to call that of Prussia's regeneration. The insolence of
the conqueror united the national heart. Full of the most flaming
patriotism, and not doubting that deliverance would finally come,
statesmen and warriors, Stein, Scharnhorst, Bluecher, Schill, and others,
labored unweariedly to keep up the spirits of the people, and prepare
them for the coming War of Liberation. Now for the first time the cities
were invested with the right to regulate their own internal affairs. Now
for the first time the peasants were delivered from the serfdom under
which they had hitherto suffered. In short, the whole policy of the
Government was determined by the resolution to inspire the people with a
healthful, unconstrained, enthusiastic devotion to the national weal,
and, as a means to this end, with zeal for the king. These efforts were
fully successful. When the providential time arrived, and the king
issued, February 3, 1813, a call for volunteers, and, March 17, his
famous _Aufruf an mein Volk_, all Prussia sprang to arms. In alliance
with Russia, finally also assisted by Austria and Sweden, her troops
were engaged in nine bloody battles with the French between April 5 and
October 18, the enthusiasm of the people and the dogged intrepidity of
Bluecher being at length rewarded by the decisive victory at Leipsic. The
immediate result of this victory for Prussia was the recovery of the
territory between the Elbe and the Rhine ceded to France by the
preceding king. At the congress of Vienna there were assigned to her in
addition all that she had possessed before the Treaty of Tilsit, half of
Saxony, and an increase of the former possessions on the Rhine. Some
further acquisitions and cessions were made at the second Treaty of
Paris, November 2, 1815, since which time the boundaries of Prussia have
been little changed.

This brief sketch of the so-called War of Liberation could not have been
avoided in an attempt to describe the present political condition of
Prussia. The enthusiasm with which the semi-centennial anniversary of
the battle of Leipsic was celebrated on the 18th of last October by men
of all parties and sentiments was a lively evidence of the profound
influence of that war on the national character. The chief significance
of the war for Prussia was its influence in uniting the people in the
pursuit of a common patriotic end. It was a struggle for national
existence; and all minor considerations were for the time forgotten. It