compensated for the hardships of war. We are the
conquerors, exclaim the officers arrogantly. There is no law against
their brutality, or the impudence with which they disturb the peace of
families in which they now rule as masters. If they are polite to the
ladies of the house, that does not make them more acceptable to the
men. Still worse is the conduct of the Generals and Marshals.

Prince Jerome has his head-quarters at Breslau, and there keeps a
dissolute court; the people still relate how licentiously he lived, and
daily bathed in a cask of wine. At Berlin, General-Intendant Daru
raises his demands higher every month. Even the humiliating conditions
of the peace are still too good for Prussia; the tyrant scornfully
alters the schedules. The fortresses are not restored, as was promised;
with refined cruelty the war charges are increased enormously. They
have drawn from the country, which still bears the name of Prussia,
more than 200 millions of thalers in six years.

On trade and commerce, also, the new system lays its destroying hand.
By the Continental system, imports and exports are almost abolished.
Manufactories are stationary, and the circulation of money stagnates;
the number of bankrupts becomes alarmingly great: even the necessaries
of daily life are exorbitantly high; the multitude of poor increases
frightfully; even in the great cities the troops of hungry souls that
traverse the streets can scarcely be controlled. The more wealthy also
restrict their wants to the smallest possible compass; they begin a
voluntary discipline in their own life, denying themselves small
enjoyments to which they are accustomed. Instead of coffee, they drink
roasted acorns, and eat black and rye bread; large societies bind
themselves to use no sugar, and the housewife no longer preserves
fruit. As Ludwig von Vincke, who then resided as a landed proprietor in
the new grand-dukedom of Berg, pertinaciously smoked coltsfoot instead
of tobacco, and made his wine of black currants, so did others renounce
the necessaries on which the foreign tyrant had imposed a monopoly.

But philosophy begins its great work, bringing blessing upon the State,
by purifying and elevating the minds of men. While the French drum was
beating in the streets of Berlin, and the spies of the stranger were
lurking about the houses, Fichte delivered his discourses on the German
nation: a new and powerful race was to be trained, the national
character to b