
 want was so deeply felt in Sweden at a period when intrigue 
 and cunning had succeeded to violence. The free-masons, 
 with whom he had placed himself in close communication, 
 appeared to have greatly influenced his election. f The un- 
 fortunate king, Gustavus Adolplius, after being long kept a 
 close prisoner in the castle of Gripsholm, Vv'here his strong 
 religious bias had been strengthened by apparitions,^ was 
 permitted to retire into Germany ; he disdainfully refused to 
 
 * An extremely suspicious accident, which gave rise to many reports. 
 
 t Vide Posselt's Sixth Annual. 
 
 X This castle was haunted by the ghost of King Eric XIV., who had 
 long pined here in close imprisonment, and who had once before, during 
 a sumptuous entertainment given by Gustavus Adolphus IV. to his brother- 
 in-law, the Margrave of Baden, struck the whole court with terror by his 
 shrieks and ijroans.
 
 306 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 accept of a pension, separated himself from his consort, a 
 princess of Baden, and lived in proud povert)% under the 
 
 name of Colonel Gustavson, in Switzerland. Bernadotte, 
 
 the newly-adopted prince, took the title of Charles John, 
 crown-prince of Sweden. Napoleon, who was in ignorance 
 of this intrigue, was taken by surprise, but, in the hope of 
 Bernadotte's continued fidelity, presented him with a million 
 €71 cadeau ; Bernadotte had, however, been long jealous of 
 Napoleon's fortune, and, solely intent upon gaining the hearts 
 of his futui'e subjects, deceived him and secretly permitted the 
 British to trade with Sweden, although publicly a party in 
 the continental system. 
 
 This system was at this period enforced with exaggerated 
 severity by Napoleon. He not only prohibited the importa- 
 tion of all British goods, but seized all already sent to the 
 continent and condemned them to be publicly burnt. IMillious 
 evaporated in smoke, principally at Amsterdam, Hamburg, 
 Frankfurt, and Leipzig. The wealthiest mercantile establish- 
 ments were made bankrupt. 
 
 In addition to the other blows at that time zealously be- 
 stowed upon the dead German lion, the king of Denmark at- 
 tempted to extirpate the German language in Schleswig, but 
 the edict to that effect, published on the 19th of January, 
 1811, was frustrated by the courage of the clergy, school- 
 masters, and peasantry, who obstinately refused to learn 
 Danish.* 
 
 CCLIX, The Russian campaign. 
 
 An enormous comet, that during the whole of the hot 
 summer of 1811 hung threatening in the heavens, appeared as 
 the harbinger of great and important vicissitudes to the en- 
 slaved inhabitants of the earth, and it was in truth by an act of 
 Divine providence that a dispute arose between the two giant 
 powers intent upon the partition of Europe. 
 
 Napoleon was over-reached by Russia, whose avarice, far 
 from being glutted by the possession of Finnland, great part 
 of Prussian and Austrian Poland, Moldavia, and Wallachia, 
 still craved for more, and who built her hopes of Napoleon's 
 compliance with her demands on his value for her friendship. 
 * Wimpfen, History of Schleswig.
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 307 
 
 Belgrade was seized, Servia demanded, and the whole of 
 Turkey in Europe was openly grasped at. Napoleon was, 
 however, little inclined to concede the Mediterranean to his 
 Russian ally, to whose empire he gave the Danube as a 
 boundary. Russia next demanded possession of the duchy of 
 Warsaw, Avhich was refused by Napoleon. The Austrian 
 marriage was meanwhile concluded. Napoleon, prior to his 
 demand for the hand of the archduchess j\Iaria Louisa, had 
 sued for that of the grand-duchess Anna, sister to the emperor 
 Alexander, who was then in her 16th year, but, being re- 
 fused by her mother, the empress Maria, a princess of Wiir- 
 temberg, and Alexander delaying a decisive answer, he 
 formed an alliance with the Habsburg. This event naturally 
 led Russia to conclude that she would no longer be permitted 
 to aggrandize herself at the expense of Austria, and Alexander 
 consequently assumed a threatening posture and condescended 
 to listen to the complaints, hitherto condemned to silence, of the 
 agricultural and mercantile classes. No Russian vessel durst 
 venture out to sea, and a Russian fleet had been seized by the 
 British in the harbours of Lisbon. At Riga lay immense 
 stores of grain in want of a foreign market. On the 31 st of 
 December, 1810, Alexander published a fresh tariff permit- 
 ting the importation of colonial products under a neutral flag, 
 (several hundred English ships arrived under the American 
 flag,) and prohibiting the importation of French manufactured 
 goods. Not many weeks previously, on the 13th of December, 
 Napoleon had annexed Oldenburg to France. The duke, Peter, 
 was nearly related to the emperor of Russia, and Napoleon, 
 notwithstanding liis declared readiness to grant a compensa- 
 tion, refused to allow it to consist of the grand-duchy of War- 
 saw and proposed a duchy of Erfurt, as yet uncreated, which 
 Russia scornfully rejected. 
 
 The alliance between Russia, Sweden, and England was 
 now speedily concluded. Sweden, who had vainly de- 
 manded from Napoleon the possession of Norway and a large 
 supply of money, assumed a tone of indignation, threw open 
 her harbours to the British merchantmen, and so openly 
 carried on a contraband trade in Pomerania, that Napoleon, 
 in order to maintain the continental system, was constrained 
 to garrison Swedish Pomerania and Riigen and to disarm the 
 Swedish inhabitants. Bernadotte, upon this, ranged himself 
 
 X 2
 
 308 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 entirely on the side of his opponents, Avithout, however, com- 
 ing to an open rupture, for which he awaited a declaration on 
 the part of Russia. The expressions made use of by Napo- 
 leon on the birth of the king of Rome at length filled up the 
 measure of provocation. Intoxicated with success, he boasted, 
 in an address to the mercantile classes, that he would in 
 despite of Russia maintain the continental system, for he was 
 lord over the whole of continental Europe : that if Alexander 
 had not concluded a treaty with him at Tilsit, he would have 
 
 compelled him to do so at Petersburg. The pride of the 
 
 haughty Russian was deeply wounded, and a rupture was 
 nigh at hand. 
 
 Two secret systems were at this period undermining each 
 other in Prussia, that of the Tugenbimd founded by Stein 
 and Scharnhorst, whose object being the liberation of Ger- 
 many at all hazards from the yoke of Napoleon, consequently, 
 favoured Russia, and that of Hardenberg, which aimed at 
 a close union with France. Hardenberg, whose position as 
 chancellor of state gave him the upper hand, had compromised 
 Prussia by the servility with which he sued for an alliance, 
 long scornfully refused and at length conceded on the most 
 humiliating terms by Napoleon.* 
 
 Russia had, meanwhile, made preparations for a war unan- 
 ticipated by Napoleon. As early as 1811, a great Russian 
 army stood ready for the invasion of Poland, and might, as 
 there were at that time but few French troops in Germany, 
 easily have advanced as far as the Elbe. It remained, never- 
 theless, in a state of inactivity.| Napoleon instantly pre- 
 pared for war and fortified Dantzig. His continual proposals 
 of peace, ever unsatisfactory to the ambition of the czar, 
 remaining at length unanswered, he declared war. The 
 Rhenish confederation followed as usual in his train, and 
 Austria, from an interested motive, the hope of regaining in 
 the East by Napoleon's assistance all she had lost by opposing 
 him in the West, or that of regaining her station as the third 
 European power when the resources of the two ruling powers, 
 
 * Vide Bignon. 
 
 t From a letter of Count Miinster in Hormayr's Sketches of Life, it 
 ;^.ppeiu"s that Russia still cherished the hope of great concessions being 
 made by Napoleon in order to avoid -war and was therefore still resened 
 in her relations with England and the Prussian patriots.
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 309 
 
 whose coalition had threatened her existence, had been ex- 
 hausted by war. Prussia also followed the eagles of Napo- 
 leon : the Hardenberg party, with a view of conciliating hiin, 
 and, like the Rhenish confederation, from motives of gain : 
 the Tugendhund, which predominated in the army, with silent 
 but implacable hate. 
 
 In the spring of 1812, Napoleon, after leaving a sufficient 
 force to prosecute the war with activity in Spain and to 
 guard France, Italy, and Germany,* led half a million men to 
 the Russian frontiers. Before taking the field, he convoked 
 all the princes of Germany to Dresden, where he treated 
 them with such extreme insolence as even to revolt his most 
 favoured and warmest partisans. Tears were seen to start 
 in ladies' eyes, whilst men bit their lips with rage at the petty 
 humiliations and affronts heaped on them by their powerful 
 but momentary lord. The empress of Austria f and the king 
 of Prussia! appear, on this occasion, to have felt the most 
 acutely. 
 
 For the first time — an event unknown in the history of the 
 world — the whole of Germany was reduced to submission. 
 Napoleon, greater than conquering Attila, who took the field 
 at the head of one half of Germany against the other, dragged 
 the whole of Germany in his train. The army led by him to 
 the steppes of Russia was principally composed of German 
 troops, who were so skilfully mixed up with the French as 
 not to be themselves aware of their numerical superiority. 
 
 * French troops garrisoned German fortresses and perpetually passed 
 along the principal roads, -Nvhich were for that purpose essentially im- 
 proved by Napoleon. In 1810, a great part of the to^^'n of Eisenach was 
 destroyed by the bursting of some French powder-carts that were care- 
 lessly brought through, and by which great numbers of people were 
 killed. 
 
 t Who was far surpassed in splendour by her stop-daughter of France. 
 
 X Segur relates that he Avas received politely but with distant coolness 
 liy Napoleon. There is said to have been question between them con- 
 cerning the marriage of the crown-prince of Prussia with one of Napo- 
 leon's nieces, and of an incorporation of the still unconqucred Russian 
 provinces on the Baltic, Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia, with Prussia. 
 All was, however, empty show. Napoleon hoped by the rapidity of his 
 successes to constrain the emperor of Russia to conclude not only peace 
 but a still closer alliance with France, in which case it was as far from his 
 intention to concede the above-mentioned provinces to Prussia as to eman- 
 cipate the Poles.
 
 310 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 The right wing, composed of thirty thousand Austrians under 
 Schwarzenberg, was destined for the invasion of Volhynia; 
 whilst the left wing, consisting of twenty thousand Prus- 
 sians under York and several thousand French, under the 
 command of IVIarshal Macdonald, Avas ordered to advance 
 upon the coasts of the Baltic and without loss of time to be- 
 siege Riga. The centre or main body consisted of the troops 
 of the Rhenish confederation, more or less mixed up with 
 Frencli ; of thirty-eight thousand Bavarians under AVrede and 
 commanded by St. Cyr ; of sixteen thousand Wiirtembergers 
 under Scheeler, over which Marshal Ney was allotted the chief 
 command ; single regiments, principally cavalry, were drawn 
 off in order more thoroughly to intermix the Germans with the 
 French ; of seventeen thousand Saxons under Reynier ; of 
 eighteen thousand "Westphalians under Vandamme ; also of 
 Hessians, Badeners, Frankfurters, AViirzburgers, Nassauers, in 
 short, of contingents furnished by each of the confederated states. 
 The Swiss were mostly concentrated under Oudinot. The 
 Dutch, Hanseatic, Flemish, in fine, all the Germans on the left 
 bank of the Rhine, were at that time crammed amongst the 
 French troops. Upwards of two hundred thousand Germans, 
 at the lowest computation, marched against Russia, a number 
 for superior to that of the French in the army, the remainder 
 of which was made up by several thousand Italians, Portu- 
 guese, and Spaniards, who had been pressed into the service.* 
 The Prussians found themselves in the most degraded 
 position. Tlieir army, weak as it was in numbers, was 
 placed under the command of a French general. The Prus- 
 sian fortresses, with the exception of Colberg, Graudenz, 
 Schweidnitz, Xeisse, and Glatz, were already garrisoned 
 with French troops, or, like Pillau near Konigsberg, newly 
 occupied by them. In Berlin, the French had unlimited 
 sway. Marshal Augereau was stationed with sixty thousand 
 men in Northern Germany for the purpose of keeping that 
 part of the country, and more particularly Prussia, in check 
 to Napoleon's rear ; the Danish forces also stood in readiness 
 to support him in case of necessity. Napoleon's entire army 
 moreover marched through Prussia and completely drained 
 that country of its last resources. Napoleon deemed it un- 
 
 * Napoleon said at that time to a Russian, " Si vous perdez cinq 
 Russes, je ne perds qu'un Francais et quatre cochons." 
 
 I
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 311 
 
 necessary to take measures equal in severity towards Austria, 
 where the favour of the court seemed to be secured by bis 
 marriage, and the allegiance of the army by the presence of 
 Schwarzenberg, who neither rejected nor returned his con- 
 fidence. A rich compensation was, by a secret compact, se- 
 cured to Austria in case the cession of Gallicia should be neces- 
 sitated by the expected restoration of the kingdom of Poland, 
 with which Napoleon had long flattered the Poles, who, mis- 
 led by his promises, served him with the greatest enthusiasm. 
 But, notwithstanding the removal of the only obstacle, the 
 jealousy of Austria in regard to Gallicia, by this secret com- 
 pact, his promises remained unfulfilled, and he took possession 
 of the whole of Poland without restoring her ancient inde- 
 pendence. The petitions addressed to him on this subject by 
 the Poles received dubious replies, and he pursued towards 
 his unfortunate dupes his ancient system of dismembering and 
 intermingling nations, of tolerating no national unity. Napo- 
 leon's principal motive, howevei", was his expectation of com- 
 pelling the emperor by a well-aimed blow to conclude peace, 
 and of forming with him an alliance upon still more favour- 
 able terms against the rest of the European powers. The 
 friendship of Russia was of far more imjiort to him than all 
 the enthusiasm of the Poles. 
 
 The deep conviction harboured by Napoleon, of liis irre- 
 sistible power led him to repay every service and to regard 
 every antagonist with contempt. Confident of victory, he 
 deviated from the strict military discipline he had at one time 
 enforced and of which he had given an example in his own 
 person, dragged in his train a multitude of useless attendants 
 fitted but for pomp and luxury, permitted his marshals and 
 generals to do the same, and an incredible number of private 
 carriages, servants, women, etc., to follow in the rear of the 
 army, to hamper its movements, create confusion, and aid in 
 consuming the army stores, which being, moreover, merely 
 provided for a short campaign, speedily became insufficient for 
 the maintenance of the enormous mass. Even in Eastern 
 Prussia, numbers of the soldiery were constrained by want to 
 plunder the villages. On the 24th of June, 1812, Napo- 
 leon crossed the Niemen, the Russian frontier, not far from 
 Kowno. The season was already too far advanced. It may 
 be that, deceived by the mildness of the winter of 1806 to
 
 312 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 1807, lie imagined it possible to protract the campaign with- 
 out peril to himself until the winter months. No enemy ap- 
 peared to oppose his progress. Barclay de Tolly,* ,the Rus- 
 sian commander-in-chief, pursued the system followed by the 
 Scythians against Darius, and, perpetually retiring before 
 the enemy, gradually drew him deep into the dreary and 
 deserted steppes. This plan originated with Scharnhorst, 
 by whom General Lieven was advised not to hazard an en- 
 gagement until the winter, and to turn a deaf ear to every 
 proposal of peaccf General Lieven, on reaching Barclay's 
 head-quarters, took Colonel Toll, a German, Barclay's right 
 hand, and Lieutenant-Colonel Clausewitz, also a German, 
 afterwards noted for his strategical works, into his con- 
 fidence. General PfuU, another German, at that time high 
 in the emperor's confidence, and almost all the Russian 
 generals opposed Scharnhorst's plan and continued to ad- 
 vance with a view of giving battle : but, on Napoleon's ap- 
 pearance at the head of an army greatly their superior in 
 number before the Russians had been able to concentrate 
 their forces, they were naturally compelled to retire before 
 him, and, on the prevention, for some weeks, of the junction 
 of a newly-levied Russian army under Prince Bragation 
 with the forces under Barclay, owing to the rapidity of Na- 
 poleon's advance, Scharnhorst's plan was adopted as the only 
 one feasible. 
 
 Napoleon, in the hope of overtaking the Russians and of 
 compelling them to give battle, pushed onwards by forced 
 marches ; the supplies were unable to follow, and numbers of 
 the men and horses sank from exhaustion owing to over- 
 fatigue, heat, and hunger.^ On the arrival of Napoleon in 
 Witebst, of Schwarzenberg in Yolhynia, of the Prussians 
 before Riga, the army might have halted, reconquered Poland 
 
 * This general, on the opening of the war, published a proclamatiou 
 to the Germans, summoning them to throw off the yoke of Napoleon. — 
 Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 327. Napoleon replied with, " Whom are you 
 addressing ? There are no Germans, there are only Austrians, Prussians, 
 Bavarians, etc." — All. Zeitung, No. 228. 
 
 t Vide Clausewitz's Works. 
 
 X At each encampment the men were left in such numbers in hastily 
 erected hospitals, that of thirty-eight thousand Bavarians, for instance, 
 but ten thousand, of sixteen thousand Wiirtembergers, but thirteen 
 hundred reached Smolensko.
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 313 
 
 have been organized, the men put into winter-quarters, the 
 army have again taken the field early in the spring, and the 
 conquest of Russia have been slowly but surely completed. 
 But Napoleon had resolved upon terminating the war in one 
 rapid campaign, upon defeating the Russians, seizing their 
 metropolis, and dictating terms of peace, and incessantly pur- 
 sued his retreating opponent, whose footsteps were marked 
 by the flames of the cities and villages and by the devastated 
 country to their rear. The first serious opposition Avas made at 
 Smolensko,* whence the Russians, however, speedily retreated 
 after setting the city on fire. On the same day, the Bavarians, 
 who had diverged to one side during their advance, had a 
 furious encounter, in which General Deroy, formerly dis- 
 tinguished for his services in the Tyrol, was killed, at Poloczk 
 with a body of Russian troops under Wittgenstein. The 
 Bavarians remained stationary in this part of the country for 
 the purpose of watching the movements of that general, 
 whilst Napoleon, cai-eless of the peril with which he was 
 threatened by the 'approach of winter and by the multitude 
 of enemies gathering to his rear, advanced with the main 
 body of the grand army from Smolensko across the wasted 
 country upon Moscow, the ancient metropolis of the Russian 
 empire. 
 
 Russia, at that time engaged in a war with Turkey, whose 
 frontiers were watched by an immense army under Kutusow, 
 used her utmost efix)rts, in which she was aided by England, 
 to conciliate the Porte in order to turn the whole of her 
 forces against Napoleon. By a master-stroke of political in- 
 trigue, f the Porte, besides concluding peace at Bucharest on 
 the 28th of May, ceded the province of Bessarabia (not Mol- 
 davia and Wallachia) to Russia. A Russian army under 
 
 * The Wiirtembergers distinguished themselves here by storming the 
 faubourgs and the bridges across the Dnieper. 
 
 t The Greek prince, IMoruzi, who at that time conducted Turkish 
 diplomacy, accepted a bribe, and concluded peace in the expectation of 
 becoming Prince of Moldavia and Wallachia. Sultan Mahmud refusing 
 to ratify this disgraceful treaty, gold was showered upon the Turkish 
 army, which suddenly dispersed, and the deserted sultan was compelled 
 to yield. Moruzi was deprived of his head, but the Russians had gained 
 their object. It must, moreover, be considered that Napoleon was re- 
 garded -svith distrust by the Porte, against whom he had fought in Egj^pt, 
 whom he had afterwards enticed into a war with Russia and had, by 
 the alliance formed at Erfurt with that power, abandoned.
 
 814 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Tschitschakow was now enabled to drive the Austrians out 
 of Volhynia, whilst a considerable force under Kutusow 
 joined Barclay. Had the Russians at this time hazarded an 
 engagement, their defeat was certain. Moscow could not 
 have been saved. Barclay consequently resolved not to come 
 to an engagement, but to husband his forces and to attack the 
 French during the winter. The intended surrender of Mos- 
 cow without a blow was, nevertheless, deeply resented as a 
 national disgrace ; the army and the people* raised a clamour, 
 the venerable Kutusow was nominated commander-in-chief, 
 and, taking up a position on the little river Moskwa near Bo- 
 rodino, about two days' journey from Moscow, a bloody en- 
 gagement took place there on the 7th of September, in wliich 
 Napoleon, in order to spare his guards, neglected to follow up 
 his advantage with his usual energy and allowed the de- 
 feated Russians, whom he might have totally amiihilated, to 
 escape. Napoleon triumphed ; but at what a price ! After 
 a fearful struggle, in which he lost forty thousand men in 
 killed and wounded, f the latter of whom perished almost to a 
 man, owing to want and neglect.| 
 
 Moscow was now both defenceless and void of inhabitants. 
 Napoleon traversed this enormous city, containing two hun- 
 dred and ninety-five churches and fifteen hundred palaces 
 rising from amid a sea of inferior dwellings, and took posses- 
 sion of the residence of the czars, the 14th of November, 
 1812, The whole city Avas, however, deserted, and scarcely 
 had the French army taken up its quarters in it than flames 
 burst from the empty and closely shut- up houses, and, ere 
 long, the whole of the immense city became a sea of fire and 
 was reduced, before Napoleon's eyes, to ashes. Every attempt 
 
 * Colonel Toll -^-as insulted during the discussion by Prince Braga- 
 tion for the firmness with which he upheld Scharnhorst's plan, and 
 avoided hazarding a useless engagement. Prince Bragation was killed 
 in the battle. 
 
 t A Russian redoubt, the key of the field of battle, was taken and 
 again lost. A Wiirtemberg regiment instantly pushed through the fugi- 
 tive French, retook the redoubt and retained possession of it. It also, 
 on this occasion, saved tlie life of the king of Naples and delivered him 
 out of the hands of the Russians, who had already taken him prisoner. 
 — Ten Campaigns of the Wurtenihergers. 
 
 X Every thing was wanting, lint, linen, even necessary food. The 
 wounded men lay for days and weeks under the open sky and fed upon 
 the carcasses of horses.
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 315 
 
 to extinguish the flames proved unavailing. Eostopchin, the 
 commandant of Moscow, had, previously to his retreat, put 
 combustible materials, which were ignited on the entrance of 
 the French by men secreted for that purpose, into the houses.* 
 A violent wind aided the work of destruction. The patriotic 
 sacrifice was performed, nor failed its object. Napoleon, in- 
 stead of peace and plenty, merely found ashes in Moscow. 
 
 Instead of pursuing the defeated Russians to Kaluga, 
 where, in pursuance of Toll's first laid-down plan, they took up 
 a position close upon the flank of the French and threatened 
 to impede their retreat ; instead of taking up his winter-quar- 
 ters in the fertile South or of quickly turning and fixing him- 
 self in Lithuania in order to collect reinforcements for the 
 ensuing year. Napoleon remained in a state of inaction at 
 Moscow until the 19th of October, in expectation of proposals 
 of peace from Alexander. The terms of peace offered by him 
 on his part to the Russians did not even elicit a reply. His 
 cavalry, already reduced to a great state of exhaustion, were, in 
 the beginning of October, surprised before the city of Tarutino 
 and repulsed with considerable loss. This at length decided 
 Napoleon upon marching upon Kaluga, but the moment for 
 success had ali'eady passed. The reinforced and inspirited 
 Russians made such a desperate resistance at Malo- Jaroslawez 
 that he resolved to retire by the nearest route, that by which 
 he had penetrated up the country, marked by ashes and pes- 
 tilential corpses, into Lithuania. Winter had not yet set in, 
 and his ranks were already thinned by famine.f Kutusow, 
 with the main body of the Russian army, pursued the retreat- 
 ing French and again overtook them at Wiazma, 3rd Novem- 
 ber. Napoleon's hopes now rested on the separate corps 
 d'armee left to his rear on his advance upon Moscow, but they 
 were, notwithstanding the defeat of Wittgenstein's corps by 
 the Bavarians under Wrede, kept in check by fresh Russian 
 armies and exposed to all the hon-ors of winter. J In Vol- 
 
 * This combustible matter had been prepared by Schraid, the Dutch- 
 man, under pretext of preparing an enormous balloon from -which fire was 
 to be scattered upon the French army. 
 
 t As early as the 2nd of November the remainder of the Wiirtem- 
 bergers tore off their colours and concealed them in their knapsacks. — 
 Roos's Memorabilia of 18 1*2. 
 
 X On the 18th of October, the Bavarians, who were intermixed with 
 Swiss, perfonned prodigies of valour, but were so reduced by sufferings
 
 316 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 hynia, Scliwarzenberg had zealously endeavoured to — spare 
 his troops,* and had, by his retreat towards the grand-duchy 
 of Warsaw, left Tschitschakow at liberty to turn his arms 
 against Napoleon, against whom Wittgenstein also advanced 
 in the design of blocking up his route, whilst Kutusow inces- 
 santly assailed his flank and rear. On the 6th of November, 
 the frost suddenly set in. The horses died by thousands in a 
 single night ; the greater part of the cavalry was conse- 
 quently dismounted, and it was found necessary to abandon 
 part of the booty and artillery. A deep snow shortly after- 
 wards fell and obstructed the path of the fugitive army. The 
 frost became more and more rigorous ; but few of the men 
 had sufficient strength left to continue to carry their arms 
 and to cover the flight of the rest. Most of the soldiers 
 threw away their arms and merely endeavoured to preserve 
 
 of every description as to be unable to maintain Poloczk. Segur says 
 in his History of the War, that St. Cyr left Wrede's gallant conduct un- 
 mentioned in the military despatches, and that when, on St. Cyr's being 
 disabled by his wounds, Wrede applied for the chief command, which 
 naturally reverted to him, the army being almost entirely composed of 
 Bavarians, Napoleon refused his request. Vijlderndorf says in his Ba- 
 varian Campaigns, that St. Cyr faithlessly abandoned the I3avarians in 
 their utmost extremity, and when all peril was over returned to Poland in 
 order to retake the command. During the retreat from Poloczk he had 
 ordered the bridges to be pulled downi, leaving on the other side a Bava- 
 rian park of artillery with the army chest and two and twenty ensigns, 
 which for better security had been packed upon a carriage. The whole 
 of these trophies fell, owing to St. Cyr's negligence or ill-will, into the 
 hands of the Russians. " The Bavarians with difficulty concealed their 
 antipathy towards the French." On St. Cyr's flight, Wrede kept the 
 remainder of the Bavarians together, covered Napoleon's retreat, and, in 
 conjunction with the Westphalians and Hessians, stood another encounter 
 with the Russians at Wilna. Misery and Avant at length scattered his 
 forces; he, nevertheless, re-assembled them in Poland and was able to 
 place four thousand men, on St. Cyr's return, under his command. He 
 returned home to Bavaria sick. Of these four thousand Bavarians but 
 one thousand and fifty were led by Count Rechberg back to their natiA'e 
 soil. A great number of Bavarians, however, remained under General 
 ZoUer to garrison Thorn, and about fifteen hundred of them returned 
 
 home. At the passage of the Beresina, the Wiirtembergers had still 
 
 about eighty men under arms, and in Poland about three hundred assem- 
 bled, the only ones who returned free. Some were afterwards liberated 
 from imprisonment in Russia. 
 
 * This was Austria's natural policy. In the French despatches, 
 Schwarzenberg was charged with having allowed Tschitschakow to escape 
 in order to pursue the inconsiderable force under Sacken.
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 317 
 
 life. Napoleon's grand army was scattered over the boundless 
 snow-covered steppes, whose dreary monotony was solely 
 broken by some desolate half-burnt village. Gaunt forms of 
 famine, wan, hollow-eyed, wrapped in strange garments of 
 misery, skins, women's clothes, etc., and with long-grown 
 beards, dragged their faint and weary limbs along, fought for 
 a dead horse whose flesh was greedily torn from the carcass, 
 murdered each other for a morsel of bread, and fell one after 
 the other in the deep snow, never again to rise. Bones of 
 frozen corpses lay each morn around the dead ashes of the 
 night fires.* Numbei's were seen to spring, with a horrid cry 
 of mad exultation, into the flaming houses. Numbers fell into 
 the hands of the Russian boors, who stripped them naked and 
 chased them through the snow. Smolensk© was at length 
 reached, but the loss of the greater part of the cannon, the 
 want of ammunition and provisions, rendered their stay in 
 that deserted and half-consumed city impossible. The flight 
 was continued, the Russians incessantly pursuing and harass- 
 ing the worn-out troops, whose retreat was covered by Ney 
 with all the men still under arms. Cut off at Smolensko, he 
 escaped almost by miracle, by creeping during the night along 
 the banks of the Dnieper and successively repulsing the 
 several Russian corps that threw themselves in his way.f A 
 thaw now took place, and the Beresina, which it was neces- 
 sary to ci'oss, was full of drift ice, its banks were slippery and 
 impassable, and moreover commanded by Tschitschakow's 
 artillery, Avhilst the roar of cannon to the rear announced 
 Wittgenstein's approach. Kutusow had this time failed to 
 advance with sufficient rapidity, and Napoleon, the river to 
 his front and enclosed between the Russian armies, owed his 
 escape to the most extraordinary good luck. The corps darmee 
 under Oudinot and Victor, that had been left behind on his 
 
 * The following anecdote is related of the Hessians commanded by 
 Prince Emilius of Darmstadt. The prince had fallen asleep in the snow, 
 and four Hessian dragoons, in order to screen him from the north wind, 
 held their cloaks as a wall aroimd him and were found nest morning in 
 the same position — frozen to death. Dead bodies were seen frozen into 
 the most extraordinary positions, gnawing their own hands, gnawing 
 the torn corpses of their comrades. The dead were often covered with 
 snow, and the number of little heaps lying around alone told that of the 
 victims of a single night. 
 
 t Napoleon said, "There are two hundred millions lying in the cellars 
 of the Tuilleries ; how willingly would I give them to save Ney I "
 
 318 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 
 
 advance upon Moscow, came at the moment of need with fresh 
 troops to his aid. Tschitschakow quitted the bank at the spot 
 where Napoleon intended to make the passage of the Beresina 
 under an idea of the attempt being made at another point. 
 Napoleon instantly threw two bridges across the stream, and 
 all the able-bodied men crossed in safety. At the moment 
 when the bi'idges, that had several times given way, were 
 choked up by the countless throng bringing up the rear, 
 Wittgenstein appeared and directed his heavy artillery upon 
 the motionless and unarmed crowd. Some regiments, form- 
 ing the rear-guard, fell, together with all still remaining on 
 the other side of the river, into the hands of the Russians. 
 
 The fugitive army was, after this fearful day, relieved, but 
 the temperature again fell to twenty-seven degrees below 
 zero, and the stoutest hearts and frames sank. On the 5th of 
 December, Napoleon, placing himself in a sledge, hurried in 
 advance of his army, nay, preceded the news of liis disaster, 
 in order at all events to insure his personal safety and to pass 
 through Germany before measures could be taken for his 
 capture.* His fugitive army shortly afterwards reached 
 Wilna, but was too exhausted to maintain that position. 
 Enormous magazines, several prisoners, and the rest of the 
 booty, besides six million francs in silver money, fell here into 
 the hands of the Russians. Part of the fugitives escaped to 
 Dantzig, but few crossed the Oder ; the Saxons under Rey- 
 nier were routed and dispersed in a last engagement at Ca- 
 lisch ; Poniatowsky and the Poles retired to Cracow on the 
 Austrian frontier, as it were, protected by Schwarzenberg, who 
 remained unassailed by the Russians, and whose neutrality 
 was, not long afterwards, formally recognised. 
 
 The Prussians, who had been, meanwhile, occupied with 
 
 * He passed with extreme rapidity, incognito, through Germany. In 
 Dresden he had a short interview with tlie king of Saxony, who, had he 
 shut him up at Konigstein, would have saved Europe a good deal of 
 
 trouble. Napoleon no sooner reached Paris in safety than, in his 
 
 twenty-ninth bulletin, he, for the first time, acquainted the astonished 
 world, hitherto deceived by his false accounts of victory, with the dis- 
 astrous termination of the campaign. This bulletin was also replete with 
 falsehood and insolence. In his contempt of humanity he even said, 
 " Merely the cowards in the army were depressed in spirit and dreamed 
 of misfortune, the brave were ever cheerful." Thus wrote the man who 
 had both seen and caused all this immeasurable misery ! The bulletin 
 concluded with, " His Imperial Majesty never enjoyed better health."
 
 THE SPRING OF 1813. 319 
 
 the unsuccessful siege of Riga, and who, like the Austrians, 
 had comparatively husbanded their strength,* were now the 
 only hope of the fugitive French. The troops under Mac- 
 donald, accordingly, received orders to cover the retreat of the 
 grand army, but York, instead of obeying, concluded a neutral 
 treaty with the Russians commanded by Diebitsch of Silesia 
 and remained stationary in Eastern Prussia. The king of 
 Prussia, at that time stiU at Berlin and in the power of the 
 French, publiclyf disapproved of the step taken by his general, J 
 who was, on the evacuation of Berlin by the French, as pub- 
 licly rewarded. 
 
 The immense army of the conqueror of the world was 
 totally annihilated. Of those who entered Moscow scarcely 
 twenty thousand, of the half million of men Avho crossed the 
 Russian frontier but eighty thousand, returned. 
 
 CCLX. The spring 0/ 1813. 
 
 The king of Prussia had suddenly abandoned Berlin, which 
 was still in the hands of the French, for Breslau, whence he 
 
 * In the French despatches, General Hiinerbein was accused of not 
 having pursued the Russians under General Lewis. 
 
 t The secret history of those days is still not sufficiently brought to 
 light. Bignon speaks of fresh treaties between Hardenberg and Napo- 
 leon, in which he is corroborated by Fain. These two Frenchmen, the 
 former of whom was a diplomatist, the other one of Napoleon's private 
 secretaries, admit that Prussia's object at that time was to take advan- 
 tage of Napoleon's embarrassment and to offer him aid on certain im- 
 portant considerations. Prussian historians are silent in this matter. In 
 Von Rauschnik's biographical account of Bliicher, the great internal 
 schism at that time caused in Prussia by the Hardenberg party and that 
 of the Tugendbund is merely slightly hinted at; the former still managed 
 diplomatic affairs, whilst York, a member of the latter, had already acted on 
 his ovm rasponsibility. Shortly afterwards, affairs took a different aspect, 
 as if Hardenberg's diplomacy had merely been a mask, and he placed 
 himself at the head of the movement against France. In a memorial of 
 1811, given by Hormayr in the Sketches from the War of Liberation, Har- 
 denberg declared decisively in favour of the alliance with Russia against 
 France. 
 
 X Hans Louis David von York, a native of Pomerania, having ventured, 
 when a lieutenant in the Prussian service, indignantly to blame the base 
 conduct of one of his superiors in command, became implicated in a 
 duel, was confined in a fortress, abandoned his country, entered the 
 Dutch service, visited the Cape and Ceylon, fought against the Mahrattas, 
 was wounded, returned home and re-entered the Prussian service in 1794.
 
 320 THE SPRING OF 1813. 
 
 declared war against France. A conference also took place 
 between him and the emperor Alexander at Calisch, and, on 
 the 28th of February, 1813, an offensive and defensive alli- 
 ance was concluded between them. The hour for vengeance 
 had at length arrived. The whole Prussian nation, eager to 
 throw off the hated yoke of the foreigner, to oblitei*ate their 
 disgrace in 1806, to regain their ancient name, cheerfully 
 hastened to place their lives and property at the service of 
 the impoverished government. The whole of the able-bodied 
 population was put under arms. The standing army was in- 
 creased : to each regiment were appended troops of volunteers, 
 Jcegers, composed of young men belonging to the higher 
 classes, Avho furnished their own equipments : a numerous 
 Landwehr, a sort of militia, was, as in Austria, raised be- 
 sides the standing ai-my, and measures were even taken to 
 call out, in case of necessity, the heads of families and elderly 
 men remaining at home, under the name of the Landsturm* 
 The enthusiastic people, besides furnishing the customary 
 supplies and paying the taxes, contributed to the full extent of 
 their means towards defraying the immense expense of this 
 general arming. Every heart throbbed high with pride and 
 hope. Who would not wish to have lived at such a period, 
 when man's noblest and highest energies were thus called 
 forth I ]More loudly than even in 1809 in Austria Avas 
 the German cause now discussed, the great name of tlie Ger- 
 man empire now invoked in Prussia, for in that name alone 
 could all the races of Germany be united against their here- 
 ditary foe. The celebrated proclamation, promising external 
 and internal liberty to Germany, was, with this view, pub- 
 lished at Calisch by Prussia and Russia, f Nor was the ap- 
 
 * Literally, the general levy of the people. — Translator. 
 
 t The folloAving proclamation was published at Calisch on the 25tli 
 of March, 1813, was signed by Prince Kutiisow and dra^vTi up by Baron 
 Rehdiger of Silesia. 
 
 " The victorious troops of Russia together \\\\X\ those of his Majesty 
 the king of Prussia havhig set foot on German soil, the emperor of Rus- 
 sia and his Majesty the king of Prussia announce simultaneously the 
 return of liberty and independence to the princes and nations of Ger- 
 many. They come with the sole and sacred purpose of aiding them to 
 regain the hereditary and inalienable national rights of which they have 
 been deprived, to afford potent protection and to seciure durability to a 
 newly-restored empire. This great object, free from every interested 
 motive and therefore alone worthy of their Majesties, has solely induced
 
 THE SPRING OF 1813. 321 
 
 peal vain. It found an echo in every German heart, and 
 such plain demonstrations of the state of the popular feeling 
 on this side the Rhine were made, that Davoust sent serious 
 warning to Napoleon, who contemptuously replied, " Pah ! 
 Germans never can become Spaniards ! " With his cus- 
 
 the advance and solely guides the movements of their armies. These 
 
 armies, led by generals under the eyes of both monarchs, U-ust in an 
 omnipotent, just God, and hope to free the whole world and Germany 
 irrevocably from the disgi-aceful yoke they have so gloriously thrown off. 
 They press forward animated by enthusiasm. Their watch-word is, Hon- 
 our and Liberty. May every German, wishful to prove himself worthy 
 of the name, speedily and spiritedly join their ranks : may every indi- 
 vidual, whether prince, noble, or citizen, aid the plans of liberation, 
 formed by Russia and Prussia, with heart and soul, with person and 
 
 property, to the last drop of their blood ! The expectation cherished 
 
 by their Majesties of meeting with these sentiments, this zeal, in every 
 German heart, they deem warranted by the spirit so clearly betokened 
 
 by the victories gained by Russia over the enslaver of the world. 
 
 They therefore demand faithful co-operation, more especially from every 
 German prince, and willingly presuppose that none among them will be 
 found, who, by being and remaining apostate to the German cause, will 
 prove himself deserving of annihilation by the power of public opinion 
 and of just arms. The Rhenish alliance, that deceitful chain lately cast 
 by the breeder of universal discord around ruined Germany to the de- 
 struction of her ancient name, can, as the effect of foreign tyranny and 
 the tool of foreign influence, be no longer tolerated. Their Majesties 
 believe that the declaration of the dissolution of this alliance being their 
 fixed intention will meet the long-harboured and universal desire with 
 
 difficulty retained within the sorrowing hearts of the people. The 
 
 relation in which it is the intention of his Majesty, tlie emperor of all the 
 Russias, to stand towards Germany and towards her constitution is, at 
 the same time, here declared. From his desire to see the influence of 
 the foreigner destroyed, it can be no other than that of placing a protect- 
 ing hand on a work whose form is committed to the free, unbiassed will 
 of the princes and people of Germany. The more closely this work, 
 in its principle, features, and outline, coincides with the once distinct 
 character of the German nation, the more surely will united Germany 
 again retake her place with renovated and redoubled vigour among the 
 
 empires of Europe His Majesty and his ally, between whom there 
 
 reigns a perfect accordance in the sentiments and views hereby explained, 
 are at all times ready to exert their utmost power in pursuance of their 
 
 sacred aim, the liberation of Germany from a foreign yoke. May 
 
 France, strong and beauteous in herself, henceforward seek to consolidate 
 her internal prosperity ! No external power will disturb her internal 
 
 peace, no enemy will encroach upon her rightful frontiers. But may 
 
 France also learn that the other powers of Europe aspire to the attain- 
 ment of durable repose for their subjects, and will not lay down their 
 arms imtil the independence of every state in Europe shall have been 
 firmly secured."
 
 322 THE SPRING OF 1813. 
 
 tomaiy rapidity, he levied in France a fresh army three hun- 
 dred thousand strong, with which he so completely awed the 
 Rhenish confederation as to compel it once more to take the 
 field with thousands of Germans against their brother Ger- 
 mans. The troops, however, reluctantly obeyed, and even 
 the traitors were but lukewarm, for they doubted of success. 
 Mecklenburg alone sided with Prussia. Austria remained 
 neutral. 
 
 A Russian corps under General Tettenborn had preceded 
 the rest of the troops and reached the coasts of the Bal- 
 tic. As early as the 24th of March, 1813, it appeared in 
 Hamburg and expelled the French authorities from the city. 
 The heavily oppressed people of Hamburg,* whose commerce 
 had been totally annihilated by the continental system, gave 
 way to the utmost demonstrations of delight, received their 
 deliverers with open arms, revived their ancient rights, and 
 immediately raised a Hanseatic corps, destined to take the 
 field against Napoleon. Dornberg, the ancient foe to France, 
 with another flying squadron took the French division under 
 Morand prisoner, and the Prussian, Major Hellwig, (the same 
 who, in 1806, liberated the garrison of Erfurt,) dispersed, 
 with merely one hundred and twenty hussars, a Bavarian 
 regiment one thousand three hundred strong and captured 
 five pieces of artillery. In January, the peasantry of the 
 upper country had already revolted against the conscription,f 
 and, in February, patriotic proclamations had been dissemin- 
 
 * The exasperation of the people had risen to the utmost pitch. The 
 French rascals in office, especially the custom-house officers, set no 
 bounds to their tj'ranny and licence. No woman of -whatever rank was 
 allowed to pass the gates without being subjected to the most indecent 
 inquisition. Goods that had long been redeemed were continually taken 
 from the tradesmen's shops and confiscated. The arbitrary enrolment of 
 a number of young men as conscripts at length produced an insurrection, 
 in which the guard-houses, etc. were destroyed. It was, however, 
 quelled by General St. Cyr, and six of the citizens were executed. On 
 the approach of the Russians, St. Cyr fled with the whole of his troops. 
 The bookseller Perthes, Prell, and von Hess, formed a civic guard. — 
 Von Hess's Agonies. 
 
 t The people rose en masse at Ronsdorf, Solingen, and Barmen, and 
 marched tumultuously to Elberfeld, the great manufacturing town, but 
 were dispersed by the French troops. The French authorities after- 
 wards declared that the sole object of the revolt was to smuggle in 
 English goods, and, under this pretext, seized all the foreign goods in 
 Elberfeld.
 
 THE SPRING OF 1813. 323 
 
 ated throughout Westphalia under the signature of the Baron 
 von Stein. In this month, also, Captain Maas and two other 
 patriots, who had attempted to raise a rebellion, were ex- 
 ecuted. As the army advanced, Stein was nominated chief 
 of the provisional government of the still unconquered 
 provinces of Western Germany. 
 
 The first Russian army, seventeen thousand strong, under 
 Wittgenstein, pushed forward to Magdeburg, and, at Mokern, 
 repulsed forty thousand French, who were advancing upon 
 Berlin. The Prussians, under their veteran general, Bliicher, 
 entered Saxony and garrisoned Dresden, on the 27th of March, 
 1813, after an arch of the fine bridge across the Elbe having 
 been uselessly blown up by the French. Bliicher, whose 
 gallantry in the former wars had gained for him the general 
 esteem, and whose kind and generous disposition had won the 
 afiection of the soldiery, was nominated generalissimo of the 
 Prussian forces, but subordinate in command to W^ittgenstein, 
 who replaced Kutusow * as generalissimo of the united forces 
 of Russia and Prussia. The emperor of Russia and the king 
 of Prussia accompanied the army and were received Avith 
 loud acclamations by the people of Dresden and Leipzig. The 
 allied army was merely seventy thousand strong, and Bliicher 
 had not formed a junction with Wittgenstein, when Napoleon 
 invaded the country by Erfurt and Merseburg at the head of 
 one hundi'ed and sixty thousand men. Ney attacked, with 
 forty thousand men, the Russian vanguard under Winzinge- 
 rode, which, after gallantly defending a defile near Weissen- 
 fels, made an orderly retreat before forces far their superior in 
 number. The French, on this occasion, lost Marshal Bessieres. 
 Napoleon, incredulous of attack, marched in long columns 
 upon Leipzig, and Wittgenstein, falling upon his right flank, 
 committed great havoc among the forty thousand men under 
 Ney, which he had first of all encountered, at Gross-Gcirschen. 
 This place was alternately lost and regained owing to his ill- 
 judged plan of attack by single brigades, instead of breaking 
 Napoleon's lines by charging them at once with the whole of 
 his forces. The young Prussian volunteers here measured 
 their strength in a murderous conflict, hand to hand, with the 
 young French conscripts, and excited by their martial spirit 
 
 * Kutusow had, just at that conjuncture, expired at Bautzen. 
 Y 2
 
 324 THE SPRING OF 1813. 
 
 the astonishment of the veterans. Wittgenstein's delay and 
 Bliicher's too late arrival on the field* gave Napoleon time 
 to wheel his long lines round and to encircle the allied forces, 
 which immediately retired. On the eve of the bloody en- 
 gagement of the 2nd of May, the allied cavalry attempted a 
 general attack in the dark, which was also unsuccessful on 
 account of the superiority of the enemies' forces. The allies 
 had, nevertheless, captured some cannons, the French, none. 
 The most painful loss was that of the noble Scharnhorst, who 
 was mortally wounded. Billow had, on the same day, stormed 
 Halle -with a Prussian corps, but was now compelled to re- 
 solve upon a retreat, which was conducted in the most orderly 
 manner by the allies. At Koldiz, the Prussian rear-guard 
 repulsed the French van in a bloody engagement on the oth 
 of May. The allies marched through Dresden f and took up 
 a firm position in and about Bautzen after being joined by a 
 reinforcement of eighty thousand Bavarians. Napoleon was 
 also reinforced by a number of French, Bavarian, WUrtem- 
 berg, and Saxon troops,:j: and despatched Lauriston and Ney 
 towards Berlin ; but the former encountering the Russians 
 under Barclay de Tolly at Konigswartha, and the latter the 
 Prussians under York at Weissig, both were constrained to 
 retreat. Napoleon attacked the position at Bautzen from the 
 19th to the 21st of May, but was gloi'iously repulsed by the 
 Prussians under Kleist, whilst Bliicher, who was in danger 
 of being completely surrounded, undauntedly defended him- 
 
 * The nature of the ground rendered a night march impossible. The 
 Russian, Michaelofski Danilefski, however, throws the blame upon an 
 officer in Bliicher's head-quarters, who laid the important orders com- 
 mitted to his charge under his pillow and overslept himself. 
 
 f It may here be mentioned as a remarkable characteristic of those 
 times, that Goethe, Ernest Maurice Arndt, and Theodore Korner at that pe- 
 riod met at Dresden. The youthful Korner, a volunteer Jfeger, was the 
 Tyrtaeus of those days : his military songs were universally sung ; his 
 father also expressed great enthusiasm. Gcethe said almost angrily, 
 "Well, well, shake your chains, the man (Napoleon) is too strong for 
 you, you will not break them ! " — E. M. Arndt' s Reminiscences. 
 
 X " Unfortunately there were German pi-inces who, even this time, 
 again sent their troops to swell the ranks of the oppressor ; Austria had, 
 unfortunately, not yet concluded her preparations ; consequently, it was 
 only possible to clog the advance of the conqueror by a gallant resistance. — 
 Clauseioitz. The Bavarians stood under Raglowich, the Wiirtembergera 
 under Franquemont, the Saxons under Reynier. There was also a con- 
 tingent of Westphalians and Badeners.
 
 THE SPEING OF 1813. 325 
 
 self on three sides. The allies lost not a cannon, not a single 
 prisoner, although again compelled to retire before the supe- 
 rior forces of the enemy. The French had suffered an im- 
 mense loss ; eighteen thousand of their wounded were sent to 
 Dresden. Napoleon's favourite. Marshal Duroc, and General 
 Kirchner, a native of Alsace, were killed, close to his side, by 
 a cannon ball. The allied troops, forced to retire after an ob- 
 stinate encounter, neither fled nor dispersed, but withdrew in 
 close column and repelling each successive attack.* The 
 French avant-garde under Maison Avas, when in close pursuit of 
 the allied force, almost entirely cut to pieces by the Prussian 
 cavalry, who unexpectedly fell upon them at Heinau. The 
 main body of the Russo-Prussian army, on entering Silesia, 
 took a slanting direction towards the Riesengebirge and 
 retired behind the fortress of Schweidnitz. In this strong 
 position they were at once partially secure from attack, 
 and, by their vicinity to the Bohemian frontier, enabled to 
 keep up a communication, and, if necessary, to form a junction 
 with the Austrian forces. The whole of the lowlands of 
 Silesia lay open to the French, who entered Breslau on the 
 1st of June.f Berlin was also merely covered by a compara- 
 tively weak army under General Biilow,| who, notwithstand- 
 ing the check given by him to Marshal Oudinot in the battles 
 of Hoyerswerda and Luckau, was not in sufficient force to 
 offer assistance to the main body of the French in case Napo- 
 leon chose to pass through Berlin on his way to Poland. Na- 
 
 * Bliicher exclaimed on this occasion, " He 's a rascally fellow that 
 dares to say we fly." Even Fain, the Frenchman, confesses in his manu- 
 script of 1813, in which he certainly does not favour the Germans : " The 
 best Marshals, as it were, killed by spent balls. Great victories with- 
 out trophies. All the villages on our route in flames which obstructed 
 our advance. ' What a war ! We shall all fall victims to it ! ' are the 
 disgraceful expressions uttered by many, for the iron hearts of the war- 
 riors of France are rust-grown." Napoleon exclaimed after the battle, 
 " How ! no result after such a massacre ? No prisoners ? They leave 
 me not even a nail ! " Duroc's death added to the catastrophe. Napo- 
 leon was so struck that for the first time in his life he could give no 
 orders, but deferred every thing until the morrow. 
 
 t But they merely encamped in the streets, showed themselves more 
 anxious than threatening, and were seized with a terrible panic on a sud- 
 den conflagration breaking out during the night, which they mistook for a 
 signal to bring the Landsturm upon them. And yet there were thirty 
 thousand French in the city. How different to their spirit in 1807 ! 
 
 X Brother to the unfortunate Henry von Biilow.
 
 326 THE SPRING OF 1813. 
 
 poleon, however, did not as yet venture to make use of his 
 advantage. By the seizure of Prussia and Poland, both of 
 which lay open to him, the main body of the allied array and 
 the Austrians, Avho had not yet declared themselves, would 
 have been left to the rear of his right flank and could easily 
 have cut off his retreat. His troops, principally young con- 
 scripts, were moreover worn out with fatigue, nor had the 
 whole of his reinforcements arrived. To his rear was a mul- 
 titude of bold partisans, Tettenborn, the Hanseatic legion, 
 CzernitschefF, who, at Halberstadt, captured General Ochs to- 
 gether with the whole of the Westphalian corps and fourteen 
 pieces of artillery, Colomb, the Herculean captain of horse, 
 who took a convoy and twenty-four guns at Zwickau, and 
 the Black Prussian squadron under Liitzow. Napoleon con- 
 sequently remained stationary, and, with a view of completing 
 his preparations and of awaiting the decision of Austria, de- 
 manded an armistice, to which the allies, whose force was still 
 incomplete and to whom the decision of Austria was of equal 
 importance, gladly assented. 
 
 On this celebrated armistice, concluded on the 4th of June, 
 1813, at the village of Pleisswitz, the fote of Europe was to 
 depend. To the side that could raise the most powerful force, 
 that on which Austria ranged herself, numerical superiority 
 insured success. Napoleon's power was still terrible ; fresh 
 victory had obhterated the disgrace of his flight from Russia ; 
 he stood once more an invincible leader on German soil. The 
 Fi'ench were animated by success and blindly devoted to their 
 emperor. Italy and Denmark were prostrate at his feet. 
 The Rhenish confederation was also foithful to his standard. 
 Counsellor Crome published at Giessen, in obedience to Na- 
 poleon's mandate and with the knowledge of tlie government 
 at Darmstadt, a pamphlet entitled " Gei'many's Crisis and Sal- 
 vation," in which he declared that Germany was saved by the 
 fresh victories of Napoleon, and promised mountains of gold 
 to the Germans if they remained true to him.* Crome was 
 
 * Crome was afterwards barefaced enough to boast of this work in 
 his Autobiography, published in 1833. Napoleon dictated the funda- 
 mental ideas of this work to him from his head-quarters. His object 
 was to pacify the Germans. He promised them henceforward to desist 
 from enforcing his continental system, to restore liberty to commerce, no 
 longer to force the laws and language of France upon Germany. L'em- 
 pereur se fera aimer des Allemands. The Germans were, on the other
 
 THE SPRIXG OF 1813. 327 
 
 at that time graciously thanked in autograph letters by the 
 sovereigns of Bavaria and Wiirtemberg. Liitzow's volunteer 
 corps was, dui-ing the armistice, surprised at Kitzen by a su- 
 perior corps of Wiirtembergers under Normann and cut to 
 pieces. Germans at that period opposed Germans without 
 any feeling for their common fatherland.* The king of Sax- 
 ony, who had already repaired to Prague under the protection 
 of Austria, also returned thence, was received at Dresden 
 with extreme magnificence by Napoleon, and, in fresh token 
 of amity, ceded the fortress of Torgau to the French. f These 
 occurrences caused the Saxon minister, Senfft von Pilsach, 
 and the Saxon general, Thielmann, who had already devoted 
 themselves to the German cause, to resign oflice. The Polish 
 army under Prince Poniatowsky (vassal to the king of Sax- 
 ony, who was also grand-duke of Warsaw) received permis- 
 sion (it had at an earlier period fallen back upon Schwarzen- 
 berg) to march, unarmed, through the Austrian territory to 
 Dresden, in order to join the main body of the French under 
 Napoleon. The declaration of the emperor of Austria in 
 favour of his son-in-law, who, moreover, was lavish of his 
 promises, and, among other things, offered to restore Silesia, 
 was, consequently, at the opening of the armistice, deemed 
 certain. 
 
 The armistice was, meanwhile, still more beneficial to the 
 allies. The Russians had time to concentrate their scattered 
 troops, the Prussians completed the equipment of their nu- 
 merous Landwehre7i, and the Swedes also took the field. 
 Bernadotte landed on the 18th of May in Pomerania, and 
 advanced with his troops into Brandenburg for the purpose, 
 in conjunction with Biilow, of covering Berlin. A German 
 
 hand, -warned that the allies had no intention to render Germany free 
 and independent, they being much more interested in retaining Germany 
 in a state of division and subjection. The unity of Germany, it was also 
 declared, was alone possible under Napoleon, etc. 
 
 * This arose from hatred to the party that dared to uphold the Ger- 
 man cause instead of a Prussian, Saxon, etc. one, and by no means by 
 chance, but, as Manso remarks, intentionally, " through low cunning 
 and injustice." 
 
 t The king of Saxony was, in return, insulted by Napoleon, in an 
 address to the ministers termed une veille hete, and compelled to coun- 
 tenance immoral theatrical performances by his presence, a sin for which 
 he each evening received absolution from his confessor. Vide Stein's 
 Letter to Jliinster in the Sketches of the War of Liberation.
 
 328 THE SPRING OF 1813. 
 
 auxiliary corps, in the pay of England, was also formed, 
 under Wallmoden, on the Baltic. The defence of Hamburg 
 was extremely easy ; but the base intrigues of foreigners, 
 who, as during the time of the thirty years' war, paid them- 
 selves for their aid by the seizure of German provinces and 
 towns, delivered that splendid city into the hands of the 
 French. Bernadotte had sold himself to Russia for the price 
 of Norway, which Denmark refused to cede unless Hamburg 
 and Liibeck were given in exchange. This agreement had 
 already been made by Prince Dolgorucki in the name of the 
 emperor Alexander, and Tettenborn yielded Hamburg to the 
 Danes, who marched in under pretext of protecting the city 
 and were received with delight by the unsuspecting citizens. 
 The non-advance of the Swedes proceeded from the same 
 cause. The increase of the Danish marine by means of the 
 Hanse-tovvns, however, proved displeasing to England : the 
 whole of the commerce was broken up, and the Danes, hastily 
 resolving to maintain faith with Napoleon, delivered luckless 
 Hamburg to the French, who instantly took a most terrible 
 revenge. Davoust, as he himself boasted, merely sent twelve 
 German patriots to execution,* but expelled twenty-five 
 thousand of the inhabitants from the city, whilst he pulled 
 down their houses and converted them into fortifications, at 
 which the principal citizens were compelled to work in person. 
 Dissatisfied, moreover, with a contribution of eighteen mil- 
 lions, he robbed the great Hamburg bank, treading under-foot 
 every private and national right, all, as he, miserable slave as 
 he was,f declared, in obedience to the mandate of his lord. 
 
 Austria, at first, instead of aiding the allies, allowed the 
 Poles I to range themselves beneath the standard of Napoleon, 
 whom she overwhelmed with protestations of friendship, 
 
 * He also said, like his master, " I know of no Germans, I only know 
 of Bavarians, Wiirtembergers, Westphalians, etc." 
 
 t His -wTitten defence, in which he so 13'ingly, so humbly and mourn- 
 fully exculpates himself that one really " compassionates the devil," is a 
 sort of satisfaction for the Germans. 
 
 X Poniatowsky's dismissal with the Polish army from Poland was 
 apparently a service rendered to Napoleon, but was in reality done with 
 a view of disarming Poland. Poniatowsky might have organized an in- 
 surrection to the rear of the allies, and would in that case have been far 
 more dangerous to them than when ranged beneath the standard of 
 Napoleon.
 
 THE SPRING, OF 1813. 329 
 
 which served to mask her real intentions, and meanwhile gave 
 her time to arm herself to the teeth and to make the allies 
 sensible of the fact of their utter impotency against Napoleon 
 unless aided by her. The interests of Austria favoured her 
 alliance A\'ith France, but Napoleon, instead of confidence, in- 
 spired mistrust. Austria, notwithstanding the marriage be- 
 tween him and Marie Louise, was, as had been shown at the 
 congress of Dresden, merely treated as a tributary to France, 
 and Napoleon's ambition offered no guarantee to the ancient 
 imperial dynasty. There was no security that the provinces 
 bestowed in momentary reward for her alliance must not, on 
 the first occasion, be restored. Nor was public opinion en- 
 tirely without weight.* Napoleon's star was on the wane, 
 whole nations stood like to a dark and ominous cloud threat- 
 ening on the horizon, and Count ISIetternich prudently chose 
 rather to attempt to guide the storm ere it burst than trust to 
 a falling star. Austria had, as early as the 27th of June, 
 1813, signed a treaty, at Eeichenbach in Silesia, with Russia 
 and Prussia, by which she bound herself to declare war against 
 France, in case Napoleon had not, before the 20th of July, ac- 
 cepted the terms of peace about to be proposed to him. Already 
 had the sovereigns and generals of Russia and Prussia sketch- 
 ed, during a conference held with the crown-prince of Sweden, 
 the 11th July, at Trachenberg, the plan for the approaching 
 campaign, and, with the permission of Austria, assigned to her 
 
 * The people in Austria fully sympathized with passing events. How 
 could those be apathetic who had such a burthen of disgrace to redeem, 
 such deep revenge to satisfy ? An extremely popular song contained the 
 following lines : 
 
 " Awake, Franciscus ! Hark ! thy people call ! 
 Awake ! acknowledge the avenger's hand ! 
 Still groans beneath the foreign courser's hoof 
 The soil of Germany, our fatherland. 
 
 To arms ! so long as sacred Germany 
 Feels but a finger of Napoleon. 
 Franciscus ! up ! Cast off each private tie ! 
 The patriot has no kindred, has no son." 
 
 All the able-bodied men, as in Prussia, crowded beneath the imperial 
 standard and the whole empire made the most patriotic sacrifices. Hun- 
 gary summoned the whole of her male population, the insurrection, as it 
 was termed, to the field.
 
 330 THE SPJIING OF 1813. 
 
 the part she was to take as one of the allies against Napoleon, 
 when Metternich again visited Dresden in person for the pur- 
 pose of repeating his assurances of amity, for the armistice 
 had but just commenced, to Napoleon. The French emperor 
 had an indistinct knowledge of the transactions then passing, 
 and bluntly said to the Count, " As you wish to mediate, you 
 are no longer on my side." He hoped partly to win Austria 
 over by I'edoubling his promises, partly to terrify her by the 
 dread of the future preponderance of Russia, but, perceiving 
 how Metternich evaded him by his artful diplomacy, he sud- 
 denly asked him, " Well, Metternich, how much has England 
 given you in order to engage you to play this part towards 
 me ?" This trait of insolence towards an antagonist of whose 
 superiority he felt conscious, and of masking the most deadly 
 hatred beneath a show of contempt, was peculiarly charisteristic 
 of the Corsican, who, besides the qualities of the lion, fully 
 possessed those of the cat. Napoleon let his hat drop in order 
 to see Avhether Metternich would raise it. He did not, and 
 war was resolved upon. A pretended congress for the con- 
 clusion of peace was again arranged by both sides ; by Napo- 
 leon, in order to escape the reproach cast upon him of an in- 
 surmountable and eternal desire for war, and by the allies, in 
 order to prove to the whole world their desire for peace. Each 
 side was, however, fully aware that the palm of peace was 
 alone to be found on the other side of the battle-field. Napo- 
 leon was generous in his concessions, but delayed to grant full 
 powers to his envoy, an opportune circumstance for the aUies, 
 who were by this means able to charge him with the whole 
 blame of procrastination. Napoleon, in all his concessions, 
 merely included Russia and Austria to the exclusion of Prus- 
 sia.* But neither Russia nor Austria trusted to his promises, 
 and the negotiations were broken oiF on the termination of the 
 armistice, when Napoleon sent full powers to his plenipoten- 
 tiary. Now, was it said, it is too late. The art with which 
 Metternich passed from the alliance with Napoleon to neu- 
 
 * Russia was to receive the -whole of Poland, the grand-duchy of 
 Warsaw was to be annihihited. Such was Napoleon's gratitude towards 
 the Poles ! — Illyria was to be restored to Austria. Prussia, however, 
 was not only to be excluded from all participation in the spoil, but the 
 Rhenish confederation was to be extended as far as the Oder. Prussia 
 would have been compelled to pay the expenses of the alliance between 
 France, Russia, and Austria.
 
 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 331 
 
 trality, to mediation, and finally to the coalition against him, 
 will, in every age, be acknowledged a master-piece of diplo- 
 macy. Austria, whilst coalescing with Russia and Prussia, 
 in a certain degree assumed a rank conventionally superior 
 to both. The whole of the allied armies was placed under the 
 command of an Austrian general, Prince von Schwarzenberg, 
 and if the proclamation published at Calisch had merely 
 summoned the people of Germany to assert their independ- 
 ence, the manifesto of Count ^Metternich spoke ah-eady in the 
 tone of the future regulator of the affairs of Europe.* Aus- 
 tria declared herself on the 12th of August, 1813, two days 
 after the termination of the armistice. 
 
 CCLXI. The battle of Leipzig. 
 
 Immediately after this — for all had been previously ar- 
 ranged — the monarchs of Russia and Prussia passed the Rie- 
 sengebirge with a division of their forces into Bohemia, and 
 joined the emperor Francis and the great Austrian army at 
 Prague. The celebrated general, Moreau, who had returned 
 from America, where he had hitherto dwelt incognito, in order 
 to take up arms against Napoleon, was in the train of the 
 czar. His example, it was hoped, would induce many of his 
 countrymen to abandon Napoleon. The plan of the allies 
 was to advance, with their main body under Schwarzenberg, 
 consisting of one hundred and twenty thousand Austrians and 
 seventy thousand Russians and Prussians, through the Erzge- 
 birge to Napoleon's rear. A lesser Prussian force, principally 
 Silesian Landwehr, under BlUcher, eighty thousand strong, 
 besides a small Russian corps, was, meanwhile, to cover 
 Silesia, or, in case of an attack by Napoleon's main body, to 
 
 * "Every where, " said this manifesto, "do the impatient mshes of 
 the people anticipate the regular proceedings of the government. On all 
 sides, the desire for independence under separate laws, the feeling of 
 insulted nationality, rage against the hea^-^' abuses inflicted by a foreign 
 tyrant burst simultaneously forth. His Majesty the emperor, too clear- 
 sighted not to view this turn in affairs as the natural and necessary result 
 of a preceding and violent state of exaggeration, and too just to view it 
 with displeasure, had rendered it his prmcipal object to turn it to the 
 general advantage, and, by well-weighed and well-combined measures, 
 to promote the true and lasting interests of the whole commonwealtli of 
 Europe."
 
 332 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 
 
 retire before it and draw it further eastward. A third di- 
 \'ision, under the crown-prince of Sweden, principally Swedes, 
 with some Prussian troops, mostly Pomeranian and Branden- 
 burg Landwehr under Billow, and some Russians, in all 
 ninety thousand men, was destined to cover Berlin, and in 
 case of a victory to form a junction to Napoleon's rear with 
 the main body of tlie allied army. A still lesser and equally 
 mixed division under Wallmoden, thirty thousand strong, was 
 destined to watch Davoust in Hamburg, whilst an Austrian 
 corps of twenty-five thousand men under Prince Reuss 
 watched the movements of the Bavarians, and another 
 Austrian force of forty thousand, under Hiller, those of the 
 viceroy Eugene in Italy. 
 
 Napoleon had concentrated his main body, tliat still con- 
 sisted of two hundred and fifty thousand men, in and around 
 Dresden. Davoust received orders to advance with thirty 
 thousand men from Hamburg upon Berlin ; in Bavaria, there 
 were thirty thousand men under Wrede ; in Italy, forty thou- 
 sand under Eugene. The German fortresses were, moreover, 
 strongly garrisoned with French troops. Napoleon had it in 
 his power to throw himself with his main body, which neither 
 Bliicher nor the Swedes could have withstood, into Poland, 
 to levy the people en masse and render that country the 
 theatre of war, but the dread of the defection of the Rhenish 
 confederation and of a part of the French themselves, were 
 the country to his rear to be left open to the allies and to 
 Moreau, coupled with his disinclination to declare the inde- 
 pendence of Poland, owing to a lingering hope of being still 
 able to bring about a reconciliation with Russia and Austria 
 by the sacrifice of that country and of Prussia, caused that 
 idea to be renounced, and he accordingly took up a defensive 
 position with his main body at Dresden, whence he could 
 watch the proceedings and take advantage of any indiscretion 
 on the part of his opponents. A body of ninety thousand 
 men under Oudinot meantime acted on the offensive, being- 
 directed to advance, simultaneously with Davoust from Ham- 
 burg and with Girard from Magdeburg, upon Berlin, and to 
 take possession of that metropolis. Napoleon hoped, when 
 master of the ancient Prussian provinces, to be able to sup- 
 press German enthusiasm at its source and to induce Russia
 
 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 333 
 
 and Austria to conclude a separate peace at the expense of 
 Prussia. 
 
 In August, 1813, the tempest of war broke loose on every 
 side, and all Europe prepared for a decisive struggle. About 
 this time, the whole of Northern Germany was visited for 
 some weeks, as was the case on the defeat of Varus in the 
 Teutobarg forest, -oath heavy rains and violent storms. The 
 elements seemed to combine, as in Russia, their efforts with 
 those of man against Napoleon. There his soldiers fell vic- 
 tims to frost and snow, here they sank into the boggy soil and 
 were carried away by the swollen rivers. In the midst of 
 the uproar of the elements, bloody engagements continually 
 took place, in which the bayonet and the butt-end of the fire- 
 lock were almost alone used, the muskets being rendered un- 
 serviceable by the wet. The first engagement of importance 
 was that of the 21st of August between Wallmoden and 
 Davoust at Vellahn. A few days afterwards, Theodore 
 Korner, the youthful poet and hero, fell in a skirmish between 
 
 the French and Wallmoden's outpost at Gadebusch. 
 
 Oudinot advanced close upon BerUn, which was protected by 
 the crown-prince of Sweden. A murderous conflict took 
 place, on the 23rd of August, at Gross-Beeren between the 
 Prussian division under General von Biilow and the French. 
 The Swedes, a ti'oop of horse artillery alone excepted, were 
 not brought into action, and the Prussians, unaided, repulsed 
 the greatly superior forces of the French. The almost un- 
 trained peasantry comprising the Landwehr of the Mai'k and 
 of Pomerania rushed upon the enemy, and, unhabituated to 
 the use of the bayonet and the fire-lock, beat down entire 
 battalions of the French with the butt-end of their muskets. 
 After a frightful massacre, the French were utterly routed 
 and fled in wild disorder, but the gallant Prussians vainly ex- 
 pected the Swedes to aid in the pursuit. The crown-prince, 
 partly from a desire to spare his troops and partly from a feel- 
 ing of shame, he was also a Frenchman, remained motionless. 
 Oudinot, nevertheless, lost two thousand four hundred prison- 
 ers. Davoust, from this disaster, returned once more to 
 Hamburg. Girard, who had advanced with eight thousand 
 men from Magdeburg, was, on the 27th, put to flight by the 
 Prussian Landwehr under General Hirschfeld. 
 
 Napoleon's plan of attack against Prussia had completely
 
 334 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 
 
 failed, and his sole alternative was to act on the defensive. 
 But on perceiving that the main body of the allied forces 
 under Schwarzenberg was advancing to his rear, whilst BlU- 
 cher was stationed with merely a weak division in Silesia, he 
 took the field with immensely superior forces against the latter 
 under an idea of being able easily to vanquish his weak an- 
 tagonist and to fall back again in time upon Dresden. Blii- 
 cher cautiously retired, but, unable to restrain the martial 
 spirit of the soldiery, who obstinately defended every position 
 whence they were di'iven, lost two thousand of his men on the 
 2 1 st of August. The news of Napoleon's advance upon Silesia 
 and of the numerical weakness of tlie garrison left at Dresden 
 reached Schwarzenberg j ust as he had crossed the Erzgebirge, 
 and induced him and the allied sovereigns assembled within 
 his camp to change their plan of operations and to march 
 straight upon the Saxon capital. Napoleon, who had pur- 
 sued Bliicher as far as the Katzbach near Goldberg, in- 
 stantly returned and boldly resolved to cross the Elbe above 
 Dresden, to seize the passes of the Bohemian mountains, and 
 to fall upon the rear of the main body of the allied army. 
 Vandamme's corps d^armee had already set forward with this 
 design, when Napoleon learnt that Dresden could no longer 
 hold out unless he returned thither with a division of his 
 army, and, in order to preserve that city and the centre of his 
 position, he hastily returned thither in the hope of defeating 
 the allied army and of bringing it between two fires, as Van- 
 damme must meanwhile have occupied the narrow outlets of 
 the Erzgebirge with thirty thousand men and by that means 
 have cut off the retreat of the allied army. The plan was on a 
 gi'and scale, and, as far as related to Napoleon in person, was 
 executed, to the extreme discomfiture of the allies, with his 
 usual success. Schwarzenberg had, with true Austrian pro- 
 crastination, allowed the 25th of August, when, as the French 
 themselves confess, Dresden, in her then ill-defended state, 
 might have been taken almost without a stroke, to pass in in- 
 action, and, when he attemjjted to storm the city on the 26th, 
 Napoleon, who had meanwhile arrived, calmly awaited the 
 onset of the thick masses of the enemy in order to open a mur- 
 derous discharge of grape upon them on every side. They 
 were repulsed after suffering a frightful loss. On the follow- 
 ing day, destined to end in still more terrible bloodshed, Na-
 
 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 335 
 
 poleon assumed the offensive, separated the retiring allied 
 army by well-combined sallies, cut off its left wing, and made 
 an immense number of prisoners, chiefly Austrians. The un- 
 fortunate Moreau had both his legs shot off in the very first 
 encounter. His death was an act of justice, for he had taken 
 up arms against his fellow-countrymen, and was moreover a 
 gain for the Germans, the Russians merely making use of 
 him in order to obscure the fame of the German leaders, and, 
 it may be, with a view of placing the future destinies of 
 France in his hands. The main body of the allied army re- 
 treated on every side ; part of the troops disbanded, the rest 
 were exposed to extreme hardship owing to the torrents of 
 rain that fell without intermission and the scarcity of pro- 
 visions. Their annihilation must have inevitably followed 
 had Vandamme executed Napoleon's commands and blocked 
 up the mountain passes, in which he was unsuccessful, owing 
 to the gallantry with which he was held in check at Culm by 
 eight thousand Russian guards, headed by Ostermaim,* who, 
 although merely amounting in number to a fourth of his army, 
 fought during a Avhole day without receding a step, though 
 almost the whole of them were cut to pieces and Ostermann 
 was deprived of an arm, until the first corps of the main body, 
 in full retreat, reached the mountains. Vandamme was now 
 in turn overwhelmed by superior numbers. One way of 
 escape, a still unoccupied height, on which he hastened to post 
 himself, alone remained, but the shining arms of Kleist's corps, 
 also in full retreat, unexpectedly but opportunely appeared 
 above his head and took him and the whole of his corps 
 prisoners, the 29th of August, 1813. f 
 
 At the same time, the 26th of August, a most glorious vic- 
 tory was gained by Bliicher in Silesia. After having drawn 
 Macdonald across the Katzbach and the foaming Neisse, he 
 drove him, after a desperate and bloody engagement, into those 
 rivers, which were greatly swollen by the incessant rains. 
 The muskets of the soldiery had been rendered unserviceable 
 
 * This general belonged to a German family long naturalized in Russia. 
 
 t He was led through Silesia, which he had once so shamefully plun- 
 dered, and, although no physical punishment was inflicted upon him, he 
 was often compelled to hear the voice of public opinion and was exposed 
 to the view of the people to whom he had once said, " Nothing shall be 
 left to you except your eyes, that you may weep over your Avretched- 
 ness." — Manso's History of Prussia.
 
 336 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 
 
 by the wet, and Bliicher, drawing his sabre from beneath his 
 cloak, dashed forward exclaiming, "Forwards ! " Several thou- 
 sand of the French were drowned or fell by the bayonet, or 
 beneath the heavy blows dealt by the Lcmdioehr with the butt- 
 end of their firelocks. It was on this battle-field that the Silesi- 
 ans had formerly opposed the Tartars, and the monastery of 
 Wahlstatt, erected in memory of that heroic day,* was still 
 standing. Bliicher was rewarded with the title of Prince 
 von der Wahlstatt, but his soldiers surnamed him Marshal 
 Vorwarts. On the declension of the floods, the banks of the 
 rivers were strewed with corpses sticking in horrid dis- 
 tortion out of the mud. A part of the French fled for a 
 couple of days in terrible disorder along the right bank and 
 wex'e then taken prisoner together with their general, Puthod.f 
 The French lost one hundred and three guns, eighteen thou- 
 sand prisoners, and a still greater number of dead ; the loss on 
 the side of the Prussians merely amounted to one thousand 
 men. Macdonald returned almost totally unattended to Dres- 
 den and brought the melancholy intelligence to Napoleon, 
 " Votre armee du Bobre n'existe plus." 
 
 The crown-prince of Sweden and Biilow had meanwhile 
 pursued Oudinot's reti'eating corps in the direction of the 
 Elbe. Napoleon despatched Ney against them, but he met 
 with the fate of his predecessor, at Dennewitz, on the 
 6th of September. The Prussians, on this occasion, again 
 triumphed, unaided by their confederates. \ Biilow and 
 Tauenzien, with twenty thousand men, defeated the French 
 army, seventy thousand strong. The crown-prince of Sweden 
 not only remained to the rear with the whole of his troops, 
 but gave perfectly useless orders to the advancing Prussian 
 
 * An ancient battle-axe of serpentine-stone was found on the site fixed 
 upon for the erection of a fresh monument in honour of the present 
 victory. — Allgemeine Zeitung, 1817. 
 
 t This piece of good fortune befell Langeron, the Russian general, 
 who belonged to the diplomatic party at that time attempting to spare 
 the forces of Russia, Austria, and Sweden at the expense of Prussia, and, 
 at the same time, to deprive Prussia of her well-won laurels. Langeron 
 had not obeyed Bliicher's orders, had remained behind on his own re- 
 sponsibility, and the scattered French troops fell into his hands. 
 
 X The proud armies of Russia and Sweden (forty-six battalions, forty 
 squadrons, and one hundred and fifty guns) followed to the rear of the 
 Prussians without firing a shot and remained inactive spectators of the 
 action. — Plotho.
 
 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 337 
 
 squadron under General Borstel, who, without attending to 
 them, hurried on to Bulow's assistance, and the Frencli were, 
 notwithstanding their numerical superiority, completely driven 
 off the field, which the crown-prince reached just in time in 
 order to witness the dispersion of his countrymen. The French 
 lost eighteen thousand men and eighty guns. The rout was 
 complete. The i-ear-guard, consisting of the Wiirtembergers 
 under Franquemont, was again overtaken at the head of the 
 bridge at Zwettau, and, after a frightful carnage, driven in wild 
 confusion across the dam to Torgau. The Bavarians under 
 Raglowich, who, probably owing to secret orders, had re- 
 mained, during the battle, almost in a state of inactivity, Avith- 
 drew in another direction and escaped.* Davoust also again 
 retired upon Hamburg, and his rear-guard under Pecheux was 
 attacked by Wallmoden, on the 16th of September, on the 
 Gorde, and suffered a trifling loss. On the 29th of Septem- 
 ber, eight thousand French were also defeated by Platow, the 
 Hetman of the Cossacks, at Zeitz : on the 30th, Czernitscheff 
 penetrated into Cassel and expelled Jerome. Thielemann, the 
 Saxon general, also infested the country to Napoleon's rear, in- 
 tercepted his convoys at Leipzig, and at Weissenfels took one 
 thousand two hundred, at Merseburg two thousand French 
 pi'isoner ; he was, however, deprived of his booty by a strong 
 force under Lefebvre-Desnouettes, by whom he was incessant- 
 ly harassed until Platow's arrival with the Cossacks, who, in 
 conjunction with Thielemann, repulsed Lefebvre witli great 
 slaughter at Altenburg. On this occasion, a Baden battalion, 
 that had been drawn up apart from the French, turned their 
 fire upon their unnatural confederates and aided in their 
 dispersion. f 
 
 Napoleon's generals had been thrown back in every quar- 
 ter, with immense loss, upon Dresden, towards which the 
 allies now advanced, threatening to enclose it on every side. 
 Napoleon manojuvred until the beginning of October with 
 the view of executing a coup de 7nain against Schwarzenberg 
 and Bllicher; the allies were, however, on their guard, and 
 he was constantly reduced to the necessity of recalling his 
 
 I * In order to avoid being can-ied along by the fugitive French, they 
 
 I fired upon them whenever their confused masses came too close upon 
 them. — Bolderndorf. 
 
 t Vide Wagner's Chronicle of Altenburg.
 
 338 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 
 
 troops, sent for that purpose into the field, to Dresden. The 
 danger in which he now stood of being completely surrounded 
 and cut off from the Rhine at length rendered retreat his 
 sole alternative. Bliicher had already crossed the Elbe on 
 the 5th of October, and, in conjunction with the crown- 
 prince of Sweden, had approached the head of the main body 
 of the allied array under Schwarzenberg, which was ad- 
 vancing from the Erzgebirge. On the 7th of October, Na- 
 poleon quitted Dresden, leaving a garrison of thirty thousand 
 French under St. Cyr, and removed his head-quarters to 
 Diiben, on the road leading from Leipzig to Berlin, in the 
 hope of drawing Bliicher and the Swedes once more on the 
 right side of ,the Elbe, in whicli case he intended to turn un- 
 expectedly upon the Austrians ; Bliicher, however, eluded 
 him, without quitting the left bank. Napoleon's plan was to 
 take advantage of the absence of Bliicher and of the Swedes 
 from Berlin in order to hasten across the undefended country 
 for the purpose of inflicting punishment upon Prussia, of raising 
 Poland, etc. But his plan met with opposition in his own 
 military council. His ill success had caused those who had 
 hitherto followed his fortunes to waver. The king of Ba- 
 varia declared against him on the 8th of October,* and the 
 
 * Maximilian Joseph declared in an open manifesto ; Bavaria ■svas com- 
 pelled to furnish thirty-eight thousand men for the Russian campaisrn, 
 and, on her expressing a hope that such an immense sacrifice would 
 not be requested, France instantly declared the princes of the Rhenish 
 confederation her vassals, who were commanded " under punishment of 
 felony " unconditionally to obey each of Napoleon's demands. The allies 
 would, on the contrary, have acceded to all the desires of Bavaria and have 
 guaranteed that kingdom. Even the Austrian troops, that stood opposed 
 to Bavaria, were placed imder Wrede's command. Raglowich re- 
 ceived permission from Napoleon, before the battle of Leipzig, to return 
 to Bavaria ; but his corps was retained in the vicinity of Leipzig without 
 taking part in the action, and retired, in the general confusion, under the 
 command of General Maillot, upon Torgau, whence it returned home. — 
 
 Bolderndorf. -In the Tyrol, the brave mountaineers were on the eve 
 
 of revolt. As early as September, Speckbacher, sick and wasted from his 
 wounds, but endued with all his former fire and energy, reappeared in the 
 Tyrol, where he was commissioned by Austria to organize a revolt. An 
 unexpected reconciliation, however, taking place between Bavaria and 
 Austria, counter-orders arrived, and Speckbacher furiously dashed his 
 bullet-worn hat to the ground.— Broc^Aa?«, 1814. The restoration of 
 the Tyrol to Austria being delayed, a multitude of Tyrolese forced their 
 way into Innsbruck and deposed the Bavarian authorities ; their leader, 
 Kluiben.spedel, was, however, persuaded by Austria to submit. Speck-
 
 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 339 
 
 Bavarian army under Wrede united with instead of opposing 
 the Austrian army and was sent to the Maine in order to cut 
 off Napoleon's retreat. The news of this defection speedily 
 reached the French camp and caused the rest of the troops 
 of the Rhenish confederation to waver in their allegiance ; 
 whilst the French, wearied with useless manoeuvres, beaten 
 in every quarter, opposed by an enemy greatly their superior 
 in number and glowing with revenge, despaired of the event 
 and sighed for peace and their peaceful homes. All refused 
 to march upon Berlin, nay, the very idea of removing farther 
 from Paris almost produced a mutiny in the camp.* Four 
 days, from the 11th to the 14th of October, were passed by 
 Napoleon in a state of melancholy irresolution, when he ap- 
 peared as if suddenly inspired by the idea of there still being 
 time to execute a coup de main upon the main body of the 
 allied army under Schwarzenberg before its junction with 
 Bliicher and the Swedes. Schwarzenberg was slowly ad- 
 vancing from Bohemia and had already allowed himself to be 
 defeated before Dresden. Napoleon intended to fall upon 
 him on his arrival in the vicinity of Leipzig, but it was already 
 
 too late. Blucher was at hand. On the 14th of October,| 
 
 the flower of the French cavalry, headed by the king of 
 Naples, encountered Bliicher's and Wittgenstein's cavalry at 
 Wachau, not far from Leipzig. The contest was broken off, 
 both sides being desirous of husbanding their strength, but 
 terminated to the disadvantage of the French, notwithstanding 
 their numerical superiority, besides proving the vicinity of 
 the Prussians. This was the most important cavalry fight 
 that took place during this war. 
 
 On the 16th of October, whilst Napoleon was merely 
 awaiting the ai'rival of Macdonald's corps that had remained 
 
 bacherwas, in 1816, raised bythe emperor Francis to the rank of major; he 
 died in 1820, and was buried at Hall bj' the south wall of the parish church. 
 His son, Andre, who grew up a fine, handsome man, died in 1835, at 
 Jenbach, (not Zenbach, as Mercy has it in his attacks upon tlie Tyrol,) 
 in the Tyrol, where he was employed as superintendant of the mines. 
 Mercy's Travels and his account of Speckbacher in the Milan Revista 
 Europea, 1838, are replete with falsehood. 
 
 * According to Fain and Coulaincourt. 
 
 ■f: On the evening of the 14th of October, (the anniversary of the battle 
 of Jena,) a hurricane raged in the neighbourhood of Leipzig, where the 
 French lay, carried away roofs and uprooted trees, whilst, during the 
 whole night, the rain I'ell in violent floods. 
 
 z 2
 
 340 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 
 
 behind, before proceeding to attack Schwarzenberg's Bohemian 
 army, he was unexpectedly attacked on the right bank of the 
 Pleisse, at Liebert-wolkwitz, by the Austrians, who were, how- 
 ever, compelled to retire before a superior force. The French 
 cavalry under Latour-Maubourg pressed so closely upon the 
 emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia that they merely owed 
 their escape to the gallantry of the Russian, Orlow Denisow, 
 and to Latour's fall. Napoleon had already ordered all the 
 bells in Leipzig to be rung, had sent the news of his victory 
 to Paris, and seems to have expected a complete triumph 
 when joyfully exclaiming, " Le monde tourne pour nous ! " 
 but his victory had been only partial, and he had been unable 
 to follow up his advantage, another division of the Austrian 
 army, under General Meerveldt, having simultaneously occu- 
 pied him and compelled him to cross the Pleisse at Dolnitz ; 
 and, although Meerveldt had been in his turn repulsed with se- 
 vere loss and been himself taken prisoner, the diversion proved 
 of service to the Austrians by keeping Napoleon in check un- 
 til the arrival of Bliicher, who threw himself upon the division 
 of the French army opposed to him at Mockern by Marshal 
 Marmont. Napoleon, whilst thus occupied with the Austrians, 
 was unable to meet the attack of the Prussians with sufficient 
 force. Marmont, after a massacre of some hours' duration in 
 and around Mockern, was compelled to retire with a loss of 
 forty guns. The second Prussian brigade lost, either in 
 killed or wounded, all its officers except one. 
 
 The battle had, on the 16th of October, raged around 
 Leipzig ; Napoleon had triumphed over the Austrians, whom 
 he had solely intended to attack, but had, at the same time, 
 been attacked and defeated by the Prussians, and now found 
 himself opposed and almost surrounded, one road for retreat 
 alone remaining open, by the whole allied force. He instantly 
 gave orders to General Bertrand to occupy Weissenfels during 
 the night, in order to secure his retreat through Thuringia ; 
 hut, during the following day, the 17tli of October, neither 
 seized that opportunity in order to effect a retreat or to make 
 a last and energetic attack upon the allies, whose forces were 
 not yet completely concentrated, ere the circle had been fully 
 drawn around him. The Swedes, the Russians under Bennig- 
 sen, and a large Austrian division under Colloredo, had not yet 
 arrived. Napoleon might with advantage have again attacked
 
 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 341 
 
 the defeated Austrians under Schwarzenberg or have thrown 
 himself with the whole of his forces upon Bliicher. He had 
 still an opportunity of making an ordei'ly retreat without any 
 great exposure to danger. But he did neither. He remained 
 motionless during the whole day, which was also passed in 
 tranquillity by the allies, who thus gained time to receive fresh 
 reinforcements. Napoleon's inactivity was caused by his 
 having sent his prisoner. General Meerveldt, to the emperor 
 of Austria, whom he still hoped to induce, by means of 
 great assurances, to secede from the coalition and to make 
 peace. Not even a reply was vouchsafed. On the very day, 
 thus futilely lost by Napoleon, the allied army was reintegrated 
 by the arrival of the masses commanded by the crown-prince, 
 by Bennigsen and Colloredo, and was consequently raised to 
 double the strength of that of France, which now merely 
 amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand men. On the 
 18th, a murderous conflict began on both sides. Napoleon 
 long and skilfully opposed the fierce onset of the allied troops, 
 but was at length driven off the field by their superior weight 
 and persevering eflforts. The Austrians, stationed on the left 
 wing of the allied army, were opposed by Oiidinot, Augereau, 
 and Poniatowsky ; the Prussians, stationed on the right wing, 
 by Marmont and Ney ; the Russians and Swedes in the centre, 
 by INIurat and Regnier. In the hottest of the battle, two Saxon 
 cavalry regiments went over to Bliicher, and General Nor- 
 mann, when about to be charged at Taucha by the Prussian 
 cavalry under Biilow, also deserted to him with two AVllrtem- 
 berg cavalry regiments, in order to avoid an unpleasant remi- 
 niscence of the treacherous ill-treatment of Liitzow's corps. 
 The whole of the Saxon infantry commanded by Regnier 
 shortly afterwards went, with thirty-eight guns, over to the 
 Swedes, five hundred men and General Zeschau alone re- 
 maining true to Napoleon. The Saxons stationed themselves 
 behind the lines of the allies, but their guns were instantly 
 turned upon the enemy,* 
 
 * Not so the Badeners and Hessians. The Baden corps was cap- 
 tured almost to a man ; among others, Prince Emilius of Darmstadt. 
 Baden had been governed, since the death of the popular grand-duke, 
 
 Charles Frederick, in 1811, by his grandson, Charles. Franquemont, 
 
 with the Wiirtemberg infantry, eight to nine thousand strong, acted in- 
 dependently of Nermann's cavalry. But one thousand of their number
 
 342 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 
 
 In the evening of this terrible day, the French were driven 
 back close upon the walls of Leipzig.* On the certainty of vic- 
 tory being announced by Schwarzenberg to the three monarchs, 
 who had watched the progress of the battle, they knelt on the 
 open field and returned thanks to God. Napoleon, before night- 
 fall, gave orders for full retreat ; but, on the morning of the 19th, 
 recommenced the battle and sacrificed some of his corps darmee 
 in order to save the remainder. He had, however, foolishly 
 left but one bridge across the Elster open, and the retreat was 
 consequently retarded. Leipzig was stormed by the Prus- 
 sians, and, whilst the French rear-guard vras still battling on 
 that side of the bridge. Napoleon fled, and had no sooner crossed 
 the bridge than it was blown up with a tremendous explosion, 
 owing to the inadvertence of a subaltern, who is said to have 
 fired the train too hastily. The troops engaged on the opposite 
 bank were irremediably lost. Prince Poniatowsky plunged 
 on horseback into the Elster in order to swim across, but 
 sank in the deep mud. The king of Saxony, who to the last 
 had remained true to Napoleon, was among the prisoners. 
 The loss during this battle, which raged for four days, and 
 in which almost every nation in Europe stood opposed to each 
 other, was immense on both sides. The total loss in dead 
 was computed at eighty thousand. The French lost, more- 
 over, three hundred guns and a multitude of prisoners ; in 
 the city of Leipzig alone twenty-three thousand sick, without 
 reckoning the innumerable wounded. Numbers of these un- 
 fortunates lay bleeding and starving to death during the cold 
 October nights on the field of battle, it being found impossi- 
 ble to erect a sufiicient number of lazaretti for their accom- 
 modation. Napoleon made a hasty and disorderly retreat 
 with the remainder of his troops, but was overtaken at Frei- 
 berg on the Unstrutt, where the bridge broke, and a repetition 
 of the disastrous passage of the Beresina occurred. The 
 fugitives collected into a dense mass, upon which the Prus- 
 sian artillery played with murderous effect. The French lost 
 
 remained after the battle of Leipzig, and, without going over to the allies, 
 returned to Wiirtemberg. Normann was punished by his sovereign. 
 
 * The city was in a state of utter confusion. " The noise caused by the 
 passage of the cavalry, carriages, etc., by the cries of the fugitives tlu-ough 
 the streets, exceeded that of the most terrific storm. The earth shook, 
 the windows clattered with the thunder of artillery, etc." — The Terrors 
 of Leipzig, 1813.
 
 THE BATTLE OF LEirzIG. 343 
 
 forty of their guns. At Hanau, AVrede. Napoleon's former 
 favourite, after taking Wiirzburg, watched the movements of 
 his ancient patron, and, liad he occupied the pass at Geln- 
 nausen, might have annihilated him. Napoleon, however, 
 furiously charged his flank, and, on the 20th of October, suc- 
 ceeded in forcing a passage and in sending seventy thousand 
 men across the Rhine. Wrede was dangerously wounded.* 
 On the 9th of November, the last French corps was defeated 
 at Hochheim and driven back upon Mayence. 
 
 In the November of this ever memorable year, 1813, Ger- 
 many, as far as the Rhine, was completely fi-eed from the 
 French. f Above a hundred thousand French troops, still 
 shut up in the fortresses and cut olF from all communication 
 with France, gradually surrendered. In October, the allies 
 took Bremen ; in November, Stettin, Zamosk, jModlin, and 
 those two important points, Dresden and Dantzig. In Dres- 
 den, Gouvion St. Cyr capitulated to Count Klenau, who 
 granted him free egress on condition of the delivery of the 
 whole of the army stores. St. Cyr, however, infringed the 
 terms of capitulation by destroying several of the guns and 
 sinking the gunpowder in the Elbe; consequently, on the non- 
 recognition of the capitulation by the generalissimo, Schwar- 
 zenberg, he found himself without means of defence and was 
 compelled to surrender at discretion with a garrison thii-ty- 
 live thousand strong. Rapp, the Alsacian, commanded in 
 Dantzig. This city had already feai-fuUy suffered from the com- 
 mercial interdiction, from the exactions and the scandalous li- 
 cence of its French protectors, whom the ravages of famine and 
 pestilence finally compelled to yield. | Liibeck and Torgau 
 fell in December ; the typhus, which had never ceased to ac- 
 company the armies, raged there in the crowded hospitals, 
 
 * The king of Wiirtemberg, who had fifteen hundred men close at 
 hand, did not send them to the aid of the Bavarians, nor did he go over 
 to the allies until the '2nd of November. 
 
 •f In November, one hundred and forty thousand French prisoners and 
 seven hundred and ninety-one guns were in the hands of the allies. 
 
 X Dantzig had formerly sixty thousand inhabitants, the population was 
 now reduced to thirteen thousand. Numbers died of hunger, liapp 
 having merely stored the magazines for his troops. Fifteen thousand of 
 the French garrison died, and yet fourteen generals, upwards of a thou- 
 sand officers, and about as many comptrollers belonging to the grand army, 
 who had taken refuge in that city, were, on the capitulation of the for- 
 tress, made prisoners of war.
 
 344 NAPOLEON'S FALL. 
 
 carrying off thousands, and greater numbers fell victims to 
 this pestilential disease than to the war, not only among the 
 troops, but in every part of the country through which they 
 passed. Wittenberg, whose inhabitants had been shamefully 
 abused by the French under Lapoype, Ctistrin, Glogau, "VVe- 
 sel, Erfurt, fell in the beginning of 1814 ; Magdeburg and 
 Bremen, after the conclusion of the war. 
 
 The Rhenish confederation was dissolved, each of the 
 princes securing his hereditaiy possessions by a timely se- 
 cession. The kings of Westphalia and Saxony, Dalberg, 
 grand-duke of Frankfurt, and the princes of Isenburg and 
 von der Leyen, who had too heavily sinned against Germany, 
 were alone excluded from pardon. The king of Saxony was 
 at first carried prisoner to Berlin, and afterwards, under the 
 protection of Austria, to Prague. Denmark also concluded 
 peace at Kiel and ceded Norway to Sweden, upon which the 
 Swedes, quasi re bene gesta, returned home.* 
 
 CCLXII. Napoleon's fall 
 
 Napoleon was no sooner driven across the Rhine, than 
 the defection of the whole of the Rhenish confederation, of 
 Holland, Switzerland, and Italy ensued. The whole of the 
 confederated German princes followed the example of Bava- 
 ria and united their troops with tiiose of the allies. Jerome 
 had fled ; the kingdom of Westphalia had ceased to exist, and 
 the exiled princes of Hesse, Brunswick, and Oldenburg re- 
 turned to their respective territories. The Rhenish provinces 
 were instantly occupied by Prussian troops and placed under 
 the patriotic administi'ation of Justus Grunei', who was joined 
 by Gorres of Coblentz, whose Rhenish Mercury so powerfully 
 influenced public opinion that Napoleon termed him the fifth 
 great European power.f The Dutch revolted and took the 
 few French, still remaining in the country, prisoner. Hogen- 
 dorp was placed at the head of a provisional government in 
 the name of William of Orange.| The Prussians under Bii- 
 
 * The injustice thus favoured by the first peace was loudly complain- 
 ed of. — Manso. 
 
 t His principal thesis consisted of " We are not Prussians, Westpha- 
 lians, Saxons, etc., but Germans." 
 
 + This prince took the title not of stadtholder, but of king, to which he
 
 NAPOLEO^''S FALL. 345 
 
 low entered the country and were received with great accla- 
 mation. The whole of the Dutch fortresses surrendered, the 
 French garrisons flying panic-stricken. 
 
 The Swiss remained faithful to Napoleon until the arrival 
 of Schwarzenberg with the allied army on their fi'ontiers.* 
 Napoleon would gladly have beheld the Swiss sacrifice them- 
 selves for him for the purpose of keeping the allies in check, but 
 Reinhard of Ziirich, who was at that time Landammann, pru- 
 dently resolved not to persevere in the demand for neutrality, 
 to lay aside every manifestation of opposition, and to permit, it 
 being impossible to prevent, the entrance of the troops into 
 the country, by which he, moreover, ingratiated liimself with 
 the allies. The majority of his countrymen thanked Heaven 
 for their deliverance from French oppression, and if, in their 
 ancient spirit of egotism, they neglected to aid the great po- 
 pular movement throughout Germany, they, at all events, 
 sympathized in the general hatred towards France. f The 
 ancient aristocrats now naturally re-appeared and attempted 
 to re-establish the oligarchical governments of the foregoing 
 century. A Count Senfit von Pilsack, a pretended Austrian 
 envoy, who was speedily disavowed, assumed the authority at 
 Berne with so much assurance as to succeed in deposing the 
 existing government and reinstating the ancient oligarchy. 
 In Ziirich, the constitution was also revised and the citizens 
 re-assumed their authority over the peasantry. The whole of 
 Switzerland was in a state of ferment. Ancient claims of 
 the most varied description were asserted. The people of the 
 Grisons took up arms and invaded the Valteline in order to re- 
 take their ancient possession. Pancratius, abbot of St. Gall, 
 
 demanded the restoration of his princely abbey. Italy, also, 
 
 deserted Napoleon. Murat, king of Naples, in order not to 
 lose his crown, joined the allies. Eugene Beauharnois, vice- 
 roy of Italy, alone remained true to his imperial step-father 
 
 had no claim, but in wliicli he was supported by England and Russia, 
 "who unwillingly beheld Prussia aggrandized by the possession ot" Holland. 
 
 * Even in the May of 1813, an ode, given in No. 270 of the Allgemeine 
 Zeitung, appeared in Switzerland, in which it was said, " The brave war- 
 riors of Switzerland hasten to reap fresh laurels. With their heroic blood 
 have they dyed the distant shores of barbarous Haiti, the waters of the 
 Ister and Tagus, etc. The deserts of Sarmatia have witnessed the mar- 
 tial glories of the Helvetic legion." 
 
 t Shortly before this, a report had been spread of the nomination of 
 Marshal Berthier, prince of Neufchatel, as perpetiuil Landammann of 
 Switzerlar"^ . — MuraU's Reinhard.
 
 346 NAPOLEON'S FALL. 
 
 and gallantly opposed the Austrians under Hiller, who, never- 
 theless, rapidly reduced the whole of Upper Italy to sub- 
 mission. 
 
 The allies, when on the point of entering the French terri- 
 tory, solemnly declared that their enmity was directed not 
 against the French nation, but solely against Napoleon. By 
 this generosity they hoped at once to prove the beneficence of 
 their intentions to every nation of Europe and to prejudice 
 the French, more particularly, against their tyrant ; but that 
 people, notwithstanding their immense misfortunes, still re- 
 mained true to Napoleon nor hesitated to sacrifice themselves 
 for the man who had raised them to the highest rank among 
 the nations of the earth, and thousands flocked anew beneath 
 the imperial eagle for the defence of their native soil. 
 
 The allies invaded France simultaneously on four sides, 
 Billow from Holland, BUiclier, on new year's eve, 1814, from 
 Coblentz, and the main body of the allied army under Schwar- 
 zenberg, which was also accompanied by the allied sovereigns. 
 A fourth army, consisting of English and Spaniards, had al- 
 ready crossed the Pyrenees and marched up the country. The 
 great wars in Russia and Germany having compelled Napoleon 
 to draw off a considerable number of his forces from Spain, Soult 
 had been consequently unable to keep the field against Wel- 
 lington, whose army had been gradually increased. King 
 Joseph fled from Madrid. The French hazarded a last en- 
 gagement at Vittoria, in June, 1813, but suffered a terrible 
 defeat. One of the two Nassau regiments under Colonel 
 Kruse and the Frankfurt battalion deserted with their arms 
 and baggage to the English. The other Nassau regiment 
 and that of Baden were disarmed by the French and dragged 
 in chains to France in reward for their long and severe ser- 
 vice.* The Hanoverians in Wellington's army, (the German 
 legion,) particularly the corps of Victor von Alten, (Charles's 
 brother,) brilliantly distinguished themselves at Vittoria and 
 again at Bayonne, but were forgotten in the despatches, an 
 omission that was loudly complained of by their general, 
 Hiniiber. Other divisions of Hanoverians, up to this pei'iod 
 stationed in Sicily, had been sent to garrison Leghorn and 
 Genoa. f The crown-prince of Sweden followed the Prus- 
 
 * Out of two thousand six hundred and fifty-four Badeners hut five 
 hundred and six returned from Spain. 
 t Beamisch, History of the Legiou.
 
 NAPOLEON'S FALL. 347 
 
 sian northern array, but merely went as far as Liege, whence 
 he turned back in order to devote his whole attention to the 
 conquest of Norway. 
 
 In the midst of the contest a fresh congress was assembled 
 at Chatillon for the purpose of devising measures for the con- 
 clusion of the war without further bloodshed. The whole of 
 ancient France was offered to Napoleon on condition of his re- 
 straining his ambition within her limits and of keeping peace, 
 but he refused to cede a foot of land and resolved to lose all 
 or nothing. This congress was in so far disadvantageous on 
 account of the rapid movements of the armies being checked 
 by its fluctuating diplomacy. Schwarzenberg, for instance, 
 pursued a system of procrastination, separated his corps 
 d'armee at long intervals, advanced with extreme slowness, or 
 remained entirely stationary. Napoleon took advantage of 
 this dilatoriness on the part of his opponents to make an un- 
 expected attack on Bliicher's corps at Brienne on the 29th of 
 January, in which BlUcher narrowly escaped being made pri- 
 soner. The flames of the city, in Avhich Napoleon had re- 
 ceived his first military lessons, facilitated Bliicher's retreat. 
 Napoleon, however, neglecting to pui-sue him on the 30th of 
 January, BlUcher, reinforced by the crown-prince of Wiir- 
 temberg and by Wrede, attacked him at La Rothiere with 
 such superior forces as to put him completely to the rout. 
 The French left seventy-three guns sticking in the mud. 
 Schwarzenberg, nevertheless, instead of pursuing the retreat- 
 ing enemy with the whole of his forces, again delayed his ad- 
 vance and divided the troops. Bliicher, who had meanwhile 
 rapidly pushed forward upon Paris, was again unexpectedly 
 attacked by the main body of the French army, and the wliole 
 of his corps were, as they separately advanced, repulsed with 
 considerable loss, the Russians under Olsufief at Champeau- 
 bert, those under Sacken at Montmirail, the Prussians under 
 York at Chtiteau-Thierry, and finally, Bliicher himself at 
 Beauxchamp, between the 10th and 14th of February. With 
 characteristic rapidity, Napoleon instantly fell upon the scat- 
 tered corps of the allied ai'my and inflicted a severe punish- 
 ment upon Schwarzenberg for the folly of his system. He 
 successively repulsed the Russians under Palilen at ]\Ioi'mant, 
 Wrede at Villeneuve le Comte, the crown-prince of Wiii-tem- 
 berg, who offered the most obstinate resistance, at INIontereau,
 
 348 NAPOLEON'S FALL. 
 
 on the I7tli and 18tli of February.* Augereau had mean- 
 time, with an army levied in the south of France, driven the 
 Austrians, under Bubna, into Switzerland ; and, although the 
 decisive moment had arrived and Schwarzenberg had simply to 
 form a junction with Bliicher in order to bring an overwhelm- 
 ing force against Napoleon, the allied sovereigns and Schwar- 
 zenberg resolved, in a council of war held at Troyes, upon a 
 general retreat. 
 
 Bliicher, upon this, magnanimously resolved to obviate at 
 all hazards the disastrous consequences of the retreat of the 
 allied army, and, in defiance of all commands, pushed forwards 
 alone.f This movement, far from being rash, was coolly cal- 
 culated, Bliicher being sufficiently reinforced on the Marne 
 by Winzingerode and Biilow, by whose aid he, on the 9th of 
 March, defeated the emperor Napoleon at Laon. The victory 
 was still undecided at fall of night. Napoleon allowed his 
 troops to rest, but Bliicher remained under arms and sent 
 York to surprise him during the night. The French were 
 completely dispersed and lost forty-six guns. Napoleon, 
 
 * Several regiments sacrificed themselves in order to cover the retreat 
 of the rest. Napoleon ordered a twelve-pounder to be loaded and twice 
 directed the gun with his own hand upon the crown-prince. — Campaigns 
 of the Wurtemhergers. 
 
 t Bliicher's conduct simply proceeded from his impatience to ohtain by 
 force of arms the most honourable terms of peace for Prussia, whilst the 
 other allied powers, who were far more indulgently disposed towards 
 France and who began to view the victories gained by Prussia with an 
 apprehension which was further strengthened by the increasing popularity 
 of that power throughout Germany, were more inclined to diplomatize 
 than to fight. Bliicher was well aware of these reasons for diplomacy 
 and more than once cut the negotiations short with his sabre. A well- 
 known diplomatist attempting on one occasion to prove to him that Na- 
 poleon must, even without the war being continued, " descend from his 
 throne," a league having been formed within P' ranee herself for the restora- 
 tion of the Bourbons, — he answered him to his face, " The rascality of 
 the French is no revenge for us. It is wo who must pull him down, — 
 we. You will no doubt do wonders in your wisdom! — Patience! 
 You will be led as usual by the nose, and will still go on fawning and 
 diplomatizing until we have the nation again upon us, and the storm 
 bursts over our heads." He went so far as to set the diplomatists actu- 
 ally at defiance. On being, to Napoleon's extreme delight, ordered to 
 retreat, he treated the order with contempt and instantly advanced. — 
 Rauschnick's Life of Blucher. "This second disjunction on Bliicher's 
 part," observes Clausenitz, the Prussian general, the best commentator 
 on this war, " was of infinite consequence, for it checked and gave a 
 fresh turn to the whole course of political affairs."
 
 NAPOLEON'S FALL. 349 
 
 after this miserable defeat, again tried his fortune against 
 Schwarzenbex'g, (who, put to shame by Bllicher's brilliant suc- 
 cess, had again halted,) and, on the 20th of March, maintained 
 his position at Arcis sur Aube, although the crown-prince of 
 Wiirtemberg gallantly led his troops five times to the assault. 
 Neither side was victorious. 
 
 Napoleon now resorted to a bold ruse de guerre. The 
 peasantry, more particularly in Lorraine, exasperated by the 
 devastation unavoidable during war-time, and by the venge- 
 ance here and there taken by the foreign soldiery, !iad risen 
 to the rear of the allied army. Unfortunately, no one had 
 dreamt of treating the German Alsacians and Lothringians 
 as brother Germans. They were treated as French. Long 
 unaccustomed to invasion and to the calamities incidental 
 to war, they made a spirited but ineffectual resistance to the 
 rapine of the soldiery. Whole villages were burnt down. 
 The peasantry gathered into troops and massacred the foreign 
 soldiery when not in sufficient numbers to keep them in check. 
 Napoleon confidently expected that his diminished armies would 
 be supported by a general rising en rnasse, and that Augereau, 
 who was at that time guarding Lyons, would form a junc- 
 tion with him ; and, in this expectation, threw himself to the 
 rear of the allied forces and took up a position at Troyes with 
 a view of cutting them off, perhaps of surrounding them by 
 means of the general rising, or, at all events, of drawing them 
 back to the Rhine. But, on the self-same day, the 19th of 
 March, Lyons had fallen and Augereau had retreated south- 
 wards. The people did not rise en masse, and the allies took ad- 
 vantage of Napoleon's absence to form a grand junction, and, 
 with flying banners, to march unopposed upon Paris, convinced 
 that the possession of the capital of the French empire must 
 inevitably bring the war to a favourable conclusion. In 
 Paris, there were numerous individuals who already beheld 
 Napoleon's fall as tin fait accomjili, and who, ambitious of 
 influencing the future prospects of France, were ready to offer 
 their services to the victors. Both parties speedily came to 
 an understanding. The corps (Tarnite under Marshals Mor- 
 tier and Marmont, which were encountered midway, were 
 repulsed, and that under Generals Pacthod and Amey captured, 
 together with seventy pieces of artillery, at la Fere Champe- 
 noise. On the 29th of Maixh, the dark columns of the allied
 
 350 NAPOLEON'S FALL. 
 
 array defiled within sight of Paris. On the 30th, they met 
 with a spirited resistance on the heights of Belleville and Mont- 
 martre ; but the city, in order to escape bombardment, capitu- 
 lated during the night, and, on the 31st, the allied sovereigns 
 made a peaceful entry. The empress, accompanied by the king 
 of Rome, by Joseph, ex-king of Spain, and by innumerable 
 waggons, laden with the spoil of Europe, had already fled to 
 the south of France. 
 
 Napoleon, completely deceived by Winzingerode and Tet- 
 tenborn, who had remained behind with merely a weak rear- 
 guard, first learnt the advance of the main body upon Paris 
 when too late to overtake it. After almost annihilating his 
 weak opponents at St. Dizier, he reached Fontainebleau, 
 where he learnt the capitulation of Paris, and, giving way to 
 the whole fury of his Corsican temperament, oiFered to yield 
 the city for two days to the licence of his soldiery would they 
 but follow him to the assault. But his own marshals, even his 
 hero, Ney, deserted him, and, on the 10th of April, he was 
 compelled to resign the imperial crown of France and to with- 
 draw to the island of Elba on the coast of Italy, which was 
 placed beneath his sovereignty and assigned to him as a re- 
 sidence. The kingdom of France was re-established on its 
 ancient footing ; and, on the 4th of May, Louis XVIII. en- 
 tered Pai'is and mounted the throne of his ancestors. 
 
 Davoust was the last to offer resistance. The Russians 
 under Benuigsen besieged him in Hamburg, and, on his final 
 surrender, treated him with the greatest moderation.* 
 
 On the 30th of May, 1814, peace was concluded at Paris.f 
 France was reduced to her limits as in 1792, and conse- 
 quently retained the pi'ovinces of Alsace and Lorraine, of 
 
 * GiJrres said in the Rhenish Mercury, " It is easy to see how all are 
 inclined to conceal beneath the wide mantle of love the horrors there per- 
 petrated. The Germans have from time immemorial been subjected to 
 this sort of treatment, because ever ready to forgive and forget the past." 
 Davoust was arrested merely for form's sake and then honourably re- 
 leased. He was allowed to retain the booty he had seized. The citizens 
 of Hamburg vainly implored the re-establishment of their bank. 
 
 t Bliicher took no part in these atfairs. " I have," said he to the di- 
 plomatists, " done my duty, now do yours ! You will be responsible 
 l>oth to God and man should your work be done in vain and have to be 
 done over again. 1 have nothing further to do with the business ! " — Ex- 
 perience had, however, taught him not to expect much good from " quill- 
 drivers."
 
 NAPOLEON'S FALL. 351 
 
 which she had, at an earlier period, deprived Germany. Not 
 a farthing was paid by way of compensation for the ravages 
 suffered by Germany, nay, the French prisoners of war were, 
 on their release, maintained on theirway home at the expense of 
 the German population. None of the chefs-d'ceuvres of which 
 Europe had been plundered were restored, with the sole ex- 
 ception of the group of horses, taken by Napoleon from the 
 Brandenburg gate at Bei'lin. The allied troops instantly 
 evacuated the country. France was allowed to regulate her 
 internal affairs without the interference of any of the foreign 
 powers, whilst paragraphs concerning the internal economy 
 of Germany were not only admitted into the treaty of Paris, 
 and France was on that account not only called upon to 
 guarantee and to participate in the internal affairs of Ger- 
 many, but also afterwards sent to the great Congress of 
 Vienna an ambassador destined to play an important part in 
 the definitive settlement of the affairs of Europe, and more 
 particularly, of those of Germany. 
 
 The patriots, of whom the governments had made use both 
 before and after the war, unable to comprehend that the result 
 of such immense exertions and of such a complete triumph 
 should be to bring greater profit and glory to France than to 
 Germany, and that their patriotism was, on the conclusion of 
 the war, to be renounced, were loud in their complaints.* But 
 the revival of the German empire, with which the individual 
 interests of so many princely houses were plainly incompati- 
 ble, was far from entering into the plans of the allied powers. 
 An attempt made by any one among the princes to place him- 
 self at the head of the whole of Germany would have been 
 frustrated by the rest. The policy of the foreign allies was 
 moreover antipathetic to such a scheme. England opposed 
 and sought to hinder unity in Germany, not only for the sake 
 of retaining possession of Hanover and of exercising an in- 
 fluence over the disunited German princes similar to that ex- 
 ercised by her over the princes of India, but more particularly 
 for that of ruling the commerce of Germany. Russia reverted 
 to her Erfurt policy. Her interests, like those of France, 
 
 • The Rhenish Mercury more than alL It was opposed by the Mes- 
 senger of the Tyrol, which declared that the victory was gained, not by 
 the " people," as they were termed, but by the princes and their armies. 
 —July, 1814.
 
 352 NAPOLEON'S FALL. 
 
 led her to promote disunion among the German powers, 
 whose weakness, the result of want of combination, placed 
 them at the mercy of France, and left Poland, Sweden, and 
 the East open to her ambition. A close alliance was in con- 
 sequence instantly foi'med between the emperor Alexander 
 and Louis XVIII., the former negotiating, as the first con- 
 dition of peace, the continuance of Lorraine and Alsace be- 
 neath the sovereignty of France. 
 
 Austria assented on condition of Italy being placed exclu- 
 sively beneath her conti'ol. Austria united too many and too 
 diverse nations beneath her sceptre to be able to pursue a po- 
 licy pre-eminently German, and found it more convenient to 
 round oif her territory by the annexation of Upper Italy than 
 by that of distant Lorraine, at all times a possession difficult to 
 maintain. Prussia was too closely connected with Russia, and 
 Hardenberg, unlike BlUcher at the head of the Prussian 
 army, was powerless at the head of Prussian diplomacy. The 
 lesser states also exercised no influence upon Germany as a 
 whole, and were merely intent upon preserving their indi- 
 vidual integrity or upon gaining some petty advantage. The 
 Germans, some few discontented patriots alone excepted, were 
 more than ever devoted to their ancient pi'inces, both to those 
 who had retained their station and to those who returned to 
 their respective territories on the fall of Napoleon ; and the 
 victorious soldiery, adorned with ribbons, medals, and orders, 
 (the Prussians, for instance, with the iron cross,) evinced the 
 same unreserved attachment to their prince and zeal for his 
 individual interest. This complication of circumstances can 
 alone explain the fact of Germany, although triumphant, hav- 
 ing made greater concessions to France by the treaty of 
 Paris than, when humbled, by that of Westphalia. 
 
 CCLXni. The Congress of Vienna. Napoleon's return 
 and end. 
 
 Prom Paris the sovereigns of Prussia* and Russia and 
 the victorious field-marshals proceeded, in June, to London, 
 
 * From London, Frederick William went to Switzerland and took 
 possession of his ancient hereditary territory, Walsch-Neuenburg or 
 Neufchatel, visited the beautiful Bernese Oberland, and then returned to 
 Berlin, where, on the 7th of August, he passed in triumph througli the
 
 THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA. 353 
 
 where they, Bliicher most particularly, were received with 
 every demonstration of delight and respect by the English, 
 their oldest and most faithfid allies.* Towards autumn, a 
 great European congress, to which the settlement of every 
 point in dispute and the restoi'ation of order throughout 
 Europe were to be committed, was convoked at Vienna. At 
 this congress, which, in the November of 1814, was opened 
 at Vienna, the emperors of Austria and Russia, the kings of 
 Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and the greater part 
 of the petty princes of Germany, were present in person ; the 
 other powers were repi-esented by ambassadors extraordinary. 
 The greatest statesmen of that period were here assembled ; 
 amongst others, Metternich, the Austrian minister, Harden^ 
 
 Brandenburg gate, which was again adorned with the car of victory and 
 the line group of horses, and rode through the lime trees to an altar, 
 around which the clergy belonging to every religious sect were assembled. 
 Here public thanks were given and the whole of the citizens present fell 
 upon their knees. — Allgemeine Zeitung, 252. On the 17th of September, 
 the preparation of a new liturgy was announced in a ministerial proclam- 
 ation, " by which the solemnity of the church service was to be in- 
 creased, the present one being too little calculated to excite or strike 
 the imagination." 
 
 * Oxford conferred a doctor's degree upon Bliicher, who, upon re- 
 ceiving this strange honour, said, " Make Gneisenau apothecary, for he it 
 was who prepared my pills." On his first reception at Carlton House, the 
 populace pushed their way through the guards and doors as far as the 
 apartments of the prince regent, who, taking his grey-headed giiest by 
 the hand, presented him to them, and publicly hung his portrait set in 
 brilliants around his neck. On his passing through the streets, the horses 
 were taken from his carriage, and he was drawn in triumph by the 
 shouting crowd. One fete succeeded another. During the great races 
 at Ascot, the crowd breaking through the barriers and insisting upon 
 Bliicher's showing himself, the prince regent came forward and, politely 
 telling them that he had not yet arrived, led forward the emperor Alex- 
 ander, who was loudly cheered, but Bliicher's arrival was greeted with 
 thunders of applause far surpassing those bestowed upon the sovereigns, 
 a circumstance that was afterwards blamed by the English papers. In 
 the Freemasons' Lodge, Bliicher was received by numbers of ladies, on 
 each of whom he bestowed a salute. At Portsmouth, he drank to the 
 health of the English in the presence of an immense concourse of people 
 
 assembled beneath his windows. The general rejoicing was solely 
 
 clouded by the domestic circumstances of the royal family, by the in- 
 sanity of the aged and blind king and by the disunion reigning between 
 
 the prince regent and his thoughtless consort, Caroline of Brunswick 
 
 Although the whole of the allied sovereigns, some of whom were unable 
 to speak English, imderstood German, French Avas adopted as the medium 
 of conversation. — Allgemeine Zeitung, 174. 
 
 VOL. III. 2 A
 
 354 THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA. 
 
 berg and Humboldt, the Prussian ministers, Castlereagb, the 
 English plenipotentiaiy, Nesselrode, the Russian envoy, Tal- 
 leyrand and Dallierg, Gagern, Bernstorff, and Wrede, the am- 
 bassadors of France, Holland, Denmark, and Bavaria, etc. 
 The negotiations vi^ere of the utmost importance, for, although 
 one of the most difficult points, the new regulation of affairs 
 in France, was already settled, many extremely difficult ques- 
 tions still remained to be solved. Talleyrand, who had 
 served under every govei'nment, under the republic, under 
 the usurper, Napoleon ; who had retaken office under the 
 Bourbons and the Jesuits who had returned in their train, and 
 who, on this occasion, was the representative of the criminal 
 and humbled French nation, ventured, nevertheless, to offer 
 his perfidious advice to the victors, and, with diabolical art, to 
 sow the seed of discord among them. This conduct was the 
 more striking on account of its glaring incongruity with the 
 proclamation of Calisch, which expressly declared that the 
 internal affixirs of Germany were wholly and solely to be 
 arranged by the princes and nations of Germany, without 
 foreign, and naturally, least of all, without French interfer- 
 ence.* Talleyrand's first object was to suppress the popular 
 spirit of liberty throughout Germany, and to rouse against it 
 the jealous apprehensions of tlie princes. He therefore said, 
 " You wish for constitutions ; guard against them. In France, 
 desire for a constitution produced a revolution, and the same 
 will happen to you." He it was who gave to the congress 
 that catch-word, legitimacy. The object of the past strug- 
 gle was not the restoration of the liberties of the people but 
 that of the ancient legitimate dynasties and their absolute 
 sovereignty. The war had been directed, not against Na- 
 poleon, but against the Revolution, against the usurpation of 
 the people. By means of this legitimacy the king of Saxony 
 
 * " There are moments in the life of nations on which the whole'of their 
 future destiny depends. The children are destined to expiate their 
 fathers' errors with their blood. Germany has every thing to fear from 
 the foreigner, and yet she cannot arrange her own aflairs without calling 
 
 the foreigner to her aid. Who, in the congress, chiefly oppose every 
 
 well-laid plan ? Who, with the dagger's point, pick out and re-open all 
 our wounds, and rub them with salt and poison ? Who promote confu- 
 sion, provoke, insinuate, and attempt to creep into every committee, to 
 interfere in every discussion ? who but those sent thitlier by France ? "-^ 
 The Rhenish Mercury.
 
 THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA. 355 
 
 was to be re-established on his throne, and Prussia was on no 
 account to be permitted to incorporate Saxony with her do- 
 minions. Prussia appealed to her services towards Germany, 
 to her enormous .sacrifices, to the support given to her by pub- 
 lic opinion'; but the power of public opinion was itself ques- 
 tioned. The seeds of discord quickly sprang up, and, on the 
 3rd of January, 1815, a secret league against Prussia was 
 already formed for the purpose of again humbling the state 
 that had sacrificed all for the honour of Germany, of frus- 
 trating her schemes of aggrandizement, and of quenching the 
 patriotic spirit of German idealists and enthusiasts.* 
 
 The want of unanimity amid the members of the congress 
 had at the same time a bad effect upon the ancient Rhenish 
 confederated states. In Nassau, the Landivehr was, on its 
 return home after the campaign, received with marks of dis- 
 satisfaction. In Baden and Hesse, many of the oflficers be- 
 longing to the army openly espoused Napoleon's cause. In 
 Baden, the volunteer corps was deprived of its horses and 
 sent home on foot.f In Wiirtemberg, King Frederick re- 
 fused to allow the foreign troops and convoys a passage along 
 the high road through Cannstadt and Ludwigsburg, and for- 
 bade the attendance of civil surgeons upon the wounded be- 
 longing to the allied army. In Wiirtemberg and Bavaria, the 
 Rhenish Mercury was suppressed on account of its patriotic 
 and German tendency. At Stuttgard, the festival in com- 
 memoration of the battle of Leipzig was disallowed ; and in 
 Frankfurt a M., the editor of a French journal ventured, un- 
 reprimanded, to turn this festival into ridicule. 
 
 Switzerland was in a high state of ferment. The people 
 of the Grisons, who had taken possession of the Valteline, 
 and the people of Uri, who had seized the Livinenthal, had 
 
 * Fate -willed that Stein should not be called upon to act with firmness, 
 but Hardenberg to make concessions. Stein disappeared from the 
 theatre of events and was degraded to a lower sphere. Hardenberg was 
 created prince. 
 
 t Napoleon had such good friends among the Rhenish confederated 
 princes that Augustus, duke of Gotha, for instance, even after the second 
 occupation of Paris, on the return of his troops in the November of 1815, 
 prohibited any demonstrations of triumph and even deprived the La7td- 
 wekr of their uniforms, so that the poor fellows had to return in their shirt 
 sleeves to their native villages during the hard winter. — Jacob's Cam- 
 paigns. 
 
 2 A 2
 
 356 THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA. 
 
 been respectively driven out of those territories by the Aus- 
 trians. The Valais, Geneva, Neufchatel, and Pruntrut were, 
 on the other hand, desirous of joining the confederation. The 
 democratic peasantry was almost every where at war with the 
 aristocratic burghers. Berne revived her claim upon Vaud and 
 Aargau, which armed in self-defence.* Reinhard of Ziirich, 
 the Swiss Landammann, went, meanwhile, at the head of an 
 embassy to Vienna, for the purpose of settling in the congress 
 the future destinies of Switzerland by means of the intervention 
 of the great powers. Talleyrand, with unparalleled impudence, 
 also interfered in this affair, threatened to refuse his recog- 
 nition to every measure passed without his concurrence, and 
 compelled the Swiss to entreat him to honour the deliberations 
 with his presence. On Austria's demanding a right of con- 
 scription in the Grisons alone, France having enjoyed that 
 right throughout the whole of Switzerland at an earlier 
 period, Talleyrand advised the Swiss to make a most violent 
 opposition against an attempt that placed their independence 
 at stake. " Cry out," he exclaimed, " cry out, as loud as you 
 can !"| 
 
 The disputes in the congress raised Napoleon's hopes. In 
 France, his party was still powerful, almost the whole of the 
 population being blindly devoted to him, and an extensive con- 
 spiracy for his restoration to the imperial throne was secretly 
 set on foot. Several thousands of his veteran soldiery had 
 been released from foreign durance ; the whole of the military 
 stores, the spoil of Europe, still remained in the possession of 
 France ; the fortresses were solely garrisoned with French 
 troops ; Elba was close at hand, and the emperor was guarded 
 with criminal negligence. Heavy, indeed, is the responsibility 
 of those who, by thus neglecting their charge, once more let 
 loose this scourge upon the earth ! \ Napoleon quitted his 
 
 * An attack upon Berne had already been concerted. Colonel Bar 
 marched with the people of Aargau in the night-time upon Aarburg, but 
 his confederates failing to make their appearance, he caused the nearest 
 Bernese governor to be alarmed and hastily retraced his steps. The 
 Bernese instantly sent an armed force to the frontier, where, finding all 
 tranquil, the charge of aggression was thro^v^l upon their shoulders. 
 
 t Vide Murall's Life of Reinhard. 
 
 X Bliicher was at Berlin at the moment when the news of Napoleon's 
 escape arrived. He instantly roused the English ambassador from his sleep 
 by shouting in his ear, " Have the English a fleet in the Mediterranean ? "
 
 XAPOLEOX'S RETURN AND END. 357 
 
 island, and, on the 1st of March, 1815, again set foot on the 
 coast of France. He was merely accompanied by one thou- 
 sand five hundred men, but the whole of the troops sent 
 against him by Louis XVIII. ranged themselves beneath his 
 eagle. He passed, as if in triumph, through his former em- 
 pire. The whole nation received him with acclamations of 
 delight. Not a single Frenchman shed a drop of blood for 
 the Bourbon, who fled hastily to Ghent ; and, on the 20th 
 of March, Napoleon entered Paris unopposed. His brother- 
 in-law, ]\Iurat, at the same time revolted at Naples and ad- 
 vanced into Upper Italy against the Austrians. But all the 
 rest of Napoleon's ancient allies, persuaded that he must again 
 fall, either remained tranquil or formed a close alliance with 
 the combined powers. The Swiss, in particular, showed ex- 
 cessive zeal on this occasion, and took up arms against France 
 in the hope of rendering the allied sovereigns favourable to 
 their new constitution. Tlie Swiss regiments, which had 
 passed from Napoleon's service to that of Louis XVIIL, also 
 remained unmoved by Napoleon's blandishments, were de- 
 prived of their arms and returned separately to Switzerland. 
 The allied sovereigns were still assembled at Vienna, and 
 at once allowed every dispute to drop in order to form a fresh 
 and closer coalition. They declared Napoleon an outlaAV, a 
 robber, proscribed by all Europe, and bound themselves to 
 bi'ing a force more than a million strong into the field against 
 him. All Napoleon's cunning attempts to bribe and set 
 them at variance were treated with scorn, and the combined 
 powers speedily came to an understanding on the points hither- 
 to so strongly contested. Saxony was partitioned between 
 her ancient sovereign and Prussia, and a revolt that broke out 
 in Liege among the Saxon troops, who were by command of 
 Prussia to be divided before they had been released from their 
 oath of allegiance to their king, is easily explained by the hur- 
 ry and pressure of the times, which caused all minor consider- 
 ations to be forgotten.* Napoleon exclusively occupied the 
 
 * The blame was entirely upon the Prussian side. The Saxons, as 
 good soldiers, naturally revolted at the idea that they would at once be 
 faithless to their oath, and mutinied. General Miiffling was insulted for 
 having spoken of " Saxon hounds." Bliicher even was compelled se- 
 cretly to take his departure. The Saxon troops were, however, reduced 
 to obedience by superior numbers of Prussians, and their colours were 
 burnt. The whole corps was about to be decimated, when Colonel R6-
 
 358 NAPOLEON'S RETURN AND END. 
 
 mind of every diplomatist, and all agreed in the necessity, at 
 all hazards, of his utter annihilation. The lion, thus driven 
 at bay, turned upon his pursuers for a last and desperate 
 struggle. The French were still faithful to Napoleon, who, 
 with a view of re-inspiring them with the enthusiastic spirit 
 that had rendered them invincible in the fii'st days of the re- 
 public, again called forth the old republicans, nominated them 
 to the highest appointments, re-established several republican 
 institutions, and, on the 1st of June, presented to his dazzled 
 subjects the magnificent spectacle of a field of May, as in the 
 times of Charlemagne and in the commencement of the Re- 
 volution, and then led a numerous and spirited army to the 
 Dutch frontiers against the enemy. 
 
 Here stood a Prussian army under Bllicher, and an Anglo- 
 German one under Wellington, comprehending the Dutch 
 under the Prince of Orange, the Brunswickers under their 
 duke, the recruited Hanoverian legion under Wallmoden, 
 These corps d'armee most imminently threatened Paris. The 
 main body of the allied army under Schwarzenberg, then ad- 
 vancing from the south, was still distant. Napoleon conse- 
 quently directed his first attack against the two former. His 
 army had gained immensely in strength and spirit by the re- 
 turn of his veteran troops from foreign imprisonment. Wel- 
 lington, ignorant at wliat point Napoleon might cross the 
 frontier, had followed the old and ill-judged plan of dividing 
 his forces ; an incredible error, the allies having simply to 
 unite their forces and to take up a firm position in order to draw 
 Napoleon to any given spot. Wellington, moreover, never 
 imagined that Napoleon was so near at hand, and was amusing 
 himself at a ball at Brussels, when Bliicher, who was stationed 
 in and around Namur, was attacked on the 14th of June, 1815.* 
 
 mer came forward and demanded that the sentence of death should be 
 first executed on him. Milder measures were in consequence reverted 
 to, and a few of the men were condemned to death by drawing lots. 
 Kanitz, the drummer, a youth of sixteen, however, threw away the dice, 
 exclaiming, " It is I who beat the summons for revolt, and I will be the 
 first to die." He and six others were shot. Borstel, the Prussian gene- 
 ral, the hero of Dennewitz, who had steadily refused to burn the Saxon 
 colours, was compelled to quit the service. 
 
 * For a refutation of Menzel's absurdly perverted relation of these 
 great events, the reader is referred not only to the Duke of Wellington's 
 despatches and to Colonel Siborne's well-established account of the
 
 NAPOLEON'S RETURN AND END. 359 
 
 Napoleon afterwards observed in his memoirs, that he had 
 attacked Bliicher first because he well knew that Bliicher 
 would not be supported by the over-prudent and egotistical 
 English commander, but that Wellington, had he been first 
 attacked, would have received every aid from his high-spirited 
 and faithful ally. Wellington, after being repeatedly urged 
 by Bliicher, collected his scattered corps, but neither completely 
 nor with sufficient rapidity ; and on Bliicher's announcement 
 of Napoleon's arrival, exerted himself on the following morn- 
 ing so far as to make a reconnoissajice. The duke of Bruns- 
 wick, with impatience equalling that of Bliicher, was the only 
 one who had quitted the ball during the night and had hur- 
 ried forward against the enemy. Napoleon, owing to Wel- 
 lington's negligence, gained time to throw himself between 
 him and Bliicher and to prevent their junction ; for he knew 
 the spirit of his opponents. He consequently opposed merely 
 a small division of his army under Ney to the English and 
 turned witli the whole of his main body against the Prussians. 
 The veteran Bliicher perceived his intentions * and in con- 
 sequence urgently demanded aid from the Duke of Welling- 
 ton, who promised to send him a reinforcement of twenty 
 thousand men by four o'clock on the 16th. But this aid never 
 arrived, Wellington, although Ney was too weak to obstruct 
 the movement, making no attempt to perform his pi'omise. 
 Wellington retired with superior forces before Ney at Quatre 
 Bras, and allov.'ed the gallant and unfortunate Duke William 
 of Brunswick to fall a futile sacrifice. Bliicher mean- 
 while yielded to the overwhelming force brought against 
 him by Napoleon at Ligny, also on the 16th of June. Vainly 
 did the Prussians rush to the attack beneath the murderous 
 fire of the French, vainly did Bliicher in person head the as- 
 sault and for five hours continue the combat hand to hand in 
 the village of Ligny. Numbers prevailed, and Wellington 
 sent no relief. The infantry being at length driven back, 
 Bliicher led the cavalry once more to the charge, but was re- 
 battles of Ligny, Wavre, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo, but also to those 
 of his counti-ymen, Miiffling, the Prussian general, and Wagner. — Trans- 
 lator. 
 
 * Shortly before the battle, Bourmont, the French general, set up the 
 white cockade (the symbol of Bourbon) and deserted to Bliicher, who 
 merely said, "It is all one what symbol the fellows set up, rascals are 
 ever rascals ! "
 
 360 NAPOLEON'S RETURN AND END. 
 
 pulsed and fell senseless beneath his horse, which was shot 
 dead. His adjutant, Count Nostitz, alone remained at his 
 side. The French cavalry passed close by without perceiv- 
 ing them, twilight and a misty rain having begun to fall. 
 The Prussians fortunately missed their leader, repulsed the 
 French cavalry, which again galloped past him as he lay on 
 the ground, and he was at length drawn from beneatli his 
 horse. He still lived, but only to behold the complete defeat 
 of his army. 
 
 Bliicher, although a veteran of seventy-three and wounded 
 and shattered by his fall, was not for a moment discouraged.* 
 Ever vigilant, he assembled his scattered troops with wonder- 
 ful rapidity, inspirited them by his cheerful words, and had 
 the generosity to promise aid, by the afternoon of the 18th 
 of June, to Wellington, who was now in his turn attacked 
 by the main body of the French under Napoleon. What 
 Wellington on the 16th, with a fresh army, could not perform, 
 Bliicher now effected witli troops dejected by defeat, and put 
 the English leader to the deepest shame by — keeping his word.f 
 He consequently fell back upon Wavre in order to remain as 
 close as possible in Wellington's vicinity, and also sent orders 
 to Billow's corps, that was then on the advance, to join the 
 English army, whilst Napoleon, in the idea that Bliicher was 
 falling back upon tlie Meuse, sent Grouchy in pursuit with a 
 body of thirty-five thousand men. if 
 
 Napoleon, far from imagining that the Prussians, after 
 having been, as he supposed, completely annihilated or panic- 
 stricken by Grouchy, could aid the British, Avasted the pre- 
 cious moments, and, instead of hastily attacking Wellington, 
 spent the whole of the morning of the 18th in uselessly 
 parading his troops, possibly with a view of intimidating his 
 opponents and of inducing them to retreat without hazarding an 
 
 * The surgeon, -when about to rub him with some liquid, was asked 
 by him what it was, and being told that it was spirits, " Ah," said he, 
 " the thing is of no use externally ! " and snatching the glass from the 
 hand of his attendant, he drank it ofT. 
 
 t Against all expectation to aid an ally who on the previous day had 
 against all expectation been unable to give him aid, evinced at once 
 magnanimity, sense, and good feeling. — Clausetcitz. 
 
 X A Prussian battery, that on its way from Namur turned back on re- 
 ceiving news of this disaster and was taken by the French, is said to have 
 chiefly led to the commission of this immense blunder by Napoleon.
 
 NAPOLEON'S RETURN AND END. 361 
 
 engagement. His well-dressed lines glittered in the sunbeams ; 
 the infantry raised their tschakos on the bayonet points, the 
 cavalry their helmets on their sabres, and gave a general cheer 
 for their emperor. The English, however, preserved an un- 
 daunted aspect. At length, about mid-day. Napoleon gave 
 orders for the attack, and, furiously charging the British left 
 wing, drove it from the village of Hougumont. He then sent 
 orders to Ney to charge the British centre. At that moment 
 a dark spot was seen in the direction of St. Lambert. Was 
 it Grouchy ? A reconnoitring party was despatched and re- 
 turned with the news of its being the Prussians under Biilow. 
 The attack upon the British centre was consequently remanded, 
 and Ney was despatched with a considerable portion of his 
 troops against Biilow. Wellington now ventured to charge 
 the enemy with his right wing, but was repulsed and lost the 
 farm of La Haye Sainte, which commanded his position on 
 this side as Hougumont did on his right. His centre, how- 
 ever, remained unattached, the French exerting their utmost 
 strength to keep Biilow's gallant troops back at the village 
 of Planchenoit, where the battle I'aged with the greatest fury, 
 and a dreadful conflict of some hours' duration ensued hand 
 to hand. But about five o'clock, the left wing of the British 
 being completely thrown into confusion by a fresh attack on 
 the enemy's side, the whole of the French cavalry, twelve 
 thousand strong, made a furious charge upon the British cen- 
 tre, bore down all before them, and took a great number of 
 guns. The Prince of Orange was wounded. The road to 
 Brussels was already thronged with the fugitive English troops, 
 and Wellington, scarcely able to keep his weakened lines to- 
 gether,* was apparently on the brink of destruction, when the 
 thunder of artillery was suddenly heard in the direction of 
 Wavre. " It is Grouchy ! " joyfully exclaimed Napoleon, who 
 had repeatedly sent orders to that general to push forward with 
 all possible speed. But it was not Grouchy, it was Bliicher. 
 The faithful troops of the veteran marshal (the old Silesian 
 
 * The Hanoverian legion again covered itself with glory by the stea- 
 diness with which it opposed the enemy. It lost three thousand five 
 hundred men, the Dutch eight thousand; the German troops conse- 
 quently lost collectively as many as the English, whose loss was com- 
 puted at eleven or twelve thousand men. The Prussians, whose loss 
 at Ligny and Waterloo exceeded that of their allies, behaved with even 
 greater gallantry.
 
 362 NAPOLEON'S RETURN AND END. 
 
 army) were completely worn out by the battle, by their retreat 
 in the heavy rain over deep roads, and by the want of food. 
 The distance from Wavre, whence they had been driven, to 
 Waterloo, where Wellington was then in action, was not great, 
 but was rendered arduous owing to these circumstances. The 
 men sometimes fell down from extreme weariness, and the 
 guns stuck fast in the deep mud. But Bliicher was every where 
 present, and notwithstanding his bodily pain ever cheered his 
 men forwards, with "indescribable pathos" saying to his dis- 
 heartened soldiers, " My children, we must advance ; I have 
 promised it, do not cause me to break my word ! " Whilst 
 still distant from the scene of action, he ordered the guns to 
 be fired in order to keep up the courage of the English, and 
 at length, between six and seven in the evening, the first 
 Prussian corps in advance, that of Ziethen, fell furiously upon 
 the enemy : "Bravo !" cried Bliicher, " I know you, my Sile- 
 sians ; to-day we shall see the backs of these French rascals !" 
 Ziethen filled up the space still intervening between Wel- 
 lington and Blilow. Exactly at that moment. Napoleon had 
 sent his old guard forward in four massive squares in order 
 to make a last attempt to break the British lines, when Zei- 
 then fell upon their flank and dealt fearful havoc among their 
 close masses with his artillery. Billow's troops, inspirited 
 by this success, now pressed gallantly forwards and finally 
 regained the long-contested village of Planchenoit from the 
 enemy. The whole of the Prussian army, advancing at the 
 double and with drums beating, had already driven back the 
 right wing of the French, when the English, regaining cour- 
 age, advanced. Napoleon was surrounded on two sides, and 
 the whole of his troops, the old guard under General Cam- 
 bronne alone excepted, were totally dispersed and fled in com- 
 plete disorder. The old guard, surrounded by Billow's 
 cavalry, nobly replied, when challenged to surrender, " La 
 garde ne se rend pas ;" and in a few minutes the veteran con- 
 querors of Europe fell beneath the righteous and aveng- 
 ing blows of their antagonists. At the farm of La Belle 
 Alliance Bliicher ofi'ered his hand to Wellington. " I will 
 sleep to-night in Bonaparte's last night's quarters," said 
 Wellington. " And I will drive him out of his present ones !" 
 replied Bliicher. The Prussians, fired by enthusiasm, forgot 
 the fatigues they had for four days endured, and, favoured by
 
 NAPOLEON'S RETURN AND END. 363 
 
 a moon-light night, so zealously pursued the French that an 
 immense number of prisoners and a vast amount of booty fell 
 into their hands and Napoleon narrowly escaped being taken 
 prisoner. At Genappe, where the bridge was blocked by 
 fugitives, the pursuit was so close that he was compelled 
 to abandon his carriage leaving his sword and hat behind 
 him. Bliicher, Avho reached the spot a moment afterwards, 
 took possession of the booty, sent Napoleon's hat, sword, and 
 star to the king of Prussia, retained his cloak, telescope, and 
 carriage for his own use, and gave up every thing else, in- 
 cluding a quantity of the most valuable jewellery, gold, and 
 money to his brave soldiery. The whole of the army stores, 
 two hundred and forty guns, and an innumerable quantity of 
 arms thrown away by the fugitives, fell into his hands. 
 
 The Prussian general, Thielemann, who, with a few troops, 
 had remained beliind at Wavre in order, at great hazard, to 
 deceive Grouchy into the belief that he was still opposed by 
 Bliicher's entire force, acted a lesser, but equally honourable 
 part on this great day. He fulfilled his commission with 
 great skill, and so completely deceived Grouchy as to hinder 
 his making a single attempt to throw himself in the way of the 
 Prussians on the Paris road, 
 
 Bliicher pushed forwards without a moment's delay, and, 
 on the 29th of June, stood before Paris. Napoleon had, 
 meanwhile, a second time abdicated, and had fled from Paris 
 in the hope of escaping across the seas. Davoust, the ancient 
 instrument of his tyranny, who commanded in Paris, attempt- 
 ing to make terms of capitulation with Bliicher, was sharply 
 answered, " You want to make a defence ? Take care what 
 you do. You well know what licence the irritated soldiery 
 will take if your city must be taken by storm. Do you wish 
 to add the sack of Paris to that of Hamburg, already load- 
 ing your conscience ? " * Paris surrendered after a severe 
 engagement at Issy, and MiifHing, the Prussian general, was 
 placed in command of the city, July the 7th, 1815. It was 
 on the occasion of a grand banquet given by Wellington 
 shortly after the occupation of Paris by the allied troops that 
 
 * The French were extremely affronted on account of this communi- 
 cation being made in German instead of French, and even at the present 
 day German liistorians are generally struck witli deeper astonishment at 
 this sample of Bliicher's bold spirit than at any other.
 
 364 NAPOLEON'S RETURN AND END. 
 
 Bliicher gave the celebrated toast, " May the pens of diplo- 
 matists not again spoil all that the swords of our gallant 
 armies have so nobly won ! " 
 
 Schwarzenberg had in the interim also penetrated into 
 France, and the crown-prince of Wiirtemberg had defeated 
 General Rapp at Strassburg and had surrounded that fortress. 
 The Swiss, vmder General Bachmann, who had, although fully 
 equipped for the field, hitherto prudently watched the turn of 
 events, invaded France immediately after the battle of Wa- 
 terloo, pillaged Burgundy, besieged and took the fortress of 
 HUningen, which, with the permission of the allies, they justly 
 razed to the ground, the insolent French having thence fired 
 upon the bridges of Basle which lay close in its vicinity. A 
 fresh Austrian army under Frimoiit advanced from Italy as 
 far as Lyons. On the 17th of July, Napoleon surrendered 
 himself in the bay of Rochefort to the English, whose ships 
 prevented his escape ; he moreover preferred falling into their 
 bands than into those of the Prussians. The whole of France 
 submitted to the triumphant allies, and Louis XVIII. was 
 reinstated on his throne. ]\Iurat had also been simultaneously 
 defeated at Tolentino in Italy by the Austrians under Bianchi, 
 and Ferdinand IV. had been restored to the throne of Naples. 
 Murat fled to Corsica, but his retreat to France was prevented 
 by the success of the allies, and in his despair he, with native 
 rashness, yielded to the advice of secret intriguants and re- 
 turned to Italy with a design of raising a popular insurrection, 
 but was seized on landing and shot on the 13th of October.* 
 
 Bliicher was greatly inclined to give full vent to his justly 
 roused rage against Paris. The bridge of Jena, one of the 
 numerous bridges across the Seine, the principal object of his 
 displeasure, was, curiously enough, saved from destruction 
 (he had already attempted to blow it up) by the arrival of the 
 king of Prussia, f His proposal to punish France by parti- 
 
 * Ney, " the bravest of the brave," who dishonoured his bravery by 
 the basest treachery, met with an equally melancholy fate. Immediately 
 after having, for instance, kissed the gouty fingers of Louis XVIIL and 
 boasting thathe would imprison Napoleon within an iron cage, he went over 
 to the latter. He was sentenced to death and shot, after vainly imploring 
 
 tlie allied monarchs and personally petitioning Wellington for mercy. 
 
 Alexander Berthier, prince of Neufchatel, Napoleon's chief confidant, 
 had, even before the outbreak of war, thrown himself out of a window in 
 a fit of hypochondriasis and been killed. 
 
 t Talleyrand begged Count von der Goltz to use his influence for its
 
 NAPOLEON'S RETURN AND END. 365 
 
 tioning the country and thus placing it on a par with Ger- 
 many, was far more practical in its tendency. 
 
 This honest veteran had in fact a deeper insight into affairs 
 than the most wary diplomatists.* In 1815, the same persons, 
 as in 1814, met in Paris, and similar interests were agitated. 
 Foreign jealousy again effected the conclusion of this peace 
 at the expense of Germany and in favour of France. Bliicher's 
 influence at first reigned supreme. The king of Prussia, 
 who, together with the emperors of Russia and Austria, re- 
 visited Paris, took Stein and Gruner into his council. The 
 crown-prince of Wiirtemberg also zealously exerted himself 
 in favour of the reunion of Lorraine and Alsace with Ger- 
 many.f But Russia and England beholding the reintegration 
 of Germany .with displeasui'e, Austria, '\. and finally Prussia, 
 against whose patriots all were in league, yielded. § The 
 
 preservation with Bliicher, who replied to his entreaties, " I will blow up 
 the bridge, and should very much like to have Talleyrand sitting upon it 
 at the time ! " An attempt to blow it up was actually made, but failed. 
 
 * Many of whom were in fact wilfully blind. Hardenberg, by whom 
 the noble-spirited Stein was so ill replaced, and who, with all possible 
 decency, ever succeeded in losing in the cabinet the advantages gained 
 by Bliicher in the field, the diplomatic bird of ill omen by whom the 
 peace of Basle had formerly been concluded, was thus addressed by 
 Bliicher : " I should like you gentlemen of tlie quill to be for once in 
 a way exposed to a smart platoon fire, just to teach you what perils we 
 soldiers have to run in order to repair the blunders you so thoughtlessly 
 commit." An instructive commentary upon these events is to be met 
 with in Stein's letters to Gagern. The light in which Stein viewed the 
 Saxons may be gathered from the follomng passages in his letters : " My 
 desire for the aggrandizement of Prussia proceeded not from a blind par- 
 tiality to that state, but from the conviction that Germany is weakened by 
 a system of partition ruinous alike to her national learning and iiationai 
 
 feelings." " It is not for Prussia but for Germany that I desire a 
 
 closer, a firmer internal combination, a wish that will accompany me to 
 the grave : the division of our national strength may be gratifying to 
 others, it never can be so to me." This truly German policy mainly 
 distinguished Stein from Hardenberg, who, thoroughly Prussian in his 
 ideas, was incapable of perceiving that Prussia's best-understood policy 
 ever will be to identify herself ■v^ith Germany. 
 
 t Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 285. 
 
 + It was proposed that Lorraine and Alsace should be bestowed upon 
 the Archduke Charles, who at that period wedded the Princess Henrietta 
 of Nassau. The proposition, however, quickly fell to the ground. 
 
 § Even in July, their organ, Gcjrres's Rhenish Mercury, was placed 
 beneath the censor. In August, it was said that the men, desirous of 
 giving a constitution to Prussia, had fallen into disgrace. — Allgemeine 
 Zeitung, No. 249. In September, Schmalz, in Berlin, unveiled the pre-
 
 366 NAPOLEON'S RETURN AND END. 
 
 future destinies of Europe were settled on the side of Eng- 
 land by Wellington and Castlereagh ; on that of Russia by 
 Prince John Razumowsky, Nesselrode, and Capo d' Istria ; 
 on that of Austria by Metternich and Wessenberg ; on that 
 of Prussia by Hardenberg and William von Humboldt. The 
 German patriots were excluded from the discussion,* and a 
 result extremely unfavourable to Germany naturally fol- 
 lowed if Alsace and Lorraine remained annexed to France. 
 By the second treaty of Paris, which was definitively con- 
 cluded on the 20th of November, I8I0, France was merely 
 compelled to give up the fortresses of Philippeville, Marien- 
 burg, Sarlouis, and Landau, to demolish Huningen, and to 
 allow eighteen other fortresses on the German frontier to be 
 occupied by the allies until the new government had taken 
 firm footing in France. Until then, one hundred and fifty 
 thousand of the allied troops were also to remain within the 
 French territory and to be maintained at the expense of the 
 people. France was, moreover, condemned to pay seven 
 
 sumed revolutionary intrigiies of the Ttigendbund and declared " the unity 
 of Germany is something to which the spirit of every nation in Germany 
 has ever been antipathetic." He received a Prussian and a Wiirtem- 
 bera; order, besides an extremely gracious autograph letter from the king 
 of Prussia, although his base calumnies against the friends of his country 
 were thrown back upon him by the historians Niebuhr and Riihs, who 
 were then in a high position, by Schleiermacher the theologian, and by 
 others. The nobility also began to stir, attempted to regain their ancient 
 privileges in Prussia, and intrigued against the men who, during the time 
 of need, had made concessions to the citizens. — Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 
 276. 
 
 * The Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 349, laughs at the report of their 
 having withdrawTi from the discussion, and says that they were no 
 longer invited to take part in it. 
 
 t On the loud complaints of the Rhenish Mercury, of the gazettes 
 of Bremen and Hanau, and even of the Allgemeine Zeitung, the Austrian 
 Observer, edited by Gentz, declared that " to demand a better peace 
 would be to demand the ruin of France." — Allgemeine Zeitung, Nos. 
 345, 365. On Gorres's repeated demand for the re-annexation of Alsace 
 and Lorraine, of which Germany had been so unwarrantably deprived, 
 the Austrian Observer declared in the beginning of 1816, "who would be- 
 lieve that Gorres would lend his pen to such miserable arguments. 
 Alsace and Lorraine are guaranteed to France. To demand their restor- 
 ation would be contrary to every notion of honour and justice." In this 
 manner was Germany a second time robbed of these provinces. Wash- 
 ington Paine denominated Strassburg, " a melancholy sentry, of which 
 unwary Germany has allowed herself to be deprived, and which noAv, 
 accoutred in an incongruous uniform, does duty against his own country."
 
 NAPOLEON'S RETURN AND END. obi 
 
 liundred millions of francs towards the expenses of the war 
 and to restore the chef d'ceuvres of which she had deprived 
 every capital in Europe. The sword of Frederick the Great 
 was not refound : jMarshal Serrurier declared that he had 
 burnt it.* On the other hand, however, almost all the fam- 
 ous old German manuscripts, which had formerly been carried 
 from Heidelberg to Rome, and thence by Xapoleon to Paris, 
 ■were sent back to Heidelberg. One of the most valuable, 
 the Slanessian Code of the Swabian j\linnesingers, was left 
 in Pai'is, where it had been concealed. Bliicher expired, in 
 1819, on his estate in Silesia. f 
 
 The French were now sufficiently humbled to remain in 
 tranquillity, and designedly displayed such submission that 
 the allied sovereigns resolved, at a congress held at Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, in tlie autumn of 1818, to withdraw their troops. 
 Napoleon was, with the concurrence of the assembled powers, 
 taken to the island of St. Helena, where, surrounded by the 
 dreary ocean, several hundred miles from any inhabited 
 spot, and guarded with petty severity by the English, he was 
 at length deprived of every means of disturbing the peace of 
 Europe. Inactivity and the unhealthiness of the climate 
 speedily dissolved the earthly abode of this giant spirit. He 
 expired on the 5th of May, 1821. His consort, Maria Louisa, 
 was created Duchess of Parma ; and his son lived, under the 
 title of Duke of Reichstadt, with his imperial grandfather at 
 Vienna, until his death in 1832, Napoleon's stepson, Eugene 
 Beauharnois, the former viceroy of Italy, the son-in-law to 
 the king of Bavaria, received the newly-created mediatized 
 principality of Eichstadt, which was dependent upon Bavaria, 
 and the title of Duke of Leuchtenberg. Jerome, the former 
 
 * The Invalids had in the same spirit cast the triumphal monument 
 of the field of Rossbach into the Seine, in order to prevent its restora- 
 tion. The alarum formerly belonging to Frederick the Great was also 
 missing. Napoleon had it on his person during his flight and made use 
 of it at St. Helena, where it struck his death-hour. 
 
 t He v/as descended from a noble race, which at a very early period 
 enjoyed high repute in Mecklenburg and Pomerania. In 1271, an Ulric 
 von Bliicher was bishop of Ratzeburg. A legend relates that, during a 
 time of dearth, an empty barn was, on his petitioning Heaven, instantly 
 filled with corn. In 1356, Wipertus von Bliicher also became bishop of 
 Ratzeburg, and, on the pope's refusal to confirm him in his diocese on 
 account of his youth, his hair turned grey in one night. Vide Kliiwer's 
 Pescription of Mecklenburg, 1728.
 
 368 THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION. 
 
 king of Westphalia, became Count de Montfort ; * Louis, ex- 
 kinff of Holland, Count de St. Leu. 
 
 PART XXIIL 
 
 THE LATEST TIMES. 
 
 CCLXIV. The German confederation. 
 
 Thus terminated the terrible storms that, not without benefit, 
 had convulsed Europe. Every description of political crime 
 had been fearfully avenged and presumption had been chastised 
 by the unerring hand of Providence. At that solemn period, 
 the sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia concluded a 
 treaty by which they bound themselves to follow, not the 
 ruinous policy they had hitherto pursued, but the undoubted 
 will of the King of kings, and, as the viceroys of God upon 
 the earth, to maintain peace, to uphold virtue and justice. 
 This Holy Alliance was concluded on the 26th of September, 
 1815. AH the European powers took part in it; England, 
 who excused herself, the pope, and the sultan, whose accession 
 was not demanded, alone excepted. 
 
 The new partition of Europe, nevertheless, retained almost 
 all the unnatural conditions introduced by the more ancient 
 and godless policy of Louis XIV. and of Catherine II. Ger- 
 many, Poland, and Italy remained partitioned among rulers 
 partly foreign. Every where were countries exchanged or 
 freshly partitioned and rendered subject to foreign rule. Eng- 
 land retained possession of Hanover, which was elevated into 
 a German kingdom, of the Ionian islands, and of Malta in the 
 Mediterranean. Russia received the grand duchy of Warsaw, 
 which was raised to a kingdom of Poland, but was not united 
 with Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia, and the Ukraine, the ancient 
 
 * His wife, Catlierine of Wiirtemberg, was, in 1814, attacked during 
 her flight, on her way through France, and robbed of her jewels. — 
 AUgememe Zeittmg, No. 130.
 
 THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION. 369 
 
 provinces of Poland standing beneath the sovereignty of Rus- 
 sia, and Finnland, for which vSweden received in exchange 
 Norway, of which Denmark was forcibly dispossessed. Holland 
 was annexed to the old Austrian Netherlands and elevated to 
 a kingdom under William of Orange.* Switzerland remained 
 a confederation of twenty-two cantons,! externally independ- 
 ent and neutral, internally somewhat aristocratic in tendency, 
 the ancient oligarchy every where regaining their power. 
 The Jesuits were reinstated by the pope. In Spain, Portugal, 
 and Naples, the form of government prior to the Eevolution 
 was re-established by the ancient sovereigns on their restoration 
 to their thrones. 
 
 Alsace and Lorraine, Switzerland and the new kingdom of 
 the Netherlands, the pi'ovinces of Luxemburg excepted, were 
 no longer regarded as forming part of Germany. Austria 
 received INIilan and Venice under the title of a Lombardo- 
 Venetian kingdom, the lUyriau provinces also as a kingdom, 
 Venetian Dalmatia, the Tyrol;!:, Vorarlberg, Salzburg, the Inn, 
 and Hausruckviertel, and the part of Galicia ceded by her at 
 an ,'earlier period. The grand-duchy of Tuscany and the 
 duchies of Modena, Parma, and Placentia were, moreover, 
 
 * William V., the expelled hereditary stadtholder, died in obscurity 
 at Brunswick, a. d.' 1806. His son, William, had, in 1802, received 
 Fulda in compensation, but afterwards sened Prussia, was, in 1806, 
 taken prisoner with Mullendorf at Erfurt and afterwards set at liberty, 
 served again, in 1809, under Austria, and then retired to England, whence 
 he returned on the expulsion of the French to receive a crown, which 
 he accepted ^vith a good deal of assurance, complaining, at the same 
 time, of the loss of his fonner possession, Fulda, a circumstance strongly 
 commented upon by Stein in his letters to Gagern. William, in return 
 for his elevation to a throne by the arms of Germany, closed the mouths of 
 the Rhine against her. 
 
 t Zurich, Berne, Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Glarus, Zug, 
 Freyburg, Solothurn, Basle, Schaffliausen, Appenzell, St. Gall, the 
 Grisons, Aargau, Constance, Tessin, the Vaud, Valais, Neuenburg, 
 (Neufchatel,) Geneva. The nineteen cantons of 1805 remained in statu 
 quo, only those of Valais, Neufchatel, and Geneva were confederated with 
 them, and Pruntrut with the ancient bishopric of Basle Mere restored 
 to Berne. 
 
 X The deed of possession of the 26th June, 1814, runs as follows: 
 " Not by an arbitrary, despotic encroachment upon the order of things, 
 but by the hands of the Providence that blessed the arms of your em- 
 peror and of the allied princes and by a holy alliance are you restored 
 to the house of Austria." 
 
 VOL. in. 2 B
 
 370 THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION. 
 
 restored to the collateral branches of the house of Habsburg.* 
 
 Prussia received half of Saxony, the grand-duchy of 
 
 Posen, Swedish-Pomerania,"!" a great portion of Westphalia, 
 and almost the whole of the Lower Rhine from Mayence as 
 far as Aix-la-ChapelIe.:j: Since this period, Prussia is that, 
 among all the states of Germany, which possesses the greatest 
 number of German subjects, Austria, although more consider- 
 able in extent, containing a population of which by far the 
 greater proportion is not German. Bavaria, in exchange for 
 the provinces again ceded by her to Austria, received the 
 province of Wiirzburg together with Aschaffenburg and the 
 Upper Rhenish Pfalz under the title of Rhenish-Bavaria. 
 Hanover received East Frizeland, which had hitherto been de- 
 pendent upon Prussia. Out of this important province, 
 which opened the North Sea to Prussia, was Hardenberg 
 cajoled by the wily English. The electorates of Hesse, Bruns- 
 wick, and Oldenburg were restored. Every thing else was 
 allowed to subsist as at the time of the Rhenish confederation. 
 All the petty princes and counts, then mediatized, continued 
 to be so. 
 
 The ancient empire, instead of being re-established, was, 
 on the 8th of June, 1815, replaced by a German confedera- 
 tion, composed of the thirty-nine German states that had 
 escaped the general ruin ; Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, 
 Hanover, Wiirtemberg, Baden, electoral Hesse, Darmstadt, 
 Denmark on account of Holstein,§ the Netherlands on ac- 
 
 * Tuscany fell to Ferdinand, the former grand-duke of Wiirzburg ; 
 Modena to Francis, son of the deceased duke, Ferdinand ; Parma and 
 Placentia to Maria Louisa, the wife and widow of Napoleon. 
 
 t Not long before, in the treaty of Kiel, there had been question of 
 bestowing Swedish-Pomerania upon Denmark ; to this Prussia refused 
 to accede and Denmark agreed to take 2,6U0,UOO dollars in compensa- 
 tion. Prussia was also compelled to pay 3,0U0,0U0 and a half dollars to 
 Sweden. 
 
 X Rehfues, the director of the circle, a Wiirtemberg Protestant, pub- 
 lished a circular at Bonn, in which he promised full religious security to 
 the Catholic inhabitants, whom he reminded of Prussia's having been " the 
 last supporter of the order of Jesus." — Allgemeine Zeitung of 1814, No. 
 234. 
 
 ^ Holstein alone, not Sleswick, was enumerated as belonging to the 
 German confederation, although both duchies were long ago closely 
 united by the nexits socialis, more particularly in the representation at 
 the diet.
 
 THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION. 371 
 
 count of Luxemburg, Brunswick, Mecklenburg- Schwer in, 
 Nassau, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Gotha, (where the reigning 
 dynasty became extinct, and the duchy was partitioned among 
 the other Saxon houses of the Ernestine line,) Saxe-Coburg, 
 Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Hildburghausen, Mecklenburg- Stre- 
 litz, Holstein-Oldenburg, Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt-Bernburg, 
 Anhalt-Kothen, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg- 
 Rudolstadt, HohenzoUern-Hechingen, Lichtenstein, Hohen- 
 zoUern-Sigmaringen, Waldeck, Reuss the elder, and Reuss 
 the younger branch,* Schaumburg-Lippe, Lippe-Detmold, 
 Hesse-Homburg : finally, the free towns, Liibeck, Frankfurt 
 a M., Bremen, and Hamburg. I At Frankfurt a M. a per- 
 manent diet, consisting of plenipotentiaries from the thirty- 
 nine states, was to hold its session. The votes were, however, 
 so regulated that the eleven states of first rank alone held a 
 full vote, the secondary states merely holding a half or a 
 fourth part of a vote, as, for instance, all the Saxon duchies 
 collectively, one vote ; Brunswick and Nassau, one ; the two 
 Mecklenburgs, one ; Oldenburg, Anhalt, and Schwarzburg, 
 one ; the petty princes of HohenzoUern, Lichtenstein, Reuss, 
 Lippe, and "VValdeck, one ; all the free towns, one ; forming 
 altogether in the diet seventeen votes. In constitutional ques- 
 tions relating to regulations of the confederation the plenum 
 was to be allowed, that is, the six states of the highest rank 
 were to have each four votes, the next five states each three, 
 Brunswick, Schwerin, and Nassau, each two, and all the 
 
 remaining princes without distinction, each one vote.J 
 
 Austria held the permanent presidency. In all resolutions 
 
 * The Reusses, formerly imperial governors of Plauen, diverged into 
 so many branches, that, as early as 1664, they agreed to distinguish 
 themselves by numbers, which at first amounted to thirty, but at a later 
 period to a hundred, afterwards recommencing at number one. The 
 family took the name of Reuss from the Russian wife of its founder, in 
 the beginning of the fourteenth century. 
 
 t Hamburg had vainly petitioned for the restitution of her bank, of 
 which she had been deprived by Davoust. She received merely a small 
 portion of the general war-tax levied upon France. 
 
 X Austria and Prussia contain forty-two million inhabitants ; the rest 
 of Germany merely twelve million ; the power of the two former stands 
 consequently in proportion to that of the rest of Germany as forty-two to 
 twelve or seven to two, whilst their votes in the diet stood not contra- 
 riwise, as two to seven, but as two to seventeen in the plenary assembly, 
 and as two to fifteen in the lesser one. 
 2 B 2
 
 372 THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION. 
 
 relating to the fundamental laws, the organic regulations of 
 the confederation, the jura singulorum and matters of religion, 
 unanimity was required. All the members of the confeder- 
 ation bound themselves neither to enter into war nor into 
 any foreign alliance against the confederation or any of its 
 members. The thirteenth article declared, " Each of the 
 confederated states will grant a constitution to the people." 
 The sixteenth placed all Christian sects throughout the G-er- 
 man confederation on an equality. The eighteenth granted 
 freedom of settlement within the limits of the confederation, 
 and promised " uniformity of regulation concerning the 
 liberty of the press." The fortresses of Luxemburg, ]\Iay- 
 ence, and Landau were declared the common property of the 
 confederation and occupied in common by their troops. A 
 fourth fortress was to have been raised on the Upper Rhine 
 with twenty millions of the French contribution money. It 
 has not yet been erected. 
 
 This was the new constitution given to Germany. Ac- 
 cording to the treaty of Paris it could not be otherwise 
 modelled, and it is explained by the foreign influence that 
 then prevailed. Tlie diet assembled at Frankfurt a M., 
 and was opened by Count Buol-Schauenstein with a solemn 
 address, which excited no enthusiasm. An orator in the 
 American assembly at that time observed, " The non-de- 
 velopment of the seed contained in Germany appears to be 
 the common aim of a resolute policy." 
 
 All now united for the complete suppression of the Ger- 
 man patriotic party. In the former Rhenish confederated 
 states, it had been treated -with open contempt * ever since 
 Gentz had given the signal for persecution in Austria. 
 Prussia, however, also drove all those who had most faith- 
 fully served her in her hour of need from her bosom. Stein 
 was compelled to withdraw to Kappenberg, his country 
 estate. Gruner was removed from office and sent as ambassador 
 to Switzerland, where he died. The Rhenish Mercury, that 
 
 * Aretin, who, at the time of the Rhenish confederation, insolently 
 mocked and had denounced every indication of German patriotism, ven- 
 tured to say in his " Alemannia," in the beginning of 1817, "'The 
 patriotic colours,' ' the voice of the people,' ' nationality,' ' the 
 extirpation of foreign influence,' are words now forgotten, magic sounds 
 that have lost their power."
 
 THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION. 373 
 
 had performed such great services to Prussia, was prohibited, 
 and Gcirres was threatened with the house of correction.* All 
 other papers of a patriotic tendency were also suppressed. In 
 Jena, Oken and Ludeii, in Weimar, Wieland the younger, 
 alone ventured for some time to give utterance to their liberal 
 opinions, which were finally also reduced to silence. 
 
 Patriotic enthusiasm was, however, not so speedily sup- 
 pressed amid the youthful students in the academies and 
 universities. Jahn's gymnastic schools, ( Turnschulen,) the 
 members of which were distinguished by the German costume, 
 a short black frock coat, a black cap, linen trowsers, a bare 
 neck with turned-over shirt collar, extended far and wide 
 and were in close connexion with the Binschenschaften of 
 the universities. The prescribed object of these Turnschulen 
 was the promotion of Chi'istian, moral, German manners, the 
 universal fraternization of all German students, the complete 
 eradication of the provincialism and licence inherent in the 
 various associations formed at the universities. They wore 
 Jahn's German costume and always acted publicly, until their 
 suppression, Avhen the remaining members formed secret 
 associations. On the 18th of October, 1817, the students of 
 Jena, Halle, and Leipzig, and those of some of the more distant 
 universities, assembled in order to solemnize the jubilee on the 
 three hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, on the Wart- 
 burg, where, in imitation of Luther, they committed a number 
 of servile works, inimical to the German cause, to the flames, 
 as Gorres at that time said, " filled with anger that the same 
 reformation required of the church by Luther should be sanc- 
 tioned, but at the same time refused, by the state." The 
 black, red, and yellow tricolour was hoisted for the first time 
 on this occasion. These were in reality the ancient colours 
 of the empire and were regarded as such by the patriotic 
 students, but were purposely looked upon by the Frencli and 
 their adherents in Germany as an imitation of the tricoloured 
 flag of the French republic. The festival solemnized on the 
 Wartburg was speedily succeeded by others. The Turner, 
 
 * By Sack, the government commissary, who even confiscated the 
 Rhenish Mercury, an earlier and unprohibited paper, and arrested the 
 printer, against which Gurres violently protested in a letter addressed to 
 Sack. Gorres made a triumphant defence before the tribunal at Treves, 
 and observed, " Strange that the most violent enemy to France should 
 seek the protection of French courts ! "
 
 374 THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION. 
 
 more particularly at Berlin and Breslau, rendered themselves 
 conspicuous not only by their dress but by their insolence, 
 boys even of the tenderest years putting themselves forward 
 as reformers of the government and of society, and singing 
 the most blood-thirsty songs of liberty. The Prussian go- 
 vernment interfered, and the gymnastic exercises, so well 
 suited to the subjects of a warlike state, were once more 
 prohibited. 
 
 At the congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, Stourdza, the Russian 
 counsellor of state, a Wallachian by birth, presented a memo- 
 rial in which the spirit of the German universities was de- 
 scribed as revolutionary. The Burschenschaft of Jena sent 
 him a challenge. Kotzebue, the Russian counsellor of state and 
 celebrated dramatist, at length published a weekly paper in 
 which he turned every indication of German patriotism to 
 ridicule, and exercised his wit upon the individual eccentrici- 
 ties of the students affecting the old German costume, of pre- 
 cocious boys and doting professors. The rage of the galled 
 universities rose to a still higher pitch on the discovery, made 
 and incontestably proved by Luden, that Kotzebue sent secret 
 bulletins, filled with invective and suspicion, to St. Peters- 
 burg. To execrate Kotzebue had become so habitual at the 
 universities that a young man. Sand from Wunsiedel, a theo- 
 logical student of Jena, noted for piety and industry, took 
 the fanatical resolution to free, or at least to wipe off a blot 
 from his country, by the assassination of an enemy whose im- 
 portance he, in the dehision of hatred, vastly overrated ; and 
 he accordingly went, in 1819, to Mannheim, plunged his 
 dagger into Kotzebue's heart, and then attempted his own 
 life, but only succeeded in inflicting a slight wound. He was 
 beheaded in the ensuing year. Loning, the apothecary, pro- 
 bably excited by Sand's example, also attempted the life of 
 the president of Nassau, Ibell, who however seized him, and 
 he committed suicide in prison. 
 
 These events occasioned a congress at Carlsbad in 1819, 
 which took the state of Germany into deliberation, placed 
 each of the universities under the supervision of a government 
 officer, suppressed the Burschenschaft, prohibited their co- 
 lours, and fixed a central board of scrutiny at Mayence,* which 
 
 * The names of these inquisitors •were, Sch-narz, Grano, Hcirmann, 
 Bar, Pfister, Preusschen, IMoussel.
 
 THE NEW CONSTITUTIONS. 375 
 
 acted on the presupposition of the existence of a secret and 
 general conspiracy for the purposes of assassination and revo- 
 lution, and of Sand's having acted not from personal fanati- 
 cism and religious aberration, but as the agent of some unknown 
 superiors in some new and mysterious tribunal. This inqui- 
 sition was carried on for years and a crowd of students peopled 
 the prisons ; conspiracies perilous to the state were, however, 
 no where discovered, but simply a great deal of ideal enthu- 
 siasm. The elder men in the universities, who, either in 
 their capacity as tutors or authors, had fed the enthusiasm of 
 the youthful students, were also removed from their situations. 
 Jahn was arrested, Arndt was suspended at Bonn and Fries 
 at Jena ; Gorres, who had perseveringly published the most 
 violent pamphlets, was compelled to take refuge in Switzer- 
 land, which also offered an asylum to Dewette, the Berlin pro- 
 fessor of theology, who had been deprived of his chair on 
 account of a letter addressed by him to Sand's mother. Oken, 
 the great naturalist, who refused to give up " Isis," a periodical 
 publication, also withdrew to Switzerland. Numbers of the 
 younger professors went to America.* The solemnization of 
 the October festival was also prohibited, and the triumphal 
 monument on the field of Leipzig was demolished. 
 
 CCLXV. The new constitutions. 
 
 Gerjiany had, notwithstanding her triumph, regained nei- 
 ther her ancient unity nor her former power, but still continued 
 to be merely a confederation of states, bound together by no firm 
 tie and regarded with contempt by their more powerful neigh- 
 bours. The German confederation did not even include the 
 whole of the provinces whose population was distinguished as 
 German by the use of the German language. Several of the 
 provinces of Germany were still beneath a foreign sceptre ; 
 Switzerland and the Netherlands had declared themselves 
 distinct from the rest of Germany, which, hitherto submissive 
 to France, was in danger of falling beneath the influence of 
 Russia, who ceaselessly sought to entangle her by diplomatic 
 wiles. 
 
 * Charles Follen, brother to the poet Louis Adolf Follen, private 
 teacher of law at Jena, a young man of great spirit and talent, who at 
 that period exercised great influence over the youth of Germany, was 
 wrecked, in 1S4U, in a steamer in North America and dro^vned.
 
 376 THE NEW CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 There were still, however, men existing in Germany who 
 hoped to compensate the loss of the external power of their 
 country by the internal freedom that had been so lavishly 
 promised to the people on the general summons to the field. 
 The proclamation of Calisch and the German federative act 
 guaranteed the grant of constitutions. The former Rhenish 
 confederated princes, nevertheless, alone found it to their in- 
 terest to carry this promise into effect, and, in a manner, 
 formed a second alliance with France by their imitation of 
 the newly introduced French code and by the establishment, 
 in their own territories, of two chambers, one of peers, the 
 other of deputies, similar to those of France ; measures by 
 which, at that period of popular excitement, they also regained 
 the popularity deservedly lost by them at an earlier period 
 thi'oughout the rest of Germany, the more so, the less the in- 
 clination manifested by Austria and Prussia to grant the 
 promised constitutions. Enslaved Illuminatism characterizes 
 this new zeal in favour of internal liberty and constitutional 
 governments, to denote which the novel term of Liberalism was 
 borrowed from France. Liberty was ever on the tongues — 
 of the most devoted servants of the state. The ancient church 
 and the nobility were attacked with incredible mettle — in 
 order to suit the purposes of ministerial caprice. Prussia and 
 Austria were loudly blamed for not keeping pace with the 
 times — with the intent of favourably contrasting the an- 
 cient policy of the Rhenish confederation. None, at that 
 period, surpassed the ministers belonging to the old school of 
 Illuminatism and Napoleonism in liberalism, but no sooner 
 did the deputies of the people attempt to realize their liberal 
 ideas than they started back in dismay. 
 
 The first example of this kind was given by Frederick 
 Augustus, duke of Nassau, as early as the September of 
 1814. Ibell, the president, who reigned with unlimited 
 power over Nassau, drew up a constitution which has been 
 termed a model of " despotism under a constitutional form." 
 The whole of the property of the state still continuing to be 
 the private property of the duke, and his right arbitrai'ily to 
 increase the number of members belonging to the first cham- 
 ber, and by their votes to annul every resolution passed by 
 the second chamber, rendered the whole constitution illusory. 
 Trombetta, one of the deputies, voluntarily renounced his 
 seat, an example that was followed by several others.
 
 THE NEW CONSTITUTIONS. 377 
 
 The second constitution granted was that bestowed upon 
 the Netherlands in 1815, by King "William, who established 
 such an unequal representation ni the chambers between 
 the Belgians and Dutch as to create great dissatisfaction 
 among tlie former, who, in revenge, again affected the French 
 party. This was succeeded, in 1816, by the petty constitu- 
 tions of Waldeck, AVeiraar, and Frankfurt a M. Maxi- 
 milian, king of Bavaria, seemed, in 1817, to announce an- 
 other system by the dismissal of his minister, Montgelas, 
 and, in 1818, bestowed a new constitution upon Bavaria; 
 but the old abuses in the administration remained uneradi- 
 cated ; a civil and military state unproportioned to the reve- 
 nue, the petty despotism of government officers and heavy 
 imposts, still weighed upon the people, and the constitution 
 itself was quickly proved illusory, the veto of the first cham- 
 ber annulling the first resolution passed by the second cham- 
 ber. Professor Behr of Wiirzburg, upon this, energetically 
 protested against the first chamber, and, on the refusal of the 
 second chamber to vote for tlie maintenance of the array on 
 so high a footing, unless the soldiery were obliged to take the 
 oath on the constitution, it was speedily dissolved. In Ba- 
 den, the Grand-duke Charles expired, a. d. 1818, after having 
 caused a constitution to be di'awn up, which Louis, his uncle 
 and successor, carried into effect. Louis having, however, 
 previously, and without the consent of the people, entered 
 into a stipulation with the nobility, to whom he had granted 
 an edict extremely favourable to their interests, AVinter, the 
 Heidelberg bookseller, a member of the second chamber, de- 
 manded its abrogation. The answer was, the dissolution of 
 the chamber, personal inquisition and intimidation, and the 
 publication of an extremely severe edict of censure, against 
 which, in 1820, Professor von Rotteck of Freiburg, supported 
 by the poet Hebel and by the Freiherr von Wessenberg, ad- 
 ministrator of the bishopric of Constance, protested, but in 
 
 vain. At the same time, that is, in 1818, Hildburghausen, 
 
 and even the petty principality of Lichtenstein, which merely 
 contains two square miles and a population amounting to five 
 thousand souls, also received a constitution, which not a little 
 
 contributed to turn the whole affair into ridicule. To these 
 
 succeeded, in 1819, the constitutions of Hanover and Lippe- 
 Detmold, the former as aristocratic as possible, completely in
 
 378 THE NEW CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 the spirit of olden times, solely dictated and carried into effect 
 by tlie nobility and government officers. The sittings of the 
 
 chambers, consequently, continued to be held in secret. 
 
 The dukes of Mecklenburg abolished feudal servitude, vphich 
 existed in no other part of Germany, in 1820. In Darm- 
 stadt, the constitution was granted by the good-natured, ven- 
 erable Grand-duke Louis, (whose attention was chiefly de- 
 voted to the opera,) after the impatient advocates, who had 
 collected subscriptions in the Odenwald to petitions praying 
 for the speedy bestowal of the promised constitution, had 
 been arrested, and an insurrection that consequently ensued 
 
 among the peasantry had been quelled by force. Petty 
 
 constitutions were, moreover, granted, in 1821, to Coburg, 
 and, in 1829, to Meiningen. The Gotha-Altenburg branch of 
 the ducal house of Saxony became extinct in 1825 in the person 
 of P>ederick, the last duke, the brother of Duke Augustus 
 Emilius, a great patron of the arts and sciences, deceased, 
 A. D. 1822. Gotha, consequently, lapsed to Coburg, Altenburg 
 to Hildburghausen, and Hildburghausen to Meiningen. 
 
 In Wurtemberg, the dissatisfaction produced by the an- 
 cient despotism of the government was also to be speedily 
 appeased by the grant of a constitutional charter. The 
 king, Frederick, convoked the Estates, to whom he, on the 
 15th of March, 1815, solemnly delivered the newly enacted 
 constitution. But here, as elsewhere, was the government 
 inclined to grant a mere illusory boon. The Estates re- 
 jected the constitution, without reference to its contents, 
 simply owing to the formal reason of its being bestowed by the 
 prince and being consequently binding on one side alone, in- 
 stead of being a stipulation between the prince and the 
 people, and moreover because the ancient constitution of 
 Wlirtemberg, which had been abrogated by force and in di- 
 rect opposition to the will of the Estates, was still in legal force. 
 The old Wurtemberg party alone could naturally take their 
 footing upon their ancient rights, but the new WUrtemberg 
 party, the mediatized pi'inces of the empire, the counts and 
 barons of the empire, and the imperial free towns, nay, even 
 the Agnati of the reigning house,* all of whom had suffered 
 
 * The king bitterly reproached his brother Henry, to whom he said, 
 " You have accused me to my peasantry." — Pfister, History of the Con- 
 stitution of Wurtemberg.
 
 THE NEW CONSTITUTIONS. 379 
 
 more or less under Napoleon's iron rule, ranged themselves 
 on their side. The deputy, Zahn of Calw, drew a masterly 
 picture of the state of affairs at that period, in which he 
 pitilessly disclosed every reigning abuse. The king, thus 
 vigorously and unanimously opposed, was constrained to 
 yield, and the most prolix negotiations, in which the citizen 
 deputies, headed by the advocate, Weisshaar, vpere supported 
 by the nobility against the government, commenced. 
 
 The affair was, it may be designedly, dragged on ad infi- 
 nitum until the death of the king in 1816, when his son and 
 successor, William, who had gained a high reputation as a 
 military commander and had rendered himself extremely 
 popular, zealously began the work of conciliation. He not 
 only instantly abolished the abuses of the former government, 
 as, for instance, in the game law,* but, in 1817, delivered a 
 new constitution to the Estates. Article 337 was somewhat 
 artfully drawn up, but in every point the constitution was as 
 liberal as a constitutional charter could possibly be. But the 
 Estates refused to accept of liberty as a boon, and rejected this 
 constitution on the same formal grounds upon which they had 
 rejected the preceding one. The Estates were again upheld 
 by a grateful public, and the few deputies, more particularly 
 Cotta and Griesinger, who had defended the new constitu- 
 tion on account of its liberality and who regarded form as 
 immaterial, became the objects of public animadversion. 
 The populace broke the windows of the house inhabited by 
 the liberal-minded minister, von Wangenheim. The poet 
 Uhland greatly distinguished himself as a warm upholder of 
 the ancient rights of the people, f The king instantly dis- 
 
 * Pfister mentions in his History of the Constitution of Wiirtemberg, 
 that merely in the superior bailiwick of Heidenheim the game duties 
 amounted, in 1814, to '20,000 florins, and 5"293 acres of taxed ground 
 lay uncultivated on account of the damage done by the game, and that in 
 March, 1815, one bailiwick was obliged to furnish twenty-one thousand 
 five hundred and eighty-four men and three thousand two hundred and 
 thirty-seven horses for a single hunt. 
 
 t Colonel von Massenbach, of the Prussian service, who has so mi- 
 serably described the battle of Jena and the surrender of Prentzlow in 
 which he acted so miserable a part, and who had in his native Wiirtem- 
 berg embraced the aristocratic party, was delivered by the free town of 
 Frankfurt, within whose walls he resided, up to the Prussian govern- 
 ment, which he threatened to compromise by the publication of some 
 letters. He died within the fortress of Ciistrin.
 
 380 THE NEW CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 solved the Estates, but at the same time declared his intention 
 to guarantee to the people, without a constitution, the rights 
 he had intended constitutionally to confer upon them ; to 
 establish an equal system of taxation, and "to eradicate bu- 
 reaucracy, that curse upon the country.'' The good-will 
 displayed on both sides led to fresh negotiations, and a third 
 constitution was at length drawn up by a committee, com- 
 posed partly of members of the government, partly of members 
 belonging to the Estates, and, in 1819, was taken into deli- 
 beration and passed by the reassembled Estates. This con- 
 stitution, nevertheless, fell far below the mark to which it 
 had been raised by public expectation, partly on account of the 
 retention, owing to ancient prejudice, of the permanent com- 
 mittee and its oligarchical influence, partly on account of the 
 too great and permanent concessions made to the nobility in 
 return for their momentary aid,* partly on account of the 
 extreme haste that marked the concluding deliberations of 
 the Estates, occasioned by their partly unfounded dread of 
 interference on the part of the congress then assembled at 
 Carlsbad, 
 
 In Wiirtemberg, however, as elsewhere, the policy of the 
 government was deeply imbued with the general cliaracter- 
 istics of the time. Notwithstanding the constitution, not- 
 withstanding the guarantee given by the federative act, 
 liberty of the press did not exist. List, the deputy from 
 Reutlingen, was, for having ventured to collect subscriptions 
 to petitions, brought before the criminal court, expelled the 
 chamber by his intimidated brother-deputies, took refuge in 
 Switzerland, whence he returned to be imprisoned for some 
 time in the fortress of Asberg, and was finally permitted to 
 emigrate to North America, whence he returned at a later 
 period [a. d, 1825] in the capacity of consul. Liesching, 
 the editor of the German Guardian, whose liberty of speech 
 
 * The mediatized princes and counts of the empire sat in the first 
 chamber, the barons of the empire in the second. The prelates, once so 
 powerful, lost, on the other hand, together livith the church property, in 
 the possession of which they were not reinstated, also most of their 
 influence. Instead of the fourteen aristocratic and independent prelates, 
 six only were appointed by the monarch to seats in the second chamber. 
 Government officers were also eligible in this chamber, which ere long 
 fell entirely under their influence.
 
 THE NEW COXSTITUTIOXS. 381 
 
 was silenced by command of the German confederation, also 
 became an inmate of the fortress of Asberg. 
 
 In Hesse and Brunswick, all the old abuses practised in 
 the petty courts in the eighteenth century were revived. 
 William of Hesse-Cassel returned, on the fall of Napoleon, 
 to his domains. True to his whimsical saying, " I have slept 
 during the last seven years," he insisted upon replacing every 
 thing in Hesse exactly on its former footing. In one par- 
 ticular alone was his vanity inconsistent : notwithstanding 
 his hatred towards Napoleon, he retained the title of Prince 
 Elector, bestowed upon him by Napoleon's favour, although 
 it had lost all significance, there being no longer any em- 
 peror to elect.* He turned the hand of time back seven 
 yeai'S, degraded the counsellors raised to that dignity by 
 Jerome to their former station as clerks, captains to lieuten- 
 ants, etc., all, in fact, to the station they had formerly occu- 
 pied, even re-introduced into the army the fashion of wearing 
 powder and queues, prohibited all those not bearing an official 
 title to be addressed as " Hen'," and re-established the soc- 
 cage dues abolished by Jerome. This attachment to old 
 abuses was associated with the most insatiable avarice. He 
 reduced the government bonds to one tliird, retook posses- 
 sion of the lands sold during Jerome's reign, witliout grant- 
 ing any compensation to the holders, compelled the country 
 to pay his son's debts to the amount of two hundred thousand 
 rix-dollars, lowered the amount of pay to such a degree that 
 a lieutenant received but five rix-dollars per mensem, and 
 offered to sell a new constitution to the Estates at the low 
 price of four million rix-dollars, which he afterwards lowered 
 to two millions and a tax for ten years upon liquors. This 
 shameful bai-gain being rejected by the Estates, the constitu- 
 tion fell to the ground, and the prince elector practised the 
 most unlimited despotism. Discontent was stifled by im- 
 prisonment. Two officers, Huth and Rotsmann, who had 
 got up a petition in favour of their class, and the Herr von 
 Gohr, who by chance gave a private fete whilst the prince 
 was suffering from a sudden attack of illness, were among 
 the victims. The purchasers of the crown lands vainly ap- 
 pealed to the federative assembly for redress, for the prince 
 
 * He endeavoured, but in vain, to persuade the allied powers to be- 
 stow upon liim the royal dignity.
 
 382 THE NEW CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 elector " refused the mediation of the federative assembly 
 until it had been authorized by an organic law drawn up with 
 
 the co-operation of the prince elector himself." This prince 
 
 expired a. d. 1821, and was succeeded by his son, William IL, 
 who abolished the use of hair-powder and queues, but none 
 of the existing abuses, and demonstrated no inclination to 
 grant a constitution. He was, moreover, the slave of his 
 mistress. Countess Reichenbach, and on ill terms with his 
 consort, a sister of the king of Prussia, and with his son. 
 Anonymous and threatening letters being addressed to this 
 prince with a view of inducing him to favour the designs of 
 the writer, he had recourse to the severest measures for the 
 discovery of the guilty party ; numbers of persons were ar- 
 rested, and travellei-s instinctively avoided Cassel. It was 
 at length discovered that Manger, the head of the police, a 
 court favourite, was the author of the letters. 
 
 Similar abuses were revived by the house of Brunswick. 
 It is unhappily impossible to leave unmentioned the conduct 
 of Caroline, princess of Brunswick, consort to the Prince of 
 Wales, afterwards George IV., king of England. Although 
 this German princess had the good fortune to be protected 
 by the Whig party and by the people against the king and 
 the Tory ministry, she proved a disgrace to her supporters 
 l)y the scandalous familiarity in which she lived in Italy with 
 her chamberlain, the Italian, Pergami. The sympathy with 
 which she was treated at the time of the congress was de- 
 signedly exaggerated by the AVhigs for the purpose of giving 
 the greatest possible publicity to the errors of the monarch. 
 Caroline of Brunswick was declared innocent and expired 
 shortly after her trial, in 1821. 
 
 Charles, the hereditary duke of Brunswick, son to the 
 duke who had so gallantly f\xllen at Quatre-bras, was under 
 the guardianship of the king of England. A constitution 
 was bestowed in 1820 upon this petty territory, which was 
 governed by the minister, Von Schmidt-Phiseldek. The 
 youthful duke took the reins of government in his nineteenth 
 year. Of a rash and violent disposition and misled by evil 
 associates, he imagined that he had been too long restricted 
 from assuming the government, accused his well-deserving 
 minister of having attempted to prolong his minority, posted 
 handbills for his apprehension as a common delinquent, de-
 
 THE EUROPEAN CONGRESS. 383 
 
 nied all his good offices, and subverted the constitution. He 
 was surrounded by base intriguers in the person of Bosse, the 
 counsellor of state, formerly the servile tool of Napoleon's 
 despotism, of Frike, the Aulic counsellor, " whose pliant quill 
 was equal to any task when injustice had to be glossed ovei\" 
 of the adventurer, Klindworth, and of Bitter, the head of the 
 chancery, who conducted the financial speculations. Frike, in 
 contempt of justice, tore up the judgment passed by the court 
 of justice in favour of the venerable Herr von Sierstorff, 
 whom he had accused of high treason. Herr von Cramm, by 
 whom Frike was, in the name of the Estates, accused of this 
 misdemeanour before the federative assembly, was banished, 
 a surgeon, who attended him, was put upon his defence, and 
 an accoucheur, named Grimm, who had basely refused to at- 
 tend upon Cramm's wife, was presented with a hundred dol- 
 lars. Haberlin, the novelist, who had been justly condemned 
 to twenty years' imprisonment with hard labour for his civil 
 misdemeanours, was, on the other hand, liberated for publish- 
 ing something in the duke's favour. Bitter conducted him- 
 self with the most open profligacy, sold all the demesnes, appro- 
 priated the sum destined for the redemption of the public debt, 
 and at the same time levied the heavy imposts with unrelent- 
 ing severity. The federative assembly passed judgment 
 against the duke solely in reference to his attacks upon the 
 king of England. 
 
 CCLXVI. The European congress. The German 
 Customs' Union. 
 
 The great political drama enacting in Europe excited at this 
 time the deepest attention throughout Germany. In almost 
 every country a struggle commenced between liberalism and the 
 measures introduced on the fall of Napoleon. In France more 
 particularly it systematically and gradually undermined the go- 
 vernment of the Bourbons, and the cry of liberty that resound- 
 ed throughout France once more found an echo in Germany. 
 
 The terrible war was forgotten. The French again 
 became the objects of the admiration and sympathy of the 
 radical party in Germany, and the spirit of opposition, here 
 and there demonstrated in the German chambers, gave rise, 
 notwithstanding its impotence, to precautionary measures on
 
 384 THE EUROPEAN CONGRESS. 
 
 the part of the federative governments. In the winter of 1 8 19, 
 a German federative congress, of which Prince Metternich was 
 the grand motor, assembled at Vienna for the purpose, after the 
 utter annihihition of the patriots, of finally checking the future 
 movements of the liberals, principally in the provincial diets. 
 The Viennese Act of 1820 contains closer definitions of the 
 Federative Act, of which the more essential object was the 
 exclusion of the various provincial diets from all positive 
 interference in the general affairs of Germany, and the increase 
 of the power of the diflerent princes vis-a-vis to their provin- 
 cial diets by a guai'antee of aid on the part of the confederates. 
 During the sitting of this congress, on new-year's day, 
 1820, the liberal party in Spain revolted against their ungrate- 
 ful sovereign, Ferdinand VII., who exercised the most fear- 
 ful tyranny over the nation that had so unhesitatingly shed 
 its blood in defence of his tlirone. This example was shortly 
 afterwards followed by the Neapolitans, who were also dis- 
 satisfied witli the conduct of their sovereign. Prince IMetter- 
 nich instantly brought about a congress at Troppau. The 
 czar, Alexander, who had views upon the East and was no 
 stranger to the heterarchical party which, under the guidance 
 of Prince Ypsilanti, prepared a revolution in Greece (which 
 actually broke out) against tlie Turks, was at first unwilling to 
 give his assent unconditionally to the interference of Austria, 
 but on being, in 1821, to his great surprise informed by Prince 
 Metternich of the existence of a revolutionary spirit in one of 
 the regiments of the Russian guard, freely assented to all 
 the measures proposed by that minister.* The new congress 
 held at Laibach, a. d. 1821, was followed by the entrance of 
 the Austrians under Frimont into Italy. The cowardly Nea- 
 politans fled without firing a shot, and the Piedmontese, 
 who unexpectedly revolted to Frim«nt's rear, were, after a 
 short encounter with the Austrians under Bubna at Novara, 
 defeated and reduced to submission. The Greeks, Avhom 
 Russia now no longer ventured openly to uphold, had, in the 
 mean time, also risen in open insurrection. The affairs of 
 Spain were still in an unsettled state. The new congress 
 held at Verona, in 1822, however, decided the fate of both 
 these countries. Prince Hardenberg, the Prussian minister, 
 expired at Genoa on his return home, and Lord Castlereagh, 
 * Vide Binder's Prince Metternich.
 
 THE EUROPEAN CONGRESS. 385 
 
 the English ambassador, cut his throat with his penknife, in 
 a fit of frenzy, supposed to have been induced by the sense 
 of his heavy responsibility. At this congress the principle of 
 legitimacy was maintained with such strictness, that even the 
 revolt of the Greeks against the long and cruel tyranny of the 
 Turks was, notwithstanding the C/iristian spirit of the Holy 
 Alliance and the political advantage secured to Russia and 
 Austria by the subversion of the Turkish empire, treated as 
 rebellion against the legitimate authority of the Porte and 
 strongly discouraged. A French array was, on the same 
 grounds, despatched Avith the consent of the Bourbon into 
 Spain, and Ferdinand was reinstated in his legitimate tyranny, 
 A. D. 1823. 
 
 Russia, in a note addressed to the whole of the confederated 
 states of Germany, demanded at the same time a declaration on 
 their parts to the effect that the late proceedings of the great 
 European powers at Verona " were in accordance Avith the 
 well-understood interests of the people." Every member of the 
 federative assembly at Frankfort gave his assent, with the 
 exception of the Freiherr von Wangenheim, the envoy from 
 Wiirtemberg, who declaring that his instructions did not 
 warrant his voting upon the question, the ambassadors from 
 the two Hesses made a similar declaration. This occa- 
 sioned the dismissal of the F'reiherr von Wangenheim ; and 
 the illegal publication of a Wiirtemberg despatch, in which 
 the non-participation of the German confederation in the re- 
 solutions passed by the congresses, to which their assent was 
 afterwards demanded, was treated of, occasioned a second 
 dismissal, that of Count Winzingerode, the Wiirtemberg 
 minister. In the July of 1824, the federal diet resolved to 
 give its support to the monarchical principle in the constitu- 
 tional states, and to maintain the Carlsbad resolutions refer- 
 ring to censorship and to the universities. The Mayence 
 committee remained sitting until a. d. 1828. 
 
 On the sudden decease of Alexander, the czar of all the 
 Russias, amid the southern steppes, a revolution induced by 
 the nobility broke out at Petersburg, but was suppressed by 
 Alexander's brother and successor, the emperor Nicolas I. 
 Nicolas had wedded Charlotte, the eldest daughter of the 
 king of Prussia. This energetic sovereign instantly invaded 
 Persia and rendered that country dependent upon his em- 
 
 VOL. HI. 2 c
 
 386 THE GERMAN CUSTOMS' UNIOX. 
 
 pire without any attempt being made by the Tory party in 
 England and Austria to hinder the aggrandizement of Russia, 
 every attack directed against her being regarded as an encour- 
 agement to liberalism. Russia consequently seized this opportu- 
 nity to turn her arms against Turkey, and, in the ensuing year, 
 a Russian force under Count Diebitsch, a Silesian, crossed 
 the Balkan (Hoemus) and penetrated as far as Adrianople ; 
 whilst another corps d^armee, under Count Paskiewicz, 
 advanced from the Caucasus into Asia Minor and took 
 Erzerum. The fall of Constantinople seemed near at hand, 
 when Austria and England for the first time intervened 
 and declared that, notwithstanding their sympathy with the 
 absolute principles on which Russia rested, they would not 
 permit the seizure of Constantinople. France expressed her 
 readiness to unite with Russia and to fall upon the Austrian 
 rear in case troops were sent against the Russians.* Prussia, 
 however, intervened, and General Miiffling was despatched to 
 Adrianople, where, in 1829, a treaty was concluded, by 
 which Russia, although for the time compelled to restore 
 the booty already accumulated, gained several considerable 
 advantages, being granted possession of the most im- 
 portant mountain strongholds and passes of Asia Minor, a 
 right to occupy and fortify the mouths of the Danube so im- 
 portant to Austria and to extend her iEgis over Moldavia 
 and Wallachia. 
 
 In the midst of this wretched period, which brought fame 
 to Russia and deep dishonour upon Germany, there still 
 gleamed one ray of hope ; the Customs' Union was proposed 
 by some of the German princes for the more intimate union 
 of German interests. 
 
 Maximilian of Bavaria, a prince whose amiable manners 
 and character rendered him universally beloved, expired 
 A. D. 1825. His son, Louis, the foe to French despotism, 
 a German patriot and a zealous patron of the arts, declared 
 himself, on his coronation, the warm and sincere upholder of 
 the constitutional principle and excited general enthusiasm. 
 His first measures on assuming the government were, the 
 reduction of the royal household and of the army with a view 
 to the relief of the country from the heavy imposts, the re- 
 
 * Official report of the Russian ambassador, Count Pozzo di Borgo, 
 from Paris, of the 14th of December, 1828.
 
 THE GERMAN CUSTOMS' UNION. 387 
 
 moval of the university of Landshut to Munich, and the en- 
 richment on an extensive scale of the institutions of art. 
 The union of the galleries of Dlisseldorf and Mannheim with 
 that of Munich, the collection of valuable antiques and pic- 
 tures, for instance, that of the old German paintings collected 
 by the brothers Boisseree in Cologne during the French 
 usurpation, the academy of painting under the direction of the 
 celebrated Cornelius, the new public buildings raised by Klenze, 
 among which the Glyptothek, the Pinakothek, the great Ko- 
 nigsbau or royal residence, the Ludwigschurch, the Auer- 
 church, the Arcades, etc., may be more particularly designated, 
 rendered Munich the centre of German art. This sovereign 
 also founded at Ratisbon the Walhalla, a building destined for 
 the reception of the busts of all the celebrated men to which 
 Germany has given birth. The predilection of this royal 
 amateur for classic antiquity excited within his bosom the 
 warmest sympathy with the fate of the modern Greeks, then in 
 open insurrection against their Turkish oppressors, and whom 
 he alone, among all the princes of Germany, aided in the 
 
 hour of their extremest need. With the same spirit that 
 
 dictated his poems, in which he so repeatedly lamented the 
 want of unity in Germany, he was the first to propose the 
 union of her material interests. Germany unhappily resem- 
 bled, and indeed immediately after the war of liberation, as 
 De Pradt, the French writer, maliciously observed, even in 
 a mercantile point of view, a menagerie whose inhabitants 
 watched each other through a grating. Vainly had the com- 
 mercial class of Frankfurt a M. presented a petition, in 1819, 
 to the confederation, praying for free trade, for the fulfilment 
 of the nineteenth article of the federal act. Their well- 
 grounded complaint remained unheard. The non-fulfilment 
 of the treaty relating to the free navigation of the Rhine to 
 the sea was most deeply felt. In the first treaty concluded 
 at Paris, the royal dignity and the extension of the Dutch 
 territory had been generously granted to the king of the 
 Netherlands under the express proviso of the free navigation 
 of the Rhine to the sea. The papers relating to this trans- 
 action had been drawn up in French, and the ungrateful 
 Dutch perfidiously gave the words "jusqu' a lamer" their 
 most literal construction, merely " as far as the sea," and as 
 the French, moreover, possessed a voice in the matter on ac- 
 
 2 c 2
 
 388 THE GERMAN CUSTOMS' UNION. 
 
 count of the Upper Rhine, and the Gei-man federal states 
 were unable to give an unanimous verdict, innumerable com- 
 mittees were held and acts were drawn up without producing 
 any result favourable to the trade of Germany. 
 
 Affairs stood thus, when, shortly after Louis's accession to 
 the throne of Bavaria, negotiations having for object the set- 
 tlement of a commercial treaty took place between him and 
 WiUiara, king of Wiirteraberg. This example was imitated 
 by Prussia, which at first merely formed an union with 
 Darmstadt ; afterwards by Ilesse, Hanover, Saxony, etc., by 
 which a central German union was projected. This union 
 was, however, unable to stand between that of WUrtemberg 
 and Bavaria, and that of Prussia and Darmstadt. The Ger- 
 man Customs' Union was carried into etfect in 1828. An 
 annual meeting of German naturalists had at that time been 
 arranged under the auspices of Oken, the great naturalist, 
 and at the meeting held at Berlin, A. D. 1828, the Freiherr 
 von Cotta, by whom the moral and material interests of Ger- 
 many have been greatly promoted, drew up the first plan for 
 a junction of the commercial union of Southern Germany 
 witli that of the North, as the first step to the future libera- 
 tion of Germany from all internal commercial restrictions. 
 The zeal with which he carried this great plan into effect 
 gained the confidence of the different governments, and he 
 not only succeeded in combining the two older unions, but 
 also in gradually embodying with them the rest of the Ger- 
 man states. 
 
 The attachment of King Louis to ancient Catholicism was 
 extremely remarkable. He began to restore some of the 
 monasteries, and several professors inclined to Ultramontan- 
 ism and to Catholic mysticism, the most distinguished among 
 whom was Gdrres, the Prussian exile, assembled at the new 
 university at Munich. Here and there appeared a pious en- 
 thusiast. Shortly after the restoration, a peasant from the 
 Pfalz, named Adam MUller, began to prophesy, and Madame 
 von Kriidener, a Hanoverian, to preach the necessity of 
 public penance ; both these persons gained the ear of exalted 
 personages, and Madame von Kriidener more particularly is 
 said not a little to have conduced to the piety displayed by 
 the emperor Alexander during the latter years of his life. 
 At Bamberg, Prince Alexander von Hohenlohe, then a young
 
 THE GERMAN CUSTOMS' UNION. 389 
 
 man, had the folly to attempt the performance of miracles, until 
 the police interfered, and he received a high ecclesiastical office 
 in Hungary. In Austria, the Ligorians, followers in the 
 footsteps of the Jesuits, haunted the vicinity of the throne. 
 The conversion of Count Stolberg and of the Swiss, Von 
 Haller, to the Catholic church, created the greatest sensation. 
 The former, a celebrated poet, simple and amiable, in no way 
 merited the shameless outbursts of rage of his old friend, 
 Voss ; Haller, on the other hand, brought forward in his 
 " Restoration of Political Science," such a decided theory in 
 favour of secession as to inspire a sentiment of dread at his 
 consistency. The conversion of Ferdinand, prince of Anhalt- 
 Kdthen to the Catholic churchj a. d. 1825, excited far less 
 attention. 
 
 In France, where the Bourbons were completely guided by 
 the Jesuits, by whose aid they could alone hope to suppress 
 the revolutionary spirit of their subjects, the reaction in favour 
 of Catholicism had assumed a more decided character than in 
 Germany. Louis XVIII. was succeeded by his brother, 
 the Count d 'Ai'tois, under the name of Charles X., a ve- 
 nerable man seventy years of age, who, notwithstanding his 
 great reverses, had "neither learnt nor forgotten anything." 
 Polignac, his incapable and imperious minister, the tool of 
 the Jesuits, had, since 1829, impugned every national right, 
 and, at length, ventured by the ordonnances of the 25th 
 July, 1830, to subvert the constitution. During three days, 
 from the 27th to the 30th of July, the greatest confusion 
 reigned in Paris ; the people rose in thousands ; murderous 
 conflicts took place in the streets between them and the royal 
 troops, who were driven fi-om every quarter, and the king 
 was expelled. The chambers met, declared the elder branch 
 of the house of Bourbon (Charles X., his son, the Dau- 
 phin, Duke d'Angouleme, and his grandson, the youthful 
 Duke de Bordeaux, the son of the murdered Duke de Berri) 
 to have forfeited the throne, but at the same time allowed 
 them unopposed to seek an asylum in England, and elected 
 Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, the son of the notorious 
 Jacobin, the head of the younger line of the house of Bour- 
 bon and the grand-master of the society of Freemasons, king 
 of the French. The rights of the chambers and of the 
 people were also extended by an appendix to the charta 
 signed by Louis XVIII.
 
 390 THE BELGIAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 The revolution of July was the signal for all discontented 
 subjects throughout Europe to gain, either by force or by 
 legal opposition, their lost or sighed-for rights. In October, 
 the constitutional party in Spain attempted to overturn the 
 despotic rule of Ferdinand VII. In November, the prime 
 minister of England, the far-famed Duke of Wellington, 
 was compelled by the people to yield his seat to Earl Grey, 
 a man of more liberal principles, who commenced the great 
 work of I'eform in the constitution and administration of Great 
 Britain. During this month, a general insurrection took 
 place in Poland : the grand-duke, Constantine, was driven 
 out of Warsaw, and Poland declared herself independent. A 
 great part of Germany was also convulsed : and a part of the 
 ill-raised fabric, erected by the statesmen of I8I0, fell tot- 
 tering to the ground. 
 
 CCLXVII. The Belgian Revolution. 
 
 A nation's self-forgetfulness is ever productive of national 
 disgrace. The Netherlands were torn from the empire and 
 placed partly beneath the tyranny of Spain, partly beneath the 
 ^gis of France ; the dominion of Austria, at a later period, 
 merely served to rouse their provincial spirit, and, during 
 their subsequent annexation to France, the French element 
 decidedly gained the preponderance among the population. 
 When, in 1815, these provinces fell under the rule of Hol- 
 land, it was hoped that the German element would again 
 rise. But Holland is not Germany. Estranged provinces 
 are alone to be regained by means of their incorporation with 
 an empire imbued with one distinct national spirit ; the subor- 
 dination of one province to another but increases national anti- 
 pathy and estrangement. Holland, by an ungrateful, inimical 
 policy, unfortunately strove to separate herself from Ger- 
 many.* And yet Holland owes her whole prosperity to Ger- 
 many. There is her market ; thence does she draw her 
 immense wealth ; the loss of that market for her colo- 
 
 * " The Netherlands formed, nevertheless, but a weak bulwark to 
 Germany. Internal disunion, superfluous fortresses, a weak army. 
 On the one side, a witless, wealthy, haughty aristocracy, an influential 
 and ignorant clergy ; on the other, civic pride, capelocratic pettiness, 
 Calvinistic hrusquerie. The policy pursued by the king was inimical to 
 Germany." — Stein's Letters,
 
 THE BELGIAN REVOLUTION. 391 
 
 nial productions, would prove her irredeemable ruin. Her 
 sovereign, driven into distant exile, was restored to her by the 
 arms of Germany and generously endowed with royalty. Hol- 
 land, in return for all these benefits, deceitfully deprived Ger- 
 many of the free navigation of the Rhine to the sea guaranteed 
 to her by the federal act and assumed the right of fixing the 
 price of all goods, whether imported to or exported from Ger- 
 many. The whole of Germany was, in this unprecedented 
 manner, rendei'ed doubly tributary to the petty state of Holland. 
 
 Belgium, annexed to this secondary state instead of being 
 incorporated with great and liberal Germany, necessarily 
 remained a stranger to any influence calculated to excite her 
 sympathy with the general interests of Germany. Cut off, 
 as heretofore, from German influence, she retained, in opposi- 
 tion to the Dutch, a preponderance of the old Spanish and 
 modern French element in her population. Priests and liberals, 
 belonging to the French school, formed an opposition party 
 against the king, who, on his side, rested his sole support 
 upon the Dutch, whom he favoured in every respect. Count 
 Broglio, archbishop of Ghent, first began the contest by re- 
 fusing to take the oath on the constitution. Violence was 
 resorted to and he fled the country. The impolicy of the 
 government in affixing his name to the pillory merely served 
 to increase the exasperation of the CathoHcs. Hence their ac- 
 quiescence with the designs of the Jesuits, their opposition to 
 the foundation of a philosophical academy, independent of the 
 clergy, at Louvain. The fact of the population of Belgium 
 being to that of Holland as three to two, and the number of its 
 representatives in the states-general being as four to seven, of 
 few, if any, Belgians being allowed to enter the service of the 
 state, the army, or the navy, still further added to the popular 
 discontent. The gross manners of the minister, Van Maanen, 
 also increased the evil. As early as January, 1830, eight 
 liberal Belgian deputies were deprived of their oflSces, and De 
 Potter, with some others, who had ventured to defend them 
 by means of the press, were banished the kingdom under a 
 charge of high treason. 
 
 The Dutch majority in the states-general, notwithstanding 
 its devotion to the king, rejected the ten years' budget on the 
 ground of its affording too long a respite to ministerial re- 
 sponsibility, and protested against the levy of Swiss troops. 
 Slave-trade in the colonies was also abolished in 1818.
 
 392 THE BELGIAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 The position of the Netherlands, which, Luxemburg ex- 
 cepted, did not appertain to the German confederation, con- 
 tinually exposed her, on account of Belgium, to be attacked 
 on the land side by France, on that of the sea by her ancient 
 commercial foe, England, and induced the king to form a close 
 alliance with Russia. His son, William of Orange, married 
 a sister of the emperor Alexander. 
 
 The colonies did not regain their former prosperity. The 
 Dutch settlement at Batavia with difficulty defended itself 
 against the rebellious natives of Sumatra and Java. 
 
 The revolution in Paris had an electric effect upon the ir- 
 ritated Belgians. On the 2oth of August, 1830, Auber's 
 opera, " The Dumb Girl of Portici," the revolt of Masaniello in 
 Naples, was performed at the Brussels theatre and inflamed 
 the passions of the audience to such a degree, that, on quitting 
 the theatre, they proceeded to the house of Libry, the servile 
 newspaper editor, and entirely destroyed it : the palace of the 
 minister. Van Maanen, shared the same fate. The citizens 
 placed themselves under arms, and sent a deputation to the 
 Hague to lay their grievances before the king. The entire 
 population meanwhile rose in open insurrection, and the whole 
 of the forti'esses, Maestricht and the citadel of Antwerp alone 
 excepted, fell into their hands. William of Orange, the 
 crown-prince, ventured unattended among the insurgents at 
 Brussels and proposed, as a medium of peace, the separation of 
 Belgium from Holland in a legislative and administrative 
 sense. The king also made an apparent concession to the 
 wishes of the people by the dismissal of Van Maanen, but 
 shortly afterwards declared his intention not to yield, dis- 
 avowed the step taken by his son, and allowed some Belgian 
 deputies to be insulted at the Hague. A fanatical commotion 
 instantly took place at Brussels ; the moderate party in the 
 civic guard was disarmed, and the populace made preparations 
 for desperate resistance. On the 25th of September, Prince 
 Frederick, second son to the king of Holland, entered Brus- 
 sels with a large body of troops, but encountered barricades 
 and a heavy fire in the Park, the Place Royal, and along the 
 Boulevards. An immense crowd, chiefly composed of the 
 people of Liege and of peasants dressed in the blue smock of 
 the country, had assembled for the purpose of aiding in the 
 defence of the city. The contest, accompanied by destruction 
 of the dwelling-houses and by pillage, lasted five days. The
 
 THE BELGIAN REVOLUTION. 393 
 
 Dutch were accused of practising the most horrid cruehies 
 upon the defenceless inhabitants and of thereby heightening the 
 popular exasperation. At length, on the 27th of September, 
 the prince was compelled to abandon the city. On the 5th 
 of October, Belgium declared her independence. De Potter 
 returned and placed himself at the head of the provisional 
 government. The Prince of Orange recognised the absolute 
 separation of Belgium from Holland in a proclamation pub- 
 lished at Antwerp, but was, nevertheless, constrained to quit 
 the country. Antwerp fell into the hands of the insurgents ; 
 the citadel, however, refused to surrender, and Chasse, the 
 Dutch conunandant, caused the magnificent city to be bom- 
 barded, and the well-stored entrepot, the arsenal, and about 
 sixty or seventy houses to be set on fire, during the night of 
 the 27th of October, 1830.* The cruelties perpetrated by 
 the Dutch were bitterly retaliated upon them by the Belgian 
 populace. On the 10th of November, however, a national 
 Belgian congress met, in which the moderate party gained 
 the upper hand, principally owing to the influence of the 
 clergy. De Potter's plan for the formation of a Belgian 
 commonwealth fell to the ground. The congress decided in 
 favour of the maintenance of the kingdom, drew up a new 
 constitution, and offered the crown to the Prince de Nemours, 
 second son of the king of the French. It was, however, re- 
 fused by Louis Philippe in the name of his son, in order to 
 avoid war with the other great Eui'opean powers. Surlet de 
 Chokier, the leader of the liberal party, hereupon undertook 
 the provisional government of the country, and negotiations 
 were entered into with Prince Leopold of Coburg. 
 
 On the 4th of November, a congress, composed of the 
 ministers of England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, met at 
 London for the purpose of settling the Belgian question 
 without disturbing the peace of Europe, and it was decided 
 that Prince Leopold of Coburg, the widower of the princess 
 royal of England, a man entirely under British influence, 
 and who had refused the throne of Greece, should accept that 
 of Belgium. Eighteen articles favourable to Belgium were 
 
 * So bitter was the enmity existing between the Belgians and the 
 Dutch, that the Dutch lieutenant, Van Speyk, -when driven by a storm 
 before Antwerp, blew up his gun-boat in the middle of the Scheldt 
 rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the Belgians.
 
 394 THE BELGIAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 granted to liira by the London congress. Scarcely, how- 
 ever, had he reached Brussels, on the 31st July, 1831, than 
 the fetes given upon that occasion were disturbed by the un- 
 expected invasion of Belgium by a numerous and powerful 
 Dutch force. At Hasselt, the Prince of Orange defeated the 
 Belgians under General Daine, and, immediately advancing 
 against Leopold, utterly routed him at Tirlemont, on the 12th 
 of August. The threats of France and England, and the 
 appearance of a French army in Belgium, saved Brussels and 
 compelled the Dutch to withdraw. The eighteen articles in 
 favour of Belgium were, on the other hand, replaced by 
 twenty-four others, more favourable to the Dutch, which 
 Leopold was compelled to accept. The king of Holland, 
 however, refusing to accept these twenty-four articles, with 
 which, notwithstanding the concessions tlaerein contained, he 
 was dissatisfied, the Belgian government took advantage of 
 the undecided state of the question, not to undertake, for the 
 time being, half of the public debt of Holland, which, by the 
 twenty-four articles, was laid upon Belgium. 
 
 Negotiations dragged on their weary length, and protocol 
 after protocol followed in endless succession from London. 
 In 1832, Leopold espoused Louisa, one of the daughters of 
 the king of the French, and was not only finally recognised 
 by the northern powers, but, by means of the intervention 
 of England, being backed by a fleet, and by means of that of 
 France, being backed by an array, compelled Holland to accept 
 of terms of peace. The French troops under Gerard, unassisted 
 by the Belgians and watched by a Prussian army stationed on 
 the Meuse, regularly besieged and took the citadel of Antwerp, 
 on Christmas eve, 1832, gave it up to the Belgians as pertaining 
 to their territory, and evacuated the country. King William, 
 however, again rejecting the twenty-four articles, all the 
 other points, the division of the public debt, the navigation 
 of the Scheldt, and, more than all, the future destiny of the 
 province of Luxemburg, which formed part of the confeder- 
 ated states of Germany, had been declared hereditary in the 
 house of Nassau- Orange, and which, by its geographical 
 position and the character of its inhabitants, was more nearly 
 connected with Belgium, remained for the present unsettled. 
 In 1839, Holland was induced by a fresh demonstration on 
 the part of the great powers to accept the twenty-four arti-
 
 THE SWISS REVOLUTION. 395 
 
 cles, against which Belgium in her turn protested on the 
 ground of the procrastination on the part of Holland having 
 rendered her earlier accession to these terms null and void. 
 Belgium was, however, also compelled to yield. By this 
 fresh agreement it was settled that the western part of Lux- 
 emburg, which had in the interim fallen away from the Ger- 
 man confederation, should be annexed to Belgium, and that 
 Holland (and the German confederation) should receive the 
 eastern part of Limburg in indemnity ; and that Belgium, in- 
 stead of taking upon herself one half of the public debt of 
 the Netherlands, should annually pay the sum of live million 
 Dutch goldens towards defraying the interest of that debt. 
 
 The period of the independence of Belgium, brief as it was, 
 was made use of, particularly under the Nothomb ministry, 
 for the development of great industrial activity, and, more 
 especially, for the creation of a system of railroads, until now 
 without its parallel on the continent. Unfortunately but lit- 
 tle was done in favour of the interests of Germany. The 
 French language had already become so prevalent throughout 
 Belgium, that, in 1840, the provincial counsellors of Ghent were 
 constrained to pass a resolution to the effect that the offices 
 dependent upon them should, at all events, solely be intrusted 
 to persons acquainted with the Flemish dialect, and that their 
 
 rescripts should be drawn up in that language. Holland 
 
 immensely increased her public debt in consequence of her 
 extraordinary exertions. In 1841, the king, William I., 
 voluntarily abdicated the throne and retired into private life, 
 in the enjoyment of an enormous revenue, with a Catholic 
 countess, whom he had wedded. He was succeeded by his 
 son, William II. 
 
 CCLXVIII. The Swiss Revolution. 
 
 The restoration of 1814 had replaced the ancient aristo- 
 cracy more or less on their former footing throughout Swit- 
 zerland. In this country the greatest tranquillity prevailed ; 
 the oppression of the aristocracy was felt, but not so heavily 
 as to be insupportable. Many benefits, as, for instance, the 
 draining of the swampy Linththal by Escher of Zurich, were, 
 moreover, conferred upon the country. Mercenaries were 
 also continually furnished to the king of France, to the pope.
 
 396 THE SWISS REVOLUTION. 
 
 and, for some time, to the king of the Netherlands. France, 
 nevertheless, imposed such heavy commercial duties that 
 several of the cantons leagued together for the purpose of 
 taking reprisals. This misunderstanding between Switzer- 
 land and France unfortunately did not teach wisdom to the 
 states belonging to the German confederation, and the Rhine 
 was also barricaded with custom-houses, those graves of com- 
 merce. The Jesuits settled at Freiburg in the Uechtland, 
 where they founded a large seminary and whence they finally 
 succeeded in expelling Peter Girard, a man of high merit, 
 noted for the liberality of his views on education.* 
 
 The Paris revolution of July also gave rise to a democratic 
 reaction throughout Switzerland. Berne, by a circular, pub- 
 lished September 22nd, 1830, called upon the other Swiss 
 governments to suppress the revolutionary spirit by force, and, 
 by so doing, fired the train. The government of Zurich 
 wisely opposed the circular and made a voluntary reform. In 
 all the other cantons popular societies sprang up, and, either 
 by violence or by threats, subverted the ancient governments. 
 New constitutions were every where granted. The immense 
 majority of the people was in favour of reform, and the aris- 
 tocracy offered but faint resistance. Little towns or villages 
 became the centre of the movements against the capitals. 
 Fischer, an inn-keeper from Merischwanden, seized the city 
 of Aarau ; the village of Burgdorf revolutionized the canton 
 of Berne, the village of ISIurten the canton of Freiburg, the 
 village of Weinfelden the canton of Constance ; this example 
 was followed by the peasantry of Solothurn and Vaud ; the 
 government of St. Gall imitated that of Zurich. 
 
 Basle was also attempted to be revolutionized by Liestal, 
 but the wealthy and haughty citizens, principally at the insti- 
 gation of the family of Wieland, made head against the pea- 
 santry, who were led by one Gutzwyler. The contest that 
 had taken place in Belgium was here reacted on a smaller 
 scale. A dispute concerning privileges commencing between 
 the citizens and the peasantry, bloody excesses ensued and a 
 
 * In Lucerne, the disorderly trial of a numerous band of robbers, 
 which had been headed by an extremely beautiful and talented girl, named 
 Clara Wendel, made the more noise on account of its bringing the bandit- 
 like murder of Keller, the aged mayor, and intrigues, in which the name 
 of the nuncio was mixed up, before the public. 1825.
 
 THE SWISS REVOLUTION. 397 
 
 complete separation was the result. The peasantry, superior 
 in number, asserted their right to send a greater number of 
 deputies to the great council than the cities, and the latter, 
 dreading the danger to which their civic interests would be 
 thereby exposed, obstinately refused to comply. Party rage 
 ran high ; the Baselese insulted some of the deputies sent by 
 the peasantry, and the latter, in retaliation, began to blockade 
 the town. Colonel Wieland made some sallies ; the federal 
 diet interfered, and the peasantry, being dispersed by the 
 federal troops, revenged themselves during their retreat by 
 plundering the vale of Reigoldswyler, which had remained 
 true to Basle. In Schwyz, the Old-Schwyzers and the in- 
 habitants of the outer circles, who, although for centuries in 
 possession of the rights of citizenship, were still regarded by 
 the former as their vassals, also fell at variance, and the 
 latter demanded equal rights or complete separation. In 
 Neuchatel, Bourguin attempted a revolution against the 
 Prussian party and took the city, but succumbed to the vigor- 
 ous measures adopted by General Pfuel, A. d. 1831. 
 
 The conduct of the federal diet, which followed in the foot- 
 steps of European policy, and wliich, by winking at the op- 
 posing party and checking that in favour of progression, 
 sought to preserve the balance, but served to increase party 
 spirit. In September, 1831, the Radicals founded at Lan- 
 genthal, the Schutzverein or protective union, whicli embraced 
 all the liberal clubs throughout Switzerland and was intended 
 to counteract the impending aristocratic counter-revolution. 
 Men like Schnell of Berne, Troxler the philosopher, etc., stood 
 at its head. They demanded the abolition of the constitution 
 of 1815 as too aristocratic and federal, and the foundation of 
 a new one in a democratic and independent sense for the in- 
 crease of the external power and unity of Switzerland, and 
 for her internal security from petty aristocratic and local 
 views and intrigues. In March, 1832, Lucerne, Zurich, 
 Berne, Solothurn, St. Gall, Aargau, and Constance formed a 
 Concordat for the mutual maintenance of their democratic 
 constitutions until the completion of the revisal of the con- 
 federation. The aristocratic party, Schwyz, Uri, Unterwal- 
 den, (actuated by ancient pride and led by the clergy,) Basle, 
 and Neufchatel meanwhile formed the Sarner confederation. In 
 August, the deposed Bernese aristocracy, headed by Major Fis-
 
 398 THE SWISS REVOLUTION. 
 
 cher, made a futile attempt to produce a counter-revolution. In 
 the federal diet, the envoys of the Concordat and the threaten- 
 ing language of the clubs compelled the members to bring a 
 new federal constitution under deliberation, but opinions were 
 too divided, and the constitution projected in 1833 fell to the 
 ground for want of sufficient support. At the moment of this 
 defeat of the liberal party, Alt-Schwyz, led by Abyberg, took 
 up arms, took possession of Kiissnacht, and threatened the 
 Concordat, the Baselese at the same time taking the field with 
 one thousand two hundred men and fourteen pieces of ord- 
 nance. The people were, however, inimical to their cause ; 
 Abyberg fled ; the Baselese were encountered by the pea- 
 santry in the Hartwald and repulsed with considerable loss. 
 The federal diet demonstrated the greatest energy in order to 
 prevent the Concordat and the Schutzverein from acting in 
 its stead. Schwyz and Basle were occupied with soldiery ; 
 the former was compelled to accept a new constitution drawn 
 up with a view of pacifying both parties, the latter to accede 
 to a complete separation between the town and country. The 
 Sarner confederation was dissolved, and all discontented can- 
 tons were compelled, under pain of the infliction of martial 
 law, to send envoys to the federal diet. Intrigues, having 
 for object the alienation of the city of Basle, of Neuchatel, 
 and Valais from the confederation, were discovered and frus- 
 trated by the diet, not without the approbation of France, 
 the Valais and the road over the Simplon being thereby pre- 
 vented from falling beneath the influence of Austria. 
 
 In 1833, five hundred Polish refugees, suspected of sup- 
 porting the Frankfort attempt in Germany, quitted France 
 for Switzerland, and soon afterwards unsuccessfully invaded 
 Savoy in conjunction with some Italian refugees. Crowds of 
 refugees from every quarter joined them and formed a central 
 association. Young Europe, whence branched others. Young 
 France, Young Poland, Young Germany, and Young Italy. The 
 principal object of this association was to draw the German 
 journeymen apprentices {Handwerksbursche) into its interests, 
 and for this purpose a banquet was given by it to these ap- 
 prentices in the Steinbrolzle near Berne. These intrigues 
 produced serious threats on the side of the great powers, and 
 Switzerland yielded. The greater part of the refugees were 
 compelled to emigrate through France to England and Ame-
 
 THE SWISS REVOLUTION. 309 
 
 rica. Napoleon's nephew was, at a later period, also expel- 
 led Switzerland. His mother. Queen Hortense, consort to 
 Louis, ex-king of Holland, daughter to Josephine Beauhar- 
 nois, consequently both step-daughter and sister-in-law to 
 Napoleon, possessed the beautiful estate of Arenenberg on 
 the lake of Constance. On her death it was inherited by 
 her son, Louis, who, during his residence there, occupied 
 himself with intrigues directed against the throne of Louis 
 Philippe. Li concert with a couple of military madmen, he 
 introduced himself into Strassburg, where, with a little hat, 
 in imitation of that worn by Napoleon, on his head, he pro- 
 claimed himself emperor in the open streets. He was 
 easily ari-ested. This act was generously viewed by Louis 
 Philippe as that of a senseless boy, and he was restored to 
 liberty upon condition of emigrating to America. No sooner, 
 however, was he once more free, than, returning to Switzer- 
 land, he set fresh intrigues on foot. Louis Philippe, upon this, 
 demanded his expulsion. Constance would willingly have 
 extended to him the protection due to one of her citizens, but 
 how were the claims of a Swiss citizen to be rendered com- 
 patible with those of a pretender to the throne of France ? 
 French troops already threatened the frontiers of Switzer- 
 land, where, as in 1793, the people, instead of making prepar- 
 ations for defence, were at strife among themselves. Louis 
 at length voluntarily abandoned the country, a. d. 1838. 
 
 In the beginning of 1839, Dr. Strauss, who, in 1835, had, 
 in his work entitled " The Life of Jesus," declared the Gos- 
 pels a cleverly-devised fable, and had, at great pains, sought to 
 refute the historical proofs of the truth of Christianity, was, 
 on that account, appointed, by the council of education and 
 of government at Zurich, professor of divinity to the new 
 Zurich academy. Burgomaster Hirzel (nicknamed " the tree 
 of liberty " on account of his uncommon height) stood at the 
 head of the enthusiastic government party by which this ex- 
 traordinary appointment liad been effected ; the people, how- 
 ever, rose en masse, the great council was compelled to meet, 
 and the antichristian party suffered a most disgraceful defeat. 
 Strauss, who had not ventured to appear in person on the 
 scene of action, was offered and accepted a pension. The 
 Christian party, concentrated into a committee of faith, under 
 the presidency of Hiirliman, behaved with extreme modera-
 
 400 THE SWISS REVOLUTION. 
 
 tion, although greatly superior in number to their opponents. 
 The radical government, ashamed and perplexed, committed 
 blunder after blunder, and at length threatened violence. 
 Upon this, Hirzel, the youthful priest of Pfaffikon, rang the 
 alarm from his parish church, and, on the 6th of September, 
 1839, led his parishioners into the city of Zurich. This exam- 
 ple was imitated by another crowd of peasantry, headed by a 
 physician named Rahn. The government troops attacked 
 the people and killed nine men. On the fall of the tenth, 
 Hegetschwiler, the counsellor of state, a distinguished savant 
 and physician, whilst attempting to restore harmony between 
 the contending parties, the civic guard turned against the 
 troops and dispersed them. The radical government and the 
 Strauss faction also fled. Immense masses of peasantry from 
 around the lake entered the city. A provisional government, 
 headed by Hiesz and JNIuralt, and a fresh election, insured 
 tranquillity. 
 
 In the canton of Schwyz, a lengthy dispute, similar to 
 that between the Vettkoper and Schieringer in Frizeland, 
 was carried on between the Horn and Hoof-men (the wealthy 
 in possession of cattle and the poor who only possessed a cow 
 or two) concerning their privileges. In 1839, a violent oppo- 
 sition, similar in nature, was made by the people of Vaud 
 against the oligarchical power assumed by a few families. 
 
 The closing of the monasteries in the Aargau in 1840 gave 
 rise to a dispute of such importance as to disturb the whole 
 of the confederation. In the Aargau the church and state 
 had long and strenuously battled, when the monastery of Muri 
 was suddenly invested as the seat of a conspiracy, and, on 
 symptoms of uneasiness becoming perceptible among the 
 Catholic population, the whole country was flooded with 
 twenty thousand militia raised on the spur of the moment, 
 and the closing of the monastery of ISIuri and of all the 
 monasteries in the Aargau was proclaimed and carried into 
 execution. The rest of the Catholic cantons and Rome 
 vehemently protested against this measure, and even some 
 of the Reformed cantons, for the sake of peace, voted at the 
 diet for the maintenance of the monasteries : the Aargau, 
 nevertheless, steadily refused compliance.
 
 THE REYOLUTIOX IN BKUXSWICK. 401 
 
 CCLXIX. The Revolution in Brunswick, Saxony, Hesse, etc. 
 
 The Belgian revolution spread into Germany. Liege infect- 
 ed her neighbour, Aix-la-Chapelle, where, on the 30th of Au- 
 gust, 1830, the workmen belonging to the manufactories raised 
 a senseless tumult which was a ^ew days afterwards repeated 
 by their fellow-workmen at Elberfeld, Wetzlar, and even by 
 the populace of Berlin and Breslau, but which solely took a 
 serious character in Brunswick, Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse. 
 
 Charles, duke of Brunswick, was at Paris, squandering the 
 revenue derived from his territories, on the outburst of the 
 July revolution, which drove hira back to his native country, 
 where he behaved with increased insolence. His obstinate 
 refusal to abolish the heavy taxes, to refrain from disgraceful 
 sales, to recommence the erection of public buildings, and to 
 recognise the provincial Estates, added to his threat to fire 
 upon the people and liis boast that he knew how to defend his 
 throne better than Charles X. of France, so maddened the 
 excitable blood of his subjects that, after throwing stones at 
 the duke's carriage and at an actress on whom he publicly 
 bestowed his favours, they stormed his palace and set fire to 
 it over his head, Sept. 7th, 1830. Charles escaped through 
 the garden. His brother, William, supported by Hanover 
 and Prussia, replaced him, recognised the provincial Estates, 
 granted a new constitution, built a new palace, and re-estab- 
 lished tranquillity. The conduct of the expelled duke^ who, 
 from his asylum in the Harzgebirge, made a futile attempt to 
 regain possession of Brunswick by means of popular agitation 
 and by the proclamation of democratical opinions, added to 
 the contempt with which he treated the admonitions of his 
 superiors, induced the federal diet to recognise his brother's 
 authority. The ex-duke has, since this period, wandered over 
 P^ngland, France, and Spain, sometimes engaged in intrigues 
 with Carlists, at others with republicans. In 1836, he ac- 
 companied a celebrated female aeronaut in one of her excur- 
 sions from London. The balloon accidentally upset and the 
 duke and his companion fell to the ground. He was, however, 
 as in his other adventures, more frightened than hurt. 
 
 Li Saxony, the progress of enhghtenment had long ren- 
 dered the people sensible of the errors committed by the 
 
 VOL. III. 2 D
 
 402 THE REVOLUTION IN BRUNSWICK, 
 
 old and etiquettish aristocracy of the court and diet. As early 
 as 1829, all the grievances had been recapitulated in an 
 anonymous printed address, and, in the beginning of 1830, on 
 the venerable king, Antony, (brother to Frederick Augustus, 
 deceased, A. d. 1827,) declaring invalid the settlement of his af- 
 fairs by the Estates, which evinced a more liberal spirit than 
 they had hitherto done, and on the prohibiiton of the festivities 
 on the 25th of June, the anniversary of the Augsburg Confes- 
 sion, by the town-council of Dresden and by the government 
 commissioner of the university of Leipzig from devotion to the 
 Catholic court, a popular tumult ensued in both cities, which 
 was quelled but to be, a few weeks later, after the revolution 
 of July, more disastrously renewed. The tumult commenced 
 at Leipzig on the 2nd of September and lasted several days, and, 
 during the night of the 9th, Dresden was stormed from without 
 by two immense crowds of populace, by whom the police 
 buildings and the town -house Avere ransacked and set on fire. 
 Disturbances of a similar nature broke out at Chemnitz and 
 Bautzen. The king, upon this, nominated his nephew. Prince 
 Frederick, who was greatly beloved by the people, co-regent : 
 the civic guard restored tranquillity, the most crying abuses, 
 particularly those in the city administration, were abolished, 
 and the constitution was revised. The popular minister, 
 Lindenau, replaced Einsiedel, who had excited universal de- 
 testation. 
 
 In the electorate of Hesse, the period of terror occasioned 
 by the threatening letters addressed to the elector was suc- 
 ceeded by the agitation characteristic of the times. On the 
 6th of September, 1830, a tumultuous rising took place at 
 Cassel ; on the 24th, the people of Hanau destroyed every 
 custom-house stationed on the frontier. The public was so 
 unanimous and decided in opinion that the elector not only 
 agreed to abolish tlie abuses, to convoke the Estates, and to 
 grant a new constitution, but even placed the reins of govern- 
 ment provisionally in the hands of his son, Prince "William, 
 in order to follow the Countess Reichenbach, who had been 
 driven from Cassel by the insults of the populace. Prince 
 William was however as little as his father inclined to make 
 concessions; and violent collisions speedily ensued. He wed- 
 ded Madame Lehmann, the wife of a Prussian officer, under the 
 name of the Countess von Schaumburg, and closed the theatre
 
 SAXONY, HESSE, ETC. 403 
 
 against his mother, the electress, for refusing to place herself 
 at her side in public. The citizens sided with the electress, 
 and when, after some time had elapsed, she again ventured to 
 visit the theatre, the doors were no longer closed against her, 
 and, on her entrance, she found the house completely filled. 
 On the close of the evening's entertainment, however, whilst 
 the audience were peaceably dispersing, they were charged 
 by a troop of cavalry who cut down the defenceless multitude 
 without distinction of age or sex, December the 7th, 1830. 
 The Estates, headed by Professor Jordan, vainly demanded 
 redress ; Giesler, the head of the police, was alone designated 
 as the criminal ; the scrutiny was drawn to an interminable 
 length and produced no other result than Giesler's decoration 
 with an order by the prince. 
 
 In Hesse-Darmstadt, where the poll-tax amounted to 6_/7,?. 
 12 ki's. (10s. 4d.) a head, the Estates ventured, even prior to the 
 revolution of July, to refuse to vote 2,000,000 /c*. (£166,666 
 13s. -id.) to the new grand-duke, Louis IL, (who had just suc- 
 ceeded his aged father, the patron of the arts,) for the defrayment 
 of debts contracted by him before his accession to the ducal chair. 
 In September, the peasantry of Upper Hesse rose en tnasse on 
 account of the imposition of the sum of 100,000/7s. (£8333 
 6s. Sd.) upon the poverty-stricken communes in order to meet 
 the outlay occasioned by the festivities given in the grand- 
 duke's honour on his route through the country ; the burthens 
 laid upon the peasantry in the mediatized principalities, more 
 particularly in that of Ysenburg, had also become unbearable. 
 The insurgents took Biidingen by storm and were guilty of 
 some excesses towards the public officers and the foresters, 
 but deprived no one of life. Ere long convinced of their 
 utter impotence, they dispersed before the arrival of Prince 
 Emilius at the head of a body of military, who, blinded by 
 rage, unfortunately killed a number of persons in the village 
 of Scidel, whom they mistook for insurgents owing to the cir- 
 cumstance of their being armed, but who had in reality been 
 assembled by a forester for the purpose of keeping the in- 
 surgents in check. 
 
 In this month, September, 1830, popular disturbances, but 
 of minor import, broke out also at Jena and Kahla, Alten- 
 burg, and Gera. 
 
 In Hanover, the first symptoms of revolution appeared in 
 2 D 2
 
 404 THE REVOLUTION IN BRUNSWICK, 
 
 January, 1831. Dr. Konig was at that time at the head of 
 the university of Osterode, Dr. Rauschenplatt of that of Got- 
 tingen.* The abolition of the glaring ancient abuses and the 
 removal of the minister, Count ISIiinster, the sole object of 
 whose policy appeared to be the eternalization of every ad- 
 ministrative and juridical antiquity in the state, were demand- 
 ed. The petty insurrections were quelled by the military. 
 Konig was taken prisoner; most of the other demagogues 
 escaped to France. The Duke of Cambridge, the king's 
 brother, mediated. Count Miinsterwas dismissed, and Han- 
 over received a new and more liberal constitution. 
 
 Whilst these events were passing in Germany, the Poles 
 carried on a contest against tlie whole power of Russia as 
 glorious and as unfortunate as their former one under their 
 leader, Kosciusko. Louis Pi)ilippe, king of the French, in the 
 hope of gaining favour with the northern powers by the aban- 
 donment of the Polish cause, dealt not a stroke in their aid. 
 Austria, notwithstanding her natural rivalry to Russia, be- 
 held the Polish revolution merely through the veil of legitimacy 
 and refused her aid to rebels. An Hungarian address in fa- 
 vour of Poland produced no result. Prussia was closely united 
 bv family ties to Russia. The Poles were consequently left 
 without external aid, and their spirit was internallj' damped by 
 diplomatic arts. Aid was promised by France, if they would 
 wait. They accordingly waited : and in the interim, after the 
 failure of Diebitsch's attempt upon Warsaw and his sudden 
 death. Paskewitch, the Russian general, unexpectedly crossed 
 the Vistula close to the Prussian fortress of Thorn and seized 
 the city of Warsaw whilst each party was still in a state of 
 indecision. Immense masses of fugitive Polish soldiery 
 sought shelter in Austria and Prussia. The officers and a 
 few thousand private soldiers were permitted to pass onwards 
 to France : they found a warm welcome in Southern Germany, 
 whence they had during the campaign been supplied with 
 surgeons and every necessary for the supply of the hospitals. 
 The rest were compelled to return to Russia. 
 
 The Russian troops drawn from the distant provinces, 
 
 * Also the unfortunate Dr. Plath, to whom science is indebted for an 
 excellent historical work upon China. He became implicated in this 
 affair and remained in confinement until 1836, when he was sentenced 
 to fifteen years' further imprisonment.
 
 SAXONY, HESSE, ETC. 405 
 
 the same that had been employed in the war witli Persia, over- 
 ran Poland as tar as the Prussian frontier, bringing with them 
 a fearful pestilence, Asiatic cholera. Tiiis dii-e malady, which 
 had, since 1817, crept steadily onwards from the banks of the 
 Ganges, reached Russia in 1830, and, in the autumn of 1831, 
 spread across the frontiers of Germany. It chiefly visited 
 populous cities and generally spared districts less densely 
 populated, passing from one great city to another whither 
 infection could not have been communicated. Cordons de 
 sante and quarantine regulations were of no avail. The 
 pestilence appeared- to spread like miasma through the air 
 and to kindle like gas wherever the assemblage of numbers 
 disposed the atmosphere to its reception. The patients were 
 seized with vomiting and diarrhoea, accompanied with violent 
 convulsions, and often expired instantaneously or after an 
 agony of a few hours' duration. Medicinal art was power- 
 less against this disease, and, as in the 14th centui-y, the 
 ignorant populace ascribed its prevalence to poison. Sus- 
 picion fell this time upon the physicians and the public 
 authorities and spread in the most incredible manner from 
 St. Petersburg to Paris. The idea that the physicians had 
 been charged to poison the people en masse occasioned 
 dreadful tumults, in which numbers of physicians fell vic- 
 tims and every drug used in medicine was destroyed as poi- 
 sonous. Similar scenes occurred in Russia and in Hungary. 
 In the latter country a great insurrection of the peasants took 
 place, in August, 1831, in which not only the physicians 
 but also numbers of the nobility and public officers who had 
 provided themselves with drugs fell victims, and the most 
 inhuman atrocities were perpetrated. In Vienna, where the 
 cholera raged with extreme virulence, the people behaved 
 more reasonably. 
 
 In Prussia, the cholera occasioned several disturbances at 
 Kcenigsberg, Stettin, andBreslau. At Koenigsberg the move- 
 ment was not occasioned by the disease being attributed to 
 poison. The strict quarantine regulations enforced by the 
 government had produced a complete commercial stagnation, 
 notwithstanding which permission had been given to the 
 Russian troops, when hard pushed by the insurgent Poles, to 
 provide themselves with provisions and ammunition from 
 Prussia, so that not only Russian agents and commissaries, but
 
 406 THE REVOLUTION IN BRUNSWICK, 
 
 whole convoys from Russia crossed the Prussian frontier. 
 The appearance of cholera was ascribed to this circumstance, 
 and the public discontent was evinced both by a popular 
 outbreak and in an address from the chief magistrate of 
 Kcenigsberg to the throne. The Prussian army, under the 
 command of Field-marshal Gneisenau, stationed in Posen 
 for the purpose of watching the movements of the Poles, was 
 also attacked by the cholera, to which the field-marshal fell 
 victim. It speedily reached Berlin, spread through the 
 north of Germany to France, England, and North America, 
 returned thence to the south of Europe, and, in 1836, crept 
 steadily on from Italy through the Tyrol to Bavaria. 
 
 The veil had been torn from many an old and deep-rooted 
 evil by the disturbances of 1830. The press now emulated 
 the provincial diets and some of the governments that sought 
 to meet the demands of the age in exposing to public view all 
 the political wants of Germany. Party spirit however still 
 ran too high, and the moderate constitutionalists, who aimed 
 at the gradual introduction of reforms by legal means, found 
 themselves ere long out-flanked by two extreme parties. 
 Whilst Gentz at Vienna, Jarcke at Berlin, etc., refused to 
 make the slightest concession and in that spirit conducted the 
 press, Rotteck's petty constitutional reforms in Baden were 
 treated with contempt by "VVirth and Siebenpfeiffer, by whom 
 a German republic was with tolerable publicity proclaimed in 
 Rhenish Bavaria. Nor were attempts at mediation wanting. 
 In Darmstadt, Schulz proposed the retention of the present 
 distribution of the states of Germany and the association of 
 a second chamber, composed of deputies elected by the people 
 from every part of the German confederation, with the federal 
 assembly at Frankfurt. 
 
 The Tribune, edited by Dr. "Wirth, and the Westhoten, 
 edited by Dr. Siebenpfeifter, were prohibited by the federal 
 diet, March 2nd, 1832. Schiiler, Savoie, and Geib opposed 
 this measure by the foundation of a club in Rhenish Bavaria 
 for the promotion of liberty of the press, ramifications of 
 which were intended by the founders to be extended through- 
 out Germany. The approaching celebration of the festival 
 in commemoration of the Bavarian constitution afforded the 
 malcontents a long-wished-for opportunity for the convocation 
 of a monster meeting at the ancient castle of Hambach, on
 
 SAXONY, HESSE, ETC. 40? 
 
 the 27th of jNIay. Although the black, red, and gold flag 
 waved on this occasion high above the rest, the tendency to 
 French liberalism predominated over that to German patriot- 
 ism. Numbers of French being also present, Dr. Wirth 
 deemed himself called upon to observe, that the festival they 
 had met to celebrate was intrinsically German, that he de- 
 spised liberty as a French boon, and that the patriot's first 
 thoughts were for his country, his second for liberty. These 
 observations greatly displeased the numerous advocates for 
 French republicanism among his audience, and one Key, a 
 Strassburg citizen, read him a severe lecture in the Mayence 
 style of 1793.* There were also a number of Poles present, 
 towai'ds whom no demonstrations of jealousy were evinced. 
 .This meeting peaceably dissolved, but no means were for the 
 future neglected for the purpose of crushing the spirit mani- 
 fested by it. Marshal Wrede occupied Spires, Landau, Neu- 
 stadt, etc. with Bavarian troops ; the clubs for the promotion 
 of liberty of the press were strictly proliibited, their original 
 founders, as well as the orators of Hambach and the boldest 
 of the newspaper editors, were either arrested or compelled 
 to quit the country. Siebenpfeifter took refuge in Switzer- 
 land ; Wirth might have effected his escape, but refused. 
 Some provocations in Neustadt, on the anniversary of the 
 Hambach festival in 1833, were brought by the military to 
 a tragical close. Some newspaper editors, printers, etc. were 
 also arrested at Munich, Wiirzburg, Augsburg, etc. The 
 most celebrated among the accused was Professor Behr, court- 
 counsellor of Wiirzburg, the burgomaster and former deputy 
 
 * All national distinctions must cease and be fused in universal liberty 
 and equality ; this was the sole aim of the noble French people, and for 
 this cause should we meet them with a fraternal embrace, etc. Paul 
 Ptizer well observed in a pamphlet on German liberalism, published at 
 that period, " What epithet would the majority of the French people 
 bestow upon a liberty which a part of their nation would purchase by 
 placing themselves beneath the protection of a foreign and superior 
 power, called to their aid against their fellow-citizens ? If the cause of 
 German liberalism is to remain pure and unspotted, we must not, like 
 Ckiriolanus, ai'm the foreign foe against our country. The egotistical 
 tendency of the age is, unhappily, too much inclined (by a coalition 
 with France) to prefer personal liberty and independence to the liberty 
 and independence (thereby infallibly forfeited) of the whole commu- 
 nity. The supposed fellowship with France would be subjection to her. 
 France will support the German liberals as Richelieu did the German 
 Protestants."
 
 408 THE STRUGGLES OF THE 
 
 of that city, who, at the time of the meeting at Hambach, 
 made a public speech at Gaibach, on account of the revolu- 
 tionary tendency manifested in it, was arrested, and, in 1836, 
 sentenced to ask pardon on his knees before the king's portrait 
 and to imprisonment, a punishment to .which the greater part 
 of the political offenders were condemned. 
 
 The federal diet had for some time been occupied with 
 measures for the internal tranquillity of Germany. The 
 Hambach festival both brought them to a conclusion and in- 
 creased their severity. Under the date of the 28th of June, 
 1832, the resolutions of the federal assembly, by which first 
 of all the provincial Estates, then the popular clubs, and 
 finally the press, were to be deprived of every means of op- 
 posing in any the slightest degree the joint will of the princes, 
 were published. The governments were bound not to toler- 
 ate within their jurisdiction aught contrary to the resolu- 
 tions passed by the federal assembly, and to call the whole 
 power of the confederation to their aid if unable to enforce 
 obedience ; nay, in cases of urgency, the confederation re- 
 served for itself the right of armed intervention, undemanded 
 by the governments. Taxes, to meet the expenses of the 
 confederation, were to be voted submissively by the provincial 
 Estates. Finally, all popular associations and assemblies were 
 also prohibited, and all newspapers, still remaining, of a liberal 
 tendency, were suppressed. 
 
 The youthful revolutionists, principally students, assembled 
 secretly at Frankfurt a M., during the night of the 3rd of 
 April, 1833, attacked the town -watch for the purpose of liber- 
 ating some political prisoners, and possibly intended to have 
 carried the federal assembly by a coup-de-main had they 
 not been dispersed. These excesses had merely the effect of 
 increasing the severity of the scrutiny and of crowding the 
 prisons with suspected persons. 
 
 CCLXX. The struggles of the provincial Diets. 
 
 The Estates of the different constitutional states sought for 
 constitutional reform by legal means and separated themselves 
 from the revolutionists. But, during periods of great political 
 agitation, it is difficult to draw a distinctive line, and every op- 
 position, however moderate, appears as dangerous as the most
 
 PROVINCIAL DIETS. 409 
 
 intemperate rebellion. It was, consequently, impossible for the 
 governments and the Estates to come to an understanding dur- 
 ing these stormy times. The result of the deliberations, when- 
 ever the opposition was in the majority, was protestations on 
 both sides in defence of right ; and, whenever the opposition 
 was or fell in the minority, the chambers were the mere echo 
 of the minister. 
 
 In Bavaria, a. d. 1831, the second chamber raised a violent 
 storm against the minister, von Schenk, principally on account 
 of the restoration of some monasteries and of the enormous 
 expense attending the erection of the splendid public build- 
 ings at Munich. A law of censorship had, moreover, been 
 published, and a number of civil officers elected by the 
 people been refused permission to take their seats in the 
 chamber. Schwindel, von Closen, Cullmann, Seyftert, etc. 
 were the leaders of the opposition. Schenk resigned office ; 
 the law of censorship Avas repealed, and the Estates struck two 
 millions from the civil list. The first chamber, however, re- 
 fused its assent to these resolutions, the law of censorship was 
 retained, and the saving in the expenditure of the crown was 
 reduced to an extremely insignificant amount. In the autumn 
 of 1832, Prince Otto, the king's second son, was, witli the 
 consent of the sultan, elected king of Greece by the great 
 maritime powers intrusted with the decision of the Greek 
 question, and Count Armansperg, formerly minister of Bava- 
 ria, was placed at the head of the regency during the minority 
 of the youthful monarch. Steps having to be taken for the 
 levy of troops for the Greek service, some regiments were 
 sent into Greece in order to carry the new regulations into 
 effect. The Bavarian chambers were at a later period 
 almost entirely purged from the opposition and granted 
 every demand made by the government. The appearance of 
 the Bavarians in ancient Greece forms one of the most inter- 
 esting episodes in modern history. The jealousy of the great 
 powers explains the election of a sovereign independent of them 
 all : the noble sympathy displayed for the Grecian cause 
 by King Louis, who, shortly after the congress of Verona, 
 sent considerable sums of money and Colonel von Heideck to 
 the aid of the Greeks, and, it may be, also the wish to bring 
 the first among the lesser powers of Germany into closer 
 connexion with the common interests of the great powers.
 
 410 THE STRUGGLES OF THE 
 
 more particulai'ly explains that of the youthful Otto.* The 
 task of organizing a nation, noble, indeed, but debased by 
 long slavery and still reeking with the blood of late rebel- 
 lion, under the influence of a powerful and mutually jealous 
 diplomacy, on an European and German footing, was, how- 
 ever, extremely difficult. Hence the opposite views enter- 
 tained by the regency, the resignation of the counsellors of 
 state, von IMaurer and von Abel, who were more inclined to 
 administrate, and the retention of office by Count Armans- 
 perg, who was more inclined to diplomatize. Hence the 
 ceaseless intrigues of party, the daily increasing contumacy, 
 and the revolt, sometimes quenched in blood, of the wild moun- 
 tain tribes and ancient robber-chiefs, to whom European in- 
 stitutions were still an insupportable yoke. King Otto re- 
 ceived, on his accession to the throne, in 1835, a visit from 
 his royal parent ; and, in the ensuing year, conducted the 
 Princess of Oldenburg to Athens as his bride. 
 
 In Wiirtemberg, the chambers tirst met in 1833, and were, 
 two months later, again dissolved on account of the refusal of 
 the second chamber to reject "with indignation" Pfizer's pro- 
 testation against the resolutions of the confederation. In the 
 newly-elected second chamber, the opposition, at whose head 
 stood the celebrated poet, Uiiland, brought forward numerous 
 propositions for reform, but remained in the minority, and it 
 was not until the new diet, held in 1836, that the aristocratic 
 first chamber was induced to diminish soccage-service and 
 other feudal dues 22 ^ in amount. The literary piracy that 
 had hitherto continued to exist solely in AViirtemberg was 
 also provisionally abolished, the system of national education 
 was improved, and several other useful projects were carried 
 into execution or prepared. A new criminal code, published 
 in 1838, again bore traces of political caution. The old op- 
 position lost power. 
 
 In Baden, the venerable grand-duke, Louis, expired, a. d. 
 
 * Thiersch, the Bavarian court counsellor, one of the most distinguish- 
 ed connoisseurs of Grecian antiquity, -who visited Greece shortly after 
 Heideck and before the arrival of the king, -was received by the modem 
 Greeks Avith touching demonstrations of delight. No nation has so deeply 
 studied, so deeply become imbued with Grecian lore, as that of Germany, 
 and the close connexion formed, on the accession of the Bavarian Otto 
 to the throne of Greece, between her sons and the children of that classic 
 land, justifies the proudest expectations.
 
 PROVINCIAL DIETS. 411 
 
 1830, and was succeeded by Leopold, a descendant of the 
 collateral branch of the counts of Hochberg. Bavaria had, 
 at an earlier period, stipulated, in case of the extinction of the 
 elder and legitimate line, for the restoration of the Pfalz, 
 (Heidelberg and ^Mannheim,) which had, in 1816, been secured 
 to her by a treaty with Austria. The grand-duke, Louis, 
 had protested against this measure and had, in 1817, declared 
 Baden indivisible. Bavaria finally relinquished her claims 
 on the payment of two million florins (£166,666, 13^. Ad.) 
 and the cession of the bailiwick of Steinfeld, to which Austria 
 moreover added the county of Geroldseck. The new grand- 
 duke, who was surnamed " the citizen's friend," behaved with 
 extreme liberality and consequently went hand in hand with 
 the first chamber, of which AVessenberg and Prince von Fiir- 
 stenberg were active members, and with the second, at the 
 head of which stood Professors Rotteck, Welcker, and von 
 Itzstein. Rotteck proposed and carried through the abolition 
 of capital punishmeut as alone worthy of feudal times, and, on 
 Welcker's motion, censorship was abolished and a law for the 
 press was passed. The federal assembly, liowever, speedily 
 checked these reforms. The grand-duke was compelled to 
 repeal the law for the press, the Freiburg university was for 
 some time closed, Professors Rotteck and AVelcker were sus- 
 pended, and their newspaper, the " Freisinnige" or liberal, was 
 suppressed, A. d. 1832. Rotteck was, notwithstanding, at 
 feud with the Hambachers and had raised the Baden flag 
 above that of Germany at a national fete at Badenweiler. 
 This extremely popular deputy, who had been presented with 
 thirteen silver cups in testimony of the affection with which 
 he was regarded by the people, afterwards protested against 
 the resolutions of the confederation, but his motion was vio- 
 lently suppressed by the minister. Winter. The Baden cham- 
 ber, nevertheless, still retained a good deal of energy, and, 
 after the death of Rotteck, in 1841, a violent contest was car- 
 ried on concerning the rights of election. 
 
 Li Hesse-Darmstadt, the Estates again met in 1832 ; the 
 liberal majority in the second chamber, led by von Gagern, 
 E. E, Hoffmann, Hallwachs, etc. protested against the reso- 
 lutions of the confederation, and the chamber was dissolved. 
 A fresh election took place, notwithstanding which the cham- 
 ber was again dissolved in 1834, on account of the govern-
 
 412 THE STRUGGLES OF THE 
 
 ment bein^ charged with party spirit by von Gagern and the 
 refusal of the chamber to call him to order. The people after- 
 wards elected a majority of submissive members. 
 
 In Hesse-Cassel the popular demonstrations were instantly 
 followed by the convocation of the Estates and the proposal 
 of a new and stipulated constitution, which received the sanc- 
 tion of the cliambers as early as January, 1831 ; but, amid 
 the continual disturbances and on account of the disinclina- 
 tion of the prince co-regent to the liberal reforms, the cham- 
 ber, of which the talented professor, Jordan of Marburg, was 
 the most distinguished member, yielded, notwithstanding its 
 perseverance, after two rapidly successive dissolutions, in 1832 
 and 1833, to the influence of the (once liberal) minister, Has- 
 senpflug, and Jordan quitted the scene of contest. Ilassenp- 
 flug's tyrannical beliaviour and the lapse of Hesse-Rotenburg, 
 (the mediatized collateral line, which became extinct with 
 tlie Landgrave Victor in 1834,) the revenues of which were 
 appropriated as personal property by the prince elector in- 
 stead of being declared state property, fed the opposition in 
 the chambers, which was, notwithstanding the menaces of 
 the prince elector, carried on until 1838. Hassenpflug threw 
 up office. 
 
 In Nassau, the duke, William, fell into a violent dispute 
 with the Estates. The second chamber, after vainly solicit- 
 ing the restitution of the rich demesnes, appropriated by the 
 duke as private property, on the ground of their being state 
 property, and the application of their revenue to the payment 
 of the state debts, refused, in the autumn of 1831, to vote the 
 taxes. The first chamber, in which the duke had the power 
 of raising at will a majority in his favour by the creation of 
 fresh members, protested against the conduct of the second, 
 which in return protested against that of the first and suspend- 
 ed its proceedings until their constitutional rights should have 
 received full recognition ; five of the deputies, however, again 
 protested against the suspension of the proceedings of the 
 chamber and voted the taxes during the absence of the ma- 
 jority. The majority again protested, but became entangled 
 in a pohtical law-suit, and Herber, the grey-headed president, 
 was confined in the fortress of ]Marxburg. 
 
 In Brunswick, a good understanding prevailed between 
 William, the new duke, and the Estates, which were, how-
 
 PROVINCIAL DIETS. 413 
 
 ever, accused of having an aristocratic tendency by the demo- 
 cratic party. Their sittings continued to be held in secret. 
 
 In Saxony, the long-wished-for reforms, above all, the 
 grant of a new constitution, were realized, owing to the in- 
 fluence of the popular co-regent, added to that of Lindenau, 
 the highly-esteemed minister, and of the newly-elected 
 Estates, A. d. 1831. The law of censorship, nevertheless, 
 continued to be enforced with extreme severity, which also 
 marked the treatment of the political prisoners. Count 
 Hohcnthal and Baron Watzdorf, who seized every oppor- 
 tunity to put in protestations, even against the resolutions 
 of the confederation, evinced the most liberal spirit. On the 
 demise of the aged king, Antony, in 1835, and the accession 
 of the co-regent, Frederick, to the throne, the political move- 
 ments totally ceased. 
 
 Holstein and Schleswig had also, as early as 1823, solicited 
 the restitution of their ancient constitutional rights, which 
 the king, Frederick IV., delayed to grant. Lornsen, the 
 counsellor of cliancery, was arrested in 1830, for attempting 
 to agitate the people. Separate provincial diets were, not- 
 withstanding, decreed, in 1831, for Holstein and Schleswig, 
 although both provinces urgently demanded their union. 
 Frederick IV. expired in 1839 and -was succeeded by his 
 cousin, Christian. 
 
 Immediately after the revolution of July, the princes of 
 Oldenburg, Altenburg, Coburg, Meiningen, and Schwarzburg- 
 Sondershausen made a public appeal to the confidence of their 
 subjects, vv'hom they called upon to lay before them their 
 grievances, etc. Augustus, duke of Oldenburg, who had as- 
 sumed the title of grand-duke, proclaimed a constitution, but 
 shortly afterwards withdrew his promise and strictly forbade 
 his subjects to annoy him by recalling it to his remembrance. 
 The prince von Sondershausen also refused tlie hoped-for 
 constitution. In Sigmaringen, Altenburg, and IMeiningen the 
 constitutional movement was, on the contrary, countenanced 
 and encouraged by the princes. Pauline, the liberal-minded 
 princess of Lippe-Detmold, had already drawn up a constitu- 
 tion for her petty territory with her own hand, when the 
 nobility rose against it, and, aided by the federal assembly, 
 compelled her to withdraw it. 
 
 In the autumn of 1833, the emperor of Russia held a con-
 
 414 THE STRUGGLES OF THE 
 
 ference with the kinp^ of Prussia at Munchen-Griitz, whither 
 the emperor of Austria also repaired. A German minii^terial 
 congress assembled immediately afterwards at Vienna, and 
 the first of its resolutions was made public late in the autumn 
 of 1834. It announced the establishment of a court of arbi- 
 tration, empowered, as the highest court of appeal, to decide all 
 disputes between the governments and their provincial Estates. 
 Tlie whole of the members of this court were to be nomi- 
 nated by the governments, but the disputing parties were free 
 to select their arbitrators from among the number, 
 
 A fresh and violent constitutional battle was, notwithstand- 
 ing these precautions, fought in Hanover, where Adolphus 
 Frederick, Duke of Cambridge, had, in the name of his 
 brother, "William IV., king of England, established a new 
 constitution, which had received many ameliorations notwith- 
 standing the inefficiency of the liberals, Christiani, Liintzel, etc, 
 to counteract the preponderating influence of the monarchical 
 and aristocratic party. William IV., king of England and 
 Hanover, expired a. d. 1837, and was succeeded on the throne 
 of Great Britain by Victoria Alexandrina, the daughter of his 
 younger and deceased brother, Edward, Duke of Kent, and of 
 the Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg ; and on that of Han- 
 over, which was solely heritable in the male line, by his second 
 brother, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, the leader of the Tory 
 party in England. No sooner had this new sovereign set his 
 foot on German soil,* than he repealed the constitution grant- 
 ed to Hanover in 1833 and ordained the restoration of the 
 former one of 1819, drawn up in a less liberal but more 
 monarchical and aristocratic spirit. Among tlie protestations 
 made against this covp d'etat, that of the seven Gottingen 
 professors, the two brothers, Grimm, to whom the German 
 language and antiquarian research are so deeply indebted, 
 Dahlmann, Gervinus, Ewald, Weber, and Albrecht, is most 
 worthy of record. Their instant dismission produced an in- 
 surrection amongst the students, which was, after a good deal 
 
 * * He did not restore the whole of the crown property that had, at an 
 earlier period, been carried away to England. A considerable portion 
 of the crown jewels had been taken away by George I., and when, in 
 1802, tlie French occupied Hanover, the whole of the moveable crown 
 property, even the great stud, was sent to England. On the demise of 
 George HI., the crown jewels were divided among the princes of the 
 English house. — Copied from the Courier of August, 1838.
 
 PROVINCIAL DIETS. 415 
 
 of bloorlshed, quelled by the military. In the beginning: of 
 1838, the Estates were convoked according to tlie articles of the 
 constitution of 1819 for the purpose of taking a constitution, 
 drawn up under the dictation of the king, under deliberation. 
 Many of the towns refused to elect deputies, and some of those 
 elected were not permitted to take their seats. The city of 
 Osnabriick protested in the federal assembly. Notwith- 
 standing this, the Estates meanwhile assembled, but declared 
 themselves incompetent, regarding tliemselves simply in the 
 light of an arbitrative committee, and, as such, threw out the 
 constitution presented by the king, June, 1838. The federal 
 assembly remained passive.* In 1839, Scheie, the minister, 
 finally succeeded, by means of menaces and bribery, and by arbi- 
 trarily calling into the chamber the ministerial candidates who 
 had received the minority of votes during the elections, in 
 collecting so many deputies devoted to his party as were re- 
 quisite in order to form the chamber and to pass resolutions. 
 The city of Hanover hereupon brought before the federal as- 
 sembly a petition for redress and a list of grievances in which 
 Scheie's chamber was described as "unworthy of the name of a 
 constitutional representative assembly, void of confidence, un- 
 possessed of the public esteem, and unrecognised by the coun- 
 try." The king instantly divested Rumann, the city director, of 
 his office, but so far yielded to the magistrate, to whom he gave 
 audience in the palace and who was followed by crowds of 
 the populace, as to revoke the nomination, already declared 
 illegal, of Rumann's successor, and to promise that the matter 
 at issue should be brought before the common tribunal instead 
 of the council of state, July 17th. Numerous other cities, 
 corporations of landed proprietors, etc., also followed the ex- 
 ample set by Hanover and laid their complaints before the 
 federal assembly, which hereupon declared that, according to the 
 laws of the confederation, it found no cause for interference, 
 but at the same time advised the king to come to an under- 
 standing consistent with the rights of the crown and of the 
 Estates, with the "present" Estates, (unrecognised by the 
 
 * The Darmstadt goveiiiment declared to the second chamber, on its 
 bringing forward a motion for the intercession of Darmstadt with the 
 federal assembly in favour of the legality of the ancient constitution 
 then in force in Hanover, that the grand-duke Avould never tolerate any 
 co-operation on the part of the Estates with his vote in the federal as- 
 sembly.
 
 416 AUSTRIA AND PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 democratic party,) concerning the form of the constitution. 
 In the federal assembly, WUrtemberg and Bavaria, most 
 particularly, voted in favour of the Hanoverians. Professor 
 Ewald was appointed to the university of TUbingen ; Albrecht, 
 at a later period, to that of Leipzig ; the brothers Grimm, to 
 that of Berlin ; Dahlmann, to that of Bonn. Among the as- 
 sembled Estates, those of Baden, Wiirtemberg, and Saxony 
 most warmly espoused the cause of the people of Hanover, 
 but, as was natural, without result.* 
 
 In 1840, the king convoked a fresh diet. The people re- 
 fused to elect members, and it was solely by means of intrigue 
 that a small number of deputies (not half the number fixed 
 by law) were assembled, creatures of the minister, Scheie, who 
 were disowned by the people in addresses couched in the most 
 energetic terms (the address presented by the citizens of Osna- 
 brlick was the most remarkable) and their proceedings were pro- 
 tested against. This petty assembly, nevertheless, took under 
 deliberation and passed a new constitution, against which the 
 cities and the country again protested. The king also declared 
 his only son, George, who was afflicted with blindness, capable 
 of governing and of succeeding to the throne. 
 
 CCLXXI. Austria and Pritice Metternich. 
 
 Austria might, on the fall of Napoleon, have maintained 
 Alsace, Lorraine, the Breisgau, and the whole of the territory 
 of the Upper Rhine in the same manner in which Prussia 
 had maintained that of the Lower Rhine, had she not pre- 
 ferred the preservation of her rule in Italy and rendered her 
 position in Germany subordinate to her station as a Euro- 
 pean power. This policy is explained by the peculiar circum- 
 stances of the Austrian state, which had for centuries com- 
 prised within itself nations of the most distinct character, 
 and the population of whose provinces were by far the greater 
 part Sclavonian, Hungarian, and Italian, the great minority 
 German. By this policy she lost, as the Prussian customs' 
 
 * " This defeat is, however, not to be lamented : the battle for the 
 separate constitutions has not been fought in vain if German nationality 
 spring from the wreck of German separatism, if we are taught that with- 
 out a liberal federal constitution liberal provincial constitutions are im- 
 possible in Germany." — Pfzer.
 
 AUSTRIA AND PRINCE METTERNICH. 417 
 
 union has also again proved, much of her influence over 
 Germany, whilst, on th.e other hand, she secured it the more 
 firmly in Southern and Eastern Europe. Austria has long made 
 a gradual and almost unperceived advance from the north-west 
 in a south-easterly direction. In Germany she has continually 
 lost ground. .Switzerland, the Netherlands, Alsace, Lorraine, 
 the Swabian counties, Lusatia, Silesia, have one by one been 
 severed from her, whilst her non-German possessions have 
 as continually been increased, by the addition of Hungary, 
 Transylvania, Galicia, Dalmatia, and Upper Italy. 
 
 The contest carried on between Austria, the French Revo- 
 lution, and Napoleon, has at all events left deep and still visi- 
 ble traces ; the characters of the emperor Francis and of his 
 chancellor of state, Prince Metternich, that perfect represent- 
 ative of the aristocracy of Europe, sympathize also as closely 
 with the Austrian system as the character of the emperor 
 Joseph was antipathetical to it. This system dates, however, 
 earlier than those revolutionary struggles, and has already 
 outlived at least one of its supporters. 
 
 Austria is the only great state in Europe that comprises so 
 many divers but well-poised nationalities within its bosom ; in 
 all the other great states, one nation bears the preponderance. 
 To this circumstance may be ascribed her peaceful policy, 
 every great war threatening her with the revolt of some one 
 of the foreign nations subordinate to her sceptre. To this 
 may, moreover, be ascribed the tenacity with which she up- 
 holds the principle of legitimacy. The historical hereditary 
 right of the reigning dynasty forms the sole but ideal tie by 
 which the divers and naturally inimical nations beneath her 
 rule are linked together. From the same reason, the concen- 
 tration of talent in the government contrasts, in Austria, more 
 violently with the obscurantism of the provinces, than in any 
 other state. Not only does the over-preponderating intelli- 
 gence of the chancery of state awe the nations beneath its 
 rule, but the proverbial good nature and patriarchal cordiality 
 of the imperial family win every heart. The army is a mere 
 machine in the hands of the government ; a standing army, 
 in which the soldier serves for life or for the period of twenty 
 years, during which he necessarily loses all sympathy with his 
 fellow-citizens, and which is solely reintegrated from militia 
 whom this privilege renders still more devoted to the govern - 
 
 VOL. III. 2 E
 
 418 AUSTRIA AND PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 ment. The praetorian spirit usually prevalent in standing armies 
 has been guarded against in Austria by there being no guards, 
 and all sympathy between the military and the citizens of the 
 various provinces whence they were drawn is at once pre- 
 vented by the Hungarian troops being sent into Italy, the 
 Italian troops into Galicia, etc. etc. The nationality of the 
 private soldier is checked by the Germanism of the subalterns 
 and by the Austrianism of the statl'. Besides the power thus 
 every where visible, there exists another partially invisible, 
 that of the police, in connexion with a censorship of the se- 
 verest description, which keeps a guard over the inadvert- 
 encies of the tongue as well as over those of tlie press. The 
 people are, on tlie other hand, closely bound up with the 
 government and interested in the maintenance of the existing 
 state of affairs by the paper currency, on the value of which 
 the welfare of every subject in the state depends. 
 
 To a government thus strong in concentrated power and 
 intelligence stands opposed the mass of nations subject to 
 the Austrian sceptre whose natural antipathies have been 
 artfully fostered and strengthened. In Austria the distinc- 
 tions of class, characteristic of the middle ages, are still pre- 
 served. The aristocracy and the clergy possess an influence 
 almost unknown in Germany, but solely over the people, not 
 over the government. As corporative bodies they still are, 
 as in the times of Charles VI., convoked for the purpose of 
 holding postulate-diets, whose power, with the exception of 
 that of the Hungarian diet, is merely nominal. The nobihty, 
 even in Hungary, as every where else throughout the Austrian 
 states, (more particularly since the Spanish system adopted 
 by Ferdinand II.,) is split into two inimical classes, those of 
 the higher and lower aristocracy. Even in Galicia, where 
 the Polish nobility formed, at an earlier period and according 
 to earlier usage, but one body, the distinction of a higher 
 and lower class has been introduced since the occupation of 
 that country by Austria. The high aristocracy are either 
 bound by favours, coincident with their origin, to the court, 
 the great majority among them consisting of families on whom 
 nobility was conferred by Ferdinand II., or they are, if fami- 
 lies belonging to the more powerful and more ancient national 
 aristocracy, as, for instance, that of Esterhazy in Hungary, 
 brought by the bestowal of fresh favours into closer affinity
 
 AUSTRIA AXD PRINCE METTERNICH. -119 
 
 with the court and drawn within its sphere. The f:i;reater 
 proportion of the aristocracy consequently reside at Vienna. 
 The lower nobility make their way chiefly by talent and per- 
 severance in the array and the civil offices, and are therefore 
 naturally devoted to the government, on Avhicli all their hopes 
 in life depend. The clerfiy, although permitted to retain the 
 whole of their ancient pomp and their influence over the 
 minds of the people, have been rendered dependent upon the 
 government, a point easily gained, the pope being principally 
 protected by Austria. 
 
 The care of the government for the material welfare of the 
 people cannot be denied ; it is, however, frustrated by two 
 obstacles raised by its own system. The maintenance of the 
 high aristocracy is, for instance, antipathetic to the welfare 
 of the subject, and, although comfort and plenty abound in 
 the immediate vicinity of Vienna, the population on the 
 enormous estates of the magnates in the provinces often 
 present a lamentable contrast. The Austrian government 
 moreover prohibits all free intercourse with foreign parts, and 
 the old-fashioned system of taxation, senseless as many other 
 existing regulations, entirely puts a stop to all free trade be- 
 tween Hungary and Austria. Consequently, the new and gi'and 
 modes of communication, the Franzen-canal, that unites the 
 Danube and the Thiess, the Louisenstrasse, between Carlstadt 
 and Fiume, the magnificent road to Trieste, the admirable 
 road across the rocks of the Stilfser Jock, and, more than all, 
 the steam navigation as far as the mouths of the Danube and 
 tlie railroads, will be unavailing to scatter the blessings of 
 commerce and industry so long as these wretched prohibitions 
 continue to be enforced. 
 
 Austria has, in regard to her foreign policy, left the increas- 
 ing influence of Russia in Poland, Persia, and Turkey un- 
 opposed, and even allowed the mouths of the Danube to be 
 guarded by Russian fortresses, whilst she has, on the other 
 hand, energetically repelled the interference of France in the 
 affairs of Italy. The July revolution induced a popular in- 
 surrection in the dominions of the Church, and the French 
 threw a garrison into the citadel of Ancona ; the Austrians, 
 however, instantly entered the country and enforced the re- 
 storation of tlie ancien regime. In Lombardy, many amelior- 
 ations were introduced and the prosperity of the country 
 
 2 E 2
 
 420 AUSTRIA AND PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 promoted by the Austrian administration, notwithstanding the 
 national jealousy of the inhabitants. Venice, with lier choked- 
 up harbour, could, it is true, no longer compete with Trieste. 
 The German element has gained ground in Galicia by means 
 of the public authorities and the immigration of agriculturists 
 and artificers. The Hungarians endeavoured to render their 
 language the common medium throughout Hungary, and to 
 expel the German element, but their apprehension of the nu- 
 merous Slavonian population of Hungary, whom religious 
 sympathy renders subject to Russian influence, has speedily 
 reconciled them with the Germans. Slavonism has, on the 
 other hand, also gained ground in Bohemia. 
 
 The emperor, Francis I., expired A. D. 1835, and was suc- 
 ceeded by his son, Ferdinand I., without a change taking place 
 in the system of the government, of which Prince IMetternich 
 continued to be the directing principle. 
 
 The decease of some of the heads of foreign royal families 
 and the marriages of their successors again placed several 
 German princes on foreign thrones. The last of the Guelphs 
 on the throne of Great Britain expired with William IV., 
 whose niece and successor, Victoria Alexandrina, wedded [a. 
 D. 1840] Albert of Saxe-Coburg, second son of Ernest, the 
 reigning duke. That the descendant of the stedfast elector 
 should, after such adverse fortune, be thus destined to occupy 
 the highest position in the reformed world, is of itself re- 
 markable. One of this prince's uncles, Leopold, is seated on 
 the throne of Belgium, and one of his cousins, Ferdinand, on 
 that of Portugal, in right of his consort, Donna ]Maria da Glo- 
 ria, the daughter of Don Pedro, king of Portugal and emperor 
 of the Brazils, to whom, on the expulsion of the usurper, Don 
 Miguel, he was wedded, a. d. 1835. These princes of Coburg 
 are remarkable for manly beauty. 
 
 The antipathy with which the new dynasty on the throne 
 of France was generally viewed rendered Ferdinand, Duke of 
 Orleans, Louis Philippe's eldest son, for some time an unsuc- 
 cessful suitor for the hand of a German princess ; he at length 
 conducted Helena, princess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, al- 
 though against the consent of her stepfather, Paul Frederick, 
 the reigning duke, to Paris, a. d. 1837, as future queen of 
 the French. He was killed, a. d. 1842, by a fall from his 
 carriage, and left two infant sons, the Count of Paris and the
 
 AUSTRIA AND PRINCE METTERNICH. 421 
 
 Duke of Chartres. The Czarovitch, Alexander, espoused 
 Maria, Princess of Darmstadt. 
 
 The French chambers and journals have reassumed towards 
 Germany the tone formerly affected by Napoleon, and, with 
 incessant cries for war, in which, in 1840, the voice of the 
 prime minister Thiers joined, demand the restoration of the 
 left bank of the Rhine. Thiers was, however, compelled to 
 resign office, and the close alliance between Austria, Prussia, 
 and the whole of the confederated princes, as well as the feel- 
 ing universally displayed throughout Germany, demonstrated 
 the energy with which an attack on the side of France 
 would be repelled. The erection of the long-forgotten federal 
 fortresses on the Upper Rhine was also taken at length under 
 consideration, and it was resolved to fortify Rastadt and Ulm 
 without further delay. 
 
 Nor have the statesmen of France failed to threaten Ger- 
 many with a Russo-Gallic alliance in the spirit of the Erfurt 
 congress of 1808 ; whilst Russia perseveres in the prohibitory 
 system so prejudicial to German commerce, attempts to sup- 
 press every spark of German nationality in Livonia, Courland, 
 and Esthonia, and fosters Panslavism, or the union of all the 
 Slavonic nations for the subjection of the world, among the 
 Slavonian subjects of Austria in Hungary and Bohemia. 
 The extension of the Greek church is also connected with this 
 idea. " The European Pentarchy," a work that attracted 
 much attention in 1839, insolently boasts how Russia, in de- 
 fiance of Austria, has seized the mouths of the Danube, has 
 wedged herself, as it were, by means of Poland, between 
 Austria and Prussia, in a position equally threatening to both, 
 recommends the minor states of Germany to seek the protec- 
 tion of Russia, and darkly hints at the alliance between that 
 power and France. 
 
 Nor are the prospects of Germany alone threatened by 
 France and Russia ; disturbances, like a phantastic renewal 
 of the horrors of the middle age, are ready to burst forth on 
 the other side of the Alps, as though, according to the ancient 
 saga of Germany, the dead were about to rise in order to 
 mingle in the last great contest between the gods and man- 
 kind.
 
 422 PRUSSIA AND ROME 
 
 CCLXXn. Prussia and Rome. 
 
 Whilst Austria remains stationary, Prussia progresses. 
 Whilst Austria relies for support upon the aristocracy of the 
 Estates, Prussia relies for hei*s upon the people, that is to say, 
 upon the public officers taken from the mass of the population, 
 upon the citizens emancipated by the city regulation, upon 
 the peasantry emancipated by the abolition of servitude, of 
 all the other agricultural imposts, and by the division of pro- 
 perty, and upon the enrolment of both classes in the Landwehr. 
 Whilst Austria, in fine, renders her German policy subordinate 
 to her European diplomacy, the influence exercised by Prussia 
 upon Europe depends, on the contrary, solely upon that pos- 
 sessed by her in Germany. 
 
 Prussia's leading principle appears to be, "All for the peo- 
 ple, nothing through the people I " Plence the greatest solici- 
 tude for the instruction of the people, whether in the meanest 
 schools or the universities, but under strict political control, 
 under the severest censorship ; hence the emancipation of 
 the peasantry, civic self-administration, freedom of trade, the 
 general arming of tlie people, and, with all these, mere name- 
 less provincial diets, the most complete popular liberty on the 
 widest basis without a representation worthy of the name ; 
 hence, finally, the greatest solicitude for the promotion of 
 trade on a grand scale, for the revival of tiie commerce of 
 Germany, which has lain prostrate since the great wars of 
 the Reformation, for the mercantile unity of Germany, whilst 
 it is exactly in Prussia that political Unitarians are the most 
 severely punished. 
 
 The great measures were commenced in Prussia immedi- 
 ately after the disaster of 1806: first, the re-organization of 
 the army and the abolition of the privileges of the aristocracy 
 in respect to appointments and the possession of landed pro- 
 perty ; these were, in 1808, succeeded by the celebrated civic 
 regulation which placed the civic administration in the hands 
 of the city deputies freely elected by the citizens ; in 1810, by 
 freedom of trade and by the foundation of the new universities 
 of Berlin, (instead of Halle,) of Breslau, (instead of Frank- 
 furt on the Oder,) and, in 1819, of Bonn, by which means 
 the libraries, museums, and scientific institutions of every de-
 
 PRUSSIA AND ROME. 423 
 
 scription were centralized ; in 1814, by the common duty im- 
 posed upon every individual of every class, without exception, 
 to bear arms and to do service in the Landwehr up to his 
 thirty-ninth year; in 1821, by the regulation for the division 
 of communes ; and, in 1822, by the extra post. 
 
 In respect to the popular representation guaranteed by the 
 federal act, Prussia announced, on the 22nd of May, 1815, 
 her intention to form provincial diets, from among whose 
 members the general representation or imperial diet, which 
 was to be held at Berlin, was to be elected. "When the Rhenisli 
 provinces urged the fulfilment of tliis promise in the Coblentz 
 address of 1817, the reply was, "Those who admonish the 
 king are guilty of doubting the inviolability of his word." 
 Prussia afterwards declared that the new regulations would 
 be in readiness by the February of 1819. On the 20th of 
 January, 1820, an edict was published by the government, 
 the first paragraph of which fixed the public debt at 
 180,091,720 dollars,* and the second one rendered the con- 
 traction of every fresli debt dependent upon the will of the 
 future imperial diet.f The definitive reguhitions in respect 
 to the provincial Estates were finally published on the 5th of 
 June, 1823, but the convocation of a genei'al diet was passed 
 over in silence. 
 
 The prosperity of the nations of Germany, wrecked by the 
 great wars of the Reformation, must and will gradually return. 
 Prussia has inherited all the claims upon, and consequently 
 all the duties owing to Germany. Still the general position 
 of Germany is not sufficiently favourable to render the reno- 
 vation of her ancient Ilanseatic commerce possible. | It is to be 
 deplored that the attachment of the Prussian cabinet to Rus- 
 sian policy has not at all events modified the commercial re- 
 strictions along the whole of the eastern frontier of Prussia, § 
 
 • £26,263,375 16«. 8f/. 
 
 t The Maritime Commercial Company, meanwhile, entered into a 
 contract. 
 
 J " We have long since lost all our maritime power. The only guns 
 now fired by us at sea are as signals of distress. Who now remembers 
 that it was the German Hansa that first made use of cannons at sea, that 
 it was from Germans that the English learnt to build men of war ? " — 
 Jahti's \ationaliti/. 
 
 § Prussia, of late, greatly contributed towards the aggrandizement of 
 the power of Russia by solemnly declaring in 1828, when Russia ex-
 
 424 PRUSSIA AND ROME. 
 
 and that Prussia has not been able to effect more with Holland 
 in rcGfard to the question concerning the free navigation of 
 the Rhine.* Prussia has, on the other hand, deserved the 
 gratitude of Germany for the zeal with whicli she promoted 
 the settlement of the Customs' Union, which has, at least in 
 the interior of Germany, removed the greater part of the re- 
 strictions upon commercial intercourse, and has a tendency to 
 spread still further. Throughout the last transactions, partly 
 of the Customs' Union, partly of Prussia alone, with England 
 and Holland, a vain struggle against those maritime powers 
 is perceptible. England trades with Germany from every 
 harbour and in every kind of commodity, whilst German 
 vessels are restricted to home produce and are only free to 
 trade with England from their own ports. Holland finds a 
 market for her colonial wares in Germany, and, instead of 
 taking German manufactured goods in exchange, provides her- 
 self from England, throws English goods into Germany, and, 
 in lieu of being, as she ought to be, the great emporium of 
 Germany, is content to remain a mere huge English factory. 
 The Hanse towns have also been converted into mercantile 
 depots for English goods on German soil. 
 
 The misery consequent on the great wars, and the powerful 
 reaction against Gallicism tliroughout Germany, once more 
 caused despised religion to be reverenced in the age of phi- 
 losophy. Prussia deemed herself called upon, as the inheritor 
 of the Reformation brought about by Luther, as the principal 
 Protestant power of Germany, to assume a prominent position 
 in the religious movement of the time. Frederick "William IH., 
 a sovereign distinguished for piety, appears, immediately after 
 the great wars, to have deemed the conciliation of the various 
 
 tended her influence over Turkey, that she -would not on that account 
 prevent Russia from asserting her " just claims," a declaration that 
 elicited bitter complaints from the British government ; and again in 
 1831, by countenancing the entry of the Russians into Poland, at that 
 time in a state of insurrection. 
 
 * The reason of the backwardness displayed from the commencement 
 by Prussia to act as the bulwark of Germany on the Lower Rhine is 
 explained by Stein in his letters : " Hanoverian jealousy, by which the 
 narrow-minded Castlereagh was guided, and, generally speaking, jealousy 
 of the German ministerial clauses, as if the existence of a Mecklenburg 
 were of greater importance to Germany than that of a powerful warlike 
 population, alike famous in time of peace or war, presided over the settle- 
 ment of the relation in which Belgium was to stand to Priissia."
 
 PRUSSIA AND ROME. 425 
 
 sects of Christians within his kingdom feasible. He, never- 
 theless, merely succeeded in eifecting a union between the 
 Lutherans and Calvinists. He also bestowed a new liturgy 
 upon this united church, which was censured as partial, as 
 proceeding too directly from the cabinet without being sanc- 
 tioned by the concurrence of the assembled clergy and of the 
 people. Some Lutherans, who refused compliance, were 
 treated with extreme severity and compelled to emigrate ; 
 the utility of a union, which, two centuries earlier, would 
 have saved Germany from ruin, was, however, generally 
 acknowledged. It, nevertheless, was not productive of unity 
 in the Protestant world. In the universities and among the 
 clergy, two parties, the Rationalists and the Supernaturalists, 
 stood opposed to one another. The former, the disciples of 
 the old Neologians, still followed the philosophy of Kant, 
 merely regarded Christianity as a code of moral philosophy, 
 denominated Christ a wise teacher, and explained away his 
 miracles by means of physics. The latter, the followers of 
 the old orthodox Lutherans, sought to confirm the truths of 
 the gospel also by philosophical means, and were denominated 
 Supernaturalists, as believers in a mystery surpassing the 
 reasoning powers of man. The celebrated Schleierraacher 
 of Berlin mediated for some time between both parties. But 
 it was in Prussia more particularly that both parties stood 
 more rigidly opposed to one another and fell into the greatest 
 extremes. Tlie Rationalists were supplanted by the Panthe- 
 ists, the disciples of Hegel, the Berlin philosopher, who at 
 length formally declared war against Christianity ; the Super- 
 naturalists were here and there outdone by the Pietists, whose 
 enthusiasm degenerated into licentiousness.* The king had, 
 notwithstanding his piety, been led to believe that Hegel 
 merely taught the students unconditional obedience to the 
 state, and that Pantheist was consequently permitted to 
 spread, under the protection of Prussia, his senseless doctrine 
 of deified humanity, the same formerly proclaimed by Ana- 
 charsis Cloots in the French Convention. When too late, the 
 gross deception practised by this sophist was perceived : his 
 disciples threw off their troublesome mask, with Dr. Strauss, 
 
 • At KiJnigsberg, in Prussia, a secret society was discovered which 
 was partly composed of people of rank, who, under pretence of meeting 
 for the exercise of religious duties, gave way to the most wanton licence.
 
 426 PRUSSIA AND ROME. 
 
 who had been implicated in the Zurich disturbances, at 
 their head, openly renounced Christianity, and, at Halle, led 
 by Huge, the journalist, embraced the social revolutionary 
 • ideas of " Young France," to which almost the whole of the 
 younger journalists of literary "Young Gennany" acceded; 
 nor was this Gallic reaction, this retrogression towards the 
 philosophical ideas of the foregoing century, without its cause, 
 German patriotism, which, from 1815 to 1819, had predomi- 
 nated in every university throughout Prussia, having been 
 forcibly suppressed. Hegel, on his appearance in Berlin, 
 was generally regarded as the man on whom the task of 
 diverting the enthusiasm of the rising generation for Ger- 
 many into another channel devolved.* Every thing German 
 had been treated with ridicule. "f" French fashions and French 
 ideas had once more come into vogue. 
 
 Wliilst Protestant Germany was thus torn, weakened, and de- 
 graded by schism, the religious movement throughout Catholic 
 Germany insensibly increased in strengtli and unity. The ad- 
 verse fate of the pope had, on his deliverance from the hands 
 of Napoleon, excited a feeling of sympathy and reverence so 
 universal as to be participated in by even tlie Protestant powers 
 of Europe. He had, as early as 1814, reinstated the Jesuits 
 Avithout a remonstrance on the part of the sovereigns by whom 
 they had formeiiy been condemned. The ancient spirit of the 
 Komish church had revived. A new edifice was to be raised on 
 the thick-strewn ruins of the past. In 1817, Bavaria concluded 
 a concordat with the pope for the foundation of the arch- 
 bishopric of Munich with the three bishoprics of Augs- 
 burg, Passau, and Ratisbon, and of the archbishopric of 
 Bamberg with the three bishoprics of Wiirzburg, Eichstiidt, 
 and Spires. The king retained the right of presentation. In 
 1821, Prussia concluded a treaty by which the archbishopric 
 of Cologne with the three bishoprics of Treves, JNIiinster, and 
 Paderborn, the archbishopric of Posen with Culm, and two 
 
 * The police, while attempting to lead science, was unwittingly led 
 by it. The students were driven in crowds into Hegel's colleges, his pu- 
 pils were preferred to all appointments, etc., and every measure was 
 taken to render that otherwise almost vinnoted sophist as dangerous as 
 possible. 
 
 t In this the Jews essentially aided : BiJme more in an anti-German, 
 Heine more in au anti-Christian, spirit, and were highly applauded by 
 the simple and infatuated German youth.
 
 PRUSSIA AND ROME. 427 
 
 independent bishoprics in Breslau and Ermeland were estab- 
 lished. The bishoprics of Hildesheim and Osnabriick were re- 
 established in 1824 by the concordat with Hanover. In south- 
 western Germany, the archbishopric of Freiburg in the Breisgau 
 with the bishoprics of Rottenburg on the Neckar, Limburg on 
 the Lahn, Mayence, and Fulda arose. In Switzerland there 
 remained four bishoprics, Freiburg in the Uechtland, Solo- 
 thurn, Coire, and St. Gall ; in Alsace, Strassbourg and Col- 
 mar. In the Netherlands, the archbishopric of Malines with 
 the bishoprics of Ghent, Liege, and Namur. In Holland, three 
 Jansenist bishoprics, Utrecht, Deventer, and Haarlem, are 
 remarkable for having retained their independence of Rome. 
 The renovated body of the church was inspired with fresh 
 energy. On the fall of the Jesuits, the otlier extreme, Illumin- 
 atism, had raised its head, but had been compelled to yield 
 before a higher power and before the moral Ibrce of Germany. 
 The majority of the German Catholics now clung to the idea 
 that the regeneration of the abused and despised church was 
 best to be attained by the pi'actice of evangelical simplicity 
 and morality, that Jesuitism and lUuminatism wei'e, conse- 
 quently, to be equally avoided, and the better disposed among 
 the Protestants to be imitated. Sailer, the gi-eat teacher of 
 the German clergy, and Wessenberg, whom Rome on this ac- 
 count refused to raise to the bishopric of Constance, acted upon 
 this idea. In Silesia, a number of youthful priests, headed by 
 Theimer, impatient for the realization of the union, apparently 
 approaching, of this moderate party with the equally moderate- 
 ly disposed party among the Protestants into one great German 
 church, took [a. d. 1825] the bold step of renouncing celibacy. 
 This party was however instantly suppressed by force by the 
 king of Prussia. Theimer, in revenge, turned Jesuit and 
 wrote against Prussia. Professors inclined to (Jltramontanism 
 were, meanwhile, installed in the universities, more particularly 
 at Bonn, Miinster, and Tiibingen, by the Protestant as well 
 as the Catholic governments ; by them the clerical students 
 were industriously taught that they were not Germans but 
 subjects of Rome, and were flattered with the hope of one day 
 participating in the supremacy about to be regained by the 
 pontiff. Every priest inspired ■with patriotic sentiments, or 
 evincing any degree of tolerance towards his Protestant fel- 
 low-citizens, was regarded as guilty of betraying the interests
 
 428 PRUSSIA AND ROME. 
 
 of the church to the state and the tenets of the only true church 
 to heretics. Gorres, once Germany's most spirited champion 
 against France, now appeared as the champion of Rome in 
 Germany. The scandalous schisms in the Protestant church 
 and the no less scandalous controversies carried on in the 
 Protestant literary world rendered both contemptible, and, as 
 in the commencement of the 1 7th century, appeared to oflfer 
 a favourable opportunity for an attack on the part of the 
 Catholics. 
 
 A long-forgotten point in dispute was suddenly revived. 
 Marriages between Catholics and Protestants had hitherto 
 been unhesitatingly sanctioned by the Catholic priesthood. 
 The Prussian ordonnance of 1803, by which the father was 
 empowered to decide the faith in which the children were to 
 be brought up, had, on account of its conformity with nature 
 and reason, never been disputed. Numberless mixed marriages 
 had taken place among all classes from the highest to the low- 
 est without the slightest suspicion of wrong attaching thereto. 
 A papal brief of 1830 now called to mind that the church 
 tolerated, it was true, although she disapproved of mixed mar- 
 riages, which she permitted to take place solely on condition of 
 the children being brought up in the Catholic faith. Prussia 
 had acted with little foresight. Instead of, in 1814, on taking 
 possession of the Rhenish provinces and of Westphalia, conclud- 
 ing a treaty with the tlien newly-restored pope, Hardenberg 
 had, as late as 1820, during a visit to Rome, merely entered 
 upon a transient agreement, by which Rome was bound to no 
 concessions. The war openly declared by Rome was now at- 
 tempted to be turned aside by means of petty and secret arti- 
 fices. Several bishops, in imitation of the precedent given by 
 Count von Spiegel, the peace-loving archbishop of Cologne, 
 secretly bound themselves to interpret the brief in the sense of 
 the government and to adhere to the ordonnance of 1803. On 
 Spiegel's decease in 1835, his successor, the Baron Clement 
 Augustus Droste, promised at Vischering, prior to his present- 
 ation, strictly to adhere to this secret compact ; but, scarcely 
 had he mounted the archiepiscopal seat, than his conscience 
 forbade the fulfilment of his oath ; God was to be obeyed ra- 
 ther than man ! He prohibited the solemnization of mixed 
 marriages within his diocese without the primary assurance 
 of the education of the children in the Catholic faith, compel-
 
 PRUSSIA AND ROME. 429 
 
 led bis clergy strictly to obey the commands of Rome in points 
 under dispute, and suppressed the Hermesian* doctrine in 
 the university of Bonn. The warnings secretly given by the 
 government proved unavailing, and he was, in consequence, 
 unexpectedly deprived of his office in the November of 1837, 
 arrested, and imprisoned in the fortress of Minden. This arbi- 
 trary measure caused great excitement among the Catholic 
 population, and the ancient dislike of the Rhenish provinces 
 to the rule of Prussia and the discontent of the Westphalian 
 nobility on account of the emancipation of the peasantry again 
 broke forth on this occasion. Gorres, in ]\Iunich, industi'iously 
 fed the flame by means of his pamphlet, " Athanasius." Du- 
 nin, archbishop of Gnesen and bishop of Thorn, followed the 
 example of his brother of Cologne, was openly upheld by 
 Prussian Poland, was cited to Berlin, fled thence, was re- 
 captured and detained for some time within the fortress of 
 
 Colberg, a. d. 1839. The pope, Gregory XVI., solemnly 
 
 declared his approbation of the conduct of these archbishops 
 and rejected every offer of negotiation until their re-installation 
 in their dioceses. A crowd of hastily established journals, 
 more especially in Bavaria, maintained their cause, and were 
 opposed by numberless Protestant publications, which gener- 
 ally proved injurious to the cause they strove to uphold, being 
 chiefly remarkable for base servility, frivolity, and infidelity. 
 
 On the demise of Frederick William III., on the 7th of 
 June, 1 840, and the succession of his son, Frederick William 
 rV., the church question was momentarily cast into the 
 shade by that relating to the constitution. Constitutional 
 Germany demanded from the new sovereign the convocation 
 of the imperial diet promised by his father. The Catholic 
 party, however, conscious that it would merely form the mi- 
 nority in the diet, did not participate in the demand.f The 
 constitution was solely demanded by Protestant Eastern Prus- 
 sia ; but the king declared, during the ceremony of fealty 
 at Kcinigsberg, that " he would never do homage to the idea 
 of a general popular representation and would pursue a course 
 
 * Hermes, it is true, recognised the tenets of the cliurch, not, however, 
 on account of their being taught by the church, but because he had ar- 
 rived at similar conclusions in the course of his philosophical researches. 
 
 t GiJrres even advised against it, although, in 1817, he had acted the 
 principal part on the presentation of the Cologne address.
 
 430 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, ART, AND 
 
 based upon historical progression, suitable to German nation- 
 ality." The provincial Estates were shortly afterwards insti- 
 ttited, and separate diets were opened in each of the provinces. 
 This attracted little attention, and the dispute with the church 
 once more became the sole subject of interest. It terminated 
 in the complete triumph of the Catholic party. In consequence 
 of an agreement with the pope, the brief of 1820 remained in 
 force, Dunin was reinstated, Droste received personal satis- 
 faction by a public royal letter and a representative in Co- 
 logne in %'on Geissel, hitherto bishop of Spires. The dis- 
 puted election of the bishop of Treves was also decided in 
 favour of Arnoldi, the ultramontane candidate. 
 
 Late in the autumn of 1842, the king of Prussia for the 
 first time convoked the deputies selected from the provincial 
 diets to Berlin. He had, but a short time before, laid the 
 foundation-stone to the completion of the Cologne cathedral, 
 and on that occasion, moreover, spoken words of deep import 
 to the people, admonitory of unity to the whole of Germany. 
 
 CCLXXIII. The proc/ress of science, art, and practical 
 knoivledge in Germany. 
 
 In the midst of the misery entailed by war and amid the pas- 
 sions roused by party strife the sciences had attained to a height 
 hitherto unknown. The schools had never been neglected, 
 and immense improvements, equally affecting the lowest of 
 the popular schools and the colleges, had been constantly in- 
 troduced. Pestalozzi chiefly encouraged the proper education 
 of the lower classes and improved the method of instruction. 
 The humanism of the learned academies (the study of the 
 dead languages) went hand in hand with the realism of the 
 professional institutions. The universities, although often sub- 
 jected to an over-rigid system of surveillance and compelled 
 to adopt a partial, servile bias, were, nevertheless, generally 
 free from a political tendency and incredibly promoted the 
 study of all the sciences. The mass of celebrated savants 
 and of their works is too great to permit of more than a sketch 
 of the principal features of modern German science. 
 
 The study of the classics, predominant since the time of the 
 Reformation, has been cast into the shade by the German stu- 
 dies, by the deeper investigation of the language, the law, the
 
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE IN GERMANY. 431 
 
 history of our forefathers and of the romantic middle age, by 
 the great Catholic reaction, and, at the same time, by the im- 
 mense advance made in natural history, geography, and uni- 
 versal history. The human mind, hitherto enclosed within a 
 narrow sphere, has burst its trammels to revel in immeasurable 
 space. The philosophy and empty speculations of the foregoing 
 century have also disappeared before the mass of practical know- 
 ledge, and arrogant man, convinced by science, once more bends 
 his reasoning faculties in humble adoration of their Creator. 
 
 The aristocracy of talent and learned professional pi'ide have 
 been overbalanced by a democratic press. The whole nation 
 writes, and the individual writer is either swallowed up in the 
 mass or gains but ephemeral fame. Every writer, almost with- 
 out exception, affects a popular style. But, in this rich literary 
 tield, all springs up freely without connexion or guidance. No 
 party is concentrated or represented by any reigning journal, 
 but each individual writes for himself, and tlie immense num- 
 ber of journals published destroy each other's efficienc3\ Many 
 questions of paramount importance are consequently lost in 
 heaps of paper, and the interest they at first excited speedily 
 becomes weakened by endless recurrence. 
 
 Theology shared in the movement above-mentioned in the 
 church. The Rationalists were most profuse in their public- 
 ations, Paulus at Heidelberg, and, more particularly, the 
 Saxon authors, Tschirner, Bretschneider, etc. Ancient Lu- 
 theran vigour degenerated to shallow subtleties and a sort of 
 coquettish tattling upon morality, in which Zschokke's "Hours 
 of Devotion " carried away the palm. Neander, Gieseler, 
 Gfrorer, and others greatly promoted the study of the history 
 of the church. The propounders of the Gospels, however, 
 snatched them, after a lamentable fashion, out of each other's 
 hands, now doubting the authenticity of the whole, now that 
 of most or of some of the chapters, and were unable to agree 
 upon the number that ought to be retained. They, at the 
 same time, outvied one another in political servility, whilst the 
 Lutherans who, true to their ancient faith, protested against 
 the Prussian liturgy, wei'e too few in number for remark. 
 This frivolous class of theologians at length entirely rejected 
 the Gospels, embraced the doctrine of Hegel and Judaism, and 
 renounced Christianity. Still, although the Supernaturalists, 
 tlie orthodox party, and the Pietists triumphantly repelled
 
 432 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, ART, AND 
 
 these attacks, and the majority of the elder Rationalists timid- 
 ly seceded from the antichristian party, the Protestant literary 
 world was reduced to a state of enervation and confusion, 
 affording but too good occasion for an energetic demonstration 
 on the part of the Catholics. 
 
 Philosophy also assumed the character of the age. Fichte 
 of Berlin still upheld [a. d. 1814] the passion for liberty and 
 right in their nobler sense that had been roused by the French 
 Revolution, but, as he went yet further than Kant in setting 
 limits to the sources of perception and denied the existence of 
 conscience, his system proved merely of short duration. To 
 him succeeded Schelling, with whom the return of philosophy 
 to religion and that of abstract studies to nature and history 
 commenced, and in whom the renovated spirit of the 19th 
 century became manifest. His pupils were partly natural 
 philosophers, who, like Oken, sought to comprehend all nature, 
 her breathing unity, her hidden mysteries, in religion ; partly 
 mystics, who, like Eschenmaier, Schubert, Steffens, in a Pro- 
 testant spirit, or, like Gorres and Baader, in a Catholic one, 
 sought also to comprehend every thing bearing reference to 
 both nature and history in religion. It was a revival of the 
 ancient mysticism of Hugo de S. Victoire, of Honorius, and of 
 Rupert in another and a scientific age ; nor was it unopposed : 
 in the place of the foreign scholasticism formerly so repugnant 
 to its doctrines, those of Schelling were opposed by a reaction 
 of the superficial mock-enlightenment and sophistical scepticism 
 predominant in the foregoing century, more particularly of the 
 sympathy with France, which had been rendered more than ever 
 powerful in Germany by the forcible suppression of patriotism. 
 Abstract pliilosophy, despising nature and liistory, mocking 
 Christianity, once more revived and set itself up as an ab- 
 solute principle in Hegel. None of the other philosophers 
 attained the notoriety gained by Schelling and Hegel, the 
 representatives of the antitheses of the age. 
 
 An incredible advance, of which we shall merely record 
 the most important facts, took place in the study of the phy- 
 sical sciences. Three new planets were discovered, Pallas, 
 in 1802, and Vesta, in 1807, by Olbers ; Juno, in 1824, by 
 Harding. Enke and Biela first fixed the regular return 
 and brief revolution of the two comets named after them. 
 Schrciter and Madler minutely examined the moon and
 
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE IN GERMANY. 433 
 
 planets ; Struve, the fixed stars. Fraunliofer improved the 
 telescope. Chladni first investigated the nature of fiery 
 meteors and brought the study of acoustics to perfection. 
 Alexander von Humboldt immensely promoted the observa- 
 tion of the changes of the atmosphere and the general know- 
 ledge of the nature of the earth. Werner and Leopold von 
 Buch also distinguished themselves among the investigators 
 of the construction of the earth and mountains. Scheele, 
 Gmelin, Liebig, etc. were noted chemists. Oken, upon the 
 whole, chiefly promoted the study of natural history, and 
 numberless researches were made separately in mineralogy, 
 the study of fossils, botany, and zoology by the most celebrated 
 scientific men of the day. Whilst travellers visited every" 
 quarter of the globe in search of plants and animals as yet un- 
 known and regulated them by classes, other men of science 
 were engaged at home in the investigation of their internal 
 construction, their uses and habits, in which they were 
 greatly assisted by the improved microscope, by means of 
 which Ehrenberg discovered a completely new class of ani- 
 malculre. The discoveries of science were also zealously 
 applied for practical uses. Agriculture, cattle-breeding, ma- 
 nufactures received a fresh impulse and immense improve- 
 ments as knowledge advanced. Commerce by water and by 
 land experienced a thorough revolution on the discovery of 
 the propei-ties of steam, by the use of steamers and railroads. 
 
 Medical science also progi-essed, notwithstanding the 
 
 number of contradictory and extravagant theories. The me- 
 dical .practitioners of Germany took precedence throughout 
 Europe. Animal magnetism was practised by Eschenmaier, 
 Kieser, and Justin Kerner, by means of whose female seer, 
 von Prevorst, the seeing of visions and the belief in ghosts 
 were once more brought forward. Hahnemann excited the 
 greatest opposition by his system of homseopathy, which cured 
 diseases by the administration of homogeneous substances in 
 the minutest doses. He was superseded by the cold w^ater 
 cure. During the last twenty years the naturalists and me- 
 dical men of Germany have held an annual meeting in a 
 different town. 
 
 The philologists and savants have for some years past 
 also been in the habit of holding a similar meeting. The 
 classics no longer form the predominant study among philo- 
 voL. m. 2 F
 
 434 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, ART, AND 
 
 legists. Even literati, whose tastes, like that of Crcuzer, 
 are decidedly classic, have acknowledged that the know- 
 ledge of the oriental tongues is requisite for the attainment 
 of a thorough acquaintance with classic antiquity. A great 
 school for the study of the Eastern languages has been 
 especially established under the precedence of the brothers 
 Schlegel, Bopp, and others. The study of the ancient lan- 
 guage of Germany and of her venerable monuments has, 
 finally, been promoted by Jacob Grimm and by his widely 
 spread school. 
 
 The study of history became more profound and was extended 
 over a wider field. A mass of archives hitherto secret were 
 rendered public and spread new light on many of the re- 
 markable cliaracters and events in the history of Germany. 
 Historians also learnt to compile with less party spirit and 
 on more solid grounds. History, at first compiled in a Pro- 
 testant spirit, afterwards inclined as partially to Catholicism, 
 and the majority of the higher order of historical writers 
 were consequently rendered the more careful in their search 
 after truth. Among the univci'sal historians, Rotteck gained 
 the greatest popularity on account of the extreme liberality 
 of his opinions, and Heeren and Schlosser acquired great note 
 for depth of learning. Von Hammer, who rendered us ac- 
 quainted with the history of the Mahommedan East, takes 
 precedence among the historical writers upon foreign nations. 
 Niebuhr's Roman History, Wilken's History of the Crusades, 
 Leo's History of Italy, Ranke's History of the Popes, etc., 
 
 have attained well-merited fame. The history of Germany 
 
 as a whole, which Germany neither was nor is, was little 
 studied, but an immense mass of facts connected with or re- 
 ferring to Germany was furnished by the numberless and ex- 
 cellent single histories and biographies that poured through 
 the press. All the more ancient collections of script, rerum 
 were, according to the plan of Stein, the celebrated Prussian 
 minister, to be surpassed by a critical work on the sources of 
 German history, conducted by Pertz, which could, however, 
 be but slowly carried out. Grimm, Mone, and Earth threw 
 immense light upon German heathen antiquity, Zeusz upon 
 the genealogy of nations. The best account of the Os- 
 trogoths was written by ]Manso, of the Visigoths by Asch- 
 bach, of the Anglo-Saxons by Lappenberg, of the more an-
 
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE IN GERMANY. 435 
 
 cient Franks by jMannert, Pertz, and Lobell, of Charlemagne 
 by Diebold and Ideler, of Louis the Pious by Funk, of the 
 Saxon emperors by Ranke and his friends, Wachter and 
 Leutsch, of the Salic emperors by Stenzel, of the German 
 popes of those times by Hofler, of the Hohenstaufen by 
 Raumer, Kortum, and Hurter, of the emperor Richard by 
 Gebauer, of Henry VII. of Luxemburg by Barthold, of King 
 John by Lenz, of Charles IV. by Pelzel and Schottky, of 
 Wenzel by Pelzel, of Sigismund by Aschbach, of the Habs- 
 burgs by Kurz, Prince Lichnowsky, and Hormayr, of Louis 
 the Bavarian by Mannert, of Ferdinand I. by Buchholz, of 
 the Reformation by C. A. Menzel and Ranke, of the Peasant 
 War by Sartorius, Oechsle, and Bensen, on the Thirty 
 Years' War by Barthold, of Gustavus Adolphus by Gfrorer, 
 of Wallenstein by Forster, of Bernhard of Weimar by Rose, 
 of George of Liineburg by von der Decken. Of the ensuing 
 period by Forster and Guhrauer, of the Eighteenth Century 
 by Schlosser, of the Wars with France by Clausewitz, of ^Mo- 
 dern Times by Hormayr, 
 
 Coxe, Schneller, ^Nlailath, Chmel, and Gei'vay also wrote 
 histories of Austria, Scliottky and Palacky of Bohemia, Beda, 
 Weber, and Hormayr of the Tyrol, Voigt of the Teutonic Or- 
 der, Manso, Stenzel, Forster, Dohm, Massenbach, CiiUn, Preusz, 
 etc. of the Kingdom of Prussia, Stenzel of Anhalt, Kobbe of 
 Lauenburg, Liitzow of Mecklenburg, Barthold of Pomerania, 
 Kobbe of Holstein, Wimpfen of Sleswick, Sartorius and Lap- 
 penberg of the Hansa, Hanssen of the Dittmarscs, Spittler, 
 Havemann, and Strombeck of Brunswick and Hanover, van 
 Kampen of Holland, Warnkonig of Flanders, Rommel of 
 Hesse, Lang of Eastern Franconia, Wachter and Langenn 
 of Thuringia and Saxony, Lang, Wolf, Mannert, Zschokke, 
 Volderndorf of Bavaria, Pfister, PfafF, and Stalin of Swabia, 
 Glutz-Blotzheim, Hottinger, Meyer von Knonau, Zschokke, 
 Haller, Schuler, etc. of Switzerland. The most remarkable 
 among the histories of celebrated cities are, those of St. Gall 
 by Arx, of Vienna by Mailuth, of Frankfurt on the Maine by 
 Kirchner, of Ulm and Heilbronn by Jajger, of Rotenburg on 
 the Tauber by Bensen, etc. 
 
 Ritter, and, next to him, Berghaus, greatly extended the 
 knowledge of geography. Maps were drawn out on a great- 
 ly improved scale. Alexander von Humboldt, who ruled the 
 
 2 F 2
 
 436 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, ART, AND 
 
 world with his scientific as Napoleon with his eagle glance, 
 attained the highest repute among travellers of every nation. 
 Krusenstern, Langsdorf, and Kotzebue, Germans in the ser- 
 vice of Russia, circumnavigated the globe. Meyen, the 
 noted botanist, did the same in a Prussian ship. Baron von 
 Hiigel explored India. Giitzlalf acted as a missionary in 
 China. Ermann and Ledebur explored Siberia ; Klaproth, 
 Kupfer, Parrot, and Eichwald, the Caucasian provinces ; 
 Burckhardt, Ruppell, Ehrenberg, and Russegger, Syria and 
 Egypt ; the Prince von Neuwied and Paul William, duke 
 of Wiirtemberg, North America ; Becher, Mexico ; Schom- 
 burg, Guiana ; the Prince von Neuwied and Martius, the 
 Brazils ; Poppig, the banks of the Amazon ; Rengger, Para- 
 guay. The Missionary Society for the conversion of the hea- 
 then in distant parts and for the propagation of the gospel, 
 founded at Basle, A. i>. 1816, have gained well-merited repute. 
 
 At the commencement of the present century, amid the 
 storms of war, German taste took a fresh bias. French fri- 
 volity iiad increased immorality to a degree hitherto unknown. 
 Licentiousness reigned unrestrained on the stage and pervaded 
 the lighter productions of the day. If Iffland had, not un- 
 successfully, represented the honest citizens and peasantry of 
 Germany struggling against the unnatural customs of modern 
 public life, Augustus von Kotzebue, who, after him, ruled the 
 German stage, sought, on the contrary, to render honour 
 despicable and to encourage the licence of the day. In the 
 numerous romances, a tone of lewd sentimentality took place 
 of the strict propriety for which they had formerly been 
 remarkable, and the general diffusion of these immoral pro- 
 ductions, among which tlie romances of Lafontaine may be 
 more particularly mentioned, contributed in no slight degree 
 to the moral perversion of the age. 
 
 Jean Paul Friedrich Richter stands completely alone. He 
 shared the weaknesses of his times, which, like Goethe and 
 Kotzebue, he both admired and ridiculed, passing with ex- 
 traordinary versatility, almost in the same breath, from the 
 most moving pathos to the bitterest satire. His clever but 
 too deeply metaphysical romances are not only full of domes- 
 tic sentimentality and domestic scenes, but they also imitate 
 the over-refinement and effeminacy of Goethe, and yet his 
 sound understanding and warm patriotic feelings led him to
 
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE IN GERMANY. 437 
 
 condemn all the artificial follies of fashion, all that was un- 
 natural as well as all that was unjust. 
 
 Modern philosophy had no sooner triumphed over the an- 
 cient religion and France over Germany, than an extra- 
 ordinary reaction, inaptly termed the romantic, took place in 
 poetry. Although Ultramontanism might be traced even in 
 Frederich Schlegel, this school of poetry nevertheless solely 
 owes its immense importance to its resuscitation of the older 
 poetry of Germany, and to the success with which it opposed 
 Germanism to GaUicism. Ludwig Tieck exclusively devoted 
 himself to the German and romantic middle ages, to the 
 Minnesingers, to Shakspeare, Cervantes, and Calderon, and 
 modelled his own on their immortal works. The eyes of his 
 contemporaries were by him first completely opened to the 
 long-misunderstood beauties of the Middle Ages. His kindred 
 spirit, Novalis, (Hardenberg,) destined to a too brief career, 
 gave proofs of signal talent. Ileinrich von Kleist, who com- 
 mitted suicide, left the finest-spirited and most delightful 
 dramas. Ludwig Achim von Arnim, like Tieck, cultivated 
 the older German Saga ; his only fault was tliat, led away by 
 the richness of his imagination, ho overcoloured his descriptions. 
 Aided by Brentano, lie collected the finest of the popular bal- 
 lads of Germany in " des Knaben Wunderhorn." At Berlin, 
 Fouque, with true old German taste, revived the romances of 
 chivalry and, shortly before 1813, met the military spirit once 
 more rising in Prussia with a number of romances in which 
 figured battle-steeds and coats of mail, German faith and 
 bravery, valiant knights and chaste dames, intermixed, it must 
 be confessed, with a good deal of affectation. On the discovery 
 being made that many of the ancient German ballads were still 
 preserved among the lower classes, chiefly among the moun- 
 tains, they were also sought for, and some poets tuned their 
 lyres on the naive popular tone, etc., first, Hebel, in the partly 
 extremely natural, partly extremely affected, Alemannic songs, 
 which have found frequent imitators. Zacharia Werner and 
 Hoff'man, on the other hand, exclusively devoted themselves 
 to the darker side of days of yore, to tlieir magic and super- 
 stition, and filled the world, already terror-stricken by the 
 war, with supernatural stories. Still, throughout one and 
 all of these productions, curiously as they contrasted, the same 
 inclination to return to and to revive a purely German style
 
 438 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, ART, AND 
 
 was betrayed. At that moment the great crisis suddenly took 
 place. Before even the poets could predict the event, Ger- 
 many cast off the yoke of Napoleon, and the German " Sturm 
 and Freiheitslieder " of Theodor Kcirner, Arndt, >Schenken- 
 dorf, etc., chimed in like a fearfully beautiful Allegro with 
 the Adagio of their predecessors. 
 
 This was in a manner also tlie finale of the German notes 
 that so strangely resounded in that Gallic time ; the restoration 
 suppressed every further outburst of patriotism, and the 
 patriotic spirit that had begun to breathe forth in verse once 
 more gave place to cosmopolitism and Gallicism. The lyric 
 school, founded by Ludwig Uliland, alone preserved a Ger- 
 man spirit and a connexion with the ancient 3Iinnelieder of 
 Swabia. 
 
 The new cosmopolitical tendency of the poetry of these times 
 is chiefly due to the influence exercised by Goethe. The quick 
 comprehension and ready adoption of every novelty is a fa- 
 culty of, not a fault in, the German character, and alone be- 
 comes reprehensible when, forgetful of itself and of its own 
 peculiar attributes, it adopts a medley of foreign incongruities 
 and falsifies whatever ought to be preserved special and true. 
 Goethe and his school however, not content with imitating 
 singly the style of every nation and of every period, have in- 
 terwoven the most diverse strains, antique and romantic, old 
 German and modern French, Grecian and Chinese, in one 
 and the same poem. This unnatural style, itself destructive 
 of the very peculiarity at wliich it aims, has infected both 
 modern poetry and modern art ; the architect intermixes the 
 Grecian and the Gothic in his creations, whilst the painter 
 seeks to unite the styles of the Flemish and Italian schools in 
 his productions, and the poet those of Persia, Scandinavia, and 
 Spain, in his strains. Those are indeed deserving of gra- 
 titude who have comprehended and preserved the character 
 peculiar to the productions of foreign art, in which the brothers 
 Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel have been so emi- 
 nently successful. Hammer and, after him, Riickert have 
 also opened the eastern world to our view. Count Platen, 
 on the other hand, hung fluctuating between the antique Per- 
 sian and German. Cosmopolitism was greatly strengthened 
 
 by the historical romances in vogue in England, descriptive 
 of olden time, and which found innumerable imitators in Ger-
 
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE IN GERMANY. 439 
 
 many. They were, at all events, thus far beneficial ; they 
 led us from the parlour into the world. 
 
 But no sooner was exclusively German taste neglected for 
 that of foreign nations than Gallomania revived ; all were 
 compelled to pay homage to the spirit and the tone prevalent 
 throughout Europe. The witty aristocratic medisance and 
 grim spirit of rebellion emulating each other in France, were, 
 in Germany, I'cpresented by Prince Piichler, the most spirit- 
 uel drawing-room satirist, and by the Jew, Bcirne, the most 
 spirited Jacobin of the day. The open infidelity again de- 
 monstrated in France also led to its introduction into Ger- 
 many by tlie Jew, Heine, whilst the immoral romances with 
 which that counti^y was deluged, speedily became known to 
 us through the medium of the translations and imitations of 
 " Young Germany," and were incredibly increased by our liter- 
 ary industry ; all the lying memoirs, in which the French falsify 
 history, view Napoleon as ademi-god, and treat the enthusiasm 
 with which the Germans were animated in 1813 with de- 
 rision, were also diligently translated. Tiiis tendency to view 
 every thing German with French eyes and to ridicule Ger- 
 man honour and German manners was especially promoted 
 by the light literature and numerous journals of the day, 
 and was, in the universities, in close connexion with the 
 
 anti-christian tendency of the school of Hegel. The late 
 
 Catholic reaction, too exclusively political, has as yet de- 
 veloped no power in the literary world, and would scarcely 
 succeed in gaining any, being less German than Roman. 
 
 Whilst German poetry follows so false a course, it naturally 
 follows that art also must be deprived of its national character. 
 Architecture has, it is true, abandoned the periwig style of 
 France, but the purer antique or Byzantine taste to which it 
 has returned is generally insipidly simple, whilst the attempts 
 at Gothic and ]MoorisIi are truly miserable. A more elevated 
 feeling than the present generation, which, in Goethe's man- 
 ner, dehghts in alternately trifiing with every style or is com- 
 pletely enslaved by the modes imposed by France, is fitted to 
 comprehend, is requisite for the revival of German or Gothic 
 architecture. Still it may be, as is hoped, that the intention 
 to complete the building of the Cologne cathedral will not be 
 entirely without a beneficial influence. 
 
 The art of painting aspires far more energetically towards
 
 440 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, ART, AND 
 
 national emancipation. In the present century, the modern 
 French style aflfecting the antique presented a complete con- 
 trast with the German-romantic scliool, which, in harmony 
 with the simultaneous romantic reaction in the poetical world, 
 returned to the sacred simplicity of the ancient German and 
 Italian masters. Overbeck was in tliis our greatest master. 
 Since this period, tlie two great schools at Munich and Diis- 
 seldorf, founded by Peter Cornelius, and whose greatest 
 masters are Peter Ilesz, Bendemann, Lessing, Kaulbach, 
 etc., sought a middle path, and have, with earnest zeal, well 
 and skili'ully opposed the too narrow imitation of, and the 
 medley of style produced by the study of, the numerous old 
 masters on the one hand, and, on the other, the search for 
 effect, that Gallic innovation so generally in vogue. Were 
 the church again to require pictures, or the state to em- 
 ploy the pencil of the patriot artist in recording the great 
 deeds of past or present times or in the adornment of public 
 
 edifices, painting would be elevated to its proper sphere. 
 
 Germany has also produced many celebrated engravers, among 
 whom Aliiller holds precedence. Lithography, now an art of 
 so much importance, was invented by the Bavarian, Sene- 
 felder. Tlie art of painting on glass has also been revived. 
 
 In music, the Germans have retained their ancient fame. 
 After ]Mozart, Beethoven, AVeber, etc. have gained immense 
 celebrity as composers. Still, much that is unnatural, aifected, 
 bizarre, and licentious, has crept into the compositions of the 
 German masters, more particularly in the operas, owing to 
 the imitation of the modern Italian and French composers. 
 A popular reaction has, however, again taken place, and, as 
 before, in choral music, by means of the " singing clubs," 
 which become more and more general among the people. 
 
 The stage has most deeply degenerated. At the com- 
 mencement of the present century, its mimic scenes afforded 
 a species of consolation for the sad realities of life, and formed 
 the Letlie in whose waters oblivion was gladly sought. The 
 public afterwards became so practical in its tastes, so sober 
 in its desires, that neither the spirit of the actor nor the 
 coquetry of the actress had power to attract an audience. 
 The taste and love for art were superseded by criticism and 
 low intrigues, the theatre became a mere political engine, in- 
 tended to divert the thoughts of the population of the great
 
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE IX GERMANY. 441 
 
 cities from the discussion of topics dangerous to the state by 
 the all-engrossing charms of actresses and ballet-dancers. 
 
 The Germans, although much more practical in the pre- 
 sent than in the past century, are still far from having freed 
 themselves from the unjust, unfitting, and inconvenient situ- 
 ation into which they have fallen as time and events roll- 
 ed on. 
 
 A mutual understanding in regard to the external position 
 of the German in reference to the Slavonian nation has 
 scarcely begun to dawn upon us. Scarcely have we become 
 sensible to the ignominious restrictions imposed upon Ger- 
 man commerce by the prohibitory regulations of Russia, by 
 the customs levied in the Sound, on the Elbe, and Ehine. 
 Scarcely has the policy that made such immense concessions 
 to Russian diplomacy, and scarcely has the party spirit that 
 looked for salvation for Germany from France, yielded to a 
 more elevated feeling of self-respect. And yet, whoever 
 were to say to the people of Alsace, Switzerland, and Hol- 
 land, " Ye are Germans," would reap but derision and insult. 
 Germany is on the point of being once more divided into 
 Catholic and Protestant Germany, and no one can explain 
 how the German Customs' Union is to extend to the Ger- 
 man Ocean, on account of the restrictions mutually imposed 
 by tlie Germans. Could we but view ourselves as the great 
 nation we in reality are, attain to a consciousness of the im- 
 measurable strength we in reality possess, and make use of it 
 in order to satisfy our wants, the Germans would be thorough- 
 ly a practical nation, instead of lying like a dead lion among 
 the nations of Europe, and unresistingly suffering them to 
 mock, tread under foot, nay, deprive him of his limbs, as 
 though he were a miserable, helpless worm. 
 
 More, far more has been done for the better regulation of 
 the internal economy of Germany than for her external pro- 
 tection and power. The reforms suited to the age, commenced 
 by the philosophical princes and ministers of the past century, 
 have been carried on by Prussia in her hour of need, by con- 
 stitutional Germany by constitutional means. Every where 
 have the public administration been better regulated, despot- 
 ism been restrained by laws, financial affairs been settled 
 iven under the heavy pressure of the national debts. Com- 
 merce, manufactural industry, and agriculture have been
 
 442 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, ART, AND 
 
 greatly promoted by the Customs' Union, by government aid 
 and model institutions, by the improvements in the post- 
 offices, by the laying of roads and railways. The public 
 burthens and public debts, nevertheless, still remain dispro- 
 portionately heavy on account of the enormous military force 
 which the great states are compelled to maintain for the pre- 
 servation of their authority, and on account of the poliarchical 
 state of Germany, which renders the maintenance of an 
 enormous number of courts, governments, general staffs and 
 chambers necessary. 
 
 The popular sense of justice and legality, never entirely 
 suppressed throughout Germany, also gave fresh pi-oof of its 
 existence under the new state of affairs, partly in the endless- 
 ly drawn-out proceedings in the chambers, partly in the in- 
 credible number of new laws and regulations in the different 
 states. Still, industriously as these laws have been compiled, 
 no real, essential, German law, neither public nor private, has 
 been discovered. The Roman and French codes battled with 
 each other and left no room for the establishment of a code 
 fundamentally and thoi'oughly German, The most dis- 
 tinguished champions of the common rights of the people 
 against cabinet-justice, the tyranny of the police and of the 
 censor, were principally advocates and savants. The Estates, as 
 corporations, were scarcely any longer represented. The ma- 
 jority of governments, ruled by the principle of absolute mon- 
 archy, and the chambers, ruled by that of democracy, had, since 
 the age of philosophy, been unanimous in setting the ancient 
 Estates aside. The nobility alone preserved certain privileges, 
 and the Catholic clergy alone regained some of those they 
 had formerly enjoyed ; all the Estates were, in every other 
 I'espect, placed on a level. The ancient and national legal 
 rights of the people were consequently widely trenched 
 upon. 
 
 The emancipation of the peasant from the oppressive feudal 
 dues, and the abolition of the restraint imposed by the laws of 
 the city corporations, which had so flagrantly been abused, 
 were indubitably well intended, but, instead of stopping there, 
 good old customs, that ought only to have been freed from the 
 weeds with which they had been overgrown, were totally eradi- 
 cated. The peasant received a freehold, but was, by means of 
 his enfranchisement, generally laden with debts, and, whilst
 
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE IN GERMANY. 443 
 
 pride whispered in his ear that he was now a lord of the soil 
 and might assume the costume of his betters, the land, whence 
 he had to derive his sustenance, was gradually diminished in 
 extent by the systematic division of property. His pretensions 
 increased exactly in the ratio in which the means for satisfy- 
 ing them decreased ; and the necessity of raising money placed 
 him in the hands of Jews. The smaller the property by reason 
 of subdivision, the more frequently is land put up for sale, the 
 deeper is the misery of the homeless outcast. The restoration of 
 the inalienable, indivisible allod and of the federal rights of the 
 peasant, as in olden times, would have been far more to the 
 purpose. Professional liberty, the introduction of mechan- 
 ism and manufactural industry, have annihilated every war- 
 rant formerly afforded by the artificer as master and member 
 of a city corporation, and, at the same time, every warrant 
 afforded to him by the community of his being able to sub- 
 sist by means of his industry. ^Manufactures on an extensive 
 scale that export their produce must at all events be left un- 
 restricted, but the small trades carried on within a petty com- 
 munity, their only market, excite, when free, a degree of 
 competition which is necessarily productive botii of bad work- 
 manship and poverty, and the superfluous artificers, unaided 
 by their professional freedom, fall bankrupt and become slaves 
 in the establishments of their wealthier* competitors. The 
 restoration of the city guilds under restrictions suitable to the 
 times would have been far more judicious. 
 
 The maintenance of a healthy, contented class of citizens 
 and peasants ought to be one of the principal aims of every 
 German statesman. The fusion of these ancient and power- 
 ful classes into one common mass whence but a few wealthy 
 individuals rise to eminence would be fatal to progression in 
 Germany. By far the greater part of the people have already 
 lost the means of subsistence formerly secured to all, nay, even 
 to the serf, by the privileges of his class. The insecure pos- 
 session, the endless division and alienation of property, the 
 anxious dread of loss, and a rapacious love of gain, have be- 
 come universal. Care for the means of daily existence, like 
 creeping poison, unnerves the population. The anxious soli- 
 citude to which this gives rise has a deeply demoralizing 
 effect. Even offices under government are less sought for 
 * Because more skilful. — Trans.
 
 444 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, ART, AND 
 
 from motives of ambition than as a means of subsistence ; the 
 arts and sciences have been degraded to mere sources of profit, 
 envious trade decides questions of the highest importance, the 
 torch of Hymen is lit by Plutus, not at the shrine of Love ; 
 and in the bosom of the careworn father of a family, whose 
 scanty subsistence depends upon a patron's smile, the words 
 " fatherland " and " glory," find no responsive echo. 
 
 Among the educated classes this state of poverty is allied 
 with the most inconsistent luxury. Each and all, however 
 poor, are anxious to preserve an appearance of wealth or to 
 raise credit by that means. All, however needy, must be 
 foshionable. The petty tradesman and the peasant ape their 
 superiors in rank, and the old-fashioned but comfortable and 
 picturesque national costume is being gradually thrown aside 
 for tlie ever-varying modes prescribed by Paris to the world. 
 The inordinate love of amusements in which the lower classes 
 and the proletariat, ever increasing in number, seek more 
 particularly to drown the sense of misery, is another and a 
 still greater source of public demoralization. The general 
 habit of indulging in the use of spirituous liquors has been 
 rightfully designated the brandy pest, owing to its lament- 
 able moral and physical effect upon the population. This pest 
 was encouraged not alone by private individuals, who gain 
 their livelihood by disseminating it among the people, but 
 also by governments, which raised a large revenue by its 
 means ; and the temperance societies, lately founded, but slight- 
 ly stem the evil. 
 
 The public authorities throughout Germany have, it must 
 be confessed, displayed extraordinary solicitude for the poor 
 by the foundation of charitable institutions of every descrip- 
 tion, but they have contented themselves with merely allevi- 
 ating misery instead of removing its causes ; and the be- 
 nevolence that raised houses of correction, poor-houses, and 
 hospitals, is rendered null by the laxity of the legislation. 
 No measures are taken by the governments to provide means 
 for emigration, to secure to the peasant his freehold, to the 
 artificer the guarantee he ought to receive and to give, and 
 the maintenance of the public morals. The punishment 
 awarded for immorality and theft is so mild as to deprive 
 them of the character of crime, pamphlets and works of the 
 most immoral description are dispersed by means of the cir-
 
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE IX GERMANY. 445 
 
 culating libraries among all classes, and the bold infidelity 
 preached even from the universities is left unchecked. But 
 — is not the thief taught morality in the house of correction ? 
 and are not diseases, the result of licence, cured in the hos- 
 pitals with unheaxd-of humanity ? 
 
 Private morality, so long preserved free from contamina- 
 tion, although all has for so long conspired against the liberty 
 and unity of Germany, is greatly endangered. Much may, 
 however, be hoped for from the sound national sense. The me- 
 mory of the strength displayed by Germany in 1813 has 
 been eradicated neither by the contempt of France or Russia, 
 by any reactionary measure within Germany herself, by so- 
 cial and literary corruption, nor by the late contest between 
 church and state. The Customs' Union has, notwithstanding 
 the difference in political principle, brought despotic Prussia 
 and constitutional Germany one step nearer. The influence 
 of Russia on the one hand, of that of France on the other, has 
 sensibly decreased. The irreligious and immoral tendencies 
 now visible will, as has ever been the case in Germany, pro- 
 duce a reaction, and, when the necessity is more urgently felt, 
 fitting measures will be adopted for the prevention of pauper- 
 ism. The dangers with which Germany is externally threat- 
 ened will also compel governments, however egotistical and 
 indifferent, to seek their safety in unity, and even should the 
 long neglect of this truth be productive of fresh calamity 
 and draw upon Germany a fresh attack from abroad, that 
 very circumstance will but strengthen our union and accelerate 
 the regeneration of our great fatherland, already anticipated 
 by the people on the fall of the Hohenstaufen. 
 
 CCLXXIV. German emigrants. 
 
 The overplus population of Germany has ever emigrated ; 
 in ancient times, for the purpose of conquering foreign powers ; 
 in modern times, for that of serving under them. In the 
 days of German heroism, our conquering hordes spread to- 
 wards the west and south, over Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, 
 England, and Iceland; during the middle ages, our mail-clad 
 warriors took an easterly direction and overran the Slavo- 
 nian countries, besides Prussia, Transylvania, and Palestine ; 
 in modern times, our religious and political refugees have
 
 446 GERMAN EMIGRAXTS. 
 
 emigrated in scarcely less considerable numbers to countries 
 far more distant, but in the humble garb of artificers and 
 beggars, the Farias of the world. Our ancient warriors 
 gained undying fame and long maintained the influence and 
 the rule of Germany in foreign lands. Our modern emi- 
 grants have unnoted quitted their native country, and, as 
 early as the second generation, intermixed with the people 
 among whom they settled. Hundreds of thousands of Ger- 
 mans have in this manner aided to aggrandize the British 
 colonies, and Germany has derived no benefit from the emi- 
 gration of her sons. 
 
 The first great mass of religious refugees threw itself into 
 Holland and into the Dutcli colonies, the greater part of 
 which have since passed into the hands of the British. The 
 illiberality of the Dutch caused the second great mass to bend 
 its steps to British North America, within whose wilds every 
 sect found an asylum. William Penn, the celebrated Quaker, 
 visited Germany, and, in 16S3, gave permission to some Ger- 
 mans to settle in the province named, ai'ter him, Pennsylvania, 
 where they founded the city of Germantown.* These for- 
 tunate emigi'ants were annually followed by thousands of ex- 
 iled Protestants, principally from Alsace and the Palatinate. 
 The industry and honesty for which the German workmen 
 were remarkable caused some Englishmen to enter into a 
 speculation to procure their services as white slaves. The 
 greatest encouragement was accordingly given by them to 
 emigration from Germany, but the promises so richly lavished 
 were withdrawn on the unexpected emigration of thirty-three 
 thousand of the inhabitants of the Palatinate, comprising en- 
 tire communes headed by their preachers, evidently an un- 
 looked and unwished-for multitude. These emigrants reached 
 London abandoned by their patrons and disavowed by the 
 government. A feai'ful fate awaited them. After losing 
 considerable numbers from starvation in England, the greater 
 part of the survivors were compelled to work like slaves in 
 the mines and in the cultivation of uninhabited islands ; three 
 thousand six hundred of them were sent over to Ireland, 
 where they swelled the number of beggars ; numbers were lost 
 at sea, and seven thousand of them returned in despair, in a 
 
 • The abolition of negro slaven,- was first mooted by Germans in 1688, 
 at the great Quaker meeting in North America.
 
 GERMAN EMIGRANTS. 447 
 
 State of utter destitution, to their native country. A small 
 number of them, however, actually sailed for New York, 
 where they were allotted portions of the primitive forests, 
 which they cleared and cultivated ; but they had no sooner 
 raised flourishing villages in the midst of rich corn-fields and 
 gardens, than they were informed that the ground belonged 
 to the state and were driven from the home they had so lately 
 found. Pennsylvania opened a place of refuge to the wan- 
 derers.* 
 
 The religious persecution and the increasing despotism of 
 the governments in Germany meanwhile incessantly drove 
 fresh emigrants to America, where, as they were generally 
 sent to the extreme verge of the pi'ovinces in order to clear 
 the ground and drive away the aborigines, numbers of them 
 were murdered by the Indians. Switzerland also sent forth 
 many emigrants, who settled principally in North Carolina. 
 The people of Salzburg, whose expulsion has been detailed 
 above, colonized Georgia in 1732. In 1742, there were no 
 fewer than a hundred thousand Germans in North America, 
 and, since that period, their number has been continually on 
 the increase. Thousands annually arrived ; for instance, in 
 the years 1749 and 17o0, seven thousand ; in 1754, as many as 
 twenty-two thousand ; in 1797, six thousand Swabians. The 
 famine of 1770, the participation of German mercenaries in 
 the wars of the British in North America, at first against the 
 French colonies, afterwai-ds against the English colonists, (the 
 German prisoners generally settled in the country.) induced 
 the Germans to emigrate in such great numbers that, from 
 1770 to 1791, twenty-four emigrant ships on an average arrived 
 annually at Philadelphia, without reckoning those that landed 
 in the other harbours.| 
 
 ♦ Account of the United States by Eggerling. 
 
 t One of the most distinguished Germans in America was a person 
 named John Jacob Astor, the son of a bailifl' at Walldorf near Heidelberg, 
 who was brought up as a furrier, emigrated to America, where he gradu- 
 ally became the wealthiest of all furriers, foujided at his own expense the 
 colony of Astoria, on the north-western coast of North America, so in- 
 terestingly described by Washington Irving, and the Astor fund, intended 
 as a protection to German emigrants to America from the frauds practised 
 on the unwary. He resided at New York. He possessed an immense 
 fortune and was highly and deservedly esteemed for his extraordinary 
 philanthropy.
 
 448 GERMAN EMIGRANTS. 
 
 The passage by sea to the west being continually closed 
 during the great wars with France, the stream of emigration 
 took an easterly direction overland. Russia had extended 
 her conquests towards Persia and Turkey. The necessity of 
 fixing colonies in the broad steppes as in the primitive forests 
 of America, to serve as a barrier against the wild frontier 
 tribes, was plainly perceived by the Russian government, and 
 Germans were once more made use of for this purpose. Ex- 
 tensive colonies, which at the present date contain hundreds 
 of thousands of German inhabitants, but whose history is as 
 yet unknown, were accordingly formed northwards of the 
 Black and Caspian Seas. Swabian villages were also built 
 on the most southern frontier of Russia towards Persia, and 
 in 1826 suffered severely from an inroad of the Persians. 
 
 The fall of Napoleon had no sooner reopened the passage 
 by sea than the tide of emigration again turned towards North 
 America. These emigrants, the majority of whom consisted 
 of political malcontents, preferred the land of liberty to the 
 steppes of Russia, whither sectarians and those whom the de- 
 moralization and iri'eligion of the Gallomanic period had filled 
 with disgust had chiefly resorted. The Russo-Teuto colonies 
 are pi'overbial for purity and strictness of morals. One Wiir- 
 temberg sectarian alone, the celebrated Rapp, succeeded during 
 the period of the triumph of France in emigrating to Penn- 
 sylvania, where he founded the Harmony, a petty religious 
 community. An inconsiderable number of Swiss, dissatisfied 
 with Napoleon's supremacy, also emigrated in 1805 and built 
 New Vevay. But it was not until after the wars, more par- 
 ticularly during the famine in 1816 and 1817, that emigration 
 across the sea was again carried on to a considerable extent. In 
 1817, thirty thousand Swiss, "Wiirtembergers, Hessians, and in- 
 habitants of the Palatinate emigrated, and about an equal num- 
 ber were compelled to retrace their steps from the sea-coast in a 
 state of extreme destitution on account of their inability to pa}' 
 their passage and of the complete want of interest in their 
 behalf displayed by the governments. Political discontent in- 
 creased in 1818 and 1819, and each succeeding spring thirty 
 thousand Germans sailed down the Rhine to the land of liberty 
 in the far west. In 1 820, a society was set on foot at Berne 
 for the protection of the Swiss emigrants from the frauds 
 practised upon the unwary. The union of the Archduchess
 
 GERMAN EMIGRANTS. 449 
 
 Leopoldine, daughter to the empei'or Francis, with Don 
 Pedro, the emperor of the Brazils, had, since 1817, attracted 
 public attention to South America. Don Pedro took Ger- 
 man mercenaries into his service for the purpose of keeping 
 his wild subjects within bounds, and the fruitful land offered 
 infinite advantages to the German agriculturist ; but coloniz- 
 ation was rendered impracticable by the revolutionary disorders 
 and by the ill-will of the natives towards the settlers, and the 
 Germans who had been induced to emigrate either enlisted as 
 soldiers or perished. Several among them, who have publish- 
 ed their adventures in the Brazils, bitterly complained of the 
 conduct of INIajor Schiifer, who had been engaged in collecting 
 recruits at Hamburg for the Brazils. They even accused him 
 of having allowed numbers of their fellow-countrymen to starve 
 to death from motives of gain, so much a head being paid to 
 him on his arrival in the Brazils for the men shipped from 
 Europe whether they arrived dead or alive. The publication 
 of these circumstances completely checked the emigration to 
 the Brazils, and North America was again annually, particu- 
 larly in 1827 and after the July revolution, overrun with 
 Germans, and they have even begun to take part in the polity 
 of the United States. The peasants, who have been settled 
 for a considerable period, and who have insensibly acquired 
 great wealth and have retained the language and customs of 
 their native country, form the flower of the German colonists 
 in the "West.* 
 
 * The Allgemeine Zeitung of September, 1837, reports that there were 
 at that time one hundred and fifty-seven thousand Germans in North 
 America ■who were still unnaturalized, consequently had emigrated thither 
 within the last two or three years. In Philadelphia alone there were 
 seventy-five thousand Germans. Grund says in his work, " The Ameri- 
 cans in 1837," " The peaceable disposition of the Germans prevents their 
 interfering with politics, although their number is already considerable 
 enough for the formation of a powerful party. They possess, notwith- 
 standing, great weight in the government of Pennsylvania, in which state 
 the governors have since the revolution always been Germans. This 
 is in fact so well understood on all sides that even during the last elec- 
 tion, when two democrats and a Whig candidate contended for the dig- 
 nity of governor, they were all three Germans by birth and no other would 
 have had the slightest chance of success. In the state of Ohio there are 
 at the present date, although that province was first colonized by New- 
 English, no fewer than forty-five thousand Germans possessed of the right 
 of voting. The state of New York, although originally colonized by 
 Dutch, contains a numerous Geraian population in several of its provinces, 
 
 VOL. 111. 2 G
 
 450 GERMAN EMIGRANTS. 
 
 In the Cape colonies, the Dutch peasants, the boors, feeling 
 themselves; oppressed by the English government, emigrated 
 en masse, in 1837, to the north, where they settled with the 
 CafFres, and, under their captain, Prtetorius, founded an inde- 
 pendent society [a, d. 1839] at Port Natal, where they again 
 suffered a violent aggression on the part of the British. 
 
 Thus are Germans fruitlessly scattered far and wide over 
 the face of the globe, whilst on the very frontiers of Germany 
 nature has designated the Danube as the near and broad path 
 for emigration and colonization to her overplus population, 
 which, by settling in her vicinity, would at once increase her 
 external strength and extend her influence. 
 
 particularly in that of Columbia, the birth-place of Martin van Burens, 
 the present vice-president and future president of the republic. The 
 state of Maryland numbers twenty-five thousand Germans possessed of 
 votes ; almost one-third of the population of Illinois is German, and thou- 
 sands of fresh emigrants are settling in the valley of the Mississippi. I be- 
 lieve that the number of German voters or of voters of German descent 
 may, w-ithout exaggeration, be reckoned on an average annually at four 
 hundred thousand, and certainly in less than twenty years hence at a 
 million. In the city of New York, the Germans greatly influence the 
 election of the burgomaster and other city authorities by holding no fewer 
 than three thousand five hundred votes. These circumstances naturally 
 render the Gerr'an vote an object of zealous contention for politicians 
 of every party, and there is accordingly no dearth of German newspapers 
 in any of the German settlements. In Pennsylvania, upwards of thirty 
 German (principally weekly) papers are in circulation, and about an 
 equal number are printed and published in the state of Ohio. A scarcely 
 fewer number are also in circulation in Maryland." 
 
 THE END.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abel, the usurper of Denmark, 
 
 ii. 6. 
 Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, 
 
 succeeds to the regency of Henry 
 
 IV., i. 386. 
 Adalbert, bishop of Prague, i. 345, 
 
 349. 
 Adalgis, son of Desiderius, i. 225, 
 
 232. 
 Adelheid, queen of Otto I., i. 330, 
 
 348. 
 Adolf IV. of Holstein, -nars of, 
 
 with the Danes, i. 522. 
 Adolf VII., Count von Berg, ii. 81, 
 
 82. 
 Adolf of Nassau, ii. 84; elected 
 
 emperor, by craft, 86 ; his cha- 
 racter, ib. ; dethroned by Albert 
 
 von Habsbuig, 88. 
 ^gidius elected king of the Salii, 
 
 i. 171. 
 iEmilius defeats the Gaesatse, i. 65. 
 ^neas Sylvius Piccolomini, ii. 184, 
 
 185. 
 JEtius, commands the Roman ar- 
 mies against Theodorich, i. 133; 
 
 against Attila, 139; his death, 
 
 142. 
 Agilulf, husband of Theodolinda, 
 
 i. 193. 
 Agnes, Countess von Mansfeld, ii 
 
 310, 311. 
 Agnes, empress of Henry III., i. 
 
 379. 
 Agnes of Burgundy, empress of 
 
 Rudolf von Habsburg, ii. 80, 89. 
 Agrippa, Cornelius, von Nettesheim, 
 
 ii. 439. 
 Aistulf, king of Lombardy, i. 224-5. 
 2 G 2 
 
 Alani, their irruption into Spain, i. 
 131. 
 
 Alaric, chief of the Goths, serves 
 in the imperial armies, i. 127 ; 
 elected king, 128 ; his invasion 
 of Greece, ib. ; of Italy, 129 ; 
 takes Rome by storm, 130 ; death 
 and burial, 1.31. 
 
 Alaric, son of Enrich, i. 173. 
 
 Alatheus, a chief of the Ostrogoths, 
 i. 124, 128. 
 
 Alba, Duke of, ii. 273 ; his cruelties 
 in the Netherlands, 291—295. 
 
 Albert the Great, bishop of Ratis- 
 bon, ii. 33. 
 
 Albert the First, ii. 81 ; deceived 
 by Gerhard of Mayence, 86 ; de- 
 thrones Adolf of Nassau, 88 ; 
 leagues with Philip the Hand- 
 some, 89 ; seeks to acquire abso- 
 lute sovereignty, 91 ; rejected by 
 the Bohemians, 93 ; slain by his 
 nephew, ib. 
 
 Albert the Degenerate, of Meissen 
 and Thuringia, ii. 82, 83, 86. 
 
 Albert the Second, ii. 160 ; elected 
 emperor, 182. 
 
 Albert, Duke of Prussia, ii. 283, 
 284. 
 
 Albert, Prince of Saxe Coburg, 
 iii. 420. 
 
 Albigenses, extermination of, i. 
 508. 
 
 Alboin, chief of the Longobardi, i. 
 189, 190; invades Italy, 190; is 
 slain, 191. 
 
 Alboin, duke of Eastphalia, his 
 brave resistance to Charlemagne, 
 i. 235—237.
 
 452 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Albrecht, archbishop of Magde- 
 burg, i. 512. 
 
 Albrecht the Proud, i. 494. 
 
 Albrecht von Apoldern, bishop of 
 Yxkiill, i. 534. 
 
 Alcuin, the Anglo-Saxon, i. 254. 
 
 Aleraanni, the, i. 106 ; their war- 
 riors, 108. 
 
 Alexander, duke of Parma, ii. 291 ; 
 his successful campaigns in the 
 Netherlands, 300—302. 
 
 Alexander III., pope, i. 4G8, 475. 
 
 Alexander VI., pope, ii. 218. 
 
 Alexander I., emperor of Russia, 
 iii. 232 ; conference of Tilsit, 251 ; 
 of Erfurt, 256 ; breach with Na- 
 poleon, 306 ; the Russian cam- 
 paign, ib. ; battle of Borodino, 
 314 ; burning of Moscow, ib. ; re- 
 treat of the grand army, 315 — 
 319; war of liberation, 319 ; ar- 
 mistice of Pleisswitz, 326 ; battle 
 of Leipzig, 331 ; advance of the 
 allied armies into France, 344; 
 capitulation of Paris, 350 ; con- 
 gress of Vienna, 352 ; return of 
 Napoleon,356 ; HolyAlliance,368 
 
 Alexius, emperor of Constantinople, 
 i. 414, 415, 417. 
 
 AUod, the, or freehold property of 
 the ancient Germans, i. 29. 
 
 Anabaptists, the, ii. 232, 233 ; their 
 extravagance at Munster, 256. 
 
 Anacharsis Cloots, iii. 160, 169. 
 
 .\ndreas Baumkirchner, ii. 195. 
 
 Andreas Doria, doge of Venice, ii. 
 247. 
 
 Angereau, Marshal, iii. 302. 
 
 Anglo-Saxons, their settlement in 
 Britain, i. 211. 
 
 Anna, Duchess of Corn-land, iii. 107, 
 108. 
 
 Anno, archbishop of Cologne, i. 3S3 ; 
 seizes upon the regency of the 
 empire, at tlie death of Henry 
 III., 385; his quarrel with the 
 city of Cologne, ib. ; death, and 
 character, 386. 
 
 Antharis, king of the Longobardi, i. 
 192. 
 
 Antwerp, siege of, iii. 394. 
 
 Arcadius, emperor of tlie West, i. 
 
 128. 
 Argobastes, chief of the Franks, i. 
 
 116, 127. 
 Arians, tenets of the, i. 148. 
 Ariovistus, defeated by CcBsar, i. 76. 
 Armagnacs, the, invasion of, iL 186, 
 
 188. 
 Armin, his defeat of the Romans 
 
 under Varus, i. 85 ; under Ger- 
 
 manicus, 89 ; death, 93. 
 Arminius, proscription of his ad- 
 herents, ii. 306. 
 Arnhcim, general of the Swedes, 
 
 ii. 363. 
 Arnold of Brescia, i. 449 ; his death, 
 
 459. 
 Arnold von Winkelreid, ii. 146. 
 Arnulf, archbishop of Rheims, i- 
 
 349. 
 Arnulf, emperor of Germany, i. 299 ; 
 
 defeats the Normans, ib. ; invades 
 
 Italy, 302 ; takes Rome by storm, 
 
 303 ; poisoned, ib. 
 Arnulf Uie Bad, i. 308—312, 314. 
 Artevelde, Jacob von, ii. 127. 
 Ataulph, son-in-law of Alaric, i. 130, 
 
 132; marries Placidia, 132. 
 Athanagild, king of the Visigoths, 
 
 i. 205. 
 Athanarich, prince of the Visigoths, 
 
 i. 123, 126, 127. 
 Attila, see Etzel. 
 Auerbeck, school of Painting of, iii. 
 
 440. 
 Augsburg, diet of, under Maximi- 
 lian, ii. 226 ; under Charles V., 
 
 251 ; Confession of Augsburg, 
 
 252 ; Interim, 266. 
 Augustus, elector of Saxony, ii. 
 
 274, 284. 
 Augustus III., elector of Saxony, 
 
 iii. 19, 111. 
 Aurelian, his wars with the Goths, 
 
 i. 120. 
 Aurelius Marcus, war of, with the 
 
 Marcomanni, i. 105. 
 Aurora, Countess von Koenigsmark, 
 
 iii. 18, 19. 
 Austerlitz, battle of, iii. 232. 
 Austria, composition of its empire,
 
 IXDKX. 
 
 453 
 
 iii. 416, 417; causes of its peace- 
 ful policy, 417 ; its army and go- 
 vernment, 417, 418; nobility and 
 clergy, 418; foreign policy, 419. 
 Avari, subdued by Charlemagne, i. 
 243—246. 
 
 Baiazet, his invasion of Hungary, 
 ii. 145. 
 
 Balamir, prince of the Huns, i. 124. 
 
 Baldwin, Count of Flanders, i. 291. 
 
 Balthasar, Gerard, assassin of Wil- 
 liam of Orange, ii. 302. 
 
 Banner, General, ii. 353, 355; ra- 
 vages Saxony, 374 ; his masterly 
 retreat, 382. 
 
 Barbatius, defeated by the Ale- 
 manni, i. 110. 
 
 Barclay de Tolly, iii. 312. 
 
 Barneveldt, Olden, ii. 306 ; unjustly 
 sentenced to death, 307. 
 
 Basina, mother of Chlodwig the 
 Great, i. 171. 
 
 Basle, council of, ii. 176—179, 184. 
 
 Beatrice, daughter of Philip the 
 Gentle, i. 502, 503. 
 
 Beatrix, empress of Frederick Bar- 
 barossa, i. 461, 467, 474, 487. 
 
 Beguines of Liege, origin of, i. 508. 
 
 Bela, king of Hungary, i. 550. 
 
 Belgium, its separation from Hol- 
 land, iii. 390. 
 
 Belisarius, i. 181—183, 185, 190. 
 
 Benedict, founder of the Western 
 Monks, i. 153. 
 
 Benedict Xlll., ii. 155, 159, 163. 
 
 Berengar II., i. 330, 336. 
 
 Bemadottc, General, iii. 217, 230; 
 elected king of Sweden, 305; 
 breach with Napoleon, .307, 308. 
 
 Bernard, Markgraf of Barcelona, i. 
 282—286. 
 
 Bernard von Weimar, see Weimar. 
 
 Bernhard, grandson of Charlemagne, 
 i. 280, 281. 
 
 Bernhard, St., preaches a crusade, 
 i. 451. 
 
 Berserkerwuth, a malady of the 
 ancient Germans, i. 19, 45. 
 
 Bertarit, king of Lombardy, i. 203, 
 204. 
 
 Bertha, daughter of Charlemagne, 
 i. 259. 
 
 Bertha, empress of Henry IV., i. 
 388, 392. 
 
 Berwick, Marshal, iii. 2, 10. 
 
 Bethlen Gabor, prince of Transyl- 
 vania, ii. 317; elected king of 
 Hungarj', 321. 
 
 Bisinus, king of Thuringia, i. 171. 
 
 Black death, its appearance and 
 ravages, ii. 128. 
 
 Blake, Admiral, ii. 474. 
 
 Bliicher, iii. 244, 245 ; assumes the 
 command of the Prussian forces, 
 in the war of liberation, 323, 331 ; 
 victory over Macdonald, 336 ; 
 battle of Leipzig, 331 ; entry into 
 France, 346, 348 ; reception in 
 England, 352 ; battles of Ligny 
 and Waterloo, 359 ; surrender of 
 Paris, 363. 
 
 Boehme, Jacob, ii. 409 j his doc- 
 trines, 4.39. 
 
 Boetius, his imprisonment and 
 death, i. 169. 
 
 Bohemia, rise of the Reformation 
 in, ii. 159; Hussite war, 165 — 
 181 ; extinction of the Reforma- 
 tion by Ferdinand 11., 325, 326. 
 
 Bohcmund, joins the crusades, i. 
 415; made prince of Antioch, 417. 
 
 Boii, their invasion of Italy, i. 63 ; 
 of Greece and Asia Minor, 64. 
 
 Bojorix, a chief of the Cimbri, i. 
 70, 74. 
 
 Boleslaw Chrobry of Poland, i. .353. 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, iii. 193; takes 
 the command of the French forces 
 in Italy, 193, 194; his successful 
 campaign, 194, 195; defeats the 
 Archduke Charles, 196 ; armis- 
 tice of Campo Formio, 197 ; con- 
 ciliates Austria, 199 ; sails to 
 Egypt, 202 ; his return and dis- 
 solution of the Directory, 222 ; 
 victory of Marengo, ib. ; elected 
 emperor, 229 ; capitulation of 
 Ulm, 231 ; battle of Austerlitz, 
 232 ; Rhenish alliance, 235 ; bat- 
 tle of Jena, 242; enters Berlin, 
 245 ; battle of Eylau, 251 ; con-
 
 454 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 tinental system, 254; invasion of 
 Spain, 255 ; renewal of the war 
 with Austria, 270 ; battle of Ess- 
 lingen, 271 ; Wagram, 272 ; an- 
 nexes Holland and East Friesland 
 to France, 295 ; his marriage with 
 Maria Louisa, 297; the Russian 
 campaign, 306 ; composition of 
 his army, 310; battle of Boro- 
 dino, 314; retreat of the grand 
 army, 315 — 319; w^ar of libera- 
 tion, 319 ; armistice of Pleiss- 
 witz, 326 ; conference with Met- 
 ternich, 330 ; battle of Leipzig, 
 331 ; advance of the allied armies 
 into France, 344 ; capitulation of 
 Paris, 350 ; his abdication, ib. ; 
 return from Elba, 356 ; Ligny, 
 Quatrebras, and Waterloo, 358 ; 
 flight, 364 ; exile and death, 367. 
 
 Boniface IX., ii. 148, 149. 
 
 Bonifacius, St., i. 224 ; his reli- 
 gious and political influence, 227 
 —229. 
 
 Borodino, battle of, iii. 314. 
 
 Brennus, his destruction of Rome, 
 i. 63. 
 
 Britomar, leader of the Gajsatae, 
 i. 65. 
 
 Briihl, Count, minister of Augustus 
 III. of Saxony, iii. 19, 55, 111. 
 
 Brunehilda, the Princess, i. 195 — 
 201. 
 
 Bruno, archbishop of Cologne, i. 
 332. 
 
 Burkhard d'Avesnes, i. 512, 551. 
 
 C^SAR, on the ancient Germans, 
 i. 12, 18 ; his campaigns in Gaul, 
 77 ; on the Rhine, 78. 
 
 Calixtus II., pope, i. 434, 435. 
 
 Calvin, ii. 254 ; proscription of his 
 tenets in Germany, 282 — 286. 
 
 Camel, sultan of Egypt, i. 515, 
 518. 
 
 Canisius of Nimwegen, ii. 274. 
 
 Capistrano, general of the Capu- 
 chins, ii. 190 ; saves Belgrade 
 from the Turks, 191. 
 
 Carinlhia, ceremony attending the 
 election of the dukes of, i. 245. 
 
 Carlmann, son of Charles Martell, 
 i. 223. 
 
 Carlo Borromeo, ii. 274. 
 
 Carlovingians, the, i. 279 — 312. 
 
 Caroline Matilda, queen of Chris- 
 tian Yll., iii. 104, 105. 
 
 Caroline, Princess of Brunswick, 
 iii. 382. 
 
 Casimir, Margrave of Brandenburgh 
 Culmbach, ii. 242, 248. 
 
 Caspar Schlick, chancellor of Sig- 
 mund, ii. 180; his character, 
 1S3. 
 
 Caiharinc von Habsburg, ii. 1 13. 
 
 Catharine, empress of Russia, iii. 
 80 ; invades Poland and Turkey, 
 81 ; character of her government, 
 109 ; instigates war with the 
 French republic, 159; regains 
 possession of Poland, 175. 
 
 Cathedrals of the middle ages, ii. 
 37, 452. 
 
 Cava, daughter of Count Julian, i. 
 207. 
 
 Charietto, first prefect of the Salic 
 Franks, i. 115. 
 
 Charles Martell, i. 219—222. 
 
 Charlemagne, his marriage and di- 
 vorce, i. 229 ; seizes upon the 
 throne of France, 229 ; grandeur 
 of his policy, 2-30 ; annexes to his 
 empire the kingdom of Lom- 
 bardy, 231 ; his wars for the 
 subjugation of the Saxons, 233 — 
 239 ; against the Moors in Spain, 
 240; in Bavaria, 241 ; with the 
 Slavi, 242 ; with the Avari, 243 ; 
 with the Normans, 246 ; extent 
 of his empire, 247 ; its consti- 
 tution, and government, 249 ; 
 discipline of the church, 252; 
 state of learning, commerce, and 
 manufactures, 254 ; his personal 
 appearance and habits, 257 ; his 
 children, 258 ; death and burial, 
 259 ; poetical and legendary re- 
 nown, 260. 
 
 Charles the Bald, king of France, 
 i. 282—291. 
 
 Charles the Thick, i. 296—298. 
 
 Charles the Simple, i. 314.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 455 
 
 Charles the Good, of Flanders, i. 
 439, 440. 
 
 Charles of Anjou, ii. 3 ; invades 
 Italy, 4; defeats and puts to 
 death Conradin, II ; seeks to 
 exterminate the Ghibellines, 12 ; 
 loses Sicily, 13. 
 
 Charles IV., ii. 126 ; his policy on 
 succeeding to the empire, 131 ; 
 diplomatic skill, 132 ; visits Italy, 
 133 ; conciliates Pope Urban V., 
 134 ; personal appearance and 
 manners, 135 ; government, 13G ; 
 internal feuds of the empire, 
 137—140. 
 
 Charles the Bold, duke of Bur- 
 gundy, ii. 197 ; invades Switzer- 
 land, 198; his defeat and death, 
 199. 
 
 Charles V., ii. 227; extent of his 
 empire, 229 ; cites Luther to 
 appear at Worms, 230 ; his vic- 
 tories over Francis I. in Italy, 
 206 ; storm of Rome, 247 ; fails 
 in his endeavours to suppress the 
 Reformation, 251 — 254 ; diet of 
 Augsburg, 251 ; league of the 
 Protestant princes, 252 ; the 
 Schmalkald war, 26 1 — 268 ; coun- 
 cil of Trident, 263, 264 ; abdi- 
 cation and death, 271 ; his policy 
 in the Netherlands, 287. 
 
 Charles de Bourbon, general of 
 Charles V., ii. 245 ; killed at the 
 storm of Rome, 247. 
 
 Charles Gustavus, king of Sweden, 
 H. 466. 
 
 Charles XII., king of Sweden, ii. 
 508 ; his campaigns in Russia 
 and Germany, 509 — 512; re- 
 treats into Turkey, 513; his re- 
 turn to Sweden, and assassina- 
 tion, 516. 
 
 Charles VI., iii. 1 ; contests the 
 crown of Spain, 2, 3 ; succeeds 
 to the imperial throne, 3 ; treaty 
 of Utrecht, 6; his campaigns in 
 Turkey, 13, 14; condition of the 
 empire at his deatli, 14 — 17. 
 
 Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, 
 
 iii. 21 ; claims the imperial throne. 
 48. 
 
 Charles William, Margrave of Ba- 
 den Durlach, iii. 22. 
 
 Charles Eugene, duke of Wur- 
 temberg, iii. 112, 113. 
 
 Charles Theodore, king of Bavaria, 
 iii. 112. 
 
 Charles, Archduke of Austria, iii. 
 159, 177, 180, 189; routs the 
 French under Jourdan, 191 ; de- 
 feated by Bonaparte, 196 ; suc- 
 cessful campaign in Swabia, 218 ; 
 gains the battle of Esslingen, 
 271 ; defeat of Wagram, 272. 
 
 Charles IV., king of Spain, iii. 255. 
 
 Charles, duke of Brunswick, iii. 
 382, 383, 401. 
 
 Charles X., deposal of, iii. 389. 
 
 Childebert of Austrasia, i. 196 — 
 198. 
 
 Childerick, king of the Salii, i. 171. 
 
 Cliilpericli, king of Soissons, i. 196. 
 
 Chiltruda, daughter of Charles Mar- 
 tell, i. 223. 
 
 Chivalry in the middle ages, ii. 
 52 — 60 ; its regulations, 52 — 54 ; 
 influence on the national cha- 
 racter of Germany, 53 — 56; tour- 
 naments, 53, 54 ; the courts of 
 love, 56; Minnelicder, or love 
 songs, lb. ; romance literature, 58. 
 
 Chlodomir, king of Orleans, i. 177, 
 180. 
 
 Chlodwig the Great, birth of, i. 
 171 ; marriage with Chlotilda, 
 172; baptism, 173; the founder 
 of the kingdom of Frcnce, 174. 
 
 Chlotar, king of Orleans, i. 177, 
 179, 191, 195. 
 
 Chlotar II., son of Fredegunda, i. 
 197, 200. 
 
 Chlotilda, queen of Chlodwig the 
 Great, i. 172, 180. 
 
 Chnodomar, chief of the Alemanni, 
 i. 109. 
 
 Cholera, its ravages in Germany 
 and Russia, iii. 405, 406. 
 
 Christian of Mayence, general of 
 Barbarossa, i. 468, 472.
 
 456 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Christian VII., king of Denmark, 
 iii. 104, 105. 
 
 Christianity, its propagation, i. 145 ; 
 spirit, 146 ; the Catholic doctrine 
 in the first ages, 148; com- 
 mencement of the hierarchy, 150 ; 
 the monasteries, 153; the Ca- 
 tholic form of worship, 154; the 
 hierarchy in the middle ages, ii. 
 24; ceremonials, Roman Litur- 
 gy, and church festivals, 29 ; 
 ecclesiastical division of Germa- 
 ny, 30 ; disputes of the Francis- 
 can and Dominican orders, 32 ; 
 German Mysticism and Italian 
 Scholasticism, ib. ; Gothic ar- 
 chitecture, 35 ; council of Con- 
 stance, 157 ; doctrines of Huss, 
 160; Hussite wars in Bohemia, 
 165 ; council of Basle, 176; cor- 
 ruption of the church, 218; the 
 Reformation, 225 ; Erasmus and 
 Reuchlin, 223 ; Melancthon, 224; 
 Luther, 225 ; the Augsburg Con- 
 fession, 251 ; the Jesuits, 272, 
 399 ; the Lutheran and Reform- 
 ed churches, 406, iii. 425 ; the 
 Rationalists and Supernatural- 
 ists, 425 ; lUuminatism, 427. 
 
 Christiern II. of Sweden, ii. 257, 
 258. 
 
 Christina, queen of Sweden, ii. 466. 
 
 Chronicles and histories of the 
 middle ages, ii. 58, 72. 
 
 Cimbri, the, chivalric usages of, i. 
 20 ; irruption into Gaul and Italy, 
 68 ; defeated by Marius, 73. 
 
 Clement XII., pope, ii. 234, 235. 
 
 Coinage of Germany in the middle 
 ages, ii. 68. 
 
 Cologne cathedral, ii. 37. 
 
 Cologne, civil disturbances at, ii. 
 21. 
 
 Conde, the great, ii. 389; his wars 
 against France, 465. 
 
 Confession of Augsburg, ii. 252. 
 
 Conrad, (Huhenstaufen,) duke of 
 Franconia, i. 433; his bold re- 
 sistance toLotharIII.,4.3S; elect- 
 ed emperor at Coblentz, 415 ; 
 
 heads a crusade, 452 ; its failure, 
 455 ; his return and death, 456. 
 
 Conrad I., emperor of Geimany, i. 
 308. 
 
 Conrad the Red, i. 327, 331—334. 
 
 Conrad II., his election, i. 364 ; 
 crowned at Rome, 366 ; revolt 
 and outlawry of Duke Ernst, 367, 
 368; seizes on Burgundy, 371 ; 
 quells the revolt in Italy, 372. 
 
 Conrad, son of Henry IV., i. 409 ; 
 appointed to the government of 
 Italy, ib. ; his marriage, ib. ; re- 
 volt, e6.; remorse and death, 410. 
 
 Conrad of Montserrat, i. 488, 490, 
 491. 
 
 Conrad, chancellor of Henry VI., i. 
 497. 
 
 Conrad, son of Frederick II. i. 
 529, 542 ; regent of Germany, 
 549 ; wars with Henry Raspe 
 and William the Rude, 549— 
 553 ; takes refuge in Italy and 
 dies, ii. 2. 
 
 Conrad von Hochstetten, archbi- 
 shop of Cologne, ii. 21. 
 
 Conrad von Marburgh, a Domi- 
 nican monk, attempts to intro- 
 duce the Inquisition in Germany, 
 i. 525. 
 
 Conradin, the last of the Hohen- 
 staufen, ii. 8 ; is brought up at 
 the court of Bavaria, 9 ; crosses 
 the Alps to head the Ghibellines, 
 10 ; treachery and meanness of 
 his relatives, ib. ; welcomed in 
 Northern Italy, 11 ; rout of his 
 forces by Charles of Anjou, ib. ; 
 his betrayal and execution, ib. 
 
 Constance, council of, ii. 157; its 
 rival factions, 158 ; condemna- 
 tion of Huss, 162 ; abortive con- 
 clusion, 164. 
 
 Constantia, empress of Henry VI., 
 i. 495, 496, 498. 
 
 Constantia, empress of Frederick 
 II., i. 510. 
 
 Constantine, emperor, defeats the 
 Alemanni, i. 109 ; and the 
 Franks, 114.
 
 457 
 
 Copenhagen, bombardment of, iii. 
 254. 
 
 Coranda, a leader of the Hussites, 
 ii. 167. 
 
 Coribut, Prince, a leader of the 
 imperial Hussites, ii. 173 — 175. 
 
 Cornelius, school of Painting of, 
 iii. 440. 
 
 Coronation of the German em- 
 perors, ceremony of, ii. 412. 
 
 Crecy, battle of, ii. 127. 
 
 Crescentius, i. 34.3, 349, 350. 
 
 Crusades, the, i. 410 ; their rise and 
 origin, 410 — 412; early expedi- 
 tions, 412, 413; their disastrous 
 fate, 413, 414; expedition under 
 Godfrey of Bouillon, 414 ; battle 
 of Antioch, 417 ; storm of Jeru- 
 salem, 419 ; principalities found- 
 ed in Palestine, 420, 42 1 ; later 
 crusades, 422 — 426 ; their influ- 
 ence on Europe, 426 ; crusade un- 
 der Conrad III., 450; under Fre- 
 derick Barbarossa, 482 ; Richard 
 Coeur de Lion and Leopold of 
 Austria, 490 ; under Baldwin of 
 Flanders, 503 ; under Leopold 
 the Glorious, 514 ; the last cru- 
 sade, ii. 13. 
 
 Cunigunda, queen of Henry II., i. 
 354—356. 
 
 Custine, general of the French re- 
 public, iii. 163 — 165, 167. 
 
 Cymburga, wife of Ernst the Iron, 
 ii. 150. 
 
 Dagobert, king of Austrasia, i. 
 
 214. 
 Dandolo, doge of Venice, i. 504. 
 Danes, the, their origin and early 
 
 history, i. 263 ; establishment of 
 
 Christianity in Denmark, 345. 
 Dante, ii. 110, 111. 
 Dantzig.spoliation of, by the French, 
 
 iii. 343. 
 D'Assisi, Francisco, i. 508, 509. 
 Daun, general of Maria Theresa, 
 
 iii. 61—63. 
 Davoust, Marshal, iii. 321, .328, 332. 
 Derflinger, Marshal, ii. 484, 485. 
 De Ruyter, naval victories of. 
 
 asainst the English, ii. 474 — 476, 
 
 482. 
 Desiderata, wife of Charlemagne, i. 
 
 225, 229. 
 Desiderius, king of Lombardy, i. 
 
 225—232. 
 De Witt, John, stadtholder of Hol- 
 land, ii. 474 — 477, 480, 481. 
 Dezebal, his wars with the Romans, 
 
 i. 98. 
 Diephold, Count d'Acerra, i. 498, 
 
 503. 
 Diet of the German empire, its con- 
 stitution, etc., ii. 410. 
 Dietrich von Bern, see Theodorich 
 
 the Great. 
 Dietrich, Markgraf of Brandenburg, 
 
 i. 344, 345. 
 Dietrich, Count of Alsace, i. 441 ; 
 
 obtains the dukedom of Flanders, 
 
 lb. ; popularity of his rule, ib. ; 
 
 death, 480. 
 Dietrich the Oppressed, i. 494. 
 Don Juan, son of Charles V., ii. 
 
 298, 299. 
 Drusus, his campaigns in Germany, 
 
 i. 81. 
 Dschingischan, leader of the Tai-- 
 
 tars, i. 540. 
 Dumouriez, iii. 161 ; intrigues with 
 
 the king of Prussia, ib. 
 
 Eberhard, Count of Wiirtemberg, 
 
 ii. 53,77, 92, 109, 110, 118,119. 
 Edessa, taken by Zengis, i. 451. 
 Edgar Atheling, i. 390, 391, 418. 
 Eginhart, secretary of Charlemagne, 
 
 i. 254 ; legend of his marriage to 
 
 the daughter of Charlemagne, 258. 
 Egmont, Count, ii. 288, 290, 292. 
 Einheriar, the, of the Walhalla, i. 
 
 22, 56. 
 Eitel Hans Miiller, leader in the 
 
 peasant war, ii. 237, 240. 
 Ekbert, Graf of Brunswick, i. 384. 
 Ekbert, Markgraf of Meissen, i. 
 
 384, 407, 408. 
 Eleonora, empress of Frederick III., 
 
 ii. 189, 191. 
 Eleonore, queen of Gustavus Adol- 
 
 phus, ii. 350, 353, 354, 358.
 
 458 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Eleonore, queen of Louis VII. of 
 France, i. 454 ; accompanies him 
 to the crusades, ib. ; her infi- 
 delities, 455. 
 
 Elisabeth, St., of Hungary, i. 525, 
 526, 531. 
 
 Elisabeth, empress of Russia, iii. 
 55 ; joins tlie league against Fre- 
 derick II., 57, 66. 
 
 Elis9.beth Stuart, queen of Bohe- 
 mia, ii. 360. 
 
 Emma, daughter of Charlemagne, 
 legend of her marriage, i. 258. 
 
 Engelbert, archbishop of Cologne, 
 i. 517; founder of the secret tri- 
 bunal or Feme, 521 ; his death, 
 522. 
 
 Engelbert von Falkenberg, arch- 
 bishop of Cologne, ii. 21, 22. 
 
 England, her naval war with Hol- 
 land, ii. 475 ; with Napoleon, iii. 
 254—368. 
 
 Enzio, son of Frederick II., i. 542 ; 
 receives the throne of Sardinia, 
 544 ; his wars with the Guelphs 
 in Italy, 546, 554; imprisonment 
 and untimely fate, 555, ii. 12, 13. 
 
 Erasmus, ii. 223, 224. 
 
 Ernest Augustus, first Elector of 
 Hanover, iii. 26. 
 
 Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, iii. 
 414; succeeds William IV. as 
 king of Hanover, ib. ; constitu- 
 tional struggles of his subjects, 
 414—416. 
 
 Ernst, Duke, revolts from Conrad 
 II., 367; outlawed, 368; his 
 death, ib. 
 
 Ernst the Iron, of Styria, ii. 150. 
 
 Etzel, king of the Huns and Ostro- 
 goths, i. 137 ; ravages Greece 
 and Germany, 138 ; is defeated 
 at Chalons, 139 ; his invasion of 
 Italy, and death, 140. 
 
 Eudoxia, widow of Valentinian, i. 
 142. 
 
 Eudoxia, wife of Hunerich, i. 143. 
 
 Eugene, prince of Savoy, ii. 497, 
 507 ; his campaign against the 
 French in Italy, 519 ; on the 
 Rhine, 523 ; second campaign in 
 
 Italy, 526 ; battles of Oudenarde 
 and JNIalplaquet, 529 ; intercedes 
 with Queen Anne in behalf of 
 Marlborough, iii. 4, 5 ; attends 
 the congress of Rastadt, 6 ; de- 
 feats the Turks, 8 ; condition of 
 the imperial army at his death, 
 12. 
 
 Eugene Beauharnais, created vice- 
 roy of Italy, iii. 234, 345 ; duke 
 of Leuchtenberg, 367. 
 
 Eugene III., pope, his scheme for 
 a crusade, i. 451. 
 
 Eugenius IV., pope, ii. 176 — 184. 
 
 Ezzelino di Romano, i. 543, 554, 
 555; ii. 1—3. 
 
 Faramund, elected king of the Sa- 
 lii, i. 136. 
 
 Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, ii. 
 244, 245 ; succeeds to the throne 
 of Germany, 271 ; his vacillating 
 policy, 274—276. 
 
 Ferdinand of the Tyrol, ii. 279. 
 
 Ferdinand III., ii. 375—384. 
 
 Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, ii. 
 316; his treatment of the Pro- 
 testants, 317 ; elected emperor, 
 320; commencement of the thirty 
 years' war, ib. ; his perfidy in 
 Bohemia, 325 ; revolt of the Up- 
 per Austrians, 328 ; dismissal of 
 Wallenstein, 344 ; his reinstate- 
 ment, 356 ; assassination of Wal- 
 lenstein, 365; results of his reign, 
 375, 376. 
 
 Ferdinand, duke of BrunsNvick, 
 commands under Frederick II. 
 in the seven years' war, iii. 64, 
 65 ; character of his government, 
 118; opposed to war Avith the 
 French republic, 158 ; defeats 
 the French at Kaiserslauteni, 
 179; defeated by Napoleon at 
 Jena, 242 ; flight and death, 245. 
 
 Ferdinand VII., king of Spain, iii. 
 255, 384, 390. 
 
 Ferdinand I., emperor of Austria, 
 iii. 420. 
 
 Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans, son of 
 Louis Philippe, iii. 420, 421.
 
 ES'DEX. 
 
 459 
 
 Ferrand, Count of Portugal, i. 512, 
 551. 
 
 Feudal system, the, i. 163, 249. 
 
 Fichte, philosophy of, iii. 432. 
 
 Flagellants, origin of the, ii. 3 ; de- 
 nounced by Clement VI., 129. 
 
 Flanders, encroachments on, by 
 Philip of France, ii. 94; battle 
 of Spurs, 97. 
 
 Fouque, romances of, iii. 437. 
 
 Francis I. of France, ii. 217; his 
 invasion of Italy, ib. ; gains the 
 battle of Marignano, ib. ; aspires 
 to the croMTi of Germany, 229 ; 
 defeated and taken prisoner at 
 Pavia, 246. 
 
 Francis of Lorraine, consort of Ma- 
 ria Theresa, iii. 9, 44, 53, 84. 
 
 Francis II., emperor of Austria, 
 iii. 180, 232 ; abdicates the Ro- 
 man-Germanic empire, 235 ; re- 
 newal of the war with Napoleon 
 in 1809, 268, 269 ; battle of 
 Esslingen, 271 ; Wagram, 272 ; 
 treaty of Vienna, ib. ; marriage 
 of his daughter Maria Louisa to 
 Napoleon, 297. 
 
 Franconian, Salic emperors of Ger- 
 many, i. 364 — 445. 
 
 Franks, the, origin of, i. 112; na- 
 tional character, 116. 
 
 Franz von Sickingen, ii. 234, 235. 
 
 Fredegunda, mistress of Chilperich, 
 i. 196—198. 
 
 Frederick the One-eyed, of Ho- 
 henstaufen, i. 433 ; his courageous 
 resistance to Leopold III., 4.38. 
 
 Frederick Barbarossa, i. 446, 452 ; 
 elected emperor, 457 ; his per- 
 sonal appearance and character, 
 ib. ; his policy, 458 ; successful 
 campaign in Italy, 459 ; permits 
 the execution of Arnold of Bres- 
 cia, ib. ; insurrection at Rome, 
 460 ; return to Germany, and 
 marriage, 461 ; pacification of 
 the empire, 462, 463 ; second 
 visit to Italy, 463; decrees for 
 its government, 464, 465 ; revolt 
 of the Italian cities, 465, 466; 
 sieges of Crema and Milan, 466 ; 
 
 renewal of feuds in Germany, 
 467 ; maladministration and re- 
 volt of Italy, 468, 469 ; defection 
 of Henry the Lion, 474; defeat 
 at Legnano, ib. ; his interview 
 with Alexander III., 475 ; war 
 with Henry the Lion, 476, 477 ; 
 heads the crusade, 484 ; his vic- 
 tories over the Turks, 486 ; death, 
 ib. ; legendary fame, 487. 
 
 Frederick of Hohenstaufen, ad- 
 vancement of, i. 405. 
 
 Frederick, duke of Swabia, i. 479, 
 486, 487. 
 
 Frederick II., birth of, i. 497; 
 minority, 498; marriage, 510; 
 crosses the Alps and takes pos- 
 session of the German empire, 
 512 ; performs the crusade, 518 ; 
 enters Jerusalem, ib. ; intrigues 
 of the pope during his absence, 
 519 ; gaiety of Frederick's court 
 in Italy, 520 ; his political aims, 
 ib. ; internal condition of Ger- 
 many, 521; attempts to intro- 
 duce the Inquisition, 526 ; usurp- 
 ation of his son Henry, 529; 
 marriage w-ith Isabella of Eng- 
 land, 530; decrees for the go- 
 vernment of Germany, ib. ; its 
 internal condition, 532 ; invasion 
 of the Tartars, 540 ; wars in 
 Italy with the popes, 543 — 548 ; 
 and in Germany, 549 — 553 ; his 
 misfortunes and death, 555. 
 
 Frederick the Warlike, of Austria, 
 i. 531 ; his character, 532 ; en- 
 mity to Frederick II., 543, 545; 
 killed at Neustadt, 550. 
 
 Frederick " of Austria," the com- 
 panion of Conradin, ii. 8 — 12. 
 
 Frederick with the Bitten Cheek, 
 ii. 82, 86, 87 ; regains his in- 
 heritance, 92, 93, 114, 115. N 
 
 Frederick the Handsome of Habs- 
 burg, ii. 108, 109; contests the 
 empire with Louis of Bavaria, 
 116—122. 
 
 Frederick of Wolfenbiittel, ii. 148. 
 
 Frederick III., ii. 183; marries Ele- 
 onora of Portugal, 189 ; makes a
 
 460 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 pilgrimage to Rome, 195 ; his 
 wars against Charles the Bold, 
 198; against the Flemings, '202. 
 
 Frederick, Elector of Saxony, ii. 
 227. 
 
 Frederick, Elector of the Pfalz, ii. 
 285. 
 
 Frederick V., Elector of the Pfalz, 
 elected king of Bohemia, ii. 321 ; 
 his incapacity, 322 ; defeat and 
 flight, 324 ; death, 3G0. 
 
 Frederick William, Elector of 
 Brandenburg, ii. 385, 467, 481 ; 
 his war with the Swedes, 484; 
 government of his dominions, 
 486. 
 
 Frederick Augustus, Elector of 
 Saxony, ii. 504 ; elected king of 
 Poland, 505 ; defeated by Charles 
 XII., 509—511; his death, iii. 
 1 7 ; character of his government, 
 18. 
 
 Frederick I., king of Piiissia, ii. 
 506, 529. 
 
 Frederick William I., king of Prus- 
 sia, iii. 9 ; receives the Salzburg 
 emigrants, 36, 37 ; his govern- 
 ment, 43 ; ill-treatment of his son, 
 46, 47. 
 
 Frederick II., king of Prussia, iii. 
 49; invades and conquers Silesia, 
 ib. ; excellence of his adminis- 
 tration, 54 ; makes preparation 
 for the seven years' war, 5S ; in- 
 vades Saxony, 59 ; defeated at 
 Collin, 61 ; victorious campaign 
 in Silesia, 63 ; battle of Zom- 
 dorf, 64; campaign of 1759, 65; 
 bloody defeat at Cunnersdorf, 66 ; 
 campaign of 1 760, 68 ; battle of 
 Torgau, 69 ; honourable close of 
 the war, 72 ; internal government 
 of his dominions, ib. ; personal 
 appearance, 75 ; his influence on 
 the spirit of the times, ib. ; writ- 
 ings, 78 ; death, 96. 
 
 Frederick William II., king of 
 Prussia, iii. 96 ; imbecility of his 
 government, 97 ; leagues with 
 Austria against the French re- 
 public, 158 ; his treachery to Po- 
 
 land, 174, 175; his selfish and 
 short-sighted policy, 183; treaty 
 with France, 186, l87. 
 
 Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse Cas- 
 sel, iii. 116. 
 
 Frederick, Margrave of Bayreuth, 
 iii. 117. 
 
 Frederick William III., king of 
 Prussia, iii. 200; attempts neu- 
 trality in tlie war of Napoleon 
 with Austria, 216, 2.32; driven 
 to take arms, 238 ; condition of 
 the Prussian army, 239 ; battle 
 of Jena, 242; Eylau, 251 ; peace 
 of Tilsit, 251, 252; reorganizes 
 the government, 264, 265 ; de- 
 graded position of Prussia, 310; 
 war of liberation, 319; armistice 
 of Pleisswitz, 326; battle of Leip- 
 zig, 331 ; advance of the allied 
 armies into France, 344 ; capitu- 
 lation of Paris, 350 ; congress of 
 Vienna, 353 ; return of Napo- 
 leon, 356 ; his defeat and exile, 
 358—368; Holy Alliance, 368; 
 the German confederation, ib. ; 
 the new constitution, 375 ; Ger- 
 man Customs' Union, 388 ; pro- 
 gress of Prussia, 422. 
 
 Frederick, king of Wurtemberg, iii. 
 378. 
 
 Frederick William IV., king of 
 Prussia, iii. 429. 
 
 Free-masonry, in the middle ages, 
 ii. 63; its spread in the eigh- 
 teenth century, 100. 
 
 Fridigcm, a chief of the Visigoths, 
 i. 124, 127. 
 
 Friesland, freedom of its peasantry, 
 ii. 68. 
 
 Frigga, the wife of Odin, i. 56. 
 
 Fritz the Bad, ii. 193; defeats the 
 emperor's confederates, 194 ; his 
 marriage, ib. 
 
 G.iSAT^, their march upon Rome, 
 
 i. 65. 
 Gallas, General, ii. 365, 366, 381, 
 
 382, 387. 
 Gallienus, emperor, marriage of, i. 
 
 108.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 461 
 
 G«bhard, Elector of Cologne, ii. 
 310,311. 
 
 Geiserich, king of the Vandals, i. 
 1 33 ; conquers the north of Afri- 
 ca, 141 ; takes Rome by storm, 
 142 ; death, 143. 
 
 Gelimer, king of the Vandals, i. 181. 
 
 Genoveva, St., of Brabant, i. '223. 
 
 Geographical knowledge in the mid- 
 dle ages, ii. 74. 
 
 George, Truchsess von Waldburg, 
 ii. 237—243. 
 
 George von Frundsberg, ii. 243, 
 246, 247. 
 
 George Mertenhausen, ii. 277. 
 
 George von Liineburg, ii. 353, 355. 
 
 George I. of England, iii. 26; his 
 neglect of Hanover, 27. 
 
 George III., king of England, iii. 
 118, 119. 
 
 George IV., king of England, iii. 
 119. 
 
 George, prince of Darmstadt, killed 
 in the Spanish -war of succession, 
 iii. 2, 3. 
 
 Gerhard, archbishop of Mayence, 
 ii. 86, 88, 90. 
 
 Germanicus, his campaigns on the 
 Rhine, i. 88. 
 
 Germany. First Period, Hea- 
 then Antiquity. Part I. Ori- 
 gin and Maimers of the Ancient 
 Get-mans. The primitive forests 
 of Germany, i. 1 ; origin of the 
 Germans, .3 ; the dark ages, 5 ; 
 the division of the Germans into 
 separate tribes, 7 ; the Suevian 
 tribes, 11; the tribes of Lower 
 Germany, 14 ; the Germans, 16 ; 
 ancient German heroism, 17; an- 
 cient fellowship in arms, 20 ; 
 armed commimities, 22 ; public 
 offices and popular assemblies, 
 25 ; public property, Meres and 
 Guilds, 27 ; the allods or free- 
 hold property, 29 ; the division 
 into classes, 31 ; single combat 
 and fines (wergeld), 33 ; courts 
 of justice and laws, .35 ; hospital- 
 ity, 37 ; customs and arts, 38 ; 
 honour of women, 40 ; Wolen 
 
 and Walkyren, 44 ; ancient Ger- 
 man poesy, 45 ; public worship, 
 47 ; pagan superstitions, 51 ; the 
 ancient idea of nature, 52 ; the 
 gods, 55 ; historical ideas, 58. — 
 Part II. The Wars with the Ro- 
 maiis. The Romans, 61 ; theSeno- 
 nes and the Boii in Italy, 63; the 
 Senones and the Boii in Greece 
 and Asia Minor, 64 ; the Romans 
 in the Alps, 65; the Getae and 
 Bastarnae, 67 ; irruption of the 
 Cimbri and Teutones, 68; the 
 destruction of the Teutones by 
 Marius, 71 ; the destruction of 
 the Cimbri, 73; Mithridates, the 
 insurrection of the Cimbrian 
 slaves, the Suevic confederation, 
 75; Ariovistus, 76; Ceesar on the 
 Rhine, 77 ; Ambiorix, 79 ; Boi- 
 rebistas, 80; Drusus, 81 ; Varus 
 in Germany, 84 ; the battle in the 
 Teutoburg forest, 85 ; Germani- 
 cus on the Rhine, 88 ; Marbod, 
 91 ; the death of Armin, 93 ; Ci- 
 vilis and Velleda, 95 ; internal 
 dissensions among the Germans, 
 97; Dezebal, 98; Roman pro- 
 vinces on the Rhine and Danube, 
 99.— Pari! ///. The Migrations. 
 Revolt of the whole German na- 
 tion against Rome, 103 ; the war 
 of the Marcomanni, 105 ; the 
 Alemanni, 106 ; Alemannic war- 
 riors, 108; the Franks, 112; 
 Frankish upstarts and traitors, 
 114; the Saxons, 116 ; the Gotlis, 
 118; great irruption against 
 Rome, 119; the great empire of 
 Hcrmanarich, origin of the Huns, 
 122 ; migration of the Goths into 
 the Roman empire, 124 ; Alaric, 
 128 ; the Vandals, Alani, Suevi, 
 and Visigoths in .Spain, 131 ; the 
 Alemanni in Switzerland, the 
 Burgundians in Alsace, 134 ; the 
 Salic law, 135; Etzel, 137; 
 Geiserich, 141 ; Odoachar, 143. 
 — Part I V. The transition from 
 Paganism to Christianity. The 
 propagation of the gospel, 145 ;
 
 462 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 the spirit of Christianity, 146 ; 
 the Catholic doctrine, 148 ; com- 
 mencement of the hierarchy, 150 ; 
 the monasteries, 153 ; the Catho- 
 lic form of worship, 1 54 ; the 
 Christian kings, 157; state as- 
 semblies, dukes, and counts, 158; 
 the laws, 160 ; the feudal system, 
 163 ; migrations and new lan- 
 guages, 165. — Part V. The Con- 
 tests between the Goths and Franks. 
 Thcodorich the Great, 167; Chlod- 
 wig, 171; Gundebald, 175; the 
 extension of France under the 
 sons of Chlodwig, 176; fall of 
 the kingdoms of Thuringia and 
 Burgundy, 178 ; fall of the king- 
 dom of the Vandals, 1 80 ; the 
 Ostrogothic war, Vitigis, 182; 
 Totilas, Tejas, fall of the king- 
 dom of the Ostrogoths, 184 ; 
 origin of the Longobardi, end 
 of the Heruli and Gepidae, 187 ; 
 Alboin in Italy, 190; Theodo- 
 linda, 192 ; the crimes of the 
 Merovingians, 194; Fredegunda, 
 195; Brimehilda, 198; Grimo- 
 ald, 201 ; fall of the Sue>ian 
 and Visigothic kingdom in Spain, 
 205 ; Mahomet and the Arabians, 
 209 ; the Anglo-Saxons, 211 ; 
 — Part VI. Charlemagne. The 
 Austrasian mayors of the palace, 
 213; Pipin von Landen, 214; 
 Pipin von Heristal, 216 ; Charles 
 Martell, 219 ; Pipin the Little, 
 223 ; St. Bonifacius, 226 ; Charle- 
 magne, 229 ; fall of the kingdom 
 of Lombardy, 231 ; the Saxon 
 wars, 2.33; the progress of the 
 Saxon wars, 234 ; termination of 
 tlie Saxon wars, 238 ; the wars 
 in Spain, 240; Thassilo, 241; 
 the wars with the Slavi, 242 ; 
 the wars with the Avari, 243; 
 the wars with the Normans, 246 ; 
 Charlemagne the first of the Ger- 
 man Caesars, 247 ; the empire 
 under Charlemagne, 249 ; the 
 church under Charlemagne, 252 ; 
 the state of learning under Char- 
 
 lemagne, 254 ; Charlemagne, 257. 
 —Part VII. The History of the 
 North. Odin, 260 ; the kings, 
 262 ; the Danes, 263 ; the Swedes, 
 266 ; the Norwegians, 267 ; Chris- 
 tianity and the feudal system in 
 the North, 270 ; Iceland and 
 Greenland, 272 ; the Normans, 
 274. — Second Period, The 
 Middle Ages. Part VIII. The 
 Carlovingians . Louis the Pious 
 and his sons, 279 ; the incur- 
 sions of the Normans, 289 ; rise 
 of the great vassals and of the 
 popes, 292 ; Charles the Thick 
 and Arnulf, 296 ; the Babenberg 
 feud, the Hungarians, 304 ; Con- 
 rad 1 . , 308.— 7'ar< IX. The Saxon 
 Emperors. Henry the Fowler, 
 origin of the middling classes, 
 312 ; conquests in the Slavian 
 north-east, defeat of the Hunga- 
 rians, 319 ; Otto I., 322 ; the re- 
 incorporation of Italy with the 
 empire, 330 ; Otto II. and Otto 
 III., 341 ; Henry II. the Holy, 
 351 ; immunities, increasing im- 
 portance of the churches and 
 cities, and consequent decrease 
 of the ducal power, 356. — Part 
 X. The Franconian, Salic Em- 
 perors. Conrad II., .364 ; Henry 
 III., 374; ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment of the empire, 381 ; Henry 
 IV., 388; Gregory VII., 398; 
 the papal kings, 404; the cru- 
 sades, 410 ; Henry V., 426 ; 
 Lothar III., 437. — Part XI. 
 The Stcabian Dynasty. Conrad 
 III., 445; the crusade of Con- 
 rad III., 450; Frederick Bar- 
 barossa, 457 ; Henry the Lion, 
 469 ; Barbarossa's crusade and 
 death, 482 ; Leopold of Austria 
 and Richard Coeur de Lion, 
 488; Henrv VI., 493; Philip 
 and Otto IV., 499; Frederick 
 II., 510 ; the Inquisition, the 
 humiliation of Denmark, 521 ; 
 German rulers in Livonia and 
 Prussia, the Tartar fight, 532 ;
 
 463 
 
 Conrad IV. and Conradin, ii. 1 ; 
 the interregnum, 14. — Part XII. 
 Summit of the Middle Ages. The 
 hierarchy, 24; Gothic architec- 
 ture, 35 ; the emperor and the 
 empire, 40 ; the aristocracy and 
 the knighthood, 50 ; the chivalric 
 poetry of Swabia, 56 ; the cities, 
 60 ; the peasantry, 68 ; the liberal 
 sciences, 71. — Part XIII. Su- 
 premacy of the Pope. Rudolf von 
 Habsburg,75; Adolf of Nassau,84; 
 Albert I., 89 ; the encroachments 
 of France, the battle of Spurs, 
 91 ; William Tell and the Swiss, 
 99 ; Henry VII. of Luxemburg, 
 106 ; Louis the Bavarian, and 
 Frederick of Austria, 116; the 
 electoral diet at Reuse, 122 ; the 
 battle of Crecy, the black death, 
 the Flagellants, the murder of 
 the Jews, 126 ; Charles IV., 131 ; 
 contests between the citizens and 
 the aristocracy, wars of the H an- 
 sa, 137; Wenzel, great strug- 
 gle for freedom, 141 ; Rupert, 
 the Netherlands, 148. — Third 
 Period, The Age of the Re- 
 formation. Part XIV. The 
 Hussite Wars. Sigmund, 154; 
 the council of Constance, 157; 
 disturbances in Bohemia, Zizka, 
 165 ; the reign of terror, the 
 council of Basle, end of the Huss- 
 ite war, 174; disturbances in the 
 Hanse towns, Albert II., frus- 
 tration of the Reformation, 181. 
 — Part XV. The Age of Maxiini- 
 lian. The Swiss wars, the Armag- 
 nacs, George von Podiebrad, 186 ; 
 Fritz the Bad, the German Hos- 
 pitallers, the Burgundian wars, 
 Mary of Burgundy, 193; Mat- 
 thias of Hungary, affairs in Italy, 
 Maximilian I., 203; separation 
 of Switzerland from the empire, 
 wars of the Friscians and Dit- 
 marses, civil dissensions, the 
 Bundschuh, wars of Venice and 
 Milan, 2\0.— Part XVI. The 
 Reformation. The church, Jhe 
 
 Humanists, the art of printing, 
 Luther, 218; Charles V., the 
 diet at Worms, Thomas Miin- 
 zer, Zwingli, Pope Adrian, in- 
 ternal feuds, 229 ; the peasant 
 war, defeat of the peasants, 256 ; 
 increasing power of the house of 
 Habsburg, \'ictories in Italy, the 
 intermixture of diplomacy with 
 the Reformation, the Augsburg 
 Confession, 244 ; disturbances 
 in the cities, the Anabaptists in 
 Munster, great revolution in the 
 Hansa, dissolution of the Ger- 
 man Hospitallers, Russian de- 
 predations, 255 ; the council of 
 Trident, the Schmalkald war, 
 the Interim, Maurice of Saxony, 
 2m.— Part XVII. The War of 
 Liberation in the Netherlands. 
 Preponderance of the Spaniards 
 and Jesuits, courtly vices, 271 ; 
 contests between the Lutheran 
 church and the princes, 281 ; 
 revolt in the Netherlands, the 
 Geuses, 286 ; William of Orange, 
 292 ; the republic of Holland, 
 303; Rudolph II., .308.— Pari! 
 XVIII. The Thirty Years' War. 
 Great religious disturbances in 
 Austria, defeat of the Bohe- 
 mians, 315; revolt of the Up- 
 per Austrians, Coimt Mansfeld, 
 328 ; Wallcnstein, the Dan- 
 ish campaigns, 336 ; Gustavus 
 Adolphus, 345 ; Wallenstein's 
 second command, the battle of 
 Liitzen, the Heilbronn confe- 
 deracy, death of Wallenstein, 
 354 ; the battle of Noerdlingen, 
 the treaty of Prague, defeat of the 
 French, 366 ; death of Ferdi- 
 nand II., pestilence and famine, 
 Bernard von Weimar, Banner, 
 375 ; Torstenson, John von 
 Werlh, the peace of Westphalia, 
 384.— Pnr^ XIX. The Internal 
 State of Germany during the 
 Reformation. The Jesuits, 398 ; 
 the Lutheran and Reformed 
 churches, 406 ; the empire, the
 
 464 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 princes and the nobility, 410 ; 
 the cities and the peasantry, 421 ; 
 the erudition of the universities, 
 428 ; the dark sciences, supersti- 
 tion, 434 ; witchcraft, 440 ; po- 
 etry and art, 44G ; histories and 
 travels, 454. — Fourth Period, 
 Modern Times. Part XX. The 
 Age of Louis XH'. Louis XIV., 
 461 ; the Swiss peasant war, 468; 
 Holland in distress, 473 ; the 
 great Elector, 481 ; ill-treatment 
 of the imperial cities, the loss of 
 Strassburg, 487 ; Vienna besieged 
 by the Turks, 492 ; French de- 
 predations, 497 ; German princes 
 on foreign thrones, 504 ; the 
 Northern war, Charles XII., 508; 
 the Spanish war of succession, 
 518; Charles VI., iii. 1; the 
 courts of Germany, 17; the eccle- 
 siastical courts, the Salzburg emi- 
 gration, 30. — Part XXI. The 
 Rise of Pnissia. Frederick Wil- 
 liam I., 41 ; Maria Theresa, 48 ; 
 the seven years' war, 59 ; Fre- 
 derick Sanspareil, 72 ; Joseph 
 II., 84; Frederick William II., 
 96 ; German influence in Scan- 
 dinavia and Russia, 1U3 ; the 
 lesser German courts, 1 10 ; the 
 last days of the empire, 1 24 ; the 
 liberal tendency of the universi- 
 ties, 133; art and fashion, 141 ; 
 influence of the belles-lettres, 
 146. — Pari XXII. The great 
 Wars with France. The French 
 Revolution, 155; German Jaco- 
 bins, 163 ; loss of the left bank 
 of the Rhine, 174; the defection 
 of Prussia, the Archduke Charles, 
 183 ; Bonaparte, 193 ; the pillage 
 of Switzerland, 206 ; the second 
 coalition, 216 ; fall of the holy 
 Roman Germanic empire, 228 ; 
 Prussia's declaration of war and 
 defeat, 238 ; the Rhenish confe- 
 deration, 253 ; resuscitation of 
 patriotism throughout Germany, 
 Austria's demonstration, 263 ; re- 
 volt of the Tyrolese, Hofer, 275; 
 
 Napoleon's supremacy, 294 ; the 
 Russian campai^, 306 ; the spring 
 of 1813, 319 ; the battle of Leip- 
 zig, 331 ; Napoleon's fall, 344 ; 
 the Congress of Vienna, Napo- 
 leon's return and end, 352. — 
 Part XXIII. The Latest Times. 
 The German confederation, 368 ; 
 the new constitution, 375 ; the 
 European Congress, the German 
 Customs' Union, 383 ; the Bel- 
 gian Revolution, 390 ; the Swiss 
 Revolution, 395 ; the Revolution 
 in Brunswick, Saxony, Hesse, 
 etc., 401 ; the struggles of the 
 provincial diets, 408; Austria 
 and Prince Mettemich, 416 ; 
 Prussia and Rome, 422 ; the pro- 
 gress of science, art, and practi- 
 cal knowledge in Germany, 430 ; 
 German emigrants, 445. 
 
 Gerold, Count of Swabia, i. 239, 
 244, 245. 
 
 Gessler, governor of Uri, ii. 101 — 
 105. 
 
 Geuses, the, ii. 290—296. 
 
 Gever, Florian, leader in the pea- 
 sant war, ii. 2.39—241. 
 
 Ghibelines, origin of the term, i. 445. 
 
 Gibraltar, capture of, iii. 2. 
 
 Gisilbrecht, duke of Lotliringia, i. 
 315, 325. 
 
 Godemar, king of Vierme, i. 176, 
 180. 
 
 Godfrey of Bouillon, i. 406 ; heads 
 the cnisade, 414 ; proclaimed 
 king of Jerusalem, 420 ; his 
 death, 421. 
 
 Godoy, Prince of Peace, iii. 255. 
 
 Gods of the ancient Germans, i. 55. 
 
 Goethe, character of his writings, 
 iii. 153; his interview with Na- 
 poleon, 256. 
 
 Goetz von Berlichingen, ii. 239; 
 becomes a leader in the peasant 
 war, 240. 
 
 Gorres, iii. 388, 428, 429. 
 
 Goths, the, their migrations, i. 118; 
 irruptions against Greece and 
 Rome, 120—144. 
 
 Gqjthic architecture, its rise and de-
 
 465 
 
 velopment, ii. 35 ; symbolism, 
 36 ; sculptures and paintings, 38. 
 
 Gottsched, literary influence of, iii. 
 145, 149, 150. 
 
 Graevenitz, Mademoiselle von, iii. 
 23. 
 
 Granvella, Cardinal, ii. 289. 
 
 Greenland, its discovery, i. 273. 
 
 Gregory V., pope, i. 349. 
 
 Gregory IX., pope, his struggles 
 •with Frederick II., i. 517—547. 
 
 Grimoald, duke of Benevento, i. 
 202—204. 
 
 Grimoald, nephew of Charlemagne, 
 i. 232. 
 
 Grippo, son of Charles Martell, i. 
 223, 224. 
 
 Grotius, Hugo, ii. 306, 307. 
 
 Guelphs, origin of the term, i. 445. 
 
 Guido the Incapable of Flanders, 
 ii. 95. 
 
 Guilds of the ancient Germans, i. 
 27 ; of the middle ages, ii. 62 — 
 64. 
 
 Guillaume de Dampierre, i. 552. 
 
 Gundebald, king of Burgundy, i. 
 168, 172, 173, 175, 176. 
 
 Gunthachar, slain in opposing the 
 progress of Attila, i. 138. 
 
 Guntram of Orleans, i. 195—198. 
 
 Gusta'V'us Adolphus, ii. 344; takes 
 up arms in behalf of Protestant- 
 ism, 346 ; state of parties in Ger- 
 many, 347 ; lands in Pomerania, 
 ib. ; defeat of Tilly at Leipzig, 
 351 ; his conquests on the Rhine, 
 353 ; and Bavaria, 354 ; victory 
 and death at Liitzen, 358. 
 
 Gusta\-U3 III., king of Sweden, iii. 
 106. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus IV., king of 
 Sweden, iii. 203 ; deposed, 304. 
 
 Guttenberg, John, of Mayence, ii. 
 223. 
 
 Hakon the Good, i. 268. 
 Hamburg, pillage of, by Davoust, 
 
 iii. 328. 
 Hannibal, his invasion of Italy, 
 
 i. 66. 
 Hanseatic League, ii. 19, 63; ex- 
 
 VOL. III. 2 H 
 
 tent of its influence, 65 ; its com- 
 merce, 66 ; navy, 81 ; projected 
 revolution, 257 ; its failure, 258. 
 
 Harald Haardrade, king of Nor- 
 way, i. 389 ; his adventures, ib- ; 
 invades England with Toste, son 
 of Godwin, 390 ; defeated and 
 slain by Harold, ib. 
 
 Harald SchiJnhaar, i. 267. 
 
 Hardenberg, chancellor of Prussia, 
 iii. 266, .308, 319; attends the 
 Congress of Vienna, 354 ; Con- 
 gress of Verona, 384. 
 
 Harold, son of Godwin, i. 390; 
 raised to the English throne, ib. ; 
 defeats Harald Haardrade and 
 Toste, ib. ; slain at the battle of 
 Hastings, .391. 
 
 Haroun-al-Raschid, his presents to 
 Charlemagne, i. 239. 
 
 Hasting, leader of the Normans, i. 
 289—291. 
 
 Hatto, archbishop of Mayence, i. 
 304 ; his perfidy, 305 ; legend of 
 his death, 305, 306. 
 
 Hatzfeld, General, ii. 371, 374, 375, 
 388. 
 
 Helena, wife of Manfred, ii. 3 ; her 
 imprisonment and death, 4. 
 
 Henry the Fowler, elected emperor 
 of Germany, i. 312 ; his military 
 regulations, 316 ; reduction of 
 the Slavi, and defeat of the Hun- 
 garians, 319 — 322. 
 
 Henry, brother of Otto I., i. 324— 
 335. 
 
 Henry the Wrangler, i. 342, 347. 
 
 Henry II. the Holy, i. 351; his 
 wars with the Poles and Bohe- 
 mians, 353; with the Italians, 
 354. 
 
 Henry III., his character, i. 374; 
 subdues the disturbances in Bo- 
 hemia, Burgundy, and Hungary, 
 375 ; quells the schism in the 
 popedom, 376 ; dangerous con- 
 dition of the empire at his death, 
 379. 
 
 Henry IV., emperor, his minority, i. 
 379 — 387 ; campaign in Hungary, 
 387; assumes the government,
 
 466 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 388 ; successful conspiracy a- 
 gainst, ib. ; anarchy of the em- 
 pire, ib. ; his character, 392, 
 393 ; contemptuous treatment of 
 the Saxons, 393 ; their revolt, 
 396 ; his flight and abandon- 
 ment, ib. ; defeat of the Saxons, 
 397; laid under an interdict by 
 Gregory VII., 401 ; escapes to 
 Italy to obtain its removal, 402 ; 
 humiliations heaped upon him, 
 403 ; his wars with the papal 
 kings, 404 — 409 ; takes Rome 
 by storm, 406 ; deposes Gregory, 
 407 ; revolt of his son Henry, 
 427 ; deposed by him, 428 ; his 
 death, 429. 
 
 Henry V., revolts from his father, 
 i. 427 ; compels him to abdicate, 
 428 ; his wars in Bohemia and 
 Poland, 429 ; is estranged from 
 the Roman hierarchy, 430 ; de- 
 feats the Saxons under Lothar, 
 431 ; marries Matilda, daughter 
 to Henry I. of England, ib. ; his 
 disastrous defeat at Welfisholz, 
 432 ; visits Italy, and seizes the 
 Countess Matilda's bequests to 
 the church, 433 ; dissensions in 
 Germany during the remainder 
 of his reign, 434 — 437. 
 
 Henry the Proud, of Bavaria, i. 
 437, 442. 
 
 Henry the Lion, of Saxony, i. 446, 
 452, 458 ; obtains the duchy of 
 Saxony, 460 ; his estrangement 
 and defection from Frederick 
 Barbarossa, 472 — 474 ; defeat 
 and exile, 476 — 478; return, 
 493; death, 494. 
 
 Henry Sam mir Gott, duke of Aus- 
 tria, i. 460, 473. 
 
 Henry VI., emperor of Germany, 
 i. 479 ; his character and policy, 
 495 ; treatment of the Normans 
 in Italy and Sicily, 496 ; de- 
 spatches a crusade, 497 ; sudden 
 death, 498. 
 
 Henry, Pfalzgrave of the Rliine, i. 
 493, 500. 
 
 Henry von Kelten, i. 496, 497. 
 
 Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thu- 
 ringia, i. 526 ; usurps the empire, 
 549 ; defeat and death, 550. 
 
 Henry, son of Frederick II., i. 528 ; 
 seeks to usurp the crown of Ger- 
 many, 529. 
 
 Henry the Pious, i. 540; slain at 
 Katzbach, in repelling the Tar- 
 tars, 541. 
 
 Henry von Miessen, ii. 17, 18. 
 
 Henry the Pilgrim, prince of Meck- 
 lenburg, ii. 84. 
 
 Henry of Carinthia, ii. 92, 93. 
 
 Henry of Melchthal, ii. 101. 
 
 Henry VII. of Luxemburg, ii. 106 ; 
 elected emperor of Germany, 
 107; enters Italy, 111; is 
 crowned at Milan, ib. ; poisoned 
 at Buonconvento, 113. 
 
 Henry, duke of Brunswick, ii. 
 262, 269. 
 
 Henry II. of France, ii. 266—269. 
 
 Herder, character of his ^^Titing8, 
 iii. 152. 
 
 Hermanarich, extent of his empire, 
 i. 122. 
 
 Hermann BUlung, i. 323 — 338. 
 
 Hermann of Luxemburg, pro- 
 claimed king by the Saxons, i. 
 407 ; his imbecile character and 
 death, ib. 
 
 Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia, 
 i. 493, 511, 525; strife of the 
 minstrels at his court in tlie 
 Wartburg, ii. 50. 
 
 Hieronymus of Prague, ii. 162, 163. 
 
 Hildebrand, his origin and rise, i. 
 376, 377 ; character and aims, 
 381 ; assumes the tiara, under 
 the name of Gregory VII., 398 ; 
 his decrees for the reformation 
 of the church, 398, 399 ; lays an 
 intei'dict on Henry IV., 401. 
 
 Hildegarde, wife of Charlemagne, 
 i. 258. 
 
 Hildegarde, Coimtess von Spon- 
 heim, i. 448. 
 
 Histories and legends of tlie middle 
 ages, ii. 58, 72 ; of the Reforma- 
 tion, 454. 
 
 Hofer, Andrew, iii. 277; concerts
 
 INDEX. 
 
 467 
 
 the revolt of the Tyrol, 277, 278 ; 
 his betrayal and death, 292, 293. 
 
 Hohenstaufen djTiastv, i. 445 — 
 556, ii. 1—13. 
 
 Holland, formation of its republic, 
 ii. 300 ; rapid growth of its com- 
 merce and prosperity, 304 ; its 
 naval war with England, 474, 
 475 ; invasion of Louis XIV., 
 479, 482 ; annexed to France by 
 Napoleon, 295 ; the Belgian re- 
 volution, 390. 
 
 Honoria, sister of Valentinian, i. 
 140. 
 
 Honorius Augustodunensis, ii. 32, 
 33. 
 
 Honorius, emperor of the West, i. 
 128. 
 
 Horebites, the, ii. 169. 
 
 Hospitality, usages of, among the 
 early Germans, i. 37. 
 
 Hospitallers, German, dissolution 
 of, ii. 259. 
 
 Hoyer von Mansfeld, commander- 
 in-chief of Henry V., i. 430 — 432. 
 
 Hugh Capet, king of France, i. 347, 
 349. 
 
 Humboldt, Alexander von, iii. 433, 
 435. 
 
 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, ii. 
 152. 
 
 Hunerich, king of the Vandals, i. 
 180. 
 
 Hungary, invasion of, by the Turks, 
 ii. 492 ; suppression of the na- 
 tional liberties, 496. 
 
 Hunilda, the Amazon, i. 121. 
 
 Hxmimund, son of Hermanarich, i. 
 124. 
 
 Huns, the, chivalric customs of, i. 
 20 ; their origin, 123. 
 
 Huss, John, ii. 159; his doctrines, 
 160; summoned to the council 
 of Constance, 161 ; condemnation 
 and death, 162. 
 
 Hussites, war of the, 165 — 181. 
 
 Iceland, its colonisation and go- 
 vernment, i. 272. 
 Ildegunda, i. 140. 
 Illow, Field-marshal, ii. 364. 
 2 H 2 
 
 llluminati, secret society of, iii. 101 ; 
 Illuminatism, 427. 
 
 Innocent III., pope, i. 498, 499; 
 seeks to revive the crusades, 503 — 
 506 ; rise of heretical doctrines, 
 506 ; persecution of the Albi- 
 genses, 507 ; institution of re- 
 ligious orders, 508. 
 
 Innocent IV., pope, his wars with 
 Frederick II., i. 547—555. 
 
 Inquisition, attempts to introduce 
 it in Germany, i. 525 ; in the 
 Netherlands, ii. 289. 
 
 Irene of Greece, empress of Philip 
 the Gentle, i. 500, 502. 
 
 Isaac, emperor of Constantinople, i. 
 485. 
 
 Isabella of England, her marriage 
 with Frederick II., i. 530. 
 
 Ivan Wasilie^ncz II., czar of Rus- 
 sia, ii. 259. 
 
 Jacobea of Holland, ii. 152, 153. 
 
 Jacobea of Baden, ii. 314. 
 
 Jerome Bonaparte, created king of 
 Westphalia, iii. 252 ; his govern- 
 ment, 260, 261. 
 
 Jerusalem, stormed by the cru- 
 saders, i. 419. 
 
 Jesuits, foundation of the, ii. 263 
 character of the order, 272, 273 
 introduced in Germany, 274 
 their policy, 400—406 ; downfal 
 iii. 79. 
 
 Joan, pope, i. 294. 
 
 Johanna of Constantinople, i. 512, 
 551. 
 
 Johanna of Naples, ii. 152, 153. 
 
 Johanna, wife of Philip the Hand- 
 some, ii. 206, 212. 
 
 Johannes, pope, imprisoned by 
 Theodorich the Great, i. 169. 
 
 Johannes, lieutenant of Belisarius, 
 i. 183. 
 
 John XII., pope, i. 336, 337. 
 
 John, king of Bohemia, ii. 108, 113, 
 118, 119, 122, 125; gallant death 
 at Crecy, 127. 
 
 John XXII., pope, ii. 119, 121, 
 123. 
 
 John XXIII., ii. 155, 158, 159.
 
 468 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 John Hunyadi, leader of tlie Hun- 
 garians, ii. 189, 190. 
 
 John Zapolya, ii. 24.5, 250, 2b3. 
 
 John, Elector of Saxony, ii. 248, 
 251, 2.52. 
 
 John of Leyden, the Anabaptist 
 leader, ii. 256. 
 
 John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, 
 ii. 261, 262, 265, 268. 
 
 John Sigismund Zapolya, king of 
 Hungary, ii. 277, 278. 
 
 John von Werth, ii. 361, 371, 377, 
 378, 387, 389—391. 
 
 Joseph I., emperor of Austria, ii. 
 497; declares war against Louis 
 XIV., 500. 
 
 Joseph n., emperor of Austria, iii. 
 79, 81 ; his liberal administra- 
 tion, 84, 86, 87 ; ecclesiastical 
 reforms, 87 ; obstructions otier- 
 ed by the clergy and nobility, 
 89, 90 ; leagues with Catharine 
 n., 91 ; revolt of the Austrian 
 Nctherland.s, 92 ; his death, 95 ; 
 personal appearance and charac- 
 ter, ib. 
 
 Joseph Napoleon, created king of 
 Naples, iii. 234 ; of Spain, 255. 
 
 Jourdan, commands the forces of 
 the French republic in the Ne- 
 therlands, iii. 177, 181. 
 
 Jovinus, i. ill. 
 
 Julian the Apostate, his victories 
 over the Alemanni, i. 110; and 
 the Franks, 115. 
 
 Jutta, queen of Louis the Pious, i. 
 2gD.. 
 
 Kant, philosophy of, iii. 141. 
 
 Kara Mustapha, 'ii. 493, 494. 
 
 Kaunitz, minister of Maria There- 
 sa, iii. 54; his policy and cha- 
 racter, 56 ; opposed to war with 
 the French republic, 158. 
 
 Kerbugha, the vizir, defeated by 
 the crusaders at Antioch, i. 417. 
 
 Klopstock, iii. 151. 
 
 Knighthood, institution of, in the 
 middle ages, ii. 52 ; influence on 
 the national character, 53 — 56 ; 
 and on German poetry and litera- 
 ture, 56—60. 
 
 Knipperdolling the Anabaptist, ii. 
 
 256. 
 Konigsmark, General, ii. 381, 388, 
 
 392. 
 Kosciuszko, iii. 184. 
 Kotzebue, Augustus von, iii. 436. 
 Kutusow, generalissimo of the 
 
 Russian forces, iii. 313 — 323. 
 
 Ladislaw, king of Hungar)', ii. 
 18s— 190. 
 
 Lafayette, iii. 161. 
 
 Laudon, general of the Austrians 
 under Maria Theresa, iii. 63 
 —65, 67—70, 92. 
 
 Leipzig, battles of — Gustavus Adol- 
 phus and Wallenstein, ii. 358 ; 
 Napoleon and the allied armies, 
 iii. 331. 
 
 Leo, bishop of Rome, i. 140. 
 
 Leo X., pope, ii. 219; publishes 
 indulgences, ib. 
 
 Leopold I. of Austria, i. 347, 348. 
 
 Leopold of Austria, commands the 
 German forces at the crusades, i. 
 490 ; his quarrel with Richard 
 Cocur de Lion, ib. ; imprisons 
 Richard on his rettirn from Pa- 
 lestine, 491 ; death, 492. 
 
 Leopold the Warlike, of Austria, ii. 
 94, 116—121. 
 
 Leopold in. of Austria, iii. 96. 
 
 Leopold, prince of Coburg, elected 
 king of Belgium, iii. 393 ; mar- 
 ries Louisa, daughter of Louis 
 Philippe, 394. 
 
 Lessing, his beneficial influence on 
 German literature, iii. 152. 
 
 Leyden, siege of, ii. 296. 
 
 Liebnitz, system of, iii. 140. 
 
 Livonia, invasion of, by the Lithu- 
 anians, i. 534. 
 
 Longobardi, origin of, i. 187. 
 
 Lothar, son of Louis the Pious, i. 
 282—286. 
 
 Lothar III. his election, i. 4.37; 
 humbles the Hohcnstaufen, 438 ; 
 dies whilst on his return from 
 Italy, 442. 
 
 Louis the Pious, son of Charle- 
 magne, i. 279 ; his perfidy to his 
 nephew Bernhard, 280 ; imbe-
 
 INDEX. 
 
 469 
 
 cile character, ib. ; is imprisoned 
 by his children, 283, 284 ; death, 
 285. 
 
 Louis the German, i. 282. 
 
 Louis Vn. of France, i. 454; fate 
 of his expedition to the Holy 
 Land, 455. 
 
 Louis, Landgrave of Thuringia, i. 
 462, 463, 476, 477, 488, 489. 
 
 Louis of Bavaria, ii. 8 — 10. 
 
 Louis the Bavarian, ii. 116; elect- 
 ed emperor, 117; contests the em- 
 pire with Frederick the Hand- 
 some, 117 — 120; visits Italy, 
 121 ; his dissensions with the 
 pope, 120 — 125; succeeds to 
 Holland and Hennegau, 125; 
 death, 126. 
 
 Louis XI. of France, ii. 197, 199. 
 
 Louis, Margrave of Baden, ii. 493 
 —528. 
 
 Louis XIV., age of, ii. 461 ; its 
 characteristics, 461, 462; his di- 
 plomatic intrigues in Germany, 
 464 ; conquests in the Nether- 
 lands, 465; projects the seizure 
 of the Spanish Netherlands, 476 ; 
 his encroachments on Germanj^ 
 477 ; invasion of Holland, 479, 
 482 ; seizure of Strassburg, 490 ; 
 intrigues at Constantinople, 493 ; 
 invades the Pfalz, 498 ; war of 
 the Spanish succession, 518 — 
 530; peace of Utrecht, iii. 5; 
 his death, 7. 
 
 Louis XV. iii. 11; his imsuccess- 
 ful campaigns against Maria The- 
 resa, 50, 51, 53; treaty of Ver- 
 sailles, 57 ; his visit to Strass- 
 burg, 123.; 
 
 Louis XVI., iii. 156 ; condition of 
 France at his accession, ib. 
 
 Louis Eugene, duke of Wurtem- 
 berg, iii. 203. 
 
 Louis, king of Bavaria, iii. 386. 
 
 Louis Philippe, elected king of the 
 French, iii. 389. 
 
 Louis Napoleon, son of Louis ex- 
 king of Holland, iii. 399. 
 
 Louisa, queen of Frederick William 
 III., iii. 299. 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius, ii. 401. 
 
 Ludolf, son of Otto I., i. 330. 
 
 Lupicinus, Roman governor of 
 Marcianople, i. 125. 
 
 Luther, Martin, ii. 225 ; appears at 
 the diet of Augsburg, 226 ; spread 
 of his opinions, 227 ; condemns 
 the peasant war, 239 ; his mar- 
 riage, 249. 
 
 Lutheran church in Germany, its 
 constitution and discipline, ii. 
 406—409; the Rationalists and 
 Supernaturalists, iii. 425, 426. 
 
 Macdonald, Marshal, iii. 310, 335. 
 
 Macrian, leader of the Catti, i. 111. 
 
 Magdeburg, sack of, ii. 349. 
 
 Magnenlius, his defeat and death, 
 i. 115. 
 
 Magyars, their invasion of Hun- 
 gary, i. 301 ; warlike character, 
 307. 
 
 Mahomet, i. 209. 
 
 Malplaquet, battle of, ii. 529. 
 
 Manfred, son of Frederick II., ii. 
 1 ; heads the Ghibellines, 2 ; his 
 marriage, 3 ; honourable death, 4. 
 
 Mansfold, Count von, ii. 320, 325; 
 his campaigns against Tilly, 332 ; 
 defeated by Wallenstein, 339. 
 
 Manuel, emperor of Constantino- 
 ple, i. 453, 454. 
 
 Marbod, leader of the Suevi, i. 91. 
 
 Marcomanni, war of the, with the 
 Romans, i. 105. 
 
 Margaret of Parma, stadtholderess 
 of the Netherlands, ii. 288, 292. 
 
 Margaretha the Black, i. 551 — 553. 
 
 Margaretha Maultasche, ii. 123, 
 125. 
 
 Maria Theresa, empress of Austria, 
 ii. 518, iii. 9 ; her accession, 49; 
 attacked by Frederick II., cedes 
 Silesia, 50 ; successes against the 
 French, 5 1 ; the seven years' 
 war, 59 — 72 ; protests against 
 the partition of Poland, 83. 
 
 Maria Louisa, marriage of, with 
 Napoleon, iii. 297. 
 
 Marie Antoinette, queen of Louis 
 XVI., iii. 156.
 
 470 
 
 Marius, destroys the Teutones, i. 71. 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of, ii. 511 ; 
 victory of Hochsttidt, 523 ; of 
 Ramilies, 528 ; diplomatic tri- 
 umphs, 529 ; battles of Oudenarde 
 and ISIalplaquet, 529 ; intrigues 
 which caused his dismissal, iii. -1. 
 
 Marriage customs of the ancient 
 Germans, i. 41. 
 
 Martin V., pope, ii. 164 — 176. 
 
 Martinitz, ii. 319, 320. 
 
 Mary of Burgundy, ii. 197 ; her 
 marriage with Maximilian, 200 ; 
 death, 201. 
 
 Masscna, iii. 218; his campaign in 
 Switzerland, 219, 220. 
 
 Matthias, Archduke, the, of Austria, 
 ii. 298—300. 
 
 Matthias Corvinus, king of Hun., 
 gary, ii. 191 ; his treachery to 
 George von Podicbrad, 192, 193; 
 attempts to seize on Bohemia, 
 203. 
 
 Matthias, emperor, ii. 317 — 319. 
 
 Maurice of Saxony, ii. 264, 265 ; 
 his victories and death, 267 — 269. 
 
 Maurice. Landgrave of Hesse Cas- 
 sel, ii. 311. 
 
 Maurice the Strong, Marshal of 
 Saxony, iii. 10, 17, 52. 
 
 Maximilian I., ii. 191, 197; wed- 
 ded to Mary of Burgundy, 200 ; 
 wars with the Flemings, 201 ; 
 proclaimed emperor, 205 ; his al- 
 liances, 206 ; character, 207; con- 
 dition of the empire, 208 ; loses 
 Switzeriand, 210; wars of Venice 
 and Milan, 215 — 218; holds a 
 diet at Augsburg, 226; death, 227. 
 
 Maximilian II., emperor of Ger- 
 many, ii. 277 ; his pernicious and 
 vacillating policy, 277 — 281. 
 
 Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, ii. 
 323, 355 ; iii. 20. 
 
 Maximin the emperor, his slaugh- 
 ter of the Germans, i. 107. 
 
 Mayors of the palace, under the 
 Merovingian kings, i. 213 — 224. 
 
 Mazarin, Cardinal, ii. 465. 
 
 Meinhart von Neuhausz, ii. 175, 
 180, 189. 
 
 Melancthon, Philip, ii. 224, 241 ; 
 draws up the Confession of Augs- 
 burg, 251 ; his death, 283. 
 
 Mellobaudes, second prefect of the 
 Salic Franks, i. 115, 126. 
 
 Merobaudes, the Roman poet, i. 
 143. 
 
 Merovingian sovereigns, the, i. 171 
 —224. 
 
 Merowich, son of Chilperich, i. 196. 
 
 Metternich, Count, iii. 329; his con- 
 ference with Napoleon at Dres- 
 den, 330 ; diplomatic art, 331 ; 
 attends the Congress of Vienna, 
 354; German federative Congress, 
 384; his foreign and domestic 
 policy in the government of Aus- 
 tria, 416. 
 
 Meyer, Mark, commander of tlie 
 forces of Lubeck, ii. 257 — 259. 
 
 Milan, siege of, vmder Frederick 
 Barbarossa, i. 466. 
 
 Minnelieder, or love songs of Ger- 
 many, ii. 56. 
 
 Minnesingers of Germany, ii. 57. 
 
 Miseko, king of Poland, his inva- 
 sion of Saxony, i. 369. 
 
 Mistevoi, prince of the Obotrites, i. 
 .344. 
 
 Mithridates, his contests with the 
 Romans, i. 75. 
 
 Monasteries, their foundation, i. 
 153. 
 
 Montecuculi, General, ii. 467, 468, 
 481—483. 
 
 Montmartin, prime minister of 
 Charles Theodore, duke ofWur- 
 teniberg, iii. 113, 114. 
 
 Moore, Sir John, iii. 300, 303. 
 
 Jloreau, General, commands the 
 forces of the P'rench republic on 
 the Upper Rhine, iii. 189; his 
 skilful retreat, 193; victor}' of 
 Hohenlinden, 223; returns from 
 America, 331. 
 
 Moscow, burning of, iii. 314. 
 
 IMunster, destruction of the Ana- 
 baptists at, ii. 256. 
 
 Miinzer, Thomas, leader of the 
 Anabaptists, ii. 232, 233, 238, 
 243.
 
 INTDEX. 
 
 471 
 
 Murat, created grand-duke of Berg, 
 iii. 234; king of Naples, 255, 345, 
 357, 364. 
 
 Music, cultivation of, in Germany, 
 iii. 144, 145. 
 
 Narses the eunuch, i. 186, 190. 
 
 Nassau, princes of, ii. 292 ; their 
 wars in the Netherlands against 
 Philip II., 293—303. 
 
 Nepomuck, John von, murder of, 
 ii. 142, 143 ; ceremony of his ca- 
 nonization, iii. 16. 
 
 Netherlands, the, their prosperity 
 under Charles V., ii. 287 ; un- 
 constitutional rule of Philip II., 
 289 ; attempt to introduce the 
 Inquisition, 290 ; treachery of 
 the Duke of Alba, 291 ; slaughter 
 of heretics, 293 ; general insur- 
 rection in Holland, 294; naval 
 victories of the Dutch, 295 ; siege 
 of Leyden, 296 ; election of Wil- 
 liam of Orange, ii. ; successes of 
 the Prince of Parma, 300; as- 
 sassination of William of Orange, 
 302 ; siege of Ostend, 304 ; se- 
 paration of the northern and 
 southern states, ib. ; rapid growth 
 of the commerce and population 
 of Holland, 305 ; Maurice of 
 Orange, 306, 307; attempted con- 
 quest of, by Louis XIV., 476 ; 
 campaigns in, during the Spanish 
 war of succession, 518 — 5-30; de- 
 cay of their power and prosperity, 
 iii. 98 ; overrim by the armies of 
 the French republic, 185, 186; 
 annexed to France by Napoleon, 
 295 ; Belgian revolution, 390. 
 
 Ney, Marshal, iii. 224, 231, 243, 
 317, 336, .361, 364. 
 
 Nibelungenlied, i. 138; ii. 57, 58. 
 
 Niclas von Hussinez, a leader of 
 the Hussites, ii. 166 ; defeats the 
 emperor Sigmund, 170. 
 
 Nicolas I., pope, i. 294. 
 
 Nicolas I., emperor of Russia, iii. 
 385 ; his invasion of Persia and 
 Turkey, 386. 
 
 Normans, the, wars of Charlemagne 
 
 with, i. 246; their spread over 
 Europe, 274 ; their incursions in 
 France, 289 ; on the Mediterra- 
 ranean coast, 290. 
 Norwegians, the, early kings of, i. 
 267. 
 
 Odin, worship of, i. 15; govern- 
 ment, 23; ancient ideas of his 
 divinity, 55 ; legendary account 
 of, 261 ; his descendants, 262. 
 
 Odoachar, prince of the Heruli, 
 conquers Rome, and is pro- 
 claimed king of Italy, i. 144; is 
 defeated and put to death by 
 Theodorich the Great, 168. 
 
 Odoin the Brave, i. 259, 279. 
 
 Osiander, Agricola, doctrines of, ii. 
 282, 283. 
 
 Ostend, siege of, ii. 304. 
 
 Otto, duke of Saxony, i. 308. 
 
 Otto I., emperor of Germany, i. 
 322 ; family dissensions of, 324 ; 
 reincorporates Italy with the em- 
 pire, 330—341 ; defeats the Hun- 
 garians, 334; condition of the 
 empire at his death, 341. 
 
 Otto II., his marriage, i. 340; cha- 
 racter, 341 ; his wars in France 
 and Italy, 342, 343 ; narrow 
 escape from the Greeks, 343. 
 
 Otto III., his minority, i. 347, 
 348 ; raises Gregory V. to the 
 popedom, 349 ; opens the tomb 
 of Charlemagne, 351. 
 
 Otto of Nordheim, i. 384, 395— 
 398, 401, 405—407. 
 
 Otto, bishop of Frevsingen, i. 452, 
 454. 
 
 Otto von Wittelsbach, i. 460, 461, 
 465, 477. 
 
 Otto IV., contests the empire with 
 Philip the Gentle, i. 50U; de- 
 feated, 501 ; marries the daugh- 
 ter of Philip, 503; vanquished 
 by Frederick II., 511, 512. 
 
 Otto of Bavaria, i. 529, 545, 549, 
 550. 
 
 Otto of Brandenburg, ii. 76, 79, 83. 
 
 Otto the Welf, of Brunswick, ii. 1 53. 
 
 Otto, king of Greece, iii. 409, 410.
 
 472 
 
 IXDEX. 
 
 Ottocar of Bohemia, his conquest 
 of Austria and Slyiia, ii. 15, IG; 
 subdued and humbled by Rudolf 
 von Ilabsburg, 78 ; his revolt and 
 death, 79. 
 
 Oxenstierna, chancellor of Sweden, 
 ii. 361. 
 
 Pagan superstitions of the ancient 
 
 Germans, i. 51. 
 Paintings, religious, of the middle 
 
 ages, ii. 3S. 
 Pandoif, Prince of Benevento, i. 
 
 339. 
 Pappenheim, General, defeats the 
 
 Upper Austrians, ii. 331 ; slain at 
 
 Lutzen, 359. 
 Paracelsus, ii. 432, 433. 
 Paschasius Radbert, popularity of 
 
 his religious doctrines in the 
 
 middle ages, i. 295. 
 Paul I., emperor of Russia, iii. 216; 
 
 his ambitious projects, 217. 
 Paul IV., pope, ii. 272 ; commences 
 
 a reform of the church, 273. 
 Pavia, battle of, ii. 246. 
 Peasant war, tlie, in Germany, ii. 
 
 236—244. 
 Pescara, commander of Charles V., 
 
 ii. 245, 246. 
 Peter the Hermit, i. 412; heads a 
 
 crusade, 413; its fate, 414. 
 Peter the Great, ii. 5U5 ; his wars 
 
 with Charles XII., 508 — 512; 
 
 extends his empire, 513; league 
 
 with Charles XII., 515. 
 Peter III., emperor of Russia, iii. 
 
 70. 
 Peter de Vineis, chancellor of Fre- 
 derick II., i. 521, 545 ; his trea- 
 chery and death, 555. 
 Peterborough, Lord, commander of 
 
 the English forces in the Spanish 
 
 war of succession, iii. 2, 3. 
 Petrarch, notice of German super- 
 stitions bv, i. 48 ; his appeal to 
 
 Charles IV., ii. 133. 
 Peucer, son-in-law of Melancthon, 
 
 ii. 284, 285. 
 Philip the Gentle, son of Barba- 
 
 rossa, i. 479, 498 ; elected em- 
 
 peror, 500 ; opposed by Otto IV. 
 and Innocent III., 500, 501 ; is 
 slain, 501. 
 
 Philip Augustus, of France, i. 511, 
 551. 
 
 Philip the Handsome, of France, 
 ii. 89, 94 ; endeavours to annex 
 Flanders, 95 ; the battle of 
 Spurs, 97. 
 
 Philip of Burgundy, ii. 151 — 153. 
 
 Philip von Artevelde, leader of the 
 citizens of Ghent, ii. 151, 152. 
 
 Philip the Handsome, son of Max- 
 imilian, ii. 206,212. 
 
 Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, ii. 248, 
 250—252, 254, 265. 
 
 Philip II. of Spain, ii. 271, 273, 
 276 ; drives the Netherlands into 
 revolt, 288—290 ; defeats of his 
 fleets and armies, 294—297; 
 procures the assassination of 
 William of Orange, 301, .302. 
 
 Philip, duke d'Anjou, ii. 518 ; 
 contests the crown of Spain with 
 Charles VI. of Germany, iii. 2, 
 3; seeks to re-annex Italy, 8. 
 
 Philippina Welser, ii. 279. 
 
 Piccolomini, Octavio, ii. 363, 373, 
 383 ; betrays Wallenstein, 365. 
 
 Pichegru, General, iii. 180, 185. 
 
 Pipui von Landen, i. 214. 
 
 Pipin von Heristal, i. 216. 
 
 Pipin the Little, i. 223 ; seizes the 
 Prankish throne, 224; assists 
 the pope against the Lombards, 
 225. 
 
 Pipin, son of Charlemagne, i. 233, 
 244, 259. 
 
 Pipin, son of Louis the Pious, i. 
 2S2— 284. 
 
 Pius VI., pope, iii. 86; visits the 
 emperor Joseph II., 87; mal- 
 treated by the French, 216. 
 
 Pius VII., pope, iii. 294. 
 
 Placidia, sister of Honorius, i. 132, 
 133, 139. 
 
 Podiebrad, George von, ii. 182 ; 
 seizes the government of Bo- 
 hemia, 189 ; raised to the throne, 
 191 ; his victories over the Ca- 
 tholics, and death, 193.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 473 
 
 Poetry, its influence on the northern 
 nations, i. 46 ; religious hymns 
 and poetry of the middle ages, 
 ii. 34 ; chivalric poetry of Swa- 
 bia, 56. 
 
 Polaud, partition of, iii. 81. 
 
 Pompadour, Marchioness of, iii. 52, 
 56, 57. 
 
 Poniatowsky, Prince, iii. 327, 328, 
 342. 
 
 Pragmatic Sanction, the, iii. 9. 
 
 Prague, university of, ii. 159, 160. 
 
 Printing, discovery of, ii. 223. 
 
 Probus, emperor of Rome, i. 108, 
 113, 122. 
 
 Procop Holy, leader of the Tabor- 
 ites, ii. 175—180. 
 
 Prussia, its formation into a king- 
 dom, ii. 506. 
 
 PuUanes, the, i. 450 — 456. 
 
 Radegunda, i. 179. 
 
 Raimund, Count of Toulouse, joins 
 the crusades, i. 415 — 124. 
 
 Ramilies, battle of, ii. 528. 
 
 Rapp, General, iii. 272, 343. 
 
 Rationalists, the, iii. 425. 
 
 Reccared, king of the Visigoths, i. 
 206. 
 
 Reformation, the, ii. 154 — 160; 
 WyclifTe, 154; John Huss, 159— 
 162; Hussite war, 165—180; 
 Zwingli, 233; peasant war, 236 — 
 244 ; embraced by the princes 
 and nobility, 248 ; Confession of 
 Augsburg, 251 ; league of the 
 Protestant princes, 252 ; Calvin, 
 2.54 ; the Anabaptists in Munsler, 
 256; Schmalkald war, 261—268; 
 council of Trident, 263 — 266 ; 
 Catholic reaction, 272 — 276; as- 
 sembly at Naumburg, 275; de- 
 cay of religion among the Pro- 
 testant princes of Germany, 2!sl ; 
 theological parties and Mictions, 
 282—286 ; revolt of the Nether- 
 lands, 286—307; thirty years' 
 war, 31 b — 393 ; internal state of 
 Gennany during the Reformation, 
 398—460. 
 
 Resnar Lodbrok, i. 264. 
 
 Remald de Chatillon, i. 482—484. 
 
 Reinold, archbishop of Cologne, i. 
 466, 468, 469. 
 
 Religious rites of the Northern na- 
 tions, i. 47 — 57. 
 
 Rhabanus Maurus, archbishop of 
 Mavence, i. 295. 
 
 Rhenish alliance, the, iii. 235, 236. 
 
 Richard Cocur de Lion, i. 490 ; his 
 quarrel with Leopold of Austria, 
 490, 491 ; imprisonment, 491 ; 
 ransom, 492. 
 
 Richard of Cornwall, brother of 
 Henry III. of England, i. 542, 
 546 ; obtains by purchase the 
 crown of Germany, ii. 8. 
 
 Richelieu, intrigues of, during the 
 thirty years' war, ii. 335, 344, 
 348, "352, 355, 361, 369, 371, 372, 
 379, 381. 
 
 Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich, iii. 
 436. 
 
 Ricimer, king of the Visigoths, i. 
 143. 
 
 Rienzi, Cola di, ii. 133. 
 
 Robert d'Artois, slain at the battle 
 of Spurs, ii. 98. 
 
 Roderick, king of the Visigoths, i. 
 207; dishonours the daughter of 
 Count Julian, 208; eight days' 
 engagement with the Moors, ib. 
 
 Rohan, Cardinal, bishop of Strass- 
 burg, iii. 122. 
 
 Rokizana, leader of the imperial 
 Hussites, ii. 174—180, 189, 190. 
 
 Roland, peer of Charlemagne, his 
 death at Ronceval, i. 240. 
 
 Rome, its rise, i. 61 ; its strug- 
 gles with the German tribes, 62 ; 
 destroyed by Brennus, 63 ; cam- 
 paigns of .iEmilius, 65 ; Marius, 
 71 ; Cffisar, 77 ; Drusus, 81 ; Va- 
 rus, 84 ; Germanicus, 88 ; Mar- 
 cus Aurelius, 105 ; Maximin, 
 107; Julian the Apostate, 110; 
 Probus, 113; Coustantine the 
 Great, 114; Aurelian, 121 ; Va- 
 lens, 126 ; Theodosius. 127 ; Sti- 
 lico, 128; stormed by Alaric, 130;
 
 474 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 and by Geiserich, 142 ; fall and 
 subjugation of the empire, 144. 
 
 Rome, papal, i. 151 ; occupied by 
 Belisarius, 183 ; origin of the 
 holy Roman empire, 247 ; storm- 
 ing of Rome by Arnulf, 303 ; by 
 Henry IV., 406 ; under Charles 
 de Bourbon, ii. 247. 
 
 Romilda, duchess of Frioul, i. 201. 
 
 Ronceval, slaughter of, i. 241. 
 
 Rosamunda, daughter of Kmii- 
 mund, i. 190. 
 
 Rossbach, battle of, iii. 62. 
 
 Rudolf of Swabia, i. 396 ; endea- 
 vours to supplant Henry IV., 
 401—406 ; slain at Grona, 406. 
 
 Rudolf, Count von Habsburg, ii. 
 20 ; elected emperor by the pope 
 and princes of tlie empire, 75 ; 
 his subserviency, 76 ; reduces 
 the lower nobility to submission, 
 77; humbles Ottocar of Bohe- 
 mia, 77, 78 ; his popularity 
 among the people, 80 ; marriages 
 of his daughters, 77, 79; his po- 
 licy, 77 — 79 ; death, 81 ; anarchy 
 of the empire, 81 — 84. 
 
 Rudolph II., character of, ii. 308 ; 
 deposed, 318. 
 
 Ruisbrock, journey of, to Persia 
 and Tartary, i. 542, ii. 74. 
 
 Runic characters of the ancient 
 Germans, i. 45. 
 
 Rupert, the Pfalzgrave, ii. 147 ; 
 proclaimed emperor, 148 ; be- 
 comes unpopular, 149. 
 
 Russia, its rise and prosperity 
 under Peter the Great, ii. 508 — 
 517. 
 
 Salaheddin, the caliph, i. 482, 
 
 488. 
 Salentin von Ysenburg, ii. 310. 
 Salic law, the, i. 135. 
 Salomon, bishop of Constance, i. 
 
 306,311. 
 Salzburg emigration, the, iii. 33 — 
 
 40. 
 Sarus, the Goth, i. 129, 130, 133. 
 Saxons, the, their origin, i. 116; 
 
 migrations, 117; wars with 
 Charlemagne, 233—239. 
 
 Saxon emperors of Germany, i. 
 312—364. 
 
 Schelling, philosophy of, iii. 432. 
 
 Schill, Ferdinand von, iii. 250,273. 
 
 Schiller, influence of his WTitings, 
 iii. 15.3. 
 
 Schlegel, Frederich, iii. 437, 438. 
 
 Schmalkald war, the, 261—268. 
 
 Schwarzenberg, Prince, iii. 311, 
 318 ; generalissimo of the allied 
 armies against Napoleon, 331. 
 
 Sciences, study of, in the middle 
 ages, ii. 71 — 74. 
 
 Sculpture in the middle ages, ii. 
 38. 
 
 Selvaggia, daughter of Frederick 
 II., i. 544. 
 
 Senones, the, their invasion of 
 Italy, i. 61 ; of Greece and Asia 
 Minor, 64. 
 
 Seven years' war, the, iii. 59 — 72. 
 
 Siagrius, son of .^Egidius, i. 172, 
 173. 
 
 Sicilian Vespers, the, ii. 13. 
 
 Siegfried von Westerburg. archbi- 
 shop of Cologne, ii. 81, 82. 
 
 Siegmund, king of Burgundy, i. 180. 
 
 Sigebert, king of Metz, i. 195, 196. 
 
 Sigmund Jorsalafar, i. 425. 
 
 Sigmund, son of Charles IV., ii. 142 
 — 145, 149, 150 ; elected empe- 
 ror, 155 ; his character, 155, 156; 
 convokes the council of Con- 
 stance, 156; visits Spain, France, 
 and England, 163 ; defeated by 
 the Hussites, 170. 
 
 Sictmund, Count von Dietrichsen, 
 ii. 243. 
 
 Silvanus, i. 115. 
 
 Slavi, their wars of Charlemagne, 
 i. 242—245. 
 
 Slawata, ii. 319, 320. 
 
 Sobieski, John, king of Poland, ii. 
 494, 495. 
 
 Sophia, Duchess of Brabant, ii. 17, 
 18. 
 
 Spanish war of succession, ii. 518 
 —530.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 475 
 
 Speckbaclier, Joseph, a leader in 
 the revolt of the Tyrolese, iii. 
 279 — 293 ; his escape into Aus- 
 tria, 293, 294, 338. 
 
 Spurs, battle of, ii. 97, 98. 
 
 Stanislaus Lescinsky, iii. 9, 11. 
 
 Stedingers, the, criisade against, i. 
 527. 
 
 Stein, minister of Frederick Wil- 
 liam III., iii. 265 ; his legal re- 
 forms, ib. ; founds the Tugen- 
 bund, lb. 
 
 Stilico, commands the Roman 
 armies against Alaric, i. 128, 
 129. 
 
 Strassburg, seizure of, by the 
 French, ii. 490 ; visit of Louis 
 XV. to, iii. 123 ; plundered by 
 the Jacobins, 164. 
 
 Strauss, Dr., iii. 399, 400. 
 
 Struensee, prime minister of Chris- 
 tian VII., iii. 104, 105. 
 
 Sturleson, Snorri, his division of 
 the ancient world, i. 11 ; history 
 of Norway, 270. 
 
 Suatopluk, king of Mora-via, i. 
 288. 
 
 Suatopluk, king of Bohemia, i. 
 427—429. 
 
 Suevi, the, i. 11, 16, 27,31. 
 
 Suleiman II., his invasion of Him- 
 gary and Austria, ii. 250, 253. 
 
 Sunichilda, wife of Charles Mar- 
 tell, i. 222, 223. 
 
 Supematuralists, the, iii. 425. 
 
 Suwarrow, General, his successful 
 campaign against the French in 
 Italy, iii. 219. 
 
 Swedes, the, solemn festival of, i. 
 48 ; early kings of, 266. 
 
 Swiss peasant war, the, ii. 468. 
 
 Switzerland, its condition at the 
 outbreak of the French Revolu- 
 tion, iii. 207 ; overrun and pil- 
 laged by the French, 213 ; revo- 
 lution in 18.30, 395. 
 
 Sylvester II., pope, i. 350. 
 
 Symmachus, bishop, put to death 
 by Theodorich the Great, i. 170. 
 
 Tauorites, the, ii. 167—180, 266. 
 
 Tachulf, Markgraf of Thuringia, i. 
 287. 
 
 Tacitus, on the ancient Germans, i. 
 8, 10, 12, 25, 31, 36,41, 42, 47. 
 
 Taddeo di Suessa, i. 547, 548, 554. 
 
 Talleyrand, iii. 202 ; his intrigues 
 at Rastadt, 202, 203 ; at the 
 Congress of Vienna, 354. 
 
 Tancred, joins the crusades, i. 415 ; 
 becomes Couut of Galilee, 420. 
 
 Tancred, Count of Lecce, i. 495. 
 
 Tartars, incursion of, in Germany, 
 i. 540. 
 
 Tejas, chief of the Ostrogoths, i. 
 186. 
 
 Tetzel, the retailer of indulgences, 
 ii. 221, 225. 
 
 Teutones, irruption of, i. 68; de- 
 stroyed by Marius, 71. 
 
 Thankmar, son of Henry the Fowl- 
 er, i. 324. 
 
 Thassilo, duke of Bavaria, i. 241. 
 
 Theodolinda, queen of the Longo- 
 bardi, i. 192. 
 
 Theodorich, king of the Goths, i. 
 133, 139. 
 _ Theodorich the Great, birth of, i. 
 141 ; succeeds to the Gothic 
 throne, 167; conquers Italy, 168; 
 his able administration, ib. ; wise 
 policy, 169; its frustration, 170; 
 death, ib. 
 
 Theodorich, king of Austrasia, i. 
 178, 179. 
 
 Theodosius the Great, emperor of 
 Rome, his victories over the 
 Goths, i. 127. 
 
 Theuderich, son of Childebert, i. 
 198—200. 
 
 Theuphano, queen of Otto II., i. 
 340, 348. 
 
 Theutelana, i. 199. 
 
 Thirty years' war, commencement 
 of. ii. 320 ; Tilly, 323—354 ; 
 suppression of Protestantism in 
 Bohemia, 325 ; revolt of the Up- 
 per Austrians, 328 ; Pappen- 
 heim,331 ; Count Mansield, 332; 
 Wallenstein, 336 — 366 ; Gusta- 
 vus Adolphus, 345 — 360 ; sack 
 of Magdeburg, 349 ; battle of
 
 476 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Leipzip, 351 ; of Liitzcn, 358; the 
 Heilbronn Confederacy, 361 — 
 364; Bernard von Weimar, 333— 
 380 ; battle of Nocrdlin?;en, 368 ; 
 General Banner, 373—384 ; Tor- 
 stenson, 384 — 388 ; John von 
 Werth, 36 1—391; peaceof West- 
 phalia, 392—397; state of Ger- 
 many at the close of the war, 
 396,"397. 
 
 Th^risniund, king of the Visigoths, 
 i. 140; slain by his brother, 170. 
 
 Tieck, Ludwig, iii. 437. 
 
 Tilly, Count von, ii. 323, 337 ; 
 storming and sack of Magdeburg, 
 349 ; defeated at Leipzig by Gus- 
 tavus Adulphus, 351 ; death, 351. 
 
 Torstenson, general of the Swedes, 
 ii. 386 ; defeats the imperialists 
 at Leipzig, 387 ; his campaign 
 in Denmark, ib. ; advance to 
 Vienna, 338. 
 
 Totilas, king of the Ostrogoths, i. 
 185. 
 
 Tournaments of the middle ages, 
 ii. 53. 
 
 Trident, council of, ii. 263 — 266. 
 
 Tugenbund, the, iii. 265, 308. 
 
 Turenne, ii. 389, 391, 465, 481, 
 482. 
 
 Turks, the, their invasion of Hun- 
 gary and siege of Vienna, ii. 492 
 —497. 
 
 Tyrolese, revolt of the, against Ba- 
 varia and France, iii. 275 ; Hofer, 
 277—293; Speckbacher, 279— 
 293, 
 
 Uldes, prince of the Huns, i. 129. 
 Ulphilas, bishop, Gothic translation 
 
 of the Bible by, i. 125, 146. 
 Ulrich of Ratisbon, i. 447. 
 Urban V., pope, ii. 134. 
 Utrecht, peace of, iii. 5. 
 
 Vadomar, a leader of the Alemanni, 
 
 i. in. 
 
 Valens, emperor of Rome, i. 125, 
 
 126. 
 Valentinian HI., emperor of Rome, 
 
 i. 133, 139, 142. 
 
 Vandals, the, their irruption into 
 Spain, i. 131. 
 
 Van Tromp, Admiral, ii. 474. 
 
 Varingi, or Gothic mercenaries of 
 Rome, i. 126. 
 
 Varus, defeat of the Romans un- 
 der, i. 84. 
 
 Velleda the prophetess, i. 97. 
 
 Vendome, Marshal, ii. 520 — 530. 
 
 Versailles, treaty of, in 1756, iii. 57. 
 
 Victor Amadeus, duke of Savoy, ii. 
 519—530. 
 
 Victoria Ale\andrina, queen of 
 England, iii. 420. 
 
 Vienna, siege of, by the Turks, ii. 
 493 ; its character under Charles 
 VI., iii. 14. 
 
 Villars, Marshal, ii. 498—5-30. 
 
 Villcroi, Marshal, ii. 519, .520, 523. 
 
 Virgin Mary, poetry and legends 
 on, in the middle ages, ii. 34. 
 
 Viticabius, leader of the Alemanni, 
 i. 111. 
 
 Vitigis, king of the Ostrogoths, i. 
 183. 
 
 Voltaire, influence of the writings 
 of, iii. 46 ; intimacy with Fre- 
 derick n., 54. 
 
 Waldamara, widow of Winithar, 
 i. 124. 
 
 Waldemar II., king of Denmark, i. 
 522. 
 
 Walhalla, the, i. 22, 45, 54; de- 
 scription of, 56. 
 
 Walkyren, or celestial women of 
 the ancient Germans, i. 45, 56. 
 
 Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, ii. 
 336 ; his rise, 337 ; victories in 
 Northern Germany, 341 ; his dis- 
 missal, 344 ; second command, 
 356; defeated at LUtzen, 358; 
 his secret negotiations, 364 ; be- 
 trayal and assassination, 365. 
 
 Wallia, king of the Goths, i. 133. 
 
 Walram von Limburg, i. 497. 
 
 Walther Sensavehor, a leader of the 
 crusades, i. 412 — 414. 
 
 Walther, Count de Brienne, i. 498. 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide, the 
 ]\iinnesinger, i. 522, 531, ii. 57.
 
 rS'DEX. 
 
 47' 
 
 Warnefried, Paul, the historian of 
 
 Lombardy, i. 232, 254. 
 Weimar, Bernard von, ii. 333, 355 ; 
 his gallantry at Liitzen, 359 ; 
 succeeds to the command of tlie 
 Protestant army, 360, 361 ; de- 
 feated at Noerdlingen, 369 ; visits 
 Paris, 372 ; campaigns in Bur- 
 gundy and on the Upper Rhine, 
 377, 378; death, 380. 
 Welf of Bavaria, i. 445, 446 ; joins 
 the crusades, 452 ; his return and 
 revolt, 456 ; death, 472. 
 Wellington, Duke of, iii. 300 ; his 
 victories in the Peninsula, 300, 
 346 : Quatrebras and Waterloo, 
 358. 
 Wenzel, king of Bohemia, ii. 88, 
 
 89, 91. 
 Wenzel, emperor of German}', ii. 
 141; his character, 142; inca- 
 pacity, 146, 148; dethroned, 149; 
 retains the crown of Bohemia, 
 149, 155—167. 
 Wergeld of the ancient Germans, 
 
 i. 33. 
 Werner, Count von Homburfr, ii. 
 
 112. 
 Wernherr von StaufiFach, ii. 102. 
 Westphalia, peace of, ii. 393 — 397. 
 William the Conqueror, i. 390 ; his 
 
 invasion of England, 391. 
 William, son of Robert, duke of 
 
 Normandy, i. 440. 
 William the Rude, Count of Hol- 
 land, usurps the empire, i. 550, 
 552 ; driven in contempt from 
 the empire, ii. 5; his wretched 
 end, 6. 
 William of Cologne, his school of 
 
 painting, ii. 39. 
 
 William of Juliers, canon of Ma;s- 
 
 tricht, ii. 97 ; commands the 
 
 Flemings at the battle of Spurs, 
 
 ib. ; honourable death at Mons- 
 
 en-puelle, 99. 
 
 William Tell, story of, ii. 103—105. 
 
 William of Orange, ii. 289 ; his 
 
 flight from the Netherlands, 291 ; 
 
 campaigns against Alba, 293, 
 
 294; elected stadtholder, 296; 
 
 assassinated, 302. 
 William von der Mark, ii.294, 296. 
 William, Prince of Orange, ii. 480 ; 
 
 his accession to the throne of 
 
 England, 499. 
 William, duke of Brunswick, iii. 
 
 274. 
 William, king of Wurtemberg, iii. 
 
 379, 380. .^ 
 
 William, Elector of Hesse Casscl, 
 
 iii. .381. 
 William, Elector of Hesse, iii. 402, 
 
 403. 
 Willigis, archbishop of Mayence, i. 
 
 347. 352. 
 Winithar, prince of the Ostrogoths, 
 
 i. 124. 
 Wittekind, duke of Westphalia, 
 
 his brave resistance to Charle- 
 magne, i. 2.34 — 237 ; submission, 
 
 237 ; death, 239. 
 Wittcnagemot, the, i. 24. 
 Wolen, or prophetesses of the an- 
 cient Germans, i. 44. 
 Worms, diet of, imder Charles V., 
 
 ii. 230. 
 Wrangel, general of the Swedes, 
 
 ii. 388, 390. 
 Wullcnweber, Jurgen, president of 
 
 the Hansa, ii. 257, 258. 
 WyclUle, ii. 155. 
 
 Ziethen, general of the Hussars, 
 under Frederick II., iii. 69. 
 
 Zinzendorf, Count, iii. 55 ; founds 
 the Moravian Brethren, 131, 132. 
 
 Zizka, John, commands the Huss- 
 ites, ii. 166; his war of exter- 
 mination, 171 ; victories over 
 the imperial party, 172 ; death, 
 174. 
 
 Zschokke, servile tendency of his 
 writings, iii. 257, 262, 297. 
 
 Zwingli, Ulric, of Toggeuburg, ii. 
 233—253.
 
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