den "Germania" on his saddle. The death's-head hussar
has carried her away on his wild career through space until he has
brought her to the gates of Hell.

It has thus been the fate of the German nation, as of other European
nations, to work and fight for the aggrandizement of the King of
Prussia. A section of the people, the Social Democrats and the
Liberals, have made fitful and impotent efforts to free themselves
from the tyranny of the Hohenzollern. What they have not succeeded in
doing, Europe is now doing for them. In the fulness of time, Europe
has arisen to crush the Hohenzollern, to kill the "Spirit of the
Prussian Hive." The war will result in the enfranchisement of Germany
as it will result in the enfranchisement of Poland and Serbia. Did the
history of the world ever present so tragic a paradox? Twelve million
heroes are fighting the German Government. Millions of the manhood of
the civilized world are laying down their lives on all the
battlefields of Europe and all the high seas of the world, mainly in
order to make the German people free.

XIII.--JUDGMENT ON THE HOHENZOLLERN STATE.

In 1807, after the crushing defeat inflicted by Napoleon on the
Prussian armies at Jena, when the Military Monarchy crumbled to pieces
in one day like a house of cards, Joseph de Maistre, the most profound
and the most prophetic political thinker of his age, wrote the
following significant lines from St. Petersburg. To realize the full
significance of the judgment, one must remember that Count de Maistre
was a fanatic supporter of the old monarchic order. He hated Napoleon
with a bitter hatred, but he hated Prussia more:

"Ever since I have started to reason, I have felt a special aversion
for Frederick II., whom a frenzied generation has been in a hurry to
proclaim a great man, but who was really no more than a _great
Prussian_. Posterity will consider this Prince as one of the greatest
enemies of the human species that has ever lived. His monarchy, which
had inherited his spirit, had become an argument against Providence.
To-day that argument has been converted into a tangible proof of
eternal justice. This famous structure built with blood and mud, with
debased coin and base libels, has crumbled in the twinkle of an
eye."[12]

[12] De Maistre, "Lettres et Opuscules."

Those words were written exactly one hundred and ten years ago, and
the world is once more anxiously looking forward to another Jena which
will