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THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 
 
 OCTAVO, ILLUSTRATED. 1'EK VOL., $1.50 
 
 THE EARLIER VOLUMES WILL BE 
 
 THE STORY OF GREECE. By Prof. Jas. A Harrison 
 
 THE STORY OF ROME. By Arthur Gilman 
 
 THE STORY OF THE JEWS. By Prof. Jas. K. Hosmer 
 
 THE STORY OF CHALDEA. By Z. A. Ragozin 
 
 THE STORY OF NORWAY. By Prof. H. H. Boyesen 
 
 THE STORY OF GERMANY. By S. Baring-Gould 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. By E. E. and Susan Hale 
 
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 For prospectus of the series see end of this volume 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 


 m 
 
 J 
 
\ 
 
 01 \ GERMAN, i:V TRADITION, HERMANN. 
 I The Capitollne Museum, Rome.) 
 
flhe Jjtorg of il|c ||«iions 
 
 v 
 
 THE 
 
 STORY OF GERMANY 
 
 > BY 
 
 SABINE BARING-GOULD, M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "GERMANY PRESENT AND PAST," " CURIOUS MYTHS OF THE MIDDLE 
 
 AGES," ETC. 
 
 WITH THE COLLABORATION OF 
 
 ARTHUR GILMAN, M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF ROME," " A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN 
 PEOPLE," ETC. 
 
 2 
 
 **° 
 
 NEW YORK & LONDON 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Wyt ftttichcrbochtr %xt%% 
 
 1887 
 

 COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 1886 
 
 ,\ 
 
 \ 
 
 
 ' 
 
 Press of 
 
 (i. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Germany is the heart of Continental Europe, and 
 influences have gone forth from her which have 
 deeply affected every one of her neighbours. The 
 present volume traces the life of this powerful na- 
 tion from the time whe'n imperial Rome was baffled 
 by her valiant Hermann down to the hour when 
 France fell before her, and the idea of Empire 
 (which had been a delusion and a terrible embarrass- 
 ment since the crowning of Charlemagne) became, 
 under William the First, a power making for peace 
 and strength. 
 
 The absorbing story begins with pictures of the 
 surgings of the nations, — the Huns, the Sclavs, the 
 Goths, the Saxons, the Franks; it tells of the throes 
 by which the heroes of old brought the great peo- 
 ple to its independent life ; recounts the struggles 
 of the various Teutonic families among themselves, 
 and of all of them with their neighbours , and brings 
 up vividly the power of an idea, as it shows the 
 strife and perplexities arising from the Imperial 
 spectre, as well as the dire contest that followed 
 the schism of the Church and in a short time in- 
 volved all Christendom in disputes touching the 
 highest interests of humanity. 
 
 The reader of the story of Germany is thus 
 
IV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 brought face to face with problems of the deepest 
 moment, with which men of deadly earnestness 
 were struggling through the ages, putting forth all 
 the power of their intellect and the force of their 
 vigorous bodies, intensified by the deep-seated re- 
 ligious convictions which they nourished in their 
 hearts. 
 
 The story of such a people as the Germans could 
 not fail to possess intense interest for anyone ; but 
 for us of another branch of the Teutonic family, it 
 has the additional charm that it is the history of 
 our blood-relations. On their experience we have 
 built, and to the light of their example we look for 
 guidance ; in their triumphs we rejoice ; to the 
 grandeur of the genius of their poets and prose 
 writers, of their scientists and theologians, we look 
 with pride and admiration, congratulating ourselves 
 that we, too, are Teutons. We stood with their 
 Hermann, as he said to the Roman Varus, <4 No 
 farther!" just as we stood with the barons before 
 King John on the field of Runnymede. 
 
 It has been the endeavour in preparing the fol- 
 lowing pages to keep before the mind this unity of 
 the Teutonic peoples, as well as to indicate the 
 steps by which the idea of Empire has progressed 
 to the present German Unity. 
 
 A. G. 
 
 CAMBRIDGEj May \st, 1886. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. PAGE 
 
 The First Germans, . . . . . 1-6 
 
 Invaders from the North, i — The Romans defeated, 2 — 
 Marius at Aix, 4 — The victory over the invaders, 6. 
 
 II. 
 
 What was Old Germany Like? . . . 7-14 
 
 Hill-country and plain, 7 — Traces of early inhabitants, 8 — 
 The Germans spearmen, 9 — The Swabians, 10 — Freemen 
 and slaves, n — Donar and the other gods, 12 — S. Noth- 
 burga, 14. 
 
 III. 
 
 How Hermann Met the Romans, . . . 1 5-23 
 
 Cassar in Gaul, 15 — Hermann's thoughts, — Varus and his 
 legions, 18 — "Give me back my legions !" 20 — Thusnelda 
 captured, 22 — Hermann the typical German, 23. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Fierce Huns Appear, .... 24-28 
 Puss in the Corner, 24 — People from Northern Asia, 26 — 
 The Niebelungen Lied, 27 — Attila dies, 28. 
 
 V. 
 
 The Migrations of the Tribes, . . . 29-33 
 Wasps in a beehive, 29 — Goths, West Goths and Slavs, 31 — 
 The Burgundians and Franks, ^ 
 
 VI. 
 
 Clovis, King of the Franks, . . . 34-42 
 
 Confusion, 34 — The cathedral at Rheims spoiled, 35 — Clo- 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 tilde wooed by Clovis, 37— Baptism of a son of Clovis, 38 
 — Clovis prays, 39— The Allemani beaten, 40— Three thou- 
 sand Franks baptised, 41— Clovis dies, 42. 
 
 VII. 
 The Mayors of the Palace, . 43 _ 45 
 
 The Merovingians, 43,— Pepin the Short, 44— Pepin dies, 45. 
 
 VIII. 
 The Germans Hear the Gospel, . . . 46-5 1 
 
 Irish manuscripts in Germany, 46 — Fridolin, the Irishman, 
 48 — Boniface, the Good-doer, 50 — Pagans murder Boniface, 
 
 5 1 - 
 
 IX. 
 
 A Man of Mark, 5 2-62 
 
 Charlemagne, 52— His kingdom, 54— Wittekind flees to 
 Denmark, 56— Wittekind and the Saxons overcome, 57 — 
 Charlemagne divides his kingdom, 58— The Church under 
 Charlemagne, 59— Good acts of Charlemagne, 60 — Charle- 
 magne crowned at Rome, 61 — His death, 62. 
 
 X. 
 
 The " Holy Roman Empire." . . 63-66 
 
 The old Empire, 63 — Conversion of the Romans, 64 — Italy 
 overrun by the Lombards, 64 — Who was Emperor? 65 — 
 Importance of the idea of the Empire, 66. 
 
 XI. 
 
 A King Pious but Narrow, . . \ 67-71 
 
 Louis, the narrow-minded, 67— Jutta accused of witchcraft, 
 68— War between brothers, 70— Treaty at Verdun, 71. 
 
 XII. 
 The New System of Government, . 72-74 
 
 How the Germans held their lands, 72— How fighting men 
 were furnished, 73— The feudal system, 73. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Trouble Coming, 75~77 
 
 Successors of Louis the Pious, 75— The invasions of the 
 Magyars or Hungarians, 76 — End of the race of Charle- 
 magne, 77. 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 How Henry the Fowler Ruled, . . . 78-84 
 The great vassals elect the king, 78— Gonrad chosen, 79— 
 Henry the Fowler chosen, 80 — Tribute to the Hungarians, 
 81 — Protecting the frontier, 82 — The Hungarians baffled, 83 
 —Knighthood instituted, 83— Rules of the Order, 84. 
 
 XV. 
 
 The Hungarians Burst in Again, . . 85-93 
 
 Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg, 85 — Count Kyburg puzzles the 
 Hungarians, 86 — Otto comes upon their rear, 88 — Otto the 
 Great crowned, 90. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Some Trials of a King, .... 94-105 
 A Plot against a King, 95 — The King's Guardians, 97 — An 
 Appeal to the Pope, 99 — A Hand cut off, 103 — A broken 
 heart, 105. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 A Bad Son Makes a Strong King, . . 106-108 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 How They Fought the Saracens, . . 109-112 
 A great awakening, in. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 How a New Dynasty was Begun, . . 113-119 
 
 The two-headed eagle, 119. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Frederick of the Red Beard, . . . 120-124 
 Frederick Barbarossa, 120 — His army almost cut to pieces, 
 122 — Henry the Lion under the ban of the empire, 122 — A 
 crusade against Saladin, 124. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 A Cruel King Put Under the Ban, . 125-135 
 
 Terrible work in Sicily, 125 — A child-king, 127 — The power 
 of the nobles, 129 — Trouble from the imperial idea, 131 — 
 Another crusade, 132 — Pope against emperor, 133 — The em- 
 peror excommunicated, 134 — A prince in a cask, 135. 
 
\ 111 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 XXII. PAGE 
 
 The Robber-Knights, .... 136-140 
 
 Germany's ruined castles, 136— Nobles and knights quarrel, 
 13S — What work the knights did, 139— Lordly innkeepers, 
 140. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 How the Germans Wrote Romances, . 141-145 
 
 The Minnesingers, 141— The old heroic legends, 142— Gun- 
 thur and Kriemhild, 143— Brunhilde quarrels with Kriem- 
 hild, 144— Attila, King of the Huns, marries Kriemhild, 
 
 145- 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 How the Cities Gained Power, . . 146-147 
 
 Guilds and hereditary burghers, 146 — The Hanseatic 
 League, 147. 
 
 XXV. 
 A Good King from a Swiss Castle, . . 148-150 
 
 The castle of Hapsburg, 148 — Rudolph founds a dynasty, 
 
 • 150- 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Did William Tell Shoot ? . . . . 1 51-153 
 Albert of Hapsburg, 151— William Tell, 1 52— The battle of 
 Morgarten, 153. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The Golden Bull, i54~ l6 3 
 
 Henry of Luxemburg chosen emperor, 154 — Civil war, 156 
 — The election of emperor settled. by the Golden Bull, 156 
 — Wcnceslas comes to the throne, 158 — His savage hounds, 
 159 — IIuss appears at Prague, 160 — The one-eyed leader of 
 the Hussites, 161 — Saxony wasted, 162 — Bohemia and the 
 country generally pacified, 163. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 A Sleepy King, 164-170 
 
 The Austrian house of Hapsburg comes into power, 164 — 
 The Graubunden, 166 — Peasants with pitchforks, 166 — 
 Wheat fields ravaged, 167 — Maximilian the Handsome, 168 
 — The Flemings revolt, 170 — Maximilian a prisoner, 170. 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 XXIX. PAGE 
 
 Between the Old and the New, . . 172-178 
 
 Hans Burgkmair's wood-cuts, 172 — Maximilian a boundary- 
 stone, 174 — A diet at Worms, 175 — An imperial post-office, 
 176 — Trouble with the Turks, 176 — Money going to the 
 Pope, 177 — Too much ambition, 178. 
 
 XXX. 
 Men Begin to Print Books, . . . 179-181 
 
 Water-marks, 179 — The invention of printing, 179 — The 
 Bible printed, 180. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 A Great Stir in the Church, . . 182-188 
 
 Beginning of Protestantism, 182 — The Pope wants money, 
 183 — Indulgences, 184 — Martin Luther appears, 185 — Justi- 
 fication by faith, 186 — Archbishops in armor, 188. 
 
 XXXII. 
 Walled Cities and their Importance, . 189-195 
 
 Cities begin to be important, 189 — Timber houses, 189 — 
 Glass windows, 191 — Stables under the houses, 191 — Beauty 
 of the cities, 192 — Street fights, 193 — Music and singing, 
 194. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 High German and Low, .... 196-198 
 
 How Germany is divided, 196 — The hill country and plains, 
 196 — How Luther fixed the literary dialect, 197 — Compari- 
 son with England, 198. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 A Mighty Emperor, ..... 199-204 
 Charles the Fifth and his traits, 199 — His ambition, 201 — 
 Another diet at Worms, 203 — The princes seize church 
 property, 204. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 How the Peasants Waked up, . . 205-210 
 
 The new ideas permeate society, 205 — Gathering straw- 
 berries and snails, 206 — Little Jack and Black Hoffman, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 207— Hacked to pieces, 207— Terrible deeds, 208— Shall the 
 
 chains be re-riveted? 209. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 The Sad Fate of Bernard Knipperdolling, 211-220 
 
 Meyerbeer's opera, 211— League against the Catholics, 211 
 —Mlinster converted to the Gospel, 212— Anabaptist trou- 
 bles, 213— Vagaries, 214— Knipperdolling's death, 217— 
 Titles to tradesmen, 21S— Minister reverts to Catholicism, 
 
 2iq. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 How the Protestants Protested, . . 221-231 
 
 The Reformation at Zurich, 221— A diet at Spires, 221— 
 The Protestants uncompromising, 222— Council at Trent 
 225— Victory for king Charles at Mithlberg, 225— Maurice 
 rewarded by Charles, 226— Maurice unmasks, 227— The 
 Pacification of Passau, 228-The Pope jealous of King 
 Charles, 228— Death of Charles V., 230. 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Thirty Years of War about Religion, . 232-239 
 Persecutions on both sides, 232— Gloomy Rudolph II., 233 
 —The Protestant Union and the Catholic League, 233— A 
 High Fall, 235— Vienna besieged, 235— A battle at Prague, 
 23S— The Winter King, 239. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 A Bohemian Gentleman, . . . 240-246 
 
 Count Tilly comes to the front, 240— Albert of Wallenstein 
 appears, 242— Betnlen Gabor disbands his troops, 244— 
 Wallenstein baffled, 244— He retires to Bohemia, 246. 
 
 XI.. 
 
 A Swedish King in Germany, . . . 247-256 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus appealed to, 247— Dreadful scenes in 
 Magdeburg, 247— Outrages by the Swedes, 250— The em- 
 peror appeals again to Wallenstein, 251— Wallenstein's 
 magnificence, 252— Gustavus attacks the Bohemian gentle- 
 man, 253 — A difficult retreat, 254— A battle at Lut/.en, 254 
 —What two Scotchmen and an Irishman did, 256. 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 XLI. PAGE 
 
 Peace After the Long War, . . . 257-259 
 
 The Peace of Westphalia, 257 — The Reichstag or Imperial 
 Diet, 258 — How the population decreased, 258. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Two Strokes by a Man in Yellow, . 260-264 
 
 The long reign of Leopold, 260 — Rhineland wasted by the 
 French, 261 — The man in yellow, 261 — The Turks stirred 
 up, 263 — Two great men, 263. 
 
 XLIIL 
 
 A Noble Ruler, 264-267 
 
 The Great Elector, 264 — His pedigree, 265 — A fortunate 
 escape, 266 — The Swedes take to flight, 267. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Bitterly Fighting the Turks, . . . 268-269 
 
 Prince Eugene appears, 268 — Louis XIV. attempts to gain 
 Eugene over, 269 — The Prince wins his soldiers' hearts, 269. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 All Europe at War, 270-274 
 
 A claim to the crown of Spain, 270 — War begins in Italy, 
 271 — The battle of Blenheim, 271 — Marlborough in the 
 Netherlands, 272 — Ramilies and Oudenarde, 274 — Rastadt, 
 274. 
 
 XLVI. 
 Powdered Wigs and Patches, . . . 275-277 
 
 Rococo, 275 — A strange " deformity," 276 — Threatrical stat- 
 ues, 276 — Manufacturing " nobles," 277. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 The Troubles of a Noble Queen, . . 279-282 
 
 War with Maria Theresa, 279 — In spite of the Pragmatic 
 Sanction, 280 — Rude royalty, 281 — Insolence of king Fred- 
 erick, 282. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 The Queen's Baby Boy, .... 283-287 
 
 " Moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresa," 283 — A brief 
 

 
 x jj CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 reign, 285 — Frederick the Great uneasy, 2S6 — An angry 
 prince, 2 
 
 XI .IX. 
 
 The Hardships of a Young Print: . 288-292 
 
 Doings in a "Tabagie," 288 — Royal whimsies, 2S9— A flying 
 
 prince, 290 — Close confinement, 291 — A reconciliation, 292. 
 
 L. 
 The Army of Cut-and-Run, . . • 2 93 _2 95 
 
 A confederation against Prussia, 293 — The battle of Ross- 
 bach, 294 — The charge of Seidlitz, 295. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Old Fritz Repairs Ruins, .... 296-300 
 
 Terrible results of the war, 296 — Traits of the king, 20S — 
 Anecdotes, 299 — Frederick the Great, 300. 
 
 LII. 
 The Doings of Two Hundred Princes, . 301-305 
 
 Culture nearly extinguished, 301 — Manufactured towns, 
 302— Mannheim described, 303— A palace at Wurzburg, 
 
 3°4- 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Good King Joseph, 306-311 
 
 Character of Joseph II., 306— Arbitrary reforms, 307— Con- 
 dition of the peasants improved, 308 — Religious orders put 
 to work, 309— A visit from pope Pius VI., 310 — A tottering 
 throne, 31 1. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Genius Comes to the Front, . . . 312-317 
 Lessing breaks away from foppery, 312 — Goethe and Schil- 
 ler appear, 313 — Weimar a German Athens, 314 — Schiller's 
 Robbers, 315 — Other writers, 316 — Music improves. 317. 
 
 LV. 
 
 An Up-turning in France, . . . 318-327 
 
 The fashion to be vicious, 318 — Influence of America, 319 — 
 The Third Estate, 320— Storming the Pastille, 321— The 
 peasants rise, 322 — The Jacobins and Robespierre, 324 — 
 
 Louis XVI. execute;!, 32(1 — Marie Antoinette executed. J27. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 LVI. PAGE 
 
 The Man from Corsica, . . . 328-339 
 
 The First Coalition, 328 — Girondists guillotined, 329 — End 
 of the Reign of Terror, 330 — Napoleon advances into Italy, 
 331 — Threatened in the rear, 332 — Treaty of Campo Formio, 
 333 — Nations like children, 334 — France prepares for more 
 war, 336 — The French in Egypt, 337 — The Second Coali- 
 tion, 337 — Battle of Hohenlinden, 338 — Peace concluded at 
 Luneville, 339. 
 
 LVIL 
 Napoleon as Emperor, .... 340-347 
 Napoleon wins popular favour, 340 — The Empire estab- 
 lished, 341 — The Third Coalition, 341 — Battle of Auster- 
 litz, 342 — Peace of Pressbu/g, 344 — Prussia chastised, 345 
 — Austria against Napoleon, 346 — Peace of Vienna, 347. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 The Heroes of the Tyrol, . . . 348-357 
 
 Hofer the Landwirth, 348 — His picturesque dress, 349 — " It 
 is time!" 350 — A secret kept, 351 — Berg Isel, 353 — The 
 woman with the cask, 354 — Austria abandons the Tyrol, 357. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 The March on Moscow, .... 358-361 
 
 Napoleon against England, 358 — Against Russia, 359 — The 
 retreat from Moscow, 361 — Napoleon deserts his own army, 
 361. 
 
 LX. 
 
 Napoleon Falls and Germany Rises, . 362-366 
 
 Hope in Europe, 362 — Germany roused, 364 — Bliicher wins 
 success, 365 — Napoleon's last victory on German soil, 366. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 The Battle of the Nations, . . . 367-372 
 A foreboding, 367— The position of Leipzig, 368 — How the 
 battle there began, 369 — Victory apparently for the French, 
 370 — All lost, 371 — " It was a glorious victory ! " 372. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Napoleon Checked, 373S7& 
 
 Napoleon refuses peace, 373 — He is forced to renounce the 
 French crown, 375— The First Peace of Paris, 375— Sudden 
 return of Napoleon, 376 — A second abdication after Water- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 xiv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 l00f 377— The Second Peace of Paris, 378— A new partition 
 
 of Europe, 37S. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Germ \nv Struggles for Freedom, . . 379~3 8 3 
 
 Men desire more freedom. 3 79-The Holy Alliance, 380- 
 The liurschenschaften 381— Memoirs of Baron Trenck, 3S2 
 
 —The Zoll-verein, 383. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Another Revolution, . 3 8 4~3 8 7 
 
 Louis Philippe flees to England, and Louis Napoleon ap- 
 pears 384— Every German state in commotion, 3S5— A 
 National Assembly at Frankfort, 386-Frederick William 
 IV. declines to be emperor, 386-The peasants rise again, 
 but government keeps the upper hand, 387. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 A Quarrel about Two Duchies, . . 3 88 "394 
 
 Schleswig-Holstein, 3 SS-Denmark crushed, 390-General 
 Benedek makes a mistake, 391-The battle of Koniggratz, 
 392— The Peace of Prague, 394. 
 
 LXVI. 
 A Terrible Struggle with France, . . 395-4H 
 A dispute over the throne of Spain, 395-Napoleon III. 
 declares war, 396-The contending armies, 397-The French 
 routed at Worth, 390-Great agitation in Pans, 399-! he 
 position of Metz, 400-Masterly plans and movements, 402 
 -The Germans occupy Gravelotte, 403-A battle there, 
 404— MacMahon in a corner, 405-Defeat at Sedan,— Napo- 
 leon surrenders, 406-Rapidity of the movements, 4 oS-lhe 
 Germans at Versailles, 409-The siege of Pans, 410-Ganv 
 betta in a balloon, 410— Gambetta's operations, 412— Peace, 
 413— The Commune, 414. 
 
 LXVII. 
 The New Empire, 415-422 
 
 William, king of Prussia, crowned Emperor at Versailles, 
 415— First diet of the new Empire, 416— Composition of 
 the empire, 416-What is the German Fatherland? 41S— 
 The Lesson of Unity, 420-Crushing military drill, 421- 
 \dvantages of the study of history, 4* 2 - 
 
 Index, 42 3 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The larger proportion of the illustrations in this volume are based 
 upon the excellent designs in the comprehensive and authoritative 
 "Deutsche Geschichte," by L. Stacke, to the publishers of which, 
 Messrs. Velhagen & Klasing, of Bielefeld, we desire to express our 
 cordial acknowledgments. 
 
 May i, 1886. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MAP OF EUROPE IN THE NINTH CENTURY, • Front Lining 
 
 map of the German empire, 1885 . Back Lining 
 
 BUST OF A GERMAN BY TRADITION HERMANN, Frontispiece 
 
 ROMANS AND CIMBRI IN COMBAT 
 
 A GERMAN CAVALRY MAN (ROMAN RELIEF) 
 
 ANCIENT GERMAN DWELLINGS (ROMAN PERIOD) 
 
 SAXON COLONIST WITH CAPTIVE WEND . 
 
 A GERMAN COUNCIL (ROMAN PERIOD) 
 
 GERMANS ON THE RHINE .... 
 
 CAESAR ........ 
 
 GERMAN HORSEMEN FIGHTING ROMAN LEGIONS 
 ROMAN SOLDIERS DESTROYING A GERMAN VILLAGE 
 STATUE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THUSNELDA 
 GERMAN CAPTIVE (ROMAN PERIOD) 
 BOUNDARY WALL (ROMAN PERIOD) . 
 GERMAN SKIRMISHERS (GEFECHT'S-EROFFNER) 
 MARCUS AURELIUS PARDONING GERMAN CHIEFS 
 ROMANS BESIEGING A GERMAN FORTRESS 
 GERMAN PRIESTESSES FOLLOWING THE ARMY . 
 GERMAN BODY-GUARD OF THE LATER CAESARS 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 9 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 J 3 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 1 9 
 21 
 
 *5 
 
 27 
 
 30 
 3 2 
 36 
 
 39 
 40 
 
XVI 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 
 INVESTITURE OF A BISHOP BY A KING 
 
 TREATY OF ALLIANCE BETWEEN GERMAN TRIBES 
 
 A JUDGMENT OF GOD 
 
 GERMANY CAPTIVE . 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE (d©REr) . 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE IN COUNCIL 
 
 Charlemagne's signature 
 
 SILVER PIECES OF CHARLEMAGNE 
 
 ST. MICHAEL, THE PATRON SAINT OF THE EMPIRE 
 
 ELECTION OF A KING . 
 
 THE HEERBANN CALLING OUT OF THE MILITIA. 
 
 HENRY II. AND CUNIGUNDE BUILD CHURCHES . 
 OTTO II. AND HIS SPOUSE BLESSED BY CHRIST . 
 HENRY II. RECEIVES FROM GOD THE CROWN, HOLY 
 
 LANCE, AND IMPERIAL SWORD 
 OTTO III. AND REPRESENTATIVES OF NOBLES AND 
 
 CLERGY 
 
 IMPERIAL HOUSE AT GOSLAR (HENRY III.) 
 
 HENRY IV. WITH SCEPTRE AND IMPERIAL GLOBE 
 
 RUDOLPH OF SWABIA 
 
 CONRAD, SON OF HENRY IV. 
 
 HENRY V. RECEIVES INSIGNIA FROM 
 
 A TEMPLAR .... 
 
 AN ASTROLOGER (HOLBEIN') . 
 
 IMPERIAL GLOBE 
 
 A HOHENSTAUFFEN KNIGHT . 
 
 CONRAD HUNTING WITH FALCONS 
 
 HENRY THE LION AND SPOUSE 
 
 STATUE OF FREDERICK BARBAROSSA 
 
 bakbarossa's PALACE AT GELNHAUSEN . 
 
 BARBAROSSA'S PALACE AT KAISERWERTH 
 
 SEAL OF OTTO IV 
 
 MONUMENTAL LION TO HENRY THE LION 
 
 POPE PASCHAL 
 
 45 
 
 47 
 49 
 5 1 
 53 
 55 
 57 
 62 
 
 66 
 69 
 81 
 86 
 
 87 
 89 
 
 9 1 
 
 97 
 
 99 
 101 
 
 103 
 
 107 
 108 
 1 11 
 
 114 
 
 115 
 117 
 
 121 
 
 "3 
 
 1 26 
 
 1 27 
 128 
 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 XV11 
 
 SILVER PIECE OF OTTO IV. ... 
 
 HENRY VI. .......... . 
 
 PEASANTS BUILDING A VILLAGE (13TH CENTURY) 
 
 A BISHOP IN ROBES 
 
 THE DRESS OF THE GERMAN LORDS, WORN BY HENR\ 
 
 OF THURINGIA, A.D. I241 
 KNIGHT AND ATTENDANTS . 
 PEASANTS AND PLOUGH (13TH CENTURY) 
 
 RUDOLPH OF HAPSBURG 
 
 FORTIFIED CAMP (15TH CENTURY) . 
 
 SEVEN ELECTORS CHOOSE FOR EMPEROR HENRY OF 
 
 LUXEMBURG 
 
 THE MARTYRDOM OF HUSS .... 
 
 JOHN, COUNT ZISKA, OF TROCZNOW 
 SCENE FROM THE HUSSITE WARS 
 ARTILLERY OF THE I5TH CENTURY 
 MAXIMILIAN AND BRIDE, MARY OF BURGUNDY 
 FREDERICK III. ...... 
 
 KING JOHN OF BOHEMIA ..... 
 
 FREEING THE BURGHERS OF MAINZ FROM THB BAN 
 
 IN I332 
 
 LUTHER (CRANACH) 
 
 A GERMAN CITY IN THE I5TH CENTURY . 
 
 FERDINAND I 
 
 MELANCTHON (dUREr) ..... 
 
 three peasants, 16th century (durer) 
 luther and melancthon (cranach) . 
 school-room in 16th century 
 consecration of a church, 1530 
 woman's costume, i6th century 
 john frederick the bold, elector of saxony 
 german patricians in 1550 .... 
 vienna early in the 17th century . 
 
 PAGE 
 129 
 I30 
 
 l 33 
 135 
 
 i37 
 J 39 
 147 
 149 
 
 155 
 
 157 
 
 T 59 
 161 
 
 162 
 
 t6 5 
 169 
 
 171 
 
 178 
 
 184 
 186 
 190 
 200 
 202 
 208 
 210 
 212 
 216 
 218 
 224 
 228 
 
 237 
 
 
XV111 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 
 JEAN TZERCLAES, COUNT TILLY 
 
 ALBERT VON WALLENSTErN . 
 
 A VILLAGE FESTIVAL IN THE l6TH CENTURY 
 
 BERLIN IN l66o . 
 
 MEN OF WAR OF THE GREAT ELECTOR . 
 
 THE GREAT ELECTOR AND WIFE 
 
 FREDERICK I., KING OF PRUSSIA 
 
 JOSEPH I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY . 
 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT .... 
 
 MARIA THERESA 
 
 ONE OF FREDERICK WlLLIAM's ORF.NAP1ERS 
 FREDERICK THE GREAT . 
 LEOPOLD II. IN IMPERIAL ROBES 
 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM II 
 
 KARL WILHELM, BARON VON HUMBOLDT . 
 ALEXANDER, NAPOLEON, AND FREDERICK 
 LIAM III. ..-••• 
 
 ANDREAS HOFER 
 
 CLEMENS WENZEL, TRINCE VON METTERNICH 
 
 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG (map) 
 
 GEBHARD LEBRECHT VON BLUCHER 
 
 TABLE OF THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN SUCCI 
 
 THE BATTLE OE KONIGGRATZ (map) 
 
 METZ (MAP) 
 
 KARL-OTTO, PRINCE VON BISM ARCK-SC He )KNH A 
 MAP OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 
 WILLIAM I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY . 
 PRINCE WILLIAM, CROWN PRINCE . 
 
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 266 
 
 271 
 274 
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 I. 
 
 THE FIRST GERMANS. 
 
 (b.c. i 13-102.) 
 
 ■v 
 
 In the year 1 13 before Christ was born, the inhab- 
 itants of Northern Italy were startled to see multi- 
 tudes of savage men sitting on their great shields, 
 shooting down the snow slopes of the Alps upon 
 them. They had fair hair, thick and long ; some had 
 shaggy red hair. They were tall, strong men ; their 
 eyes were blue. They wore the heads of wolves 
 and bears and oxen on their helmets, the latter 
 with the horns; and others again had the wings of 
 eagles spread, and fastened to their iron caps. Who 
 were these? They belonged to two different races, 
 and spoke different languages ; and though both 
 were fair-haired, yet one set of men was taller, 
 sturdier than the other. 
 
 These invaders called themselves the Cimbri and 
 Teutones. They had lived side by side in the Swiss 
 valleys till the valleys could no longer support 
 them, and then they burst their way over the snowy 
 passes to conquer and colonize the sunny plains of 
 Italy. 
 
 At the present day the mountains of Switzerland 
 
1 
 
 THE FIRST GERMANS. 
 
 will not support all its inhabitants. The men go 
 out as masons, and waiters, and pastrycooks, and 
 clock and watchmakers, and the -iris as nurses and 
 cooks. In those days they went out only in one 
 wa y— to fight and conquer themselves new homes. 
 
 If you were to travel through Switzerland to-day 
 you would find that in one canton French is 
 spoken, in the next German ; that in the town of 
 Freiburg, French is spoken in the lower and Ger- 
 man in the upper town. This is because two dis- 
 tinct races live together in Switzerland now, as they 
 did 113 years before Christ. The French-speaking 
 people represent the Cimbri and the German-speak- 
 ing people represent the Teutones. The Welsh call 
 themselves Cymri, which is the same as Cimbri. 
 They belong to the same great Keltic family. The 
 Germans call themselves Deutsch, which is the same 
 as Teut-ones. 
 
 The Romans sent armies against these warriors 
 who came down on Italy from the snowfields, but the 
 Cimbri and Teutones defeated them. They fought 
 with desperation ; starvation was behind in their 
 mountain valleys ; they must conquer or die. They 
 destroyed the villages they came upon, they took 
 and burnt the cities, they overran the plains. They 
 killed the horses they took, and hung their cap- 
 tives to trees as sacrifices to Wuotan, the god of 
 the air, after whom Wednesday (Wuotans-tag^) takes 
 its name. Italy was filled with dismay. If the 
 Cimbri and Teutones had known how to profit by 
 the terror they inspired, and by their victories, they 
 would have soon taken Rome ; but they turned to 
 
THE FIRST GERM A. VS. 
 4 
 
 the West, and poured along tiie beautiful Riviera 
 road into the south of what we now call France. 
 
 This gave the Romans a little breathing time ; a 
 great army was assembled, and placed under the 
 command of their best general, Marius. He pur- 
 sued the wild men into Gaul, and formed a strongly 
 fortified camp on the Rhone. Thence he watched 
 them. His soldiers were at first too much afraid 
 of these great men with their animals' heads,— their 
 faces peering out of the jaws of wolf and bear- to 
 be trusted to meet them in battle, but after awhile 
 they became accustomed to the sight. The wild 
 warriors despised the Roman soldiers, and as they 
 ate up the produce of the land where they settled, 
 they divided, and the Cimbri went off again, like a 
 swarm of bees, back through Switzerland and Tyrol 
 into Italy. Then the Teutones also turned to go 
 back into Italy. When they did this, Marius came 
 out of his camp and followed them. At the right 
 moment he fell on the Teutones near Aix, and in a 
 tremendous battle completely defeated them * Ma- 
 rius drove the men back to their camp. "Then," 
 says the historian," the Teutonic women rushed to 
 meet them with swords and cudgels, uttering hid- 
 eous howls ; they drove back their flying country- 
 men, upbraiding them as cowards ; they assailed 
 the pursuers as enemies, beating down the swords 
 of the Romans with their bare hands, and allowed 
 themselves to be hacked to pieces rather than yield. ' ; 
 In the mean time the Cimbri were in the valley of 
 
 
 *See "The Story of Rome," pp. l8l| I s -- 
 
Ill 
 
 IJIi 
 
 A GERMAN CAVALRY-MAN. (ROMAN RELIEF.) 
 
() THE FIRST GERMANS. 
 
 the Adige, coming down by Botzen and Trent into 
 Italy. As the river incommoded them, they rolled 
 great rocks into it, and hewed down pines and threw 
 them across and made a great dam, so as to enable 
 themselves to wade across. 
 
 Marius left the battle-field of Aix and came with 
 his army across the northern plains of Italy, and 
 caught the Cimbri near Verona. He planted his 
 own men so that the blazing August sun should 
 shine in the faces of the enemy, and that the wind 
 should carry the dust and sand into their eyes. 
 The first ranks of the Cimbri had tied themselves 
 together with ropes, so as to bear as a compact mass 
 upon the Romans; but this arrangement was a fail- 
 ure, the dead men falling, dragged down the living. 
 The Romans gained a complete victory ; and the 
 poor Cimbric women, when they saw their husbands 
 and brothers slain, ran themselves through with 
 swords, or hung themselves to the poles of their 
 wagons, rather than become the slaves of the con- 
 querors. 
 
 Such was the end of this great invasion of Italy. 
 It is interesting to us, because this is the very first 
 time we hear of the Teutons or Germans. Their 
 first appearance was in 113, and the two great de- 
 feats took place in 102 before Christ. 
 
II. 
 
 WHAT WAS OLD GERMANY LIKE? 
 
 Germany, you must understand, is divided into 
 Upper and Lower Germany. Upper Germany is 
 a hilly country ; Lower Germany is a dead, sandy 
 flat. In primeval times, when the Germans first 
 colonized the country, it was covered with vast for- 
 ests of oak and pine, and where there was much rolled 
 stone, with birch. Out of the forests rose the moun- 
 tain ranges of South or Upper Germany, like islands. 
 In Lower Germany there were m?.ny bald patches 
 of heathery waste, and marshy tracts strewn with 
 lakes. The great rivers rolled through the valleys 
 and plains, changing their courses and heaping up 
 piles of rubble. 
 
 The great valleys were first colonized where the 
 richest pasture land was, and only little by little did 
 the inhabitants thin the forest and creep up among 
 the hills. 
 
 Was it one great family of races — the German — 
 that occupied the vast northern plains and the val- 
 leys among the hills ? That we cannot think. 
 Over the northern plains are found strewn great 
 burial mounds, containing within them passages 
 made of stones set on end, and huge stones above. 
 
 7 
 
g WHAT WAS OLD GERMANY LIKE? 
 
 The peasants call them Huns' graves. They are 
 not, however, the graves of Huns, but belong to an 
 unknown race which occupied the shores of the 
 Baltic and the Northern Sea before the Germans 
 came into the land. In the South there arc no 
 such graves, but there are other traces of a peo- 
 ple strange to the Germans, and these are the 
 names of rivers and mountains, such as Pegnitz, the 
 river on which Niirnberg stands, and Karwendel, a 
 mountain in the Bavarian highlands, and the Schar- 
 nitz pass. These point to a Sclav population, that 
 is, one related to the modern Russians, and Poles, 
 and Bohemians. But there is another trace of an 
 earlier people in Germany besides mounds and 
 names. It is found in the old laws of the German 
 tribes. By these laws we learn that there was a 
 race of serfs, — conquered people who tilled the 
 land, — and the pure-blooded conquerors were not 
 allowed to intermarry with them. If a German did 
 so, then he lost his rights as a free man, and all his 
 children were slaves. That law remains to some ex- 
 tent in force still in Germany, but it has lost its or- 
 iginal meaning. Now a prince cannot marry out of 
 the princely families. If he does, his wife is not re- 
 garded as a princess, and his children have only 
 their mother's rank. Originally this law, which 
 is found among all the old races of Germany, was 
 passed to keep the grand Teutonic blood pure. 
 
 However, if you travel in Bavaria, or Baden, 
 you will see that the greater number of peasant 
 men and women have hazel eyes and dark hair. 
 That shows they are not pure-blooded Germans; 
 
 
THE EARL V TRIBES. g 
 
 they have flowing in their veins the blood of the 
 conquered race. 
 
 The Germans were so called from the spears 
 they carried. The name means Spear-men, but they 
 called themselves Deutschen, or, as the Romans 
 rendered the name, Teutones. This name comes 
 from an old German word that simply means " the 
 People." 
 
 ANCIENT GERMAN DWELLINGS. (ROMAN PERIOD.) " 
 
 They were divided into a great many tribes, of 
 which we must mention the principal. 
 
 The Chatti lived in Hesse, and have never moved 
 thence. The present Hessians are the lineal de- 
 scendants of the old Chatti. 
 
 The Saxons lived in Holstein and the Angles in 
 Schleswig. They have spread since the veil first 
 rises on their history. The Saxons and Angles in- 
 
1 
 
 WHAT WAS OLD GERMANY LIKE ? 
 
 vaded Britain, and the English, or Anglo-Saxon 
 people, arc their descendants. 
 
 South and east of the Saxons lived the Suevi, or 
 Swabians They have shifted far to the south and 
 Saxons now occupy their lands. To them be- 
 longed the branches of the Marcomanni, or March- 
 men, who lived on the Rhine at first, the frontier of 
 the Kelt, and also the Longobards, 
 who were on the Middle Elbe. 
 Later, these latter deserted their 
 home and conquered the North of 
 Italy, which is called after them, 
 Lombardy. The Goths lived or- 
 iginally near the sources of the 
 Vistula. Akin to them were the 
 Vandals and the Burgundians. 
 
 What is remarkable is, that the 
 races in the South had very differ- 
 ent ways of living from those in 
 the North. The Suevi were a war- 
 like race. They had no settled 
 homes, no fixed fatherland. The 
 ^* land was divided among them by 
 
 [ST WITH ° 
 
 lot every year, and so changed 
 owners annually. One part of the people went out 
 yearly to war, and the rest remained at home and 
 tilled the ground. Those races which were in the 
 North had, however, the land given to the great 
 men, who lived on their farms, ruling their serfs; 
 and they handed on their lands to their sons. Even 
 to this day the different systems show. In West- 
 phalia, for instance, you will see fine farm-houses, 
 
 s \\<>\ COLONI! 
 
 c IPTIVE W END. 
 
RELIC 10 US BELIEF. 
 
 II 
 
 as in England, the same in Holstein, and the fields 
 are hedged about. But in the South it is not so. 
 The farm-houses are all gathered together in little 
 villages, and you cannot see a hedge anywhere. 
 The old inhabitants of Germany were divided 
 
 mvi 
 
 ^^^a^, t ,, /llJt j,,,| l ,,All|U' , w1^J|ij^)|-»,'|/|'),!J ) ,, u| 
 
 A GERMAN COUNCIL. (ROMAN PERIOD.) 
 
 into two great classes, the free and the enslaved. 
 The free were divided into the greater and lesser 
 nobility, and they alone were allowed to bear 
 arms. 
 
 The old German religion was very like that of 
 the Norwegians. They regarded Wotan as the 
 chief of the gods. He had one eye in his fore- 
 head, which was the sun. He was the god of 
 the heaven, and the air, and men and horses were 
 sacrificed to him by being hung up in trees. The 
 German peasants still remember him, but do 
 
WHAT U r A S OLD GERM Ah 1 ' LIKE ? 
 
 not think of him any more as a god. They tell of 
 a Wild Huntsman, who is heard of a night gallop- 
 ing over the forest tops, blowing his horn, with 
 fire-breathing dogs going before him, and a white 
 ,wl fleeting on spread wings with eyes like moons. 
 
 Vnother of their gods was Donar, whom the 
 Norsemen called Thor. He is the Thunderer, and 
 is armed with a hammer, which he flings at his en- 
 emies ; but it always returns to his hand. After 
 him the Germans call Thursday (Thor's-day), Don- 
 ne r's-tag. 
 
 Among the goddesses were Freyja, from whom 
 we get the name of Friday (in German, Frei-tag), 
 and Hertha, the goddess of the earth. Another was 
 variously called Hulda, Bertha, or Horsel. She 
 was a kind goddess, loving children, and was really 
 the moon. She was represented as taking to her 
 the souls of all little children who died, and nurs- 
 ing them. These were the stars, and the moon and 
 the stars were supposed to be the gentle Hulda, 
 with her crowd of little children's souls gathered in 
 heaven about her. She was also called Nothburga, 
 the "helper in need." You shall hear how old 
 heathen stories linger on to the present day. In 
 Tyrol there was, in the 14th century, a peasant 
 girl called Nothburga, who was so good that she 
 came to be regarded as a saint. The old tradi- 
 tions about the goddess were still hanging about 
 in men's minds, and they came to associate them 
 with this peasant girl, who chanced to bear the 
 name of the moon-goddess; so when they made 
 pictures of her, they represented her with a silver 
 
 
 
13 
 
•4 
 
 WHAT WAS OLD GERMANY LIKE? 
 
 crescent. Then, when they had forgotten all about 
 the goddess, they invented a story to account for 
 the silver crescent in the pictures, and they told 
 how S. Nothburga had one day thrown up her 
 sickle into the sky whilst reaping, and that there 
 it had hung. 
 
K-'JJStfftttA 
 
 10t*l\*-_ ~^W^l 
 
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 , '.yfff^^Sff l 'J'lJf 
 
 
 iSI 
 
 Ws^iSm 
 
 III. 
 
 HOW HERMANN MET THE ROMANS. 
 
 (A.D. 9.) 
 
 ABOUT fifty years after the defeat of the Cimbri 
 and Teutones the Romans came a second time 
 into contact with the Germans. Julius Caesar, one 
 of the greatest and most famous of Roman gen- 
 erals, was governor of Gaul. The Marchmen had 
 crossed the Rhine under their prince, Ariovistus, 
 or, as he would be called by his own people, Ar- 
 bogast, and established themselves in Burgundy. 
 Julius Caesar drove them back over the Rhine, 
 which he also crossed repeatedly ; but his succes- 
 sors, Drusus and Tiberius, were the first to subju- 
 gate a portion of Germany between the Rhine and 
 the Weser. 
 
 There was a tribe called the Cherusci, occupying 
 the south of what is now Hanover. Their chief, 
 named Hermann, had been taken to Rome during 
 the time of Drusus, probably as a hostage. He had 
 carefully studied his Latin lessons there, but he 
 never forgot the words that he had been taught at 
 his mother's knee, and was always proud that he was 
 a German. As he read history, he learned how the 
 Romans had achieved their power, and he seems 
 
 15 
 
i6 
 
 HOW HERMANN MET THE KOMAXS. 
 
 to have thought that his own people might accom- 
 plish noble deeds if only they would unite and 
 stand as one nation before the world. 
 
 Hermann saw that the Romans were rich and had 
 colonies all over the world, but he knew that they 
 were gay and pleasure-seeking, and lived to a great 
 extent in cities, where every sort of dissipation 
 abounded. As he looked towards his German 
 
 5^ woods he reflected up- 
 on the difference be- 
 tween his captors and 
 the active and liberty- 
 loving people who 
 dwelt there in humble 
 village homes, where 
 y love bound the father 
 to the mother and 
 united the children to 
 both, and where, as a great Roman writer said 
 i casting* reproach upon his own countrymen and 
 women), it was not fashionable to do wrong, and 
 no one smiled at vice. As he grew up these feel- 
 ings became stronger. 
 
 After a time Hermann returned to Germany, and 
 found the people ready to listen to his advice and 
 follow his leadership. In the course of events the 
 Romans sent a general, named Varus, to look after 
 their interests and assert their power. lie knew 
 how Hermann had been educated and, little suspect- 
 ing the hot thoughts that were welling up in his 
 patriotic heart, ventured to take him as his coun- 
 sellor and guide. Hermann saw that his moment 
 
 
 , 
 
GERMAN HORSEMEN FIGHTING ROMAN LEGIONS. 
 (From the Column of Antoninus, in Rome.) 
 
 17 
 
jg HOW HERMANN MET THE ROMANS. 
 
 had conic, and took advantage of this circumstance 
 to draw Varus and his great army into the hilly re- 
 gion of the Teutoberger Forest, where he rightly 
 thought that the numbers and the strong bodies 
 of his fellow-countrymen would be more than a 
 match for the better drilled and heavily-armed co- 
 horts of the invaders. 
 
 It was the autumn of the year 9 A.D. There 
 were no roads, and Varus was obliged to cut down 
 trees to make a way for the slow march of his army- 
 Almost before he knew it he found himself in a 
 trap. To add to his dismay and confusion a great 
 storm arose. The mountain torrents, swollen by the 
 rain, overflowed their banks ; and whilst the Ro- 
 mans, encumbered by their baggage and by hosts of 
 camp-followers, and wearied by the toilsome way, 
 passed in irregular columns through the wet marshes 
 and narrow valleys, the thunders of the German war- 
 cry suddenly burst upon them from all the hills 
 around, and they were struck down by showers of ar- 
 rows that seemed to drop from the clouds. Panic- 
 stricken, and not knowing which way to turn, they 
 halted, and were, as in a moment, surrounded by the 
 hosts of their assailants, who were perfectly at home 
 in the most intricate passes. 
 
 All day long the battle raged, and then the invad- 
 ers tried, under cover of darkness, to throw up a 
 protecting earthwork, but they were too much worn 
 to accomplish anything. Hundreds were lost in the 
 morasses ; their eagles were taken from them; they 
 were entirely without provisions, and it was plain 
 that there was no safety but in retreat. The only 
 
 
o HOW HERMANN MET THE ROMANS. 
 
 question was which direction they should take. 
 Inch by inch they gave way, but very few escaped 
 to tell the story of the fight in the terrible German 
 
 forests. 
 
 Varus, who had marched into the treacherous 
 fastnesses as if hound on a holiday excursion, threw 
 himself on his own sword in despair, and when the 
 news reached the great emperor, Augustus, that his 
 army had been destroyed,— the army of the proudest 
 people in the world, the people who were then chief 
 among the nations,— he clothed himself in mourn- 
 ing, let his hair and beard grow, and cried again and 
 again in the bitterness of his heart, " Varus, Varus, 
 give me back my legions ! " The capitol was stirred 
 as it had been when, after " tearful Allia," the Gauls 
 threatened the city, for the people thought that 
 the victorious Germans would surely march that 
 uay.' :: ' Hermann had no such plans ; he did not fight 
 for conquest, but for freedom ; he had the first vis- 
 ion of a united Germany. He had won indepen- 
 dence for his native land, and had put a stop to 
 Roman conquest in one quarter of the globe. He 
 had given the nations of German blood an example 
 that was to bear fruit on the peaceful field of Run- 
 nymede, when the English barons wrung the Magna 
 Charta from King John ; for it was from the region 
 in which Hermann fought that our ancestors came, 
 and we may take pride in him and in the great statue 
 erected in his honor hundreds of years after his day 
 
 • For some account of the terrible victory of the ('..mis over the 
 
 Romans at the river Allia. Bee " The Story of Rome," pp. ioi, 136. 
 
STATUE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THUSNELDA. 
 (In Florence.) 
 
 21 
 
2 2 HO 1 1 ' HERi MA XX . ME T THE ROMA . \ s. 
 
 by the princes of Germany on the culminating point 
 of the Teutoberger Alps. 
 
 Hermann's wife was Thusnelda, daughter of an 
 
 old chief named Siegast, who was friendly to the 
 Romans. She was renowned for her beauty as well 
 as for great patriotism. Her spirit was rather like 
 that of her husband than that of her father, for 
 Siegast had treacherously warned Varus to be on 
 his guard against Hermann, and when opportunity 
 came he even delivered up his daughter to her coun- 
 try's enemies. The feelings of the Germans was 
 strong against such a man, so strong, in fact, that 
 Siegast was attacked, and only found safety by flee- 
 ing to the enemy. A few years later Thusnelda and 
 her son adorned a triumphal procession in Rome. 
 
 It may well be imagined that Hermann was 
 strengthened in his hatred of Rome by the loss of 
 his wife and son ; and when, five years after the de- 
 feat of Varus, another army was sent against the 
 Germans, he met it with a strong force and effectu- 
 ally resisted it. Once and again the attempt to con- 
 quer the land failed, and at last the effort was aban- 
 doned. When there was no longer fear from that 
 quarter Hermann suffered the fate of many others 
 who have striven to do good for their fellow-citizens. 
 Like Camillus, Manlius, and the Gracchi among the 
 Romans, his motives were not understood. His 
 own people rose against him, and at the early age of 
 thirty-seven he fell by the hands of his near rela- 
 tions. It was reserved for a Roman historian to 
 speak his praises and for a*fter ages to raise his mon- 
 ument. Tacitus says that it was his honour to have 
 
THE WANING ROMAN POWER. 
 
 23 
 
 successfully met the arms of Rome in the pride of 
 its imperial power, and to have had his paeans 
 chanted in the songs of his countrymen. He be- 
 came the typical War-man, the " Man of Hosts," the 
 deliverer of Germany, and he was remembered by our 
 own Anglo-Saxon ancestors after they had removed 
 to the British Isles. Hermann and Thusnelda stand 
 out as the representatives of the true love between 
 husband and wife, for which the early Germans 
 were celebrated. 
 
 After this the Romans held possession of a very 
 small portion of the soil of Germany, which they 
 called the Titheland. It lay between the Danube, 
 the Main, and the Rhine, and was protected by a 
 moat and wall, with towers at intervals. The wall 
 was a mound with palisades at the top. The 
 traces are still to be seen, and are cal^d by the peo- 
 ple " The Devil's Walls." 
 
IV. 
 
 THE FIERCE HUNS APPEAR. 
 
 (375-45- 1 -) 
 
 IN the year 375 a great change began in the posi- 
 tions of the peoples who were settled in Germain*. 
 A game of puss-in-the-corner was played there on a 
 very large scale, and with no laughter, but main- 
 tears. 
 
 The cause of this was the appearance of the 
 Huns. 
 
 The Huns, or Calmucks, wandering shepherd 
 tribes, were natives of the North of Asia, and in- 
 habited the vast plains between Russia and China. 
 They had no houses. They lived in tents, in which 
 they also stabled their horses. From beine con- 
 stantlyon horseback their legs were crooked. They 
 were short men, broad shouldered, with strong, mus- 
 cular arms ; had coarse, thick lips, straight, black, 
 wiry hair, little, round, sloe-like eyes, yellow com- 
 plexions, and sausage noses. They were filth)- in 
 their habits ; their horrible ugliness, their disgusting 
 smell, their ferocity, the speed with which they 
 moved, their insensibility to the gentler feelings, 
 made the Goths, with whom they first came in 
 contact, believe they were half demons. The)- ate, 
 
 - 1 
 
 I 
 
GERMAN CAPTIVE. (ROMAN PERIOD.) 
 (From Statue in Vatican Museum.) 
 
 25 
 
2 6 THE FIERCE HUNS APPEAR. 
 
 drank, slept on horseback. Their no less hideous 
 wives and children followed them in waggons. They 
 ate roots and raw meat. They seemed insensible to 
 hunger, thirst, and cold. 
 
 In the year 375 after Christ they crossed the 
 Volga in countless hordes, and poured down on 
 Germany. The East and West Goths, unable to 
 resist their numbers and savagery, deserted their 
 lands on both sides of the Dnieper, and, crossing the 
 Danube, descended into the Roman empire with the 
 entreaty that they might be accommodated with 
 lands there. 
 
 At last these barbarians spread over Dacia, which 
 has since been called after them Hungary, where 
 they were well content to ramble over the grassy 
 plains that reminded them of their Asian steppes. 
 But about the middle of the fifth century there rose 
 among them a prince of very remarkable character, 
 called by the Romans Attila, and by the Germans 
 Etzel, but who was best pleased to be called " The 
 Scourge of God." This man murdered his own 
 brother, so as to unite the sovereignty of the Huns 
 under himself. He is introduced in the Nibelungen 
 Lied, the great national epic poem of German}'. 
 Kriemhild, the widow of Siegfried, and daughter of 
 a king of the Burgundians, was married to Attila. 
 Her dearly loved husband, Siegfried, had been mur- 
 dered treacherously by order of her brother, the Bur- 
 gundian king, Gunther, who was jealous of him. 
 When Kriemhild became Queen of the Huns she 
 persuaded Attila to invite her brother and all his 
 nobles to Buda, and, unsuspicious of evil, they ac- 
 
THE BATTLE OE CHALONS. 27 
 
 cepted the invitation. But the queen meditated 
 revenge for the slaying of her dear Siegfried, and 
 when her brother and the nobles were banqueting 
 her guards fell on them. There was a furious fight, 
 the palace caught fire, and Kriemhild saw her 
 brother, and all those who had counselled and as- 
 sisted in the murder, perish by sword and flame. 
 After that she died herself. The story is only possi- 
 bly founded on fact. History tells us nothing about 
 this deed of revenge. 
 
 BOUNDARY WALL. (ROMAN PERIOD.) 
 
 In the year 45 1 Attila broke up his camp at 
 Buda and marched West, at the head of an enor- 
 mous host of Huns. They overran the South of 
 Germany, crossed the Rhine, and resolved to con- 
 quer their way to the Atlantic. Those who could 
 not escape were either killed or had to join the 
 army. But the Franks, the West Goths, the Bur- 
 gundians, and the Romans united in one great host 
 under the general Aetius, and withstood the on- 
 slaught of the Huns in the plains of Chalons on the 
 Marne. The battle was furious, and ended in the 
 
g THE FIERCE HUNS APPEAR. 
 
 defeat of the Huns. Attila was forced to retire 
 with the loss of half his men, and the Western Em- 
 pire was saved. 
 
 Next year Attila descended into Italy, but re- 
 treated toward his own country and died through 
 the bursting of a blood-vessel, A.D. 453. 
 
 
V. 
 
 THE MIGRATIONS OF THE TRIBES. 
 
 You may well imagine that the arrival of the 
 Huns was like the introduction of a wasp into a bee- 
 hive. It created an enormous commotion, and 
 many of the German races changed their habitations. 
 
 About the middle of the third century the numer- 
 ous German tribes had united into great confedera- 
 cies. The most important of these were — I. The 
 Allemanni ; 2. The Franks , 3. The Saxons ; 4. The 
 Goths. 
 
 1. The Allemanni were so called from the custom 
 of those in the South to own land in common. To 
 this day, in Switzerland and Baden, there is much 
 common land belonging to the parishes, as well as 
 forest and quarry, and this goes by the name of the 
 Allmend. The Allemanni lived in the South of 
 Germany, in the Black Forest, and in German 
 Switzerland, and in Wurtemberg, about the Lake of 
 Constance. 
 
 2. The Franks occupied the banks of the Rhine 
 and the Main, to Niirnberg. The Ripuarian Franks 
 lived on the Rhine, the Salic Franks on the river 
 Saal. 
 
 3. The Saxons spread over a great part of North 
 
 29 
 
GERMAN SKIRMISHERS (GEFECHT'S-EROFFNER). (ROMAN 1'KKIOD.) 
 
 30 
 
THE MIGRA TIONS OF THE TRIBES. 3 j 
 
 Germany, taking the places vacated by the Lom- 
 bards and the Burgundians. 
 
 4. The Goths were divided by the Dnieper into 
 the East Goths (Ostrogoths) and the West Goths 
 (Visigoths), and were the most cultured of the Ger- 
 man peoples. They had been converted to Chris- 
 tianity by a bishop named Ulphilas, who translated 
 the Bible into old Gothic, and his translations of the 
 Gospels, written in silver letters on a purple ground, 
 is still preserved, and is one of the treasures of the 
 library of Upsala in Sweden. 
 
 The appearance of the Huns in Germany created 
 the utmost confusion. As already said, the Ostro- 
 goths crossed the Danube and entered the Roman 
 Empire. After awhile they made themselves mas- 
 ters of Italy, under the famous King Theoderic. 
 
 The Visigoths, or West Goths, descended on the 
 South of Gaul, and made Toulouse their capital. 
 The Vandals left their old home between the Elbe 
 and Oder, invaded Spain, crossed over to Africa, 
 and formed a kingdom on the north coast, with Car- 
 thage as their capital. The Angles and a portion of 
 the Saxons took ship in 449 for Britain, which they 
 conquered. The Longobards, or Lombards, deserted 
 the old watery, peaty region about the Middle Elbe 
 and descended on the North of Italy. The Burgun- 
 dians left their homes between the Oder and the 
 Vistula, and formed the Burgundian kingdom be- 
 tween the Rhone, the Saone, and the range of the 
 Jura. 
 
 As the Germans deserted the cold, sandy plains of 
 North Germany, the Sclavs from the north-east crept 
 

 MARCUS AUREL1US PARDONING GERMAN CHIEFS, 
 (Triumphal Arch at Rome.) 
 
THE BEGINNING OF FRANCE. 
 
 33 
 
 after them, and occupied all Pomerania, Mecklen- 
 burg, and Oldenburg. 
 
 Those German peoples who had left Germany 
 settled down in their new countries among popula- 
 tions more civilized than themselves, and so they 
 gradually acquired their habits, and lost their own 
 language and peculiar institutions, even their Ger- 
 man appearance and characters. Thus they dis- 
 appeared, sinking into, and becoming absorbed by, 
 the people they conquered, and the Burgundians, 
 Goths, Vandals, and Lombards disappear com- 
 pletely. The Franks, who had spread into Northern 
 Gaul, gave to it the new name of France, but ceased 
 on its soil to be Germans. 
 
VI. 
 
 CLOVIS, KING OF THE FRANKS. 
 
 (481-51 1.) 
 
 The Franks had extended themselves over the 
 north of Gaul. They had a capital at Tournay, but 
 they had gained power over what we now call 
 Normandy. There was none to resist them. Gov- 
 ernment in Gaul had fallen into confusion since 
 the fall of the Roman Empire. The Salic Franks 
 came from what is now called Lower Franconia, 
 and take their name from the river Saal, which flows 
 into the Main. It is a bare and not^a productive 
 country, and so a portion of the Franks pushed their 
 way into Belgium, and Flanders, and Normandy. I 
 am using, you must understand, modern names. 
 Thirty years after the battle of Chalons the Franks 
 were not united into one nation ; there were several 
 tribes of their name, independent one of another. In 
 the year 481 Clovis became king of the Salic Franks 
 in Belgium. The French call him Clovis, the old 
 Germans, Clodwig, which is the same as the modern 
 German Ludwig, and the French, Louis. He was 
 fifteen years old when he became king, a proud, 
 cunning, ambitious man, but with some natural good 
 qualities. He determined to extend his power, so 
 
 34 
 
KHEIMS PLUNDERED 
 
 35 
 
 he led his men against the Roman governor of 
 Soissons, drove him out, and took the place, which 
 he thenceforth made his capital. He and his people 
 were pagans, and when they took a town they plun- 
 dered the churches. On one of his expeditions he 
 took Rheims, and when the spoil of the Cathedral 
 was brought out and spread before the king and his 
 nobles, the bishop of the place, Remigius, came to 
 Clovis, and entreated that one beautiful chalice might 
 be spared from the plunder, for the service of the 
 altar. Clovis replied that by their rules all the 
 spoil was divided into lots, and then lots were drawn 
 for each division. However, if the chalice came to 
 him, he would return it to the bishop, who had 
 written him a kind letter, full of good advice, when 
 he was made king. But as S. Remigius urged his 
 request very earnestly, the king turned to his ckiefs 
 and asked them to grant him the goblet over and 
 above his proper share. All consented but one 
 man, who suddenly swung his axe, and brought it 
 down on the precious cup, saying, " No ! I will not 
 consent ; all shall share alike." The king bore the 
 affront without a word. The man had acted within 
 his right. 
 
 A year after Clovis held a grand parade, at which 
 his nobles were to show their equipments. After 
 having passed all in review, and examined their arms, 
 the man came who had refused to give up the 
 chalice. He was a truculent, ill-conditioned fellow, 
 and his harness was rusty and dirty, and when he 
 showed the king his battle-axe it was not clean. 
 Then Clovis threw it down, and when the man 
 

 *6 
 
HO W CLOVIS WOOED. 
 
 17 
 
 stooped to pick it up the king raised his axe and 
 cleft his skull, saying, " Thus didst thou to the 
 chalice of Rheims." It was an act of revenge, but 
 the king was careful to act within his right. The 
 man was bound to appear at the parade with all his 
 equipments in perfect order. 
 
 Clovis heard that Gundebald, King of Burgundy 
 had a niece called Clothild, at Geneva.. Gundebald 
 had murdered her father and her brothers, who stood 
 in his way to the throne. Now Clovis was a very 
 crafty man, and he wanted to pick a quarrel with 
 Gundebald, so as to get hold of Burgundy. So he 
 resolved to marry Clothild and make her quarrel his 
 own ; but he did not want to marry her if she was 
 not very beautiful. So he gave his ring to a friend, 
 a Roman, called Aurelian, and told him to go 
 in disguise to Geneva, and see Clothild, and if she 
 were really beautiful to give her his ring and get 
 hers in exchange. Aurelian dressed himself in rags, 
 and went to Geneva, and knocked at her door and 
 begged for food. Clothild at once invited him in, 
 and brought water, and began herself to wash his 
 travel-stained feet. Whilst she was thus engaged 
 Aurelian stooped and whispered into her ear, " Lady, 
 I must speak to you in secret." Then he showed 
 her the ring, and said, " Clovis, King of the Franks, 
 asks for you in marriage." Clothild considered a 
 moment, then drew off her own ring and gave it to 
 Aurelian. " Go back," she said, " to your master, 
 and tell him if he takes me he must carry me away 
 as fast as he can fly, for my uncle has a friend called 
 Aridius, now away, who will advise him not to give 
 
,g CLOVIS, KING OF THE FRANKS. 
 
 me to Clovis." Then Aurelian hasted back to 
 Soissons, and Clovis sent to Gundebald and asked 
 for the hand of his niece. Gundebald, glad to be 
 rid of her, consented that she should go. So Clo- 
 thild started from Geneva. Clovis had sent a sort of 
 waggon richly decorated for Clothild to travel in. 
 She went in it some little way, and then became 
 uneasy. She got out and said to the Frank lords 
 who attended her, " I pray you give me a horse and 
 let us leave the waggon in the road, and ride at full 
 gallop, night and day, till we get out of Burgundy." 
 
 She was right. After the consent had been given 
 Aridius returned to Metz, where Gundebald was, 
 and the king told his friend what he had done. 
 Then Aridius exclaimed, " This is no bond of friend- 
 ship, but the beginning of strife. Send troops at 
 once in pursuit and bring your niece back." 
 
 The king did so, but was too late. They came 
 on the deserted waggon, but Clothild had escaped. 
 The consequences were what Aridius had predicted. 
 Clovis made war on Gundebald and made him his 
 tributary. Clothild bore a son to Clovis. She was 
 a Christian, and she begged her husband to let the 
 child be baptized. He consented, but the boy died 
 soon after. " There," exclaimed Clovis, " that is 
 what comes of baptism." After some time she bore 
 him another, and had much ado to get this one bap- 
 tized. Soon after this boy also fell ill, and Clovis 
 was very angry. But when the child recovered he 
 began to think that perhaps Christian baptism was 
 not as dangerous as he had supposed. Clothild 
 was a very pious woman, and she often spoke to her 
 
CLOVIS PR A VS. 
 
 39 
 
 husband about Christ, but he did not seem to pay 
 much heed to her words. 
 
 At last, in the year 496, the Allemanni, — that is, 
 the Germans of the Black Forest and Switzerland, 
 and the Vosges — burst into the territories of the 
 Franks, and Clovis marched against them and met 
 
 GERMAN PRIESTESSES FOLLOWING THE ARMY. 
 (Column of Marcus Aurelius at Rome.) 
 
 them in the plain of Tolbiac, now called Zulpich, 
 near Cologne. He had with him Aurelian, whom 
 he had made Duke of Melun. The battle was go- 
 ing ill ; the Franks were wavering and Clovis was 
 anxious. Then Aurelian, who rode near him, sud- 
 denly exclaimed, " My lord, there is no hope for 
 us now but in the God of Queen Clothild." When 
 Clovis heard this he dropped the reins, and holding 
 up his hands to heaven cried, " Christ Jesus, whom 
 
40 
 
 CLOVIS, KING OF THE FRANKS. 
 
 Clothild believes in, I have called on my gods, and 
 they have withdrawn from me. Help thou me!" 
 Then the tide of battle turned: the Franks recov- 
 ered confidence and courage ; and the Allemanni, 
 beaten, and seeing their king slain, surrendered 
 themselves to Clovis. 
 
 When Clovis was on his way back he came to 
 Rheims, where the old bishop, Remigius, was, who 
 had written good advice to him when he was a boy, 
 
 GERMAN HODY-GUARD OF THE LATER C.^SARS. 
 (Column of Trajan, Rome.) 
 
 and who had asked for the chalice. The king was 
 touched by the danger he had been in, and thank- 
 ful for the victory. His wife came to him to 
 strengthen his good resolutions, and he resolved to 
 become a Christian. We have a very interesting 
 and eurious account of the baptism of King Clovis, 
 written by Hincmar, who was Bishop of Rheims 
 some years after the death of Remigius. and who 
 probably took it from an account by an eye-witness. 
 " The bishop," he says, " went in search of the 
 king at early morning to his bed-chamber, in order 
 that he might communicate to him the truths of 
 
THE BAPTISM OF CLOVIS. 4! 
 
 the Gospel before his mind was occupied with secu- 
 lar cares. The chamberlains received him with 
 great respect, and they went into the chapel of S. 
 Peter near the palace. When the bishop, the king, 
 and the queen had taken their places on the seats 
 prepared for them, the bishop began his instructions 
 on the way of salvation. Meanwhile, preparations 
 were being made along the road from the palace to 
 the baptistery ; curtains and valuable stuffs were 
 hung up ; the houses on both sides of the street 
 were dressed out ; the baptistery was sprinkled with 
 balm and all kinds of perfume. The procession 
 moved from the palace ; the clergy led the way, 
 carrying the Gospels, the cross, and the banners, 
 and singing hymns. Then came the bishop, lead- 
 ing the king by the hand ; after him the queen ; 
 lastly the people. On the road the king is said to 
 have asked the bishop if that was the kingdom of 
 heaven promised him. ' No,' answered the prelate, 
 4 it is the beginning of the road to it ! ' When the 
 king bared his head over the baptismal water, the 
 bishop thus addressed him : * Bend thy head, Sicam- 
 brian,* adore what thou hast burned, burn what 
 thou hast adored ! ' " Three thousand Frankish 
 men, together with women and children, were bap- 
 tized the same day. 
 
 Though Clovis had joined the Christian Church 
 he was but a poor Christian. He led a life of war, 
 and was brought under no other Christian influence 
 
 * Clovis belonged to the tribe of Sicambri, which was in the Frank 
 confederation. 
 
. , CLOVIS, KING OF THE FRANKS, 
 
 4- 
 
 than that of his wife, and he did not think it manly 
 to give car to her best advice. 
 
 The Ripuarian Franks had their capital at Co- 
 logne, and their king was Siegbert. Clovis sent to 
 the king's son this message: "Your father is old, 
 and lame of a leg. When he is dead I will be your 
 friend, and you shall be king." That stirred up the 
 young man to kill his father treacherously one day, 
 as the old man was walking in a beech wood. Then 
 he sent a messenger to Clovis to say that his father 
 was dead, and that he would send him some of the 
 old kings treasures. But when the wicked son was 
 showing the messenger of Clovis the precious things 
 in the treasure-house, he came to a great battle- 
 axe. " See." said the young man, " this was my 
 father's weapon." 
 
 "And so does it avenge its master!" said the 
 messenger, and he brought it down on the young 
 man's head, and clove it. 
 
 After that, the realm of the Ripuarian Franks fell 
 to Clovis, as well as that of the Salic Franks, and 
 Burgundy and a large portion of Gaul. 
 
 He died in 511, at Paris, which he had made his 
 capital ; and he left behind him a great Frank king- 
 1 >m, which was divided between his four sons. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 VII 
 
 THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. 
 
 (751-768.) 
 
 THE successors of Clovis, called, after an earlier 
 Frank king. Merovingians, were weak creatures. 
 They left the management of their kingdom to their 
 Mayors of the Palace, and only showed themselves 
 to their people once a year, at the March parliament, 
 riding on a car drawn by oxen, after an old Frank 
 custom, wearing their fair hair down to their waists, 
 combed out and adorned with crowns. As they 
 did nothing but eat and drink and enjoy themselves 
 they went by the name of the sluggard kings, and 
 all the real power was in the hands of the Mayor of 
 the Palace for the time being. 
 
 Among these mayors, Pepin of Heristal made 
 himself conspicuous. His home was near Spa, in 
 the pretty woodland country about Liege. He 
 made the office hereditary in his family. His he- 
 roic son, Charles Martel, or the Hammer, was still 
 more famous, because he utterly routed the Arabs 
 in a great battle at Tours in 732, who had con- 
 quered Spain and the south of France, and threat- 
 ened the whole of France. 
 
 43 
 
THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. 
 
 His sons, Pepin the Short and Karlomann, suc- 
 ceeded him, but Karlomann resigned his authority 
 into his brother's hands, and, tired of fighting, 
 entered a monastery. Pepin had much to do ; the 
 Saxons, Bavarians, and Arabs were all menacing or 
 revolting, and he had to fly from one part of the 
 kingdom to another, defending its frontiers, and get- 
 ting no help from the stupid sluggard king at Paris. 
 At last, impatient of the farce, he sent this question 
 to the Pope : " Who is king, he who governs or he 
 who wears the crown?" "He who governs, of 
 course," answered the Pope. " That is myself," said 
 the little man with a great will ; " so the sluggards 
 shall go to sleep forever," and he sent the last of 
 them, Childeric III., into a monastery. Then his 
 nobles put their shields together, and the little man 
 was seated on a chair, on their shields, and they 
 marched with him thus, shouting and raising their 
 shields as high as they could, thrice, round the par- 
 liament, and then he was anointed by S. Boniface, 
 Archbishop of Mainz, A. I). 752. Pepin did not forget 
 that he owed a debt of gratitude to the Pope for the 
 answer he had given to his question, and when, 
 shortly after, the Pope sent to complain of the 
 trouble occasioned by the Lombards, Pepin crossed 
 the Alps, chastised the Lombards, took from them 
 all their territory about Rome and gave it to the 
 Pope, to belong to him and to the bishops of Rome 
 forever. That was the beginning of the Papal 
 sovereignty. " The States of the Church," as they 
 were called, remained under the sovereignty of the 
 Popes till 1 87 1. 
 
A NEW KING, 
 
 45 
 
 Pepin died in 768, and left behind him two sons, 
 Charles and Karlomann. The latter died a few years 
 after, and then, with the consent of the great nobles, 
 
 Charles became sole king. 
 
 INVESTITURE OF A BISHOP BY A KING. 
 (.From a Codex in St. Omer.) 
 
¥5% fiff'** ©^ 
 
 ^fc 
 
 ^JEllyl 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE GERMANS HEAR THE GOSPEL. 
 
 Where should you suppose that the earliest Irish 
 manuscripts are to be found? Not in Ireland, but in 
 Switzerland and Germany. The reason of this is 
 that the Irish were the first preachers of the Gospel 
 in Germany. In the 6th and /th centuries a 
 perfect passion to do missionary work fired the 
 monks of Ireland. In dreams and ecstasies they 
 thought they saw the barbarous Germans crying to 
 them from the gloom of their sombre pine woods 
 to come over and bring them light. Then they got 
 into rude boats of wicker-work covered with tanned 
 hides, and paddled, or were blown across, to Eng- 
 land. They traversed England and took boat 
 again, and pushed up the Rhine, and Scheldt, and 
 other rivers, till they found places where the people 
 were all heathens, and there they established them- 
 selves and taught. In 590 S. Columbanus ap- 
 peared at the court of Guntram, King of Burgundy. 
 He came from Ireland, and he established himself 
 at Luxeuil, under the Jura, and when he was driven 
 out he settled himself at Bobbio, in North Italy. 
 His disciple, S. Gall, made himself a home in Switz- 
 erland, in a forest, where he had difficulty to hold 
 his own against the bears. He preached at Bre- 
 
 46 
 
47 
 
4 8 
 
 THE GERMANS HEAR THE GOSPEL. 
 
 erenz at the head of the Lake of Constance, and 
 threw the idols he found there into the lake. An- 
 other Irishman, called Fridolin, planted himself at 
 Seckingen, an island in the Rhine, under the slopes 
 of the Black Forest. Another, Beatus, made him- 
 self a home in a cave in the face of a precipice, 
 above the Lake of Thun. Another, Fintan, who 
 had been carried off by pirates and taken to Bel- 
 gium, escaped from them, mounted the Rhine, and 
 made Rheinau, near Schaffhausen, the place whence 
 he taught the heathen. Foilan and Ultan, two 
 Irish brothers, established themselves on the Meuse. 
 Kilian, Colman, and Totnan made Wiirzburg the 
 centre from which they taught, and there Kilian 
 was martyred. Frigidian went further, and died at 
 Lucca. Fursey preached among the Franks at 
 Lagny, a little north of Paris. 
 
 Thus it was that Christianity was brought among 
 the Allemanni and the Franks. The Saxons were 
 still heathen ; so were the Frisians, who occupied 
 the present Holland. 
 
 But though Christianity was brought into the 
 heart of the land, and here and there a bishopric 
 was established, everything was in disorder in those 
 disturbed days, and in some places Christianity died 
 out for want of a succession of missionaries ; and in 
 others, those who were Christians, and even bishops 
 and priests, were under no discipline, had received 
 little instruction, and lived very little better than 
 heathens. 
 
 Then it was that S. Boniface, or, as he was called in 
 his Devonshire home, Winifred, sailed from Ports- 
 
 
* I V X) I G 1 O, V O M E 
 
 -*U d .9 "tt 1. A -JS t a N, 
 ~* c e T~ V g-~~0 B~ ~H o 
 
 K^S J X. ,-S 
 
 A JUDGMENT OF GOD. 
 (Title-Page of Missal in Bamberg Library.) 
 
 49 
 
5o 
 
 THE GERMAXS HEAR THE GOSPEL. 
 
 
 mouth for Germain', with a band of devoted men. 
 He found that the little Christianity there was 
 among- the Germans was of very poor quality. So 
 he went to Rome to ask the Pope to authorize him 
 to bring some order into the German church. 
 Furnished with authority, and consecrated and 
 appointed Archbishop of Mainz, and having re- 
 ceived the name of Boniface, " Good-doer," from the 
 Pope, he returned to Germany, and sent home to 
 England for helpers. Many came, men and women, 
 and he planted them where were most suitable cen 
 tres. At Geismax, in Hesse, stood a huge old oak, 
 dedicated to the god Donnar. The heathens made 
 pilgrimages to this oak, and even converted 
 Christians regarded it with religious awe, and told 
 wonderful stories about it, and visited it to hear 
 oracles from its dark whispering branches. One 
 day when there was a great assembly at this oak on 
 a festival of Donnar, Boniface went boldly to the 
 place, unattended by armed men, but with an axe 
 in his hands, and before all the pagan crowd began 
 to hack at the tree. They drew back in dismay, 
 expecting lightning to fall and consume him. Bon- 
 iface did not rest till the oak was cut down, and fell 
 with a crash. Then the heathen recognized the 
 powerlessness of their gods, and their faith in them 
 fell with the oak. 
 
 Boniface did not content himself with preaching. 
 Me said that the only way in which the Germans 
 could be made good Christians was to civilize them ; 
 accordingly, he established schools and monasteries 
 where he could. The monks taught, but did not 
 
THE MONKS AS FARMERS. 
 
 51 
 
 teach only ; they drained the morasses, felled the 
 trees, ploughed the soil, sowed corn, planted fruit 
 trees, and carried on various trades. Those whom 
 they converted they settled in cottages round their 
 monasteries, and so, in time, these settlements grew 
 into towns. 
 
 When Boniface was old he went to carry the Gos- 
 pel to the heathen Frisians. The pagans fell upon 
 him and murdered him in the year 755, A.D. 
 
 GERMANY CAPTIVE. 
 
IX. 
 
 A MAN OF MARK. 
 
 (768-814.) 
 
 We come now to one of the greatest men of all 
 times, Charles the Great, son of Pepin the Short, a 
 man who has left his mark on history for all times. 
 Charles — (called by the French Charlemagne) — was 
 great in many ways, whereas most great men are 
 great in one or two. He was a great warrior, a 
 great political genius, an energetic legislator, a lover 
 of learning, and a lover also of his natural language 
 and poetry at a time when it was the fashion to 
 despise them. And he united, and displayed, all 
 these merits in a time of general and monotonous 
 barbarism, when, save in the Church, the minds 
 of men were dull and barren. 
 
 ^From 769 to 813, in Germany and Western and 
 Northern Europe, Charlemagne conducted thirty- 
 two campaigns against the Saxons, Frisians, Bava- 
 rians, Avars, Slavs, and Danes ; in Italy, five 
 against the Lombards; in Spain, Corsica, and Sar- 
 dinia, twelve against the Arabs ; two against the 
 Greeks; and three in Gaul itself, against the Aqui- 
 tanians and Bretons. In all, fifty-three expedi- 
 tions in forty-five years, amongst which those he 
 
 5 2 
 
CHARLEMAGNE. 
 CFrom the painting by Durcr.) 
 
 53 
 
34 
 
 A MAX OF MARK, 
 
 undertook against the Saxons, the Lombards, and 
 the Arabs were long and difficult warsy^ 
 
 The kingdom of • Charles was vasf; it comprised 
 nearly all Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, 
 and the North of Italy and of Spain. He had, in 
 ruling this mighty realm, to deal with different 
 nations, without cohesion, and to grapple with their 
 various institutions and bring them into system. 
 
 The first great undertaking of Charles was against 
 the Saxons. They were still heathen, and were a 
 constant source of annoyance to the Franks, for 
 they made frequent inroads to pillage and destroy 
 their towns and harvests. 
 
 In the line of mountains which forms the step 
 from Lower into Upper Germany, above the West- 
 phalian plains, is one point at which the river Weser 
 breaks through and flows down into the level land, 
 about three miles above the town of Minden. This 
 rent in the mountains is called the YVestphalian 
 Gate. The hills stand on each side, like red sandstone 
 door-posts, and one is crowned by some crumbling 
 fragments of a castle ; it is called the Wittekinds- 
 berg, and takes its name from Wittekind, a Saxon 
 king, who had his castle there. Wittekind was a 
 stubborn heathen, and a very determined man. In 
 "2 Charles convoked a great assembly at Worms, 
 at which it was unanimously resolved to march 
 against the Saxons and chastise them for their in- 
 cursions. Charles advanced along the Weser, 
 through the gate, destroyed Wittekind's castle, 
 pushed on to Paderborn, where he threw down an 
 idol adored by the Saxons, and then was obliged to 
 
 
ft I* 
 
 
 55 
 

 56 A MAN OF MARK. 
 
 return and hurry to Italy to fight the Lombards, who 
 had revolted. Next year he invaded Saxony again. 
 He built himself a palace at Paderborn, and sum- 
 moned the Saxon chiefs to come and do homage. 
 Wittekind alone refused, and fled to Denmark. No 
 sooner had Charles gone to fight the Moors in 
 Spain than Wittekind returned, and the Saxons 
 rose at his summons, and, bursting into Franconia, 
 devastated the land up to the walls of Cologne. 
 Charles returned and fought them in two great bat- 
 tles, defeated them, erected fortresses in their midst, 
 and carried off hostages. Affairs seemed to pros- 
 per, and Charles deemed himself as securely master 
 of Saxony as Varus had formerly in the same 
 country, and under precisely the same circumstances. 
 Charles then quitted the country, leaving orders for 
 a body of Saxons to join his Franks and march to- 
 gether against the Slavs. The Saxons obeyed the 
 call with alacrity, and soon outnumbered the 
 Franks. One day, as the army was crossing the 
 mountains from the Weser, at a given signal the 
 Saxons fell on their companions and butchered 
 them. 
 
 When the news of this disaster reached Charles 
 he resolved to teach the Saxons a terrible lesson. 
 Crossing the Rhine, he laid waste their country 
 with fire and sword, and forced the Saxons to sub- 
 mit to be baptized, and accept Christian teachers. 
 Those who refused he killed. At Verdun he had 
 over four thousand of the rebels beheaded. At 
 Detmold, Wittekind led the Saxons in a furious bat- 
 
WITTEKIND IS BAPTIZED. 
 
 57 
 
 tie, in which neither gained the victory. In another 
 battle, on the Hase, they were completely routed. 
 
 Then Wittekind submitted, came into the camp of 
 Charles, and asked to be baptized. A little ruined 
 chapel stands on the Wittekindsberg, above the 
 Westphalian Gate, and there, according to tradition, 
 near the overturned walls of his own castle, the 
 stubborn heathen bowed the neck to receive the 
 yoke of Christ. Charles' two nephews, the sons of 
 Karlomann, were with Desiderius, the Lombard 
 king, and Desiderius tried to force the Pope to anoint 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE S SIGNATURE. 
 
 them kings of the Franks, to head a revolt against 
 Charles. When the great king heard this he came 
 over the Alps into Italy, dethroned Desiderius, and 
 shut him up in a monastery. Then he crowned 
 himself with the iron crown of the Lombard kings, 
 which was said to have been made out of one of the 
 nails that fastened Christ to the cross. 
 
 Duke Thassilo of Bavaria had married a daughter 
 of Desiderius, and he refused to acknowledge the 
 authority of Charles. He also stirred up the Avars 
 who lived in Hungary to invade the Frankish 
 realm. Charles marched against Thassilo, drove 
 
3* 
 
 A MAX OF MARK 
 
 him out of Bavaria, subdued the Avars, and con- 
 verted the country between the Ems and Raab — 
 that is, Austria proper — into a province, which was 
 called the East March, and formed the begin- 
 ning of the East Realm (Oesterreich), or Austria. 
 
 Charles also fought the Danes, and took from 
 them the country up to the river Eider. 
 
 When we consider what continuous fighting 
 Charles had, it is a wonder to us that he had time 
 to govern and make laws; but he devoted as much 
 thought to arranging his realm and placing it under 
 proper governors as he did to extending its fron- 
 tiers. 
 
 Charles constituted the various parts of his vast 
 empire — kingdoms, duchies, and counties. He was 
 himself the sovereign of all these united, but 
 he managed them through counts and vice-counts. 
 The frontier districts were called marches, and 
 were under march-counts, or margraves. Count 
 is not a German title ; the German equivalent is graf, 
 and the English is earl. The counties were di- 
 vided into hundreds ; a hundred villages went to a 
 vice-count. He had also Counts of the Palace, who 
 ruled over the crown estates, and send-counts 
 (missi), whom he sent out yearly through the coun- 
 try to see that his other counts did justice, and did 
 not oppress the people. If people felt themselves 
 wronged by the counts they appealed to these 
 send-counts, and if the send-counts did not do them 
 justice they appealed to the palatine-counts. 
 
 Every year Charles summoned his counts four 
 times, when he could, but always once, in May, to 
 
LIBERAL ARTS PROSPER. 
 
 59 
 
 meet him in council, and discuss the grievances of the 
 people. As the great dukes were troublesome, be- 
 cause so powerful, Charles tried to do without them, 
 and to keep them in check. He gave whole princi- 
 palities to bishops, hoping that they would be sup- 
 porters of him and the crown against the powerful 
 dukes. 
 
 He was also very careful for the good government 
 of the Church. He endowed a number of mon- 
 asteries to serve as schools for boys and girls. 
 He had also a collection of good, wholesome ser- 
 mons made in German, and sent copies about in all 
 directions, requiring them to be read to the people 
 in church. He invited singers and musicians 
 from Italy to come and improve the performance of 
 divine worship, and two song-schools were estab- 
 lished, one at Gall, another at Metz. His Franks, 
 he complained, had not much aptitude for music ; 
 their singing was like the howling of wild beasts, 
 or the noise made by the squeaking, groaning 
 wheels of a baggage waggon over a stony road. 
 Charles was particularly interested in schools, and 
 delighted in going into them and listening to the 
 boys at their lessons. One day when he had paid 
 such a visit he was told that the noblemen's sons 
 were much idler than those of the common citizens. 
 Then the great king grew red in the face and 
 frowned, and his eyes flashed. He called the young 
 nobles before him and said in thundering tones: 
 " You grand gentlemen ! you young puppets ! You 
 puff yourselves up with the thoughts of your rank and 
 wealth, and suppose you have no need of letters ! I 
 
£ Q ./ MAN OF MARK. 
 
 tell you that your pretty faces and your high no- 
 bility are accounted nothing by me. Beware ! be- 
 ware ! Without diligence and conscientiousness 
 not one of you gets anything from me." 
 
 Charles dearly loved the grand old German poems 
 of the heroes, and he had them collected and 
 copied out. Alas! they have been lost. His stu- 
 pid son, thinking them rubbish, burnt them all. 
 The great king also sent to Italy for builders, and 
 set them to work to erect palaces and churches. 
 His favorite palaces were at Aix and at Ingelheim. 
 At the latter place he had a bridge built over the 
 Rhine. At Aix he built the Cathedral with pillars 
 taken from Roman ruins. It was quite circular, 
 with a colonnade going round it; inside, it remains 
 almost unaltered to the present day. 
 
 He was very eager to promote trade, and so far 
 in advance of the times was he that he resolved to 
 cut a canal so as to connect the Main with the 
 Reffnitz, and thus make a waterway right across 
 Germany, from the Rhine to the Danube, and so 
 connect the German Ocean with the Black Sea. 
 The canal was begun, but wars interfered with its 
 completion, and the work was not carried out till 
 the present century, by Louis I., of Bavaria. 
 
 Charles was a tall, grand-looking man, nearly 
 seven feet high. He was so strong that he could 
 take a horseshoe in his hands and snap it. He ate 
 and drank in moderation, and was grave and dig- 
 nified in his conduct. 
 
 In the year 800 an insurrection broke out in 
 Rome against Pope Leo III. Whilst he was riding 
 
C HARLEM A ONE CRO WNED A T ROME. 6 j 
 
 in procession his enemies fell on him, threw him 
 from his horse, and an awkward attempt was made 
 to put out his eyes and to cut ou.t- his tongue. 
 Then, bleeding atid insensible, he was put in a 
 monastery. The Duke of Spoleto, a Frank, hear- 
 ing of this, marched to Rome and removed the 
 wounded pope to Spoleto, where he was well nursed 
 and recovered his eyesight and power of speech. 
 Charles was very indignant when he heard of the 
 outrage, and he left the Saxons, whom he was fight- 
 ing, and came to Italy to investigate the circum- 
 stance. He assumed the office of judge, and the 
 guilty persons were sent into prison in France. 
 Then came Christmas Day, the Christmas of the 
 last year in the eighth century of Christ. Charles 
 and all his sumptuous court, the nobles and people 
 of Rome, the whole clergy of Rome, were present 
 at the high services of the birth of Christ. The 
 Pope himself chanted the mass ; the full assembly 
 were wrapt in profound devotion. At the close 
 the Pope rose, advanced towards Charles with a 
 splendid crown in his hands, placed it upon his 
 brow, and proclaimed him Caesar Augustus. " God 
 grant life and victory to the great emperor ! " 
 His words were lost in the acclamations of the 
 soldiery, the people, and the clergy. 
 
 Charles was taken completely by surprise. What 
 the consequences would be to Germany and to the 
 Papacy, how fatal to both, neither he nor Leo 
 could see. So Charlemagne became King of Italy 
 and Emperor of the West — the successor of the 
 Caesars of Rome. 
 
<>J 
 
 A M AX OF MARK. 
 
 When Charles felt that his end was approaching 
 he summoned all his nobles to Aix, into the church 
 he had there erected. There, on the altar, lay a 
 golden crown. Charles made his son, Ludwig, or 
 Louis, stand before him, and, in the audience of his 
 great men, gave him his last exhortation : to fear 
 God and to love his people as his own children, to 
 do right and execute justice, and to walk in in- 
 tegrity before God and man. With streaming eyes, 
 Louis promised to fulfil his father's command. 
 " Then," said Charles, " take this crown, and place 
 it on your own head, and never forget the promise 
 you have made this day." 
 
 A few months later, Charles died (814). He 
 was buried robed in full imperial raiment, with a 
 crown on his head, the purple mantle over his 
 shoulders, girded with his great sword, the book of 
 the Gospels on his knees, seated on a marble throne, 
 and with a pilgrim's pouch at his side. He was 
 buried under the dome of the church at Aix, and 
 there to this day may be seen the great stone that 
 covers his tomb, with nothing engraved on it but 
 Carolo Magno. In the year 1165 the tomb was 
 opened, and the body found as thus described. 
 
 SILVER PIECES OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
X. 
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 BEFORE we go any further with the history of 
 Germany it is necessary that we should get some 
 clear idea of the empire of which Charles the Great 
 was constituted head when the Pope on Christmas 
 Day crowned him in S. Peter's Church at Rome. 
 
 The old Roman Empire, of which Augustus had 
 been the first imperial head, had fallen into decrepi- 
 tude, and Constantine had transferred the capital 
 from Rome to Byzantium. Since his death many 
 emperors had succeeded to the title, but none had 
 been able to maintain the Empire in its ancient 
 integrity and splendour. 
 
 Before Constantine the Empire had been heathen, 
 Rome and her princes had been enemies of the 
 Church, drunk with the blood of the saints. But 
 from the conversion of Constantine onward Rome 
 and Christianity had formed so close an alliance 
 that the names Roman and Christian had become 
 almost synonymous. The emperors presided at 
 councils of the Church, and protected the faith 
 with edicts and with the sword. Thus the Empire, 
 which had once be*en the bitterest foe of the Gos- 
 pel, now became inseparably connected with its 
 
 63 
 
^ 
 
 THE I JULY ROMAN KM TIRE. 
 
 profession. The Empire became holy, and a spe- 
 cial sanctity was thought to be attached to the 
 emperor as temporal head of the great Christian 
 body. " The successor of Mahomet inherited alike 
 the temporal and the spiritual functions of the 
 prophet. In the Mahometan system, Church and 
 State needed not to be united, because they had 
 never been distinct. But closely as the Roman 
 Empire and the Christian Church became united, 
 one might almost say identified, traces still re- 
 mained of the days when they had been distinct 
 and hostile bodies. The bishop's commission was 
 divine, proceeding neither from the prince nor from 
 the people. Of such an organization the emperor 
 might become the patron, the protector, the exter- 
 nal rule, but he could not strictly become the 
 head." * 
 
 Italy was overrun by the Lombards. The em- 
 perors in Constantinople became weaker, less able 
 to maintain their dignity and to protect their do- 
 minions. At last the imperial crown rested on the 
 head of a woman, Irene, who had raised herself to 
 power by deposing and blinding her own son. That 
 a woman should occupy the throne of Augustus was 
 preposterous to the nations of the West, already 
 indignant at the weakness of the emperors in By- 
 zantium. And then, Charles seemed to the eyes 
 of those in Italy the grandest and most suitable 
 figure toiill the imperial throne. The coronation 
 of Charles was a revolt, a justifiable revolt of the 
 
 ■*■ 
 
 * Freeman : Historical Essays. "The- Holy Roman Empire." 
 
THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS. 
 
 65 
 
 West against the feeble " rois faineants " of the 
 East. As Pepin had been declared by the Pope 
 the true sovereign instead of the sluggard Merovin- 
 gians, so now the Pope declared the son of Pepin 
 true emperor, instead of the sluggard Byzantines. 
 
 Thenceforth, in the eyes of the West and of the 
 Church in the West, Charlemagne and his successors, 
 who were crowned by the Pope, were regarded as 
 the true emperors of the Christian world, the true 
 successors of Augustus and Antoninus, as the true 
 temporal heads of the Holy Roman Empire. 
 
 Not every king of Germany was emperor, but 
 only such as were crowned by the Pope. The 
 Pope claimed to be the spiritual head of the 
 Church, the viceroy acting for Christ in His king- 
 dom. Before His death Christ said : " He that hath 
 no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one." 
 Then the disciples said to Him, " Lord, behold, 
 here are two swords/' And He said unto them, 
 u It is enough." Upon this text a theory was 
 founded that Christ gave to His Church, and to the 
 Pope as the spiritual head of His Church, the two 
 swords of spiritual and temporal power, but that, 
 as it was inexpedient for the Pope in his spiritual 
 capacity to wield the sword of temporal menace, 
 he delegated it to a temporal sovereign, and that 
 thus the Pope in sacred matters remained the 
 spiritual ruler, whilst the emperor exercised the 
 delegated authority in temporal matters. The 
 Pope cut off with the sword of excommunication, 
 and the emperor with the sword of justice. You 
 must bear this theory well in mind, or you will 
 
66 
 
 THE HO J A- ROM AX EMPIRE. 
 
 never get a right notion of what is meant by the 
 Holy Roman Kmpire, and if you do not lay hold of 
 this' you lose the key to the history of Germany in 
 the Middle Ages. 
 
 ST. MICHAEL, THE PATRON SAINT OF THE EMPIRE. 
 (Sculpture in the Cathedral of Bamberg, 12th Century.) 
 
fig H'-!,^^K^ ; h[ 
 
 Ijfc^^ 
 
 
 
 ?P513i 
 
 ^i!'* 
 
 ^m 
 
 Jfc6&*?^ 
 
 XL 
 
 A KING PIOUS BUT NARROW. 
 
 (814-840.) 
 
 LOUIS, the son of Charles the Great, resembled 
 his father in size, but in that only. He was a nar- 
 row-minded and irresolute man, giving way to his 
 violent passions and then being rilled with remorse ; 
 a man sincerely desirous of doing what was right, but 
 without self-control. He had not the genius of his 
 father to manage the great empire he had founded. 
 One instance of his character will show the sort of 
 man he was. Louis had a nephew, Bernard, son of 
 his elder brother, Pepin, whom. Charles the Great 
 had made King of Italy. He was suspicious of 
 Bernard and ordered him to appear before him at 
 Chalons. Pepin was dead, and Bernard was dan- 
 gerous, or might be, as a rival. Bernard hesitated, 
 so Louis got his wife, the Empress Irmgard, to send 
 Bernard his solemn assurance that he would be 
 allowed to come and go in safety. "Relying on this 
 promise Bernard came to court, when Louis caused 
 his eyes to be torn out in so barbarous a manner 
 that he died a few days after. That was in April, 
 818. A little later the Empress Irmgard fell ill 
 and died. Louis was passionately attached to her, 
 
 67 
 
53 A A'/XG riOUS BUT NARROW. 
 
 and her death brought home to him the crime he 
 had committed, and he was stung with remorse, 
 (iricf for what he had done never left him, and it 
 made him earnest in his prayers and efforts to do 
 good, so that he was given the name of "The 
 Pious. 
 
 His next wife was Jutta, daughter of a certain 
 Welf, the Count of Bavaria, a clever woman, who 
 at once did all in her power to reconcile the friends 
 of the murdered Bernard. Louis had three sons 
 by his first wife, Irmgard. Their names were Lo- 
 thair, Pepin, and Louis. By Jutta he had another, 
 Charles, who was his favorite. Before Louis 
 married Jutta he divided his great empire into 
 three parts, one for each of his sons by Irm- 
 gard ; but when Charles was born, he wanted 
 to make a change, and divide it into four, so that 
 Charles might have a share. This made the three 
 elder angry, and they rebelled against their father, 
 seized him, and brought charges of witchcraft 
 against their step-mother, Jutta. But this out- 
 raged the feelings of the great nobles, and the peo- 
 ple murmured threatening!}'. Lothair was obliged 
 to let his father go. In his rage, however, he took 
 the town of Chalons, which held to his father, 
 burned it, and murdered the son and daughter of 
 Duke Bernard, of Septimania, who was the adviser 
 of his father and guardian of the little Charles. 
 The poor girl was at school in a convent. He fast- 
 ened her up in a wine cask and threw her into the 
 river. 
 
 Lothair's brothers, Pepin and Louis, were jealous 
 
ELECTION OF A KING. 
 (Heidelberg MS.) 
 
 6 9 
 
y Q A KING PIOUS BUT NARROW. 
 
 of him, and they leagued against him, under the 
 pretext that they could not countenance his con- 
 duct to their father. Thereupon, a new division of 
 the empire was made, between Pepin, Louis, and 
 Charles, to the exclusion of Lothair. 
 
 The weak-minded emperor was thenceforth pow- 
 erless. The rest of his reign was spent in vain en- 
 deavors to reconcile his quarrelsome sons. After 
 the death of Louis the Pious, which took place 
 in 840, war broke out between the brothers, of 
 whom, fortunately, there was now one less, for 
 Pepin had died. But Pepin had left a son, with the 
 same name, who inherited his kingdom of Aqui- 
 taine. Louis — called, to distinguish him from his 
 father, " The German " — and Charles wanted to 
 snatch Aquitaine from him, but he was supported 
 by Lothair, his other uncle. 
 
 A great battle was fought in 841 at Fontenay, in 
 Burgundy, between Louis and Charles, united 
 against Lothair. A hundred thousand men fell, 
 and Lothair was defeated. He fled to Aix, where 
 he melted up the great silver tables of Charle- 
 magne into coin, and with bribes and promises 
 stirred up the Saxons to a general revolt. In view 
 of this danger Charles and Louis met at the head of 
 their armies near Strasburg, and made a solemn 
 alliance. The words of the oath have been pre- 
 served. Louis and his soldiers took it in German, 
 Charles and his in French; and this is the earliest 
 specimen we have of the French language, which 
 was thus forming out of a mixture of the Gaulish, 
 Latin, and German dialects, which were melting up 
 
GERMANY INDEPENDENT OE FRANCE. 
 
 71 
 
 and fusing in the country we now call France. 
 This was in 842. 
 
 Next year a treaty was concluded between all 
 three brothers at Verdun, by which Lothair was 
 granted the imperial crown, and the Netherlands, 
 the Rhine country, Burgundy, and Italy, which was 
 called after him — Lotharingia. That portion of his 
 kingdom which afterwards came to be held to- 
 gether was called by the French Lorraine. Louis 
 the German was given all Germany east of Lo- 
 tharingia, and Charles, who was nicknamed " The 
 Bald," had as his share all France west of Lotha- 
 ringia. 
 
 Thus, through the Treaty of Verdun in 843, 
 Germany became an independent kingdom, and its 
 history detaches itself from that of France. 
 

 XII. 
 
 A NEW SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 As you have already heard, the North Germans 
 had always been in the habit of holding lands and 
 handing them on to their sons. This was not the 
 case in South Germany; there, no one had as much 
 land as he could put his foot on. The land was 
 held to belong to the community, and was parcelled 
 out every year in lots among the various house- 
 holders who made up a village. This was all very 
 well in a rude state of society, but it was most in- 
 convenient after agriculture had been introduced, 
 and it was modified in various ways. 
 
 The Frank monarchs combined the principle of 
 the North German and the South German tenure. 
 They proclaimed that all the land belonged to the 
 crown, but the' crown gave it back to the land- 
 holders on certain conditions, to have and to hold. 
 from generation to generation, so long as they ful- 
 filled these conditions. These land-holders were 
 the nobles, — barons. These barons, in like manner, 
 parcelled up their land into farms and let the farms 
 to farmers on the same condition, to have and to 
 hold, from generation to generation, not to be dis- 
 possessed so long as they fulfilled the conditions. 
 
 72 
 
RELA TION OF THE PEOPLE TO THE KING. 73 
 
 The conditions were these : the farmers were 
 bound to furnish so many fighting-men, and so much 
 food to the baron, and to work for him so many 
 days in the year. The baron on his part had his 
 castle, and he was bound to furnish the king with 
 so many fighting-men and to administer justice on 
 the land of his barony. He was responsible to the 
 count, and the count to the king. When a baron 
 died without a son, his barony fell back to the 
 crown, and was given away to another. The count 
 had to see that the barons administered justice ; 
 and the send-counts appointed by Charlemagne 
 went about the country seeing that the counts did 
 their duty. This was the feudal system. Every 
 man was bound by duties, and no man could call 
 anything his own unless he discharged his duties. 
 
 In the south of Germany, the nobles did not 
 like this new system at all. Welf, Count of Bavaria, 
 had a son, Henry. Louis the Pious, who had mar- 
 ried Jutta, Welf's daughter, offered to give Henry 
 some land on the new principle ; but the old Bava- 
 rian forbade his son to take it. However, Jutta 
 persuaded her brother to do as the emperor of- 
 fered, which was that he should have and hold as 
 much land as he could run a gold plough round 
 whilst the emperor slept. When the old Welf 
 heard that his son had done this he was so offended 
 that he hid himself for the rest of his days in the 
 Black Forest. 
 
 You see by this feudal system no man could sell 
 his property out and out ; he could only sell it sub- 
 ject to the king's consent, and subject to the duties 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 it entailed, or pawn what he got from it, without 
 freeing himself from the responsibilities. 
 
 We shall see later how the towns were governed 
 on the same principle. 
 
 
 

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 XIII. 
 
 TROUBLE COMING. 
 (840-911.) 
 
 THE successors of Louis the Pious were Charles 
 the Fat, Arnulf, and Louis the Child. 
 
 One day Charles the Great was looking from his 
 window by the sea, when he saw some white sails 
 on the far horizon, shimmering along like sea-gulls. 
 Those who were in the room with him heard him 
 sigh heavily. " Sire, what troubles you ? " He 
 pointed to the white sails. " I see a coming trouble 
 there," he answered. The sails belonged to the 
 Northmen. After the death of Louis the Pious, 
 the incursions of the Northmen became indeed a 
 trouble. In France, as you know, they conquered 
 and formed Normandy. They made sad havoc in 
 England, and Alfred had hard battles to fight before 
 he could drive them back ; but there also they 
 founded a kingdom in Northumbria. Charles the 
 Fat was too lazy to meet and fight the Northmen ; 
 he bought them off with gold. This created general 
 disgust ; a great assembly of the nobles and people 
 was held at Tribur on the Rhine, and he was 
 declared incapable of governing and was deposed. 
 His brother's son, Arnulf, succeeded him. He was 
 
 75 
 
7 6 
 
 TROUBLE COMING. 
 
 a good king, very courageous and active, but was 
 cut off by poison after a short reign. He was suc- 
 ceeded by his son Louis, aged six. Under him 
 Germany went through many years of suffering. 
 The Magyars, or Hungarians, invaded the country 
 nearly every year, ravaging it, plundering .the 
 churches, burning the towns, and butchering or 
 carrying away into captivity the unhappy people. 
 The Germans fought on foot with long two-handed 
 swords, or with balls covered with spikes which were 
 attached by chains or thongs to a stick, and which 
 they swung about and brought down on the heads 
 of their enemies. The Hungarians were mounted 
 on fleet horses and were armed with bows, so that 
 the Germans could not come to close quarters with 
 them. Then the great vassals took advantage of 
 the fact that the king was a child to enlarge their 
 own dominions and reduce his power. ^ y Woe to 
 thee, O land, when thy king is a childJf "said Solo- 
 mon of old, and Germany experienced the truth of 
 his saying. One little anecdote of the times may 
 be quoted. Ulric, Count of Linzgau, was carried 
 away a prisoner by the Hungarians. His beautiful 
 wife remained behind. She believed him to be dead. 
 Years passed and she heard nothing of him. She 
 refused to marry again, but lived quietly in her castle, 
 doing good to all who were near. One day a poor 
 beggar came to her door, dressed in rags, with bare 
 and bleeding feet, and hair almost white. The 
 countess at once came down to give him food, 
 when, with a cry, he threw his arms round her neck 
 and kissed her. The attendants rushed to interfere, 
 
 
COUNT ULRJC RETURNS. 
 
 77 
 
 but he waved them away with his hand, and the 
 tears ran down his brown, furrowed cheeks. " Let 
 me hold her to my heart once more. I have suffered 
 blows and famine these many years, and had no love. 
 I am Ulric, your lord." 
 
 The young king died in 91 1, before he had come 
 of age to rule, and with him ended the race of 
 Charlemagne in Germany. 
 
XIV. 
 
 HOW HENRY THE FOWLER RULED. 
 
 (919-936.) 
 
 FROM the time of the death of Louis the Child the 
 crown ceased to be hereditary. The great vassals 
 elected the king. Though the kingship was not 
 hereditary, it was usual to elect the son or some near 
 relative of the late emperor, so long as a suitable 
 person was found in the family to hold the office. 
 Also the kings, during their lives, did what they 
 could to insure the succession to their own families. 
 By this change one great advantage was gained : 
 the Germans made sure that they should be governed 
 by able princes ; but, on the other hand, this great 
 disadvantage came of it, that the vassals were able 
 to make themselves too powerful, and to rule almost 
 quite independently of the emperor in their own 
 lands. The kings were obliged to bribe and favour 
 the great nobles to secure them to vote for their sons, 
 and so the central power of the crown was weakened 
 and the unity of Germain- dissolved. It must be 
 remembered that the German kimrs claimed also to 
 be kings of Italy, and, by virtue of their coronation 
 by the popes, to be emperors of Rome. So they 
 were crowned twice, once at Aix — in aftertimes at 
 
 78 
 
A DANGEROUS NECKLACE. 
 
 79 
 
 Frankfort, as kings of Germany — afterwards at Rome 
 as emperors. So they were ever distracted from 
 what should have been their chief care, — to bring 
 Germany into unity and subjection, — by the craze 
 that they were the descendants of the emperors of 
 Rome, and by their efforts to re-establish the great 
 old Empire, not now as a pagan power, but, as they 
 called it, a Holy Roman Empire. When Pope Leo 
 III., on Christmas Day, 800, crowned and proclaimed 
 Charles the Great as emperor, he did, without know- 
 ing it, the greatest mischief he could to Germany. 
 He diverted the ambitions of the kings of Germany 
 for seven hundred years from their proper duties at 
 home, and sent them wild-goose hunting in Italy. 
 
 The first king who was chosen, after the death of 
 Louis, was Conrad, a Frank duke. He got into 
 contest with Henry, the young Duke of Saxony. 
 Archbishop Hatto, of Mainz, sent Henry a present 
 of a necklace for his throat, made of twisted gold 
 formed to act like a spring, so that he could pass it 
 over his head and it would close tight on his throat. 
 Henry put it on, and the gold shrank so tight as 
 nearly to throttle him. He had never seen a spring 
 coil before, and the chain had to be broken off him. 
 He was very angry, and declared that the bishop 
 wanted to strangle him by this ingenious artifice. 
 So he entered some of the bishop's lands with an 
 army ; thereupon the emperor marched to protect 
 the archbishop. A battle was fought and the 
 Franks were defeated. Then a peace was patched 
 up. Not long after Conrad died, without leaving 
 any sons. On his death-bed he called to him his 
 
So HOI? HENRY THE FOWLER RULED. 
 
 brother Eberhard, and said : " My hours are num- 
 bered. I know that no man is worthier to take the 
 throne than my enemy, Henry of Saxony. Do not 
 you think of yourself in opposition to the general 
 good. We Franks have might, and strong cities, and 
 all that royal splendour requires ; but something 
 more than that is needed : great prudence and wis- 
 dom, and that Henry has. When I am dead take 
 him the crown and the sacred lance, the gold arm- 
 lets, the sword, and the purple mantle of the old 
 kings, and so make Henry your friend. Tell him 
 and the princes that my dying advice is, that he 
 should succeed me." 
 
 Directly Conrad was dead, the electors met and 
 chose Henry. They sent Eberhard and others to 
 announce his election to him, and found him out 
 bird-catching, with a hawk on his wrist, in the Harz 
 Mountains. He was thenceforth called " The 
 Fowler." He obeyed the call of the nation without 
 delay. The error he had committed in rebelling 
 against the state he firmly resolved to atone for by 
 his conduct as emperor. Of lofty stature, although 
 slight and youthful in form, with a handsome face, 
 a clear eye, and a pleasant smile, his very appear- 
 ance won hearts to him. Besides these personal ad- 
 vantages, he was intelligent, eager for knowledge, 
 and had much good sense. His wife, Bertha, was an 
 excellent woman, who wove and spun, and there- 
 are seals remaining that represent her spinning, 
 seated on her throne as an empress. 
 
 His first idea was how to protect the land from 
 that incessant plague, the Hungarian incursions. 
 
THE HUNGARIANS BOUGHT OFF. 
 
 8l 
 
 He formed his plan, which was not liked by his 
 nobles at first, because they did not understand 
 what he aimed at. He bought peace of the Hun- 
 
 THE HEERBANN — CALLING OUT THE MILITIA. 
 (Heidelberg MSS.) 
 
 garians for nine years by promising them a yearly 
 tribute. But this was not through cowardice ; he 
 wanted to gain time. During those nine years he 
 occupied himself in building strong fortresses dot- 
 
g 2 HOW HENRY THE FOWLER RULED. 
 
 ted about along the frontiers, and filling them with 
 munitions of war and well-trained soldiers. These 
 were called burgs, and were placed under the com- 
 mand of counts, called burgraves. Hitherto the 
 Germans had not lived in walled towns, and had a 
 great dislike to doing so. Henry ordered that out 
 of every nine freemen who lived on their lands, one 
 should be always on guard in the burg, and that the 
 other eight should support him. By degrees, the 
 Germans on the frontier saw what protection these 
 burgs gave them, and they gathered about them, 
 and closed walls round their collection of houses, 
 and formed the walled towns of Germany. 
 
 When the nine years were elapsed, and Henry 
 stopped the tribute, he was ready for the Hunga- 
 rians. They sent to him as usual the tenth year 
 for the money, but he threw a dead mangy dog at 
 their feet, and told them that was all they should 
 have from him and his Germans for the future. 
 The ambassadors returned with fury in their 
 hearts, and the Hungarians poured over the fron- 
 tier in two enormous hordes. They found them- 
 selves troubled with the strong burgs, which they 
 could not take, and which menanced their rear if 
 they advanced. Moreover, Henry's men were full 
 of confidence, for they could always fall back within 
 walls if they found the Hungarians too strong for 
 them. Henry had a great banner painted of St. 
 Michael trampling on the dragon, with wings of 
 blazen gold, and had it carried before his army. A 
 furious battle was fought near Merscburg, and 
 thirty thousand Hungarians were killed. The re- 
 
KNIGHTHOOD INSTITUTED. 
 
 3.3 
 
 mainder fled. The terror of the Hungarians now 
 equalled that with which they had formerly inspired 
 the Germans. In their belief, the Angel Michael 
 was the German god of victory, and they made 
 golden wings like those borne by the angel on the 
 banner and fastened them to their own idols, in 
 hopes thereby of making them like Michael. From 
 the fact that Henry had been the builder or 
 founder of so many cities that grew up about his 
 burgs, he got the name of Henry " the City Builder," 
 as well as " the Fowler." 
 
 Another institution of Henry's was the knight- 
 hood. There were at that time a good number of 
 freemen, younger brothers of those holding land, 
 who hired themselves at different courts, or who 
 robbed on the highways. They did not know ex- 
 actly what to do with themselves ; there were not 
 then many openings for men, and they were too 
 proud to serve as foot soldiers. Henry offered 
 those who had been robbers a free pardon, and in- 
 vited the rest to come and serve the empire. They 
 were to be called knights, — that is, servants of the 
 crown, — and he organized them into a body of 
 mounted cavalry, and imposed on them certain con- 
 ditions, which made the rank of a knight one of 
 honour. The story goes that Henry and some of 
 his nobles were discussing the proofs required to 
 show that a soldier deserved this rank. Then 
 said Henry, " First, he must not, by word or 
 deed, wrong the Mother Church." " Nor," added 
 the Count Palatine Conrad, " nor hurt the Holy 
 Roman Empire." Then Berthold of Bavaria said 
 
84 
 
 HOW HENRY THE FOWLER RULED. 
 
 " He must not be a liar." " Nor," said Hermann of 
 Swabia, 4< have injured a weak woman." " No, nor 
 run away in battle," said Conrad of Franconia. So 
 these were made the laws of knighthood, to be true 
 to church and country, true in everything, gentle to 
 women, and courageous. 
 
XV. 
 
 THE HUNGARIANS BURST IN AGAIN. 
 
 (936-9730 
 
 TWENTY-TWO years after the Hungarians had been 
 defeated at Merseburg they once more burst into 
 Germany. They were so numerous that they 
 boasted that their horses would drink the rivers dry 
 and stamp the towns to dust. They pushed up the 
 Danube to where the river Lech joins it, and there 
 turned south and followed up this river to the great 
 and wealthy city of Augsburg. They had been 
 disappointed of spoil. They had traversed long 
 tracts of rubble of white limestone with willows 
 sprouting between the stones; no rich towns, only 
 poor villages, few and far between. They were hun- 
 gry for spoil, and they knew that Augsburg would 
 furnish abundance. Augsburg stood on the great 
 trade road from Italy into the heart of Germany. 
 It was full of merchants who were as wealthy as 
 princes. It was an old Roman town, and had, no 
 doubt, at one time been surrounded by walls. At 
 this time it had a very prudent bishop, named 
 Ulric. For some time he had suspected mischief was 
 brewing, before others were aware of the danger, 
 and he persuaded the citizens to rebuild their walls. 
 
 8S 
 
so 
 
 THE HUNGARIANS HURST IX AGAJX. 
 
 These were fortunately finished just before the 
 Hungarians attacked the place. As soon as Uhic 
 heard that they were coming he sent to his brother, 
 who was Count of Kyburg,* and to Duke Burkhard 
 
 HENRY II. AND CUNIGUNDE BUILD CHURCHES. 
 (From an Illuminated MS. in Bamberg.) 
 
 of Swabia, to fly to his aid, and they hastily came 
 into the city with their men before the barbarians 
 appeared. There was a moat round the walls and 
 the river Lech had been made to send a stream into 
 it. This puzzled the Hungarians, and they stood 
 
 * The family of the Count of Kyburg became extinct in 1264, <™d 
 their possessions passed first into the hands of the counts of Ilaps- 
 burg and then to the House of Austria, one of the present titles of 
 the Austrian emperor being Count of Kvburg. 
 
OTTO II. AND HIS SPOUSE BLESSED BY CHRIST. 
 (From an Ivory Carving in the Hotel Cluny.) 
 
 87 
 
^3 THE HUNGARIANS BURST IX AGAIN. 
 
 looking at the water and the walls beyond. Then 
 their chiefs whirled their long whips and slashed at 
 their men to drive them into the ditch, and force 
 them through. A gigantic Hungarian stood on the 
 bank blowing a horn. Then, all at once, a gate was 
 opened in the walls, a bridge was dropped, and out 
 rushed the weavers of Augsburg, armed with pikes, 
 fell on the enemy, surrounded and killed their king, 
 and went back in triumph, carrying the shield of the 
 king with them. Ever after, to this day, the shield 
 has been preserved by the guild of the weavers. 
 The Hungarians were detained outside Augsburg, 
 unable to take it, and unwilling to leave it, till Otto, 
 the emperor, the son of Henry, had collected an 
 army and come swiftly upon them in the rear. 
 Then a great battle was fought, on the loth of Au- 
 gust, 955. The sun was blazing, and very hot. The 
 great bare plain of rolled white limestones was glar- 
 ing. The fight was a desperate one. Those in the 
 city sallied out and helped the emperor. For some 
 time the fate of the day was uncertain. Indeed, the 
 German troops were wavering, when the day was 
 turned by the heroism of the gallant Conrad of 
 Franconia, the brother-in-law of the emperor. But 
 he who saved the fortunes of the day was himself 
 slain. Unable to bear the heat of the sun, which 
 made his helmet burn his head, he took it off for a 
 moment, and at that instant an arrow pierced his 
 neck. A hundred thousand Hungarians fell ; others 
 plunged, mad with fear, into the river, to escape 
 the pursuit of the Germans, and the stream swept 
 them away and drowned them, and along its course 
 
 
HENRY II. RECEIVES FROM GOD THE CROWN, HOLY LANCE, AND IMPERIAL 
 
 SWORD. 
 (From Henry's Missal.) 
 
 89 
 
qo THE HI T NGARIAA S />' I T RST IN A GA1X. 
 
 for many miles, among the willows and rushes and 
 rolled stones, dead Hungarians were washed up in 
 great numbers. Those who managed to get over 
 the river were hunted in the bushes with pitch-forks 
 and flails, and killed by the peasants without mercy 
 like wolves. Never again did the Hungarians ven- 
 ture an invasion of German}-. 
 
 Otto I., called the Great, was the son of Henry 
 the Fowler. He succeeded him in 936. He was a 
 very fine man. Wittekind, an historian of the 
 times, says: " His demeanor was full of majesty. 
 His white hair waved over his shoulders. His eyes 
 were bright and sparkling. His beard was of ex- 
 traordinary length." 
 
 He was crowned at Aix, with great splendour, in 
 the grand circular church Charlemagne had built. 
 The gigantic crown of Charles the Great, the scep- 
 tre, the sword, the gold-embroidered mantle, and the 
 sacred lance were used. This lance was supposed 
 to have been that employed by the centurion to 
 pierce the side of our Lord ; and it was one of the 
 things always put into the hands of the king when 
 he was crowned. It is now at Vienna, in the treas- 
 ury of the Emperor of Austria. Otto was seated 
 on the throne of Charles the Great, which was cov- 
 ered with plates of gold. He was anointed by the 
 Archbishop of Mainz, and the great dukes and 
 princes stood about him, invested with honorary offi- 
 ces in the palace. The Duke of Lotharingia was his 
 chamberlain, the Duke of Franconia his carver, the 
 Duke of Swabia his cup-bearer, the Duke of Bava- 
 ria his marshall, or master of the stables. Edith, 
 
OTTO III. AND REPRESENTATIVES OF NOBLES AND CLERGY, 
 (From an Illustrated Codex Title-Page.) 
 
 91 
 
02 THE HUNGARIANS BURST IN AGAIN. 
 
 the daughter of Edmund, King of England, his wife, 
 was crowned with him. When the dukes went 
 home from the coronation they were pleased with 
 the state, and thought to copy it, so they appointed 
 counts under them to be butlers, and servers, and 
 chamberlains, and marshals to them. Then those 
 of the bishops who were princes did the same, and 
 made these offices hereditary in certain noble fami- 
 lies on their lands. Our word constable means 
 count of the stables, and a sheriff is a count of a 
 shire (shire-graf). 
 
 If there were some pomp and state observed by 
 Otto I. there was more introduced into the court 
 by his son, Otto II., who married Theophania, a 
 Greek princess, accustomed to the elaborate cere- 
 monial of the court at Constantinople. Never had 
 the Germans seen any one so lovely as this beauti- 
 ful princess. She appeared among them as a 
 being from another world. When she arrived, we 
 are told that the trappings of her horse were en- 
 riched with feathers and gold, her Greek dress was 
 encrusted with jewels and embroidered over with 
 pearls, and her hair was confined in a golden net. 
 Yet all this splendor was outshone by the beauty of 
 her features and the brilliancy of her eyes. She 
 did, however, something better than introduce mere 
 ceremonial. She brought in a love of letters, and 
 she polished and refined the somewhat rough and 
 boorish manners of the court. Otto I. was crowned 
 King of the Lombards at Milan, and emperor at 
 Rome. 
 
THE SAXON DYNASTY ENDS. 
 
 93 
 
 Otto II., and his son, Otto III., died after short 
 reigns, and with Henry II., called "the Saint," a 
 great-grandson of Henry I., the Saxon dynasty 
 came to an end. 
 
XVI. 
 
 SOME TRIALS OF A KING. 
 (1053-1106.) 
 
 The first king of the race of the Salic Franks 
 was Conrad II. He and his son, Henry III., were 
 good sovereigns, holding the reins of government 
 with a firm hand. Unhappily for Germany, the lat- 
 ter died in the vigor of manhood, and his son Hen "y 
 was proclaimed king, at the age of six. We have 
 come now to one of the saddest periods in the his- 
 tory of Germany. 
 
 Agnes, the empress mother, a good woman, was 
 left by Henry guardian of his infant son, and regent 
 during his childhood. She had not sufficient 
 strength of character for what was required of her. 
 She sought to rule the turbulent spirits of the age 
 by gentleness and persuasion. 
 
 Charles the Great had made some of the arch- 
 bishops and bishops secular princes, that is, he had 
 given them dominions over which they might reign 
 like sovereigns, and he did this in the hope that 
 they would stand by the throne against the violent 
 and ambitious dukes. But his scheme answered 
 badly. The archbishops of Cologne and Mainz 
 were sovereigns, raising armies, making laws, im- 
 
 94 
 
 
A PLOT AGAINST A KING. g$ 
 
 posing taxes, exercising the power of life and 
 death. Consequently, their minds were turned as 
 much, if not more, to the advancement of their 
 power as princes than to their duties as bishops. 
 Indeed, it came to this, that they kept bishops under 
 them, like curates, to do all their sacred functions, 
 and devoted themselves to their secular duties as 
 sovereigns. Moreover, because these great bishop- 
 rics and archbishoprics were principalities, the great 
 nobles coveted them for their sons, and got the 
 kings to give them to their sons when they got 
 ordained, just for the sake of taking them, without 
 the slightest regard for their fitness for a sacred 
 office. 
 
 Now at this time the Archbishop of Cologne was 
 a man called Anno. He was not a great nobleman. 
 Henry III. had elevated him to the archbishopric 
 in the hope of attaching him to himself and his 
 house, but by birth he was a member of a small 
 and needy family of gentlemen. When he became 
 archbishop he was ravenous for power and wealth 
 to bestow on his relations He was not a bad man, 
 but he was a greedy man, greedy of power. He 
 and the Archbishop of Mainz thought that if they 
 could only get hold of the young king they would 
 be able to squeeze what they liked out of him. So 
 they made a plan to seize him. 
 
 One Whitsuntide the Empress Agnes was spend- 
 ing the pleasant spring weather on the island of 
 Kaiserswerth in the Rhine. The trees were in their 
 first leaf, and the buds were bursting. The two 
 archbishops came to pay her a visit in a beautiful 
 
9 6 
 
 SOME TRIALS OF A KING, 
 
 new ship with painted and gilded bows. After they 
 had dined they asked Henry if he would like to see 
 the boat. He was only too delighted, so they took 
 him to where it was moored, got him on board, and 
 then, at a signal, the rope was cut, the sail was 
 spread, the rowers dipped their oars, and away 
 darted the ship into the middle of the stream. Henry 
 thought that he was going to be killed or put in 
 prison, and jumped overboard, but the Margrave 
 of Meissen, who was in the plot, jumped after him, 
 and brought him back into the vessel. In the 
 mean time, the empress ran along the beach wring- 
 ing her hands and crying, and others shouted and 
 stormed at the treachery ; but the archbishops 
 did not care ; they pushed up the river to Cologne, 
 and arranged that the king should spend half his 
 time with Archbishop Anno and half with Arch- 
 bishop Siegfried, of Mainz. 
 
 The news spread like wildfire, and the whole of 
 Germany was in agitation. The Archbishop of 
 Cologne, who had charge of the king first, was 
 obliged to bribe the great vassals right and left to 
 stop their mouths, and this he did by making the 
 young king give them estates which belonged to 
 the crown, and to the bishops who rebuked him he 
 gave other bishoprics, to keep them quiet. 
 
 Anno was a hard, stern man, and he kept Henry 
 under very severe discipline. He gave him no 
 amusements, held him hard at lessons, and separated 
 him from young lads of his own age who might have 
 made agreeable companions. He was always cross, 
 and scolding, and Henry acquired a perfect hatred 
 
THE KING'S GUARDIANS. 
 
 97 
 
 of him. It was much the same with the Arch- 
 bishop of Mainz. So the archbishop saw that he 
 must put him with some one else, who 
 
 was a 
 
 ^■s^S^^ay^ 
 
 IMPERIAL HOUSE AT GOSLAR. (HENRY III.) 
 
 friend, and would not act against him He 
 therefore handed him over to Adalbert, Arch- 
 bishop of Bremen. Now Adalbert was just the 
 opposite sort of man to Anno. He was very fond of 
 splendour, kept a grand court, ate and drank of the 
 best, and was a thriftless, good-natured person. He 
 
q3 some trials of a a/xg. 
 
 allowed Henry to do what he liked, spoiled him, 
 let him make friends with worthless young noble- 
 men, and throw about his money on any folly, as 
 he pleased. 
 
 The consequence of this sort of bringing up — at 
 one time treated with harshness, at another with in- 
 dulgence ; at one time refused rational pleasures, 
 then allowed every indulgence unreproved — was 
 that Henry's natural good disposition was com- 
 pletely spoiled. 
 
 After he had been some years with Adalbert, 
 Anno wanted to get him back again, as Adalbert 
 was wasting, or allowing Henry to waste, all the rev- 
 enues of the crown. So another plot was formed. 
 A diet — that is, a parliament — met at Tribur, 
 which was attended by the king, and the arch- 
 bishop, and many of the great nobles. All at once 
 the young king was surrounded, and ordered to 
 dismiss Adalbert from his court or abdicate the 
 throne. Henry was obliged to throw Archbishop 
 Adalbert over. Anno was guilty now of a very 
 stupid act. He forced the young king, when he 
 was only sixteen, to marry Bertha, daughter of the 
 Margrave of Susa, a plain-faced, uninteresting girl, 
 whom he could not abide, and whom he treated in 
 consequence with positive unkindness at one time 
 and neglect at another. Moreover, it increased his 
 detestation of Anno, so that Anno behaved in this 
 matter imprudently for his own interests. On the 
 king the effect was very bad, because, as he disliked 
 his wife, he became more disorderly and subject to 
 the leading of all sorts of persons, whereas, if he 
 
AN APPEAL TO THE POPE. 
 
 99 
 
 had had a wife whom he loved and who was sensi- 
 ble, he might gradually have been brought into 
 better ways. But this was not all ; his sons grew 
 up to see their father rude and unkind to their 
 mother, and they lost 
 all respect and regard 
 for him. What that 
 led to, you shall hear 
 presently. 
 
 No sooner was Henry 
 his own master than he 
 turned on those who 
 had leagued with Anno 
 against him — and these 
 were the Saxon nobles 
 — and treated them 
 with contumely and 
 severity ; indeed, he 
 drove them into insur- 
 rection. At last, un- 
 able to endure his treat- 
 ment, they appealed to 
 the Pope. The Pope 
 at this time was Greg- 
 ory VII., a carpenter's 
 son, whose head had 
 been turned by his ele- 
 vation to the Papacy, and who was puffed up with 
 pride and love of power. He summoned the 
 emperor to come to Rome, that he might decide 
 between him and the Saxon princes. Henry laughed 
 at the summons. Charles the Great had gone to 
 
 HENRY IV. WITH SCEPTRE AND 
 
 IMPERIAL GLOBE. 
 (From an Illuminated Manuscript.) 
 
IOO 
 
 SOME TRIALS OF A KING. 
 
 Rome and called the Pope before him, and tried the 
 case between him and those who had thrown him 
 off his horse and tried to cut out his tongue ; and 
 should he, the emperor, go and be tried by the 
 Bishop of Rome ? He was then aged twenty-five, 
 full of pride and in the plenitude of his power. 
 He at once called some of the bishops together at 
 Worms, and, urged by him, they deposed the Pope. 
 This was a very thoughtless act on his part. He 
 had to do with a much cleverer man than himself, 
 and Gregory was delighted that he had thus given 
 him a handle wherewith to humble him. Gregory 
 at once pronounced excommunication against him, 
 that is, he cut him off from the Church as com- 
 pletely as if he were a heathen, and bade all Chris- 
 tians hold aloof from him. He released all his sub- 
 jects from their allegiance and declared him un- 
 worthy to reign. Henry only laughed at the sen- 
 tence when he heard it, but the laugh died away 
 on his lips when he saw the effect it wrought. He 
 had behaved so badly in Germany, had been so 
 despotic, had offended so many — the powerful 
 princes by his insolence, the good people by his 
 disorderly life, and the general mass of the peo- 
 ple by his neglect of good government — that they 
 were glad to seize the excuse to fall away from 
 him and give themselves a better emperor. 
 
 Henry found himself deserted by even' one but 
 his despised wife Bertha. The great vassals pro- 
 ceeded to eleet Rudolf, Duke of Swabia, who had 
 married his sister, to be emperor in his place. 
 
 There was nothing for it, Henry thought, but for 
 
RUDOLPH OF SWARIA. 
 
 (From his Tomb.) 
 
 101 
 
I02 SOME TRIALS OF A KING. 
 
 him to hasten to Italy and make his peace with the 
 Pope. The winter of this year (1076) happened to 
 be colder than any within the memory of man, 
 and the Rhine remained frozen over from the 
 middle of November to April, 1077. It was in 
 this dreadful weather, about Christmas time, that 
 Henry set off secretly, attended only by Bertha, 
 his infant son, and a solitary knight. They crossed 
 the Alps to the Lake of Geneva ; then they trav- 
 elled over the St. Bernard pass, and Bertha, whom 
 neither danger nor distress could separate from 
 her husband, was drawn over the ice seated on an 
 ox-hide, whilst the emperor scrambled among the 
 rocks like a chamois-hunter. 
 
 The Pope was then in the castle of Canossa, sit- 
 uated on a rocky spur of the Apennines. With the 
 insolence of a beggar exalted to unlimited power, 
 Gregory treated the humbled emperor ignomin- 
 iously. He refused to see and absolve him till he 
 had undergone a degrading penance. On a dreary 
 winter morning, with the ground deep in snow, the 
 king, the heir of a line of emperors, was forced to 
 lay aside every mark of royalty, was clad in the 
 thin white linen dress of the penitent, and there, 
 fasting, he awaited the pleasure of the Pope in the 
 castle yard. But the gates did not unclose. A 
 second day he stood, cold, hungry, and mocked by 
 vain hope. At the close only of the third day did 
 Gregory receive and pardon him. 
 
 But Gregory had now, for his part, clone more 
 than was judicious from his own point of view. His 
 severity, and the humiliation of their king, roused the 
 
A HAND CUT OFF. 
 
 103 
 
 indignation and excited the disgust of the Germans 
 and the Italians alike, and Henry found himself 
 now surrounded by those who ^ 
 had forsaken him. At the head 
 of an army he marched against 
 his brother-in-law, Rudolf of 
 Swabia, who had assumed the 
 crown, and defeated him in a 
 battle near Gera, on the Elster. 
 When the duke was dying, some 
 one showed him his right hand, 
 which had been cut off by an 
 axe. " It is well," said the 
 duke, " I raised this right hand to 
 heaven in token of fidelity when 
 I took the oath of allegiance to 
 Henry. God has punished me 
 aright by suffering it to be smit- 
 ten off." 
 
 Now it was Henry's turn to 
 chastise the Pope. He crossed 
 the Alps at the head of an army, 
 took Rome, deposed Gregory, 
 who fled to Salerno, and ap- 
 pointed another Pope in his 
 room, who crowned him in S. 
 Peter's Church, Emperor of the 
 Romans, A.D. 1084. 
 
 Henry had now crushed his 
 worst enemies, but the remain- (From an illuminated us.) 
 der of his life was not to be spent in quiet. He 
 had sown the wind and must reap the whirlwind. 
 
 CONRAD, SON OF 
 HENRY IV. 
 
1Q , SOME TRIALS OE A KING. 
 
 His reign was very long, fifty years ; his old age was 
 embittered by the revolt of his own sons. Conrad 
 rebelled against his father in Italy, and Henry in 
 Germany. Conrad died before his father. 
 
 It was in 1 104 that Henry, the best loved son of the 
 old emperor, raised his hand against his father. The 
 touching appeals of the emperor to his son having 
 been disregarded, Henry IV. put himself at the head 
 of his troops and marched against him, but discover- 
 ing that he was betrayed by his followers, he fled in 
 sorrow of heart. Then occurred an incident which 
 has been versified by a German poetess. If ever you 
 go up the Rhine, look at the ruins of the Castle of 
 Hammerstein. In it, at the time of which I am 
 telling you, lived a knight who had been true to 
 Henry in all his troubles, but he was now very 
 old and unable to take the field for his king. The 
 knight was bitterly dissatisfied because he had no 
 son, only two gentle daughters, and he could not 
 abide to see them, as they were useless, he thought, 
 whereas a son could have borne arms for the king. 
 One night there came a knock at the castle door, 
 and the old man was told that a stranger begged 
 admission. He was shown in, and, lo ! the knight 
 saw his white-haired sovereign, come to him for 
 refuge from his enemies, begging for shelter, if only 
 for a night. 
 
 "Ah! well is thee!" said Henry, looking at the 
 two daughters of his host, " well is thee that thou 
 hast gentle daughters to cling to thee, to love thee, 
 and cherish thee in thy old age. I— I have had two 
 sons, and both have risen against me." 
 
A BROKEN HEAR T. \ 5 
 
 The emperor was taken by his unnatural son and 
 shut up in the castle of Bingen, and was required by 
 delegates from him to surrender the crown jewels. 
 The aged emperor placed the crown of Charlemagne 
 on his head, threw the imperial mantle over his 
 shoulders, and holding the sceptre and orb, appeared 
 before the messengers, and defied them to touch the 
 ornaments worn by the ruler of the world. But to 
 these men nothing was sacred : the crown and mantle 
 of Charlemagne were plucked off him, and carried to 
 Mainz to adorn his rebellious son. 
 
 The fallen emperor was given into the hands of 
 Gebhard, Bishop of Spires, who took a fiendish pleas- 
 ure in humbling and tormenting him. He kept him 
 without sufficient food, so that the old emperor was 
 obliged to sell his boots in order to procure bread. 
 He was forbidden the use of a bath, and of a bar- 
 ber to shave him. At length he found ways of es- 
 caping to Liege, where the bishop received him and 
 treated him with great kindness till he died of a 
 broken heart. From his death-bed Henry sent his 
 ring and sword to his son in token of pardon for his 
 rebellion. 
 
XVII. 
 
 A BAD SON MAKES A STRONG KING. 
 
 (1099-1125.) 
 
 HENRY V. married Matilda, daughter of Henry I. 
 of England, but he never had any children. He 
 saw clearly enough that there was no hope for Ger- 
 many to become united and great so long as the 
 dukes, and margraves, and archbishops were so 
 powerful and independent, and his father's long 
 minority, and the incessant contests that followed, 
 had made them so strong that the emperor could 
 do little unsupported by them. Accordingly, he 
 directed his efforts to reducing their power. But 
 now again appeared one of the fatal consequences 
 of the gift of the imperial crown to Charlemagne by 
 Leo II. The popes were afraid of the emperors. 
 The kings of Germany, who were also kings of Italy 
 and Lombardy, were tremendously strong, and the 
 popes were afraid of being completely at their mercy 
 and being forced to do just what the emperors 
 ordered. So it became a part of the settled policy 
 of the popes to stir up strife at home to keep the 
 empire weak and occupy the emperor in Germany. 
 In order to help the vassals to weaken Henry, the 
 Pope excommunicated him, and his reign was spent 
 
 106 
 
HENEICVS QUINT. 
 
 HENRY V. RECEIVES INSIGNIA FROM POPE 
 (From the Ekkehard Manuscript.) 
 
 PASCHAL 
 
 107 
 
io8 
 
 A HAD SOX MAKES A STRONG KING. 
 
 in fighting first one vassal, then another. He was 
 sometimes victorious, sometimes defeated, and a 
 fugitive, just as he had made his father a fugitive. 
 In the end he died a disappointed man, having 
 utterly failed to do what he designed. 
 
 A TEMPLAR. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 HOW THEY FOUGHT THE SARACENS. 
 (1096-1291.) 
 
 It was customary in the Middle Ages for pious 
 men to visit Jerusalem and Bethlehem, to see and 
 pray at the spots where Christ was born, and died, 
 and rose again. The Arabs, who ruled in Syria 
 after the Romans had lost that province, did not dis- 
 turb the pilgrims. But when the Seldjucs, a savage 
 Turkish race, conquered Palestine, the Christians 
 were oppressed and persecuted ; pilgrims were mal- 
 treated, churches desecrated, and Simon, Patriarch 
 of Jerusalem, was thrown down at the foot of the 
 altar, and his hair plucked out. 
 
 A pious hermit, Peter of Amiens, saw these suffer- 
 ings, when on a visit to Jerusalem; he returned to 
 Europe with an appeal from the patriarch to Pope 
 Urban II. The Pope sent Peter into France and 
 through Italy to stir up the people to fight for the 
 recovery of the Holy City. In 1095 the Pope held 
 a council at Clermont, in France, and besought the 
 faithful to take up arms to wrest Jerusalem from the 
 hands of the unbelievers. " It is the will of God ! " 
 shouted the crowd, and they hasted to fasten little 
 crosses of red cloth to their shoulders, in token that 
 
 109 
 
HO HOW THE Y FO UGHT 7 'HE SA A'. / CAWS. 
 
 they enlisted in the enterprise. Thence these ex- 
 peditions took the name of crusades. The first 
 army started in August, 1096, under the generalship 
 of Godfrey de Bouillon. When the host crossed 
 over from Constantinople into Asia Minor it num- 
 bered 300,000 fighting men. On its way through 
 Asia Minor and Syria, privations, incessant fighting, 
 and disease had thinned it so that when it arrived 
 in the Promised Land only a tenth remained. This 
 remnant, however, inspired to enthusiasm by the 
 sight of Jerusalem, stormed and took the city. 
 Godfrey de Bouillon was the first to leap from the 
 walls into the town. The gates were thrown open 
 and the Crusaders poured in, to massacre all they 
 encountered. Godfrey de Bouillon was proclaimed 
 King of Jerusalem ; but he refused to wear a crown, 
 where the Saviour had been invested with a wreath 
 of thorns, and for his title chose " Guardian of the 
 Holy Grave." Next year, 1 100, Godfrey died, and 
 his brother Baldwin took the government and the 
 title of king. 
 
 The new Christian realm was not, however, se- 
 cured by the capture of Jerusalem. The city was 
 repeatedly threatened ; and for its protection six 
 great armies went out of Europe. Jerusalem fell 
 back into the hands of the Saracens. With 
 Ptolemais, or Acre, the Christians lost, in 1291, the 
 last of their possessions in Asia. Thenceforth, the 
 Holy Land remained in the power of the Turks. 
 The conflict for the Holy Sepulchre lasted two hun- 
 dred years, and cost Europe six millions of her best 
 fighting men. Nevertheless, the Crusades were an 
 
A GREA T A WAKENING. 
 
 Ill 
 
 advantage to the West. Minds were roused by 
 contact with strange sights, interest quickened in 
 geography, history, and natural science. A multi- 
 tude of hitherto unknown products, as silk, sugar, 
 spices, dyes, found their way into the West. More- 
 over, some of the most turbulent spirits went out 
 
 AN ASTROLOGER. ( HOLBEIN.) 
 
 of Europe, as by a voluntary banishment, to exhaust 
 their powers of doing mischief in the East, and the 
 nobility were so weakened that the cities were 
 able to develop commerce and manufacture unim- 
 peded. 
 
 During the period of the Crusades, chivalry be- 
 came more and more a flourishing and organized 
 institution. Knighthood was not inherited like 
 
1 12 
 
 HOW THEY FOUGHT THE SAKACEXS. 
 
 titles ; it was granted to a man for his worth, after 
 hard trials and proof that the aspirant deserved the 
 honour. 
 
 ^§£**«^ 
 
XIX. 
 
 HOW A NEW DYNASTY WAS BEGUN. 
 
 (1138-1152.) 
 
 If you look on the map you will 
 see that at Stuttgart the River Neckar 
 comes from the east and turns abruptly 
 north, where it receives another river 
 from the east called the Rems. Now 
 between the Rems and the Neckar 
 rises a tableland of dry limestone, and 
 here and there this plateau is capped 
 with the queerest hills, for all the world like thim- 
 bles put down by giants on the table. These con- 
 ical hills with stumpy tops are not of limestone ; 
 they are volcanic, and have been driven up through 
 the lime by the fires in the heart of the earth. One 
 of these is called Hohenstaufen. You will remem 
 ber that when Henry IV. went over the Alps in win- 
 ter to Pope Gregory VII. one faithful knight attended 
 him. This knight is said to have been Frederick of 
 Biiren. In consideration of his fidelity, immediately 
 that affairs seemed prosperous, Henry created him 
 Duke of Swabia, and gave him Agnes, his daughter, 
 to wife. He thereupon built himself a castle on the 
 
 "3 
 

 U4 
 
 J WW A NEW DYNASTY WAS BEGUN. 
 
 
 hill I mention, and thenceforth called himself "Of 
 Hohen stau fen." 
 
 There had been Frank and Saxon emperors , now 
 there was to be a Swabian dynasty. 
 
 A HOHENSTAUFEN KNIGHT. 
 
 (From an Almanac of the 12th Century.) 
 
 In 1138, at Mainz, Conrad, the son of this Fred- 
 crick of Hohenstaufen, was elected to be king of the 
 
 Germans. 
 
 Besides Hohenstaufen, the family had a town, 
 Waiblingen on the Rems, and as people then took 
 their names from their estates, they were called 
 variously "of Bttren," "of Hohenstaufen," and 
 "of Waiblingen"; but as Waiblingen was a town, 
 
CONRAD HUNTING WITH FALCONS. 
 (From a Minnesinger Manuscript of the 14th Century.) 
 
 115 
 
! x 6 HOW A NEW DYNASTY WAS BEGUN. 
 
 
 whereas the other places were only castles, they 
 were commonly called the Waiblingers. 
 
 There was a strong opposition party in Germany 
 to the Swabians, and that was headed by the Duke 
 of Bavaria. The Bavarian dukes were called 
 Welfs, from an ancestor of the name. This was a 
 very powerful family, which held both the duchies 
 of Bavaria and Saxony. As the policy of the Pope 
 was to weaken the power of the emperor, he sup- 
 ported the Welfs. The Lombard cities also took 
 the same side. In Italian mouths (unable to pro- 
 nounce the W) Welf became Guelf, and Waiblinger 
 became Ghibelline, and in Italy the Papal faction 
 was called Guelf and the emperor's party was 
 called Ghibelline. 
 
 The Waiblinger family has long ago died out, but 
 the Welf remains. It is represented by Queen Vic- 
 toria of England and the Duke of Brunswick. It 
 is one of the most ancient reigning houses that ex- 
 ists. It dates back in unbroken pedigree to that 
 old Welf, Count of Swabia and Bavaria, the father 
 of lutta, the wife of Louis the Pious, who sulked 
 and hid himself in the Black Forest because his 
 took a feudal holding under the emperor. This 
 Welf died about the year 824. 
 
 Conrad, the Waiblinger, did not succeed to the 
 throne immediately after the death of Henry V. 
 Lothair. the Saxon, was the next emperor, but Con- 
 rad came to the throne on his death, and at once 
 the contest with the Welfs broke out. During this 
 contest the little town of Weinsberg held out gal- 
 lantly for the Welfs against the emperor. Exa>- 
 
HENRY THE LION, AND SPOUSE. 
 (From their Tomb.j 
 
 117 
 
u8 
 
 HOW A NEW DYNASTY WAS BEGUN. 
 
 perated at the persistency of their defence Conrad 
 threatened to kill all the men when he took the 
 place. When at length Weinsberg was forced to 
 yield, the provisions therein being exhausted, the 
 emperor consented that all the women should be 
 allowed, unmolested, to leave the place and to carry 
 with them their choicest valuables. Then the gate 
 was thrown open, and out through it, and down the 
 hill to where Conrad sat before his tent, came the 
 Countess Ida,* carrying her husband, Welf, on her 
 back, followed by all the women of Weinsberg, 
 carrying their husbands, and fathers, and brothers, 
 and lovers on their backs. 
 
 Some of the army of Conrad were angry, and 
 wanted to stop this strange procession and kill the 
 men, but the emperor was touched at the devotion 
 of the women, and he answered, " Not so ; I gave 
 my word, and an emperor's word must never be 
 broken." 
 
 The Welf whom the Countess Ida carried was 
 Welf VI., of Bavaria, uncle of the Duke Henry, sur- 
 named the Lion, who was then only twelve years 
 old. After that, Welf VI. was made Duke of Spo- 
 leto and Margrave of Tuscany. 
 
 Conrad was forced by public opinion, against his 
 good sense, to head a crusade. He started at the 
 head of a large army in 1 147 for the Holy Land, but 
 his whole march was one of disaster and loss. As 
 the Crusaders were crossing a river near Constanti- 
 nople, agents of the Greek emperor tried to count 
 
 * She was a daughter ol" the Count Palatine of the Rhine. 
 
THE TWO-HEADED EAGLE. 
 
 119 
 
 them, but after reckoning 900,000, desisted. Not 
 one tithe of this vast horde ever reached their des- 
 tination. They died either of disease, starvation, or 
 by the swords of the Moslems, in Asia Minor. 
 Conrad returned home, in confusion and despon- 
 dency, to find that Welf and Henry the Lion were 
 stirring up a new revolt against him in Germany 
 and Lombardy. 
 
 When he was at Constantinople he saw that the 
 Byzantine emperor bore on his imperial standards 
 a two-headed eagle, to represent the double empire, 
 East and West, which had for a while been united 
 under Constantine and his successors. Conrad was 
 struck with the idea, and when he came home he 
 assumed the double-headed eagle as the arms of 
 his empires, and you will see it on the coins of 
 both the Emperor of Germany and the Emperor of 
 Austria at the present day. There is a story told, 
 — but it is, of course, only a story, — that one of the 
 grand dukes of Austria was out shooting in the 
 Tyrol some years ago, and the huntsman with him 
 brought down an eagle. When the grand duke 
 picked it up, " Why," said he, " what a queer 
 eagle ! It has only one head ! " He had seen the 
 imperial eagle all his life on banners and coins, and 
 thought all eagles had two necks and heads. 
 
XX. 
 
 FREDERICK OF THE RED HEARD. 
 
 (1152-1190.) 
 
 Frederick L, or Barbarossa, was certainly the 
 greatest and strongest of the German emperors after 
 Charles the Great. He pacified the Welfs by giv- 
 ing Henry the Lion back the Duchies of Bavaria 
 and Saxony, which Conrad had taken from him. 
 But the great Welf duke was not grateful for this 
 act ; he repaid it with treachery. 
 
 If Frederick had only contented himself with the 
 government and discipline of Germany all would 
 have been well, but he could not forget that he was 
 King of all Italy and Emperor of Rome, so that he 
 continually crossed the Alps with armies to quell 
 the revolts that broke out there ; and when he was 
 in Italy disturbances burst forth in German}-, which 
 forced him back to subdue them. Duke Welf VI., 
 the uncle of Henry the Lion, in his old age became 
 blind. He lived at Memingen, on the Lech, and 
 was very extravagant. He invited all the noblemen 
 of Swabia and Bavaria to come and eat, and drink, 
 and dance for weeks at a time at Memingen. He 
 got deep in debt, and the emperor helped him ; but 
 his nephew, Henry the Lion, never sent him any 
 
 1 20 
 
STATUE OF FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. 
 (In the Cloister of St. Reno, Reichenhall.) 
 
 «.^\V 
 
 I2T 
 
122 FREDERICK OF THE RED BEARD. 
 
 money. When he died he left all his estates to 
 the emperor. This made Henry the Lion furious, 
 and he resolved to be revenged. Frederick called 
 on Henry as his vassal to assist him in a campaign 
 in Italy. Henry obeyed. At the Lake of Como 
 Frederick fell ill. Then Henry went to him and 
 told him he would desert him unless the emperor 
 yielded to his extortionate demands. The Lombards 
 in insurrection were drawing near. The time was 
 critical. Frederick entreated the duke to be true to 
 him and his country. He even went down on his 
 knees to entreat him, but Henry turned scornfully 
 away. Then the Empress Beatrice raised her hus- 
 band, saying, " God will help you, and remember 
 the Welf's insolence some future day.'.' A battle 
 was fought with the Lombards, who far outnum- 
 bered the faithful Germans. Henry withdrew with 
 his men, and left Frederick's army to be almost cut 
 to pieces. The emperor escaped with difficulty 
 and returned to Germany, where the indignation 
 against the treachery of Henry was so general that 
 Frederick put him under the ban of the Empire — 
 that is, outlawed him — and gave the duchy of Ba- 
 varia to his faithful friend, Count Otto of YVittles- 
 bach, who is the ancestor of the present King of 
 Bavaria. The duchy of Saxony was divided, and 
 to the Welfs nothing was left, after Henry the Lion 
 had come on his knees and implored pardon of the 
 emperor, but the territory of Brunswick, and it is 
 thus, through the House of Brunswick, that the 
 Queen of England descends from the ancient Welfs. 
 
BARBAROSSA'S PALACE AT GELNHAUSEN. (RECONSTRUCTED 
 
 PLAN.) 
 
 123 
 
I2 4 
 
 FREDERICK OF THE RED BEARD. 
 
 So that act of treachery at Como was the ruin of 
 the greatness of the Welfs for many generations. 
 
 In his old age Frederick made a crusade against 
 Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, who had retaken Jerusa- 
 lem. As he was crossing a river Seleph he was 
 carried off his horse by the current and drowned. 
 When the news of his death reached Germany no 
 one would believe it. There sprang up a story 
 among the people that the red-bearded king is not 
 dead, but sleeps in the Kyffhauser Mountain, sitting 
 at a stone table, and that his beard has grown 
 through the table. They say also, that in the hour 
 of peril to Germany Frederick will start to life and 
 come forth to be the deliverer of Fatherland. 
 

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 XXI. 
 
 A CRUEL KING PUT UNDER THE BAN. 
 
 (i 196-1250.) 
 
 FREDERICK the Red-Bearded was followed by 
 his son, Henry VI., a cruel, hard man, who succeeded 
 in making the rule of the Hohenstaufen more hated 
 in Italy than that of the earlier emperors. At 
 Christmas, 1 194, the season of peace and good-will, 
 this cruel tyrant deluged Palermo with blood, on the 
 pretence that he had discovered a plot against his 
 supremacy. Bishops, nobles, members of the royal 
 family of Sicily, none were spared ; some were 
 hanged, some burned, others buried alive. * Rich- 
 ard, Count of Palermo, was tied to a horse's tail, 
 dragged through the streets of Capua, then hung up 
 by one leg to a gallows, till the emperor's fool, 
 after two days of misery, put an end to his pain by 
 tying a great stone to his neck. In the midst of 
 these scenes of horror the Empress Constantia be- 
 came mother of a son, Frederick Roger, afterwards 
 the Emperor Frederick II., and the last emperor of 
 the race. It would almost seem as if the judgment 
 of Heaven, outraged by the crime of the father, was 
 
 * A Count Jordan was placed on a red-hot iron throne, and a red- 
 hot crown was nailed to his head. 
 
 125 
 
BARBAROSSA'S PALACE AT KAISERSWERTK. (RECONSTRUCTED PLAN. 
 
 126 
 
A WEDDING AND A PLAGUE. 
 
 \2J 
 
 to follow the son. Two years later Henry was dead, 
 and the little child succeeded to the crown, under 
 the regency of his gentle and pious mother. It 
 would have been well for him had she lived, but she 
 died shortly after her husband, when Frederick was 
 scarce four years old. The poor little king was 
 brought up among rough and ambitious nobles, in 
 
 SEAL OF OTTO IV. 
 
 the midst of intrigue, violence, and conflict, at Pa- 
 lermo. He grew to be a very handsome, graceful 
 youth, with a face full of intelligence, benevolence, 
 and nobility. At the age of fifteen he was mar- 
 ried to Constantia, daughter of Peter, King of Ar- 
 ragon. The wedding was performed with great 
 magnificence, but in the midst of the festivities, 
 whilst bells were ringing, and soldiers parading, the 
 plague broke out. People fell dead in the streets. 
 Alphonso, the bride's brother, rose from table, 
 
MONUMENTAL LION TO HENRY THE LION (IN BRUNSWICK). 
 
 128 
 
DISTURBANCES. 
 
 129 
 
 staggered from the hall, and died. Others of the 
 banqueters fell ill also, and before many hours had 
 elapsed were corpses. Frederick and his young 
 bride were obliged to fly. 
 
 During his minority there had been sad disturb- 
 ance in Germany. Two opposition emperors had 
 started up, Philip of Swabia and Otto IV., of Bruns- 
 wick, the son of Henry the Lion, and for ten years 
 they had devastated Germany by their rivalries. At 
 last, in 12 1 5, Frederick got 
 the upper hand, and was 
 crowned at Aix. This grand- 
 son of the Red Beard was a 
 noble scion of his race, full 
 of courage, chivalry, and 
 strength of purpose ; but, al- 
 though so great a man, he 
 never did great things, be- 
 cause his energies were ex- 
 hausted in incessant contest 
 with the popes. It was the old story over again, 
 You must consider that in France, in England, in 
 Germany, the crown was not all-powerful. The 
 nobles were very strong and much inclined to have 
 their own way, and their own way meant fighting each 
 other, and disturbing the whole land. In France, 
 the kings, by a compromise w r ith the people, got the 
 upper hand and crushed the nobility. In England, 
 the nobles, by a compromise with the people, formed 
 a check on the power of the crown, and founded a 
 constitutional monarchy ; but in Germany the great- 
 est emperors squandered their talents and exhausted 
 
 SILVER PIECE OF OTTO IV. 
 
13° 
 
 HENRY VI. 
 
 (From a Minnesinger MS. of the 14th Century.) 
 
THE IMPERIAL IDEA. • j -> , 
 
 the best strength of their country in pursuit of a 
 fancy, and never learned by the experience of their 
 predecessors to desist from the dangerous pursuit. 
 Instead of turning their attention to the develop- 
 ment of their country, to the curtailment of the 
 powers of the nobility, to the establishment of their 
 throne on enduring foundations, they were bewitched 
 with the dream of a Roman-imperial world-mon- 
 archy, which was impossible to be realized when 
 every nation was asserting more and more its charac- 
 teristic peculiarities, and arriving at consciousness of 
 national and independent life. The emperors were 
 always divided between distinct callings, as kings 
 of Germany and emperors of Rome. The Italians 
 hated them, the popes undermined their powers and 
 involved them in countless difficulties at home and 
 in Italy, so that they could not establish their au- 
 thority as emperors, and neglected to make good, or 
 were impeded in attempting to make good, their 
 position as kings in Germany. The bat in the fable 
 was rejected by the birds because he was a beast, 
 and by the beasts because he had wings as a bird. 
 
 This, that I have insisted on so strongly, must be 
 borne well in mind by all who would master German 
 history. The imperial eagle has two heads, turned 
 in opposite directions, and the heads of the emperors 
 shared this division and opposition. 
 
 Frederick was now King of Lombardy, of Naples 
 and Sicily, as well as King of Germany. The popes 
 were very uneasy, feeling as though placed in a vice, 
 and they naturally sought to diminish the power of 
 Frederick. One of the simplest expedients was to 
 
132 
 
 A CRUEL KING PUT UXDER THE BAN. 
 
 send him off crusading to the East, so they urged 
 him to this, and got him to vow a crusade. Pope 
 Gregory IX. had the satisfaction of seeing him start 
 at the head of a great host, but fever broke out in 
 it ; the pilgrims perished by thousands. Frederick 
 himself fell ill, and his ship was obliged to put back 
 to Italy, that he might recruit his health on the 
 mainland. The Pope was furious in his disappoint- 
 ment, and excommunicated the emperor. Freder- 
 ick sent three bishops to the Pope to assure him of 
 his illness. Gregory refused to receive them. That 
 was in September, 1227. 
 
 Next year, when Frederick was well, he started 
 on his crusade. One would have supposed that this 
 would have contented the Pope : but no ; he cared 
 for the crusade only as a means to weaken the em- 
 peror, and he picked a fresh excuse for continuing 
 the excommunication of Frederick. He ordered the 
 Templars and Hospitallers to hold aloof from him ; 
 he forbade the paying of taxes to help him, and he 
 did everything in his power to bring the crusade 
 of Frederick to an ignominious break-down. Yet 
 Frederick succeeded by this expedition in effecting 
 more than any other that had had the advantage of 
 the blessing of popes. By a treaty with the Sultan 
 of Egypt he recovered all the holy places. He en- 
 tered Jerusalem in triumph, took the crown of the 
 Christian kings of Jerusalem from the altar of the 
 Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and placed it on his 
 head. 
 
 After his return, the strife with the Pope began 
 again. The Lombard cities were in revolt. The 
 
POPE AGAINST EMPEROR. 
 
 133 
 
 Pope had raised an army of mercenaries against him, 
 who bore as insignia St. Peter's keys, and were 
 nicknamed accordingly the key-soldiers. 
 
 The emperor was nearly always victorious, but 
 a series of unhappy circumstances combined to 
 embitter his life. His opponents in Germany had 
 stirred up his son Henry to revolt against him. 
 Frederick was forced to cross the Alps into Ger- 
 many and quell the rebellion. Henry was deposed 
 
 PEASANTS BUILDING A VILLAGE (13TH CENTURY). 
 (Heidelberg Manuscript.) 
 
 and condemned to seven years' imprisonment in 
 Italy. He died in prison before his father. 
 
 Pope Innocent IV., who succeeded Gregory IX., 
 continued to resist the emperor, and for precisely 
 the same reason. The claims of the German kings 
 to be emperors did as much harm to the popes as 
 to the kings themselves, for it diverted the attention 
 of the popes from their spiritual cares to plotting 
 how they might upset the emperors, or, at all events, 
 curtail their authority. Innocent, afraid of the im- 
 
134 
 
 A CRUEL KING RUT UNDER THE BAN. 
 
 mense power of Frederick, fled to France, and excom- 
 municated him again, and deposed him from all his 
 offices. When Frederick heard this he laughed, and 
 exclaimed, " Has the Pope deposed me ? Bring me 
 my crowns that I may see of what I am deprived." 
 Then seven crowns were brought him, the royal 
 crown of Germany, the imperial diadem of Rome, 
 the iron circlet of Lombardy, the crowns of 
 Sicily, Burgundy, Sardinia, and Jerusalem. He put 
 them on his head, one after the other, and said, " I 
 have them still, and none shall rob me of them with- 
 out hard battle." 
 
 But the deposition and excommunication had its 
 effect in Germany. It served as an excuse for the 
 proud and ambitious to rise and set up an opposi- 
 tion emperor. An old historian says of that time : 
 " After the Emperor Frederick was put under the 
 ban, the robbers rejoiced over their spoils. Then 
 were the ploughshares beaten into swords, and the 
 reaping hooks into lances. No one went anywhere 
 without steel and stone, to set in blaze whatever he 
 could fire." 
 
 Italy also was in insurrection. The emperor's 
 son Enzio, was captured by the Bolognese and im- 
 prisoned. The old emperor, crushed by his trou- 
 bles, died in the arms of his son Manfred, and was 
 succeeded by his son Conrad, who reigned only 
 four years, and was never crowned emperor. Con- 
 rad left an only son, Conradin, not three years old, 
 the one legitimate heir of the Red-beard and of 
 Frederick II. 
 
 As soon as Frederick was dead, the Pope gave 
 
A PRINCE IN A CASK. 
 
 135 
 
 away the kingdom of Naples to Charles, Count of 
 Anjou.* He had no right whatever to do this, but 
 he did it out of self-preservation, so as to have some 
 one on one side of him to assist him against the 
 Germans. Conradin, when aged sixteen, marched 
 against the French holding Naples, to attempt to 
 recover his kingdom, but was taken, and his head 
 struck off, by order of the cruel Charles of Anjou. 
 
 Enzio was still in pris- 
 on in Bologna ; he was 
 now the last of the Ho- 
 henstaufen, and heir to 
 all the seven crowns. 
 He contrived to be hid- 
 den in an empty wine 
 cask, and thus to be car- 
 ried out of the prison. 
 But as he was being 
 taken, one of his long 
 golden locks fell out of 
 the bung-hole, which 
 had been left open that 
 he might have air to 
 breathe. This attract- 
 ed the attention of the 
 guards ; the cask was stopped, broken open. Enzio 
 was enclosed in an iron cage, and there died in 1272, 
 the last of the noble Hohenstaufen race, after a mis- 
 erable confinement of twenty-three years. 
 
 A BISHOP IN ROBES. 
 (Codex of 12th Century.) 
 
 * Brother of King Louis IX. of France. 
 

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 HbQW 1 -f^ 
 
 
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 XXII. 
 
 THE ROBBER KNIGHTS. 
 
 If you have travelled in Germany you will have 
 noticed the abundance of ruined castles scattered 
 over the country ; not a rocky hill, not a spur of 
 mountain, but is crowned by one, not always large, 
 some consisting of little more than one towe'r and a 
 few outer walls, others possessing several towers. 
 Most of these castles belong to the period of which 
 we shall have need to treat, a time when there was 
 no strong emperor, when the firmament was with- 
 out a sun, and every little star set up to be indepen- 
 dent. 
 
 When the Hohenstaufen race died out, the glory 
 of the empire was gone from Germany. No Ger- 
 man prince would take the crown ; all were afraid 
 of it. Then the great bishops thought of electing 
 a foreigner. Some chose Richard, Earl of Cornwall, 
 brother of Henry III. of England, and son of King 
 John ; others chose Alphonso, King of Castile, in 
 Spain. Richard came to Germany very rarely; Al- 
 phonso not at all. It was as though there were no 
 king in the land. This was the saddest time that 
 ever was in Germany. Every one did what he liked. 
 The fist and the sword decided between right and 
 
 136 
 
THE DRESS OF THE GERMAN LORDS, WORN BY CONRAD 
 OF THURINGIA, A.D. 1241. 
 
 13; 
 
138 
 
 THE ROBBER KXIGIITS. 
 
 wrong. The princes and the cities were in constant 
 feud. The knights made themselves strong castles, 
 and lived in them on plunder and murder. From 
 their fortresses they swooped down on the mer- 
 chants travelling from town to town and robbed 
 them, or levied on them heavy tolls. They went 
 plundering over the level land ; they robbed the far- 
 mers of their cattle, devastated their fields, and 
 burnt their houses. 
 
 Moreover, the neighboring nobles and knights 
 quarrelled with each other and fought, so that the 
 country was one battle-field. How Germany could 
 have got through this terrible time but for two 
 things it is hard to say. In the first place, the 
 towns had become very strong. They had taken 
 advantage of the crusades, which had drawn away a 
 number of the knights, to buy their lands, and to 
 become wealthy, and organize large bodies of fight- 
 ing men. If, therefore, any knights proved trouble- 
 some, and meddled with the caravans passing from 
 town to town, they attacked their fortresses and 
 burned them, and hanged the robber knights from 
 their own towers. Then, again, the church inter- 
 fered, and ordered that a truce should be kept from 
 all fighting for four days in the week, that is, from 
 Wednesday evening to Monday morning. This 
 was called the "Truce of God," and whoever broke 
 it became an outlaw. 
 
 It is, however, a mistake into which travellers in 
 Germany often and very generally fall, to suppose 
 that all the castles were nests of robber barons, 
 and that they always subsisted by robbery. The 
 
THE WORK OF THE BARONS. 
 
 139 
 
 owners had certain duties which they fulfilled: 
 those on the Rhine, and other rivers that are naviga- 
 ble, maintained the towing paths, and kept relays 
 of horses or oxen to drag the boats against the 
 
 KNIGHT AND ATTENDANTS. 
 (From a Drawing of ugo.J 
 
 stream through their lands. For this a toll was 
 paid. Those not on rivers kept up the roads, and 
 entertained travellers, and furnished them with 
 horses, and, if necessary, an escort, till they left the 
 lands over which these barons exercised sway, and 
 for this they were paid something. 
 
 The barons, in peaceful times, did not receive the 
 
140 
 
 THE ROBBER KNIGHTS. 
 
 travellers in their castles perched on high rocks, for 
 indeed they did not care to live in them themselves 
 except in times of danger. They had other houses 
 below, in the little towns or villages, and over the 
 doors of their houses they hung their shields; so the 
 travellers knew the houses where they might lodge, 
 and where they could get a change of horses, by 
 the shields, with the arms of the baron or knight. 
 This it is which originated the signs hung above inn 
 doors, signs of the red lion, the white hart, the brown 
 bear, etc. The inn-keepers were the lords of the 
 place. Now, if you happen to travel in the Tyrol, 
 where old customs linger on, you may find that in a 
 good many places the inn-keepers are still noble- 
 men, and that the signs of their inns are still their 
 coats-of-arms. If you go into the church-yards you 
 will see the tombstones of the family of your host, 
 with the arms, and with coronets over them, show- 
 ing him to be a baron, or a count. I know a good 
 many such inns. Elsewhere it is not so , the houses 
 have been sold, and though they still keep their 
 signs, the signs have no connection with the new 
 owners. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 HOW THE GERMANS WROTE ROMANCES. 
 
 The Germans of the 13th and 14th centuries 
 were not only active soldiers, dealing and tak- 
 ing hard blows, but their minds were as active as 
 their hands ; and so it comes about that we have a 
 series of really grand poems that belong to this 
 period, in the German language ; and not great 
 poems only, but also short and beautiful pieces. 
 The poetic art was cultivated first in Provence by 
 the knights and gentlemen, and those who composed 
 poems and sang them were called troubadours, 
 which means " discoverers," from trouver, to find. 
 They found out tunes as well as invented poems. 
 The Germans were not slow to follow the ex- 
 ample ; their poets were called " minnesingers," or 
 " love-singers " ; because their lays were mostly 
 love songs. Some of their songs are beautiful. 
 But they did not content themselves with short lays, 
 they composed also long poems. At first they 
 took their subjects from abroad, from the stories of 
 King Arthur and his knights, and so some of the 
 finest and longest of the metrical romances of this 
 time have their scenes laid in Britain. But, fortu- 
 nately, they were not satisfied with borrowing from 
 
 141 
 
142 
 
 HOW THE GERMANS WROTE ROMANCES. 
 
 abroad, and they composed heroic poems on old 
 German legends. 
 
 Charles the Great had made a collection of the 
 national poems, but this was destroyed by Louis 
 the Pious. Though he destroyed the collection he 
 had not destroyed the remembrance from men's 
 minds, and the old stories lingered on and were 
 passed from mouth to ear, from one generation to 
 another, till at length the poets of Germany, about 
 the time of which we are speaking, were induced 
 to take them up, and invest them in new poetic 
 garb, and give them a fresh spell of life. 
 
 Of these old heroic legends there are several 
 distinct cycles, or groups, belonging to different 
 branches of the German family. 
 
 The first of these is the Burgundian cycle, of 
 Gunther the king, his wife Brunhild, his henchman 
 Hagen, his sister Kriemhild, and his brother-in-law 
 Siegfried. This forms the topic of the grand 
 Niebelungen-Lied. 
 
 The second of these is the Frisian cycle, to 
 which belong King Hettel and his daughter Gud- 
 run ; and on their adventures turns the noble Gud- 
 run-Lied. 
 
 The third of these is the Anglo-Saxon cycle, con- 
 cerning Beowulf, the Jute king, and Wayland the 
 Smith. This was never recast after the 8th cent- 
 ury. 
 
 The fourth of these is the Lombard cycle, con- 
 cerning kings and heroes of South Tyrol, and the 
 Rose Garden of Laurin the Dwarf, above Botzen. 
 This was put into form in twelve poems, which com- 
 
 
GUN THE R AND BRUNHILD. 
 
 H3 
 
 pose the Helden-Buch much later, in the 15th cent- 
 ury. 
 
 The most famous of all these poems is the 
 Niebelungen-Lied, a grand epic in two parts, which 
 may take rank beside the Iliad. It is the great- 
 est monument of German national poetry in the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 Gunther was King of the Burgundians. He lived 
 at Worms. He had a beautiful sister called Kriem- 
 hild. Away in the^ North, at Xanten, on the Rhine, 
 lived a Netherland king, Siegmund, who had a 
 brave son called Siegfried. Siegfried had been 
 into the Niebelungen land, where he had slain a 
 dragon and carried off a vast treasure the dragon 
 guarded. He had, moreover, bathed in the dragon's 
 blood, which made him invulnerable, except at one 
 point between the shoulder-blades, where a linden 
 leaf rested whilst he bathed in the blood. He 
 heard of the beauty of Kriemhild and came to 
 Worms to see her. Now Gunther had heard that 
 in Iceland was a princess called Brunhild, who was 
 beautiful, and wealthy, and strong, and would not 
 marry any one who could not throw a spear, and 
 heave a stone, and jump farther than herself. 
 Gunther thought he would like to make her his 
 queen, so he persuaded Siegfried to accompany him 
 to Iceland, and help him to win her. Now, in the 
 treasure of the Niebelungen was a cap which made 
 the w r earer invisible. So Siegfried put on this cap, 
 and stood behind Gunther and helped him to throw 
 the stone and hurl the spear and leap. Thus Brun- 
 hild was surpassed, and she consented to marry 
 
144 
 
 HOW THE GERMANS WROTE ROMANCES. 
 
 Gunthcr, and she did not know how he had been 
 assisted. 
 
 When Siegfried returned to Worms he was given 
 Kriemhild to wife, and Gunther brought home his 
 queen. One day when Brunhild and Kriemhild were 
 going to church Brunhild wished, as queen, to enter 
 the door first, but Kriemhild thrust her aside, and 
 mockingly said that she should enter first, as her 
 husband had helped Gunther to win Brunhild, and 
 without his aid she never would have become 
 queen. Brunhild was furious and meditated re- 
 venge. 
 
 Now, not long after this, a great hunt was to take 
 place. Kriemhild was anxious about her dear hus- 
 band ; she was afraid lest he should be wounded in 
 the only vulnerable place. So she called Hagen, 
 the henchman of Gunther, to her, and confided to 
 him the secret, and made him promise in battle and 
 in the chase to put his shield over Siegfried's back. 
 She also marked a little red cross in his dress to 
 show the place where alone he could be hurt. 
 
 Now Queen Brunhild egged on her husband to 
 have Siegfried killed, and they took counsel with 
 Hagen. So, when they were out hunting, and 
 Siegfried, who was thirsty, stooped to drink at 
 a fountain, Hagen ran him through with a spear 
 where Kriemhild had marked his garment. 
 
 Then they took his body and laid it on the door- 
 step of Kriemhild's house, so that, next morning, 
 when she came forth early, the first thing she saw 
 was her dead husband, stark and cold. 
 
 After that she brooded on revenge. Hagen 
 
A GENERAL MASSACRE. 
 
 145 
 
 feared what she might do, so he persuaded King 
 Gunther to let him carry away the Niebelungen 
 treasure and throw it into the Rhine, lest she 
 should use the wealth to stir up enemies against 
 the king. 
 
 After some years, Attila, or Etzel, King of the 
 Huns, asked for her hand, and she consented to 
 marry him. When she was Queen of the Huns she 
 got her husband to invite Gunther and Hagen to 
 visit him at Buda, on the Danube ; and Gunther 
 accepted the invitation against the advice of 
 Hagen. When they arrived at Buda, and were 
 feasting in the palace, some armed men, at the in- 
 stigation of Kriemhild, rushed upon the Burgundi- 
 ans and began to slay them. A furious contest 
 ensued, and when the Burgundians seemed to be 
 gaining the upper hand Kriemhild had fire put to 
 the banqueting hall and set it in a blaze. The 
 Burgundians fought their way out through the fire 
 and smoke, but were taken. Then Kriemhild sent 
 an executioner to Gunther and had his head struck 
 off, and she carried her brother's head to show it to 
 Hagen ; then with Siegfried's sword she cut down 
 Hagen himself, whose hands were bound. 
 
 An old warrior, Hildebrand, enraged at her per- 
 fidy and cruelty, then smote her with his blade. 
 And so the story ends, amidst general massacre and 
 in volumes of flame. i 
 
XXIV. 
 
 HOW THE CITIES GAINED POWER. 
 
 As you have already heard, the cities had begun 
 to flourish during the crusades ; they became busy 
 nurseries of art and learning, as well as of trade and 
 manufacture. By degrees they acquired great 
 privileges and power, and some were made by the 
 emperors •' free cities," that is, they were under 
 no princes, but under the emperor only. 
 
 You will remember now that when Henry I. built 
 the castles for defence against the Hungarians the 
 noble families about were required to maintain 
 some of their men in the fortresses throughout the 
 year. In time these families became very domineer- 
 ing. The towns grew in size and importance, but 
 the families originally charged with the defence of 
 the burg remained the holders of power in it, and 
 managed the affairs of the town. When trades in- 
 creased, each trade managed its own affairs by a 
 ziinft, or guild, and the guilds combined against 
 the noble burgers to obtain some share in the man- 
 agement of affairs. After much rioting and fighting 
 they carried their point, and so the council was 
 formed of an Upper House of hereditary burgers, 
 who in the 15th century were called patricians, 
 and of a Lower House, to which members were 
 
 146 
 
THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE. 
 
 147 
 
 elected. If you go to Germany and walk through 
 the aisles and cloisters of the great town churches 
 you will see them crowded with splendid monu- 
 ments, emblazoned with heraldic achievements. 
 These are the tombs of the hereditary patricians, 
 men who held themselves as proudly as the coun- 
 try aristocracy did in their castles. 
 
 The troubles occasioned by the interregnum, the 
 interference with trade, the way in which the trav- 
 ellers were plundered, became insupportable, and in 
 1241 Hamburg and Lubeck agreed together to 
 keep order in their neighborhoods. Then Bruns- 
 wick and Bremen joined, and at last a hundred 
 towns were leagued together, and formed so strong 
 a body that the disturbers of the public peace were 
 cowed into order. This league was called the 
 Hansa. It maintained armies and fleets, and even 
 carried on wars with the kings of Norway and Den- 
 mark, in which the Hansa was victorious. Its fleets 
 swept the sea of pirates, and its troops taught the 
 robber knights to cultivate peace. 
 
 PEASANT AND PLOUGH (13TH CENTURY). 
 
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 XXV. 
 
 A GOOD KING FROM A SWISS CASTLE. 
 
 (1273-1292.) 
 
 At last the condition of affairs became so intol- 
 erable that the German princes assembled to elect 
 a new emperor, who might bring order out of the 
 universal confusion. Their choice fell on Rudolph, 
 Count of Hapsburg, a simple, courageous, and 
 shrewd man. Hapsburg, or Habsburg, is a little cas- 
 tle near Konigsfelden, in Switzerland. It was built 
 in 1020 by Count Radbod of Altenburg, an ancestor 
 of the family. The ruins still stand of this cradle of 
 the Austrian imperial family, of which they were 
 deprived by papal law one hundred and fifty years 
 after Rudolph's elevation, and it has quite recently 
 been restored to them, as a wedding gift, by the 
 Canton of Aarau, on the marriage of Rudolph, the 
 prince imperial, with a Belgian princess. From the 
 broken tower the eye takes in at a single glance the 
 whole Swiss patrimony of the Hapsburgs, — an es- 
 tate far more limited than that of main- a British 
 peer, — from which Rudolph was called to wield the 
 sceptre of Charlemagne. 
 
 The first act of Rudolph was to march against 
 Ottocar, King of Bohemia, who had gained posses- 
 
 J48 
 
RUDOLPH OF HAPSBURG. 
 
 149 
 
no 
 
 A GOOD KING IIWM A SWISS CASTLE. 
 
 sion of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. A 
 great battle was fought in 1278 on the Marchfeld, 
 near Vienna, in which Ottocar was defeated and 
 killed. Rudolph then appropriated to himself the 
 duchy of Austria, together with Styria and Carin- 
 thia, and they have remained ever since the patri- 
 mony of the Hapsburgs. 
 
XXVI. 
 
 DID WILLIAM TELL SHOOT? 
 
 RUDOLPH'S son Albert was not acknowledged 
 emperor till he had defeated his rival, Adolph of 
 Nassau. Albert was the second son. The eldest 
 had died early, leaving an infant son, John. Albert 
 laid his grasp on the Hapsburg county in Switzer- 
 land, and refused to give it up to his nephew John. 
 
 Albert was a stern, cruel man, who had been em- 
 bittered by his disappointment at not being recog- 
 nized as emperor immediately on the death of his 
 father. Albert was not content with depriving his 
 nephew of his inheritance, he tried to unite Schwyz, 
 Uri, and Unterwalden with his Swiss family posses- 
 sions; but the simple Alpine shepherds claimed to 
 be free under the imperial crown. Then Albert 
 despatched governors to crush them into subjection. 
 Among them was Gessler, appointed to rule Uri. 
 He treated the people with great cruelty. At last 
 the Swiss rose in revolt, and expelled the governors ; 
 Gessler was shot by William Tell. The story of Tell 
 having been ordered to shoot an apple off his son's 
 head is fabulous, but there really was such a man, 
 and he got his name of Tell (Toll, Tolpel) from 
 being half-witted. When Albert heard of the 
 revolt he was filled with fury, and resolved on 
 
 I5i 
 
152 
 
 DID WILLIAM TELL SHOOT? 
 
 administering to the rebels a terrible chastisement. 
 His revenge, however, was prevented by his own 
 death. He was journeying one day within sight of his 
 castle of Hapsburgwith his nephew John, whom he 
 had deprived of it, and some Swabian knights, when he 
 crossed the river Reuss, and was separated from his 
 retinue. John of Swabia, his nephew, and three 
 others, all in the plot, were with him. No sooner 
 had he stepped out of the ferry-boat, than, at a word 
 from John, one of the knights clove the emperor's 
 skull with an axe. The retainers on the further 
 bank, terrified, took to flight, leaving their dying 
 master to breathe his last in the arms of a poor 
 peasant girl who happened to pass. 
 
 " A peasant girl that royal head upon her bosom laid, 
 And, shrinking not for woman's dread, the face of death surveyed. 
 Alone she sate. From hill and wood, low- sank the mournful sun ; 
 Fast gushed the fount of noble blood. Treason his worst had done. 
 With her long hair she vainly pressed the w r ounds, to staunch the tide, 
 Unknown, on that meek humble breast, imperial Albert died." 
 
 A direful vengeance was wreaked by the children 
 of the murdered monarch ; not, however, upon the 
 murderers, for, with one exception, they had escaped, 
 but upon their families, relations, and friends; and 
 one thousand victims are believed to have expiated, 
 with their lives, a crime of which they were totally 
 innocent. Agnes, Queen of Hungary, daughter of 
 Albert, and heir to his gloomy, cruel spirit, is said to 
 have presided at the executions. When sixty-three 
 unfortunate men were butchered before her, u Hah ! " 
 she exclaimed, " now I bathe in May-dew ! " Al- 
 t hough this is asserted by most historians, yet we 
 
S WITZERLA ND INDEPENDENT. 
 
 153 
 
 are glad to say that recent investigations by Swiss 
 historians have completely disproved the part of 
 Agnes in the tragedy, and we are rejoiced to think 
 that such a stain does not rest on the character of 
 the queen. 
 
 The Swiss remained resolute- in their determina- 
 tion not to become serfs of the House of Hapsburg. 
 Leopold of Austria, six years after his father's death, 
 marched an army against them, but was completely 
 defeated at Morgarten. Still more disastrous was 
 the defeat of Leopold's grandson, Leopold III., at 
 Sempach, in 1386. But it took another battle, 
 nearly a hundred years later — that of Morat, in 
 1476 — to prove to the world that the time of fig 1 ting 
 in armour on horseback was over; that men on foot, 
 lightly armed, were more than a match for knights 
 clothed in steel. The weight of a charge of ar- 
 moured men was great, but a knight, once dis- 
 mounted and thrown down, lay like a log on the 
 ground, unable to raise himself. Although the 
 Swiss had proved their power to maintain their inde- 
 pendence, it was not till the peace of Westphalia, in 
 1648, that Switzerland was finally and fully separ- 
 ated from the German Empire. 
 
XXVII. 
 
 THE GOLDEN BULL. 
 
 (I347-I437-) 
 
 Ox the death of Albert, the princes of Germany 
 resolved again to commit the same blunder that 
 they had made in electing Rudolph of Hapsburg, 
 that is, to choose a petty noble and exalt him to be 
 emperor. The little counts of Hapsburg had man- 
 aged pretty well to enrich themselves, and make 
 themselves very powerful. The choice fell now on 
 Henry, Count of Luxemburg, a gallant knight, but 
 that was all. He at once married his son John to 
 Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Wenceslas, King 
 of Bohemia. The usual fatal attraction of Italy 
 drew Henry VII. over the Alps. Brescia stood out 
 against him, and his brother fell under the walls. 
 Then Henry vowed he would cut off the noses of 
 all the men in Brescia when he took the town; but 
 plague broke out among his troops, whilst famine 
 ravaged the besieged. Then a compromise was 
 agreed to. Brescia would open her gates, and 
 Henry would content himself with knocking off the 
 noses of all the male statues in the city. Shortly 
 after he was poisoned, whilst unsuccessfully besi 
 ing Siena. On his death, in 131 3, discord broke out 
 
 154 
 
DISCORD BREAKS OUT. 
 
 155 
 
 in Germany. One party elected Louis the Bavarian, 
 the other chose Frederick of Austria, son of Albert 
 I. Louis belonged to the Wittelsbach family, 
 which had got the duchy of Bavaria after the ex- 
 pulsion of the Welfs. As neither would withdraw 
 his claims, a long and tedious contest ensued, that 
 
 FORTIFIED CAMP ( 1 5'1'H CENTURY). 
 (From a contemporary Chronicle.) 
 
 lasted eight years, till at Miihldorf Frederick was 
 defeated and taken and imprisoned. His imprison- 
 ment, however, did not bring peace, for his brothers 
 continued the contest. Then Louis went to him 
 in his prison, and Frederick promised that he would 
 resign his pretensions, and, if he were unable to 
 bring his brothers to agree to this, that he would 
 return to prison. On these terms Louis set him 
 free. At the instigation of the Pope, who dreaded 
 the power of the Bavarian, Leopold, brother of 
 
15' 
 
 THE GOLD EX BULL. 
 
 Frederick, refused submission to the compact. 
 Thereupon Frederick honorably returned to cap- 
 tivity. Louis was touched by his integrity. He 
 received him with affection and agreed to divide the 
 realm with him. Thenceforth they reigned together, 
 united with such cordial affection that they ate at 
 the same table and slept in the same bed. Frederick 
 died in 1330, and Louis in 1347. Then Charles 
 IV., of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, grandson of 
 Henry VII., was elected. From him comes the so- 
 called Golden Bull (1356). This takes its name 
 from a golden seal (bulla) appended to the deed. 
 
 The Golden Bull was issued to determine who were 
 to elect the emperors, and reduced the number of 
 electors to seven — the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, 
 Treves, and the temporal princes of Bohemia, Bran- 
 denburg, Saxony, and the Palatine of the Rhine — 
 the King of Bohemia as butler, the Palatine as sewer, 
 the Duke of Saxony as marshall, and the Margrave 
 of Brandenburg as chamberlain. Frankfort was ap- 
 pointed as the place where elections were to take 
 place, and Aix as the place where the emperors were 
 to be crowned. Sometimes you may see in muse- 
 ums, sometimes in old curiosity-shops, metal plates of 
 ancient German casting, with a circle in the middle, 
 in which is seated a figure ,of the emperor, and 
 round the rim seven medalliorYs, in each of which is 
 a figure representing an elector. The idea was, that 
 as the sun was the centre of a system of seven plan- 
 ets, so should the German emperor, the sun of the 
 earthly system, be the centre of a political planetary 
 world, of which these seven electors were to be the 
 
157 
 
[ 5 8 
 
 THE GOLD EX BULL. 
 
 great luminaries. Charles hoped by this means to se- 
 cure -the imperial crown to his own family. He had 
 already got the crown of Bohemia, and he was aim- 
 ing to get hold of Brandenburg. He considered 
 the Palatine of the Rhine easily managed. \ He was 
 a shrewd man, and was the first to see the danger 
 Italy was to the emperor, so he made no attempts 
 to recover it for the empire, and he kept on good 
 terms with the popes, who, thus relieved of anxiety 
 for themselves, favored him. Charles did all in his 
 power to aggrandize his family. He bribed the 
 electors to choose his eldest son, Wenceslas, as his 
 successor; he married his second son, Sigismund, to 
 Mary, daughter of the King of Hungary and Poland, 
 in the expectation of succeeding to those countries. 
 Wenceslas, who followed his father, was, if not a 
 madman, as little suited as one to be emperor. He 
 was addicted to drunkenness and sports. At one 
 moment he jested, at another burst into insane fits 
 of rage. The Germans thought him a fool ; the Bo- 
 hemians regarded him as a maniac. As he coveted 
 the possessions of the Bohemian nobles he invited 
 them to meet him at Willamow, where he received 
 them under a black tent that opened into two 
 others, one white, the other red. The nobles were 
 introduced one by one, and were required to cede 
 their lands, and receive them back as fiefs of the 
 crown. Those who consented were sent into the 
 white tent, where they were well feasted ; those who 
 refused were dragged into the red tent and put to 
 death. He was surrounded by savage hounds, which 
 accompanied him to the chase, and constantly at- 
 
AN EMPEROR 'S DOGS. 
 
 159 
 
 tended him. Of these the two largest shared his 
 bedroom. One night his wife, Queen Joanna, a 
 Bavarian princess, rose from her bed, when one of 
 
 THE MARTYRDOM OF HUSS. 
 (From a wood-cut at Prague.) 
 
 the hounds sprang on her and so tore her that she 
 died of the wounds. 
 
 At last his uncles and brother Sigismund, con- 
 scious of the ruin into which his crimes and folly 
 
 
I0 THE GOLDEN BULL. 
 
 were hurrying the family, seized him and imprisoned 
 him in a castle in Austria. 
 
 His brother Sigismund succeeded him, a vain, 
 arrogant, and deceitful man. Under him the great 
 council of Constance was held, and the Hussite wars 
 began. 
 
 Not only in the German Empire but throughout 
 the whole Western Church the general disorder had 
 affected religion ; discipline was relaxed, and abuses 
 had crept in. Moreover, there were at the same 
 time three opposition popes, and some countries 
 recognized one pope, some another, and others 
 again the third. Accordingly, a council of the 
 Church was summoned to assemble at Constance to 
 put an end to these scandals. To restore unity to 
 the Church the Council deposed all three popes and 
 elected a new one, who took the title of Martin V. 
 At this council appeared John Huss, a professor of 
 the University of Prague, who had denounced the 
 corruptions of the Church, and was bitterly opposed 
 to the Church being endowed with temporal goods. 
 This last ground embittered the bishops against him 
 especially, and without a proper hearing, on the 
 most frivolous charges — such as that he had main- 
 tained the existence of four gods — he was con- 
 demned and burnt. The flames of his pyre set Bo- 
 hemia in conflagration. Huss had strongly opposed 
 the withdrawal of the cup from the laity in com- 
 munion. The cup was made the badge of the party 
 of Huss, which was called after it Calixtine. The 
 Bohemians armed, embroidered banners with a gold- 
 en cup, met in tents, where they celebrated the 
 
 
A ONE-EYED LEADER. !6i 
 
 communion and distributed it in both kinds. Zis- 
 ka " with the Flail," a man with one eye, put himself 
 at their head, entered Prague, and flung the burgo- 
 master and the councillors out of the windows of 
 the town-hall, on the pikes and pitchforks of his 
 followers. Frightful confusion followed. A party, 
 
 JOHN, COUNT ZISKA, OF TROCZNOW. 
 (From an engraving.) 
 
 more extreme, separated from Ziska, and settled in 
 an island of the Moldau. The one-eyed leader of 
 the Hussites fell on them and cut them to pieces, 
 with the exception of two. The strife which had 
 begun about communion in two kinds soon became 
 one of Bohemian against German, and the country 
 ran with blood. The imperial army was defeated. 
 Ziska, at the head of his Hussites, burst into Ger- 
 
162 
 
 THE G OL DEN BULL. 
 
 many, besieged towns, stormed castles, and butch- 
 ered and burned without compunction. At Brod 
 he burned two hundred people in the church, and 
 
 SCENE FROM HUSSITE WARS. 
 (From a contemporary Chronicle.) 
 
 an unfortunate man, who was secretary to the chap- 
 ter at Prague, had his flesh torn off, and he was 
 then roasted in a tar barrel. Saxony was wasted by 
 the Hussites to the gates of Dresden. 
 
 
"SET FIRE TO THE VILLAGES 7" 
 
 163 
 
 The free imperial city of Altenburg fell into their 
 hands. The citizens who were taken with arms 
 were tortured to death. Men, women, and children 
 were drawn into the blazing cathedral and burnt by 
 hundreds. The sick and infirm were thrown into 
 fires made in the streets. ''This is John Huss's 
 wake," said the Bohemians. " Oh ! " exclaimed one 
 of the sufferers, " the Catholics burnt one goose 
 (Huss, in Bohemian, means a goose) and you are 
 giving us the same." 
 
 The fairest regions of Germany, Bavaria, Fran- 
 conia, as well as Saxony and Bohemia, were devas- 
 tated, and the terror of the Calixtines surpassed that 
 with which the Germans of old had regarded the 
 Hungarian marauders. ' A splinter struck Ziska's 
 remaining eye. Though blind, he still led his Huss- 
 ites. On one occasion, having compelled his men 
 to march day and night, they murmured, and said to 
 him, " Although night and day be one to you, they 
 are not so to us." 
 
 " How ! you cannot see ! " exclaimed Ziska, " set 
 fire to the villages and walk by the blaze they give." 
 
 At last, in 1433, another council met at Basle, and 
 at it communion in both kinds was granted to the 
 Bohemians. Ziska was then dead. The country 
 was worn out with war, and peace was proclaimed. 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 A SLEEPY KING. 
 
 (1440-1493.) 
 
 The Hapsburg or Austrian house succeeded that 
 of Luxemburg, having recovered the imperial crown 
 on the death of Sigismund, and thenceforth it re- 
 mained in their family, almost exclusively, till the 
 dissolution of the German' empire in 1806. Albert 
 II. reigned but one year. He was succeeded by 
 Frederick III. No emperor wore the crown so long 
 as he, and none cared less for its duties than he. 
 He often fell asleep whilst the most important 
 affairs of the state were being discussed, which 
 acquired for him the nick-name of " Emperor Night- 
 cap." The robber-knights began again their dep- 
 redations, quarrelled with and fought each other, 
 as if there were no emperor above them to keep 
 order in Germany. Huge bands of robbers swept 
 the country, and Frederick bought them off. His 
 discontented citizens of Vienna besieged him in his 
 own palace. He had an adviser, Caspar Schlick, 
 whose only idea of policy was to patch up a com- 
 promise and put off settling difficult matters to a 
 future day. Indeed, one may say that Schlick's 
 doctrine was composed of two maxims, " Never do 
 
 164 
 
ARTILLERY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 (.From Froissart's Chronicle.) 
 
 165 
 
!56 A SLEEPY A'/XG. 
 
 to-day what can be done to-morrow," and "Never 
 do yourself what can be left to be done by an- 
 other." This was just what suited Emperor Night- 
 cap. 
 
 The peasants of the Rhcetian Alps asserted 
 their independence, and formed a confederacy de- 
 nominated the Grey-Band, from the grey frocks 
 worn by the peasants, and this has given name to 
 the canton of Grisons, or Graubiinden. Their exam- 
 ple was followed by Zurich and Schwyz. As the 
 emperor was too lazy to take the field himself he 
 invited a body of French mercenaries, called the 
 Armagnacs, to invade Switzerland ; but though 
 they killed fifteen thousand brave Swiss they lost so 
 many of their own men that they retired dispirited. 
 On the south-east the Turks threatened Ger- 
 man}'. They created havock in Hungary, and en- 
 tered and devastated Austria ; but Frederick did 
 nothing to repel them. He amused himself in his 
 garden, picking caterpillars out of his roses and 
 catching slugs with buttered cabbage leaves, and let 
 the Turks destroy the villages and harvests of his 
 people. 
 
 At last an Italian friar, S. John Capistran, put 
 himself at the head of three thousand peasants, 
 armed with flails and pitchforks, and fell on the 
 Turkish host which was besieging Belgrade, when 
 the town was hardly able to hold out another day. 
 At the head of the peasants he routed the Turks 
 and relieved the city. 
 
 The Hungarians gave themselves a valiant king, 
 John Hunyadi, and his son Matthias ; and the 
 
ENRAGED PEASANTS. 
 
 167 
 
 Bohemians placed themselves under the gallant 
 George of Podjebrad. But this did not trouble 
 Frederick ; the loss of two kingdoms was nothing to 
 him. 
 
 His indolence so exasperated his wife Eleanor, 
 that she said to her son, Maximilian, one day in a 
 fit of impatience, "On my word, if I thought you 
 would be like your father, I should be ashamed of 
 being the mother of such a king! " 
 
 Fritz the Palatine also rebelled against the em- 
 peror, and built a tower to his castle at Heidelberg, 
 which he named Flout Kaiser (Trutz Kaiser), as a 
 mark of insolence to Frederick. The Margrave of 
 Baden and the Duke of Wittemberg, however, 
 marched against him, and, to devastate the har- 
 vests of the Palatinate more completely, tied 
 branches of trees to their horses' tails as they 
 rode among the wheat. The enraged peasants rose 
 to a man and helped Fritz ; he beat the imperial 
 army and took the duke and margrave prisoners. He 
 gave them a sumptuous entertainment, but placed 
 no bread on the table. The prisoner-guests asked 
 to have a little bread with their meat. " Very 
 sorry there is none," answered Fritz, " but you have 
 spoiled all the corn, and so must do without." 
 
 Frederick was too lazy to put his hands to the 
 doors, turn the handles, and open them. He went 
 up to them with his hands in his pockets and 
 kicked at the doors till some one came to open 
 them, or he burst them in. He hurt his foot one 
 day by so doing, and as mortification threatened, 
 the surgeons cut off his foot. " Ah, me," said Fred- 
 
1 68 
 
 A SLEEPY KING. 
 
 crick, " a healthy boor is better than a sick em- 
 peror." 
 
 Fortunately for Germany, his son Maximilian was 
 the reverse of his father in everything. He was 
 full of energy, intelligence, and with a noble heart. 
 
 For once a good idea came into the dull head of 
 Frederick ; but perhaps it was not his idea, his wife 
 may have thought of it. This was the idea, to get 
 the sweet young princess, Mary of Burgundy, the 
 only child of the duke, as wife for the gallant 
 young prince. Maximilian was the handsomest man 
 of his time ; he had bright, honest eyes, full of life, 
 and long, fair, silky hair that fell over his shoulders. 
 His nose was aquiline. If his face had a fault it 
 was in the long lower lip, which he inherited from 
 his father, and which is called the Hapsburg lip. 
 You see it in the pictures of most of the princes and 
 emperors of that house. Perhaps you have been 
 so fortunate as to see Albert Diirer's engraved por- 
 trait of the Emperor Maximilian, or to have seen 
 his figure in bronze on the great tomb he erected 
 for himself at Innsbruck. These likenesses were 
 taken when he was much older, but we can see 
 from them what a royal and noble face he had. 
 Also, Mary of Burgundy was very lovely. She was 
 as good as she was beautiful. She was, moreover, 
 heiress to all Burgundy and the Netherlands. The 
 young Max went to Ghent to meet her. He 
 rode into the town with a wreath of flowers over his 
 long fair hair, with pearls twisted with the flowers, 
 dressed in a suit of silver armour richly enamelled 
 with gold, mounted on a fine bay horse. Mary 
 
MAXIMILIAN AND BRIDE, MARY OF BURGUNDY. 
 (From a Drawing in the Nuremberg Museum. ^ 
 
 169 
 
!- A SLEEPY KJXG. 
 
 came to meet him, on a white horse with silver 
 trappings. When they met in the street of Ghent 
 both dismounted, and whilst the bells of the town 
 hall and the churches rang, and the people cheered 
 and waved their caps, the beautiful young prince 
 and princess met and kissed each other. They 
 were married in 1477, when Max was only eighteen. 
 Unfortunately, a very few years later, in 1482, poor 
 Mary was hurt by a fall from her horse when hunt- 
 ing, and died of her injuries, in the bloom of life, 
 but not till she had borne him a son, Philip, after- 
 wards Philip I. of Spain. 
 
 The death of Mary was the signal for a revolt 
 in the Netherlands. The Flemings refused submis- 
 sion to the Hapsburgs, and seized the person of 
 the little Philip, whom they alone recognized as 
 Mary's successor. A revolt broke out at Bruges, 
 where Maximilian was taken prisoner by the citi- 
 zens and shut up in the castle. His jester formed 
 a scheme for his liberation ; he provided horses for 
 flight, and a rope-ladder, by which Max might de- 
 scend from the window of his prison. Then the 
 jester plunged into the canal which encircled the 
 castle, to swim across. But the town kept swans 
 in the moat, and when these swans saw the man 
 swimming, they rushed at him with their great 
 flapping wings and beaks, and so beat and pinched 
 and frightened the poor fellow that he made the 
 best of his retreat. 
 
 Max was kept a prisoner for four months, and 
 was only set at liberty when he took a solemn 
 oath not to chastise the citizens for having held 
 him in bonds. 
 
FREDERICK III. 
 (From the statue on his tomb at Vienna.) 
 
 I/I 
 
XXIX. 
 
 BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW. 
 
 (1493-1518.) 
 
 If ever you get a chance of seeing Hans Burgk- 
 mair's ''Triumph of Maximilian," look well and 
 patiently at the series of 135 wood-cuts. It rep- 
 resents the procession of the emperor after the 
 fashion of an old Roman imperial triumph, with 
 groups of figures depicting the different events of 
 his reign. This was the idea of Max himself, who 
 was filled with the old craze that he was the rep- 
 resentative of the Caesars, the head of the earthly 
 power, as the Pope was the head of the spiritual 
 power. Before you hear the history of the reign of 
 Maximilian you must be told something about 
 the set of pictures illustrative of his reign. Hans 
 Burgkmair was ordered to make a series of draw- 
 ings personifying the life, endeavours, and fame of 
 the emperor; glorifying his wars, conquests, and 
 alliances, and giving testimony to the splendours of 
 the Holy Roman empire, and the far extended 
 possessions of the House of Hapsburg. Burgkmair 
 began his work by making a series of miniature 
 paintings on parchment, to the number of 109. 
 Each of these was to be reproduced in two wood- 
 
 172 
 
BURGKMAIR 'S PL A TES. 
 
 173 
 
 cuts, so that the work, when completed, would have 
 made 218 plates. However, when the wood en- 
 graving was begun, the artist touched up and 
 improved his designs, so that the engravings are 
 not exactly like the miniatures. The latter are all 
 preserved in Vienna. The work was begun in 
 1 5 16, and was stopped forever by the death of the 
 emperor in 15 19. Only a few proof copies had 
 been struck off when the wood blocks were dis- 
 persed, no one knows how or why. The few copies 
 of the engravings were become very rare and fetched 
 large prices, when some forty of the wood blocks 
 were discovered in the castle of Ambras, near 
 Innsbruck, and then ninety-six more were found in 
 the Jesuit College at Gratz, in Styria. Thus 135 of 
 the blocks have been recovered, but all search for 
 the remainder has been in vain. In the year 1796 a 
 few copies were printed from the original wood 
 blocks, and may still be had, but at a high cost. 
 One or two of the plates have, however, been re- 
 produced of late years. Perhaps the most beautiful 
 of the groups is that of the three standard-bearers, 
 three knights in armour, bearing the banners of 
 the Archduchy of Austria, a white fesse on a red 
 field, of the Margraves with eagles, and of Styria 
 with a panther. The faces of the knights are noble 
 and beautiful, and we can get an idea from them of 
 what good and generous knights were in those 
 days. Another plate represents a princess on 
 horseback, attended by ladies, and the bridle held 
 by gentlemen with laurel wreaths round their 
 heads. It is supposed that the princess is Mary 
 
'74 
 
 BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW. 
 
 of Burgundy, and, if so, we can understand how 
 Max loved her, and all his life long thought of her. 
 The figure is graceful, and the face simple and 
 sweet. Her hair is done up in a silk net, or cap, over 
 which is a golden crown, but little, light ringlets 
 curl down from her brow on either side of her 
 lovely face. She wears three gorgeous necklaces, 
 very wide, made of plates of gold set with jewels, 
 and so fitted as to set, one round the throat, the 
 next over the bosom, and the third over the shoul- 
 ders. She wears white linen sleeves gathered in 
 twice between the shoulder and elbow. Her skirt 
 is of the most superb silk and gold brocade, repre- 
 senting pomegranates in the leaf, and bursting 
 fruit and flower. The caparison of the horse is of 
 red velvet, embroidered with gold pomegran- 
 ates, and over the saddle is cast a mantle of 
 ermine. The gentlemen leading her white horse 
 have magnificent chains round their necks, and 
 ermine tippets, short cloaks, and tunics richly em- 
 broidered. They are both shown turning their 
 heads and looking back and up at the lovely girl- 
 ish face r as if that was the thing best worth see- 
 ing in the whole procession. 
 
 Maximilian married a second time Bianca 
 Sforza, daughter of the Duke of Milan, but not 
 till twelve years after the death of his dear Mary 
 of Burgundy. He never really loved Bianca, who 
 was a cold, hard woman, very proud, and without 
 grace of mind or of disposition. 
 
 Maximilian stands as a boundary stone between 
 the old and the new, between the mediaeval and 
 
 
VA RIO US REFORMS. \ y 5 
 
 the modern times. He was brave and noble as a 
 perfect knight, the pattern of chivalry, and he had 
 an eager and active mind, a love of what is beau- 
 tiful and what is good. He tried to improve what 
 was bad and decaying, and he would have done 
 more had the power been his to do so, but the em- 
 pire was a magnificent sham. His father's weakness, 
 the growing power of the vassals, the hostility of 
 the popes had broken its strength, and he was 
 hampered throughout his reign by his want of 
 means to carry out those schemes which he planned 
 for the good of the country. Even his enemies 
 acknowledged his virtues and ability. Once when 
 a courtier in the presence of Louis XI. of France 
 sneered at the emperor, and called him " the Bur- 
 gomaster of Augsburg," Louis, who was the bitter 
 foe of Maximilian, answered, " You fool, to scoff at 
 Max ! Do you not know that when this burgo- 
 master pulls the bell all Germany springs to arms, 
 and France trembles? " In order to put an end to 
 the incessant quarrels which went on between the 
 little princes and nobles, in 1495, at a diet or par- 
 liament at Worms, the emperor made a law that 
 no man should be suffered to redress his wrongs, 
 real or imaginary, by violence ; if he had a com- 
 plaint against another, he must bring it before the 
 imperial courts. In order to improve the admin- 
 istration of justice the empire was divided into 
 ten districts, or circles, — Swabia, Bavaria, Franconia, 
 the Upper Rhine, Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Aus- 
 tria, Burgundy, the Rhenish Electorate, and Upper 
 Saxony. Maximilian wanted to organize and gov- 
 
]^6 BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW. 
 
 ern the empire through these divisions, but was so 
 opposed that he was unable to carry out his idea. 
 
 Under him the post was first arranged. An Ital- 
 ian, Count de la Torre, was at his court, and he was 
 entrusted with the organization of a postal system. 
 This was gradually perfected, and was left under 
 the control of the family which originated it, and 
 which became princely, and was entitled Turn und 
 Taxis. If you look through a collection of postal 
 stamps you will see that the early German stamps 
 bear the "Turn u. Taxis" and the arms of that 
 family on them ; and the family only lost the post- 
 office in late times, bit by bit ; the last control 
 was taken from them in 1866. 
 
 To manage the post-office in the empire was no 
 easy task, as all the little princes and petty states 
 and free towns had to be brought to agreement. 
 The roads had to be put in order, post-horses pro- 
 vided in relays along them, and the post-messengers 
 had to be protected from robbers. As the empire 
 comprised two thousand independent territories the 
 Turn and Taxis family had enough to do. A great 
 debt of gratitude is owed them by Germany, but 
 the postal monopoly enriched them. They now 
 possess large estates and several palaces from the 
 profit of the post-office, which they held for three 
 hundred years. 
 
 The great enemies of Germany at this time were 
 the Turks, the French, and the Pope. The Turks 
 were a constant menace, and the emperor was 
 obliged to call the princes together separately, and 
 entreat for men and money wherewith to oppose 
 
MARRIAGE OF PHILIP AND JOANNA. x yy 
 
 them. But they did not care ; they thought that it 
 was a long way from Constantinople to West Ger- 
 many, and there was all Hungary and Austria 
 between. The French king was jealous of the 
 emperor because he had got hold of Burgundy, so 
 that Maximilian had foes on his east and west. 
 Moreover, Italy was disturbed, and he had to enter 
 that with a small army — he was unable to scrape 
 together a large one. The French had overrun the 
 North of Italy, and had carried off Ferdinand, King 
 of Naples, in chains ; but Maximilian could do noth- 
 ing to oppose France. 
 
 The popes, moreover, were draining Germany of 
 money, and they kept the empire weak by embroil- 
 ing it with other kingdoms, and by stirring up 
 discord within it. 
 
 Maximilian had the happiness to unite his son 
 Philip to Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella of Spain, heiress of all Spain, and of 
 the newly-discovered continent of America. More- 
 over, by agreement, the kingdoms of Hungary and 
 Bohemia were re-united under the House of Haps- 
 burg. Thus it did seem likely that the empire would 
 fulfil its dream and become a world-wide sover- 
 eignty, embracing all Germany, the Netherlands, 
 Burgundy, Italy, Spain, and America. This was 
 flattering to the ambition of the emperor, who did 
 not see that it was really sowing the seeds of ruin 
 for the empire and for his own house. When a man 
 has a small capital he can manage a small farm, but, 
 if he is ambitious, and tries to secure three and 
 even four farms in the hopes of prospering on 
 
i;S 
 
 BETWEEN THE OLD A. YD THE NEIV. 
 
 them, when he has not the means of properly culti- 
 vating them, it is pretty certain that he will soon be 
 bankrupt. Now this is precisely what the Haps- 
 burgs were doing. Instead of contracting their 
 ambition within their means, and trying to farm 
 German}- well, they took on all these other farms, 
 which they could not supervise, and which drained 
 their money away, exhausted their energies, and 
 distracted their attention. 
 
 KING JOHN OF BOHEMIA. 
 
 ^.Frorn his seal.) 
 
XXX. 
 
 MEN BEGIN TO PRINT BOOKS. 
 
 BOOKS had hitherto been written with the hand, 
 and this made them very costly. They were writ- 
 ten on parchment, on waxed tables, or on papyrus. 
 At last a German, at the beginning of the 14th cent- 
 ury, discovered how to make paper out of linen 
 rags. If you hold paper sheets to the light you will 
 see that there are peculiar marks on them, called 
 water-marks ; these were originally the badges of 
 the makers. The very earliest of these marks is a 
 circle with a cross on it, and was adopted by the 
 first inventor in 1301. Many of the water-marks 
 are the badges of noble families, whose tenants 
 made the paper. Thus the letters P and Y, some- 
 times separate and sometimes conjoined, are the 
 initials of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and 
 his wife, Isabella of Portugal. Other symbols are 
 the fleur-de-lys, the unicorn and the anchor. 
 Fools cap paper is so called because paper of that 
 size was originally marked with a joker's cap and 
 bells, and post paper takes its name from a bugle 
 which was in use as a water-mark on paper of 
 this size by the manufacturers from 1370. It some- 
 times appears on a shield, and in the 17th century 
 
 179 
 
!8o MEN BEGIN TO PRINT BOOKS. 
 
 is surmounted by a ducal coronet, in which form it 
 is still used on ordinary writing paper. 
 
 The first paper factories in Germany were between 
 Cologne and Mainz, about the year 1320. In 
 Nuremberg a factory worked by water-power was 
 established in 1390 which was quite a novelty. 
 
 Printing was discovered by John Gutenberg in 
 1436. Already wood-cut pictures, and even written 
 sentences, had been printed, but no one had thought 
 of making movable letters. At first the paper 
 was pressed down on the engraved block, and 
 printed on one side. The outlines only of figures 
 were printed, and then they were painted in by hand. 
 At last John Gensfleisch, of Sulgeloch, known as 
 Gutenberg, which was the maiden name of his 
 mother, saw how much better it would be to have 
 movable types. As he was a poor man he went to 
 a rich goldsmith, John Fust, of Mainz, and to Peter 
 SchofTer, a professional copyist, of Gernsheim to 
 get help. SchofTer drew and wrote beautifully, and 
 he was to design the letters, and Fust was to 
 find the money for casting them. They also 
 invented printers' ink, and in 1457 issued the first 
 printed book, the Latin psalter, and five years later 
 the first printed Bible. Fust behaved very badly 
 to the inventor. As soon as he had the secret, and 
 saw that the experiments were likely to be success- 
 ful, he asked Gutenberg to pay him back the money 
 he had advanced him, and when he was unable to 
 do this brought an action against him, and seized 
 his printing-press and blocks. Poor Gutenberg was 
 
 
STOR Y OF FA UST. x g r 
 
 forced to leave Mainz, and then Fust and Schoffer 
 finished printing the Bible without him. The 
 rapidity with which copies were turned out of the 
 press, the exact resemblance one bore to another, 
 created astonishment and suspicion, so that it was 
 reported that Fust was in league with the Devil, 
 who helped him to multiply copies of the Bible. 
 Thus came about the story of John Faust, who sold 
 himself to the Devil for wealth, a story which was 
 afterwards used by the greatest of German poets 
 as the foundation of the greatest of German 
 poems. 
 
XXXI. 
 
 A GREAT STIR IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 ABOUT this time began that first crack or schism 
 in the Church, which, after a little while, spread and 
 separated a large part of Christendom from the 
 Catholic Church. This large part that separated 
 itself was called Protestant, whilst that part which 
 remained was called Catholic. This schism arose 
 because there was great cause of discontent with 
 the conduct of the popes, and this discontent was 
 well founded. 
 
 At last the Germans had come to see that the 
 Pope was the enemy to their national unity. But 
 the popes were only so because they dreaded the 
 power of the emperors, who claimed to be kings of 
 Naples and Sicily, — and so had a claw cutting into 
 the popes from the South, — and also to be kings of 
 Lombardy and Rome, and so drove a long sharp 
 claw into their hearts over the Alps from the North. 
 They did not want to be made the domestic chap- 
 lains of the emperors, so they worked against them 
 with might and main ; and as Germany was a very 
 loosely compacted state, where every prince set up 
 to be independent, and many of the bishops and 
 some abbots were sovereign princes also, the popes 
 were able to stir up confusion in Germany with the 
 
 [82 
 
SALE OF INDULGENCES. 
 
 183 
 
 greatest ease. The archbishops and bishops had 
 been made sovereigns by Charles the Great, in the 
 hope that they would help the emperor against 
 the other princes ; but instead of that they were 
 always ready at the call of the Pope to head oppo- 
 sition against the emperor. The archbishops of 
 Cologne and Mainz, of Treves and Salzburg, the 
 bishops of Wiirzburg, Eichstadt, Minister, Pader- 
 born, Bamberg, etc., the abbots of Fulda, Berchtes- 
 gaden, etc., were all independent sovereigns, owing 
 very slight obedience to the emperor, and the em- 
 pire was reduced to little more than a high-sound- 
 ing name, without cohesion. The emperor was 
 head of the state, but the members moved inde- 
 pendently of the head. The condition had become 
 intolerable. Law, order, everything was in confu- 
 sion, and suddenly Germany woke to see its misery 
 and resolve to bring it to an end, and, to begin, it 
 determined to have done with the interference of 
 the Pope, and to get rid of the archbishops and 
 bishops and abbots who acted as his henchmen. 
 
 It happened at this time that the Pope was in 
 want of money wherewith to build St. Peter's 
 Church at Rome, which he desired to make the 
 most magnificent cathedral in the world, as became 
 the Mother Church of Christendom. He set about 
 it by the sale of indulgences. These were farmed 
 out to certain men, who went through Christendom 
 disposing of them. In Germany appeared a Do- 
 minican friar, Tetzel by name, who sold them in 
 great quantities, and was unscrupulous in the way 
 in which he did it, trading on the ignorance and 
 

 h, « 
 
 z .5 
 
 — 
 
 2 «- 
 
 M E 
 
 - : 
 
 — - 
 
 184 
 
A NEW DOCTRINE. 1 85 
 
 credulity of the people, to the great scandal of 
 right-feeling men. You must understand what 
 indulgences really were, because a great deal has 
 been said about them which is not true. Accord- 
 ing to Catholic teaching, when a man does that 
 which is wrong two results follow : he becomes 
 guilty in the sight of God, and he incurs conse- 
 quences to himself that are painful. For instance, 
 if you were to become drunk, you would incur sin 
 and suffering, the suffering being a headache. Now 
 the Catholic Church taught that all sin entailed 
 suffering, and that however much the guilt might 
 be put away, the suffering remained to be gone 
 through in this life or in the next. The Church 
 taught that the guilt was expiated by true repent- 
 ance, which is made up of three parts, contrition, 
 confession, and amendment. But though a man 
 might be restored to God's favor by repentance he 
 was not let off the chastisement. The popes claimed 
 the power of remitting the suffering consequent on 
 sin, and indulgences were releases from these conse- 
 quences ; but they were only granted conditionally 
 on true repentance, and this condition was always 
 printed or written on them. Now it is easy to see 
 what use unscrupulous men would make of these, 
 and it was a startling thing to see the popes claim- 
 ing to grant them. 
 
 A Wittenberg monk, named Martin Luther, 
 wrote to the Archbishop of Mainz to complain of 
 the harm done to ignorant people by the sale of in- 
 dulgences, and then he fastened up to the door of 
 the castle church at Wittenberg ninety-five theses, 
 
1 86 
 
 A GREAT STIR IN Til /s CHURCH. 
 
 or reasons against indulgences, which he declared 
 he was reach' to maintain in disputation. 
 
 This was the beginning of the great strife which 
 speedily involved all Western Christendom. 
 
 LUTHER. 
 
 (From a Miniature by Lucas von Cranach.) 
 
 But this was not all. Luther propounded a new 
 doctrine, which was like a little packet of dynamite : 
 wherever it was dropped it blew to pieces the 
 whole structure of Catholicism. You will never 
 really understand what the Reformation was unless 
 you get hold of this. 
 
 Hitherto, the Catholic Church had taught that no 
 
JUS 7 YFICA TION B Y FA I TIL j 8 7 
 
 man could be certain of pardon for his sins, of be- 
 ing justified before God, and of eternal salvation. 
 Everything was conditional. A man was pardoned 
 his sins if he was truly sorry, if he confessed them, 
 and if he did his utmost to make amends for the 
 wrong done. Justification was the becoming per- 
 fectly good and pleasing to God, and man was to aim 
 at this all through life, with hard struggle, helped 
 by divine grace, and the sacraments were the 
 means whereby divine help was given him to push 
 on to perfection. So this, also, was conditional. 
 Lastly, salvation was certain to none without final 
 perseverance. Now, Martin Luther was a very 
 eager, anxious-minded man, and he could not be 
 happy unless he were quite certain of pardon, justi- 
 fication, and salvation. He suffered great distress 
 of mind, through fear of falling short and losing 
 heaven, knowing himself to be a man of violent 
 passions. All at once a new idea struck him, which 
 made all easy and secure. If a man felt that he 
 was pardoned, justified, and saved, then the certain- 
 ty was his. To this feeling of assurance that all 
 was right he gave the name of faith, and called the 
 change from a state of uncertainty to one of confi- 
 dence, — justification by faith. No more condi- 
 tions were required, no more chance of fall re- 
 mained. This doctrine made immense way ; it was 
 seized with eagerness. Of course it did away, in- 
 evitably, with sacraments and with the priesthood, 
 for help is no more needed by those who are secure; 
 but Luther did not follow this to its legitimate con- 
 clusion. If sacraments and priests were no more 
 
jSS a great stir in the church. 
 
 needed then bishops were also unnecessary; and 
 here the very thing was found which would enable 
 the Germans to get rid of the bishops. That 
 the bishops were of any good might well be doubted 
 in Germany, where they lived in royal state, and 
 neglected their spiritual duties or devolved them on 
 others. If ever you go up the Rhine, look into the 
 Cathedral of Mainz. There, along the red sand- 
 stone pillars, you will see the monuments of the 
 dead archbishops. They are represented on them 
 clothed in armour, with spurs on their heels, holding 
 a sword in one hand and a shepherd's crook in the 
 other. On their heads they wear mitres surrounded 
 by crowns. These tombstones give you an idea 
 of what the archbishops were, in reality : secular 
 princes, at home on horseback, clad in mail, and 
 with only so much of the religious character about 
 them that they bore the title and wore the insignia 
 of spiritual princes. Now the Germans, knowing 
 bishops such as these, only said with reason, What 
 a farce this is ! These men are not pastors over 
 their flocks, they are kings masquerading as bishops. 
 Away with them ! We have too many sovereigns 
 already in Germany ! 
 
XXXII. 
 
 WALLED CITIES AND THEIR IMPORTANCE. 
 
 It was only about the beginning of the 15th cent- 
 ury that the cities of Germany rose to great im- 
 portance, and became remarkable for their stately 
 buildings, for their wealth and influence. 
 
 They were all enclosed within walls, with a moat 
 surrounding the walls. At intervals in the ring 
 were towers of various shapes. Indeed, the fancy 
 was indulged of making all different, so as to add to 
 the beauty of the appearance of the town. Very 
 few of the great German towns remain walled in 
 with their towers, but some have these ornaments 
 intact. Ratisbon had fifteen towers, variously 
 capped, making the distant view of the city a vision 
 of beauty. All have been pulled down but one. 
 
 At the beginning of the 13th century the houses 
 were all built of wood and plaster, and thatched 
 with straw. But such fires ensued, consuming large 
 parts of the towns, that the inhabitants were driven 
 to build of better material, and to use tile or slate 
 instead of thatch. Nevertheless, a good many old 
 timber and plaster houses remain. Indeed, even the 
 castles were only partly built of stone; they were to 
 a large extent composed of buildings of more per- 
 ishable material. A little way up a tributary of the 
 
 189 
 
190 
 
 WALLED CITIES AND THEIR IMPORTANCE. 
 
 Moselle is an old castle, Schloss Elz. It is one of 
 the few castles that has escaped being destroyed. 
 IHias its tower of stone and walls of stone, but the 
 principal buildings for the inmates, hall of banquet 
 
 A GERMAN CITY IN I5TH CENTURY. 
 (From a Pencil Sketch in the Library at Erlangen). 
 
 and bedrooms, are of black timber with plaster fill- 
 ings. 
 
 At first, in the towns, only the churches and town- 
 halls and other public buildings were of stone, but 
 in the beginning of the 15th century the patricians — 
 
HOW GERMANS FORMERLY LIVED. 
 
 191 
 
 that is, the ruling families and merchants, who were 
 very wealthy — began to build themselves handsome 
 stone houses. Even in such an important place as 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main nearly all the houses, down 
 to the end of the 14th century, were of combustible 
 materials, and were without chimneys, the smoke 
 escaping through a hole in the roof. The streets of 
 Paris were paved in 1185, Dut though some at- 
 tempts at paving were made in Germany in the 13th 
 and 14th centuries, it was not till later that they 
 were systematically paved. Passengers picked 
 their way in the mud as best they might. In the 
 life of S. Elizabeth, the Landgravine of Hungary, we 
 read of how, as she was thus trying to get along a 
 street in Eisenach, a rude woman pushed her off 
 the stepping-stone on which she had lighted, and 
 she fell down into the black slough and was 
 splashed from head to foot. 
 
 There were not many windows filled with glass 
 before the 15th century. Even at Zurich, where 
 the town-hall was built in 1402, the windows were 
 filled with oiled linen strained to frames. In Zurich 
 the first fountain was erected in 1430, and this is 
 about the date of most of the fountains that deco- 
 rate so many of the German towns. The houses in 
 the towns were very different in plan from old 
 English houses. Let me tell you what I saw one 
 summer's day at Villingen, in the Black Forest. 
 This is a walled town, the walls nearly perfect, with 
 all the towers standing, but with the water let out 
 of the moat, which is turned into gardens. When 
 I visited the place it was at the time of hay har- 
 
ig 2 WALLED CITIES AND THEIR IMPORTANCE. 
 
 vest, and wains laden with hay were coming into the 
 town. The old houses have very steep roofs, and 
 the gables are towards the street, with a large door 
 in the attic, and a crane over it. The chain from 
 this contrivance was run down and the bundles of 
 hay were raised and piled up in the garret of the 
 house, which served as a great hay store. Later, 
 the corn would be brought in, and the flax, and 
 stored away in the same place. The roof of the 
 house formed the barn. Then the cows and horses 
 were driven into the ground floor rooms — they were 
 really stables, vaulted with stone, and to enter the 
 house where the people lived one had to ascend steps. 
 As the citizens of a small town were landowners and 
 farmers they thus made their houses compact farm 
 dwellings. That was how they managed in small 
 towns. In large cities they used the roof for stores 
 of merchandise and the basement for shops. 
 When you ascend the stairs you find in these old 
 houses that there is a great deal of room given up 
 to passage, and that this passage is paved, and 
 sometimes vaulted. It served as a place for the 
 children to play in wet weather, and meals were 
 also taken in it when the company was large. 
 These corridors are called Laubcn. The rooms 
 open out of these corridors and are comparatively 
 small. In old times, before fire-engines were in- 
 vented, the only way by which fires could be ex- 
 tinguished was with pails. The first fire brigade 
 was established at Frankfort in 1439, an d tne mst 
 fire-engine used at Augsburg in 15 18. 
 
 We have many accounts from the 15th century 
 
SPLENDOUR OF GERMAN CITIES. 
 
 193 
 
 of the social and architectural condition of the 
 German towns. Nuremberg especially was regarded 
 as the ideal of a beautiful mediaeval town, and to the 
 present day, with its stepped gables, solar windows, 
 corner turrets, and rich sculpture, it retains more 
 of its mediaeval character than any other town. 
 Italians, however, declared that a more beautiful 
 city than Cologne could not be found, a verdict we 
 in the present day would be far from endorsing. It 
 is now a collection of hideous and vulgar houses 
 surrounding many preciously beautiful churches. 
 The illustrious Frenchman, Montaigne, declared 
 that Augsburg was more lovely than Paris. ^Eneas 
 Silvius Piccolomini (afterwards Pope Pius II.) could 
 not find terms in which to praise the wealth and 
 splendour of the German cities. There is some exag- 
 geration when he says, " Where is a German inn at 
 which silver plate is not used ? What citizen woman 
 — not necessarily noble — does not adorn herself with 
 gold ornaments?" Of Vienna he says : " The town 
 lies in a crescent on the Danube ; the city wall is 
 5000 paces long and has double fortifications. The 
 town proper lies like a palace in the centre of the 
 suburbs, several of which rival it in beauty and size. 
 Nearly every house has something to show, some- 
 thing remarkable in or about it. Each dwelling 
 has its back court and front court, large halls and 
 smaller, good winter apartments. The guest-rooms 
 are beautifully panelled, richly furnished, and 
 warmed with stoves. All windows are glazed ; 
 some have painted glass, and have iron-work guards 
 aga^ist thieves. On the basement are large cellars 
 
194 
 
 } WILLED CITIES AND THEIR IMPORTAXCE. 
 
 and vaults, which are devoted to apothecaries, ware- 
 houses, shops, and lodgings for strangers. In the 
 halls many tame birds are kept, so that in passing 
 through the streets one hears the sounds of a green 
 pleasant forest. The market places and streets 
 teem with life. Without reckoning the children and 
 those under age there are 50,000 inhabitants and 
 7000 students. Enormous is the commerce of 
 traders, and enormous the sums of money here 
 earned and spent. The whole district round Vi- 
 enna is like one vast and beautiful garden covered 
 with grapes and apples, and studded with the most 
 charming countiy houses." 
 
 There is, however, another side to the picture. 
 yEneas Silvius says : " By night and by day there is 
 fighting in the streets. Sometimes the artisans are 
 assailing the students, sometimes the court people 
 are quarrelling with the citizens, and sometimes it is 
 citizen who has sword drawn against citizen. A 
 festival rarely concludes without bloodshed." 
 
 You have heard how poetry and romance flour- 
 ished with the nobles. The citizens did not cul- 
 tivate these arts, they were too practical ; but they 
 produced chronicles, and some of them were in 
 verse. For instance, Gottfried Hagen, of Cologne, 
 wrote a rhymed history of his city between 1250- 
 1270. Many of the large towns of Germany pro- 
 duced their chroniclers, and it is needless to say of 
 what importance their writings are to the historian. 
 
 But if the cities did not cultivate poetry they 
 nursed music. They all had their master-singer 
 guilds, and on Sunday afternoons the performers 
 
SCHOOL SINGING. jq^ 
 
 sang in the town-hall or the churches. Prizes were 
 given for the best compositions. The highest prize 
 was a representation of King David playing on the 
 harp, stamped on a gold slate. The others consisted 
 of wreaths of filigree wire of gold or silver. This 
 performance was called " school singing." The last 
 performance at Nuremberg was in 1770, and the 
 very last of all at Ulm in 1839. 
 
XXXIII. 
 
 HIGH GERMAN AND LOW. 
 
 GERMANY is not divided by great rivers. It has, 
 indeed, two main arteries, the Rhine and the Danube, 
 the former flowing north, then west into the Ger- 
 man Ocean, the latter flowing east into the Black Sea. 
 The Rhine is a great main artery of trade, and 
 always has been since Germany was civilized, from 
 Mannheim to the mouth. Above Mannheim the 
 river is too rapid and too full of shifting rubble-beds 
 to be safeh* navigated. The Danube is only navi- 
 gable below Linz. Above, it rushes at a pace so 
 headlong that boats can be drawn against the stream 
 only with infinite labour. If you travel up or down 
 the Rhine you pass numerous villages and towns ; 
 but the Danube, between Passau and Linz, runs 
 between great wooded hills, where scarce a village 
 spire, hardly a castle is to be seen. The Danube 
 and the Rhine, though their sources are not so very 
 far apart, and though the violence of their streams 
 is considerable, were not connecting links of trade. 
 Trade passed along roads rather than rivers, and 
 the difficulty of navigation in the higher courses of 
 the two great rivers did not tend to bring the peo- 
 ples seated about them into commercial, social, and 
 political unity. 
 
 196 
 
 
PHYSICAL DIVISION. 
 
 197 
 
 Germany is physically divided into two great 
 sections, determined by elevation. If you had a 
 raised map of Germany, marking the hills and 
 plains, you would see that all the North of the coun- 
 try is one vast flat, and that the South is ele- 
 vated. To the south are numerous chains of 
 mountains, or rather hills, and between these chains 
 are elevated plateaus. The hill country of Germany 
 is richer than the plain country. The latter is 
 mostly sandy, pebbly, boggy land. Moreover, the 
 South is more blessed with a bright sky. All over 
 the flat North land fogs from the cold Baltic Sea roll 
 and form a grey canopy. The dreary plain, the dull 
 sky, the ungrateful soil have combined to make the 
 North German less cheerful than the German of the 
 South. Moreover, the conquering Saxons of the 
 Northern plains found them peopled by plodding, 
 sad, Sclavonic races. There is a certain difference 
 in characteristic, therefore, between the German of 
 the high land and the German of the low land. 
 Moreover, there is a difference in dialect. The low 
 land German is called Platt-Deutsch, — that is, flat 
 or Low-Dutch, — and the high land German is called 
 Hoch-Deutsch, or High-Dutch. Dutch is Deutsch, 
 that is, German. We call the inhabitants of Hol- 
 land Dutch, but they belong only to the Low Ger- 
 man race, and have no proper exclusive claim to 
 that designation. 
 
 In mediaeval times the literature was both high 
 and low, according as the author of a book was a 
 High German or a Low German ; but now-a-days 
 the literary and spoken language of the nation is 
 
I9S 
 
 HIGH GERM AX AXD LOW. 
 
 High German. This came about, to a great extent, 
 through Luther's having been a High German, and 
 having translated the Bible into High German. 
 There were earlier translations of the Bible than 
 that of Luther. For instance, there was one by a 
 monk of Halle, Martin Von Beheim, a very good 
 translation, which no doubt formed the ground-work 
 of Luther's more modern version. But the Refor- 
 mation caused the Bible to be much more read 
 than previously, and its language became familiar in 
 even- household in Protestant Germany ; and this 
 gave an immense advantage to High German. 
 Moreover, at the period when German literature 
 was taking its definite and final cast, the greatest 
 writers issued from South Germany, so that now 
 High German is alone recognized as the literary 
 language. 
 
 In England there are many dialects, but no sin- 
 gle dialect has, in like manner, imposed on the rest 
 and become the literary tongue. The court and 
 aristocracy in England have, ever since the court 
 was Norman, had their own peculiar dialect. The 
 dialect of English culture, and the literary language 
 of the English people, is the language of the upper 
 class of society ; whereas, in Germany, it is the lan- 
 guage of the upper elevation of the soil which has 
 mastered all classes, and made court and aristoc- 
 racy submit to speak and read in it as the sole dia- 
 lect which is allowed to be regarded as literary. 
 
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 XXXIV. 
 
 A MIGHTY EMPEROR. 
 
 ( I 5 I 9~ I 555-) 
 
 CHARLES V., the grandson of Maximilian I., was 
 the mightiest of the emperors since Charles the 
 Great. He reigned over more lands than any other 
 prince in Christendom. He was King of Spain, 
 Naples, Sicily, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and the 
 Netherlands. In the New World the colonies there 
 established looked to him as their sovereign, so that 
 it may be said that his empire was one on which the 
 sun never set. Yet his career was not a happy one. 
 His life was spent in fighting the King of France, 
 and the Pope, and the Protestant princes of Ger- 
 many. He was not fond of splendour; he had not 
 the beauty of Maximilian, but he was a fine man, 
 with dignity in his bearing. He had the long lower 
 lip and underhung jaw of the Hapsburgs. His 
 character was cold, and his demeanour grave. He 
 had a ready insight into men's characters, and, as 
 Prescott says, " to the end of his reign he employed 
 no general in the field, no minister in the cabinet, 
 no ambassador to a foreign court, no governor of 
 a province whose abilities were inadequate to the 
 trust which he imposed on them. He placed un- 
 
 199 
 
: : -~ • - " 
 
 FERDINAND I. 
 
 (From an Engraving by Beham.) 
 
 20 
 
THE POPE'S BULL. 201 
 
 bounded confidence in his generals ; he rewarded 
 their services with munificence ; he never envied 
 their fame, nor discovered any jealousy of their 
 power. There were, nevertheless, defects in his 
 political character which must considerably abate 
 the admiration due to his extraordinary talents. 
 Charles' ambition was insatiable, and his desire of 
 being distinguished as a conqueror involved him in 
 continual wars, which not only exhausted and op- 
 pressed his subjects, but left him little leisure for 
 giving attention to the interior government and 
 improvement of his kingdoms, the great objects of 
 every prince who makes the happiness of his people 
 the end of his government." On the death of Maxi- 
 milian the Austrian territories fell to Charles and 
 his brother Ferdinand conjointly ; but as Charles 
 was occupied in Spain, in 152 1 he ceded to his 
 brother Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and in 
 the ensuing year Tyrol. By this cession the House 
 of Austria was divided into two separate branches 
 — the Spanish branch, under Charles ; and the Ger- 
 man, under Ferdinand. 
 
 In the mean time the split in the Church was wid- 
 ening. Pope Leo X., in 1520, issued a bull — that is, 
 a deed — whereby he excommunicated Luther, or cut 
 him off from communion with the Catholic Church 
 as a heretic ; and all Christian princes and states 
 were warned against his doctrine, and exhorted to 
 arrest him and put a stop to his teaching. 
 
 One December morning, in the same year, Luther 
 made a pile of wood outside the eastern gate of 
 Wittenberg and burnt on it publicly the Pope's bull. 
 
\S"2,G e - 
 IVENTlS -P O^VlT-DVRERIVS i ORA'PHILiPPl , 
 
 TWENTEAV'NON -P OTviT*PlNGEKE."-DO CTA 
 
 MELANCTHON. 
 
 (From a painting by Durer.) 
 
 202 
 
DIE T OF WORMS. 
 
 203 
 
 Next day he mounted the pulpit and said, "The 
 burning of yesterday was a matter of little import- 
 ance ; better were it had the fire consumed the 
 Pope, or rather the See of Rome." 
 
 To put a term to the agitation of spirits Charles 
 V. called together a diet, or assembly of the states, 
 at Worms. It met on January 6, 1521. Luther 
 was cited to appear at it, and the states* prepared a 
 long list of grievances against the Papacy, which 
 they required the emperor to redress. 
 
 Luther's journey to Worms was like a triumphal 
 procession. Crowds assembled to see and cheer 
 him ; on his arrival at Worms his apartments were 
 thronged by persons of the highest rank. 
 
 When he appeared before the diet he absolutely 
 refused to recant his opinions. Charles found that 
 many of the princes, notably the electors of Saxony 
 and of the Rhenish Palatinate, favored him. He 
 was compelled to wait till the latter had withdrawn 
 from the diet before he could pass an edict against 
 Luther, placing him under the ban of the empire. 
 As Charles had given him a promise of safe-con- 
 duct he was dismissed unmolested, with an imperial 
 guard to protect him. As soon as Luther had sent 
 back the officer, he was taken charge of by some 
 masked horsemen, sent by his friend and supporter, 
 the Elector of Saxony, who carried him to the cas- 
 tle of Wartburg, where he remained nine months 
 in concealment. 
 
 Whilst there, a disciple of his, called Carlstadt, 
 headed a mob of people and broke into the churches 
 of Wittenberg, where they tore down the altars and 
 
2Q . A MIGHTY EMPEROR. 
 
 destroyed the crucifixes and statues. This was go- 
 ing much further than Luther approved, so he left 
 his place of hiding and suddenly appeared at Wit- 
 tenberg to stop the disorder. 
 
 The princes now began to lay their hands on the 
 church property. They turned out the monks and 
 nuns and seized on their lands. They carried off the 
 <rold and silver vessels from the churches and melted 
 them into coin to relieve their own necessities. The 
 Margrave of Brandenburg was Grand Master of the 
 Teutonic Knights. This was an order of warrior- 
 churchmen, which had been instituted to hold the 
 frontier against the heathen Sclavs. They had con- 
 quered Prussia, and ruled it like princes. The mar- 
 grave took advantage of his position to make him- 
 self sovereign over Prussia, and annex the posses- 
 sions of the order to his family. 
 
 After the holding of the diet of Worms Charles 
 had gone back to Spain, and in his absence there 
 was no one to enforce the edict against Luther. 
 Indeed, Luther had far too many protectors for the 
 emperor to have enforced it, had he been in Ger- 
 many in person. 
 
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 XXXV. 
 
 HOW THE PEASANTS WAKED UP. 
 (1524-1526.) 
 
 The peasants were influenced by the new ideas, 
 and as they suffered under grievous wrongs they 
 rose in revolt over the whole of Germany. The 
 entire burden of taxation fell on them. You may 
 see in farmhouses in Germany a curious picture, 
 which represents a triangle of steps, resting on the 
 back of a farmer who ploughs. At the top of the 
 pyramid sits the emperor, and from his mouth 
 proceeds the sentence, " All there sustain me." On 
 a step below is a soldier, saying, " I am paid to 
 fight"; on another, a lawyer, saying, "I plunder 
 all alike " ; on another, a parson, with the legend, 
 " I live on the tithe " ; on another, the noble, say- 
 ing, " I pay no taxes " ; and below, the peasant 
 groans, " All these are sustained by me." So it was. 
 The gentleman paid no taxes. All the burden was 
 on the farmer, or peasant — the German term is 
 baner. When the Reformation began to make 
 way in Germany the peasants came out in swarms, 
 armed with pitchforks, scythes, and flails, with 
 the double intention of abolishing Catholicism and 
 the feudal system. This latter was turned into a 
 
 205 
 
206 HOW THE PEASANTS WAKED IT. 
 
 system of cruel oppression. The bauers were 
 mulcted of their time, their produce, and their 
 money, and were treated little better than slaves.* 
 Their wrongs were very real and very grievous. 
 
 The first outbreak of the peasants arose out of 
 a very small matter. The Countess of Lupfen or- 
 dered the peasants on her estates to spend the 
 Sundays in summer in gathering strawberries for 
 her table, and snail-shells for making ornamental 
 pin-cushions. They refused to do so, and in a few 
 days the country round was in arms. In a short 
 time the insurrection extended through the South 
 and East of Germany; it spread along the Main, 
 the Rhine, the Danube. The peasants of the 
 Odenwald rose to a man. Franconia was in a blaze, 
 the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order was 
 driven from his domains. Towns were threat- 
 ened, and threw open their gates. The Palatinate 
 was in insurrection ; so were Hesse and Thuringia. 
 The mountaineers of Styria, of the Tyrol, of Salzburg 
 were in arms. Austria was in commotion. The 
 peasants of Bavaria alone remained unstirred. The 
 insurgent farmers called themselves " the Chris- 
 tian Army," or "the Gospel Brotherhood." They 
 burned the castles and monasteries, and plundered 
 the churches. You will see everywhere in Ger- 
 many, especially in the South, ruined castles, and if 
 you ask when they were ruined, you will receive 
 
 * Instead of paying rents in money for their farms, they mostly 
 paid by supplying farm produce, and giving free labor to their 
 landlords. 
 
TAKING OF WEINSBERG. 2 OJ 
 
 the almost invariable answer, " In the Peasants' 
 
 War." 
 
 You shall hear of the taking of one little town 
 by the peasants, the town of Weinsberg, as an ex- 
 ample of the scenes which were enacted through 
 the land. Weinsberg was under the command of 
 the Count of Helfenstein. who had married a 
 daughter of the Emperor Maximilian. 
 
 On Easter morning, 1525, a black wave of peas- 
 ants appeared rolling down the hill sides upon the 
 town, and speedily surrounded it. They were 
 under the command of two men, Florian Geyer 
 and Little Jack (Jacklein Rohsbacker). As their 
 standard, they carried a pole with a shoe on top 
 of it. Before the host hovered a black-draped 
 hag, screaming her incantations, to make the rebels 
 invulnerable. This was the " Black Hoffmann," 
 a witch possessing great influence over the minds 
 of the peasants. When they surrounded the walls 
 they summoned the place to surrender. •" Open 
 your gates," they shouted, " or you shall all be 
 put to the edge of the sword. Every person and 
 thing will be burnt or killed." A shower of bullets 
 was the reply. Soon, however, the peasants 
 swarmed over the walls, and the count and the 
 soldiers retired to the castle, whilst the citizens 
 fled to the church. They were unable to hold out. 
 The garrison offered to surrender if their lives 
 were spared, and promised to pay a ransom. "A 
 ton of gold would not suffice," was the answer, 
 " we want your flesh." The soldiers were butch- 
 ered. One was ordered to jump from the top of 
 
208 
 
 J/OW THE PEASAXTS WAKED UP. 
 
 the tower on the lances and pitchforks below. 
 " I would rather jump up than jump down," he 
 answered. This elicited a roar of laughter and his 
 
 THREE PEASANTS, l6lTI CENTURY. (DURER.) 
 
 life was spared. The insurgents stood in two rows, 
 armed with scythes, swords, and pitchforks, forming 
 a lane, and the prisoners were ordered to run down 
 this lane, to be hacked to pieces by the weapons. 
 " Count Louis of Helfenstein, " said Little Jack, 
 
SEVERE DOINGS. 
 
 2CX) 
 
 " you shall open the dance." At that moment the 
 countess, with her babe in her arms, burst through 
 the crowd and flung herself at the feet of the cap- 
 tain, imploring pardon for her husband. " Friends," 
 shouted Little Jack, " look at me, how I treat the 
 daughter of an emperor." He threw her down and 
 knelt on her breast. Then a peasant, standing by, 
 threw his sword at her, and wounded the babe, 
 whose blood spirted over its mother's face. Then 
 Little Jack ordered the men to raise and hold up 
 the countess, and force her to see the murder of her 
 husband. He also commanded a fiddler to strike 
 up a dance tune and go before the count, capering 
 down the lane. Count Helfenstein had not gone 
 far before he fell ; then the Black Hoffmann, the 
 witch, rushed after him, and literally tore him to 
 pieces with her hands. Then a cart was heaped 
 with dung, and the poor countess, hugging her 
 bleeding babe, was mounted on it, and so driven 
 away, among the jeers and yells of the insurgents. 
 The peasants, finding that the princes were arm- 
 ing against them, gave the command of their host 
 to a notorious robber-knight, Goetz with the Iron 
 Hand ; but the host was quite undisciplined, and 
 when they had plundered a castle or a town, or an 
 abbey, hastened home with their booty. The 
 Truchsess (steward) of Waldburg marched at the 
 head of an army against the rebels and succeeded 
 in defeating them. Other princes also met them 
 and routed them, and at last the insurrection was 
 put down ; but it was subdued with great and un- 
 necessary severity. The poor peasants had been 
 
2IO 
 
 110 IV THE PEASANTS WAKED UP. 
 
 driven to rebellion by their wrongs, and the only 
 idea their victors had was to re-rivet the chains they 
 had struggled to cast off. Even Luther wrote a 
 pamphlet against them, calling on the princes " to 
 strangle and stab them, as a man would treat a mad 
 dog." 
 
 --s-=S*fVC 
 
 LUTHER AND MELANCTHON. 
 
 (From a painting by Cranach.) 
 
XXXVI. 
 
 THE SAD FATE OF BERNARD KNIPPERDOLLING. 
 
 ( I 5 2 4-i53 6 
 
 I MUST now tell you of an extraordinary event 
 that took place in Westphalia. There is a grand 
 opera by Meyerbeer, " The Prophet," founded upon 
 it, the overture and the grand march in which 
 you are sure to know, as they are favorite instru- 
 mental concerted pieces. Meyerbeer has not stuck 
 to historical truth in his opera ; what the real facts 
 were you shall now be told. 
 
 Miinster is a town in Westphalia, the seat of a 
 bishop, walled round, with a noble cathedral and 
 many churches ; but there is one peculiarity about 
 Miinster that distinguishes it from all other old 
 German towns ; it has not one old church spire in it. 
 Once it had a great many. How comes it that it 
 now has none ? 
 
 In Miinster lived a draper, Knipperdolling by 
 name, who was much excited over the doctrines of 
 Luther, and he gathered many people in his house, 
 and spoke to them bitter words against the Pope, 
 the bishops, and the clergy. The bishop at this 
 time was Francis of Waldeck, a man much inclined 
 himself to Lutheranism ; indeed, later, he proposed 
 
 211 
 
2I 2 THE FATE OF BERNARD KXirPERDOLUNG. 
 
 to suppress Catholicism in the diocese, as he wanted 
 to seize on it and appropriate it as a possession to 
 his family. Moreover, in 1 544, he joined the Protest- 
 ant princes in a league against the Catholics ; but 
 he did not want things to move too fast, lest he 
 
 SCHOOL-ROOM IN l6TH CENTURY. 
 (From a wood-cut by Hans Leonard Schauffelin.) 
 
 should not be able to secure the wealthy See as 
 personal property. 
 
 Knipperdolling got a young priest, named Rott- 
 mann, to preach in one of the churches against the 
 errors of Catholicism, and he was a man of such 
 fiery eloquence that he stirred up a mob, which 
 rushed through the town, wrecking the churches. 
 The mob became daily more daring and threatening. 
 They drove the priests out of the town, and some of 
 the wealthy citizens fled, not knowing what would 
 follow. The bishop would have yielded to all the 
 
ENOCH AND EL/AS. 
 
 213 
 
 religious innovations if the rioters had not threat- 
 ened his temporal position and revenue. In 1532 
 the pastor, Rottmann, began to preach against the 
 baptism of infants. Luther wrote to him remon- 
 strating, but in vain. The bishop was not in the 
 town ; he was at Minden, of which See he was 
 bishop as well. 
 
 Finding that the town was in the hands of Knip- 
 perdolling and Rottmann, who were confiscating the 
 goods of the churches, and excluding those who 
 would not agree with their opinions, the bishop ad- 
 vanced to the place at the head of some soldiers. 
 Miinster closed its gates against him. Negotiations 
 were entered into ; the Landgrave of Hesse was 
 called in as pacificator, and articles of agreement 
 were drawn up and signed. Some of the churches 
 were given up to the Lutherans, but the cathedral 
 was reserved for the Catholics, and the Lutherans 
 were forbidden to molest the latter, and disturb 
 their religious services. 
 
 The news of the conversion of the city of Miinster 
 to the Gospel spread, and strangers came to it from 
 all parts. Among these was a tailor of Leyden, 
 called John Bockelson. Rottmann now threw up 
 his Lutheranism and proclaimed himself opposed to 
 many of the doctrineswhich Luther still retained. 
 Amongst other things he rejected was infant bap- 
 tism. This created a split among the reformed in 
 Miinster, and the disorders broke out afresh. The 
 mob now fell on the cathedral and drove the Cath- 
 olics from it, and would not permit them to worship 
 in it. They also invaded the Lutheran churches, 
 
214 
 
 FATE OF BERNARD KX1PPERD0LLIXG. 
 
 and filled them with uproar. On the evening of 
 January 28, 1534, the Anabaptists stretched chains 
 across the streets, assembled in armed bands, closed 
 the gates and placed sentinels in all directions. 
 When day dawned there appeared suddenly two 
 men dressed like Prophets, with long, ragged beards 
 and flowing mantles, staff in hand, who paced 
 through the streets solemnly in the midst of the 
 crowd, who bowed before them and saluted them as 
 Enoch and Elias. These men were John Bockelson, 
 the tailor, and one John Mattheson, head of the Ana- 
 baptists of Holland. Knipperdolling at once asso- 
 ciated himself with them, and shortly the place 
 was a scene of the wildest ecstacies. Men and 
 women ran about the streets screaming and leap- 
 ing, and crying out that they saw visions of angels 
 with swords drawn urging them on to the extermi- 
 nation of Lutherans and Catholics alike. Many 
 Lutherans and Catholics, frightened, fearing a gen- 
 eral massacre, fled the town. Mattheson mounted a 
 pulpit, and cried out that Heaven demanded the 
 purification of Zion, and that all who did not hold 
 the right faith should be put to the sword. This 
 would have been carried into effect but for the in- 
 tervention of Knipperdolling, who persuaded the 
 rabble not to kill, but to expel those who refused 
 to be re-baptized. Accordingly, a great number of 
 citizens were driven out, on a bitter day, when the 
 land was covered with snow. Those who lagged 
 were beaten ; those who were sick were carried to 
 the market-place and re-baptized by Rottmann. 
 " Never," says a witness, " did I see anything 
 
RULE OF MUNSTER B Y FAN A TICS. 2 I 5 
 
 more afflicting. The women carried their naked 
 babes in their arms, and in vain sought rags where- 
 with to cover them ; miserable children ran bare- 
 footed, hanging to their father's coats, uttering 
 piercing cries ; old people, bent with age, and sick 
 women, tottered and fell in the snow." 
 
 This was too much to be borne. The bishop 
 raised an army and marched against the city. Thus 
 began a siege which was to last sixteen months, dur- 
 ing which a multitude of untrained fanatics, com- 
 manded by a Dutch tailor, held out against a numer- 
 ous and well-armed force. 
 
 Thenceforth the city was ruled by divine revela- 
 tions, or rather, by the crazes of the diseased brains 
 of the prophets. One day they declared that all 
 the officers and magistrates were to be turned out 
 of their offices, and men nominated by themselves 
 were to take their places ; another day Mattheson 
 said it was revealed to him that every book in the 
 town except the Bible was to be destroyed ; accord- 
 ingly all the archives and libraries were collected 
 in the market-place and burnt. Then it was re- 
 vealed to him that all the spires were to be pulled 
 down ; so the church towers were reduced to stumps, 
 from which the enemy could be watched and whence 
 cannon could play on them. One day he declared 
 he had been ordered by Heaven to go forth, with 
 promise of victory, against the besiegers. He 
 dashed forth at the head of a large band, but was 
 surrounded and he and his band slain. 
 
 The death of Mattheson struck dismay into the 
 hearts of the Anabaptists, but John Bockelson took 
 
- 1(. 
 
B CKELSON 'S RE VELA Tl 'ON. 2 1 7 
 
 advantage of the moment to establish himself as 
 head. He declared that it was revealed to him 
 that Mattheson had been killed because he had 
 disobeye'd the heavenly command, which was to 
 go forth with few. Instead of that he had gone 
 with many. Bockelson said he had been or- - 
 dered in vision to marry Mattheson's widow and 
 assume his place. It was further revealed to 
 him that Munster was to be the heavenly Zion, the 
 capital of the earth, and he was to be king over it. 
 Then he ordered all the people in the place to bring 
 him every article of value they possessed, gold and 
 silver and jewelry ; also all provisions they had, and 
 he arranged that all meals should be taken in com- 
 mon. Then he had another revelation that every 
 man was to have as many wives as he liked, and he 
 gave himself sixteen wives. This was too out- 
 rageous for some to endure, and a plot was formed 
 against him by a blacksmith and about two hundred 
 of the more respectable citizens, but it was frus- 
 trated, and led to the seizure of the conspirators 
 and the execution of a number of them. Twenty- 
 five were shot and sixty-six were decapitated by 
 Knipperdolling, whom John Bockelson had consti- 
 tuted his executioner. With the death of these men 
 disappeared every attempt at resistance. It may be 
 asked how it was that there were still so many peo- 
 ple in the place. The reason was that before it was 
 invested Anabaptists had swarmed into it from Hol- 
 land and the North of Germany, thinking it was a 
 favoured city of Heaven. 
 
 Next, Bockelson created twelve dukes, to whom 
 
woman's costume. i6th century. 
 (From a painting by Holbein.) 
 
 218 
 
HUNG IN CAGES. 
 
 219 
 
 he gave titles to as many parts of Germany. They 
 were all tailors, shoemakers, coopers, and bakers. 
 He also appointed twenty-seven apostles to go 
 through Europe, converting people and calling on 
 them to come to Zion. 
 
 In the market-place a pulpit and a throne were 
 erected, and thrice in the week Bockelson adminis- 
 tered justice from the throne, clad in royal apparel, 
 surrounded by his dukes and pages gorgeously 
 dressed. When the court was over a sermon was 
 preached from the pulpit, and when that was con- 
 cluded, the king, his sixteen queens, the preacher, 
 and the court danced to the strains of the royal 
 band. 
 
 One of his wives, disgusted with the profanity and 
 her degradation, entreated leave to depart from the 
 town. King John cut off her head with his own 
 sword before all the people. One of the bishop's 
 soldiers, having been taken prisoner, was urged to 
 embrace the doctrines of the Anabaptists. He had 
 the audacity to reply that whatever their doctrines 
 might be their practice was devilish ; whereupon 
 King John, foaming with rage, hacked off his head 
 with his own hand. 
 
 At last, on midsummer eve, 1536, after a siege of 
 sixteen months, the city was taken. Several of the 
 citizens, unable longer to endure the tyranny, cru- 
 elty, and abominations committed by the king, 
 helped the soldiers of the prince-bishop to climb 
 the walls, open the gates, and surprise the city. A 
 desperate hand-to-hand fight ensued ; the streets 
 ran with blood. John Bockelson, instead of leading 
 
220 FATE OF BERNARD KNIPPERDOLLLWj. 
 
 his people, hid himself, but was caught. So was 
 Knipperdolling. 
 
 When the place was in his hands the prince- 
 bishop entered. John of Leyden and Knipperdol- 
 ling were cruelly tortured, their flesh plucked off 
 with red-hot pincers, and then a dagger was thrust 
 into their hearts. Finally, their bodies were hung 
 in iron cages to the tower of a church in Miinster. 
 
 Thus ended this hideous drama, which produced 
 an indescribable effect throughout Germany. Miin- 
 ster, after this, in spite of the desire of the prince- 
 bishop to establish Lutheranism, reverted to Ca- 
 tholicism, and remains Catholic to this day. 
 

 x^^^^ 
 
 (""'^^^BfLfi? ^-t-4iBb JMJ ^flJLr- *" v Jl I 
 
 
 ^mS&B3& 
 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 HOW THE PROTESTANTS PROTESTED. 
 
 (1530-1547.) 
 
 The Reformation, which had been successful in 
 Germany, spread with equal rapidity in the neigh- 
 boring countries. At Zurich was Zwingli, a man of 
 more daring mind than Luther ; his equal in intre- 
 pidity, and his superior in learning. He went much 
 further than Luther, and completely overturned the 
 whole fabric of established worship. As early as 
 1524 the canton of Zurich renounced the supremacy 
 of the Pope; and in 1528 Bern, Basle, and Schaff- 
 hausen, and part of the Grisons, Glarus, and Appen- 
 zel, followed the example. In Geneva Calvin took 
 another line from Luther. He did not accept his 
 doctrine of free justification, but he taught that 
 some men were predestined to eternal life and oth- 
 ers to eternal damnation ; that the former could not 
 fall away, and that nothing that the latter did could 
 gain them heaven. Luther and Calvin looked on 
 each other with great hostility. In some parts of 
 Germany Calvinism spread, in other parts Luther- 
 anism. The Lutherans were called Protestants, 
 and the Calvinists were called Reformed. The 
 name of Protestant was thus acquired : 
 
 221 
 
222 HOW THE PROTESTANTS PROTESTED. 
 
 Charles V. summoned a diet (that is, a parliament 
 of the states) to meet at Spires in 1529, to. discuss 
 the means of resisting and driving back the Turks, 
 who had overrun Hungary, and threatened the 
 Austrian dominions ; and also to settle something, 
 relative to the religious contests. By a majority of 
 voices a decree was passed which" forbade further 
 innovation in religion, and ordered that the Catholic 
 subjects of Protestant princes should be allowed to 
 exercise their religion in freedom ; that no hostilities 
 were to be committed under pretence of religion, 
 and that the ministers of the Gospel were to preach 
 the word of God according to the interpretation of 
 the Church, and to abstain from ridiculing and abus- 
 ing the doctrines hitherto held as sacred. The 
 Lutherans, upon this, drew up a protest, which they 
 delivered to the diet. They argued that Protestant 
 princes could not tolerate the exercise of a religion 
 in their lands which they held to be against God's 
 word, and that the ministers could not follow the 
 interpretation of the Church, which they regarded 
 as antichristian. 
 
 This protest was signed by the Elector of Saxony, 
 the Margrave of Brandenburg — Anspach, the duke 
 of Brunswick, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the 
 Prince of Anhalt, and fourteen free imperial cities. 
 It is from this protest that the Lutherans acquired 
 the name of Protestants, which has since been applied 
 to all who separated from the Church of Rome. 
 
 Charles V. made many efforts to pacify the strife 
 without coming to severe measures. He called to- 
 gether another diet, to meet at Augsburg in 1530. 
 
THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 
 
 227, 
 
 At the very opening of the diet, evidence appeared 
 of the uncompromising character of the Protestants. 
 The parliament began with a mass, attended by the 
 emperor and his high functionaries. The Elector 
 of Saxony was grand marshall and bore the sword 
 of state. At first he refused to attend, and was 
 only persuaded by one of the Lutheran pastors, who 
 reminded him that the prophet Elisha permitted 
 Naaman to bow himself in the house of Rimmon. 
 However, though he and the Landgrave of Hesse 
 attended, they refused to kneel, and remained stand- 
 ing upright whilst the whole congregation was bowed. 
 
 When the diet began proceedings the Lutherans 
 presented to it a formulary of their belief as far as 
 they had settled it at the time. This was drawn 
 up by Philip Melancthon, and goes by the name of 
 the " Augsburg Confession." 
 
 On November 16th Charles published a decree, 
 insisting that all things should remain on their 
 ancient footing till a council of the Church assembled, 
 which was to be in six months' time ; and also order- 
 ing the restoration of all the lands and buildings 
 seized by the nobles and princes which had belonged 
 to the Church. Charles gave the Protestants till 
 April to consider, and if they then refused submis- 
 sion he threatened them with the ban of the empire. 
 
 Thereupon the Protestant princes assembled in the 
 little Hessian town of Smalkald (December, 15 301 
 and made a league with one another for mutual sup- 
 port against the emperor. They also entered into 
 a secret treaty with Francis I., King of France, and 
 they received promises of help from the kings of 
 
JOHN FREDERICK THE HOED, EEECTOR OF SAXONY, 
 ^From portrait by Cranach.) 
 
 224 
 
SUCCESS FOR THE IMPERIALISTS. 
 
 225 
 
 England, Sweden, and Denmark. Both parties pre- 
 pared for war, and the imperial chamber commenced 
 proceedings against the Protestant princes for the 
 restitution of the ecclesiastical states they had con- 
 fiscated. The heads of the league were the Elector, 
 John Frederick of Saxony, a hearty supporter of 
 Luther and a sincere man, and the Landgrave, Philip 
 of Hesse, a man with two wives, and of bad charac- 
 ter, whose reforming zeal sprang chiefly from greed 
 after the spoils of the Church. 
 
 In the year 1545 a council of the Church assem- 
 bled at Trent, to correct the abuses in religion, 
 but the Protestants would take no part in it. This 
 opposition angered the emperor, and he prepared 
 for hostilities. 
 
 When the army of the Smalkald league marched 
 against him he pronounced the ban of the empire 
 against the leaders, that is, declared them outlaws, 
 deprived of imperial protection and of their prin- 
 cipalities. The confederates replied by a letter re- 
 nouncing their allegiance, and refusing him' the 
 imperial title. The Protestant princes were weak- 
 ened by internal dissention and jealousies, and 
 Charles found himself deserted by the Pope, who 
 was, as usual, jealous of his power in Italy. Fran- 
 cis I., of France, moreover, sent money to the Smal- 
 kald union. Fortunately for Charles, Francis died, 
 and when the league were least expecting his attack 
 he hastened to assail their forces on the Elbe. He 
 threw a bridge of boats over the river at Miihlberg, 
 though the enemy occupied the highest bank, and 
 the river was three hundred paces wide. Whilst 
 
226 HO IV THE PROTESTANTS PROTESTED. 
 
 his bridge was being constructed he suddenly 
 crossed the river by a ford, at the head of his cavalry, 
 in a fog which concealed his movements, and burst 
 on the Protestant army at the same moment that 
 a light wind dispersed the vapors and the sun 
 blazed out. The battle that ensued ended in 
 the success of the Imperialists. John Frederick, 
 Elector of Saxony, was wounded in the face and 
 taken prisoner. When brought before Charles he 
 bowed to kiss his hand, saying, " Most powerful and 
 gracious emperor, the fortunes of war have rendered 
 me your prisoner — " " Hah ! " exclaimed Charles, 
 "nozv you entitle me emperor, the other day you 
 styled me Charles of Ghent." 
 
 Charles then made his triumphal entry into Wit- 
 tenberg, and conducted himself with great mag- 
 nanimity. The elector was deprived of all his 
 dominions except Gotha, and they were given to 
 Maurice of Saxony. 
 
 There were then two Saxon ducal houses, called 
 the Ernestine and the Albertine, descended from 
 two brothers, Ernest, who died in i486, and Albert, 
 who died in 1500. These brothers had divided the 
 paternal inheritance between them. The Ernestine 
 dukes retained the title of electors of Saxony, the 
 Albertine dukes were called dukes of Saxony. 
 John Frederick, who was deposed after the battle of 
 Miihlberg, was the grandson of Ernest, and Mau- 
 rice of Saxony was grandson of Albert. 
 
 Maurice was a very craft}' man. He had quarrelled 
 a good deal with John Frederick, as his dominions 
 were intermixed with those of the elector, and as he 
 
THE REVOL T OF MA URICE. 22J 
 
 possessed a joint share in some rich mines. When 
 the Smalkald union was formed he refused to join it, 
 though he was a Protestant, and he courted the 
 
 o 
 
 favour of the emperor without vigorously fighting 
 for him. In return for his loyalty Charles now gave 
 him the electorate of Saxony, with the lands from 
 which John Frederick had been ousted. This was 
 what Maurice had been aiming after. No sooner 
 had he got all he wanted from the emperor than he 
 turned against him, and became his most bitter and 
 dangerous opponent. 
 
 Charles gave him occasion. The Landgrave of 
 Hesse had given himself up and been imprisoned, 
 when he found himself deserted and powerless. 
 Charles, it is said, had sent him private assurance 
 that he would be set free if he made his submission, 
 but Charles still kept him in confinement, and this 
 angered Maurice, who had married the landgrave's 
 daughter. 
 
 When, as he supposed, the war was at an end, 
 Charles retired to Innsbruck, and dismissed the 
 army he had collected. Maurice now secretly made 
 a league with Henry II., King of France, by which it 
 was arranged that the French were to attack Lor- 
 raine, and find Maurice a large monthly sum of 
 money as long as he continued in arms against the 
 emperor. At the same time he did all he could to 
 throw dust in the eyes of Charles. He hired a 
 house at Trent for his reception, and had it magnifi- 
 cently furnished, and declared his intention of 
 going to the council. Then, when all was ripe, and 
 Charles lulled into unsuspicion, Maurice suddenly 
 
HOW THE PROTESTANTS PROTESTED. 
 
 threw off the mask, uttered a proclamation, in 
 which he declared that he took up arms in defence 
 of Protestantism, to oppose the emperor becoming 
 absolute monarch, and to release the landgrave. 
 
 GERMAN PATRICIANS IN I55O. 
 m a wood-cut by Ammann.) 
 
 He swept at once through Bavaria, without suffer- 
 ing the emperor time to collect an army against 
 him. Xo words can express Chan >nishment 
 
 and consternation at the revolt of Maurice. He saw 
 
PACIFICATION OF PASS A 17. 
 
 229 
 
 a great number of German princes in arms against 
 him at a moment when he had despatched a large 
 body of his troops into Hungary to resist the Turks. 
 At the same time Henry II. invaded Lorraine, 
 captured Toul, Verdun, and Metz, and threatened 
 Strasburg. Augsburg surrendered to Maurice. 
 Nuremberg joined the confederacy. 
 
 Charles threw a few soldiers into Fuessen to 
 guard the Scharnitz pass, but Maurice, advancing 
 with rapid marches, dislodged them, advanced up 
 the Lech valley, crossed into the Inn valley, and 
 would have surprised and taken the emperor had 
 he not made his escape in a litter — for he was ill 
 at the time with gout — across the mountains, by 
 roads almost impassable, in a dark and stormy 
 night, only a few hours before Maurice entered 
 Innsbruck. 
 
 Maurice gave up the palace and property of the 
 emperor at Innsbruck to pillage. 
 
 Dismayed by this disaster, unable to gather to- 
 gether an army to fight at once the Turks in Hun- 
 gary, the French in Lorraine, and the Protestants in 
 the midst of the empire, Charles was forced to 
 come to an agreement with Maurice and the Prot- 
 estant princes, which was concluded on the 2d of 
 August, 1552, and this is called the ''Pacification of 
 Passau." By it he agreed to release the landgrave, 
 and to allow liberty to the Protestants in Catholic 
 lands ; and the Protestants on their side agreed to 
 allow Catholic worship to be performed for Catholics 
 in their territories. When the agreement had been 
 signed Maurice marched against the Turks, and 
 
2;o 
 
 HOW THE PRO TESTA. YTS PROTESTED. 
 
 Charles, anxious to wipe away his recent disgrace, 
 collected an army and entered Lorraine. But for- 
 tune had deserted him. He was unable to retake 
 Metz, and in the Low Countries also his troops met 
 with reverse. In Italy, moreover, his inveterate 
 enemy, Pope Paul IV., joined with France in a 
 league for the conquest of Naples. Paul was like 
 the German prelates, a great prince as well as a 
 prelate, and he cared more for his temporal 
 power than for the welfare of the Church, Conse- 
 quently, though Charles strove hard, and exhausted 
 himself for the good of the Catholic religion in 
 Germany, he was hampered and countermined by 
 the Pope, who was jealous of his power. But for 
 the Pope it is by no means improbable that Charles 
 would have re-established Catholic supremacy 
 through Germany. 
 
 At last, sick at heart and failing in health, the 
 great emperor resolved to lay down the crown that 
 had been to him a burden through life. In 1555 
 he gave up to his son, Philip II., the Netherlands, 
 Naples, Spain, and the rich colonies of America. 
 To his brother, Ferdinand I., who was already King 
 of Bohemia and Hungary, he gave over the Ger- 
 man-Austrian lands and the imperial title. Then 
 he withdrew into the monastery of S. Just, in 
 Spain, where he died, three years later. 
 
 His death was brought about in a very strange 
 way. He took it into his head that he would like 
 to have his funeral sen-ice performed over him be- 
 fore he was dead. He was dressed in a winding 
 sheet and laid in a coffin, whilst his attendants, in 
 
DEA TH OF CHARLES V. 
 
 23T 
 
 deep mourning, holding tapers of unbleached wax, 
 stood around him. The funeral service was said, 
 and the hollow voice of the monarch was heard 
 joining in the prayers from the coffin. But the 
 grave-clothes were damp ; he caught a chill which 
 produced fever, and hurried him to his grave on 
 the 2 1st of September, 1558, in the fifty-ninth year 
 of his age. 
 
XXXVIII. 
 
 THIRTY YEARS OF WAR ABOUT RELIGION. 
 
 (1618-1648.) 
 
 Notwithstanding the Pacification of Passau 
 and its subsequent ratification at a diet held at 
 Augsburg in 1555, quarrels continued between the 
 Catholics and Protestants, and between the Luther- 
 ans and Calvinists, and even between discordant 
 factions among the Lutherans themselves. In Sax- 
 ony the Lutheran elector, Augustus, cruelly perse- 
 cuted the Calvinists, and in the Palatinate the Cal- 
 vinist prince expelled all the Lutherans, and cut off 
 the head of a pastor who denied the doctrine of 
 the Trinity. On his death his son, who was a vehe- 
 ment Lutheran, called back the Evangelicals and 
 ordered all the Calvinist ministers who refused to 
 recant to be driven out of the country. 
 
 In the mean time Alva, the Spanish governor of 
 the Netherlands, was subjugating the Low Countries 
 for Philip II. with great cruelty, and driving out 
 the Calvinists. 
 
 Gebhard of Waldburg had been elected Arch- 
 bishop of Cologne. He fell desperately in love 
 with a beautiful maiden, Agnes of Mansfeld, and 
 turned Calvinist, and wanted to make the arch- 
 
 232 
 
RUDOLPH II 
 
 233 
 
 bishopric the property of himself, to descend to his 
 children by the beautiful Agnes, whom he married. 
 But the people of Cologne were against him ; the 
 Lutheran princes would not help him because he 
 had turned Calvinist ; however, he got promise of 
 help from the Palatine, and from the Dutch and 
 French, and carried on a desultory war to obtain 
 possession of Cologne. At last he was completely 
 defeated, and retired to Strasburg. 
 
 All the bishoprics in North Germany had been 
 seized and annexed to their dominions by the princes 
 of Brandenburg, Brunswick, Mecklenburg, and Sax- 
 ony. In the hereditary possessions of the House of 
 Hapsburg the Reformation was suppressed. The 
 maxim had been formulated that as was the prince 
 so should be the people, and so the princes every- 
 where insisted on making their people believe, or 
 disbelieve, or change about like themselves. 
 
 Ferdinand I. and his son, Maximilian II., were 
 gentle and good emperors, so that the general antag- 
 onism did not break out into violent hostilities 
 under them ; but it was otherwise when the gloomy 
 Rudolph II. came to the throne. He was the son 
 of Maximilian II. He was an apathetic man, ut- 
 terly unsuited to govern, fond of horses, of which 
 he kept a great many, though he never mounted 
 their backs, and very fond of chemistry, and 
 alchemy, which was then allied to chemistry. He 
 had been educated in Spain, and the Protestants 
 were alarmed at his appointment, fearing that he 
 would use his power without moderation, and with 
 intolerance. They accordingly formed an union, 
 
^34 
 
 THIRTY YEARS' WAR ABOUT RELIGION. 
 
 and placed the Elector Palatine Frederick at the 
 head. Thereupon the Catholic princes also united, 
 and bound themselves to assist each other and de- 
 fend the Catholic religion. At the head of their 
 League was Maximilian of Bavaria. And now, 
 with the Protestant Union on one side, and the 
 CATHOLIC LEAGUE on the other, armed and 
 watching each other suspiciously, only a signal was 
 wanted to make them draw swords. 
 
 That signal was given on May 23, 1618. 
 
 On the death of Rudolph II. (161 2) his brother, 
 Matthias, succeeded, but he was an old man, and un- 
 able to cope with the forces gathering to explosion 
 in the empire. Accordingly, he committed the gov- 
 ernment to his nephew, Ferdinand, whom he caused 
 to be proclaimed King of Bohemia. Ferdinand went 
 at once to Prague, and nominated seven Bohemian' 
 Catholic nobles and three Protestants to form a 
 council to govern the country. The most influen- 
 tial of these were Slawata and Martinitz, the 
 former of whom was especially disliked by the 
 Protestants because he had become a Catholic after 
 having been brought up as a Lutheran. 
 
 Rudolph II. had issued an imperial manifesto, 
 granting freedom of worship in Bohemia to Luther- 
 ans, Calvinists, Calixtens, and Catholics alike. 
 
 The Protestants began to erect two new churches 
 for themselves. Impediments were thrown in their 
 way. They appealed to the emperor, Matthias, 
 and received a curt reply. It came to their ears that 
 this was not dictated by the emperor himself, but 
 proceeded from his council in Prague. They rose 
 
 mm 
 
HELP FOR VIENNA. 
 
 235 
 
 tumultuously, took arms, and, led by Count Mat- 
 thias of Thurn, attacked the imperial castle at 
 Prague, burst in, and flung Slawata and Martinitz, 
 with their secretary, out of the window of the coun- 
 cil chamber, and fired at them as they fell. The 
 height was ninety feet, yet, marvellous to relate, 
 they were not killed. Under the window was a 
 heap of litter, and old papers, and the mud of the 
 ditch. Slawata was indeed dreadfully shattered, 
 but recovered. The poor secretary tumbled upon 
 Martinitz, and is said to have apologized for his ap- 
 parent rudeness. He was afterwards ennobled and 
 given the name of Hohenfall, or " High Fall," 
 This act of violence brought on the terrible Thirty 
 Years' War, which lasted through three reigns, those 
 of Matthias, Ferdinand II., and Ferdinand III., and 
 caused almost unparalleled misery in Germany. 
 
 Ferdinand at once raised two bodies of troops, 
 placed them under foreign generals, Dampierre and 
 Bouquoi, and prepared to chastise the insurgents. 
 But Count Thurn felt that the die was cast, and 
 open war was inevitable. He gathered a large 
 army, was assisted by the Silesians and Lusatians, 
 defeated Dampierre and Bouquoi, and laid siege to 
 the cities of Bohemia that remained faithful to the 
 emperor. The elector palatine and the Protest- 
 ant Union sent a body of mercenaries into Bohe- 
 mia, under the command of the able general Mans- 
 feld. At this juncture of affairs Matthias died, 
 and his nephew, Ferdinand, succeeded. 
 
 Count Thurn left Mansfeld in Bohemia to hold 
 Bouquoi in check and marched swiftly through 
 
236 THIRTY YEARS' WAR ABOUT RELIGION. 
 
 Moravia, increasing his army, and entered Upper 
 Austria. Ferdinand was in Vienna with a small 
 garrison, and no prospect of help. He knew that 
 the loss of Vienna would be the loss of his crown 
 and the ruin of his house. The Bohemians sur- 
 rounded the city ; the cannon battered the walls of 
 his palace; many of the citizens were in secret cor- 
 respondence with the besiegers. Sixteen members 
 of the states burst into his apartment, and with 
 threats and reproaches insisted on the gates being 
 opened to the insurgents, but Ferdinand never wav- 
 ered for a moment. He had been kneeling in prayer 
 in his cabinet when all seemed lost, when suddenly 
 the conviction came over him that his delivery was 
 at hand. At the very moment when all hope seemed 
 gone, and the mutinous citizens were preparing to 
 open the gates, a peal of trumpets announced the 
 arrival of succour. It was only five hundred horse- 
 men sent by Dampierre, who had effected an entry 
 into the city unperceived by the besiegers. Their ar- 
 rival operated like magic. The students, the burgh- 
 ers flew to arms; additional succour arrived. 
 The news speedily followed that Bouquoi had de- 
 feated Mansfeld, dispersed his army, and was march- 
 ing upon Prague. Count Thurn hastily broke up 
 the siege and hastened back into Bohemia. Fer- 
 dinand now went to Frankfort, where he was elected 
 emperor, the Protestant electors being too divided 
 in interest to oppose him. The Bohemians, how- 
 aver, refused to acknowledge him as their king. 
 They elected the Count Palatine Frederick, who 
 
237 
 
238 THIRTY YEARS' WAR ABOUT RELIGION. 
 
 had married Elizabeth, daughter of James L, of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The Hungarians also revolted, under Bethlen 
 Gabor, prince of Transylvania. Gabor obtained 
 possession of Presburg by treachery, where was pre- 
 served the crown of Hungary, and marched upon 
 Vienna, which was again besieged. Dampierre and 
 Buquoi menaced the Hungarian rear, and Gabor 
 was obliged to fall back ; but he caused himself to 
 be crowned King of Hungary. 
 
 Ferdinand found himself excluded from nearly 
 every town in Bohemia and the greater part of 
 Hungary. Frederick, elector palatine, was a vain 
 and ambitious man, void of genius, and fond of dis- 
 play. He was inflated with pride at his election to 
 the throne of Bohemia. He went to Prague, where 
 he gave offence to the Lutherans by destroying the 
 sacred representations which they admitted into 
 their churches, and by his levity and folly. 
 
 The Catholic League was not idle. It had gath- 
 ered an army under Maximilian of Bavaria, which 
 marched to Prague, and finding the troops of Fred- 
 erick and the Union outside the city on the " White 
 Mountain," attacked and completely routed them 
 (Nov. 8, 1620). The battle lasted little more than 
 an hour. With the loss of only three hundred men 
 the army of the League took all the standards and 
 cannon of the enemy, left 4000 of them dead 
 on the field, and drove a thousand more into the 
 river Moldau ; and thus, at one blow, dissipated the 
 hopes of Frederick, and decided the fate of Bohe- 
 mia. Frederick mounted his horse and galloped 
 
FREDERICK ESCAPES. 
 
 239 
 
 away, leaving his crown and treasure to fall into 
 the hands of the Imperialists. One winter had seen 
 him flourish and fade, and thence he received the 
 nick-name of the " Winter King." 
 
 Frederick escaped to the Netherlands. The em- 
 peror placed him under the ban, deprived him of 
 his electorate, which he gave to Duke Maximilian of 
 Bavaria, together with the Upper Palatinate, that 
 remains to Bavaria to the present day. 
 
 The Bohemians were forced to return to the 
 Catholic Church, and many thousand Protestant 
 families left their native land rather than submit. 
 
XXXIX. 
 
 A BOHEMIAN GENTLEMAN. 
 
 WITH the subjugation of Bohemia it seemed for 
 the moment that the war was at an end. The Prot- 
 estant union was broken up, and the elector pala- 
 tine, its head, a refugee in Holland. But now sev- 
 eral other Protestant princes, entered the field to 
 carry on the war for the restoration of the banished 
 palatine. These were the Margrave George Fred- 
 erick of Baden-Durlach, Duke Christian of Bruns- 
 wick, Count Ernest of Mansfeld, and finally, Chris- 
 tian IV., King of Denmark. 
 
 In the great battle of the White Mountain a 
 Netherland general called Tilly, a man of very re- 
 markable military genius, had distinguished him- 
 self on the side of the Imperialists. He was now 
 given command of an army. The Protestants, on 
 their side, had a leader of hardly inferior ability, the 
 adventurer Mansfeld. 
 
 Tilly was defeated by Mansfeld in the spring of 
 1622, and was reduced to the defensive, whilst he 
 saw a powerful combination rising on every side 
 against the House of Austria. He bided his time, 
 waiting till he could attack singly, these enemies 
 whom he could not resist when united. The oppor- 
 
 240 
 
JEAN TZEKCLAES, COUNT TILLY, 
 
 241 
 
242 A BOHEMIAN GENTLEMAN. 
 
 tunity presented itself by the Margrave of Baden 
 leaving Mansfeld to enter Bavaria. Tilly suddenly 
 gathered some Spanish troops together, and thus 
 reinforced swept down on the margrave at Wimp- 
 fen, where he utterly routed him, with the loss 
 of half his army, and took his whole train of artil- 
 lery and military chest. Without a pause he has- 
 tened after the Duke of Brunswick, caught him at 
 Hochst, as he was crossing the Main, drove him 
 back upon Mansfeld, who was besieging Laden- 
 burg, and sent their united forces flying across the 
 Rhine, to seek a refuge in Elsass. Hitherto the 
 war had been carried on by the Catholic League 
 for the emperor. Now the emperor resolved on 
 sending an army of his own into the field, but he 
 was without money. Then a Bohemian gentleman, 
 Albert of Wallenstein, volunteered to raise an 
 army of 50,000 fighting men, which would main- 
 tain itself, and put the emperor to a comparatively 
 trifling expense. Wallenstein had been born at 
 Prague in 1583. For his attachment to the royal 
 cause in the troubles of Bohemia he had been ban- 
 ished and deprived of his estates by the Protestant 
 party. On the triumph of the Imperialists his 
 property was restored to him. When he made his 
 offer to the emperor, Ferdinand was at first in- 
 clined to treat it as the craze of a heated imagina- 
 tion. But he soon found that the scheme had 
 been well thought out and weighed. He therefore 
 gave his consent. In a very short while Wallen- 
 stein had collected an arm)- of 30,000 men, adven- 
 turers, flushed with hope of advancement and a 
 
243 
 
 ALBERT VON WALLENSTEIN. 
 
244 A B0HEMIAN GENTLEMAN. 
 
 thirst for pillage. Before long the host had swelled 
 far beyond the stipulated number. The old Prot- 
 estant Union had gone to pieces, but now a Prot- 
 estant League was formed, supported by Christian 
 IV., King of Denmark, Gustavus Adolphus, King of 
 Sweden, and James I., of England. Christian of 
 Denmark took the field and entered Thuringia. 
 Tilly at once flew to meet him, and defeated him. 
 The king left 5000 men dead on the field, 2000 
 prisoners ; and lost half his officers and all his artil- 
 lery and baggage. 
 
 At the same time Wallenstein went in search of 
 Mansfeld, who had invaded Hungary, where he had 
 effected a junction with Bethlen Gabor. The 
 news of the defeat of Christian, however, came to 
 the Protestant host, and as disease had broken out 
 among them they were discouraged. Bethlen 
 Gabor concluded a hasty treaty with the emperor, 
 and disbanded his troops. Those of Mansfeld melted 
 away with disease and desertion, and the count 
 tried to escape with twelve officers to Venice, but 
 fell ill on his way and died. Wallenstein, having 
 delivered Hungary, hastened to unite with Tilly to 
 drive King Christian out of Germany. The)' pur- 
 sued him into his own territories. He was driven 
 from place to place, and from post to post. The 
 troops which he ventured to bring into the field 
 were scattered in all directions, and before the 
 close of 1628 only one fortress remained in his 
 possession of the whole country between the Elbe 
 and the extremity of Jutland. 
 
 Now, once more, peace might have been restored 
 
WALLENSTEIN RETIRES. 
 
 245 
 
 to distracted and miserable Germany but for the 
 pride and elation of Ferdinand, who refused the 
 overtures made by the King of Denmark. 
 
 By the Pacification of Passau, in 1552, it will be 
 remembered that the Protestant princes undertook 
 not to confiscate any more of the estates of the 
 Church, bishoprics and abbeys. They had not, 
 however, acted scrupulously in this matter. By a 
 subterfuge more ingenious than justifiable they 
 had managed to get hold of all the ecclesiastical 
 principalities. At this time the Margrave of Bran- 
 denburg had got possession of the archbishopric 
 of Magdeburg and the bishopric of Halberstadt. 
 The Duke of Holstein had the bishoprics of Liibeck 
 and the archbishopric of Hamburg and Bremen, 
 and Frederick II., Prince of Denmark, had the bish- 
 opric of Werden. They abolished Catholicism, 
 and did away with Episcopacy, yet retained for 
 themselves the titles and the possessions and princi- 
 palities of the bishops.* The Protestant princes 
 would not yield up such rich and important posses- 
 sions, and the war was prosecuted. Wallenstein 
 drove the two dukes of Mecklenburg from their 
 duchies, and laid siege to Stralsund. The citizens 
 of this town, however, held out with great deter- 
 mination. Although the King of Denmark was de- 
 feated on land, his fleet, with that of the King of 
 Sweden, came to the aid of Stralsund, and baffled 
 all the efforts of Wallenstein. He is said to have 
 declared that " he would reduce Stralsund, even if 
 
 * They had taken two archbishoprics and twelve bishoprics. 
 
246 
 
 A BOHEMIAN GENTLEMAN 
 
 bound to heaven with chains of adamant." His 
 perseverance would have succeeded had not the 
 citizens invoked the aid of Gustavus Adolphus, 
 King of Sweden, who threw a Swedish garrison into 
 the town, and Wallenstein, exhausted by fatigue, 
 was forced to retire. 
 
 In the mean time Wallenstein's soldiers had 
 become the dread of Germany. Wherever they 
 went they pillaged Catholics and Protestants alike. 
 They were mere mercenaries fighting for plunder, 
 and quite indifferent on which side they fought. 
 They burnt villages and towns, robbed and mur- 
 dered and maltreated wherever they went. Some 
 impoverished citizens killed themselves to escape 
 the misery of a lingering death by hunger. Moved 
 by the distress of the country, the Catholic League 
 assembled at Heidelberg in 1629, and requested 
 the emperor to restore peace and remedy the evils 
 occasioned by Wallenstein's army. 
 
 Ferdinand was obliged to submit, and the com- 
 mand of the United League and imperial army was 
 taken from Wallenstein and given to Tilly. Wal- 
 lenstein, whom the emperor had created Duke of 
 Friedland, retired to his estates in Bohemia. 
 
XL. 
 
 A SWEDISH KING IN GERMANY. 
 
 The emperor now insisted on the restoration of 
 the two archbishoprics and twelve bishoprics seized 
 by the Protestant princes, and began forcibly to 
 wrest them away. He took the archbishopric of 
 Magdeburg and appointed his son Leopold to it, 
 and gave him also the archbishopric of Hamburg 
 and the bishopric of Halberstadt, and the abbey of 
 Hersfeld, on which the Landgrave of Hesse had laid 
 his hands. The Protestant princes appealed for 
 help to Gustavus Adolphus, a king of great military 
 skill, vast energy and resource. He landed with a 
 small but well-organized army on the coast of Pom- 
 erania. When the news reached the Emperor 
 Ferdinand, his courtiers said that this was only a 
 snow king menacing him, who would melt away as 
 he came South under the rays of the imperial sun. 
 But the army of Ferdinand soon saw the fallacy 
 of this. Gustavus Adolphus drove it out of Pom- 
 erania, and then hastened to the relief of Magde- 
 burg, which was besieged by Tilly. His assistance, 
 however, came too late. Tilly took the city, and it 
 became a prey to his lawless soldiers, who plun- 
 dered and fired it. For one whole day the place 
 
 247 
 
248 A SWEDISH KING IN GERMANY. 
 
 was at their mercy. The most dreadful scenes were 
 enacted. The wild Croatian mercenaries rushed up 
 and down the streets massacring every man they 
 met, and throwing burning brands into the houses. 
 They even burst into a church and killed the 
 women they found huddled there. On the second 
 day only did Tilly enter the city to stay the slaugh- 
 ter and ruin. He was a tall, haggard-looking man, 
 dressed in a short slashed green satin jacket, with a 
 long red feather in his high-crowned hat, with large 
 bright eyes peering from beneath his deeply fur- 
 rowed brow, a stiff moustache under his pointed 
 nose. He sat on a bony charger, and looked round 
 on the ruins. Smoke and lambent flame rose on 
 all sides. The wood and plaster houses were de- 
 stroyed ; only the cathedral, the churches and stone- 
 built houses stood intact. In the streets lay the 
 stark bodies of twenty thousand dead men. The 
 cathedral doors were opened, and four thousand 
 men who had taken refuge in it were brought forth, 
 pale, famished, and trembling, almost all that re- 
 mained of the inhabitants. Tilly wrote to Vienna, 
 " Since the destruction of Troy and Jerusalem no 
 such a siege has been seen." 
 
 With the capture and destruction of Magdeburg 
 the luck of Tilly turned. Hitherto he had been 
 resistless ; now the shadow of this crime weighed 
 on him and paralysed him. Gustavus Adolphus 
 marched against him, and the two armies met at 
 Breitenfeld, near Leipzig. Tilly, who could boast 
 of having won thirty-six battles, was here beaten for 
 the first time, and had to seek safety in flight. 
 
249 
 
2$0 
 
 A SWEDISH KING IN GERM AX Y. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus now swept through German}-, 
 driving out the Catholics, as Tilly had expelled the 
 Protestants. At Merseburg two thousand of the 
 Imperialists were cut to pieces. Wurzburg was 
 taken, and all the monks found in it given up to 
 the soldiers to butcher. The Swedes were as un- 
 sparing as the Imperialists. Only within the last 
 five years have the skulls been buried of all the 
 male population of Kirchoven in the Breisgau who 
 were slaughtered by the Swedes, after having in- 
 duced them to surrender with promise of life. 
 
 The palatine and his wife Elizabeth returned, 
 and the latter, in her delight at the successes of 
 Gustavus, on meeting him threw her arms round 
 his neck and exclaimed, " Not Tilly, but I, have 
 taken Gustavus the Great a prisoner ! " They ac- 
 companied him in his triumphant march through 
 Bavaria, and with him entered Munich; and in 
 mockery both of the religion of the people and of 
 the arms of the city, which is a monk, she made a 
 monkey ride on a horse at her side dressed in mo- 
 nastic habit, with a rosary in its paw, blinking and 
 making faces at the people. Again Tilly gathered 
 an army and met Gustavus, but in a battle on the 
 Lech was defeated, and a cannon ball shattered his 
 thigh. His dying warning to Maximilian, Elector 
 of Bavaria, was to garrison Ratisbon, at any price, 
 as the key to Austria and Bohemia. 
 
 The cruelties and outrages committed by the 
 Swedes now exasperated the peasantry to the last 
 degree, and they rose against them, and, hiding in 
 the birch woods that cover so much of the rubbly 
 
WALLENS TE1N 'S MA GA IEICENCE. 
 
 251 
 
 plain of Bavaria, sallied forth and fell on all the 
 stragglers of the Protestant army. Banner, an of- 
 ficer of Gustavus, took a fearful vengeance on the 
 town of Friedstadt, where the citizens had mur- 
 dered some of his soldiers, who had been plunder- 
 ing and outraging the people. He burnt the place 
 to the ground, and put all the inhabitants to the 
 sword. 
 
 Gustavus was a sturdily-built man, with a tall 
 head, pale blue or gray eyes. He wore no armour, 
 but a buff leather jerkin, and on his head a white 
 hat with a green feather in it, and high top yellow 
 leather boots. He had landed in Pomerania with 
 only sixteen thousand men, but his army rapidly 
 swelled as that of the Imperialists melted away. 
 The snow king, instead of melting, like a snowball 
 gathered size as he rolled on. He had now 70,000 
 men. In his dire distress, not knowing where else 
 to turn for aid, the emperor appealed once more to 
 Wallenstein. Wallenstein, fully aware of the em- 
 peror's helplessness, coldly refused unless his own 
 terms were acceded to, that the whole of the im- 
 perial troops should be placed solely and unre- 
 servedly under his command, and that every con- 
 quest made by him should be entirely at his dis- 
 posal, and that he should be allowed to confiscate 
 whatever property he chose for the maintenance of 
 his troops. These were hard terms, and placed the 
 emperor and his dominions at the mercy of an un- 
 principled adventurer. But in his necessity Fer- 
 dinand had no resource but to yield. Wallenstein 
 had been living in more than royal state in Bohemia 
 
252 ^ SWEDISH KING IN GERMANY. 
 
 on the spoils of his first campaign. He had a mag- 
 nificent palace at Prague, with six gates guarded by 
 sentinels. Fifty halbardiers, clothed in splendid 
 uniforms, waited in his ante-chamber; six barons and 
 as many knights attended his person ; his table was 
 daily spread for sixty guests ; his stables were fur- 
 nished with marble mangers. When he travelled 
 his numerous suites were conveyed in twelve state 
 coaches and fifty carriages ; as many waggons bore 
 his plate and equipage, and the cavalcade was ac- 
 companied by fifty grooms on horseback, with fifty 
 led horses richly caparisoned. Wallenstein was a 
 tall, thin man, with sallow complexion, red, short 
 cropped hair, with small twinkling eyes. He did 
 not talk much but he was very observant, and he 
 quickly took the measure of the abilities of a man 
 with whom he had to do. He was grand and noble 
 in his ideas, disdained dissimulation, hated flattery 
 and every vice that evinced meanness and timidity 
 of character. He was very generous to all who did 
 him a good turn, but implacable in his resentments. 
 No sooner was it rumoured that Wallenstein was to 
 be general again than mercenaries came to him 
 from all quarters, and he found himself at once at 
 the head of sixty thousand men. Gustavus was then 
 at Nuremberg at the head of only sixteen thousand. 
 Wallenstein marched against him, but would not 
 attack him. If ever you go to Nuremberg by rail 
 you will cross a long, level plain, very bare of trees, 
 but you will see some rising ground before reach- 
 ing Nuremberg, crowned by a town. This is Furth, 
 which name means a fort. It was a strongly forti- 
 
BA TTLE AT L UTZEN . 
 
 253 
 
 fied place. Gustavus made it his headquarters. 
 Wallenstein occupied a low wooded hill, about two 
 miles south of Furth, surmounted by a ruined 
 castle, where he intrenched himself, and quietly 
 waited his time. Some one asked him why he did 
 not attack the Swedish king, as he had so many 
 more men. " No," answered Wallenstein, " too 
 much has been staked on battles. Wait; we will 
 try other means." Now he was himself eager to 
 measure his military skill against Gustavus, who was 
 considered the greatest general of the day, but he 
 restrained his ardour, and waited, watching him for 
 three whole months. Gustavus could not get away. 
 He was cramped in Furth. He was short of provis- 
 ions, but then he was gathering help from his allies, 
 till his army swelled to the size of that of the Im- 
 perialists. The Duke of Bavaria became impatient, 
 and remonstrated with Wallenstein. "Wait," an- 
 swered the Bohemian general. His soldiers became 
 clamorous. "Wait," he said. And he was right. 
 At last Gustavus could bear inaction no more ; pes- 
 tilence had broken out in his army, and he deter- 
 mined to drive Wallenstein from his position. The 
 attack was commenced by the German troops in the 
 Swedish service, but a shower of balls, rained down 
 from a hundred pieces of artillery, soon compelled 
 them to retreat. Gustavus then, to shame them, led 
 on his own sturdy warriors, the Finlanders ; but 
 their ranks were shattered by a cannonade, and 
 bravery availed nothing against an enemy who was 
 not to be reached. A third attack met no better 
 success. A fourth, fifth, sixth, from fresh bodies 
 
254 A SWEDISH A /AG IN GERM AX Y. 
 
 of troops, proved equally hopeless, and at last, 
 after a ten-hours' engagement, and a loss of 3000 
 men, Gustavus was compelled to draw off his 
 forces. The difficult task of effecting a retreat in the 
 face of the enemy was skilfully executed by Colonel 
 Hepburn, a Scotch officer in the Swedish service. 
 
 Offended at the promotion of an inferior officer 
 above his head, he had sworn not to draw his 
 sword for Gustavus again ; but now the king, in 
 his emergency, begged of him this favour, the 
 brave soldier forgot his resentment. " Sire, this is 
 the only service I cannot refuse to perform, since 
 it requires some daring," was his answer, and he 
 executed his task most gallantly. But it was not 
 Wallenstein's intention always to remain on the de- 
 fensive. At length, on Nov. 6, 1632, just two 
 months after the battle of Fiirth, the imperial and 
 Swedish armies were ranged against each other for 
 a decisive engagement at Liitzen, not far from 
 Leipzig. A thick fog that hung about till eleven 
 o'clock hid each army from the other. The Impe- 
 rialists were drawn up in line with four squares of 
 infantry in the centre, which were further protected 
 by trenches lined with musketeers and flanked 
 with cannon. 
 
 The king himself led the attack. Annoyed by 
 the trenches he leaped from his horse, seized a 
 pike and led on his men to pass them, and the im- 
 perial infantry were driven back. But at that mo- 
 ment Gustavus heard that his left was wavering. 
 flew to its assistance, but, in the fog, missed his 
 way, and was surrounded by a body of Imperialist 
 
. DEATH OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 2 $$ 
 
 horsemen, who fired. A ball struck. and shattered 
 his arm ; a second pierced his breast. He fell from 
 his saddle, and his masterless horse, dashing along 
 the front of the lines, proclaimed to the troops the 
 loss of their king. The Duke of Saxe-Weimar 
 cried out that Gustavus was not dead, but a pris- 
 oner, and the Swedes rushed like an avalanche on 
 the Imperialists, mad with rage, and eager to res- 
 cue their sovereign. The Imperialists gave way. 
 Two of their powder waggons exploded, and the 
 victory would have declared for the Swedes had 
 not reinforcements arrived to arrest their victorious 
 career. Then the fog came down with the ap- 
 proach of night, dense, raw, and blinding, and put 
 an end to the battle. But for the death of Gusta- 
 vus the rout of Wallenstein would have been com- 
 plete. He had lost his cannon, and his men were 
 disorganized. He withdrew to Bohemia to recon- 
 struct his army, and there he remained for a long 
 time inactive, whilst carrying on a secret correspon- 
 dence with the enemy. 
 
 Ferdinand, in the mean time, was very uneasy at 
 the tremendous power exercised by the general, and 
 he desired to escape from the obligation wherewith 
 he had bound himself when asking Wallenstein's 
 help. The town of Ratisbon, which was the key 
 to Bohemia, was besieged by the Duke of Weimar, 
 and the emperor ordered Wallenstein to relieve it. 
 But the Duke of Friedland (that was Wallenstein's 
 title) refused to be ordered about by the emperor, 
 as against the compact, and allowed Ratisbon and 
 two other important towns to be taken by the 
 
256 
 
 A SWEDISH KJXG IN GERMANY. 
 
 enemy without attempting to stay them. This 
 conduct irritated Ferdinand, and he resolved on 
 dismissing him from the supreme command. Then 
 Wallenstein, in his anger and disgust, sent offers to 
 the Protestant princes to come over to their side. 
 But they suspected that he was only deluding them 
 and put him off. The imperial court was well 
 aware of the meditated treachery, and in alarm at 
 its result. Who could resist Wallenstein, combined 
 with the Protestant princes and the Swedes? In 
 indignation Ferdinand deprived him of the com- 
 mand and pronounced against him the ban of the 
 empire. But Wallenstein was confident in his 
 power over his men. He was mistaken. 
 
 There were two Scotchmen, Gordon and Leslie, 
 and an Irishman, Butler, whom he specially trusted. 
 They had, however, been gained by the imperial 
 court. Another, Captain Devereux, was taken into 
 the plot. At midnight of February 25, 1634, Gor- 
 don, at the head of thirty soldiers, burst into Wal- 
 lenstetn's bedroom after he had retired to rest. 
 Alarmed by the tramp he sprang from his bed in 
 his night-shirt, and forced open his window to call 
 for assistance. Devereux shouted, " Are you the 
 traitor who are going to deliver the imperial troops 
 to the enemy, and tear the crown from the head of 
 the emperor?" Wallenstein made no reply. He 
 stretched out his arms. Gordon held aloft the flam- 
 ing candle, and a halbert was run through the body 
 of the great general. 
 
 Though the treachery of Wallenstein is undenia- 
 ble, his murder must ever remain as a stain on the 
 history of Austria. 
 
XLI. 
 
 PEACE AFTER THE LONG WAR. 
 
 (1648.) 
 
 After the death of Wallenstein the command over 
 the imperial army was given to the son of the em- 
 peror, afterwards Ferdinand III., and in the place of 
 Gustavus Adolphus, Duke Bernard of Weimar and 
 the Swedish general, Horn, commanded the Protest- 
 ant armies. At Nordlingen the latter were com- 
 pletely defeated. Horn was taken prisoner and 
 Bernard fled, with the loss of all his treasure and 
 twelve thousand men. The French, now jealous of 
 the power of the emperor, came to the assistance of 
 the Protestants, and formed an army, burning, butch- 
 ering and plundering over the Rhine. Success 
 swayed from side to side ; neither obtained decisive 
 victory. The country was become too exhausted to 
 endure further war. Attempts at concluding peace 
 were begun at Osnabriick and Miinster, and finally 
 concluded in 1648 ; and this is known in history as 
 the Peace of Westphalia. 
 
 This peace brought the terrible Thirty Years' War 
 to an end, but by it Germany lost some of her 
 fairest territories. France took Elsass, Sweden took 
 Pomerania. Switzerland and Holland, which had 
 
 257 
 
258 PEACE AFTER THE LONG WAR. 
 
 hitherto been united to the German Empire, were 
 separated, and recognized as independent states. 
 The supreme power was invested in the Reichstag, 
 or Imperial Diet, which was to sit permanently at 
 Ratisbon. The several German princes were made 
 almost wholly independent, so that the empire as an 
 unity was reduced to a shadow. With regard to 
 religion, Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were 
 put on the same footing of equality. All church 
 lands seized by the Protestants were to remain in 
 the hands of the Protestant princes. Pope Innocent 
 X. protested and published a bull against this decis- 
 ion, but no one paid attention to him. Germany was 
 sick to the heart of war. 
 
 Of the devastation wrought in those terrible thirty 
 years it is hard to realize the extent. Two-thirds 
 of the inhabitants had perished, not only by the 
 sword, but by the miseries which followed in the 
 train of war — famine and pestilence. Hundreds of 
 villages had disappeared ; others stood empty, un- 
 populated. The corn-fields were trampled down and 
 untilled. Trade had failed in the towns. The 
 streets were deserted and grass-grown, the doors of 
 the houses broken in. The shattered windows of 
 many dwellings showed that the inhabitants were 
 dead or were wanderers. But to come to particulars. 
 In the little duchy of Wiirtemberg, in the Thirty 
 Years' War, 8 towns, 45 villages, 68 churches, and 
 36,000 houses were destroyed. In the seven years 
 between 1634-1641, in Wiirtemberg alone, 345,000 
 persons perished. In Thuringia, before the war, in 
 19 villages were 1773 families ; of these only 316 
 
REDUCTION OF POPULATION. 
 
 259 
 
 remained after it. Before the war there were half a 
 million inhabitants in the Palatinate ; at the Peace 
 of Westphalia there were 48,000. In 161 8 the 
 population of Germany numbered between 16 and 
 17 millions ; in 1649 there were not quite 4 millions. 
 So terrible had been the famine during the war 
 that cases of cannibalism were not rare. Bands 
 of men were formed who lived like wild beasts, 
 preying on those they caught. Near Worms such 
 a band was attacked and dispersed, as they were 
 cooking in a great cauldron human legs and arms. 
 Starving creatures cut down criminals from the gal- 
 lows to eat them. So great was the depopula- 
 tion that in Franconia the state passed a law 
 authorizing every man to marry two wives, and 
 forbidding men and women from becoming monks 
 and nuns. 
 
XLII. 
 
 THREE STROKES BV A MAX IN YELLOW. 
 
 (1657-1705.) 
 
 Ten years after the Peace of Westphalia Leopold, 
 the son of Ferdinand III., was elected emperor. 
 His long reign of nearly fifty years was for the most 
 part taken up with war against Louis XIV., of 
 France. This crafty and powerful monarch had 
 made up his mind that the Rhine should be the 
 frontier of his realm. Leopold was an amiable but 
 weak sovereign, reigning at a time when one of very 
 strong character and iron will was necessary to bind 
 together the loosely cohering empire, and to meet 
 and frustrate the intrigues of Louis. 
 
 The princes of Germany were so selfish, so indif- 
 ferent to the welfare of fatherland in their greed 
 of personal advancement, that they were ready to 
 lend an ear to the wily advice of th French king, 
 and to act as his tools against their country's peace 
 and prosperity. Accordingly, many of the German 
 princes sided with the French king against their 
 emperor. By the Treaty of Westphalia Charles 
 Louis, son of the contemptible Frederick, the winter 
 king, was reinstated in the Palatinate of the Rhine, 
 of which Heidelberg was the capital, but he was 
 not given back the Upper Palatinate, which re- 
 
 260 
 
FRENCH DE VAST A TIONS. 2 6 1 
 
 mained to Bavaria. This irritated him, and he 
 readily received bribes from Louis XIV. The 
 Duke of Wiirtemberg also sided with the French, 
 as well as the electors of Mainz and Cologne, and 
 the dukes of Brunswick and Hesse-Cassel. 
 
 The result of this was that some of the fairest 
 parts of Germany, especially the right bank of the 
 Rhine and the Palatinate, were wasted by the 
 French. Towns and villages just recovering from 
 the Thirty Years' War were burnt again. Several 
 important towns were lost to Germany, especially 
 Strasburg, which was treacherously seized by Louis 
 in time of peace (1681). Louis had for some time 
 been in correspondence with some of the magis- 
 trates of Strasburg. One day M. de Louvois, the 
 French minister of war, summoned a gentleman to 
 him named Chamilly, and gave him the following 
 instructions : " Start this evening for Basle. On the 
 fourth day from this, punctually at 2 o'clock, sta- 
 tion yourself on the Rhine bridge, note-book in 
 hand, and write down everything you see going on 
 for two hours. Then at four o'clock come back, 
 travelling night and day without stopping." 
 
 Chamilly obeyed. He reached Basle, and on the 
 day and at the hour appointed stationed himself, 
 note-book in hand, on the bridge. Presently, a 
 market-cart drives by. Then an old woman with a 
 basket of fruit passes. Anon, a little urchin trun- 
 dles his hoop by. Next, an old gentleman in blue 
 top-coat jogs past on his grey mare. Three o'clock 
 chimes from the cathedral tower. Just at the last 
 stroke a tall fellow in yellow waistcoat and breeches 
 saunters up, goes to the middle of the bridge, 
 
2 62 THREE STROKES BY A MAN IN YELLOW. 
 
 lounges over, looks at the water, then strikes three 
 hearty blows with his stick on the parapet. Down 
 goes every detail in Chamilly's book. At four 
 o'clock he jumps into his carnage, and at midnight, 
 after two days of incessant travelling, presents him- 
 self before the minister, feeling ashamed of having 
 such trifles to record. M. de Louvois took the note- 
 book, and when his eye caught the mention of the 
 yellow-breeched man a gleam of joy flashed across 
 his face. He rushed to the king, roused him from 
 sleep, spoke in private with him for a few moments, 
 and then couriers were sent off in haste with sealed 
 orders. Eight days after, the city of Strasburg was 
 surrounded by French troops and summoned to sur- 
 render. It capitulated, and threw open its gates on 
 the 30th September, 1681. The three strokes of the 
 stick given by the fellow in yellow were the signal 
 that the magistrates were ready to receive the French. 
 Three pacifications were concluded with the 
 French: that of Nimwegen, which concluded the 
 Dutch war in 1678 , that of Ryswick, at the end 
 of the Orleans war, carried on because of the claim 
 of the Duchess of Orleans to the estates of her 
 brother Charles, the elector palatine, who died with- 
 out children (this was concluded in 1697); and that 
 of Utrecht, after the Spanish War of the Succession, 
 in 1714. The people called these treaties the peaces 
 of Nimweg, Reissweg, and Unrecht (take-away, 
 tear-away, and unright), because Germain- lost 
 something by them all. In order to facilitate his 
 schemes Louis XIV. stirred up the Turks to invade 
 the empire. They poured through Hungary and 
 laid siege to Vienna, which held out valiantly for 
 
 yu 
 
DEFEA T OF THE TURKS. 
 
 263 
 
 two months. The Turks swept the neighborhood 
 and sent eighty-seven thousand of the inhabitants 
 into slavery. They blew up the walls, and the city 
 was surrounded by ruins and piles of rubbish. Still 
 the dauntless Viennese held out, animated by their 
 gallant commander, Count Stahrenberg, who, though 
 wounded, was carried in a litter, and by their 
 bishop, Kolonitsch, who devoted himself zealously 
 to ministering to the wounded. At last, in despair, 
 
 
 
 k 
 
 BERLIN IN 1660. 
 
 they sent up a flight of rockets from the top of the 
 spire of S. Stephen's Church. It was answered by 
 the discharge of fire-arms ; John Sobieski, King of 
 Poland, had come to the rescue. The Turks were 
 defeated and driven back with a loss of twenty 
 thousand men. When the tent of the visir who 
 commanded the Turks was taken, the letters of 
 Louis XIV. were found in it, inciting him against 
 the Austrians. 
 
 During this sad time of hostility two men espe- 
 cially distinguished themselves by their high char- 
 acters, genius, and courage, these were the " Great 
 Elector" and Prince Eugene. 
 
R?? 
 
 WM 
 
 
 awn «£3 
 
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 XLIII. 
 
 A NOBLE RULER. 
 
 (1640-168S.) 
 
 By the Peace of Westphalia Germany was di- 
 vided into a great number of independent states. 
 The princes of these states, as already said, cared 
 little for the commonwealth, and were bent on their 
 own selfish ends, and they set the emperor at defi- 
 ance. The Elector of Brandenburg was a noble 
 exception. 
 
 Henry I. had created the Margravate of Branden- 
 burg as a bulwark against the heathen Wends, who 
 lived on the Baltic. It was not then called Bran- 
 denburg but the Northmark. But Albert the Bear, 
 who conquered the greater portion of the Wend- 
 land and annexed it to his state, called himself Mar- 
 grave of Brandenburg. His race died out, and at 
 the time of the Council of Constance, Frederick of 
 Hohenzollern, Burgrave of Nuremberg, bought the 
 margravate from the emperor Sigismund, in 141 5. 
 You may remember an account given of Hohen- 
 staufen, the cradle of the great Swabian emperors. 
 Hohenzollern, the cradle of the kings of Prussia and 
 present emperors of Germany, is just such another 
 conical hill, in the same Swabian table-land. It be- 
 
 264 
 
SWABIA'S CONICAL HILL. 
 
 26: 
 
 longs now to the emperor, who has rebuilt the cas- 
 tle with great splendour. You may remember also 
 how you were told that Albert of Brandenburg, 
 Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, became a 
 Lutheran and seized on Prussia, which was the 
 possession of the Order, and made it his own as a 
 
 MEN OF WAR OF THE GREAT ELECTOR. 
 (From model in Berlin.) 
 
 hereditary state. Albert left granddaughters, and 
 Joachim Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg, mar- 
 ried Eleanor, the younger, and his son, John Sigis- 
 mund, married Anna, the elder, and secured the 
 Duchy of Prussia to their family. The relationship 
 was strange. Eleanor was thus stepmother to her 
 elder sister, and the stepmother was seven years 
 younger than her stepdaughter. Frederick William, 
 the Great Elector, was grandson of John Sigismund 
 and Anna. Under him a great deal of additional 
 
266 
 
 A XOBLE RULER. 
 
 territory was got, but he gained his name of " The 
 Great Elector " partly by his wise government of his 
 states, and partly by his brilliant military achieve- 
 ments. He stood faithfully by the side of the em- 
 peror and resisted all the overtures of the King of 
 France. Louis XIV., to keep his dangerous oppo- 
 nent engaged at a distance from the Rhine, made a 
 league with the Swedes, and induced them to attack 
 Brandenburg whilst the elector was on the Upper 
 
 THE GREAT ELECTOR AND WIFE. 
 (From a medal.) 
 
 Rhine. But no sooner did he hear of their descent 
 than he hastened home with forced marches and 
 encountered them when they least expected his 
 presence. A battle was fought at Fehrbellin. Dur- 
 ing the fight his equerry, Frobenius, observed that 
 the enemy's fire was mainly directed against the 
 elector himself, who was distinguished by the white 
 horse he rode. Frobenius induced the elector to 
 change mounts with him. Scarce had he done so 
 and gone two paces from his master when a can- 
 non-ball struck him dead. Shortly after, Frederick 
 
THE SWEDES DEFEATED. 267 
 
 William saw himself surrounded by the enemy, but 
 he had nine dragoons with him, and they hewed their 
 way through. After a desperate struggle the Bran- 
 denburgers won the day, and the Swedes, who had 
 been thought invincible, were obliged to take to 
 flight. In the winter of 1678 the Swedes again in- 
 vaded Prussia, but were repulsed by the elector, who 
 pursued them in sledges over the frozen Gulf of 
 Courland, caught them again at Riga, and again de- 
 feated them. 
 
XLIV. 
 
 BITTERLY FIGHTING THE TURKS. 
 
 Prince Eugene of Savoy was a small man of no 
 presence, whose mission it was to check the ad- 
 vance of Louis XIV. in Germany on the West, and 
 in the East to break the power of the Turks. On 
 account of his feeble body he had been designed 
 for the Church, and was nicknamed "the little Ab- 
 bot." But Eugene felt no call for the religious 
 life, and a very great desire to be a soldier. He 
 first offered his services to Louis XIV., but that 
 king dismissed him contemptuously, and then he 
 left France and took part in the Austrian wars 
 against the Turks. During the siege of Vienna, in 
 1683, he displayed such heroism that the emperor 
 gave him the command of a regiment of dragoons. 
 The great dragoons scoffed at their officer and said, 
 " Hah ! the Abbotikin in his grey cloak won't 
 reach the chins of the Turks to pull their beards." 
 But they were mistaken. He not only pulled their 
 beards, but pulled them over and made them bite 
 the dust. In 1697 he was given his first command 
 over an army, and was sent to oppose the Turks, 
 who had invaded Hungary under the lead of the 
 sultan. Eugene came on them as they were crossing 
 
 268 
 
PULLING THE TURKISH BEARDS. 269 
 
 the river Teiss on a temporary bridge, and with the 
 loss of only 500 men completely routed the Turks, 
 who lost 30,000 men, and sent the sultan flying 
 back to Constantinople. 
 
 Louis XIV. now did all in his power to gain the 
 little man. He offered him the title of field-marshal, 
 the governorship of a French province, and a large 
 sum of money. But Eugene sent the messengers 
 back with the answer, " Tell your king that I am 
 field-marshal to an emperor, which is quite as hon- 
 ourable an office as that he offers me. As for 
 money, I do not want it. As long as I faithfully 
 serve my master, he will not suffer me to lack." 
 Prince Eugene completely won the hearts of his 
 soldiers. He looked carefully after their wants, and 
 when their pay was in arrear he would pay them 
 out of his own pocket. He was frank and kindly in 
 address ; and when the little man called to his sol- 
 diers to show their metal, it was like sending an 
 electric shock through them ; they would go any- 
 where, do anything he told them. He gained great 
 renown through his success against the Turks, who 
 were not only the enemies of Austria, but of Chris- 
 tendom. He defeated them in several battles, and 
 at length forced them to conclude a peace greatly 
 to the advantage of the emperor. 
 
 Eugene was soon to gain even greater renown by 
 his victories over the French. 
 
XLV. 
 
 ALL EUROPE AT WAR. 
 
 (1701-1714.) 
 
 AFTER the death of Charles II. of Spain, without 
 children, Louis XIV. of France, the emperor, Leo- 
 pold I., and Joseph Ferdinand, Elector of Bavaria, 
 all put in a claim to the crown of Spain. This 
 occasioned a war of thirteen years, in which the 
 principal European states were involved. It began 
 under Leopold I., was carried on by his son, Joseph 
 I., and only came to an end under Charles VI., the 
 brother of Joseph I. 
 
 On the side of the emperor were Holland, Eng- 
 land, Portugal, the Elector of Hanover, and the 
 Elector Frederick of Brandenburg, who, with the 
 consent of the emperor, assumed the title of King 
 of Prussia. 
 
 The command of the allies was given to Prince 
 Eugene and the illustrious English general, the 
 Duke of Marlborough. Against such able com- 
 manders the French could do nothing. They were 
 beaten in Germany, beaten in the Netherlands, and 
 beaten in Italy. Their allies were the Elector of 
 Bavaria and the Pope. Moreover, an insurrection 
 broke out in Hungary at the very time that they 
 
 270 
 
 *i 
 
FREDERICK I., KING OF PRUSSIA. 
 (From the painting by Wenzel.) 
 
 27 r 
 
2J 2 ALL EUROPE AT IVAR. 
 
 were invading Germany, so as greatly to distract 
 the imperial forces. Prince Eugene began the war 
 in Italy, but speedily Germany became the scene 
 of conflict, as Louis XIV. poured an army over the 
 Rhine, across the Black Forest to the Danube, 
 threatening Vienna. This great army, which was 
 joined by the Bavarians, numbered 56,000 men, 
 and Marlborough and Eugene were only able to 
 oppose 52,000 to them. The great and decisive 
 battle, upon which the fate of the House of Austria 
 hung, was fought at Blenheim, a village on the 
 Danube, between Ulm and Ingolstadt. The French 
 were drawn up behind the small stream, the Nebel- 
 bach, which forms swamps and marshes, before 
 it falls into the Danube. In addition to these 
 swamps ninety pieces of cannon protected the 
 centre. On the right the French had the village 
 of Blenheim ; and the left rested on a thick wood. 
 Marlborough and Eugene drew up before the 
 swamp, in order of battle, Marlborough on the left 
 and centre, and Eugene on the right. The battle 
 began with an attack by the British infantry on 
 Blenheim, but they were repulsed, after repeated 
 encounters, with great slaughter. Then Marlbor- 
 ough suddenly gathered them together and drove 
 them like a wedge against the centre, scrambling, 
 floundering through the swamps, but going on 
 as Englishmen will go, although the 90 cannon 
 pounded them. A cannon-ball grazed his horse 
 and threw Marlborough to the ground ; the troops 
 trembled for their leader ; the fate of Austria 
 hung suspended on the life of the general. But 
 
SUBMISSION OF DUKE OF BA VAKIA. 
 
 273 
 
 next moment he was seen mounted again. A ring- 
 ing cheer burst from the British, and on they went, 
 flinging bundles and faggots before them into the 
 marsh, and stepping over on them. Marlborough 
 got the cavalry over first and charged up the slope 
 at the French and Bavarians. After the cavalry 
 came the infantry. The centre gave way, recoiled ; 
 the enemy's force broke up, and nothing remained 
 but a disorganized multitude. Of the enemy 40,- 
 000 men were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. 
 They lost 300 standards and 120 pieces of cannon. 
 
 The present post-road has been carried over the 
 battle-field, and, to make a foundation, heaps of 
 bones of horses and men have been shovelled in 
 that were found there when the road was con- 
 structed. Broken, dispersed, and ruined, the 
 wretched remains of that army which had threat- 
 ened Germany with bondage, and spread terror to 
 the gates of Vienna, made the best of its way back 
 to the Rhine and Vosges, pursued by the allies. 
 The first result of this victory was the submission 
 of the Duke of Bavaria ; the next was that the 
 emperor was able to send troops into Hungary to 
 quell the insurrection there. The battle of Blen- 
 heim was fought on Aug. 2, 1704. The scene of 
 warfare now passed to the Netherlands ; but Marl- 
 borough remained inactive all 1705, watching the 
 French, who contemptuously invented and piped a 
 song, " Marlborough s'en va t'en guerre," which 
 was played before his lines to fire him into activity ; 
 but Marlborough knew what he was about, and 
 on May 12, 1706, he went to war in good earnest, 
 
JOSEPH I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY. 
 
 274 
 
TREATY OF KASTADT. 
 
 275 
 
 met the French at Ramillies and totally defeated 
 them. He beat them again in 1708 at Oudenarde, 
 and again with great loss at Malplaquet in 1709. 
 At the same time Eugene was defeating the French 
 in Italy. Overwhelmed by these disasters Louis 
 XIV. tried to make peace. He offered to give up 
 all claim to Spain, and even to supply money to 
 help the allies to expel his grandson, Philip of 
 Anjou, the new king, out of Spain. But the allies 
 were not satisfied with these offers. They insisted 
 on Louis himself driving his grandson out of Spain, 
 and binding himself to do it within two months. 
 This was asking for the impossible, and Louis XIV. 
 said, with reason, " Well, if I must fight, let it be 
 against my natural enemies, not against my own 
 children." 
 
 "Pride," says the proverb, "goes before a fall." 
 This proved true now. Fortune turned quite unex- 
 pectedly, and favoured the French king. The emper- 
 or Joseph I. died without children, and the Austrian 
 inheritance passed to his brother Charles, who 
 claimed the throne of Spain. But European sover- 
 eigns did not want to have an emperor with the 
 dominions of Charles V., so he was forced to give up 
 his claims to Spain, and the grandson of Louis XIV. 
 was acknowledged as king and took the title of 
 Philip V. This was the result of the agreement 
 come to by the powers at the Peace of Utrecht in 
 171 3, and the emperor was obliged next year to con- 
 sent to it at the Treaty of Rastadt. 
 
XLVI. 
 
 POWDERED WIGS AND PATCHES. 
 
 We are now at the period of powdered wigs and 
 patched faces. It is called the period of rococco, 
 from rodie and coquille, rock and shell, as the orna- 
 mental work in architectural decoration affected a 
 combination of rock and shell work. There was a 
 general reaction against the stiffness of former times. 
 All straight lines were avoided ; gentlemen even 
 studied to stand in curved attitudes. The ladies in 
 the 1 6th century had worn rich and thick damask 
 silks, embroidered till they were stiff. At the mar- 
 riage of a princess of one of the Saxon families she 
 found it impossible to kneel, and was obliged to be 
 married standing, like an extinguisher, with her 
 skirts hard as board. But now the ladies wore light 
 silk and satin, with their skirts looped up in paniers, 
 showing petticoats of another colour. Their heads 
 of hair were, however, piled up and interwoven with 
 ribbands and chains of pearls, and feathers and 
 flowers were stuck into them, so that before going 
 out in such array they could not lie down to sleep 
 in their beds. 
 
 Gentlemen wore white powdered wigs, velvet 
 coats richly frogged, and long satin embroidered 
 waistcoats, satin breeches, and silk stockings. They 
 had their faces closely shaved. The story is told of 
 
 276 
 
 ~ 
 
LUXURY AND EXTRAVAGANCE. 
 
 277 
 
 a duchess, Louise Maria Gonzaga, niece of Louis 
 XIV., when she was shown the portrait of Ladislas, 
 King of Poland, whom she was to marry, that she 
 exclaimed: — " But — he is deformed! He has two 
 great moles, like rats' tails, growing on his upper 
 lip ! " — These were his moustaches. She had never 
 seen, or supposed it possible, that men's hair grew 
 thus. 
 
 A great deal of building 
 went on in Germany at this 
 time, and the churches in the 
 Catholic parts, which had 
 been half wrecked by the 
 Swedes, were restored. 
 Statues were sculptured in 
 theatrical attitudes, and cov- 
 ered with tinfoil washed over 
 with colour to represent sat- 
 in. Everything that could 
 be gilt was overlaid with gold 
 leaf. It was a splendour- 
 loving time. In the courts, 
 luxury and extravagance 
 were unbridled, and the 
 peasantry were ground down 
 with taxes to supply funds for this prodigality. 
 
 During the Thirty Years' War most of the old 
 country nobility had died out or been impoverished. 
 The only people who had gained by these wars 
 were the princes, who were left alone, with no one to 
 stand between them and the people, and they ruled 
 by caprice, levying taxes as they wanted money. 
 
 HEAD-DRESSES. (TIME OF 
 FREDERICK WILLIAM II.) 
 
V 
 
 POWDERED WIGS AND PATCHES. 
 
 The emperor took to issuing patents of nobility 
 and selling titles to raise money, and the princes 
 did the same. Any one who could find money 
 was able to obtain what title he desired. 
 
 The poetry of the period is pompous and unnat- 
 ural, but to this rococco age one art owes its 
 birth, that of music. 
 
 . 
 
XLVII. 
 
 THE TROUBLES OF A NOBLE QUEEN. 
 (1740-1745.) 
 
 GERMAN history enters on a new epoch in the 
 year 1740. In this year Frederick II. became King 
 of Prussia, and Maria Theresa became sovereign in 
 Austria. But the insatiable greed of increasing 
 their power, which seems to have been inherent in 
 the Hohenzollerns, impelled Frederick into war with 
 Maria Theresa at the very beginning of their reigns, 
 costing many thousands of men their lives and 
 wasting many fair provinces. The occasion was 
 this : — 
 
 The emperor, Charles VI., died without male 
 issue. His efforts had been directed during his 
 reign chiefly to one point, to secure the Austrian 
 dominions to his admirable daughter, Maria Theresa. 
 To this end he contrived that an agreement should 
 be signed both by the estates of the empire and the 
 Austrian monarchy, and also by the reigning princes 
 of Europe. This agreement was called " THE PRAG- 
 MATIC Sanction." When Charles VI. died, in 
 1740, Maria Theresa, who was married to Duke 
 Francis of Lorraine, seized the reins of government 
 of all the lands belonging to Austria, that is, Bohe- 
 
 279 
 
2 8o THK TROUBLES OF A NOBLE QUE EX. 
 
 mia, Hungary, Austria proper, Tyrol, Styria, Car- 
 inthia, etc. But, in spite of the Pragmatic Sanction, 
 various claims were made for several of these lands. 
 The ambassador of Charles Albert, Elector of Ba- 
 
 KREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 (From a Drawing by Chodowiecki.) 
 
 varia, entered Vienna to announce that his sover- 
 eign could not acknowledge the young queen as 
 heiress and successor to her father, because the 
 House of Bavaria laid claims to the Austrian inher- 
 itance. 
 
 Frederick II. of Prussia, also, seeing that he had 
 
RUDE ROYALTY. 2 8l 
 
 to do with a young and feeble woman, bluster- 
 ingly demanded some of the Silesian principalities. 
 As Maria Theresa had sufficient spirit to refuse 
 these insolent demands war broke out, in which 
 France, Spain, and Poland took part with Bavaria 
 and Prussia against her. These wars go by the 
 name of the "War of the Austrian Succession," 
 and the ''Three Silesian Wars." 
 
 Maria Theresa is one of the noblest and best of 
 women who have made themselves a name in his- 
 tory. In the spring of her life, nobly built, her 
 dignity of majesty and charm of womanhood com- 
 bined to turn the scale of her fortunes at the most 
 critical period in her career. The Elector of Cologne 
 acknowledged her only by the title of archduchess. 
 The Elector Palatine sent her a letter by the com- 
 mon post, superscribed, " To the Archduchess Maria 
 Theresa," and the King of Spain refused her any 
 other title than Duchess of Tuscany. Her hus- 
 band was a poor creature, who treated her without 
 regard, and was no strength to her in her trials. 
 At first only the King of Prussia seemed to stand 
 by her ; he promised his support whilst collecting 
 his troops for a descent on Silesia. It was with 
 surprise, therefore, that the young queen re- 
 ceived an insolent demand for Silesia from the 
 rude messenger of Frederick II. Even the minis- 
 ters of the Prussian king blushed at their master's 
 conduct. 
 
 A battle was fought at Molwitz. The right wing 
 of the Prussians was broken ; whereupon King 
 Frederick galloped away as hard as his horse could 
 
282 TROUBLES OF A NOBLE QUEEN. 
 
 carry him, in spite of the entreaty of his officers to 
 stay, and never drew rein till he came to Oppeln, 
 where, to his dismay, he found a party of Austrian 
 hussars, who fired, but before they could gain their 
 horses the king galloped back to his troops, and 
 found to his astonishment that they had gained a 
 complete victory during his absence. 
 
 After this victory his insolence was unbounded. 
 The English sent an ambassador to mediate, and 
 spoke of magnanimity. " Magnanimity ! Bah!" 
 he shouted, " I care only for my own interests." 
 Maria Theresa offered to yield three duchies in 
 Silesia. " Before the war they might have con- 
 tented me. Now I want more," said Frederick. 
 " What do I care about peace ? Let those who 
 want it give me what I want ; if not, let them fight 
 me, and be beaten again." 
 
XLVIII. 
 
 THE QUEEN'S BABY BOY. 
 
 (1741-1748.) 
 
 WHEN things had come to this pass, the Elector 
 of Bavaria, supported by the French, advanced his 
 claims by force of arms. He marched upon Vienna. 
 At Linz he had homage done to himself as Arch- 
 duke of Austria. He was within three days' march 
 of Vienna, and Maria Theresa was without an 
 army, for that in Silesia was held in check by Fred- 
 erick of Prussia. Her treasury was empty. She 
 fled from her capital to Presburg in Hungary, 
 convoked the magnates, and appeared among them 
 attired in Hungarian costume, the crown of S. Ste- 
 phen on her head and his sword at her side. Radi- 
 ant with beauty and spirit she addressed the diet, 
 and called on the nobles as cavaliers to stand by a 
 woman in her jeopardy. Then she held up her 
 baby boy in her hands before the assembly, and 
 the tears came welling out of her beautiful eyes. 
 Then came the answer. The whole diet rose 
 and flashed their swords from their scabbards, and 
 as a roll of thunder, " Moriamur pro rege nostro, 
 Maria Theresa ! " (" We will die for our sovereign, 
 Maria Theresa.") 
 
 283 
 
MARIA THERESA. 
 (From a painting by Kilian.) 
 
 284 
 
A BRIEF REIGN. 
 
 285 
 
 In England the unprovoked aggression of the 
 King of Prussia had excited general indignation, and 
 Parliament granted 300,000 pounds to the queen. 
 
 In a short time a considerable army of Hun- 
 garians and Croats was assembled, which in a few 
 weeks cleared Austria of the Bavarians and French, 
 and pursued them into Bavaria, and took the capi- 
 tal, Munich. The French, who were in possession 
 of Prague, were blockaded, but broke out in the 
 depth of winter and escaped over the snowy fields, 
 leaving their course strewn with frozen corpses. 
 Out of forty thousand men who had entered Bohe- 
 mia only 3000 survived the miseries of the retreat 
 and returned to France. 
 
 But the Austrians opposed to Frederick II. had 
 been less successful. The king defeated them again, 
 and then, alarmed at the gathering power of Maria 
 Theresa, concluded a peace with her, by which she 
 made over to him a large portion of Silesia. 
 
 On the very day on which the Austrian army 
 entered Munich the elector was crowned emperor 
 at Frankfort, under the name of Charles VII., but 
 the new emperor was unable to show himself in 
 his own dominions. His reign was short, and full 
 of trouble, which he had brought on himself. The 
 war continued, with varying fortune. George II. of 
 England himself took part in it at the head of an 
 army of Hanoverians and Hessians, which, united to 
 the imperial army, gained a signal victory over the 
 French at Dettingen. The news of the victory 
 reached Vienna before the queen heard it. She 
 was far down the Danube, but on her return she 
 
2 86 THE Q I EEX 'S BABY BO Y. 
 
 found the banks for nine miles lined with people 
 cheering, the cannon on the fortifications were boom- 
 ing, and the bells of the churches pealing. She 
 entered her capital in a sort of triumph, and went 
 at once to the Cathedral to return thanks to God. 
 Shortly after, other good news came to her: Egna 
 Neumarkt was taken, and all her hereditary posses- 
 sions were secured to her. 
 
 Frederick II., " the Great," was uneasy at these 
 successes, and feared that Maria Theresa would be 
 demanding back the Silesian duchies. Accordingly, 
 with great secrecy, he intrigued with the English, 
 and drew them away from the Austrian alliance, 
 and then suddenly and unexpectedly invaded Bohe- 
 mia, and defeated the imperial generals in several 
 battles. He was greatly helped by a Very odd man, 
 a relative, the Prince of Dessau, a rough soldier, 
 gaunt in shape and long in limb. Prince Eugene 
 was wont to call him the " Bull-dog." He would not 
 let his sons have a tutor, as he said he wanted them 
 to make themselves, and not to be manufactured by 
 others. He had a French chamberlain, called Cha- 
 lesac. One night the prince came in very drunk, 
 and his chamberlain ventured to remonstrate with 
 him. The " old Dessauer " seized a pair of pistols, 
 and aiming at Chalesac's head, roared, " You dog! 
 I will shoot you ! '' " Do so if you will," answered the 
 chamberlain, " but it will look ugly in history." The 
 prince thought a moment, laid down the pistols, and 
 said, "Yes, it would not read respectably." One 
 day, in church, the preacher gave out the first verse 
 of a hymn : — 
 
AN ANGR V PRINCE. 2 S 7 
 
 •' Neither hunger nor thirst, 
 Nor want nor pain, 
 Nor wrath of the Great Prince 
 Can me restrain." 
 
 The prince, thinking he was alluded to, grasped 
 his walking-stick, and made a rush up the pulpit 
 stairs to thrash the pastor for his insolence. The 
 minister screamed, " Sire ! I mean Beelzebub, Beel- 
 zebub, not your highness ! " and scarce pacified the 
 furious prince, and saved his own hide. 
 
 The first Silesian war was from 1740 to 1742. The 
 second war was from 1744 to 1745, and was con- 
 cluded by the treaty of Dresden, whereby Maria 
 Theresa was once more compelled to cede Silesia 
 to the victorious Prussian. In this year the em- 
 peror, Charles VII., whom Maria Theresa had re- 
 fused to recognize, died, whereupon her husband 
 was elected emperor, under the title of Francis I. 
 Maximilian, the son of Charles VII., received back 
 the duchy of Bavaria, and gave up his claims on the 
 Austrian inheritance. 
 
 In 1748 peace was concluded at Aix, whereby 
 Maria Theresa lost two provinces in Italy. Silesia 
 was already lost, as you have heard. 
 
 You have not heard of the fighting that went on 
 in Italy, but the war had raged there, as well as in 
 Germany and the Netherlands, and the King of Sar- 
 dinia had been the queen's great adversary in Italy. 
 
XLIX. 
 THE HARDSHIPS OF A YOUNG PRINCE. 
 
 Frederick William I.,* King of Prussia, the 
 father of Frederick the Great, was a brutal, hard man, 
 but not without some good points in his character. 
 He hated ceremony, but not ceremony only, — the 
 very decencies of life. His great amusement was to 
 get foreign guests into his Tcvbagie, or smoking-room, 
 and there ply them with beer till he made them sick. 
 He despised and hated learning, and when Baron 
 Gundling, a very learned man, was invited to dine 
 with the king, Frederick William had an ape intro- 
 duced, dressed exactly like the savant, and made 
 the ape sit by him at table. To show his scorn for 
 learning, he moreover insisted on having Gundling, 
 when he died, buried in a cask, instead of a coffin. 
 His daughter, in her memoirs, says, " My brother 
 Frederick told me that one morning, when he went 
 into the king's room, our father seized him by the 
 hair, flung him down, and after he had exhausted 
 the strength of his arm on the boy's poor body he 
 dragged him to the window, took the curtain rope, 
 and twisted it round his neck. The prince had 
 
 * Frederick William I. was grandson of Frederick William, " the 
 Great Elector." 
 
 288 
 
ROYAL WHIMSIES. 
 
 289 
 
 presence of mind and strength to grasp his father's 
 hands and scream for help. A chamberlain came 
 in and plucked the boy away from the king." 
 
 As Frederick William was riding round Berlin 
 one day he saw a poor Jew slink out of his way. 
 He stopped, seized him, and asked him his reason. 
 " Sire ! I was afraid of you ! " said the scared He- 
 brew. The king caught him by the nape of the 
 neck, and, laying on to him with his riding whip, 
 with fury roared, " Love me ! You shall love me ! 
 I'll teach you to love me! " 
 
 His great ambition was to make of Prussia a war- 
 like state. His recruiting officers went everywhere, 
 securing very big men for his grenadier guard, 
 whom they obtained by the most underhand means. 
 
 He hated the French, their language, their cul- 
 ture, their manners, and to show his detestation 
 of them he ordered the jailors to be dressed in the 
 last Parisian fashions. 
 
 The young prince, Frederick, was hated by his 
 father because the boy was timid, and shrank from 
 him. He mistook this timidity for cowardice, and 
 sought to make the poor child love him by beating 
 him, after the way of his teaching the Jew. The 
 young Frederick took eagerly to French, read 
 French books, and played the flute. Unfortunately, 
 the books that fell in his way were those of Vol- 
 taire, who held up religion and morality to ridicule, 
 and scoffed at all that Christians hold sacred. 
 Frederick was forced by his father to attend long- 
 winded Calvinist sermons. He was denied innocent 
 pleasures, such as his flute, and the result was that 
 
290 
 
 THE HARDSHIPS OF A YOUNG PRINCE. 
 
 he became, whilst quite young, dissipated and unbe- 
 lieving. The king went out of his way to insult 
 the prince in public, and 
 to show him and all the 
 court how he hated him. 
 But when the king tried 
 to force him to surrender 
 his claim to succession to 
 the throne, the prince re- 
 plied, " I would rather 
 have my head cut off than 
 abandon my right/' 
 
 At last the situation 
 became intolerable, and 
 when, finally, the king 
 was about to marry Fred- 
 erick against his will, the 
 prince resolved to fly to 
 his uncle, the King of 
 England. His sister, 
 Wilhelmina, and two 
 friends, Keith and Katte, 
 were in the plot. He 
 made his attempt to es- 
 cape when attending his 
 father on a journey to 
 the Rhine. But the plan 
 was divulged to the king, 
 and he was arrested. 
 When brought before his 
 father, Frederick William was in such a fury that 
 he drew his sword and would have run him through 
 
 ONE OF FREDERICK-WILLIAM'S 
 
 GRENADIERS. 
 
A BRUTAL FATHER. 2 Q1 
 
 the body with it had not one of his generals who 
 was present sprung between, caught the king's arm, 
 and cried out, " Sire ! run me through if you will, 
 but spare your own son." Then the prince was 
 thrown into prison at Kiistren. His friend Katte 
 was condemned to death, and the king forced his son 
 to see his friend hanged before the window of his 
 prison. Keith had saved himself by flight. The 
 king had sentence of death pronounced against the 
 prince. Then an old general exclaimed, " Sire ! if 
 your Majesty will have blood, take mine, and wel- 
 come ; but as long as I have a voice to raise in pro- 
 test you shall not have that of the crown prince." 
 The emperor, Charles VI., also interfered, and in- 
 formed the king that the crown prince could only be 
 condemned capitally at an imperial diet. "Very 
 well," said the king, " then I will hold my own court 
 on him at Konigsberg, which is outside the confines 
 of the empire, where no one can control me." A 
 faithful servant boldly answered, " Only God, sire, 
 will be over you there, to call you to task for shed- 
 ding your son's blood." At these words the king 
 became grave, and said no more about the execu- 
 tion of Frederick. 
 
 All this while the prince was in close confine- 
 ment. He had a hard bench for his seat, the floor 
 for his bed, and he was fed on prison fare. At last 
 he wrote a penitential letter to his father, acknowl- 
 edging that he had done wrong, and promising 
 not to be disobedient for the future. In order 
 thoroughly to crush his obstinacy the king did 
 not give him his freedom at once, but kept him 
 
292 
 
 THE HARDSHIPS OF A YOUNG PRINCE. 
 
 under watch at Kiistren for two years. At last, on 
 the marriage of his sister Wilhelmina to the Prince 
 of Baireuth, his father allowed him to return to 
 Berlin. Father and son were reconciled, and 
 thenceforth Frederick William called him his " dear 
 Fritz." 
 
 The king bought for him the castle of Rheins- 
 berg, near Neu-Ruppin, for his residence. There 
 Frederick spent the happiest days of his life. He 
 collected the most famous men of letters about 
 him, and devoted himself to science and music ; 
 and he carried on a correspondence with Voltaire 
 and other celebrated French philosophers and 
 poets. Both father and son learnt to regard each 
 other with mutual esteem, and Frederick William 
 exclaimed in his last illness, " I thank my God 
 that I shall have so worthy a successor; I shall die 
 content." 
 
 The treatment which Frederick had received left 
 
 its fatal effects on his character; it made him hard, 
 
 •selfish, and unscrupulous ; and so it came about that 
 
 he behaved unworthily of a great man about the 
 
 Silesian duchies. 
 
L. 
 
 THE ARMY OF CUT-AND-RUN. 
 
 (1756-1763.) 
 
 Maria Theresa could not forget Silesia snatched 
 from her unjustly. Moreover, the growth of the 
 power and influence of Prussia was a cause of envy 
 to other princes. Maria Theresa was able by this 
 means to unite a large confederation against Prus- 
 sia. France, Russia, and Saxony took part against 
 it ; and it was proposed to deprive the king of his 
 royal title, and reduce him to be merely Margrave 
 of Brandenburg. Prussia succeeded in securing 
 England as her ally. George II. himself disliked 
 Frederick, and would willingly have continued the' 
 alliance with Austria, but the English parliament 
 ranged itself on the side of Prussia. Following his 
 usual tactics of making cat-like leaps before his en- 
 emies expected an attack, Frederick, without even 
 declaring war, invaded Saxony, defeated the Aus- 
 trians, and surrounded and captured a Saxon army. 
 This was the opening of the Seven Years' War, or 
 Third Silesian War. 
 
 In this war Frederick proved himself a gen- 
 eral of the first order. Although he had half 
 Europe opposed to him, yet he was almost always 
 
 2 93 
 
294 
 
 THE ARMY OF CUT-AND-RUN. 
 
 conqueror. He defeated the Austrians at Prague 
 and Leuthen ; an imperial and French army was 
 routed by him at Rossbach ; a Russian army was put 
 to flight by him at Zorndorf. However, he met with 
 reverses at Kollin and Hochkirch before the Aus- 
 trians. Moreover, he lost the battle of Runersdorf 
 when opposed to Austrians and Russians united. 
 But in spite of all his heroism and his many suc- 
 cesses Frederick would certainly have been over- 
 whelmed in the end if the allies had not gradually 
 withdrawn their assistance from Austria, till at 
 length Prussia and Austria were left alone, face to 
 face. As both were exhausted by the long war, 
 peace was concluded at the hunting lodge Huberts- 
 burg, in Saxony, and Silesia was left in the hands 
 of Frederick. It remains Prussian to this day. 
 
 Among all the great and remarkable battles 
 fought in the Seven Years' War, that of Rossbach 
 deserves special notice. 
 
 Late in the year of 1757 Frederick the Great had 
 advanced at the head of 20,000 men to the River 
 Saale, to drive the French and a division of the 
 imperial army out of Saxony. The latter were 
 thrice as numerous as the Prussians, and rejoiced at 
 the prospect of a battle with such preponderance, 
 thinking that now at last they would be able to 
 surround and crush the king. 
 
 Frederick had encamped on rising ground. The 
 French marched round the hill with their bands 
 playing, thinking to enclose the Prussians. With 
 the capture of the king they trusted to bring the 
 war to an end. The Prussians remained motion- 
 
 
THE CHARGE OF SEIDLITZ. 
 
 295 
 
 less ; the smoke rose from their camp-fires , they 
 were eating their breakfasts. Frederick was in the 
 castle on the hill. He knocked a hole in the roof, 
 climbed through, and sat there for an hour watch- 
 ing the movements of the enemy, then he came 
 down and ate a hearty breakfast. When he saw the 
 heads of the enemy's columns opposite his left 
 flank he gave the signal. At once the tents were 
 furled, the soldiers sprang to arms, the drums rat- 
 tled, the lines formed, the concealed cannon began 
 to spout flame, and roar ; the cavalry general, Seid- 
 litz, charged down the hill at the enemy, hurled 
 himself at their ranks, and broke them before they 
 had time to form into line of battle. The enemy, 
 unprepared for such rapid movements, gave way 
 in panic, and in less than half an hour the battle 
 was won, with the loss on the Prussian side of not 
 more than 300 men, whilst on the side of the allies 
 4000 were killed and wounded, 7000, with eleven 
 generals, were taken prisoners, and sixty-three can- 
 nons and twenty-two standards fell into the hands 
 of the conquerors. The French fled without re- 
 forming, a broken, disorganized, panic-stricken rab- 
 ble, and did not stop till they had placed the Rhine 
 between themselves and the formidable Prussians. 
 The popular humour nicknamed the French host 
 thus defeated the Army of Cut-and-Run (Reiss- 
 aus-Armee). 
 
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 Si V<M(^r 
 
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 V «i 
 
 iBfts 
 
 tlrir-^ 
 
 LI. 
 
 OLD FRITZ REPAIRS RUINS. 
 
 AFTER the victorious conclusion of the Seven 
 Years' War the king devoted his attentions to the 
 repair of the ruin wrought by it. The war had 
 caused his subjects terrible sufferings. It is said that 
 14,500 houses lay in ashes, and so many men had 
 been consumed in his armies that there were not men 
 to till the fields, nor horses to draw the harvest 
 wanes. In Saxony 100,000 men had perished of 
 famine alone; in Bohemia 180,000 had died of 
 hunger ; but Prussia and Silesia had suffered less 
 from this cause, because the king and his minister, 
 Schalaberndorf, had enforced the cultivation ol 
 the potato. At first, great prejudice had existed 
 against this useful tuber, but Frederick saw its value 
 and insisted on its growth. As many as twenty 
 thousand persons emigrated from Bohemia, from 
 the trampled and burnt corn-fields, to eat the po- 
 tatoes in Prussia and live. The king had the 
 ruined villages rebuilt. He provided the impover- 
 ished farmers with grain to sow, and he imported 
 horses which he distributed among them. He 
 had drains and canals cut to dry swamps, and he 
 improved the roads. Every year he went the 
 round of his land, to sec how it was prospering, 
 
 296 
 
FREDERICK THE GREAT. 
 (From the Painting by Bause.) 
 
 297 
 
298 
 
 OLD FRITZ REPAIRS RL'LXS. 
 
 and to remedy abuses. When he saw a tract 
 under cultivation which had before been moor or 
 marsh, he was wont to say, " I have gained a new 
 province." He encouraged science and art, built 
 schools, and improved the administration of jus- 
 tice. He was familiar with his subjects, always 
 had an ear open to their grievances, and a hand 
 ready to rectify them. He was specially fond of 
 the agricultural population. He liked to go among 
 them, talk to the farmers, and learn their wants 
 and their opinions. Consequently, he was greatly 
 beloved by them, and they spoke of him as " Father 
 Fritz," or as " Old Fritz." His early acquaintance 
 with the infidel writers of France had driven all 
 belief in Christianity out of his heart, and, believing 
 nothing, he was tolerant. When he heard of a 
 dispute about some hymn-books, which was referred 
 to* him as head of the Evangelical Church in his 
 lands, he said, " Bah ! Let them sing what tom- 
 foolery they like." 
 
 As he did not believe in religion, he had, unfortu- 
 nately, no trustworthy standard of right and wrong. 
 At his court was a Scotchman, named Keith, a man 
 so honorable, truthful, and good that Frederick 
 said of him, " That man almost makes me believe 
 in virtue." Whether his care for the good of his 
 people sprang from mere selfishness, a knowledge 
 that their prosperity secured his own power, or 
 whether his heart was better than his principles, 
 one cannot tell. We will hope the best. 
 
 He had stooping shoulders, wore a three-cornered 
 laced hat on his head, and a long pig-tail. His 
 
NECESSITY TO BE BUSY. 
 
 299 
 
 uniform was threadbare, blue with red facings. He 
 wore short black breeches and long boots. Many 
 droll stories are told of him. The people of Pots- 
 dam stuck up a caricature, representing him with 
 a coffee-mill in his lap at a street corner. He saw 
 it as he passed. " Put it lower, that it may be bet- 
 ter seen," said the king, and passed on. One of his 
 guards, too poor to buy a watch, attached a bullet 
 to his chain and wore it in his pocket. The king 
 once asked him the time of day. The officer 
 pulled out the bullet and said, " My watch points 
 but to one hour, that in which I am prepared to 
 die for your Majesty." After that, of course, Fred- 
 erick handed him his own gold watch. 
 
 The king was fond of snuff, with which he stained 
 his clothes. Once when he met the Austrian em- 
 peror, he assumed, out of compliment, the Austrian 
 uniform of white embroidered with silver. But the 
 snuff got over the cloth and made a sad mess of 
 the beautiful suit. He looked at the officers in 
 splendid trim who surrounded the emperor, and 
 said, " Gentlemen, I am not clean enough for your 
 company; I do not deserve to wear your colours." 
 
 Here is one of his good sayings : " Nothing is 
 nearer akin to death than idleness. It is not neces- 
 sary that I should live, but it is necessary that 
 whilst I live I be busy." As long as he lived he 
 loved his flute, and when thinking over affairs 
 of state he used to stride through the corridors 
 and chambers of his palace at Potsdam playing on 
 this instrument. 
 
 By his prudent government he raised the king- 
 
3oo 
 
 OLD FRITZ REPAIRS RUIXS. 
 
 dom of Prussia to the level of Austria, Franca, and 
 England, as one of the first-class powers in Europe. 
 His army was certainly the best disciplined on the 
 continent ; but he allowed the soldiers to.be flogged 
 for small offences. Louis XV. supposed that the 
 success of the Prussians was due to the cat-o'-nine- 
 tails, so he introduced it into his army. But when 
 one of the subalterns was ordered to flog a private 
 he killed himself rather than do so. 
 
 When Frederick the Great died in 1786 the news 
 of his death filled Germany with sorrow. He left 
 to his successor a flourishing kingdom with six 
 millions of inhabitants, a splendid army, and a full 
 treasury. 
 
 Frederick well merited the appellation of " the 
 Great," for he set a great example to the sovereigns 
 of Germany. His unfortunate bringing up, which 
 both hardened his heart and killed his faith, were 
 the cause of his not being the greatest of modern 
 kings, or of being really, as he was called in French, 
 " Sans pareil." 
 
 
LIL 
 
 THE DOINGS OF TWO HUNDRED PRINCES. 
 
 When the Thirty Years' War came to an end there 
 . -ere something like two hundred independent 
 states in Germany, and the fashion set in to regard 
 France as the pattern by which all must live and 
 rule. The Thirty Years' War had nearly extin- 
 guished culture in the land, and France was highly 
 cultivated, consequently there was much excuse for 
 the princes. Unfortunately, French culture was 
 not sound at core ; it was a glittering soap-bubble. 
 
 Louis XIV. was a great monarch, but in exactly 
 the opposite way to Frederick II. Louis gained a 
 splendid name, and ruined France, and sowed the 
 seeds of the revolution which destroyed the throne. 
 Frederick made Prussia prosperous, and planted the 
 basis of his throne so deep that it has stood un- 
 shaken, and has become the centre of the new Ger- 
 man empire. The princes of the 18th century did 
 not see the mistake Louis XIV. was making; we 
 can, because we have history to teach us. None 
 of the princes could escape the fashion of copying 
 France. Even Frederick the Great felt its influence 
 as you have heard, and its influence was pernicious 
 to him. 
 
 When Louis XIV. built his palace at Versailles 
 
 301 
 
302 Wf£ DOINGS OF TWO HUNDRED PRINCES, 
 
 and created a city in the midst of a sandy waste, 
 most of the princelings of Germany followed suit, 
 and sought to create towns in the most unsuitable 
 places. 
 
 George Samuel, of Nassau Idstein, unable to 
 create a city in his diminutive county, resolved, at 
 least, to call a village into being and give it his 
 name ; so he erected Georgenborn on the top of a 
 bald mountain. The village was built, and roads to 
 it were engineered ; it was provided with a mayor 
 and pastor, and then the wretched peasants were 
 driven, by an edict of the count, from their old 
 homes into the cold new houses. After a lingering 
 life of thirty years, the successor of George Samuel 
 issued an edict ordering the place to be destroyed, 
 and its name to be blotted out of the map. But, 
 queerly enough, just then a new industry had sprung 
 up in Georgenborn, and the little village suddenly 
 began to prosper. Georgenborn still exists, a mon- 
 ument to all the world that villages are not to be 
 created or extinguished by the caprice of rulers. 
 
 More grotesque still was the attempt of Count 
 William of Biickeburg, whose ambition it was not 
 to have a palace and town like Versailles, but a 
 fortress like Metz. His county was so small that 
 a cannon-ball could cross it at a shot. At great 
 expense he created a fortified place and mounted 
 guns on the ramparts, but within were nothing to 
 defend but a range of wooden huts, an observatory, 
 and a potato field. 
 
 You know by pictures, if you have not seen it, the 
 beautiful castle of Heidelberg, the finest ruin of a 
 
MUSHROOM TOWNS. <* Q * 
 
 palace in Germany. Heidelberg was the capital of 
 the Palatinate, but the elector, Charles Philip, in 
 1720, made Mannheim his capital. He built it 
 entirely, taking a chessboard as his plan. In it is a 
 hideous palace, and the town is placed on a dead flat 
 piece of ground. Baron Pollnitz, who wrote his 
 memoirs at the time, says, " I have seen partridges 
 where are now palaces. The whole town is laid out 
 in a most regular and charming manner; and it is 
 without dispute one of the prettiest places in Eu- 
 rope." How taste alters ! We should say it was, 
 with the exception of Darmstadt, the ugliest. Duke 
 Eberhard Louis of Wtirtemberg also transferred 
 his capital from Stuttgard to a new town he built 
 and called after his name, Ludwigsberg. The cost 
 was enormous, and, what was more grievous, it was 
 undertaken at a time of famine. When the founda- 
 tions were laid bread was thrown among the starv- 
 ing peasants to still their murmurs. The palace 
 contains four hundred apartments. The city was 
 planned in square blocks, like Mannheim and 
 Darmstadt, with seven squares, eight gates, and 
 three, parish churches. Now this town is only 
 kept from falling into ruin by being converted into 
 an arsenal ; but grass grows in the streets, and the 
 palace is decaying. 
 
 Karlsruhe was built by the Margrave of Baden- 
 Durlach, Charles William, about his hunting lodge, 
 which was in the depths of a forest, but which he 
 converted into a palace. 
 
 Baron Pollnitz says of this: " The present mar- 
 grave, Charles, laid the plan and the foundation of 
 
3°4 
 
 THE DOINGS OF TWO HUNDRED PRINCES. 
 
 this city and its palace. Imagine the palace at the 
 entrance of a great forest, in the centre of a star 
 formed by thirty-two walks. Behind the palace is a 
 lofty octagonal tower commanding the walks. On 
 the other side of the palace is the town. Between 
 the houses run five streets. The main street is in a 
 line with the centre of the palace. At the end of 
 the three chief streets, opposite the palace, are three 
 churches, one for the Lutherans, another for the 
 Calvinists, and the third for the Catholics." 
 
 You will remember how that in the rococco period 
 straight lines and stiffness were avoided ; now the 
 fashion was run in the opposite extreme, everything 
 was formal and regular. 
 
 Darmstadt was rebuilt in the same detestable 
 taste, about the same time, by the electors Louis I. 
 and III., who laid out the town in the form it now 
 wears. One street is just like another, one house the 
 counterpart of another. At the head of the main 
 street is the unsightly palace ; at the two ends of the 
 cross street two unsightly churches, one for the 
 Calvinists, the other for the Catholics. 
 
 Those who did not build cities erected palaces. 
 The Baron de Reichenbach, a Belgian traveller of 
 the beginning of this century, says : " The princes 
 seem to have been actuated by a feverish rivalry 
 who should be best housed. No little potentate 
 could pass. muster who had not his Louvre and his 
 Versailles." 
 
 At Wurzburg the bishop erected a splendid 
 palace, the foundations of which were laid in 1720, 
 although he had two others in the place, one the 
 
THE PALACE OF WURZBURG. 
 
 305 
 
 castle of Manenberg, the second only finished the 
 year before he began the third. This new palace 
 contains two hundred and eighty-four apartments, 
 one devoted to a merry-go-round for the amusement 
 of the prelate, his chaplains, and court on rainy 
 days. The prince-bishop occupied a little carriage 
 in the whirligig, hung with episcopal purple velvet, 
 embroidered with the mitre and arms of the See. 
 
LIII. 
 
 GOOD KING JOSEPH. 
 (1780-1790.) 
 
 AMONG all the German princes who ascended the 
 imperial throne Joseph II. takes one of the first 
 places. He was the son of Maria Theresa and 
 inherited from her the good qualities which made 
 her the darling of her people. This noble emperor 
 devoted his whole life to the service of the state, 
 and at a time when gambling was the rage never 
 played for money. On the occasion of a visit to 
 Versailles he declined to take a hand at cards. " A 
 prince who loses," he said, " loses the money of his 
 subjects." He was not a drinker or a gourmand. 
 He loved music, and played the violoncello. He 
 was eager to redress wrongs, almost too eager, for 
 he made sweeping changes before his people were 
 prepared to accept them, and Frederick the Great 
 was right when he said that Joseph always took the 
 second step before he made the first. 
 
 From youth up he was a great admirer of Fred- 
 erick, whom he took as his pattern in his attempts 
 at amendment. When he met Frederick for the first 
 time at Neisse, he exclaimed joyfully, " Now my 
 wishes are fulfilled, as I have had the honor of em- 
 
 306 
 
 
A ROYAL REFORMER. 2 Q7 
 
 bracing this great king and general." After a 
 second meeting Frederick said to those who sur- 
 rounded him, " I have seen the emperor, and am 
 satisfied that he will play a great part in the affairs 
 of Europe. He was born at a most bigoted court, 
 and has shaken himself free from superstition. He 
 was nurtured in pomp, and yet has simple habits. 
 He has had the incense of flattery burnt under his 
 nose, and yet is modest. He glows with love of 
 fame, yet sacrifices his ambition to duty. He has 
 had pedants for teachers, yet his taste for the best 
 books is healthy." 
 
 You have been told how the princes built their 
 new towns on plans of the strictest uniformity, 
 making streets, houses, and churches all alike. 
 Joseph II. tried to do the' same thing in governing 
 his territories, and so showed that want of common 
 sense which Frederick II. possessed, and which 
 saved him from committing gross blunders. In 
 the Austrian dominions ten principal languages 
 were spoken, and each nation had its own laws and 
 administration. Joseph formed the scheme of 
 uniting them all into one and ruling all by one sim- 
 ple system ; and of abolishing all distinctions of re- 
 ligion, language, law and manners. In the Aus- 
 trian monarchy there were thirteen governments. 
 He suppressed these, did away with the local parlia- 
 ments, made the German tongue obligatory in all 
 the public offices, and allowed the officers only two 
 years for learning it, and abolished old customary 
 forms, cancelled charters, and suppressed privileges. 
 He meant well. It was very difficult to govern 
 
308 GOOD A'/ XG JOSEPH. 
 
 Hungarians, Bohemians, Germans, Moravians, Ital- 
 ians, Flemings, Croatians, Tyrolese, Transylvanians, 
 etc., by different laws, and it would facilitate gov- 
 ernment greatly if they were all ruled directly from 
 Vienna, by one system of government. But Joseph 
 did not consider that these several nations mi^ht be 
 warmly attached to their own laws and traditional 
 customs. So, instead of doing good, he threw the 
 system of government into great confusion. 
 
 Then he drew up a catechism of government for 
 the people to be taught in the schools, in which he 
 reduced his laws to a sort of table of command- 
 ments, which was profane and absurd. Here are 
 some of his commandments. " Thou shalt not 
 send hare-skins out of the country. Thou shalt 
 not keep useless dogs. Thou shalt not plant to- 
 bacco without permission." 
 
 But though Joseph made mistakes, he did avast 
 amount of real good. His heart was in the right 
 place. He was conscientious and earnest in his 
 desire to rectify abuses, but his head was not 
 strong enough to show him where to stop. 
 
 The peasants had been kept under by feudal laws, 
 and were almost bondsmen. He removed their 
 bonds and cancelled all the intolerable restrictions 
 which kept them from prospering. He encouraged 
 the schools, and extended and improved the system 
 of education. He also reduced the number of mon- 
 asteries and convents from over two thousand to 
 seven hundred, and he abolished all those which 
 were of no practical utility. Monks, friars, and nuns 
 must either teach, preach, or nurse the sick. He 
 
 
 H 
 
IMPRISONED CAPUCHINS. 
 
 309 
 
 would not allow any orders to remain which were 
 idle. The principal religious orders were the 
 Benedictines, who cultivated learning and kept 
 schools; the Jesuits, who taught in schools and 
 preached ; and the Franciscans or Capuchins, who 
 lived on what they could beg. 
 
 The Jesuits made themselves particularly obnox- 
 ious by meddling with politics ; the Capuchins, re- 
 cruited from the lowest of the people, were igno- 
 rant, and great encouragers of superstition. The 
 money and buildings acquired by the suppression 
 of so many monasteries were devoted to useful 
 purposes — schools, hospitals, libraries, etc. Joseph 
 placed all the monasteries under the supervision of 
 the bishops of the dioceses in which they were. 
 This was an excellent rule, as hitherto they had 
 been independent and gone their own way and 
 did what they liked, without any control. The 
 occasion of this was the discovery of great cruelties 
 committed in a Capuchin convent in Vienna. One 
 of the friars there, named Fressler, informed the 
 emperor that there was a prison in it in which 
 some of the friars had been kept locked up for 
 many years. One had been there for fifty, another 
 for forty, a third for fifteen, and a fourth for nine 
 years. The emperor thereupon issued an inquisition 
 and suppressed the begging orders. He lessened the 
 revenues of the largest bishoprics, suppressed some, 
 and created others, and granted the free exercise 
 of their religion to all denominations. The Pope, 
 Pius VI., alarmed at these high-handed proceedings, 
 thinking he was going to emulate the course of 
 
310 GOOD KING JOSEPH. 
 
 Henry VIII. of England, made a journey to Vienna 
 to remonstrate with the emperor in person. Joseph 
 received him with slight courtesy, and kept him al- 
 most as a prisoner. He had the doors of his lodg- 
 ing walled up, with the exception of the front door, 
 over which a guard was placed, to prevent the Pope 
 from receiving private visits and stirring up discon- 
 tent. After spending four weeks without effecting 
 anything, Pius at length departed with a heavy heart. 
 The emperor accompanied him as far as the abbey 
 of Mariabrunn, and two hours after the Pope had 
 left its shelter he ordered the monastery to be 
 closed, to show how little the Pope had influenced 
 him. 
 
 His arbitrary interference with the usages and 
 liberties of his states led to revolt. Belgium re- 
 fused to pay taxes, and declared itself independent. 
 In Hungary there were risings of the people, and 
 the emperor was forced to withdraw his orders for 
 changes in that kingdom. He made Avar with the 
 Turks and met with disaster. The hereditary do- 
 minions of Austria were in ferment, and revolution 
 threatened him on all sides. Under these disap- 
 pointments his health and spirits gave way. Short- 
 ly before his death he wrote of himself, " I know 
 my own heart. I am convinced of the sincerity of 
 my purposes, and I trust that, when I am gone, I 
 shall be impartially judged." 
 
 That impartial judgment has been arrived at by 
 all historians. No one doubts the good intentions 
 of Joseph II. ; no one admits that he had the sound 
 judgment to carry them out prudently. Joseph 
 
KESUL T OF PREMA TURE REFORMS. 
 
 311 
 
 died in February, 1790, in his forty-ninth year. As 
 he left no children he was succeeded by his brother 
 Leopold, who had hitherto been Grand Duke of 
 Tuscany. 
 
 Leopold ascended the tottering throne to find 
 himself surrounded with dangers. All parts of his 
 vast dominions were agitated by intestine commo- 
 tions, or were the scene of open rebellion, the fruit 
 of Joseph's ill-considered or premature reforms. 
 Although he reigned only a few years, yet his mod- 
 eration and his sober judgment succeeded in pacify- 
 ing the general agitation, and restoring confidence 
 and content. All the good that Joseph had done 
 survived him, and his mistakes were corrected. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 LIV. 
 
 GENIUS COMES TO THE FRONT. 
 
 The close of the 1 8th century was a period 
 of great literary waking. In the rococco time 
 the general unreality invaded and pervaded litera- 
 ture ; but now a change took place, and men of 
 real genius came to the front who have made them- 
 selves imperishable names. The first to break 
 away from the fantastic foppery of the rococco 
 style was Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781), who, 
 though he tried at first to study theology and med- 
 icine, was destined to give his life to pure litera- 
 ture. He ridiculed the imitation of French writers, 
 and demanded that German authors should develop 
 originality in thought and style. Calling attention 
 to the genius of Kant and YVinckelmann, and op- 
 posing the methods of Wieland and Klopstock, he 
 urged that sentimentality should no longer infect 
 religion nor frivolity debase art. He wrote Minna 
 von Barnkelm, a comedy not free from the affecta- 
 tions he opposed, and Emilia Galotti, a tragedy, in 
 which he retold the story of Virginia but made the 
 characters modern. His Laocoon is a critical dis- 
 sertation on the limits of poetry and painting which 
 has exerted and still exerts a vast influence every- 
 where. Nathan der Weise is another powerful work 
 
 312 
 
 
LESSING AND GOETHE. 3 r 3 
 
 of his independent mind, in which, in the guise of a 
 dramatic story, he sets forth the philosophy of his 
 religion. 
 
 Before Lessing died he saw the two greatest 
 authors of Germany started on the literary career 
 which has lent its chiefest glory to the period, — 
 John Wolfgang von Goethe (1 749-1 832) and John 
 Christopher Frederick Schiller (1759-1805). The 
 former stands second only to our Shakespeare as a 
 poet, and was a man of a wonderful genius marred by 
 intense vanity. The son of a gentleman of some 
 fortune, he was educated with remarkable thorough- 
 ness, and his personal attainments and manners 
 caused the world to expect great things of him. In 
 spite of this there was much surprise when, in 1773, 
 his drama, Gotz von Berlichingen appeared. It was 
 followed the next year by The Sorroivs of Young 
 
 WertJier. The literary world was intoxicated with 
 the spirit of romanticism, and Germany entered 
 upon a season of intellectual convulsion known as 
 the Sturm und Drang, or storm and stress period. 
 Gotz was founded upon the old story of the hero of 
 the Iron hand, a strong and manly but lawless 
 baron of the sixteenth century ; and the Sorrows of 
 
 Werther wove into one texture the unhappy pas- 
 sions of the author and those of a student whose 
 sad story Goethe had learned. With considerable 
 mawkish sentimentality was mingled much admira- 
 ble description ; the language was wonderful, and 
 the whole so well accorded with the vague longing 
 and discontent of the age, that, as Carlyle says, " the 
 heart and voice of all Europe loudly and at once 
 
14 
 
 GENIUS COMES TO THE FRONT. 
 
 responded to it." The romance was greedily read 
 by young and old, and some young fools even fol- 
 lowed Werther's example and took their own lives, 
 in order to excite for themselves the pity so freely 
 accorded to the hero of the story. 
 
 At the invitation of the grand duke, Charles 
 Augustus, Goethe went to Weimar in 1775 ; and 
 there he afterwards made the acquaintance of Schil- 
 ler, whom he so warmly appreciated for his pure 
 and healthy genius and noble mind, that he called 
 the period a "new spring-tide" in his life. In this 
 little place without trade or manufactures, Goethe 
 was worshipped by everybody, especially by the 
 women ; but the great men of the nation, too, 
 gathered about him, and Weimar became a sort of 
 German Athens. The poet gave himself up at first 
 to social enjoyment, but afterwards he engaged in 
 study, though for several years he published little. 
 His study, travels, and varied experience in life bore 
 fruit, however, and in after years ' he produced 
 novels, poems, and plays that challenged the admira- 
 tion of the world. Among his great works are the 
 romantic drama Egmont , the tragedy of IpJiigcnia 
 von Tanris, the melancholy reverie Torquatus 
 Tasso, and the idyllic epic Hermann and Dorothea, 
 
 If Goethe's genius did not culminate in his wonder- 
 ful poem founded upon the fable of Faust, in which 
 with melody, wit, pathos, mystery, reverence, and 
 irony he depicted the disenchantment of the intel- 
 lect, it reached its greatest expression in his songs 
 and ballads, the spontaneous outgushin^s of his 
 mind in every variety of mood. Charming in sim- 
 
SCHILLER MEE TS 6 OE THE. o T 5 
 
 plicity, grotesque, weird, and haughty by turns, they 
 are certainly human feeling " married to immortal 
 verse." The genius of Goethe was recognized in 
 England as well as at home, and on his last birth- 
 day fifteen representative writers there, including 
 Scott, Southey, Carlyle, and Procter, united in send- 
 ing him a greeting accompanied by a seal, on which 
 were engraved the words from one of his own 
 poems, Ohne Hast, Ohne Rast, without haste, with- 
 out rest. No contemporary had so much influence 
 upon literature, and no other German author at all 
 compares with him in this respect. Carlyle said 
 that he and the first Napoleon were the two great- 
 est men of their day, and that Goethe was " intrin- 
 sically of much more unquestionable greatness" 
 than the conquering soldier. 
 
 Schiller was at many points a contrast to his 
 older contemporary. Without the exceptional ad- 
 vantages of Goethe he had prepared himself by 
 stealth for the career of a poet. As early as his 
 nineteenth year he had begun to compose a drama, 
 afterwards published as The Robbers, which startled 
 the literary world by its impassioned and fascinat- 
 ing eloquence, and is said actually to have induced 
 some persons of fortune to become amateur out- 
 laws. He did not visit Weimar until his twenty- 
 eighth year, and when he and Goethe met there 
 was a mutual repulsion. He wrote to a friend that 
 between persons of such different views of life no 
 substantial intimacy was possible. Though each 
 avoided the other the substantial intimacy grew, as 
 has been intimated, and was fruitful for Germany. 
 
316 GENIUS COMES TO THE FRONT 
 
 The one stood for the tyranny of the intellect and 
 the other for the loveliness of the affections. 
 
 Among the works of Schiller were the long drama 
 of Wallensteitii in three parts, of five acts each, ob- 
 viously too long for acting; Mary Stuart, The Maid 
 of Orleans, The Bride of Messina, and William Tell. 
 Though deservedly renowned as a dramatist Schil- 
 ler is probably best known by his poems, among 
 which The Song of the Bell, The Diver, The Glove, 
 The Cranes of Ibycus, and Rudolph of Hapsburg are 
 perhaps the most familiar. Schiller reflected the 
 ideal yearnings of his age, and sought to encourage 
 men to love and be led by the good, the beautiful, 
 and the true. When he died, at the early age of 
 forty-five, Goethe exclaimed, " In losing my friend 
 I have lost half of my being." Thirty-seven years 
 later he calmly breathed away his own life, saying, 
 " More light ! " words that have sometimes been 
 thought to express his longing for something better 
 than this life afforded. 
 
 While Goethe and Schiller ruled in the kingdom 
 of letters they were surrounded by many disciples 
 and imitators, as well as by original thinkers, who 
 advanced every branch of learning. Humboldt and 
 Ritter cultivated geographical science ; Herder and 
 the brothers Schlegel went deep into history and 
 criticism ; Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Kant car- 
 ried the fame of German philosophy over the 
 world ; Ranke and Niebuhr presented history in 
 new phases ; Schleiermacher and Neander discussed 
 deep principles of theology ; Jean Paul Richter 
 soared to the mysterious heights of transcendental- 
 
 
 MjJ 
 
ORCHESTRAL MUSIC. 
 
 3*7 
 
 ism; and Hoffmann, Fouque, and Tieck revelled 
 in the realms of the imagination. If the rulers 
 were royal the subjects were truly worthy of them. 
 Music, which began to become a great art in the 
 rococco period, now sprang into full perfection. 
 Some of the greatest musical geniuses of the world 
 belong to this period : Mozart, Gliick, Haydn, and 
 Beethoven. All of these wrote church music ; 
 Haydn composed the beautiful oratorio The Crea- 
 tion ; Gliick wrote operas on classic themes ; Mo- 
 zart took more popular subjects ; Beethoven wrote 
 one opera only, Leonore or Fidelio. Mozart's music 
 is exquisitely melodious, but lacks the massiveness 
 possessed by that of Beethoven. Mozart died at 
 the age of thirty-five ; poor Beethoven became deaf, 
 gloomy, and distrustful in his old age. With these 
 composers the orchestra became of much greater 
 importance than formerly. Handel, the great mas- 
 ter of the previous generation, scarcely knew any- 
 thing of the power and properties of the various 
 instruments ; but now they were brought into use, 
 parts were written for each, and all were woven into 
 a whole, blending and governed by one idea, but 
 each acting separately from the others. This may, 
 therefore, be said to be the epoch of the develop- 
 ment of orchestral music. 
 
LV. 
 
 AN UPTURNING IN FRANCE. 
 
 LOUIS XIV. was succeeded on the throne of 
 France by his great-grandson, Louis XV., aged 
 only five years and a half. On the death of the 
 king the Duke of Orleans, as first prince of the 
 blood, was appointed regent. The duke led a prof- 
 ligate life, and set a bad example, which was only 
 too readily imitated by those at court. By his 
 extravagance he raised the national debt to danger- 
 ous proportions. This wretched condition of affairs 
 did not mend when Louis XV. attained his major- 
 ity. The young king thought of nothing but his 
 pleasures, and left the management of the affairs 
 of state to his ministers and favourites. 
 
 At this time it became the fashion to be, or to af- 
 fect to be, vicious, and to scoff at religion and mor- 
 ality. Many authors took up the pen to write 
 profanities and to turn Christianity, the clergy, and 
 virtue into ridicule. 
 
 At the same time writings were distributed 
 among the people showing up the badness of the 
 Government, and urging the abolition of abuses 
 and the introduction of reforms. The vices of 
 the court, its extravagance, the growth of the 
 national debt, the burden of taxation falling on the 
 
 318 
 
INFLUENCE OF AMERICA. 
 
 319 
 
 people made the latter ready to accept these teach- 
 ings. Both the nobility and the clergy at this time 
 had very extensive privileges. Neither paid taxes, 
 so that the whole burden fell on the farmers and 
 tradesmen. This was a grievous injustice. It had 
 been redressed in England long ago by the nobil- 
 ity, voluntarily. In France and in Germany it 
 remained as an intolerable wrong. Most powerful 
 of all was the example of the English colonies in 
 North America, who, in 1783, separated them- 
 selves from their mother country, and founded 
 a republic. 
 
 France, intent on weakening her ancient foe, had 
 sent numbers of her sons to America, where they 
 had fought against the English, and these returned 
 to their native land full of the novel ideas of liberty 
 and of enthusiasm for a republican form of gov- 
 ernment. They contrasted the fresh virtue of the 
 new institutions in the United States with the de- 
 crepid corruption of the French crown. 
 
 Thus it came about that there grew up in what 
 was called the Tiers etat, or Third Estate — i. e., the 
 people themselves — an intense anger and bitterness 
 against the nobles and clergy, who paid no taxes, 
 and against the crown, which sanctioned such 
 abuses. 
 
 In this time of agitation of spirits Louis XVI. 
 came to the throne of France. He was married to 
 Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, and 
 sister of Joseph II. The accession of Louis XVI. 
 was greeted with great acclamations of joy from the 
 people, for they hoped that with it would come 
 
320 
 
 AN UPTURNING IN FRANCE. 
 
 relief from their crushing taxation, and a return to 
 better times. Louis, a well-intentioned, blameless 
 man, with his heart full of love for his people, and 
 desirous to be a just and good ruler, lacked the 
 mental power and the energy of character to grap- 
 ple with an evil of such long growth, and to take 
 decisive and subversive measures. His queen was 
 fond of gaiety, and by her example countenanced 
 the most lavish extravagance. She was only fif- 
 teen when she was married, and at Versailles she 
 was surrounded by frivolous and pleasure-seeking 
 courtiers, who hid from her the truth, so that she 
 probably had no idea of the real condition of af- 
 fairs. She was only nineteen when her husband 
 became king. She was a good woman, tenderly 
 attached to her children and husband. She was 
 very beautiful, and much flattered, and this per- 
 haps a little turned her head. 
 
 The evil condition of affairs increased to a fear- 
 ful degree. The exchequer was robbed by those 
 who had charge of it ; the taxes would not suffice 
 to cover the outlay ; and the king, almost reduced 
 to the necessity of declaring the state bankrupt, 
 demanded aid from the nobility and clergy, who, 
 hitherto free from taxation, had amassed great 
 wealth. The aristocracy, blind to their true inter- 
 est, refused to comply, and by so doing compelled 
 the king to have recourse to the Third Estate. 
 
 Accordingly, in 1789, he convoked a general as- 
 sembly, in which deputies sent by the citizen and 
 peasant classes were not only numerically equal 
 to those of the aristocracy, but were their supe- 
 
 MftJ 
 
THE BASTILLE STORMED. 
 
 321 
 
 riors in ability and energy. When the nobility 
 and clergy refused to share the burden of taxation, 
 and even declined to sit together with the com- 
 mons, the deputies of the Third Estate separated 
 from the other two houses and declared themselves a 
 competent national assembly. Many of the nobil- 
 ity and the majority of the clergy, feeling the 
 justice of the cause of the people, united with them, 
 and gave up their privileges. The members of this 
 assembly met in the Tennis Court of the palace of 
 Versailles, and there swore not to separate till they 
 had given a new constitution to the realm. The as- 
 sembly was thenceforth called the Constitutional 
 Assembly. The men who most distinguished them- 
 selves at this conjuncture were Count Mirabeau, the 
 Abbe Sieyes, and the Count of Lafayette. 
 
 The news of this decided step created violent 
 agitation in Paris, and the people broke loose. 
 On June 14th, 1789, a mob attacked the Bastille, 
 an ancient strong castle in Paris that served as a 
 prison, took it by storm, and levelled its walls with 
 the dust. Soon after, armed bands of men and 
 women rushed off to Versailles, burst into the pal- 
 ace, where they killed several of the guards, and 
 forced the king to come to Paris. The National 
 Assembly also, at the same time, transferred its 
 sessions to Paris. Emboldened by its first successes 
 the Assembly now undertook a thorough transfor- 
 mation of the state, and in order to attain the object 
 for which it had been assembled, that of procur- 
 ing supplies, declared the aristocracy subject to tax- 
 ation, and sold the enormous property belonging to 
 
322 
 
 AN UPTURNING IN FRANCE. 
 
 the Church. All distinctions and privileges were 
 abolished, and all Frenchmen were pronounced equal. 
 It went further still. The people were declared the 
 only true sovereign, and the king the first servant 
 of the state. 
 
 At the first outbreak of the revolution the two 
 brothers of the king and many of the nobility fled 
 the country. All through France the peasants rose 
 and set fire to the chateaux, and burned the ar- 
 chives containing the title-deeds of the nobles to 
 their lands. The Assembly continued its work. It 
 divided France into eighty-three departments. It 
 published a list of the rights of men without say- 
 ing anything about their duties. Everywhere dis- 
 turbances became worse. The royal family, feeling 
 no longer safe, attempted to fly, but were arrested at 
 Varennes and brought back as prisoners to Paris 
 (July 23, 1791). 
 
 The rabble had now completely got the upper 
 hand. At midnight of the 9th of October they 
 broke into the Tuilleries, the royal palace, massa- 
 cred the gallant Swiss guards who defended the 
 king, and clamoured for his deposition. That 
 he and his family might not fall into the hands of 
 these savages the king, with the queen and his chil- 
 dren, escaped to the hall where the National Assem- 
 bly was collected, at nine o'clock in the morning 
 of the 10th. The Assembly declared the king 
 provisionally deprived of his functions, and con- 
 signed him and his family to the Temple, one of 
 the prisons of Paris. All the adherents of the king 
 were then secured and thrown into the prisons. 
 
LEOPOLD II. IN THE IMPERIAL ROBES. 
 
 323 
 
324 
 
 AN UPTURNING IN FRANCE. 
 
 Leopold II., Emperor of Austria, and Frederick 
 William II., King of Prussia, now prepared for war. 
 The French forestalled them by declaring war. The 
 King of Prussia, at the head of 50,000 of his own 
 men and 30,000 Austrians, took Longwy, and ad- 
 vanced upon Verdun and Champagne. The news 
 filled the rabble with fury. The Jacobins, as the most 
 extreme of the revolutionists were called, from a club 
 into which they had formed themselves, cried out, 
 " Our most dangerous enemies are not the Germans 
 at Verdun, they are to be found at Paris in our 
 prisons." Thus instigated, the mob burst into one 
 place of detention after another, and for four days 
 in succession massacred all they found in them. 
 The same horrors were perpetrated at Lyons, 
 Rheims, Meaux,and Versailles. The massacre began 
 on Sept. 2d, and the same day Robespierre was 
 elected to the National Convention, as the third 
 national assembly was designated. 
 
 To protect the frontiers against the allied sover- 
 eigns, and to carry the war into their territories, the 
 Assembly ordered armies to advance. The French 
 at once invaded the Netherlands and defeated the 
 Austrians at Jemmapes. The Republican soldiers 
 entered Brussels, pillaged the Netherland cities of 
 all that was valuable, and after doing this effectually 
 proclaimed liberty and equality and the rights of 
 men. Another French army advanced to the Rhine 
 and secured Mainz. 
 
 The alliance of the German sovereigns against the 
 Revolution precipitated the fate of the king. The 
 National Convention condemned him to death, and 
 
FREDERICK WILLIAM II. OF PRUSSIA- 
 (From the painting by Schroder.) 
 
 325 
 
326 AN UPTURNING IN FRANCE. 
 
 the execution was fixed for the 2ist February, 1793. 
 After a heart-rending parting from his wife and 
 children Louis XVI. mounted the scaffold with 
 dignity and Christian resignation. On reaching the 
 platform he advanced to the breasting to address 
 the people. " Frenchmen," he said, "lam guiltless 
 of the crimes whereof I am accused. I forgive 
 
 o 
 
 those who have brought me to my death, and I 
 pray God that the blood you are about to shed may 
 not be required of France." His address was cut 
 short by the rattle of drums. He allowed his hands 
 to be bound without an attempt at resistance ; and 
 as the Abbe Edgeworth, his confessor, exclaimed, 
 " Son of S. Louis, mount to heaven ! " the axe fell. 
 Then there was a rush of the people. They burst 
 through the guards to sop their handkerchiefs in 
 the royal blood. Thus died Louis XVI. His 
 prime minister, Necker, a Swiss, said of him, " He 
 was a sovereign good to the heart's core. He loved 
 his people as a father loves his children. He did 
 what was right when he saw what was his duty, and 
 how to discharge it. He was a ready help to all in 
 trouble. He released the peasants from serfdom, 
 and abolished the irksome feudal duties. He put a 
 stop to torture, and had the prisons placed under 
 proper supervision and put into decent order. He 
 restored to the Protestants their citizen rights. His 
 whole life was spent in doing good. He suffered, 
 not for his own sins, but for those of his forefathers. 
 His people were, during the latter years, blinded to 
 his excellence, and allowed his enemies to do what 
 
MARIE ANTOINETTE EXECUTED. ^ 2 7 
 
 they willed with him. He died a martyr to his 
 virtues." 
 
 The execution of Louis was followed by that of 
 the queen in October. She was taken to the scaf- 
 fold in a cart, with her hands tied behind her. She 
 was scarce 38 years old when she died. 
 
 
LVI. 
 
 THE MAN FROM CORSICA. 
 
 The news of the execution of the king filled all 
 Europe with horror and indignation, and in France 
 several towns and the province of La Vendee rose 
 against the National Convention. Most of the 
 European powers formed an alliance against the 
 French Republic (the 1st Coalition, 1793), and their 
 armies advanced on the frontiers. A very speedy 
 termination to the Republic might have ensued had 
 not the powers been filled with rivalries, and had 
 their forces been led by competent generals. The 
 Duke of Coburg was at the head of the main body 
 of the Austrians in the Netherlands, and he was 
 reinforced by the English and Dutch. With their 
 aid he drove the French out of the Netherlands, but 
 instead of advancing at once on Paris he dawdled 
 in the Low Countries, issuing manifestoes and invest- 
 ing Dunkirk. The Duke of Brunswick, in command 
 of the Prussians, retook Mainz, but owing to the 
 jealousy felt by the King of Prussia at the union of 
 the English with the Austrians was not allowed to 
 go forward. 
 
 In the spring of the following year the emperor, 
 Francis II., visited the Netherlands, with the inten- 
 tion of pushing straight upon Paris. This project, 
 
 328 
 
ROBESPIERRE THE BLOODTHIRSTY. 329 
 
 practicable in 1793, was now utterly out of the 
 question. The French had massed their armies to 
 protect the frontier, and the Prussians had with- 
 drawn in a sulk. The French sneered, " The allies 
 are always wool-gathering, and wake up a year too 
 late." 
 
 In face of the danger that menaced the Republic, 
 on April 6th, a Committee of Public Safety was 
 appointed at Paris, and the lives, the freedom, 
 and the property of all the citizens were placed in 
 the hands of this committee. They could condemn 
 to death whom they would'. At the head stood 
 Robespierre, a cold, bloodthirsty man. 
 
 Now executions went on without cessation. No 
 one was safe. The more moderate members of the 
 Convention (the Girondists) were sent to the guillo- 
 tine. Blood poured in streams, not in Paris only, 
 but in all the large towns of France. Any one, on 
 the faintest suspicion, was arrested, and once arrested 
 his fate was sealed. 
 
 The Republic then turned its attention to repel 
 the enemies at its doors. The English were beaten at 
 Toulon. The Spanish, who had crossed the Pyrenees, 
 retired over them again. The Prussians were de- 
 feated by Hoche and the Austrians by Jourdan 
 The Prussians, full of jealousy of the Austrians, with- 
 drew from the alliance, and concluded peace with the 
 Republic, basely surrendering to France the whole 
 left bank of the Rhine. Belgium was overrun and 
 annexed to France, Holland formed into a republic 
 under its protection. England remained inert. 
 Only Austria abided unshaken. The French crossed 
 
330 THE MAN FROM CORSICA. 
 
 the Rhine and invaded Swabia ; were encountered 
 by the Archduke Charles, and defeated him. The 
 French took Stuttgart and Frankfort. Then the 
 Austrians succeeded in breaking to pieces the invad- 
 ing army, and as it retreated the peasantry rose 
 in a body and hunted the soldiers down. 
 
 In the mean time the Reign of Terror at Paris 
 had come to an end. Robespierre had raged with 
 such frightful bloodthirstiness, putting to death 
 every one whom he considered an opponent, spar- 
 ing not even Republicans of as advanced views as his 
 own, that at last his own adherents were afraid for 
 their lives, and the more moderate united against 
 him. He was accused, a majority formed to con- 
 demn him, and he was dragged to the guillotine, a 
 cowardly, quaking wretch, with a broken jaw, hav- 
 ing tried, ineffectually, to shoot himself when sen- 
 tenced to death. 
 
 A fresh constitution was now issued, and five 
 men were appointed as Directors of the Republic. 
 
 Among the many able generals possessed by 
 France at this period Napoleon Bonaparte stood 
 pre-eminent. He was the son of a Corsican lawyer, 
 and was born at Ajaccio. As a boy he had shown 
 a love for military studies. In his sixteenth year 
 he entered the artillery in Paris as sub-lieutenant, 
 and at the age of six-and-twenty he was nominated 
 commander of the army of Italy. He found there 
 that the soldiers were in a pitiable condition, with- 
 out food, money, or clothing, dissatisfied and dis- 
 organized. But Napoleon was not one to be 
 daunted. " Soldiers," he said, " you are badly fed, 
 
CROSSING THE ALPS. 
 
 331 
 
 naked, and miserable among barren rocks. I will 
 lead you down into the richest plains in the world. 
 Great cities full of wealth, whole provinces will fall 
 into your power ; in them you will acquire all you 
 want — fame, treasure, repose. Soldiers of the Army 
 of Italy, with this prospect will your hearts fail ? 
 No ; surely not. Forward ! " and, in fact, in a surpris- 
 ingly short time he conquered the greater part of 
 Italy and converted the provinces that came into 
 his power into republics. The Austrian armies 
 sent against him were led by incompetent generals, 
 who were perfectly incapable of winning success 
 opposed to so consummate a genius as Bonaparte. 
 
 In the mean time the Austrian army, under the 
 command of the gallant Archduke Charles, the 
 brother of the emperor, Francis II., had, as you 
 have heard, defeated the French in Wurtemberg 
 and the Black Forest, and driven them back across 
 the Rhine. 
 
 In January, 1797, the Austrian general, Alvinzi, 
 met a crushing defeat in Italy, with the loss of 
 20,000 men taken prisoners. At the same time 
 another general, Wurmser, was forced to capitulate 
 at Mantua with 21,000 men. 
 
 As soon as the snow began to melt on the Alps 
 Bonaparte prepared to march up the Isonzo, cross 
 the Alps, and penetrate to Vienna. In his alarm 
 the emperor recalled the Archduke Charles from 
 the Rhine, but he had only the fragments of the 
 discouraged troops of Alvinzi to lead. " Hitherto," 
 said Napoleon, " I have been fighting armies without 
 
»->2 THE MAX FROM CORSICA. 
 
 generals, now I have to fight a general without an 
 army." 
 
 A battle took place in the mountains at Tarvis, 
 high up on the pass into the Gail Valley, after- 
 wards called "the battle above the clouds." The 
 archduke, with a handful of Hungarian hussars, 
 defended the pass against sixteen thousand French, 
 and did not turn to fly till only eight of his men were 
 left. The archduke retired to Glogau, where he 
 collected five thousand men, and again barred the 
 way against the French, and held his ground with 
 dauntless heroism till only two hundred and fifty 
 of his men remained. 
 
 But now the archduke's troops, whom he had led 
 to victory on the Rhine, were coming to his aid. 
 The republic of Venice had made an alliance 
 with Austria, and Napoleon was threatened in his 
 rear. The brave Tyrolean peasants were up in arms, 
 and routed his troops as they tried to push for- 
 ward. The archduke hoped now to nip Bonaparte 
 in the mountains, and crush him. But, with in- 
 conceivable folly, the emperor's advisers at Vienna 
 threw away this unique opportunity. They were 
 so panic-struck at the advance of Bonaparte that 
 when he, conscious of the predicament in which he 
 stood, to gain time, sent overtures of peace, not in 
 the least supposing the Austrian ministers such 
 fools as to accept them, they actually snapped at 
 the proposals, and were in haste to get a treaty 
 concluded. When Bonaparte saw the timorous sort 
 of men with whom he had to deal he assumed a 
 more defiant tone. The plenipotentiary of Aus- 
 
TREA TV OF CAMPO FORM 10. 
 
 333 
 
 tria was Count Cobenzl, who had been much in the 
 service of the Empress of Russia, and had presented 
 Bonaparte a beautiful and costly vase from Cath- 
 erine, the Empress of Russia. Cobenzl was a 
 witty playwriter, and immediately after some un- 
 pleasant piece of state business he produced a 
 comedy full of fun. "I suppose," said the em- 
 press, " Cobenzl, you are waiting to kill us with laugh- 
 ing till you hear that the French are in Vienna?" 
 This was the man sent into Udine to treat with 
 Bonaparte. Now the latter was in far greater straits 
 than Cobenzl supposed, for the Directory in Paris 
 were getting jealous of him, and refused him more 
 soldiers, and he knew very well that he could not 
 get any further through the Alps where the passes 
 were guarded by brave mountaineers, ready to roll 
 down rocks on his troops, and excellent shots were 
 lurking .behind every stone and tree to pick off his 
 officers. However, he put a bold face on the 
 matter, and when Cobenzl made some demur to one 
 of his demands Napoleon took up the porcelain 
 cup the Empress Catherine had sent him, and 
 dashed it to atoms on the floor. " There," said he, 
 " take my terms, or I will shatter your precious 
 monarchy like this vessel." 
 
 Cobenzl was too much frightened at the threat to 
 stand out. A treaty was drawn up and signed, called 
 the Treaty of Campo Formio, on October 17, 
 1797. By this the emperor ceded to France the 
 whole of the west bank of the Rhine, Flanders, and 
 the Lombard provinces, but received in exchange 
 the territory of Venice and the archbishopric of Salz- 
 
334 
 
 THE MAN FROM CORSICA. 
 
 burg. Now this concession of Napoleon was part 
 of his cleverness ; he wanted by all means in his 
 power to rouse up the jealousy of Prussia against 
 Austria. You know that among children one be- 
 comes spiteful if another gets one slice of bread 
 and jam more than itself, — so is it with nations. 
 Prussia was consumed with anger and envy when 
 it heard that Austria was to gain that rich merchant- 
 city, Venice, and consequently would have noth- 
 ing more to do with Austria against the common 
 enemy. 
 
 When the news reached Paris the French Re- 
 publicans liked the idea of the cession of Venice to 
 Austria almost as little as did the Prussians ; but 
 Napoleon quieted them. " Pshaw ! " he said, " it is 
 only for a bit." The result of this clever stroke soon 
 became apparent. The Prussians sent an army into 
 Franconia, and seized Nuremberg and several other 
 towns. She also entered Westphalia, annexing 
 it, and stirred up Hesse - Cassel to grasp part 
 of Schaumburg-Lippe. That same year Frederick 
 William II. died, and was succeeded by his son, 
 Frederick William III., who continued the same 
 shameful and dishonourable policy of playing the* 
 game of France against the only upholder of the 
 German name and honour, the Emperor of Aus- 
 tria. 
 
 Whilst Austria was lulled into peace the French 
 overran Switzerland and converted it into a repub- 
 lic under their protection ; and thus this great 
 barrier which had protected the Austrian frontiers on 
 the side next France was thrown down. The peace 
 
CONFERENCE AT RASTADT. 
 
 ~> ^ - 
 
 concluded by Napoleon at Campo Formio had to be 
 ratified, that is, agreed to by all the powers con- 
 cerned, and a meeting was appointed to be held at 
 Rastadt, which had been the residence of the mar- 
 graves of Baden. In it is a red sandstone palace ; 
 to this palace the envoys were summoned to meet 
 
 KARL WILHELM, BARON VON HUMBOLDT. * 
 (From a Drawing- by P. C. Stroehling.j 
 
 in 1797, and there they sat haggling over terms till 
 April, 1799, when the congress was broken up without 
 coming to any agreement, in the way you shall hear. 
 The French envoys demanded all that had been 
 granted by the treaty of Campo Formio, and agreed 
 that, to indemnify the German princes, these latter 
 should seize on all the remaining ecclesiastical prin- 
 cipalities in the land, as the archbishoprics of Salz- 
 burg, Mainz, and Cologne, the bishoprics of Minister, 
 
 * See page 316. 
 
33 6 
 
 THE MAN FROM CORSICA. 
 
 Wiirzburg, Bamberg, Eichstadt, etc. But they 
 went further. Not content with the west, or left, 
 bank of the Rhine, they now asked for some places 
 on the other bank as well. 
 
 Whilst the negotiations were in progress, France 
 was collecting men and material for prosecuting the 
 war. At Rastadt their principal envoy was Talley- 
 rand, a man who had been a bishop, but had cared 
 little for Christianity. He was a man of extraordi- 
 nary talents, and cunning as a fox. He was able 
 to do without sleep, and when asked how that 
 was, he showed that his pulse throbbed, then 
 stopped for some seconds, and then throbbed again. 
 He said that his nature recruited itself in these 
 "pauses. With him were three others, Robert, Bon- 
 nies, and De Bry, from the dregs of the people, 
 coarse, insolent, rapacious men. The German 
 princes, all eager to make good terms with the 
 French for themselves, bribed these French envoys 
 to put in a good word for them ; these scoundrels 
 pocketed their money and insulted them for their 
 folly. On the 1st of March, however, whilst negotia- 
 tions were still in progress, the French crossed the 
 Rhine, under Jpurdan, and entered Wiirtcmberg. 
 The brave and able Archduke Charles met and de- 
 feated them, and Jourdan was obliged to recross 
 the Rhine to Strasburg, where he left his army 
 and returned to Paris. The insolence of the envoys 
 and their outrageous demands at Rastadt had 
 aroused great anger in the people, and a tumult 
 broke out in Vienna, in which the tricolour, floating 
 above the residence of the French ambassador, was 
 
THE FRENCH IN EGYPT. 
 
 337 
 
 torn down and burnt. The Congress of Rastadt 
 broke up in haste. As the envoys were leaving the 
 place some hussars rushed out of a wood upon the 
 carriage and killed two of them. 
 
 Against England alone had the French hitherto 
 been unable to deal crippling blows. In order to 
 hurt English trade and to menace her Asiatic pos- 
 sessions Napoleon was sent with an army into 
 Egypt. There he was victorious on land, every- 
 where ; but Nelson, with the English fleet, fought 
 and completely destroyed the French fleet lying in 
 Abukir Bay. Whilst Bonaparte was in Egypt the 
 French armies met some serious disasters on the 
 Rhine and in Switzerland. The Directory at Paris 
 was, moreover, weakened by the various parties 
 squabbling together. 
 
 Bonaparte now left his army in Egypt and slipped 
 across the Mediterranean unperceived by the Eng- 
 lish, landed in France, was appointed generalis- 
 simo over all the army, and at once upset, with the 
 aid of his soldiers, the government, and appointed 
 himself and two others as Consuls. This, was in 
 1799, when the SECOND COALITION of European 
 powers was formed against France, consisting of 
 England, Russia, and Austria. 
 
 Inspired by Napoleon the French troops gained 
 victory after victory. He crossed the Alps at the 
 head of a new army, before the Austrians were 
 aware that he was in motion. With that incon- 
 ceivable folly which seemed to pervade the coun- 
 sels of the Austrian ministry the Archduke Charles 
 had been deprived of his generalship and sent into 
 
i3» 
 
 THE MAX FROM CORSICA. 
 
 Bohemia, and the command of the forces given to 
 Marshall Kay. Suddenly Napoleon appeared in 
 Lombard)', and on June 14, 1800, gained such a 
 decisive victory at Marengo that the Austrian 
 army was forced to lay down its arms. The whole 
 of Italy fell once more into the hands of the 
 French. And now, instead of recalling the able 
 Archduke Charles, the command-in-chief was given 
 to the Archduke John, a lad of eighteen, without 
 experience and without genius. On the 3d of Decem- 
 ber this boy-general with his army was completely 
 routed in the tremendous battle of Hohenlinden, 
 more momentous even than that of Marengo in its 
 military consequences. The shattered remains of 
 the imperial army retreated behind the River Inn, 
 followed by disaster. The Austrians lost 10.000 
 prisoners and 100 cannon. But now the voice of 
 the nation made itself heard. Where was the Arch- 
 duke Charles ? Let him be recalled. Accordingly, 
 he was ordered back from Bohemia. He flew to the 
 rescue, but when, instead of the proud battalions he 
 had led so often to victory, he found only a con- 
 fused crowd of infantry, cavalry, and artillery cover- 
 ing the road, filled with panic, lost to discipline, the 
 tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks. In wain did 
 he try to rally them ; they were too broken even to 
 obey his voice. The French fell on the rear of the 
 flying Austrians, and routed the rearguard with a 
 loss of twelve hundred men, completing the demor- 
 alization of the army. A few days later the news 
 arrived of the defeat of the Austrian army in Italy 
 at the passage of the Mincio. These disasters once 
 
TERMS OF THE PEACE. ^Q 
 
 more inclined Austria to peace, which was concluded 
 at Luneville (9th Feb., 1801). By this peace the 
 whole of the left bank of the Rhine was again as- 
 sured to France, and the petty republics established 
 by France in Italy, Switzerland, and Holland were 
 recognized. All but six of the free imperial cities 
 were deprived of their privileges, the spiritual prin- 
 cipalities were abolished, and many of the secu- 
 lar princes were " mediatised," that is, lost their 
 sovereign authority, though allowed to retain their 
 titles. 
 
LVII. 
 
 NAPOLEON AS EMPEROR. 
 
 (1804.) 
 
 As Consul, Napoleon governed in France with 
 great vigour and discretion. By wise laws and 
 beneficial measures he endeavoured to give prosper- 
 ity to the land, and to heal the wounds caused by 
 protracted wars. The Revolution had abolished 
 Christianity, hung or guillotined the priests, and 
 had forbidden the use of the churches for Christian 
 worship. Napoleon, in concert with the Pope, re- 
 stored the exercise of the Christian religion, and 
 arranged for the organization of the church in 
 France, at the same time that he allowed perfect 
 freedom of conscience to Protestants and Infidels. 
 The bishops were paid by the state instead of 
 from the confiscated estates, and the clergy also, 
 without restoration of the tithe. The monasteries 
 and convents were not re-opened ; new schools 
 were founded, and provision made for general ed- 
 ucation. To encourage traffic, good reads and ca- 
 nals were made. By these means Napoleon won 
 the favour of the people. They were sick of the 
 bloodshed of the Republican tyrants, and they 
 breathed freely under the prudent rule of the First 
 
 340 
 
 
THE REPUBLIC ABOLISHED. 34 x 
 
 Consul. Moreover, his victories over the powers 
 opposed to France flattered the vanity of the na- 
 tion. These circumstances conduced to further 
 his aim for supremacy ; but he did not dare 
 take the title of king, which was still abhorrent to 
 the people ; therefore he resolved to make France 
 an empire, and renew in himself the splendours of 
 Charles the Great's reign. On the 18th of May, 
 1804, Bonaparte abolished the French Republic, 
 and was elected hereditary emperor of France. On 
 the 2d of December he was solemnly anointed and 
 crowned by the Pope, Pius VII., whom he forced 
 to come to Paris for the purpose. The ceremonies 
 used at the coronation of Charlemagne were re- 
 vived on this occasion. In March, 1805, he abol- 
 ished the Italian republics and crowned himself 
 with the iron crown of Lombardy. He formed the 
 grand and daring scheme of converting the whole 
 of Europe into one vast empire, with kings and 
 princes over the several nations, all subject to him- 
 self. 
 
 In the mean time he sent an army into Hanover, 
 and overran it. Prussia offered no interference, 
 hoping by her neutrality to secure Hanover as her 
 reward. England now persuaded Austria, Russia, 
 and Sweden to combine again against France. 
 This is called the THIRD COALITION, and was ef- 
 fected in 1805. To her eternal disgrace Prussia 
 kept neutral, and allowed the Fatherland to be rav- 
 aged, because of her jealousy of Austria. 
 
 Napoleon at once put himself at the head of an 
 army and advanced to Ulm. Sixty thousand Aus- 
 
-> 42 NAPOLEON AS EMPEROR. 
 
 trians were in the town under General Mack, an in- 
 competent man, who, panic struck at the appearance 
 of Bonaparte, capitulated without striking a blow. 
 A body of 12,000, commanded by the Archduke Fer- 
 dinand, made a bold attempt to break out, but all 
 his infantry and the greater part of his cavalry were 
 slain or captured, and a few hundred men alone suc- 
 ceeded in cutting their way through the enemy into 
 Bohemia. Where was the Archduke Charles at this 
 time? Of course, where he was not specially 
 wanted, in Italy, through no fault of his, but through 
 the blundering stupidity of the emperor's council. 
 After Mack's surrender, Napoleon, with his usual 
 alacrity, marched with his main body straight upon 
 Vienna, whilst he sent some detachments into the 
 Tyrol to hold that in check, and entered the capital 
 in November, before the Archduke Charles, who 
 had been recalled, had time to arrive for its de- 
 fence. In the mean time the Emperor Alexander 
 I., of Russia, at the head of an army, approached 
 through Moravia. Francis II. gathered together as 
 many of his scattered troops as he could and joined 
 Alexander. Both emperors appealed earnestly 
 to Prussia to renounce its base alliance with France, 
 and in this decisive moment to aid in the anni- 
 hilation of the enemy, not of the Fatherland only, 
 but of Europe. But no; the King of Prussia, hun- 
 gering after Hanover, hoped to buy it by his neu- 
 trality. On December 2, 1805, a famous battle, 
 in which the three emperors of Christendom were 
 present, took place at Austerlitz, not far from 
 Briinn, and terminated in one of Napoleon's most 
 
ALEXANDER, NAPOLEON AND FREDERICK WILLIAM III. 
 (From a contemporary picture by an unknown Artist.) 
 
 343 
 
344 • XAPOLEON AS EMPEROR. 
 
 glorious victories. Immediately Prussia threw in 
 her part with France, secured Hanover, and in ex- 
 change surrendered Cleves, Anspach, and Neufchatel 
 to the French. The Austrians, utterly paralyzed, 
 were unable to continue the struggle, and were 
 forced to conclude a peace, called the Peace OF 
 PRESSBURG, at enormous sacrifice. Austria lost 
 Venice, Tyrol, and the Breisgau, a portion of land 
 between the Black Forest and the Rhine. 
 
 On his way east Napoleon had forced the dukes 
 of Bavaria, Wtirtemberg, and Baden to unite their 
 troops with his against the Austrians. Napoleon 
 now rewarded them by elevating Bavaria and Wur- 
 temberg into kingdoms, and by exalting the Duke 
 of Baden into a grand-duke, and giving him the 
 Austrian lands adjoining his own. 
 
 On the 1 2th of July, 1806, sixteen German princes, 
 of which. the principal were Bavaria, Baden, Wurtem- 
 berg, and Hesse - Darmstadt, formally separated 
 themselves from the German empire and declared 
 themselves subject to the French emperor. This is 
 called the Rhein-bund. Napoleon, to increase his 
 own splendour, now erected the provinces dependent 
 upon France into kingdoms and principalities, and 
 bestowed them upon his relatives and favourites. 
 His brother Joseph he made King of Naples; his 
 brother Louis, King of Holland ; his step-son, Eu- 
 gene Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy ; his brother-in- 
 law, Murat, formerly a common soldier, Grand-duke 
 of Berg ; his first adjutant, Berthies, Prince of Neuf- 
 chatel. 
 
 On the 6th of August, 1806, the Emperor Francis 
 
 
PRUSSIA CHASTISED. 345 
 
 II. was forced to abdicate the imperial crown of Ger- 
 many, and announce the dissolution of the empire 
 in a touching address, full of stately sorrow. The 
 last of the German emperors had shown himself, 
 throughout the contest, worthy of his great ances- 
 tors, and had, almost alone, sacrificed all in order to 
 preserve the honour and independence of Germany, 
 until, abandoned by the greater part of the princes, 
 he was unable to continue the contest. 
 
 Two years before, Francis II. had assumed the 
 title of Emperor of Austria, i. e., of the Eastern 
 Realm, and it remains to the House of Hapsburg. 
 
 Now it was the turn of Prussia to be chastised. 
 Now only did she awake to the fact that she had 
 betrayed her best interests by not coming to the 
 front with Austria. Napoleon seized the Prussian 
 fortress of Wesel, and he insisted on the formation 
 of a northern bund, like the Rhein-bund, under the 
 protection of himself. Louisa, the beautiful Queen 
 of Prussia, a Mechlenberg princess, had alone fore- 
 seen the inevitable end, and had entreated the king 
 to draw his sword against the conqueror. Now she 
 redoubled her entreaties. The Emperor Alexander, 
 of Russia, visited Berlin and joined his voice to that 
 of the queen. The whole kingdom felt the shame 
 that covered it, and at last war was declared (1806). 
 But the spirit of Frederick the Great no longer an- 
 imated the army he had created. The Prussians 
 were defeated at Jena, and again at Auerstadt. 
 Russia, which took the field at the same time, met 
 bloody repulses at Eilau and Friedland. Na< 
 poleon at once pushed on to Berlin, where he 
 
34^ 
 
 NAPOLEOX AS EMPEROR. 
 
 was received, not, as at Vienna, by the citizens with 
 mute rage, but with loud demonstrations of delight. 
 Men of high rank stood behind the crowd and urged 
 them on to cheer, saying, " For Heaven's sake, give a 
 hearty hurrah ! Cry, ' Long live the emperor ! " or we 
 are done for." Many citizens pressed forward, 
 eager to betray the public money and stores that 
 had been concealed. " I know not," said Napoleon, 
 " whether to rejoice at my success or to feel ashamed 
 for this people." The noble-hearted and beautiful 
 Prussian queen was treated with the grossest inso- 
 lence by Bonaparte. He knew how earnest and ener- 
 getic she had been in stirring up her husband against 
 him. He visited the tomb of Frederick the 
 Great, and gave vent over it to the most unbecoming 
 expressions of contempt against his unfortunate 
 descendant. 
 
 The Prussian fortresses fell, one after another, 
 during the autumn and winter, some from utter in- 
 ability to maintain themselves, but the greater part 
 because commanded by incompetent generals. 
 
 At last, on July 9, 1 807, a conference was held 
 at Tilsit between the sovereigns of France, Russia, 
 and Prussia, whereby peace was concluded. Prussia 
 was deprived of half her territory, which was con- 
 verted by Napoleon into a kingdom of Westphalia, 
 of which he appointed his brother Jerome ruler. 
 
 In the year 1809 Austria again took up arms 
 against Napoleon. The Archduke Charles had en- 
 treated, after former disasters, that the army might 
 be put on a better footing. Now, at last, his advice 
 was attended to. But Austria had now opposed to 
 
THE PEACE OE VIENNA. 
 
 \47 
 
 her France, Bavaria, and the rest of the Rhenish 
 Bund, and Saxony. In five battles in five consecu- 
 tive days Napoleon defeated the archduke, and 
 again the great conqueror entered Vienna. But 
 now the brave archduke returned to the charge from 
 Bohemia with fresh levies. A battle was fought at 
 Aspern which lasted two days, the 2 1st and 22d of 
 May, 1809, and for the first time Napoleon was de- 
 feated. For some time the two armies continued 
 watching each other ; at last, on the 5th of July, Na- 
 poleon attacked the Austrians at Wagram, not far 
 from Aspern. The fight was desperate, the valour 
 of the Austrians splendid. They captured twelve 
 golden eagles and standards of the enemy, and 
 would have gained a victory had not the reserve 
 which had been called up failed to arrive, owing to 
 the dilatoriness of the Archduke John, who com- 
 manded it. 
 
 Two hours after the battle was over it arrived on 
 the blood-stained field. Owing to this defeat Aus- 
 tria was again compelled to negociate a peace, 
 which goes by the title of " The Peace of Vi- 
 enna." She had now to make additional sacrifices, 
 to give up Carniola, Trieste, and Dalmatia to the 
 French, and Salzburg and other portions of her pos- 
 sessions in the Alps to Bavaria. The Tyrol also be- 
 came Bavarian. During this heroic struggle of 
 Austria against the tyrant, Prussia again remained 
 inert. 
 
Ilp^ 
 
 ^9 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 
 
 
 ls*5 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 iawc 
 
 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 THE HEROES OF THE TYROL. 
 (1809.) 
 
 To this time belongs one of the most heroic and 
 glorious achievements of modern history, — the ris- 
 ing of the Tyrolean patriots against the French and 
 Bavarians, under the leading of Andreas Hofer, an 
 innkeeper, Speckbacher, a hunter, and Haspinger, 
 a friar. 
 
 Hofer kept a little tavern in the Passeyr valley 
 that opens into the main valley of the Adige at 
 Meran. The inn is at a place called " Sand," and 
 so he went by the familiar name of the " Sand- 
 host " (Sand-wirth). He was a tall, fine man, with 
 brown, vivacious eyes, black hair, and a long, bushy 
 beard, that reached nearly to his waist. His walk 
 was measured and grave, his voice soft and clear, 
 the expression of his features cheerful and serene. 
 Without any pretence to eloquence, he had the 
 gift of finding his way to the hearts of men and 
 winning their confidence. His dress was the pict- 
 uresque costume of his native valley, — a dark jacket, 
 a scarlet waistcoat crossed by broad emerald-green 
 braces, black chamois-leather breeches, and a belt of 
 black leather, embroidered over with tiny threads of 
 
 348 
 
A PICTURESQUE DRESS. 
 
 349 
 
 goose quill. On his head he wore a black goat's- 
 hair steeple cap with broad brim, surrounded by 
 twisted scarlet silk string. His stockings were of 
 blue wool. Around his neck he wore a small crucifix. 
 If ever you go to Meran you will see the peas- 
 
 ANDREAS HOFER. 
 (From a contemporary Engraving.) 
 
 ants there on a Sunday and market day wearing 
 the same beautiful costume. 
 
 When Austria took up arms again, in 1809, 
 against France and her German allies, she had not 
 many regular soldiers to send into the Tyrol to defend 
 it, and the defence had to be entrusted to the peas- 
 ants themselves, who had shown what they could 
 do, as you may remember, just before the Treaty of 
 
35o 
 
 THE HEROES OE THE TYROL. 
 
 Campo Formio. In the resistance then offered, 
 Hofer and Speckbacher had distinguished them- 
 selves. 
 
 On the 7th of April little slips of paper, on which 
 were written only the words " It is time," were cir- 
 culated through the Tyrol. As the river Inn rushed 
 along it whirled on its milky waters bits of wood 
 with red flags stuck into them. The peasants knew 
 the signal, caught their weapons, and the whole of 
 the mountain region was in insurrection against the 
 enemy. On the south side of the Brenner pass, the 
 main road from Innsbruck to Italy, in the green 
 basin of a dried-up lake, stands the quaint old town 
 of Sterzing. The mountains tower above it, and up 
 the Ridnaun valley the eye looks to glorious ranges 
 of ice peaks. Into this basin marched the Bava- 
 rians on their way south to Brixen, where was 
 another Bavarian force. When they were in the 
 plain, the Tyrolese, commanded by Hofer, poured 
 down from the mountainsides around, and attacked 
 them. This was their first battle in the open coun- 
 try. The Bavarians formed square, and poured a 
 shower of lead into their advancing ranks. They 
 hesitated. Then a young girl with a shout drew 
 forward a waggon load of hay towards the enemy. 
 The Tyrolese followed with two others. They 
 threw over the loads in a line, and lying behind the 
 hay fired into, the mass of their enemy. The hay 
 had made a wall of shelter for them. The Bavarians 
 wavered, broke, and with a shout the peasants 
 charged them over the hay heaps, and took them 
 
A SECRET KEPT. 
 
 35* 
 
 prisoners. They were carried to a castle that 
 stands on a height overlooking the plain. 
 
 Then every trace of the battle was removed, for 
 the news reached the peasants that the French and 
 Bavarians together were marching up the valley 
 from Brixen. Hofer made the townspeople prom- 
 ise him not to say a word of what had happened ; 
 and when the united army arrived and wondered 
 what had become of the Bavarians who had been 
 ordered to meet them there, no one told them 
 what had taken place. Next day they recom- 
 menced their march, and were no sooner involved 
 among the rocks and pines than bullets and stones 
 poured down on them, and terrible were their 
 losses as they struggled through, unable to reach 
 and dislodge the enemy. 
 
 On the nth of May a French force, under Gen- 
 eral Lefebvre, and a Bavarian force, under Devey, in- 
 vaded the Tyrol ; but already had the gallant Tyrolese 
 stormed Innsbruck and taken Hall, where were large 
 stores for the army, and had cleared the Inn Valley 
 of the enemy, led by Speckbacher, and South Tyrol 
 had been freed by Hofer. 
 
 On the nth of May also a Bavarian force, under 
 Wrede, advanced from Salzburg upon the Tyrol 
 through the Strub pass. This is a long and gloomy 
 ravine, shut in between abrupt walls of rock. The 
 road zigzags up among dark pines, around promonto- 
 ries of rock, high above a brawling torrent. The 1 ith 
 of May, that year, was Ascension Day. It was brill- 
 iant with sunshine ; the slopes were blue with gen- 
 tianella and sprinkled with the delicate pink primula. 
 
352 
 
 THE HEROES OE THE TYROL 
 
 They were soon to be deepened dark red with 
 blood. Holding the pass were 350 brave peasants 
 with two small cannon, six-pounders. A few miles 
 behind was an Austrian general with regulars, but. 
 like so many of the old generals in the Austrian 
 service at that time, he was half asleep, and so be- 
 wildered as not to know what to do when the op- 
 portunity of doing anything offered. As Napoleon 
 said of them, " They are asleep when their eyes 
 are open." Wrede had 14,000 well-disciplined sol- 
 diers and several cannon. When he saw that the 
 pass was guarded he poured a volley and played on 
 the defenders with his big guns ; but they neither 
 heeded nor replied. Then he ordered a charge. 
 At once the two little field-pieces blazed, and the 
 unerring guns of the peasants were discharged. The 
 Bavarians went down in heaps ; the rest recoiled, and 
 the wounded staggered to the edge and fell down 
 the gulf into the thundering stream far below. For 
 five hours the fight continued, and then a shell in- 
 jured one of the little cannon. Eight times did the 
 Bavarians come on and were repulsed, and now their 
 ammunition began to fail. A ninth attack was made, 
 and at the same time a detachment, sent around by a 
 circuitous path, fell on the brave Tyrolese behind. 
 Then the battle was concluded by the enraged 
 Bavarians butchering the wounded peasants who 
 had fallen on the road they had held so heroically. 
 Only a few escaped, but they had killed some 1500 
 of the enemy. You must remember that at this 
 time Napoleon was at Vienna, and held in his grip 
 the heart of Austria. The Archduke Charles was 
 
A WOMAN WITH A CASK. 
 
 353 
 
 in Bohemia, whither he had fled after the five battles, 
 on five consecutive days, in which he had tried to 
 arrest the onward roll of Napoleon. Austria was 
 in such distress that she could not help the Tyrol. 
 She was forced to withdraw from it the few regiments 
 of regulars left there. The peasants had only 
 themselves to look to. Innsbruck, their capital, was 
 in the hands of the Bavarians. The Tyrolese were 
 resolved to recover it. On May the 29th was fought 
 one of the most remarkable battles in the war, the 
 battle of Berg Isel, in which the hardy moun- 
 taineers defeated, and drove out of the town, the 
 well-trained army of invaders. Due south of Inns- 
 bruck the road to Italy runs over a level plain for 
 about a mile and a half, passing a large abbey, called 
 Wilten. Then there rises from the plain a hill, 
 Berg Isel, up which the road winds. On this hill, 
 occupying the Brenner road, were the Tyrolese, 
 and here the three leaders, Hofer, Speckbacher, 
 and Haspinger, united. The Bavarians not only 
 held Innsbruck, but the whole left bank of the Inn 
 as far as Hall and Volders, some 6 or 9 miles down 
 the river. Speckbacher opposed them at this point, 
 that is, he and his men formed the right wing of 
 the patriot army. The Bavarians crossed the Inn 
 at once at Hall and at Volders. Speckbacher im- 
 mediately fell on them at Volders and drove them 
 back ; then, leaving a detachment to destroy the 
 bridge, he flew to Hall, where some Austrian regu- 
 lars were opposed to the Bavarians, and drove them 
 back again. During the fight here a young woman 
 ran among the Austrians and Tyrolese with a lit- 
 
it a THE HEROES OF THE TYROL. 
 
 tie cask of wine on her head, and a mug in her hand, 
 giving them drink. A bullet struck the cask, 
 entered it, and the wine began to run down her 
 cheek and neck. " Quick, quick ! " cried the brave 
 girl, "drink away, my hearties ! before another ball 
 finishes the wine and waitress." Speckbacher was 
 rushing over the bridge when he found his little 
 boy at his side. In vain did he urge the child to 
 go back ; the gallant little fellow would be in the 
 thick of the fight beside his father. Speckbacher 
 had to box his ears and severely rebuke him before 
 he would retire ; and then he occupied himself in 
 collecting the bullets that fell about him for his 
 father's gun. Three times did the brave Speck- 
 bacher lead the charge ; at last a reserve body came 
 up, the Bavarians were beat back, and then Speck- 
 bacher led his men to the assistance of Hofer in 
 the centre, at Berg Isel. Here a furious contest 
 was going on ; and here it was that Haspinger, the 
 friar, turned the tide of battle. Father Haspinger 
 wore the snuff-coloured robe of his order, with a 
 cord knotted round his waist, bare feet and sandals. 
 His head was bare ; he had red hair and a long, thick- 
 red beard. In his hand he carried a stick, and on his 
 breast a little black cross. He had no weapons. 
 Above Berg Isel are two villages, Mutters and 
 Natters, and these were in the hands of the Bava- 
 rians. After two hours hard fighting the enemy 
 was driven from them down the hill towards the 
 plain. But this would not have happened but for 
 Haspinger. Seeing the Tyrolese falter, then 
 break and begin to fly, the brave Capuchin friar 
 
 
AMMUNITION SPENT. 3-5 
 
 roared to them, as he waved his staff, " Good-bye ! 
 Good-bye ! Brothers, I go forwards to the throne of 
 God to accuse you of cowardice." They were 
 ashamed and returned to the charge. The bullets 
 whistled around their leader, but none touched him. 
 A Bavarian soldier rushed forward with a curse to 
 run him through with his bayonet ; the friar 
 knocked the gun out of his hands with his alpen- 
 stock. Next moment he would have fallen, pierced 
 through, had not a rifleman, perceiving his danger, 
 fired over his shoulder at the Bavarian, thereby 
 singeing the Father's beard. Then forward with 
 shouts of joy rushed the Tyrolese, and drove the 
 Bavarians down on the Inn. Now that the left 
 wing had succeeded, as well as the right, Hofer in 
 the centre pushed forward, and the Bavarians, re- 
 tired precipitously into the town. The ammunition 
 of the peasants was spent; they were unable to fol- 
 low up their success, and during the night the Bava- 
 rian general slipped away from the town with the 
 remnant of his army. After the battle of Wagram, 
 Austria was obliged to consent to a truce, which 
 was to lead to the Peace of Vienna, by which the 
 Tyrol was to be given up to Bavaria. This had 
 been agreed to on July 7th, at Znaym ; but the Tyro- 
 lese obstinately refused to be transferred to Ba- 
 varia, and prosecuted the war. 
 
 General Lefebvre, who had been a miller's boy, 
 and had become a field-marshal of France, and had 
 been created by Napoleon Duke of Danzig, was 
 sent, at the head of a large army of French, Bava- 
 rians, and Saxons, into the Tyrol, to subdue it thor- 
 
356 
 
 THE HEROES OE THE TYROL. 
 
 oughly. He occupied Innsbruck, and then marched 
 over the Brenner Pass to Sterzing, on his way to 
 Brixen and Botzen. He intended to quiet the South 
 of Tyrol. At the same time an army was sent up 
 the valley of the Inn, which was to go through 
 the Finstermunz Pass above Landeck, descend 
 the Adige, and meet him at Botzen. 
 
 The first to 2^0 forward were the Saxons. Thev 
 were allowed to advance as far as a very narrow 
 defile, called the Sack, where there is a wooden 
 bridge near a precipice of rock that rises above 
 the road. The peasants passed the bridge and set 
 it on fire as the Saxons came up, and as they 
 halted, hesitating what to do, suddenly there came 
 a rumble, then a roar, and an avalanche of rocks 
 and stones poured down on them from the cliff 
 overhead. A thousand men, among them forty- 
 four officers, were lost in the Sack. When the 
 Duke of Danzig heard this he was very angry, and 
 ordered the rest of his troops forward. He had 
 been lodging at the little inn of " the Nail," at Sterz- 
 ing, and grumbled at the poor breakfast he had re- 
 ceived. " It matters not," he said to the hostess. 
 " I shall have a famous dinner to-day at Brixen." 
 But he was met at the Sack by the dauntless peas- 
 ants, who poured their fire upon his advancing col- 
 umns, and showered rocks on him from the sides 
 of the pass, and the army was obliged to fly back to 
 Sterzing in confusion. As the duke returned, 
 angry, humiliated, exhausted to the inn, he found 
 his hostess at the door. She court si ed, and with 
 a twinkling eye, asked, " I hope your Grace has 
 
AUSTRIA ABANDONS THE TYROL. yj 
 
 enjoyed your famous dinner to-day." The army 
 sent round by the Finstermiinz met a like dis- 
 aster, and the broken fragments of both armies 
 were forced to retreat into the Inn valley. There, at 
 Innsbruck, Lefebvre, the duke, concentrated 25,000 
 infantry, and 1000 horse, and 40 pieces of artillery. 
 After them, flushed with victory, poured the gal- 
 lant Tyrolese. Another battle was fought on Berg 
 Isel ; again were the patriots commanded by Hofer, 
 Speckbacher, and the friar, and again were they 
 victorious. The Tyrolese lost 132 wounded and 50 
 killed ; they took 6000 prisoners and killed 4000 
 men, and Lefebvre was obliged to retire. 
 
 The Peace of Vienna was signed, and Austria 
 was forced to abandon the Tyrol. She could not help 
 herself. Her powers of resistance were exhausted. 
 But the Tyrolese would not acknowledge it. Ac- 
 cordingly, fresh bodies of men were sent into the 
 Tyrol to subdue the mountaineers-. They continued 
 the desperate struggle, but against the enormous su- 
 periority of numbers could not make headway. 
 The French and Bavarians held the main roads, and 
 all the towns, and could starve them into submission. 
 Another battle was fought at Berg Isel, but this 
 time the valour of the patriots could not win them 
 victory. At last a former friend betrayed Hofer 
 to the French, and, to the eternal disgrace of Napo- 
 leon, he had the brave man shot in cold blood. 
 Speckbacher, later, was rewarded by the Austrian 
 emperor, and Haspinger would have been rewarded 
 had the humble friar consented to receive anything 
 at his hands. 
 
LIX. 
 
 THE MARCH OX MOSCOW. 
 
 (1812.) 
 
 THROUGH his defeat of the Prussians and Aus- 
 trians, Napoleon had reached the highest point of 
 his career. No power but England dared to defy 
 him. The great fleet of England harassed and de- 
 feated the French navy. Napoleon tried what he 
 could to hurt England. He forbade all trade with 
 Britain, and the sale of English wares. All the 
 harbours of the continent were closed against 
 the English, so as to kill their trade and manufact- 
 ures. However, the Emperor Alexander, of Russia, 
 refused to consent to have his ports thus shut ; ac- 
 cordingly, the French dictator determined on war 
 with him. 
 
 Napoleon strained every effort to make this 
 gigantic undertaking successful. At the head of 
 600,000 men, in the summer of 1812, he crossed the 
 Russian frontier. But before doing this he con- 
 voked all the princes of Germany to Dresden, 
 where he lectured them with such insolence as 
 even to repel his warmest partisans. Tears sprang 
 into the eyes of the Empress of Austria and the 
 Queen of Prussia ; the princes and kings bit their 
 
 358 
 
A MYSTERIOUS ST/LLA'ESS. 
 
 359 
 
 lips with rage at the petty humiliations and coarse 
 affronts put on them by their powerful but mo- 
 mentary lord. The army led by Napoleon against 
 Russia was principally composed of German troops, 
 who were skilfully mixed up with the French, so 
 as not to be themselves aware of their numbers. 
 Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Hessians, Bavarians, 
 Wtirtembergers, Badeners, Swiss, Flemings, even 
 Portuguese, Spaniards, and Italians, went to make 
 up this great host, which was destined to whiten 
 with its bones the plains of Russia. In order to 
 secure his rear Napoleon garrisoned the Prussian 
 fortresses with French troops, and the Prussians 
 sent forward to fight in Russia were commanded 
 by French officers. Sixty thousand French held 
 Prussia, whilst the sons of Prussia were sent to die 
 in arms for their conqueror. Now bitterly did she 
 feel the consequences of her baseness. 
 
 No enemy opposed the invading army. The 
 Russians retired before Napoleon without striking 
 a blow, leading him on deep into their dreary 
 plains. 
 
 On the 7th of September, after a march of over 
 two months, the army came in sight of the cupolas 
 and towers of Moscow. A mysterious stillness 
 reigned in the great city of the Czars. None ap- 
 peared with the keys to lay them at the feet of the 
 invader ; no crowd of curious sight-seers poured 
 out of the gates to gaze on the mighty conqueror. 
 The town was deserted. Napoleon took up his 
 quarters in the Kremlin, the ancient palace of the 
 Czars. All at once fire broke out in various quarters 
 
360 THE MARCH ON MOSCOW. 
 
 of the town. An autumn storm fanned the flames, 
 and in a short time the whole city was a waving, 
 roaring sea of fire. Every attempt to extinguish 
 the conflagration was in vain ; the very Kremlin 
 kindled. The Russians had themselves accumulated 
 the combustibles in their houses and set them on 
 fire, and sacrificed their glorious city so as the more 
 surely to work the destruction of the French army. 
 Now Napoleon's overwhelming pride proved 
 his ruin. Instead of leading his army south into 
 fertile lands for winter quarters at once, he waited 
 among the ashes of Moscow till the middle of Octo- 
 ber, in daily expectation that the Emperor of Russia 
 would send humbly to him, entreating peace. 
 Finding that no appeal came ; hearing the winds of 
 winter begin to howl, and seeing the snowflakes begin 
 to fall, he sent overtures of peace to Alexander. No 
 answer came. All at once inaction disappeared. 
 His cavalry were surprised and defeated with great 
 loss. The frosts began to set in, the ice to form 
 over the pools. Faster and faster fell the snow. 
 Now Napoleon found that he had an enemy ranged 
 against him that he was unable to defeat and insult — 
 winter. Now, when too late, he resolved on retreat. 
 The winter of 181 1 had been unusually mild ; that of 
 18 1 2 set in unusually early, and with unwonted 
 severity. Provisions failed. The vast plains were 
 white and deep in snow, and as the army retired 
 the Cossacks hovered around them with their long 
 spears like musquitos, maddening and torturing 
 them. The horses died by thousands. The numbed 
 and weary soldiers flung away their arms. The 
 grand army was reduced to a cowering, starved, 
 
A TERRIBLE RETREAT. 
 
 361 
 
 frightened wreck. Gaunt forms of famine, wan, 
 hollow-eyed, wrapped in strange garments of misery 
 to keep out the cold — skins and women's clothes — 
 with long beards, dragged their faint limbs along, 
 fought for a dead horse, murdered each other for a 
 morsel of bread, and fell over in the deep snow, 
 never again to rise. Numbers fell into the hands of 
 the Russian boors, who stripped them and drove 
 them out into the snowdrifts. When at last they 
 reached the Beresina, which had to be passed, a thaw 
 had set in, and the river rolled down broken blocks 
 of ice. At the same time the Russians appeared on 
 their flanks, charging them with spears, pouring can- 
 non shot among them, hewing them down with their 
 sabres. Two bridges were hastily built, and over 
 them poured the terrified, flying rabble of soldiers. 
 They crowded on one another, trampled one another 
 down. The railings gave way, and many were precip- 
 itated over the sides ; others were run down by the 
 horses, and crushed under the wheels of the cannon 
 carriages. Then, to complete the disaster, the bridges 
 themselves broke, and the stream of human beings, 
 forced on by those behind, fell into the ice-cold 
 whirling river to perish in its waves. Those who 
 did not reach the shore were made prisoners. 
 
 On the 5th of December Napoleon deserted his 
 army, leaving it to take its chance, escaping on a 
 slide. With his flight all discipline ended ; soldiers, 
 and officers, and generals all sought only individual 
 safety. Of the great army led into Russia not one 
 twentieth part returned in safety. The mighty host 
 of the conqueror was totally annihilated. 
 

 
 
 
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 LX. 
 
 NAPOLEON FALLS AND GERMANY RISES. 
 
 THIS unexpected disaster of the Emperor Napo- 
 leon seemed to Europe a sign from heaven that the 
 hour of emancipation had struck. The first to 
 recognize this was Prussia. In February, 1813, the 
 king; met Alexander of Russia and concluded an 
 alliance with him. But Berlin was in the hands of 
 the French. Now, however, the whole Prussian 
 nation, eager to throw off the hated yoke of the 
 foreigner, to wipe away the dishonour of her past, 
 cheerfully hastened to place their lives and property 
 at the service of the impoverished government. The 
 whole of the able-bodied population was put under 
 arms. Every heart bounded with hope and pride. 
 The king and emperor issued a proclamation appeal- 
 ing to all Germany to rise against the common enemy. 
 It found an echo in every German heart. Warning 
 was sent to Napoleon of the menacing temper in 
 the land. " Pah ! " he exclaimed, " Germans can't 
 fight like Spaniards." However, he levied a French 
 army 300,000 strong, which so overawed the Rhenish 
 Bund that their princes actually again called to- 
 gether thousands of their subjects to go with Na- 
 poleon against their brothers in the North. Mech- 
 
 362 
 
CLEMENS WENZEL, PRINCE VON METTERNICH. 
 ^From a Painting by Th. Lawrence.) 
 
 3 6 3 
 
364 NAPOLEON FALLS AND GERMANY RISES. 
 
 lenburg alone sided with Prussia. Austria was too 
 exhausted to lift a hand. But now was a fight to 
 be seen calculated to rejoice the heart of one loving 
 his country. As sometimes a great distress or humil- 
 iation coming on a man with good qualities, who 
 has lived an inglorious, unworthy life, will spur him 
 to take a new start, cast aside those infirmities 
 which have marred his character and rise to true 
 nobility of life, so was it now with the Prussian peo- 
 ple. As animated by one heart, all responded to 
 the call. Prussia became a great arsenal. Youths 
 hardly ripe enough, old men with grey hair, fathers 
 of families, tradesmen, artisans, professional men, 
 landed gentry, even young women in men's cloth- 
 ing flew to arms ; all wanted to hold a gun and 
 brandish a sword for Fatherland. He who could 
 not enter the ranks gave his money. He who had no 
 money gave his labour. None would hang behind 
 the others in the great cause. Speedily the whole 
 of the able male population was converted into an 
 army. There was the standing army, and there 
 were the free corps. Among these latter Liitzow's 
 Huntsmen gained a glorious name in these days of 
 gallantry. Napoleon advanced into the heart of 
 Germany, and he was in Saxony before the Prussians 
 were ready to meet him. Now the Emperor Alex- 
 ander of Russia sent help, and the two allies met 
 Napoleon, and were defeated by him in two bloody 
 battles at Liitzen and Bautzen. 
 
 The Emperor of Austria offered to mediate. His 
 minister, Count Metternich, was sent to Napoleon. 
 " Hah ! come to mediate, have you ? " asked Bona- 
 
blucher wins success. 365 
 
 parte ; " if that be so, you are not on my side." 
 Then, insolently, " Well, Metternich, how much 
 money have you been bribed with by England to 
 take this part?" and he threw his hat down on the 
 floor to see if Count Metternich would stoop to 
 pick it up. Metternich looked at the hat, then 
 at Napoleon, and set his lips. He would not stoop. 
 Napoleon turned his back on him, — and so, war 
 with Austria also was determined on. Immedi- 
 ately, the combined Prussian and Russian army 
 entered Bohemia, where they were joined by the 
 Emperor of Austria at the head of his army. The 
 army in Bohemia was placed under the command 
 of Prince Schwarzenberg. Another army to guard 
 Silesia was under Blucher, a third, the North army 
 at Berlin, was under the Crown-Prince of Sweden, 
 who was a Frenchman, Charles Bernadotte, one of 
 Napoleon's generals, who had been elected to suc- 
 ceed the childless King of Sweden. 
 
 On the 23d of August a murderous conflict took 
 place at Gross-Beeren between a Prussian division 
 of the North army and the French. The almost 
 untrained peasantry that composed it rushed upon 
 the enemy and beat down entire battalions with the 
 butt-ends of their muskets, whilst the crown-prince 
 and his Swedes looked on without taking part. 
 The French lost 2400 prisoners. Blucher in Silesia 
 also won success three days later. Having drawn 
 the French across the river Neisse, he drove 
 them, after a desperate engagement, into the river, 
 swollen with heavy rains. The muskets of the sol- 
 diers had been rendered unserviceable by the wet. 
 
3 66 
 
 NAPOLEON FALLS AXD GERMANY RISES. 
 
 and Blucher, drawing his sabre from beneath his 
 cloak, dashed forward, exclaiming, "Forwards!" 
 
 Several thousand French were drowned or bayo- 
 netted, or had their skulls fractured by the butt- 
 ends of the muskets. They lost 103 guns, 18,000 
 prisoners, and a greater number were killed. The 
 general in command, Macdonald, escaped almost 
 alone to Napoleon at Dresden. " Sire," said the de- 
 feated general, 4t your army no longer exists." 
 Blucher was given a title of prince from the place 
 where this victory was won, but his soldiers pre- 
 ferred to call him " Marshal Forwards." The place 
 of this battle was Wahlstadt, not far from Liegnitz. 
 Before Dresden, on the same day, Aug. 26, how- 
 ever, the allies were defeated by Napoleon with 
 great loss ; but this was the last victory obtained 
 by Napoleon on German soil. 
 
LXI. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE NATIONS. 
 
 (1813.) 
 
 NAPOLEON'S generals were thrown back in every 
 quarter with great loss on Dresden, where Napo- 
 leon remained waiting his opportunity. A fresh 
 disappointment befel him. The Bavarian army re- 
 fused to fight for him, and went over to the allies, 
 and marched to the Main to stand across Napo- 
 leon's path if he attempted to retreat. When the 
 news of this disaffection reached Napoleon's main 
 army at Dresden the German troops in it began to 
 waver, and when he ordered a march on Berlin, 
 broke out in mutiny. A feeling of melancholy 
 foreboding of his approaching fall stole over the 
 great conqueror, and he remained for some days 
 irresolute. Then his spirit revived. On the 16th 
 of October, 1813, began the great battle of Leipzig, 
 which is called by Germans " The Battle of the 
 Nations," because of the various nationalities rep- 
 resented in it, and the number of the troops engaged. 
 It was fought on the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th of 
 October, and was one of the longest, sternest, and 
 bloodiest actions of the war, and one of the greatest 
 battles recorded in history. Napoleon had an army 
 
 367 
 
3^8 
 
 THE BATTLE OE THE NATIONS. 
 
 of 200,000 men, and the allies 300,000; but the allies 
 had not more than 200,000 the first day, as the 
 Northern a,rmy was at Halle under Bernadotte, who 
 was little inclined to fight his old master, Napo- 
 leon. 
 
 Now let me try to give you some idea of this 
 great Battle of the Nations. Leipzig lies in a plain 
 where two rivers, the Elster and the Pleisse, meet, and 
 two smaller streams, the Luppe and the Partha, also 
 meet and unite into one river, which thenceforth 
 flows a short way and falls into the Saale above 
 Halle. From the East comes the high road from 
 Dresden, along which Napoleon marched to Leip- 
 zig. From the South comes the road by which the 
 Silesian army was advancing. This road ran along 
 the Pleisse, through coppices of scraggy alders. On 
 the West were two roads, one from the Saale at 
 Weissenfels — i. e. S. W. — the other from Halle — 
 N. W. Along this latter the North Army was advanc- 
 ing, — reluctantly indeed, — under Bernadotte, Crown- 
 Prince of S.veden. The Emperor of Austria, the Em- 
 peror of Russia, and the King of Prussia were with 
 the main army from Bohemia. With Napoleon 
 was the King of Saxony, and Murat, King of 
 Naples. As the allies drew near they formed a half 
 moon, with the left wing on the Luppe and the 
 right on the east bank of the Pleisse. Moreover, 
 the Silesian army was planted on the road from 
 Leipzig to Halle, and the Northern army, which was 
 at Halle, ordered to come up quickly and unite 
 with it, which it did not do. The object was to cut 
 
 
THE BA TTLE A T LEIPZIG. 
 
 3 6 9 
 
 off Napoleon's retreat, and drive him either back 
 on Dresden, or, better still, due north. 
 
 The battle began at 8 o'clock in the morning. A 
 thousand cannon roared ; smoke rolled over the 
 extended field. Napoleon planted himself with his 
 main body across the south road that enters the 
 
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 THE BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 
 
 town from Wachau and Probstheide. The Polish 
 prince, Poniatowski, with his Poles was between the 
 Elsterand the Pleisse. Another division was placed 
 between the Luppe and the Elster ; another again, 
 under Marmont, was on the Halle road. The bat- 
 tle began with a tremendous fight at Wachau, 
 which lasted till 2 o'clock in the afternoon, in 
 which the Russians were principally engaged ; but 
 almost simultaneously it exploded at Lindenau, 
 Konnewitz, and Mockern ; so that Leipzig was sur- 
 rounded on all sides but N. and E. by the thunder 
 of war. Nothing decisive was done at Lindenau 
 
3;o 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE NATIOXS. 
 
 and Konnewitz, and Napoleon massed his men to 
 make a crushing rush upon the right wing of the 
 allies, and turn it at Probstheide. They shook 
 and recoiled. Then above the booming of the 
 guns sounded the merry bells of all the churches 
 of Leipzig ; Napoleon had ordered them to be rung, 
 believing that the victory was decided. At the 
 same time, out of the Elster gate galloped a 
 courier charged with a message to Paris of his suc- 
 cess. But just then up came the Russian reserves 
 from the South. The Cossacks charged down on 
 the advancing wave of French. The allied army 
 rallied, and rolled back the enemy. On a mound 
 beside- the road Napoleon watched the battle all 
 day, and the three allied sovereigns stood on an- 
 other mound near Wachau. At one time they 
 were almost captured, when the tide of battle 
 turned. In the mean time Bliicher, " Marshal For- 
 wards," was going forwards at Mockern unable to 
 wait for the Swedes and their dawdling half-hearted 
 leader, and he drove back the French within the 
 walls of Leipzig. Darkness fell, and the roar of 
 the cannons ceased, leaving the allies in possession 
 of the field, and the French retiring behind Leip- 
 zig, so as to hold the roads to Dresden and the 
 North. At the moment when victory seemed to 
 have declared for the French, Napoleon shouted 
 exultantly : " The world turns round for us." 
 When darkness settled in he felt that he was a 
 beaten man ; but his spirit was not broken. 
 
 Next day only desultory fighting ensued ; but he 
 saw that he was in peril, and he ordered that at all 
 
PREPARED TO BREAK AWAY. 
 
 37* 
 
 cost the road to Weissenfels, along which lay his 
 course to France, should be kept clear. He sent 
 to the allies to ask for a truce, but was refused. 
 On the 1 8th the battle began with renewed fury. 
 But now the Swedes and North army came up from 
 Halle, and another Russian force, and a large Aus- 
 trian division. The French army, by its losses, had 
 been greatly thinned, and the allies were at the 
 same time reinforced. 
 
 Napoleon now resolved on retreat, and concen- 
 trated his army on the South. The allies' then ex- 
 tended their right wing to the Partha, shutting off 
 the road to Dresden, where they were opposed by the 
 Saxons. The main column of the allies advanced 
 from Wachau to Probstheide, driving the French 
 before them. And now the Saxons went over, 
 then the Wiirtemberg cavalry, to the side of the 
 allies. The gap was at once filled, and a tremen- 
 dous struggle took place at Schonewald ; but the 
 French held their own. The circle was fast closing 
 in on Leipzig. Only one road was left open, that to 
 Weissenfels. Night settled down again on the 
 bloody field, and Napoleon spent it in the town, 
 into which he withdrew all but the outposts of his 
 army, and prepared to break away home for France 
 on the morrow. 
 
 The 19th broke, and with the gathering light 
 the allies advanced. The cannon-balls fell in show- 
 ers in the streets. Napoleon, finding all was lost, 
 quitted the town as the allies entered it on the 
 other side. Indeed, it is doubtful whether he would 
 have escaped but for the bravery of his generals, 
 
$7? 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE XATIOXS. 
 
 Macdonald and Prince Poniatowski, who covered his 
 retreat. When he had crossed he ordered the bridge 
 by which he had passed to be blown up. This was 
 done whilst his flying army was crossing, leaving 
 25,000 of his men behind. Prince Poniatowski 
 plunged on horseback into the Elster, in order to 
 swim across, but sank in the deep mud. The King 
 of Saxony, who* to the last, had remained true to 
 Napoleon, was taken prisoner. 
 
 The retreat of the great conqueror to the Rhine 
 was a flight. In the " Battle of the Nations " the 
 French lost 78,000 men in killed, wounded, and 
 captives, 300 cannon, and 1000 standards. The 
 loss on the side of the allies was, however, very 
 heavy. 
 
 Thus ended this glorious victory. All Germany 
 was filled with rejoicing. The yoke of foreign 
 bondage was broken. Thenceforth Germany was 
 free from the French. 
 
LXII, 
 
 NAPOLEON CHECKED. 
 
 (1814.) 
 
 The allied princes met at Frankfort to take coun- 
 sel about a general peace. They agreed to offer 
 Napoleon that the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, 
 and the sea should form the frontiers of France. 
 But in his still unbroken pride he refused this offer, 
 and the war flared up again. On New Year's night 
 of 1814 Bliicher went "forwards" over the Rhine at 
 Mannheim and Coblenz with his army. The main 
 army of the allies had crossed a few days earlier at 
 Basle, as well as a Prussian army under Bulow 
 from Holland. The Rhein-bund dissolved ; Hol- 
 land, Switzerland, Italy fell away from Napoleon. 
 Bavaria had already made terms. Jerome, whom his 
 brother had made King of Westphalia, packed up 
 his valise and ran away. Joseph, who had been 
 made King of Spain, also fled, and the English, 
 under Wellington, threatened Napoleon from the 
 Pyrenees. 
 
 Bliicher won several battles, and again peace was 
 offered to Napoleon, but in vain. He would not give 
 way. Fortune again seemed to favour him ; with 
 his usual celerity he flew from one advancing body 
 
 373 
 
GEBHARD LEBRECHT VON BLUCHER. 
 (From a Portrait by T. B. Bock, 1815.) 
 
 374 
 
FIRS T PEA CE OF PA RIS. 375 
 
 to another, and beat them separately. However, 
 the host formed against him closed in, and after a 
 short resistance entered Paris. The deposition of 
 the emperor was decreed, and the brother of Louis 
 XVI. was proclaimed king. All the efforts made 
 by Napoleon to save for himself, or his family, 
 some of their former honours were in vain ; his 
 marshals fell away from him. He was forced to 
 sign his renunciation of the crown, but he was al- 
 lowed to retain the title of Emperor and hold the 
 little isle of Elba as a sovereign principality. For 
 the immeasurable injuries and losses which Ger- 
 many had suffered from him, with rare generosity 
 no compensation was exacted. This was the First 
 Peace of Paris (1814). A congress was summoned 
 to assemble at Vienna to regulate the relationship 
 of the States of Germany. 
 
 From Paris the sovereigns of Prussia and Russia 
 and the victorious generals proceeded to London, 
 where they, more especially Blucher, were received 
 with every demonstration of respect and delight. 
 
 In the autumn of 18 14 the European princes 
 and their principal ministers and generals assem- 
 bled in Vienna as had been agreed ; but soon the 
 mutual jealousies began to work among them. 
 Talleyrand was there. This utterly unscrupulous 
 man had served under every government ; under the 
 Republic, under Napoleon, and was now under the 
 restored Bourbons. He was there to offer his per- 
 fidious advice to the victors, and to sow the seed of 
 discord among them. Soon disputes broke out, 
 and the news reached Napoleon in his banishment. 
 
176 
 
 X.irOLEOX CHECKED. 
 
 Suddenly, on the 1st of March, 1815, he set foot on 
 the coast of France. The whole nation received 
 him with acclamations of delight. All the troops 
 sent against him went over to his side. On the 20th 
 of March he entered Paris. Louis XVIII., deserted 
 by his army, fled to the Netherlands. Napoleon's 
 brother-in-law, Murat, at the same time revolted at 
 Naples, and advanced into Upper Italy against the 
 Austrians; but all the rest of Napoleon's ancient 
 allies, persuaded that he must fall, drew closer to- 
 gether in league against him. The allied sovereigns, 
 still assembled at Vienna, let drop their miserable 
 disputes to combine for his overthrow. All his 
 cunning attempts to bribe them were rejected with 
 scorn. Napoleon was proclaimed an outlaw, and 
 they bound themselves to bring a force more than 
 a million strong into the field against him. The 
 French were still faithful to Napoleon. He col- 
 lected an army of 150,000 men and marched on 
 Belgium, where an English force, under the Duke of 
 Wellington, and a Prussian, under Bliicher, were 
 about to cross the frontier. 
 
 At Ligny he fought and defeated Bliicher on 
 June 16th with great slaughter. On the same day 
 the left wing of the French under Marshal Ney 
 attacked the English at Quatre Bras, and suffered a 
 severe defeat. After this, the Prussians retreated 
 to Havre, pursued by 35,000 French, and Wel- 
 lington, falling back on the position he had chosen 
 near Waterloo, awaited the approach of Napoleon. 
 
 At Brussels, in a picture gallery, by a painter 
 called Wicrtz, is a painting representing Waterloo 
 
A SECOND ABDICATION'. 
 
 377 
 
 allegorically. A great black lion is tearing to pieces 
 an eagle. The eagle represents the French military 
 power, and the black lion symbolises the power of 
 the Netherlands. As a matter of fact, all the part 
 taken by the Belgian soldiers in this memorable 
 battle was to run away at the first discharge of fire- 
 arms, and the English opened ranks to allow the 
 frightened little men to escape through their lines. 
 In this stupendous conflict of the 18th of June, 
 the flower of the French soldiery perished in their 
 desperate efforts against the obdurate valour of the 
 British. The battle raged from noon till eight 
 o'clock. Bliicher and his Prussians made great 
 efforts to reach the scene of action , but, marching 
 over ground rendered almost impassable by the 
 heavy rains that had fallen, their main body did 
 not arrive till the victory was already won. They 
 undertook the pursuit, and so completed the 
 achievement which the British had begun. The 
 French army was converted into a helpless mob 
 of fugitives, incapable of rallying again. Napo- 
 leon returned to Paris to abdicate a second time. 
 Then, failing in an attempt to escape to Amer- 
 ica, he surrendered himself to Captain Maitland, of 
 H. M. S. Bellerophon. 
 
 With the concurrence of all the powers, he Was 
 conveyed, under the custody of the English, to the 
 island of S. Helena, where he died on the 5th of 
 May, 182 1. Meanwhile Murat, Napoleon's brother- 
 in-law, defeated by the Austrians at Tolentino, was 
 taken and shot, as he was trying to incite the 
 Italian rabble to insurrection. 
 
378 
 
 NA POLE ON CHE CKED. 
 
 After the battle of Waterloo the allies a second 
 time entered Paris. Louis XVIII. returned, and 
 the Second Peace of Paris (1815) was concluded. 
 This time the allies did not treat France with as 
 much consideration as before. A large part of the 
 left bank of the Rhine was restored to Germany, 
 and France had to pay an indemnification of seven 
 hundred million francs. 
 
 In the new partition of Europe, arranged at the 
 congress of Vienna, Austria received Lombardy 
 and Venice, Dalmatia also, and Tyrol were restored 
 to her. Thus, after three-and-twenty years of war, 
 the monarchy apparently gained a considerable 
 accession of strength, having obtained, in lieu of its 
 remote and unprofitable possessions in the Nether- 
 lands, territories which joined in Italy. The an- 
 cient German empire was replaced by a German 
 confederation of thirty-nine states, and a perma- 
 nent diet, or parliament, made up of their repre- 
 sentatives, was established at Frankfort. Saxony, 
 Wurtemberg and Bavaria, which had been ele- 
 vated into kingdoms by Napoleon, were allowed 
 to remain kingdoms ; but of all the brothers and 
 field-marshals whom Napoleon had exalted into 
 kings and princes, not one remained in possession 
 of the dignity he had conferred. One only of his 
 marshals, Bernadotte, King of Sweden, whom he 
 had not crowned, and whom he particularly hated, 
 retained his position. 
 
LXIII. 
 
 GERMANY STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM. 
 
 AFTER the fall of Napoleon, the relation between 
 the princes and their people went through a great 
 change, a change they themselves were not ready 
 to acknowledge. The French Revolution had 
 greatly influenced men's minds throughout Europe, 
 and men desired more freedom and emancipation 
 from the irksome restraints of medievalism. 
 
 Now, in Germany, in former times, the people 
 had to a very considerable extent governed them- 
 selves. Every little state had its houses of parlia- 
 ment, composed of the nobles — that is, the landed 
 gentry, the clergy and representatives of the peo- 
 ple. But after the Reformation the great wars, 
 especially the terrible Thirty Years' War, had ruined 
 the small nobles, and the institution of a parlia- 
 ment had fallen into disuse. Thenceforth the 
 princes ruled absolutely ; they levied what taxes 
 they chose, and made war on whom they chose, 
 and imposed what religion and what laws they 
 chose, without consulting the people, who had 
 but one duty — to obey and pay. But the freedom 
 which France had fought to establish, the declam- 
 ation of the rights of men, had set Germans think- 
 
 379 
 
 
3 8o 
 
 GERM 'AS V STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM. 
 
 ing, and they felt that they had these rights, and that 
 they ought to be consulted in matters affecting their 
 welfare. However, the kings, and emperors, and 
 princes, when they recast the map of Europe, had no 
 idea of conceding liberty more than they were 
 obliged. They wanted to restore things as they 
 were before the great European war broke out. 
 
 The emperors, Alexander of Russia, Francis of 
 Austria, and King Frederick William III. of Prussia, 
 concluded between them "the Holy Alliance," and 
 promised to stand by each other, and to advance 
 religion, peace and righteousness in their lands, 
 and to rule their people as fathers. Unfortunately, 
 they took a wrong idea of fatherly rule. They 
 thought it meant despotic rule, and accordingly, 
 instead of advancing prosperity and giving more 
 freedom to their people, they treated them like 
 children, devoid of intelligence, or as expecting of 
 them the docility of school-girls. 
 
 William, Duke of Hesse-Cassel, said, " I have slept 
 seven years, now we will forget the bad dream," 
 and he tried to put everything exactly on its old 
 footing. In the congress of Vienna, all the princes 
 had promised to give constitutions to their princi- 
 palities, that is — self-government by means of 
 houses of parliament. But none of them, when 
 settled on their thrones, thought of giving 
 what had been promised. This led to much un- 
 easiness. The people were dissatisfied and clam- 
 oured for what had been promised. The stu- 
 dents in the universities especially took up the cry 
 for liberty and a constitution, and formed them- 
 
 
S£ CRT T TRIALS AND TOR TORE. 3 # 1 
 
 selves into " Bauchenschaften," clubs for the 
 spread of liberal ideas. The young men dressed in 
 short black jackets, wore tops boots, long hair, ex- 
 posed their throats with falling collars, wore dag- 
 gers in their breast pockets, and drank barrels of 
 beer in honour of liberty. They assumed a tricol- 
 our ribband, red, black and yellow, as their badge. 
 In October, 1817, they held a great meeting on the 
 Wartburg in commemoration of Luther, and to ex- 
 press their detestation of the formalism and re- 
 straint exercised by the government. They lit 
 a huge bonfire, and burned in it several " pigtails," 
 stiff-neck stocks, and other symbols of the 18th 
 century. This was all very absurd, and the gov- 
 ernment ought not to have noticed it, but when, 
 shortly after, Kotzebue, the dramatic author, who 
 had turned some of the German peculiarities into 
 ridicule, was assassinated, they took a serious view 
 of the affair, and proceeded to put the universities 
 under police supervision, and to break up the 
 clubs, and make many arrests. 
 
 Not only did the people want parliaments, but 
 also open courts of trial, with juries. Trials were 
 conducted in secret, and carelessly, and much par- 
 tiality was shown. Strict justice was not always 
 dealt. For instance, in 1820, a painter and a car- 
 penter were murdered in Dresden, and the police ar- 
 rested an innocent man, and racked and tortured 
 him, to force a confession. To escape the rack he 
 did at last confess guilt, and only just as he 
 was about to be executed did his innocence trans- 
 pire. In 1830 a carpenter at Rostock was accused 
 
382 
 
 GERMAXV STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM. 
 
 by his apprentice of having murdered his wife. 
 He was kept imprisoned for nine years, and only 
 then did it come out that the apprentice was the 
 murderer. In the same year the Danish ambas- 
 sador in Oldenburg was assassinated, and his two 
 servants, who were perfectly innocent, were kept in 
 prison for six years, and so badly treated as to be 
 broken in health and spirit by their confinement. 
 The people were very dissatisfied, and very justly 
 dissatisfied, with the way in which criminal trials 
 were carried out. Another cause of complaint 
 was the censure on the press. No books might 
 be published and sold, no newspapers issued, which 
 had not passed under the eye of officers appointed 
 to read and approve them. I remember about this 
 time, when I was in Germany, that my father 
 wanted to buy the memoirs of Baron Trenck, who 
 had been imprisoned for many years by the King of 
 Prussia. The bookseller replied that he was not 
 allowed to sell it, but he winked to my father, and 
 when no one else was in the shop led him into a 
 back room, and produced the book from a secret 
 cupboard. So it was, books that were forbidden 
 were sold, but purchasers were put to great incon- 
 venience to get them, and if the bookseller were 
 found out, he was thrown into prison. 
 
 Spirits were so agitated, that some of the small 
 princes gave way, and granted constitutions to their 
 subjects. In July, 1830, revolution broke out again 
 in Fiance, and Charles X., who had succeeded Louis 
 XVIII., was driven from his throne, to which suc- 
 ceeded Louis Philippe, his kinsman. This change 
 
THE ZOLL-VEREIN. 
 
 333 
 
 was not without effect in Germany, and led to con- 
 siderable disturbance. The people cried out for 
 more freedom, for sounder institutions, a healthier 
 form of government ; they refused to be any longer 
 treated as children ; but they did not rise in a 
 body, and it ended in only the grant of a few more 
 institutions. Austria and Prussia would not yield. 
 
 William IV., of England, died in 1837 without 
 male issue. Since George I., the kings of England 
 had been electors of Hanover, but now the union 
 ceased, and Ernest Augustus, brother of William 
 IV., succeeded to the kingdom of Hanover. A 
 constitution had been granted to Hanover in 1833, 
 and this he proceeded to abolish. This created 
 general opposition in his land, and an appeal 
 against him was made to the Diet of the Bund at 
 Frankfort. The confederation, however, declared it 
 had no authority to interfere, and this completely 
 struck down all confidence in the Frankfort Diet. 
 
 One good institution, and only one, dates from 
 this period, and that was the Zoll-verein, or Ger- 
 man Customs - Union. Hitherto, things made or 
 grown in one little principality were subject to duty 
 if they passed into another. The result was that 
 smuggling went on very generally, and that every 
 little state was put to great cost to keep its fron- 
 tiers guarded. Moreover, trade was terribly crippled 
 by the arbitrary duties imposed on things exported 
 and imported. Consequently, several of the German 
 states agreed with Prussia to unite in one customs- 
 union ; but Austria, and some of the northern 
 states did not join it. 
 

 
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 LXIV. 
 
 ANOTHER REVOLUTION. 
 
 (1848.) 
 
 LOUIS PHILIPPE, who, by the July Revolution, 
 had come to the throne of France, forgot his prom- 
 ises to rule his people through a constitution. 
 The welfare of his own family lay nearer his heart 
 than that of his subjects. Very likely he thought 
 that, as a piece of rare luck had brought him to the 
 throne, luck might desert him, and throw him 
 down again ; and, as he thought this was not very 
 improbable, so he resolved to feather his own nest 
 whilst he had the chance. But this the French 
 people did not acquiesce in, so they rose in revolt 
 against him, as they had against Charles X., in the 
 month of February, 1848. Louis Philippe at once 
 fled to England, and France received a Republican 
 constitution, and Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, a 
 nephew of the late Emperor Napoleon, was elected, 
 in December of the same year, first president of 
 the Republic. 
 
 On December 2, 185 1, he forcibly dissolved the 
 National Assembly, and assumed absolute power. 
 On the 2d of December, 1852, he had himself pro- 
 claimed Emperor, under the title of Napoleon III. 
 
 334 
 
WHO WAS NAPOLEON //. ? 
 
 385 
 
 You may perhaps wonder who Napoleon II. 
 was. Napoleon I., at the height of his power, de- 
 siring to obscure as much as possible his humble ori- 
 gin, and the ignobility of his family, divorced his 
 wife Josephine, and obliged the Emperor of Austria 
 to give him his daughter, Maria Louisa. By her he 
 had one son, born in 181 1. When Napoleon had to 
 abdicate after the battle of Waterloo, he tried hard 
 to get his little son proclaimed as Napoleon II., 
 but, of course, in vain. The son died of decline 
 when he was twenty-one years old. When Napoleon 
 proclaimed himself as the third of that name, he in 
 fact claimed that the poor boy had really been 
 Emperor, and ignored the kings who had actually 
 governed France, and the decision of Europe. 
 
 Louis Napoleon, the new Emperor, was the third 
 son of Louis, the brother of the Great Napoleon, 
 who had been created by the conqueror King of 
 Holland. 
 
 The Revolution in France, in 1848, was of the 
 greatest importance for all Europe, especially for 
 Germany. In a few days every German state was in 
 commotion, and the people loudly and threateningly 
 demanded four things: 1. Freedom to express 
 their opinions by word or writing, on what was go- 
 ing on in the government of their country (free- 
 dom of speech, and freedom of the press). 2. Uni- 
 versal military service, the right of every man to 
 bear arms, and at the same time the right of all to 
 assemble when and where they liked, for political 
 or other purposes. 3. Trial by jury, and open courts. 
 4. The abolition of the Bund-Diet, and the constitu- 
 
3 86 
 
 A NO THER RE I 'OL UTION. 
 
 tional re-organization of every state. Most of the 
 princes gave way in terror, fearing expulsion like 
 that of Louis Philippe ; the King of Prussia and the 
 Emperor of Austria only refused to yield. Then 
 the people flew to arms, and in Vienna and Berlin 
 bloody fights with the military ensued, which ended 
 in the success of the latter. However, the Emperor 
 Ferdinand had to fly his capital, and take refuge in 
 Innsbruck, and thus to abdicate in favour of his 
 nephew, Francis Joseph, who promised reforms. 
 Also in Berlin, after much fighting, a constitution 
 
 was granted. 
 
 In the mean time the people desired that a 
 national German parliament should be summoned, 
 which should recast the institutions of the whole 
 Fatherland. For this end 600 representatives of 
 the people assembled at Frankfort to arrange 
 preliminaries, and to call together a constitutional 
 Diet, or National Assembly, each member of which 
 was to represent 50.000 inhabitants. On the 
 iSth of May. 1848, this National Assembly was 
 opened at Frankfort, when it sat in the Protestant 
 church of St. Paul. It at once proceeded to appoint 
 a provisional government, and elected the Archduke 
 John of Austria to be president and protector ; the 
 Diet handed over to him its powers and then dis- 
 solved itself. The decision arrived at was that a 
 new law code was to be drawn up applicable to the 
 whole of Germany ; the German Empire was to 
 consist of one Federal body, with only one House 
 of Representatives. Frederick William IV.. King of 
 Prussia, was elected emperor, but he refused to 
 
NO UNITY YET 387 
 
 accept the title thus offered him, and when he heard 
 the decisions of the Assembly, he said, " They for- 
 get that there are princes still in Germany, and that 
 I am one of them." 
 
 Upon this, great commotions broke out again, 
 especially in the South. The peasants rose and took 
 arms ; some wanted one thing, some another. The 
 students claimed liberty of the press, the peasants 
 the burning of the mortgages held by the Jews on 
 their property. All these insurrections were put 
 down by the military. All attempts to give Ger- 
 many a satisfactory general constitution broke 
 down, and in May, 185 1, the old Bund-Diet or Fed- 
 eral Assembly was re-appointed. The governments 
 had got the upper hand, but much more liberty 
 was granted, so that the people had gained a great 
 deal by this revolution. That which they really 
 aimed at was unity, and the time for that was not 
 yet come. 
 
LXV. 
 
 A QUARREL ABOUT TWO DUCHIES. 
 
 THE two duchies of Schleswig-Holstein were sub- 
 ject to the King of Denmark ; but a portion of the 
 inhabitants were Germans, and the German inhabit- 
 ants and the Danes were continually quarrelling, 
 and the Germans appealed against their neighbors 
 to the sovereigns of Germany. In 1848 the German 
 residents in the duchies tried to expel the Danes, 
 and to get themselves free from the crown of Den- 
 mark, but in vain. There were troubles again in the 
 duchies in 185 1. When, in 1863, King Frederick 
 VII., of Denmark, died without issue, the crown 
 passed to Christian X., but the Prussian king 
 would not consent to this arrangement, as far as 
 the duchies were concerned, and insisted that they 
 should go to Prince Frederick of Augustenberg, who 
 was descended from a younger son of the same 
 Alexander, Duke of Sonderburg, ancestor also of 
 Christian IX., the new King of Denmark. Of 
 course this was a mere excuse. The real ob- 
 ject of Prussia was to get the two duchies 
 joined on to Germany. However, the Danes had 
 no intention to have a large portion of the kingdom 
 torn from them, and so war broke out. Austria 
 
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 389 
 
390 A QUARREL ABOUT TWO DUCHIES. 
 
 joined with Prussia, because the incorporation of 
 the duchies with Germany was popular, and Aus- 
 tria did not wish Prussia to do a popular thing un- 
 aided. Accordingly, these two giants attacked the 
 poor little dwarf kingdom in 1864; but the Danes 
 fought like heroes, and the war continued in 1865. 
 Only then, crushed by the enormous preponderance 
 in wealth and numbers of their mighty foes, did the 
 Danes yield. 
 
 But, no sooner was the war over, than Prussia 
 showed that it was her intention to annex the 
 newly acquired duchies to herself. This Austria 
 could not endure, and accordingly, in 1866, war 
 broke out between Austria and Prussia. Prussia 
 sought alliance with Italy, which she stirred up to 
 attack Austria in her Italian possessions. The Aus- 
 trian army defeated the Italian at Eustazza ; but 
 the fortunes of war were against them in Germany. 
 
 Allied with the Austrians were the Saxons, the 
 Bavarians, the Wiirtembergers, Baden, and Hesse, 
 and Hanover. The Prussians advanced with their 
 chief army into Bohemia with the utmost rapidity, 
 dreading lest the Southern allies should march north 
 to Hanover, and cut the kingdom in half, and push 
 on to Berlin. The Prussians had three armies, which 
 were to enter Bohemia and effect a junction. The 
 Elbe army under the King, the first army under 
 Prince Frederick Charles, and the second army under 
 the Crown Prince. The Elbe army advanced across 
 Saxony by Dresden. The first army was in Lusatia, 
 at Reichenberg, and the second army in Silesia at 
 Heisse. They were all to meet at Gitschin. 
 
GENERAL BENEDEK'S MISTAKE. 
 
 39* 
 
 The Austrian army under General Benedek was 
 at Koniggratz, in Eastern Bohemia. Now, if you 
 will look at your map, you will see that all the 
 north of Bohemia is walled in by mountains, with 
 only three tolerable passes through them. What 
 the Austrians should have done was to have flung 
 themselves at one army as it entered the mountains, 
 beaten it, or at all events crippled it, then swung 
 about and gone like a hammer at the second army, 
 hurt that, and then battered down the third army. 
 But, as in the wars with Napoleon, so was it now ; 
 the Austrian generals were half asleep, and never 
 did the right thing at the right moment. Benedek 
 did indeed march against the first army, but too late, 
 and when he found it was already through the 
 mountain door, he retreated, and so gave time for 
 the three armies to concentrate upon him. 
 
 The Elbe army and the first met at Miinchengratz, 
 and defeated an Austrian army there, pushed on, 
 and drove them back out of Gitschin on Koniggratz, 
 where Benedek was rubbing his eyes, and thinking 
 it time to begin. 
 
 The Prussians pushed on, and now the Elbe army 
 went to Smidar, and the first army to Horzitz, 
 whilst the second army, under the Crown Prince, was 
 pushing on, and had got to Gradlitz. 
 
 The little river Bistritz is crossed by the high road 
 to Koniggratz. It runs through swampy ground, 
 and forms little marshy pools or lakes. To the 
 North of Koniggratz a little stream of much the 
 same character dribbles through bogs into the Elbe. 
 But about Chlum, Nedelist and Lippa is terraced 
 
392 A QUARREL ABOUT TWO DUCHIES. 
 
 high ground, and there Benedek planted his cannon. 
 The Prussians advanced from Smidar against the 
 left wing of the Austrians, from Horzitz against the 
 centre, and the Crown Prince was to attack the 
 right wing. The battle began on the 3d of July, at 
 7 o'clock in the morning, by the simultaneous 
 advance of the Elbe and the first army upon the Bis- 
 tritz. At Sadowa is a wood, and there the battle 
 raged most fiercely. The Austrian cannons 
 pounded the Prussians as they advanced, but they 
 would not go back, but held on, and there the Aus- 
 trians met them, and so exhausted were they at 
 noon that they drew off. As yet the Crown Prince 
 had not arrived , he was floundering through the 
 bogs, unable to make much way. Now was Bene- 
 dek's second chance. He ought to have gathered up 
 his men, and driven them like a wedge into the 
 panting, pausing Prussians. But he waited, and 
 drew a long breath, and rubbed his hands, and 
 thought things were not looking very bad. To 
 keep him amused, the Prussians thundered with 
 their guns at his positions till they were rested. 
 Thus passed two hours. All at once, boom ! boom ! 
 then a roar of artillery brought down by the wind 
 from the North. It was the signal that the Crown 
 Prince with the first army had arrived on the scene, 
 was crossing the brook and assailing the right wing 
 and flank of Benedek. Immediately the refreshed 
 Prussians of the other two armies charged. The 
 King called up the reserves to help. At the same 
 time the Crown Prince took Chlum, the key of the 
 Austrian position, and the battle was won. 
 
THE BATTLE OF SADOWA. 
 
 393 
 
 The battle was fought with the utmost bravery, 
 but two things were against the Austrians ; first, the 
 incompetence of their general, and, secondly, the 
 inferiority of their guns. The Prussians had what 
 are called needle-guns, breech-loaders, which are 
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 THE BATTLE OF KONIGGEATZ. 
 
 which they can be fired far surpassed the oldrfash- 
 ioned muzzle-loaders used by the Austrians. 
 
 After this great battle, which is called by the 
 French and English the battle of Sadowa (Sadowa, 
 not Sadowa, as it is erroneously pronounced), but 
 which the Germans call the battle of Koniggratz, 
 the Prussians marched on Vienna, and reached the 
 Marchfeld before the Emperor Francis Joseph 
 would come to terms. 
 
394 A Q UARREL ABOUT TWO DUCHIES. 
 
 At last, on the 23d of August, a peace which gave 
 a crushing preponderance in Germany to Prussia, 
 was concluded at Prague. 
 
 In the mean time, however, a battle had been 
 fought at Langensalza against the Hanoverians, in 
 which they were defeated, and by rapid marches 
 the Prussians had entered Hesse-Cassel and seized 
 the person of the Duke. By the PEACE OF PRAGUE 
 a complete change was effected in Germany. The 
 Germanic Federation or Bund, was dissolved. Prus- 
 sia annexed Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Nassau, as 
 well as the two duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. Aus- 
 tria> Wtirtemberg and Baden were required to pay 
 a war indemnity, and in addition to this Bavaria and 
 Hesse-Darmstadt were forced to surrender some of 
 their territories to Prussia. The states north of the 
 River Main were formed into a Northern Federa- 
 tion (Nord-Bund) at the head of which stood Prus- 
 sia, those south were to form South Germany, and 
 Austria was excluded from having anything to do 
 with either. She had also to surrender Venice to 
 Italy. Thus the war of 1866 led to a division of 
 Germany into three parts ; but Prussia had obtained 
 such power that South Germany could not resist 
 her will ; and everything was ready for the union 
 of the North and South, which was soon to take 
 effect. 
 
LXVI. 
 
 A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 (1870-1871.) 
 
 THE throne of Spain was vacant, and Prince 
 Leopold of Hohenzollern was a candidate for it. 
 This created a profound excitement in France. 
 You will remember how Francis I. fought against 
 Charles V. because he was at once King of Germany 
 and King of Spain. Now France was alarmed at the 
 prospect of a German king ruling Spain, fearing a 
 combination against her to crush her, as Prussia 
 had combined with Italy against Austria, The agi- 
 tation was so great that the Emperor Napoleon III. 
 was forced to proclaim war. The candidature of 
 the Hohenzollern Prince had been withdrawn when 
 it was seen how offensive it was to France, but that 
 did not content the French, and Napoleon was 
 obliged to humour the popular passion and go to war. 
 
 At the time King William of Prussia was at Ems 
 for a holiday, and all his principal ministers were 
 in the country enjoying their leisure. The French 
 envoy, Benedetti, visited the king at Ems, and the 
 king, seeing that war was inevitable, hastily re- 
 turned to Berlin, and called his ministers about him. 
 On the 16th July the North German Federal council 
 
 395 
 
39^ 
 
 A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH TRANCE. 
 
 met, and decided to prepare for war. On the 19th 
 an Imperial diet was called, attended by representa- 
 tives of all the North and South German states, 
 and all decided on making common cause with the 
 King of Prussia. This was a great surprise to Na- 
 poleon, who thought that South Germany would 
 remain neutral. By the union of North and South 
 he had to contend against a vast power, and his 
 own force was not even equal to that of the 
 Northern Federation alone. 
 
 War was declared, and the fear was lest the French 
 should cross the frontier before the German army 
 was " mobilized/' that is, got together and fitted for 
 war. 
 
 According to all the traditions of the French 
 army, it ought to assume the offensive. It had 
 been so with the campaigns of Louis XIV. and of 
 Napoleon L, but it was not so on this occasion, 
 because the French were not ready. Here was a 
 first blunder — they declared war before they were 
 prepared to begin it. The French army had 
 indeed marched to the frontier, but it was without 
 supplies — the requisite munitions of war. The plan 
 adopted was this : 150,000 men were to be placed 
 at Metz, 100,000 at Strasburg, and 50,000 were to 
 act as the reserve at Chalons. Then, the Metz and 
 Strasburg armies were to cross the Rhine after 
 passing through the Bavarian palatinate, and to 
 advance on Frankfort, by Rastadt, where a great 
 battle was to be fought against the Northern army, 
 on the defeat of which it was expected that South 
 
THE CONTENDING ARMIES. 
 
 397 
 
 Germany, Denmark and Austria would take up arms 
 and become the allies of France. 
 
 However, nothing was ready. The soldiers re- 
 mained inactive, waiting for the military trains a 
 whole fortnight. In the mean time, all the railways 
 of Germany were conveying soldiers to the front ; but 
 no troops were sent forward till they were thor- 
 oughly equipped and ready to take the field. After 
 the second week, the German army lined the fron- 
 tier, prepared at all points for the French. 
 
 There were, in fact, three armies : The first, under 
 General Steinmetz, formed the right wing, and was 
 stationed on the Moselle at Treves. The second, 
 under Prince Frederick Charles, was in the Rhenish 
 palatinate. The third, under the Crown Prince of 
 Prussia was planted on the right bank of the Rhine, 
 from Mannheim to Rastadt. These armies were com- 
 posed of 447,000 men. Behind, in Germany, re- 
 mained ready under arms a reserve of 188,000 men 
 to be sent forward later. Behind them, again, a 
 second reserve of 160,000 men, also 226,000 men to 
 be kept to fill up the gaps made by war. On July 
 28th the French Emperor, along with his son, the 
 Prince Imperial, a boy of fourteen, went to Metz to 
 assume the command. On August 2d he attacked 
 Saarbriicken, which contained only 1300 men, and 
 drove them out, after a fight of three hours, but 
 they retired in good order, and were not pursued, 
 neither was Saarbriicken occupied by the French. 
 
 Now the Germans advanced. The leading idea 
 in the mind of Moltke, who directed operations, was, 
 " Let the armies march separately, and concentrate 
 
39§ 
 
 A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH ERAXCE 
 
 to fight." That was, as you may remember, the 
 way in which the battle of Leipzig was won. It 
 was the way, later, in which the battle of Sadowa 
 was won. 
 
 A little below Rastadt the Lauter runs into the 
 Rhine from the west. The third army began its 
 forward march on August 4th and crossed the 
 Lauter, which was then the frontier. It came upon 
 the French at Weissenberg, and after a battle that 
 lasted five hours, drove them back. These French 
 were not the main army, but a division thrown out 
 in front, and MacMahon, the French general, with 
 the army behind ought to have known that the 
 Germans who attacked and took Weissenberg were 
 not a division, but an entire army. He did not. 
 He had no idea how and where the German armies 
 were disposed. 
 
 The army of the Crown Prince pushed on, and 
 presently discovered the French in force at Worth, 
 and routed them on August 6th, with the loss on the 
 German side of 10,642 men. That on the French 
 side is not accurately known, but cannot have been 
 less. The French fought with splendid braver)', 
 but were outnumbered. This victory opened to 
 the Germans the passes of the Vosges, and the 
 road to Nancy 
 
 The very same day a victory was gained at Spich- 
 eren, about three miles from Saarbriicken, by the first 
 and second armies, which had united. General Fros- 
 sard commanded the French, and he had entrenched 
 himself on a height with steep coppice wooded sides. 
 The storming of the heights of Spicheren was one 
 
WHA T THE CA VALKY DID. 
 
 399 
 
 of the most difficult and bloody fights in the whole 
 course of the war. Bad generalship was the cause of 
 the defeat of the French — throughout the battle sev- 
 eral divisions of this army were left in inaction. The 
 heights were taken as darkness fell, and Frossard 
 fell back under the protection of the fire of his ar- 
 tillery, towards Oettingen. All three divisions of 
 the German army were now on French soil, and 
 set forward under directions from headquarters, 
 which was in the rear. The third army now 
 crossed the Vosges. On the ioth a telegram from 
 headquarters at Saarbriicken announced, " The 
 French army is retreating on the Moselle at all 
 points, pursued by our cavalry." From this time, 
 the use and importance of the cavalry as a most in- 
 valuable branch of the service was recognized. It 
 was sent before the main body of the army, gather- 
 ing information as to the movements of the enemy, 
 and marking those of the Germans. It swept over 
 large districts, attacked and cut off trains of trans- 
 port and convoys of provisions, collected food and 
 exacted contributions. When a battle was to be 
 fought it was called in and ready to take part in it 
 with effect. 
 
 On the 14th of August the whole of the first army 
 under Steinmetz was east of Metz, and the natives 
 informed the general that the French troops, en- 
 camped on the right bank of the Moselle, were leav- 
 ing their quarters. Marshal Bazaine now com- 
 manded in place of the Emperor, who was back in 
 Paris, where great agitation broke out at the news 
 of the successes of the Germans and their forward 
 
400 A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 march. Napoleon sent orders to Bazaine to retire 
 on Chalons, where was the reserve, and whither the 
 remains of MacMahon's army had retreated. The 
 marshal accordingly, on the 13th, had thrown bridges 
 over the Moselle, sent some of his trains to Gravelotte 
 the same day, and intended to follow on the morrow 
 with all his army, leaving only sufficient men in 
 Metz to hold the fortress. When, however, the 
 Germans saw that the French were in retreat they 
 attacked them, at the village of Colombey, on the 
 14th of August. 
 
 I must try to give you some idea of the position 
 of Metz that you may understand the events that 
 followed. Metz was the capital of old Lotharingia, 
 or Lorraine, and is situated on the river Moselle 
 which here flows through a broad valley from three 
 to four miles wide. The hills are close to the river 
 on the east side, but stand back from it with ab- 
 rupt fronts on the west. Just by Metz, however, 
 they draw together. Metz stands on rising ground 
 on the east side of the river, that is, its right 
 bank, but the ground rises behind it, though not to a 
 great altitude. On the west side the hills are higher, 
 and one opposite Metz, crowned by a fort, stands up 
 immediately above the river. The range of hills 
 that runs north and south of the valley of the Mo- 
 selle is broken through at several places by streams. 
 Nine or ten miles south of Metz the Gorze stream 
 flows in from the north-west. Three miles nearer, 
 another stream, the Mance, enters the Moselle, at 
 Ars-sur-Moselle. 
 
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402 * TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 is an old Roman road. It turns under the hill with 
 Fort S. Quentin, opposite Metz, and then crosses 
 the highland and the two streams one after the 
 other. There is also a third stream, also running 
 from the north-west, which enters the Moselle just 
 under the hill and fort of S. Quentin. Now Mar- 
 shal Bazaine had, as you have heard, received orders 
 to retire from Metz by Verdun to Chalons, and he 
 was beginning to do so on the 13th when the cav- 
 alry, who flew about spying all the proceedings of 
 the French, discovered what he was about. So on 
 the 14th the Germans attacked his rear guard with 
 their first army. The battle lasted seven hours. 
 The French occupied the ground from Grizy to 
 Savigny, with their centre at Colombey. They 
 were driven back on Metz, and in the evening the 
 Germans occupied all their line. The great import- 
 ance of this battle was that it delayed Bazaine's re- 
 treat nearly two days, and gave the second German 
 army time to come up and cross the Moselle some 
 miles above Metz. 
 
 And now you must try to understand the very 
 masterly plan and movements that followed, the 
 later of which have scarce been surpassed in any 
 war. Directly the king heard of the victory of 
 Colombey, he ordered the second army to cross 
 the Moselle where the Gorze brook enters it, ad- 
 vance up the Gorze valley and occupy the old 
 Roman road to Verdun, so as to cut off Bazaine's 
 retreat. The Moselle was crossed at 3 o'clock in the 
 evening of the 15th, that is, the day after the battle 
 of Colombey, and the army advanced on Vion- 
 

 GRAVELOTTE. ^ O o 
 
 ville. The French were discovered to be in force all 
 along the high table-land or terrace from Mars-la- 
 Tour to Rezonville, and to hold the valley of the 
 Gorze and the hill between it and the Mance. On 
 the morning of the 16th the battle began with the 
 advance of the 3d corps between Vionville and 
 Flavigny. For five hours this gallant corps held its 
 own against overwhelming odds till it was relieved 
 by the coming up of the 10th corps and Prince 
 Frederick Charles, " the Red Prince," as he was 
 called, from his red beard. The principal fight was 
 on the left wing, which was mostly composed of 
 cavalry, who tried to turn the flank of the French 
 at Mars-la-Tour. About 5000 horsemen on either 
 side were engaged in the fight, which finally ended 
 in the success of the Germans. The right wing was 
 also successful. It drove the French from their 
 positions and gained the top of the hill between the 
 two streams. By this victory the road was taken 
 and the retreat of the French by it was cut off. 
 
 Next day the French retired to the line of hills 
 on the Metz side of the Mance. The position was 
 very strong by nature, and they fortified it by dig- 
 ging trenches, and throwing up embankments. The 
 left wing of the French rested on the Moselle at 
 Vaux, and the right was at S. Marie-aux-Chenes on 
 the main road from Metz to Longuyon and Sedan. 
 
 The Germans at once advanced and occupied 
 Gravelotte. The first army was engaged here on the 
 1 8th. The Saxons and the guards were sent north 
 to turn the flank of the French at S. Marie. Also 
 the left wing was attacked at Vaux. The centre 
 
40 4 
 
 A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 was at Gravelotte, but opposite this the position 
 of the French was too strong for much to be ef- 
 fected. The hardest fighting and the most life lost 
 was about S. Marie and S. Privat, where the wing of 
 the French was successfully turned and they were 
 driven back in confusion, and fled to Metz in wild 
 rout. The left wing, however, held its own all night, 
 but retired on Metz on the morning following. 
 That same morning the German cavalry cut the 
 railway north to Thionville, so that now the French 
 army was enclosed in Metz. 
 
 A new arrangement of the army was at once 
 made. Hitherto there had been three forces, now 
 four were made, the fourth being called the army 
 of the Meuse, and was made up of some of the corps 
 belonging to the others and of the reserves which 
 began to arrive. The first and second armies were 
 left under the Red Prince to hold Bazaine in the 
 trap into which he had been driven, and the third 
 and fourth were sent on to meet MacMahon, who 
 was supposed to be with his broken army and the 
 reserve at Chalons. No time was lost. On the 
 19th, the day after the battle of Gravelotte, it began 
 its advance. 
 
 Presently the cavalry discovered that Chalons 
 had been deserted. MacMahon had gone north. 
 What was his object ? Was he going to retreat to 
 Paris, or was he aiming at a flank movement 
 against the advancing Germans ? Forth went the 
 cavalry, like a cloud of mosquitoes in all directions, 
 and presently they found out where he was. He 
 had not gone to Paris ; he had retired on Rheims. 
 
M ACM A HON IN A CORNER. 4QI - 
 
 The Germans pushed after him. Next they ascer- 
 tained that he had gone away with his army to Re- 
 thel, north-east. Now his object was clear. He 
 was going to the Moselle, to relieve Bazaine in Metz. 
 If he had been quick in his movements he might 
 have done it, but he wasted ten precious days in 
 crawling from Rheims to Beaumont on the Meuse, 
 which gave the Germans time to catch up with him, 
 and spoil his plan. 
 
 Directly the Germans saw what he was after, with- 
 out losing a moment they marched north, and sent 
 out detachments from the armies enclosing Metz to 
 stop him if he came over from the Meuse to the 
 Moselle valley. 
 
 On the 28th of August MacMahon was between 
 Vonziers and Stenay on the Meuse. The Germans 
 came up from the south, to the dismay of the 
 French, and began to advance on them, and drive 
 them back. On the 30th, Beaumont and the 
 heights behind it were stormed, and MacMahon 
 was obliged to retire beyond the river to Carignan, 
 and next day to fall back on Sedan, although by 
 this time he saw that neither in generalship nor in the 
 quality of his soldiers, was he a match for the Ger- 
 mans, yet he would not yield without a blow. As 
 you see, if you look on the map, he had allowed 
 himself to be driven into a corner, and now, as in the 
 battle of Leipzig with the first Napoleon, so was it 
 with Napoleon III. at Sedan. The Germans con- 
 centrated on him from all sides except that which 
 was towards the Belgian frontier. Gradually they 
 closed in, driving the French before them. Mac- 
 
406 
 
 A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 Mahon was wounded at the beginning of the battle, 
 and the command was taken by Wimpffen. But it 
 mattered not who commanded ; no general was 
 equal to saving this army driven into a trap, as Ba- 
 zaine's army had also been driven. The French 
 were crowded about Sedan, unable to make effect- 
 ive resistance, with 500 cannon playing on them. 
 Then the Emperor Napoleon, who was in the town, 
 seeing that everything was lost, hoisted the white 
 flag. One of his adjutants brought King William 
 a letter, in which the Emperor said, " As I have 
 not died at the head of my troops, I hand over my 
 sword to your Majesty." 
 
 The king replied that he would accept his sword, 
 and would send an officer with full powers to treat 
 about a capitulation. Next morning (2d Sept.) 
 early, Napoleon left Sedan to meet the German 
 chancellor. Bismarck met him in the house of a 
 poor weaver at Donchery, but no decision was come 
 to, as the Emperor would not treat of the conclu- 
 sion of peace. Then King William met his prisoner 
 in the little chateau of Bellevue, near Frenois. The 
 arrangement for the capitulation was concluded 
 between the war minister, Von Moltke, and General 
 Wimpffen. The army was to surrender itself as 
 prisoners of war. Every officer who would pass his 
 word not to take up arms again during the .war 
 against Germany was to be set free. All the weapons, 
 standards and war material in Sedan were to be de- 
 livered over. Thus fifty generals, 5000 officers, 
 83,000 men, 558 cannon and 6000 horses fell into 
 the hands of the Germans. About 28,000 prisoners 
 
KARL OTTO, PRINCE VON BISMARCK-SCHOEN HAL SEN. 
 
 40/ 
 
40$ A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 had already been taken ; 14,000 wounded lay in Se- 
 dan, 3000 men had escaped over the Belgian frontier, 
 where they were disarmed. Thus, an army of 135- 
 000 men was annihilated. The Emperor was sent to 
 the castle of YVilhelmshohe, near Cassel, the summer 
 resort of the Dukes of Hesse-Cassel. 
 
 And now, consider the rapidity with which these 
 splendid results had been attained. On the 4th of 
 August the German army had made its first onward 
 movement to the Lauter, and on September 1st 
 the battle of Sedan was fought. On August 2d. 
 Xapoleon had directed the first operations against 
 Saarbrucken, — the first guns had been fired and 
 the swords drawn. On the 2d of September he 
 handed over his sword and his army, and became a 
 prisoner of the Germans. The news of the defeat 
 and surrender of Napoleon caused a revolution to 
 break out in Paris ; and a republic was proclaimed 
 on the 4th, with a " Government of National De- 
 fence" to conduct the war, composed for the most 
 part of lawyers who knew nothing about war. 
 Hopes of peace, founded on the surrender of the 
 Emperor, fell. The war must be prosecuted to the 
 end. The Germans did not let the grass grow 
 under their feet. Next day they entered Rheims, 
 and on the 15th were before Paris, surrounding it 
 like a half-moon. Paris is defended by a number 
 of forts which crown the hills around it, allowing a 
 good open space between them and the city walls. 
 This allowed the French to form and fling themselves 
 between the forts, in sorties, upon the Germans, 
 unperceived. N ne of these sorties, however, 
 
THE GERMANS A T VERSAILLES. 
 
 409 
 
 were successful. Fresh German troops came up 
 and completely encircled the city, so that no pro- 
 visions could get into it. On October 5th the King 
 of Prussia made the Palace of Versailles his head- 
 quarters. 
 
 M AMY 
 
 ■■;- 
 
 £/SS£WS£flG 
 
 MAP OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 
 
 The siege of Paris could not be prosecuted with 
 energy, because the Germans had not, at first, a 
 siege train, that is, heavy cannon and other articles 
 necessary for a bombardment ; consequently the 
 German army at first assumed a purely defensive 
 
4io 
 
 A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH ERANCE. 
 
 attitude, driving back the various sorties attempted 
 by the French. 
 
 Now a number of fortified towns in Elsass sur- 
 rendered ; Strasburg had made a gallant defence, and 
 after a terrible bombardment yielded on September 
 27th. Marsal, Vitry, Toul, Soissons, Schlettstadt, 
 all capitulated. On October 27th Marshal Bazaine 
 surrendered Metz. His army, consisting of three 
 marshals, 6000 generals and officers, 173,000 men, 
 and 1340 cannon, fell into the hands of the victori- 
 ous Germans. Thus the second French army was 
 annihilated ; and the army under Prince Frederick 
 Charles was set free for further operation. 
 
 Just before Paris was surrendered some of the 
 members of the new Republican government had 
 fled to Tours. Gambetta, a French-Italian lawyer, 
 with some cleverness, and an overweening opinion 
 of his own abilities, escaped from Paris in a balloon, 
 and joined the members of the government at 
 Tours, where he took on himself the direction of 
 the war, and acted as a dictator to France. He 
 called out all able-bodied men in the country to arms, 
 ordered war material from abroad, and the newly- 
 formed troops to be drilled into order. We can see 
 how absurd it was to suppose that such raw recruits 
 could effect anything against armies of such tried 
 and splendid quality as the Germans, but we must 
 acknowledge the heroism of these men who would 
 not yield when two of their armies had been de- 
 stroyed. The result was, however, infinitely disas- 
 trous to France. It increased the misery fiftyfold, 
 and led to useless loss of life. 
 
FINISHING OFF FAIDHERBE. 
 
 411 
 
 A large army was formed on the Loire under 
 General Aurelle de Paladines, which might have 
 effected something if Gambetta had not meddled 
 and tried to override the authority of the general 
 in command. The Germans went at once against 
 it, as it was menacing their army about Paris, and 
 beat it at Orleans and Beaune. General Aurelles 
 had been forced by the dictator Gambetta to fight 
 against his judgment. After his defeat he resigned, 
 and the army of the Loire was divided into two. 
 One, under Bourbaki, was concentrated at Bourges. 
 The other, under Chanzy, was further down the 
 Loire at Beauzency, between Orleans and Blois. 
 The Germans soon found that the latter had the 
 largest army, and the Red Prince went at him and 
 defeated him, and drove him back on Vendome. 
 The government finding Tours no longer safe, ran 
 away to Bordeaux. Chanzy then retreated to 
 Le Mans. On the last day of that disastrous year 
 Chanzy made an attempt to strike a deadly blow 
 at the army of the Red Prince which pursued him, 
 but this also failed. 
 
 In the mean time an army had been formed in 
 the north of France, under General Faidherbe ; 
 and against this the first German army, under Gen- 
 eral Manteuffel, was sent, attacked this army at 
 Amiens on November 27th, and beat it, driving it 
 away in confusion to Arras and Lille. 
 
 Another division of the north army was at 
 Rouen, and now Manteuffel turned against that 
 and dispersed it, and occupied Rouen. Then he 
 went back against Faidherbe to finish him off. He 
 
412 
 
 A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH FRANCE. 
 
 defeated him at Hallue and Bapaume. Another 
 battle at S. Quentin completed the ruin of Faid- 
 herbe'sarmy. This last battle was on January 18th. 
 The same day General Trochu who commanded 
 in Paris, made an attempt to burst out, but was 
 beaten back with great loss. 
 
 Thus every attempt made to relieve Paris by 
 falling on the rear of the besiegers had failed. 
 
 Gambetta now formed a new plan of operation. 
 He determined to carry the war into the enemy's 
 country, and so force them to send back their 
 troops to the protection of Germany, and so relieve 
 the pressure on Paris. Between Vesoul and Basle 
 is a very strong fortified place, Belfort, which had 
 not as yet surrendered, though it was closely be- 
 sieged. Gambetta resolved that Bourbaki should 
 march to the relief of Belfort, and thence cross 
 the Rhine, and fall upon Baden and Wiirtemberg. 
 
 The Germans speedily discovered what was in- 
 tended, and formed a new army, called the south 
 army, to follow Bourbaki under Manteuffel, who 
 was recalled from the north when he had crippled 
 Faidherbe. The Red Prince was, in the mean 
 while, driving Chanzy back ; and on January 12th he 
 defeated him at Le Mans, taking prisoners 20,000 
 men, and completely breaking his power. The 
 French army of the west fled in confusion to Laval 
 and Mayenne, pursued by the Germans. Chanzy 
 was never again able to collect an effective force ; 
 so now his army was dissolved, as well as the army 
 of Faidherbe. 
 
 In the east was General Werder at the head of 
 
BOURBAKI SHOOTS HIMSELF. 
 
 413 
 
 a German army engaged in the sieges of Belfort 
 and Langres. Directly he heard of the march of 
 Bourbaki, he threw himself in his way at Heri- 
 court. He had only 35,000 men at his command, 
 whereas the French army numbered nearly 100,000. 
 Moreover, in the rear of the Germans was Bel- 
 fort, and they were in danger of an attack thence. 
 However, for three whole days, the 15th, 16th 
 and 17th of January, they held Bourbaki at bay. 
 The weather was bitterly cold, snow was on the 
 ground. On the 1 8th the French retreated. The 
 little band of Germans had defeated an army three 
 times its size. As King William truly said of this 
 battle, " It is one of the most remarkable feats of 
 arms of all times." 
 
 Now Manteuffel was hastening up, and Gam- 
 betta again meddled, throwing Bourbaki out of his 
 arrangements. Ashamed of his ill success, mad- 
 dened by Gambetta, he shot himself, but though 
 severe, the wound did not prove mortal. General 
 Clinchant was appointed in his place, but it was 
 merely the substitution of General Naught for Gen- 
 eral Nothing. All he could do was to retreat on 
 Bezangon, and from Bezancon on the Swiss frontier, 
 which the defeated army crossed, gave up their 
 arms, and disappeared. Thus another army was 
 annihilated, and France was left without one to 
 defend it, except only that enclosed in Paris. 
 Resistance was impossible. On the 24th February 
 the preliminaries of peace were prepared, and on 
 the 15th March peace was concluded. France was 
 to surrender all Elsass and part of Lorraine (Loth- 
 
414 A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE WITH TRANCE. 
 
 ringen) with Metz, and to pay a. heavy war indem- 
 nity, and till this indemnity was paid the German 
 army was to hold in occupation certain portions of 
 the French territory. Some of the forts about 
 Paris were to be held by the Germans till the 
 money had been paid. A congress was to meet at 
 Brussels to settle particulars. 
 
 Thereupon, the greater part of the victorious 
 army returned to Germany, and the Peace congress 
 met at Brussels on March 28th. Proceedings were, 
 however, delayed by the breaking out of a new rev- 
 olution in Paris. The Commune took possession of 
 the capital and several of the forts vacated by the 
 Germans, and established a government of their 
 own. And now the Republican government had 
 to lay siege to Paris, and bombard it, whilst the 
 Germans looked quietly on from the forts they still 
 held. The Republican government called the 
 remains of its armies together, and so Paris had to 
 undergo a second siege, which left it in a more dis- 
 astrous condition than the first. When the Com- 
 munists saw that the place was taken, they tried 
 to set fire to all the public buildings and churches, 
 so as to bury themselves under its ruins. 
 
 Only on the 10th of May peace was definitely 
 concluded at Frankfort, which was substantially the 
 same as the preliminary agreement arrived at on 
 March 1st. 
 
LXVII. 
 
 THE NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 THE war had drawn all the states of Germany 
 together, had broken down the dislike of the South 
 for the North, and had united all German hearts. 
 
 The time was come, Providence seemed to have 
 declared it, when at last the lesson of the past, 
 which had been written and rewritten in blood, but 
 which had been unheeded, should be laid to heart 
 and acted upon. That lesson was — Unity. All 
 the miseries of Germany had been due to petty 
 rivalries and jealousies. Now God had given Ger- 
 many victory over the power that had been her 
 deadliest enemy — the busy hand that had sowed 
 strife in her fields, and that victory had been given 
 only because she had acted unitedly. 
 
 The several states took counsel together, and 
 agreed to offer the imperial crown to the King of 
 Prussia. The proclamation declaring the founda- 
 tion of the restored empire was made on January 
 1st, 1871, and on the 18th William, King of Prussia, 
 was saluted as Emperor of Germany, in the Palace 
 of Versailles, by the representatives of the states 
 of Germany. 
 
 The capitulation of Paris followed on Jan. 28th. 
 
 415 
 
416 
 
 THE NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 The preliminaries of peace were decided on, on Feb. 
 26th, and peace was concluded definitely on May 
 10th, at Frankfort-on-Main. The re-union of Elsass 
 and German Lorraine with Strasburg and Metz was 
 a military necessity, and was in accord with the 
 general wish of the German people. 
 
 The first diet of the Empire assembled at Berlin 
 on March 21, 1871. 
 
 The present German empire comprises twenty-six 
 states. Of these twenty-two are monarchical, and 
 three (Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck) are repub- 
 lican. One, Elsass — Lothringen, is an imperial 
 province, under the sovereignty of the German 
 empire. The other states are kingdoms, grand 
 duchies and duchies. 
 
 Formerly, the traveller up the Rhine had to 
 obtain Prussian coins at Aix or Cologne, and change 
 them into South German coins at Mainz. At Co- 
 logne he had thalers, groschen, and pfennig. 
 Twelve pfennig made a silver groschen, and thirty 
 silver groschen made a thaler. At Mainz the coin- 
 age was different. There one had kreutzers, and 
 gulden or florins. Sixty kreutzers made a gulden. 
 In Hamburg the coinage again was different. There 
 sixteen shillings made a mark, and the value of a 
 shilling was under an English penny. Now 
 throughout Germany (not including Austria) there 
 is but one coinage. Ten pfennig make one mark, 
 the value of which is about one shilling English. 
 This is a great gain. Now also the laws have been 
 simplified and made alike throughout Germain', 
 and these are only some of the many advantages 
 
WILLIAM I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY. 
 
 41/ 
 
4 1 8 THE NE IV EMPIRE. 
 
 gained by unity. You remember, doubtless, the 
 fable of the old man and his sons and the bundle of 
 sticks. Each stick alone could easily be snapped, 
 but a strong man could do nothing to the bundle 
 when tied tightly together. Now at last that bun- 
 of sticks, the German nation, has been bound 
 together firmly, and ever may it so remain. 
 
 There is a favourite German song to this effect : 
 
 " What is the German Fatherland ? 
 Is it Prussia ? 
 Is it Swabia ? 
 
 Is it the grape-hung Rhine ? 
 Is it the Baltic gull-sought strand ? 
 Greater, O greater, the German Fatherland. 
 
 " What is the German Fatherland? 
 Is it Bavaria ? 
 Is it Saxony ? 
 
 Is't where the sedgy marshes spread ? 
 Is't where the miners work the ore ? 
 Greater, O greater, the German Fatherland. 
 
 " What is the German Fatherland ? 
 
 Is it Pomerania ? 
 
 Is it Westphalia ? 
 
 Is't where white sands the blue sea laves ? 
 
 Is't where wild Danube rolls her waves? 
 Greater, O Greater, the German Fatherland." 
 
 Then the song goes on to say that the German 
 Fatherland is where the German tongue is spoken, 
 and German songs are sung, where German hearts 
 beat true, and foreign falsehood is abhorred, where 
 there is common good, and a common love of all 
 that is great, and noble and right. 
 
 I have said that German history shows us the 
 
FREDERICK WILLIAM, IMPERIAL PRINCE, AND HEIR APPARENT TO THE 
 
 GERMAN THRONE. 
 
 419 
 
420 
 
 THE NEW EMPIRE. 
 
 great lesson of unity taught so simply in the fable 
 of the old man, his sons and the bundle of sticks. 
 It teaches another lesson also, a lesson illustrated 
 by a fable. You well recall that of the dog and the 
 piece of meat and the shadow. The dog, in grasp- 
 ing at the shadow, lost the substance. German em- 
 perors, in grasping at that vainest of shadows, the 
 Roman empire, lost the opportunity of consolidat- 
 ing the German nation under a firm government. 
 It was this grasping at a vain shadow which had 
 made the empire so weak, and Germany so in- 
 coherent, that Napoleon was able to ruin it almost 
 hopelessly. It took Germany many centuries to 
 learn this truth; it did learn it in the end. It has 
 taken it still longer to learn the truth that in Unity 
 is Strength. 
 
 But it must by no means be supposed that every 
 problem has been solved, and that Germany now 
 knows the safe road that leads to prosperity. It 
 has learned one or two lessons, but it has another to 
 learn. It has solved certain problems, but there is 
 another to be solved which is full of difficulty and 
 menace. 
 
 In order to make Germany united and powerful 
 its manhood has been organized into an army. 
 Every able-bodied man is a soldier. He has to 
 drill, and serve for three years actively with the 
 colours. Only those who are studying for the 
 learned professions and are capable of passing a 
 high standard in examination arc let off with one 
 year of active service. Now, this system unques- 
 tionably is of great advantage, not to the nation 
 
UNITY A T LAST. 
 
 421 
 
 only, but also to the individual soldiers. All the 
 young men receive a discipline which transforms 
 louts and boobies into trim and intelligent men ; 
 for the German military course is not one of drill 
 of the body only, but of mental drill as well. Con- 
 sequently, all the manhood of the country is brought 
 to discipline, subordination, and to the sense of- in- 
 terdependence. But on the other hand, the cost 
 to the country is enormous and crushing. Some of 
 the best years of a young man's life, the most valu- 
 able years for acquiring knowledge of a profession 
 are lost to him. Moreover, the country has to be 
 heavily taxed to feed, clothe, and equip this enor r 
 mous body of recruits. Many men, rather than 
 serve these three years, run away to America, or 
 England, and the drain in this way of able-bodied 
 men is so serious as to perplex the authorities 
 greatly. 
 
 Now, Germany having armed all her male popu- 
 lation, France, Austria, Russia, Italy have had to 
 do the same, so that the continent of Europe is 
 burdened with this terrible cost, and one nation 
 cannot withdraw its shoulder from the burden, 
 because it fears to be crushed by the superior force 
 of the others. 
 
 Consequently, as you see, though the empire of 
 Germany is a splendid power, it is also a very crush- 
 ing power to the people, and though the nation has 
 escaped from one set of difficulties, it has plunged 
 into another. What the result will be we cannot 
 tell, but in this world there is no great gain made 
 in one direction without a loss in another. Still. 
 
422 
 
 THE iXE W EMPIRE. 
 
 mankind is teachable, though often terribly slow to 
 learn. Where a mistake has been made, better ex- 
 perience comes to insist on a redress. The great 
 advantage of the study of history is, that it teaches 
 us to look at the mistakes that have been made by 
 preceding generations, and to avoid the like in 
 our own. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abdication (second) of Napoleon 
 
 I-i 377 
 
 Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, 
 
 the grand court or, 97 
 Aetius defeats the Huns, 27 
 Agnes, empress, at Kaiserswerth, 
 
 95 
 
 Agnes of Mansfield, 232. 
 
 Agnes, queen of Hungary, cruelty 
 of, 152 
 
 Agriculture encouraged by Fred- 
 erick the Great, 296 
 
 Aix, Charlemagne dies at, 62 
 
 Aix, peace of, 287 
 
 Albert of Brandenburg, 266 
 
 Albert interferes in Switzerland, 
 
 151 • , 
 
 Albertine and Ernestine, houses, 
 
 226 
 Alexander of Russia visits Ber- 
 lin, 345 
 Allemani, the, burst upon Clo- 
 
 vis, and are beaten, 39, 40 
 Allemani, the, why so named, 29, 
 Alliance, the " Holy," 380 
 Alps, the, crossed by Napoleon, 
 
 331 
 
 Alsace, see Elsass 
 
 Altenburg, atrocities at, 163 
 Alva, in the Netherlands, 232 
 Anabaptists in Munster, 213, 214 
 Angles, home of the, 9 
 Anno, archbishop of Cologne, 
 
 95 
 
 Aspern, battle of, 347 
 
 Assembly, National, at Frankfort, 
 386 
 
 Architecture of German towns, 
 
 192, 193 
 Ariovistus meets Caesar, 15 
 Army of Cut-and-Run, the, 295 
 Attila, or Etzel appears, 26 
 Attila breaks camp at Buda, 27 
 Attila dies, 28 
 
 Attila marries Kriemhild, 145 
 Augsburg, battle of, 88 
 Augsburg, beauty of, 193 
 Augsburg, diet at, 222, 223 
 Augsburg protected from the 
 
 Hungarians, 86 
 Augsburg surrenders to Maurice, 
 
 229 
 Augustus informed that his army 
 
 has been lost, 20 
 Aurelian visits Clotilde, 37 
 Aurelles, de Paladines, general, 
 
 411 
 Austerlitz, victory of Napoleon 
 
 at, 342 
 Austria cleared of the Bavarians 
 
 and the French, 286 
 Austria devastated by Turks, 166 
 Austria in commotion, 206 
 Austrians defeated at Prague and 
 
 Leuthen, 295 
 Austria in a ferment, 310 
 Austria obliged to evacuate the 
 
 Tyrol, 357 
 Austria and Prussia against 
 
 France, 324 
 Austria and Prussia attack Den- 
 mark, 390 
 Austria takes up arms against 
 
 Napoleon, 346 
 Austria, war against, "by Napoleon, 
 
 365 
 
 423 
 
424 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 B 
 
 Battle above the clouds, 332 
 Ban of the empire pronounced 
 against the Smalkald league, 
 225 
 Barbarossa, Frederick, 120 
 Barons, occupations of the, 139 
 Barons, how they held lands, 72 
 Basle, council of, 163 
 Bastile, the, stormed, 321 
 Bavaria given to Otto of Wittles- 
 
 bach, 122 
 Bazaine at Metz, 402 
 Bazaine surrenders Metz, 410 
 Belgium annexed to France, 329 
 Belgium declares itself independ- 
 ent, 310 
 Belgrade relieved by peasants un- 
 der Capistran, 166 
 Benedek, general, 391 
 Beowulf, romances of, 142 
 Berg Isel occupied by the Tyrol- 
 
 ese » 353> 354 
 Berg Isel, second battle at, 357 
 Berg Isel, third battle at, 357 
 Berlin, reception of Napoleon at, 
 
 346 
 Bernadotte at the battle«of Leip- 
 zig, 368 
 Bernadotte, status of, after Na- 
 poleon's fall, 378 
 Bertha, queen, spins, 80 
 Bertha married to Henry IV., 98 
 Bianca Sforza, of Milan, wife of 
 
 Maximilian, 174 
 Bible, the, printed, 180 
 Bible, translations of, 198 
 Bigamy authorized by law, 259 
 Bingen, Henry IV. confined in 
 
 castle of, 105 
 Bismarck meets Napoleon III., 
 
 the prisoner, 406 
 Bishoprics seized, 233 
 Bishops in armour, 188 
 Bishops, power of the, 183 
 Bishops, secular princes, 95 
 Black Hoffman, 207, 209 
 Blenheim, battle of, 272, 273 
 Blockade of continental harbours, 
 
 35S 
 
 Bliicher advances over the Rhine, 
 
 373 
 Bliicher, against Napoleon, 365 
 Bliicher at the battle of Leipzig, 
 
 370 
 Bliicher defeated at Ligny, 376 
 Bliicher late at Waterloo, 277 
 Blundering reforms, 307 
 Bluster of Frederick II., 2cSi 
 Bockelson, John, a tailor of Ley- 
 den, 213 
 Bohemia, toleration in, 234 
 Boniface, archbishop of Mainz, 44 
 Boniface killed by Pagans, 51 
 Books formerly written, 179 
 Bourbaki followed by Manteuffel, 
 
 4 12 
 Bourbaki shoots himself for 
 
 shame, 413 
 
 Bourbons, the, restored in France, 
 
 375 
 Brandenburg, elector of, 265 
 Bremen, archbishop of, 97 
 Brenner Pass, the, 350 
 Brenner Pass, Lefebvre at, 356 
 Brescia besieged, 1 54 
 Brod, terrible atrocities at, 162 
 Buda, a seat of the Niebelungen 
 
 romances, 145 
 Bull, the, of Leo X. burned by 
 
 Luther, 201 
 Bull, the Golden, 154, 156 
 Buren, Frederick of, 113 
 Burghers, the hereditary, 146 
 Burgkmair's " Triumph of Max- 
 imilian," 172 
 Burgundians, home of the, 31 
 Burkhard of Swabia, 86 
 Butchery at Weinsberg, 207 
 Byzantines deposed from power 
 by Leo, 65 
 
 Caesar, Julius, meets the Marco- 
 
 manni, 15 
 Campo Formio, treaty of, 333 
 Canossa, visit of Henry IV. to, 
 
 102 
 t'alixtines, the, 160, 161 
 Calmucks, the, (or Huns,) 24, 26 
 
INDEX. 
 
 42 5 
 
 Calvin and .Luther, hostility be- 
 tween, 221 
 
 Calvinists and Lutherans at war, 
 2^2 
 
 Castles plundered by peasants, 
 209 
 
 Castles, the ruined, 136 
 
 Catholics driven out by Wallen- 
 steh-1,-250 
 
 Catholic League and the Protest- 
 ant Union, 234 , 
 
 Catholic priests driven out, 212 
 
 Catholicism abolished in certain 
 parts, 245 
 
 Catholicism forced upon Bohemia, 
 
 239 . . 
 Catholicism, peasants revolt 
 
 against, 205 
 Chalons, defeat of the Huns at, 
 
 27 
 Chalons taken by Lothair, 68 
 Chamilly, stands on a bridge at 
 
 Basle, 261 
 Charlemagne, campaigns of, 52 
 Charlemagne crowned at Rome, 
 
 61 
 Charlemagne devastates the Sax- 
 on territories, 56 
 Charlemagne dies at Aix, 62 
 Charlemagne foresees trouble, 75 
 Charlemagne's good government, 
 
 58, 59 
 
 Charles Albert, elector of Bava- 
 ria, 281 
 
 Charles Martel, son of Pepin, 43 
 
 Charles IV. endeavours to aggran- 
 dize his family, 158 
 
 Charles IV., of Luxemburg, cho- 
 sen emperor, 156 
 
 Charles X. driven from his throne, 
 382 
 
 Charles V., character of, 201 
 
 Charles V. dies, 230, 231 
 
 Charles V., the greatness of, 199 
 
 Charles VII., short reign of, 286 
 
 Charles the Fat, deposed, 75 
 
 Chatti, the, 9 
 
 Childeric III. sent to a monas- 
 tery, 44 
 
 Chivalry and knighthood, in 
 
 Chronicles, the early, 194 
 
 Christianity abolished and re- 
 stored in France, 340 
 
 Christianity brought to the Ger- 
 mans, 48 
 
 Christianity introduced to Rome, 
 
 6 3 . 
 Christian of Denmark, 244 
 
 Church, split in the, 182, 186, 
 
 201 
 Church, the Western, disorder in, 
 
 160 
 Cimbri and Teutones invade 
 
 Italy, 1, 6 
 Cities gain power, 146 S 
 Cities, importance of, 189 
 City-building by plan, 302 
 Civilization begun by Winifred, 
 
 (Boniface) 50 
 Clergy, the, ridiculed in France, 
 
 Clermont, Council of, 109 
 Clinchant defeated, 413 
 Clinchant takes Bourbaki's place, 
 
 Clodwig, the same as Clovis, 
 
 Louis and Ludwig, 34 
 Clotilde wooed by Clovis, 27 
 Clouds, battle above the, 332 
 Clovis baptised, 41 
 Clovis dies at Paris, 42 
 Clovis, king of the Franks, 34 
 Clovis meets the Allemani and 
 
 the Vosges, 39 
 Clovis prays to the God of Clo- 
 tilde, 39 
 Clovis wooes Clotilde, 27 
 Coalition, the first, 328 
 Coalition, the second, 337 
 Coalition, the third, 341 
 Cologne and Mainz, archbishops 
 
 of, 95 
 Cologne, paper factories at, 180 
 Columbanus, S. in Burgundy, 46 
 Commune, the, in Paris, 414 
 Constance, Council of, 160 
 Constantine makes the Roman 
 
 empire Christian, 63 
 Constantia of Arragon becomes 
 
 wife of Frederick II. 127. 
 Constitutions promised, 380. 
 Conrad, chosen king, 79 
 
426 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Conrad of Hohenstaufen chosen 
 
 king, 114 
 Conrad II., first of Salic kings, 94 
 Conradin, emperor, 134, 135 
 Cossacks at the battle of the na- 
 tions, 370 
 Cruelties at Vienna, 309 
 Crusade against Saladin, 124 
 Crusade, a, headed by Conrad, 1 18 
 Crusades, effects of, in 
 Crusades, the, 109 
 Crusade under Frederick II., 132 
 Cultivation nearly extinguished, 
 
 302 
 Custozza, defeat of the Italians 
 
 by Austria at, 390 
 Cut-and-Run, army of, 296 
 
 D 
 
 Danube, navigation of, 196 
 Danzig (Dantztic) duke of, 355 
 Darmstadt rebuilt, 304 
 Denmark attacked, 391 
 Desiderius, the Lombard king, 57 
 Despotic views of government, 
 
 380 
 Detmold, terrible battle at, 56 
 Dettingen, battle at, 286 
 Devil's Walls, the, 23 
 Dialects in Germany, 197 
 Diet, imperial, at Ratisbon, 258 
 Diet-Bund, reappointed, 387 
 Donar the thunderer, 12, 50 
 Dream, the bad, of the duke of 
 
 Hesse-Cassel, 380 
 Dresden, princes lectured by 
 
 Napoleon at, 358 
 Dress in the rococo time, 276 
 Duchies, the, of Schleswig-Hol- 
 
 stein, 388 
 Dwellings in former times, 192 
 
 E 
 
 Eagle, the two-headed, 119 
 Edmund, king of England, 92 
 Egypt invaded by Napoleon, 337 
 Elba given to Napoleon, 375 
 Electors, number of, 156 
 
 Elector, the Great, (Frederick 
 William,) 266 
 
 Elector of Saxony, the, 203 
 
 Elector of Saxony protests against 
 the decree of the diet of Spires, 
 222 
 
 Elsass given to France, 257 
 
 Elsass and Loraine given to Prus- 
 sia 
 
 Emperors, the, hated in Italy, 131 
 
 Empire, a division of, 70 
 
 Empire, dissolution of, 345 
 
 Empire, crushing weight of the, 
 421 
 
 Empire, dreams of a world-wide, 
 177 
 
 Empire, glory of, passes away, 136 
 
 Empire (new) diet of, at Berlin 
 (1871)416 
 
 Empire, the ancient German, re- 
 placed by a German confedera- 
 tion, 378 
 
 Empire, the, organized by Maxi- 
 milian, 175 
 
 Empire, the Roman, idea of, 63 
 
 Emperor, who is an ? 65 
 
 England, dialects of, 198 
 
 England harasses the French 
 navy, 358 
 
 England, kings of, 383 
 
 " Enoch and Elias ' at Munster, 
 214 
 
 Enzio, last of the Hohenstaufens, 
 
 134, 135 
 Ernestine and Albertine houses 
 
 of Saxony, 226 
 Etzel or Attila appears, 26 
 Eugene, Prince, 269 
 Europe emancipated from the 
 
 tyranny of Napoleon, 362 
 Europe, new partition of, 378 
 
 Faidherbe, General, in the north 
 
 of France, 41 1 
 Faith, salvation by, 187 
 Fatherland, indifference to, 260 
 Fatherland, what is the ? 418 
 Faust, Goethe's work, 314 
 Faust, story of, 181 
 
INDEX. 
 
 427 
 
 Ferbellin, battle of, 267 
 Ferdinand of Austria, flees from 
 
 his capital, 385 
 Feudal laws of Joseph II., 308 
 Feudal system, the, 72, 73 
 Fire brigade, the first, 192 
 Flemings rebel against the house 
 
 of Hapsburg, 170 
 Fontenay, (Burgundy) battle at, 
 
 70 
 France copied by Germany, 301 
 France, cultivation in, 302 
 France declares war prematurely, 
 
 396 
 France humbled by Prussia, 406 
 France named, 33 
 France, revolution in, 382 
 France, revolution of 1848, 385 
 France, wretched state of affairs 
 
 in, 318 
 Francis II. announces the disso- 
 lution of the empire, 345 
 Francis Joseph of Austria prom- 
 ises reforms, 386 
 Francis of Waldeck, inclined to 
 
 Lutheranism, 211 
 Frankfort, parliament at, 386 
 Frankfort, council at, after the 
 
 battle of Leipzig, 373 
 Frankfort, peace settled at, (1871) 
 
 414 
 Franks, territory of the, 29 
 Frederick I. (Barbarossa), 120 
 Frederick I., ambition of, 120 
 Frederick I., under the ban of 
 
 the empire, 122 
 Frederick II., born, 125 
 Frederick II. excommunicated, 134 
 Frederick II. (of Prussia, the 
 
 Great) described, 280, 298, 300 
 Frederick the Great, intrigues of, 
 
 286 
 Frederick the Great, frightened 
 
 in battle, 282 
 Frederick the Great as a prince, 
 
 290 
 Frederick the Great dies, 300 
 Frederick III. of Hapsburg, long 
 
 reign of, 164 
 Frederick of Austria, son of 
 
 Albert I., 155 
 
 Frederick William, the Great 
 Elector, 255 
 
 Frederick William III. comes to 
 the throne, 334 
 
 Frederick William IV. of Prus- 
 sia, chosen emperor, 386 
 
 Freemen and slaves, 11 
 
 French, the enemies of Germany, 
 
 I75> l 77 
 French, the, waste the Rhine lands 
 
 again, 261 
 French language, earliest speci- 
 men of, 70 
 Fridolin at Sechingen, 48 
 Friedstadt burned, 251 
 Frisian cycle of romances, 142 
 Fritz, the palatine, rebels, 167 
 Fust and Schoffer aid Gutenberg, 
 179 
 
 G 
 
 Gabor, Bethlen, revolts in Hun- 
 gary, 238 
 Gall, S., makes his home in 
 
 Switzerland, 46 
 Gambetta escapes from Paris, 
 
 410 
 Gaul, a capital of, 34 
 Gebhard of Spires humbles 
 
 Henry IV., 105 
 Gebhard of Waldburg, archbish- 
 op of Cologne, 232 
 George of Pojebrad, in Bohemia, 
 
 167 
 George II. of England at the 
 
 head of an army, wins a victory 
 
 at Dettingen, 286 
 Georgenborn built, 302 
 German confederation, the, 378 
 German empire, the new (1848), 
 
 386 
 German empire, composition of 
 
 the new, 416 
 German independence won by 
 
 Hermann, 20 
 German, meaning of the word, 9 
 German religion in early times, 
 
 11 
 Germans think about their rights, 
 
 380 
 
428 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Germany agitated on account of 
 Henry IV., 96 
 
 Germany aroused against Napo- 
 leon, 362 
 
 Germany described, 7 
 
 Germany devastated by rival em- 
 perors, 129 
 
 Germany, divisions of, 195, 196 
 
 Germany, forces of, in the Franco- 
 Prussian war, 397 
 
 Germany free from France, 372 
 
 Germany freed from the Romans, 
 
 23 
 Germany, her saddest time, 137, 
 
 133 
 Germany in commotion (1848), 
 
 3 8 5 . 
 Germany independent of France, 
 
 71 
 Germany influenced bv France, 
 
 3*3 
 Germany loses something by 
 
 successive treaties, 263 
 
 Germany overrun by Huns, 27, 
 
 7 6 
 Germany sees that the pope is 
 
 her enemy, 182 
 Gessler in Uri, 151 
 Girondists executed, 329 
 Godfrey de Bouillon leads the 
 
 first Crusade, no 
 Goethe, John Wolfgang von, 313 
 Goethe appreciated in England, 
 
 3 X 5 
 Goetz with the Iron Hand, 209 
 
 Gospel Brotherhood, the, 206 
 
 Gospel, the, preached in Ger- 
 many, 46 
 
 Goths, position of the, 31 
 
 Government by the people prom- 
 ised, 380 
 
 Government, a catechism of, 308 
 
 Graubunden, confederacy of, 166 
 
 Gravelotte, battle of, 404 
 
 Gravelotte occupied by the Ger- 
 mans, 403 
 
 Greek magnificence, 92 
 
 Gregory VII. deposed by Henry 
 IV., 103 
 
 Gregory VII. summons the em- 
 peror to Rome, 99 
 
 Gregory IX. sees Frederick II. 
 
 start on a crusade, 132 
 Grisons, the, why named, 166 
 Gross-Beeren, battle at, 365 
 Guilds, beginnings of, 146 
 Gundebald, king of Burgundv, 
 
 37 
 Gundebald overcome, 38 
 Gunther and Kriemhild, 143 
 Gustavus Adolphus appealed to 
 
 by the Protestants, 247 
 Gustavus Adolphus beats Tilly, 
 
 248 
 Gustavus, death of, 255 
 Gustavus described, 251 
 Gustavus forced to retreat from 
 
 Nuremberg, 254 
 Gustavus Adolphus joins the 
 
 Protestant League, 244 
 Gutenberg, John, prints, 180 
 Gyer Florian, 207 
 
 H 
 
 Hammerstein, castle of, 104 
 Hanseatic League, the, 147 
 Hapsburg, the family of, 148 
 Hapsburg, house of, 164 
 Hapsburgs, ambition of the, 178 
 Hatto, archbishop of Mainz, 79 
 Heidelberg, castle of, 302 
 Heidelberg, the Catholic League 
 
 at, 245 
 Helena, S., Napoleon sent to, 
 
 377 
 Helfenstein, count of, 207, 208 
 Henry II., called the Saint, 93 
 Henry IV. (Hohenstaufen), 125 
 Henry IV., childhood of, 96 
 Henry IV. excommunicated, 100 
 Henry IV. goes to Rome, 102 
 Henry IV., 'humiliation of, at Can- 
 
 ossa, 102 
 Henry IV. married, 98 
 Henry V. marries Matilda of 
 
 England, 106 
 Henry the Fowler chosen king, 
 
 80 
 Henry the Lion fights Otto IV., 
 
 129 
 Henry the Lion furious, 122 
 
INDEX. 
 
 429 
 
 Henry of Luxemberg (Liitzel- 
 
 berg) chosen emperor, 154 
 Hermann, chief of the Cherusci, 
 
 a captive in Rome, 1 5 
 High Germany and Low, 196, 197 
 High and Low Germany, 7 
 Hildebrand (Gregory VII.), 
 
 99-103 
 History, advantage of the study 
 
 of, 422 
 Hofer, Andreas, the Tyrolese 
 
 hero, 348 
 Hofer betrayed and shot by Na- 
 poleon, 357 
 Hohenlinden, battle of, 338 
 Hohenstaufen dynasty, the, 113 
 Hohenstaufen, the hill so-called, 
 
 V 3 
 
 Hohenstaufens, the, 114 
 
 Hohenzollern described, 265 
 
 Holy Alliance, the, 380 
 
 Homogeneity of manners to be 
 forced, 307 
 
 Houses first built of stone, 192 
 
 Houses of timber, 189 
 
 Huntsman, the Wild, 12 
 
 Hungarians defeated at Augs- 
 burg, 88 
 
 Hungarians, plans for protection 
 against, 80, 81 
 
 Hungary, formerly Dacia, 26 
 
 Hungary, revolt in, 238 
 
 Huns, the, appear in Germany, 
 24, 26, 85 
 
 Huns defeated, 27 
 
 " Huns' Graves," the, in North 
 Germany, 8 
 
 Hunvadi, John, king of Hungary, 
 166. 
 
 Husbands carried by wives, 118 
 
 Huss, John, and his views, 160 
 
 Huss, martyrdom of, 160 
 
 Ida leaves Weinsberg with her 
 husband on her back, 118 
 
 Imperial crown goes a begging, 
 136 
 
 Imperial idea, the, 131. (See em- 
 pire.) 
 
 Imperial idea, trouble from, 79, 
 
 106 
 Indulgences offered for sale, 183 
 Inn-keepers among the nobility, 
 
 140 
 Innsbruck in the hands of the 
 
 Bavarians, 353 
 Innsbruck occupied by Lefebvre, 
 
 35 6 
 Innsbruck taken by Maurice, 229 
 Irene, empress, 64 
 Irmgard, the empress, 67 
 Irish missionaries, 48 
 Irish, the, first preach the Gospel 
 
 in Germany, 46 
 Isel, Mount, occupied by Hofer, 
 
 Speckbacher and Haspinger, 
 
 353.354. 
 Islamism, idea of, 64 
 Italy, Prince Eugene in, 272 
 
 Jacobins at Paris, 324 
 Jemmapes, Austrians defeated 
 
 at, 324 
 Jena, defeat of the Prussians at, 
 
 345 
 Jerusalem entered by Frederick 
 
 II., 132 
 Jerusalem stormed and taken by 
 
 the Crusaders, no 
 Jesuits obnoxious to Joseph II., 
 
 309 
 Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand 
 
 and Isabella, 177 
 Joanna torn by the hounds of 
 
 Wenceslas, 159 
 Joseph II., a good prince, 306 
 Joseph II. dies, 311 
 Josephine, divorce of, 385 
 Jury-trials demanded, 381 
 Jutta, the empress, 68 
 
 K 
 
 Key to the history of mediaeval 
 
 Germany, 66 
 King, the, elected by the great 
 
 vassals, 78 
 Klopstock and Wieland, 312 
 Knighthood, rise of, 1 1 1 
 
430 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Knighthood, rules of, &$ 
 Knipperdolling, the draper, 21 1, 
 
 219 
 Knyffhauser Mountain, legend 
 
 about, 124 
 Koniggratz, situation of, 391 
 Kotzebue assassinated, 381 
 Kyburg, count, puzzles the Hun- 
 garians, 86 
 
 Land tenure, 72, 73 
 Laurin the dwarf, 142 
 League, the Hanseatic, 147 
 Learning scorned by Frederick 
 
 William I., 2S9 
 Lech, Tilly beaten in a battle on 
 
 the, 250 
 Lefebvre, general, 355 
 Lefebvre defeated, 357 
 Legends, the old German, 142 
 Leipzig, battle of, 367, 372 
 Leopold chosen emperor, 259 
 Leopold of Hohenzollern, 395 
 Leo III. crowns Charlemagne, 60 
 
 79 
 Leo X. excommunicates Luther, 
 
 201 
 
 Leopold of Tuscany, made king, 
 
 3 11 
 Lessing opposes sentimentality, 
 
 312 
 Liberty, cries for, 381 
 Liberty, ideas of, in France, 319 
 Ligny, battle at, 376 
 Literature in early times, 197 
 Literature, in the eighteenth cent- 
 ury, 312 
 Literature, the early, 194 
 Little Abbot, a nickname of 
 
 Prince Eugene, 269 
 Lombard cities take the side of 
 
 the Welfs, 116 
 Lombard cities revolt, 132 
 Lombard cycle of romances, 142 
 Lombards chastised by Pepin, 44 
 Lombards, early home of the, 10, 
 
 Lombards overrun Italy, 64 
 Lombardy, Napoleon in, 338 
 
 Louisa of Prussia opposes Napo- 
 leon I., 345 
 Louis the Bavarian, 155 
 Louis and Frederick rule together, 
 
 156 
 
 Louis Philippe flees to England, 
 
 334 
 
 Louis Philippe forgets good reso- 
 lutions, 384 
 
 Louis, son of Charlemagne, 67 
 
 Louis the German, 70 
 
 Louis XIV. builds Versailles, 301 
 
 Louis XIV. tries to bribe Prince 
 Eugene, 270 
 
 Louis XVI. arrested, 322 
 
 Louis XVI. executed, 326 
 
 Louis XVIII. flees to the Nether- 
 lands, 376 
 
 Louvois, French minister of war, 
 261 
 
 Low Germany and High, 7 
 
 Lupfen, countess of, her orders to 
 the peasants, 206 
 
 Luneville, peace of, 339 
 
 Luther, Martin, at the diet of 
 Worms, 203 
 
 Luther, commemoration of, 381 
 
 Luther excommunicated by the 
 pope, 201 
 
 Luther hostile to Calvin, 221 
 
 Luther, influence of, on the Ger- 
 man dialect, 198 
 
 Luther writes to the archbishop 
 of Mainz, 185 
 
 Luther, protectors of, 204 
 
 Luther rabid against the peasants, 
 210 
 
 Liitzen, battle at, 254 
 
 Liitzen, victory of Napoleon at, 
 364 
 
 M 
 
 MacMahon cornered, 405 
 MacMahon takes Weissenberg, 
 
 398 
 Magdeburg, terrible scenes at, 248 
 Magyars invade Germany, 76 
 Mainz and Cologne, archbishops 
 
 of, 95 
 Malplaquet, battle of, 275 
 
INDEX. 
 
 431 
 
 Man, rights of, 379 
 
 Mannheim made the capital in- 
 stead of Heidelberg, 303 
 
 Marcomanni, the, 10 
 
 Margraves, (march-counts) 58 
 
 Maria Theresa, character of, 281 
 
 Maria Theresa flees to Hungary, 
 283 
 
 Maria Theresa sovereign of Aus- 
 tria, 279 
 
 Marie Antoinette comes to the 
 throne, 319 
 
 Marie Antoinette executed, 327 
 
 Marius defeats the Teutones, 4, 6 
 
 Marlborough and Prince Eugene, 
 271 
 
 Martinitz and Slawata, 234 
 
 Mary of Burgundy, wife of Max- 
 imilian, 168, 170 
 
 Massacres at Paris, 324 
 
 Maurice declares for the Protest- 
 ants, 228 
 
 Maurice of Saxony, refuses to 
 join the Smalkald league, 227 
 
 Maurice turns against the em- 
 peror, 227 
 
 Maximilian of Bavaria attacks 
 Prague, 238 
 
 Maximilian, the handsome, 168 
 
 Mayors of the Palace, the, power 
 
 of, 43 
 
 Meissen, margrave of, 96 
 
 Melancthon draws up the Augs- 
 burg Confession, 223 
 
 Merovingians, the, are weak 
 creatures, 43 
 
 Merseburg, great battle at, 82 
 
 Merseburg, imperialists cut to 
 pieces at, 250 
 
 Metternich meets Napoleon, 364 
 
 Metz, battle of, 400-404 
 
 Meyerbeer's opera of the Prophet, 
 211 
 
 Michael, the angel of victory, 8^ 
 
 Mincio, defeat of the Austrians 
 at the, 338 
 
 Moltke, directs the Franco-Prus- 
 sian war, 397 
 
 Moltke, general, after Sedan, 406 
 
 Molwitz, battle of, 282 
 
 Monks butchered, 250 
 
 Montaigne on Augsburg, 193 
 Moors, Charlemagne goes against, 
 
 56 
 Morat, battle of, 153 
 Morgarten, battle of, 153 
 Moscow entered by Napoleon, 359 
 Moustaches first worn, 277 
 Miihlberg, battle of, 226 
 Miihldorf, battle of, 155 
 Munster taken after a long siege, 
 
 219 
 Munster, in Westphalia, 211 
 Murat at the battle of Leipzig, 368 
 Murat gains victory at Tolentino, 
 
 377 
 Music, birth of, 278 
 Music and education under 
 
 Charlemagne, 59 
 Music springs into perfection, 
 
 3 l 7 
 
 N 
 
 Napoleon I., appears, 330 
 Napoleon I. advances to Italy, 
 
 331 
 
 Napoleon as a reorganizer, 340 
 Napoleon at his highest point, 358 
 Napoleon crowned emperor by 
 
 the Pope, 341 
 Napoleon defeated at Aspern, 347 
 Napoleon deserts his own army, 
 
 361 
 Napoleon enters France again, 376 
 Napoleon enters Prussia, 364 
 Napoleon enters Russia, 358 
 Napoleon gives governments to 
 
 relatives, 244 
 Napoleon in Lombardy, 338 
 Napoleon, insolence of, 346 
 Napoleon lectures princes, 35S 
 Napoleon outgeneralled at Mos- 
 cow, 360 
 Napoleon proclaimed an outlaw, 
 
 376 
 Napoleon retreats from Leipzig, 
 
 37i 
 
 Napoleon threatened by Welling- 
 ton 373 
 
 Napoleon II., who was he ? 385 
 
432 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Napoleon III., president of the 
 
 French republic, 384 
 Napoleon III., a prisoner, 406 
 Napoleon III. proclaims war with 
 
 Prussia, 395 
 National Assembly, the, in 
 
 France, 321 
 Nations, battle of the, 367 
 Nations, migrations of, 29 
 Necklace, a dangerous, 79 
 Netherlands, a revolt in the, 170 
 Ney, Marshal, at Quatre Bras, 
 
 3/6 
 Niebelungen Lied, the, 26, 142, 
 
 H3 
 Nimweg, Reissweg and Unrecht, 
 
 262 
 Nobles, manufacture of, 278 
 Nobles, power of the, 129 
 Nobles, the, elect the king, 78 
 Nobility, the, dying out, 277 
 Nobility, the, in France refuse to 
 
 bear burdens of taxation, 321 
 Nothburga, the peasant girl, 12 
 Nord-Bund, the, 394 
 North Germany flat, 197 
 Northmen, incursions of, 75 
 Nuremburg, situation of, 252 
 
 O 
 
 Orchestra, the, developed, 317 
 Orders, religious, to be made to 
 
 work, 309 
 Ottacar of Bohemia defeated near 
 
 Vienna, 148, 149 
 Otto the Great, character of, 90 
 Otto I., state of, 92 
 Otto II., court of, 92 
 Otto IV. fights Henry the Lion, 
 
 129 
 Oudenarde, battle of, 275 
 
 Paris, Clovis dies at, 42 
 Paris, revolution in, (1870) 408 
 Paris, siege of, (1870) 409 
 Paris, second peace of, 378 
 Paris surrounded by the Germans, 
 408 
 
 Paris, first peace of, 375 
 
 Paris, second seige of, 414 
 
 Paris bombarded by the French, 
 
 414 
 Pacifications of Nimwegen, Rvs- 
 
 wick and Utrecht, 262 
 Palermo deluged with blood, 
 Palestine conquered by the Sel- 
 
 juks, 109 
 Papal sovereignty, beginning of, 
 
 44 
 Paper, slips of, on the river Inn, 
 
 350 
 Paper, watermarks of, 179 
 
 Parliament, the, in France, 43 
 Parliaments demanded, 381 
 Passau, pacification of, 229, 245 
 Paul IV opposes Charles V., 230 
 Peace of Paris (first), 375 
 Peace of Paris (second), 378 
 Peace of Vienna, 347 
 Peasants, the German, 8 
 Peasants, the, aroused, 205 
 Peasants in arms again (1848), 
 
 3*7 
 Peasants in the Rhoetian Alps 
 
 rise, 166 
 Peasants, plan of Joseph II. for, 
 
 308 
 Peasants rise throughout France, 
 
 322 
 Peasants of the Tyrol, action of, 
 
 349 
 People, relations to their princes 
 
 after Napoleon's fall, 379 
 Pepin the Short, as mayor of the 
 
 palace, 43 
 Pepin fights his foes, 44 
 Pepin dies, 45 
 Peter the Hermit preaches the 
 
 first Crusade, 109 
 Philip II. becomes king of Spain 
 
 and the Netherlands, 230 
 Philip II. persecutes Frotestants, 
 
 232 
 Pius II. on the German cities, 
 
 193 
 
 Pius VI. alarmed by the meas- 
 ures of Joseph II., 309 
 
 Pius VII. crowns Napoleon, 341 
 
 Plague, the, 127 
 
INDEX. 
 
 433 
 
 Poems, the old German, 60 
 Poetry cultivated, 141 
 Pomerania occupied by the 
 
 Sclavs, 32 
 Poniatowski at the battle of 
 
 Leipzig, 369 
 Pope, the, against Germany, 176, 
 
 177 
 Pope, the, does Pepin a good 
 
 turn, 44 
 Pope, the, an enemv to Germany, 
 
 181 
 Pope, the, in want of money, 
 
 182 
 Popes against emperors, T06 
 Popes harmed by the imperial 
 
 claims of the German emper- 
 ors, 133 
 Popes uneasy. 131 
 Population, decrease of. during 
 
 the Thirty Years' War, 239 
 Post office, the, organization of, 
 
 T 7 6 
 Potato, enforced cultivation of 
 
 the, 297 
 
 Pragmatic Sanction, the, 279 
 
 Prague attacked by Maximilian of 
 Bavaria, 238 
 
 Prague, battle of, 295 
 
 Prague blockaded, 286 
 
 Prague, Hussite troubles in, 161 
 
 Prague, imperial castle at, at- 
 tacked, 235 
 
 Prague, peace of, 394 
 
 Press, censure of the, 382 
 
 Pressburg, peace of, 344 
 
 Prince and people, relations of, 
 
 379 
 Princes almost independent, 258 
 
 Princes, and cities in constant 
 feud, 138 
 
 Printing, invention of, 179 
 
 Protestant League takes the place 
 of the Union, 244 
 
 Protestant princes weakened by 
 dissensions, 225 
 
 Protestant Union broken up, 239, 
 244 
 
 Protestant Union and the Catho- 
 lic League, 234 
 
 Protestantism, origin of, 182, 186 
 
 28 
 
 Protestants erect new churches, 
 
 234 
 Protestants, how named, 222 
 Protestants in Minister split, 213 
 Prussia chastised, 345 
 Prussia forced to war with France, 
 
 395. 
 Prussia, forces of, 397 
 
 Prussia a great arsenal, 364 
 
 Prussia meets reverses, 346 
 
 Prussia wins the duchies, 394 
 
 R 
 
 Rack, the, used in modern times, 
 
 3 81 . 
 Ramilies, battle of, 275 
 
 Rastadt, convention at, 335 
 Rastadt, treaty of, 275 
 Ratisbon besieged, 255 
 Reformation in Switzerland, 221 
 Reforms by Joseph II., 307 
 Reichstag, an Imperial to sit at 
 
 Ratisbon, 258 
 Reign of Terror, end of, 330 
 Religion, innovations in, forbid- 
 den, 222 
 Remigius, bishop of Rheims, 35 
 Remigius teaches Clovis, 40 
 Revelations, the, of the Anabap- 
 tists, 217 
 Revolts in various quarters, 310 
 Rheims, cathedral of, spoiled, 35 
 Rheims entered by the Germans, 
 
 408 
 Rhein-bund, the, 344 
 Rhein-bund, the, cowed by Napo- 
 leon, 362 
 Rhein-bund dissolved, 373 
 Rheinsberg, castle of, life of 
 
 Frederick II. in, 292 
 Rival kings, 155 
 Robber-knights, the, 136 
 Robber-knights, depredations of, 
 
 164 
 Robespierre elected to the Na- 
 tional Assembly, 324 
 Robespierre guillotined, 330 
 Rococo, definition of, 276 
 Rohsbacker, Tacklein, 207 
 Romances, the Burgundian, 142 
 
434 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Romans defeated by the Teutones, 
 
 2 
 
 Rose Garden, the, 142 
 
 Rossbach, battle of, 294 
 
 Rottmann preaches against ( a- 
 tholicism, 212 
 
 Rudolph of Hapsburg, 148 
 
 Rudolph of Swabia elected em- 
 peror in the stead of Henry IV., 
 100 
 
 Rudolph of Swabia defeated by 
 Henry IV., 103 
 
 Ruins repaired by "Old Frit/," 
 297 
 
 S 
 
 Saarbriicken, battle of, 397, 408 
 
 Sadowa, battle of, 392, 393 
 
 Salic Franks, the, 34 
 
 Saladin, crusade against, 12, 124 
 
 Sandwirth, the, 348 
 
 Saracens defeated by Charles 
 
 Martel, 43 
 Saracens, wars with the, 109 
 Saxons, campaigns of Charle- 
 magne against, 54, 56 
 Saxons devastate France, 56 
 Saxons, end of the dynasty of, 93 
 Saxons forcibly baptized, 56 
 Saxons, home of the, 9 
 Saxons, situation of the, 29 
 Saxony wasted by the Hussites, 
 
 162 
 Saxony, dukes and electors of, 
 
 226 
 Saxony, the Elector of, 203 
 Saxony, two ducal houses of, 226 
 Schlick, Caspar, advice of, 164 
 Schiller, Christopher Frederick, 
 
 3}3 
 ^chiller's works, 316 
 Schism in the Church, 182, 186 
 Schleswig-Holstein difficulty, the, 
 
 explained, 388 
 Schloss Elz, 190 
 Schools started, 50 
 Sclavs in Pomerania, t,^ 
 Sclav population, the, of South 
 
 Germany, 8 
 
 Seidlitz, great charge of, 295 
 Sedan, Napoleon III. at, 405, 408 
 Serfs, the, in olden times, 8 
 Sermons distributed bv Charle- 
 magne, 59 
 Seven Years' War, terrible suf- 
 ferings in, 296 
 Sicambri, the tribe of Clovis, 41 
 Siegbert, king of the Ripnarian 
 
 Franks, 42 
 Siegfried killed, 1^4 
 Sigismund sie/es Wenceslas, 159 
 Signs of inn-houses. 140 
 Silesian War, the Third, 293 
 Sin. how atoned for, 183 
 Sin, pardon for, 187 
 Singing in early times, 195 
 Slaves and freemen, 1 1 
 Slawata and Martinitz, 234 
 Spa, near Liege, home of Pepin 
 
 of Ileristal, 43 
 Spain, claims for the crown of, 
 
 271 
 Spain, quarrel about the throne 
 
 of, 395 
 Speckbacher, the Tvrolese hero, 
 
 348 
 Speicheren, terrible battle at, 398 
 Spires, diet at, 222 
 Smalkald, Protestant League at 
 
 22"J 
 
 Sobieski, king of Poland, rescues 
 
 Vienna, 263 
 Soissons, a capital of Clovis, 35 
 Soldiers, burden of the, in Ger- 
 many, 420 
 Sovereigns, too many in Germany, 
 
 189 
 Strasburg bombarded. 410 
 Strasburg seized by the French, 
 
 261 
 Street fights in early times, 194 
 Strub Pass, the, defended bv the 
 
 Tvrolese, 351 
 States of the Church, beginning 
 
 of, 44 
 Students cry for liberty, 380 
 Suevi, or Swabians, home of, 10 
 Swabia, duke of, 113 
 Swabia, imperial dvn.istv of, 1 1 }, 
 
 M t 
 
INDEX. 
 
 435 
 
 Swabia invaded by the French, 
 
 33° 
 Swedes, cruelties of the, 250 
 
 Swedes repulsed by the Great 
 
 Elector, 268 
 
 Swiss, determination of, to be free, 
 
 Switzerland, languages of, 2 
 Switzerland not able to sustain its 
 
 population, 2 
 Switzerland overrun by the 
 
 French, 334 
 
 Tabagie, the, of Frederick Wil- 
 liam I., 289 
 
 Tacitus on the career of Her- 
 mann, 23 
 
 Talleyrand at the congress of Vi- 
 enna, 375 
 
 Talleyrand at Rastadt, 236 
 
 Taxes fall heavily on the middle 
 classes in France, 319 
 
 Taxes, power of levying, 379 
 
 Tell, William, why named, 151 
 
 Tell, the story of, 152 
 
 Tennis Court, the, at Versailles, 
 place of meeting of the National 
 Assembly, 321 
 
 Tetzel arrives in Germany, 183 
 
 Teutoberger Forest, the, 18 
 
 Teutones and Cimbri invade It- 
 aly, 1, 6 
 
 Teutones described, 1 
 
 Teutonic knights, Grand Master 
 of the, 204, 205, 266 
 
 Thassilo of Bavaria, 57 
 
 Theoderic, the Hun, masters It- 
 aly^ 1 
 
 Theophania of Constantinople, 
 married to Otto II., 92 
 
 Third Estate, the, 319 
 
 Thusnelda, Hermann's wife, 22 
 
 Tilly, Jean Tzerclaes, count of, 
 240 
 
 Tilsit, conference at, 346 
 
 Tolbiac, battle of, 39 
 
 Tolentino, Austrian defeat at, 377 
 
 Tournay, a capital of Gaul, 34 
 
 Tours, the temporary capital of 
 Gambetta, 410 
 
 Torture in the nineteenth cent- 
 ury, 381 
 
 Trade, the course of, 196 
 
 Trade freed from arbitrary rules, 
 
 383 
 Trade under Charlemagne, 60 
 Treaty of Campo Formio, 333 
 Trenck, baron, memoirs of, feared 
 
 by government, 382 
 Trent, Council of, 225 
 Tribur, Charles the Fat, deposed 
 
 at, 75 
 Tribur, diet at, 98 
 
 Tribute paid to the Hungarians, 
 
 82 
 Trochu attempts to break out of 
 
 Paris, 412 
 Troubadours, the, 141 
 Truce of God, the, 138 
 Turks, the, give trouble, 176, 310 
 Turks, the, overrun Hungary, 222 
 Turks, the, repulsed by Prince 
 
 Eugene, 270 
 Turks stirred up by Louis XIV., 
 
 263 
 Turks, the, threaten Germany, 166 
 Turks, the, trouble Charles V., 229 
 Turn-u-Taxis, Counts of, manage 
 
 the post, 176 
 Tyrol, fighting in the, 351 
 Tyrol, the, to be given up to Ba- 
 
 Varia, 355 
 Tyrol, heroes of the, 348 
 Tyrolese, the, victorious, 357 
 
 U 
 Ulm captured by Napoleon, 342 
 Ulphilas translates the Bible into 
 
 Gothic, 31 
 Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg, 85 
 Ulrich, count of Linzgau, carried 
 
 off, 76 
 Ulrich returns, 77 
 Unity, the advantages of, 420 
 Unity of Germany put away, 387 
 Urban II. encourages the Cru- 
 sades, 109 
 Uri, Gessler ruler of, 151 
 Utrecht, treaty of, 275 
 
43 6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Varus sent to Germany, 16 
 Vassals, growing power of the, 175 
 Vendee, La, rising in, 328 
 Verdun, treaty at, 71 
 Versailles occupied by the Prus- 
 sians, 409 
 Vicious fashions in France, 316 
 Victoria, queen, a Welf, 116 
 Vienna, beauty of, 193 
 Vienna besieged by the Turks, 263 
 Vienna, congress of (1S14), 375 
 Vienna, Napoleon's entrance to, 
 
 347 
 
 Vienna, Peace of, 347 
 
 Vienna, Peace of, 357 
 
 Vienna surrounded by the Bohe- 
 mians, 236 
 
 Vosges, the, appear, 39 
 
 W 
 
 Wagram, battle of, 347 
 Wahlstadt, battle of, 366 
 Waiblinger family, the, 116 
 Wallenstein, Albert of, 242 
 Wallenstein appealed to by Fer- 
 dinand, 251 
 Wallenstein dismissed from his 
 
 command, 256 
 Wallenstein, magnificence of his 
 
 establishment, 252 
 Wallenstein retires to Bohemia, 
 
 246 
 Wallenstein murdered, 256 
 Wallenstein's soldiers the dread 
 
 of Germany, 246 
 Walls about cities, 189 
 War of the Austrian Succession. 
 
 281 
 War between Prussia and Aus- 
 tria. 390 
 War, the Seven Years', 294 
 War, the Thirty Years', 232, 235 
 War, the Thirty YearsJ, devasta- 
 tion of, 258 
 Wars, the three Silesian, 282 
 Wartburg, the, commemoration of 
 
 Luther on, 38 1 
 Waterloo, battle of, 377 
 
 Waterloo, allegorical picture of, 
 
 377 
 \\ ater-marks in paper, 179 
 
 Weavers, the, of Augsburg, SS 
 Weinsberg against the Welfs, 116 
 Wissenberg, battle of, 398 
 Weinsberg, scenes at, 207 
 Welf, count of Bavaria, 68, y^ 
 Welfs, the, of Bavaria, 116 
 Welfs, the, pacified, 120 
 Wellington opposes Napoleon, 
 
 376 
 Wellington threatens Napoleon, 
 
 , 373 
 
 Wenceslas, and his wild acts, 158 
 Werder's great skill, 413 
 Wesel siezed by Napoleon, 345 
 Westphalia, Peace of, 257 
 Whirligig, the, of a bishop, 305 
 White Mountain, battle of, 238 
 Wieland, and Klopstock, 312 
 Weimar becomes the German 
 
 Athens, 314 
 William IV., death of, ^ 
 William of Prussia crowned at 
 
 Versailles. 415 
 Wilhelmshohe, castle of, the pris- 
 on of Napoleon III., 40S 
 Wimpffen, general, at Sedan, 406 
 Windows glazed, 193 
 Winifred, S., finds a poor quality 
 of Christianity in Germany, 48, 
 
 49 
 \\ inter king, the, 239 
 Wittekind, the Saxon, his West- 
 
 phalian home, 54 
 Wittekind baptized, 57 
 Wittemberg, churches destroyed 
 
 at, 203 
 Worms, a diet at, 175 
 Worms, diet called at, by Charles 
 
 V., 203 
 \\ onus, convention of bishops at, 
 
 100 
 Worth, the French routed at, 398 
 Wrede, general, at the Strub pass. 
 
 35 2 
 Wuotan, god of the Teutones, 
 
 11 
 
 Wurtemburg entered by the 
 
 French, $36 
 
INDEX. 
 
 437 
 
 Wurzburg, palace of, 304 
 Wurzburg taken and the monks 
 butchered, 250 
 
 Y 
 
 Yellow breeches, a man in, 262 
 
 Ziska, count John, 161, 163 
 Znaym, truce of, 355 
 Zoll-verein, the 383 
 Zwingli at Zurich, 221 
 
The Story of the Nations. 
 
 Messrs. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in 
 announcing; that they have in course of publication a 
 series of historical studies, intended to present in a 
 gmphic manner the stories of the different nations that 
 have attained prominence in history. 
 
 In the story form the current of each national life will 
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 It is the plan of the writers of the different volumes 
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The following is a partial list of the subjects thus far 
 determined upon : 
 
 THE STORY OF EARLY EGYPT. Prof. George Rawlinson! 
 " *CHALDEA. Z. Ragozin. 
 " *GREECE. Prof. James A. Harrison, 
 
 Washington and Lee University. 
 " *ROME. Arthur Oilman. 
 "*THEJEWS. Prof. James K. Hosmer, 
 
 Washington University of St. Louis. 
 '• *CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church, 
 
 University College, London. 
 " BYZANTIUM. 
 
 " THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. 
 " *THE NORMANS. Sarah O. Jewett. 
 " *PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 
 " *SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale. 
 " *GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 
 
 ' THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 
 
 " HOLLAND. Prof. C. E. Thorold Rogers. 
 
 •' "NORWAY. HjALMAR II. BOYESEN. 
 
 " *THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley Lane-Poole, 
 
 " *HUNGARY. Prof. A. VAMBERY. 
 
 " THE ITALIAN KINGDOM. W. L. Alden. 
 
 " EARLY FRANCE. Prof. GUSTAVE MASSON. 
 ' ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J. P. Mahai 1 v. 
 
 " THE HANSE TOWNS. Helen Zimmern. 
 
 " ASSYRIA. Z. Ragozin. 
 
 " ••THE SARACENS. Arthur Oilman. 
 
 " TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 
 
 " PORTUGAL. H. Morse Stephens. 
 
 " MEXICO. Susan Hale. 
 
 " IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 
 PHOENICIA. 
 
 " SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " RUSSIA. 
 
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 " SCOTLAND. 
 
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