usually through the good offices of
Bancroft, our minister, the most eminent historians of that day.
Giesebrecht and von Raumur were no longer living, but men were still
in the foreground to the full as illustrious. Heidelberg in those
days was relatively a more conspicuous university than at present. Its
great men remain to it, though the process of absorption was beginning
which at last carried the more distinguished lights to Berlin. The
lovely little town, whose streets for nearly six hundred years have
throbbed with the often boisterous life of the student population,
is at its best in the spring and early summer. The Neckar ripples
tumultuously into the broad Rhine plain, from which towers to the
height of two thousand feet the romantic Odenwald. From some ruin of
ancient watch-tower or cloister on the height, entrancing views spread
out, the landscape holding the venerable towns of Worms and Speyer,
each with its cathedral dominating the clustered dwellings, while the
lordly Rhine pours its flood northward--a stream of gold when in the
late afternoon it glows in the sunset. The old castle stands on its
height, more beautiful in its decay, with ivy clinging about the
broken arches, and the towers wrecked by the powder-bursts of ancient
wars, than it could ever have been when unshaken.

Among the professors at Heidelberg, von Treitschke was one of the
most eminent, and it was my privilege one day to hear him lecture on
a theme which stirred him--the battle of Leipsic, the great
_Voelkerschlacht_ of 1813, when Germany cruelly clipped the
pinions of the Napoleonic eagle. The hall was crowded with young men,
_corps-studenten_ being especially numerous, robust youths in
caps and badges, and many of the faces were patched and scarred from
duels in the Hirsch-Gasse. Von Treitschke, a dark, energetic figure,
was received with great respect. Deafness, from which he suffered,
affected somewhat his delivery. He told the story of the great battle,
the frantic effort against combined Europe of the crippled French, the
defection of the Saxons in the midst of the fight, the final driving
of Napoleon across the Elster, the death of Poniatowski and the
retreat to France. His voice was a deep, sonorous monotone and every
syllable was caught eagerly by his auditors. They and the speaker
were thoroughly at one in their intense German feeling. It was a
celebration of triumph of the Fatherland. The significance of it all
was not appa