French. After this, I was no longer astonished at
seeing you repudiate your principles, your glory, your friends, the
cause of Germany, every thing great and good that you had advocated for
years, and truckle in the most cowardly manner to the conqueror, carry
on disgraceful secret negotiations with him, and issue equivocal
declarations and confessions; but that you should betray all that ought
to be dear to you--that you should publicly renounce your principles--of
such treachery I never deemed you capable!"

"And where did I commit any such treachery?" asked Mueller,
reproachfully; "where did I secretly or publicly renounce all that had
hitherto been dear to me? Tell me, accuse me! I will justify myself!
This will show you how ardently I love you, for I will accept you as a
judge of my actions, and allow you to acquit me or to find me guilty."

"Be it so!" exclaimed Gentz. "I do not stand before you as an
individual; but as the voice of Germany--of posterity, that will judge
and condemn you if you are unable to justify yourself. Listen to the
charges, and reply to them! Why did you remain in Berlin when the court
fled; when all those who were loyal to the king and his cause left the
capital, because they refused to bow their heads to the French yoke?"

"I remained because I did not see any reason for fleeing. I am no
prominent politician; politics, on the contrary, are only a matter of
secondary importance to me. My principal sphere is science, and every
thing connected with it. Now I was better able to serve it here than
elsewhere. I had my books here, and a large number was on the way to me;
accordingly, I had to wait for them; besides I had commenced studying
the royal archives of Berlin to obtain material for my history of
Frederick II. These are the reasons why I remained, and I confess to you
that I had no cause to repent of it. No one injured me, or asked any
thing dishonorable of me; no one insisted on my doing any thing
incompatible with my duty and loyalty; on the contrary, all treated me
politely. They seemed to regard me as one of the ancients, living only
in and for posterity. Never before was the dignity of historical science
honored in a more delicate manner than by the treatment I received at
the hands of the French. Thus, amid the crash of falling thrones, I have
quietly continued at my history of Switzerland, written articles for
several reviews, and made extracts from many of the ancient classics,