ient in Heine's time by that
arch wizard, the Austrian Minister Metternich. For we must not forget
the time in which "Atta Troll" was written, the time of the omnipotent
Metternich! Let us recall to our memories this cool, clever, callous
statesman, who founded and set the Holy Alliance against the Revolution,
who calmly shot down the German Atta Troll, who skilfully strangled and
stifled that promising poetical school, "Young Germany," to which Heine
belonged. Let us recall this man, who likewise artificially revived the
old religion and the old feudalism, who repolished and regilded the
scutcheons of the decadent aristocracy, and who, despite all his energy,
had at heart no belief in his work, no joy in his task, no faith in the
anointed dummies he brought to life again in Europe--and those puzzling
personalities of Uraka and Lascaro will be elucidated to us by a real
historical example._

_Metternich is now part of history. But, alas! we cannot likewise banish
into that limbo of the past those two superfluous individuals, the
revolutionary Atta Troll and the reactionary Lascaro. Alas! we cannot
join the joyful, but inwardly so hopeless, band of those who sing the
paean of eternal progress, who pretend to believe that the times are
always "changing for the better." Let these good people open their eyes,
and they will see that Atta Troll was not shot down in the valley of
Roncesvalles, but that he is still alive, very much alive, and making a
dreadful noise, and that not in the Pyrenees, but just outside our
doors, where he still keeps haranguing about equality and liberty and
occasionally breaks his fetters and escapes from his masters. And when
this occurs, then that icy monster Lascaro is likewise seen, with his
hard, pallid face and his joyless mouth, and his disgust with his own
task and his doubts and disbeliefs in himself. He still carries his gun
and he still possesses some of that craftiness which his mother the
witch has taught him, and he still knows how to entrap that poor, stupid
Atta Troll, and to shoot him down when the spirit of "order and
government," the spirit of a soulless capitalism, requires it._

_No, there is very little feeling in the man as yet, and he seems as
difficult to move as ever. There is apparently only one thing that can
rouse him into action, and that is when a poet appears, one who knows
the truth and who dares to speak the truth not only about Atta Troll,
the people, but also abo