ed than are those of the women of to-day. They might not walk
abroad, or visit theatres, concerts, or public places, without their
natural male companions; their chambermaids accompanied them even to
church and to stores. Their natural field of activity, their world, was
the house. The reading of novels was held in low esteem. Book learning
was of a rather elementary kind, but there was plenty of good sense and
home happiness, and sensible rearing of large families. It is a painful
fact that from Bavaria, a country which was under the fullest sway of
the Church, quite different testimony comes to us. We may realize,
however, from the base tone of characteristic sermons, communicated to
us in Nicolai's works, how low must have been the standard of the clergy
of that time. The author and traveller Risbeck describes the degradation
of the burgher classes in Bavaria, "where all vie in drinking and
immorality, where next to every church stands a tavern and a base house.
There a priest touches a fair maiden's bosom, which is half-covered with
a 'scapulier.' There one inquires whether you are of her religion, for
she will have nothing to do with a heretic. Another discusses during her
debauch her spiritual sodalities, her pilgrimages and absolutions, etc.,
etc."

Owing to their gradual enfranchisement by Frederick the Great and Joseph
II., the peasantry had mightily progressed from the brutal feudal
oppression. The French Revolution also had some beneficent results for
the German peasantry. After the terrible downfall of Prussia and Austria
because of Napoleon's onslaughts, a great step forward was taken through
the reforms of the statesman Stein, and the Revolution of 1848
accomplished the rest. Therewith the elevation of the women of the
peasantry went hand in hand. The many and varied popular festivals of
the German peasantry, with their peculiar customs and gaieties, reveal
the fact that there was no lack of those harmless social pleasures which
are the delight of woman, inasmuch as they give scope to characteristics
peculiarly feminine. The festivals of singers, riflemen, and gymnasts,
which were then and are to-day observed in nearly every little German
town and village, also contributed to the enrichment of the life of the
lower classes.

The chapter of wealth and poverty, of overwork and enforced idleness,
belongs but incidentally to our theme, in so far as it affects the life
and morality of German womanhood. While t