xander in
this final compromise, which postponed the irritating question of the
eastern frontier and bent all the energies of two great States to the
War of Liberation. Stein was sent to Frederick William at Breslau; but
the King hardly deigned to see him, and the greatest of German
patriots was suffered to remain in a garret of that city during a
wearisome attack of fever. But he lived through disease and official
neglect as he triumphed over Slavonic intrigues; and he had at hand
that salve of many an able man--the knowledge that, even while he
himself was slighted, his plans were adopted with beneficent and
far-reaching results.

The Russo-Prussian alliance was firmly upheld by Lord Cathcart, the
British ambassador to Russia, who reached headquarters on March the
2nd. For the present, Great Britain did not definitely join the
allies; but the discussions on the Hanoverian Question, which had
previously sundered us from Prussia, soon proved that wisdom had been
learnt in the school of adversity. The Hohenzollerns now renounced all
claims to Hanover, though they showed some repugnance to our
Prince-Regent's demand that the Electorate should receive some
territorial gain.

Thus the two questions on which Napoleon had counted as certain to
clog the wheels of the Coalition, as they had done in the past, were
removed, and the way was cleared for a compact firmer than any which
Europe had hitherto known. On March 17th a Russo-Prussian Convention
was concluded at Breslau whereby those Powers agreed to deliver
Germany from France, to dissolve the Confederation of the Rhine, and
to summon the German princes and people to help them; every prince
that refused would suffer the loss of his States; and arrangements
were made for the provisional administration of the lands which the
allies should occupy. Frederick William also appealed to his people
and to his army, and instituted that coveted order of merit, the Iron
Cross.

But there was small need of appeals and decorations. The people rushed
to arms with an ardour that rivalled the _levee en masse_ of France in
1793. Nobles and students, professors and peasants, poets and
merchants, shouldered their muskets. Housewives and maidens brought
their scanty savings or their treasured trinkets as offerings for the
altar of the Fatherland. One incident deserves special notice. A girl,
Nanny by name, whose ringlets were her only wealth, shore them off,
sold them, and brought the pric