stem also of Frederic
the Great, not many years after his death, was discarded by a foreign
conqueror as an imperfect invention; but again the best result of his
life remained an enduring acquisition for Prussia and Germany. He had
called forth in thousands of his officials and soldiers zeal and
faithfulness to duty, and in millions of his subjects devotion to his
family; he had, as a wise political husbandman, sown everywhere the
seed of intellectual and material prosperity. This was what remained to
his State, the excellent cultivated soil from which the new life was to
blossom. When his army was crushed, the country overrun by strangers,
and the pangs of bitter need compelled men to seek the means of
supporting life wherever they could find them, then in the midst of all
this desolation arose a new power in the nation, their capacity for
work. Even the rapidity and completeness with which the old system
broke down, melancholy as it was to behold, was, nevertheless,
fortunate; for though it did not cast aside suddenly all the upholders
of the old system, yet it averted the greater danger of their
resistance. It now became evident how great was the material to be
found in Prussia, not only among officials and officers, but in the
people itself. Unexampled was the fall, and equally unexampled was the
recovery.

The nation was stunned; it looked listlessly on the shipwreck of its
State; it had always received its impulse from the government. In the
chaotic confusion that now followed, there seemed no hope of rescue;
the weak cursed the bad government, the superficial viewed maliciously
the prostration of the unintellectual and privileged orders, and the
weakest followed the star of the conqueror. Men of warm feeling
secluded themselves like Steffens, who wrote a sorrowful ode on the
fall of the Fatherland; but cooler heads investigated sullenly the
defects of the old system, and with bitterness condemned alike the good
and bad.

The misery becomes greater, it is the intention of the Emperor to open
all the veins, and draw blood from that portion of Prussia to which he
has left a semblance of life. Exorbitant are the contributions. The
French army is distributed over the country--it occupies cantonments in
Silesia and the March; officers and soldiers are billeted upon the
citizens--they are to be fed and entertained. At the cost of the
district a table d'hote is to be established, and balls given. The
soldier is to be