rians and Prussians, they were
derided as good-for-nothing people; the "_Kostbeutel_"[33] and the
"Schwabische Kragen" hated each other intensely; when the Austrian
received a blow, no one was better pleased than the contingent from the
Empire.

Even among themselves the subjects of the small rulers did not live in
peace; insulting language and blows were common; the Mainzers attacked
the inhabitants of the Palatinate, and when the French occupied
Electoral Mainz, the inhabitants of the Palatinate and Darmstadt
rejoiced in the sufferings of their neighbours.[34]

The mass of the people in the Empire lived quietly to themselves. The
peasant performed his service, and the citizen worked; both had been
worse off than now, but there was no difficulty in earning a
livelihood. If they had a mild ruler, they served him willingly; the
citizens clung to the city and province whose dialect they spoke; they
frequently bore great attachment to their little State, which enclosed
almost all that they knew, and whose helplessness they only imperfectly
understood. When it became a cipher, they did not the more know what
they were, and asked one another with anxious curiosity what they
should now become. It was an old, quiet misery!

The new ideas that came from France undoubtedly somewhat disquieted
them; things were better there than with them; they listened
complacently to foreign emissaries; they put their heads together, and
determined, sometimes in the evening perhaps, to abolish what annoyed
them; they also sent petitions to their worthy rulers. The peasants
here and there became more difficult to manage; but as long as the
French did not come, the movement was a mere curl of the waves; and
when the French Custine gained Mainz, he called the Guild together,
and each one was to give in a project of a constitution. This took
place. The peruke-makers produced one: "We wish to be diminished to
five-and-thirty, and the Crab (thus a master was called) shall be our
president of the council." The hackney-coachmen declared, "We will pay
no more bridge tolls; then, as far as we are concerned, any one may be
our Elector who wishes!" No Guild thought of a republic and
constitution. This was the condition of the small States of the Empire
in the century of enlightenment.

The people of the Imperial States knew well that the larger ones held
them in contempt for their want of military capacity; and it was
natural that in these small State