such wanton brutality.

The fact is that the French had behaved so ill at Berlin, after the
Battle of Jena, in 1806, that the Prussians had sworn to be revenged,
if ever they had the opportunity to visit upon France the cruelties,
the extortion, insults, and hard usage their own capital had suffered;
and they kept their word.

One afternoon, when upwards of a hundred Prussian officers entered the
galleries of the Palais Royal, they visited all the shops in turn,
insulting the women and striking the men, breaking the windows and
turning everything upside down: nothing, indeed, could have been more
outrageous than their conduct. When information was brought to Lord
James Hay of what was going on, he went out, and arrived just as a
troop of French gensdarmes were on the point of charging the Prussians,
then in the garden. He lost no time in calling out his men, and,
placing himself between the gensdarmes and the officers, said he should
fire upon the first who moved. The Prussians then came to him and said,
"We had all vowed to return upon the heads of the French in Paris the
insults that they had heaped upon our countrymen in Berlin; we have
kept our vow, and we will now retire." Nothing could equal the bitter
hatred which existed, and still exists, between the French and the
Prussians.

JEW MONEY-LENDERS

One of the features of high society after the long war was a passion
for gambling; so universal was it that there are few families of
distinction who do not even to the present day retain unpleasant
reminiscences of the period. When people become systematic players,
they are often obliged to raise money at an exorbitant interest, and
usually under such circumstances fly to the Israelites. I have often
heard players wish these people in almost every uncomfortable quarter
of the known and unknown worlds. The mildness and civility with which
the Christian in difficulties always addresses the moneyed Israelite,
contrast forcibly with the opprobrious epithets lavished on him when
the day for settlement comes. When a man requires money to pay his
debts of honour, and borrows from the Jews, he knows perfectly well
what he is doing; though one of the last things which foolish people
learn is how to trace their own errors to their proper source. Hebrew
money-lenders could not thrive if there were no borrowers: the gambler
brings about his own ruin. The characteristics of the Jew are never
more perceptible tha