Pictures of German Life in the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries Volume Ii Part 12

The Master who gives this narrative is Karl Mathy, the State councillor of Baden, in the year 1848 a member of the Imperial ministry, one of the best and strongest champions of the Prussian party.

These pictures began with a description of peasant life at an earlier period, it concludes with a true village story of the latest bygone times. It is a Swiss village of German race, to which the reader has been introduced. Many of its circ.u.mstances, the worth and energy of the inhabitants, and their self-government, recall to us a lively recollection of a German time which is removed from us by many centuries. Betwixt the Alps and the Jura also did misrule long r.e.t.a.r.d the culture of the country people, but its pressure was harmless in comparison with the fate of the German nation: its bondage, and the Thirty Years' War.

It was one of the objects of these pages to represent the elevation of the German popular mind, from the devastation of that war, and from the tyrannical rule of the privileged cla.s.ses. Deliverance has come to the Germans, but they have not recovered their old strength in every sphere of life. But we have a right to hope; for we live in the midst of manly efforts to remove the old wall of part.i.tion that still exists between the people and the educated, and to extend, not only to the peasant, but also to the prince, and to the man of family, the blessing of a liberal education.

CONCLUSION.

Amidst the noise and confusion of the year 1848, the German people began a struggle for a new political const.i.tution of the Fatherland. We must look upon the Frankfort parliament as a characteristic phase of our life, not as the result, but as the beginning of a n.o.ble struggle, as a grand dialectic process in which the needs of the nation, and the longing for a political idea, pa.s.sed on to will and decision. What in 1815 had been only the unimportant fancy of individuals, had become a formalised demand of the people, around which the minds of men have been tossed in ascending and descending waves.

Since the year 1840 the longing for political life has obtained expression in Prussia. There has arisen family discord between the Hohenzollern and their people, apparently insignificant, but from it has sprung the const.i.tutional life of Prussia, the beginning of a new formation of the State, a progress for prince and people. Again it becomes manifest that it is not always great times and great characters which produce the most important progress.

But how does it happen that the favourites of their people, the Royal race on which the hopes and future of Germany depend--that the Hohenzollerns regard so hesitatingly and distrustfully the new position which the const.i.tution of their State and the Union party of Germany offers to them? No royal race has gained their State so completely by the sword as they have. Their ancestors have grandly nurtured the people; their ancestors have created the State; their greatness, and their renown in war originated in the time of the fulness of royal power. Thus they naturally feel as a loss what we consider as a gain and an elevation.

The whole political contest of the present day, the struggle against privileges, the const.i.tutional question, and the German question, are all in reality only Prussian questions; and the great difficulty of their solution lies in the position which the Royal house of Prussia have taken up in regard to them. Whenever the Hohenzollerns shall enter warmly and willingly into the needs of the time, their State will attain to its long wanted strength and soundness. From this they will obtain almost without trouble, as if it came of itself, the conduct of German interests, the first lead in German life. This is known to friends and enemies.

We faithfully remember how much we owe to them, and we know well that the final foundation of our connection with them is indestructible, even though they may be angry because we are too bold in our demands, or we may grumble because they are too dilatory in granting them. For there is an old and hearty friends.h.i.+p betwixt them and the spirit of the German nation, and it is a manly friends.h.i.+p which may well bear some rubs. But the German citizen feels with pride, that he values the honour and greatness of their position, and the honour and happiness of the Fatherland, no less than themselves.

The German citizen is in the fortunate position of regarding the old dynasties with warm sympathy. They have grown up with his fondest reminiscences, a large number of them have become good and trustworthy, fellow-workers in the State and in science, and promote the education of the people. He will be indulgent when he sees individuals among them still prejudiced in their judgment by feeble adherence to the old traditions of their order; he will smile when they turn a longing look on the times that are gone, when their privileges were numerous and undisputed; and he will perhaps investigate, with more acuteness and learning than themselves, wherever, in the past of their race, real capacity and common sense has appeared. But he will be the inexorable opponent of all those political and social privileges by which they lay claim to a separate position among the people, not because he envies these things, or wishes to put himself in their place, but because he sees with regret that their impartiality of judgment, and sometimes their firmness of character are diminished by it, and because, through some of these obsolete traditions, like their court privileges, our Princes are in danger of falling into the narrowmindedness of German Junkers.

In the two centuries from 1648 to 1848, the wonderful restoration of the German nation was accomplished. After an unexampled destruction, its character rose again in faith, science, and political enthusiasm.

It is now engaged in energetic endeavours to form for itself the highest of earthly possessions,--a State.

It is a great pleasure to live in such a time. A hearty warmth, and a feeling of youthful vigour fill hundreds of thousands. It has become a pleasure to be a German; and before long it may be considered by foreign nations also to be a high honour.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: At the time of Frederic II. it varied in amount; a large property had to supply a whole horse (there were half and quarter horse imposts), or pay 18 to 24 thalers; in the Electorate it amounted to the high sum of 40 thalers.]

[Footnote 2: The strength of the militia under Frederic I. was, according to Fa.s.smann, i. p. 720, up to 60,000.]

[Footnote 3: The system of allotting to each regiment its recruiting district.]

[Footnote 4: Fa.s.smann, "Life of Frederic William I.;" and Von Loen, "The Soldier Depicted."]

[Footnote 5: V. Loen, "Der Soldat," p. 312.]

[Footnote 6: G. V. Griesheim, "Die Taktik," p. 75; v. Liebenrothe, "Fragmente," p. 29.]

[Footnote 7: Small smoking society, consisting of the King and his intimates.--_Tr_.]

[Footnote 8: It was not the bad combination of colours, the blue and yellow velvet housings, that incensed the dying king--those were the colours of his body-guard--but he wished to see those of the Dessauer on him--blue, red, and white.]

[Footnote 9: Lafontaine's "Life of Gruber," p. 126.]

[Footnote 10: "The Poor Man in Tockenburg," published by Fussli.

Zurich: 1789 and 1792. Afterwards by G. Bulow, Leipzig, 1852.]

[Footnote 11: Elector Frederic William inherited 1451 square miles, with, perhaps, 700,000 inhabitants, most of it in Ordensland,[A]

Prussia, which was less devastated by the war.

Square Miles. Inhabitants.

In the year 1688, the Elector left 2034, with about 1,800,000.

" 1713, King Frederic I. 2090, " 1,700,000.

" 1740, King Frederic Wm. I. 2201, " 2,240,000.

" 1786, King Frederic II. 3490, " 6,000,000.

" 1805, King Frederic II. 6563, " 9,800,000.

(Before the exchange of Hanover.) " 1807, remain 2877, " 5,000,000.

" 1817, were 5015, " 10,600,000.

" 1830, were 13,000,000 inhabitants; but in 1861, 18,000,000.

[A] Ordensland, the country that once belonged to the Teutonic Knights.]

[Footnote 12: "Journal de Seckendorf," 2nd Jan., 1738.]

[Footnote 13: [Oe]uvres, t. xvii., nr. 140, p. 213.]

[Footnote 14: _Ib._, t. xviii., nr. 10.]

[Footnote 15: Portions of his historical works appear under special t.i.tles with many introductions. "The Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg" (begun 1746), the greatest part of it unimportant and compiled; "History of My Time" (written 1746-75), his masterpiece; then the great history of "The Seven Years' War" (ended 1764); finally, "Memoirs after the Hubertsburger Peace" (written 1775-79). They form, in spite of inequalities, a connected whole.]

[Footnote 16: V. Templehoff, "Siebenjahriger Krieg," i. p. 282.]

[Footnote 17: Sulzer to Gleim: "Briefe der Schweizer von Korte," p.

354.]

[Footnote 18: He had in 1759, a year before he wrote the foregoing words to the Marquis d'Argen, published through this friend, his treatise, "Reflections sur les Talons militaires et sur le Caractere de Charles XII. Roi de Suede," one of the most remarkable works of the King. His view of the faults of Charles XII. was sharpened by the personal experience which he had himself made in the lost battles of the last year, and, whilst he judges respect fully the unfortunate conqueror, he at the same time claims for himself higher credit for his own moderate policy. The work is, therefore, not only a very characteristic record of his wise moderation, but also a memorial of quiet self-enfranchis.e.m.e.nt and of great inward progress.]

[Footnote 19: [Oe]uvres, xxvii. 1, nr. 328, from 17 Sept.]

[Footnote 20: In the year 1740, 1,100,000; in 1756, 1,300,000; in 1763, the number had sunk to 1,150,000; in 1779, there were 1,500,000; it was supposed then that the country could maintain 2,300,000 more. It numbers now 3,000,000.]

[Footnote 21: New Prussia, "Provinzial Blatter," Jahrg. vi., 1854, nr.

4, p. 259.]

[Footnote 22: V. Held, "Gepriesenes Preussen," p. 41; Roscius, Westpreussen, p. 21.]

[Footnote 23: When, in 1815, the present province of Posen was returned to Prussia, the wolves there also were the plague of the country.

According to a statement in the Posen "Provinzial Blatter," in the district of Posen, from 1st Sept. 1815, to the end of February, 1816, forty-one wolves were slain; and still in the year 1819, in the district of Wongrowitz, sixteen children and three grown-up persons were devoured by wolves.]

[Footnote 24: From ma.n.u.script records of the year 1790.]