THE "TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE":

[Footnote 1: Lichtenstein.]

INTRODUCTION

"His varied life is toss'd on Faction's wave,
A leader now, and now a party's slave;
And shall his character a waverer's seem?
If that's a fault, impute it not to him;
He play'd a stake, and fortune threw the die;
So look upon him with a brother's eye.
We would for him an interest create,
His own his virtues, and his faults his fate."
SCHILLER.

The events which are recorded in the following pages, took place in
that part of Southern Germany situated between the mountainous district
of the Alb and the Black Forest. That portion of territory is bounded
by the former on the north-west, by a long chain of hills of unequal
height and breadth, extending southward, whilst the forest, commencing
from the sources of the Danube, stretches uninterruptedly to the banks
of the Rhine. Being composed of woods of black pine, it forms a dark
background to the beautiful picture produced by a luxuriant country,
rich in vineyards and watered by the Neckar, which flows through it.

This country, which is the "Wuertemberg" treated of in these volumes,
was originally of small compass. Its previous history, which is
enveloped in darkness, tells us that it rose through various
conflicting struggles to its present position among the neighbouring
states. When we reflect on the time when it was surrounded by such
powerful frontier neighbours as the Stauffens, the Dukes of Teck and
the Counts of Zollern, we are astonished that its name should still
exist as a nation; for the repeated storms of internal as well as
external violence often threatened to erase it from the annals of
history. There was a time, indeed, when the head of the reigning family
was, to all appearance, driven for ever from the halls of his
ancestors. Duke Ulerich von Wuertemberg being obliged to fly his country
and seek shelter in painful exile from the fury of his enemies, left
his castles in the possession of foreign masters, his lands being
occupied by their mercenaries. Little more was wanting to complete the
extinction of the name of Wuertemberg, than the parcelling out of the
spoil of its blooming fields among the many, or the whole becoming a
province of the house of Austria.

Among the many events related by the Swabians of their country and
their ancestor