CHAPTER VI.
The peace was signed; the ambassadors had solemnized the ratification by shaking hands, and trumpeters rode about the streets announcing the happy event.
At Nuremberg the Imperialists and the Swedes held a peace banquet in the great saloon of the council-house; the lofty vaulted hall was splendidly lighted; betwixt the chandeliers hung down thirty kinds of flowers and real fruits, bound together with gold tinsel; four choirs were stationed for festive music, and the six classes of invited guests were assembled in six different rooms. On the table stood two prodigious show dishes, a triumphal arch, and a hexagonal mound covered with mythological and allegorical figures with Latin and German devices. The banquet was served up in four courses, in each course were a hundred and fifty dishes, then came the fruits in silver dishes, and on real dwarf trees by which the whole table was covered; amidst all this, fine frankincense was burnt, which produced a very agreeable odour. Afterwards the upper leaves of the table were taken away by pieces, then the table was covered again with napkins, and plates strewed over wish flowers made of sugar, and now came the confectionery: among these there were gigantic marchpanes on two silver shells, each of which weighed ten pounds. And when the health of his Imperial Majesty of Vienna and his Kindly Majesty of Sweden was drank, together with the prosperity of the peace which had been concluded, fifteen large and small pieces were discharged from the citadel. When this peace banquet had lasted far on into the night, the Field-marshals and Generals present, wished on parting to play once more at being soldiers. They caused arms to be brought into the hall, chose the two ambassadors as captains; his Illustrious and Serene Highness Herr Carl Gustav, Count Palatine on the Rhine, afterwards King of Sweden, and his Excellency General Piccolomini; but for a corporal they chose Field-Marshal Wrangel; and all the Generals, colonels, and lieutenant-colonels were made musketeers. Thus these gentlemen marched round the table, fired a salvo, went in good order to the citadel, and there fired off the pieces many times. On their return they were playfully discharged by Colonel Kraft and dismissed the service, as now there was to be peace for ever. Two oxen were slaughtered for the poor, and there was a great distribution of bread, also for six hours red and white wine flowed from a lion's jaw. For thirty years had tears and blood flowed from a greater lion's jaw.
Like the honourable ambassadors, the people prepared a festive celebration in every town, nay in every half-destroyed village. How great was the effect of the intelligence of peace on the German nation may be learned from some affecting details. To the old country people the peace appeared as a return of their youth; they looked back to the rich harvests of their childhood, thickly populated villages, the merry Sundays under the hewed-down village lindens, and the happy hours which they had passed with their ruined and deceased relations and companions. They saw themselves happier, more manly, and better than they had been during thirty years of misery and degradation. But the youth of the country--a hard war-engendered demoralized race--discovered in it the approach of a wonderful time which appeared to them like a legend from a distant country. The time when on every acre of field, the thick yellow ears of corn would wave in the wind; when in every stall the cows would low, and in every sty a fat pig would be lying; when they themselves should drive with two horses in the fields, merrily cracking their whips, and when there would be no enemy's soldiers to snatch rough caresses from their sisters or sweethearts; when they would no longer have to lie in wait in the bushes, with pitchforks and rusty muskets, for the stragglers, nor to sit as fugitives in the dismal gloom of the wood by the graves of the slain; when the village roofs would be without holes, and the farm-yards without ruined barns; when the howl of the wolf would not be heard every night at the yard gate; when their village churches would again have glass windows, and beautiful bells; when in the soiled choir of the church, there should arise a new altar with a silk cover, a silver crucifix and a gilt chalice; and when one day the young lads would again lead their brides to the altar, bearing the virgin wreaths in their hair. A passionate, almost painful joy palpitated through all hearts; even the wildest brood of the war, the soldiery, were seized with it. The stern rulers themselves, the Princes and their ambassadors, felt that this great boon of peace would be the salvation of Germany. The festival was celebrated with the greatest fervour and solemnity of which the people were capable. From the same circle of village recollections from which examples have already been taken, the following description of a festival is placed, in juxtaposition to that of the Princes and Field-marshals.
Döllstedt, a fine village in the dukedom of Gotha, had suffered severely. In 1636 the Hatzfeld corps had fallen upon the place, had committed great damage, plundered the church, burnt and broken off the woodwork, as had been prophesied by the pastor Herr Deckner shortly before. "This dear man," thus writes his successor, the pastor, Herr Trümper, "had rebuked his flock with righteous zeal on account of their sins; but they had laughed at his rebukes and warnings, had treated him with anger and ingratitude, and as he lamented in 1634, with weeping eyes, had cut down his hops from the poles, and carried off the corn from his fields. Thus he could only proclaim to them God's righteous judgment on such hardened hearts. Not only publicly from the pulpit, but also a few hours before his blessed departure, he had thus lamented: 'Ah! thou poor Döllstedt! it will go ill with thee after my decease!' Thereupon he turned, with the assistance of the attendants, towards the church, and raised his weary head, struggling ineffectually with death, as if he wished once more, from the corner of his room, to see the church, in the service of which his life had been passed, and said: 'Ah! thou dear, dear church! How will it fare with thee after my death? They will sweep thee up with a besom.'"
His prophecy was fulfilled. The village in 1636 had to liquidate war damages to the amount 5500 of gulden, and between 1627 and 1637 it amounted altogether to 29,595 gulden, so that the inhabitants by degrees disappeared and the place remained quite desolate; in 1636 there were only two married couples in the village. In the year 1641, after Banner and, again in the winter, the French had been quartered in it, half an acre of corn was sown, and there were four couples dwelling there. By the zealous care of Duke Ernest the Good, of Gotha, the deserted villages in his country were comparatively quickly occupied by men. In 1650, therefore, the jubilee and peace festival could be solemnized in Döllstedt. The description of it is given, as it is recorded in the church books, by the then Pastor Trümper.
"On the 19th of August, at four o'clock in the morning, we, together with our coadjutors and some of the householders of Gotha, mounted our tower, and celebrated with music our morning prayer. Towards six o'clock, as happened the preceding day at one o'clock; they began to ring the bells for a quarter of an hour, and again, for the same length of time, at half after seven. Meanwhile, the whole population, man and woman, young and old, except those who assisted at the ringing, assembled before the gate: 1st, the women-folk stood on one side; before them was a figure of Peace, which the noble maidens had dressed up beautifully, in a lovely green silk dress and other decorations; on her head was placed a beautiful green wreath intermingled with gold spangles, and in her hand a green branch. 2nd. On the other side towards the village stood the men, and in front of them Justice in a beautiful white garment, with a green wreath round her head, and bearing in her hands a naked sword and gold scales. 3rd. Towards the fields on the same side, stood the young men with guns, and some with naked swords, and before them Mars, dressed as a soldier, and bearing in his hands a crossbow. 4th. In the middle near me, stood the scholars, householders, and the coadjutors. Then did the recollection come across me, of how often we had been obliged to quit our homes and flee from our gates, our eyes overflowing with tears, and when the storm was passed, had returned home again with joy, notwithstanding that we found all devastated, ruined, and turned topsy-turvy. Now we thought it fitting thus to honour our dear God, going out in front of our gates, and as He had preserved us from the like devastation and necessity for flight and escape, by the gracious boon of the noble and long-desired peace, we desired now to go to his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise, and would for that raise our voices with one accord and sing: 'To God alone most high be honour, &c.' 5th. Whilst these strophes were being chanted, Peace and Justice approached one another nearer and nearer. At the words: 'All feuds are now at an end,' those who held naked swords sheathed them, and those who had guns fired some salvos and turned themselves round. Peace beckoned to some who had been hereto appointed; these took from Mars, who appeared to defend himself his crossbow, and broke it in twain; Peace and Justice met together and kissed each other. 6th. Thereupon the chanting, which had been begun, was continued, and we prepared to go. Before the scholars, went Andreas Ehrhardt, adorned to the utmost, with a staff in his hand wound round with green garlands. Then followed the scholars with green wreaths on their heads and green branches in their hands, and they wore short white garments; then came the assistants and musicians; after these, I, the Pastor, together with the Herr Pastor of Vargula, who had come to me. After us came the maidens, the little ones in front, and the taller ones behind, all adorned to the utmost, and green wreaths on their heads. After these went Peace, and behind her the boys, who carried a basket of rolls and a dish of apples, which were afterwards distributed among the children; item, all kinds of fruits of the field.
"These were followed by the noble maidens, together with their relations, whom they had bidden; after them nobles from Seebach, Saxony, and others who had accompanied them. After these came Justice, and behind her, magistrates and assessors, all bearing white staves in their hands, twined with green garlands. Then followed the Ensign Christian Heum, in his best attire, with a staff in his hand, on which he leant, but it was encircled with a green garland. Afterwards came the men in pairs with green bouquets in their hands; the men were followed by Mars bound, then the young lads with their guns reversed. There followed the Sergeant-major Herr Dietrich Grün in his finery, with a staff in his hand like the Ensign; and after him the women-folk, all also in pairs in their order, and all passed singing through the village to the church. When the aforesaid song was finished we sang, 'Now Praise the Lord, my soul.'
"In the church there was preaching and singing conformable to the royal ordinance. After the service was completed, we went in the former order from the church to the Platz in front of the inn; there the men on one side, and the women on the other, in half-circles, closed in, forming a fine wide circle, and during their progress they sang, 'Now rejoice together, dear Christians.' When the circle was formed I gave thanks to all collectively, that they had not only, according to the proclamation of the high and mighty princely government, obediently observed this solemnity, but also had gone out at my desire, all together, noble and humble alike, to the gates, and had followed me in such beautiful order to church, &c., and I admonished them to attend again zealously the afternoon service. And truly, as I said that it would be well for every one to come from their houses to church in the afternoon, they did all reassemble as before in front of the inn; Peace and Justice also were there again in their dress, but Mars had disappeared. When I was informed of this, I went during the last peal of the bells with the scholars, the coadjutors, and the householders out by the back gate through the church lane to the church, when every one again, as before, followed me into the church. There we then sang, 'Now let us sing unto the Lord,' &c. From the church we returned in the same order, again singing, 'Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,' &c., to the above-mentioned place, where I again gave thanks both to strangers and townspeople, with heartfelt wishes for peace. And here the six groschen, rolls, and ripe apples were distributed among the children."
It is known that the great peace came very slowly, like the recovery from a mortal illness. The years from 1648 to 1650, from the conclusion of the peace to the celebration of the festival, were among the most grievous of that iron time; exorbitant war taxes were imposed, the armies of the different countries lay encamped in the provinces till they could be paid off, the oppression which they exercised on the unhappy inhabitants was so fearful, that a despairing cry arose from the people, which mingled itself with the wrangling of the negotiating parties. To this was added a plague of another kind; the whole country swarmed with a rabble that had no masters; bands of discharged soldiers with the camp followers, troops of beggars, and great hordes of robbers, roved about from one territory to another; they quartered themselves by force on those villages which were still inhabited, and established themselves in the deserted huts. The villagers also, provided with bad weapons and disused to labour, thought it sometimes more satisfactory to rob, than to till the fields, and made secret roving expeditions into the neighbouring territories, the Evangelical into the Catholic countries, andvice versâ. The foreign children of a lawless race, the gipsies, had increased in number and audacity; fantastically dressed, with heavily laden carts, stolen horses, and naked children, they encamped in great numbers round the stone trough of the village green: whenever the ruler was powerful and the officials active, the wild rovers were encountered with energy. The villagers of the dukedom of Gotha were still obliged, in 1649, to keep watch from the church towers, to guard the bridges and fords, and to give an alarm whenever they perceived any of these marching bands. A well-regulated system of police was the first sign of that new feeling of responsibility which the governments had acquired: every one who wished to settle down was encouraged to do so. Whoever was established, had to render an account of how much land he had cultivated, of the condition of his house and farm, and whether he had any cattle. New registers of the farms and inhabitants were prepared, new taxes on money and on natural products were imposed; and by the severe pressure of these, the villagers were compelled to labour. The villages were gradually reinhabited; many families who had fled to the towns during the war repaired their devastated farms; others returned from the mountains or foreign countries; disbanded soldiers and camp followers sometimes bought fields and empty houses with the remainder of their booty, or returned to their native villages. There was much marrying and baptizing.
But the exhaustion of the people was still lamentably great. The arable land, much of which had lain fallow, was sown without the necessary manure; not a little remained overrun with wild underwood and weeds, and long continued as osier land. The ruined districts were sometimes bought by the neighbouring villages, and in some places two or three small communities united themselves together.
For many years after the war, the appearance of the villages was most comfortless; one may perceive that this was the case in Thuringia, from the transactions with the Government. The householders of Siebleben and some other communities round Gotha, had held, from the middle ages, the right of having timber free from the wooded hills. In 1650, the government demanded from them, for the exercise of this right, a small tax upon oats: some of the communities excused themselves, as they were too poor to be able to think of rebuilding their damaged houses. Ten years after, the community of Siebleben had forty boys who paid small school fees, and the yearly offering in the church amounted to more than fourteen gulden. A portion of this offering was spent in alms to strangers, and it is perceptible, from the carefully kept accounts, what a stream of beggars of all kinds passed through the country; disbanded soldiers, cripples, the sick and aged; amongst them were lepers with certificates from their infirmaries, also exiles from Bohemia and Hungary, who had left their homes on account of their religion, banished noblemen from England, Ireland, and Poland, persons collecting money for the ransom of their relatives from Turkish imprisonment, travellers who had been plundered by highwaymen, and others, such as a blind pastor from Denmark with five children; the strangers came prepared with testimonials. The governments, however, were unwearied in their efforts against harbouring such vagrants.
Much has been written concerning the devastation of the war; but the great work is still wanting, that would concentrate the statistical notices which have been preserved in all the different territories: however enormous the labour may be, it must be undertaken, for it is only from this irrefragable computation, that the full greatness of the calamity can be understood. The details hitherto known scarcely amount to a probable valuation of the loss which Germany suffered in men, beasts of burden, and productive power. The following inferences only attempt to express the views of an individual, which a few examples will support.
The condition of the provinces of Thuringia and Franconia is not ill adapted for a comparison of the past with the present; neither of them were more afflicted by the visitation of war than other countries; the state of cultivation of both provinces, up to the present time, answers pretty accurately to the general average of German industry and agriculture: neither of them are on the whole rich: both were hilly countries, without large rivers, or any considerable coal strata, with low lands, of which only certain tracts were distinguished by especial fertility, and were up to modern times devoted to agriculture, garden culture, and small mining industry. Thus this portion of Germany had known no powerful stream of human enterprise or capital, nor, on the other hand, was it the theatre of the destructive wars of Louis XIV.'s time, and the rulers, especially the grandson of Frederic the Wise, were even in the worst times tolerably sparing of the national strength.
There have been preserved to us from these districts, amongst other things, accurate statistical notices of twenty communities, which once were in the Hennebergen domain; but now, with the exception of one that is Bavarian, belong to Saxe Meiningen. It is nowhere mentioned, and from their condition need not be concluded, that the devastation in them had been greater than in other portions of the province. The government in 1649 ordered an accurate report to be given of the number of inhabited houses, barns, and head of cattle that existed when the worst sufferings of the war began in 1634. According to the reports delivered by the magistrates of the places, there had perished in the twenty communities more than eighty-two per cent, of families, eighty-five per cent, of horses, more than eighty-three of goats, and eighty-two of cows, and more than sixty-three per cent. of houses. The remaining houses were described as in many places damaged and in ruins, the still surviving horses as lame and blind, and the fields and meadows as devastated and much overgrown with underwood; but the sheep were everywhere altogether destroyed.[40]
It is a bloody and terrible tale which these numbers tell us. More than four fifths of the population, far more than four fifths of their property were destroyed. And in what a condition was the remainder!
Precisely similar was the fate of the smaller provincial towns, as far as one can see from the preserved data. We will give only one example from the same province. The old church records of Ummerstadt, an agricultural town near Coburg, famed, from olden times, throughout the country for its good pottery, report as follows:--"Although in the year 1632 the whole country, as also the said little town, was very populous, so that it alone contained more than one hundred and fifty citizens, and up to eight hundred souls, yet from the ever-continuing war troubles, and the constant quartering of troops, the people became in such-wise enervated, that from great and incessant fear, a pestilence sent upon us by the all-powerful and righteous God, carried off as many as five hundred men in the years 1635 and 1636; on account of this lamentable and miserable condition of the time, no children were born into the world in the course of two years. Those whose lives were still prolonged by God Almighty, have from hunger, the dearness of the times, and the scarcity of precious bread, eaten and lived upon bran, oil-cakes, and linseed husks, and many also have died of it; many also have been dispersed over all countries, most of whom have never again seen their dear fatherland. In the year 1640, during the Saalfeldt encampment, Ummerstadt became a city of the dead or of shadows; for during eighteen weeks no man dared to appear therein, and all that remained was destroyed. Therefore the population became quite thin, and there were not more than a hundred souls forthcoming." In 1850 the place had eight hundred and ninety-three inhabitants.
Still more striking is another observation, which may be made from the tables of the Meiningen villages. It is only in our century that the number of men and cattle of all kinds has again reached the height which it had already attained in 1634. Nay, the number of houses was still in 1849 less than in 1634, although, there the inmates of the smallest village houses, even the poorest, still anxiously endeavour to preserve their own dwellings. It is true that there is a trifling increase of the number of inhabitants in 1849 over that in 1634; but even this increase is dubious when we consider that the number of inhabitants in 1634 had probably already experienced a diminution from sixteen years of war. Thus we are assuredly justified in concluding that two centuries were necessary, at least for this tract of Germany, to restore the population and productive power of the country to its former standard. These assumptions are supported by other observations. The agriculture of the country, before the Thirty years' war, nay even the relative proportion of the value of corn to that of silver, at a time when the export of corn was only exceptional, lead to the same conclusions.
It is true that during the last two centuries, agriculture, owing to the mighty effects of foreign traffic, has developed itself in an entirely new direction. The countryman also now cultivates field vegetables, clover, and other herbage for fodder, which were unknown before the Thirty years' war, and agricultural produce is more lucrative for an equal amount of population. Perhaps our ancestors lived in a poorer style, and farmed less. We can compare the stock of cattle. The number of cattle kept now in the villages is precisely the same as before the war; they have still the short, thick, curly-woolled Spanish herds, which used to be reared in the pens of the peasants; the old wool fell in long locks; but judging from the value of the cloth and stuffs woven from it, and the price of sheep at that time, it must have been good.
On the other hand, the stock of horses has diminished by three fourths in comparison with 1634. This striking circumstance can only be thus explained: that the traditions of the troopers of the middle ages exercised an influence even upon agriculture; that the rearing of horses was more profitable than now, on account of the bad roads which made a distant transport of corn impossible, whilst the lowing of cattle in the narrow farm-yards of the towns was so general that the sale of milk and butter paid little; and finally, that a larger portion of the country people were better able to maintain teams. The breaking up of the ground was then, as may be seen from the old farm books in Thuringia, somewhat--but not considerably--less than now. In the present day the number of goats and of cattle belonging to small farmers has increased, as also the number of oxen, which probably in Middle and Southern Germany are now finer and higher bred than formerly. This is a decided progress of the present day. But on the whole, reckoning the amount of fodder required, the number of beasts which are maintained with advantage is very inconsiderably larger at present than in 1634.
Thus Germany, in comparison with its happier neighbours in England and the Low Countries, was thrown back about two hundred years.
Still greater were the changes which the war made in the intellectual life of the nation. Above all among the country people. Many old customs passed away, life became aimless and full of suffering. In the place of the old household gear the rudest forms of modern furniture were introduced; the artistic chalices, and old fonts, and almost all the adornments of the churches, had disappeared, and were succeeded by a tasteless poverty in the village churches, which still continues. For more than a century after the war the peasant vegetated, penned in, almost as much as his herds, whilst his pastor watched him as a shepherd, and he was shorn by the landed proprietors and rulers of his country. There was a long period of gloomy suffering. The price of corn in the depopulated country was, for fifty years after the war, even lower than before. But the burdens upon landed property rose so high, that for a long time, land together with house and farm, bore little value, and sometimes were offered in vain as acquittance for service and imposts. Severer than ever was the pressure of vassalage, worst of all in the former Sclave countries, in which the peasantry were kept down by a numerous nobility. With respect to their marriages, they were placed under an unnatural and compulsory guardianship; strict care was taken that the son of the countryman should not evade by flight the servitude which was to weigh down his future. He could not travel without a written permission; even ship and raft masters were forbidden under severe penalties to take such fugitives into their service.
Much to be lamented is the injury to civilization which took place in the devastated cities, especially the return to luxury, love of pleasure, and coarse sensuality, the want of common sense and independence, the cringing towards superiors and heartlessness towards inferiors. They are the ancient sufferings of a decaying race. That the self-government of cities was more and more infringed upon by the princes, was frequently fortunate, for the administrators were too often deficient in judgment and feeling of duty.
The new constitution of governments which had arisen during the war, laid its iron hands on town and country. The old territories of the German empire were changed into despotic bureaucratic states. The ruler governed through his officials, and kept a standing army against his enemies; to maintain his "state," that is, his courtiers, officials and soldiers, was the task of the people. But to make this possible, it was necessary to promote carefully the increase of the population, and the greater tax-paying capacity of the subject. Some princes, especially the Brandenburgers, did this in a liberal spirit, and thus in this dark period, by increasing the power of their new state, laid the foundation of the greatness of their houses. Others indeed lavished the popular strength, in coarse imitation of French demoralization.
It was a mortal crisis through which Germany had passed, and dearly was the peace bought. But that which was most important had been preserved, the continuity of German development, the continuance of the great inward process, by which the German nation raised itself from the bondage of the middle ages to a higher civilization.
The long struggle, politically considered, was a defensive war of the Protestant party against the intolerance of the old faith and the attacks of the Imperial power. This defensive struggle had begun by an ill-timed offensive movement in Bohemia. The head of the House of Hapsburg had law and right on his side, so long as he only put down this movement. His opponents put themselves in the position of revolutionists, which could only be vindicated by success. But from the day when the Emperor made use of his victory to suppress by means of Jesuits and soldiers the sovereignty of the German princes, and the old rights of the cities, he became in his turn the political offender whose bold venture was repulsed by the last efforts of the nation. But here we must take a higher point of view, from which the proceedings of Ferdinand II. appear still more insupportable. Just a hundred years before his reign, all the good spirits of the German nation fought on the side of the Emperor, when he, in opposition to existing rights and old usages, had founded a German Church and German state. Since that, the family of Charles V. had for a century, a short time excepted, done much by laborious scheming, or listless indifference, to destroy the last source of this new life, independence of spirit, thought and faith: it was for a century, a short time excepted, the opponent of the national German life; it had its Spanish and Italian alliances, and had arrayed the Romish Jesuits against the indigenous civilization of the nation, aided, alas! by some of the German princes. It was by such means that it had endeavoured to become great in Germany, and in the same spirit, an overzealous Emperor called forth the bloody decision. On his head, not on the German people or Princes, lies the guilt of this endless war. The Protestant chiefs, with the exception of the lesser rulers, only sought to submit and make peace with their Emperor. It was only for a few years they were led into open war, by the arrogance of Wallenstein, the scorn of Vienna, and the warlike pressure of Gustavus Adolphus; the alliance of the great electoral houses of Saxony and Brandenburg with Sweden did not last four years; at the first opportunity they receded, and during the last period of the war, neutrality was their strongest policy.
The princes obtained by the peace the object of their defensive opposition; the extravagant designs of the Imperial Court were crushed. Germany was free. Yes, free! Devastated and powerless, with its western frontier for a century the fighting-ground and spoil of France, it had still to bear the out-pouring of an accumulated measure of humiliation and shame. But whoever would now clench their hands at this, let them beware of raising them against the Westphalian peace. The consequences that followed, the laying in ashes of the Palatinate, the seizure of Strasburg, the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, were not owing to this peace. The cause of all this, was long before the Thirty years' war; it had been foreseen by patriotic men long beforehand. Since the Smalkaldic war the sovereignty of the German Princes, and the independence of portions of the empire, were the only guarantee for a national progressive civilization. One may deeply lament, but can easily understand this. Now at last this independence had been legally established by streams of blood. Whoever considers the year 1813,--the first kindling of the people since 1648,--as full of glory; whoever has at any time ennobled himself by a sense of duty and enlarged moral sentiments, acquired from the severe teaching of Kant and his followers; whoever has at any time derived pleasure from the highest that man is capable of understanding, and from the nature and souls of his own and foreign people; whoever has at any time felt with transport the beauty of the new German poetry, the Nathan, Faust, and Guillaume Tell; whoever has taken a heartfelt participation in the free life of our science and arts, in the great discoveries of our natural philosophers, and in the powerful development of German industry and agriculture, must remember, that with the peace of Münster and Osnaburg began the period in which the political foundation of the development of a higher life was in a great measure secured.
The war had nevertheless consequences which we must still deeply deplore; it has long severed the third of Germany from intellectual communion of spirit with their kindred races. The German hereditary possessions of the Imperial family have ever since been united in a special state. Powerfully and incessantly has the foreign principle worked which there prevails. For a long time the depressed nation scarcely felt the loss. In Germany the opposition between Romanism and Protestantism had been weakened, and in the following century it was in a great measure overcome. Even those territories which were compelled by their rulers to maintain their old faith, had participated in the slow and laborious progress which had been made since the peace. It is not to be denied that the Protestant countries long remained the leaders, but in spite of much opposition, those of the old faith followed the new stream, and the results of increasing civilization flowed in brotherly union from one soul to another; joy and suffering were in general mutual, and as the political requirements and wishes of the Protestant and Roman Catholics were the same, the feeling of intellectual unity became gradually more active. It was otherwise in the distant countries which Ferdinand II. and his successors had bequeathed as conquered property. The losses which the German races had experienced were great, but the injury to the Austrian nationalities was incomparably greater. To them had happened what must now appear, to any one who examines accurately, most terrible. Almost the whole national civilization, which in spite of all hindrances had been developed for more than a century, was expelled with an iron rod. The mass of the people remained; their leaders--opulent landed proprietors of the old indigenous race, manly patriots, men of distinguished character and learning, and intelligent pastors, were driven into exile. The exiles have never been counted, who perished of hunger, and the horrors of war; those also who settled in foreign countries can scarcely be reckoned. Undoubtedly their collective number amounted to hundreds of thousands. It is thanks to the Bohemian exiles, that Electoral Saxony recovered its loss in men and capital quicker than other countries. Yet it is not the numbers, however great, which give a true representation of the loss. For those who fell into calamity on account of their faith and political convictions were the noblest spirits, the leaders of the people, the representatives of the highest civilization of the time. But it was not the loss of them alone that made the Emperor's dominions so weak and dormant; the millions also that remained behind were crushed. Driven by every low motive, by rough violence or the prospect of earthly advantage, from one faith to another, they had lost all self-respect and the last ideal which even the most commonplace man preserves, the feeling that he has a place in his heart that cannot be bought. Everywhere throughout Germany in the worst times after the war, there were thousands who were fortified by the feeling that they also, like their fathers and neighbours, had resisted armed conversion to the death. In the converted Austrian territories of the Emperor, this feeling was rare. For almost a century and a half the Bohemian and German races vegetated in a dreary dream life. The Bohemian countryman hung the various saints of the restored church by the side of his pictures of Huss and Zisko, but he kept a holy lamp burning before the old heretic; the citizen of Vienna and Olmutz accustomed himself to speak of the Empire and Germany as of a foreign land; he accommodated himself to Hungarians, Italians, and Croats, but at the same time he remained a stranger in the new state in which he was now domiciled. Little did he care for the categorical imperative, imposed by the new worldly wisdom; later he learned that Schiller was a German poet. Only then did a new spring begin for the Germans, in which freedom of mind and beauty of soul were sought for as the highest aim of earthly life; when the new study of antiquity inspired them with enthusiasm, when the genius of Goethe irradiated the court of Weimar, then sounded from dormant Austria, the deepest and most mysterious of arts, a fullness of melody. There also the spirit of the people had found touching expression in Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.