gratitude and joy, whilst his ministers misruled and tyrannized over the country,* whose freedom they loudly vaunted.†In Würzburg, the French ambassador reigned with the despotism of an eastern satrap.‡ Saxe-Coburg § and AnhaltGotha, where the native tyrant was sheltered beneath the wing of Napoleon, were in the most lamentable state.- -In Saxony, the government remained unaltered. Frederick Augustus, filled with gratitude for the lenity with which he had been treated after the war and for the grant of the royal dignity, remained steadily faithful to Napoleon, but introduced no internal innovations into the government. The adhesion of Saxe-Weimar to the Rhenish confederation was of deplorable consequence to Germany, the great poets assembled there by the deceased Duchess Amalia also scattering incense around Napoleon.

The kingdom of Westphalia was doomed to taste to the dregs the bitter cup of humiliation. The new king, Jerome, who declared, "Je veux qu'on respecte la dignité de l'homme et du citoyen," bestowed, it is true, many and great benefits upon his subjects; the system of flogging, so degrading to the soldier, was abolished, the judicature was improved, the administration simplified, and the German in authority, notwithstand

*They sold the demesnes of Hanau and Fulda and received the sums produced by the sale in gift from the grand-duke.-Görres's Rhenish Mercury, A. D. 1814, No. 168.

They were barefaced enough to bestow a constitution, and, in 1810, to open a diet at Hanau, although all the newspapers had, five days previously, been suppressed, and orders had been issued that the editor of the only newspaper permitted for the future was to be appointed by the police.-Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 294.

Count Montholon-Semonville sold justice and mercy. Vide Brockhaus's Deutsche Blätter, 1814, No. 101.

§ The duke, Francis, allowed the country to be mercilessly drained and impoverished by the minister, Von Kretschmann. He lived on extremely bad terms with his uncle, Frederick Josias, duke of Coburg, the celebrated Austrian general. Francis died in 1806. Ernest, his son and successor, delivered the country, A. D. 1809, from Kretschmann's tyranny, and, in 1811, bestowed upon it a constitution, which was, nevertheless, merely an imitation of that of Westphalia.

The prince, Augustus Christian Frederick, contracted debts to an enormous amount, completely drained his petty territory, and even seized bail-money. Military amusements, drunkenness and other gross excesses, the preservation of enormous herds of deer which destroyed the fields of the peasantry, formed the pleasures of this prince.-Stenzel's History of

Anhalt.

ing his traditionary gruffness, became remarkable for urbanity towards the citizens and peasants. But Napoleon's despotic rule ever demanded fresh sacrifices of men and money and increased severity on the part of the police, in order to quell the spirit of revolt. Jerome, conscious of being merely his brother's representative, consoled himself for his want of independence in his gay court at Cassel.* He had received but a middling education, and had, at one period, held a situation in the marine at Baltimore in North America. Whilst still extremely young, placed unexpectedly upon a throne, more as a splendid puppet than as an independent sovereign, he gave way to excesses, natural, and, under the circumstances, almost excusable. It would be ungenerous to repeat the sarcasms showered upon him on his expulsion. The execrations heaped, at a later period, upon his head, ought with far greater justice to have fallen upon those of the Germans themselves, and more particularly upon those of that portion of the aristocracy who vied with the French in enriching the chronique scandaleuse of Cassel, and upon those of the citizens who, under Bongars, the head of the French police, acted the part of spies upon and secret informers against their wretched countrymen.

-The farcical donation of a free constitution to the people put a climax to their degradation. On the 2nd of July, 1808, Jerome summoned the Westphalian Estates to Cassel and opened the servile assembly, thus arbitrarily convoked, with extreme pomp. The unfortunate deputies, who had, on the conclusion of the lengthy ceremonial, received an invitation assister au répas at the palace and had repaired thither, their imaginations, whetted by hunger, revelling in visions of gastronomic delight, were sorely discomfited on discovering that they were simply expected "to look on whilst the sovereign feasted." The result of this assembly was, naturally, an unanimous tribute of admiration and an invocation of blessings on the head of the foreign ruler, the principal part in which was played by John Müller, who attempted to convince

*Napoleon nicknamed him roi de coulisses, and gave him a guardian in his ambassador, Reinhard, a person of celebrity during the Revolution. Jerome's first ministers were friends of his youth; the Creole, Le Camus, who was created Count Fürstenstein, and Malchus, whose office it was to fill a bottomless treasury. Vide Hormayr, Archive 5. 458, and the Secret History of the Court of Westphalia, A. D. 1814.

his fellow countrymen that by means of the French usurpation they had first received the boon of true liberty. This cheaply-bought apostate said, in his usual hyperbolical style, “It is a marked peculiarity of the northern nations, more especially of those of German descent, that, whenever God has, in his wisdom, resolved to bestow upon them a new kind or a higher degree of civilization, the impulse has ever been given from without. This impulse was given to us by Napoleon, by him before whom the earth is silent, God having given the whole world into his hand, nor can Germany at the present period have a wish ungratified, Napoleon having reorganized her as the nursery of European civilization. Too sublime to condescend to every-day polity, he has given durability to Germany! Happy nation! what an interminable vista of glory opens to thy view!" Thus spoke John Müller. Thousands of Germans had been converted into abject slaves, but none other than he was there ever found, with sentimental phrases to gild the chains of his countrymen, to vaunt servility as liberty and dishonour as glory.* John Müller's unprincipled

* Vide Strombeck's Life and the Allgemeine Zeitung of Sept., 1808. Besides John Müller and Aretin, mention may, with equal justice, be made of Crome of Geissen and Zschokke, a native of Magdeburg naturalized in Switzerland, who, in 1807, ventured to declare in public that Napoleon had done more for Swiss independence than William Tell five hundred years ago; who, paid by Napoleon, defamed the noble-spirited Spaniards and Tyrolese in 1815, decried the enthusiastic spirit animating Germany, and afterwards whitewashed himself by his liberal tirades. With these may also be associated Murhard, the publisher of the Moniteur Westphalien, K. J. Schütz, the author of a work upon Napoleon, the Berlinese Jew, Saul Asher, the author of a scandalous work, entitled "Germanomanie," and of a slanderous article in Zschokke's Miscellanies against Prussia, Kosegarten the poet, who, in 1809, delivered a speech in eulogy of Napoleon, far surpassing all in bombast and mean adulation. Benturini, at that time, also termed Napoleon the emanation of the universal Spirit, a second incarnation of the Deity, a second saviour of the world. In Posselt's European Annals of 1807, a work by a certain W. upon the political interests of Germany appeared, and concluded as follows: "Let us raise to him (Napoleon) a national monument, worthy of the first and only benefactor of the nations of Germany. Let his name be engraved in gigantic letters of shining gold on Germany's highest and steepest pinnacle, whence, lighted by the effulgent rays of morn, it may be visible far over the plains on which he bestowed a happier futurity! " This writer also drew a comparison between Napoleon and Charlemagne, in which he designated the latter a barbarous despot and the former the new saviour of the world. He says, "Napoleon first solved the enigma

RESUSCITATION OF PATRIOTISM IN GERMANY. 263

address formed, as it were, the turning-point of German affairs. Self-degradation could go no further. The spirit of the sons of Germany henceforward rose, and, with manly courage, they sought, by their future actions, to wipe off the deep stain of their former guilt and dishonour.

CCLVI. Resuscitation of patriotism throughout Germany. Austria's demonstration.

THE general slavery, although most severely felt in Eastern Germany, bore there a less disgraceful character. Austria and Prussia had been conquered, pillaged, reduced in strength and political importance, whilst the Rhenish states, forgetful that it is ever less disgraceful to yield to an overpowering enemy than voluntarily to lend him aid, had shared in and profited by the triumph of the empire's foe. Austria and Prussia suffered to a greater extent than the Rhenish confederation, but they preserved a higher degree of independence. Prussia, although almost annihilated by her late disasters,* still

of equality and liberty-his chief aim was the prevention of despotism— his chief desire, to eternalize the dominion of virtue." In the course of 1808, it was said in the essay "on the Regeneration of Germany," that the Germans were still children whom it was solely possible for the French to educate: "Our language is also not logical like French-if we intend to attain unity, we must adhere with heart and soul to him who has smoothed the path to it, to him, our securest support, to him, whose name outshines that of Charlemagne,-foreign princes in German countries are no proof of subjection, they, on the contrary, most surely warrant our continued existence as a nation." In France sixty authors dedicated their works, within the space of a year, to the emperor Napoleon,-in Germany, ninety.

* The whole of the revenues of Prussia were confiscated by the French until 1808. The contribution of one hundred and forty millions was, nevertheless, to be paid, and the French garrisons in the Prussian fortresses of Glogau, Küstrin, and Stettin were to be maintained at the expense of Prussia. The suppression of the monasteries in Silesia was far from lucrative, the commissioners, who were irresponsible, carrying on a system of pillage, and landed property having greatly fallen in value. The most extraordinary imposts of every description were resorted to for the purpose of raising a revenue, among other means, a third of all the gold and silver in the country was called in. A coinage, still more debased, was issued, and one more inferior still was smuggled into the country by English coiners. In 1808, silver money fell two-thirds of its current value and was even refused acceptance at that price.—The French, moreover, lorded over the country with redoubled insolence,

dreamt of future liberation. Austria had, notwithstanding her successive and numerous defeats, retained the greater share of independence, but her subjection, although to a lesser degree, was the more disgraceful on account of her former military glory and her preponderance as a political power in Germany. With steady perseverance and unfaltering courage she opposed the attacks of the foreign tyrant against the empire, and, France's first and last antagonist, the most faithful champion of the honour of Germany, she rose, with redoubled vigour, after each successive defeat, to renew the unequal struggle.

Prussia had been overcome, because, instead of uniting with the other states of Germany, she had first abandoned them to be afterwards deserted by them in her turn, and because, instead of arming her warlike people against every foreign foe, she had habituated her citizens to unarmed effeminacy and had rested her sole support on a mercenary army, an artificial and spiritless automaton, separated from and unsympathizing with the people. The idea that the salvation of Prussia could now alone be found in her reconciliation with the neighbouring powers of Germany, in a general confederation, in the patriotism of her armed citizens, had already arisen. But, in order to inspire the citizen with enthusiasm, he must first, by the secure and free possession of his rights and by his participation in the public weal, be deeply imbued with a consciousness of freedom. The slave has no country; the freeman alone will lay down his life in its defence. In those times of Germany's deepest degradation and suffering, men for the first time again heard speak of a great and common fatherland, of national fame and honour; and liberty, that glorious name, was uttered not only by those who groaned beneath the rule of the despotic foreigner, but even by those who deplored the loss of the internal liberty of their country, the gradual subjection of the proud and free-spirited German to native tyranny. The king of Prusbroke every treaty, increased their garrisons, and occasionally laid the most inopportune commands, in the form of a request, upon the king, as, for instance, to lay under embargo and deliver up to them a number of English merchantmen that had been driven into the Prussian harbours by a dreadful storm. Blücher, at that time governor of Pomerania, restrained his fiery nature and patiently endured their insolence, whilst silently brooding over deep and implacable revenge.