Berlin, he
remarked that the country hardly seemed worth conquering.

The century from the death of Frederick the Great, in 1786, to the
death of William the First, in 1888, includes, in a convenient period
to remember: the downfall of Frederick's patriotic edifice; the apathy
and impotency that followed upon the breaking up of the bureaucracy he
had welded into efficiency; the shuffling of the German states by
Napoleon as though they were the pack of cards in a great political
game; a revival of patriotism in Prussia after floggings and insults
that were past bearing; the jealousies and enmities of the various
states, the betrayal of one by the other, and finally the struggle
between Austria and Prussia to decide upon a leader for all Germany;
and at last the war against France, 1870-71, which was to make it
clear to the world that Germany had been Prussianized into an empire.

Frederick William II, the nephew of Frederick the Great, who succeeded
him, was King of Prussia from 1786 to 1797. Frederick William III, his
son, and the husband of the beautiful and patriotic Queen Louisa, was
King of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. Frederick William IV, a loquacious,
indiscreet, loose-lipped sovereign, of moist intellect and mythical
delusions, was King of Prussia from 1840 to 1857, when his mental
condition made his retirement necessary, and he was succeeded by his
brother, Frederick William Ludwig, first as regent, then as king in
1861, known to us as that admirable King and Emperor, William I, who
died in 1888.

Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of these sovereigns, to
those of us who look upon Germany to-day as autocratically governed in
fact and by tradition, is their willing surrender to the people, on
every occasion when the demand has been, even as little insistent as
the German demand has been. In the case of Frederick William IV, his
claim, at least in words, upon his divine rights as a sovereign was
the mark of a wavering confidence in himself. He was not satisfied
with a rational sanction for his authority, but was forever assuring
his subjects that God had pronounced for him; much as men of low
intelligence attempt to add vigor to their statements by an oath. "I
hold my crown," he said, "by the favor of God, and I am responsible to
Him for every hour of my government." Much under the influence of the
two scholars Niebuhr and Ranke, he hated the ideas of the French
Revolution, and dreamed of an ideal Chris