ed at Geneva in October, 1803,
Kleist fell into the deepest despondency, and wrote Ulrica a letter
full of hopeless renunciation. Half crazed by disappointment and
wounded pride, he rushed madly through France to Paris, broke with his
friend, who had again repelled a joint suicide, burned his manuscript
of _Guiscard_, and made secretly for Boulogne, hoping to find an
honorable death in Napoleon's projected invasion of England.
Fortunately he fell in with an acquaintance who saved him from the
risk of being arrested as a spy, and started him back on his homeward
way. He was detained at Mentz by serious illness, but finally, in
June, 1804, reappeared in Potsdam. The poet's spirit was broken, and
he was glad to accept a petty civil post that took him to Koenigsberg.
After a year of quiet work, he was enabled, by a small pension from
Queen Louise, to resign his office and again devote himself to
literature.

The two years spent in Koenigsberg were years of remarkable development
in Kleist's literary power. Warned by the catastrophe of the earlier
attempt to reach the heights at a single bound, he now schooled
himself with simpler tasks: adaptations, from the French, of La
Fontaine's poem, _The two Pigeons_, and of Moliere's comedy,
_Amphitryon_--both so altered in the interpretation that they seem
more like originals than translations; prose tales that are admirable
examples of this form--_The Marquise of O._, _The Earthquake in
Chili_, and the first part of the masterly short story _Michael
Kohlhaas_; and the recasting of the unique comedy _The Broken Jug_.
Finally he attempted another great drama in verse, _Penthesilea_,
embodying in the old classical story the tragedy of his own desperate
struggle for _Guiscard_, and his crushing defeat.

Meanwhile the clouds were gathering about his beloved country, and in
October, 1806, the thunderbolt fell in the rout of the Prussian army
at Jena. Napoleon's victorious troops pressed on to Berlin and the
Prussian court retreated with the tide of fugitives to Koenigsberg.
Kleist was overwhelmed by the misery of this cataclysm, which,
however, he had clearly foreseen and foretold. With a group of
friends he started on foot for Dresden, but was arrested as a spy at
the gates of Berlin and held for months as a prisoner in French
fortresses, before the energetic efforts of Ulrica and others procured
his release.

Late in July, 1807, he finally arrived in Dresden, where he remained
unt