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+Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Germany, by Mary Platt Parmele
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Short History of Germany
+
+Author: Mary Platt Parmele
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2011 [EBook #34397]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SHORT
+
+HISTORY OF GERMANY
+
+
+BY
+
+MARY PLATT PARMELE
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+1898
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY
+  MARY PLATT PARMELE
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY
+  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+  A SHORT HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
+  A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND
+  A SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE
+  A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY
+  A SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+It is more important to comprehend the forces which have created a
+great nation, and the progressive steps by which it has unfolded, than
+to know the multitudinous events and incidents which have attended such
+unfolding.
+
+In order to forestall criticism for the absence of some events in this
+History of Germany the author desires to say, that there has been an
+effort to keep strictly to the main line of development and to resist
+the temptation of introducing details which do not bear directly upon
+such line.
+
+The bypaths of history are fascinating, but they are of secondary
+importance, and may better be explored after the main road has been
+traveled and is thoroughly known.
+
+Such is the ideal which has been very imperfectly followed in this book.
+
+M. P. P.
+
+NEW YORK, _June_ 21, 1897.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Indo-European Migrations--Divisions of the Aryan Family into European
+Races--The Teutonic Race
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Hermann--Defeat of Varus--Characteristics of the Ancient Germans
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Social Conditions--Form of Government--The Goth in Rome--A Gothic
+Kingdom in Spain--The Teuton Race Covering the European Surface--The
+Angles and Saxons in Britain
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Ulfilas--The Hunnish Invasion--The Roman Empire Perishing--Its
+Conversion--An Eastern Empire--Increasing Power of the
+Church--Charlemagne--France and Germany Separated--Feudal System
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Early Conditions--Hungarian Invasions--Creation of
+Burgs--Knighthood--Pope and Emperor Become Rivals--Henry
+IV.--Canossa--First Hohenstaufen--Welf and Waiblingen--The
+Crusaders--Conrad--Frederick Barbarossa
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Source of Weakness in the Empire--The Great Interregnum--The Nibelungen
+Lied--The Hanseatic League--The Guilds--Meistersingers
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Conditions--First Hapsburg and First Hohenzollern--Swiss
+Freedom--Intellectual Awakening--The Golden Bull--Hussite War--A
+Hohenzollern Receives a Mortgage on the Territory of
+Brandenburg--Discovery of Gunpowder--Conditions Existing under
+Frederick III.--Invention of Printing--The Passing of the Old and
+Coming of the New
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+General European Conditions--Centralizing Tendencies at
+Work--Maximilian I.--A New World--The Rise of Spain--Isabella--Charles
+IV.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Triple Game between Francis I., Henry VIII., and Charles IV.--Leo
+X.--Luther--The Diet of Worms--Protestantism Born--Margrave of
+Brandenburg Usurps Sovereignty over Prussia--The Peasants War--The
+Augsburg Confession--Charles V. Thwarted--Protestantism a Dominant
+Power in his Empire--Schisms in the New
+Faith--Calvinism--Reformers--Lutherans--The Schmalkaldian
+League--Anabaptists--Abdication of Charles V.--Philip II.--Death of
+Charles--Ferdinand I.--Council of Trent--Society of Jesus
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A Protestant Germany--A Divided Protestantism--True Meaning of the
+Struggle--Unfruitful Waiting--The Renaissance--Music, Art, Letters,
+Born Anew--Thought Awakened--Copernicus--Galileo--Kepler--Impending
+Calamity--Protestant Union and Catholic League--Thirty Years' War
+Commenced--Wallenstein--Gustavus Adolphus--His Triumph and
+Death--Richelieu--Death of Wallenstein--Peace of Westphalia--Division
+of Territory
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Romano-Germanic Empire Perishing--European Conditions--Louis
+XIV.--Decay of National Spirit--Rise of Brandenburg--Combination
+against Louis XIV.--Spanish Succession--Under Frederick I. Brandenburg
+Becomes Prussia--Alliance with England--Marlborough and Prince
+Eugene--Blenheim--Peace of Utrecht--Territorial Changes--Charles XII.
+and Peter the Great--Pragmatic Sanction--Frederick William
+I.--Stirrings of Thought in this Time of Chaos--Birth of German
+Speculative Philosophy--Spinoza--Soul Awakening
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Frederick the Great--His Childhood--Von Katte's Execution--Frederick at
+Potsdam--Frederick II., King of Prussia--Maria Theresa, Empress--War of
+Austrian Succession--Silesia--Personal Traits of the Two
+Sovereigns--Frederick Joins France against Austria--Peace of
+Dresden--Frederick Becomes "The Great"--Healing the Wounds Left by Two
+Wars--Voltaire's Influence--Frederick a Reformer and a Despot--Growth
+in Thought and Birth of a Native Literature--Voltaire at Frederick's
+Court--Change Wrought by a Nearer View of King and Poet
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+War over American Boundary between England and France--Maria Theresa
+Joins France--Her Policy--A Combination against Frederick II.--Seven
+Years' War--Peace of Hubertsburg--Silesia Forever Abandoned by
+Austria--Prussia One of the "Five Great Powers"--Healing Wounds
+Again--Conditions External and Internal
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Marie Antoinette Married to the French Dauphin Louis--Unsuspected
+Conditions--Joseph II.--Reforms by a Progressive Hapsburg are a
+Failure--Romanticism Replaces Sentimentalism in Literature--_Sturm und
+Drang_ Period--Luther's Influence upon Letters--Frederick Succeeded by
+his Nephew--Effect of Prussia's Ascendancy in the German Empire--Its
+Coming Dissolution--Why Patriotism Could Not Exist--The Calm before the
+Hurricane
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+The Beginnings of the Storm--The United States of America and
+France--The Thought-Currents Which Moved toward a Vortex--Execution of
+King and Queen--France a Ruin but Free--A Republic--First
+Coalition--Poland and its Partition--Austria Fighting Alone for the
+Empire--Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy--His Methods and Their
+Result--Treaty of Campo Formio--Three New Republics--Napoleon in
+Egypt--His Return--Second Coalition--Dominions of Ecclesiastical Rulers
+Given Away--Napoleon the Instrument of Fate
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Napoleon Emperor of the French--Third Coalition--Prussian
+Neutrality--The Rheinbund--Dissolution of the Empire and Abdication of
+Francis II.--Retribution for Prussia--Battle of Jena--Peace of
+Tilsit--A Continental Blockade--Marriage with Marie Louise
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Revolt of Bavarian Peasants--The "League of Virtue"--Invasion of
+Russia--Burning of Moscow--Retreat--General York Leads a Popular
+Movement--Prussia at War with Napoleon--The Battle of Leipzig--The
+Allies in Paris--Napoleon Deposed--Louis XVIII. King--Return of
+Napoleon--Waterloo and St. Helena
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Reconstruction--The Act of Union--Sentiment of the
+People--Concessions--Francis II. Died--A Republic in France--Blaze of
+Revolutionary Fires in Europe--A National Parliament Granted--Its
+Failure--Napoleon III. in France--Magenta and Solferino--Revolution in
+Italy--Victor Emmanuel King--William I. King of Prussia
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+King William and Bismarck--Schleswig-Holstein--Proposed Division--War
+against Austria--Königgrätz--The North German Union
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Napoleon III. Plans the Overthrow of Prussian Dominion--Vacant Throne
+in Spain--A Hohenzollern Candidate--Benedetti and King William--War
+Declared by France--Metz--Sedan--King William at Versailles--Crowned
+Hereditary Emperor of the German Empire--Death of Emperor William
+I.--Emperor Frederick--His Unfulfilled Dreams and his Death--William
+II. Emperor
+
+
+
+
+A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Foundation building is neither picturesque nor especially interesting,
+but it is indispensable.  However fair the structure is to be, one must
+first lay the rough-hewn stones upon which it is to rest.  It would be
+much pleasanter in this sketch to display at once the minarets and
+towers and stained-glass windows; but that can only be done when one's
+castle is in Spain.
+
+Would we comprehend the Germany of to-day, we must hold firmly in our
+minds an epitome of what it has been, and see vividly the devious path
+of its development through the ages.
+
+The German nation is of ancient lineage, and indeed belongs to the
+royal line of human descent, the Aryan; its ancestral roots running
+back until lost in the heart of Asia, in the mists of antiquity.
+
+The home of the Aryan race is shrouded in mystery, as are the impelling
+causes which sent those successive tides of humanity into Europe.  But
+we know with certainty that when the last great wave spread over
+Eastern Europe, or Russia, about one thousand years before Christ, the
+submergence of that continent was complete.
+
+Before the coming of the Aryan, the Rhine flowed as now; the Alps
+pierced the sky with their glistening peaks as they do to-day; the
+Danube, the Rhône, hurried on, as now, toward the sea.  Was it all a
+beautiful, unpeopled solitude, waiting in silence for the richly
+endowed Asiatic to come and possess it?  Far from it!  It was teeming
+with humanity--if, indeed, we may call such the race which modern
+research and discovery have revealed to us.  It is only within the last
+thirty years that anything whatever has been known of prehistoric man;
+but now we are able to reconstruct him with probable accuracy.  A
+creature bestial in appearance and in life; dwelling in caves, which,
+however, a dawning sense of a higher humanity led him to decorate with
+carvings of birds and fishes; but certain it is, the brain which
+inhabited that skull was incapable of performing the mental processes
+necessary to the simplest form of civilization; and life must have been
+to him simply a thing of fierce appetites and brutal instincts.  Such
+was the being encountered by the Aryan, when he penetrated the
+mysterious land beyond the confines of Greece and Italy.
+
+The extermination, and perhaps, to some extent, assimilation, of this
+terrible race must have required centuries of brutalizing conflict,
+and, it is easy to imagine, would have produced just such men as were
+the northern barbarians who, for five hundred years, terrorized Europe;
+men insensible to fear, terrible, fierce, but with fine instincts for
+civilization--dormant Aryan germs, which quickly developed when brought
+into contact with a superior race.
+
+The earliest Indo-European migration is supposed to have been into
+Greece and Italy, where was laid the basis for the civilization of the
+world.  The second was probably into Western Europe and the British
+Isles; then, after many centuries, the central and last, and at a time
+comparatively recent, into the Eastern portion of the continent.
+
+So, by the fourth century B.C., three great divisions of the Aryan race
+occupied Europe north of Greece and Italy: the Keltic, the western; the
+Teutonic, the central; the Slavonic the eastern; and these, in turn,
+had ramified into new subdivisions or tribes.
+
+To state it as in the pedigree of the individual, the Aryan was the
+founder, the father of the family; Slav, Teuton, and Kelt the three
+sons.  Gaul and Briton were sons of the Kelt; Saxon, Angle, Helvetian,
+etc., sons of the Teuton; and all alike grandchildren of the Aryan;
+whom--to carry the illustration farther--we may imagine to have had
+older children, who long ago had left the paternal home and settled
+about the Caspian and Mediterranean seas: Mede, Persian, Greek, Roman;
+apparently bearing few marks of kinship to these uncouth younger
+brothers whom we have found in Europe in the fourth century B.C., but
+with nevertheless the same cradle and the same ancestral roots.
+
+It is the Teutonic branch of the Aryan family with which we have to do
+now, between whom and their Keltic brothers there flowed the River
+Rhine.
+
+Greece and Rome were unaware of the existence of the Teuton until about
+the year 330 B.C., when Pythias, a Greek navigator, came home from a
+voyage to the Baltic with terrible tales of the Goths whom he had met.
+Nearly one century before Christ the inhabitants of Italy were enabled
+to judge for themselves of the accuracy of the description.  Driven
+from their homes by the inroads of the sea, the Goths poured in a
+hungry torrent down into the tempting vineyards of Northern Italy.
+Gigantic in stature, with long yellow hair, eyes blue but fierce--what
+wonder that the people thought they were scarcely human, and fled
+affrighted, leaving them to enjoy the vineyards at their leisure!
+
+Accounts of this uncanny host reached Rome, which soon knew of their
+breastplates of iron, their helmets crowned with heads of wild beasts,
+their white shields glistening in the sun, and, more terrible than all,
+of their priestesses, clad in white linen, who prophesied and offered
+human sacrifices to their gods.
+
+But the sacrifices did not avail against the legions which the great
+Consul Marius led against them.  The ponderous Goth was not yet a match
+for the finer skill of the Roman, and the invaders were exterminated on
+the plain near Aix, 102 B.C.  The women, in despair, slew first their
+children, then themselves, a few only surviving to be paraded in chains
+at the triumph accorded to Marius on his return to Rome.  Such was the
+first appearance of the Teuton in the Eternal City, and the last until
+five hundred years later, when the conditions were changed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+At the time of this first invasion the German race was divided into
+tribes with no affinity for each other, who were indeed much of the
+time in fierce conflict among themselves.  One of these tribes, called
+the Cherusci, occupied the southern part of what is now Hanover.  Their
+chief, Hermann, had in his youth been taken to Rome as a hostage, and
+there had been educated.
+
+Hermann was the first to dream of German unity.  While the infant
+Christ was growing into boyhood in Palestine, this Hermann was studying
+Latin and history at Rome; and as he read he pondered.  He found that
+the Romans had achieved such tremendous power by _combination_.  If his
+people would unite and stand as one nation before the world, why might
+not they too become great?  These Romans were pleasure-loving and
+vicious.  His Germans in their rude homes were just and true.  They did
+not laugh at vice; they were rough, but simple and sincere; love bound
+the father and mother and children closely together.  The idea of
+German unity took possession of Hermann.  He resolved to devote his
+life to its accomplishment, and to return to his country and try to
+inspire his race with a sense of common brotherhood, and a
+comprehensive patriotism.
+
+Julius Cæsar, the great Roman general, was governor of Gaul, and with
+one eye fixed on Britain and another on Germany was steadily bringing
+Europe into subjection to Rome.
+
+The task of subduing the stubborn Teutons was given by Augustus to
+Varus, a trusted general.  In the year 9 A.D., Varus had arrived with
+his great army in the heart of Germany.  Little suspecting the plans
+and purposes surging in the young man's brain, he leaned upon Hermann,
+whom he had known in Rome, as his guide and counselor in a new and
+strange land.
+
+Unsuspectingly he marched with his heavily armed legions, as if for a
+holiday excursion, into the fastnesses of the Teutoberger Forest, into
+which Hermann led him.
+
+When fairly entangled in the dense wood, surrounded by morasses and wet
+marshes instead of roads, suddenly there was a thundering war-cry, and
+barbarians swarmed down upon him from all sides.  Hundreds who escaped
+the rain of arrows were lost in the morasses.  It was not a question of
+victory, but of escape, for the entrapped and heavily armed legions.
+Only a handful returned to tell the story, and Varus, unable to bear
+his disgrace, threw himself upon his sword.
+
+The great Emperor Augustus clothed himself in mourning, let his beard
+and hair grow, and cried in the bitterness of his soul, "Varus, Varus,
+give me back my legions!"
+
+But Hermann, like many another hero, was not comprehended by the people
+he wished to inspire.  He had arrested the tide of Roman conquest in
+Germany.  How was he rewarded?  His people could not understand his
+dream of unity.  Should they be friends with the Cimbri and Suevi, who
+were their enemies?  They suspected his motives.  There were intrigues
+for his downfall.  His adored wife, Thusnelda, and his child were
+delivered to the Romans and graced a triumph at Rome, and when only
+thirty-seven years old, the first heroic character in the history of
+Germany was assassinated by his own people.
+
+Our Saxon ancestors, four centuries later, made the British Isles echo
+with the songs in which they chanted the praises of this "War Man,"
+this "Man of Hosts," who was the "Deliverer of Germany."  Hermann had
+not consolidated his people, but he had arrested their conquest and
+subjugation by the Romans.  Many, many centuries were to roll away
+before his dream of unity was to be realized.
+
+What sort of people were these ancient Germans, for whom Hermann hoped
+so much almost nineteen hundred years ago?
+
+They were pagan barbarians, without one gleam of civilization to
+illumine the twilight of their existence.  They had no art, no
+literature, nor even an alphabet.  They were fierce and cruel; but they
+had simple, uncorrupted hearts.  They were brave, truthful, hospitable,
+romantic, with instincts singularly just, and a passion for the
+mysterious realities of an unseen world.  War and hunting were their
+pursuits, the family and domestic ties were strong and abiding, and
+over all else, religion was supreme.
+
+Like their Scandinavian kinsmen, they worshiped the gods of their
+ancient Aryan ancestors in sacred groves; and offered sacrifices,
+sometimes human, to _Wotan_, and _Donar_, or _Thor_, the Thunderer, for
+whom they named Thursday, Thorsday, or _Donners-tag_, and in honor of
+one of their goddesses, _Freyja_, another was called Frei-tag, or
+Friday.  The decrees of fate were read in the flights of birds, or
+heard in the neighing of wild horses, and then interpreted to the
+people by priestesses, who, clad in snow-white robes, presided also at
+the terrible sacrifices.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+During the three centuries after Hermann had arrested the flood of
+Roman conquest, a civilization of the simplest sort was slowly
+developing in Germany, where society was divided into the _free_ and
+the _unfree_ classes.
+
+The tribes in the south differed greatly from those in the north.  They
+had no settled homes, nor ownership in land.  This was divided among
+them every year by lot; one-half of the people remaining yearly at home
+to till the soil, and the other half giving their entire time to the
+wars which were as perennial as the growing crops of grain.
+
+In the north, however, where lived the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon
+race, conditions very different prevailed.  There the lands were
+bestowed in perpetuity upon the most powerful members of the tribes,
+and by them handed down to their sons.  The unfree class tilled the
+soil, and were thus the serfs of a ruling class, and only freemen could
+bear arms.
+
+There were no cities in ancient Germany, only villages which were
+composed of rude huts.  A collection of these villages formed a group
+which was called a _Hundred_.  Every Hundred had its chief, who was
+elected by the people; and the one chosen by the combined will of all
+these Hundreds was the chief or King of the tribe.
+
+The chiefs of the Hundreds formed a sort of advisory council to the
+King or tribal chief.  But supreme over the will of these chiefs and
+their King was the will of the people.  Every village had its _meetings
+of the people_, which all freemen were entitled to attend.  The real
+governing power lay in these meetings, to which both chiefs of the
+Hundreds and the King were compelled to defer.
+
+Was a new King to be elected, or were there grave questions concerning
+wars to be considered--they were discussed in advance by the chiefs and
+the King.  But the ultimate decision lay with the people themselves; a
+general meeting of the whole tribe being required to elect a new King;
+the people clashing their arms in token of approval, or shouting their
+dissent.
+
+As all freemen bore arms, there was no distinct military organization.
+Every man held himself ready at any moment to respond to a call, and
+the army was the people!
+
+About the middle of the third century, numerous small German tribes
+became united into large confederacies.  Conspicuous among these were
+the Allemani, the Franks, the Saxons, and the Goths.
+
+The Allemani, in the south of Germany, it is said were so called
+because of the fact that _all men_ held the land in common.  If this be
+so, then the French name for Germany is essentially communistic, and it
+is not strange that communism has always found a congenial soil in that
+land.
+
+The Franks occupied the banks of the Rhine and of the river Saal.  The
+Saxons were spread over North Germany, and the Goths, on both sides of
+the river Dnieper, were divided into the Ostro-Goths and the Visi-Goths
+(or the East and West Goths).
+
+It was these Visigoths under Alaric who inflicted the deadliest blows
+upon the Roman Empire.  The sacking of Rome in 410, and the
+establishing of a Gothic kingdom in Spain, shook the very foundations
+of that power.  Then the legions could no longer be spared in distant
+Britain, which was left to its fate.  And that fate was of deepest
+import to us!  The Saxons and the Angles overflowed and absorbed the
+land, and Keltic Britain was Teutonized.
+
+So this untamed and untamable Teuton was being spread, like some coarse
+but renovating element, over the surface of old Europe.  And with the
+occupation of Gaul by the Franks in 481, and the annexing of France to
+the Frankish kingdom under Clovis, the process was complete.
+
+
+I cannot resist the temptation of saying a few words about the
+Anglo-Saxon occupation of Britain, which, as it virtually converted us
+from Kelts into Teutons, is not a digression.
+
+From the time of Julius Cæsar the island of Britain had been occupied
+by the Romans, and in consequence had become partly civilized and
+Christianized.  Upon the fall of the empire, the Roman legions were
+withdrawn, and the people, left defenseless, became the prey of their
+own northern barbarians, the Picts and Scots; the drama of Southern
+Europe and the Goths being re-enacted on a diminished scale.  In the
+fourth century the Britons implored the Angles and Saxons to come and
+protect them from these savages.  Invited as allies, they came as
+invaders, and remained as conquerors, implanting their habits, speech,
+and paganism upon the prostrate island.  It was the extermination of
+this exotic paganism which impelled to those deeds of valor recited in
+the Round Table romances, and which made King Arthur and his knights
+the theme of poet and minstrel for centuries.
+
+But the Saxon had come to stay, and Teuton and Kelt became merged, much
+as do the lion and lamb, after the former has dined!  The Teutonic
+Saxon may be said to have dined on the Keltic Briton, and remained
+master of the island until the Normans came, six centuries later, and
+in turn dominated, and made him bear the yoke of servitude.
+
+Nor was this French-speaking Norman French at all, except by adoption;
+being, in fact, the terrible Northman of two centuries before, on
+account of whose ravages the noble had intrenched himself in his strong
+castle, and the wretched serf had in mortal terror sold himself and all
+that he possessed, for the protection of its solid walls and moat; and
+thus had been laid the foundations of feudalism.  He it was who, with
+longhair reeking with rancid oil, battle-ax, spear, and iron hook--with
+which to capture human and other prey--had held France in a state of
+unspeakable terror for centuries, but who had finally settled down as a
+respectable French citizen in the sea-board province of Normandy, and
+in two centuries had made such wonderful improvement in manners,
+apparel, and speech that the simple Saxon baron stood abashed before
+the splendid refinements of his conquerors.
+
+The origin of this mysterious Northman is unknown; but whatever it was,
+or whoever he was, he certainly possessed Aryan germs of high potency.
+
+So the Saxon had built the solid walls of the racial structure upon a
+foundation of Britons; and, though with no thought for beauty, had
+built well, with strong, true structural lines.  It was the Norman who
+finished and decorated the structure, but he did not alter one of these
+lines; the speech, traits, institutions, and habits of England being at
+the core Saxon to-day, while there is a decorative surface only of
+Norman.
+
+So when the Englishman calls himself, with swelling pride, a Briton, he
+speaks wide of the mark.  The Keltic Briton was buried fathoms deep
+under seven centuries of Saxon rule, and then, to make the extinction
+more complete, was overlaid with this brilliant lacquer of Norman
+surface.  And if that mixed product, the English people, have any race
+paternity, it is Teutonic, and herein may lie the impossibility of
+making the English and Irish a homogeneous people--the English Teuton
+and Irish Kelt being in the nature of things antagonistic, the
+particles refuse to combine chemically, and can only be brought
+together (to use the language of the chemist) in mechanical mixture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Among the German tribes it was the Goths who had first come under the
+civilizing influence of the Christian religion.
+
+As some winged seed is wafted from a fair garden into a dark, distant
+forest, and there takes root and blossoms, so was the seed-germ of
+Christianity caught by the wind of destiny, and carried from Palestine
+to the heart of pagan Germany, where, strange to say, it found
+congenial soil.
+
+The story is a romantic one.  A Christian boy in Asia Minor, while
+straying on the shores of the Mediterranean, was captured by some
+Goths, who took their fair-haired prize home to their own land, and
+named him Ulfilas.
+
+The boy, with his heart all aflame for the religion in which he had
+been nurtured, told his captors the story of Calvary--of Christ and his
+gospel of peace and love; and lived to see the terrible sacrificial
+altars replaced by the Cross.
+
+The Goths had no alphabet, so Ulfilas invented one, and then translated
+the Bible into their rude speech.  A part of this translation is now
+preserved in Sweden and is the earliest extant specimen of the Gothic
+language.  This Gothic version of the Lord's Prayer, written by Ulfilas
+more than fifteen centuries ago, bears such close resemblance to the
+German and English versions that it can be easily read by us to-day;
+and makes us realize our own near kinship to those simple barbarians of
+the fourth century.
+
+In the year 375, thirty-five years before the sacking of Rome, from the
+vast plains lying between Russia and China there had poured into Europe
+a terrible race of beings called Huns.  They seemed more like demons
+than men.  Insensible alike to fear, to hunger, thirst, or cold, they
+appeased their ferocious appetites upon wild roots and raw meat.  These
+hideous men ate, drank, and slept on horseback, their no less hideous
+wives and children following them in wagons, as they ravaged through
+the Continent of Europe.
+
+The Huns, under the leadership of Attila, swept everything before them;
+leaving a track of blood and ashes through Germany.
+
+The Goths deserted their lands and homes on account of this brutish
+invasion and pressed down into Italy and Southern Gaul; the Ostro-Goths
+(or East Goths) becoming in time masters of Italy under King Theodoric,
+while the Visigoths (or West Goths), who were already in Southern Gaul,
+had overflowed the Pyrenees and established a Gothic empire in Spain
+(or Hispania, as it was then called).
+
+It was not alone the Goths who were swept before Attila and his Hunnish
+hosts.  The Vandals, the Burgundians, the Longobards were carried by
+the same tide into Southern Europe; the Vandals thence into northern
+Africa; while the Slavs from the northeast in turn pressed down after
+them, and, like the waters of the sea, occupied the lands which they
+had deserted.
+
+So this Hunnish invasion was a tremendous upturning force--in itself
+bearing no relation to the future result more than the plow to the
+future grain; but it was a terrible instrument, used in bringing the
+German race into contact with higher civilizations, where, in the
+alchemy of time, they were destined to survive not as a nation, but
+rather as an element, and where, in the great creative processes, they
+were intended to re-enforce the decaying races of Southern Europe with
+their rude but uncorrupted vitality.
+
+Of the Huns themselves nothing remained in Europe after the defeat of
+Attila, excepting in Dacia, over which they had permanently spread, and
+which was later called Hungary.
+
+During this process of re-creating the old races of Southern Europe,
+the Roman Empire was perishing.  Its conversion to Christianity in the
+fourth century, under Constantine, was too late to save it.  For three
+hundred years pagan Rome had been drenching the soil of Southern Europe
+with the blood of Christians.  Then this zealous new convert not only
+espoused the religion of Christ, but determined by her Church Councils
+what that religion meant and what it did not mean, and made fierce war
+upon heretics like the Gothic Christians, who knew nothing about these
+strange doctrines of which Ulfilas had not told them, nor concerning
+which did their simple Gothic Bible say one word!  (A conflict between
+_Trinitarianism_ and _Arianism_.)
+
+The Roman Empire was the "_Holy_ Roman Empire," now.  When Constantine
+removed his capital to Byzantium, it required two Emperors, an Eastern
+and a Western, to govern the crumbling mass.  But as the temporal power
+declined, there was at Rome a new and spiritual kingdom which was
+expanding and claiming an empire over all Christendom.  The Bishops of
+Rome had become Popes.  Gaul or France was now governed by the German
+Franks.  And the Frankish Kings in France, and the Visigoth Kings in
+Spain, and Christians everywhere must bow to the will of the Pope.
+
+But the Roman Emperors were becoming less and less able to protect
+their dominions.  The Teuton Lombards had overrun Italy, and at last
+the lowest point of degradation seemed to be reached, when the Imperial
+Crown at Byzantium was grasped by Irene, who deposed and blinded her
+own son in order to reach the throne once occupied by Augustus.
+
+Who could be more fit to fill this august position at the head of
+Christendom than Charlemagne, the great conqueror of men and defender
+of the Holy Faith?
+
+The coronation of Charlemagne, King of France and Germany, at Rome, in
+the year 800, was a revolt of the West against the sluggard Emperors at
+Byzantium; just as his father Pepin's had been, fifty years before, a
+revolt against the sluggard Kings of France.
+
+Not for 800 years had there been such a commanding personality on the
+earth; not since Cæsar hurled his legions into Gaul and Britain had
+there been such a display of military genius and valor, and perhaps
+never before such a breadth of intelligence in controlling a vast and
+heterogeneous empire.
+
+Thenceforth, Charlemagne and his successors (when crowned by the Pope)
+were the successors of the Cæsars and the temporal heads of the Holy
+Roman Empire.  Excepting in name the once great empire had ceased to be
+Roman.  The rude barbarian race which, in the time of Julius Cæsar, was
+buried in the forests of Central Europe, was at the head of
+Christendom; and under Charlemagne, a map of the German Empire was a
+map of Europe.
+
+Charlemagne acknowledged the Pope who crowned him as his spiritual
+sovereign, while, on the other hand, the Pope bowed before the Emperor
+who appointed him as his temporal sovereign.  It was a magnificent,
+all-embracing scheme of empire, of which the spiritual head was at
+Rome, and the temporal at Aix-la-Chapelle.
+
+It seemed as if, by this dual supremacy, Charlemagne had provided for
+all possible exigencies of human government.  He rested content, no
+doubt thinking he had embodied a perfect ideal in creating a system
+which should thus co-ordinate and embrace both the spiritual and
+temporal needs of an empire.  But as soon as his controlling hand was
+removed unexpected dangers assailed his work.
+
+In less than fifty years from his coronation his three grandsons had
+quarreled and torn the empire into as many parts.  With this event
+France commenced a separate existence as a kingdom and the Imperial
+title belonged alone to Germany (treaty of Verdun, 843).
+
+It was the strong, rough arm of the Goth which had hammered in pieces
+the Roman Empire and brought these tremendous results for the Teuton
+race; but it was the Frank which had survived as the governing power.
+
+These Franks established a new system of land tenure, which combined
+the two opposing systems prevailing in North and South Germany.  They
+proclaimed that the land belonged to the Crown.  But the Crown, upon
+certain conditions, bestowed it upon landholders who were called
+barons.  These barons might hold their land from generation to
+generation, so long as these conditions were fulfilled.  They, in like
+manner, parceled out their lands into farms, which were held by the
+class below them upon like conditions of submission and fealty to them.
+The people bound themselves to furnish military service and food, and
+to work for their barons a specified number of days in the year, and to
+receive in return a certain protection, and a refuge within the castle
+of their chief.  The baron was responsible to the count who was his
+superior, and the count to the King.
+
+This was the feudal system, which was a net-work of reciprocal duties.
+No man, be he peasant or count, could call anything his own unless he
+discharged his obligations and responsibilities.
+
+The system met great opposition for a time in South Germany; especially
+from Welf, Count of Bavaria, from whom the historic Guelphs are
+descended.  But it survived, as we know, increasing in oppressive
+weight and rigidity, until for centuries it crushed the life out of
+Europe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+One century after Charlemagne, the kingship of Germany ceased to be
+hereditary.  The great nobles, or vassals as they were called, elected
+the King, who was crowned at Aix.  And then, after the Pope had crowned
+him at Rome (but not until then), he was also King of Italy and Emperor
+of the Holy Roman Empire.
+
+The condition of Germany was at this time very disordered.  There were
+jealousies and conflicts between the various states composing it and
+incessant incursions from those troublesome neighbors, the Magyars or
+Hungarians, the Turanian people on their southeast border.  This latter
+led to an important phase in the development of Germany.  Henry I.,
+father of King Otto the Great, in 924 offered these Hungarians a large
+yearly tribute if they would cease to annoy his country.  For nine
+years the tribute was paid.  The Germans in the meantime were busily
+engaged in building fortresses on their frontier, and walled cities
+throughout the land.  These were called _burgs_, and were placed under
+the command of counts, who were called _Burgraves_.
+
+So, in the tenth year, when the Hungarians insolently demanded their
+tribute, Henry threw a dead dog at their messengers' feet, and told
+them that was his tribute in the future.
+
+The Hungarians in a fury poured into Germany.  But--lo! instead of
+collections of helpless villages lying at their mercy, there were
+walled towns which defied all their efforts to capture, and after some
+futile attempts the Hungarians troubled Germany no more.
+
+Another important development of this period was an eventful one for
+Europe.  There was a large class of young men, younger sons of nobles,
+for whom there was no suitable classification.  They were proud and by
+necessity were idle.
+
+This same Saxon King Henry invited these young men to serve the empire
+in a new and peculiar way.  They must be men of honor and truth; they
+must be devoted and loyal to the Holy Roman Empire; never have injured
+a weak woman nor run away in battle; they must be gentle and courteous
+and brave, and faithful to the Church.
+
+The men who could take these oaths and make these pledges were called
+knights, or _Knechts_, servants of the King.  Thus was created the
+order of knighthood, which quickly spread over Europe.
+
+The great Charlemagne, in accepting the crown of the Holy Roman Empire
+in 800, unconsciously inflicted a deep injury upon the future Germany.
+That glittering bauble, the crown of the Cæsars, was very costly, and
+retarded the development of Germany for centuries.
+
+That country needed all her resources and energies at home, to solidify
+and develop a great nation during its formative period.
+
+Instead of that, for seven hundred years the ambitions of the Kings of
+Germany were diverted from what should have been their first care--the
+unity and prosperity of their own nation; and were chasing a
+phantom--the re-establishment of the great old empire, with Rome as its
+heart and center.
+
+Another mistake made by Charlemagne was far-reaching in its
+consequences.
+
+He little suspected the nature and the latent power existing in that
+spiritual kingdom with which he formed so close an alliance.  He feared
+not the Church, but the ambitious and scheming nobles.  So, in order to
+create a friendly bulwark about the throne, he made some of the
+archbishops and bishops secular princes, and bestowed upon them
+dominions over which they might reign as sovereigns.
+
+The Church, which had not been growing any too spiritual since it was
+adopted by Rome, was more and more secularized when it had Primates
+ravenous for wealth and power.
+
+The Pope and Emperor, instead of close allies as Charlemagne had
+intended, had finally become jealous and angry rivals.  In the open
+warfare which in time developed two political parties came into
+being--the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, which represented the adherents
+of the Pope and the Emperor.
+
+It was a part of the settled policy of the Popes to stir up strife in
+Italy, and thus, by compelling the Emperor to pour his revenues and his
+energies into that land, to weaken and undermine him at home.
+
+For the first five hundred years of its existence the Church had been
+governed by the bishops of Rome.  In the next five hundred years these
+bishops had grown into Popes, who were the spiritual heads of
+Christendom.  As the Church was entering upon its third
+five-hundred-year lease in the year 1073, the miter was worn by the
+fiery monk, Hildebrand, who had become Gregory VII.  This man resolved
+to establish the supremacy of the Church over the secular arm of the
+government.  As a weak Emperor wore the Imperial crown, the time was
+favorable for claiming a religious empire existing by divine right, and
+superior to the will of kings and emperors.
+
+In the conflict which followed Henry IV. deposed the Pope--this
+creature of his own appointing, who would override the authority of the
+power which had created him!  And as a counter-move the Pope
+excommunicated the Emperor.
+
+Had Henry stood his ground as he might, for he would have had ample
+support from his people, it would have been a gain of centuries for
+Europe..  But the ban of excommunication, with its attendant horrors
+here, and still worse hereafter--it was more than he could bear.
+Affrighted, trembling, penitent, he crossed the Alps in dead of winter,
+crept to the castle of Canossa, near Parma, where Hildebrand had taken
+refuge; and there this successor to Charlemagne, this ruler of all
+Christendom, standing barefoot and clad in sackcloth shirt, humbly
+begged admittance.  The Pope's triumph was complete.  So he let him
+shiver for three days in cold and rain before he opened the gates and
+gave him forgiveness and the kiss of peace.
+
+The Church had never scored so tremendous a victory.  She was supreme
+over every earthly authority, and the hands on the face of time were
+set back for centuries.  Let Guelph and Ghibelline storm and struggle
+as they might, there was no question of supremacy now between temporal
+and spiritual heads.  All the lines of power, all the threads of human
+destiny led to Rome, and were found at last in the papal hand.
+
+In the three centuries of its existence the empire had been ruled first
+by Frank, and then by Saxon emperors.  But the eventful visit to
+Canossa led to a new dynasty, the Swabian.  When that humiliated
+monarch, Henry IV., crossed the Alps in midwinter, when Europe's
+mightiest prince stood woolen-frocked and barefoot upon the snow for
+three days, humbly entreating forgiveness, there was one knight who
+attended him with marked fidelity.  This was Frederick of Büren, and
+verily he had his reward!  The Emperor created him Duke of Swabia, and
+bestowed upon him his daughter Agnes as his wife.
+
+The Duke of Swabia then built himself a castle on a high plateau of
+land called Hohenstaufen.  But this fortunate duke had also another
+great estate called Waiblingen.  So he was Frederick of Hohenstaufen,
+and of Waiblingen as well.  The last name had a very conspicuous
+destiny awaiting it.
+
+The dukes of Bavaria had been a great power in Germany, ever since that
+first stormy Welf, who tried to put down the new-fangled system of
+land-tenure which we know as feudalism!
+
+These Welfs were evidently not progressive; they seem in fact to have
+been the Tories of ancient Germany.  And when Conrad, grandson of
+Frederick, the first Hohenstaufen, was elected King of Germany, there
+was a very stormy time.  The people divided into two factions: the
+adherents of the new dynasty and the Emperor in the one, and the
+malcontents who were led by Welf, Duke of Bavaria, in the other.  As
+hostility to the Emperor meant friendship with the Pope, this party of
+the Welfs was also that of the papal faction.
+
+The tongue of the Italian could not master the two words Welf and
+Waiblingen; which, as they became fastened upon the two political
+factions in Italy, were changed to Guelph and Ghibelline.
+
+The Waiblingen family long ago disappeared.  But the ancient name of
+Welf is represented to-day by the gracious Queen of England.
+
+The party of the Guelphs in Germany was that of disaffected dukes and
+nobles, who from personal or other reasons desired to embarrass the
+Emperor, even to the extent of an alliance with his enemy the Pope.
+
+The Ghibellines expressed the anti-papal sentiment of the people, among
+whom there was a growing dread and hatred of Romish power, and the time
+was approaching when Teutonic patriotism would mean resistance to
+Italian priestcraft.
+
+While this antagonism was developing, the most stupendous event in all
+history was taking place in Europe.  The Christian conscience--more
+sensitive than it is to-day--had been roused to a frenzy of indignation
+by Mahomedan outrages in the Holy Land.  That first "European Concert"
+had been formed to drive the Mahomedan out of the land, where a concert
+of Europe is striving to keep him undisturbed to-day!
+
+This time of a great religious war was not favorable for an anti-papal
+policy in Germany.  Conrad allowed himself to be swept into the
+current.  He headed a great Crusade in the year 1147.
+
+Not one tithe of his vast host ever reached the Holy Land.  They melted
+like the dew before disease, starvation, and the sword of the Moslems
+in Asia Minor.
+
+When the despondent Conrad returned to Germany he brought back one
+lasting memorial of his ill-fated Crusade.  He had seen at
+Constantinople, on the Imperial standard of the Byzantine Emperor, a
+double-headed eagle.  This representation of a double empire he
+determined to adopt for the emblem of his own, and hence it is that it
+exists to-day on the Austrian standard, and upon the coins of Germany
+and Austria.
+
+It was well for Germany that, while she was thus torn and distracted by
+contending political factions, and while her life blood was being
+drained into Italy, Frederick I., or Barbarossa (1152), came to hold
+the reins of government as they had not been held since Charlemagne.
+
+This great Hohenstaufen threw his lion-like weight into the controversy
+concerning Papal and Imperial supremacy.  He spurned the pretensions of
+the Pope and his encroachments upon secular authority.
+
+He claimed that his office was from God--not from the Pope; and that it
+was not a whit less sacred than his rival's.  To which the Pope
+replied: "Who was the Frank before Pope Zacharias befriended Pepin? and
+what is the Teutonic King now, till consecrated by papal hands?  What
+he gives, can he not withdraw?"
+
+But the Imperial power never reached such height as under this
+imperious, commanding Teuton; who exists now as a half-mythic hero,
+honored in picture, statue, song, and legend throughout Germany.  His
+reign was a splendid fight against the two antagonists which were
+finally to be fatal to the Empire--Italian nationality and the Papacy.
+
+The knighthood established by his Saxon predecessor, in 930, had during
+the Crusades expanded into great orders of chivalry throughout Europe.
+Frederick Barbarossa fostered and brought the chivalry of Germany to
+great splendor.
+
+He also brought to an end the long and destructive feud between the
+Welfs and the Waiblingers, pacifying the former by bestowing upon them
+the territory of Brunswick; to which fact England owes her present
+Queen, who is a daughter of the house of Brunswick.
+
+For many centuries the people believed the legend that their hero had
+not died in Palestine; but they pointed to the mouth of a great cavern
+on the frowning heights of the Kyfhäuser mountain, where he was said to
+be surrounded by his knights in an enchanted sleep; waiting the hour
+when he should awaken and descend with his Crusaders, to bring back a
+golden age of peace and unity to Germany!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+There are three conditions in national life of which all nations more
+or less partake.  One is where the elements combine with a tendency
+toward organic development; another, where these elements fall apart
+with a tendency toward disintegration; and still another, where all
+processes, constructive and destructive, are arrested as in a crystal.
+The United States, the Ottoman Empire, and China illustrate these three
+conditions to-day.
+
+The Teuton, who had been such a powerful element in renovating other
+European nations, had thus far seemed incapable of consolidating his
+own national life when left to himself.  The tendency was steadily
+toward disintegration rather than growth.
+
+This was not alone because the strength of the Teutonic kingdom was
+wasted in pursuit of that glittering toy bestowed by the Pope; but on
+account of internal strifes and rivalries which employed the hostile
+schemes of the Roman Pontiff for their own ends and purposes.
+
+The rivalry with the Pope, in itself a destructive element, was made
+still more destructive when it was thus used by disaffected dukes as a
+means of annoying and circumventing Emperors whom they disliked.
+
+A Frederick Barbarossa might arrest these processes for a time.  But
+one century later the ruin was complete.
+
+Frederick II., the last of the Hohenstaufens, died, leaving an empty
+throne and a broken and shattered empire.  It was destined to rise
+again and to wear the name and trappings of its former greatness, but,
+crippled and degraded, to be in reality a mere shadow and semblance of
+what it had once aspired to be--the head of the world.
+
+A period of twenty years then followed, known as the "Great
+Interregnum."  A time when there was no King nor Emperor; when robbery
+and brigandage became the employment of needy knights, and when great
+barons made war upon and waylaid each other on the highways.
+
+It was a time of strange chaos and darkness.  And yet this period,
+apparently so unfavorable to growth, brought forth two of the most
+pregnant events in the history of Germany.  These were the creation of
+the Hanseatic League and the birth of German literature.  The one laid
+the foundation of a real national life in which the people should
+participate; while the other gave expression to the romantic ideals of
+a hitherto silent race.
+
+The great German epic, which is the Iliad of the Middle Ages, was
+produced at this darkest hour in the history of Germany.  The
+Nibelungen Lied deals with the colossal crimes, loves, and sorrows of
+Burgundian kings and princesses at the time of the Hunnish invasion.
+And it has been the good fortune of Germany, six hundred years later,
+to have a son (Richard Wagner) who has clothed that great epic in music
+which matches it in heroic dignity and splendor.
+
+The other event was of deeper import than this.  The burgs, or cities,
+which were created as a defense against the Hungarians, had become busy
+centers of manufacture and trade, and to some extent of learning.  Many
+of them had been made free cities.  That is, they were under the direct
+control of the Emperors instead of the hereditary nobles as at first.
+These cities enjoyed especial privileges and immunities which drew to
+them population and prosperity.  The true policy for German Emperors,
+harassed by Italian intrigues and at war with their own archbishops and
+disaffected nobles, would have been to form close alliance with these
+free cities, and make friends of their burghers and guilds.
+
+When there was no king, no ruler in the land, when robbery ran riot so
+that traveling was impossible, two cities, Hamburg and Lubeck, agreed
+together to keep order in their neighborhood.  Then Brunswick and
+Bremen joined; and at last over a hundred towns had combined together
+in what was called the "Hanseatic League."
+
+This Confederacy became the mightiest power in the North of Europe; and
+at one time even threatened the overthrow of feudalism, and to convert
+West Germany into a federation of free municipalities.
+
+When trades increased in the cities, each trade managed its own affairs
+by an organization called a _guild_.  The guilds in the course of time
+obtained a share in the government of the towns; and it was the
+regenerating power of these guilds which brought about this great
+movement.  With their simple ideals of truth, sincerity, and justice,
+they were the storehouses of that power which is the real life of a
+nation.  As well expect a tree to flourish when its sap is not
+permitted to rise, or a man to be well when the blood is obstructed in
+his veins, as to look for healthful growth and expansion in a nation
+from which the life of its common people is excluded!
+
+Among these early guilds, that of the Meistersingers, which was
+chartered in 1340, was of vast importance in the development of the
+German people.
+
+It was composed of artisans and governed by the strict, pedantic rules
+then existing in the arts of musical and literary composition.
+
+The prizes did not confer as great an honor as those bestowed at
+Olympia two thousand years before, but they were sought with an intense
+enthusiasm.
+
+The soul of the Teuton was by nature set to music.  For him that art
+was not a luxury reserved for the rich and cultured, but the daily food
+which nourished the life of the most untutored.  Within this musical
+and literary guild the two arts of music and poetry for centuries
+existed in their most elementary form, and were the soil out of which
+later came such marvelous blossom and fruit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Germany, which had always been a loosely compacted mass, was at the
+close of the Hohenstaufen dynasty composed of 60 independent cities,
+116 priestly rulers, and 100 reigning dukes, princes, counts, and
+barons, always rivals and usually at war with each other, in
+perpetually changing combinations for attack or defense.
+
+Lying beneath this body of small and struggling sovereigns was a people
+in whom was the first dawning consciousness of human rights; which
+consciousness was gradually extending to that helpless mass underlying
+the whole--the peasantry.
+
+In 1273 the German princes succeeded in electing an Emperor; and the
+Great Interregnum was over.
+
+It is a curious fact that the two names _Hapsburg_ and _Hohenzollern_
+should have appeared simultaneously in German history.  Rudolf, Count
+of Hapsburg, through the influence of his brother-in-law Frederick of
+Hohenzollern, Count of Nuremburg, was chosen to fill the vacant throne.
+It was during the reign of Albert, son of this first Hapsburg, that the
+Swiss first revolted against imperial authority.
+
+Gessler, who had been sent by Albert to subdue the refractory Alpine
+shepherds, so exasperated them by his atrocities that he was shot by
+William Tell.  It was a long way from Tell to Swiss freedom and
+independence.  But the people from that hour never wavered in their
+determination not to be serfs to the house of Hapsburg.
+
+The Hanseatic League in North Germany, and the invincibly free spirit
+in Switzerland, were the two things of deepest significance at this
+time of political chaos.
+
+Side by side with this assertion of political rights, there had
+commenced a general intellectual awakening.  The Bishop of Ratisbon,
+Albertus Magnus, was so learned in mathematics and in science that
+people believed he was a sorcerer.[1]  Godfrey of Strasburg had written
+an epic poem about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
+Wolfram of Eschenbach had told of the Holy Grail in his Parsifal; and a
+learned history of Denmark had been written, without which our own
+literature would have suffered immeasurable loss, for in it Shakspeare
+found the story of Hamlet!
+
+It was at this time (1356) that the famous "Golden Bull" was issued, a
+new electoral system, which reduced the number of electors to seven.
+
+The idea was that as the sun and the seven planets illumined our
+heavens, so that great luminary, the German Emperor, should be the
+center of a political system composed of seven Electors.
+
+These earthly luminaries, whose duty it was to elect a new Emperor,
+were the Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Trèves, and the temporal
+princes of Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatine of the Rhine.
+
+The very first act of these seven wise men was to place upon the throne
+Wenceslas, a brutal madman, who might better have been confined as a
+maniac.
+
+It was during the reign of his brother and successor Sigismund that the
+burning of John Huss lighted the conflagration in Bohemia known as the
+Hussite War.
+
+John Huss, a professor of the University of Prague, had dared to raise
+his voice against the temporal enrichment of a church whose Founder had
+not where to lay his head, and who had put behind him the kingdoms of
+this earth, when offered to him by Satan!
+
+Huss, for this offense, came under the displeasure of the bishops.
+Charges were brought against him that he had maintained the existence
+of four Gods, and he was condemned and burnt (1415).
+
+The Hussite war had none of the reforming purpose which led to the
+martyrdom they wished to avenge.  It was a mad strife, beginning over
+some detail of the Communion Service, and ending in a war between
+Bohemian and German, in which for nearly twenty years the country ran
+with blood.
+
+At this period an event occurred of trifling significance then, but of
+profound importance to future Germany.
+
+In 1411 the Emperor borrowed one hundred thousand florins of Frederick
+of Hohenzollern, the Burgrave, or "Count of the Castle," of Nuremburg,
+direct descendant from that first Hohenzollern who helped to found the
+Hapsburg dynasty.  For this loan Sigismund gave his creditor a mortgage
+on the territory of Brandenburg.  Frederick at once took up his
+residence there, and subsequently made an offer of three hundred
+thousand gold florins more to purchase the territory.  The Emperor
+accepted the terms, so the then small state was thereafter the home of
+the Hohenzollerns, and was on its way to become Prussia.
+
+Sigismund and his brother Wenceslas belonged to another dynasty, that
+of Luxemburg.  But after the death of the former, in 1440, the
+Hapsburgs succeeded again to the crown, which they wore until it was
+taken off at the bidding of Napoleon in 1806.
+
+Just before the issuance of the Golden Bull, there had occurred that
+most revolutionary event, the discovery of gunpowder.  When a man in
+leathern jacket could do more than a knight in armor, when safety
+depended upon quickness and lightness, and ponderous iron and steel
+were fatal--then a momentous change in conditions was at hand!  The
+destruction of feudalism was involved in this discovery of 1344.
+
+Under Frederick III., that Hapsburg who came to the throne in 1440, the
+Empire seemed to have reached a climax of disorder.  Old things were
+passing away, and the new had not yet come to take their place.
+
+On the eastern shore of the Baltic the march of German civilization had
+received an almost fatal check.  The "German Order," an organization of
+knights intended to keep back the Slavonic tide, had failed to do so.
+Holland was becoming estranged from the German Empire.  France had
+obtained possession of Flanders.  Luxemburg, Lorraine, and Burgundy
+were becoming practically independent; while it began to seem as if
+Switzerland were forever lost to Germany.
+
+And now the Hungarians were setting up their new king, the valiant
+Hunyadi; and the Bohemians theirs, George of Podjebrod.  Not only were
+these kingdoms and principalities slipping away, but the peasants in
+the cantons of the Alps, and elsewhere in revolt, were some of them led
+by great nobles.
+
+Still another, and perhaps the gravest of all these dangers, was one
+which yet darkens our horizon in this closing nineteenth century!
+
+In the year 1250 the Turks had commenced their existence in Asia Minor,
+with one little clan, led by one obscure chieftain.  This clan had
+grown as if by miracle into a great empire in the East, rivaling in
+power that of the Saracens, whose successors they were as the head of
+the Mahomedan Empire.  The Turks had been steadily encroaching upon
+Germany; had made havoc in Hungary; had devastated Austria, and were
+now insolently pressing on toward their goal, the Imperial palace at
+Vienna.
+
+While the incompetent and drowsy Emperor Frederick III. was helplessly
+viewing these stupendous overturnings, there occurred that other event,
+as important in the empire of thought as the invention of gunpowder had
+been in that of political institutions.
+
+The invention of printing (1450),--that art preservative of all
+arts,--was the greatest step yet taken in the emancipation of the human
+mind.
+
+The poor inventor was, after the manner of inventors, badly treated.
+John Fust, on account of Gutenberg's inability to pay back the money he
+had loaned him for his experiment, seized the printing press, and
+himself proceeded to finish printing the Bible.
+
+The rapidity with which the copies were produced, and their precise
+resemblance to each other, created such astonishment that a report
+spread that Fust had sold himself to the devil, with whom he was in
+league.
+
+This, together with the identity of names, led Victor Hugo, Klinger,
+and other writers to confuse John Fust, the practicer of the Black Art
+in mediæval times, with John Fust the printer.  And as the original
+Fust had come to stand for the emancipation of the human intellect
+through free learning, and as printing was above all else the means for
+such emancipation, the coincidence, if such it be, was, to say the
+least, remarkable!
+
+When we approach the time of Isabella of Castile and of Columbus, and
+when we are confronted with that familiar specter, the Turk, in
+Southeastern Europe, we feel that we are in sight of the lights on
+familiar headlands, and are not far from port.  We are not very near to
+that haven, but we are passing the line which divides the old from the
+new.
+
+
+
+[1] See chart of Civilization in Six Centuries, "Who, When, and What."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+It was not alone in Germany that the old was vanishing.  The movement
+in that country was part of a general condition prevailing in England,
+France, and Spain; all with the same tendency--the passing of the power
+from many small despotisms to one greater one.  It was an advance,
+although a slow one, in the path of progress.  Feudalism--that
+newfangled system which had so tried the soul of Duke Welf in the ninth
+century--was dissolving.
+
+In England the war with France, and the War of the Roses, by
+impoverishing the nobles had broken their remaining authority, and that
+system which had been gradually perishing since the Conquest was
+virtually dead.
+
+In France Louis XI. had cunningly conceived the idea of recovering the
+power of the throne by an apparent friendship with the people; and a
+combination was thus formed against which a decrepit feudalism could
+not long stand.
+
+In Spain the smaller kingdoms had at last been merged into two larger
+ones, and by the union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and
+Isabella, and the expulsion of the Moors which quickly followed that
+event, that country was at last consolidated into one kingdom--in which
+feudalism no longer existed as a disturbing power.
+
+In northern Italy also, among that brilliant group of small republics,
+there was this same centralizing tendency at work.  Florence had passed
+into the strong keeping of the Medici (1434), while Genoa and most of
+the Lombard republics were gravitating toward the control of Milan.
+
+It was at this period that there were for the first time formed those
+combinations and alliances between the nations of Europe which led
+finally to a system existing for the preservation of the _balance of
+power_.  In fact, after the various monarchies had assumed these firmer
+and more definite outlines, there began a process of weaving them
+together into a larger whole; and the threads used in this process are
+known as _European diplomacy_, which, as we have recently seen, is
+stronger than individual sovereigns!
+
+It was perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the fifteenth century
+that the Imperial throne of Germany should be occupied, at this time of
+centralizing tendencies, by a man determined not alone to reign but to
+rule.
+
+Maximilian I., son of the sleepy Frederick III., was chosen by the
+electors in 1486.  He was full of energy, intelligence, and heart, and
+was, besides, the handsomest prince in Europe, and his wife, Mary of
+Burgundy, was the fairest of princesses.
+
+The people, weary of disorder and insecurity, were glad to feel the
+touch of a strong hand.  Maximilian firmly planted the foundations of
+the house of Hapsburg.  From that time the choice of the Electors was
+merely a formal recognition of the hereditary rights of that family.
+
+This prince, standing on the dividing line between the old and new,
+possessed the qualities of both.  He was stately, brave, and chivalric,
+and at the same time educated according to the highest standards of his
+time, devoted to literature, art, and poetry, and with comprehensive
+and progressive plans for his kingdom.  He had a sincere desire to
+reform abuses.  He introduced into Germany the post office, and the
+system for the conveyance of letters, throughout two thousand
+independent territories!
+
+The Turks were advancing on the east, the French King was harassing him
+on the west, and the Pope always trying to embroil him with other
+kingdoms and to drain his Empire.  His was not an easy task.
+
+He was not a Charlemagne nor a Frederick Barbarossa, but he infused
+strength and a power of resistance into Germany at a period of extreme
+weakness, and he reunited to the house of Hapsburg the kingdoms of
+Hungary and Bohemia.
+
+There was evidence that the long thraldom to Rome was passing away, in
+the fact that Maximilian assumed Imperial authority without receiving
+the crown from papal hands; his father Frederick having been the last
+Emperor who made pilgrimage to Rome for that purpose (in 1452).
+
+When Maximilian came to the throne in 1493 an event of transcendent
+importance had just occurred.  Europe had learned with amazement that
+when the sun disappeared in that mysterious Western Ocean, it passed on
+to shine upon other lands beyond--lands teeming with life and riches.
+
+The most fascinating field for adventure the world had ever known was
+suddenly opened to Europe, and the magnet of boundless wealth was
+transferred from the East to the West.  A stream of adventurous and
+rapacious men, from all the lands excepting Germany, was moving toward
+the setting sun.
+
+Spain, only recently obscure, poor and struggling to free her land from
+an alien race, suddenly found herself mistress of her own territory,
+consolidated, and with an empire and resources in the West, practically
+boundless.
+
+The good Queen Isabella, who had been the instrumentality in bringing
+about these changes for her country, had the satisfaction of seeing her
+kingdom at one bound take its place in the first rank among the nations
+of Europe.
+
+Her chief care now was to make alliances for her children suited to
+this new position.  She and Ferdinand aimed high.  They secured the
+daughter of Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, for their son, who was heir
+to the crown of Spain; but the hopes from this union were quickly
+blighted, as the young prince suddenly died during the wedding
+festivities.  Then another marriage was arranged for their oldest
+daughter Joanna with Philip, Maximilian's son, who was also heir to the
+Imperial throne.
+
+But Isabella's sorrows matched her triumphs and successes in magnitude.
+Joanna became hopelessly insane.  Another daughter, who married the
+King of Portugal, was buried in the same grave with the infant who was
+expected to unite the crowns of Spain and Portugal, while for her
+youngest child Katharine was reserved the unhappy fate of becoming the
+wife of Henry VIII. of England.
+
+It is sad to remember that this admirable woman, in her intense desire
+to drive heretic Jews out of her country, was prevailed upon, by her
+confessor Torquemada, to establish the Inquisition in Spain.  Believing
+as she devoutly did that heresy meant eternal death, and little
+suspecting the engine for cruelty it was to become, this kindest and
+best of women may be forgiven for this fatal mistake.
+
+Overwhelmed by private griefs and sorrows, Isabella died in 1506,
+leaving her crazed daughter Joanna a widow, with two sons, the elder
+six years old.  She would have been consoled could she have known that,
+in thirteen years from that time, this grandson would wear not alone
+the crown of Spain, but the great Imperial crown of Germany, and would
+be lord of a greater empire, and wield more power, than any living
+sovereign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The period of Maximilian's reign was a bridge which spanned two
+colossal events: the discovery of America and the Reformation.  When
+this Emperor died in 1517, a greater work was at hand than any he or
+his predecessors had ever accomplished, and the humble man who was to
+be its instrument was destined to become a power above all princes, and
+to shake the Church of Rome to its foundation after an undisturbed
+reign of a thousand years.
+
+The Reformation had long been preparing in the hearts of the people.
+The persecutions of the Albigenses in France, the Waldenses in Savoy,
+and the burning of Huss and of Jerome, had all come from the growing
+conviction that the Bible was the only true source of Christian truth
+and doctrine.
+
+The art of printing had made this well of pure truth accessible to all,
+and there was a deep though unspoken belief in the hearts and minds of
+the people that a church grasping at secular power and riches had
+wandered far from the simple teachings of its Founder.
+
+These smoldering fires were very near to the surface when Maximilian
+died.  Charles, his grandson, was then King of Spain.  The ambitious
+Francis I. of France struggled hard for the crown laid down by the
+Emperor, but, in 1519, it was placed upon the head of his rival, and
+Charles V. was the first of whom it could be said that the sun never
+set upon his dominions.
+
+At this most critical moment in the history of the world, the fate of
+Europe was in the hands of three men: Charles V., Emperor of Germany;
+Francis I., King of France, and Henry VIII., King of England.
+
+Charles, half Fleming and half Spaniard, had the grasping
+acquisitiveness of the one nation, and the proud, fanatical cruelty of
+the other.  Small of stature, plain in feature, sedate, quiet, crafty,
+he was playing a desperate game with Francis I. for supremacy in Europe.
+
+Francis, handsome as an Apollo, accomplished, fascinating, profligate,
+was fully his match in ambition.  Covering his worst qualities with a
+gorgeous mantle of generosity and chivalrous sense of honor, he was the
+insidious corrupter of morals in France, creating a sentiment which
+laughed at virtue and innocence as qualities belonging to a lower class
+of society.
+
+Each of these men was striving to enlist Henry VIII. upon his side, by
+appealing to the cruel caprices of that vain, ostentatious, arrogant
+King, who in turn tried to use them for the furthering of his own
+desires and purposes.
+
+It was a sort of triangular game between the three monarchs--a game
+full of finesse and far-reaching designs.  If Charles attacked Francis,
+Henry attacked Charles, while the astute Charles, knowing well the
+desire of the English King to repudiate Katharine and make Anne Boleyn
+his queen, whispered seductive promises of the papal chair to Wolsey,
+who was in turn to establish his own influence over his royal master by
+bringing about the marriage with Anne, upon which the King's heart was
+set, and then be rewarded by securing Henry's promise of neutrality for
+Charles, in his designs of overreaching Francis--and, after that, the
+road to Rome for the aspiring cardinal would be a straight one!
+
+It was an intricate diplomatic net-work, in which the thread of Henry's
+desire for the fair Anne was mingled with Wolsey's desire for
+preferment, and both interlaced with the ambitious, far-reaching
+purposes of the other two monarchs.
+
+All these events were very absorbing, and while they were splendidly
+gilding the surface of Europe in the first half of the sixteenth
+century, it seemed a small matter that an obscure monk was denouncing
+the Pope and defying the power of the Catholic Church.  Little did
+Charles suspect that, when his victories and edicts were forgotten, the
+words of the insolent heretic would still be echoing down the ages.
+
+A few years later, and the Apollo-like beauty and false heart of
+Francis I. were dissolving in the grave; Henry VIII. had gone to
+another world, to meet his reward--and his wives; and Charles V. was
+sadly counting his beads in the monastery of St. Jerome, at Juste,
+reflecting upon the vanity of human ambitions.  But the murmur of
+protest from the unknown monk had become a roar--the rivulet had
+swollen into a threatening torrent.  As it is the invisible forces that
+are the most powerful in nature, so it is the obscure and least
+observed events that have accomplished the most tremendous revolutions
+in human affairs.
+
+But before all this had happened, in the year 1517, when it had not yet
+occurred to Henry's sensitive conscience that his marriage with
+Katharine, his brother's widow, was illegal, and while Charles V., that
+sedate young man, who "looked so modest and soared so high," was
+quietly revolving plans for the extension of his empire, Pope Leo X.,
+the pious Vicar of Christ upon earth, and elegant patron of Michael
+Angelo and Raphael, found his income all too small for his magnificent
+tastes.  It does not seem to have occurred to him that his tastes were
+too costly for his income; he simply recognized that something must be
+done, and at once, to fill his empty purse.  But what should it be?  A
+simple and ingenious expedient solved the perplexing problem.  He would
+issue a proclamation to his "loving, faithful children," that he would
+grant absolution for all sorts of crimes, the prices graduated to suit
+the enormity of the offense.  We have not seen the proclamation, but
+doubt not it was in most caressing Latin, for can anything exceed the
+velvety softness of the gloves worn on the hands which have signed
+papal decrees?
+
+Simple lying and slander were cheap; perjury and sins against chastity
+more costly; while the use of the stiletto, of poison, and the hired
+assassin could be enjoyed only by the richest.  It worked well.  In the
+hopeful words of a pious dignitary, "as soon as the money chinks in the
+coffer, the soul springs out of purgatory."  Who could resist such
+promise?  Money flowed in swollen streams into the thirsty coffers,
+many even paying in advance for crimes they intended to commit!
+
+Martin Luther was the one man who dared to stand up and denounce this
+tax upon crime, this papal trade in vice.  The people had at last found
+a voice and a leader.
+
+Protestantism, which had long been maturing in silence and in darkness,
+sprang full-armed into existence, and was the first thing to confront
+Charles when he assumed the Imperial crown.
+
+He, no doubt, thought that he would soon be able to dispose of the new
+heresy, as had his royal father and mother in Spain disposed of heretic
+Jews a few years before.  But this new specter of Protestantism would
+not down!
+
+When Charles called together an assembly of states (or Diet) at Worms,
+in 1521, he supposed he was going to deal with one obscure monk,
+leading an obscure movement.  But it assumed quite a different aspect
+when Luther, the culprit, was sustained by two great electors and many
+princes of his realm; and when a long list of grievances against the
+Papacy was formally presented by several states, which he was firmly
+told he would be required to redress!
+
+The princes were in earnest.  They began to seize church property, to
+send monks and nuns adrift, and to make free with gold and silver
+vessels and treasure belonging to the Church.
+
+This time of confusion was used by one ambitious ruler for his own
+ends.  The German, or Teutonic, order was a knightly organization
+created expressly to hold the frontier against the Slavonic people.
+After the year 1230 this order held Prussia, which they ruled like
+princes.  The Margrave of Brandenburg, who was at the time of the
+Reformation Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, realized his
+opportunity in the existing disorder.  He made himself sovereign over
+Prussia, and annexed the possessions of the Teutonic order to his
+family.
+
+But it was not alone the princes who saw their opportunity in this time
+of overturning.  The wrongs of the peasants were very real and very
+grievous, and of long, long standing.  The entire burden of taxation
+rested on them--the archbishops and the nobles and the _gentlemen_ all
+being exempt!
+
+When the Reformation began the _bauer_, or peasantry, believed that
+their hope lay in the abolishing of Catholicism and of the feudal
+system.
+
+It takes a very small spark to fire a train of gunpowder.  When the
+Countess of Lüpfen ordered the peasants on her estate to spend their
+Sundays in picking strawberries and gathering snail shells for
+pincushions, she dropped such a spark!  They refused, and the revolt
+spread, gathering in fury as it moved like a cyclone through the German
+states.  All throughout Germany there are to be seen, to-day, ruined
+castles which tell the story of this "Peasants' War" (1525).  Hideous
+atrocities were committed, and, as has so often happened, the cause of
+a people whose grievances were real and heartrending was so stained
+with crime that sympathy with and pity for their sufferings were
+obliterated.  Even Luther--whose followers they claimed to be--said of
+them, "they should be treated as a man would treat a mad dog."
+
+The bold stand taken by Luther against this rebellion strengthened him
+with the princes.  Not only Saxony, Hesse, and Brunswick and many free
+cities, but the Augustine order of monks, a part of the Franciscans,
+and a number of priests had embraced the new doctrine contained in the
+"Augsburg Confession," the creed or summary of belief which was
+prepared by Luther's friend, Philip Melancthon.
+
+The principles asserted in this were that men are justified by faith
+alone; that an assembly of believers constitutes a Church; that
+monastic vows, invocation of saints, fasting, celibacy, etc., are
+useless.
+
+Such were the chief points in the celebrated "Confession," which was
+signed by the Protestant cities and princes in 1530.
+
+So while Charles was engaged in his great game of finesse with Francis
+I. and Henry VIII. for preponderance in Europe--while the Turks were
+pressing toward Vienna on the east, and the French into Flanders on the
+west, and while the Pope, who should have been his ally, jealous of his
+power was circumventing and weakening him so far as he could, worse
+than all else, the foundations of the Protestant Church were being
+permanently laid in Germany.
+
+The two great aims of the Emperor were to restore papal supremacy over
+Christendom and firmly to unite Germany and Spain.  But how could he do
+the one, when at the hour of a great schism in the Church, a jealous
+Pope was trying to weaken his hands?  Or the other, when Germany was
+always suspicious of him because he was a Spaniard, and Spain because
+he was a Hapsburg?
+
+Charles was profound in his methods, crafty and powerful; but
+circumstances were stronger than he.  In order to succeed at one point,
+he had to weaken himself at another.  He could do nothing in repelling
+the Turks or the French, unless aided by the Protestant states.  And
+these states would only give assistance in exchange for concessions to
+their cause, while Francis I., as crafty as he, found a sure way to
+circumvent his rival in giving aid to the Protestants.
+
+The new faith was spreading not only in Germany, but in Denmark,
+Sweden, and England.  The movement in Switzerland diverged somewhat in
+character under Zwingli, another Reformer, and the new Protestantism
+began to have its own schismatics.
+
+Calvin in Geneva rejected Luther's doctrine of _justification by
+faith_, and for it substituted that of _election_.  The doctrine that
+men were predestined to heaven or hell was thereafter held by that
+branch of the Church known as Reformers, as distinguished from the
+Lutherans, while from the _protest_ of Saxony, Brandenburg, Brunswick,
+Hesse, and fifteen imperial cities against the decree outlawing Luther
+and his doctrines, the name Protestants took its rise, which included
+Lutherans and Reformers alike.
+
+The famous Schmalkaldian League was so called from the little Hessian
+town where the Protestant princes assembled in 1530 and made a solemn
+promise of mutual support against the Emperor; when they also entered
+into a secret treaty with Francis I., and received promises of support
+from the Kings of England, Sweden, and Denmark.
+
+In 1540 the strength of the Catholics had been re-enforced by the order
+of Jesuits, which was founded by Ignatius Loyola.  This order made the
+suppression of Protestant doctrines its chief task.
+
+Meyerbeer has, by his great opera, made so famous the strange tragedy
+enacted at Münster in 1534 that it must have brief mention, although it
+was only a bit of driftwood in the great current of events.  A
+religious sect called the Anabaptists was led by a Dutch tailor, John
+of Leyden, who claimed to be inspired.  The chief things he was
+inspired to do were to crown himself king, to introduce polygamy, and
+to cut off the heads of all who resisted his decrees!  For more than a
+year the city was held by this madman and his associates; and then the
+tragedy was concluded by the torturing to death of the tailor-king and
+his chief abettors; their bodies being left suspended in iron cages
+over the Cathedral door at Münster.  This grewsome story is the one
+used by Meyerbeer in his opera of "Le Prophète."
+
+In 1552 Charles saw his ambitious plans for the government of the world
+failing at every point.  By the treaty of Passau, religious freedom had
+been conceded to the Protestants; and while his army was needed to
+fight the Turks in Hungary, Henry II. of France (who had succeeded
+Francis I., 1547), in league with the Protestant states, was invading
+Lorraine.
+
+Sick at heart and failing in health, the weary Emperor (1556) resolved
+to lay down the heavy crown he had worn for thirty-six years.
+
+To his son Philip II. he gave the Netherlands, Naples, Spain, and the
+American Colonies, while the Imperial title, and the German-Austrian
+lands passed to his brother Ferdinand I.
+
+The singular cause of his death, two years later, makes us wonder
+whether his unfortunate mother Joanna could have transmitted to her son
+the insanity which darkened her own life.
+
+At the monastery at St. Juste to which the Imperial monk had retired
+after his abdication, he yielded to a morbid whim to rehearse his own
+funeral.  The grave-clothes were damp.  He was seized with a chill, and
+after a brief illness died (1558).
+
+Charles had been thwarted in his two great aims of establishing the
+supremacy of his Church, and the permanent union of Germany and Spain.
+But perhaps his bitterest disappointment was in not being permitted to
+leave the Imperial crown to his son Philip.
+
+His brother Ferdinand, although firmly Catholic, was a just and
+moderate prince, who had always favored conciliatory measures to the
+Protestants while the course of Philip II., in the Netherlands, soon
+showed how heavily his hand would have rested upon Germany.  He
+appointed the Duke of Alva Spanish governor in that unfortunate
+territory.  Never had cruel king more cruel agent in carrying out his
+policy.  Torture, fire, and sword were the instruments intended to
+subjugate, but which in the end brought about the independence of
+Holland.
+
+The prelates of the Church in 1543 had come together in what was called
+the "Council of Trent," with the avowed object of reforming abuses
+which had crept into the Church.  The real purpose, however, was to
+examine the foundations of that venerable structure, to discover where
+it had been injured in the assaults made upon it since 1517, and to
+strengthen it where it seemed to need new supports.
+
+In 1563, after eighteen years' deliberation, the work of this Council
+was finished.  The cardinal doctrines of purgatory, absolution,
+celibacy, invocation of saints, censorship of press, etc., etc., were
+reaffirmed, and terrible anathemas pronounced against such as should
+reject them.
+
+Thus was created a chasm which nothing could ever bridge, eternally
+dividing the old religion from the new.
+
+Another tremendously re-enforcing agent was at work in Loyola's Society
+of Jesus, which was to be to the Church what the brain is to the human
+body.  In 1540 Loyola's ten disciples received the papal blessing.  In
+1600 there were ten million Jesuits, and in 1700 twenty millions!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+It was the invincible march of Protestantism in the land of its birth
+which brought about this buttressing of the old belief and this
+adopting of fresh methods for its efficiency.
+
+When Ferdinand died in 1564 the great majority of the German people had
+become Protestants.  The Empire was honeycombed with the new faith.
+Even in Austria, that everlasting stronghold of Papacy, the Catholics
+were in a minority.  True to the traditions of the past, Bavaria, the
+home of the ancient Welfs, was the one thoroughly zealous and obedient
+champion of the Pope in all Germany.
+
+It seemed as if the great conflict was almost over.  But it had not
+even commenced!
+
+The history of this great movement would have been very different, had
+it been carried on steadily under one leader.  But it had four!  Those
+devout souls who believed they had found in the simple gospel truths of
+Protestantism a religion in which all might unite were soon convinced
+of their mistake.
+
+Lulled by the apparent triumph of the new faith, reformers set about
+the task of defining the belief and correcting the errors of Protestant
+doctrine.  To the followers of Calvin the belief of the Lutherans
+became almost as abhorrent as Papacy itself, while the Lutherans were
+again subdivided into an extreme and a moderate party; the one
+following to the letter the doctrines of Luther, and the other the more
+modified views of Melancthon.  Not only men but states were divided and
+in bitter strife over these differences, so that the Emperor Ferdinand
+had said, "Instead of being of one mind they are so disunited, have so
+many different beliefs, the God of truth surely cannot be with them!"
+
+It is apparent now that the issue underlying all this upheaval was
+deeper than anyone then knew.  The real struggle was not for the
+supremacy of Romanist or Protestant; not to determine whether this
+dogma or that was true and should prevail, but to establish the right
+of every human soul to choose its own faith and form of worship.  The
+great battle for human liberty had commenced, and the Romish Church had
+been shaken to its foundations not because its doctrine was false, but
+because it was a _despotism_!
+
+From the abdication of Charles V. to 1600 was a period of political
+tranquillity in Germany.  The reign of two conciliatory sovereigns,
+Ferdinand I., and his son Maximilian II., tended to produce a
+surface-calm, which, although ruffled, was not broken by the stern and
+despotic reign of Rudolf II., who succeeded in 1576.
+
+It was a half century of unfruitful and sullen waiting--waiting for a
+future which no one could divine.  Protestantism was not blossoming;
+but the seed was germinating amid elements good and evil, strangely
+mingled together.
+
+While the Reformation was the leading fact in Europe at this period,
+another event had created a new and pervading atmosphere, in which all
+else existed.  The impulse given to civilization by the taking of
+Constantinople by the Turks (1452), and the consequent disseminating of
+Greek culture throughout Europe, was a transforming event in the
+history of civilization.  Literature, art, music, took on new forms and
+thrilled with a new life.  The activity of the human mind manifested
+itself in everything.  It was an age of great men and great things.
+Copernicus, followed by Tycho Brahe, Galileo, and Kepler, brought order
+into the heavens.  The Medici in Italy, who were guiding these new and
+enriching streams which had set in from the East, helped to produce a
+wonderful art period, which swept in successive tides over Europe.
+Fainting and sculpture reached their climacteric.  Music, still in its
+infancy, developed into the new forms of opera and oratorio.[1]  And
+while these things were happening, a mysteriously inspired man--seeming
+to hold as in a crucible the wisdom distilled from all ages and all
+human experiences--was writing immortal plays in England!
+
+The Teuton race does not take on the graces of life very quickly.  The
+serious and sincere German mind must inspect the idea first, and then
+become thoroughly imbued with it, before the hand will act!  But when
+the Teuton roots do begin to draw upon the soil, they strike deep and
+hold firmly, and know just what they are going to do with the rising
+sap; concerning themselves much more about that than the foolish
+branches and leaves!
+
+So this new light did not at once flood Germany, but its influence was
+felt there.  Thought was quickened, knowledge increased, art and
+science began to flourish, wealth accumulated, and the people became
+less simple and more luxurious in their ways of living.  The King of
+Spain was occupied in his hopeless attempt to subdue the Netherlands,
+and Hungary and Austria were still struggling with the Turkish invasion.
+
+Such was the condition at the beginning of the seventeenth century.  In
+spite of the material advance there was a feeling of impending
+misfortune.  But the magnitude of the coming disaster none then could
+have imagined or dreamed.
+
+The fatal circumstance was that the Protestants were divided into two
+angry and hostile camps, at the very time when the Catholics, under the
+teachings of the Jesuits, were uniting with solid front against them.
+The Thirty Years' War would never have been undertaken against a united
+adversary who held four-fifths of Germany!
+
+During the despotic reign of Rudolf II. the Protestants for their
+protection formed a Union with the Elector Palatine Frederick at its
+head.  Thereupon the Catholic princes also united in a _Catholic
+League_ under Maximilian of Bavaria.  The forces were now gathering for
+the great explosion.  Matthias had succeeded his brother Rudolf as
+Emperor.
+
+When a great storm is impending, it takes only a trifling disturbance
+in equilibrium to precipitate it.
+
+Such a disturbance occurred in Prague (1618) over a church which the
+Protestants were erecting.  An angry mob armed itself, burst into the
+Imperial Castle at Prague, and flung out of the window two Catholic
+Bohemian nobles.
+
+With this act of violence commenced the Thirty Years' War, which lasted
+through three reigns, those of Matthias, Ferdinand II., and Ferdinand
+III., and caused unparalleled misery in Germany.
+
+Two years from that day the Protestant faith was obliterated in the
+realm of Austria, and the progress of a hundred years was wiped out.
+In three years more, not only Austria, but Germany, was in a worse
+condition than she had known for centuries--the wretched people, a prey
+to both parties, were slaughtered, robbed, driven hither and thither,
+and a country only recently rejoicing in its material prosperity was a
+waste and a ruin.
+
+The Imperial troops were splendidly led by two great generals--Tilly
+and Wallenstein.  The Protestant nations--England, Holland, Denmark,
+and Sweden--looked on in dismay as they saw a powerful and triumphant
+Protestantism being wiped out of existence in the land of its birth.
+
+By 1629 Ferdinand II. considered his power re-established absolutely
+over all Germany.  He issued what was called the "Edict of
+Restitution," which ordered the restoration of all Protestant territory
+to Catholic hands.  Wallenstein, in addition to this, declared that
+reigning princes and a national diet should be abolished and all power
+centered in the Emperor!  Indeed this Wallenstein was minded to play
+the dictator as well as general.  He traveled in regal state, with his
+one hundred carriages, one thousand horses, fifteen cooks, and fifteen
+young nobles for his pages!
+
+This taste for splendor was, like Wolsey's, his undoing.  People began
+to fear the ambitious leader, and Ferdinand dismissed him.  With rage
+and hate in his heart he retired to Prague to await developments.
+
+Twelve years of war in horrible form had wrought utter ruin and broken
+the spirit of the Protestants.  But help and hope suddenly came in 1630.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, with his heart all aflame with zeal
+to defend the falling cause of Protestantism in Germany, is the
+knightliest figure which adorns the pages of history.
+
+We in this present age have reached a point of development when,
+without the quivering of an eyelash, we can hear of the destruction of
+suffering peoples, even if it involves the principles and things most
+sacred to us.  Whether it be the effacing of Christianity in Crete, or
+of liberty in Cuba, the motto of practical men and nations is--"hands
+off."
+
+Gustavus Adolphus had not learned that potent phrase.  He was still in
+that undeveloped condition when the elemental impulses of the heart
+sway men's action.  And without a regret, without an enfeebling doubt,
+he could turn his back upon a throne and an adoring people, in defense
+of an imperiled Protestantism in another land.
+
+From the moment his foot touched the soil of Germany on that 4th of
+July, 1630, life and hope revived.  The Emperor Ferdinand laughed and
+called him the "Snow King," who would melt away after one winter.  But
+when one city after another was stormed and taken, when he left behind
+him a path of religious liberty and rejoicing--when Tilly was no longer
+able to cope with this Snow King and Wallenstein had to be recalled,
+and when it looked as if the work of twelve years might be undone, then
+Ferdinand no longer laughed!
+
+Wallenstein would only return upon conditions which actually made him
+the lord and Ferdinand the subject.  Having thus become absolute master
+of the Imperial cause, he confidently set about the task of defeating
+Gustavus.
+
+The Queen of Sweden had joined her husband in Germany.  On the 27th of
+October, 1632, he took leave of her.  As he passed through the country,
+the people fell on their knees, kissing his garments, calling him
+Deliverer.  He exclaimed, "I pray that the wrath of the Almighty may
+not be visited upon me, on account of this idolatry toward a weak and
+sinful mortal."
+
+Before the great conflict began he made an address to his Swedes, and
+then the whole army united in singing Luther's grand hymn, "A tower of
+strength is our Lord!"
+
+For hours the battle raged furiously, and while the issue was trembling
+in the balance, the sight of the riderless horse of the Swedish King,
+covered with blood and wildly galloping to and fro, told the awful
+story.  The terrified animal had carried him with a shattered arm right
+into the enemy's ranks, where he was instantly shot.
+
+While Wallenstein was retreating to Leipzig, the body of this most
+royal of kings was lying under a heap of dead, so mutilated by the
+hoofs of horses as to be almost unrecognizable.
+
+The Protestant cause had lost its soul and inspiration.  But, in
+falling, the heroic king had so broken the enemy that there was a long
+pause in hostilities.  And the wily general retired again to Prague,
+there to evolve new plans for his own aggrandizement.
+
+At this crisis a new champion arose.  It was not to be expected that
+Richelieu, who had been putting down Protestantism with an iron hand in
+France, would feel sympathy for the Protestant cause in Germany!  But
+that wary primate and minister was not going to stand on a little
+matter of religion, when he saw an advantage to be gained for France!
+
+He had long ago determined how this conflict should end.  He did not
+intend to permit Imperial Germany under Ferdinand to rise to ascendancy
+in Europe.
+
+With the weight of France thrown into the scale when the Imperial cause
+was already so shattered by Gustavus, it was easy to see how it must
+end.
+
+Wallenstein secretly opened negotiations from Prague with the French
+ambassador, and steadily disregarded the Emperor's orders to return to
+his command.  The project was that he should go over to the Protestant
+side in return for the crown of Bohemia.
+
+A general whom the traitor trusted, in turn betrayed him to the
+Emperor.  Six soldiers, under the pretense of bearing dispatches,
+entered his room.
+
+"Are _you_ the traitor who is going to deliver your Emperor's troops to
+the enemy?" shouted one of the men.
+
+Wallenstein realized that his hour had come.  He said not a word, but
+stretched out his arms and silently received his death-blow.
+
+With an invading French army in Germany, under the famous Marshals
+Turenne and Condé, looking about for choice bits of territory for
+France, a religious war had become a political one.  It lasted until
+1648, when the "Peace of Westphalia" concluded the most desolating
+struggle in the history of wars.
+
+And what had been gained?  The very principle for which it was
+undertaken was surrendered.  Entire religious freedom was granted to
+Protestants (excepting in Austria); four great states were lost to the
+empire; a population of seventeen millions was reduced to four
+millions, with Imperial authority abridged and broken.
+
+France took Alsace, and Sweden Pomerania.  Holland and Switzerland were
+recognized as independent States.  The supreme power was invested in
+the Reichstag, and the several German princes were made almost
+independent.  The empire, as a unity, had been reduced to a shadow.
+
+The devastation which had been wrought by those thirty terrible years
+cannot be described.  Its details are too awful to be dwelt upon.
+Famine had converted men into wild beasts, who formed themselves into
+bands, and preyed on those they caught.
+
+Such a band was attacked near Worms and was found cooking in a great
+caldron human legs and arms!
+
+The spirit of the people was broken.  Germany had been set back two
+hundred years.  And for what?  Not to accomplish any high purpose, not
+even from mistaken Christian zeal, but simply to carry out the despotic
+resolve of the Catholic Church to rule the minds and consciences of all
+men through its Popes and priesthood.  It was the old battle commenced
+six centuries before.  Had Henry not gone to Canossa in 1073, there had
+been no Thirty Years' War in 1618!
+
+
+
+[1] For a comprehensive understanding of this period see Chart of
+Civilization in Six Centuries, "Who, When, and What."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+For seven hundred years, from the treaty of Verdun (843), to Charles V.
+(1520), Germany had held the leading position in Europe as the head of
+the "Holy Roman Empire."  The reality had been gradually departing from
+that alluring title; and now, with the Peace of Westphalia, it was gone.
+
+With a large body of its people accorded full rights, while they were
+engaged in open war upon the Roman Church, the last link binding
+Germany to Rome was broken.  The Holy Roman Empire was now the German
+Empire.
+
+And, in very fact, it was no empire at all, but a loose confederacy of
+miniature kingdoms, administered without any regard to each other, and
+in great measure independent of Imperial authority.
+
+Great changes had taken place throughout Europe.  Louis XIV. was King
+of France.  In England Charles I. had lost his throne and his head, and
+Cromwell was laying the foundations of a power more enduring than that
+of Tudor or Stuart.  Spain was rapidly declining, and the new Republic
+of Holland ascending in the scale.  Sweden was supreme in the North,
+and Russia just beginning to be recognized as a power in Europe.
+Venice and the Italian republics were crumbling to pieces; while across
+the sea, on the coast of America, a few English, Dutch, and Swedish
+colonies were struggling into existence.
+
+Richelieu was dead, but the fortunes of France were in the keeping of
+one quite as ambitious for her as was the Great Minister.  There was a
+new aspirant for headship in Europe.  When Ferdinand III. died, Louis
+XIV. tried hard to be elected his successor.  He spent money freely
+among the Electors, and was only defeated by the sturdy opposition of
+Brandenburg and Saxony.
+
+Of the people of Germany there is really nothing to tell in the years
+which followed the Peace of Westphalia.  Spiritless and disheartened in
+their ruined cities, they seemed to have lost all national spirit and
+even religious enthusiasm.  They languidly saw the Catholic Hapsburgs
+becoming absolute in the land, while the Court at Vienna and the
+smaller German Courts were absorbed in establishing servile imitations
+of the Court at Versailles.  Churches and schoolhouses were in ruins,
+but palaces were being built in which the fashions of the French Court
+were closely imitated, and princes were trying to unlearn their native
+language and to install that of a cormorant French King, who was
+planning to devour their demoralized empire!
+
+The one exception among the German rulers of this time was Frederick
+William of Brandenburg, the "Great Elector."  This incorruptible German
+lost no time in learning French.  As soon as peace was declared he set
+about restoring his wasted territory.  He organized a standing army and
+built a fleet, and he used them, too, to recover Pomerania from Sweden
+and to circumvent the French King, and so enlarged his boundaries and
+strengthened his authority that Brandenburg, now next in size to
+Austria, was treated with the respect of an independent power, and the
+name of Hohenzollern began to shine bright even beside that of Hapsburg.
+
+From the year 1667 until 1704 Germany was the center of the Grand
+Monarch's ambitious designs.  In 1687, while Prince Eugene was leading
+a German army against the Turks, and while German princes, excepting
+the Great Elector, were engaged in copying French fashions, two
+powerful French armies suddenly appeared upon the Rhine, and the great
+war which was to involve all Europe had commenced.
+
+It was not love for Germany which brought Holland, England, Spain, and
+Sweden into this war with France, but fear of the advancing power of a
+King who aspired to be supreme in Europe.
+
+In the year 1700, an event occurred which intensified the situation.
+Charles II., the last of the half Castilian and half Hapsburg kings of
+Spain descended from Charles V., died without children, and that
+country was looking for the next nearest heir in foreign lands from
+which to choose a new king.  Of the two it found, one was son of the
+Emperor of Germany and the other grandson of Louis XIV.  It was a
+choice of evils for Europe; as in one case the German Empire with Spain
+annexed would be a preponderating power, as in the time of Charles V.;
+and in the other, the grasping Louis would be far on the road to the
+very end which Europe had combined to defeat!
+
+Inflammable oil, poured on fire, does not make a fiercer blaze than did
+this question of the _Spanish Succession_ at that time.  The
+embarrassing thing for Louis was that, when he had married the Infanta,
+he had solemnly renounced the throne of Spain for her heirs!  But the
+Pope, with whom the ultimate decision lay, had more need of the rising
+house of Bourbon than of the waning Hapsburg, so, after "prayerful
+deliberation," he concluded that the King might be absolved from that
+little promise, and that Philip V. was rightful King of Spain.
+
+There was rage in Vienna.  The Emperor Leopold I. and his disappointed
+son the Archduke Karl declared they would wrest the throne from Philip
+and have vengeance upon Louis, who with swelling pride was declaring
+that "the Pyrenees had ceased to exist."
+
+When Leopold called upon the German states to arm, the Great Elector of
+Brandenburg was dead.  But his son Frederick took advantage of the
+opportunity.  He would assist the Emperor on one condition, that he be
+permitted to assume the title of King!  An embarrassment arose in the
+fact that traditional custom permitted only one King among the Electors
+(King of Bohemia), and therefore the Elector of Brandenburg could not
+be also King of Brandenburg.
+
+The difficulty was overcome by adopting for the new kingdom the name of
+his detached duchy of Prussia, that province which had been snatched
+from Russia by the Teutonic knights long before, and had then been
+appropriated by that masterful Hohenzollern who was then head of the
+Order, as his own kingdom.  It was this high-handed proceeding which
+thereafter inseparably linked the name of Hohenzollern with that of
+Prussia.
+
+So, in 1701, the Elector and his wife traveled in midwinter to
+Königsberg, almost in the confines of Russia, where he was crowned
+Frederick I. of Prussia, and then returned to Berlin in Brandenburg,
+which thereafter remained his capital.  And so it was that Prussia--the
+name of a small Slavonic people on the frontier--became that of the
+entire kingdom of which Berlin was the capital.
+
+England and Holland were in alliance with Leopold--not for the sake of
+setting up the Hapsburg, but rather to put down the great Bourbon who
+began to wear the prestige of invincibility.  England entered the
+alliance languidly at first, but when the French king threw down the
+glove by recognizing the exiled Stuart (son of James II.) as the heir
+to her throne, she needed no urging and sent the best of her army into
+Germany under the command of the man who was going to destroy that
+prestige of invincibility, and to hold in check the arrogant king.
+
+Marlborough and Prince Eugene formed a combination too strong for
+Louis.  Marlborough's great victory at Blenheim in 1704 virtually
+decided the contest, although it continued for many years longer.  He
+was created Duke of Marlborough and received the estate of Blenheim as
+his reward.
+
+But the long war outlived the enthusiasm it had created.  England grew
+tired of fighting for the Hapsburgs; there were court intrigues for
+Marlborough's downfall, and finally he was recalled, and cast aside
+like a rusty sword.  Louis, too, had grown old and weary, and so in
+1713 the Peace of Utrecht terminated the long struggle.  Philip V. was
+left upon the throne of Spain, with the condition that the crowns of
+Spain and France should never be united.
+
+The disappointed Archduke Karl had now succeeded to the Imperial throne
+as Karl VI.  If the life of a nation be in its people, there was really
+no Germany at this time.  There was nothing but a wearisome succession
+of wars and diplomatic intrigues, and new divisions and apportionments
+of territory.  Prussia was expanding and Poland declining, while
+Hungary and Naples, and Milan and Mantua, were fast in the grasp of
+Austria.  Indeed, to tell of the territorial changes occurring at this
+period is like painting a picture of dissolving elements, which form
+new combinations even as you look at them.
+
+At the North, too, there were these same changing combinations, where
+had arisen two new ambitious kings.  Charles XII. of Sweden and Peter
+the Great of Russia were at war; and Denmark and Poland were lending a
+hand to defeat the Swedish King.  Peter the Great was extending his
+Baltic provinces and preparing to build his new capital of St.
+Petersburg (1709); but Charles XII. was defeated by Prussia and
+Hanover, in his attempt to make of Sweden one of the great powers of
+Europe.  His death in 1718 ended that dream.
+
+Not since the infamous Irene's deposition at Byzantium had there been a
+woman on the throne of the Cæsars.  When Karl VI. issued the decree
+called the "Pragmatic Sanction," providing that the crown should
+descend to female heirs in the absence of male, he forged one of the
+most important links in the chain of events.  This secured the
+succession to his little daughter Maria Theresa, who was born in 1717.
+The link had need to be a strong one, for there were to be twenty years
+of effort to break it.  But it held.
+
+At about this same time there was another important link forging in
+Prussia, where Frederick William I. had succeeded his father Frederick
+I. as king.  By these two events the long spell was to be broken.
+
+Volumes have been written about this fierce, miserly King Frederick
+William and his coarse brutalities.  But his reign was the rough,
+strong bridge which led to a Frederick the Great, and the reign of the
+Great Frederick was that other bridge which led to a powerful and
+dominating kingdom of Prussia,--from which was to spring a new German
+Empire!
+
+If Frederick William was a tyrant of the most savage sort, on the other
+hand he organized industry, finance, and an army.  If he was a miser in
+his family, he brought wealth and prosperity to his people.  If he beat
+and cudgeled his own son for playing the flute, he left that son a
+kingdom and an army which were the foundation of his greatness.
+
+His hatred for all that was French, for art, for the formalities and
+even the decencies of life, was an enraged protest against the
+prevailing affectations and artificiality of his time.
+
+We can imagine how the polished and refined Court at Vienna must have
+regarded this Prussian King.  Austria, entirely Catholic, in a state of
+moral and intellectual decline, sat looking backward and sighing for
+the return of the spirit of the Middle Ages.  Prussia, altogether
+Protestant, had set her face toward a future which was to be greater
+than she dreamed.
+
+In 1736 Maria Theresa was married to Francis of Lorraine.  In 1740 she
+succeeded her father Karl VI., on the Imperial throne; and that very
+same year Frederick William of Prussia died, and was succeeded by his
+son, who was to be known as Frederick the Great.
+
+Through the barren period succeeding the Thirty Years' War some vital
+processes were going on; indeed that most vital of all processes,
+thought, was active.  Broken into fragments as by an earthquake, the
+people had been left without one healing touch from the hands of their
+infatuated rulers.  It was a sorry spectacle to see those German
+princes gayly arraying themselves in French finery while their country
+was a ruin.  Did they not know that a wound might better not heal at
+all, than to begin by forming new tissue at the top!
+
+Whatever capacity Germany had for being, was in those neglected
+fragments.  If she ever developed into greatness it must be along the
+line of their elemental tendencies, and by being German, not French.
+
+So a nation, helpless, broken, disorganized, out of harmony with itself
+and with others, could not act, but it could think.  And in this time
+of chaos and confusion there commenced mighty stirrings in the thought
+of Germany.  Slumbering in that chaos were the germs of wonderful music
+and a wondrous literature.
+
+The gloomy and despondent Spinoza had found peace in discovering that
+the reality of things was not in political overturnings, nor in the
+disappointing facts and phenomena which we call life, but in the
+_Eternal Order_, of which we are all a part.
+
+He might have discovered the same sustaining truth in religion; but
+Spinoza's mind led him to seek it instead in a philosophical system
+which should harmonize the discordant facts of existence.  This was the
+foundation of German speculative philosophy, which took possession of
+the German mind and which by progressive steps was to lead to a union
+with a science, _founded_ upon the despised facts of life--and finally,
+whether they wished it or not--a harmonizing of both with RELIGION.
+
+With deeply philosophical mind the great German, Leibniz, was
+investigating the truths of the natural world; and Handel also belongs
+to this time of soul-awakening during a period of national neglect and
+depression, while at this very time there was also borne in a
+stimulating wave from England, where Newton had revealed the
+fundamental law and the "ETERNAL _order_" of the _physical_ universe.
+
+It would seem like a dim twilight to us if we should go back to it now;
+but then these new lights were very dazzling, almost blinding people
+with their splendor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+It was into such a world as this that Frederick the Great was ushered
+in 1712.  Few children, be they princes or peasants, have ever had a
+more unhappy childhood.  If he had not been born to be a King,
+Frederick's tastes would have led him to be a musician or a poet.  A
+son whose chief pleasures consisted in playing the flute, and reading
+French books, became an object almost of aversion to the austere
+Frederick William.  In the midst of severities past belief Frederick
+obtained most of his education in secret, at the hands of French
+_émigrés_, who formed his taste after French models, the influence of
+which could be traced throughout his life.  His passion for music was
+pursued also in the same secret way.
+
+The tyranny and the beatings to which he was subjected became at last
+so intolerable that, when he was eighteen years old, Frederick
+determined to run away.  His adored sister Wilhelmine was his
+confidante.  His bosom friend, Lieutenant Von Katte, was his
+accomplice.  A letter to Von Katte, written at this time, fell into
+other hands and was sent to the King.
+
+The barbarities which followed make one think this Hohenzollern should
+have been in a madhouse instead of on a throne.  It was a small matter
+that he beat his son until his face was covered with blood, for he had
+done that before; but he sent him as a prisoner of state to Prussia.
+He then annulled the sentence of imprisonment passed by the
+court-martial upon Von Katte, and ordered his immediate execution.  To
+inflict more suffering he ordered that the hanging take place before
+the window of the cell where his son was confined!
+
+When this was carried into effect the young prince fainted, and lay so
+long insensible that it was thought he was dead.
+
+The King then insisted that he be tried by court-martial; and when the
+court decided that it had no authority to condemn the Crown Prince, he
+overruled the decision and ordered his execution.
+
+The horror and indignation caused by this extended as far as Vienna.
+The Emperor Charles VI. informed the King of Prussia that the Crown
+Prince could only be condemned capitally at an Imperial Diet.  The King
+answered, "Very well; then, I will hold my own court on him at
+Königsberg.  Prussia is my own and outside the confines of the empire,
+where I can do as I please."
+
+But the fury of this madman was abating.  He did not resent it when a
+daring attendant reminded him that "God also ruled--even in Prussia."
+Finally he was satisfied with humiliating his son by making him work
+for one year in the lowest position in the departments of the
+government.
+
+At the wedding festivities of his sister Wilhelmine, Frederick secreted
+himself among the servants in humble attire.  He was discovered, and
+the King, who must have been in a genial mood that night, pulled him
+forth from his hiding, and leading him to the trembling queen said,
+"Here, madam, our Fritz is back again!"  And the reconciliation made
+three aching hearts glad.
+
+For the ten succeeding years Frederick was permitted to reside in his
+own castle near Potsdam, and the relations with his father became
+kinder and almost cordial.  The son in his castle pursued his
+philosophical studies, corresponded with Voltaire, and played the flute
+to his heart's content.
+
+But he did other things too, as the future demonstrated.  The study of
+profound subjects, conversation, and intimate friendships with learned
+men, trained his active mind to wonderful acuteness, and when he
+applied this to the study of history, when he read of the dignity of
+kings, and of what stuff greatness was made in the past--he formed his
+own ideals for the future.  When Frederick William died in 1740 he was
+prepared to take the reins of government with a comprehensiveness of
+grasp of which his austere father was incapable, and with clearly
+defined plans to make Prussia great.
+
+Six months later Maria Theresa succeeded to her father's throne.  She
+had no fear of this young flute-playing King of Prussia, and was fully
+occupied in defending her own Imperial rights, which were assailed by
+the Elector of Bavaria, who claimed to be Emperor Karl VII., by virtue
+of a descent superior to hers.
+
+But the war of the _Austrian Succession_, in which she was soon
+involved, was quickly overshadowed by a greater conflict, which was
+immediately commenced by the bold and ambitious young Prussian King.
+
+He claimed, by virtue of some obscure transaction in the past, that
+Silesia belonged to him.  But he gallantly offered, if it was returned
+to him, to support Maria Theresa's cause in the fight with her kinsman
+of Bavaria over the succession.
+
+The offer was rejected, and almost before the ink in the correspondence
+was dry, a Prussian army, with Frederick at its head, was in the heart
+of the disputed province.
+
+Two characteristics marked Frederick's movements--the perfect secrecy
+with which they were planned, and the swiftness with which they were
+carried out.  He formed his own plans, and even his Prime Minister did
+not know of their existence until he was ordered to execute them.  The
+cunning methods then prevailing in Courts, by which foreign ambassadors
+defeated designs while they were maturing, were powerless against this
+young King, as none but himself knew what was going to happen.  He gave
+his personal and unremitting care to every detail of government, and
+astonished his people by the prodigies of labor he performed, and the
+sacrifices of his time, rest, and comfort.
+
+Of course this ancient wrong done his family in the matter of Silesia
+was only a pretext.  Frederick had made up his mind at Potsdam that
+Prussia must be solidified by bringing together her detached provinces,
+and he had long ago drawn a new map in his mind, which should include
+Silesia.
+
+Nature had endowed him with a bold and aspiring genius.  He had a
+consciousness of strength, combined with a belief that he was a chosen
+instrument appointed by fate to perform a definite work: the raising of
+Prussia to the first rank in the German empire.
+
+When we see Frederick's ideal of a despotic personal government, with a
+divinely appointed ruler leading his country to greatness, independent
+of ministers and advisers,--it is easy to recognize the model which is
+being studied by a certain young ruler in Europe to-day!
+
+There was another strong personality on the throne at Vienna.  To have
+her crown threatened by a powerful combination, and at the same time a
+war of conquest waged against her in her own Austria, was a heavy
+burden to be borne by a young girl of twenty-four years.  But Maria
+Theresa maintained herself with astonishing bravery and firmness.  She
+listened to the counsels of her ministers, and then decided for
+herself; even her husband Francis being unable to sway her judgment.
+
+France, Spain, and Saxony sustained the claims of the Bavarian Archduke
+to her throne; and when a French army was on the Danube and Vienna
+threatened, she fled to Hungary and made a personal appeal to the
+Hungarian Diet to stand by her.  She promised the restoration of rights
+for which they had been contending, and by her personal charm and
+radiance captured the wavering nobles, who placed on her head the crown
+of St. Stephen.  They cheered wildly as she galloped up "the king's
+hill," and waved her sword toward the four quarters of the earth in
+true Imperial fashion.
+
+Then she appeared before the Diet in their national costume with her
+infant son Joseph in her arms, and in an eloquent speech depicted the
+dangers which beset her, and the enthusiastic nobles drew their sabers,
+shouting, "We will die for our _King_, Maria Theresa!"
+
+This saved Vienna.  The support of Hungary arrested the advance toward
+the capital, and the invading army moved instead on to Prague, where
+her rival was crowned King of Bohemia, and later at Frankfort was
+proclaimed Emperor Karl VII.
+
+While these distracting combinations were engrossing the young
+sovereign, Frederick had invaded Silesia, and when the second Silesian
+war ended in 1742, Prussia held that province, and was enriched by 150
+large and small cities, and about 5000 villages.
+
+England, Holland, and Hanover now came to the support of Maria Theresa
+against Karl VII. and his French ally.
+
+The wary Frederick saw that, with such a coalition, Austria's success
+was certain, and he also saw that, if victorious, her next step would
+be to try to recover Silesia.  So he offered to join France in support
+of Karl VII., and threw himself into the war of the Austrian succession.
+
+This lasted three years longer and was concluded by the Peace of
+Dresden (1745), which again confirmed Prussia in the possession of
+Silesia, left Maria Theresa's husband wearing the disputed Imperial
+title as Francis I., and to Frederick left the more unique and renowned
+title of "the Great," which was bestowed by acclamation on his return
+to Berlin.
+
+Frederick's first care was to heal the wounds inflicted by the two
+Silesian wars.
+
+It is interesting to speculate upon what this man might have been, had
+his childhood been spent in an atmosphere of kindness and love, and had
+his heart and intelligence been symmetrically nurtured and trained.
+
+But he was trained as the tree is trained which is blasted in its youth
+by lightnings, then twisted and distorted by hands which defeat its
+natural tendency upward and sunward!
+
+An eager and impressionable boy with warm affections, acute
+intelligence, and a strong sense of justice had been subjected to
+inhuman barbarities in his own home.  In his heart-hunger he turned to
+pursuits for which he had a passionate love, and was nourished in
+secret upon a poisonous diet.  A nature which in the fire of his youth
+had been full of generous enthusiasms was embittered by suffering, and
+then became cold and cynical under the teachings of Voltaire.
+
+So fascinated had he become with this man that he regarded him as the
+most exalted of beings, and his friendship a treasure above all others.
+Faith, hope, love, and filial respect were, through this influence,
+destroyed in the germ before they had time to unfold; and in the place
+of everything sacred was a cynical cold-blooded search after what these
+philosophers of the eighteenth century were pleased to call--_truth_.
+And the way to discover this truth was to analyze, dissect, and then to
+demolish!
+
+So there had been created a strangely composite man, compounded of
+elements native to himself, to that undeveloped barbarian Frederick
+William, and to Voltaire!  Joined to a strong practical common sense in
+the management of affairs was a passion for insincere, unsound, and
+shallow French ideals.  And combined with the most despotic and
+arbitrary of wills, was an inflexible regard for the right of the
+humblest.  While he despised the beliefs of Protestant and Catholic
+alike, he declared "I mean that every man in my kingdom shall have the
+right to be saved in his own way."  And he secured that right for his
+people, too!
+
+His rule was a despotism, but it was a despotism of intelligence and
+justice.  He called himself the first official servant of the state,
+and no clerk in his kingdom gave such faithful service as he.  He arose
+at four o'clock in the morning.  He made himself personally acquainted
+with every village and landed estate in his kingdom, which he treated
+as if it were a great private enterprise and interest, for which he was
+responsible.
+
+He was a reformer without heart; a King intent upon the well-being of
+his people, without tenderness; a leader prepared, if need be, not to
+lead, but to drag Prussia with a rough hand up the rugged path of
+virtue and prosperity; and determined to make his nation great, whether
+it wanted to be or not!
+
+There were many pleasanter companions and gentler fathers in his day.
+There were sovereigns who did not terrify wrong-doers and children on
+the street with uplifted canes.  But this Frederick, with character
+scarred and distorted, was the one man in Europe who was converting a
+kingdom into a POWER, and the one man of his age whom history would
+call GREAT!
+
+But such a being as this, one who has turned to adamant in heroic mold,
+cannot sympathetically comprehend the finer currents about him.  There
+was going on, quite unnoticed by King Frederick, an awakening in the
+German mind, and while he was building a structure of material
+greatness, there had commenced, unobserved by him, another structure,
+which was to be the chief glory of Germany.
+
+The passion for speculative thought awakened by Spinoza was stirring
+the German soul to its depths.  Kant had found that Spinoza's _Eternal
+Order_ must be a _Moral Order_.  That the moral instincts which guided
+mankind, and were the all in all, were the God in us, the in-dwelling
+of the Divine.  Thus was embodied the essence of Christianity in a new
+and speculative philosophy.
+
+Klopstock and Lessing were creating a national literature, which
+revealed for the first time the strength, resources, and unsuspected
+beauty of their own language, and which was for the first time being
+used to express a genius untouched by foreign influence.
+
+But all unconscious of this new, rushing stream of life, Frederick was
+entertaining Voltaire, spending his evenings in listening to the latest
+satirical verses of that vain and gifted Frenchman, and laughing at the
+latest witty epigram from Paris.
+
+It had been one of Frederick's dreams, in his youth, to have his great
+friend some day reside in his Court.  In 1750 this was realized, and
+the King and the poet settled down to what was to be an everlasting
+banquet of sympathetic tastes and opinions, seasoned with mutual
+admiration and friendship!
+
+Frederick felt that he was something of a poet himself, and that he was
+only prevented by cares of state from letting the world find it out.
+The wily Frenchman had been the literary confidant of his royal friend,
+and many pages of verses had been submitted to him during their long
+correspondence, and had received flattering commendation from the great
+critic.  So one of the pleasantest features in this closer
+companionship was expected to be this drop of honeyed praise to sweeten
+the evening after the day's work was done.
+
+But Frederick's verses bored Voltaire very much, and the royal host
+began to discover that his great guest was selfish, and cold, and
+jealous, and even malignant.  The nimbus of fascination began to fade.
+He could be cutting and satirical as well as Voltaire.  The great poet
+was no less hungry for praise than he, and it was an easy matter to
+yawn and be bored by his verses, too.  And so they became gradually
+estranged, and finally enemies.  They parted in anger, and Voltaire
+returned to France, to write bitter satires about the King, whose
+character and ideals he had been one of the chief agents in forming.
+
+There was then in Germany a man whose glory was to outshine Voltaire's
+or that of any contemporary in Europe, even as the sun does the stars.
+But Frederick's ear could not detect music in his own language, nor was
+his stunted soul attuned to the native and sublime harmonies of
+Goethe's genius.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+There had been a time when two nations in Europe could fight each other
+to the death without disturbing their neighbors, but since there had
+developed in the sixteenth century that larger unity of European
+states, there was no such isolated security.
+
+So when, in 1755, England and France came into collision over the
+boundaries of their American colonies, the shock was felt all over
+Europe.  Just as the earthquake which swallowed up Lisbon at that very
+time had made the shores of Lake Ontario tremble, so the peace of
+Germany, which had lasted for eleven years, was broken by an event in
+far-off Canada.
+
+The two contending parties, England and France, began after the fashion
+of the time to look about for allies.  Maria Theresa, who had
+invitations from both countries to join them, was considering which
+could best serve her own private interests.  England, since 1714, had
+been ruled by Hanoverian kings, which practically annexed her to
+Hanover.  It was by no means sure that she could get assistance from
+that nation in recovering Silesia--which was to be the price of her
+alliance.  She decided that her best policy was to secure the aid of
+Louis XV., who would be glad to help her in her plans against
+Frederick, in return for the assistance of Austria in this war with
+England.
+
+As astute and profound as any statesman in Europe, this wonderful
+Empress adopted means and methods entirely feminine to carry out her
+immense design.
+
+She knew that Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, was mortally offended with
+the King of Prussia, on account of some disparaging remarks he had made
+about her, so she deftly used that to her own advantage.
+Then--perfectly understanding how to reach the enslaved Louis XV.--she
+wrote a flattering letter to Mme. de Pompadour, then in the full tide
+of her ascendency over the king.
+
+With the greatest secrecy these negotiations were carried on, and at
+last the compact between the three great powers was concluded and
+everything ready to commence a war upon Prussia in the spring of 1757;
+even to the agreement as to the way in which they should cut up and
+divide among themselves the kingdom of Prussia!
+
+Frederick, through secret agents, was perfectly well informed of their
+plans.  He saw that his ruin was determined upon, and could only be
+prevented by unhesitating courage.  He determined to anticipate them.
+Before the allied armies were ready, he made one of his catlike leaps
+into the neutral territory of Saxony, and was in Dresden, half way to
+Prague, with seventy thousand men.
+
+This so disconcerted the plans of the allies that there was a pause,
+and conferences were held, in which it was concluded to ask Sweden to
+join the coalition.  Finally, that almost forgotten body, the Diet of
+the German Empire, formally declared war against Prussia, and the Third
+Silesian War, or the Seven Years' War, had commenced.
+
+As the avowed object of this great combination was not the recovery of
+Silesia but the dismemberment of the kingdom, to deprive Frederick of
+his royal title, and to reduce him to a simple Margrave of Brandenburg,
+it is easy to see the incentive he had to great deeds.
+
+England and a few small German States were his allies; but, as George
+II. heartily disliked him, he received small assistance from him, and
+stood practically alone with half of Europe allied against him.
+
+There were great victories and great defeats during the seven years
+which followed.  There were times when the cause of Prussia seemed
+lost, and other times when that of the Allies appeared hopeless.  But
+the tide of victory more often set toward Frederick's standard than
+that of his adversaries.  He defeated the Austrians at Prague; the
+Imperial and French army at Rossbach; a Russian army at Zorndorf; and
+these and a hundred other names stand in the annals of Prussia for
+monumental courage, daring, and sacrifice.
+
+In the confused narrative of advancing and retreating armies, of
+battles and of slaughter, but one distinct impression remains.  That is
+amazement--amazement that so many thousands were willing at the bidding
+of one ambitious man to die, to lay down their bodies in that heap of
+dead, for Prussia's greatness to rise upon!  That not one was ready to
+reproach him for having brought these calamities upon them for the sake
+of Silesia; but instead, with twenty thousand still lying unburied upon
+one field, that they respond with infatuated enthusiasm to his appeal
+for more!
+
+But Prussia owes her rise to just such infatuation as this.
+_Acquisition_ and _conquest_ are written on her foundation stones, the
+chief of which were laid by her Great Frederick.
+
+It is pleasant to tell of peace once more.  The Allies, wearied of the
+long war, gradually withdrew from Austria.  Being unable to carry it on
+alone, Maria Theresa was compelled to abandon her dream of ruining
+Frederick.  With bitterness of heart and humiliation she consented to
+give up Silesia forever as the price of a peace she did not desire.  In
+1763, the articles were signed (the Peace of Hubertsburg) and the Seven
+Years' War was over.
+
+Frederick was now called "the Great" throughout Europe; and Prussia
+took her place among the "Five Great Powers."
+
+The next thing to be done was to repair the desolation left by seven
+years of war.  Nearly fifteen thousand houses were in ashes.  So many
+men had been consumed in the army that there were not enough left to
+till the fields, nor horses to draw the harvest.
+
+The practical King, anticipating this, had been enforcing the
+cultivation of the much despised potato; and this useful tuber saved
+Prussia and Silesia from famine, and some of their neighbors as well.
+For as many as twenty thousand famishing people came from the trampled
+and burnt corn-fields of Bohemia to feed upon the Prussian potato and
+live.
+
+Again the people set about the oft-repeated task of repairing the
+devastation of war.  Indeed for 150 years they had always been either
+enduring the horrors of a great conflict, or healing its wounds and
+building up the waste places it had made.  Can we wonder that they were
+strong and serious?  The weaklings were winnowed out by these great
+storms, and the chastened souls of those who survived knew little of
+pleasure.  Religion, which had once been their solace and refuge, had
+lost much of its power on account of the bitterness of sectarian strife.
+
+A few men groping for a solution of the problems of sin and suffering,
+and for the meaning of this troubled existence, thought they had found
+it in the new philosophy.  France, under the teachings of Voltaire and
+Rousseau, had cast off the restraints of religious faith without
+providing any substitute, but Germany, more provident, was building a
+spacious house for the soul's refuge when the old was demolished;
+untrammeled freedom of thought was inscribed upon its doors, and
+PHILOSOPHY was enshrined within!
+
+All this tumultuous inner life was growth: the growth and unfolding of
+a great and earnest soul; and the awakening of new capacities for being
+and doing.  There was a rapturous surprise in discovering these
+capacities, and speculative thought and literature became an absorbing
+passion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+At the close of the Seven Years' War, Maria Theresa had spent the
+twenty-three years of her reign in a fruitless struggle with Frederick.
+Instead of dismembering his kingdom and reducing him to a plain
+Margrave of Brandenburg, she had lost Silesia and was compelled to
+listen to the praises of her enemy resounding through Europe and to
+hear him called "the Great."
+
+It was a bitter pill for her nine years later, when she had to confer
+with the Prussian King as an equal, over the partition of Poland, and
+to see him further enriched by a goodly slice of that unhappy country.
+
+But before that event, and just two years after the conclusion of the
+war, Francis I. died (1755).  He had worn the title, but she had
+wielded the power and guided the events ever since that day when, with
+her infant son in her arms, she had captured the Hungarian Diet at
+Presburg.
+
+And now that son was Joseph II.  But the scepter was still in reality
+to remain with her while she lived, and in fact her name was to be the
+last ray of splendor which should illumine the throne of Austria.  But
+these were sunset glories after a long and troubled day, while in
+Prussia was the brightness of the dawn.
+
+That friendship with Louis XV. so eagerly sought by Maria Theresa led
+to a very momentous alliance of a different sort.  The Empress and the
+French King together arranged a marriage between her fair young
+daughter Marie Antoinette and Louis, the young Dauphin of France.
+
+How should the Empress of Austria, born, nurtured, and fed in the very
+center of despotism--not hearing or heeding the current ideas about
+human rights and freedom--entirely misunderstanding the past, the
+present, and the future--how should she suspect the terrific forces
+which were accumulating beneath the throne of France, or that it would
+become a scaffold for her child?  Hapsburg and Bourbon, to her mind,
+were realities as fixed and enduring as the Alps.
+
+She saw no special significance in the fact that thirteen English
+colonies in America were in rebellion and setting up a novel form of
+government for themselves.  That was England's affair, not hers, and
+would in time, like other rebellions against properly constituted
+authority, be put down.
+
+She did not live to see the end of this struggle, nor the events to
+which it led in France.  Her death occurred in 1780.  Her son, Joseph
+II., strange to say, was imbued with the new ideas of human rights.
+Great was the astonishment of Frederick and of Europe, when this young
+man set about the task of establishing a new and progressive order of
+things in Austria; and it was a strange spectacle to behold a Hapsburg
+trying to force upon his people reforms they did not desire, and rights
+which they did not know how to use.
+
+His plans were high and noble, but he failed to see that they were too
+sweeping and too suddenly developed to be permanent.  His people were
+not ripe for emancipation from old shackles, which they had grown to
+like and venerate.  In striving to free the church from the Jesuits,
+and to emancipate the serfs in Hungary, he had accomplished nothing,
+and had created chaos.  Depressed by the failure in his great design of
+reformation, Joseph's health gave way.  He died in 1790 and was
+succeeded by his brother Leopold II.
+
+It is not to be supposed that Frederick felt much sympathy with the
+free young Republic established in America.  And if he sent a sword of
+honor to Washington in 1783, it was because he recognized the greatness
+of the man; and perhaps, too, because he felt a malicious pleasure in
+the humiliation of George III.!
+
+The intellectual awakening which this King had failed to understand had
+wrought a mighty change in Germany.  Lessing had been the first to
+break away from an enfeebling imitation of French _Sentimentlalism_.
+The genius of Goethe and Schiller awakened a new spirit in literature,
+that of _Romanticism_, and there commenced that intellectual convulsion
+known as _Sturm und Drang_, or storm and stress period.  While Goethe
+and Schiller were supreme in the kingdom of letters, Herder and the
+Schlegels were great in history and criticism; Humboldt and Ritter in
+geographical science; Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Kant in philosophy;
+Fouqué and Tieck in imagination, and Jean Paul Richter in the
+mysterious ether of transcendental thought.
+
+When Karl August called Goethe to his Court in Saxe-Weimar, among that
+group of other illustrious authors, and gave to Weimar the name of the
+"German Athens," it was a Golden Age for Germany.
+
+It is interesting to recall that it was Luther who gave the first
+impulse to this movement, by revealing to the people the riches of
+their own tongue.  In his translation of the Bible, and in his hymns,
+so grandly simple, he created the modern German language.
+
+The influence of Luther was felt in another art, too.  The enthusiasm
+awakened by the singing of his hymns revolutionized the form of
+ecclesiastical music.  In this Golden Age in Germany music, too, had
+become a great art, with such immortal names as Mozart, Gluck, Haydn,
+and Beethoven; and the period of great orchestration also had
+commenced.[1]
+
+Although Frederick's tastes led him so strongly to letters and to
+music, these two arts had attained this rich development in Germany
+without any assistance from him.  When he died in 1786 the monument he
+left was a Kingdom of Prussia; equal in rank with any of the Great
+Powers of Europe, enlarged in territory, rich in population, with a
+great army and an overflowing treasury.
+
+As Frederick the Great had no son, this splendid inheritance passed to
+his nephew Frederick William II.
+
+With the new ascendency of Prussia in the German Empire, a process
+which had long been going on was accelerated.  That empire had become a
+fiction, a form from which the substance had long ago departed; almost
+its only remaining relic being an Imperial Diet, where thirty solemn
+old men supposed they were holding the venerated structure together by
+weaving about it, and repairing, the thin, worn threads of tradition.
+
+The German Empire had in its best time existed by grace of God and
+force of circumstances, more than by reason of a sound and perfect
+organism.  It always struggled with fatal inherent defects.  Its life
+currents never flowed freely and had been growing more and more
+sluggish for centuries.  And now, they had ceased to flow at all.
+There was no vital relation whatever between its various parts.  Of
+national feeling there was absolutely none.  Lessing, one of the
+greatest Germans of that time, said, "Of the love of country I have no
+conception!"
+
+And what was there to inspire patriotism in this great empty shell of
+despotism!  The shattered lifeless old structure was wrong at its very
+foundation.  It was built upon feudal injustice; that injustice which
+compelled the people to bear the whole burden of taxation, from which
+it exempted the nobility and the clergy.  England had long ago
+redressed this grievous wrong.  France was just preparing to free
+herself from it by a tremendous convulsion.  Germany had been offered
+emancipation at the hands of her enlightened and gracious Emperor
+Joseph, but so spiritless and benumbed had she become that she could
+not understand his message.
+
+He was attempting a vain task in trying to infuse new life into the
+empire.  There were no living channels to convey the current.  The only
+thing to be done with it was to sweep it away--and the man and the time
+for doing this were close at hand.  The surface calm which existed
+while Leopold II. was repairing the disorder left by his reforming
+brother Joseph, was the calm which precedes the hurricane.
+
+
+
+[1] See Chart of Civilization in Six Centuries, "Who, When, and What."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+The energies which were to transform the face of Europe had been
+gradually centering in France.  They commenced when Voltaire and
+Rousseau made it the fashion to scoff at the Church.  Then, as religion
+and morality are closely allied, virtue became also a subject of
+ridicule.  The spirit animating this was supposed to be a reforming
+spirit.  It was an effort to free the people from the fetters of
+ecclesiasticism.  Naturally, this led to assaults upon other fetters,
+other prevailing abuses.  The vices of the Court were held up to
+view--its extravagance and luxury; all of which people were reminded
+that _they_ had to pay for.
+
+Just at this time the Colonies in North America threw off the English
+yoke because of this very matter of taxation unjustly imposed, and
+France enthusiastically helped them to establish a free republic and to
+humiliate her rival!
+
+Frenchmen returned from the United States and contrasted the fresh
+vigor and purity of its institutions with the decrepit corruptions in
+France.  The current began to flow very swiftly now.  A Richelieu or a
+Louis XIV. would have been powerless to arrest the mad forces which
+quickly developed.  What could the feeble, well-intentioned Louis XVI.
+do!  He was like a skiff caught in the rushing rapids of the Niagara
+River.  It was only a question of how long he could hold on to passing
+twigs and branches before he should go over the precipice.  In 1793
+Europe read with shuddering horror of his execution, and nine months
+later Maria Theresa's daughter--the beautiful, the adored Marie
+Antoinette--sat in a cart with her arms pinioned behind her, as she was
+driven to the scaffold.
+
+The men who had guided this storm in its beginnings had themselves been
+engulfed in it, and a French republic was proclaimed which had been
+erected upon a tragedy unparalleled in Europe.
+
+It was a horrible avenging of centuries of wrong and oppression.  But
+its purpose was thoroughly accomplished.  No vestige of the old
+tyrannies remained.  If France was again enslaved, the fetters would
+have to be forged anew!
+
+The powers of Europe were not only filled with horror and indignation
+at the means by which this was accomplished, but they saw with alarm a
+pestilential republic, in imitation of that one across the sea, at
+their very doors.
+
+They formed a combination, called the First Coalition, for its
+overthrow.  If the states of Europe had really acted in concert, the
+life of the new republic would have been very brief.  But Austria was
+jealous of Prussia, and Prussia was jealous of the close friendship
+forming between Austria and England, withdrew from the alliance, and
+made peace with the French republic.
+
+Catherine, Empress of Russia, for reasons of her own also declined to
+join the coalition.  While all Europe was thus engaged she thought it a
+good time to settle some scores with the Turks and to look after
+Poland, where a revolution was in progress.  So, while the German
+Empire was engaged in suppressing republicanism in France, Frederick
+William II. of Prussia offered his services to Catherine to overthrow
+the independence of Poland.
+
+Kosciusko vainly defended that unhappy country.  With the fall of
+Warsaw, 1794, it ceased to exist as one in the family of nations.
+
+So Austria had been left practically alone to put down the new
+republic, which was developing wonderful strength while these languid
+and inefficient efforts were being made against it; for even Austria
+was diverted by what was going on in Poland, and fearful that she was
+not going to get her share of the spoils.
+
+Marie Antoinette's brother Leopold had died the year before his
+sister's execution and his son Francis II. was Emperor of Germany.  The
+government of this new republic which had caused such a stir in Europe
+was a very simple affair.  Five men who were called Directors were at
+its head, and an obscure young man of twenty-six, named Napoleon
+Bonaparte, had been given command of the army, with Italy as its field
+of operations.
+
+No doubt Francis thought it would be an easy matter to deal with France
+after the more important matter of the partition of Poland was disposed
+of.  Little did he suspect that the time was approaching when he would,
+at the bidding of that young man, take off his Imperial crown, and that
+Napoleon Bonaparte would rise to ascendency in Europe upon the ruins of
+the German Empire.
+
+In 1796 the young Corsican led a ragged, unpaid army into Italy.
+Without supplies, and almost without ammunition, he had audaciously
+planned to make the invaded country pay the expenses of the war waged
+against it.
+
+He pointed to the Italian cities, and said to his soldiers, "There is
+your reward.  It is rich and ample; but you must conquer it."  He knew
+the French character and how in words brief, concise, forcible to
+address them like another Cæsar addressing his legions; to create
+incentives to glory, and to inspire enthusiasm as never man did before.
+
+He also knew the infirmities of his adversaries, and how to play upon
+them as Cæsar did upon the rivalries and jealousies of the Gauls, and
+so to make the characteristics of Frenchmen, of German, and of Italian
+all serve him.  He knew how to confound the enemy with new and
+unexpected methods, which rendered unavailing all which military
+science and experience had before taught.
+
+In a brief time central Italy lay open before him, and princes,
+trembling at his vengeance, were suing for peace and offering money and
+treasure to procure it.  Even then he was planning to make of Paris
+another Rome, and to adorn her with the jewels which had been worn by
+the proud Italian cities.  So he demanded rare collections of paintings
+as the price of safety.  The Duke of Parma laid at his feet priceless
+treasures of art; and even the Pope purchased neutrality by the payment
+of twenty-one million francs, one hundred costly pictures, and two
+hundred rare manuscripts.
+
+When the treaty of Campo Formio was signed in 1797, Napoleon had won
+fourteen battles, and had subjugated Italy.  The German Empire had lost
+all of its Italian possessions, which were now grouped together into a
+Cisalpine Republic, under the protectorship of France.  Another
+Helvetic Republic was set up in Switzerland under the same
+protectorate.  And then Napoleon scornfully tossed Venice as an apple
+of discord into the lap of the Emperor, in exchange for the
+Netherlands.  And another republic under a French protectorate was
+created in Holland.
+
+As the left bank of the Rhine had already been ceded to France, that
+country, which had been only four years before in a state of political
+chaos, was at the head of Europe.
+
+What would she not do at the bidding of the man who could accomplish
+such things?  He dramatically conceived the idea of crippling England
+by threatening her Asiatic possessions, and led an army into Egypt.
+There every bulletin, every address to his army, added to the glamour
+of his name.  Even the Pyramids were made to serve his consummate art
+and ambition!
+
+Although his fleet was destroyed by Nelson and his army left in
+perilous position, he was needed at home, and returned with all the
+arrogance of a conqueror.  He was appointed Generalissimo over the army
+by an enraptured France, and then swept aside the five Directors and
+appointed himself and two others Consuls.
+
+A second coalition was now formed against France, consisting of
+England, Russia, and Austria, and there followed another campaign in
+which Napoleon made permanent the results of the previous ones in
+Italy.  By the treaty of peace in 1801, the three republics created by
+him were formally recognized, and the princes of Germany, in
+compensation for their losses, had apportioned among them the dominions
+of the priestly rulers.
+
+Thus at one blow were abolished one hundred states governed by
+archbishops, bishops, and other clerical dignitaries, and one of the
+foundation stones of the empire, laid by Charlemagne himself, was
+shattered.
+
+This extraordinary man, dreaming of universal empire, superstitiously
+believed that Fate intended him to hold Europe in his hand.  But we can
+see now that he was designed by that remorseless Fate for a very
+different purpose, and a very brief office.  He was a terrible
+instrument, which she intended to use for one specific purpose, and
+then to cast him aside.
+
+This work was the destruction of the Romano-Germanic Empire.  That
+lifeless mass, whose oppressive weight had crushed the life and hope
+out of Central Europe for centuries, needed some tremendous force from
+without to break up its time-encrusted rivets.  And that force was now
+in the hands of a workman who supposed he was engaged in rearing a
+great edifice for himself.  Instead of which he was overturning, and
+plowing, and harrowing Germany, and preparing the ground for new forms
+of political life; and nothing more effectually pulverized the old
+tyrannies than this secularization of the priestly dominions.  When,
+added to this, we see the extinction of a multitude of petty states and
+the abolition of the special privileges of nearly a thousand "Imperial"
+noble families, we realize how he was relieving Germany from the
+incubus which had paralyzed her for centuries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+The eighteenth century closed upon a strangely altered Europe.  France
+was the ruling power on the Continent.  Prussia had hidden herself in a
+timid neutrality, and left Austria to fight with foreign allies for the
+life of the empire.  That battle had been a losing one, and now Francis
+II. sat upon a trembling throne and bore a title which had no longer
+any meaning.
+
+But Napoleon was building his own edifice.  In 1803 he had himself
+declared First Consul for life, and in 1804 he assumed the title of
+Napoleon, Emperor of the French.  His coronation took place at Paris,
+where he compelled the Pope to come and perform that ceremony.
+
+Then, after changing the groups of Italian republics into a Kingdom of
+Italy, he crowned himself, after the fashion of the Emperors whose
+successor he meant to be, with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
+
+He had entered upon the most daring scheme ever attempted in Europe: to
+convert the whole Continent into one vast empire, with the kings and
+princes over the several nations all subject to him.
+
+Then there was a third coalition from which Prussia still held aloof,
+and which was composed of England, Austria, Russia, and Sweden.
+Alexander I. was now Emperor of Russia, and the timorous and
+unpatriotic policy of Prussia was guided by Frederick William III., who
+had succeeded his father Frederick William II.
+
+The Prussian King, influenced by antagonism to Austria and by the hope
+of obtaining safety and reward for Prussia, stubbornly maintained his
+attitude of neutrality, while the German Empire was receiving its
+death-blow at Austerlitz.  That "battle of the three Emperors," as it
+is called, was a paralyzing defeat to the Allies.
+
+Prussia ignominiously received Hanover as her reward, and seventeen
+German states, including Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, and
+Hesse-Darmstadt, formally separated themselves from the German Empire
+and declared themselves subject to the French Emperor.  This was known
+as the Rheinbund.
+
+The German Empire was now reduced to three separate bodies: the
+Rheinbund, a federation of states giving willing allegiance to
+Napoleon; _Prussia_, practically in alliance with her destroyer; and
+_Austria_, helpless in that destroyer's grasp, while he, sitting in the
+Imperial Palace at Vienna, dictated terms of peace.
+
+The Empire was broken beyond repair.  On the 6th of August its
+dissolution was formally announced.  Francis II. abdicated the Imperial
+crown and assumed the title of the "Emperor of Austria."
+
+It was not the people of Prussia who bartered their allegiance to the
+fatherland for peace and for Hanover.  It was their King and princes
+who brought this stain upon them, and their beautiful Queen Louise,
+mother of the late Emperor William, had pleaded in vain with the King
+to pursue a loyal and patriotic course.
+
+The punishment came swiftly.  The insatiate conqueror had no thought of
+leaving a great state like Prussia undisturbed.  And soon it developed
+that his plan was also to create a northern bund under his
+protectorate, which would be composed of the Prussian states on the
+northern coast.
+
+Forced in her own defense to take up arms, Prussia suffered a terrible
+defeat at Jena, 1806.  The conqueror for whose friendship Frederick
+William had sacrificed his country was in Berlin.  The beautiful
+Prussian Queen who, he knew, had used her influence against him, was
+treated with the grossest insolence, while for the cowed people
+recently in revolt, and now prostrating themselves, he did not restrain
+his contempt.
+
+The Peace of Tilsit (1807) determined the full measure of Prussia's
+retribution.  Her Polish acquisitions were made into a "Grand Duchy of
+Warsaw," under a French protectorate.  One half of the rest of her
+territory was converted into a kingdom of Westphalia, over which
+Napoleon's brother Jerome was king.  To the remainder of Prussia was
+assigned the burden of an immense indemnity, and the maintenance of a
+French army in her territory.
+
+But the cup of humiliation was not drained until later when, standing
+with the Continent under his feet, Napoleon compelled the Prussian King
+to join the Rheinbund with what was left of his kingdom, to furnish
+France with troops, and thus to become tributary to his designs upon
+Europe.
+
+Napoleon in the meantime, in an hour's interview with Alexander of
+Russia, had by the magic of his influence secured that Emperor's
+friendship.  All this excellent man was fighting for was the peace of
+Europe!  And he disclosed to Alexander his plan that they two should be
+the eternal custodians of that peace; which was to be secured by
+restraining the arrogance of England; and that was to be done by
+destroying her commercial prosperity.  All of Europe was to be
+forbidden to trade with that country.  There was to be a Continental
+blockade against a "nation of shopkeepers."  Alexander was completely
+won, and he promised not to molest his new friend in his benevolent
+task.
+
+The provinces dependent upon France were now divided up into kingdoms
+and principalities, and to make his own control over them more assured,
+Napoleon placed members of his own family and personal friends upon the
+various thrones.
+
+His brother Louis was created King of Holland.  His brother-in-law
+Murat was made King of Naples; Eugene Beauharnais, his step-son,
+Viceroy of Italy.  Jerome Bonaparte, as we have seen, was King of
+Westphalia, and his brother Joseph he had already made King of Spain,
+in the time he could spare from more important matters in Germany.
+
+And what was the real sentiment in Germany concerning this man at such
+a time?  We hear that ninety German authors dedicated books to him and
+that servile newspapers were praising him; and we know that one of the
+immortal compositions of Beethoven was inspired by him.  But we must
+recollect that he was too colossal and too dazzling to be accurately
+measured, except from a distance.  Even yet we are almost too near to
+him for that, and the world is as divided in its estimate of Napoleon
+as of the true meaning of Shakspeare's "Hamlet."  It is an eternal
+controversy.  He was a monstrous creation; colossal in his plans,
+colossal in his grasp of the forces about him, colossal in ambition, in
+selfishness, in cruelty, and in intelligence.
+
+Napoleon realized the value of hereditary grandeur.  He had been able
+to climb without it; but the sons who would succeed him as masters of
+Christendom must have the dignity of ancestry to fortify them.  No
+blood but the Hapsburg was fit for this great office.  He swept away
+Josephine as remorselessly as he had the Pope in Rome, and compelled
+Francis II. to bestow his daughter Marie Louise upon the man who had
+stripped him of his Crown and his Empire, and who was steadily
+absorbing what remained of his dignity.
+
+The marriage took place in 1810, and with his Hapsburg Empress,
+Napoleon established a temporary court at Dresden.
+
+Then there commenced the process which was intended finally to engulf
+all the separate German kingdoms in one universal abyss.  The Kingdom
+of Holland was first annexed to the French Empire; then North Germany
+was swallowed up in the same way; the same fate evidently being
+intended next for the Rheinbund.  The satellites had begun to fall into
+the sun!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+To the man guiding these astounding changes it seemed a very small
+matter then that a handful of Tyrolese peasants were in revolt against
+the French King in Bavaria; nor that a small group of philosophers,
+poets, and men of letters, were consulting together in Prussia over the
+shame of their betrayal by their rulers, and considering plans for
+guiding a popular movement for the emancipation of Germany.
+
+But these were the first stirrings of a force Napoleon had not before
+had to contend with.  He had fought with kings and princes and proud
+aristocracies clinging to their ancient splendor and possessions, but
+his armies had never been face to face with _patriotism_.
+
+He had not met it, because it did not exist in the German Empire until
+he himself made its existence possible by breaking up the old stifling
+tyrannies.  Now a few patriotic and courageous men all over Germany
+were combining, and inciting the people to revolt; an association
+called "The League of Virtue" was created.  Then the Tyrolese peasants
+were subdued and their leader Hofer was shot in cold blood by
+Napoleon's orders.  The King of Prussia was ordered to suppress the
+"League of Virtue," and French spies supposed they were uprooting
+patriotism by reporting it as treason to France.
+
+Napoleon was at this moment at the climax of his greatness.  He decreed
+that Rome should be annexed to his empire, and that his infant son
+should receive the title "King of Rome," which title should thereafter
+belong to the oldest son of the French Emperor.  What if this did bring
+curses upon his name?  He was now beyond the reach of blessings or
+curses from men; and probably was rather pleased than otherwise when
+Alexander I. threw off their sentimental friendship and defied him, by
+abandoning the plan of a Continental blockade for the ruin of England.
+
+Now he was free to develop his gigantic plan.  Does anyone suppose that
+the conquest of Russia was all of that plan?  Far from it!  There is
+every reason to believe that it was his intention, after Russia was
+subdued, to press on into Asia and to expel the English from their
+precious India!
+
+Not since the days of Attila had there been seen such an army as was
+led into Russia--six hundred thousand men, of whom only one out of
+twenty was ever to return!  And was it the lives of Frenchmen that he
+was spending so lavishly?  Not at all.  This great host was composed
+chiefly of Germans, Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Bavarians, Swiss, who
+should have been fighting for their own liberation at home.
+
+Lest Prussia should revolt in his absence the wary Napoleon garrisoned
+that kingdom with sixty thousand French troops, and took the sons of
+Prussia with him for the great human sacrifice in Russia.
+
+It was the 7th of September when the great army moved.  On and on they
+marched for two months through a silent and deserted land, only to
+reach at last a mysteriously silent city.  Had a whole people fled at
+his approach?  Napoleon took up his quarters in the Kremlin.  Suddenly
+fires broke out in a hundred places.  The city became a roaring
+furnace.  In vain did they try to stay the conflagration.  In a few
+hours Moscow, his rich prize, was a mass of ruin and ashes.
+
+Napoleon waited for a message from Alexander begging for peace; but
+none came.  Then the snowflakes began to fall and fierce winds began to
+sweep down from the north.  At length his stubborn pride had to bend.
+He sent his messengers to Alexander--still there was no answer.
+Provisions were failing, and there were leagues and leagues of deep and
+white snow between him and food for his famishing soldiers.
+
+Then the Russians came.  How could this starved, benumbed, frightened
+wreck of a great army stand before the Cossacks?  The story of that
+"retreat" could never be written.  Men, hollow-eyed and gaunt with
+misery, flung away their arms and fought with each other like wolves
+for a morsel of bread or a dead horse.
+
+On the 5th of December Napoleon quietly slipped away, leaving the
+freezing, famishing victims of his ambition to make their own way back
+as they could; knowing that for all, save a fragment, of that mighty
+host the snow must be a winding sheet.
+
+When Frederick William III. accepted that last humiliation and sent a
+Prussian army in the train of the conqueror to fight his battles, while
+Frenchmen guarded Prussians at home, the indignation was deep and
+wide-spread.  Three of his best generals, Blücher and two others,
+resigned.
+
+The Prussian contingent in the great invading army, which was under
+General York, had escaped many of the horrors of the retreat; and had
+returned with seventeen thousand out of the sixty thousand which had
+entered Russia.
+
+This Prussian commander, as soon as he crossed the line with his
+soldiers, on his own responsibility abandoned the French and arranged a
+treaty of neutrality with the Russian general.  Frederick disavowed the
+act, but it was received by the people of Prussia with wild enthusiasm.
+York called an assembly together at Königsberg, and boldly ordered that
+all men capable of bearing arms should be mustered into the Prussian
+army.
+
+The force of public sentiment revealed by this was too overwhelming for
+the King to oppose.  It swiftly swelled into a popular uprising in
+which all classes took part.  It was the first great patriotic movement
+in Germany; and to Prussia belongs the glory of having initiated it.
+It was the Prussian people who converted their whole male population
+into an army and their country into an arsenal, and with one voice, and
+animated by one heart, refused longer to bear the degradation put upon
+them by their King.  Hitherto the people had been led by their rulers.
+Now for a brief time they were going to be leaders, reluctantly
+followed by kings and princes.
+
+Within five months two hundred and seventy thousand men were under arms
+and Frederick had been obliged to declare war against the Emperor of
+the French, in alliance with Russia and Sweden.  Austria remained
+neutral, but the Rheinbund, with only two exceptions, still held to
+France.
+
+Napoleon by the irresistible magic of his influence assembled an army
+nearly as large as the one he had just sacrificed in Russia.  The
+campaign opened in April (1813).  By June his star seemed to be waning,
+and Austria offered to mediate a peace.  Napoleon insulted Metternich,
+who brought the proposals, and Francis II. joined the allies against
+his son-in-law.  In October the end arrived.
+
+The battle of Leipzig was to the people of Germany what Jena and
+Austerlitz had been to Napoleon.  The news of this great victory was
+electrifying.  From the Baltic to the Alps the air resounded with
+rejoicings.
+
+There are no persuasions needed to make people leave a sinking ship.
+Jerome Bonaparte fled from his kingdom of Westphalia--the Rheinbund
+dissolved--Holland, Switzerland, Italy fell away.  Wurtemberg joined
+the allies and the great movement for emancipation became national, not
+Prussian.
+
+The allied princes offered to Napoleon that the Rhine, the Alps, the
+Pyrenees, and the sea should be the frontiers of France.  Still
+believing in his invincibility, he scorned the proposition.  His star
+had certainly deserted him, for while he was collecting his broken
+forces in Germany, and while hope was reviving over small victories,
+the allied armies, unknown to him, were advancing on Paris!
+
+He learned it too late.  History holds no picture more powerfully
+impressive than that of this man waiting at Fontainebleau, twelve
+leagues from Paris, still believing in his power to retrieve, and
+unconscious that he is already deposed!  And the magic of his
+influence, the power of the spell he cast over mankind, is illustrated
+by the fact that even now, knowing him to have been a tyrant and a
+scourge as we do, rejoicing in his defeat as we must, we still cannot
+look at that picture without a moistened eye and almost a regret at his
+downfall!
+
+Alexander, and Frederick William, and the allied armies were in Paris,
+which had capitulated, and at their bidding had consented to the
+deposition of Napoleon.
+
+On the 6th of April, 1814, Louis XVIII., brother of the murdered Louis,
+was proclaimed King of France, and to the man who had been master of
+Europe was assigned--the island of Elba on the coast of Italy.
+
+But in March of the following year, while sovereigns were still
+wrangling over the disorder he had left, and while Talleyrand was
+scheming for his new master as faithfully as he had for the old, the
+startling news came that Napoleon had landed in France.  Louis XVIII.
+vanished into thin air before the man whom the people were receiving
+with wild acclamations of delight.
+
+Europe again united, and again Napoleon was seen advancing, as of old,
+with a great army.  Blücher was in command of one division of the
+allied armies and Wellington of the other.
+
+The battle of Waterloo began on the morning of the 18th of June, 1815.
+To England was to belong the glory of Napoleon's final downfall.
+Wellington accomplished his defeat, and then Blücher came in time to
+make that defeat an annihilation.
+
+The mistake of the year before was not to be repeated.  From that
+moment until his death at St. Helena, in 1821, Napoleon was a prisoner
+and an exile.  He had finished the work he had been appointed to do,
+and Fate had flung him aside!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Now came the difficult task of reconstruction and redistribution of
+territory.  In what form should they arise out of this chaos?  The
+dream of the people, like that of Hermann eighteen hundred years
+before, was of a German UNITY; not a renewal of the empire, but a great
+and new national life, in some firmer and truer form than it had yet
+known.  But these were only dreams, vague and without any practical
+ideas as to their realization.
+
+In the meantime men well versed in the arts and tricks of governing
+were deciding how all should be arranged.  The plan proposed by
+Metternich, that master of diplomacy, who was minister to the Emperor
+of Austria, was the one adopted.
+
+There was to be a confederation of thirty-nine German states.  The _Act
+of Union_, by which this was effected, had a pleasant sound to the ear
+of the German people.  But the Union existed only in a mutual defense
+against foreign foes, and a mutual aid in keeping the people of Germany
+well in check!  The one outward and visible expression of this _Unity_
+was in a _General Diet_, to be held at Frankfort, under the presidency
+of Austria!
+
+And this was what the _people_ who had liberated their country were to
+receive as their reward!  They were in no way recognized; were to
+possess no political power; the right of suffrage was not bestowed, and
+the Diet was prohibited from making any change in this form of
+confederation, except by a _unanimous_ (_!_) vote.  The German people
+were practically effaced and lost sight of in an autocratic
+confederation of states, with the Austrian Empire at its head.
+
+That empire had received back its Italian possessions.  Prussia had
+recovered Westphalia and her territory on the Rhine, and given up her
+Polish territory to Russia.  Belgium and Holland had been merged into a
+kingdom of the Netherlands.  Saxony, Wurtemberg, and Bavaria, which
+states had been made kingdoms by Napoleon, were permitted to remain
+such.  Switzerland was a republic; and by the successful diplomacy of
+Talleyrand, Alsace and Lorraine, those insecure possessions, passed to
+France.
+
+Such were some of the territorial adjustments.  That the rulers of
+these kingdoms were reactionary in their purposes soon became apparent.
+One of the first acts of the King of Wurtemberg was to court-martial
+and cashier the general who had gone over to the German side at the
+battle of Leipzig!  If none had gone over to the German side, where
+would have been the kingdom of Wurtemberg?  In Mecklenburg the people
+were openly declared serfs.  The Elector of Hesse-Cassel gave evidence
+that he was looking backward by putting his soldiers into the dress of
+the last century and powdered queues, and almost without exception the
+sovereigns were trying to construe the provisions of the _Act of Union_
+in a way to give the least liberty to the German people.
+
+The currents of German thought and feeling move slowly, but they are
+deep and persistent.  They had never been intemperate in their desires
+for freedom, but had simply asked for a government which should be more
+in conformity with the existing views of human rights.  Their
+disappointment had been profound and bitter.  The fathers earnestly
+talked over their wrongs at home, while their more fiery sons at the
+universities made speeches, sang songs, and banded themselves together
+into societies, with mottoes and badges and insignia, all under the
+same inspiring ideas,--UNION AND FREEDOM.
+
+This began to look like Revolution.  The freedom of the press was
+abolished.  The formation of societies among students and mechanics was
+prohibited, and the universities were placed under the immediate
+control of the government.  A savage police system was established.
+Hundreds of young men were thrown into prison, and hundreds more fled
+the country.
+
+But while this repression produced a calm surface, it did not change
+the conditions beneath.  In the meantime a "Holy Alliance" had been
+formed between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, for the purpose of
+repressing aspirations toward liberty in other lands, where this
+pestilential modern spirit was also rife.
+
+But in 1830 there was a popular uprising in France.  Charles X.,
+another brother of the murdered Louis, had been pursuing a reactionary
+policy precisely similar to the one employed by the sovereigns in
+Germany.  It was too late to do that in France.  The people with small
+ceremony flung the Bourbon aside, and set up a constitutional monarchy
+with Louis Philippe at its head.  This stirred anew the latent feeling
+in Germany.  The people did not rise in a body, but so threatening did
+it appear that the Diet quickly yielded certain reforms and concessions
+for fear of more extreme resistance.
+
+Francis II. died in 1835, and was succeeded by an almost imbecile son,
+Ferdinand I.  In 1840 Frederick William III. of Prussia also died, and
+Frederick William IV., his son, became King.  Metternich was now
+guiding the affairs of Austria, and William von Humboldt was the
+adviser of the new Prussian King, who inspired the people with a hope
+of better things.  But while this King fostered science and art, he
+gave little care to the redressing of political wrongs, and things
+drifted toward a crisis.
+
+Again a revolution in France reacted upon Germany.  In 1848, Louis
+Philippe was cast aside as unceremoniously as had been his predecessor,
+and a Republic was proclaimed, with Louis Napoleon, nephew of the great
+Napoleon, at its head.
+
+This new Bonaparte was a son of Louis Bonaparte, whom his imperial
+brother had made King of Holland.  He married Hortense, the daughter of
+Josephine.  So Fate intended that a child of the discarded Josephine,
+and not of Napoleon, should rule over France.
+
+The proclamation of a republic in France awoke the slumbering forces of
+revolution in Europe.  Not in one place, nor in two, did the fires
+spring up, but simultaneously in every German state.  Hungary, led by
+Kossuth, was in revolt, and fighting to the death to be freed from the
+Hapsburgs.  In Italy Victor Emmanuel, the young King of Sardinia, was
+trying to drive the Austrian governor of Milan out of the kingdom, and
+when checked, he shook his sword at the advancing Austrians and said
+prophetically, "_There shall yet be an Italy!_"  And while these things
+were going on in Italy and in Hungary, men were fighting in the streets
+of Vienna.  The ozone of freedom had penetrated even to that last
+stronghold of despotic sentiment.  The Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in
+this time of agitation, and his young nephew, Francis Joseph, ascended
+the Austrian throne.
+
+The things the people were demanding in every state were: freedom of
+speech and of the press; the right of every man to bear arms; of all to
+assemble when and where they liked for political or other purposes;
+trial by jury; and the abolition of the hated Diet, with a complete
+reorganization of the state governments.
+
+The princes were terrified.  It seemed as if their expulsion, like that
+of Louis Philippe, was at hand.
+
+And so it was, and would have ensued, had the people known their power
+or how to use it.  But gradually the opportunity was lost.  Concessions
+were made, new liberties were gained, but the _Unity_ they hungered for
+was to come in another and unexpected way, and for ten years the
+confederation was to exist practically unchanged.
+
+Still, although the fruits of their efforts seemed meager in comparison
+with what had been hoped, there had been one great concession made.
+The Diet, under the pressure of the crisis, had consented to steps
+which led finally to the formation of a National Parliament.
+
+When that parliament met at Frankfort, German patriots believed the
+hour of liberation had struck.  Full of hope and confidence they
+thought the end was attained, when six hundred men of character and
+intelligence came together to formulate a new plan of union based upon
+_The Sovereignty of the People_!
+
+But such a task requires something more than patriotism and enthusiasm,
+and theoretic views about human rights.  It needs practical political
+experience, and clearly defined plans for action.  After vainly trying
+to harmonize conflicting opinions a plan of union was finally adopted,
+and Frederick William IV. was elected "Hereditary Emperor of Germany."
+
+All save the smaller states refused to accede to the proposed plan, and
+Frederick William himself declined the proffered title, saying, "They
+forget that there are princes still in Germany, and that I am one of
+them."
+
+So the attempt at reorganization was a miserable failure, and the
+national parliament gradually dissolved.  In the meantime the
+revolutionary fires in Europe had burned out.  Hungary was again
+submissive in the grasp of the Hapsburgs, and Austria was also once
+more supreme in Italy; while the French republic, which had lighted
+this conflagration, had become a monarchy.
+
+The national party had developed no great leader, had shown no ability
+to grasp its opportunity.  The people, disheartened and in sullen
+disappointment, saw the old Bund-Diet restored at Frankfort, in 1851,
+and found themselves back in a slightly improved and amended
+confederation, still under the headship of Austria.
+
+Then Louis Napoleon's assumption of Imperial power, in 1851, gave
+renewed strength to the German rulers.  It demonstrated the instability
+of popular governments, and the sure return to the good old methods of
+their fathers, as soon as the temporary madness of the people had
+subsided.
+
+So all things conspired to depress aspiration and to make the hopes
+awakened in 1848 a tantalizing delusion.  It was not night, but it was
+a very dark and dreary day for patriotism in Germany.  The country was
+under a spell which no one knew how to break.
+
+In 1857 Frederick William IV. was stricken with apoplexy, and his
+brother, Prince William, was appointed Prince Regent.
+
+The new emperor of the French, with oppressive sense of the greatness
+of his name, was looking about for opportunities to be Napoleonic.  In
+1856 he had formed an alliance with England against Russia.  The fact
+of the alliance of itself gave weight to the rather flimsy fabric of
+his greatness, while the results of the Crimean War added much to its
+solidity.  In the year 1859 Italy was vainly struggling to free herself
+from the grasp of Austria.  Mazzini, the exalted dreamer, and
+Garibaldi, the soldier and patriot, with Cavour, the no less patriotic
+statesman, though with different ends in view, were working together
+for the destruction of the Austrian yoke, which must be preliminary to
+any form of Italian nationality.  The astute statesman saw in the
+ambition of Napoleon III. a means to that end.
+
+When Napoleon promised an "Italy free from the Alps to the Apennines,"
+and when the splendid victory of Magenta was quickly followed by that
+of Solferino, and when the young Francis Joseph, with tears in his
+eyes, ordered the retreat of his defeated army over the Mincio, the
+dream of centuries seemed about to be realized.  Then came the
+startling news that the two emperors were in consultation at
+Villafranca over the terms of peace!  Venice was not to be liberated.
+There was to be a consolidation of the Italian kingdoms "under the
+honorary Presidency of the Pope"--whatever that meant--and a "general
+amnesty" was declared.  It was with sullen rage that the disappointed
+patriots saw Nice and Savoy handed over to France, and Rome garrisoned
+with French troops, while a French emperor was posing as the liberator
+of an Italy which was not liberated!  But although the mills of the
+gods were moving slowly, they were going to grind exceeding fine.
+Victor Emmanuel and a regenerated Italy were not far off, and for
+Germany there was at hand a new era.
+
+Frederick William IV. died, and in 1861 William I. was crowned King of
+Prussia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+King William's youth was far behind him.  He had already spent a long
+life (sixty-four years) and had never expected to occupy a throne.  He
+had not the brilliant qualities of his brother, he did not concern
+himself much about science or letters; but he was profoundly impressed
+with the responsibilities of his position; and it at once became
+apparent that Prussia had a wise and sagacious King, who would make her
+well-being his sole care and ambition.
+
+His first act was a thorough reorganization of the army.  Then he
+looked about him for a man wise enough and strong enough for him to
+lean upon.  Baron Otto von Bismarck-Schönhausen had just returned from
+St. Petersburg, where he had been Prussian ambassador.
+
+He was a conservative of the extreme type, hated and feared by the
+liberal and national party no less than Metternich.  But no man better
+than he comprehended the policy of Austria, and all the complicated
+threads composing the web of German politics.
+
+The choice of this man for minister to the King augured ill for the
+liberals.  The outlook had never been darker than at this hour before
+the dawn.
+
+But great political storms, like storms of another sort, are full of
+surprises.  The ominous storm clouds we have feared roll away and
+vanish in calm, and the little ones, not larger than a man's hand,
+suddenly expand and darken our sky.  A fateful storm was gathering for
+Germany in the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein.
+
+Of the nature of the Schleswig-Holstein entanglement someone (Was it
+Beaconsfield?) wittily said that there were only two men in Europe who
+understood it, himself and another; and the other was dead.  But that
+was a mistake.  There was a man in Prussia who understood it, and who
+lived to use it for his own far-reaching designs.
+
+The principal threads in the tangled web were as follows:
+
+The two adjacent dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein, which constitute a
+sort of natural bridge about 150 miles long and 50 miles wide, between
+Denmark and Prussia, are, by the way, the land of nativity for the
+Anglo-Saxon race, the Angles having inhabited Schleswig, and the Saxons
+Holstein, at the time they so kindly protected the Britons from the
+Picts and Scots.
+
+So it is probable that every member of the Anglo-Saxon family has some
+ancestral root running back to that fertile strip of pasture land.
+
+It had for many years been under the Danish protectorate, the King of
+Denmark being, by virtue of his position, also Duke of
+Schleswig-Holstein, just as the German Emperor is now King of Prussia
+by virtue of his imperial office.
+
+But this little people was by no means merged with the Danish by this
+arrangement; on the contrary, they preserved very jealously their own
+traits and ancestral traditions.  Among these was the exclusion of
+women from the royal succession--the Salic law, framed by their Frank
+ancestors centuries before on the banks of the river Saale, being part
+of their constitution.  Hence, when King Frederick VII. of Denmark died
+in 1862 without male heir, and King Christian IX. became King, the
+people of the two dukedoms hotly refused to recognize him as their
+lawful ruler, but claimed their right of reversion to Duke Frederick
+VIII., who was in the direct male line of succession.
+
+Had the Salic law prevailed in Denmark, this Duke Frederick (father of
+the present young Empress of Germany) would now be King of Denmark
+instead of Christian IX.  But it did not exist, so Christian, father of
+the Dowager Empress of Russia--of the Princess of Wales--and of King
+George of Greece--became, in 1862, lawful King of Denmark, with rights
+unimpaired by female descent.
+
+Schleswig-Holstein revolted against being held by a ruler who,
+according to her constitution, was not the terminal of the royal line,
+and insisted upon bestowing herself instead upon the German Duke
+Frederick VIII.  Denmark naturally resisted.  Salic law or no Salic
+law, the dukedoms were hers, and should stay.  Of course Austria, as
+the head of the German confederation, had to be consulted, and she
+thought well of uniting with Prussia to compel the cession of the twin
+dukedoms, which would have been quickly absorbed had not the European
+powers intervened and forbidden this encroachment upon the rights of
+Denmark.
+
+It was just at this crisis that Bismarck was appointed prime minister
+of Prussia, and commenced his series of brilliant moves upon the
+European chessboard.
+
+King Christian of Denmark, pleased with his success in retaining the
+refractory states, determined to go still farther; that is, to adopt a
+new constitution separating these Siamese twins, which should, in fact,
+detach Schleswig from Holstein, incorporating it permanently with
+Denmark.
+
+This was in direct violation of the treaty with the Great Powers made
+in London, 1852, and afforded the needed pretext for war.
+
+The moment and the man had arrived.  Bismarck, with the intuition of a
+good player, saw his opportunity, pushed up the pawn,
+Schieswig-Holstein, and said, "Check to your king."
+
+The Prussian and Austrian troops poured into Denmark, and in a few
+short weeks the blooming isthmus had ceased to be Danish and had become
+German.
+
+Austria generously said, "We will divide the prize.  Schleswig shall be
+Prussian, and Holstein Austrian."
+
+Could anything be more odious to the Prussians?  The long arm of
+Austrian tyranny stretching way over their land, up to their northern
+seaboard!  It might better have become Danish.  But all things come to
+him who waits, and--Bismarck waited.
+
+Neither Austria nor the German people had the slightest comprehension
+of the Minister's deep-laid plans.  When he said that the German
+question could "only be settled by blood and steel," the people
+construed it as the brutal utterance of despotism.  And when it looked
+as if they might be involved in a war with Austria over this paltry
+Holstein affair they were stunned, and believed that a desperate man
+was leading Prussia to her ruin for his own ambitious purposes.  What
+could they with their nineteen millions of people do against Austria,
+with her fifty millions!
+
+But Bismarck cared not and heeded not.  He was too intent upon his
+game.  He knew what no one else seemed to know, that there was no
+chance for Germany until she was emancipated from Austria.
+
+Again he pushed up his useful little pawn and said "check," but this
+time to the Emperor of Austria.  Ah! here was a game worth watching.
+Europe and America, too, were willing to let their morning coffee get
+cold in studying the moves.  Francis Joseph did not see as far into the
+game as his astute adversary, whose keen eye was focused at long range
+upon a renewed Germany, in which there should be no Austria.
+
+The conflict was short (only seven weeks), but the preparation had been
+thorough.  The 3d of July will long be remembered by Germany.  King
+William was there; the Crown Prince was there, now become "Unser
+Fritz," by his superb military achievements, the ideal prince and
+soldier of modern Europe; and Königgrätz, like Waterloo, decided the
+game.  Francis Joseph was checkmated.  A galling servitude to Austria
+existed no more.  What wonder that the people were glad, or that Unser
+Fritz was their idol, and Bismarck became their demigod!
+
+A great physician correctly diagnoses the disease before he treats it.
+Bismarck knew why the attempts at a German union had been futile.  He
+knew such a union never could exist until Austria was eliminated from
+it.
+
+An overwhelming revulsion in sentiment followed.  The man whom the
+despotic element had leaned upon became the adored leader of the
+liberal party.  He had no sentimental theories about human rights.  His
+personal tendencies were toward despotism rather than freedom.  But he
+had the acuteness to recognize the advantages which would be derived
+from a liberal policy and the ardent support of the _people_.
+
+A new confederation of states was formed called the _North German
+Union_, with a parliament elected by the people.  It was composed of
+all the states except Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden.
+
+The several states were united under a general Federal Government,
+somewhat like that of the United States of America, of which the King
+of Prussia was _President_, and Bismarck was _Chancellor_.
+
+This new union was Protestant and Prussian, and forever separated from
+all that was Catholic and Austrian.  In five short years what a change!
+Truly, "blood and iron" had proved a wonderful tonic for Germany!
+
+In the year 1763 Prussia won the province of Silesia after a seven
+years' war with Austria.  Just one century later, in 1866, a war of
+seven weeks with that same power placed her at the head of a firmly
+consolidated German nation.  A result so astonishing from a conflict so
+brief must ever be a phenomenon in history; and had it been necessary,
+seven years would not have been too long to struggle for such a reward.
+
+And what of poor little Schleswig-Holstein, that land of our race
+nativity?  If she had indulged in any innocent expectation of benefit
+from such brilliant espousal of her cause she was disappointed.  And
+she must have realized that she had been only the humble hinge upon
+which the door of opportunity had swung open for Germany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+There was a man in France to whom these overturnings were especially
+distasteful.  Napoleon III., sitting in brand-new splendor upon his
+newly created throne, was industriously engaged in building up an
+empire and a reputation upon Napoleonic lines.  These lines of course
+were despotic.  So the triumph of liberalism in Germany, the creation
+of a new political power with Austria and despotism cast out, was a
+severe blow to his policy and to his prestige.  It weakened him in
+Europe, where he aspired to headship, and at home, where he should be
+considered invincible, not alone in arms, but in statecraft.
+
+The Crimea, Magenta, and Solferino had been splendid decorations to his
+reign; but they looked tame and insignificant since this transforming
+_Seven Weeks' War_.  Then, too, his magnificent scheme of an empire in
+Mexico, with a Hapsburg ruling under a French protectorate--that had
+miserably failed.  And now there had suddenly arisen, as if out of the
+ground, a new political Germany, which rivaled France in strength.
+Frenchmen began to ask whether this man was, after all, such a great
+leader, and destined to wear the mantle of his uncle!
+
+Obviously the thing to do was to recover his waning prestige by a
+splendid victory over this new power of which Prussia was the head.
+
+If the Emperor had any misgivings they were swept away by the beautiful
+Empress Eugénie, who, intensely Catholic, saw in the ascendency of
+Protestant Prussia, and the humiliation of Catholic Austria, an impious
+blow at the Catholic faith in Europe.
+
+So the war was determined upon.  Only one obstacle existed.  There was
+nothing to fight about!  But that could be overcome, and in 1870 a
+pretext was found.
+
+Queen Isabella had been expelled from Spain, and there existed that
+perennial source of disturbance in Europe, a vacant Spanish throne.
+From among the several candidates, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, a
+relative of William I. of Prussia, was chosen.
+
+The French ambassador Benedetti received instant orders to demand of
+King William that he should prohibit Prince Leopold from accepting the
+offer.
+
+The King made answer that "not having advised it, he could not forbid
+it."  However, to the disappointment of the Emperor, the Hohenzollern
+prince voluntarily declined, and the way to a war seemed closed again.
+
+But the Empress Eugénie was intent upon her object, and the war-fever
+had taken deep hold upon the people of France.  So the fateful dispatch
+was sent to Benedetti--"Be rough to the King."
+
+The kindly old King William was peacefully sunning himself at Ems, when
+the ambassador discourteously approached him and made an abrupt demand
+for a guarantee that no Hohenzollern should _ever_ occupy the throne of
+Spain.  The words and the manner were offensive--as they were intended
+to be.
+
+The King, recognizing an intended impertinence, without replying turned
+away and left Benedetti standing.  Here was the opportunity.  The
+telegraph swiftly bore the news that the French ambassador had been
+publicly insulted by the King of Prussia.  France was in a blaze of
+indignation.  These Prussians should be taught that the great French
+Empire was not to be insulted with impunity.
+
+Not a shadow of doubt existed as to the result.  The French army was
+invincible, and the southern German states would be glad at the
+deliverance.  They would welcome an invading army, and perhaps Hesse
+and Hanover also would revolt and the new Prussian confederation would
+fall to pieces in their hands.  The birthday of Napoleon I., the 15th
+of August, must be celebrated in Berlin!
+
+Such were the wild expectations when the French army moved, bearing
+away with it the boy Prince Imperial, that he might witness for himself
+his father's triumphs, and receive an object lesson, as it were, in
+avenging insult to the imperial dignity, which would one day be in his
+keeping!
+
+This was the way it looked in France.  How was it in Germany?  There
+was no north and no south German.  Men and states sprang together as a
+unit, showing how vital was the bond which had existed only for four
+years.  It was no longer a German race combining with a common purpose,
+but a German nation instinct with one life, and solemnly resolved to
+defend it or to perish.  In only eleven days an army of four hundred
+and fifty thousand soldiers was under the command of Moltke, with the
+Crown Prince Frederick William leading one of the three great divisions.
+
+In less than three weeks, instead of waging an aggressive war in
+Germany, the French were fighting for their existence on their own soil.
+
+In less than a month the French Emperor was a prisoner, and in seven
+months his empire was swept out of existence; the Germans were in
+Paris--and King William, Unser Fritz, Bismarck, and Von Moltke were
+quartered at Versailles.
+
+France had given up Alsace and Lorraine, had agreed to pay an indemnity
+of _five thousand millions_ of francs, and was glad to have peace even
+at that price!
+
+The surrenders of Metz (August 4), and of Sedan (September 2), were
+monumental disasters, and history would be searched in vain for such a
+crushing defeat of a proud and strong nation as was consummated by the
+Treaty of Peace signed at Paris on the 10th of May, 1871.
+
+Even the three southern states, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden, had
+participated in this Franco-Prussian war.  So the last barrier to a
+completed union was removed, and a dramatic climax occurred in the Hall
+of Mirrors at Versailles on the 18th of January, 1871.
+
+In that very hall where Richelieu, and Louis XIV., and Louis XV. had
+schemed to entangle and cripple and rob Germany, and where Napoleon I.
+had plotted the destruction of the German Empire, Ludwig II., King of
+Bavaria, in the name of the rest of the German states, laid their
+united allegiance at the feet of King William of Prussia, begging him
+to assume the crown and with it the title of "Hereditary Emperor of the
+German Empire."
+
+It is a curious fact that Bavaria, which had always been a thorn in the
+side of the Empire, which from the time of the first Duke Welf had
+stood for all that was conservative and despotic and reactionary,
+should have taken the initiative in the final act which set a seal upon
+the triumph of liberalism in Germany.  It was recompense full and ample
+for the trouble she had given in the past!
+
+The return to Germany was a march of triumph.  The popular enthusiasm
+knew no bounds.  It was less than ten years since those days of gloom
+and depression.  What a change had been wrought!  Was it all done by
+blood and iron?  They had been mighty factors certainly, but they had
+been used by a masterful intelligence, which had also recognized the
+power of _patriotism_.  The empire which was immediately organized was
+simply a renewal of the _North German Union_.
+
+The dream of Hermann had at last been realized.  There was a United
+Germany.
+
+When in 1888 Emperor William I. sank under the weight of years and the
+crown rested upon the head of his son Frederick, that adored prince was
+no longer in the full tide of victorious youth, but being borne by a
+swiftly ebbing tide beyond the reach of earthly honors.  He was a
+stricken and indeed a dying man when the opportunity came to carry out
+the policy he had intended for Germany.
+
+What that policy was we shall never know, nor whether it would have
+been a safe and a wise one.  We are sure it would have been beneficent,
+for no gentler, kindlier prince ever had power and opportunity.
+
+The distrust of him manifested by the conservative party, and notably
+by Bismarck, and one still nearer to him, leads us to believe that he
+leaned too strongly toward the ideal of the patriots of 1860.  But we
+shall never know.  We can only conjecture whether in Frederick's death
+Germany escaped a danger or missed an opportunity.
+
+The unseemly dissensions, the heartbreaking complications, which
+tormented this dying man make one of the saddest chapters in history;
+and his reign of five months can scarcely be matched in suffering.  At
+last it was ended.  The untarnished soul and tortured body parted
+company, and William II. reigned in his stead.
+
+It is not the province of history to pass judgment upon the living.
+When the young Emperor William II. dismissed his great chancellor, he
+assumed the full responsibility of his empire.  Whether he has the
+intelligence and the wisdom required to control, unaided, the forces at
+home, or to guide his bark amid the whirl of European currents, later
+histories will tell.
+
+But one thing is very certain.  Time spent to-day in riveting
+antiquated chains upon Germany is time thrown away; and the ruler who
+desires his work to be permanent must turn his back upon medievalism
+and must realize that the true source of abiding power in his country
+is that sentiment which emancipated her from Napoleon in 1814, and
+which in 1871 made of her a UNITED GERMANY.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Germany, by Mary Platt Parmele
+
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+The Project Gutenberg E-text of A Short History of Germany,
+by Mary Platt Parmele
+</TITLE>
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Germany, by Mary Platt Parmele
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Short History of Germany
+
+Author: Mary Platt Parmele
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2011 [EBook #34397]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t1">
+A SHORT
+<BR>
+HISTORY OF GERMANY
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+BY
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="t2">
+MARY PLATT PARMELE
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+NEW YORK
+<BR>
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+<BR>
+1898
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t4">
+COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY<BR>
+MARY PLATT PARMELE<BR>
+<BR><BR>
+COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY<BR>
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t4">
+<I>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</I><BR>
+<BR>
+A SHORT HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES<BR>
+A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND<BR>
+A SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE<BR>
+A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY<BR>
+A SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+PREFACE.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It is more important to comprehend the forces which have created a
+great nation, and the progressive steps by which it has unfolded, than
+to know the multitudinous events and incidents which have attended such
+unfolding.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In order to forestall criticism for the absence of some events in this
+History of Germany the author desires to say, that there has been an
+effort to keep strictly to the main line of development and to resist
+the temptation of introducing details which do not bear directly upon
+such line.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bypaths of history are fascinating, but they are of secondary
+importance, and may better be explored after the main road has been
+traveled and is thoroughly known.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such is the ideal which has been very imperfectly followed in this book.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+M. P. P.
+<BR><BR>
+NEW YORK, <I>June</I> 21, 1897.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t2">
+CONTENTS.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap01">CHAPTER I.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Indo-European Migrations&mdash;Divisions of the Aryan Family into European
+Races&mdash;The Teutonic Race
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap02">CHAPTER II.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Hermann&mdash;Defeat of Varus&mdash;Characteristics of the Ancient Germans
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap03">CHAPTER III.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Social Conditions&mdash;Form of Government&mdash;The Goth in Rome&mdash;A Gothic
+Kingdom in Spain&mdash;The Teuton Race Covering the European Surface&mdash;The
+Angles and Saxons in Britain
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap04">CHAPTER IV.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Ulfilas&mdash;The Hunnish Invasion&mdash;The Roman Empire Perishing&mdash;Its
+Conversion&mdash;An Eastern Empire&mdash;Increasing Power of the
+Church&mdash;Charlemagne&mdash;France and Germany Separated&mdash;Feudal System
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap05">CHAPTER V.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Early Conditions&mdash;Hungarian Invasions&mdash;Creation of
+Burgs&mdash;Knighthood&mdash;Pope and Emperor Become Rivals&mdash;Henry
+IV.&mdash;Canossa&mdash;First Hohenstaufen&mdash;Welf and Waiblingen&mdash;The
+Crusaders&mdash;Conrad&mdash;Frederick Barbarossa
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap06">CHAPTER VI.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Source of Weakness in the Empire&mdash;The Great Interregnum&mdash;The Nibelungen
+Lied&mdash;The Hanseatic League&mdash;The Guilds&mdash;Meistersingers
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap07">CHAPTER VII.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Conditions&mdash;First Hapsburg and First Hohenzollern&mdash;Swiss
+Freedom&mdash;Intellectual Awakening&mdash;The Golden Bull&mdash;Hussite War&mdash;A
+Hohenzollern Receives a Mortgage on the Territory of
+Brandenburg&mdash;Discovery of Gunpowder&mdash;Conditions Existing under
+Frederick III.&mdash;Invention of Printing&mdash;The Passing of the Old and
+Coming of the New
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+General European Conditions&mdash;Centralizing Tendencies at
+Work&mdash;Maximilian I.&mdash;A New World&mdash;The Rise of Spain&mdash;Isabella&mdash;Charles
+IV.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap09">CHAPTER IX.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Triple Game between Francis I., Henry VIII., and Charles IV.&mdash;Leo
+X.&mdash;Luther&mdash;The Diet of Worms&mdash;Protestantism Born&mdash;Margrave of
+Brandenburg Usurps Sovereignty over Prussia&mdash;The Peasants War&mdash;The
+Augsburg Confession&mdash;Charles V. Thwarted&mdash;Protestantism a Dominant
+Power in his Empire&mdash;Schisms in the New
+Faith&mdash;Calvinism&mdash;Reformers&mdash;Lutherans&mdash;The Schmalkaldian
+League&mdash;Anabaptists&mdash;Abdication of Charles V.&mdash;Philip II.&mdash;Death of
+Charles&mdash;Ferdinand I.&mdash;Council of Trent&mdash;Society of Jesus
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap10">CHAPTER X.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+A Protestant Germany&mdash;A Divided Protestantism&mdash;True Meaning of the
+Struggle&mdash;Unfruitful Waiting&mdash;The Renaissance&mdash;Music, Art, Letters,
+Born Anew&mdash;Thought Awakened&mdash;Copernicus&mdash;Galileo&mdash;Kepler&mdash;Impending
+Calamity&mdash;Protestant Union and Catholic League&mdash;Thirty Years' War
+Commenced&mdash;Wallenstein&mdash;Gustavus Adolphus&mdash;His Triumph and
+Death&mdash;Richelieu&mdash;Death of Wallenstein&mdash;Peace of Westphalia&mdash;Division
+of Territory
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap11">CHAPTER XI.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Romano-Germanic Empire Perishing&mdash;European Conditions&mdash;Louis
+XIV.&mdash;Decay of National Spirit&mdash;Rise of Brandenburg&mdash;Combination
+against Louis XIV.&mdash;Spanish Succession&mdash;Under Frederick I. Brandenburg
+Becomes Prussia&mdash;Alliance with England&mdash;Marlborough and Prince
+Eugene&mdash;Blenheim&mdash;Peace of Utrecht&mdash;Territorial Changes&mdash;Charles XII.
+and Peter the Great&mdash;Pragmatic Sanction&mdash;Frederick William
+I.&mdash;Stirrings of Thought in this Time of Chaos&mdash;Birth of German
+Speculative Philosophy&mdash;Spinoza&mdash;Soul Awakening
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap12">CHAPTER XII.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Frederick the Great&mdash;His Childhood&mdash;Von Katte's Execution&mdash;Frederick at
+Potsdam&mdash;Frederick II., King of Prussia&mdash;Maria Theresa, Empress&mdash;War of
+Austrian Succession&mdash;Silesia&mdash;Personal Traits of the Two
+Sovereigns&mdash;Frederick Joins France against Austria&mdash;Peace of
+Dresden&mdash;Frederick Becomes "The Great"&mdash;Healing the Wounds Left by Two
+Wars&mdash;Voltaire's Influence&mdash;Frederick a Reformer and a Despot&mdash;Growth
+in Thought and Birth of a Native Literature&mdash;Voltaire at Frederick's
+Court&mdash;Change Wrought by a Nearer View of King and Poet
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+War over American Boundary between England and France&mdash;Maria Theresa
+Joins France&mdash;Her Policy&mdash;A Combination against Frederick II.&mdash;Seven
+Years' War&mdash;Peace of Hubertsburg&mdash;Silesia Forever Abandoned by
+Austria&mdash;Prussia One of the "Five Great Powers"&mdash;Healing Wounds
+Again&mdash;Conditions External and Internal
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Marie Antoinette Married to the French Dauphin Louis&mdash;Unsuspected
+Conditions&mdash;Joseph II.&mdash;Reforms by a Progressive Hapsburg are a
+Failure&mdash;Romanticism Replaces Sentimentalism in Literature&mdash;<I>Sturm und
+Drang</I> Period&mdash;Luther's Influence upon Letters&mdash;Frederick Succeeded by
+his Nephew&mdash;Effect of Prussia's Ascendancy in the German Empire&mdash;Its
+Coming Dissolution&mdash;Why Patriotism Could Not Exist&mdash;The Calm before the
+Hurricane
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap15">CHAPTER XV.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+The Beginnings of the Storm&mdash;The United States of America and
+France&mdash;The Thought-Currents Which Moved toward a Vortex&mdash;Execution of
+King and Queen&mdash;France a Ruin but Free&mdash;A Republic&mdash;First
+Coalition&mdash;Poland and its Partition&mdash;Austria Fighting Alone for the
+Empire&mdash;Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy&mdash;His Methods and Their
+Result&mdash;Treaty of Campo Formio&mdash;Three New Republics&mdash;Napoleon in
+Egypt&mdash;His Return&mdash;Second Coalition&mdash;Dominions of Ecclesiastical Rulers
+Given Away&mdash;Napoleon the Instrument of Fate
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Napoleon Emperor of the French&mdash;Third Coalition&mdash;Prussian
+Neutrality&mdash;The Rheinbund&mdash;Dissolution of the Empire and Abdication of
+Francis II.&mdash;Retribution for Prussia&mdash;Battle of Jena&mdash;Peace of
+Tilsit&mdash;A Continental Blockade&mdash;Marriage with Marie Louise
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Revolt of Bavarian Peasants&mdash;The "League of Virtue"&mdash;Invasion of
+Russia&mdash;Burning of Moscow&mdash;Retreat&mdash;General York Leads a Popular
+Movement&mdash;Prussia at War with Napoleon&mdash;The Battle of Leipzig&mdash;The
+Allies in Paris&mdash;Napoleon Deposed&mdash;Louis XVIII. King&mdash;Return of
+Napoleon&mdash;Waterloo and St. Helena
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Reconstruction&mdash;The Act of Union&mdash;Sentiment of the
+People&mdash;Concessions&mdash;Francis II. Died&mdash;A Republic in France&mdash;Blaze of
+Revolutionary Fires in Europe&mdash;A National Parliament Granted&mdash;Its
+Failure&mdash;Napoleon III. in France&mdash;Magenta and Solferino&mdash;Revolution in
+Italy&mdash;Victor Emmanuel King&mdash;William I. King of Prussia
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+King William and Bismarck&mdash;Schleswig-Holstein&mdash;Proposed Division&mdash;War
+against Austria&mdash;Königgrätz&mdash;The North German Union
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<A HREF="#chap20">CHAPTER XX.</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="contents">
+Napoleon III. Plans the Overthrow of Prussian Dominion&mdash;Vacant Throne
+in Spain&mdash;A Hohenzollern Candidate&mdash;Benedetti and King William&mdash;War
+Declared by France&mdash;Metz&mdash;Sedan&mdash;King William at Versailles&mdash;Crowned
+Hereditary Emperor of the German Empire&mdash;Death of Emperor William
+I.&mdash;Emperor Frederick&mdash;His Unfulfilled Dreams and his Death&mdash;William
+II. Emperor
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY.
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Foundation building is neither picturesque nor especially interesting,
+but it is indispensable.  However fair the structure is to be, one must
+first lay the rough-hewn stones upon which it is to rest.  It would be
+much pleasanter in this sketch to display at once the minarets and
+towers and stained-glass windows; but that can only be done when one's
+castle is in Spain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Would we comprehend the Germany of to-day, we must hold firmly in our
+minds an epitome of what it has been, and see vividly the devious path
+of its development through the ages.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The German nation is of ancient lineage, and indeed belongs to the
+royal line of human descent, the Aryan; its ancestral roots running
+back until lost in the heart of Asia, in the mists of antiquity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The home of the Aryan race is shrouded in mystery, as are the impelling
+causes which sent those successive tides of humanity into Europe.  But
+we know with certainty that when the last great wave spread over
+Eastern Europe, or Russia, about one thousand years before Christ, the
+submergence of that continent was complete.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before the coming of the Aryan, the Rhine flowed as now; the Alps
+pierced the sky with their glistening peaks as they do to-day; the
+Danube, the Rhône, hurried on, as now, toward the sea.  Was it all a
+beautiful, unpeopled solitude, waiting in silence for the richly
+endowed Asiatic to come and possess it?  Far from it!  It was teeming
+with humanity&mdash;if, indeed, we may call such the race which modern
+research and discovery have revealed to us.  It is only within the last
+thirty years that anything whatever has been known of prehistoric man;
+but now we are able to reconstruct him with probable accuracy.  A
+creature bestial in appearance and in life; dwelling in caves, which,
+however, a dawning sense of a higher humanity led him to decorate with
+carvings of birds and fishes; but certain it is, the brain which
+inhabited that skull was incapable of performing the mental processes
+necessary to the simplest form of civilization; and life must have been
+to him simply a thing of fierce appetites and brutal instincts.  Such
+was the being encountered by the Aryan, when he penetrated the
+mysterious land beyond the confines of Greece and Italy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The extermination, and perhaps, to some extent, assimilation, of this
+terrible race must have required centuries of brutalizing conflict,
+and, it is easy to imagine, would have produced just such men as were
+the northern barbarians who, for five hundred years, terrorized Europe;
+men insensible to fear, terrible, fierce, but with fine instincts for
+civilization&mdash;dormant Aryan germs, which quickly developed when brought
+into contact with a superior race.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The earliest Indo-European migration is supposed to have been into
+Greece and Italy, where was laid the basis for the civilization of the
+world.  The second was probably into Western Europe and the British
+Isles; then, after many centuries, the central and last, and at a time
+comparatively recent, into the Eastern portion of the continent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So, by the fourth century B.C., three great divisions of the Aryan race
+occupied Europe north of Greece and Italy: the Keltic, the western; the
+Teutonic, the central; the Slavonic the eastern; and these, in turn,
+had ramified into new subdivisions or tribes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To state it as in the pedigree of the individual, the Aryan was the
+founder, the father of the family; Slav, Teuton, and Kelt the three
+sons.  Gaul and Briton were sons of the Kelt; Saxon, Angle, Helvetian,
+etc., sons of the Teuton; and all alike grandchildren of the Aryan;
+whom&mdash;to carry the illustration farther&mdash;we may imagine to have had
+older children, who long ago had left the paternal home and settled
+about the Caspian and Mediterranean seas: Mede, Persian, Greek, Roman;
+apparently bearing few marks of kinship to these uncouth younger
+brothers whom we have found in Europe in the fourth century B.C., but
+with nevertheless the same cradle and the same ancestral roots.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is the Teutonic branch of the Aryan family with which we have to do
+now, between whom and their Keltic brothers there flowed the River
+Rhine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Greece and Rome were unaware of the existence of the Teuton until about
+the year 330 B.C., when Pythias, a Greek navigator, came home from a
+voyage to the Baltic with terrible tales of the Goths whom he had met.
+Nearly one century before Christ the inhabitants of Italy were enabled
+to judge for themselves of the accuracy of the description.  Driven
+from their homes by the inroads of the sea, the Goths poured in a
+hungry torrent down into the tempting vineyards of Northern Italy.
+Gigantic in stature, with long yellow hair, eyes blue but fierce&mdash;what
+wonder that the people thought they were scarcely human, and fled
+affrighted, leaving them to enjoy the vineyards at their leisure!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Accounts of this uncanny host reached Rome, which soon knew of their
+breastplates of iron, their helmets crowned with heads of wild beasts,
+their white shields glistening in the sun, and, more terrible than all,
+of their priestesses, clad in white linen, who prophesied and offered
+human sacrifices to their gods.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the sacrifices did not avail against the legions which the great
+Consul Marius led against them.  The ponderous Goth was not yet a match
+for the finer skill of the Roman, and the invaders were exterminated on
+the plain near Aix, 102 B.C.  The women, in despair, slew first their
+children, then themselves, a few only surviving to be paraded in chains
+at the triumph accorded to Marius on his return to Rome.  Such was the
+first appearance of the Teuton in the Eternal City, and the last until
+five hundred years later, when the conditions were changed.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+At the time of this first invasion the German race was divided into
+tribes with no affinity for each other, who were indeed much of the
+time in fierce conflict among themselves.  One of these tribes, called
+the Cherusci, occupied the southern part of what is now Hanover.  Their
+chief, Hermann, had in his youth been taken to Rome as a hostage, and
+there had been educated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hermann was the first to dream of German unity.  While the infant
+Christ was growing into boyhood in Palestine, this Hermann was studying
+Latin and history at Rome; and as he read he pondered.  He found that
+the Romans had achieved such tremendous power by <I>combination</I>.  If his
+people would unite and stand as one nation before the world, why might
+not they too become great?  These Romans were pleasure-loving and
+vicious.  His Germans in their rude homes were just and true.  They did
+not laugh at vice; they were rough, but simple and sincere; love bound
+the father and mother and children closely together.  The idea of
+German unity took possession of Hermann.  He resolved to devote his
+life to its accomplishment, and to return to his country and try to
+inspire his race with a sense of common brotherhood, and a
+comprehensive patriotism.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Julius Cæsar, the great Roman general, was governor of Gaul, and with
+one eye fixed on Britain and another on Germany was steadily bringing
+Europe into subjection to Rome.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The task of subduing the stubborn Teutons was given by Augustus to
+Varus, a trusted general.  In the year 9 A.D., Varus had arrived with
+his great army in the heart of Germany.  Little suspecting the plans
+and purposes surging in the young man's brain, he leaned upon Hermann,
+whom he had known in Rome, as his guide and counselor in a new and
+strange land.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Unsuspectingly he marched with his heavily armed legions, as if for a
+holiday excursion, into the fastnesses of the Teutoberger Forest, into
+which Hermann led him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When fairly entangled in the dense wood, surrounded by morasses and wet
+marshes instead of roads, suddenly there was a thundering war-cry, and
+barbarians swarmed down upon him from all sides.  Hundreds who escaped
+the rain of arrows were lost in the morasses.  It was not a question of
+victory, but of escape, for the entrapped and heavily armed legions.
+Only a handful returned to tell the story, and Varus, unable to bear
+his disgrace, threw himself upon his sword.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The great Emperor Augustus clothed himself in mourning, let his beard
+and hair grow, and cried in the bitterness of his soul, "Varus, Varus,
+give me back my legions!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Hermann, like many another hero, was not comprehended by the people
+he wished to inspire.  He had arrested the tide of Roman conquest in
+Germany.  How was he rewarded?  His people could not understand his
+dream of unity.  Should they be friends with the Cimbri and Suevi, who
+were their enemies?  They suspected his motives.  There were intrigues
+for his downfall.  His adored wife, Thusnelda, and his child were
+delivered to the Romans and graced a triumph at Rome, and when only
+thirty-seven years old, the first heroic character in the history of
+Germany was assassinated by his own people.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Our Saxon ancestors, four centuries later, made the British Isles echo
+with the songs in which they chanted the praises of this "War Man,"
+this "Man of Hosts," who was the "Deliverer of Germany."  Hermann had
+not consolidated his people, but he had arrested their conquest and
+subjugation by the Romans.  Many, many centuries were to roll away
+before his dream of unity was to be realized.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What sort of people were these ancient Germans, for whom Hermann hoped
+so much almost nineteen hundred years ago?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were pagan barbarians, without one gleam of civilization to
+illumine the twilight of their existence.  They had no art, no
+literature, nor even an alphabet.  They were fierce and cruel; but they
+had simple, uncorrupted hearts.  They were brave, truthful, hospitable,
+romantic, with instincts singularly just, and a passion for the
+mysterious realities of an unseen world.  War and hunting were their
+pursuits, the family and domestic ties were strong and abiding, and
+over all else, religion was supreme.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Like their Scandinavian kinsmen, they worshiped the gods of their
+ancient Aryan ancestors in sacred groves; and offered sacrifices,
+sometimes human, to <I>Wotan</I>, and <I>Donar</I>, or <I>Thor</I>, the Thunderer, for
+whom they named Thursday, Thorsday, or <I>Donners-tag</I>, and in honor of
+one of their goddesses, <I>Freyja</I>, another was called Frei-tag, or
+Friday.  The decrees of fate were read in the flights of birds, or
+heard in the neighing of wild horses, and then interpreted to the
+people by priestesses, who, clad in snow-white robes, presided also at
+the terrible sacrifices.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+During the three centuries after Hermann had arrested the flood of
+Roman conquest, a civilization of the simplest sort was slowly
+developing in Germany, where society was divided into the <I>free</I> and
+the <I>unfree</I> classes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tribes in the south differed greatly from those in the north.  They
+had no settled homes, nor ownership in land.  This was divided among
+them every year by lot; one-half of the people remaining yearly at home
+to till the soil, and the other half giving their entire time to the
+wars which were as perennial as the growing crops of grain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the north, however, where lived the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon
+race, conditions very different prevailed.  There the lands were
+bestowed in perpetuity upon the most powerful members of the tribes,
+and by them handed down to their sons.  The unfree class tilled the
+soil, and were thus the serfs of a ruling class, and only freemen could
+bear arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were no cities in ancient Germany, only villages which were
+composed of rude huts.  A collection of these villages formed a group
+which was called a <I>Hundred</I>.  Every Hundred had its chief, who was
+elected by the people; and the one chosen by the combined will of all
+these Hundreds was the chief or King of the tribe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The chiefs of the Hundreds formed a sort of advisory council to the
+King or tribal chief.  But supreme over the will of these chiefs and
+their King was the will of the people.  Every village had its <I>meetings
+of the people</I>, which all freemen were entitled to attend.  The real
+governing power lay in these meetings, to which both chiefs of the
+Hundreds and the King were compelled to defer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Was a new King to be elected, or were there grave questions concerning
+wars to be considered&mdash;they were discussed in advance by the chiefs and
+the King.  But the ultimate decision lay with the people themselves; a
+general meeting of the whole tribe being required to elect a new King;
+the people clashing their arms in token of approval, or shouting their
+dissent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As all freemen bore arms, there was no distinct military organization.
+Every man held himself ready at any moment to respond to a call, and
+the army was the people!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About the middle of the third century, numerous small German tribes
+became united into large confederacies.  Conspicuous among these were
+the Allemani, the Franks, the Saxons, and the Goths.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Allemani, in the south of Germany, it is said were so called
+because of the fact that <I>all men</I> held the land in common.  If this be
+so, then the French name for Germany is essentially communistic, and it
+is not strange that communism has always found a congenial soil in that
+land.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Franks occupied the banks of the Rhine and of the river Saal.  The
+Saxons were spread over North Germany, and the Goths, on both sides of
+the river Dnieper, were divided into the Ostro-Goths and the Visi-Goths
+(or the East and West Goths).
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was these Visigoths under Alaric who inflicted the deadliest blows
+upon the Roman Empire.  The sacking of Rome in 410, and the
+establishing of a Gothic kingdom in Spain, shook the very foundations
+of that power.  Then the legions could no longer be spared in distant
+Britain, which was left to its fate.  And that fate was of deepest
+import to us!  The Saxons and the Angles overflowed and absorbed the
+land, and Keltic Britain was Teutonized.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So this untamed and untamable Teuton was being spread, like some coarse
+but renovating element, over the surface of old Europe.  And with the
+occupation of Gaul by the Franks in 481, and the annexing of France to
+the Frankish kingdom under Clovis, the process was complete.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+I cannot resist the temptation of saying a few words about the
+Anglo-Saxon occupation of Britain, which, as it virtually converted us
+from Kelts into Teutons, is not a digression.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the time of Julius Cæsar the island of Britain had been occupied
+by the Romans, and in consequence had become partly civilized and
+Christianized.  Upon the fall of the empire, the Roman legions were
+withdrawn, and the people, left defenseless, became the prey of their
+own northern barbarians, the Picts and Scots; the drama of Southern
+Europe and the Goths being re-enacted on a diminished scale.  In the
+fourth century the Britons implored the Angles and Saxons to come and
+protect them from these savages.  Invited as allies, they came as
+invaders, and remained as conquerors, implanting their habits, speech,
+and paganism upon the prostrate island.  It was the extermination of
+this exotic paganism which impelled to those deeds of valor recited in
+the Round Table romances, and which made King Arthur and his knights
+the theme of poet and minstrel for centuries.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the Saxon had come to stay, and Teuton and Kelt became merged, much
+as do the lion and lamb, after the former has dined!  The Teutonic
+Saxon may be said to have dined on the Keltic Briton, and remained
+master of the island until the Normans came, six centuries later, and
+in turn dominated, and made him bear the yoke of servitude.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nor was this French-speaking Norman French at all, except by adoption;
+being, in fact, the terrible Northman of two centuries before, on
+account of whose ravages the noble had intrenched himself in his strong
+castle, and the wretched serf had in mortal terror sold himself and all
+that he possessed, for the protection of its solid walls and moat; and
+thus had been laid the foundations of feudalism.  He it was who, with
+longhair reeking with rancid oil, battle-ax, spear, and iron hook&mdash;with
+which to capture human and other prey&mdash;had held France in a state of
+unspeakable terror for centuries, but who had finally settled down as a
+respectable French citizen in the sea-board province of Normandy, and
+in two centuries had made such wonderful improvement in manners,
+apparel, and speech that the simple Saxon baron stood abashed before
+the splendid refinements of his conquerors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The origin of this mysterious Northman is unknown; but whatever it was,
+or whoever he was, he certainly possessed Aryan germs of high potency.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So the Saxon had built the solid walls of the racial structure upon a
+foundation of Britons; and, though with no thought for beauty, had
+built well, with strong, true structural lines.  It was the Norman who
+finished and decorated the structure, but he did not alter one of these
+lines; the speech, traits, institutions, and habits of England being at
+the core Saxon to-day, while there is a decorative surface only of
+Norman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So when the Englishman calls himself, with swelling pride, a Briton, he
+speaks wide of the mark.  The Keltic Briton was buried fathoms deep
+under seven centuries of Saxon rule, and then, to make the extinction
+more complete, was overlaid with this brilliant lacquer of Norman
+surface.  And if that mixed product, the English people, have any race
+paternity, it is Teutonic, and herein may lie the impossibility of
+making the English and Irish a homogeneous people&mdash;the English Teuton
+and Irish Kelt being in the nature of things antagonistic, the
+particles refuse to combine chemically, and can only be brought
+together (to use the language of the chemist) in mechanical mixture.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Among the German tribes it was the Goths who had first come under the
+civilizing influence of the Christian religion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As some winged seed is wafted from a fair garden into a dark, distant
+forest, and there takes root and blossoms, so was the seed-germ of
+Christianity caught by the wind of destiny, and carried from Palestine
+to the heart of pagan Germany, where, strange to say, it found
+congenial soil.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The story is a romantic one.  A Christian boy in Asia Minor, while
+straying on the shores of the Mediterranean, was captured by some
+Goths, who took their fair-haired prize home to their own land, and
+named him Ulfilas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy, with his heart all aflame for the religion in which he had
+been nurtured, told his captors the story of Calvary&mdash;of Christ and his
+gospel of peace and love; and lived to see the terrible sacrificial
+altars replaced by the Cross.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Goths had no alphabet, so Ulfilas invented one, and then translated
+the Bible into their rude speech.  A part of this translation is now
+preserved in Sweden and is the earliest extant specimen of the Gothic
+language.  This Gothic version of the Lord's Prayer, written by Ulfilas
+more than fifteen centuries ago, bears such close resemblance to the
+German and English versions that it can be easily read by us to-day;
+and makes us realize our own near kinship to those simple barbarians of
+the fourth century.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the year 375, thirty-five years before the sacking of Rome, from the
+vast plains lying between Russia and China there had poured into Europe
+a terrible race of beings called Huns.  They seemed more like demons
+than men.  Insensible alike to fear, to hunger, thirst, or cold, they
+appeased their ferocious appetites upon wild roots and raw meat.  These
+hideous men ate, drank, and slept on horseback, their no less hideous
+wives and children following them in wagons, as they ravaged through
+the Continent of Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Huns, under the leadership of Attila, swept everything before them;
+leaving a track of blood and ashes through Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Goths deserted their lands and homes on account of this brutish
+invasion and pressed down into Italy and Southern Gaul; the Ostro-Goths
+(or East Goths) becoming in time masters of Italy under King Theodoric,
+while the Visigoths (or West Goths), who were already in Southern Gaul,
+had overflowed the Pyrenees and established a Gothic empire in Spain
+(or Hispania, as it was then called).
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not alone the Goths who were swept before Attila and his Hunnish
+hosts.  The Vandals, the Burgundians, the Longobards were carried by
+the same tide into Southern Europe; the Vandals thence into northern
+Africa; while the Slavs from the northeast in turn pressed down after
+them, and, like the waters of the sea, occupied the lands which they
+had deserted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So this Hunnish invasion was a tremendous upturning force&mdash;in itself
+bearing no relation to the future result more than the plow to the
+future grain; but it was a terrible instrument, used in bringing the
+German race into contact with higher civilizations, where, in the
+alchemy of time, they were destined to survive not as a nation, but
+rather as an element, and where, in the great creative processes, they
+were intended to re-enforce the decaying races of Southern Europe with
+their rude but uncorrupted vitality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of the Huns themselves nothing remained in Europe after the defeat of
+Attila, excepting in Dacia, over which they had permanently spread, and
+which was later called Hungary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During this process of re-creating the old races of Southern Europe,
+the Roman Empire was perishing.  Its conversion to Christianity in the
+fourth century, under Constantine, was too late to save it.  For three
+hundred years pagan Rome had been drenching the soil of Southern Europe
+with the blood of Christians.  Then this zealous new convert not only
+espoused the religion of Christ, but determined by her Church Councils
+what that religion meant and what it did not mean, and made fierce war
+upon heretics like the Gothic Christians, who knew nothing about these
+strange doctrines of which Ulfilas had not told them, nor concerning
+which did their simple Gothic Bible say one word!  (A conflict between
+<I>Trinitarianism</I> and <I>Arianism</I>.)
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Roman Empire was the "<I>Holy</I> Roman Empire," now.  When Constantine
+removed his capital to Byzantium, it required two Emperors, an Eastern
+and a Western, to govern the crumbling mass.  But as the temporal power
+declined, there was at Rome a new and spiritual kingdom which was
+expanding and claiming an empire over all Christendom.  The Bishops of
+Rome had become Popes.  Gaul or France was now governed by the German
+Franks.  And the Frankish Kings in France, and the Visigoth Kings in
+Spain, and Christians everywhere must bow to the will of the Pope.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the Roman Emperors were becoming less and less able to protect
+their dominions.  The Teuton Lombards had overrun Italy, and at last
+the lowest point of degradation seemed to be reached, when the Imperial
+Crown at Byzantium was grasped by Irene, who deposed and blinded her
+own son in order to reach the throne once occupied by Augustus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Who could be more fit to fill this august position at the head of
+Christendom than Charlemagne, the great conqueror of men and defender
+of the Holy Faith?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The coronation of Charlemagne, King of France and Germany, at Rome, in
+the year 800, was a revolt of the West against the sluggard Emperors at
+Byzantium; just as his father Pepin's had been, fifty years before, a
+revolt against the sluggard Kings of France.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not for 800 years had there been such a commanding personality on the
+earth; not since Cæsar hurled his legions into Gaul and Britain had
+there been such a display of military genius and valor, and perhaps
+never before such a breadth of intelligence in controlling a vast and
+heterogeneous empire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thenceforth, Charlemagne and his successors (when crowned by the Pope)
+were the successors of the Cæsars and the temporal heads of the Holy
+Roman Empire.  Excepting in name the once great empire had ceased to be
+Roman.  The rude barbarian race which, in the time of Julius Cæsar, was
+buried in the forests of Central Europe, was at the head of
+Christendom; and under Charlemagne, a map of the German Empire was a
+map of Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Charlemagne acknowledged the Pope who crowned him as his spiritual
+sovereign, while, on the other hand, the Pope bowed before the Emperor
+who appointed him as his temporal sovereign.  It was a magnificent,
+all-embracing scheme of empire, of which the spiritual head was at
+Rome, and the temporal at Aix-la-Chapelle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It seemed as if, by this dual supremacy, Charlemagne had provided for
+all possible exigencies of human government.  He rested content, no
+doubt thinking he had embodied a perfect ideal in creating a system
+which should thus co-ordinate and embrace both the spiritual and
+temporal needs of an empire.  But as soon as his controlling hand was
+removed unexpected dangers assailed his work.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In less than fifty years from his coronation his three grandsons had
+quarreled and torn the empire into as many parts.  With this event
+France commenced a separate existence as a kingdom and the Imperial
+title belonged alone to Germany (treaty of Verdun, 843).
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was the strong, rough arm of the Goth which had hammered in pieces
+the Roman Empire and brought these tremendous results for the Teuton
+race; but it was the Frank which had survived as the governing power.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These Franks established a new system of land tenure, which combined
+the two opposing systems prevailing in North and South Germany.  They
+proclaimed that the land belonged to the Crown.  But the Crown, upon
+certain conditions, bestowed it upon landholders who were called
+barons.  These barons might hold their land from generation to
+generation, so long as these conditions were fulfilled.  They, in like
+manner, parceled out their lands into farms, which were held by the
+class below them upon like conditions of submission and fealty to them.
+The people bound themselves to furnish military service and food, and
+to work for their barons a specified number of days in the year, and to
+receive in return a certain protection, and a refuge within the castle
+of their chief.  The baron was responsible to the count who was his
+superior, and the count to the King.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was the feudal system, which was a net-work of reciprocal duties.
+No man, be he peasant or count, could call anything his own unless he
+discharged his obligations and responsibilities.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The system met great opposition for a time in South Germany; especially
+from Welf, Count of Bavaria, from whom the historic Guelphs are
+descended.  But it survived, as we know, increasing in oppressive
+weight and rigidity, until for centuries it crushed the life out of
+Europe.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+One century after Charlemagne, the kingship of Germany ceased to be
+hereditary.  The great nobles, or vassals as they were called, elected
+the King, who was crowned at Aix.  And then, after the Pope had crowned
+him at Rome (but not until then), he was also King of Italy and Emperor
+of the Holy Roman Empire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The condition of Germany was at this time very disordered.  There were
+jealousies and conflicts between the various states composing it and
+incessant incursions from those troublesome neighbors, the Magyars or
+Hungarians, the Turanian people on their southeast border.  This latter
+led to an important phase in the development of Germany.  Henry I.,
+father of King Otto the Great, in 924 offered these Hungarians a large
+yearly tribute if they would cease to annoy his country.  For nine
+years the tribute was paid.  The Germans in the meantime were busily
+engaged in building fortresses on their frontier, and walled cities
+throughout the land.  These were called <I>burgs</I>, and were placed under
+the command of counts, who were called <I>Burgraves</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So, in the tenth year, when the Hungarians insolently demanded their
+tribute, Henry threw a dead dog at their messengers' feet, and told
+them that was his tribute in the future.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Hungarians in a fury poured into Germany.  But&mdash;lo! instead of
+collections of helpless villages lying at their mercy, there were
+walled towns which defied all their efforts to capture, and after some
+futile attempts the Hungarians troubled Germany no more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another important development of this period was an eventful one for
+Europe.  There was a large class of young men, younger sons of nobles,
+for whom there was no suitable classification.  They were proud and by
+necessity were idle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This same Saxon King Henry invited these young men to serve the empire
+in a new and peculiar way.  They must be men of honor and truth; they
+must be devoted and loyal to the Holy Roman Empire; never have injured
+a weak woman nor run away in battle; they must be gentle and courteous
+and brave, and faithful to the Church.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The men who could take these oaths and make these pledges were called
+knights, or <I>Knechts</I>, servants of the King.  Thus was created the
+order of knighthood, which quickly spread over Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The great Charlemagne, in accepting the crown of the Holy Roman Empire
+in 800, unconsciously inflicted a deep injury upon the future Germany.
+That glittering bauble, the crown of the Cæsars, was very costly, and
+retarded the development of Germany for centuries.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That country needed all her resources and energies at home, to solidify
+and develop a great nation during its formative period.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Instead of that, for seven hundred years the ambitions of the Kings of
+Germany were diverted from what should have been their first care&mdash;the
+unity and prosperity of their own nation; and were chasing a
+phantom&mdash;the re-establishment of the great old empire, with Rome as its
+heart and center.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another mistake made by Charlemagne was far-reaching in its
+consequences.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He little suspected the nature and the latent power existing in that
+spiritual kingdom with which he formed so close an alliance.  He feared
+not the Church, but the ambitious and scheming nobles.  So, in order to
+create a friendly bulwark about the throne, he made some of the
+archbishops and bishops secular princes, and bestowed upon them
+dominions over which they might reign as sovereigns.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Church, which had not been growing any too spiritual since it was
+adopted by Rome, was more and more secularized when it had Primates
+ravenous for wealth and power.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Pope and Emperor, instead of close allies as Charlemagne had
+intended, had finally become jealous and angry rivals.  In the open
+warfare which in time developed two political parties came into
+being&mdash;the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, which represented the adherents
+of the Pope and the Emperor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a part of the settled policy of the Popes to stir up strife in
+Italy, and thus, by compelling the Emperor to pour his revenues and his
+energies into that land, to weaken and undermine him at home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the first five hundred years of its existence the Church had been
+governed by the bishops of Rome.  In the next five hundred years these
+bishops had grown into Popes, who were the spiritual heads of
+Christendom.  As the Church was entering upon its third
+five-hundred-year lease in the year 1073, the miter was worn by the
+fiery monk, Hildebrand, who had become Gregory VII.  This man resolved
+to establish the supremacy of the Church over the secular arm of the
+government.  As a weak Emperor wore the Imperial crown, the time was
+favorable for claiming a religious empire existing by divine right, and
+superior to the will of kings and emperors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the conflict which followed Henry IV. deposed the Pope&mdash;this
+creature of his own appointing, who would override the authority of the
+power which had created him!  And as a counter-move the Pope
+excommunicated the Emperor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Had Henry stood his ground as he might, for he would have had ample
+support from his people, it would have been a gain of centuries for
+Europe..  But the ban of excommunication, with its attendant horrors
+here, and still worse hereafter&mdash;it was more than he could bear.
+Affrighted, trembling, penitent, he crossed the Alps in dead of winter,
+crept to the castle of Canossa, near Parma, where Hildebrand had taken
+refuge; and there this successor to Charlemagne, this ruler of all
+Christendom, standing barefoot and clad in sackcloth shirt, humbly
+begged admittance.  The Pope's triumph was complete.  So he let him
+shiver for three days in cold and rain before he opened the gates and
+gave him forgiveness and the kiss of peace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Church had never scored so tremendous a victory.  She was supreme
+over every earthly authority, and the hands on the face of time were
+set back for centuries.  Let Guelph and Ghibelline storm and struggle
+as they might, there was no question of supremacy now between temporal
+and spiritual heads.  All the lines of power, all the threads of human
+destiny led to Rome, and were found at last in the papal hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the three centuries of its existence the empire had been ruled first
+by Frank, and then by Saxon emperors.  But the eventful visit to
+Canossa led to a new dynasty, the Swabian.  When that humiliated
+monarch, Henry IV., crossed the Alps in midwinter, when Europe's
+mightiest prince stood woolen-frocked and barefoot upon the snow for
+three days, humbly entreating forgiveness, there was one knight who
+attended him with marked fidelity.  This was Frederick of Büren, and
+verily he had his reward!  The Emperor created him Duke of Swabia, and
+bestowed upon him his daughter Agnes as his wife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Duke of Swabia then built himself a castle on a high plateau of
+land called Hohenstaufen.  But this fortunate duke had also another
+great estate called Waiblingen.  So he was Frederick of Hohenstaufen,
+and of Waiblingen as well.  The last name had a very conspicuous
+destiny awaiting it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dukes of Bavaria had been a great power in Germany, ever since that
+first stormy Welf, who tried to put down the new-fangled system of
+land-tenure which we know as feudalism!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These Welfs were evidently not progressive; they seem in fact to have
+been the Tories of ancient Germany.  And when Conrad, grandson of
+Frederick, the first Hohenstaufen, was elected King of Germany, there
+was a very stormy time.  The people divided into two factions: the
+adherents of the new dynasty and the Emperor in the one, and the
+malcontents who were led by Welf, Duke of Bavaria, in the other.  As
+hostility to the Emperor meant friendship with the Pope, this party of
+the Welfs was also that of the papal faction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tongue of the Italian could not master the two words Welf and
+Waiblingen; which, as they became fastened upon the two political
+factions in Italy, were changed to Guelph and Ghibelline.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Waiblingen family long ago disappeared.  But the ancient name of
+Welf is represented to-day by the gracious Queen of England.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The party of the Guelphs in Germany was that of disaffected dukes and
+nobles, who from personal or other reasons desired to embarrass the
+Emperor, even to the extent of an alliance with his enemy the Pope.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Ghibellines expressed the anti-papal sentiment of the people, among
+whom there was a growing dread and hatred of Romish power, and the time
+was approaching when Teutonic patriotism would mean resistance to
+Italian priestcraft.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While this antagonism was developing, the most stupendous event in all
+history was taking place in Europe.  The Christian conscience&mdash;more
+sensitive than it is to-day&mdash;had been roused to a frenzy of indignation
+by Mahomedan outrages in the Holy Land.  That first "European Concert"
+had been formed to drive the Mahomedan out of the land, where a concert
+of Europe is striving to keep him undisturbed to-day!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This time of a great religious war was not favorable for an anti-papal
+policy in Germany.  Conrad allowed himself to be swept into the
+current.  He headed a great Crusade in the year 1147.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not one tithe of his vast host ever reached the Holy Land.  They melted
+like the dew before disease, starvation, and the sword of the Moslems
+in Asia Minor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the despondent Conrad returned to Germany he brought back one
+lasting memorial of his ill-fated Crusade.  He had seen at
+Constantinople, on the Imperial standard of the Byzantine Emperor, a
+double-headed eagle.  This representation of a double empire he
+determined to adopt for the emblem of his own, and hence it is that it
+exists to-day on the Austrian standard, and upon the coins of Germany
+and Austria.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was well for Germany that, while she was thus torn and distracted by
+contending political factions, and while her life blood was being
+drained into Italy, Frederick I., or Barbarossa (1152), came to hold
+the reins of government as they had not been held since Charlemagne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This great Hohenstaufen threw his lion-like weight into the controversy
+concerning Papal and Imperial supremacy.  He spurned the pretensions of
+the Pope and his encroachments upon secular authority.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He claimed that his office was from God&mdash;not from the Pope; and that it
+was not a whit less sacred than his rival's.  To which the Pope
+replied: "Who was the Frank before Pope Zacharias befriended Pepin? and
+what is the Teutonic King now, till consecrated by papal hands?  What
+he gives, can he not withdraw?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the Imperial power never reached such height as under this
+imperious, commanding Teuton; who exists now as a half-mythic hero,
+honored in picture, statue, song, and legend throughout Germany.  His
+reign was a splendid fight against the two antagonists which were
+finally to be fatal to the Empire&mdash;Italian nationality and the Papacy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The knighthood established by his Saxon predecessor, in 930, had during
+the Crusades expanded into great orders of chivalry throughout Europe.
+Frederick Barbarossa fostered and brought the chivalry of Germany to
+great splendor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He also brought to an end the long and destructive feud between the
+Welfs and the Waiblingers, pacifying the former by bestowing upon them
+the territory of Brunswick; to which fact England owes her present
+Queen, who is a daughter of the house of Brunswick.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For many centuries the people believed the legend that their hero had
+not died in Palestine; but they pointed to the mouth of a great cavern
+on the frowning heights of the Kyfhäuser mountain, where he was said to
+be surrounded by his knights in an enchanted sleep; waiting the hour
+when he should awaken and descend with his Crusaders, to bring back a
+golden age of peace and unity to Germany!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+There are three conditions in national life of which all nations more
+or less partake.  One is where the elements combine with a tendency
+toward organic development; another, where these elements fall apart
+with a tendency toward disintegration; and still another, where all
+processes, constructive and destructive, are arrested as in a crystal.
+The United States, the Ottoman Empire, and China illustrate these three
+conditions to-day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Teuton, who had been such a powerful element in renovating other
+European nations, had thus far seemed incapable of consolidating his
+own national life when left to himself.  The tendency was steadily
+toward disintegration rather than growth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was not alone because the strength of the Teutonic kingdom was
+wasted in pursuit of that glittering toy bestowed by the Pope; but on
+account of internal strifes and rivalries which employed the hostile
+schemes of the Roman Pontiff for their own ends and purposes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rivalry with the Pope, in itself a destructive element, was made
+still more destructive when it was thus used by disaffected dukes as a
+means of annoying and circumventing Emperors whom they disliked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A Frederick Barbarossa might arrest these processes for a time.  But
+one century later the ruin was complete.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Frederick II., the last of the Hohenstaufens, died, leaving an empty
+throne and a broken and shattered empire.  It was destined to rise
+again and to wear the name and trappings of its former greatness, but,
+crippled and degraded, to be in reality a mere shadow and semblance of
+what it had once aspired to be&mdash;the head of the world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A period of twenty years then followed, known as the "Great
+Interregnum."  A time when there was no King nor Emperor; when robbery
+and brigandage became the employment of needy knights, and when great
+barons made war upon and waylaid each other on the highways.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a time of strange chaos and darkness.  And yet this period,
+apparently so unfavorable to growth, brought forth two of the most
+pregnant events in the history of Germany.  These were the creation of
+the Hanseatic League and the birth of German literature.  The one laid
+the foundation of a real national life in which the people should
+participate; while the other gave expression to the romantic ideals of
+a hitherto silent race.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The great German epic, which is the Iliad of the Middle Ages, was
+produced at this darkest hour in the history of Germany.  The
+Nibelungen Lied deals with the colossal crimes, loves, and sorrows of
+Burgundian kings and princesses at the time of the Hunnish invasion.
+And it has been the good fortune of Germany, six hundred years later,
+to have a son (Richard Wagner) who has clothed that great epic in music
+which matches it in heroic dignity and splendor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The other event was of deeper import than this.  The burgs, or cities,
+which were created as a defense against the Hungarians, had become busy
+centers of manufacture and trade, and to some extent of learning.  Many
+of them had been made free cities.  That is, they were under the direct
+control of the Emperors instead of the hereditary nobles as at first.
+These cities enjoyed especial privileges and immunities which drew to
+them population and prosperity.  The true policy for German Emperors,
+harassed by Italian intrigues and at war with their own archbishops and
+disaffected nobles, would have been to form close alliance with these
+free cities, and make friends of their burghers and guilds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When there was no king, no ruler in the land, when robbery ran riot so
+that traveling was impossible, two cities, Hamburg and Lubeck, agreed
+together to keep order in their neighborhood.  Then Brunswick and
+Bremen joined; and at last over a hundred towns had combined together
+in what was called the "Hanseatic League."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This Confederacy became the mightiest power in the North of Europe; and
+at one time even threatened the overthrow of feudalism, and to convert
+West Germany into a federation of free municipalities.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When trades increased in the cities, each trade managed its own affairs
+by an organization called a <I>guild</I>.  The guilds in the course of time
+obtained a share in the government of the towns; and it was the
+regenerating power of these guilds which brought about this great
+movement.  With their simple ideals of truth, sincerity, and justice,
+they were the storehouses of that power which is the real life of a
+nation.  As well expect a tree to flourish when its sap is not
+permitted to rise, or a man to be well when the blood is obstructed in
+his veins, as to look for healthful growth and expansion in a nation
+from which the life of its common people is excluded!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Among these early guilds, that of the Meistersingers, which was
+chartered in 1340, was of vast importance in the development of the
+German people.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was composed of artisans and governed by the strict, pedantic rules
+then existing in the arts of musical and literary composition.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The prizes did not confer as great an honor as those bestowed at
+Olympia two thousand years before, but they were sought with an intense
+enthusiasm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The soul of the Teuton was by nature set to music.  For him that art
+was not a luxury reserved for the rich and cultured, but the daily food
+which nourished the life of the most untutored.  Within this musical
+and literary guild the two arts of music and poetry for centuries
+existed in their most elementary form, and were the soil out of which
+later came such marvelous blossom and fruit.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Germany, which had always been a loosely compacted mass, was at the
+close of the Hohenstaufen dynasty composed of 60 independent cities,
+116 priestly rulers, and 100 reigning dukes, princes, counts, and
+barons, always rivals and usually at war with each other, in
+perpetually changing combinations for attack or defense.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lying beneath this body of small and struggling sovereigns was a people
+in whom was the first dawning consciousness of human rights; which
+consciousness was gradually extending to that helpless mass underlying
+the whole&mdash;the peasantry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In 1273 the German princes succeeded in electing an Emperor; and the
+Great Interregnum was over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is a curious fact that the two names <I>Hapsburg</I> and <I>Hohenzollern</I>
+should have appeared simultaneously in German history.  Rudolf, Count
+of Hapsburg, through the influence of his brother-in-law Frederick of
+Hohenzollern, Count of Nuremburg, was chosen to fill the vacant throne.
+It was during the reign of Albert, son of this first Hapsburg, that the
+Swiss first revolted against imperial authority.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gessler, who had been sent by Albert to subdue the refractory Alpine
+shepherds, so exasperated them by his atrocities that he was shot by
+William Tell.  It was a long way from Tell to Swiss freedom and
+independence.  But the people from that hour never wavered in their
+determination not to be serfs to the house of Hapsburg.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Hanseatic League in North Germany, and the invincibly free spirit
+in Switzerland, were the two things of deepest significance at this
+time of political chaos.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Side by side with this assertion of political rights, there had
+commenced a general intellectual awakening.  The Bishop of Ratisbon,
+Albertus Magnus, was so learned in mathematics and in science that
+people believed he was a sorcerer.[<A NAME="chap07fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn1">1</A>]  Godfrey of Strasburg had written
+an epic poem about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
+Wolfram of Eschenbach had told of the Holy Grail in his Parsifal; and a
+learned history of Denmark had been written, without which our own
+literature would have suffered immeasurable loss, for in it Shakspeare
+found the story of Hamlet!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was at this time (1356) that the famous "Golden Bull" was issued, a
+new electoral system, which reduced the number of electors to seven.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The idea was that as the sun and the seven planets illumined our
+heavens, so that great luminary, the German Emperor, should be the
+center of a political system composed of seven Electors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These earthly luminaries, whose duty it was to elect a new Emperor,
+were the Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Trèves, and the temporal
+princes of Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatine of the Rhine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The very first act of these seven wise men was to place upon the throne
+Wenceslas, a brutal madman, who might better have been confined as a
+maniac.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was during the reign of his brother and successor Sigismund that the
+burning of John Huss lighted the conflagration in Bohemia known as the
+Hussite War.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John Huss, a professor of the University of Prague, had dared to raise
+his voice against the temporal enrichment of a church whose Founder had
+not where to lay his head, and who had put behind him the kingdoms of
+this earth, when offered to him by Satan!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Huss, for this offense, came under the displeasure of the bishops.
+Charges were brought against him that he had maintained the existence
+of four Gods, and he was condemned and burnt (1415).
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Hussite war had none of the reforming purpose which led to the
+martyrdom they wished to avenge.  It was a mad strife, beginning over
+some detail of the Communion Service, and ending in a war between
+Bohemian and German, in which for nearly twenty years the country ran
+with blood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this period an event occurred of trifling significance then, but of
+profound importance to future Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In 1411 the Emperor borrowed one hundred thousand florins of Frederick
+of Hohenzollern, the Burgrave, or "Count of the Castle," of Nuremburg,
+direct descendant from that first Hohenzollern who helped to found the
+Hapsburg dynasty.  For this loan Sigismund gave his creditor a mortgage
+on the territory of Brandenburg.  Frederick at once took up his
+residence there, and subsequently made an offer of three hundred
+thousand gold florins more to purchase the territory.  The Emperor
+accepted the terms, so the then small state was thereafter the home of
+the Hohenzollerns, and was on its way to become Prussia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sigismund and his brother Wenceslas belonged to another dynasty, that
+of Luxemburg.  But after the death of the former, in 1440, the
+Hapsburgs succeeded again to the crown, which they wore until it was
+taken off at the bidding of Napoleon in 1806.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just before the issuance of the Golden Bull, there had occurred that
+most revolutionary event, the discovery of gunpowder.  When a man in
+leathern jacket could do more than a knight in armor, when safety
+depended upon quickness and lightness, and ponderous iron and steel
+were fatal&mdash;then a momentous change in conditions was at hand!  The
+destruction of feudalism was involved in this discovery of 1344.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Under Frederick III., that Hapsburg who came to the throne in 1440, the
+Empire seemed to have reached a climax of disorder.  Old things were
+passing away, and the new had not yet come to take their place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the eastern shore of the Baltic the march of German civilization had
+received an almost fatal check.  The "German Order," an organization of
+knights intended to keep back the Slavonic tide, had failed to do so.
+Holland was becoming estranged from the German Empire.  France had
+obtained possession of Flanders.  Luxemburg, Lorraine, and Burgundy
+were becoming practically independent; while it began to seem as if
+Switzerland were forever lost to Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now the Hungarians were setting up their new king, the valiant
+Hunyadi; and the Bohemians theirs, George of Podjebrod.  Not only were
+these kingdoms and principalities slipping away, but the peasants in
+the cantons of the Alps, and elsewhere in revolt, were some of them led
+by great nobles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still another, and perhaps the gravest of all these dangers, was one
+which yet darkens our horizon in this closing nineteenth century!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the year 1250 the Turks had commenced their existence in Asia Minor,
+with one little clan, led by one obscure chieftain.  This clan had
+grown as if by miracle into a great empire in the East, rivaling in
+power that of the Saracens, whose successors they were as the head of
+the Mahomedan Empire.  The Turks had been steadily encroaching upon
+Germany; had made havoc in Hungary; had devastated Austria, and were
+now insolently pressing on toward their goal, the Imperial palace at
+Vienna.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While the incompetent and drowsy Emperor Frederick III. was helplessly
+viewing these stupendous overturnings, there occurred that other event,
+as important in the empire of thought as the invention of gunpowder had
+been in that of political institutions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The invention of printing (1450),&mdash;that art preservative of all
+arts,&mdash;was the greatest step yet taken in the emancipation of the human
+mind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The poor inventor was, after the manner of inventors, badly treated.
+John Fust, on account of Gutenberg's inability to pay back the money he
+had loaned him for his experiment, seized the printing press, and
+himself proceeded to finish printing the Bible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rapidity with which the copies were produced, and their precise
+resemblance to each other, created such astonishment that a report
+spread that Fust had sold himself to the devil, with whom he was in
+league.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This, together with the identity of names, led Victor Hugo, Klinger,
+and other writers to confuse John Fust, the practicer of the Black Art
+in mediæval times, with John Fust the printer.  And as the original
+Fust had come to stand for the emancipation of the human intellect
+through free learning, and as printing was above all else the means for
+such emancipation, the coincidence, if such it be, was, to say the
+least, remarkable!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When we approach the time of Isabella of Castile and of Columbus, and
+when we are confronted with that familiar specter, the Turk, in
+Southeastern Europe, we feel that we are in sight of the lights on
+familiar headlands, and are not far from port.  We are not very near to
+that haven, but we are passing the line which divides the old from the
+new.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn1text">1</A>] See chart of Civilization in Six Centuries, "Who, When, and What."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VIII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was not alone in Germany that the old was vanishing.  The movement
+in that country was part of a general condition prevailing in England,
+France, and Spain; all with the same tendency&mdash;the passing of the power
+from many small despotisms to one greater one.  It was an advance,
+although a slow one, in the path of progress.  Feudalism&mdash;that
+newfangled system which had so tried the soul of Duke Welf in the ninth
+century&mdash;was dissolving.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In England the war with France, and the War of the Roses, by
+impoverishing the nobles had broken their remaining authority, and that
+system which had been gradually perishing since the Conquest was
+virtually dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In France Louis XI. had cunningly conceived the idea of recovering the
+power of the throne by an apparent friendship with the people; and a
+combination was thus formed against which a decrepit feudalism could
+not long stand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In Spain the smaller kingdoms had at last been merged into two larger
+ones, and by the union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and
+Isabella, and the expulsion of the Moors which quickly followed that
+event, that country was at last consolidated into one kingdom&mdash;in which
+feudalism no longer existed as a disturbing power.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In northern Italy also, among that brilliant group of small republics,
+there was this same centralizing tendency at work.  Florence had passed
+into the strong keeping of the Medici (1434), while Genoa and most of
+the Lombard republics were gravitating toward the control of Milan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was at this period that there were for the first time formed those
+combinations and alliances between the nations of Europe which led
+finally to a system existing for the preservation of the <I>balance of
+power</I>.  In fact, after the various monarchies had assumed these firmer
+and more definite outlines, there began a process of weaving them
+together into a larger whole; and the threads used in this process are
+known as <I>European diplomacy</I>, which, as we have recently seen, is
+stronger than individual sovereigns!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the fifteenth century
+that the Imperial throne of Germany should be occupied, at this time of
+centralizing tendencies, by a man determined not alone to reign but to
+rule.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maximilian I., son of the sleepy Frederick III., was chosen by the
+electors in 1486.  He was full of energy, intelligence, and heart, and
+was, besides, the handsomest prince in Europe, and his wife, Mary of
+Burgundy, was the fairest of princesses.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The people, weary of disorder and insecurity, were glad to feel the
+touch of a strong hand.  Maximilian firmly planted the foundations of
+the house of Hapsburg.  From that time the choice of the Electors was
+merely a formal recognition of the hereditary rights of that family.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This prince, standing on the dividing line between the old and new,
+possessed the qualities of both.  He was stately, brave, and chivalric,
+and at the same time educated according to the highest standards of his
+time, devoted to literature, art, and poetry, and with comprehensive
+and progressive plans for his kingdom.  He had a sincere desire to
+reform abuses.  He introduced into Germany the post office, and the
+system for the conveyance of letters, throughout two thousand
+independent territories!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Turks were advancing on the east, the French King was harassing him
+on the west, and the Pope always trying to embroil him with other
+kingdoms and to drain his Empire.  His was not an easy task.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was not a Charlemagne nor a Frederick Barbarossa, but he infused
+strength and a power of resistance into Germany at a period of extreme
+weakness, and he reunited to the house of Hapsburg the kingdoms of
+Hungary and Bohemia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was evidence that the long thraldom to Rome was passing away, in
+the fact that Maximilian assumed Imperial authority without receiving
+the crown from papal hands; his father Frederick having been the last
+Emperor who made pilgrimage to Rome for that purpose (in 1452).
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Maximilian came to the throne in 1493 an event of transcendent
+importance had just occurred.  Europe had learned with amazement that
+when the sun disappeared in that mysterious Western Ocean, it passed on
+to shine upon other lands beyond&mdash;lands teeming with life and riches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The most fascinating field for adventure the world had ever known was
+suddenly opened to Europe, and the magnet of boundless wealth was
+transferred from the East to the West.  A stream of adventurous and
+rapacious men, from all the lands excepting Germany, was moving toward
+the setting sun.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Spain, only recently obscure, poor and struggling to free her land from
+an alien race, suddenly found herself mistress of her own territory,
+consolidated, and with an empire and resources in the West, practically
+boundless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The good Queen Isabella, who had been the instrumentality in bringing
+about these changes for her country, had the satisfaction of seeing her
+kingdom at one bound take its place in the first rank among the nations
+of Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her chief care now was to make alliances for her children suited to
+this new position.  She and Ferdinand aimed high.  They secured the
+daughter of Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, for their son, who was heir
+to the crown of Spain; but the hopes from this union were quickly
+blighted, as the young prince suddenly died during the wedding
+festivities.  Then another marriage was arranged for their oldest
+daughter Joanna with Philip, Maximilian's son, who was also heir to the
+Imperial throne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Isabella's sorrows matched her triumphs and successes in magnitude.
+Joanna became hopelessly insane.  Another daughter, who married the
+King of Portugal, was buried in the same grave with the infant who was
+expected to unite the crowns of Spain and Portugal, while for her
+youngest child Katharine was reserved the unhappy fate of becoming the
+wife of Henry VIII. of England.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is sad to remember that this admirable woman, in her intense desire
+to drive heretic Jews out of her country, was prevailed upon, by her
+confessor Torquemada, to establish the Inquisition in Spain.  Believing
+as she devoutly did that heresy meant eternal death, and little
+suspecting the engine for cruelty it was to become, this kindest and
+best of women may be forgiven for this fatal mistake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Overwhelmed by private griefs and sorrows, Isabella died in 1506,
+leaving her crazed daughter Joanna a widow, with two sons, the elder
+six years old.  She would have been consoled could she have known that,
+in thirteen years from that time, this grandson would wear not alone
+the crown of Spain, but the great Imperial crown of Germany, and would
+be lord of a greater empire, and wield more power, than any living
+sovereign.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IX.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The period of Maximilian's reign was a bridge which spanned two
+colossal events: the discovery of America and the Reformation.  When
+this Emperor died in 1517, a greater work was at hand than any he or
+his predecessors had ever accomplished, and the humble man who was to
+be its instrument was destined to become a power above all princes, and
+to shake the Church of Rome to its foundation after an undisturbed
+reign of a thousand years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Reformation had long been preparing in the hearts of the people.
+The persecutions of the Albigenses in France, the Waldenses in Savoy,
+and the burning of Huss and of Jerome, had all come from the growing
+conviction that the Bible was the only true source of Christian truth
+and doctrine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The art of printing had made this well of pure truth accessible to all,
+and there was a deep though unspoken belief in the hearts and minds of
+the people that a church grasping at secular power and riches had
+wandered far from the simple teachings of its Founder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These smoldering fires were very near to the surface when Maximilian
+died.  Charles, his grandson, was then King of Spain.  The ambitious
+Francis I. of France struggled hard for the crown laid down by the
+Emperor, but, in 1519, it was placed upon the head of his rival, and
+Charles V. was the first of whom it could be said that the sun never
+set upon his dominions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this most critical moment in the history of the world, the fate of
+Europe was in the hands of three men: Charles V., Emperor of Germany;
+Francis I., King of France, and Henry VIII., King of England.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Charles, half Fleming and half Spaniard, had the grasping
+acquisitiveness of the one nation, and the proud, fanatical cruelty of
+the other.  Small of stature, plain in feature, sedate, quiet, crafty,
+he was playing a desperate game with Francis I. for supremacy in Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Francis, handsome as an Apollo, accomplished, fascinating, profligate,
+was fully his match in ambition.  Covering his worst qualities with a
+gorgeous mantle of generosity and chivalrous sense of honor, he was the
+insidious corrupter of morals in France, creating a sentiment which
+laughed at virtue and innocence as qualities belonging to a lower class
+of society.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Each of these men was striving to enlist Henry VIII. upon his side, by
+appealing to the cruel caprices of that vain, ostentatious, arrogant
+King, who in turn tried to use them for the furthering of his own
+desires and purposes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a sort of triangular game between the three monarchs&mdash;a game
+full of finesse and far-reaching designs.  If Charles attacked Francis,
+Henry attacked Charles, while the astute Charles, knowing well the
+desire of the English King to repudiate Katharine and make Anne Boleyn
+his queen, whispered seductive promises of the papal chair to Wolsey,
+who was in turn to establish his own influence over his royal master by
+bringing about the marriage with Anne, upon which the King's heart was
+set, and then be rewarded by securing Henry's promise of neutrality for
+Charles, in his designs of overreaching Francis&mdash;and, after that, the
+road to Rome for the aspiring cardinal would be a straight one!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was an intricate diplomatic net-work, in which the thread of Henry's
+desire for the fair Anne was mingled with Wolsey's desire for
+preferment, and both interlaced with the ambitious, far-reaching
+purposes of the other two monarchs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All these events were very absorbing, and while they were splendidly
+gilding the surface of Europe in the first half of the sixteenth
+century, it seemed a small matter that an obscure monk was denouncing
+the Pope and defying the power of the Catholic Church.  Little did
+Charles suspect that, when his victories and edicts were forgotten, the
+words of the insolent heretic would still be echoing down the ages.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few years later, and the Apollo-like beauty and false heart of
+Francis I. were dissolving in the grave; Henry VIII. had gone to
+another world, to meet his reward&mdash;and his wives; and Charles V. was
+sadly counting his beads in the monastery of St. Jerome, at Juste,
+reflecting upon the vanity of human ambitions.  But the murmur of
+protest from the unknown monk had become a roar&mdash;the rivulet had
+swollen into a threatening torrent.  As it is the invisible forces that
+are the most powerful in nature, so it is the obscure and least
+observed events that have accomplished the most tremendous revolutions
+in human affairs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But before all this had happened, in the year 1517, when it had not yet
+occurred to Henry's sensitive conscience that his marriage with
+Katharine, his brother's widow, was illegal, and while Charles V., that
+sedate young man, who "looked so modest and soared so high," was
+quietly revolving plans for the extension of his empire, Pope Leo X.,
+the pious Vicar of Christ upon earth, and elegant patron of Michael
+Angelo and Raphael, found his income all too small for his magnificent
+tastes.  It does not seem to have occurred to him that his tastes were
+too costly for his income; he simply recognized that something must be
+done, and at once, to fill his empty purse.  But what should it be?  A
+simple and ingenious expedient solved the perplexing problem.  He would
+issue a proclamation to his "loving, faithful children," that he would
+grant absolution for all sorts of crimes, the prices graduated to suit
+the enormity of the offense.  We have not seen the proclamation, but
+doubt not it was in most caressing Latin, for can anything exceed the
+velvety softness of the gloves worn on the hands which have signed
+papal decrees?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simple lying and slander were cheap; perjury and sins against chastity
+more costly; while the use of the stiletto, of poison, and the hired
+assassin could be enjoyed only by the richest.  It worked well.  In the
+hopeful words of a pious dignitary, "as soon as the money chinks in the
+coffer, the soul springs out of purgatory."  Who could resist such
+promise?  Money flowed in swollen streams into the thirsty coffers,
+many even paying in advance for crimes they intended to commit!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martin Luther was the one man who dared to stand up and denounce this
+tax upon crime, this papal trade in vice.  The people had at last found
+a voice and a leader.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Protestantism, which had long been maturing in silence and in darkness,
+sprang full-armed into existence, and was the first thing to confront
+Charles when he assumed the Imperial crown.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He, no doubt, thought that he would soon be able to dispose of the new
+heresy, as had his royal father and mother in Spain disposed of heretic
+Jews a few years before.  But this new specter of Protestantism would
+not down!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Charles called together an assembly of states (or Diet) at Worms,
+in 1521, he supposed he was going to deal with one obscure monk,
+leading an obscure movement.  But it assumed quite a different aspect
+when Luther, the culprit, was sustained by two great electors and many
+princes of his realm; and when a long list of grievances against the
+Papacy was formally presented by several states, which he was firmly
+told he would be required to redress!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The princes were in earnest.  They began to seize church property, to
+send monks and nuns adrift, and to make free with gold and silver
+vessels and treasure belonging to the Church.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This time of confusion was used by one ambitious ruler for his own
+ends.  The German, or Teutonic, order was a knightly organization
+created expressly to hold the frontier against the Slavonic people.
+After the year 1230 this order held Prussia, which they ruled like
+princes.  The Margrave of Brandenburg, who was at the time of the
+Reformation Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, realized his
+opportunity in the existing disorder.  He made himself sovereign over
+Prussia, and annexed the possessions of the Teutonic order to his
+family.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But it was not alone the princes who saw their opportunity in this time
+of overturning.  The wrongs of the peasants were very real and very
+grievous, and of long, long standing.  The entire burden of taxation
+rested on them&mdash;the archbishops and the nobles and the <I>gentlemen</I> all
+being exempt!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the Reformation began the <I>bauer</I>, or peasantry, believed that
+their hope lay in the abolishing of Catholicism and of the feudal
+system.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It takes a very small spark to fire a train of gunpowder.  When the
+Countess of Lüpfen ordered the peasants on her estate to spend their
+Sundays in picking strawberries and gathering snail shells for
+pincushions, she dropped such a spark!  They refused, and the revolt
+spread, gathering in fury as it moved like a cyclone through the German
+states.  All throughout Germany there are to be seen, to-day, ruined
+castles which tell the story of this "Peasants' War" (1525).  Hideous
+atrocities were committed, and, as has so often happened, the cause of
+a people whose grievances were real and heartrending was so stained
+with crime that sympathy with and pity for their sufferings were
+obliterated.  Even Luther&mdash;whose followers they claimed to be&mdash;said of
+them, "they should be treated as a man would treat a mad dog."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bold stand taken by Luther against this rebellion strengthened him
+with the princes.  Not only Saxony, Hesse, and Brunswick and many free
+cities, but the Augustine order of monks, a part of the Franciscans,
+and a number of priests had embraced the new doctrine contained in the
+"Augsburg Confession," the creed or summary of belief which was
+prepared by Luther's friend, Philip Melancthon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The principles asserted in this were that men are justified by faith
+alone; that an assembly of believers constitutes a Church; that
+monastic vows, invocation of saints, fasting, celibacy, etc., are
+useless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such were the chief points in the celebrated "Confession," which was
+signed by the Protestant cities and princes in 1530.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So while Charles was engaged in his great game of finesse with Francis
+I. and Henry VIII. for preponderance in Europe&mdash;while the Turks were
+pressing toward Vienna on the east, and the French into Flanders on the
+west, and while the Pope, who should have been his ally, jealous of his
+power was circumventing and weakening him so far as he could, worse
+than all else, the foundations of the Protestant Church were being
+permanently laid in Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two great aims of the Emperor were to restore papal supremacy over
+Christendom and firmly to unite Germany and Spain.  But how could he do
+the one, when at the hour of a great schism in the Church, a jealous
+Pope was trying to weaken his hands?  Or the other, when Germany was
+always suspicious of him because he was a Spaniard, and Spain because
+he was a Hapsburg?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Charles was profound in his methods, crafty and powerful; but
+circumstances were stronger than he.  In order to succeed at one point,
+he had to weaken himself at another.  He could do nothing in repelling
+the Turks or the French, unless aided by the Protestant states.  And
+these states would only give assistance in exchange for concessions to
+their cause, while Francis I., as crafty as he, found a sure way to
+circumvent his rival in giving aid to the Protestants.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The new faith was spreading not only in Germany, but in Denmark,
+Sweden, and England.  The movement in Switzerland diverged somewhat in
+character under Zwingli, another Reformer, and the new Protestantism
+began to have its own schismatics.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Calvin in Geneva rejected Luther's doctrine of <I>justification by
+faith</I>, and for it substituted that of <I>election</I>.  The doctrine that
+men were predestined to heaven or hell was thereafter held by that
+branch of the Church known as Reformers, as distinguished from the
+Lutherans, while from the <I>protest</I> of Saxony, Brandenburg, Brunswick,
+Hesse, and fifteen imperial cities against the decree outlawing Luther
+and his doctrines, the name Protestants took its rise, which included
+Lutherans and Reformers alike.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The famous Schmalkaldian League was so called from the little Hessian
+town where the Protestant princes assembled in 1530 and made a solemn
+promise of mutual support against the Emperor; when they also entered
+into a secret treaty with Francis I., and received promises of support
+from the Kings of England, Sweden, and Denmark.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In 1540 the strength of the Catholics had been re-enforced by the order
+of Jesuits, which was founded by Ignatius Loyola.  This order made the
+suppression of Protestant doctrines its chief task.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meyerbeer has, by his great opera, made so famous the strange tragedy
+enacted at Münster in 1534 that it must have brief mention, although it
+was only a bit of driftwood in the great current of events.  A
+religious sect called the Anabaptists was led by a Dutch tailor, John
+of Leyden, who claimed to be inspired.  The chief things he was
+inspired to do were to crown himself king, to introduce polygamy, and
+to cut off the heads of all who resisted his decrees!  For more than a
+year the city was held by this madman and his associates; and then the
+tragedy was concluded by the torturing to death of the tailor-king and
+his chief abettors; their bodies being left suspended in iron cages
+over the Cathedral door at Münster.  This grewsome story is the one
+used by Meyerbeer in his opera of "Le Prophète."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In 1552 Charles saw his ambitious plans for the government of the world
+failing at every point.  By the treaty of Passau, religious freedom had
+been conceded to the Protestants; and while his army was needed to
+fight the Turks in Hungary, Henry II. of France (who had succeeded
+Francis I., 1547), in league with the Protestant states, was invading
+Lorraine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sick at heart and failing in health, the weary Emperor (1556) resolved
+to lay down the heavy crown he had worn for thirty-six years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To his son Philip II. he gave the Netherlands, Naples, Spain, and the
+American Colonies, while the Imperial title, and the German-Austrian
+lands passed to his brother Ferdinand I.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The singular cause of his death, two years later, makes us wonder
+whether his unfortunate mother Joanna could have transmitted to her son
+the insanity which darkened her own life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the monastery at St. Juste to which the Imperial monk had retired
+after his abdication, he yielded to a morbid whim to rehearse his own
+funeral.  The grave-clothes were damp.  He was seized with a chill, and
+after a brief illness died (1558).
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Charles had been thwarted in his two great aims of establishing the
+supremacy of his Church, and the permanent union of Germany and Spain.
+But perhaps his bitterest disappointment was in not being permitted to
+leave the Imperial crown to his son Philip.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His brother Ferdinand, although firmly Catholic, was a just and
+moderate prince, who had always favored conciliatory measures to the
+Protestants while the course of Philip II., in the Netherlands, soon
+showed how heavily his hand would have rested upon Germany.  He
+appointed the Duke of Alva Spanish governor in that unfortunate
+territory.  Never had cruel king more cruel agent in carrying out his
+policy.  Torture, fire, and sword were the instruments intended to
+subjugate, but which in the end brought about the independence of
+Holland.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The prelates of the Church in 1543 had come together in what was called
+the "Council of Trent," with the avowed object of reforming abuses
+which had crept into the Church.  The real purpose, however, was to
+examine the foundations of that venerable structure, to discover where
+it had been injured in the assaults made upon it since 1517, and to
+strengthen it where it seemed to need new supports.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In 1563, after eighteen years' deliberation, the work of this Council
+was finished.  The cardinal doctrines of purgatory, absolution,
+celibacy, invocation of saints, censorship of press, etc., etc., were
+reaffirmed, and terrible anathemas pronounced against such as should
+reject them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus was created a chasm which nothing could ever bridge, eternally
+dividing the old religion from the new.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another tremendously re-enforcing agent was at work in Loyola's Society
+of Jesus, which was to be to the Church what the brain is to the human
+body.  In 1540 Loyola's ten disciples received the papal blessing.  In
+1600 there were ten million Jesuits, and in 1700 twenty millions!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER X.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was the invincible march of Protestantism in the land of its birth
+which brought about this buttressing of the old belief and this
+adopting of fresh methods for its efficiency.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Ferdinand died in 1564 the great majority of the German people had
+become Protestants.  The Empire was honeycombed with the new faith.
+Even in Austria, that everlasting stronghold of Papacy, the Catholics
+were in a minority.  True to the traditions of the past, Bavaria, the
+home of the ancient Welfs, was the one thoroughly zealous and obedient
+champion of the Pope in all Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It seemed as if the great conflict was almost over.  But it had not
+even commenced!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The history of this great movement would have been very different, had
+it been carried on steadily under one leader.  But it had four!  Those
+devout souls who believed they had found in the simple gospel truths of
+Protestantism a religion in which all might unite were soon convinced
+of their mistake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lulled by the apparent triumph of the new faith, reformers set about
+the task of defining the belief and correcting the errors of Protestant
+doctrine.  To the followers of Calvin the belief of the Lutherans
+became almost as abhorrent as Papacy itself, while the Lutherans were
+again subdivided into an extreme and a moderate party; the one
+following to the letter the doctrines of Luther, and the other the more
+modified views of Melancthon.  Not only men but states were divided and
+in bitter strife over these differences, so that the Emperor Ferdinand
+had said, "Instead of being of one mind they are so disunited, have so
+many different beliefs, the God of truth surely cannot be with them!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is apparent now that the issue underlying all this upheaval was
+deeper than anyone then knew.  The real struggle was not for the
+supremacy of Romanist or Protestant; not to determine whether this
+dogma or that was true and should prevail, but to establish the right
+of every human soul to choose its own faith and form of worship.  The
+great battle for human liberty had commenced, and the Romish Church had
+been shaken to its foundations not because its doctrine was false, but
+because it was a <I>despotism</I>!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the abdication of Charles V. to 1600 was a period of political
+tranquillity in Germany.  The reign of two conciliatory sovereigns,
+Ferdinand I., and his son Maximilian II., tended to produce a
+surface-calm, which, although ruffled, was not broken by the stern and
+despotic reign of Rudolf II., who succeeded in 1576.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a half century of unfruitful and sullen waiting&mdash;waiting for a
+future which no one could divine.  Protestantism was not blossoming;
+but the seed was germinating amid elements good and evil, strangely
+mingled together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While the Reformation was the leading fact in Europe at this period,
+another event had created a new and pervading atmosphere, in which all
+else existed.  The impulse given to civilization by the taking of
+Constantinople by the Turks (1452), and the consequent disseminating of
+Greek culture throughout Europe, was a transforming event in the
+history of civilization.  Literature, art, music, took on new forms and
+thrilled with a new life.  The activity of the human mind manifested
+itself in everything.  It was an age of great men and great things.
+Copernicus, followed by Tycho Brahe, Galileo, and Kepler, brought order
+into the heavens.  The Medici in Italy, who were guiding these new and
+enriching streams which had set in from the East, helped to produce a
+wonderful art period, which swept in successive tides over Europe.
+Fainting and sculpture reached their climacteric.  Music, still in its
+infancy, developed into the new forms of opera and oratorio.[<A NAME="chap10fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap10fn1">1</A>]  And
+while these things were happening, a mysteriously inspired man&mdash;seeming
+to hold as in a crucible the wisdom distilled from all ages and all
+human experiences&mdash;was writing immortal plays in England!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Teuton race does not take on the graces of life very quickly.  The
+serious and sincere German mind must inspect the idea first, and then
+become thoroughly imbued with it, before the hand will act!  But when
+the Teuton roots do begin to draw upon the soil, they strike deep and
+hold firmly, and know just what they are going to do with the rising
+sap; concerning themselves much more about that than the foolish
+branches and leaves!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So this new light did not at once flood Germany, but its influence was
+felt there.  Thought was quickened, knowledge increased, art and
+science began to flourish, wealth accumulated, and the people became
+less simple and more luxurious in their ways of living.  The King of
+Spain was occupied in his hopeless attempt to subdue the Netherlands,
+and Hungary and Austria were still struggling with the Turkish invasion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such was the condition at the beginning of the seventeenth century.  In
+spite of the material advance there was a feeling of impending
+misfortune.  But the magnitude of the coming disaster none then could
+have imagined or dreamed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The fatal circumstance was that the Protestants were divided into two
+angry and hostile camps, at the very time when the Catholics, under the
+teachings of the Jesuits, were uniting with solid front against them.
+The Thirty Years' War would never have been undertaken against a united
+adversary who held four-fifths of Germany!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During the despotic reign of Rudolf II. the Protestants for their
+protection formed a Union with the Elector Palatine Frederick at its
+head.  Thereupon the Catholic princes also united in a <I>Catholic
+League</I> under Maximilian of Bavaria.  The forces were now gathering for
+the great explosion.  Matthias had succeeded his brother Rudolf as
+Emperor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When a great storm is impending, it takes only a trifling disturbance
+in equilibrium to precipitate it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such a disturbance occurred in Prague (1618) over a church which the
+Protestants were erecting.  An angry mob armed itself, burst into the
+Imperial Castle at Prague, and flung out of the window two Catholic
+Bohemian nobles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With this act of violence commenced the Thirty Years' War, which lasted
+through three reigns, those of Matthias, Ferdinand II., and Ferdinand
+III., and caused unparalleled misery in Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two years from that day the Protestant faith was obliterated in the
+realm of Austria, and the progress of a hundred years was wiped out.
+In three years more, not only Austria, but Germany, was in a worse
+condition than she had known for centuries&mdash;the wretched people, a prey
+to both parties, were slaughtered, robbed, driven hither and thither,
+and a country only recently rejoicing in its material prosperity was a
+waste and a ruin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Imperial troops were splendidly led by two great generals&mdash;Tilly
+and Wallenstein.  The Protestant nations&mdash;England, Holland, Denmark,
+and Sweden&mdash;looked on in dismay as they saw a powerful and triumphant
+Protestantism being wiped out of existence in the land of its birth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By 1629 Ferdinand II. considered his power re-established absolutely
+over all Germany.  He issued what was called the "Edict of
+Restitution," which ordered the restoration of all Protestant territory
+to Catholic hands.  Wallenstein, in addition to this, declared that
+reigning princes and a national diet should be abolished and all power
+centered in the Emperor!  Indeed this Wallenstein was minded to play
+the dictator as well as general.  He traveled in regal state, with his
+one hundred carriages, one thousand horses, fifteen cooks, and fifteen
+young nobles for his pages!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This taste for splendor was, like Wolsey's, his undoing.  People began
+to fear the ambitious leader, and Ferdinand dismissed him.  With rage
+and hate in his heart he retired to Prague to await developments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Twelve years of war in horrible form had wrought utter ruin and broken
+the spirit of the Protestants.  But help and hope suddenly came in 1630.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, with his heart all aflame with zeal
+to defend the falling cause of Protestantism in Germany, is the
+knightliest figure which adorns the pages of history.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We in this present age have reached a point of development when,
+without the quivering of an eyelash, we can hear of the destruction of
+suffering peoples, even if it involves the principles and things most
+sacred to us.  Whether it be the effacing of Christianity in Crete, or
+of liberty in Cuba, the motto of practical men and nations is&mdash;"hands
+off."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gustavus Adolphus had not learned that potent phrase.  He was still in
+that undeveloped condition when the elemental impulses of the heart
+sway men's action.  And without a regret, without an enfeebling doubt,
+he could turn his back upon a throne and an adoring people, in defense
+of an imperiled Protestantism in another land.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the moment his foot touched the soil of Germany on that 4th of
+July, 1630, life and hope revived.  The Emperor Ferdinand laughed and
+called him the "Snow King," who would melt away after one winter.  But
+when one city after another was stormed and taken, when he left behind
+him a path of religious liberty and rejoicing&mdash;when Tilly was no longer
+able to cope with this Snow King and Wallenstein had to be recalled,
+and when it looked as if the work of twelve years might be undone, then
+Ferdinand no longer laughed!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wallenstein would only return upon conditions which actually made him
+the lord and Ferdinand the subject.  Having thus become absolute master
+of the Imperial cause, he confidently set about the task of defeating
+Gustavus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Queen of Sweden had joined her husband in Germany.  On the 27th of
+October, 1632, he took leave of her.  As he passed through the country,
+the people fell on their knees, kissing his garments, calling him
+Deliverer.  He exclaimed, "I pray that the wrath of the Almighty may
+not be visited upon me, on account of this idolatry toward a weak and
+sinful mortal."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before the great conflict began he made an address to his Swedes, and
+then the whole army united in singing Luther's grand hymn, "A tower of
+strength is our Lord!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For hours the battle raged furiously, and while the issue was trembling
+in the balance, the sight of the riderless horse of the Swedish King,
+covered with blood and wildly galloping to and fro, told the awful
+story.  The terrified animal had carried him with a shattered arm right
+into the enemy's ranks, where he was instantly shot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While Wallenstein was retreating to Leipzig, the body of this most
+royal of kings was lying under a heap of dead, so mutilated by the
+hoofs of horses as to be almost unrecognizable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Protestant cause had lost its soul and inspiration.  But, in
+falling, the heroic king had so broken the enemy that there was a long
+pause in hostilities.  And the wily general retired again to Prague,
+there to evolve new plans for his own aggrandizement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this crisis a new champion arose.  It was not to be expected that
+Richelieu, who had been putting down Protestantism with an iron hand in
+France, would feel sympathy for the Protestant cause in Germany!  But
+that wary primate and minister was not going to stand on a little
+matter of religion, when he saw an advantage to be gained for France!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had long ago determined how this conflict should end.  He did not
+intend to permit Imperial Germany under Ferdinand to rise to ascendancy
+in Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With the weight of France thrown into the scale when the Imperial cause
+was already so shattered by Gustavus, it was easy to see how it must
+end.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wallenstein secretly opened negotiations from Prague with the French
+ambassador, and steadily disregarded the Emperor's orders to return to
+his command.  The project was that he should go over to the Protestant
+side in return for the crown of Bohemia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A general whom the traitor trusted, in turn betrayed him to the
+Emperor.  Six soldiers, under the pretense of bearing dispatches,
+entered his room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are <I>you</I> the traitor who is going to deliver your Emperor's troops to
+the enemy?" shouted one of the men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wallenstein realized that his hour had come.  He said not a word, but
+stretched out his arms and silently received his death-blow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With an invading French army in Germany, under the famous Marshals
+Turenne and Condé, looking about for choice bits of territory for
+France, a religious war had become a political one.  It lasted until
+1648, when the "Peace of Westphalia" concluded the most desolating
+struggle in the history of wars.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And what had been gained?  The very principle for which it was
+undertaken was surrendered.  Entire religious freedom was granted to
+Protestants (excepting in Austria); four great states were lost to the
+empire; a population of seventeen millions was reduced to four
+millions, with Imperial authority abridged and broken.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+France took Alsace, and Sweden Pomerania.  Holland and Switzerland were
+recognized as independent States.  The supreme power was invested in
+the Reichstag, and the several German princes were made almost
+independent.  The empire, as a unity, had been reduced to a shadow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The devastation which had been wrought by those thirty terrible years
+cannot be described.  Its details are too awful to be dwelt upon.
+Famine had converted men into wild beasts, who formed themselves into
+bands, and preyed on those they caught.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such a band was attacked near Worms and was found cooking in a great
+caldron human legs and arms!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The spirit of the people was broken.  Germany had been set back two
+hundred years.  And for what?  Not to accomplish any high purpose, not
+even from mistaken Christian zeal, but simply to carry out the despotic
+resolve of the Catholic Church to rule the minds and consciences of all
+men through its Popes and priesthood.  It was the old battle commenced
+six centuries before.  Had Henry not gone to Canossa in 1073, there had
+been no Thirty Years' War in 1618!
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap10fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap10fn1text">1</A>] For a comprehensive understanding of this period see Chart of
+Civilization in Six Centuries, "Who, When, and What."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XI.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+For seven hundred years, from the treaty of Verdun (843), to Charles V.
+(1520), Germany had held the leading position in Europe as the head of
+the "Holy Roman Empire."  The reality had been gradually departing from
+that alluring title; and now, with the Peace of Westphalia, it was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With a large body of its people accorded full rights, while they were
+engaged in open war upon the Roman Church, the last link binding
+Germany to Rome was broken.  The Holy Roman Empire was now the German
+Empire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And, in very fact, it was no empire at all, but a loose confederacy of
+miniature kingdoms, administered without any regard to each other, and
+in great measure independent of Imperial authority.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Great changes had taken place throughout Europe.  Louis XIV. was King
+of France.  In England Charles I. had lost his throne and his head, and
+Cromwell was laying the foundations of a power more enduring than that
+of Tudor or Stuart.  Spain was rapidly declining, and the new Republic
+of Holland ascending in the scale.  Sweden was supreme in the North,
+and Russia just beginning to be recognized as a power in Europe.
+Venice and the Italian republics were crumbling to pieces; while across
+the sea, on the coast of America, a few English, Dutch, and Swedish
+colonies were struggling into existence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Richelieu was dead, but the fortunes of France were in the keeping of
+one quite as ambitious for her as was the Great Minister.  There was a
+new aspirant for headship in Europe.  When Ferdinand III. died, Louis
+XIV. tried hard to be elected his successor.  He spent money freely
+among the Electors, and was only defeated by the sturdy opposition of
+Brandenburg and Saxony.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of the people of Germany there is really nothing to tell in the years
+which followed the Peace of Westphalia.  Spiritless and disheartened in
+their ruined cities, they seemed to have lost all national spirit and
+even religious enthusiasm.  They languidly saw the Catholic Hapsburgs
+becoming absolute in the land, while the Court at Vienna and the
+smaller German Courts were absorbed in establishing servile imitations
+of the Court at Versailles.  Churches and schoolhouses were in ruins,
+but palaces were being built in which the fashions of the French Court
+were closely imitated, and princes were trying to unlearn their native
+language and to install that of a cormorant French King, who was
+planning to devour their demoralized empire!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The one exception among the German rulers of this time was Frederick
+William of Brandenburg, the "Great Elector."  This incorruptible German
+lost no time in learning French.  As soon as peace was declared he set
+about restoring his wasted territory.  He organized a standing army and
+built a fleet, and he used them, too, to recover Pomerania from Sweden
+and to circumvent the French King, and so enlarged his boundaries and
+strengthened his authority that Brandenburg, now next in size to
+Austria, was treated with the respect of an independent power, and the
+name of Hohenzollern began to shine bright even beside that of Hapsburg.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the year 1667 until 1704 Germany was the center of the Grand
+Monarch's ambitious designs.  In 1687, while Prince Eugene was leading
+a German army against the Turks, and while German princes, excepting
+the Great Elector, were engaged in copying French fashions, two
+powerful French armies suddenly appeared upon the Rhine, and the great
+war which was to involve all Europe had commenced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not love for Germany which brought Holland, England, Spain, and
+Sweden into this war with France, but fear of the advancing power of a
+King who aspired to be supreme in Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the year 1700, an event occurred which intensified the situation.
+Charles II., the last of the half Castilian and half Hapsburg kings of
+Spain descended from Charles V., died without children, and that
+country was looking for the next nearest heir in foreign lands from
+which to choose a new king.  Of the two it found, one was son of the
+Emperor of Germany and the other grandson of Louis XIV.  It was a
+choice of evils for Europe; as in one case the German Empire with Spain
+annexed would be a preponderating power, as in the time of Charles V.;
+and in the other, the grasping Louis would be far on the road to the
+very end which Europe had combined to defeat!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Inflammable oil, poured on fire, does not make a fiercer blaze than did
+this question of the <I>Spanish Succession</I> at that time.  The
+embarrassing thing for Louis was that, when he had married the Infanta,
+he had solemnly renounced the throne of Spain for her heirs!  But the
+Pope, with whom the ultimate decision lay, had more need of the rising
+house of Bourbon than of the waning Hapsburg, so, after "prayerful
+deliberation," he concluded that the King might be absolved from that
+little promise, and that Philip V. was rightful King of Spain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was rage in Vienna.  The Emperor Leopold I. and his disappointed
+son the Archduke Karl declared they would wrest the throne from Philip
+and have vengeance upon Louis, who with swelling pride was declaring
+that "the Pyrenees had ceased to exist."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Leopold called upon the German states to arm, the Great Elector of
+Brandenburg was dead.  But his son Frederick took advantage of the
+opportunity.  He would assist the Emperor on one condition, that he be
+permitted to assume the title of King!  An embarrassment arose in the
+fact that traditional custom permitted only one King among the Electors
+(King of Bohemia), and therefore the Elector of Brandenburg could not
+be also King of Brandenburg.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The difficulty was overcome by adopting for the new kingdom the name of
+his detached duchy of Prussia, that province which had been snatched
+from Russia by the Teutonic knights long before, and had then been
+appropriated by that masterful Hohenzollern who was then head of the
+Order, as his own kingdom.  It was this high-handed proceeding which
+thereafter inseparably linked the name of Hohenzollern with that of
+Prussia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So, in 1701, the Elector and his wife traveled in midwinter to
+Königsberg, almost in the confines of Russia, where he was crowned
+Frederick I. of Prussia, and then returned to Berlin in Brandenburg,
+which thereafter remained his capital.  And so it was that Prussia&mdash;the
+name of a small Slavonic people on the frontier&mdash;became that of the
+entire kingdom of which Berlin was the capital.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+England and Holland were in alliance with Leopold&mdash;not for the sake of
+setting up the Hapsburg, but rather to put down the great Bourbon who
+began to wear the prestige of invincibility.  England entered the
+alliance languidly at first, but when the French king threw down the
+glove by recognizing the exiled Stuart (son of James II.) as the heir
+to her throne, she needed no urging and sent the best of her army into
+Germany under the command of the man who was going to destroy that
+prestige of invincibility, and to hold in check the arrogant king.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marlborough and Prince Eugene formed a combination too strong for
+Louis.  Marlborough's great victory at Blenheim in 1704 virtually
+decided the contest, although it continued for many years longer.  He
+was created Duke of Marlborough and received the estate of Blenheim as
+his reward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the long war outlived the enthusiasm it had created.  England grew
+tired of fighting for the Hapsburgs; there were court intrigues for
+Marlborough's downfall, and finally he was recalled, and cast aside
+like a rusty sword.  Louis, too, had grown old and weary, and so in
+1713 the Peace of Utrecht terminated the long struggle.  Philip V. was
+left upon the throne of Spain, with the condition that the crowns of
+Spain and France should never be united.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disappointed Archduke Karl had now succeeded to the Imperial throne
+as Karl VI.  If the life of a nation be in its people, there was really
+no Germany at this time.  There was nothing but a wearisome succession
+of wars and diplomatic intrigues, and new divisions and apportionments
+of territory.  Prussia was expanding and Poland declining, while
+Hungary and Naples, and Milan and Mantua, were fast in the grasp of
+Austria.  Indeed, to tell of the territorial changes occurring at this
+period is like painting a picture of dissolving elements, which form
+new combinations even as you look at them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the North, too, there were these same changing combinations, where
+had arisen two new ambitious kings.  Charles XII. of Sweden and Peter
+the Great of Russia were at war; and Denmark and Poland were lending a
+hand to defeat the Swedish King.  Peter the Great was extending his
+Baltic provinces and preparing to build his new capital of St.
+Petersburg (1709); but Charles XII. was defeated by Prussia and
+Hanover, in his attempt to make of Sweden one of the great powers of
+Europe.  His death in 1718 ended that dream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not since the infamous Irene's deposition at Byzantium had there been a
+woman on the throne of the Cæsars.  When Karl VI. issued the decree
+called the "Pragmatic Sanction," providing that the crown should
+descend to female heirs in the absence of male, he forged one of the
+most important links in the chain of events.  This secured the
+succession to his little daughter Maria Theresa, who was born in 1717.
+The link had need to be a strong one, for there were to be twenty years
+of effort to break it.  But it held.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At about this same time there was another important link forging in
+Prussia, where Frederick William I. had succeeded his father Frederick
+I. as king.  By these two events the long spell was to be broken.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Volumes have been written about this fierce, miserly King Frederick
+William and his coarse brutalities.  But his reign was the rough,
+strong bridge which led to a Frederick the Great, and the reign of the
+Great Frederick was that other bridge which led to a powerful and
+dominating kingdom of Prussia,&mdash;from which was to spring a new German
+Empire!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If Frederick William was a tyrant of the most savage sort, on the other
+hand he organized industry, finance, and an army.  If he was a miser in
+his family, he brought wealth and prosperity to his people.  If he beat
+and cudgeled his own son for playing the flute, he left that son a
+kingdom and an army which were the foundation of his greatness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His hatred for all that was French, for art, for the formalities and
+even the decencies of life, was an enraged protest against the
+prevailing affectations and artificiality of his time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We can imagine how the polished and refined Court at Vienna must have
+regarded this Prussian King.  Austria, entirely Catholic, in a state of
+moral and intellectual decline, sat looking backward and sighing for
+the return of the spirit of the Middle Ages.  Prussia, altogether
+Protestant, had set her face toward a future which was to be greater
+than she dreamed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In 1736 Maria Theresa was married to Francis of Lorraine.  In 1740 she
+succeeded her father Karl VI., on the Imperial throne; and that very
+same year Frederick William of Prussia died, and was succeeded by his
+son, who was to be known as Frederick the Great.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through the barren period succeeding the Thirty Years' War some vital
+processes were going on; indeed that most vital of all processes,
+thought, was active.  Broken into fragments as by an earthquake, the
+people had been left without one healing touch from the hands of their
+infatuated rulers.  It was a sorry spectacle to see those German
+princes gayly arraying themselves in French finery while their country
+was a ruin.  Did they not know that a wound might better not heal at
+all, than to begin by forming new tissue at the top!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whatever capacity Germany had for being, was in those neglected
+fragments.  If she ever developed into greatness it must be along the
+line of their elemental tendencies, and by being German, not French.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So a nation, helpless, broken, disorganized, out of harmony with itself
+and with others, could not act, but it could think.  And in this time
+of chaos and confusion there commenced mighty stirrings in the thought
+of Germany.  Slumbering in that chaos were the germs of wonderful music
+and a wondrous literature.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The gloomy and despondent Spinoza had found peace in discovering that
+the reality of things was not in political overturnings, nor in the
+disappointing facts and phenomena which we call life, but in the
+<I>Eternal Order</I>, of which we are all a part.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He might have discovered the same sustaining truth in religion; but
+Spinoza's mind led him to seek it instead in a philosophical system
+which should harmonize the discordant facts of existence.  This was the
+foundation of German speculative philosophy, which took possession of
+the German mind and which by progressive steps was to lead to a union
+with a science, <I>founded</I> upon the despised facts of life&mdash;and finally,
+whether they wished it or not&mdash;a harmonizing of both with RELIGION.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With deeply philosophical mind the great German, Leibniz, was
+investigating the truths of the natural world; and Handel also belongs
+to this time of soul-awakening during a period of national neglect and
+depression, while at this very time there was also borne in a
+stimulating wave from England, where Newton had revealed the
+fundamental law and the "ETERNAL <I>order</I>" of the <I>physical</I> universe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It would seem like a dim twilight to us if we should go back to it now;
+but then these new lights were very dazzling, almost blinding people
+with their splendor.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was into such a world as this that Frederick the Great was ushered
+in 1712.  Few children, be they princes or peasants, have ever had a
+more unhappy childhood.  If he had not been born to be a King,
+Frederick's tastes would have led him to be a musician or a poet.  A
+son whose chief pleasures consisted in playing the flute, and reading
+French books, became an object almost of aversion to the austere
+Frederick William.  In the midst of severities past belief Frederick
+obtained most of his education in secret, at the hands of French
+<I>émigrés</I>, who formed his taste after French models, the influence of
+which could be traced throughout his life.  His passion for music was
+pursued also in the same secret way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tyranny and the beatings to which he was subjected became at last
+so intolerable that, when he was eighteen years old, Frederick
+determined to run away.  His adored sister Wilhelmine was his
+confidante.  His bosom friend, Lieutenant Von Katte, was his
+accomplice.  A letter to Von Katte, written at this time, fell into
+other hands and was sent to the King.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The barbarities which followed make one think this Hohenzollern should
+have been in a madhouse instead of on a throne.  It was a small matter
+that he beat his son until his face was covered with blood, for he had
+done that before; but he sent him as a prisoner of state to Prussia.
+He then annulled the sentence of imprisonment passed by the
+court-martial upon Von Katte, and ordered his immediate execution.  To
+inflict more suffering he ordered that the hanging take place before
+the window of the cell where his son was confined!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When this was carried into effect the young prince fainted, and lay so
+long insensible that it was thought he was dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King then insisted that he be tried by court-martial; and when the
+court decided that it had no authority to condemn the Crown Prince, he
+overruled the decision and ordered his execution.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The horror and indignation caused by this extended as far as Vienna.
+The Emperor Charles VI. informed the King of Prussia that the Crown
+Prince could only be condemned capitally at an Imperial Diet.  The King
+answered, "Very well; then, I will hold my own court on him at
+Königsberg.  Prussia is my own and outside the confines of the empire,
+where I can do as I please."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the fury of this madman was abating.  He did not resent it when a
+daring attendant reminded him that "God also ruled&mdash;even in Prussia."
+Finally he was satisfied with humiliating his son by making him work
+for one year in the lowest position in the departments of the
+government.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the wedding festivities of his sister Wilhelmine, Frederick secreted
+himself among the servants in humble attire.  He was discovered, and
+the King, who must have been in a genial mood that night, pulled him
+forth from his hiding, and leading him to the trembling queen said,
+"Here, madam, our Fritz is back again!"  And the reconciliation made
+three aching hearts glad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the ten succeeding years Frederick was permitted to reside in his
+own castle near Potsdam, and the relations with his father became
+kinder and almost cordial.  The son in his castle pursued his
+philosophical studies, corresponded with Voltaire, and played the flute
+to his heart's content.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he did other things too, as the future demonstrated.  The study of
+profound subjects, conversation, and intimate friendships with learned
+men, trained his active mind to wonderful acuteness, and when he
+applied this to the study of history, when he read of the dignity of
+kings, and of what stuff greatness was made in the past&mdash;he formed his
+own ideals for the future.  When Frederick William died in 1740 he was
+prepared to take the reins of government with a comprehensiveness of
+grasp of which his austere father was incapable, and with clearly
+defined plans to make Prussia great.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Six months later Maria Theresa succeeded to her father's throne.  She
+had no fear of this young flute-playing King of Prussia, and was fully
+occupied in defending her own Imperial rights, which were assailed by
+the Elector of Bavaria, who claimed to be Emperor Karl VII., by virtue
+of a descent superior to hers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the war of the <I>Austrian Succession</I>, in which she was soon
+involved, was quickly overshadowed by a greater conflict, which was
+immediately commenced by the bold and ambitious young Prussian King.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He claimed, by virtue of some obscure transaction in the past, that
+Silesia belonged to him.  But he gallantly offered, if it was returned
+to him, to support Maria Theresa's cause in the fight with her kinsman
+of Bavaria over the succession.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The offer was rejected, and almost before the ink in the correspondence
+was dry, a Prussian army, with Frederick at its head, was in the heart
+of the disputed province.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two characteristics marked Frederick's movements&mdash;the perfect secrecy
+with which they were planned, and the swiftness with which they were
+carried out.  He formed his own plans, and even his Prime Minister did
+not know of their existence until he was ordered to execute them.  The
+cunning methods then prevailing in Courts, by which foreign ambassadors
+defeated designs while they were maturing, were powerless against this
+young King, as none but himself knew what was going to happen.  He gave
+his personal and unremitting care to every detail of government, and
+astonished his people by the prodigies of labor he performed, and the
+sacrifices of his time, rest, and comfort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of course this ancient wrong done his family in the matter of Silesia
+was only a pretext.  Frederick had made up his mind at Potsdam that
+Prussia must be solidified by bringing together her detached provinces,
+and he had long ago drawn a new map in his mind, which should include
+Silesia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nature had endowed him with a bold and aspiring genius.  He had a
+consciousness of strength, combined with a belief that he was a chosen
+instrument appointed by fate to perform a definite work: the raising of
+Prussia to the first rank in the German empire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When we see Frederick's ideal of a despotic personal government, with a
+divinely appointed ruler leading his country to greatness, independent
+of ministers and advisers,&mdash;it is easy to recognize the model which is
+being studied by a certain young ruler in Europe to-day!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was another strong personality on the throne at Vienna.  To have
+her crown threatened by a powerful combination, and at the same time a
+war of conquest waged against her in her own Austria, was a heavy
+burden to be borne by a young girl of twenty-four years.  But Maria
+Theresa maintained herself with astonishing bravery and firmness.  She
+listened to the counsels of her ministers, and then decided for
+herself; even her husband Francis being unable to sway her judgment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+France, Spain, and Saxony sustained the claims of the Bavarian Archduke
+to her throne; and when a French army was on the Danube and Vienna
+threatened, she fled to Hungary and made a personal appeal to the
+Hungarian Diet to stand by her.  She promised the restoration of rights
+for which they had been contending, and by her personal charm and
+radiance captured the wavering nobles, who placed on her head the crown
+of St. Stephen.  They cheered wildly as she galloped up "the king's
+hill," and waved her sword toward the four quarters of the earth in
+true Imperial fashion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she appeared before the Diet in their national costume with her
+infant son Joseph in her arms, and in an eloquent speech depicted the
+dangers which beset her, and the enthusiastic nobles drew their sabers,
+shouting, "We will die for our <I>King</I>, Maria Theresa!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This saved Vienna.  The support of Hungary arrested the advance toward
+the capital, and the invading army moved instead on to Prague, where
+her rival was crowned King of Bohemia, and later at Frankfort was
+proclaimed Emperor Karl VII.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While these distracting combinations were engrossing the young
+sovereign, Frederick had invaded Silesia, and when the second Silesian
+war ended in 1742, Prussia held that province, and was enriched by 150
+large and small cities, and about 5000 villages.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+England, Holland, and Hanover now came to the support of Maria Theresa
+against Karl VII. and his French ally.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wary Frederick saw that, with such a coalition, Austria's success
+was certain, and he also saw that, if victorious, her next step would
+be to try to recover Silesia.  So he offered to join France in support
+of Karl VII., and threw himself into the war of the Austrian succession.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This lasted three years longer and was concluded by the Peace of
+Dresden (1745), which again confirmed Prussia in the possession of
+Silesia, left Maria Theresa's husband wearing the disputed Imperial
+title as Francis I., and to Frederick left the more unique and renowned
+title of "the Great," which was bestowed by acclamation on his return
+to Berlin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Frederick's first care was to heal the wounds inflicted by the two
+Silesian wars.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is interesting to speculate upon what this man might have been, had
+his childhood been spent in an atmosphere of kindness and love, and had
+his heart and intelligence been symmetrically nurtured and trained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he was trained as the tree is trained which is blasted in its youth
+by lightnings, then twisted and distorted by hands which defeat its
+natural tendency upward and sunward!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An eager and impressionable boy with warm affections, acute
+intelligence, and a strong sense of justice had been subjected to
+inhuman barbarities in his own home.  In his heart-hunger he turned to
+pursuits for which he had a passionate love, and was nourished in
+secret upon a poisonous diet.  A nature which in the fire of his youth
+had been full of generous enthusiasms was embittered by suffering, and
+then became cold and cynical under the teachings of Voltaire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So fascinated had he become with this man that he regarded him as the
+most exalted of beings, and his friendship a treasure above all others.
+Faith, hope, love, and filial respect were, through this influence,
+destroyed in the germ before they had time to unfold; and in the place
+of everything sacred was a cynical cold-blooded search after what these
+philosophers of the eighteenth century were pleased to call&mdash;<I>truth</I>.
+And the way to discover this truth was to analyze, dissect, and then to
+demolish!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So there had been created a strangely composite man, compounded of
+elements native to himself, to that undeveloped barbarian Frederick
+William, and to Voltaire!  Joined to a strong practical common sense in
+the management of affairs was a passion for insincere, unsound, and
+shallow French ideals.  And combined with the most despotic and
+arbitrary of wills, was an inflexible regard for the right of the
+humblest.  While he despised the beliefs of Protestant and Catholic
+alike, he declared "I mean that every man in my kingdom shall have the
+right to be saved in his own way."  And he secured that right for his
+people, too!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His rule was a despotism, but it was a despotism of intelligence and
+justice.  He called himself the first official servant of the state,
+and no clerk in his kingdom gave such faithful service as he.  He arose
+at four o'clock in the morning.  He made himself personally acquainted
+with every village and landed estate in his kingdom, which he treated
+as if it were a great private enterprise and interest, for which he was
+responsible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was a reformer without heart; a King intent upon the well-being of
+his people, without tenderness; a leader prepared, if need be, not to
+lead, but to drag Prussia with a rough hand up the rugged path of
+virtue and prosperity; and determined to make his nation great, whether
+it wanted to be or not!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were many pleasanter companions and gentler fathers in his day.
+There were sovereigns who did not terrify wrong-doers and children on
+the street with uplifted canes.  But this Frederick, with character
+scarred and distorted, was the one man in Europe who was converting a
+kingdom into a POWER, and the one man of his age whom history would
+call GREAT!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But such a being as this, one who has turned to adamant in heroic mold,
+cannot sympathetically comprehend the finer currents about him.  There
+was going on, quite unnoticed by King Frederick, an awakening in the
+German mind, and while he was building a structure of material
+greatness, there had commenced, unobserved by him, another structure,
+which was to be the chief glory of Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The passion for speculative thought awakened by Spinoza was stirring
+the German soul to its depths.  Kant had found that Spinoza's <I>Eternal
+Order</I> must be a <I>Moral Order</I>.  That the moral instincts which guided
+mankind, and were the all in all, were the God in us, the in-dwelling
+of the Divine.  Thus was embodied the essence of Christianity in a new
+and speculative philosophy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Klopstock and Lessing were creating a national literature, which
+revealed for the first time the strength, resources, and unsuspected
+beauty of their own language, and which was for the first time being
+used to express a genius untouched by foreign influence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But all unconscious of this new, rushing stream of life, Frederick was
+entertaining Voltaire, spending his evenings in listening to the latest
+satirical verses of that vain and gifted Frenchman, and laughing at the
+latest witty epigram from Paris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It had been one of Frederick's dreams, in his youth, to have his great
+friend some day reside in his Court.  In 1750 this was realized, and
+the King and the poet settled down to what was to be an everlasting
+banquet of sympathetic tastes and opinions, seasoned with mutual
+admiration and friendship!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Frederick felt that he was something of a poet himself, and that he was
+only prevented by cares of state from letting the world find it out.
+The wily Frenchman had been the literary confidant of his royal friend,
+and many pages of verses had been submitted to him during their long
+correspondence, and had received flattering commendation from the great
+critic.  So one of the pleasantest features in this closer
+companionship was expected to be this drop of honeyed praise to sweeten
+the evening after the day's work was done.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Frederick's verses bored Voltaire very much, and the royal host
+began to discover that his great guest was selfish, and cold, and
+jealous, and even malignant.  The nimbus of fascination began to fade.
+He could be cutting and satirical as well as Voltaire.  The great poet
+was no less hungry for praise than he, and it was an easy matter to
+yawn and be bored by his verses, too.  And so they became gradually
+estranged, and finally enemies.  They parted in anger, and Voltaire
+returned to France, to write bitter satires about the King, whose
+character and ideals he had been one of the chief agents in forming.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was then in Germany a man whose glory was to outshine Voltaire's
+or that of any contemporary in Europe, even as the sun does the stars.
+But Frederick's ear could not detect music in his own language, nor was
+his stunted soul attuned to the native and sublime harmonies of
+Goethe's genius.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+There had been a time when two nations in Europe could fight each other
+to the death without disturbing their neighbors, but since there had
+developed in the sixteenth century that larger unity of European
+states, there was no such isolated security.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So when, in 1755, England and France came into collision over the
+boundaries of their American colonies, the shock was felt all over
+Europe.  Just as the earthquake which swallowed up Lisbon at that very
+time had made the shores of Lake Ontario tremble, so the peace of
+Germany, which had lasted for eleven years, was broken by an event in
+far-off Canada.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two contending parties, England and France, began after the fashion
+of the time to look about for allies.  Maria Theresa, who had
+invitations from both countries to join them, was considering which
+could best serve her own private interests.  England, since 1714, had
+been ruled by Hanoverian kings, which practically annexed her to
+Hanover.  It was by no means sure that she could get assistance from
+that nation in recovering Silesia&mdash;which was to be the price of her
+alliance.  She decided that her best policy was to secure the aid of
+Louis XV., who would be glad to help her in her plans against
+Frederick, in return for the assistance of Austria in this war with
+England.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As astute and profound as any statesman in Europe, this wonderful
+Empress adopted means and methods entirely feminine to carry out her
+immense design.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She knew that Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, was mortally offended with
+the King of Prussia, on account of some disparaging remarks he had made
+about her, so she deftly used that to her own advantage.
+Then&mdash;perfectly understanding how to reach the enslaved Louis XV.&mdash;she
+wrote a flattering letter to Mme. de Pompadour, then in the full tide
+of her ascendency over the king.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With the greatest secrecy these negotiations were carried on, and at
+last the compact between the three great powers was concluded and
+everything ready to commence a war upon Prussia in the spring of 1757;
+even to the agreement as to the way in which they should cut up and
+divide among themselves the kingdom of Prussia!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Frederick, through secret agents, was perfectly well informed of their
+plans.  He saw that his ruin was determined upon, and could only be
+prevented by unhesitating courage.  He determined to anticipate them.
+Before the allied armies were ready, he made one of his catlike leaps
+into the neutral territory of Saxony, and was in Dresden, half way to
+Prague, with seventy thousand men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This so disconcerted the plans of the allies that there was a pause,
+and conferences were held, in which it was concluded to ask Sweden to
+join the coalition.  Finally, that almost forgotten body, the Diet of
+the German Empire, formally declared war against Prussia, and the Third
+Silesian War, or the Seven Years' War, had commenced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the avowed object of this great combination was not the recovery of
+Silesia but the dismemberment of the kingdom, to deprive Frederick of
+his royal title, and to reduce him to a simple Margrave of Brandenburg,
+it is easy to see the incentive he had to great deeds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+England and a few small German States were his allies; but, as George
+II. heartily disliked him, he received small assistance from him, and
+stood practically alone with half of Europe allied against him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were great victories and great defeats during the seven years
+which followed.  There were times when the cause of Prussia seemed
+lost, and other times when that of the Allies appeared hopeless.  But
+the tide of victory more often set toward Frederick's standard than
+that of his adversaries.  He defeated the Austrians at Prague; the
+Imperial and French army at Rossbach; a Russian army at Zorndorf; and
+these and a hundred other names stand in the annals of Prussia for
+monumental courage, daring, and sacrifice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the confused narrative of advancing and retreating armies, of
+battles and of slaughter, but one distinct impression remains.  That is
+amazement&mdash;amazement that so many thousands were willing at the bidding
+of one ambitious man to die, to lay down their bodies in that heap of
+dead, for Prussia's greatness to rise upon!  That not one was ready to
+reproach him for having brought these calamities upon them for the sake
+of Silesia; but instead, with twenty thousand still lying unburied upon
+one field, that they respond with infatuated enthusiasm to his appeal
+for more!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Prussia owes her rise to just such infatuation as this.
+<I>Acquisition</I> and <I>conquest</I> are written on her foundation stones, the
+chief of which were laid by her Great Frederick.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is pleasant to tell of peace once more.  The Allies, wearied of the
+long war, gradually withdrew from Austria.  Being unable to carry it on
+alone, Maria Theresa was compelled to abandon her dream of ruining
+Frederick.  With bitterness of heart and humiliation she consented to
+give up Silesia forever as the price of a peace she did not desire.  In
+1763, the articles were signed (the Peace of Hubertsburg) and the Seven
+Years' War was over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Frederick was now called "the Great" throughout Europe; and Prussia
+took her place among the "Five Great Powers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next thing to be done was to repair the desolation left by seven
+years of war.  Nearly fifteen thousand houses were in ashes.  So many
+men had been consumed in the army that there were not enough left to
+till the fields, nor horses to draw the harvest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The practical King, anticipating this, had been enforcing the
+cultivation of the much despised potato; and this useful tuber saved
+Prussia and Silesia from famine, and some of their neighbors as well.
+For as many as twenty thousand famishing people came from the trampled
+and burnt corn-fields of Bohemia to feed upon the Prussian potato and
+live.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again the people set about the oft-repeated task of repairing the
+devastation of war.  Indeed for 150 years they had always been either
+enduring the horrors of a great conflict, or healing its wounds and
+building up the waste places it had made.  Can we wonder that they were
+strong and serious?  The weaklings were winnowed out by these great
+storms, and the chastened souls of those who survived knew little of
+pleasure.  Religion, which had once been their solace and refuge, had
+lost much of its power on account of the bitterness of sectarian strife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few men groping for a solution of the problems of sin and suffering,
+and for the meaning of this troubled existence, thought they had found
+it in the new philosophy.  France, under the teachings of Voltaire and
+Rousseau, had cast off the restraints of religious faith without
+providing any substitute, but Germany, more provident, was building a
+spacious house for the soul's refuge when the old was demolished;
+untrammeled freedom of thought was inscribed upon its doors, and
+PHILOSOPHY was enshrined within!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All this tumultuous inner life was growth: the growth and unfolding of
+a great and earnest soul; and the awakening of new capacities for being
+and doing.  There was a rapturous surprise in discovering these
+capacities, and speculative thought and literature became an absorbing
+passion.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIV.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+At the close of the Seven Years' War, Maria Theresa had spent the
+twenty-three years of her reign in a fruitless struggle with Frederick.
+Instead of dismembering his kingdom and reducing him to a plain
+Margrave of Brandenburg, she had lost Silesia and was compelled to
+listen to the praises of her enemy resounding through Europe and to
+hear him called "the Great."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a bitter pill for her nine years later, when she had to confer
+with the Prussian King as an equal, over the partition of Poland, and
+to see him further enriched by a goodly slice of that unhappy country.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But before that event, and just two years after the conclusion of the
+war, Francis I. died (1755).  He had worn the title, but she had
+wielded the power and guided the events ever since that day when, with
+her infant son in her arms, she had captured the Hungarian Diet at
+Presburg.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now that son was Joseph II.  But the scepter was still in reality
+to remain with her while she lived, and in fact her name was to be the
+last ray of splendor which should illumine the throne of Austria.  But
+these were sunset glories after a long and troubled day, while in
+Prussia was the brightness of the dawn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That friendship with Louis XV. so eagerly sought by Maria Theresa led
+to a very momentous alliance of a different sort.  The Empress and the
+French King together arranged a marriage between her fair young
+daughter Marie Antoinette and Louis, the young Dauphin of France.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How should the Empress of Austria, born, nurtured, and fed in the very
+center of despotism&mdash;not hearing or heeding the current ideas about
+human rights and freedom&mdash;entirely misunderstanding the past, the
+present, and the future&mdash;how should she suspect the terrific forces
+which were accumulating beneath the throne of France, or that it would
+become a scaffold for her child?  Hapsburg and Bourbon, to her mind,
+were realities as fixed and enduring as the Alps.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She saw no special significance in the fact that thirteen English
+colonies in America were in rebellion and setting up a novel form of
+government for themselves.  That was England's affair, not hers, and
+would in time, like other rebellions against properly constituted
+authority, be put down.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She did not live to see the end of this struggle, nor the events to
+which it led in France.  Her death occurred in 1780.  Her son, Joseph
+II., strange to say, was imbued with the new ideas of human rights.
+Great was the astonishment of Frederick and of Europe, when this young
+man set about the task of establishing a new and progressive order of
+things in Austria; and it was a strange spectacle to behold a Hapsburg
+trying to force upon his people reforms they did not desire, and rights
+which they did not know how to use.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His plans were high and noble, but he failed to see that they were too
+sweeping and too suddenly developed to be permanent.  His people were
+not ripe for emancipation from old shackles, which they had grown to
+like and venerate.  In striving to free the church from the Jesuits,
+and to emancipate the serfs in Hungary, he had accomplished nothing,
+and had created chaos.  Depressed by the failure in his great design of
+reformation, Joseph's health gave way.  He died in 1790 and was
+succeeded by his brother Leopold II.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is not to be supposed that Frederick felt much sympathy with the
+free young Republic established in America.  And if he sent a sword of
+honor to Washington in 1783, it was because he recognized the greatness
+of the man; and perhaps, too, because he felt a malicious pleasure in
+the humiliation of George III.!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The intellectual awakening which this King had failed to understand had
+wrought a mighty change in Germany.  Lessing had been the first to
+break away from an enfeebling imitation of French <I>Sentimentlalism</I>.
+The genius of Goethe and Schiller awakened a new spirit in literature,
+that of <I>Romanticism</I>, and there commenced that intellectual convulsion
+known as <I>Sturm und Drang</I>, or storm and stress period.  While Goethe
+and Schiller were supreme in the kingdom of letters, Herder and the
+Schlegels were great in history and criticism; Humboldt and Ritter in
+geographical science; Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Kant in philosophy;
+Fouqué and Tieck in imagination, and Jean Paul Richter in the
+mysterious ether of transcendental thought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Karl August called Goethe to his Court in Saxe-Weimar, among that
+group of other illustrious authors, and gave to Weimar the name of the
+"German Athens," it was a Golden Age for Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is interesting to recall that it was Luther who gave the first
+impulse to this movement, by revealing to the people the riches of
+their own tongue.  In his translation of the Bible, and in his hymns,
+so grandly simple, he created the modern German language.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The influence of Luther was felt in another art, too.  The enthusiasm
+awakened by the singing of his hymns revolutionized the form of
+ecclesiastical music.  In this Golden Age in Germany music, too, had
+become a great art, with such immortal names as Mozart, Gluck, Haydn,
+and Beethoven; and the period of great orchestration also had
+commenced.[<A NAME="chap14fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap14fn1">1</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Although Frederick's tastes led him so strongly to letters and to
+music, these two arts had attained this rich development in Germany
+without any assistance from him.  When he died in 1786 the monument he
+left was a Kingdom of Prussia; equal in rank with any of the Great
+Powers of Europe, enlarged in territory, rich in population, with a
+great army and an overflowing treasury.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Frederick the Great had no son, this splendid inheritance passed to
+his nephew Frederick William II.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With the new ascendency of Prussia in the German Empire, a process
+which had long been going on was accelerated.  That empire had become a
+fiction, a form from which the substance had long ago departed; almost
+its only remaining relic being an Imperial Diet, where thirty solemn
+old men supposed they were holding the venerated structure together by
+weaving about it, and repairing, the thin, worn threads of tradition.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The German Empire had in its best time existed by grace of God and
+force of circumstances, more than by reason of a sound and perfect
+organism.  It always struggled with fatal inherent defects.  Its life
+currents never flowed freely and had been growing more and more
+sluggish for centuries.  And now, they had ceased to flow at all.
+There was no vital relation whatever between its various parts.  Of
+national feeling there was absolutely none.  Lessing, one of the
+greatest Germans of that time, said, "Of the love of country I have no
+conception!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And what was there to inspire patriotism in this great empty shell of
+despotism!  The shattered lifeless old structure was wrong at its very
+foundation.  It was built upon feudal injustice; that injustice which
+compelled the people to bear the whole burden of taxation, from which
+it exempted the nobility and the clergy.  England had long ago
+redressed this grievous wrong.  France was just preparing to free
+herself from it by a tremendous convulsion.  Germany had been offered
+emancipation at the hands of her enlightened and gracious Emperor
+Joseph, but so spiritless and benumbed had she become that she could
+not understand his message.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was attempting a vain task in trying to infuse new life into the
+empire.  There were no living channels to convey the current.  The only
+thing to be done with it was to sweep it away&mdash;and the man and the time
+for doing this were close at hand.  The surface calm which existed
+while Leopold II. was repairing the disorder left by his reforming
+brother Joseph, was the calm which precedes the hurricane.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap14fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap14fn1text">1</A>] See Chart of Civilization in Six Centuries, "Who, When, and What."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XV.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The energies which were to transform the face of Europe had been
+gradually centering in France.  They commenced when Voltaire and
+Rousseau made it the fashion to scoff at the Church.  Then, as religion
+and morality are closely allied, virtue became also a subject of
+ridicule.  The spirit animating this was supposed to be a reforming
+spirit.  It was an effort to free the people from the fetters of
+ecclesiasticism.  Naturally, this led to assaults upon other fetters,
+other prevailing abuses.  The vices of the Court were held up to
+view&mdash;its extravagance and luxury; all of which people were reminded
+that <I>they</I> had to pay for.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just at this time the Colonies in North America threw off the English
+yoke because of this very matter of taxation unjustly imposed, and
+France enthusiastically helped them to establish a free republic and to
+humiliate her rival!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Frenchmen returned from the United States and contrasted the fresh
+vigor and purity of its institutions with the decrepit corruptions in
+France.  The current began to flow very swiftly now.  A Richelieu or a
+Louis XIV. would have been powerless to arrest the mad forces which
+quickly developed.  What could the feeble, well-intentioned Louis XVI.
+do!  He was like a skiff caught in the rushing rapids of the Niagara
+River.  It was only a question of how long he could hold on to passing
+twigs and branches before he should go over the precipice.  In 1793
+Europe read with shuddering horror of his execution, and nine months
+later Maria Theresa's daughter&mdash;the beautiful, the adored Marie
+Antoinette&mdash;sat in a cart with her arms pinioned behind her, as she was
+driven to the scaffold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The men who had guided this storm in its beginnings had themselves been
+engulfed in it, and a French republic was proclaimed which had been
+erected upon a tragedy unparalleled in Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a horrible avenging of centuries of wrong and oppression.  But
+its purpose was thoroughly accomplished.  No vestige of the old
+tyrannies remained.  If France was again enslaved, the fetters would
+have to be forged anew!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The powers of Europe were not only filled with horror and indignation
+at the means by which this was accomplished, but they saw with alarm a
+pestilential republic, in imitation of that one across the sea, at
+their very doors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They formed a combination, called the First Coalition, for its
+overthrow.  If the states of Europe had really acted in concert, the
+life of the new republic would have been very brief.  But Austria was
+jealous of Prussia, and Prussia was jealous of the close friendship
+forming between Austria and England, withdrew from the alliance, and
+made peace with the French republic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Catherine, Empress of Russia, for reasons of her own also declined to
+join the coalition.  While all Europe was thus engaged she thought it a
+good time to settle some scores with the Turks and to look after
+Poland, where a revolution was in progress.  So, while the German
+Empire was engaged in suppressing republicanism in France, Frederick
+William II. of Prussia offered his services to Catherine to overthrow
+the independence of Poland.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Kosciusko vainly defended that unhappy country.  With the fall of
+Warsaw, 1794, it ceased to exist as one in the family of nations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Austria had been left practically alone to put down the new
+republic, which was developing wonderful strength while these languid
+and inefficient efforts were being made against it; for even Austria
+was diverted by what was going on in Poland, and fearful that she was
+not going to get her share of the spoils.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Marie Antoinette's brother Leopold had died the year before his
+sister's execution and his son Francis II. was Emperor of Germany.  The
+government of this new republic which had caused such a stir in Europe
+was a very simple affair.  Five men who were called Directors were at
+its head, and an obscure young man of twenty-six, named Napoleon
+Bonaparte, had been given command of the army, with Italy as its field
+of operations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No doubt Francis thought it would be an easy matter to deal with France
+after the more important matter of the partition of Poland was disposed
+of.  Little did he suspect that the time was approaching when he would,
+at the bidding of that young man, take off his Imperial crown, and that
+Napoleon Bonaparte would rise to ascendency in Europe upon the ruins of
+the German Empire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In 1796 the young Corsican led a ragged, unpaid army into Italy.
+Without supplies, and almost without ammunition, he had audaciously
+planned to make the invaded country pay the expenses of the war waged
+against it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He pointed to the Italian cities, and said to his soldiers, "There is
+your reward.  It is rich and ample; but you must conquer it."  He knew
+the French character and how in words brief, concise, forcible to
+address them like another Cæsar addressing his legions; to create
+incentives to glory, and to inspire enthusiasm as never man did before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He also knew the infirmities of his adversaries, and how to play upon
+them as Cæsar did upon the rivalries and jealousies of the Gauls, and
+so to make the characteristics of Frenchmen, of German, and of Italian
+all serve him.  He knew how to confound the enemy with new and
+unexpected methods, which rendered unavailing all which military
+science and experience had before taught.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a brief time central Italy lay open before him, and princes,
+trembling at his vengeance, were suing for peace and offering money and
+treasure to procure it.  Even then he was planning to make of Paris
+another Rome, and to adorn her with the jewels which had been worn by
+the proud Italian cities.  So he demanded rare collections of paintings
+as the price of safety.  The Duke of Parma laid at his feet priceless
+treasures of art; and even the Pope purchased neutrality by the payment
+of twenty-one million francs, one hundred costly pictures, and two
+hundred rare manuscripts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the treaty of Campo Formio was signed in 1797, Napoleon had won
+fourteen battles, and had subjugated Italy.  The German Empire had lost
+all of its Italian possessions, which were now grouped together into a
+Cisalpine Republic, under the protectorship of France.  Another
+Helvetic Republic was set up in Switzerland under the same
+protectorate.  And then Napoleon scornfully tossed Venice as an apple
+of discord into the lap of the Emperor, in exchange for the
+Netherlands.  And another republic under a French protectorate was
+created in Holland.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the left bank of the Rhine had already been ceded to France, that
+country, which had been only four years before in a state of political
+chaos, was at the head of Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What would she not do at the bidding of the man who could accomplish
+such things?  He dramatically conceived the idea of crippling England
+by threatening her Asiatic possessions, and led an army into Egypt.
+There every bulletin, every address to his army, added to the glamour
+of his name.  Even the Pyramids were made to serve his consummate art
+and ambition!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Although his fleet was destroyed by Nelson and his army left in
+perilous position, he was needed at home, and returned with all the
+arrogance of a conqueror.  He was appointed Generalissimo over the army
+by an enraptured France, and then swept aside the five Directors and
+appointed himself and two others Consuls.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A second coalition was now formed against France, consisting of
+England, Russia, and Austria, and there followed another campaign in
+which Napoleon made permanent the results of the previous ones in
+Italy.  By the treaty of peace in 1801, the three republics created by
+him were formally recognized, and the princes of Germany, in
+compensation for their losses, had apportioned among them the dominions
+of the priestly rulers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus at one blow were abolished one hundred states governed by
+archbishops, bishops, and other clerical dignitaries, and one of the
+foundation stones of the empire, laid by Charlemagne himself, was
+shattered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This extraordinary man, dreaming of universal empire, superstitiously
+believed that Fate intended him to hold Europe in his hand.  But we can
+see now that he was designed by that remorseless Fate for a very
+different purpose, and a very brief office.  He was a terrible
+instrument, which she intended to use for one specific purpose, and
+then to cast him aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This work was the destruction of the Romano-Germanic Empire.  That
+lifeless mass, whose oppressive weight had crushed the life and hope
+out of Central Europe for centuries, needed some tremendous force from
+without to break up its time-encrusted rivets.  And that force was now
+in the hands of a workman who supposed he was engaged in rearing a
+great edifice for himself.  Instead of which he was overturning, and
+plowing, and harrowing Germany, and preparing the ground for new forms
+of political life; and nothing more effectually pulverized the old
+tyrannies than this secularization of the priestly dominions.  When,
+added to this, we see the extinction of a multitude of petty states and
+the abolition of the special privileges of nearly a thousand "Imperial"
+noble families, we realize how he was relieving Germany from the
+incubus which had paralyzed her for centuries.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap16"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVI.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The eighteenth century closed upon a strangely altered Europe.  France
+was the ruling power on the Continent.  Prussia had hidden herself in a
+timid neutrality, and left Austria to fight with foreign allies for the
+life of the empire.  That battle had been a losing one, and now Francis
+II. sat upon a trembling throne and bore a title which had no longer
+any meaning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Napoleon was building his own edifice.  In 1803 he had himself
+declared First Consul for life, and in 1804 he assumed the title of
+Napoleon, Emperor of the French.  His coronation took place at Paris,
+where he compelled the Pope to come and perform that ceremony.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, after changing the groups of Italian republics into a Kingdom of
+Italy, he crowned himself, after the fashion of the Emperors whose
+successor he meant to be, with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had entered upon the most daring scheme ever attempted in Europe: to
+convert the whole Continent into one vast empire, with the kings and
+princes over the several nations all subject to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then there was a third coalition from which Prussia still held aloof,
+and which was composed of England, Austria, Russia, and Sweden.
+Alexander I. was now Emperor of Russia, and the timorous and
+unpatriotic policy of Prussia was guided by Frederick William III., who
+had succeeded his father Frederick William II.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Prussian King, influenced by antagonism to Austria and by the hope
+of obtaining safety and reward for Prussia, stubbornly maintained his
+attitude of neutrality, while the German Empire was receiving its
+death-blow at Austerlitz.  That "battle of the three Emperors," as it
+is called, was a paralyzing defeat to the Allies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Prussia ignominiously received Hanover as her reward, and seventeen
+German states, including Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, and
+Hesse-Darmstadt, formally separated themselves from the German Empire
+and declared themselves subject to the French Emperor.  This was known
+as the Rheinbund.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The German Empire was now reduced to three separate bodies: the
+Rheinbund, a federation of states giving willing allegiance to
+Napoleon; <I>Prussia</I>, practically in alliance with her destroyer; and
+<I>Austria</I>, helpless in that destroyer's grasp, while he, sitting in the
+Imperial Palace at Vienna, dictated terms of peace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Empire was broken beyond repair.  On the 6th of August its
+dissolution was formally announced.  Francis II. abdicated the Imperial
+crown and assumed the title of the "Emperor of Austria."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not the people of Prussia who bartered their allegiance to the
+fatherland for peace and for Hanover.  It was their King and princes
+who brought this stain upon them, and their beautiful Queen Louise,
+mother of the late Emperor William, had pleaded in vain with the King
+to pursue a loyal and patriotic course.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The punishment came swiftly.  The insatiate conqueror had no thought of
+leaving a great state like Prussia undisturbed.  And soon it developed
+that his plan was also to create a northern bund under his
+protectorate, which would be composed of the Prussian states on the
+northern coast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Forced in her own defense to take up arms, Prussia suffered a terrible
+defeat at Jena, 1806.  The conqueror for whose friendship Frederick
+William had sacrificed his country was in Berlin.  The beautiful
+Prussian Queen who, he knew, had used her influence against him, was
+treated with the grossest insolence, while for the cowed people
+recently in revolt, and now prostrating themselves, he did not restrain
+his contempt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Peace of Tilsit (1807) determined the full measure of Prussia's
+retribution.  Her Polish acquisitions were made into a "Grand Duchy of
+Warsaw," under a French protectorate.  One half of the rest of her
+territory was converted into a kingdom of Westphalia, over which
+Napoleon's brother Jerome was king.  To the remainder of Prussia was
+assigned the burden of an immense indemnity, and the maintenance of a
+French army in her territory.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the cup of humiliation was not drained until later when, standing
+with the Continent under his feet, Napoleon compelled the Prussian King
+to join the Rheinbund with what was left of his kingdom, to furnish
+France with troops, and thus to become tributary to his designs upon
+Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Napoleon in the meantime, in an hour's interview with Alexander of
+Russia, had by the magic of his influence secured that Emperor's
+friendship.  All this excellent man was fighting for was the peace of
+Europe!  And he disclosed to Alexander his plan that they two should be
+the eternal custodians of that peace; which was to be secured by
+restraining the arrogance of England; and that was to be done by
+destroying her commercial prosperity.  All of Europe was to be
+forbidden to trade with that country.  There was to be a Continental
+blockade against a "nation of shopkeepers."  Alexander was completely
+won, and he promised not to molest his new friend in his benevolent
+task.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The provinces dependent upon France were now divided up into kingdoms
+and principalities, and to make his own control over them more assured,
+Napoleon placed members of his own family and personal friends upon the
+various thrones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His brother Louis was created King of Holland.  His brother-in-law
+Murat was made King of Naples; Eugene Beauharnais, his step-son,
+Viceroy of Italy.  Jerome Bonaparte, as we have seen, was King of
+Westphalia, and his brother Joseph he had already made King of Spain,
+in the time he could spare from more important matters in Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And what was the real sentiment in Germany concerning this man at such
+a time?  We hear that ninety German authors dedicated books to him and
+that servile newspapers were praising him; and we know that one of the
+immortal compositions of Beethoven was inspired by him.  But we must
+recollect that he was too colossal and too dazzling to be accurately
+measured, except from a distance.  Even yet we are almost too near to
+him for that, and the world is as divided in its estimate of Napoleon
+as of the true meaning of Shakspeare's "Hamlet."  It is an eternal
+controversy.  He was a monstrous creation; colossal in his plans,
+colossal in his grasp of the forces about him, colossal in ambition, in
+selfishness, in cruelty, and in intelligence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Napoleon realized the value of hereditary grandeur.  He had been able
+to climb without it; but the sons who would succeed him as masters of
+Christendom must have the dignity of ancestry to fortify them.  No
+blood but the Hapsburg was fit for this great office.  He swept away
+Josephine as remorselessly as he had the Pope in Rome, and compelled
+Francis II. to bestow his daughter Marie Louise upon the man who had
+stripped him of his Crown and his Empire, and who was steadily
+absorbing what remained of his dignity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The marriage took place in 1810, and with his Hapsburg Empress,
+Napoleon established a temporary court at Dresden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then there commenced the process which was intended finally to engulf
+all the separate German kingdoms in one universal abyss.  The Kingdom
+of Holland was first annexed to the French Empire; then North Germany
+was swallowed up in the same way; the same fate evidently being
+intended next for the Rheinbund.  The satellites had begun to fall into
+the sun!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap17"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+To the man guiding these astounding changes it seemed a very small
+matter then that a handful of Tyrolese peasants were in revolt against
+the French King in Bavaria; nor that a small group of philosophers,
+poets, and men of letters, were consulting together in Prussia over the
+shame of their betrayal by their rulers, and considering plans for
+guiding a popular movement for the emancipation of Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But these were the first stirrings of a force Napoleon had not before
+had to contend with.  He had fought with kings and princes and proud
+aristocracies clinging to their ancient splendor and possessions, but
+his armies had never been face to face with <I>patriotism</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had not met it, because it did not exist in the German Empire until
+he himself made its existence possible by breaking up the old stifling
+tyrannies.  Now a few patriotic and courageous men all over Germany
+were combining, and inciting the people to revolt; an association
+called "The League of Virtue" was created.  Then the Tyrolese peasants
+were subdued and their leader Hofer was shot in cold blood by
+Napoleon's orders.  The King of Prussia was ordered to suppress the
+"League of Virtue," and French spies supposed they were uprooting
+patriotism by reporting it as treason to France.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Napoleon was at this moment at the climax of his greatness.  He decreed
+that Rome should be annexed to his empire, and that his infant son
+should receive the title "King of Rome," which title should thereafter
+belong to the oldest son of the French Emperor.  What if this did bring
+curses upon his name?  He was now beyond the reach of blessings or
+curses from men; and probably was rather pleased than otherwise when
+Alexander I. threw off their sentimental friendship and defied him, by
+abandoning the plan of a Continental blockade for the ruin of England.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now he was free to develop his gigantic plan.  Does anyone suppose that
+the conquest of Russia was all of that plan?  Far from it!  There is
+every reason to believe that it was his intention, after Russia was
+subdued, to press on into Asia and to expel the English from their
+precious India!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not since the days of Attila had there been seen such an army as was
+led into Russia&mdash;six hundred thousand men, of whom only one out of
+twenty was ever to return!  And was it the lives of Frenchmen that he
+was spending so lavishly?  Not at all.  This great host was composed
+chiefly of Germans, Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Bavarians, Swiss, who
+should have been fighting for their own liberation at home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lest Prussia should revolt in his absence the wary Napoleon garrisoned
+that kingdom with sixty thousand French troops, and took the sons of
+Prussia with him for the great human sacrifice in Russia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was the 7th of September when the great army moved.  On and on they
+marched for two months through a silent and deserted land, only to
+reach at last a mysteriously silent city.  Had a whole people fled at
+his approach?  Napoleon took up his quarters in the Kremlin.  Suddenly
+fires broke out in a hundred places.  The city became a roaring
+furnace.  In vain did they try to stay the conflagration.  In a few
+hours Moscow, his rich prize, was a mass of ruin and ashes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Napoleon waited for a message from Alexander begging for peace; but
+none came.  Then the snowflakes began to fall and fierce winds began to
+sweep down from the north.  At length his stubborn pride had to bend.
+He sent his messengers to Alexander&mdash;still there was no answer.
+Provisions were failing, and there were leagues and leagues of deep and
+white snow between him and food for his famishing soldiers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the Russians came.  How could this starved, benumbed, frightened
+wreck of a great army stand before the Cossacks?  The story of that
+"retreat" could never be written.  Men, hollow-eyed and gaunt with
+misery, flung away their arms and fought with each other like wolves
+for a morsel of bread or a dead horse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the 5th of December Napoleon quietly slipped away, leaving the
+freezing, famishing victims of his ambition to make their own way back
+as they could; knowing that for all, save a fragment, of that mighty
+host the snow must be a winding sheet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Frederick William III. accepted that last humiliation and sent a
+Prussian army in the train of the conqueror to fight his battles, while
+Frenchmen guarded Prussians at home, the indignation was deep and
+wide-spread.  Three of his best generals, Blücher and two others,
+resigned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Prussian contingent in the great invading army, which was under
+General York, had escaped many of the horrors of the retreat; and had
+returned with seventeen thousand out of the sixty thousand which had
+entered Russia.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This Prussian commander, as soon as he crossed the line with his
+soldiers, on his own responsibility abandoned the French and arranged a
+treaty of neutrality with the Russian general.  Frederick disavowed the
+act, but it was received by the people of Prussia with wild enthusiasm.
+York called an assembly together at Königsberg, and boldly ordered that
+all men capable of bearing arms should be mustered into the Prussian
+army.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The force of public sentiment revealed by this was too overwhelming for
+the King to oppose.  It swiftly swelled into a popular uprising in
+which all classes took part.  It was the first great patriotic movement
+in Germany; and to Prussia belongs the glory of having initiated it.
+It was the Prussian people who converted their whole male population
+into an army and their country into an arsenal, and with one voice, and
+animated by one heart, refused longer to bear the degradation put upon
+them by their King.  Hitherto the people had been led by their rulers.
+Now for a brief time they were going to be leaders, reluctantly
+followed by kings and princes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within five months two hundred and seventy thousand men were under arms
+and Frederick had been obliged to declare war against the Emperor of
+the French, in alliance with Russia and Sweden.  Austria remained
+neutral, but the Rheinbund, with only two exceptions, still held to
+France.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Napoleon by the irresistible magic of his influence assembled an army
+nearly as large as the one he had just sacrificed in Russia.  The
+campaign opened in April (1813).  By June his star seemed to be waning,
+and Austria offered to mediate a peace.  Napoleon insulted Metternich,
+who brought the proposals, and Francis II. joined the allies against
+his son-in-law.  In October the end arrived.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The battle of Leipzig was to the people of Germany what Jena and
+Austerlitz had been to Napoleon.  The news of this great victory was
+electrifying.  From the Baltic to the Alps the air resounded with
+rejoicings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There are no persuasions needed to make people leave a sinking ship.
+Jerome Bonaparte fled from his kingdom of Westphalia&mdash;the Rheinbund
+dissolved&mdash;Holland, Switzerland, Italy fell away.  Wurtemberg joined
+the allies and the great movement for emancipation became national, not
+Prussian.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The allied princes offered to Napoleon that the Rhine, the Alps, the
+Pyrenees, and the sea should be the frontiers of France.  Still
+believing in his invincibility, he scorned the proposition.  His star
+had certainly deserted him, for while he was collecting his broken
+forces in Germany, and while hope was reviving over small victories,
+the allied armies, unknown to him, were advancing on Paris!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He learned it too late.  History holds no picture more powerfully
+impressive than that of this man waiting at Fontainebleau, twelve
+leagues from Paris, still believing in his power to retrieve, and
+unconscious that he is already deposed!  And the magic of his
+influence, the power of the spell he cast over mankind, is illustrated
+by the fact that even now, knowing him to have been a tyrant and a
+scourge as we do, rejoicing in his defeat as we must, we still cannot
+look at that picture without a moistened eye and almost a regret at his
+downfall!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Alexander, and Frederick William, and the allied armies were in Paris,
+which had capitulated, and at their bidding had consented to the
+deposition of Napoleon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the 6th of April, 1814, Louis XVIII., brother of the murdered Louis,
+was proclaimed King of France, and to the man who had been master of
+Europe was assigned&mdash;the island of Elba on the coast of Italy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But in March of the following year, while sovereigns were still
+wrangling over the disorder he had left, and while Talleyrand was
+scheming for his new master as faithfully as he had for the old, the
+startling news came that Napoleon had landed in France.  Louis XVIII.
+vanished into thin air before the man whom the people were receiving
+with wild acclamations of delight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Europe again united, and again Napoleon was seen advancing, as of old,
+with a great army.  Blücher was in command of one division of the
+allied armies and Wellington of the other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The battle of Waterloo began on the morning of the 18th of June, 1815.
+To England was to belong the glory of Napoleon's final downfall.
+Wellington accomplished his defeat, and then Blücher came in time to
+make that defeat an annihilation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The mistake of the year before was not to be repeated.  From that
+moment until his death at St. Helena, in 1821, Napoleon was a prisoner
+and an exile.  He had finished the work he had been appointed to do,
+and Fate had flung him aside!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap18"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Now came the difficult task of reconstruction and redistribution of
+territory.  In what form should they arise out of this chaos?  The
+dream of the people, like that of Hermann eighteen hundred years
+before, was of a German UNITY; not a renewal of the empire, but a great
+and new national life, in some firmer and truer form than it had yet
+known.  But these were only dreams, vague and without any practical
+ideas as to their realization.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the meantime men well versed in the arts and tricks of governing
+were deciding how all should be arranged.  The plan proposed by
+Metternich, that master of diplomacy, who was minister to the Emperor
+of Austria, was the one adopted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was to be a confederation of thirty-nine German states.  The <I>Act
+of Union</I>, by which this was effected, had a pleasant sound to the ear
+of the German people.  But the Union existed only in a mutual defense
+against foreign foes, and a mutual aid in keeping the people of Germany
+well in check!  The one outward and visible expression of this <I>Unity</I>
+was in a <I>General Diet</I>, to be held at Frankfort, under the presidency
+of Austria!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And this was what the <I>people</I> who had liberated their country were to
+receive as their reward!  They were in no way recognized; were to
+possess no political power; the right of suffrage was not bestowed, and
+the Diet was prohibited from making any change in this form of
+confederation, except by a <I>unanimous</I> (<I>!</I>) vote.  The German people
+were practically effaced and lost sight of in an autocratic
+confederation of states, with the Austrian Empire at its head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That empire had received back its Italian possessions.  Prussia had
+recovered Westphalia and her territory on the Rhine, and given up her
+Polish territory to Russia.  Belgium and Holland had been merged into a
+kingdom of the Netherlands.  Saxony, Wurtemberg, and Bavaria, which
+states had been made kingdoms by Napoleon, were permitted to remain
+such.  Switzerland was a republic; and by the successful diplomacy of
+Talleyrand, Alsace and Lorraine, those insecure possessions, passed to
+France.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such were some of the territorial adjustments.  That the rulers of
+these kingdoms were reactionary in their purposes soon became apparent.
+One of the first acts of the King of Wurtemberg was to court-martial
+and cashier the general who had gone over to the German side at the
+battle of Leipzig!  If none had gone over to the German side, where
+would have been the kingdom of Wurtemberg?  In Mecklenburg the people
+were openly declared serfs.  The Elector of Hesse-Cassel gave evidence
+that he was looking backward by putting his soldiers into the dress of
+the last century and powdered queues, and almost without exception the
+sovereigns were trying to construe the provisions of the <I>Act of Union</I>
+in a way to give the least liberty to the German people.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The currents of German thought and feeling move slowly, but they are
+deep and persistent.  They had never been intemperate in their desires
+for freedom, but had simply asked for a government which should be more
+in conformity with the existing views of human rights.  Their
+disappointment had been profound and bitter.  The fathers earnestly
+talked over their wrongs at home, while their more fiery sons at the
+universities made speeches, sang songs, and banded themselves together
+into societies, with mottoes and badges and insignia, all under the
+same inspiring ideas,&mdash;UNION AND FREEDOM.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This began to look like Revolution.  The freedom of the press was
+abolished.  The formation of societies among students and mechanics was
+prohibited, and the universities were placed under the immediate
+control of the government.  A savage police system was established.
+Hundreds of young men were thrown into prison, and hundreds more fled
+the country.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But while this repression produced a calm surface, it did not change
+the conditions beneath.  In the meantime a "Holy Alliance" had been
+formed between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, for the purpose of
+repressing aspirations toward liberty in other lands, where this
+pestilential modern spirit was also rife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But in 1830 there was a popular uprising in France.  Charles X.,
+another brother of the murdered Louis, had been pursuing a reactionary
+policy precisely similar to the one employed by the sovereigns in
+Germany.  It was too late to do that in France.  The people with small
+ceremony flung the Bourbon aside, and set up a constitutional monarchy
+with Louis Philippe at its head.  This stirred anew the latent feeling
+in Germany.  The people did not rise in a body, but so threatening did
+it appear that the Diet quickly yielded certain reforms and concessions
+for fear of more extreme resistance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Francis II. died in 1835, and was succeeded by an almost imbecile son,
+Ferdinand I.  In 1840 Frederick William III. of Prussia also died, and
+Frederick William IV., his son, became King.  Metternich was now
+guiding the affairs of Austria, and William von Humboldt was the
+adviser of the new Prussian King, who inspired the people with a hope
+of better things.  But while this King fostered science and art, he
+gave little care to the redressing of political wrongs, and things
+drifted toward a crisis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again a revolution in France reacted upon Germany.  In 1848, Louis
+Philippe was cast aside as unceremoniously as had been his predecessor,
+and a Republic was proclaimed, with Louis Napoleon, nephew of the great
+Napoleon, at its head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This new Bonaparte was a son of Louis Bonaparte, whom his imperial
+brother had made King of Holland.  He married Hortense, the daughter of
+Josephine.  So Fate intended that a child of the discarded Josephine,
+and not of Napoleon, should rule over France.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The proclamation of a republic in France awoke the slumbering forces of
+revolution in Europe.  Not in one place, nor in two, did the fires
+spring up, but simultaneously in every German state.  Hungary, led by
+Kossuth, was in revolt, and fighting to the death to be freed from the
+Hapsburgs.  In Italy Victor Emmanuel, the young King of Sardinia, was
+trying to drive the Austrian governor of Milan out of the kingdom, and
+when checked, he shook his sword at the advancing Austrians and said
+prophetically, "<I>There shall yet be an Italy!</I>"  And while these things
+were going on in Italy and in Hungary, men were fighting in the streets
+of Vienna.  The ozone of freedom had penetrated even to that last
+stronghold of despotic sentiment.  The Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in
+this time of agitation, and his young nephew, Francis Joseph, ascended
+the Austrian throne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The things the people were demanding in every state were: freedom of
+speech and of the press; the right of every man to bear arms; of all to
+assemble when and where they liked for political or other purposes;
+trial by jury; and the abolition of the hated Diet, with a complete
+reorganization of the state governments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The princes were terrified.  It seemed as if their expulsion, like that
+of Louis Philippe, was at hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so it was, and would have ensued, had the people known their power
+or how to use it.  But gradually the opportunity was lost.  Concessions
+were made, new liberties were gained, but the <I>Unity</I> they hungered for
+was to come in another and unexpected way, and for ten years the
+confederation was to exist practically unchanged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still, although the fruits of their efforts seemed meager in comparison
+with what had been hoped, there had been one great concession made.
+The Diet, under the pressure of the crisis, had consented to steps
+which led finally to the formation of a National Parliament.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When that parliament met at Frankfort, German patriots believed the
+hour of liberation had struck.  Full of hope and confidence they
+thought the end was attained, when six hundred men of character and
+intelligence came together to formulate a new plan of union based upon
+<I>The Sovereignty of the People</I>!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But such a task requires something more than patriotism and enthusiasm,
+and theoretic views about human rights.  It needs practical political
+experience, and clearly defined plans for action.  After vainly trying
+to harmonize conflicting opinions a plan of union was finally adopted,
+and Frederick William IV. was elected "Hereditary Emperor of Germany."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All save the smaller states refused to accede to the proposed plan, and
+Frederick William himself declined the proffered title, saying, "They
+forget that there are princes still in Germany, and that I am one of
+them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So the attempt at reorganization was a miserable failure, and the
+national parliament gradually dissolved.  In the meantime the
+revolutionary fires in Europe had burned out.  Hungary was again
+submissive in the grasp of the Hapsburgs, and Austria was also once
+more supreme in Italy; while the French republic, which had lighted
+this conflagration, had become a monarchy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The national party had developed no great leader, had shown no ability
+to grasp its opportunity.  The people, disheartened and in sullen
+disappointment, saw the old Bund-Diet restored at Frankfort, in 1851,
+and found themselves back in a slightly improved and amended
+confederation, still under the headship of Austria.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Louis Napoleon's assumption of Imperial power, in 1851, gave
+renewed strength to the German rulers.  It demonstrated the instability
+of popular governments, and the sure return to the good old methods of
+their fathers, as soon as the temporary madness of the people had
+subsided.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So all things conspired to depress aspiration and to make the hopes
+awakened in 1848 a tantalizing delusion.  It was not night, but it was
+a very dark and dreary day for patriotism in Germany.  The country was
+under a spell which no one knew how to break.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In 1857 Frederick William IV. was stricken with apoplexy, and his
+brother, Prince William, was appointed Prince Regent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The new emperor of the French, with oppressive sense of the greatness
+of his name, was looking about for opportunities to be Napoleonic.  In
+1856 he had formed an alliance with England against Russia.  The fact
+of the alliance of itself gave weight to the rather flimsy fabric of
+his greatness, while the results of the Crimean War added much to its
+solidity.  In the year 1859 Italy was vainly struggling to free herself
+from the grasp of Austria.  Mazzini, the exalted dreamer, and
+Garibaldi, the soldier and patriot, with Cavour, the no less patriotic
+statesman, though with different ends in view, were working together
+for the destruction of the Austrian yoke, which must be preliminary to
+any form of Italian nationality.  The astute statesman saw in the
+ambition of Napoleon III. a means to that end.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Napoleon promised an "Italy free from the Alps to the Apennines,"
+and when the splendid victory of Magenta was quickly followed by that
+of Solferino, and when the young Francis Joseph, with tears in his
+eyes, ordered the retreat of his defeated army over the Mincio, the
+dream of centuries seemed about to be realized.  Then came the
+startling news that the two emperors were in consultation at
+Villafranca over the terms of peace!  Venice was not to be liberated.
+There was to be a consolidation of the Italian kingdoms "under the
+honorary Presidency of the Pope"&mdash;whatever that meant&mdash;and a "general
+amnesty" was declared.  It was with sullen rage that the disappointed
+patriots saw Nice and Savoy handed over to France, and Rome garrisoned
+with French troops, while a French emperor was posing as the liberator
+of an Italy which was not liberated!  But although the mills of the
+gods were moving slowly, they were going to grind exceeding fine.
+Victor Emmanuel and a regenerated Italy were not far off, and for
+Germany there was at hand a new era.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Frederick William IV. died, and in 1861 William I. was crowned King of
+Prussia.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap19"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIX.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+King William's youth was far behind him.  He had already spent a long
+life (sixty-four years) and had never expected to occupy a throne.  He
+had not the brilliant qualities of his brother, he did not concern
+himself much about science or letters; but he was profoundly impressed
+with the responsibilities of his position; and it at once became
+apparent that Prussia had a wise and sagacious King, who would make her
+well-being his sole care and ambition.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His first act was a thorough reorganization of the army.  Then he
+looked about him for a man wise enough and strong enough for him to
+lean upon.  Baron Otto von Bismarck-Schönhausen had just returned from
+St. Petersburg, where he had been Prussian ambassador.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was a conservative of the extreme type, hated and feared by the
+liberal and national party no less than Metternich.  But no man better
+than he comprehended the policy of Austria, and all the complicated
+threads composing the web of German politics.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The choice of this man for minister to the King augured ill for the
+liberals.  The outlook had never been darker than at this hour before
+the dawn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But great political storms, like storms of another sort, are full of
+surprises.  The ominous storm clouds we have feared roll away and
+vanish in calm, and the little ones, not larger than a man's hand,
+suddenly expand and darken our sky.  A fateful storm was gathering for
+Germany in the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of the nature of the Schleswig-Holstein entanglement someone (Was it
+Beaconsfield?) wittily said that there were only two men in Europe who
+understood it, himself and another; and the other was dead.  But that
+was a mistake.  There was a man in Prussia who understood it, and who
+lived to use it for his own far-reaching designs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The principal threads in the tangled web were as follows:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two adjacent dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein, which constitute a
+sort of natural bridge about 150 miles long and 50 miles wide, between
+Denmark and Prussia, are, by the way, the land of nativity for the
+Anglo-Saxon race, the Angles having inhabited Schleswig, and the Saxons
+Holstein, at the time they so kindly protected the Britons from the
+Picts and Scots.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So it is probable that every member of the Anglo-Saxon family has some
+ancestral root running back to that fertile strip of pasture land.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It had for many years been under the Danish protectorate, the King of
+Denmark being, by virtue of his position, also Duke of
+Schleswig-Holstein, just as the German Emperor is now King of Prussia
+by virtue of his imperial office.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But this little people was by no means merged with the Danish by this
+arrangement; on the contrary, they preserved very jealously their own
+traits and ancestral traditions.  Among these was the exclusion of
+women from the royal succession&mdash;the Salic law, framed by their Frank
+ancestors centuries before on the banks of the river Saale, being part
+of their constitution.  Hence, when King Frederick VII. of Denmark died
+in 1862 without male heir, and King Christian IX. became King, the
+people of the two dukedoms hotly refused to recognize him as their
+lawful ruler, but claimed their right of reversion to Duke Frederick
+VIII., who was in the direct male line of succession.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Had the Salic law prevailed in Denmark, this Duke Frederick (father of
+the present young Empress of Germany) would now be King of Denmark
+instead of Christian IX.  But it did not exist, so Christian, father of
+the Dowager Empress of Russia&mdash;of the Princess of Wales&mdash;and of King
+George of Greece&mdash;became, in 1862, lawful King of Denmark, with rights
+unimpaired by female descent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Schleswig-Holstein revolted against being held by a ruler who,
+according to her constitution, was not the terminal of the royal line,
+and insisted upon bestowing herself instead upon the German Duke
+Frederick VIII.  Denmark naturally resisted.  Salic law or no Salic
+law, the dukedoms were hers, and should stay.  Of course Austria, as
+the head of the German confederation, had to be consulted, and she
+thought well of uniting with Prussia to compel the cession of the twin
+dukedoms, which would have been quickly absorbed had not the European
+powers intervened and forbidden this encroachment upon the rights of
+Denmark.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was just at this crisis that Bismarck was appointed prime minister
+of Prussia, and commenced his series of brilliant moves upon the
+European chessboard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+King Christian of Denmark, pleased with his success in retaining the
+refractory states, determined to go still farther; that is, to adopt a
+new constitution separating these Siamese twins, which should, in fact,
+detach Schleswig from Holstein, incorporating it permanently with
+Denmark.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was in direct violation of the treaty with the Great Powers made
+in London, 1852, and afforded the needed pretext for war.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The moment and the man had arrived.  Bismarck, with the intuition of a
+good player, saw his opportunity, pushed up the pawn,
+Schieswig-Holstein, and said, "Check to your king."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Prussian and Austrian troops poured into Denmark, and in a few
+short weeks the blooming isthmus had ceased to be Danish and had become
+German.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Austria generously said, "We will divide the prize.  Schleswig shall be
+Prussian, and Holstein Austrian."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Could anything be more odious to the Prussians?  The long arm of
+Austrian tyranny stretching way over their land, up to their northern
+seaboard!  It might better have become Danish.  But all things come to
+him who waits, and&mdash;Bismarck waited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Neither Austria nor the German people had the slightest comprehension
+of the Minister's deep-laid plans.  When he said that the German
+question could "only be settled by blood and steel," the people
+construed it as the brutal utterance of despotism.  And when it looked
+as if they might be involved in a war with Austria over this paltry
+Holstein affair they were stunned, and believed that a desperate man
+was leading Prussia to her ruin for his own ambitious purposes.  What
+could they with their nineteen millions of people do against Austria,
+with her fifty millions!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Bismarck cared not and heeded not.  He was too intent upon his
+game.  He knew what no one else seemed to know, that there was no
+chance for Germany until she was emancipated from Austria.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again he pushed up his useful little pawn and said "check," but this
+time to the Emperor of Austria.  Ah! here was a game worth watching.
+Europe and America, too, were willing to let their morning coffee get
+cold in studying the moves.  Francis Joseph did not see as far into the
+game as his astute adversary, whose keen eye was focused at long range
+upon a renewed Germany, in which there should be no Austria.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The conflict was short (only seven weeks), but the preparation had been
+thorough.  The 3d of July will long be remembered by Germany.  King
+William was there; the Crown Prince was there, now become "Unser
+Fritz," by his superb military achievements, the ideal prince and
+soldier of modern Europe; and Königgrätz, like Waterloo, decided the
+game.  Francis Joseph was checkmated.  A galling servitude to Austria
+existed no more.  What wonder that the people were glad, or that Unser
+Fritz was their idol, and Bismarck became their demigod!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A great physician correctly diagnoses the disease before he treats it.
+Bismarck knew why the attempts at a German union had been futile.  He
+knew such a union never could exist until Austria was eliminated from
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An overwhelming revulsion in sentiment followed.  The man whom the
+despotic element had leaned upon became the adored leader of the
+liberal party.  He had no sentimental theories about human rights.  His
+personal tendencies were toward despotism rather than freedom.  But he
+had the acuteness to recognize the advantages which would be derived
+from a liberal policy and the ardent support of the <I>people</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A new confederation of states was formed called the <I>North German
+Union</I>, with a parliament elected by the people.  It was composed of
+all the states except Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The several states were united under a general Federal Government,
+somewhat like that of the United States of America, of which the King
+of Prussia was <I>President</I>, and Bismarck was <I>Chancellor</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This new union was Protestant and Prussian, and forever separated from
+all that was Catholic and Austrian.  In five short years what a change!
+Truly, "blood and iron" had proved a wonderful tonic for Germany!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the year 1763 Prussia won the province of Silesia after a seven
+years' war with Austria.  Just one century later, in 1866, a war of
+seven weeks with that same power placed her at the head of a firmly
+consolidated German nation.  A result so astonishing from a conflict so
+brief must ever be a phenomenon in history; and had it been necessary,
+seven years would not have been too long to struggle for such a reward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And what of poor little Schleswig-Holstein, that land of our race
+nativity?  If she had indulged in any innocent expectation of benefit
+from such brilliant espousal of her cause she was disappointed.  And
+she must have realized that she had been only the humble hinge upon
+which the door of opportunity had swung open for Germany.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap20"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XX.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+There was a man in France to whom these overturnings were especially
+distasteful.  Napoleon III., sitting in brand-new splendor upon his
+newly created throne, was industriously engaged in building up an
+empire and a reputation upon Napoleonic lines.  These lines of course
+were despotic.  So the triumph of liberalism in Germany, the creation
+of a new political power with Austria and despotism cast out, was a
+severe blow to his policy and to his prestige.  It weakened him in
+Europe, where he aspired to headship, and at home, where he should be
+considered invincible, not alone in arms, but in statecraft.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Crimea, Magenta, and Solferino had been splendid decorations to his
+reign; but they looked tame and insignificant since this transforming
+<I>Seven Weeks' War</I>.  Then, too, his magnificent scheme of an empire in
+Mexico, with a Hapsburg ruling under a French protectorate&mdash;that had
+miserably failed.  And now there had suddenly arisen, as if out of the
+ground, a new political Germany, which rivaled France in strength.
+Frenchmen began to ask whether this man was, after all, such a great
+leader, and destined to wear the mantle of his uncle!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Obviously the thing to do was to recover his waning prestige by a
+splendid victory over this new power of which Prussia was the head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If the Emperor had any misgivings they were swept away by the beautiful
+Empress Eugénie, who, intensely Catholic, saw in the ascendency of
+Protestant Prussia, and the humiliation of Catholic Austria, an impious
+blow at the Catholic faith in Europe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So the war was determined upon.  Only one obstacle existed.  There was
+nothing to fight about!  But that could be overcome, and in 1870 a
+pretext was found.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Queen Isabella had been expelled from Spain, and there existed that
+perennial source of disturbance in Europe, a vacant Spanish throne.
+From among the several candidates, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, a
+relative of William I. of Prussia, was chosen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The French ambassador Benedetti received instant orders to demand of
+King William that he should prohibit Prince Leopold from accepting the
+offer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King made answer that "not having advised it, he could not forbid
+it."  However, to the disappointment of the Emperor, the Hohenzollern
+prince voluntarily declined, and the way to a war seemed closed again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the Empress Eugénie was intent upon her object, and the war-fever
+had taken deep hold upon the people of France.  So the fateful dispatch
+was sent to Benedetti&mdash;"Be rough to the King."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The kindly old King William was peacefully sunning himself at Ems, when
+the ambassador discourteously approached him and made an abrupt demand
+for a guarantee that no Hohenzollern should <I>ever</I> occupy the throne of
+Spain.  The words and the manner were offensive&mdash;as they were intended
+to be.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King, recognizing an intended impertinence, without replying turned
+away and left Benedetti standing.  Here was the opportunity.  The
+telegraph swiftly bore the news that the French ambassador had been
+publicly insulted by the King of Prussia.  France was in a blaze of
+indignation.  These Prussians should be taught that the great French
+Empire was not to be insulted with impunity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not a shadow of doubt existed as to the result.  The French army was
+invincible, and the southern German states would be glad at the
+deliverance.  They would welcome an invading army, and perhaps Hesse
+and Hanover also would revolt and the new Prussian confederation would
+fall to pieces in their hands.  The birthday of Napoleon I., the 15th
+of August, must be celebrated in Berlin!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such were the wild expectations when the French army moved, bearing
+away with it the boy Prince Imperial, that he might witness for himself
+his father's triumphs, and receive an object lesson, as it were, in
+avenging insult to the imperial dignity, which would one day be in his
+keeping!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was the way it looked in France.  How was it in Germany?  There
+was no north and no south German.  Men and states sprang together as a
+unit, showing how vital was the bond which had existed only for four
+years.  It was no longer a German race combining with a common purpose,
+but a German nation instinct with one life, and solemnly resolved to
+defend it or to perish.  In only eleven days an army of four hundred
+and fifty thousand soldiers was under the command of Moltke, with the
+Crown Prince Frederick William leading one of the three great divisions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In less than three weeks, instead of waging an aggressive war in
+Germany, the French were fighting for their existence on their own soil.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In less than a month the French Emperor was a prisoner, and in seven
+months his empire was swept out of existence; the Germans were in
+Paris&mdash;and King William, Unser Fritz, Bismarck, and Von Moltke were
+quartered at Versailles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+France had given up Alsace and Lorraine, had agreed to pay an indemnity
+of <I>five thousand millions</I> of francs, and was glad to have peace even
+at that price!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The surrenders of Metz (August 4), and of Sedan (September 2), were
+monumental disasters, and history would be searched in vain for such a
+crushing defeat of a proud and strong nation as was consummated by the
+Treaty of Peace signed at Paris on the 10th of May, 1871.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Even the three southern states, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden, had
+participated in this Franco-Prussian war.  So the last barrier to a
+completed union was removed, and a dramatic climax occurred in the Hall
+of Mirrors at Versailles on the 18th of January, 1871.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In that very hall where Richelieu, and Louis XIV., and Louis XV. had
+schemed to entangle and cripple and rob Germany, and where Napoleon I.
+had plotted the destruction of the German Empire, Ludwig II., King of
+Bavaria, in the name of the rest of the German states, laid their
+united allegiance at the feet of King William of Prussia, begging him
+to assume the crown and with it the title of "Hereditary Emperor of the
+German Empire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is a curious fact that Bavaria, which had always been a thorn in the
+side of the Empire, which from the time of the first Duke Welf had
+stood for all that was conservative and despotic and reactionary,
+should have taken the initiative in the final act which set a seal upon
+the triumph of liberalism in Germany.  It was recompense full and ample
+for the trouble she had given in the past!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The return to Germany was a march of triumph.  The popular enthusiasm
+knew no bounds.  It was less than ten years since those days of gloom
+and depression.  What a change had been wrought!  Was it all done by
+blood and iron?  They had been mighty factors certainly, but they had
+been used by a masterful intelligence, which had also recognized the
+power of <I>patriotism</I>.  The empire which was immediately organized was
+simply a renewal of the <I>North German Union</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dream of Hermann had at last been realized.  There was a United
+Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When in 1888 Emperor William I. sank under the weight of years and the
+crown rested upon the head of his son Frederick, that adored prince was
+no longer in the full tide of victorious youth, but being borne by a
+swiftly ebbing tide beyond the reach of earthly honors.  He was a
+stricken and indeed a dying man when the opportunity came to carry out
+the policy he had intended for Germany.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What that policy was we shall never know, nor whether it would have
+been a safe and a wise one.  We are sure it would have been beneficent,
+for no gentler, kindlier prince ever had power and opportunity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The distrust of him manifested by the conservative party, and notably
+by Bismarck, and one still nearer to him, leads us to believe that he
+leaned too strongly toward the ideal of the patriots of 1860.  But we
+shall never know.  We can only conjecture whether in Frederick's death
+Germany escaped a danger or missed an opportunity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The unseemly dissensions, the heartbreaking complications, which
+tormented this dying man make one of the saddest chapters in history;
+and his reign of five months can scarcely be matched in suffering.  At
+last it was ended.  The untarnished soul and tortured body parted
+company, and William II. reigned in his stead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is not the province of history to pass judgment upon the living.
+When the young Emperor William II. dismissed his great chancellor, he
+assumed the full responsibility of his empire.  Whether he has the
+intelligence and the wisdom required to control, unaided, the forces at
+home, or to guide his bark amid the whirl of European currents, later
+histories will tell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But one thing is very certain.  Time spent to-day in riveting
+antiquated chains upon Germany is time thrown away; and the ruler who
+desires his work to be permanent must turn his back upon medievalism
+and must realize that the true source of abiding power in his country
+is that sentiment which emancipated her from Napoleon in 1814, and
+which in 1871 made of her a UNITED GERMANY.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="finis">
+THE END.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Germany, by Mary Platt Parmele
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+Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Germany, by Mary Platt Parmele
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Short History of Germany
+
+Author: Mary Platt Parmele
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2011 [EBook #34397]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SHORT
+
+HISTORY OF GERMANY
+
+
+BY
+
+MARY PLATT PARMELE
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+1898
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY
+  MARY PLATT PARMELE
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY
+  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+  A SHORT HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
+  A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND
+  A SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE
+  A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY
+  A SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+It is more important to comprehend the forces which have created a
+great nation, and the progressive steps by which it has unfolded, than
+to know the multitudinous events and incidents which have attended such
+unfolding.
+
+In order to forestall criticism for the absence of some events in this
+History of Germany the author desires to say, that there has been an
+effort to keep strictly to the main line of development and to resist
+the temptation of introducing details which do not bear directly upon
+such line.
+
+The bypaths of history are fascinating, but they are of secondary
+importance, and may better be explored after the main road has been
+traveled and is thoroughly known.
+
+Such is the ideal which has been very imperfectly followed in this book.
+
+M. P. P.
+
+NEW YORK, _June_ 21, 1897.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Indo-European Migrations--Divisions of the Aryan Family into European
+Races--The Teutonic Race
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Hermann--Defeat of Varus--Characteristics of the Ancient Germans
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Social Conditions--Form of Government--The Goth in Rome--A Gothic
+Kingdom in Spain--The Teuton Race Covering the European Surface--The
+Angles and Saxons in Britain
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Ulfilas--The Hunnish Invasion--The Roman Empire Perishing--Its
+Conversion--An Eastern Empire--Increasing Power of the
+Church--Charlemagne--France and Germany Separated--Feudal System
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Early Conditions--Hungarian Invasions--Creation of
+Burgs--Knighthood--Pope and Emperor Become Rivals--Henry
+IV.--Canossa--First Hohenstaufen--Welf and Waiblingen--The
+Crusaders--Conrad--Frederick Barbarossa
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Source of Weakness in the Empire--The Great Interregnum--The Nibelungen
+Lied--The Hanseatic League--The Guilds--Meistersingers
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Conditions--First Hapsburg and First Hohenzollern--Swiss
+Freedom--Intellectual Awakening--The Golden Bull--Hussite War--A
+Hohenzollern Receives a Mortgage on the Territory of
+Brandenburg--Discovery of Gunpowder--Conditions Existing under
+Frederick III.--Invention of Printing--The Passing of the Old and
+Coming of the New
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+General European Conditions--Centralizing Tendencies at
+Work--Maximilian I.--A New World--The Rise of Spain--Isabella--Charles
+IV.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Triple Game between Francis I., Henry VIII., and Charles IV.--Leo
+X.--Luther--The Diet of Worms--Protestantism Born--Margrave of
+Brandenburg Usurps Sovereignty over Prussia--The Peasants War--The
+Augsburg Confession--Charles V. Thwarted--Protestantism a Dominant
+Power in his Empire--Schisms in the New
+Faith--Calvinism--Reformers--Lutherans--The Schmalkaldian
+League--Anabaptists--Abdication of Charles V.--Philip II.--Death of
+Charles--Ferdinand I.--Council of Trent--Society of Jesus
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A Protestant Germany--A Divided Protestantism--True Meaning of the
+Struggle--Unfruitful Waiting--The Renaissance--Music, Art, Letters,
+Born Anew--Thought Awakened--Copernicus--Galileo--Kepler--Impending
+Calamity--Protestant Union and Catholic League--Thirty Years' War
+Commenced--Wallenstein--Gustavus Adolphus--His Triumph and
+Death--Richelieu--Death of Wallenstein--Peace of Westphalia--Division
+of Territory
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Romano-Germanic Empire Perishing--European Conditions--Louis
+XIV.--Decay of National Spirit--Rise of Brandenburg--Combination
+against Louis XIV.--Spanish Succession--Under Frederick I. Brandenburg
+Becomes Prussia--Alliance with England--Marlborough and Prince
+Eugene--Blenheim--Peace of Utrecht--Territorial Changes--Charles XII.
+and Peter the Great--Pragmatic Sanction--Frederick William
+I.--Stirrings of Thought in this Time of Chaos--Birth of German
+Speculative Philosophy--Spinoza--Soul Awakening
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Frederick the Great--His Childhood--Von Katte's Execution--Frederick at
+Potsdam--Frederick II., King of Prussia--Maria Theresa, Empress--War of
+Austrian Succession--Silesia--Personal Traits of the Two
+Sovereigns--Frederick Joins France against Austria--Peace of
+Dresden--Frederick Becomes "The Great"--Healing the Wounds Left by Two
+Wars--Voltaire's Influence--Frederick a Reformer and a Despot--Growth
+in Thought and Birth of a Native Literature--Voltaire at Frederick's
+Court--Change Wrought by a Nearer View of King and Poet
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+War over American Boundary between England and France--Maria Theresa
+Joins France--Her Policy--A Combination against Frederick II.--Seven
+Years' War--Peace of Hubertsburg--Silesia Forever Abandoned by
+Austria--Prussia One of the "Five Great Powers"--Healing Wounds
+Again--Conditions External and Internal
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Marie Antoinette Married to the French Dauphin Louis--Unsuspected
+Conditions--Joseph II.--Reforms by a Progressive Hapsburg are a
+Failure--Romanticism Replaces Sentimentalism in Literature--_Sturm und
+Drang_ Period--Luther's Influence upon Letters--Frederick Succeeded by
+his Nephew--Effect of Prussia's Ascendancy in the German Empire--Its
+Coming Dissolution--Why Patriotism Could Not Exist--The Calm before the
+Hurricane
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+The Beginnings of the Storm--The United States of America and
+France--The Thought-Currents Which Moved toward a Vortex--Execution of
+King and Queen--France a Ruin but Free--A Republic--First
+Coalition--Poland and its Partition--Austria Fighting Alone for the
+Empire--Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy--His Methods and Their
+Result--Treaty of Campo Formio--Three New Republics--Napoleon in
+Egypt--His Return--Second Coalition--Dominions of Ecclesiastical Rulers
+Given Away--Napoleon the Instrument of Fate
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Napoleon Emperor of the French--Third Coalition--Prussian
+Neutrality--The Rheinbund--Dissolution of the Empire and Abdication of
+Francis II.--Retribution for Prussia--Battle of Jena--Peace of
+Tilsit--A Continental Blockade--Marriage with Marie Louise
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+Revolt of Bavarian Peasants--The "League of Virtue"--Invasion of
+Russia--Burning of Moscow--Retreat--General York Leads a Popular
+Movement--Prussia at War with Napoleon--The Battle of Leipzig--The
+Allies in Paris--Napoleon Deposed--Louis XVIII. King--Return of
+Napoleon--Waterloo and St. Helena
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Reconstruction--The Act of Union--Sentiment of the
+People--Concessions--Francis II. Died--A Republic in France--Blaze of
+Revolutionary Fires in Europe--A National Parliament Granted--Its
+Failure--Napoleon III. in France--Magenta and Solferino--Revolution in
+Italy--Victor Emmanuel King--William I. King of Prussia
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+King William and Bismarck--Schleswig-Holstein--Proposed Division--War
+against Austria--Koeniggraetz--The North German Union
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Napoleon III. Plans the Overthrow of Prussian Dominion--Vacant Throne
+in Spain--A Hohenzollern Candidate--Benedetti and King William--War
+Declared by France--Metz--Sedan--King William at Versailles--Crowned
+Hereditary Emperor of the German Empire--Death of Emperor William
+I.--Emperor Frederick--His Unfulfilled Dreams and his Death--William
+II. Emperor
+
+
+
+
+A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Foundation building is neither picturesque nor especially interesting,
+but it is indispensable.  However fair the structure is to be, one must
+first lay the rough-hewn stones upon which it is to rest.  It would be
+much pleasanter in this sketch to display at once the minarets and
+towers and stained-glass windows; but that can only be done when one's
+castle is in Spain.
+
+Would we comprehend the Germany of to-day, we must hold firmly in our
+minds an epitome of what it has been, and see vividly the devious path
+of its development through the ages.
+
+The German nation is of ancient lineage, and indeed belongs to the
+royal line of human descent, the Aryan; its ancestral roots running
+back until lost in the heart of Asia, in the mists of antiquity.
+
+The home of the Aryan race is shrouded in mystery, as are the impelling
+causes which sent those successive tides of humanity into Europe.  But
+we know with certainty that when the last great wave spread over
+Eastern Europe, or Russia, about one thousand years before Christ, the
+submergence of that continent was complete.
+
+Before the coming of the Aryan, the Rhine flowed as now; the Alps
+pierced the sky with their glistening peaks as they do to-day; the
+Danube, the Rhone, hurried on, as now, toward the sea.  Was it all a
+beautiful, unpeopled solitude, waiting in silence for the richly
+endowed Asiatic to come and possess it?  Far from it!  It was teeming
+with humanity--if, indeed, we may call such the race which modern
+research and discovery have revealed to us.  It is only within the last
+thirty years that anything whatever has been known of prehistoric man;
+but now we are able to reconstruct him with probable accuracy.  A
+creature bestial in appearance and in life; dwelling in caves, which,
+however, a dawning sense of a higher humanity led him to decorate with
+carvings of birds and fishes; but certain it is, the brain which
+inhabited that skull was incapable of performing the mental processes
+necessary to the simplest form of civilization; and life must have been
+to him simply a thing of fierce appetites and brutal instincts.  Such
+was the being encountered by the Aryan, when he penetrated the
+mysterious land beyond the confines of Greece and Italy.
+
+The extermination, and perhaps, to some extent, assimilation, of this
+terrible race must have required centuries of brutalizing conflict,
+and, it is easy to imagine, would have produced just such men as were
+the northern barbarians who, for five hundred years, terrorized Europe;
+men insensible to fear, terrible, fierce, but with fine instincts for
+civilization--dormant Aryan germs, which quickly developed when brought
+into contact with a superior race.
+
+The earliest Indo-European migration is supposed to have been into
+Greece and Italy, where was laid the basis for the civilization of the
+world.  The second was probably into Western Europe and the British
+Isles; then, after many centuries, the central and last, and at a time
+comparatively recent, into the Eastern portion of the continent.
+
+So, by the fourth century B.C., three great divisions of the Aryan race
+occupied Europe north of Greece and Italy: the Keltic, the western; the
+Teutonic, the central; the Slavonic the eastern; and these, in turn,
+had ramified into new subdivisions or tribes.
+
+To state it as in the pedigree of the individual, the Aryan was the
+founder, the father of the family; Slav, Teuton, and Kelt the three
+sons.  Gaul and Briton were sons of the Kelt; Saxon, Angle, Helvetian,
+etc., sons of the Teuton; and all alike grandchildren of the Aryan;
+whom--to carry the illustration farther--we may imagine to have had
+older children, who long ago had left the paternal home and settled
+about the Caspian and Mediterranean seas: Mede, Persian, Greek, Roman;
+apparently bearing few marks of kinship to these uncouth younger
+brothers whom we have found in Europe in the fourth century B.C., but
+with nevertheless the same cradle and the same ancestral roots.
+
+It is the Teutonic branch of the Aryan family with which we have to do
+now, between whom and their Keltic brothers there flowed the River
+Rhine.
+
+Greece and Rome were unaware of the existence of the Teuton until about
+the year 330 B.C., when Pythias, a Greek navigator, came home from a
+voyage to the Baltic with terrible tales of the Goths whom he had met.
+Nearly one century before Christ the inhabitants of Italy were enabled
+to judge for themselves of the accuracy of the description.  Driven
+from their homes by the inroads of the sea, the Goths poured in a
+hungry torrent down into the tempting vineyards of Northern Italy.
+Gigantic in stature, with long yellow hair, eyes blue but fierce--what
+wonder that the people thought they were scarcely human, and fled
+affrighted, leaving them to enjoy the vineyards at their leisure!
+
+Accounts of this uncanny host reached Rome, which soon knew of their
+breastplates of iron, their helmets crowned with heads of wild beasts,
+their white shields glistening in the sun, and, more terrible than all,
+of their priestesses, clad in white linen, who prophesied and offered
+human sacrifices to their gods.
+
+But the sacrifices did not avail against the legions which the great
+Consul Marius led against them.  The ponderous Goth was not yet a match
+for the finer skill of the Roman, and the invaders were exterminated on
+the plain near Aix, 102 B.C.  The women, in despair, slew first their
+children, then themselves, a few only surviving to be paraded in chains
+at the triumph accorded to Marius on his return to Rome.  Such was the
+first appearance of the Teuton in the Eternal City, and the last until
+five hundred years later, when the conditions were changed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+At the time of this first invasion the German race was divided into
+tribes with no affinity for each other, who were indeed much of the
+time in fierce conflict among themselves.  One of these tribes, called
+the Cherusci, occupied the southern part of what is now Hanover.  Their
+chief, Hermann, had in his youth been taken to Rome as a hostage, and
+there had been educated.
+
+Hermann was the first to dream of German unity.  While the infant
+Christ was growing into boyhood in Palestine, this Hermann was studying
+Latin and history at Rome; and as he read he pondered.  He found that
+the Romans had achieved such tremendous power by _combination_.  If his
+people would unite and stand as one nation before the world, why might
+not they too become great?  These Romans were pleasure-loving and
+vicious.  His Germans in their rude homes were just and true.  They did
+not laugh at vice; they were rough, but simple and sincere; love bound
+the father and mother and children closely together.  The idea of
+German unity took possession of Hermann.  He resolved to devote his
+life to its accomplishment, and to return to his country and try to
+inspire his race with a sense of common brotherhood, and a
+comprehensive patriotism.
+
+Julius Caesar, the great Roman general, was governor of Gaul, and with
+one eye fixed on Britain and another on Germany was steadily bringing
+Europe into subjection to Rome.
+
+The task of subduing the stubborn Teutons was given by Augustus to
+Varus, a trusted general.  In the year 9 A.D., Varus had arrived with
+his great army in the heart of Germany.  Little suspecting the plans
+and purposes surging in the young man's brain, he leaned upon Hermann,
+whom he had known in Rome, as his guide and counselor in a new and
+strange land.
+
+Unsuspectingly he marched with his heavily armed legions, as if for a
+holiday excursion, into the fastnesses of the Teutoberger Forest, into
+which Hermann led him.
+
+When fairly entangled in the dense wood, surrounded by morasses and wet
+marshes instead of roads, suddenly there was a thundering war-cry, and
+barbarians swarmed down upon him from all sides.  Hundreds who escaped
+the rain of arrows were lost in the morasses.  It was not a question of
+victory, but of escape, for the entrapped and heavily armed legions.
+Only a handful returned to tell the story, and Varus, unable to bear
+his disgrace, threw himself upon his sword.
+
+The great Emperor Augustus clothed himself in mourning, let his beard
+and hair grow, and cried in the bitterness of his soul, "Varus, Varus,
+give me back my legions!"
+
+But Hermann, like many another hero, was not comprehended by the people
+he wished to inspire.  He had arrested the tide of Roman conquest in
+Germany.  How was he rewarded?  His people could not understand his
+dream of unity.  Should they be friends with the Cimbri and Suevi, who
+were their enemies?  They suspected his motives.  There were intrigues
+for his downfall.  His adored wife, Thusnelda, and his child were
+delivered to the Romans and graced a triumph at Rome, and when only
+thirty-seven years old, the first heroic character in the history of
+Germany was assassinated by his own people.
+
+Our Saxon ancestors, four centuries later, made the British Isles echo
+with the songs in which they chanted the praises of this "War Man,"
+this "Man of Hosts," who was the "Deliverer of Germany."  Hermann had
+not consolidated his people, but he had arrested their conquest and
+subjugation by the Romans.  Many, many centuries were to roll away
+before his dream of unity was to be realized.
+
+What sort of people were these ancient Germans, for whom Hermann hoped
+so much almost nineteen hundred years ago?
+
+They were pagan barbarians, without one gleam of civilization to
+illumine the twilight of their existence.  They had no art, no
+literature, nor even an alphabet.  They were fierce and cruel; but they
+had simple, uncorrupted hearts.  They were brave, truthful, hospitable,
+romantic, with instincts singularly just, and a passion for the
+mysterious realities of an unseen world.  War and hunting were their
+pursuits, the family and domestic ties were strong and abiding, and
+over all else, religion was supreme.
+
+Like their Scandinavian kinsmen, they worshiped the gods of their
+ancient Aryan ancestors in sacred groves; and offered sacrifices,
+sometimes human, to _Wotan_, and _Donar_, or _Thor_, the Thunderer, for
+whom they named Thursday, Thorsday, or _Donners-tag_, and in honor of
+one of their goddesses, _Freyja_, another was called Frei-tag, or
+Friday.  The decrees of fate were read in the flights of birds, or
+heard in the neighing of wild horses, and then interpreted to the
+people by priestesses, who, clad in snow-white robes, presided also at
+the terrible sacrifices.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+During the three centuries after Hermann had arrested the flood of
+Roman conquest, a civilization of the simplest sort was slowly
+developing in Germany, where society was divided into the _free_ and
+the _unfree_ classes.
+
+The tribes in the south differed greatly from those in the north.  They
+had no settled homes, nor ownership in land.  This was divided among
+them every year by lot; one-half of the people remaining yearly at home
+to till the soil, and the other half giving their entire time to the
+wars which were as perennial as the growing crops of grain.
+
+In the north, however, where lived the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon
+race, conditions very different prevailed.  There the lands were
+bestowed in perpetuity upon the most powerful members of the tribes,
+and by them handed down to their sons.  The unfree class tilled the
+soil, and were thus the serfs of a ruling class, and only freemen could
+bear arms.
+
+There were no cities in ancient Germany, only villages which were
+composed of rude huts.  A collection of these villages formed a group
+which was called a _Hundred_.  Every Hundred had its chief, who was
+elected by the people; and the one chosen by the combined will of all
+these Hundreds was the chief or King of the tribe.
+
+The chiefs of the Hundreds formed a sort of advisory council to the
+King or tribal chief.  But supreme over the will of these chiefs and
+their King was the will of the people.  Every village had its _meetings
+of the people_, which all freemen were entitled to attend.  The real
+governing power lay in these meetings, to which both chiefs of the
+Hundreds and the King were compelled to defer.
+
+Was a new King to be elected, or were there grave questions concerning
+wars to be considered--they were discussed in advance by the chiefs and
+the King.  But the ultimate decision lay with the people themselves; a
+general meeting of the whole tribe being required to elect a new King;
+the people clashing their arms in token of approval, or shouting their
+dissent.
+
+As all freemen bore arms, there was no distinct military organization.
+Every man held himself ready at any moment to respond to a call, and
+the army was the people!
+
+About the middle of the third century, numerous small German tribes
+became united into large confederacies.  Conspicuous among these were
+the Allemani, the Franks, the Saxons, and the Goths.
+
+The Allemani, in the south of Germany, it is said were so called
+because of the fact that _all men_ held the land in common.  If this be
+so, then the French name for Germany is essentially communistic, and it
+is not strange that communism has always found a congenial soil in that
+land.
+
+The Franks occupied the banks of the Rhine and of the river Saal.  The
+Saxons were spread over North Germany, and the Goths, on both sides of
+the river Dnieper, were divided into the Ostro-Goths and the Visi-Goths
+(or the East and West Goths).
+
+It was these Visigoths under Alaric who inflicted the deadliest blows
+upon the Roman Empire.  The sacking of Rome in 410, and the
+establishing of a Gothic kingdom in Spain, shook the very foundations
+of that power.  Then the legions could no longer be spared in distant
+Britain, which was left to its fate.  And that fate was of deepest
+import to us!  The Saxons and the Angles overflowed and absorbed the
+land, and Keltic Britain was Teutonized.
+
+So this untamed and untamable Teuton was being spread, like some coarse
+but renovating element, over the surface of old Europe.  And with the
+occupation of Gaul by the Franks in 481, and the annexing of France to
+the Frankish kingdom under Clovis, the process was complete.
+
+
+I cannot resist the temptation of saying a few words about the
+Anglo-Saxon occupation of Britain, which, as it virtually converted us
+from Kelts into Teutons, is not a digression.
+
+From the time of Julius Caesar the island of Britain had been occupied
+by the Romans, and in consequence had become partly civilized and
+Christianized.  Upon the fall of the empire, the Roman legions were
+withdrawn, and the people, left defenseless, became the prey of their
+own northern barbarians, the Picts and Scots; the drama of Southern
+Europe and the Goths being re-enacted on a diminished scale.  In the
+fourth century the Britons implored the Angles and Saxons to come and
+protect them from these savages.  Invited as allies, they came as
+invaders, and remained as conquerors, implanting their habits, speech,
+and paganism upon the prostrate island.  It was the extermination of
+this exotic paganism which impelled to those deeds of valor recited in
+the Round Table romances, and which made King Arthur and his knights
+the theme of poet and minstrel for centuries.
+
+But the Saxon had come to stay, and Teuton and Kelt became merged, much
+as do the lion and lamb, after the former has dined!  The Teutonic
+Saxon may be said to have dined on the Keltic Briton, and remained
+master of the island until the Normans came, six centuries later, and
+in turn dominated, and made him bear the yoke of servitude.
+
+Nor was this French-speaking Norman French at all, except by adoption;
+being, in fact, the terrible Northman of two centuries before, on
+account of whose ravages the noble had intrenched himself in his strong
+castle, and the wretched serf had in mortal terror sold himself and all
+that he possessed, for the protection of its solid walls and moat; and
+thus had been laid the foundations of feudalism.  He it was who, with
+longhair reeking with rancid oil, battle-ax, spear, and iron hook--with
+which to capture human and other prey--had held France in a state of
+unspeakable terror for centuries, but who had finally settled down as a
+respectable French citizen in the sea-board province of Normandy, and
+in two centuries had made such wonderful improvement in manners,
+apparel, and speech that the simple Saxon baron stood abashed before
+the splendid refinements of his conquerors.
+
+The origin of this mysterious Northman is unknown; but whatever it was,
+or whoever he was, he certainly possessed Aryan germs of high potency.
+
+So the Saxon had built the solid walls of the racial structure upon a
+foundation of Britons; and, though with no thought for beauty, had
+built well, with strong, true structural lines.  It was the Norman who
+finished and decorated the structure, but he did not alter one of these
+lines; the speech, traits, institutions, and habits of England being at
+the core Saxon to-day, while there is a decorative surface only of
+Norman.
+
+So when the Englishman calls himself, with swelling pride, a Briton, he
+speaks wide of the mark.  The Keltic Briton was buried fathoms deep
+under seven centuries of Saxon rule, and then, to make the extinction
+more complete, was overlaid with this brilliant lacquer of Norman
+surface.  And if that mixed product, the English people, have any race
+paternity, it is Teutonic, and herein may lie the impossibility of
+making the English and Irish a homogeneous people--the English Teuton
+and Irish Kelt being in the nature of things antagonistic, the
+particles refuse to combine chemically, and can only be brought
+together (to use the language of the chemist) in mechanical mixture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Among the German tribes it was the Goths who had first come under the
+civilizing influence of the Christian religion.
+
+As some winged seed is wafted from a fair garden into a dark, distant
+forest, and there takes root and blossoms, so was the seed-germ of
+Christianity caught by the wind of destiny, and carried from Palestine
+to the heart of pagan Germany, where, strange to say, it found
+congenial soil.
+
+The story is a romantic one.  A Christian boy in Asia Minor, while
+straying on the shores of the Mediterranean, was captured by some
+Goths, who took their fair-haired prize home to their own land, and
+named him Ulfilas.
+
+The boy, with his heart all aflame for the religion in which he had
+been nurtured, told his captors the story of Calvary--of Christ and his
+gospel of peace and love; and lived to see the terrible sacrificial
+altars replaced by the Cross.
+
+The Goths had no alphabet, so Ulfilas invented one, and then translated
+the Bible into their rude speech.  A part of this translation is now
+preserved in Sweden and is the earliest extant specimen of the Gothic
+language.  This Gothic version of the Lord's Prayer, written by Ulfilas
+more than fifteen centuries ago, bears such close resemblance to the
+German and English versions that it can be easily read by us to-day;
+and makes us realize our own near kinship to those simple barbarians of
+the fourth century.
+
+In the year 375, thirty-five years before the sacking of Rome, from the
+vast plains lying between Russia and China there had poured into Europe
+a terrible race of beings called Huns.  They seemed more like demons
+than men.  Insensible alike to fear, to hunger, thirst, or cold, they
+appeased their ferocious appetites upon wild roots and raw meat.  These
+hideous men ate, drank, and slept on horseback, their no less hideous
+wives and children following them in wagons, as they ravaged through
+the Continent of Europe.
+
+The Huns, under the leadership of Attila, swept everything before them;
+leaving a track of blood and ashes through Germany.
+
+The Goths deserted their lands and homes on account of this brutish
+invasion and pressed down into Italy and Southern Gaul; the Ostro-Goths
+(or East Goths) becoming in time masters of Italy under King Theodoric,
+while the Visigoths (or West Goths), who were already in Southern Gaul,
+had overflowed the Pyrenees and established a Gothic empire in Spain
+(or Hispania, as it was then called).
+
+It was not alone the Goths who were swept before Attila and his Hunnish
+hosts.  The Vandals, the Burgundians, the Longobards were carried by
+the same tide into Southern Europe; the Vandals thence into northern
+Africa; while the Slavs from the northeast in turn pressed down after
+them, and, like the waters of the sea, occupied the lands which they
+had deserted.
+
+So this Hunnish invasion was a tremendous upturning force--in itself
+bearing no relation to the future result more than the plow to the
+future grain; but it was a terrible instrument, used in bringing the
+German race into contact with higher civilizations, where, in the
+alchemy of time, they were destined to survive not as a nation, but
+rather as an element, and where, in the great creative processes, they
+were intended to re-enforce the decaying races of Southern Europe with
+their rude but uncorrupted vitality.
+
+Of the Huns themselves nothing remained in Europe after the defeat of
+Attila, excepting in Dacia, over which they had permanently spread, and
+which was later called Hungary.
+
+During this process of re-creating the old races of Southern Europe,
+the Roman Empire was perishing.  Its conversion to Christianity in the
+fourth century, under Constantine, was too late to save it.  For three
+hundred years pagan Rome had been drenching the soil of Southern Europe
+with the blood of Christians.  Then this zealous new convert not only
+espoused the religion of Christ, but determined by her Church Councils
+what that religion meant and what it did not mean, and made fierce war
+upon heretics like the Gothic Christians, who knew nothing about these
+strange doctrines of which Ulfilas had not told them, nor concerning
+which did their simple Gothic Bible say one word!  (A conflict between
+_Trinitarianism_ and _Arianism_.)
+
+The Roman Empire was the "_Holy_ Roman Empire," now.  When Constantine
+removed his capital to Byzantium, it required two Emperors, an Eastern
+and a Western, to govern the crumbling mass.  But as the temporal power
+declined, there was at Rome a new and spiritual kingdom which was
+expanding and claiming an empire over all Christendom.  The Bishops of
+Rome had become Popes.  Gaul or France was now governed by the German
+Franks.  And the Frankish Kings in France, and the Visigoth Kings in
+Spain, and Christians everywhere must bow to the will of the Pope.
+
+But the Roman Emperors were becoming less and less able to protect
+their dominions.  The Teuton Lombards had overrun Italy, and at last
+the lowest point of degradation seemed to be reached, when the Imperial
+Crown at Byzantium was grasped by Irene, who deposed and blinded her
+own son in order to reach the throne once occupied by Augustus.
+
+Who could be more fit to fill this august position at the head of
+Christendom than Charlemagne, the great conqueror of men and defender
+of the Holy Faith?
+
+The coronation of Charlemagne, King of France and Germany, at Rome, in
+the year 800, was a revolt of the West against the sluggard Emperors at
+Byzantium; just as his father Pepin's had been, fifty years before, a
+revolt against the sluggard Kings of France.
+
+Not for 800 years had there been such a commanding personality on the
+earth; not since Caesar hurled his legions into Gaul and Britain had
+there been such a display of military genius and valor, and perhaps
+never before such a breadth of intelligence in controlling a vast and
+heterogeneous empire.
+
+Thenceforth, Charlemagne and his successors (when crowned by the Pope)
+were the successors of the Caesars and the temporal heads of the Holy
+Roman Empire.  Excepting in name the once great empire had ceased to be
+Roman.  The rude barbarian race which, in the time of Julius Caesar, was
+buried in the forests of Central Europe, was at the head of
+Christendom; and under Charlemagne, a map of the German Empire was a
+map of Europe.
+
+Charlemagne acknowledged the Pope who crowned him as his spiritual
+sovereign, while, on the other hand, the Pope bowed before the Emperor
+who appointed him as his temporal sovereign.  It was a magnificent,
+all-embracing scheme of empire, of which the spiritual head was at
+Rome, and the temporal at Aix-la-Chapelle.
+
+It seemed as if, by this dual supremacy, Charlemagne had provided for
+all possible exigencies of human government.  He rested content, no
+doubt thinking he had embodied a perfect ideal in creating a system
+which should thus co-ordinate and embrace both the spiritual and
+temporal needs of an empire.  But as soon as his controlling hand was
+removed unexpected dangers assailed his work.
+
+In less than fifty years from his coronation his three grandsons had
+quarreled and torn the empire into as many parts.  With this event
+France commenced a separate existence as a kingdom and the Imperial
+title belonged alone to Germany (treaty of Verdun, 843).
+
+It was the strong, rough arm of the Goth which had hammered in pieces
+the Roman Empire and brought these tremendous results for the Teuton
+race; but it was the Frank which had survived as the governing power.
+
+These Franks established a new system of land tenure, which combined
+the two opposing systems prevailing in North and South Germany.  They
+proclaimed that the land belonged to the Crown.  But the Crown, upon
+certain conditions, bestowed it upon landholders who were called
+barons.  These barons might hold their land from generation to
+generation, so long as these conditions were fulfilled.  They, in like
+manner, parceled out their lands into farms, which were held by the
+class below them upon like conditions of submission and fealty to them.
+The people bound themselves to furnish military service and food, and
+to work for their barons a specified number of days in the year, and to
+receive in return a certain protection, and a refuge within the castle
+of their chief.  The baron was responsible to the count who was his
+superior, and the count to the King.
+
+This was the feudal system, which was a net-work of reciprocal duties.
+No man, be he peasant or count, could call anything his own unless he
+discharged his obligations and responsibilities.
+
+The system met great opposition for a time in South Germany; especially
+from Welf, Count of Bavaria, from whom the historic Guelphs are
+descended.  But it survived, as we know, increasing in oppressive
+weight and rigidity, until for centuries it crushed the life out of
+Europe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+One century after Charlemagne, the kingship of Germany ceased to be
+hereditary.  The great nobles, or vassals as they were called, elected
+the King, who was crowned at Aix.  And then, after the Pope had crowned
+him at Rome (but not until then), he was also King of Italy and Emperor
+of the Holy Roman Empire.
+
+The condition of Germany was at this time very disordered.  There were
+jealousies and conflicts between the various states composing it and
+incessant incursions from those troublesome neighbors, the Magyars or
+Hungarians, the Turanian people on their southeast border.  This latter
+led to an important phase in the development of Germany.  Henry I.,
+father of King Otto the Great, in 924 offered these Hungarians a large
+yearly tribute if they would cease to annoy his country.  For nine
+years the tribute was paid.  The Germans in the meantime were busily
+engaged in building fortresses on their frontier, and walled cities
+throughout the land.  These were called _burgs_, and were placed under
+the command of counts, who were called _Burgraves_.
+
+So, in the tenth year, when the Hungarians insolently demanded their
+tribute, Henry threw a dead dog at their messengers' feet, and told
+them that was his tribute in the future.
+
+The Hungarians in a fury poured into Germany.  But--lo! instead of
+collections of helpless villages lying at their mercy, there were
+walled towns which defied all their efforts to capture, and after some
+futile attempts the Hungarians troubled Germany no more.
+
+Another important development of this period was an eventful one for
+Europe.  There was a large class of young men, younger sons of nobles,
+for whom there was no suitable classification.  They were proud and by
+necessity were idle.
+
+This same Saxon King Henry invited these young men to serve the empire
+in a new and peculiar way.  They must be men of honor and truth; they
+must be devoted and loyal to the Holy Roman Empire; never have injured
+a weak woman nor run away in battle; they must be gentle and courteous
+and brave, and faithful to the Church.
+
+The men who could take these oaths and make these pledges were called
+knights, or _Knechts_, servants of the King.  Thus was created the
+order of knighthood, which quickly spread over Europe.
+
+The great Charlemagne, in accepting the crown of the Holy Roman Empire
+in 800, unconsciously inflicted a deep injury upon the future Germany.
+That glittering bauble, the crown of the Caesars, was very costly, and
+retarded the development of Germany for centuries.
+
+That country needed all her resources and energies at home, to solidify
+and develop a great nation during its formative period.
+
+Instead of that, for seven hundred years the ambitions of the Kings of
+Germany were diverted from what should have been their first care--the
+unity and prosperity of their own nation; and were chasing a
+phantom--the re-establishment of the great old empire, with Rome as its
+heart and center.
+
+Another mistake made by Charlemagne was far-reaching in its
+consequences.
+
+He little suspected the nature and the latent power existing in that
+spiritual kingdom with which he formed so close an alliance.  He feared
+not the Church, but the ambitious and scheming nobles.  So, in order to
+create a friendly bulwark about the throne, he made some of the
+archbishops and bishops secular princes, and bestowed upon them
+dominions over which they might reign as sovereigns.
+
+The Church, which had not been growing any too spiritual since it was
+adopted by Rome, was more and more secularized when it had Primates
+ravenous for wealth and power.
+
+The Pope and Emperor, instead of close allies as Charlemagne had
+intended, had finally become jealous and angry rivals.  In the open
+warfare which in time developed two political parties came into
+being--the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, which represented the adherents
+of the Pope and the Emperor.
+
+It was a part of the settled policy of the Popes to stir up strife in
+Italy, and thus, by compelling the Emperor to pour his revenues and his
+energies into that land, to weaken and undermine him at home.
+
+For the first five hundred years of its existence the Church had been
+governed by the bishops of Rome.  In the next five hundred years these
+bishops had grown into Popes, who were the spiritual heads of
+Christendom.  As the Church was entering upon its third
+five-hundred-year lease in the year 1073, the miter was worn by the
+fiery monk, Hildebrand, who had become Gregory VII.  This man resolved
+to establish the supremacy of the Church over the secular arm of the
+government.  As a weak Emperor wore the Imperial crown, the time was
+favorable for claiming a religious empire existing by divine right, and
+superior to the will of kings and emperors.
+
+In the conflict which followed Henry IV. deposed the Pope--this
+creature of his own appointing, who would override the authority of the
+power which had created him!  And as a counter-move the Pope
+excommunicated the Emperor.
+
+Had Henry stood his ground as he might, for he would have had ample
+support from his people, it would have been a gain of centuries for
+Europe..  But the ban of excommunication, with its attendant horrors
+here, and still worse hereafter--it was more than he could bear.
+Affrighted, trembling, penitent, he crossed the Alps in dead of winter,
+crept to the castle of Canossa, near Parma, where Hildebrand had taken
+refuge; and there this successor to Charlemagne, this ruler of all
+Christendom, standing barefoot and clad in sackcloth shirt, humbly
+begged admittance.  The Pope's triumph was complete.  So he let him
+shiver for three days in cold and rain before he opened the gates and
+gave him forgiveness and the kiss of peace.
+
+The Church had never scored so tremendous a victory.  She was supreme
+over every earthly authority, and the hands on the face of time were
+set back for centuries.  Let Guelph and Ghibelline storm and struggle
+as they might, there was no question of supremacy now between temporal
+and spiritual heads.  All the lines of power, all the threads of human
+destiny led to Rome, and were found at last in the papal hand.
+
+In the three centuries of its existence the empire had been ruled first
+by Frank, and then by Saxon emperors.  But the eventful visit to
+Canossa led to a new dynasty, the Swabian.  When that humiliated
+monarch, Henry IV., crossed the Alps in midwinter, when Europe's
+mightiest prince stood woolen-frocked and barefoot upon the snow for
+three days, humbly entreating forgiveness, there was one knight who
+attended him with marked fidelity.  This was Frederick of Bueren, and
+verily he had his reward!  The Emperor created him Duke of Swabia, and
+bestowed upon him his daughter Agnes as his wife.
+
+The Duke of Swabia then built himself a castle on a high plateau of
+land called Hohenstaufen.  But this fortunate duke had also another
+great estate called Waiblingen.  So he was Frederick of Hohenstaufen,
+and of Waiblingen as well.  The last name had a very conspicuous
+destiny awaiting it.
+
+The dukes of Bavaria had been a great power in Germany, ever since that
+first stormy Welf, who tried to put down the new-fangled system of
+land-tenure which we know as feudalism!
+
+These Welfs were evidently not progressive; they seem in fact to have
+been the Tories of ancient Germany.  And when Conrad, grandson of
+Frederick, the first Hohenstaufen, was elected King of Germany, there
+was a very stormy time.  The people divided into two factions: the
+adherents of the new dynasty and the Emperor in the one, and the
+malcontents who were led by Welf, Duke of Bavaria, in the other.  As
+hostility to the Emperor meant friendship with the Pope, this party of
+the Welfs was also that of the papal faction.
+
+The tongue of the Italian could not master the two words Welf and
+Waiblingen; which, as they became fastened upon the two political
+factions in Italy, were changed to Guelph and Ghibelline.
+
+The Waiblingen family long ago disappeared.  But the ancient name of
+Welf is represented to-day by the gracious Queen of England.
+
+The party of the Guelphs in Germany was that of disaffected dukes and
+nobles, who from personal or other reasons desired to embarrass the
+Emperor, even to the extent of an alliance with his enemy the Pope.
+
+The Ghibellines expressed the anti-papal sentiment of the people, among
+whom there was a growing dread and hatred of Romish power, and the time
+was approaching when Teutonic patriotism would mean resistance to
+Italian priestcraft.
+
+While this antagonism was developing, the most stupendous event in all
+history was taking place in Europe.  The Christian conscience--more
+sensitive than it is to-day--had been roused to a frenzy of indignation
+by Mahomedan outrages in the Holy Land.  That first "European Concert"
+had been formed to drive the Mahomedan out of the land, where a concert
+of Europe is striving to keep him undisturbed to-day!
+
+This time of a great religious war was not favorable for an anti-papal
+policy in Germany.  Conrad allowed himself to be swept into the
+current.  He headed a great Crusade in the year 1147.
+
+Not one tithe of his vast host ever reached the Holy Land.  They melted
+like the dew before disease, starvation, and the sword of the Moslems
+in Asia Minor.
+
+When the despondent Conrad returned to Germany he brought back one
+lasting memorial of his ill-fated Crusade.  He had seen at
+Constantinople, on the Imperial standard of the Byzantine Emperor, a
+double-headed eagle.  This representation of a double empire he
+determined to adopt for the emblem of his own, and hence it is that it
+exists to-day on the Austrian standard, and upon the coins of Germany
+and Austria.
+
+It was well for Germany that, while she was thus torn and distracted by
+contending political factions, and while her life blood was being
+drained into Italy, Frederick I., or Barbarossa (1152), came to hold
+the reins of government as they had not been held since Charlemagne.
+
+This great Hohenstaufen threw his lion-like weight into the controversy
+concerning Papal and Imperial supremacy.  He spurned the pretensions of
+the Pope and his encroachments upon secular authority.
+
+He claimed that his office was from God--not from the Pope; and that it
+was not a whit less sacred than his rival's.  To which the Pope
+replied: "Who was the Frank before Pope Zacharias befriended Pepin? and
+what is the Teutonic King now, till consecrated by papal hands?  What
+he gives, can he not withdraw?"
+
+But the Imperial power never reached such height as under this
+imperious, commanding Teuton; who exists now as a half-mythic hero,
+honored in picture, statue, song, and legend throughout Germany.  His
+reign was a splendid fight against the two antagonists which were
+finally to be fatal to the Empire--Italian nationality and the Papacy.
+
+The knighthood established by his Saxon predecessor, in 930, had during
+the Crusades expanded into great orders of chivalry throughout Europe.
+Frederick Barbarossa fostered and brought the chivalry of Germany to
+great splendor.
+
+He also brought to an end the long and destructive feud between the
+Welfs and the Waiblingers, pacifying the former by bestowing upon them
+the territory of Brunswick; to which fact England owes her present
+Queen, who is a daughter of the house of Brunswick.
+
+For many centuries the people believed the legend that their hero had
+not died in Palestine; but they pointed to the mouth of a great cavern
+on the frowning heights of the Kyfhaeuser mountain, where he was said to
+be surrounded by his knights in an enchanted sleep; waiting the hour
+when he should awaken and descend with his Crusaders, to bring back a
+golden age of peace and unity to Germany!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+There are three conditions in national life of which all nations more
+or less partake.  One is where the elements combine with a tendency
+toward organic development; another, where these elements fall apart
+with a tendency toward disintegration; and still another, where all
+processes, constructive and destructive, are arrested as in a crystal.
+The United States, the Ottoman Empire, and China illustrate these three
+conditions to-day.
+
+The Teuton, who had been such a powerful element in renovating other
+European nations, had thus far seemed incapable of consolidating his
+own national life when left to himself.  The tendency was steadily
+toward disintegration rather than growth.
+
+This was not alone because the strength of the Teutonic kingdom was
+wasted in pursuit of that glittering toy bestowed by the Pope; but on
+account of internal strifes and rivalries which employed the hostile
+schemes of the Roman Pontiff for their own ends and purposes.
+
+The rivalry with the Pope, in itself a destructive element, was made
+still more destructive when it was thus used by disaffected dukes as a
+means of annoying and circumventing Emperors whom they disliked.
+
+A Frederick Barbarossa might arrest these processes for a time.  But
+one century later the ruin was complete.
+
+Frederick II., the last of the Hohenstaufens, died, leaving an empty
+throne and a broken and shattered empire.  It was destined to rise
+again and to wear the name and trappings of its former greatness, but,
+crippled and degraded, to be in reality a mere shadow and semblance of
+what it had once aspired to be--the head of the world.
+
+A period of twenty years then followed, known as the "Great
+Interregnum."  A time when there was no King nor Emperor; when robbery
+and brigandage became the employment of needy knights, and when great
+barons made war upon and waylaid each other on the highways.
+
+It was a time of strange chaos and darkness.  And yet this period,
+apparently so unfavorable to growth, brought forth two of the most
+pregnant events in the history of Germany.  These were the creation of
+the Hanseatic League and the birth of German literature.  The one laid
+the foundation of a real national life in which the people should
+participate; while the other gave expression to the romantic ideals of
+a hitherto silent race.
+
+The great German epic, which is the Iliad of the Middle Ages, was
+produced at this darkest hour in the history of Germany.  The
+Nibelungen Lied deals with the colossal crimes, loves, and sorrows of
+Burgundian kings and princesses at the time of the Hunnish invasion.
+And it has been the good fortune of Germany, six hundred years later,
+to have a son (Richard Wagner) who has clothed that great epic in music
+which matches it in heroic dignity and splendor.
+
+The other event was of deeper import than this.  The burgs, or cities,
+which were created as a defense against the Hungarians, had become busy
+centers of manufacture and trade, and to some extent of learning.  Many
+of them had been made free cities.  That is, they were under the direct
+control of the Emperors instead of the hereditary nobles as at first.
+These cities enjoyed especial privileges and immunities which drew to
+them population and prosperity.  The true policy for German Emperors,
+harassed by Italian intrigues and at war with their own archbishops and
+disaffected nobles, would have been to form close alliance with these
+free cities, and make friends of their burghers and guilds.
+
+When there was no king, no ruler in the land, when robbery ran riot so
+that traveling was impossible, two cities, Hamburg and Lubeck, agreed
+together to keep order in their neighborhood.  Then Brunswick and
+Bremen joined; and at last over a hundred towns had combined together
+in what was called the "Hanseatic League."
+
+This Confederacy became the mightiest power in the North of Europe; and
+at one time even threatened the overthrow of feudalism, and to convert
+West Germany into a federation of free municipalities.
+
+When trades increased in the cities, each trade managed its own affairs
+by an organization called a _guild_.  The guilds in the course of time
+obtained a share in the government of the towns; and it was the
+regenerating power of these guilds which brought about this great
+movement.  With their simple ideals of truth, sincerity, and justice,
+they were the storehouses of that power which is the real life of a
+nation.  As well expect a tree to flourish when its sap is not
+permitted to rise, or a man to be well when the blood is obstructed in
+his veins, as to look for healthful growth and expansion in a nation
+from which the life of its common people is excluded!
+
+Among these early guilds, that of the Meistersingers, which was
+chartered in 1340, was of vast importance in the development of the
+German people.
+
+It was composed of artisans and governed by the strict, pedantic rules
+then existing in the arts of musical and literary composition.
+
+The prizes did not confer as great an honor as those bestowed at
+Olympia two thousand years before, but they were sought with an intense
+enthusiasm.
+
+The soul of the Teuton was by nature set to music.  For him that art
+was not a luxury reserved for the rich and cultured, but the daily food
+which nourished the life of the most untutored.  Within this musical
+and literary guild the two arts of music and poetry for centuries
+existed in their most elementary form, and were the soil out of which
+later came such marvelous blossom and fruit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Germany, which had always been a loosely compacted mass, was at the
+close of the Hohenstaufen dynasty composed of 60 independent cities,
+116 priestly rulers, and 100 reigning dukes, princes, counts, and
+barons, always rivals and usually at war with each other, in
+perpetually changing combinations for attack or defense.
+
+Lying beneath this body of small and struggling sovereigns was a people
+in whom was the first dawning consciousness of human rights; which
+consciousness was gradually extending to that helpless mass underlying
+the whole--the peasantry.
+
+In 1273 the German princes succeeded in electing an Emperor; and the
+Great Interregnum was over.
+
+It is a curious fact that the two names _Hapsburg_ and _Hohenzollern_
+should have appeared simultaneously in German history.  Rudolf, Count
+of Hapsburg, through the influence of his brother-in-law Frederick of
+Hohenzollern, Count of Nuremburg, was chosen to fill the vacant throne.
+It was during the reign of Albert, son of this first Hapsburg, that the
+Swiss first revolted against imperial authority.
+
+Gessler, who had been sent by Albert to subdue the refractory Alpine
+shepherds, so exasperated them by his atrocities that he was shot by
+William Tell.  It was a long way from Tell to Swiss freedom and
+independence.  But the people from that hour never wavered in their
+determination not to be serfs to the house of Hapsburg.
+
+The Hanseatic League in North Germany, and the invincibly free spirit
+in Switzerland, were the two things of deepest significance at this
+time of political chaos.
+
+Side by side with this assertion of political rights, there had
+commenced a general intellectual awakening.  The Bishop of Ratisbon,
+Albertus Magnus, was so learned in mathematics and in science that
+people believed he was a sorcerer.[1]  Godfrey of Strasburg had written
+an epic poem about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
+Wolfram of Eschenbach had told of the Holy Grail in his Parsifal; and a
+learned history of Denmark had been written, without which our own
+literature would have suffered immeasurable loss, for in it Shakspeare
+found the story of Hamlet!
+
+It was at this time (1356) that the famous "Golden Bull" was issued, a
+new electoral system, which reduced the number of electors to seven.
+
+The idea was that as the sun and the seven planets illumined our
+heavens, so that great luminary, the German Emperor, should be the
+center of a political system composed of seven Electors.
+
+These earthly luminaries, whose duty it was to elect a new Emperor,
+were the Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Treves, and the temporal
+princes of Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Palatine of the Rhine.
+
+The very first act of these seven wise men was to place upon the throne
+Wenceslas, a brutal madman, who might better have been confined as a
+maniac.
+
+It was during the reign of his brother and successor Sigismund that the
+burning of John Huss lighted the conflagration in Bohemia known as the
+Hussite War.
+
+John Huss, a professor of the University of Prague, had dared to raise
+his voice against the temporal enrichment of a church whose Founder had
+not where to lay his head, and who had put behind him the kingdoms of
+this earth, when offered to him by Satan!
+
+Huss, for this offense, came under the displeasure of the bishops.
+Charges were brought against him that he had maintained the existence
+of four Gods, and he was condemned and burnt (1415).
+
+The Hussite war had none of the reforming purpose which led to the
+martyrdom they wished to avenge.  It was a mad strife, beginning over
+some detail of the Communion Service, and ending in a war between
+Bohemian and German, in which for nearly twenty years the country ran
+with blood.
+
+At this period an event occurred of trifling significance then, but of
+profound importance to future Germany.
+
+In 1411 the Emperor borrowed one hundred thousand florins of Frederick
+of Hohenzollern, the Burgrave, or "Count of the Castle," of Nuremburg,
+direct descendant from that first Hohenzollern who helped to found the
+Hapsburg dynasty.  For this loan Sigismund gave his creditor a mortgage
+on the territory of Brandenburg.  Frederick at once took up his
+residence there, and subsequently made an offer of three hundred
+thousand gold florins more to purchase the territory.  The Emperor
+accepted the terms, so the then small state was thereafter the home of
+the Hohenzollerns, and was on its way to become Prussia.
+
+Sigismund and his brother Wenceslas belonged to another dynasty, that
+of Luxemburg.  But after the death of the former, in 1440, the
+Hapsburgs succeeded again to the crown, which they wore until it was
+taken off at the bidding of Napoleon in 1806.
+
+Just before the issuance of the Golden Bull, there had occurred that
+most revolutionary event, the discovery of gunpowder.  When a man in
+leathern jacket could do more than a knight in armor, when safety
+depended upon quickness and lightness, and ponderous iron and steel
+were fatal--then a momentous change in conditions was at hand!  The
+destruction of feudalism was involved in this discovery of 1344.
+
+Under Frederick III., that Hapsburg who came to the throne in 1440, the
+Empire seemed to have reached a climax of disorder.  Old things were
+passing away, and the new had not yet come to take their place.
+
+On the eastern shore of the Baltic the march of German civilization had
+received an almost fatal check.  The "German Order," an organization of
+knights intended to keep back the Slavonic tide, had failed to do so.
+Holland was becoming estranged from the German Empire.  France had
+obtained possession of Flanders.  Luxemburg, Lorraine, and Burgundy
+were becoming practically independent; while it began to seem as if
+Switzerland were forever lost to Germany.
+
+And now the Hungarians were setting up their new king, the valiant
+Hunyadi; and the Bohemians theirs, George of Podjebrod.  Not only were
+these kingdoms and principalities slipping away, but the peasants in
+the cantons of the Alps, and elsewhere in revolt, were some of them led
+by great nobles.
+
+Still another, and perhaps the gravest of all these dangers, was one
+which yet darkens our horizon in this closing nineteenth century!
+
+In the year 1250 the Turks had commenced their existence in Asia Minor,
+with one little clan, led by one obscure chieftain.  This clan had
+grown as if by miracle into a great empire in the East, rivaling in
+power that of the Saracens, whose successors they were as the head of
+the Mahomedan Empire.  The Turks had been steadily encroaching upon
+Germany; had made havoc in Hungary; had devastated Austria, and were
+now insolently pressing on toward their goal, the Imperial palace at
+Vienna.
+
+While the incompetent and drowsy Emperor Frederick III. was helplessly
+viewing these stupendous overturnings, there occurred that other event,
+as important in the empire of thought as the invention of gunpowder had
+been in that of political institutions.
+
+The invention of printing (1450),--that art preservative of all
+arts,--was the greatest step yet taken in the emancipation of the human
+mind.
+
+The poor inventor was, after the manner of inventors, badly treated.
+John Fust, on account of Gutenberg's inability to pay back the money he
+had loaned him for his experiment, seized the printing press, and
+himself proceeded to finish printing the Bible.
+
+The rapidity with which the copies were produced, and their precise
+resemblance to each other, created such astonishment that a report
+spread that Fust had sold himself to the devil, with whom he was in
+league.
+
+This, together with the identity of names, led Victor Hugo, Klinger,
+and other writers to confuse John Fust, the practicer of the Black Art
+in mediaeval times, with John Fust the printer.  And as the original
+Fust had come to stand for the emancipation of the human intellect
+through free learning, and as printing was above all else the means for
+such emancipation, the coincidence, if such it be, was, to say the
+least, remarkable!
+
+When we approach the time of Isabella of Castile and of Columbus, and
+when we are confronted with that familiar specter, the Turk, in
+Southeastern Europe, we feel that we are in sight of the lights on
+familiar headlands, and are not far from port.  We are not very near to
+that haven, but we are passing the line which divides the old from the
+new.
+
+
+
+[1] See chart of Civilization in Six Centuries, "Who, When, and What."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+It was not alone in Germany that the old was vanishing.  The movement
+in that country was part of a general condition prevailing in England,
+France, and Spain; all with the same tendency--the passing of the power
+from many small despotisms to one greater one.  It was an advance,
+although a slow one, in the path of progress.  Feudalism--that
+newfangled system which had so tried the soul of Duke Welf in the ninth
+century--was dissolving.
+
+In England the war with France, and the War of the Roses, by
+impoverishing the nobles had broken their remaining authority, and that
+system which had been gradually perishing since the Conquest was
+virtually dead.
+
+In France Louis XI. had cunningly conceived the idea of recovering the
+power of the throne by an apparent friendship with the people; and a
+combination was thus formed against which a decrepit feudalism could
+not long stand.
+
+In Spain the smaller kingdoms had at last been merged into two larger
+ones, and by the union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and
+Isabella, and the expulsion of the Moors which quickly followed that
+event, that country was at last consolidated into one kingdom--in which
+feudalism no longer existed as a disturbing power.
+
+In northern Italy also, among that brilliant group of small republics,
+there was this same centralizing tendency at work.  Florence had passed
+into the strong keeping of the Medici (1434), while Genoa and most of
+the Lombard republics were gravitating toward the control of Milan.
+
+It was at this period that there were for the first time formed those
+combinations and alliances between the nations of Europe which led
+finally to a system existing for the preservation of the _balance of
+power_.  In fact, after the various monarchies had assumed these firmer
+and more definite outlines, there began a process of weaving them
+together into a larger whole; and the threads used in this process are
+known as _European diplomacy_, which, as we have recently seen, is
+stronger than individual sovereigns!
+
+It was perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the fifteenth century
+that the Imperial throne of Germany should be occupied, at this time of
+centralizing tendencies, by a man determined not alone to reign but to
+rule.
+
+Maximilian I., son of the sleepy Frederick III., was chosen by the
+electors in 1486.  He was full of energy, intelligence, and heart, and
+was, besides, the handsomest prince in Europe, and his wife, Mary of
+Burgundy, was the fairest of princesses.
+
+The people, weary of disorder and insecurity, were glad to feel the
+touch of a strong hand.  Maximilian firmly planted the foundations of
+the house of Hapsburg.  From that time the choice of the Electors was
+merely a formal recognition of the hereditary rights of that family.
+
+This prince, standing on the dividing line between the old and new,
+possessed the qualities of both.  He was stately, brave, and chivalric,
+and at the same time educated according to the highest standards of his
+time, devoted to literature, art, and poetry, and with comprehensive
+and progressive plans for his kingdom.  He had a sincere desire to
+reform abuses.  He introduced into Germany the post office, and the
+system for the conveyance of letters, throughout two thousand
+independent territories!
+
+The Turks were advancing on the east, the French King was harassing him
+on the west, and the Pope always trying to embroil him with other
+kingdoms and to drain his Empire.  His was not an easy task.
+
+He was not a Charlemagne nor a Frederick Barbarossa, but he infused
+strength and a power of resistance into Germany at a period of extreme
+weakness, and he reunited to the house of Hapsburg the kingdoms of
+Hungary and Bohemia.
+
+There was evidence that the long thraldom to Rome was passing away, in
+the fact that Maximilian assumed Imperial authority without receiving
+the crown from papal hands; his father Frederick having been the last
+Emperor who made pilgrimage to Rome for that purpose (in 1452).
+
+When Maximilian came to the throne in 1493 an event of transcendent
+importance had just occurred.  Europe had learned with amazement that
+when the sun disappeared in that mysterious Western Ocean, it passed on
+to shine upon other lands beyond--lands teeming with life and riches.
+
+The most fascinating field for adventure the world had ever known was
+suddenly opened to Europe, and the magnet of boundless wealth was
+transferred from the East to the West.  A stream of adventurous and
+rapacious men, from all the lands excepting Germany, was moving toward
+the setting sun.
+
+Spain, only recently obscure, poor and struggling to free her land from
+an alien race, suddenly found herself mistress of her own territory,
+consolidated, and with an empire and resources in the West, practically
+boundless.
+
+The good Queen Isabella, who had been the instrumentality in bringing
+about these changes for her country, had the satisfaction of seeing her
+kingdom at one bound take its place in the first rank among the nations
+of Europe.
+
+Her chief care now was to make alliances for her children suited to
+this new position.  She and Ferdinand aimed high.  They secured the
+daughter of Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, for their son, who was heir
+to the crown of Spain; but the hopes from this union were quickly
+blighted, as the young prince suddenly died during the wedding
+festivities.  Then another marriage was arranged for their oldest
+daughter Joanna with Philip, Maximilian's son, who was also heir to the
+Imperial throne.
+
+But Isabella's sorrows matched her triumphs and successes in magnitude.
+Joanna became hopelessly insane.  Another daughter, who married the
+King of Portugal, was buried in the same grave with the infant who was
+expected to unite the crowns of Spain and Portugal, while for her
+youngest child Katharine was reserved the unhappy fate of becoming the
+wife of Henry VIII. of England.
+
+It is sad to remember that this admirable woman, in her intense desire
+to drive heretic Jews out of her country, was prevailed upon, by her
+confessor Torquemada, to establish the Inquisition in Spain.  Believing
+as she devoutly did that heresy meant eternal death, and little
+suspecting the engine for cruelty it was to become, this kindest and
+best of women may be forgiven for this fatal mistake.
+
+Overwhelmed by private griefs and sorrows, Isabella died in 1506,
+leaving her crazed daughter Joanna a widow, with two sons, the elder
+six years old.  She would have been consoled could she have known that,
+in thirteen years from that time, this grandson would wear not alone
+the crown of Spain, but the great Imperial crown of Germany, and would
+be lord of a greater empire, and wield more power, than any living
+sovereign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+The period of Maximilian's reign was a bridge which spanned two
+colossal events: the discovery of America and the Reformation.  When
+this Emperor died in 1517, a greater work was at hand than any he or
+his predecessors had ever accomplished, and the humble man who was to
+be its instrument was destined to become a power above all princes, and
+to shake the Church of Rome to its foundation after an undisturbed
+reign of a thousand years.
+
+The Reformation had long been preparing in the hearts of the people.
+The persecutions of the Albigenses in France, the Waldenses in Savoy,
+and the burning of Huss and of Jerome, had all come from the growing
+conviction that the Bible was the only true source of Christian truth
+and doctrine.
+
+The art of printing had made this well of pure truth accessible to all,
+and there was a deep though unspoken belief in the hearts and minds of
+the people that a church grasping at secular power and riches had
+wandered far from the simple teachings of its Founder.
+
+These smoldering fires were very near to the surface when Maximilian
+died.  Charles, his grandson, was then King of Spain.  The ambitious
+Francis I. of France struggled hard for the crown laid down by the
+Emperor, but, in 1519, it was placed upon the head of his rival, and
+Charles V. was the first of whom it could be said that the sun never
+set upon his dominions.
+
+At this most critical moment in the history of the world, the fate of
+Europe was in the hands of three men: Charles V., Emperor of Germany;
+Francis I., King of France, and Henry VIII., King of England.
+
+Charles, half Fleming and half Spaniard, had the grasping
+acquisitiveness of the one nation, and the proud, fanatical cruelty of
+the other.  Small of stature, plain in feature, sedate, quiet, crafty,
+he was playing a desperate game with Francis I. for supremacy in Europe.
+
+Francis, handsome as an Apollo, accomplished, fascinating, profligate,
+was fully his match in ambition.  Covering his worst qualities with a
+gorgeous mantle of generosity and chivalrous sense of honor, he was the
+insidious corrupter of morals in France, creating a sentiment which
+laughed at virtue and innocence as qualities belonging to a lower class
+of society.
+
+Each of these men was striving to enlist Henry VIII. upon his side, by
+appealing to the cruel caprices of that vain, ostentatious, arrogant
+King, who in turn tried to use them for the furthering of his own
+desires and purposes.
+
+It was a sort of triangular game between the three monarchs--a game
+full of finesse and far-reaching designs.  If Charles attacked Francis,
+Henry attacked Charles, while the astute Charles, knowing well the
+desire of the English King to repudiate Katharine and make Anne Boleyn
+his queen, whispered seductive promises of the papal chair to Wolsey,
+who was in turn to establish his own influence over his royal master by
+bringing about the marriage with Anne, upon which the King's heart was
+set, and then be rewarded by securing Henry's promise of neutrality for
+Charles, in his designs of overreaching Francis--and, after that, the
+road to Rome for the aspiring cardinal would be a straight one!
+
+It was an intricate diplomatic net-work, in which the thread of Henry's
+desire for the fair Anne was mingled with Wolsey's desire for
+preferment, and both interlaced with the ambitious, far-reaching
+purposes of the other two monarchs.
+
+All these events were very absorbing, and while they were splendidly
+gilding the surface of Europe in the first half of the sixteenth
+century, it seemed a small matter that an obscure monk was denouncing
+the Pope and defying the power of the Catholic Church.  Little did
+Charles suspect that, when his victories and edicts were forgotten, the
+words of the insolent heretic would still be echoing down the ages.
+
+A few years later, and the Apollo-like beauty and false heart of
+Francis I. were dissolving in the grave; Henry VIII. had gone to
+another world, to meet his reward--and his wives; and Charles V. was
+sadly counting his beads in the monastery of St. Jerome, at Juste,
+reflecting upon the vanity of human ambitions.  But the murmur of
+protest from the unknown monk had become a roar--the rivulet had
+swollen into a threatening torrent.  As it is the invisible forces that
+are the most powerful in nature, so it is the obscure and least
+observed events that have accomplished the most tremendous revolutions
+in human affairs.
+
+But before all this had happened, in the year 1517, when it had not yet
+occurred to Henry's sensitive conscience that his marriage with
+Katharine, his brother's widow, was illegal, and while Charles V., that
+sedate young man, who "looked so modest and soared so high," was
+quietly revolving plans for the extension of his empire, Pope Leo X.,
+the pious Vicar of Christ upon earth, and elegant patron of Michael
+Angelo and Raphael, found his income all too small for his magnificent
+tastes.  It does not seem to have occurred to him that his tastes were
+too costly for his income; he simply recognized that something must be
+done, and at once, to fill his empty purse.  But what should it be?  A
+simple and ingenious expedient solved the perplexing problem.  He would
+issue a proclamation to his "loving, faithful children," that he would
+grant absolution for all sorts of crimes, the prices graduated to suit
+the enormity of the offense.  We have not seen the proclamation, but
+doubt not it was in most caressing Latin, for can anything exceed the
+velvety softness of the gloves worn on the hands which have signed
+papal decrees?
+
+Simple lying and slander were cheap; perjury and sins against chastity
+more costly; while the use of the stiletto, of poison, and the hired
+assassin could be enjoyed only by the richest.  It worked well.  In the
+hopeful words of a pious dignitary, "as soon as the money chinks in the
+coffer, the soul springs out of purgatory."  Who could resist such
+promise?  Money flowed in swollen streams into the thirsty coffers,
+many even paying in advance for crimes they intended to commit!
+
+Martin Luther was the one man who dared to stand up and denounce this
+tax upon crime, this papal trade in vice.  The people had at last found
+a voice and a leader.
+
+Protestantism, which had long been maturing in silence and in darkness,
+sprang full-armed into existence, and was the first thing to confront
+Charles when he assumed the Imperial crown.
+
+He, no doubt, thought that he would soon be able to dispose of the new
+heresy, as had his royal father and mother in Spain disposed of heretic
+Jews a few years before.  But this new specter of Protestantism would
+not down!
+
+When Charles called together an assembly of states (or Diet) at Worms,
+in 1521, he supposed he was going to deal with one obscure monk,
+leading an obscure movement.  But it assumed quite a different aspect
+when Luther, the culprit, was sustained by two great electors and many
+princes of his realm; and when a long list of grievances against the
+Papacy was formally presented by several states, which he was firmly
+told he would be required to redress!
+
+The princes were in earnest.  They began to seize church property, to
+send monks and nuns adrift, and to make free with gold and silver
+vessels and treasure belonging to the Church.
+
+This time of confusion was used by one ambitious ruler for his own
+ends.  The German, or Teutonic, order was a knightly organization
+created expressly to hold the frontier against the Slavonic people.
+After the year 1230 this order held Prussia, which they ruled like
+princes.  The Margrave of Brandenburg, who was at the time of the
+Reformation Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, realized his
+opportunity in the existing disorder.  He made himself sovereign over
+Prussia, and annexed the possessions of the Teutonic order to his
+family.
+
+But it was not alone the princes who saw their opportunity in this time
+of overturning.  The wrongs of the peasants were very real and very
+grievous, and of long, long standing.  The entire burden of taxation
+rested on them--the archbishops and the nobles and the _gentlemen_ all
+being exempt!
+
+When the Reformation began the _bauer_, or peasantry, believed that
+their hope lay in the abolishing of Catholicism and of the feudal
+system.
+
+It takes a very small spark to fire a train of gunpowder.  When the
+Countess of Luepfen ordered the peasants on her estate to spend their
+Sundays in picking strawberries and gathering snail shells for
+pincushions, she dropped such a spark!  They refused, and the revolt
+spread, gathering in fury as it moved like a cyclone through the German
+states.  All throughout Germany there are to be seen, to-day, ruined
+castles which tell the story of this "Peasants' War" (1525).  Hideous
+atrocities were committed, and, as has so often happened, the cause of
+a people whose grievances were real and heartrending was so stained
+with crime that sympathy with and pity for their sufferings were
+obliterated.  Even Luther--whose followers they claimed to be--said of
+them, "they should be treated as a man would treat a mad dog."
+
+The bold stand taken by Luther against this rebellion strengthened him
+with the princes.  Not only Saxony, Hesse, and Brunswick and many free
+cities, but the Augustine order of monks, a part of the Franciscans,
+and a number of priests had embraced the new doctrine contained in the
+"Augsburg Confession," the creed or summary of belief which was
+prepared by Luther's friend, Philip Melancthon.
+
+The principles asserted in this were that men are justified by faith
+alone; that an assembly of believers constitutes a Church; that
+monastic vows, invocation of saints, fasting, celibacy, etc., are
+useless.
+
+Such were the chief points in the celebrated "Confession," which was
+signed by the Protestant cities and princes in 1530.
+
+So while Charles was engaged in his great game of finesse with Francis
+I. and Henry VIII. for preponderance in Europe--while the Turks were
+pressing toward Vienna on the east, and the French into Flanders on the
+west, and while the Pope, who should have been his ally, jealous of his
+power was circumventing and weakening him so far as he could, worse
+than all else, the foundations of the Protestant Church were being
+permanently laid in Germany.
+
+The two great aims of the Emperor were to restore papal supremacy over
+Christendom and firmly to unite Germany and Spain.  But how could he do
+the one, when at the hour of a great schism in the Church, a jealous
+Pope was trying to weaken his hands?  Or the other, when Germany was
+always suspicious of him because he was a Spaniard, and Spain because
+he was a Hapsburg?
+
+Charles was profound in his methods, crafty and powerful; but
+circumstances were stronger than he.  In order to succeed at one point,
+he had to weaken himself at another.  He could do nothing in repelling
+the Turks or the French, unless aided by the Protestant states.  And
+these states would only give assistance in exchange for concessions to
+their cause, while Francis I., as crafty as he, found a sure way to
+circumvent his rival in giving aid to the Protestants.
+
+The new faith was spreading not only in Germany, but in Denmark,
+Sweden, and England.  The movement in Switzerland diverged somewhat in
+character under Zwingli, another Reformer, and the new Protestantism
+began to have its own schismatics.
+
+Calvin in Geneva rejected Luther's doctrine of _justification by
+faith_, and for it substituted that of _election_.  The doctrine that
+men were predestined to heaven or hell was thereafter held by that
+branch of the Church known as Reformers, as distinguished from the
+Lutherans, while from the _protest_ of Saxony, Brandenburg, Brunswick,
+Hesse, and fifteen imperial cities against the decree outlawing Luther
+and his doctrines, the name Protestants took its rise, which included
+Lutherans and Reformers alike.
+
+The famous Schmalkaldian League was so called from the little Hessian
+town where the Protestant princes assembled in 1530 and made a solemn
+promise of mutual support against the Emperor; when they also entered
+into a secret treaty with Francis I., and received promises of support
+from the Kings of England, Sweden, and Denmark.
+
+In 1540 the strength of the Catholics had been re-enforced by the order
+of Jesuits, which was founded by Ignatius Loyola.  This order made the
+suppression of Protestant doctrines its chief task.
+
+Meyerbeer has, by his great opera, made so famous the strange tragedy
+enacted at Muenster in 1534 that it must have brief mention, although it
+was only a bit of driftwood in the great current of events.  A
+religious sect called the Anabaptists was led by a Dutch tailor, John
+of Leyden, who claimed to be inspired.  The chief things he was
+inspired to do were to crown himself king, to introduce polygamy, and
+to cut off the heads of all who resisted his decrees!  For more than a
+year the city was held by this madman and his associates; and then the
+tragedy was concluded by the torturing to death of the tailor-king and
+his chief abettors; their bodies being left suspended in iron cages
+over the Cathedral door at Muenster.  This grewsome story is the one
+used by Meyerbeer in his opera of "Le Prophete."
+
+In 1552 Charles saw his ambitious plans for the government of the world
+failing at every point.  By the treaty of Passau, religious freedom had
+been conceded to the Protestants; and while his army was needed to
+fight the Turks in Hungary, Henry II. of France (who had succeeded
+Francis I., 1547), in league with the Protestant states, was invading
+Lorraine.
+
+Sick at heart and failing in health, the weary Emperor (1556) resolved
+to lay down the heavy crown he had worn for thirty-six years.
+
+To his son Philip II. he gave the Netherlands, Naples, Spain, and the
+American Colonies, while the Imperial title, and the German-Austrian
+lands passed to his brother Ferdinand I.
+
+The singular cause of his death, two years later, makes us wonder
+whether his unfortunate mother Joanna could have transmitted to her son
+the insanity which darkened her own life.
+
+At the monastery at St. Juste to which the Imperial monk had retired
+after his abdication, he yielded to a morbid whim to rehearse his own
+funeral.  The grave-clothes were damp.  He was seized with a chill, and
+after a brief illness died (1558).
+
+Charles had been thwarted in his two great aims of establishing the
+supremacy of his Church, and the permanent union of Germany and Spain.
+But perhaps his bitterest disappointment was in not being permitted to
+leave the Imperial crown to his son Philip.
+
+His brother Ferdinand, although firmly Catholic, was a just and
+moderate prince, who had always favored conciliatory measures to the
+Protestants while the course of Philip II., in the Netherlands, soon
+showed how heavily his hand would have rested upon Germany.  He
+appointed the Duke of Alva Spanish governor in that unfortunate
+territory.  Never had cruel king more cruel agent in carrying out his
+policy.  Torture, fire, and sword were the instruments intended to
+subjugate, but which in the end brought about the independence of
+Holland.
+
+The prelates of the Church in 1543 had come together in what was called
+the "Council of Trent," with the avowed object of reforming abuses
+which had crept into the Church.  The real purpose, however, was to
+examine the foundations of that venerable structure, to discover where
+it had been injured in the assaults made upon it since 1517, and to
+strengthen it where it seemed to need new supports.
+
+In 1563, after eighteen years' deliberation, the work of this Council
+was finished.  The cardinal doctrines of purgatory, absolution,
+celibacy, invocation of saints, censorship of press, etc., etc., were
+reaffirmed, and terrible anathemas pronounced against such as should
+reject them.
+
+Thus was created a chasm which nothing could ever bridge, eternally
+dividing the old religion from the new.
+
+Another tremendously re-enforcing agent was at work in Loyola's Society
+of Jesus, which was to be to the Church what the brain is to the human
+body.  In 1540 Loyola's ten disciples received the papal blessing.  In
+1600 there were ten million Jesuits, and in 1700 twenty millions!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+It was the invincible march of Protestantism in the land of its birth
+which brought about this buttressing of the old belief and this
+adopting of fresh methods for its efficiency.
+
+When Ferdinand died in 1564 the great majority of the German people had
+become Protestants.  The Empire was honeycombed with the new faith.
+Even in Austria, that everlasting stronghold of Papacy, the Catholics
+were in a minority.  True to the traditions of the past, Bavaria, the
+home of the ancient Welfs, was the one thoroughly zealous and obedient
+champion of the Pope in all Germany.
+
+It seemed as if the great conflict was almost over.  But it had not
+even commenced!
+
+The history of this great movement would have been very different, had
+it been carried on steadily under one leader.  But it had four!  Those
+devout souls who believed they had found in the simple gospel truths of
+Protestantism a religion in which all might unite were soon convinced
+of their mistake.
+
+Lulled by the apparent triumph of the new faith, reformers set about
+the task of defining the belief and correcting the errors of Protestant
+doctrine.  To the followers of Calvin the belief of the Lutherans
+became almost as abhorrent as Papacy itself, while the Lutherans were
+again subdivided into an extreme and a moderate party; the one
+following to the letter the doctrines of Luther, and the other the more
+modified views of Melancthon.  Not only men but states were divided and
+in bitter strife over these differences, so that the Emperor Ferdinand
+had said, "Instead of being of one mind they are so disunited, have so
+many different beliefs, the God of truth surely cannot be with them!"
+
+It is apparent now that the issue underlying all this upheaval was
+deeper than anyone then knew.  The real struggle was not for the
+supremacy of Romanist or Protestant; not to determine whether this
+dogma or that was true and should prevail, but to establish the right
+of every human soul to choose its own faith and form of worship.  The
+great battle for human liberty had commenced, and the Romish Church had
+been shaken to its foundations not because its doctrine was false, but
+because it was a _despotism_!
+
+From the abdication of Charles V. to 1600 was a period of political
+tranquillity in Germany.  The reign of two conciliatory sovereigns,
+Ferdinand I., and his son Maximilian II., tended to produce a
+surface-calm, which, although ruffled, was not broken by the stern and
+despotic reign of Rudolf II., who succeeded in 1576.
+
+It was a half century of unfruitful and sullen waiting--waiting for a
+future which no one could divine.  Protestantism was not blossoming;
+but the seed was germinating amid elements good and evil, strangely
+mingled together.
+
+While the Reformation was the leading fact in Europe at this period,
+another event had created a new and pervading atmosphere, in which all
+else existed.  The impulse given to civilization by the taking of
+Constantinople by the Turks (1452), and the consequent disseminating of
+Greek culture throughout Europe, was a transforming event in the
+history of civilization.  Literature, art, music, took on new forms and
+thrilled with a new life.  The activity of the human mind manifested
+itself in everything.  It was an age of great men and great things.
+Copernicus, followed by Tycho Brahe, Galileo, and Kepler, brought order
+into the heavens.  The Medici in Italy, who were guiding these new and
+enriching streams which had set in from the East, helped to produce a
+wonderful art period, which swept in successive tides over Europe.
+Fainting and sculpture reached their climacteric.  Music, still in its
+infancy, developed into the new forms of opera and oratorio.[1]  And
+while these things were happening, a mysteriously inspired man--seeming
+to hold as in a crucible the wisdom distilled from all ages and all
+human experiences--was writing immortal plays in England!
+
+The Teuton race does not take on the graces of life very quickly.  The
+serious and sincere German mind must inspect the idea first, and then
+become thoroughly imbued with it, before the hand will act!  But when
+the Teuton roots do begin to draw upon the soil, they strike deep and
+hold firmly, and know just what they are going to do with the rising
+sap; concerning themselves much more about that than the foolish
+branches and leaves!
+
+So this new light did not at once flood Germany, but its influence was
+felt there.  Thought was quickened, knowledge increased, art and
+science began to flourish, wealth accumulated, and the people became
+less simple and more luxurious in their ways of living.  The King of
+Spain was occupied in his hopeless attempt to subdue the Netherlands,
+and Hungary and Austria were still struggling with the Turkish invasion.
+
+Such was the condition at the beginning of the seventeenth century.  In
+spite of the material advance there was a feeling of impending
+misfortune.  But the magnitude of the coming disaster none then could
+have imagined or dreamed.
+
+The fatal circumstance was that the Protestants were divided into two
+angry and hostile camps, at the very time when the Catholics, under the
+teachings of the Jesuits, were uniting with solid front against them.
+The Thirty Years' War would never have been undertaken against a united
+adversary who held four-fifths of Germany!
+
+During the despotic reign of Rudolf II. the Protestants for their
+protection formed a Union with the Elector Palatine Frederick at its
+head.  Thereupon the Catholic princes also united in a _Catholic
+League_ under Maximilian of Bavaria.  The forces were now gathering for
+the great explosion.  Matthias had succeeded his brother Rudolf as
+Emperor.
+
+When a great storm is impending, it takes only a trifling disturbance
+in equilibrium to precipitate it.
+
+Such a disturbance occurred in Prague (1618) over a church which the
+Protestants were erecting.  An angry mob armed itself, burst into the
+Imperial Castle at Prague, and flung out of the window two Catholic
+Bohemian nobles.
+
+With this act of violence commenced the Thirty Years' War, which lasted
+through three reigns, those of Matthias, Ferdinand II., and Ferdinand
+III., and caused unparalleled misery in Germany.
+
+Two years from that day the Protestant faith was obliterated in the
+realm of Austria, and the progress of a hundred years was wiped out.
+In three years more, not only Austria, but Germany, was in a worse
+condition than she had known for centuries--the wretched people, a prey
+to both parties, were slaughtered, robbed, driven hither and thither,
+and a country only recently rejoicing in its material prosperity was a
+waste and a ruin.
+
+The Imperial troops were splendidly led by two great generals--Tilly
+and Wallenstein.  The Protestant nations--England, Holland, Denmark,
+and Sweden--looked on in dismay as they saw a powerful and triumphant
+Protestantism being wiped out of existence in the land of its birth.
+
+By 1629 Ferdinand II. considered his power re-established absolutely
+over all Germany.  He issued what was called the "Edict of
+Restitution," which ordered the restoration of all Protestant territory
+to Catholic hands.  Wallenstein, in addition to this, declared that
+reigning princes and a national diet should be abolished and all power
+centered in the Emperor!  Indeed this Wallenstein was minded to play
+the dictator as well as general.  He traveled in regal state, with his
+one hundred carriages, one thousand horses, fifteen cooks, and fifteen
+young nobles for his pages!
+
+This taste for splendor was, like Wolsey's, his undoing.  People began
+to fear the ambitious leader, and Ferdinand dismissed him.  With rage
+and hate in his heart he retired to Prague to await developments.
+
+Twelve years of war in horrible form had wrought utter ruin and broken
+the spirit of the Protestants.  But help and hope suddenly came in 1630.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, with his heart all aflame with zeal
+to defend the falling cause of Protestantism in Germany, is the
+knightliest figure which adorns the pages of history.
+
+We in this present age have reached a point of development when,
+without the quivering of an eyelash, we can hear of the destruction of
+suffering peoples, even if it involves the principles and things most
+sacred to us.  Whether it be the effacing of Christianity in Crete, or
+of liberty in Cuba, the motto of practical men and nations is--"hands
+off."
+
+Gustavus Adolphus had not learned that potent phrase.  He was still in
+that undeveloped condition when the elemental impulses of the heart
+sway men's action.  And without a regret, without an enfeebling doubt,
+he could turn his back upon a throne and an adoring people, in defense
+of an imperiled Protestantism in another land.
+
+From the moment his foot touched the soil of Germany on that 4th of
+July, 1630, life and hope revived.  The Emperor Ferdinand laughed and
+called him the "Snow King," who would melt away after one winter.  But
+when one city after another was stormed and taken, when he left behind
+him a path of religious liberty and rejoicing--when Tilly was no longer
+able to cope with this Snow King and Wallenstein had to be recalled,
+and when it looked as if the work of twelve years might be undone, then
+Ferdinand no longer laughed!
+
+Wallenstein would only return upon conditions which actually made him
+the lord and Ferdinand the subject.  Having thus become absolute master
+of the Imperial cause, he confidently set about the task of defeating
+Gustavus.
+
+The Queen of Sweden had joined her husband in Germany.  On the 27th of
+October, 1632, he took leave of her.  As he passed through the country,
+the people fell on their knees, kissing his garments, calling him
+Deliverer.  He exclaimed, "I pray that the wrath of the Almighty may
+not be visited upon me, on account of this idolatry toward a weak and
+sinful mortal."
+
+Before the great conflict began he made an address to his Swedes, and
+then the whole army united in singing Luther's grand hymn, "A tower of
+strength is our Lord!"
+
+For hours the battle raged furiously, and while the issue was trembling
+in the balance, the sight of the riderless horse of the Swedish King,
+covered with blood and wildly galloping to and fro, told the awful
+story.  The terrified animal had carried him with a shattered arm right
+into the enemy's ranks, where he was instantly shot.
+
+While Wallenstein was retreating to Leipzig, the body of this most
+royal of kings was lying under a heap of dead, so mutilated by the
+hoofs of horses as to be almost unrecognizable.
+
+The Protestant cause had lost its soul and inspiration.  But, in
+falling, the heroic king had so broken the enemy that there was a long
+pause in hostilities.  And the wily general retired again to Prague,
+there to evolve new plans for his own aggrandizement.
+
+At this crisis a new champion arose.  It was not to be expected that
+Richelieu, who had been putting down Protestantism with an iron hand in
+France, would feel sympathy for the Protestant cause in Germany!  But
+that wary primate and minister was not going to stand on a little
+matter of religion, when he saw an advantage to be gained for France!
+
+He had long ago determined how this conflict should end.  He did not
+intend to permit Imperial Germany under Ferdinand to rise to ascendancy
+in Europe.
+
+With the weight of France thrown into the scale when the Imperial cause
+was already so shattered by Gustavus, it was easy to see how it must
+end.
+
+Wallenstein secretly opened negotiations from Prague with the French
+ambassador, and steadily disregarded the Emperor's orders to return to
+his command.  The project was that he should go over to the Protestant
+side in return for the crown of Bohemia.
+
+A general whom the traitor trusted, in turn betrayed him to the
+Emperor.  Six soldiers, under the pretense of bearing dispatches,
+entered his room.
+
+"Are _you_ the traitor who is going to deliver your Emperor's troops to
+the enemy?" shouted one of the men.
+
+Wallenstein realized that his hour had come.  He said not a word, but
+stretched out his arms and silently received his death-blow.
+
+With an invading French army in Germany, under the famous Marshals
+Turenne and Conde, looking about for choice bits of territory for
+France, a religious war had become a political one.  It lasted until
+1648, when the "Peace of Westphalia" concluded the most desolating
+struggle in the history of wars.
+
+And what had been gained?  The very principle for which it was
+undertaken was surrendered.  Entire religious freedom was granted to
+Protestants (excepting in Austria); four great states were lost to the
+empire; a population of seventeen millions was reduced to four
+millions, with Imperial authority abridged and broken.
+
+France took Alsace, and Sweden Pomerania.  Holland and Switzerland were
+recognized as independent States.  The supreme power was invested in
+the Reichstag, and the several German princes were made almost
+independent.  The empire, as a unity, had been reduced to a shadow.
+
+The devastation which had been wrought by those thirty terrible years
+cannot be described.  Its details are too awful to be dwelt upon.
+Famine had converted men into wild beasts, who formed themselves into
+bands, and preyed on those they caught.
+
+Such a band was attacked near Worms and was found cooking in a great
+caldron human legs and arms!
+
+The spirit of the people was broken.  Germany had been set back two
+hundred years.  And for what?  Not to accomplish any high purpose, not
+even from mistaken Christian zeal, but simply to carry out the despotic
+resolve of the Catholic Church to rule the minds and consciences of all
+men through its Popes and priesthood.  It was the old battle commenced
+six centuries before.  Had Henry not gone to Canossa in 1073, there had
+been no Thirty Years' War in 1618!
+
+
+
+[1] For a comprehensive understanding of this period see Chart of
+Civilization in Six Centuries, "Who, When, and What."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+For seven hundred years, from the treaty of Verdun (843), to Charles V.
+(1520), Germany had held the leading position in Europe as the head of
+the "Holy Roman Empire."  The reality had been gradually departing from
+that alluring title; and now, with the Peace of Westphalia, it was gone.
+
+With a large body of its people accorded full rights, while they were
+engaged in open war upon the Roman Church, the last link binding
+Germany to Rome was broken.  The Holy Roman Empire was now the German
+Empire.
+
+And, in very fact, it was no empire at all, but a loose confederacy of
+miniature kingdoms, administered without any regard to each other, and
+in great measure independent of Imperial authority.
+
+Great changes had taken place throughout Europe.  Louis XIV. was King
+of France.  In England Charles I. had lost his throne and his head, and
+Cromwell was laying the foundations of a power more enduring than that
+of Tudor or Stuart.  Spain was rapidly declining, and the new Republic
+of Holland ascending in the scale.  Sweden was supreme in the North,
+and Russia just beginning to be recognized as a power in Europe.
+Venice and the Italian republics were crumbling to pieces; while across
+the sea, on the coast of America, a few English, Dutch, and Swedish
+colonies were struggling into existence.
+
+Richelieu was dead, but the fortunes of France were in the keeping of
+one quite as ambitious for her as was the Great Minister.  There was a
+new aspirant for headship in Europe.  When Ferdinand III. died, Louis
+XIV. tried hard to be elected his successor.  He spent money freely
+among the Electors, and was only defeated by the sturdy opposition of
+Brandenburg and Saxony.
+
+Of the people of Germany there is really nothing to tell in the years
+which followed the Peace of Westphalia.  Spiritless and disheartened in
+their ruined cities, they seemed to have lost all national spirit and
+even religious enthusiasm.  They languidly saw the Catholic Hapsburgs
+becoming absolute in the land, while the Court at Vienna and the
+smaller German Courts were absorbed in establishing servile imitations
+of the Court at Versailles.  Churches and schoolhouses were in ruins,
+but palaces were being built in which the fashions of the French Court
+were closely imitated, and princes were trying to unlearn their native
+language and to install that of a cormorant French King, who was
+planning to devour their demoralized empire!
+
+The one exception among the German rulers of this time was Frederick
+William of Brandenburg, the "Great Elector."  This incorruptible German
+lost no time in learning French.  As soon as peace was declared he set
+about restoring his wasted territory.  He organized a standing army and
+built a fleet, and he used them, too, to recover Pomerania from Sweden
+and to circumvent the French King, and so enlarged his boundaries and
+strengthened his authority that Brandenburg, now next in size to
+Austria, was treated with the respect of an independent power, and the
+name of Hohenzollern began to shine bright even beside that of Hapsburg.
+
+From the year 1667 until 1704 Germany was the center of the Grand
+Monarch's ambitious designs.  In 1687, while Prince Eugene was leading
+a German army against the Turks, and while German princes, excepting
+the Great Elector, were engaged in copying French fashions, two
+powerful French armies suddenly appeared upon the Rhine, and the great
+war which was to involve all Europe had commenced.
+
+It was not love for Germany which brought Holland, England, Spain, and
+Sweden into this war with France, but fear of the advancing power of a
+King who aspired to be supreme in Europe.
+
+In the year 1700, an event occurred which intensified the situation.
+Charles II., the last of the half Castilian and half Hapsburg kings of
+Spain descended from Charles V., died without children, and that
+country was looking for the next nearest heir in foreign lands from
+which to choose a new king.  Of the two it found, one was son of the
+Emperor of Germany and the other grandson of Louis XIV.  It was a
+choice of evils for Europe; as in one case the German Empire with Spain
+annexed would be a preponderating power, as in the time of Charles V.;
+and in the other, the grasping Louis would be far on the road to the
+very end which Europe had combined to defeat!
+
+Inflammable oil, poured on fire, does not make a fiercer blaze than did
+this question of the _Spanish Succession_ at that time.  The
+embarrassing thing for Louis was that, when he had married the Infanta,
+he had solemnly renounced the throne of Spain for her heirs!  But the
+Pope, with whom the ultimate decision lay, had more need of the rising
+house of Bourbon than of the waning Hapsburg, so, after "prayerful
+deliberation," he concluded that the King might be absolved from that
+little promise, and that Philip V. was rightful King of Spain.
+
+There was rage in Vienna.  The Emperor Leopold I. and his disappointed
+son the Archduke Karl declared they would wrest the throne from Philip
+and have vengeance upon Louis, who with swelling pride was declaring
+that "the Pyrenees had ceased to exist."
+
+When Leopold called upon the German states to arm, the Great Elector of
+Brandenburg was dead.  But his son Frederick took advantage of the
+opportunity.  He would assist the Emperor on one condition, that he be
+permitted to assume the title of King!  An embarrassment arose in the
+fact that traditional custom permitted only one King among the Electors
+(King of Bohemia), and therefore the Elector of Brandenburg could not
+be also King of Brandenburg.
+
+The difficulty was overcome by adopting for the new kingdom the name of
+his detached duchy of Prussia, that province which had been snatched
+from Russia by the Teutonic knights long before, and had then been
+appropriated by that masterful Hohenzollern who was then head of the
+Order, as his own kingdom.  It was this high-handed proceeding which
+thereafter inseparably linked the name of Hohenzollern with that of
+Prussia.
+
+So, in 1701, the Elector and his wife traveled in midwinter to
+Koenigsberg, almost in the confines of Russia, where he was crowned
+Frederick I. of Prussia, and then returned to Berlin in Brandenburg,
+which thereafter remained his capital.  And so it was that Prussia--the
+name of a small Slavonic people on the frontier--became that of the
+entire kingdom of which Berlin was the capital.
+
+England and Holland were in alliance with Leopold--not for the sake of
+setting up the Hapsburg, but rather to put down the great Bourbon who
+began to wear the prestige of invincibility.  England entered the
+alliance languidly at first, but when the French king threw down the
+glove by recognizing the exiled Stuart (son of James II.) as the heir
+to her throne, she needed no urging and sent the best of her army into
+Germany under the command of the man who was going to destroy that
+prestige of invincibility, and to hold in check the arrogant king.
+
+Marlborough and Prince Eugene formed a combination too strong for
+Louis.  Marlborough's great victory at Blenheim in 1704 virtually
+decided the contest, although it continued for many years longer.  He
+was created Duke of Marlborough and received the estate of Blenheim as
+his reward.
+
+But the long war outlived the enthusiasm it had created.  England grew
+tired of fighting for the Hapsburgs; there were court intrigues for
+Marlborough's downfall, and finally he was recalled, and cast aside
+like a rusty sword.  Louis, too, had grown old and weary, and so in
+1713 the Peace of Utrecht terminated the long struggle.  Philip V. was
+left upon the throne of Spain, with the condition that the crowns of
+Spain and France should never be united.
+
+The disappointed Archduke Karl had now succeeded to the Imperial throne
+as Karl VI.  If the life of a nation be in its people, there was really
+no Germany at this time.  There was nothing but a wearisome succession
+of wars and diplomatic intrigues, and new divisions and apportionments
+of territory.  Prussia was expanding and Poland declining, while
+Hungary and Naples, and Milan and Mantua, were fast in the grasp of
+Austria.  Indeed, to tell of the territorial changes occurring at this
+period is like painting a picture of dissolving elements, which form
+new combinations even as you look at them.
+
+At the North, too, there were these same changing combinations, where
+had arisen two new ambitious kings.  Charles XII. of Sweden and Peter
+the Great of Russia were at war; and Denmark and Poland were lending a
+hand to defeat the Swedish King.  Peter the Great was extending his
+Baltic provinces and preparing to build his new capital of St.
+Petersburg (1709); but Charles XII. was defeated by Prussia and
+Hanover, in his attempt to make of Sweden one of the great powers of
+Europe.  His death in 1718 ended that dream.
+
+Not since the infamous Irene's deposition at Byzantium had there been a
+woman on the throne of the Caesars.  When Karl VI. issued the decree
+called the "Pragmatic Sanction," providing that the crown should
+descend to female heirs in the absence of male, he forged one of the
+most important links in the chain of events.  This secured the
+succession to his little daughter Maria Theresa, who was born in 1717.
+The link had need to be a strong one, for there were to be twenty years
+of effort to break it.  But it held.
+
+At about this same time there was another important link forging in
+Prussia, where Frederick William I. had succeeded his father Frederick
+I. as king.  By these two events the long spell was to be broken.
+
+Volumes have been written about this fierce, miserly King Frederick
+William and his coarse brutalities.  But his reign was the rough,
+strong bridge which led to a Frederick the Great, and the reign of the
+Great Frederick was that other bridge which led to a powerful and
+dominating kingdom of Prussia,--from which was to spring a new German
+Empire!
+
+If Frederick William was a tyrant of the most savage sort, on the other
+hand he organized industry, finance, and an army.  If he was a miser in
+his family, he brought wealth and prosperity to his people.  If he beat
+and cudgeled his own son for playing the flute, he left that son a
+kingdom and an army which were the foundation of his greatness.
+
+His hatred for all that was French, for art, for the formalities and
+even the decencies of life, was an enraged protest against the
+prevailing affectations and artificiality of his time.
+
+We can imagine how the polished and refined Court at Vienna must have
+regarded this Prussian King.  Austria, entirely Catholic, in a state of
+moral and intellectual decline, sat looking backward and sighing for
+the return of the spirit of the Middle Ages.  Prussia, altogether
+Protestant, had set her face toward a future which was to be greater
+than she dreamed.
+
+In 1736 Maria Theresa was married to Francis of Lorraine.  In 1740 she
+succeeded her father Karl VI., on the Imperial throne; and that very
+same year Frederick William of Prussia died, and was succeeded by his
+son, who was to be known as Frederick the Great.
+
+Through the barren period succeeding the Thirty Years' War some vital
+processes were going on; indeed that most vital of all processes,
+thought, was active.  Broken into fragments as by an earthquake, the
+people had been left without one healing touch from the hands of their
+infatuated rulers.  It was a sorry spectacle to see those German
+princes gayly arraying themselves in French finery while their country
+was a ruin.  Did they not know that a wound might better not heal at
+all, than to begin by forming new tissue at the top!
+
+Whatever capacity Germany had for being, was in those neglected
+fragments.  If she ever developed into greatness it must be along the
+line of their elemental tendencies, and by being German, not French.
+
+So a nation, helpless, broken, disorganized, out of harmony with itself
+and with others, could not act, but it could think.  And in this time
+of chaos and confusion there commenced mighty stirrings in the thought
+of Germany.  Slumbering in that chaos were the germs of wonderful music
+and a wondrous literature.
+
+The gloomy and despondent Spinoza had found peace in discovering that
+the reality of things was not in political overturnings, nor in the
+disappointing facts and phenomena which we call life, but in the
+_Eternal Order_, of which we are all a part.
+
+He might have discovered the same sustaining truth in religion; but
+Spinoza's mind led him to seek it instead in a philosophical system
+which should harmonize the discordant facts of existence.  This was the
+foundation of German speculative philosophy, which took possession of
+the German mind and which by progressive steps was to lead to a union
+with a science, _founded_ upon the despised facts of life--and finally,
+whether they wished it or not--a harmonizing of both with RELIGION.
+
+With deeply philosophical mind the great German, Leibniz, was
+investigating the truths of the natural world; and Handel also belongs
+to this time of soul-awakening during a period of national neglect and
+depression, while at this very time there was also borne in a
+stimulating wave from England, where Newton had revealed the
+fundamental law and the "ETERNAL _order_" of the _physical_ universe.
+
+It would seem like a dim twilight to us if we should go back to it now;
+but then these new lights were very dazzling, almost blinding people
+with their splendor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+It was into such a world as this that Frederick the Great was ushered
+in 1712.  Few children, be they princes or peasants, have ever had a
+more unhappy childhood.  If he had not been born to be a King,
+Frederick's tastes would have led him to be a musician or a poet.  A
+son whose chief pleasures consisted in playing the flute, and reading
+French books, became an object almost of aversion to the austere
+Frederick William.  In the midst of severities past belief Frederick
+obtained most of his education in secret, at the hands of French
+_emigres_, who formed his taste after French models, the influence of
+which could be traced throughout his life.  His passion for music was
+pursued also in the same secret way.
+
+The tyranny and the beatings to which he was subjected became at last
+so intolerable that, when he was eighteen years old, Frederick
+determined to run away.  His adored sister Wilhelmine was his
+confidante.  His bosom friend, Lieutenant Von Katte, was his
+accomplice.  A letter to Von Katte, written at this time, fell into
+other hands and was sent to the King.
+
+The barbarities which followed make one think this Hohenzollern should
+have been in a madhouse instead of on a throne.  It was a small matter
+that he beat his son until his face was covered with blood, for he had
+done that before; but he sent him as a prisoner of state to Prussia.
+He then annulled the sentence of imprisonment passed by the
+court-martial upon Von Katte, and ordered his immediate execution.  To
+inflict more suffering he ordered that the hanging take place before
+the window of the cell where his son was confined!
+
+When this was carried into effect the young prince fainted, and lay so
+long insensible that it was thought he was dead.
+
+The King then insisted that he be tried by court-martial; and when the
+court decided that it had no authority to condemn the Crown Prince, he
+overruled the decision and ordered his execution.
+
+The horror and indignation caused by this extended as far as Vienna.
+The Emperor Charles VI. informed the King of Prussia that the Crown
+Prince could only be condemned capitally at an Imperial Diet.  The King
+answered, "Very well; then, I will hold my own court on him at
+Koenigsberg.  Prussia is my own and outside the confines of the empire,
+where I can do as I please."
+
+But the fury of this madman was abating.  He did not resent it when a
+daring attendant reminded him that "God also ruled--even in Prussia."
+Finally he was satisfied with humiliating his son by making him work
+for one year in the lowest position in the departments of the
+government.
+
+At the wedding festivities of his sister Wilhelmine, Frederick secreted
+himself among the servants in humble attire.  He was discovered, and
+the King, who must have been in a genial mood that night, pulled him
+forth from his hiding, and leading him to the trembling queen said,
+"Here, madam, our Fritz is back again!"  And the reconciliation made
+three aching hearts glad.
+
+For the ten succeeding years Frederick was permitted to reside in his
+own castle near Potsdam, and the relations with his father became
+kinder and almost cordial.  The son in his castle pursued his
+philosophical studies, corresponded with Voltaire, and played the flute
+to his heart's content.
+
+But he did other things too, as the future demonstrated.  The study of
+profound subjects, conversation, and intimate friendships with learned
+men, trained his active mind to wonderful acuteness, and when he
+applied this to the study of history, when he read of the dignity of
+kings, and of what stuff greatness was made in the past--he formed his
+own ideals for the future.  When Frederick William died in 1740 he was
+prepared to take the reins of government with a comprehensiveness of
+grasp of which his austere father was incapable, and with clearly
+defined plans to make Prussia great.
+
+Six months later Maria Theresa succeeded to her father's throne.  She
+had no fear of this young flute-playing King of Prussia, and was fully
+occupied in defending her own Imperial rights, which were assailed by
+the Elector of Bavaria, who claimed to be Emperor Karl VII., by virtue
+of a descent superior to hers.
+
+But the war of the _Austrian Succession_, in which she was soon
+involved, was quickly overshadowed by a greater conflict, which was
+immediately commenced by the bold and ambitious young Prussian King.
+
+He claimed, by virtue of some obscure transaction in the past, that
+Silesia belonged to him.  But he gallantly offered, if it was returned
+to him, to support Maria Theresa's cause in the fight with her kinsman
+of Bavaria over the succession.
+
+The offer was rejected, and almost before the ink in the correspondence
+was dry, a Prussian army, with Frederick at its head, was in the heart
+of the disputed province.
+
+Two characteristics marked Frederick's movements--the perfect secrecy
+with which they were planned, and the swiftness with which they were
+carried out.  He formed his own plans, and even his Prime Minister did
+not know of their existence until he was ordered to execute them.  The
+cunning methods then prevailing in Courts, by which foreign ambassadors
+defeated designs while they were maturing, were powerless against this
+young King, as none but himself knew what was going to happen.  He gave
+his personal and unremitting care to every detail of government, and
+astonished his people by the prodigies of labor he performed, and the
+sacrifices of his time, rest, and comfort.
+
+Of course this ancient wrong done his family in the matter of Silesia
+was only a pretext.  Frederick had made up his mind at Potsdam that
+Prussia must be solidified by bringing together her detached provinces,
+and he had long ago drawn a new map in his mind, which should include
+Silesia.
+
+Nature had endowed him with a bold and aspiring genius.  He had a
+consciousness of strength, combined with a belief that he was a chosen
+instrument appointed by fate to perform a definite work: the raising of
+Prussia to the first rank in the German empire.
+
+When we see Frederick's ideal of a despotic personal government, with a
+divinely appointed ruler leading his country to greatness, independent
+of ministers and advisers,--it is easy to recognize the model which is
+being studied by a certain young ruler in Europe to-day!
+
+There was another strong personality on the throne at Vienna.  To have
+her crown threatened by a powerful combination, and at the same time a
+war of conquest waged against her in her own Austria, was a heavy
+burden to be borne by a young girl of twenty-four years.  But Maria
+Theresa maintained herself with astonishing bravery and firmness.  She
+listened to the counsels of her ministers, and then decided for
+herself; even her husband Francis being unable to sway her judgment.
+
+France, Spain, and Saxony sustained the claims of the Bavarian Archduke
+to her throne; and when a French army was on the Danube and Vienna
+threatened, she fled to Hungary and made a personal appeal to the
+Hungarian Diet to stand by her.  She promised the restoration of rights
+for which they had been contending, and by her personal charm and
+radiance captured the wavering nobles, who placed on her head the crown
+of St. Stephen.  They cheered wildly as she galloped up "the king's
+hill," and waved her sword toward the four quarters of the earth in
+true Imperial fashion.
+
+Then she appeared before the Diet in their national costume with her
+infant son Joseph in her arms, and in an eloquent speech depicted the
+dangers which beset her, and the enthusiastic nobles drew their sabers,
+shouting, "We will die for our _King_, Maria Theresa!"
+
+This saved Vienna.  The support of Hungary arrested the advance toward
+the capital, and the invading army moved instead on to Prague, where
+her rival was crowned King of Bohemia, and later at Frankfort was
+proclaimed Emperor Karl VII.
+
+While these distracting combinations were engrossing the young
+sovereign, Frederick had invaded Silesia, and when the second Silesian
+war ended in 1742, Prussia held that province, and was enriched by 150
+large and small cities, and about 5000 villages.
+
+England, Holland, and Hanover now came to the support of Maria Theresa
+against Karl VII. and his French ally.
+
+The wary Frederick saw that, with such a coalition, Austria's success
+was certain, and he also saw that, if victorious, her next step would
+be to try to recover Silesia.  So he offered to join France in support
+of Karl VII., and threw himself into the war of the Austrian succession.
+
+This lasted three years longer and was concluded by the Peace of
+Dresden (1745), which again confirmed Prussia in the possession of
+Silesia, left Maria Theresa's husband wearing the disputed Imperial
+title as Francis I., and to Frederick left the more unique and renowned
+title of "the Great," which was bestowed by acclamation on his return
+to Berlin.
+
+Frederick's first care was to heal the wounds inflicted by the two
+Silesian wars.
+
+It is interesting to speculate upon what this man might have been, had
+his childhood been spent in an atmosphere of kindness and love, and had
+his heart and intelligence been symmetrically nurtured and trained.
+
+But he was trained as the tree is trained which is blasted in its youth
+by lightnings, then twisted and distorted by hands which defeat its
+natural tendency upward and sunward!
+
+An eager and impressionable boy with warm affections, acute
+intelligence, and a strong sense of justice had been subjected to
+inhuman barbarities in his own home.  In his heart-hunger he turned to
+pursuits for which he had a passionate love, and was nourished in
+secret upon a poisonous diet.  A nature which in the fire of his youth
+had been full of generous enthusiasms was embittered by suffering, and
+then became cold and cynical under the teachings of Voltaire.
+
+So fascinated had he become with this man that he regarded him as the
+most exalted of beings, and his friendship a treasure above all others.
+Faith, hope, love, and filial respect were, through this influence,
+destroyed in the germ before they had time to unfold; and in the place
+of everything sacred was a cynical cold-blooded search after what these
+philosophers of the eighteenth century were pleased to call--_truth_.
+And the way to discover this truth was to analyze, dissect, and then to
+demolish!
+
+So there had been created a strangely composite man, compounded of
+elements native to himself, to that undeveloped barbarian Frederick
+William, and to Voltaire!  Joined to a strong practical common sense in
+the management of affairs was a passion for insincere, unsound, and
+shallow French ideals.  And combined with the most despotic and
+arbitrary of wills, was an inflexible regard for the right of the
+humblest.  While he despised the beliefs of Protestant and Catholic
+alike, he declared "I mean that every man in my kingdom shall have the
+right to be saved in his own way."  And he secured that right for his
+people, too!
+
+His rule was a despotism, but it was a despotism of intelligence and
+justice.  He called himself the first official servant of the state,
+and no clerk in his kingdom gave such faithful service as he.  He arose
+at four o'clock in the morning.  He made himself personally acquainted
+with every village and landed estate in his kingdom, which he treated
+as if it were a great private enterprise and interest, for which he was
+responsible.
+
+He was a reformer without heart; a King intent upon the well-being of
+his people, without tenderness; a leader prepared, if need be, not to
+lead, but to drag Prussia with a rough hand up the rugged path of
+virtue and prosperity; and determined to make his nation great, whether
+it wanted to be or not!
+
+There were many pleasanter companions and gentler fathers in his day.
+There were sovereigns who did not terrify wrong-doers and children on
+the street with uplifted canes.  But this Frederick, with character
+scarred and distorted, was the one man in Europe who was converting a
+kingdom into a POWER, and the one man of his age whom history would
+call GREAT!
+
+But such a being as this, one who has turned to adamant in heroic mold,
+cannot sympathetically comprehend the finer currents about him.  There
+was going on, quite unnoticed by King Frederick, an awakening in the
+German mind, and while he was building a structure of material
+greatness, there had commenced, unobserved by him, another structure,
+which was to be the chief glory of Germany.
+
+The passion for speculative thought awakened by Spinoza was stirring
+the German soul to its depths.  Kant had found that Spinoza's _Eternal
+Order_ must be a _Moral Order_.  That the moral instincts which guided
+mankind, and were the all in all, were the God in us, the in-dwelling
+of the Divine.  Thus was embodied the essence of Christianity in a new
+and speculative philosophy.
+
+Klopstock and Lessing were creating a national literature, which
+revealed for the first time the strength, resources, and unsuspected
+beauty of their own language, and which was for the first time being
+used to express a genius untouched by foreign influence.
+
+But all unconscious of this new, rushing stream of life, Frederick was
+entertaining Voltaire, spending his evenings in listening to the latest
+satirical verses of that vain and gifted Frenchman, and laughing at the
+latest witty epigram from Paris.
+
+It had been one of Frederick's dreams, in his youth, to have his great
+friend some day reside in his Court.  In 1750 this was realized, and
+the King and the poet settled down to what was to be an everlasting
+banquet of sympathetic tastes and opinions, seasoned with mutual
+admiration and friendship!
+
+Frederick felt that he was something of a poet himself, and that he was
+only prevented by cares of state from letting the world find it out.
+The wily Frenchman had been the literary confidant of his royal friend,
+and many pages of verses had been submitted to him during their long
+correspondence, and had received flattering commendation from the great
+critic.  So one of the pleasantest features in this closer
+companionship was expected to be this drop of honeyed praise to sweeten
+the evening after the day's work was done.
+
+But Frederick's verses bored Voltaire very much, and the royal host
+began to discover that his great guest was selfish, and cold, and
+jealous, and even malignant.  The nimbus of fascination began to fade.
+He could be cutting and satirical as well as Voltaire.  The great poet
+was no less hungry for praise than he, and it was an easy matter to
+yawn and be bored by his verses, too.  And so they became gradually
+estranged, and finally enemies.  They parted in anger, and Voltaire
+returned to France, to write bitter satires about the King, whose
+character and ideals he had been one of the chief agents in forming.
+
+There was then in Germany a man whose glory was to outshine Voltaire's
+or that of any contemporary in Europe, even as the sun does the stars.
+But Frederick's ear could not detect music in his own language, nor was
+his stunted soul attuned to the native and sublime harmonies of
+Goethe's genius.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+There had been a time when two nations in Europe could fight each other
+to the death without disturbing their neighbors, but since there had
+developed in the sixteenth century that larger unity of European
+states, there was no such isolated security.
+
+So when, in 1755, England and France came into collision over the
+boundaries of their American colonies, the shock was felt all over
+Europe.  Just as the earthquake which swallowed up Lisbon at that very
+time had made the shores of Lake Ontario tremble, so the peace of
+Germany, which had lasted for eleven years, was broken by an event in
+far-off Canada.
+
+The two contending parties, England and France, began after the fashion
+of the time to look about for allies.  Maria Theresa, who had
+invitations from both countries to join them, was considering which
+could best serve her own private interests.  England, since 1714, had
+been ruled by Hanoverian kings, which practically annexed her to
+Hanover.  It was by no means sure that she could get assistance from
+that nation in recovering Silesia--which was to be the price of her
+alliance.  She decided that her best policy was to secure the aid of
+Louis XV., who would be glad to help her in her plans against
+Frederick, in return for the assistance of Austria in this war with
+England.
+
+As astute and profound as any statesman in Europe, this wonderful
+Empress adopted means and methods entirely feminine to carry out her
+immense design.
+
+She knew that Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, was mortally offended with
+the King of Prussia, on account of some disparaging remarks he had made
+about her, so she deftly used that to her own advantage.
+Then--perfectly understanding how to reach the enslaved Louis XV.--she
+wrote a flattering letter to Mme. de Pompadour, then in the full tide
+of her ascendency over the king.
+
+With the greatest secrecy these negotiations were carried on, and at
+last the compact between the three great powers was concluded and
+everything ready to commence a war upon Prussia in the spring of 1757;
+even to the agreement as to the way in which they should cut up and
+divide among themselves the kingdom of Prussia!
+
+Frederick, through secret agents, was perfectly well informed of their
+plans.  He saw that his ruin was determined upon, and could only be
+prevented by unhesitating courage.  He determined to anticipate them.
+Before the allied armies were ready, he made one of his catlike leaps
+into the neutral territory of Saxony, and was in Dresden, half way to
+Prague, with seventy thousand men.
+
+This so disconcerted the plans of the allies that there was a pause,
+and conferences were held, in which it was concluded to ask Sweden to
+join the coalition.  Finally, that almost forgotten body, the Diet of
+the German Empire, formally declared war against Prussia, and the Third
+Silesian War, or the Seven Years' War, had commenced.
+
+As the avowed object of this great combination was not the recovery of
+Silesia but the dismemberment of the kingdom, to deprive Frederick of
+his royal title, and to reduce him to a simple Margrave of Brandenburg,
+it is easy to see the incentive he had to great deeds.
+
+England and a few small German States were his allies; but, as George
+II. heartily disliked him, he received small assistance from him, and
+stood practically alone with half of Europe allied against him.
+
+There were great victories and great defeats during the seven years
+which followed.  There were times when the cause of Prussia seemed
+lost, and other times when that of the Allies appeared hopeless.  But
+the tide of victory more often set toward Frederick's standard than
+that of his adversaries.  He defeated the Austrians at Prague; the
+Imperial and French army at Rossbach; a Russian army at Zorndorf; and
+these and a hundred other names stand in the annals of Prussia for
+monumental courage, daring, and sacrifice.
+
+In the confused narrative of advancing and retreating armies, of
+battles and of slaughter, but one distinct impression remains.  That is
+amazement--amazement that so many thousands were willing at the bidding
+of one ambitious man to die, to lay down their bodies in that heap of
+dead, for Prussia's greatness to rise upon!  That not one was ready to
+reproach him for having brought these calamities upon them for the sake
+of Silesia; but instead, with twenty thousand still lying unburied upon
+one field, that they respond with infatuated enthusiasm to his appeal
+for more!
+
+But Prussia owes her rise to just such infatuation as this.
+_Acquisition_ and _conquest_ are written on her foundation stones, the
+chief of which were laid by her Great Frederick.
+
+It is pleasant to tell of peace once more.  The Allies, wearied of the
+long war, gradually withdrew from Austria.  Being unable to carry it on
+alone, Maria Theresa was compelled to abandon her dream of ruining
+Frederick.  With bitterness of heart and humiliation she consented to
+give up Silesia forever as the price of a peace she did not desire.  In
+1763, the articles were signed (the Peace of Hubertsburg) and the Seven
+Years' War was over.
+
+Frederick was now called "the Great" throughout Europe; and Prussia
+took her place among the "Five Great Powers."
+
+The next thing to be done was to repair the desolation left by seven
+years of war.  Nearly fifteen thousand houses were in ashes.  So many
+men had been consumed in the army that there were not enough left to
+till the fields, nor horses to draw the harvest.
+
+The practical King, anticipating this, had been enforcing the
+cultivation of the much despised potato; and this useful tuber saved
+Prussia and Silesia from famine, and some of their neighbors as well.
+For as many as twenty thousand famishing people came from the trampled
+and burnt corn-fields of Bohemia to feed upon the Prussian potato and
+live.
+
+Again the people set about the oft-repeated task of repairing the
+devastation of war.  Indeed for 150 years they had always been either
+enduring the horrors of a great conflict, or healing its wounds and
+building up the waste places it had made.  Can we wonder that they were
+strong and serious?  The weaklings were winnowed out by these great
+storms, and the chastened souls of those who survived knew little of
+pleasure.  Religion, which had once been their solace and refuge, had
+lost much of its power on account of the bitterness of sectarian strife.
+
+A few men groping for a solution of the problems of sin and suffering,
+and for the meaning of this troubled existence, thought they had found
+it in the new philosophy.  France, under the teachings of Voltaire and
+Rousseau, had cast off the restraints of religious faith without
+providing any substitute, but Germany, more provident, was building a
+spacious house for the soul's refuge when the old was demolished;
+untrammeled freedom of thought was inscribed upon its doors, and
+PHILOSOPHY was enshrined within!
+
+All this tumultuous inner life was growth: the growth and unfolding of
+a great and earnest soul; and the awakening of new capacities for being
+and doing.  There was a rapturous surprise in discovering these
+capacities, and speculative thought and literature became an absorbing
+passion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+At the close of the Seven Years' War, Maria Theresa had spent the
+twenty-three years of her reign in a fruitless struggle with Frederick.
+Instead of dismembering his kingdom and reducing him to a plain
+Margrave of Brandenburg, she had lost Silesia and was compelled to
+listen to the praises of her enemy resounding through Europe and to
+hear him called "the Great."
+
+It was a bitter pill for her nine years later, when she had to confer
+with the Prussian King as an equal, over the partition of Poland, and
+to see him further enriched by a goodly slice of that unhappy country.
+
+But before that event, and just two years after the conclusion of the
+war, Francis I. died (1755).  He had worn the title, but she had
+wielded the power and guided the events ever since that day when, with
+her infant son in her arms, she had captured the Hungarian Diet at
+Presburg.
+
+And now that son was Joseph II.  But the scepter was still in reality
+to remain with her while she lived, and in fact her name was to be the
+last ray of splendor which should illumine the throne of Austria.  But
+these were sunset glories after a long and troubled day, while in
+Prussia was the brightness of the dawn.
+
+That friendship with Louis XV. so eagerly sought by Maria Theresa led
+to a very momentous alliance of a different sort.  The Empress and the
+French King together arranged a marriage between her fair young
+daughter Marie Antoinette and Louis, the young Dauphin of France.
+
+How should the Empress of Austria, born, nurtured, and fed in the very
+center of despotism--not hearing or heeding the current ideas about
+human rights and freedom--entirely misunderstanding the past, the
+present, and the future--how should she suspect the terrific forces
+which were accumulating beneath the throne of France, or that it would
+become a scaffold for her child?  Hapsburg and Bourbon, to her mind,
+were realities as fixed and enduring as the Alps.
+
+She saw no special significance in the fact that thirteen English
+colonies in America were in rebellion and setting up a novel form of
+government for themselves.  That was England's affair, not hers, and
+would in time, like other rebellions against properly constituted
+authority, be put down.
+
+She did not live to see the end of this struggle, nor the events to
+which it led in France.  Her death occurred in 1780.  Her son, Joseph
+II., strange to say, was imbued with the new ideas of human rights.
+Great was the astonishment of Frederick and of Europe, when this young
+man set about the task of establishing a new and progressive order of
+things in Austria; and it was a strange spectacle to behold a Hapsburg
+trying to force upon his people reforms they did not desire, and rights
+which they did not know how to use.
+
+His plans were high and noble, but he failed to see that they were too
+sweeping and too suddenly developed to be permanent.  His people were
+not ripe for emancipation from old shackles, which they had grown to
+like and venerate.  In striving to free the church from the Jesuits,
+and to emancipate the serfs in Hungary, he had accomplished nothing,
+and had created chaos.  Depressed by the failure in his great design of
+reformation, Joseph's health gave way.  He died in 1790 and was
+succeeded by his brother Leopold II.
+
+It is not to be supposed that Frederick felt much sympathy with the
+free young Republic established in America.  And if he sent a sword of
+honor to Washington in 1783, it was because he recognized the greatness
+of the man; and perhaps, too, because he felt a malicious pleasure in
+the humiliation of George III.!
+
+The intellectual awakening which this King had failed to understand had
+wrought a mighty change in Germany.  Lessing had been the first to
+break away from an enfeebling imitation of French _Sentimentlalism_.
+The genius of Goethe and Schiller awakened a new spirit in literature,
+that of _Romanticism_, and there commenced that intellectual convulsion
+known as _Sturm und Drang_, or storm and stress period.  While Goethe
+and Schiller were supreme in the kingdom of letters, Herder and the
+Schlegels were great in history and criticism; Humboldt and Ritter in
+geographical science; Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Kant in philosophy;
+Fouque and Tieck in imagination, and Jean Paul Richter in the
+mysterious ether of transcendental thought.
+
+When Karl August called Goethe to his Court in Saxe-Weimar, among that
+group of other illustrious authors, and gave to Weimar the name of the
+"German Athens," it was a Golden Age for Germany.
+
+It is interesting to recall that it was Luther who gave the first
+impulse to this movement, by revealing to the people the riches of
+their own tongue.  In his translation of the Bible, and in his hymns,
+so grandly simple, he created the modern German language.
+
+The influence of Luther was felt in another art, too.  The enthusiasm
+awakened by the singing of his hymns revolutionized the form of
+ecclesiastical music.  In this Golden Age in Germany music, too, had
+become a great art, with such immortal names as Mozart, Gluck, Haydn,
+and Beethoven; and the period of great orchestration also had
+commenced.[1]
+
+Although Frederick's tastes led him so strongly to letters and to
+music, these two arts had attained this rich development in Germany
+without any assistance from him.  When he died in 1786 the monument he
+left was a Kingdom of Prussia; equal in rank with any of the Great
+Powers of Europe, enlarged in territory, rich in population, with a
+great army and an overflowing treasury.
+
+As Frederick the Great had no son, this splendid inheritance passed to
+his nephew Frederick William II.
+
+With the new ascendency of Prussia in the German Empire, a process
+which had long been going on was accelerated.  That empire had become a
+fiction, a form from which the substance had long ago departed; almost
+its only remaining relic being an Imperial Diet, where thirty solemn
+old men supposed they were holding the venerated structure together by
+weaving about it, and repairing, the thin, worn threads of tradition.
+
+The German Empire had in its best time existed by grace of God and
+force of circumstances, more than by reason of a sound and perfect
+organism.  It always struggled with fatal inherent defects.  Its life
+currents never flowed freely and had been growing more and more
+sluggish for centuries.  And now, they had ceased to flow at all.
+There was no vital relation whatever between its various parts.  Of
+national feeling there was absolutely none.  Lessing, one of the
+greatest Germans of that time, said, "Of the love of country I have no
+conception!"
+
+And what was there to inspire patriotism in this great empty shell of
+despotism!  The shattered lifeless old structure was wrong at its very
+foundation.  It was built upon feudal injustice; that injustice which
+compelled the people to bear the whole burden of taxation, from which
+it exempted the nobility and the clergy.  England had long ago
+redressed this grievous wrong.  France was just preparing to free
+herself from it by a tremendous convulsion.  Germany had been offered
+emancipation at the hands of her enlightened and gracious Emperor
+Joseph, but so spiritless and benumbed had she become that she could
+not understand his message.
+
+He was attempting a vain task in trying to infuse new life into the
+empire.  There were no living channels to convey the current.  The only
+thing to be done with it was to sweep it away--and the man and the time
+for doing this were close at hand.  The surface calm which existed
+while Leopold II. was repairing the disorder left by his reforming
+brother Joseph, was the calm which precedes the hurricane.
+
+
+
+[1] See Chart of Civilization in Six Centuries, "Who, When, and What."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+The energies which were to transform the face of Europe had been
+gradually centering in France.  They commenced when Voltaire and
+Rousseau made it the fashion to scoff at the Church.  Then, as religion
+and morality are closely allied, virtue became also a subject of
+ridicule.  The spirit animating this was supposed to be a reforming
+spirit.  It was an effort to free the people from the fetters of
+ecclesiasticism.  Naturally, this led to assaults upon other fetters,
+other prevailing abuses.  The vices of the Court were held up to
+view--its extravagance and luxury; all of which people were reminded
+that _they_ had to pay for.
+
+Just at this time the Colonies in North America threw off the English
+yoke because of this very matter of taxation unjustly imposed, and
+France enthusiastically helped them to establish a free republic and to
+humiliate her rival!
+
+Frenchmen returned from the United States and contrasted the fresh
+vigor and purity of its institutions with the decrepit corruptions in
+France.  The current began to flow very swiftly now.  A Richelieu or a
+Louis XIV. would have been powerless to arrest the mad forces which
+quickly developed.  What could the feeble, well-intentioned Louis XVI.
+do!  He was like a skiff caught in the rushing rapids of the Niagara
+River.  It was only a question of how long he could hold on to passing
+twigs and branches before he should go over the precipice.  In 1793
+Europe read with shuddering horror of his execution, and nine months
+later Maria Theresa's daughter--the beautiful, the adored Marie
+Antoinette--sat in a cart with her arms pinioned behind her, as she was
+driven to the scaffold.
+
+The men who had guided this storm in its beginnings had themselves been
+engulfed in it, and a French republic was proclaimed which had been
+erected upon a tragedy unparalleled in Europe.
+
+It was a horrible avenging of centuries of wrong and oppression.  But
+its purpose was thoroughly accomplished.  No vestige of the old
+tyrannies remained.  If France was again enslaved, the fetters would
+have to be forged anew!
+
+The powers of Europe were not only filled with horror and indignation
+at the means by which this was accomplished, but they saw with alarm a
+pestilential republic, in imitation of that one across the sea, at
+their very doors.
+
+They formed a combination, called the First Coalition, for its
+overthrow.  If the states of Europe had really acted in concert, the
+life of the new republic would have been very brief.  But Austria was
+jealous of Prussia, and Prussia was jealous of the close friendship
+forming between Austria and England, withdrew from the alliance, and
+made peace with the French republic.
+
+Catherine, Empress of Russia, for reasons of her own also declined to
+join the coalition.  While all Europe was thus engaged she thought it a
+good time to settle some scores with the Turks and to look after
+Poland, where a revolution was in progress.  So, while the German
+Empire was engaged in suppressing republicanism in France, Frederick
+William II. of Prussia offered his services to Catherine to overthrow
+the independence of Poland.
+
+Kosciusko vainly defended that unhappy country.  With the fall of
+Warsaw, 1794, it ceased to exist as one in the family of nations.
+
+So Austria had been left practically alone to put down the new
+republic, which was developing wonderful strength while these languid
+and inefficient efforts were being made against it; for even Austria
+was diverted by what was going on in Poland, and fearful that she was
+not going to get her share of the spoils.
+
+Marie Antoinette's brother Leopold had died the year before his
+sister's execution and his son Francis II. was Emperor of Germany.  The
+government of this new republic which had caused such a stir in Europe
+was a very simple affair.  Five men who were called Directors were at
+its head, and an obscure young man of twenty-six, named Napoleon
+Bonaparte, had been given command of the army, with Italy as its field
+of operations.
+
+No doubt Francis thought it would be an easy matter to deal with France
+after the more important matter of the partition of Poland was disposed
+of.  Little did he suspect that the time was approaching when he would,
+at the bidding of that young man, take off his Imperial crown, and that
+Napoleon Bonaparte would rise to ascendency in Europe upon the ruins of
+the German Empire.
+
+In 1796 the young Corsican led a ragged, unpaid army into Italy.
+Without supplies, and almost without ammunition, he had audaciously
+planned to make the invaded country pay the expenses of the war waged
+against it.
+
+He pointed to the Italian cities, and said to his soldiers, "There is
+your reward.  It is rich and ample; but you must conquer it."  He knew
+the French character and how in words brief, concise, forcible to
+address them like another Caesar addressing his legions; to create
+incentives to glory, and to inspire enthusiasm as never man did before.
+
+He also knew the infirmities of his adversaries, and how to play upon
+them as Caesar did upon the rivalries and jealousies of the Gauls, and
+so to make the characteristics of Frenchmen, of German, and of Italian
+all serve him.  He knew how to confound the enemy with new and
+unexpected methods, which rendered unavailing all which military
+science and experience had before taught.
+
+In a brief time central Italy lay open before him, and princes,
+trembling at his vengeance, were suing for peace and offering money and
+treasure to procure it.  Even then he was planning to make of Paris
+another Rome, and to adorn her with the jewels which had been worn by
+the proud Italian cities.  So he demanded rare collections of paintings
+as the price of safety.  The Duke of Parma laid at his feet priceless
+treasures of art; and even the Pope purchased neutrality by the payment
+of twenty-one million francs, one hundred costly pictures, and two
+hundred rare manuscripts.
+
+When the treaty of Campo Formio was signed in 1797, Napoleon had won
+fourteen battles, and had subjugated Italy.  The German Empire had lost
+all of its Italian possessions, which were now grouped together into a
+Cisalpine Republic, under the protectorship of France.  Another
+Helvetic Republic was set up in Switzerland under the same
+protectorate.  And then Napoleon scornfully tossed Venice as an apple
+of discord into the lap of the Emperor, in exchange for the
+Netherlands.  And another republic under a French protectorate was
+created in Holland.
+
+As the left bank of the Rhine had already been ceded to France, that
+country, which had been only four years before in a state of political
+chaos, was at the head of Europe.
+
+What would she not do at the bidding of the man who could accomplish
+such things?  He dramatically conceived the idea of crippling England
+by threatening her Asiatic possessions, and led an army into Egypt.
+There every bulletin, every address to his army, added to the glamour
+of his name.  Even the Pyramids were made to serve his consummate art
+and ambition!
+
+Although his fleet was destroyed by Nelson and his army left in
+perilous position, he was needed at home, and returned with all the
+arrogance of a conqueror.  He was appointed Generalissimo over the army
+by an enraptured France, and then swept aside the five Directors and
+appointed himself and two others Consuls.
+
+A second coalition was now formed against France, consisting of
+England, Russia, and Austria, and there followed another campaign in
+which Napoleon made permanent the results of the previous ones in
+Italy.  By the treaty of peace in 1801, the three republics created by
+him were formally recognized, and the princes of Germany, in
+compensation for their losses, had apportioned among them the dominions
+of the priestly rulers.
+
+Thus at one blow were abolished one hundred states governed by
+archbishops, bishops, and other clerical dignitaries, and one of the
+foundation stones of the empire, laid by Charlemagne himself, was
+shattered.
+
+This extraordinary man, dreaming of universal empire, superstitiously
+believed that Fate intended him to hold Europe in his hand.  But we can
+see now that he was designed by that remorseless Fate for a very
+different purpose, and a very brief office.  He was a terrible
+instrument, which she intended to use for one specific purpose, and
+then to cast him aside.
+
+This work was the destruction of the Romano-Germanic Empire.  That
+lifeless mass, whose oppressive weight had crushed the life and hope
+out of Central Europe for centuries, needed some tremendous force from
+without to break up its time-encrusted rivets.  And that force was now
+in the hands of a workman who supposed he was engaged in rearing a
+great edifice for himself.  Instead of which he was overturning, and
+plowing, and harrowing Germany, and preparing the ground for new forms
+of political life; and nothing more effectually pulverized the old
+tyrannies than this secularization of the priestly dominions.  When,
+added to this, we see the extinction of a multitude of petty states and
+the abolition of the special privileges of nearly a thousand "Imperial"
+noble families, we realize how he was relieving Germany from the
+incubus which had paralyzed her for centuries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+The eighteenth century closed upon a strangely altered Europe.  France
+was the ruling power on the Continent.  Prussia had hidden herself in a
+timid neutrality, and left Austria to fight with foreign allies for the
+life of the empire.  That battle had been a losing one, and now Francis
+II. sat upon a trembling throne and bore a title which had no longer
+any meaning.
+
+But Napoleon was building his own edifice.  In 1803 he had himself
+declared First Consul for life, and in 1804 he assumed the title of
+Napoleon, Emperor of the French.  His coronation took place at Paris,
+where he compelled the Pope to come and perform that ceremony.
+
+Then, after changing the groups of Italian republics into a Kingdom of
+Italy, he crowned himself, after the fashion of the Emperors whose
+successor he meant to be, with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
+
+He had entered upon the most daring scheme ever attempted in Europe: to
+convert the whole Continent into one vast empire, with the kings and
+princes over the several nations all subject to him.
+
+Then there was a third coalition from which Prussia still held aloof,
+and which was composed of England, Austria, Russia, and Sweden.
+Alexander I. was now Emperor of Russia, and the timorous and
+unpatriotic policy of Prussia was guided by Frederick William III., who
+had succeeded his father Frederick William II.
+
+The Prussian King, influenced by antagonism to Austria and by the hope
+of obtaining safety and reward for Prussia, stubbornly maintained his
+attitude of neutrality, while the German Empire was receiving its
+death-blow at Austerlitz.  That "battle of the three Emperors," as it
+is called, was a paralyzing defeat to the Allies.
+
+Prussia ignominiously received Hanover as her reward, and seventeen
+German states, including Bavaria, Baden, Wuertemberg, and
+Hesse-Darmstadt, formally separated themselves from the German Empire
+and declared themselves subject to the French Emperor.  This was known
+as the Rheinbund.
+
+The German Empire was now reduced to three separate bodies: the
+Rheinbund, a federation of states giving willing allegiance to
+Napoleon; _Prussia_, practically in alliance with her destroyer; and
+_Austria_, helpless in that destroyer's grasp, while he, sitting in the
+Imperial Palace at Vienna, dictated terms of peace.
+
+The Empire was broken beyond repair.  On the 6th of August its
+dissolution was formally announced.  Francis II. abdicated the Imperial
+crown and assumed the title of the "Emperor of Austria."
+
+It was not the people of Prussia who bartered their allegiance to the
+fatherland for peace and for Hanover.  It was their King and princes
+who brought this stain upon them, and their beautiful Queen Louise,
+mother of the late Emperor William, had pleaded in vain with the King
+to pursue a loyal and patriotic course.
+
+The punishment came swiftly.  The insatiate conqueror had no thought of
+leaving a great state like Prussia undisturbed.  And soon it developed
+that his plan was also to create a northern bund under his
+protectorate, which would be composed of the Prussian states on the
+northern coast.
+
+Forced in her own defense to take up arms, Prussia suffered a terrible
+defeat at Jena, 1806.  The conqueror for whose friendship Frederick
+William had sacrificed his country was in Berlin.  The beautiful
+Prussian Queen who, he knew, had used her influence against him, was
+treated with the grossest insolence, while for the cowed people
+recently in revolt, and now prostrating themselves, he did not restrain
+his contempt.
+
+The Peace of Tilsit (1807) determined the full measure of Prussia's
+retribution.  Her Polish acquisitions were made into a "Grand Duchy of
+Warsaw," under a French protectorate.  One half of the rest of her
+territory was converted into a kingdom of Westphalia, over which
+Napoleon's brother Jerome was king.  To the remainder of Prussia was
+assigned the burden of an immense indemnity, and the maintenance of a
+French army in her territory.
+
+But the cup of humiliation was not drained until later when, standing
+with the Continent under his feet, Napoleon compelled the Prussian King
+to join the Rheinbund with what was left of his kingdom, to furnish
+France with troops, and thus to become tributary to his designs upon
+Europe.
+
+Napoleon in the meantime, in an hour's interview with Alexander of
+Russia, had by the magic of his influence secured that Emperor's
+friendship.  All this excellent man was fighting for was the peace of
+Europe!  And he disclosed to Alexander his plan that they two should be
+the eternal custodians of that peace; which was to be secured by
+restraining the arrogance of England; and that was to be done by
+destroying her commercial prosperity.  All of Europe was to be
+forbidden to trade with that country.  There was to be a Continental
+blockade against a "nation of shopkeepers."  Alexander was completely
+won, and he promised not to molest his new friend in his benevolent
+task.
+
+The provinces dependent upon France were now divided up into kingdoms
+and principalities, and to make his own control over them more assured,
+Napoleon placed members of his own family and personal friends upon the
+various thrones.
+
+His brother Louis was created King of Holland.  His brother-in-law
+Murat was made King of Naples; Eugene Beauharnais, his step-son,
+Viceroy of Italy.  Jerome Bonaparte, as we have seen, was King of
+Westphalia, and his brother Joseph he had already made King of Spain,
+in the time he could spare from more important matters in Germany.
+
+And what was the real sentiment in Germany concerning this man at such
+a time?  We hear that ninety German authors dedicated books to him and
+that servile newspapers were praising him; and we know that one of the
+immortal compositions of Beethoven was inspired by him.  But we must
+recollect that he was too colossal and too dazzling to be accurately
+measured, except from a distance.  Even yet we are almost too near to
+him for that, and the world is as divided in its estimate of Napoleon
+as of the true meaning of Shakspeare's "Hamlet."  It is an eternal
+controversy.  He was a monstrous creation; colossal in his plans,
+colossal in his grasp of the forces about him, colossal in ambition, in
+selfishness, in cruelty, and in intelligence.
+
+Napoleon realized the value of hereditary grandeur.  He had been able
+to climb without it; but the sons who would succeed him as masters of
+Christendom must have the dignity of ancestry to fortify them.  No
+blood but the Hapsburg was fit for this great office.  He swept away
+Josephine as remorselessly as he had the Pope in Rome, and compelled
+Francis II. to bestow his daughter Marie Louise upon the man who had
+stripped him of his Crown and his Empire, and who was steadily
+absorbing what remained of his dignity.
+
+The marriage took place in 1810, and with his Hapsburg Empress,
+Napoleon established a temporary court at Dresden.
+
+Then there commenced the process which was intended finally to engulf
+all the separate German kingdoms in one universal abyss.  The Kingdom
+of Holland was first annexed to the French Empire; then North Germany
+was swallowed up in the same way; the same fate evidently being
+intended next for the Rheinbund.  The satellites had begun to fall into
+the sun!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+To the man guiding these astounding changes it seemed a very small
+matter then that a handful of Tyrolese peasants were in revolt against
+the French King in Bavaria; nor that a small group of philosophers,
+poets, and men of letters, were consulting together in Prussia over the
+shame of their betrayal by their rulers, and considering plans for
+guiding a popular movement for the emancipation of Germany.
+
+But these were the first stirrings of a force Napoleon had not before
+had to contend with.  He had fought with kings and princes and proud
+aristocracies clinging to their ancient splendor and possessions, but
+his armies had never been face to face with _patriotism_.
+
+He had not met it, because it did not exist in the German Empire until
+he himself made its existence possible by breaking up the old stifling
+tyrannies.  Now a few patriotic and courageous men all over Germany
+were combining, and inciting the people to revolt; an association
+called "The League of Virtue" was created.  Then the Tyrolese peasants
+were subdued and their leader Hofer was shot in cold blood by
+Napoleon's orders.  The King of Prussia was ordered to suppress the
+"League of Virtue," and French spies supposed they were uprooting
+patriotism by reporting it as treason to France.
+
+Napoleon was at this moment at the climax of his greatness.  He decreed
+that Rome should be annexed to his empire, and that his infant son
+should receive the title "King of Rome," which title should thereafter
+belong to the oldest son of the French Emperor.  What if this did bring
+curses upon his name?  He was now beyond the reach of blessings or
+curses from men; and probably was rather pleased than otherwise when
+Alexander I. threw off their sentimental friendship and defied him, by
+abandoning the plan of a Continental blockade for the ruin of England.
+
+Now he was free to develop his gigantic plan.  Does anyone suppose that
+the conquest of Russia was all of that plan?  Far from it!  There is
+every reason to believe that it was his intention, after Russia was
+subdued, to press on into Asia and to expel the English from their
+precious India!
+
+Not since the days of Attila had there been seen such an army as was
+led into Russia--six hundred thousand men, of whom only one out of
+twenty was ever to return!  And was it the lives of Frenchmen that he
+was spending so lavishly?  Not at all.  This great host was composed
+chiefly of Germans, Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Bavarians, Swiss, who
+should have been fighting for their own liberation at home.
+
+Lest Prussia should revolt in his absence the wary Napoleon garrisoned
+that kingdom with sixty thousand French troops, and took the sons of
+Prussia with him for the great human sacrifice in Russia.
+
+It was the 7th of September when the great army moved.  On and on they
+marched for two months through a silent and deserted land, only to
+reach at last a mysteriously silent city.  Had a whole people fled at
+his approach?  Napoleon took up his quarters in the Kremlin.  Suddenly
+fires broke out in a hundred places.  The city became a roaring
+furnace.  In vain did they try to stay the conflagration.  In a few
+hours Moscow, his rich prize, was a mass of ruin and ashes.
+
+Napoleon waited for a message from Alexander begging for peace; but
+none came.  Then the snowflakes began to fall and fierce winds began to
+sweep down from the north.  At length his stubborn pride had to bend.
+He sent his messengers to Alexander--still there was no answer.
+Provisions were failing, and there were leagues and leagues of deep and
+white snow between him and food for his famishing soldiers.
+
+Then the Russians came.  How could this starved, benumbed, frightened
+wreck of a great army stand before the Cossacks?  The story of that
+"retreat" could never be written.  Men, hollow-eyed and gaunt with
+misery, flung away their arms and fought with each other like wolves
+for a morsel of bread or a dead horse.
+
+On the 5th of December Napoleon quietly slipped away, leaving the
+freezing, famishing victims of his ambition to make their own way back
+as they could; knowing that for all, save a fragment, of that mighty
+host the snow must be a winding sheet.
+
+When Frederick William III. accepted that last humiliation and sent a
+Prussian army in the train of the conqueror to fight his battles, while
+Frenchmen guarded Prussians at home, the indignation was deep and
+wide-spread.  Three of his best generals, Bluecher and two others,
+resigned.
+
+The Prussian contingent in the great invading army, which was under
+General York, had escaped many of the horrors of the retreat; and had
+returned with seventeen thousand out of the sixty thousand which had
+entered Russia.
+
+This Prussian commander, as soon as he crossed the line with his
+soldiers, on his own responsibility abandoned the French and arranged a
+treaty of neutrality with the Russian general.  Frederick disavowed the
+act, but it was received by the people of Prussia with wild enthusiasm.
+York called an assembly together at Koenigsberg, and boldly ordered that
+all men capable of bearing arms should be mustered into the Prussian
+army.
+
+The force of public sentiment revealed by this was too overwhelming for
+the King to oppose.  It swiftly swelled into a popular uprising in
+which all classes took part.  It was the first great patriotic movement
+in Germany; and to Prussia belongs the glory of having initiated it.
+It was the Prussian people who converted their whole male population
+into an army and their country into an arsenal, and with one voice, and
+animated by one heart, refused longer to bear the degradation put upon
+them by their King.  Hitherto the people had been led by their rulers.
+Now for a brief time they were going to be leaders, reluctantly
+followed by kings and princes.
+
+Within five months two hundred and seventy thousand men were under arms
+and Frederick had been obliged to declare war against the Emperor of
+the French, in alliance with Russia and Sweden.  Austria remained
+neutral, but the Rheinbund, with only two exceptions, still held to
+France.
+
+Napoleon by the irresistible magic of his influence assembled an army
+nearly as large as the one he had just sacrificed in Russia.  The
+campaign opened in April (1813).  By June his star seemed to be waning,
+and Austria offered to mediate a peace.  Napoleon insulted Metternich,
+who brought the proposals, and Francis II. joined the allies against
+his son-in-law.  In October the end arrived.
+
+The battle of Leipzig was to the people of Germany what Jena and
+Austerlitz had been to Napoleon.  The news of this great victory was
+electrifying.  From the Baltic to the Alps the air resounded with
+rejoicings.
+
+There are no persuasions needed to make people leave a sinking ship.
+Jerome Bonaparte fled from his kingdom of Westphalia--the Rheinbund
+dissolved--Holland, Switzerland, Italy fell away.  Wurtemberg joined
+the allies and the great movement for emancipation became national, not
+Prussian.
+
+The allied princes offered to Napoleon that the Rhine, the Alps, the
+Pyrenees, and the sea should be the frontiers of France.  Still
+believing in his invincibility, he scorned the proposition.  His star
+had certainly deserted him, for while he was collecting his broken
+forces in Germany, and while hope was reviving over small victories,
+the allied armies, unknown to him, were advancing on Paris!
+
+He learned it too late.  History holds no picture more powerfully
+impressive than that of this man waiting at Fontainebleau, twelve
+leagues from Paris, still believing in his power to retrieve, and
+unconscious that he is already deposed!  And the magic of his
+influence, the power of the spell he cast over mankind, is illustrated
+by the fact that even now, knowing him to have been a tyrant and a
+scourge as we do, rejoicing in his defeat as we must, we still cannot
+look at that picture without a moistened eye and almost a regret at his
+downfall!
+
+Alexander, and Frederick William, and the allied armies were in Paris,
+which had capitulated, and at their bidding had consented to the
+deposition of Napoleon.
+
+On the 6th of April, 1814, Louis XVIII., brother of the murdered Louis,
+was proclaimed King of France, and to the man who had been master of
+Europe was assigned--the island of Elba on the coast of Italy.
+
+But in March of the following year, while sovereigns were still
+wrangling over the disorder he had left, and while Talleyrand was
+scheming for his new master as faithfully as he had for the old, the
+startling news came that Napoleon had landed in France.  Louis XVIII.
+vanished into thin air before the man whom the people were receiving
+with wild acclamations of delight.
+
+Europe again united, and again Napoleon was seen advancing, as of old,
+with a great army.  Bluecher was in command of one division of the
+allied armies and Wellington of the other.
+
+The battle of Waterloo began on the morning of the 18th of June, 1815.
+To England was to belong the glory of Napoleon's final downfall.
+Wellington accomplished his defeat, and then Bluecher came in time to
+make that defeat an annihilation.
+
+The mistake of the year before was not to be repeated.  From that
+moment until his death at St. Helena, in 1821, Napoleon was a prisoner
+and an exile.  He had finished the work he had been appointed to do,
+and Fate had flung him aside!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Now came the difficult task of reconstruction and redistribution of
+territory.  In what form should they arise out of this chaos?  The
+dream of the people, like that of Hermann eighteen hundred years
+before, was of a German UNITY; not a renewal of the empire, but a great
+and new national life, in some firmer and truer form than it had yet
+known.  But these were only dreams, vague and without any practical
+ideas as to their realization.
+
+In the meantime men well versed in the arts and tricks of governing
+were deciding how all should be arranged.  The plan proposed by
+Metternich, that master of diplomacy, who was minister to the Emperor
+of Austria, was the one adopted.
+
+There was to be a confederation of thirty-nine German states.  The _Act
+of Union_, by which this was effected, had a pleasant sound to the ear
+of the German people.  But the Union existed only in a mutual defense
+against foreign foes, and a mutual aid in keeping the people of Germany
+well in check!  The one outward and visible expression of this _Unity_
+was in a _General Diet_, to be held at Frankfort, under the presidency
+of Austria!
+
+And this was what the _people_ who had liberated their country were to
+receive as their reward!  They were in no way recognized; were to
+possess no political power; the right of suffrage was not bestowed, and
+the Diet was prohibited from making any change in this form of
+confederation, except by a _unanimous_ (_!_) vote.  The German people
+were practically effaced and lost sight of in an autocratic
+confederation of states, with the Austrian Empire at its head.
+
+That empire had received back its Italian possessions.  Prussia had
+recovered Westphalia and her territory on the Rhine, and given up her
+Polish territory to Russia.  Belgium and Holland had been merged into a
+kingdom of the Netherlands.  Saxony, Wurtemberg, and Bavaria, which
+states had been made kingdoms by Napoleon, were permitted to remain
+such.  Switzerland was a republic; and by the successful diplomacy of
+Talleyrand, Alsace and Lorraine, those insecure possessions, passed to
+France.
+
+Such were some of the territorial adjustments.  That the rulers of
+these kingdoms were reactionary in their purposes soon became apparent.
+One of the first acts of the King of Wurtemberg was to court-martial
+and cashier the general who had gone over to the German side at the
+battle of Leipzig!  If none had gone over to the German side, where
+would have been the kingdom of Wurtemberg?  In Mecklenburg the people
+were openly declared serfs.  The Elector of Hesse-Cassel gave evidence
+that he was looking backward by putting his soldiers into the dress of
+the last century and powdered queues, and almost without exception the
+sovereigns were trying to construe the provisions of the _Act of Union_
+in a way to give the least liberty to the German people.
+
+The currents of German thought and feeling move slowly, but they are
+deep and persistent.  They had never been intemperate in their desires
+for freedom, but had simply asked for a government which should be more
+in conformity with the existing views of human rights.  Their
+disappointment had been profound and bitter.  The fathers earnestly
+talked over their wrongs at home, while their more fiery sons at the
+universities made speeches, sang songs, and banded themselves together
+into societies, with mottoes and badges and insignia, all under the
+same inspiring ideas,--UNION AND FREEDOM.
+
+This began to look like Revolution.  The freedom of the press was
+abolished.  The formation of societies among students and mechanics was
+prohibited, and the universities were placed under the immediate
+control of the government.  A savage police system was established.
+Hundreds of young men were thrown into prison, and hundreds more fled
+the country.
+
+But while this repression produced a calm surface, it did not change
+the conditions beneath.  In the meantime a "Holy Alliance" had been
+formed between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, for the purpose of
+repressing aspirations toward liberty in other lands, where this
+pestilential modern spirit was also rife.
+
+But in 1830 there was a popular uprising in France.  Charles X.,
+another brother of the murdered Louis, had been pursuing a reactionary
+policy precisely similar to the one employed by the sovereigns in
+Germany.  It was too late to do that in France.  The people with small
+ceremony flung the Bourbon aside, and set up a constitutional monarchy
+with Louis Philippe at its head.  This stirred anew the latent feeling
+in Germany.  The people did not rise in a body, but so threatening did
+it appear that the Diet quickly yielded certain reforms and concessions
+for fear of more extreme resistance.
+
+Francis II. died in 1835, and was succeeded by an almost imbecile son,
+Ferdinand I.  In 1840 Frederick William III. of Prussia also died, and
+Frederick William IV., his son, became King.  Metternich was now
+guiding the affairs of Austria, and William von Humboldt was the
+adviser of the new Prussian King, who inspired the people with a hope
+of better things.  But while this King fostered science and art, he
+gave little care to the redressing of political wrongs, and things
+drifted toward a crisis.
+
+Again a revolution in France reacted upon Germany.  In 1848, Louis
+Philippe was cast aside as unceremoniously as had been his predecessor,
+and a Republic was proclaimed, with Louis Napoleon, nephew of the great
+Napoleon, at its head.
+
+This new Bonaparte was a son of Louis Bonaparte, whom his imperial
+brother had made King of Holland.  He married Hortense, the daughter of
+Josephine.  So Fate intended that a child of the discarded Josephine,
+and not of Napoleon, should rule over France.
+
+The proclamation of a republic in France awoke the slumbering forces of
+revolution in Europe.  Not in one place, nor in two, did the fires
+spring up, but simultaneously in every German state.  Hungary, led by
+Kossuth, was in revolt, and fighting to the death to be freed from the
+Hapsburgs.  In Italy Victor Emmanuel, the young King of Sardinia, was
+trying to drive the Austrian governor of Milan out of the kingdom, and
+when checked, he shook his sword at the advancing Austrians and said
+prophetically, "_There shall yet be an Italy!_"  And while these things
+were going on in Italy and in Hungary, men were fighting in the streets
+of Vienna.  The ozone of freedom had penetrated even to that last
+stronghold of despotic sentiment.  The Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in
+this time of agitation, and his young nephew, Francis Joseph, ascended
+the Austrian throne.
+
+The things the people were demanding in every state were: freedom of
+speech and of the press; the right of every man to bear arms; of all to
+assemble when and where they liked for political or other purposes;
+trial by jury; and the abolition of the hated Diet, with a complete
+reorganization of the state governments.
+
+The princes were terrified.  It seemed as if their expulsion, like that
+of Louis Philippe, was at hand.
+
+And so it was, and would have ensued, had the people known their power
+or how to use it.  But gradually the opportunity was lost.  Concessions
+were made, new liberties were gained, but the _Unity_ they hungered for
+was to come in another and unexpected way, and for ten years the
+confederation was to exist practically unchanged.
+
+Still, although the fruits of their efforts seemed meager in comparison
+with what had been hoped, there had been one great concession made.
+The Diet, under the pressure of the crisis, had consented to steps
+which led finally to the formation of a National Parliament.
+
+When that parliament met at Frankfort, German patriots believed the
+hour of liberation had struck.  Full of hope and confidence they
+thought the end was attained, when six hundred men of character and
+intelligence came together to formulate a new plan of union based upon
+_The Sovereignty of the People_!
+
+But such a task requires something more than patriotism and enthusiasm,
+and theoretic views about human rights.  It needs practical political
+experience, and clearly defined plans for action.  After vainly trying
+to harmonize conflicting opinions a plan of union was finally adopted,
+and Frederick William IV. was elected "Hereditary Emperor of Germany."
+
+All save the smaller states refused to accede to the proposed plan, and
+Frederick William himself declined the proffered title, saying, "They
+forget that there are princes still in Germany, and that I am one of
+them."
+
+So the attempt at reorganization was a miserable failure, and the
+national parliament gradually dissolved.  In the meantime the
+revolutionary fires in Europe had burned out.  Hungary was again
+submissive in the grasp of the Hapsburgs, and Austria was also once
+more supreme in Italy; while the French republic, which had lighted
+this conflagration, had become a monarchy.
+
+The national party had developed no great leader, had shown no ability
+to grasp its opportunity.  The people, disheartened and in sullen
+disappointment, saw the old Bund-Diet restored at Frankfort, in 1851,
+and found themselves back in a slightly improved and amended
+confederation, still under the headship of Austria.
+
+Then Louis Napoleon's assumption of Imperial power, in 1851, gave
+renewed strength to the German rulers.  It demonstrated the instability
+of popular governments, and the sure return to the good old methods of
+their fathers, as soon as the temporary madness of the people had
+subsided.
+
+So all things conspired to depress aspiration and to make the hopes
+awakened in 1848 a tantalizing delusion.  It was not night, but it was
+a very dark and dreary day for patriotism in Germany.  The country was
+under a spell which no one knew how to break.
+
+In 1857 Frederick William IV. was stricken with apoplexy, and his
+brother, Prince William, was appointed Prince Regent.
+
+The new emperor of the French, with oppressive sense of the greatness
+of his name, was looking about for opportunities to be Napoleonic.  In
+1856 he had formed an alliance with England against Russia.  The fact
+of the alliance of itself gave weight to the rather flimsy fabric of
+his greatness, while the results of the Crimean War added much to its
+solidity.  In the year 1859 Italy was vainly struggling to free herself
+from the grasp of Austria.  Mazzini, the exalted dreamer, and
+Garibaldi, the soldier and patriot, with Cavour, the no less patriotic
+statesman, though with different ends in view, were working together
+for the destruction of the Austrian yoke, which must be preliminary to
+any form of Italian nationality.  The astute statesman saw in the
+ambition of Napoleon III. a means to that end.
+
+When Napoleon promised an "Italy free from the Alps to the Apennines,"
+and when the splendid victory of Magenta was quickly followed by that
+of Solferino, and when the young Francis Joseph, with tears in his
+eyes, ordered the retreat of his defeated army over the Mincio, the
+dream of centuries seemed about to be realized.  Then came the
+startling news that the two emperors were in consultation at
+Villafranca over the terms of peace!  Venice was not to be liberated.
+There was to be a consolidation of the Italian kingdoms "under the
+honorary Presidency of the Pope"--whatever that meant--and a "general
+amnesty" was declared.  It was with sullen rage that the disappointed
+patriots saw Nice and Savoy handed over to France, and Rome garrisoned
+with French troops, while a French emperor was posing as the liberator
+of an Italy which was not liberated!  But although the mills of the
+gods were moving slowly, they were going to grind exceeding fine.
+Victor Emmanuel and a regenerated Italy were not far off, and for
+Germany there was at hand a new era.
+
+Frederick William IV. died, and in 1861 William I. was crowned King of
+Prussia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+King William's youth was far behind him.  He had already spent a long
+life (sixty-four years) and had never expected to occupy a throne.  He
+had not the brilliant qualities of his brother, he did not concern
+himself much about science or letters; but he was profoundly impressed
+with the responsibilities of his position; and it at once became
+apparent that Prussia had a wise and sagacious King, who would make her
+well-being his sole care and ambition.
+
+His first act was a thorough reorganization of the army.  Then he
+looked about him for a man wise enough and strong enough for him to
+lean upon.  Baron Otto von Bismarck-Schoenhausen had just returned from
+St. Petersburg, where he had been Prussian ambassador.
+
+He was a conservative of the extreme type, hated and feared by the
+liberal and national party no less than Metternich.  But no man better
+than he comprehended the policy of Austria, and all the complicated
+threads composing the web of German politics.
+
+The choice of this man for minister to the King augured ill for the
+liberals.  The outlook had never been darker than at this hour before
+the dawn.
+
+But great political storms, like storms of another sort, are full of
+surprises.  The ominous storm clouds we have feared roll away and
+vanish in calm, and the little ones, not larger than a man's hand,
+suddenly expand and darken our sky.  A fateful storm was gathering for
+Germany in the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein.
+
+Of the nature of the Schleswig-Holstein entanglement someone (Was it
+Beaconsfield?) wittily said that there were only two men in Europe who
+understood it, himself and another; and the other was dead.  But that
+was a mistake.  There was a man in Prussia who understood it, and who
+lived to use it for his own far-reaching designs.
+
+The principal threads in the tangled web were as follows:
+
+The two adjacent dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein, which constitute a
+sort of natural bridge about 150 miles long and 50 miles wide, between
+Denmark and Prussia, are, by the way, the land of nativity for the
+Anglo-Saxon race, the Angles having inhabited Schleswig, and the Saxons
+Holstein, at the time they so kindly protected the Britons from the
+Picts and Scots.
+
+So it is probable that every member of the Anglo-Saxon family has some
+ancestral root running back to that fertile strip of pasture land.
+
+It had for many years been under the Danish protectorate, the King of
+Denmark being, by virtue of his position, also Duke of
+Schleswig-Holstein, just as the German Emperor is now King of Prussia
+by virtue of his imperial office.
+
+But this little people was by no means merged with the Danish by this
+arrangement; on the contrary, they preserved very jealously their own
+traits and ancestral traditions.  Among these was the exclusion of
+women from the royal succession--the Salic law, framed by their Frank
+ancestors centuries before on the banks of the river Saale, being part
+of their constitution.  Hence, when King Frederick VII. of Denmark died
+in 1862 without male heir, and King Christian IX. became King, the
+people of the two dukedoms hotly refused to recognize him as their
+lawful ruler, but claimed their right of reversion to Duke Frederick
+VIII., who was in the direct male line of succession.
+
+Had the Salic law prevailed in Denmark, this Duke Frederick (father of
+the present young Empress of Germany) would now be King of Denmark
+instead of Christian IX.  But it did not exist, so Christian, father of
+the Dowager Empress of Russia--of the Princess of Wales--and of King
+George of Greece--became, in 1862, lawful King of Denmark, with rights
+unimpaired by female descent.
+
+Schleswig-Holstein revolted against being held by a ruler who,
+according to her constitution, was not the terminal of the royal line,
+and insisted upon bestowing herself instead upon the German Duke
+Frederick VIII.  Denmark naturally resisted.  Salic law or no Salic
+law, the dukedoms were hers, and should stay.  Of course Austria, as
+the head of the German confederation, had to be consulted, and she
+thought well of uniting with Prussia to compel the cession of the twin
+dukedoms, which would have been quickly absorbed had not the European
+powers intervened and forbidden this encroachment upon the rights of
+Denmark.
+
+It was just at this crisis that Bismarck was appointed prime minister
+of Prussia, and commenced his series of brilliant moves upon the
+European chessboard.
+
+King Christian of Denmark, pleased with his success in retaining the
+refractory states, determined to go still farther; that is, to adopt a
+new constitution separating these Siamese twins, which should, in fact,
+detach Schleswig from Holstein, incorporating it permanently with
+Denmark.
+
+This was in direct violation of the treaty with the Great Powers made
+in London, 1852, and afforded the needed pretext for war.
+
+The moment and the man had arrived.  Bismarck, with the intuition of a
+good player, saw his opportunity, pushed up the pawn,
+Schieswig-Holstein, and said, "Check to your king."
+
+The Prussian and Austrian troops poured into Denmark, and in a few
+short weeks the blooming isthmus had ceased to be Danish and had become
+German.
+
+Austria generously said, "We will divide the prize.  Schleswig shall be
+Prussian, and Holstein Austrian."
+
+Could anything be more odious to the Prussians?  The long arm of
+Austrian tyranny stretching way over their land, up to their northern
+seaboard!  It might better have become Danish.  But all things come to
+him who waits, and--Bismarck waited.
+
+Neither Austria nor the German people had the slightest comprehension
+of the Minister's deep-laid plans.  When he said that the German
+question could "only be settled by blood and steel," the people
+construed it as the brutal utterance of despotism.  And when it looked
+as if they might be involved in a war with Austria over this paltry
+Holstein affair they were stunned, and believed that a desperate man
+was leading Prussia to her ruin for his own ambitious purposes.  What
+could they with their nineteen millions of people do against Austria,
+with her fifty millions!
+
+But Bismarck cared not and heeded not.  He was too intent upon his
+game.  He knew what no one else seemed to know, that there was no
+chance for Germany until she was emancipated from Austria.
+
+Again he pushed up his useful little pawn and said "check," but this
+time to the Emperor of Austria.  Ah! here was a game worth watching.
+Europe and America, too, were willing to let their morning coffee get
+cold in studying the moves.  Francis Joseph did not see as far into the
+game as his astute adversary, whose keen eye was focused at long range
+upon a renewed Germany, in which there should be no Austria.
+
+The conflict was short (only seven weeks), but the preparation had been
+thorough.  The 3d of July will long be remembered by Germany.  King
+William was there; the Crown Prince was there, now become "Unser
+Fritz," by his superb military achievements, the ideal prince and
+soldier of modern Europe; and Koeniggraetz, like Waterloo, decided the
+game.  Francis Joseph was checkmated.  A galling servitude to Austria
+existed no more.  What wonder that the people were glad, or that Unser
+Fritz was their idol, and Bismarck became their demigod!
+
+A great physician correctly diagnoses the disease before he treats it.
+Bismarck knew why the attempts at a German union had been futile.  He
+knew such a union never could exist until Austria was eliminated from
+it.
+
+An overwhelming revulsion in sentiment followed.  The man whom the
+despotic element had leaned upon became the adored leader of the
+liberal party.  He had no sentimental theories about human rights.  His
+personal tendencies were toward despotism rather than freedom.  But he
+had the acuteness to recognize the advantages which would be derived
+from a liberal policy and the ardent support of the _people_.
+
+A new confederation of states was formed called the _North German
+Union_, with a parliament elected by the people.  It was composed of
+all the states except Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden.
+
+The several states were united under a general Federal Government,
+somewhat like that of the United States of America, of which the King
+of Prussia was _President_, and Bismarck was _Chancellor_.
+
+This new union was Protestant and Prussian, and forever separated from
+all that was Catholic and Austrian.  In five short years what a change!
+Truly, "blood and iron" had proved a wonderful tonic for Germany!
+
+In the year 1763 Prussia won the province of Silesia after a seven
+years' war with Austria.  Just one century later, in 1866, a war of
+seven weeks with that same power placed her at the head of a firmly
+consolidated German nation.  A result so astonishing from a conflict so
+brief must ever be a phenomenon in history; and had it been necessary,
+seven years would not have been too long to struggle for such a reward.
+
+And what of poor little Schleswig-Holstein, that land of our race
+nativity?  If she had indulged in any innocent expectation of benefit
+from such brilliant espousal of her cause she was disappointed.  And
+she must have realized that she had been only the humble hinge upon
+which the door of opportunity had swung open for Germany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+There was a man in France to whom these overturnings were especially
+distasteful.  Napoleon III., sitting in brand-new splendor upon his
+newly created throne, was industriously engaged in building up an
+empire and a reputation upon Napoleonic lines.  These lines of course
+were despotic.  So the triumph of liberalism in Germany, the creation
+of a new political power with Austria and despotism cast out, was a
+severe blow to his policy and to his prestige.  It weakened him in
+Europe, where he aspired to headship, and at home, where he should be
+considered invincible, not alone in arms, but in statecraft.
+
+The Crimea, Magenta, and Solferino had been splendid decorations to his
+reign; but they looked tame and insignificant since this transforming
+_Seven Weeks' War_.  Then, too, his magnificent scheme of an empire in
+Mexico, with a Hapsburg ruling under a French protectorate--that had
+miserably failed.  And now there had suddenly arisen, as if out of the
+ground, a new political Germany, which rivaled France in strength.
+Frenchmen began to ask whether this man was, after all, such a great
+leader, and destined to wear the mantle of his uncle!
+
+Obviously the thing to do was to recover his waning prestige by a
+splendid victory over this new power of which Prussia was the head.
+
+If the Emperor had any misgivings they were swept away by the beautiful
+Empress Eugenie, who, intensely Catholic, saw in the ascendency of
+Protestant Prussia, and the humiliation of Catholic Austria, an impious
+blow at the Catholic faith in Europe.
+
+So the war was determined upon.  Only one obstacle existed.  There was
+nothing to fight about!  But that could be overcome, and in 1870 a
+pretext was found.
+
+Queen Isabella had been expelled from Spain, and there existed that
+perennial source of disturbance in Europe, a vacant Spanish throne.
+From among the several candidates, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, a
+relative of William I. of Prussia, was chosen.
+
+The French ambassador Benedetti received instant orders to demand of
+King William that he should prohibit Prince Leopold from accepting the
+offer.
+
+The King made answer that "not having advised it, he could not forbid
+it."  However, to the disappointment of the Emperor, the Hohenzollern
+prince voluntarily declined, and the way to a war seemed closed again.
+
+But the Empress Eugenie was intent upon her object, and the war-fever
+had taken deep hold upon the people of France.  So the fateful dispatch
+was sent to Benedetti--"Be rough to the King."
+
+The kindly old King William was peacefully sunning himself at Ems, when
+the ambassador discourteously approached him and made an abrupt demand
+for a guarantee that no Hohenzollern should _ever_ occupy the throne of
+Spain.  The words and the manner were offensive--as they were intended
+to be.
+
+The King, recognizing an intended impertinence, without replying turned
+away and left Benedetti standing.  Here was the opportunity.  The
+telegraph swiftly bore the news that the French ambassador had been
+publicly insulted by the King of Prussia.  France was in a blaze of
+indignation.  These Prussians should be taught that the great French
+Empire was not to be insulted with impunity.
+
+Not a shadow of doubt existed as to the result.  The French army was
+invincible, and the southern German states would be glad at the
+deliverance.  They would welcome an invading army, and perhaps Hesse
+and Hanover also would revolt and the new Prussian confederation would
+fall to pieces in their hands.  The birthday of Napoleon I., the 15th
+of August, must be celebrated in Berlin!
+
+Such were the wild expectations when the French army moved, bearing
+away with it the boy Prince Imperial, that he might witness for himself
+his father's triumphs, and receive an object lesson, as it were, in
+avenging insult to the imperial dignity, which would one day be in his
+keeping!
+
+This was the way it looked in France.  How was it in Germany?  There
+was no north and no south German.  Men and states sprang together as a
+unit, showing how vital was the bond which had existed only for four
+years.  It was no longer a German race combining with a common purpose,
+but a German nation instinct with one life, and solemnly resolved to
+defend it or to perish.  In only eleven days an army of four hundred
+and fifty thousand soldiers was under the command of Moltke, with the
+Crown Prince Frederick William leading one of the three great divisions.
+
+In less than three weeks, instead of waging an aggressive war in
+Germany, the French were fighting for their existence on their own soil.
+
+In less than a month the French Emperor was a prisoner, and in seven
+months his empire was swept out of existence; the Germans were in
+Paris--and King William, Unser Fritz, Bismarck, and Von Moltke were
+quartered at Versailles.
+
+France had given up Alsace and Lorraine, had agreed to pay an indemnity
+of _five thousand millions_ of francs, and was glad to have peace even
+at that price!
+
+The surrenders of Metz (August 4), and of Sedan (September 2), were
+monumental disasters, and history would be searched in vain for such a
+crushing defeat of a proud and strong nation as was consummated by the
+Treaty of Peace signed at Paris on the 10th of May, 1871.
+
+Even the three southern states, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden, had
+participated in this Franco-Prussian war.  So the last barrier to a
+completed union was removed, and a dramatic climax occurred in the Hall
+of Mirrors at Versailles on the 18th of January, 1871.
+
+In that very hall where Richelieu, and Louis XIV., and Louis XV. had
+schemed to entangle and cripple and rob Germany, and where Napoleon I.
+had plotted the destruction of the German Empire, Ludwig II., King of
+Bavaria, in the name of the rest of the German states, laid their
+united allegiance at the feet of King William of Prussia, begging him
+to assume the crown and with it the title of "Hereditary Emperor of the
+German Empire."
+
+It is a curious fact that Bavaria, which had always been a thorn in the
+side of the Empire, which from the time of the first Duke Welf had
+stood for all that was conservative and despotic and reactionary,
+should have taken the initiative in the final act which set a seal upon
+the triumph of liberalism in Germany.  It was recompense full and ample
+for the trouble she had given in the past!
+
+The return to Germany was a march of triumph.  The popular enthusiasm
+knew no bounds.  It was less than ten years since those days of gloom
+and depression.  What a change had been wrought!  Was it all done by
+blood and iron?  They had been mighty factors certainly, but they had
+been used by a masterful intelligence, which had also recognized the
+power of _patriotism_.  The empire which was immediately organized was
+simply a renewal of the _North German Union_.
+
+The dream of Hermann had at last been realized.  There was a United
+Germany.
+
+When in 1888 Emperor William I. sank under the weight of years and the
+crown rested upon the head of his son Frederick, that adored prince was
+no longer in the full tide of victorious youth, but being borne by a
+swiftly ebbing tide beyond the reach of earthly honors.  He was a
+stricken and indeed a dying man when the opportunity came to carry out
+the policy he had intended for Germany.
+
+What that policy was we shall never know, nor whether it would have
+been a safe and a wise one.  We are sure it would have been beneficent,
+for no gentler, kindlier prince ever had power and opportunity.
+
+The distrust of him manifested by the conservative party, and notably
+by Bismarck, and one still nearer to him, leads us to believe that he
+leaned too strongly toward the ideal of the patriots of 1860.  But we
+shall never know.  We can only conjecture whether in Frederick's death
+Germany escaped a danger or missed an opportunity.
+
+The unseemly dissensions, the heartbreaking complications, which
+tormented this dying man make one of the saddest chapters in history;
+and his reign of five months can scarcely be matched in suffering.  At
+last it was ended.  The untarnished soul and tortured body parted
+company, and William II. reigned in his stead.
+
+It is not the province of history to pass judgment upon the living.
+When the young Emperor William II. dismissed his great chancellor, he
+assumed the full responsibility of his empire.  Whether he has the
+intelligence and the wisdom required to control, unaided, the forces at
+home, or to guide his bark amid the whirl of European currents, later
+histories will tell.
+
+But one thing is very certain.  Time spent to-day in riveting
+antiquated chains upon Germany is time thrown away; and the ruler who
+desires his work to be permanent must turn his back upon medievalism
+and must realize that the true source of abiding power in his country
+is that sentiment which emancipated her from Napoleon in 1814, and
+which in 1871 made of her a UNITED GERMANY.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Germany, by Mary Platt Parmele
+
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