he nobles of
Esthonia and Lithuania were reading Sir Walter Scott at the time.

The burghers of Dantzig ("They must be made to pay, these rich
Dantzigers," wrote Napoleon to Rapp) trembled for their wealth, and
stood aghast by their empty counting-houses; for their gods had been
cast down; commerce was at a standstill. There were many, therefore,
who hated the French, and cherished a secret love of those bluff British
captains--so like themselves in build, and thought, and slowness of
speech--who would thrash their wooden brigs through the shallow seas,
despite decrees and threats and sloops-of-war, so long as they could lay
them alongside the granaries of the Vistula. Lately the very tolls had
been collected by a French customs service, and the wholesale smuggling,
to which even Governor Rapp--that long-headed Alsatian--had closed his
eyes, was at an end.

Again, the Poles who looked on Dantzig as the seaport of that great
kingdom of Eastern Europe which was and is no more, had been assured
that France would set up again the throne of the Jagellons and the
Sobieskis. There was a Poniatowski high in the Emperor's service and
esteem. The Poles were for France.

The Jew, hurrying along close by the wall--always in the shadow--traded
with all and trusted none. Who could tell what thoughts were hidden
beneath the ragged fur cap--what revenge awaited its consummation in the
heart crushed by oppression and contempt?

Besides these civilians there were many who had a military air within
their civil garb. For the pendulum of war had swung right across from
Cadiz to Dantzig, and swept northwards in its wake the merchants of
death, the men who live by feeding soldiers and rifling the dead.

All these were in the streets, rubbing shoulders with the gay epaulettes
of the Saxons, the Badeners, the Wurtembergers, the Westphalians, and
the Hessians, who had been poured into Dantzig by Napoleon during the
months when he had continued to exchange courteous and affectionate
letters with Alexander of Russia. For more than a year the broad-faced
Bavarians (who have borne the brunt of every war in Central Europe) had
been peaceably quartered in the town. Half a dozen different tongues
were daily heard in this city of the plain, and no man knew who might
be his friend and who his enemy. For some who were allies to-day were
commanded by their kings to slay each other to-morrow.

In the wine-cellars and the humbler beer-shops, in the gre