Pictures of German Life in the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries Volume Ii Part 8

"The oath prescribed by Napoleon, which was imposed also in Munster, was so little obnoxious to them, that they even endeavoured to make a solemnity of taking it, and to do it with the ceremony which is only customary at doing homage. A canopy was erected in the great hall of the castle, under which General Loison received the oath. It was with great astonishment that we beheld these preparations, but our surprise was still greater when we saw General Loison, accompanied by the hereditary and court officials of the former Bishop of Munster; who, with their old state ministered to the French General, in the same way as to their former Sovereign, and stood at his side as supporters during the ceremony.

"A considerable table allowance was appointed for the governor--if I do not mistake, 12,000 thalers monthly--which was raised by an extraordinary tax. A household was formed, and the pensioned Munster officials were again employed. The Court Marshal von Sch. acted in this capacity at the table of the French governor; he issued the invitations for dinners and evening a.s.semblies, on which occasions he wore his old court marshal's uniform, with his marshal's staff in his hand, and under him was the court quartermaster with his sword, &c. When we saw this servile conduct the first time, the president of the administration, Von Sobbe, speaking to me, called the one an arrant fool, and the other the court fool.

"Besides this, there was a volunteer guard of honour established for General Loison, who equipped themselves. They furnished the daily guard at the castle, and accompanied the General, when with a troop of soldiers he made a progress into the county of Mark. At the head of this guard of honour there were members of the Munster n.o.bility.

"In the n.o.ble ladies' club, from which every respectable German had been excluded who did not belong to their caste, they received the French General with his mistress, in order to exercise more influence upon him.

"Nevertheless, they were not so successful with General Loison; he was too wary for them, made fun of them in secret, and only cared for the presents that were partly given to him and partly promised. They had offered him a costly sword as a present, which he accepted graciously.

The sword was ordered and made at Frankfort, but it only arrived after Loison had left the government. Now they were sorry for this too hasty offer, and they had no desire to send him the sword, as they had not found that complaisance in him which they expected. All this courtly _empress.e.m.e.nt_ became so repugnant to Loison, that he himself prevailed on Napoleon to recall him to the army.

"With his weaker successor, Canuel, it succeeded better. My worthy friend the president, Von Vinke, was the first to experience it. An incidental expression thrown out by him in a remonstrance, 'that otherwise he could no longer carry on his office,' was readily laid hold of as signifying a resignation, and he was dismissed from his post.

"In order to overcome my grief at things that could not be altered, I endeavoured to find distraction in a great work. The yet incomplete state of the laws of mortgages in the county of Munster, offered me the handiest and best material I devoted myself to this tedious work with the greatest zeal, and with the a.s.sistance of many referendaries, I accomplished the registry of all the t.i.tle deeds which had to be recorded in the mortgage book of the government of Munster. Thus I succeeded in a certain measure in occupying myself, and I learnt by experience that hard work is in truth a soothing balsam, which precedes the slow healing powers of time.

"But much as I believed myself to have acquired a kind of philosophic tranquillity by this withdrawal into my narrow sphere of business, yet I could not escape agitating feelings when the Peace of Tilsit really separated us from the Prussian State, and removed its frontier as much as forty miles to the east of us. The moving words with which our unhappy King took leave of his subjects, in the ceded provinces, and discharged the officials from their oath of allegiance, made us feel our loss still deeper. 'Dear children, it is an indescribably sorrowful feeling when the old ties of allegiance, of love, and confidence, which have bound us through long successive years to our ancestors, our State, and rulers, are at once violently rent, when a new and foreign ruler is forced upon a people, for whom no heart beats, who is received with despairing doubts, and who on his side feels nothing for his subjects.'"

Here we conclude the narrative of the good Prussian. Munster and the county of Mark were attached to the new grand-dukedom of Berg; Sethe himself became procurator-general of the Court of Appeals at Dusseldorf. But not for long, the firm uprightness of the German appeared suspicious to the foreign conqueror; he had not offered his aid in supporting the acts of tyranny of the French government; therefore he was called with threats to Paris, and there arrested, because, in fact, they feared his influence on the patriotic disposition of the country. When, in 1813, he was released, and the Prussian rule was restored in his Fatherland, he conducted the organisation of the legal authorities in the Rhine country. From that time he led a long, useful life of activity in his office, one of the first Prussian jurists who supported trial by jury, publicity, and verbal evidence, against the State government. A firm independence of character, truthful, devoted to duty, with deified earnestness and simplicity, he was a model of old Prussian official honour. The blessing of his life rests on his children.

It is not without an object that in this and the preceding chapter two portraitures from the circle of German citizens have been placed in juxtaposition. They represent the contrasts that were to be found in German life, through the whole of the eighteenth century up to the war of freedom. We see Pietists and followers of Wolf; Klopstock and Lessing; Schiller and Kant; Germans and Prussians; a rich contemplative mind, and a persevering energy, which subjects the external world to itself.

CHAPTER XI.

RISE OF THE NATION.

(1807-1815.)

The greatest blessing which Reformers leave behind them to succeeding generations seldom lies in that which they themselves consider as the fruit of their earthly life, nor in the dogmas for which they have contended, suffered and conquered, and been blessed and cursed by their contemporaries. It is not their system which has the lasting effect, but the numerous sources of new life, which through their labour is brought to light from the depths of the popular mind. The new system which Luther opposed to the old church, lost a portion of its constructive power a few years after he had laid his head to rest. But that which, during his great conflict with the hierarchy, he had done to rouse independence of mind in his people, to increase the feeling of duty, to raise the morals and to found discipline and culture, the impress of his soul in every domain of ideal life, remained in the severe struggles of the following century, an indestructible gain from which at last grew a fulness of new life. The system also of Frederic the Great, not many years after his death, was discarded by a foreign conqueror as an imperfect invention; but again the best result of his life remained an enduring acquisition for Prussia and Germany. He had called forth in thousands of his officials and soldiers zeal and faithfulness to duty, and in millions of his subjects devotion to his family; he had, as a wise political husbandman, sown everywhere the seed of intellectual and material prosperity. This was what remained to his State, the excellent cultivated soil from which the new life was to blossom. When his army was crushed, the country overrun by strangers, and the pangs of bitter need compelled men to seek the means of supporting life wherever they could find them, then in the midst of all this desolation arose a new power in the nation, their capacity for work. Even the rapidity and completeness with which the old system broke down, melancholy as it was to behold, was, nevertheless, fortunate; for though it did not cast aside suddenly all the upholders of the old system, yet it averted the greater danger of their resistance. It now became evident how great was the material to be found in Prussia, not only among officials and officers, but in the people itself. Unexampled was the fall, and equally unexampled was the recovery.

The nation was stunned; it looked listlessly on the s.h.i.+pwreck of its State; it had always received its impulse from the government. In the chaotic confusion that now followed, there seemed no hope of rescue; the weak cursed the bad government, the superficial viewed maliciously the prostration of the unintellectual and privileged orders, and the weakest followed the star of the conqueror. Men of warm feeling secluded themselves like Steffens, who wrote a sorrowful ode on the fall of the Fatherland; but cooler heads investigated sullenly the defects of the old system, and with bitterness condemned alike the good and bad.

The misery becomes greater, it is the intention of the Emperor to open all the veins, and draw blood from that portion of Prussia to which he has left a semblance of life. Exorbitant are the contributions. The French army is distributed over the country--it occupies cantonments in Silesia and the March; officers and soldiers are billeted upon the citizens--they are to be fed and entertained. At the cost of the district a table d'hote is to be established, and b.a.l.l.s given. The soldier is to be compensated for the hards.h.i.+ps of war. We are the conquerors, exclaim the officers arrogantly. There is no law against their brutality, or the impudence with which they disturb the peace of families in which they now rule as masters. If they are polite to the ladies of the house, that does not make them more acceptable to the men. Still worse is the conduct of the Generals and Marshals.

Prince Jerome has his head-quarters at Breslau, and there keeps a dissolute court; the people still relate how licentiously he lived, and daily bathed in a cask of wine. At Berlin, General-Intendant Daru raises his demands higher every month. Even the humiliating conditions of the peace are still too good for Prussia; the tyrant scornfully alters the schedules. The fortresses are not restored, as was promised; with refined cruelty the war charges are increased enormously. They have drawn from the country, which still bears the name of Prussia, more than 200 millions of thalers in six years.

On trade and commerce, also, the new system lays its destroying hand.

By the Continental system, imports and exports are almost abolished.

Manufactories are stationary, and the circulation of money stagnates; the number of bankrupts becomes alarmingly great: even the necessaries of daily life are exorbitantly high; the mult.i.tude of poor increases frightfully; even in the great cities the troops of hungry souls that traverse the streets can scarcely be controlled. The more wealthy also restrict their wants to the smallest possible compa.s.s; they begin a voluntary discipline in their own life, denying themselves small enjoyments to which they are accustomed. Instead of coffee, they drink roasted acorns, and eat black and rye bread; large societies bind themselves to use no sugar, and the housewife no longer preserves fruit. As Ludwig von Vincke, who then resided as a landed proprietor in the new grand-dukedom of Berg, pertinaciously smoked coltsfoot instead of tobacco, and made his wine of black currants, so did others renounce the necessaries on which the foreign tyrant had imposed a monopoly.

But philosophy begins its great work, bringing blessing upon the State, by purifying and elevating the minds of men. While the French drum was beating in the streets of Berlin, and the spies of the stranger were lurking about the houses, Fichte delivered his discourses on the German nation: a new and powerful race was to be trained, the national character to be improved, and lost freedom to be regained.

From the extreme east of the State, where now the greatest strength of the Prussian bureaucracy is at the head of affairs, a new organisation of the people began. Serfdom was abolished, landed property made free, and self-government established in the cities. The exclusiveness of cla.s.ses was broken, privileges done away with, and a new const.i.tution for the army was prepared by Colonel Scharnhorst. Whatever power of life there was in the people was now to have free play.

In the year 1808, Prussia was no longer fainthearted; it began to raise its head hopefully, and looked about for aid. The first political society formed itself; "_tugendbund_,"[46] education unions, scientific societies, and officers' clubs, all had the same object--to free their Fatherland, and to educate the people for an approaching struggle.

There was much trifling and immoderate zeal displayed, but they included a large number of patriotic men. Messengers ran actively with secret papers, but it was difficult for the unpractised a.s.sociates to deceive the spies of the enemy. Dark plans of revenge were proposed in many of these unions; and desperate men hoped, by a great crime, to save the Fatherland.

Hopes rise higher the following year: the war has begun in Spain; Austria prepares itself for the most heroic struggle that it has ever undertaken. In Prussia, also, the ground is hollow beneath the feet of the stranger; all is prepared for an outbreak; and the Police President, Justice Gruner, is one of the most active leaders of the movement. But it is not possible to unite Prussia with Austria; the first great rising of the people wastes itself in single hopeless attempts. Schill, Dornberg, the Duke of Brunswick, and the rising in Silesia fail. The battle of Wagram destroys the last hope of Austria's help.

The courage of many sinks, but not of the best. Unweariedly do the friends of the Fatherland exercise themselves in the use of fire-arms; the Prussian army, also, which does not amount to more than 42,000 men, is secretly increased to more than double that number; and in all the military workshops the soldiers sit as artisans working at the equipments for a future war.

A second time do the hopes of the people rise; Napoleon prepares himself for war against Russia. Again is the time come when a struggle is possible; already does Hardenberg venture to tell the French amba.s.sador, St. Marsan, that Prussia will not allow itself to be crushed, and will encounter a foreign attack with 100,000 soldiers. But the King will not resolve upon a desperate resistance; he gives the half of his standing army as aid to the French Emperor. Then 300 officers leave his service, and hasten to Russia, there to fight against Napoleon. And again hope diminishes in Prussia, freedom seems removed to an immeasurable distance.

Violent has the hatred against the foreign Emperor become in northern Germany; above all, west of the Elbe, where his ceaseless wars have sacrificed the youth of the country. The conscription is there considered as the death lot. The price of a subst.i.tute has risen to two thousand thalers. In all the streets, mourning attire is to be seen, worn by parents for their lost sons. But most violent of all is the hatred in Prussia, in every vocation of life, in every house it calls to the struggle. Everything that is pure and good in Germany--language, poetry, philosophy, and morals--work silently against Napoleon.

Everything that is bad, corrupt, and wicked, all duplicity and cruelty, calumny, knavishness and brutal violence, is considered as Gallic and Corsican. Like the fantastic Jahn, other eager spirits call the Emperor no longer by his name: they speak of him as once they did of the devil, as "he," or with a contemptuous expression as Bonaparte.

Thus had six years hardened the character in Prussia.

It was no longer a great State that in the spring of 1813 armed itself for a struggle of life and death. What remained of Prussia only comprehended 4,700,000. This small nation in the first campaign brought into the field an army of 247,000 men, reckoning one out of nineteen of the whole population. The significance of this is clear, when one reckons that an equal effort on the part of Prussia as it is, with its eighteen millions of inhabitants, would give the enormous amount of 950,000 soldiers for an army in the field.[47] And this calculation conveys only the relative number of men, not the proportion of the then and present wealth of the country.

It was a much impoverished nation that entered upon the war. Merchants, manufacturers, and artisans, had for six years struggled fearlessly against the hard times. The agriculturist had his barns emptied, and his best horses taken from his stables; the debased coin that circulated in the country disturbed the interior commerce even with the nearest neighbours, the thalers which had been saved from a better time had long been spent. In the mountain valleys the people were famis.h.i.+ng; on the line of march of the great armies even the commonest necessaries of life were failing; teams and seed had been wanting to the countryman as early as 1807; in 1812 there was the same distress.

It is true that there was bitter sorrow among the people over the downfall of Prussia, and deep hatred against the Emperor of the French.

But it would be doing great injustice to the Prussians to consider their rising as more especially occasioned by the fiery pa.s.sion of resentment. More than once, both in ancient and modern times, has a city or small nation carried on its desperate death-struggle to the last extremity; more than once we have been filled with astonishment at the wild heroic courage and self-devotion which have led men to voluntary death in the flames of their own houses, or under the fire of the enemy. But this lofty power of resistance is not perhaps free from a certain degree of fanaticism, which inflames the soul almost to madness. Of this there is no trace in the Prussians. On the contrary, there was a cheerful serenity throughout the whole nation which seems very touching to us. It arose from faith in their own strength, confidence in a good cause, and, above all, in an innocent youthful freshness of feeling.

For the German, this period in the life of his nation has a special significance. It was the first time that for many centuries political enthusiasm had burst forth in bright flames among the people. For centuries there had been in Germany nations of individuals, living under the government of princes, for which they had no love or honour, and in which they took no active share. Now, in the hour of greatest danger, the people claimed its own inalienable right in the State. It threw its whole strength voluntarily and joyfully into a death-struggle to preserve its State from destruction.

This struggle has a still higher significance for Prussia and its royal house. In the course of a hundred and fifty years the Hohenzollerns, by uniting unconnected provinces as one State, had formed their subjects into a nation. A great prince, and the costly victories, and brilliant success of the house, had excited a feeling of love in the new nation for their princes. Now the government of a Hohenzollern had been too weak to preserve the inheritance of his father. Now did the people, whom his ancestors had created, rise and give to the last effort that its prince could make, a direction and a grandeur which forced the King from his state of prostration almost against his will. The Prussian people paid with its blood to the race of its princes the debt of grat.i.tude that it owed the Hohenzollerns for the greatness and prosperity which they had procured for it. This faithful and dutiful devotion arose from feeling that the life and true interests of the royal house were one with the people.

But in the glow of popular feeling in 1813 there was something peculiar, which already appears strange to us. When a great political idea fills a people, we can now accurately define the stages through which it must pa.s.s before it can be condensed into a firm resolve. The press begins to teach and to excite; those of like minds a.s.semble together at public meetings, and the discourse of an enthusiastic speaker exercises its influence. Gradually the number of those who are interested increases; from the strife of different views, which contend together in public, is developed a knowledge of what is necessary, an insight into the ways and means, the will to meet such requirements, and, lastly, self-sacrifice and devotion. Of this gradual growth of the popular mind through public life there is scarcely a trace in 1813.

What worked upon the nation externally was of another kind. The feeling was excited by a single great moment; but, in general, a tranquillity rested on the nation which one may well call epic. The feeling of millions burst forth simultaneously; not abounding in words, without any imposing appearance, still quiet, but, like one of nature's forces, irresistible There is a pleasure in observing its course in certain great moments. It shall be here portrayed, not as it s.h.i.+nes forth in prominent characters, but as it appears in the life of minor personages.

It was after New Year's Day, 1813. The parting year had left a severe winter as a heritage to the new one, but, in a moderate-sized city in Prussia, the people stood in crowds before the post-office. Happy was he who could first carry home a newspaper. Short and cautious were the accounts of the events of the day, for in Berlin there was a French military governor, who watched every expression of the intimidated press. Nevertheless, the news of the fate of the great army had long penetrated into the most remote huts; first came vague reports of danger and suffering, the account of a tremendous fire in Moscow and flames up to the skies, which had risen, as from the earth, around the Emperor; then of a flight through snow and desert plains, of hunger and indescribable misery. Cautiously did the people speak of it, for the French not only occupied the capital and fortresses of the country, but had also in the provinces their agents, spies, and hated informers, whom the citizens avoided. Within a few days it was known that the Emperor himself had fled from his army; in an open sledge, disguised as Duke of Vicenza, and, with only one follower, he had travelled day and night through Prussia. On the 12th of December, about eight o'clock in the evening, he arrived at Glogau, there he reposed for an hour, and started again about ten o'clock, in spite of the terrible cold.

The following morning he entered the castle of Hanau, where the posting-station then was. The resolute post-mistress, Kramtsch, recognised him, and with violent gestures swore she would give him no tea, but rather another drink. At the earnest representations of those around her, she was softened so far as to pour some camomile tea into a pot with a vehement oath; he, however, drank of it, and went on to Dresden. Now he had come to Paris, and it was told in the newspapers how happy Paris was, how tenderly his wife and son had greeted him, how well he was, and that he had already, on the 27th of December, been to hear the beautiful opera of "Jerusalem Delivered." It was said further that the great army, in spite of the unfavourable time of year, would return in fearful ma.s.ses through Prussia, and that the Emperor was making new preparations. But the trial of General Mallet was also reported; and it was known how impudently the French newspapers lied.

It was seen, also, what remained of the great army. In the first days of the year the snow fell in flakes; it lay like a shroud over the country. A train of men moved slowly and noiselessly along the high road to the first houses of the suburb. It was the returning French.

Only a year ago, they had set forth at sunrise, with the sound of trumpets, and the rattle of drums, in warlike splendour, and with revolting arrogance. Endless had been the procession of troops; day after day, without ceasing, the ma.s.ses had rolled through the streets of the city; never had the people seen so prodigious an army, of all nations of Europe, with every kind of uniform, and hundreds of Generals. The gigantic power of the Emperor sank deep into all souls, the military spectacle still filled the fancy with its splendour and its terrors.

But there was also an undefined expectation of a fearful fate. For a whole month did this endless pa.s.sage of troops last; like locusts the strangers consumed everything in the country, from Kolberg to Breslau.

There had been a failure of the harvest in 1811, scarcely had the country-people been able to save the seed oats, and these were eaten in 1812 by the French war horses. They devoured the last blade of gra.s.s and the last bundle of straw; the villagers had to pay sixteen thalers for a shock of chopped straw, and two thalers for a hundredweight of hay. And greedily as the animals, did the men consume; from the Marshal down to the common French soldier, they were insatiable. King Jerome had demanded for his maintenance at Glogau, a not very large town, four hundred thalers daily. The Duke of Abrantes had for a month seventy-five thalers daily; the officers obliged the wife of a poor village pastor to cook their ham with red wine; they drank the richest cream out of the pitchers, and poured essence of cinnamon over it; the common soldiers, also, even to the drummer, bl.u.s.tered if they did not have two courses at dinner. They ate like madmen. But even then the people prognosticated that they would not so return. And they said so themselves. When formerly they had marched to war with their Emperor their horses had neighed whenever they were led from the stable, but now they hung their heads sorrowfully; formerly the crows and ravens flew the contrary way to the army of the Emperor, now these birds of the battle-field accompanied the army to the east, expecting their prey.[48]

But those who now returned came in a more pitiable condition than anyone had dreamed of. It was a herd of poor wretches who had entered upon their last journey--they were wandering corpses. A disorderly mult.i.tude of all races and nations collected together; without a drum or word of command, and silent as a funeral procession, they approached the city. They were all without weapons or horses, none in perfect uniform, their clothes, ragged and dirty, mended with patches from the dress of peasants and their wives. They had hung over their heads and shoulders whatever they could lay hands on, as a covering against the deadly penetrating cold; old sacks, torn horse-clothes, carpets, shawls, and the fresh skins of cats and dogs; Grenadiers were to be seen in large sheepskins. Cuira.s.siers wearing women's dresses of coloured baize, like Spanish mantles. Few had helmets or shakos; they wore every kind of head-dress, coloured and white nightcaps like the peasants, drawn low over their faces, a handkerchief or a bit of fur as a protection to their ears, and handkerchiefs also over the lower part of their face; and yet the ears and noses of most were frost-bitten or fiery red, and their dark eyes were almost extinguished in their cavities. Few had either shoe or boot; fortunate was he who could go through that miserable march with felt socks or large fur shoes, and the feet of many were enveloped in straw, rags, the covering of knapsacks, or the felt of an old hat. All tottered, supported by sticks, lame and limping. The Guards even were little different from the rest; their mantles were scorched, only their bear-skin caps gave them still a military aspect. Thus did officers and soldiers, one with another, crawl along with bent heads, in a state of gloomy stupefaction. All had become forms of horror from hunger, frost, and indescribable misery.

Day after day they came along the high road, generally as soon as twilight and the iron winter fog were spread over the houses.

Demoniacal was the effect of these noiseless apparitions of horrible figures, terrible the sufferings they brought with them; the people a.s.serted that warmth could not be restored to their bodies, nor their craving hunger allayed. If they were taken into a warm room, they thrust themselves violently against the hot stove, as if they would get into it, and in vain did the compa.s.sionate women endeavour to keep them away from the dangerous heat. Greedily they devoured the dry bread, and some would not leave off till they died. Till after the battle of Leipzig, the people were under the belief that they had been smitten by Heaven with eternal hunger. Even then it occurred that the prisoners, when close to their hospital, roasted for themselves pieces of dead horses, although they had already received the regular hospital food; still, therefore, did the citizens maintain that it was a hunger specially inflicted by G.o.d; once they had thrown beautiful wheat-sheaves into their camp fire, and had scattered good bread on the dirty floor, now they were condemned never to be satiated by any human food.[49]

Everywhere in the cities, along the road of the army, hospitals were prepared for the homeward bound, and immediately all the sick wards were overflowing, and virulent fevers annihilated the last strength of the unfortunates. Countless were the corpses carried out, and the citizens had to be careful that the infection did not penetrate into their houses. Any of the foreigners that could, after the necessary rest, crept home weary and hopeless. But the boys in the streets sang, "Knights without swords, knights without horses, fugitives without shoes, find nowhere rest and repose. G.o.d has struck man, horse, and carriage," and behind the fugitives they yelled the mocking call, "The Cossacks are coming." Then there was a movement of horror in the flying ma.s.s, and they quickly tottered on through the gates.

These were the impressions of 1813. Meanwhile the newspapers announced that General York had concluded the convention of Tauroggin with the Russian Wittgenstein, and the Prussians read with dismay that the King had rejected the stipulations, and dismissed the General from his command. But immediately after it was said that he could not be in earnest, for the King had left Berlin, where his precious head was no longer safe among the French, and gone to Breslau. Now there were some hopes.

In the Berlin paper of 4th March, among the foreign arrivals were still French Generals; but the same day Herr von Tschernischef, commander of a corps of cavalry, entered the capital in peaceful array.

It had been known for three months that the Russian winter, and the army of the Emperor Alexander, had destroyed the great army. Already had Gropius, at Christmas, introduced a diorama of the burning of Moscow. For some weeks many of the new books had treated of Russia, giving descriptions of the people; Russian manuals and Russian national music were in vogue. Whatever came from the east was glorified by the excited minds of the people. Nothing more so than the vanguard of the foreign army, the Cossacks. Next the frost and hunger, they were considered the conquerors of the French. Wonderful stories of their deeds preceded them, they were said to be half wild men, of great simplicity of manners, of remarkable heartiness, indescribable dexterity, astuteness, and valour. It was reported how active their horses were, how irresistible their attacks, that they could swim through great rivers, climb the steepest hills, and bear the most horrible cold with good courage.

On the 17th February, they appeared in the neighbourhood of Berlin; after that, they were expected daily in the cities which lay further to the west; daily did the boys go out of the gates to spy out whether a troop of them could be descried coming. When, at last, their arrival was announced, young and old streamed through the streets. They were welcomed with joyful acclamations, eagerly did citizens carry to them whatever would rejoice the hearts of the strangers; it was thought that brandy, sauerkraut, and herrings would suit their national taste.

Everything about them was admired; their strong, thick beards, long dark hair, thick sheepskins, wide blue trowsers, and their weapons, pikes, long Turkish pistols, often of costly work, which they wore in broad leather girdles round their bodies, and the crooked Turkish sabre. With transport were they watched when they supported themselves on their lances and vaulted nimbly over thick cus.h.i.+on saddles, which served at the same time as sacks for their mantles; or couched their lances, urging on their lean horses with loud hurrahs; and, again, when they fastened their lances by a thong to the arm and trotted along, swinging that foreign instrument, the kantschu, to the astonishment of the youths--everyone stepped aside and looked at them with respect. All were enchanted also with their style of riding. They bent themselves down to the ground at full gallop, and lifted up the smallest objects.

At the quickest pace they whirled their pikes round their heads, and hit with certainty any object at which they aimed. Astonishment soon changed to a feeling of intimacy; they quickly won the heart of the people. They were particularly friendly to the young, raised the children on their horses, and rode with them round the market-place; they sang in families in what was supposed to be the Cossack's style.