pieces of cloth, and
so many saddles, all in one short week, without money or secure bills
of exchange. The artisans were for the greater part poor people without
credit; how was the raw material to be obtained, how was the workman to
be paid, how were the means of life to be obtained in these weeks in
which the usual chance profit was lost? This did not go on for one
week, but for a whole year. Truly the spirit of sacrifice which showed
itself in gifts, and in the offer of their own lives, was among the
highest and noblest things of this great time; but not less honourable
was the self-sacrificing, unpretending, and unobserved fulfilment of
duty of many thousands of the lower classes, who, each in his sphere in
the city or in the village, worked for the same idea of his State to
the uttermost of his own powers.

The question is still unsolved of the military importance, in a
civilised country, of a _levee en masse_. The law for the establishment
of this popular force was carried to the very last possibility of
demand. In the first edict, the 21st of April, there was an almost
fanatical strictness, which, in the subsequent laws of the 24th of
July, was much mitigated. The edict exercised a great moral effect; it
was a sharp admonition to the dilatory, that it was a question for all,
of life or death. It had an imposing effect even upon the enemy by its
Draconic paragraphs. But it was, immediately after its appearance,
severely blamed by impartial judges, because it demanded what was
impossible, and it had no great practical effect. The Prussians had
always been a warlike people, but in 1813 they had not the military
capacity which they have now. Besides the standing army, there were,
before the introduction of the universal obligation of service, only
the peaceful citizens without any practice in arms or movement of
masses, or at the utmost, the old shooting guilds which handled the
ancient shooting weapons. But now the nation had sent into the field
all who were capable of fighting; the strength of the country was
strained to the uttermost; every family had given up what they
possessed of military spirit. The older men, who remained behind, who
were also indispensable for the daily work of the field and workshop,
were not especially capacitated to do valiant service in arms. Thus it
was no wonder that this fearful law brought to light the ludicrous side
of the picture; endless goodwill together with boorishness and
n