ng to see an old man like that, with faded uniform and scarred
face, weep so bitterly all of a sudden. While we were reading, the
electoral arms were taken down from the Town Hall; everything had
such a desolate air, that it was as if an eclipse of the sun were
expected. . . . I went home and wept, and wailed out, 'The Elector
has abdicated!' In vain my mother took a world of trouble to explain
the thing to me. I knew what I knew; I was not to be persuaded, but
went crying to bed, and in the night dreamed that the world was at an
end."

The next morning, however, the sun rises as usual, and Joachim Murat is
proclaimed Grand Duke, whereupon there is a holiday at the public school,
and Heinrich (or Harry, for that was his baptismal name, which he
afterward had the good taste to change), perched on the bronze horse of
the Electoral statue, sees quite a different scene from yesterday's:

"The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school as
before, and things were got by heart as before--the Roman emperors,
chronology, the nouns in _im_, the _verba irregularia_, Greek,
Hebrew, geography, mental arithmetic!--heavens! my head is still
dizzy with it--all must be learned by heart! And a great deal of
this came very conveniently for me in after life. For if I had not
known the Roman kings by heart, it would subsequently have been quite
indifferent to me whether Niebuhr had proved or had not proved that
they never really existed. . . . But oh! the trouble I had at school
with the endless dates. And with arithmetic it was still worse.
What I understood best was subtraction, for that has a very practical
rule: 'Four can't be taken from three, therefore I must borrow one.'
But I advise every one in such a case to borrow a few extra pence,
for no one can tell what may happen. . . . As for Latin, you have no
idea, madam, what a complicated affair it is. The Romans would never
have found time to conquer the world if they had first had to learn
Latin. Luckily for them, they already knew in their cradles what
nouns have their accusative in _im_. I, on the contrary, had to
learn them by heart in the sweat of my brow; nevertheless, it is
fortunate for me that I know them . . . and the fact that I have them
at my finger-ends if I should ever happen to want them suddenly,
affords me much inward repos