own in wider
circles when we entered the institute, for most of the pupils belonged to
loyal families. Many were sons of the higher officials, officers, and
landed proprietors; and as long locks had long since become the
exception, and the Keilhau pupils were as well mannered as possible, many
noblemen, among them chamberlains and other court officials, decided to
send their boys to the institute.

The great manufacturers and merchants who placed their sons in the
institute were also not men favourable to revolution, and many of our
comrades became officers in the German army. Others are able scholars,
clergymen, and members of Parliament; others again government officials,
who fill high positions; and others still are at the head of large
industrial or mercantile enterprises. I have not heard of a single
individual who has gone to ruin, and of very many who have accomplished
things really worthy of note. But wherever I have met an old pupil of
Keilhau, I have found in him the same love for the institute, have seen
his eyes sparkle more brightly when we talked of Langethal, Middendorf,
and Barop. Not one has turned out a sneak or a hypocrite.

The present institution is said to be an admirable one; but the
"Realschule" of Keilhau, which has been forced to abandon its former
humanistic foundation, can scarcely train to so great a variety of
callings the boys now entrusted to its care.

CHAPTER XIV.

The little country of Rudolstadt in which Keilhau lies had had its
revolution, though it was but a small and bloodless one. True, the
insurrection had nothing to do with human beings, but involved the
destruction of living creatures. Greater liberty in hunting was demanded.

This might seem a trivial matter, yet it was of the utmost importance to
both disputants. The wide forests of the country had hitherto been the
hunting-grounds of the prince, and not a gun could be fired there without
his permission. To give up these "happy hunting-grounds" was a severe
demand upon the eager sportsman who occupied the Rudolstadt throne, and
the rustic population would gladly have spared him had it been possible.

But the game in Rudolstadt had become a veritable torment, which
destroyed the husbandmen's hopes of harvests. The peasant, to save his
fields from the stags and does which broke into them in herds at sunset,
tried to keep them out by means of clappers and bad odours. I have seen
and smelled the so-called "Frenchman's