Therefore, though in Paris there were massacres in the streets, and the guillotine was incessantly at work, in Germany the French revolution had no effect in banding political parties against one another. And when the account came that the King had been imprisoned, ill-treated, and executed, forebodings, even among the least timid, became general.
Thus it was possible that German officers, even the gardes du corps at Potsdam, good-humouredly allowed the ça ira to be played, whilst the street boys sang to it a rude translation of the text. The ladies of the German aristocracy wore tricolour ribbons, and head dresses à la carmagnole. Curiosity collected the people in a circle round some patriot prisoners of war—dismal tattered figures—whilst they danced their wild dances, and accompanied them by pantomime, which expressed washing their hands in the blood of the aristocrats; and some innocently bought from them the playthings which they had made on the march, little wooden guillotines. But it was a morbid simplicity in the educated.
There is another thing which appears still stranger to us. Whilst the storm raged convulsively in France, and the flood rolled its waves more wildly every year over Germany; the eyes and hearts of all men of intellect were fixed on a little Principality in the middle of Germany, where, amid the deepest tranquillity, the great poet of the nation, by the wonderful creations of his mind in prose and verse, dispelled all dark forebodings. King and Queen were guillotined, and "Reineke Fuchs" made into a poem; there came, together with Robespierre and the reign of terror, letters on the æsthetic training of men; with the battles of Lodi and Arcole, "Wilhelm Meister," "Horen," and "Xenien"; with the French acquisition of Belgium, "Hermann and Dorothea"; with the French conquest of Switzerland and the States of the Pope, "Wallenstein"; with the French seizure of the left bank of the Rhine, the "Bastard of Orleans"; with the occupation of Hanover by Napoleon, the "Bride of Messina"; with Napoleon Emperor, "Wilhelm Tell." The ten years in which Schiller and Goethe lived in close friendship—the ten great years of German poetry, on which the German will look back in distant centuries with emotion and sentimental tenderness—are the same years in which a loud cry of woe was heard through the air; in which the demons of destruction drew together from all sides, with clothes dipped in blood, and scorpion scourges in their hands, in order to make an end of the unnatural life of a nation without a State. Only sixty years have since passed, yet the period in which our fathers grew up is as strange to us in many respects as the period in which, according to tradition, Archimedes calculated geometrical problems, whilst the Romans were storming his city. The movement of this time worked differently on the Prussian State. It was no longer the Prussia of Frederic II. In the interior, indeed, his regulations had been faithfully preserved; his followers mitigated everywhere some severities of the old system, but the great reforms which the time urgently required were scarcely begun.
But in the eighteenth century, up to the war of 1806, the external boundary of the State increased on a gigantic scale. Frederic had still left behind him a little kingdom; a few years after, Prussia might be reckoned as one of the great realms of Europe. In the rapidity of this growth, there was something unnatural. By the two last divisions of Poland, about 1772 square miles of Sclavonic country were added. Shortly before, the Principalities of the Franconian Hohenzollerns, Anspach and Baireuth, were gained, another 115 square miles. Besides this, after the peace of Luneville, forty-seven square miles of the Upper Rhine district of Cleves were exchanged for 222 square miles of German territory; parts of Thuringia, including Erfurt, half Munster, also Hildesheim and Paderborn; finally, Anspach was again exchanged for Hanover. After that, Prussia for some months comprised a territory of 6047 square miles, almost double its extent in 1786, and about a sixth more than it at present contains. In this year, Prussia might almost have been called Germany; its eagles hovered over the countries from Old Saxony up to the North Sea; also over the main territory of Old Franconia and in the heart of Thuringia; it ruled the mouths of the Elbe; it surrounded Bohemia on two sides, and could, after a short day's march, make its war horses drink in the Danube. In the east it extended itself far into the valley of the Vistula and to the Bug; and its officials governed in the capital of departed Poland. This rapid increase, even in peaceful times, might not have been without disadvantage, for the amount of constructive power which Prussia could employ for the assimilation to itself of such various acquisitions was perhaps not great enough.
And yet the excellent Prussian officials, of the old school just then greatly distinguished themselves. Organisation was carried on everywhere with great zeal and success; brilliant talents, and great powers were developed in this work. There were certainly many half measures and false steps, but on the whole, when we consider the work, the integrity, the intelligence, and the vigorous will which the Prussians then showed in Germany, it fills us with respect, especially when we compare it with the later French rule, which indeed carried on reforms thoroughly and dexterously, but at the same time brought a chaos of coarseness and rough tyranny into the country.
The acquisition of Poland was in itself a great gain for Germany, for it afforded it a protection against the enormous increase of Russia; the east frontier of Prussia gained military security. If it was hard for the Poles, it was necessary for the Germans. The desolate condition of the half-wild provinces required a proportionate exertion, if they were to be made useful, that is to say, if they were to be transformed into a German Empire. It was not a time for quiet colonisation; but even of this there was not a little.
But another circumstance was ominous. All these extensions were not the result of the impulses of a strong national power: they were partly forced on Prussia after inglorious campaigns by a too powerful enemy. And Germany showed the remarkable phenomena of Prussia being enlarged under continued humiliations and diplomatic defeats; and that its increase of territory went hand-in-hand with the decrease of its consideration in Europe. Thus this diffuse State had at last too much the appearance of a group of islands congregated together, which the next hurricane would bury under the waves.
The surface of ground was so great, and the life and interests of its citizens had become so various, that the power of one individual could no longer arbitrarily guide the enormous machine in the old way. And yet there was no lack of the great aid—the ultimate regulator both of princes and officials—public opinion, which incessantly, honestly, and bravely accompanied the doings of rulers, examined their public acts, gave expression to the wishes of the people, and felt their needs. The daily press was anxiously controlled, accidental flying sheets wounded deeply, and were violently suppressed.
The King was a man of strict uprightness and moderation, but he was no General, nor a great politician; so he remained all his life too much averse to decided and energetic resolves. He was then young and diffident of his own powers, and he felt vividly that he superintended too little the details of business; the intrigues of greedy courtiers put him out of humour, without his knowing how to stop them; his endeavours to preserve his own independence, and guard himself from preponderating influence, put him in danger of preferring insignificant and pliant characters to firm ones. The State had clearly then come into a position when the spontaneous action of the people and the beginning of constitutional life could no longer be dispensed with. But again it seemed so little possible, that the most discontented scarcely ventured to whisper it. All the material for it was wanting; the old States of Prussia had been thoroughly set aside; the communities were governed by officials; even an interest in politics and the life of the State was almost confined to them. What the King had seen arise under the co-operation of the people in a foreign country, national assemblies and conventions, had given him so deep a repugnance to every such participation of his Prussians in the work of the State, that, to the misfortune of his people and successors, he never, as long as he lived, could overcome this feeling. Before 1806, he thought of nothing of the kind.
Very strongly did he feel that it was impossible for him to continue to govern in the old method of Frederic II. This great King, in spite of all his immense power of work and knowledge of minute particulars, had only been able to keep the whole in vigorous movement by sacrificing to his arbitrary power, even the innocent, in case of need. As he was in the position to decide everything himself, and quickly, it frequently happened that his decision depended on his humour and accidental subordinate considerations. He did not, therefore, hesitate to break an officer for a mere oversight, or discharge councillors of the supreme court who had only done their duty. And if he discovered that he had done an injustice, though he was passionately desirous of doing justice, he never once acknowledged the fact; for it was necessary to preserve his faith in himself, as well as the obedience and pliancy of his officials, and the implicit trust of his people in his final decisions. It was not only one of his peculiar characteristics, but also his policy, to retract nothing, neither overhaste nor mistake; and not to make amends even for obvious injustice, except occasionally and secretly. That powerful and wise Prince could venture upon this; his successor justly feared to rule in such a way. The grandson of that Prince of Prussia, whom Frederic II. angrily removed from the command in the middle of the war, felt deeply the severity of this hasty decision.