y matter for them,
especially if they were no longer young. At Berlin, Savigny and
Eichhorn were of the Landwehr committee; in the levy none was more
zealous than Fichte; his pike, and that of his son, leant against the
wall in the front hall, and it was a pleasure to see the zealous man
brandishing his sword on the drill-ground, and placing himself in a
posture of attack. They wished to make him an officer, but he declined
with these words: "Here I am, only fit to be a common man." He,
Buttmann, Ruehs, and Schleiermacher drilled in the same company; but
Buttmann, the great Greek scholar, could not quite distinguish between
right and left; he declared that was most difficult. Ruehs was in the
same condition, and it constantly happened that the two learned men, in
their evolutions, either turned their backs, or looked each other in
the face puzzled. Once, when it was a question of an encounter with the
enemy, and how a valiant man ought to conduct himself in that case,
Buttmann listened, leaning sadly on his spear, and said at last: "It is
very well for you to talk, you are of a courageous nature."[53]

If this _Landsturm_ was to be mobilised for the maintenance of the
security of the circle, or for service in the rear of the enemy, or in
the neighbourhood of fortresses still held by them, the alarm bell was
rung, and the town became in a state of stormy excitement. Anxiously
did the women pack up food and drink, bandages and lint, in the
knapsack, for according to the regulations no one was to forget the
knapsack, bread-bag, and field-flask; it was his duty to carry with him
provisions for three days; not unfrequently did the female inhabitants
feel like the wife of a cutler in Burg, who stated to the commanding
officer that her husband must remain behind, for he was the only cutler
in the place, or like the wife of a watchmaker, who had compelled her
husband to conceal himself. He was, however, traced by other women
whose husbands had gone, was taken by them to the churchyard, placed on
a grave, and punished in a maternal way with the palm of the hand.

Any one who was a child at that time, will remember the enthusiasm with
which the boys also armed. The elder ones assembled together in
companies, and armed themselves with pikes; the smaller ones, too, had
good cudgels. A poor boy who was working in a manufactory was asked why
he carried no weapon, "I have all my pockets full of stones," was his
answer; he carried the