s that they feared more than all the warlike forces of a million
of the best equipped forces of Europe--the paltry paper pellets of a
scholar's brain--the _memorial_ to the crowned heads, and people of the
several shivering monarchies of continental Europe?

A few brief hours--not two days--before the _pseudo_ Herr Beethoven was
honored by the special considerations and attentions of the Emperor of
all the French--the conqueror of a third, at least, of the civilized
world--he had conceived suspicions of a man to whom in the _most
profound confidence_ he had revealed a slight whisper of his
projects--impressed with the foreshadowing that a mysterious _something_
dangerous was about to menace him, he made way with the manuscripts, to
which his soul clung as too dear and precious to be destroyed--he gave
them to the charge of a tried friend--and before the _Cytherian Cohort_
were upon the threshold of the author, his _memorial_ was snugly
ensconced in the obscure and remote secretary of a gentleman and a man
of letters, in the renowned city of Prague. The alarm and friend's
appearance seemed most opportune--for an hour after the visitation of
the one, the other was at hand--the documents transferred and on their
way to their place of refuge.

But difficult was the stepping-stone to Napoleon's greatness--the more
the mystery of the manuscripts augmented--the more enthusiastic became
his research--the more formidable appeared the necessity of grasping
them; and the determination, at all hazards, to clutch them, before they
served their purpose!

"Bring me the manuscripts"--was the _fiat_ of the Emperor: "I care not
_how_ you obtain them--get them, _bring them here_; and mark you, let
neither money, danger nor fatigue, oppose my will. Hence--bring the
manuscripts!"

Again Leipsic was invested by the _Cytherian Cohort_ of the modern
Alexander; the rival of Hannibal, the great little commandant of the
most warlike nation of the earth. The Baron ----, who was master of
ceremonies in this great enterprise, now arrested the secret agent who
had given the information of the existence of the _memorial_. This
wretch had received five hundred crowns for his espionage and
treachery. His fee was to be quadrupled if his atrocious information
proved correct; so dear is the mere foreshadowing of ill news to
vaunting ambition and quaking imposters. Bengert, the German spy, was
sure of the genuineness of his information--he was much asto