While they watched the scene he told them a dreadful story of Napoleon, of something which had helped bring on the war.
"It roused all Prussia," he said.
It was the story of the bookseller, Palm of Nuremberg.
In that quaint old town where they make the toys of the world, where the famous Albrecht Dürer once lived and drew and painted, had lived a certain honest young man named Palm, and his young wife, Anna. He was a bookseller, and respected by everybody.
One day he received a package of books by mail which he was to sell in his shop. The name of the book was "Germany in Her Deepest Degradation," but it was anonymous.
Herr Bookseller Palm placed the books in his shop as requested.
A little later he was arrested by order of Napoleon and threatened with death unless he revealed the name of the author.
Palm had one answer. The books had been sent him without a name, and that was all he knew.
There was much more, but Franz first told how Palm, who had hidden, was arrested by a trick. A man pretended to be in great trouble from which only Palm could save him. The kind bookseller came forward to see the messenger, was seized, dragged off, and shot without proper trial, though the women of the town appeared before the judges clamouring for mercy, and his poor young wife implored his life from Napoleon's officers. Only a good Roman Catholic priest supported him to the end, although Palm was a Lutheran. "Shot down like a dog!" cried Franz hotly.
Marianne's tears fell when she heard of the suffering of the wife, of Palm's goodness, his belief in God, and his bravery in refusing to give the name of the author.