tween Prussia and Russia must be decided on the same ground. Yorck himself was by this time at Königsberg, and the advancing Russian troops were in possession of Memel. But the King was now at Berlin, and had received only vague information about the extent of the French disaster long after the inhabitants of the Province had derived the most certain and vivid knowledge of it from the crowds of frozen fugitives, haunted at every moment by the dread of imaginary Cossacks, who tottered into their towns. Orders came from Berlin, they remarked, which referred to a retreating army, whereas no such army, properly speaking, existed. Again, while hatred of the French and enthusiasm for the Russians were universal in the Province, so that it was almost impossible to restrain the people from giving emphatic expression to both, and while the Russian generals were making their appeals to these feelings and calling the people to arms against Napoleon, the distant King was still Napoleon's ally, still at war with Russia, and Macdonald had actually marched into Tilsit after defeating the Russians by the help of Prussian soldiers, as late as December 26th. It was evident that the most serious complications might arise if this ambiguous relation between the two States should be allowed to continue much longer.

After his long solitary drive through the Lithuanian forests Stein must have felt himself on his arrival at Kutusoff's head-quarters plunged rather suddenly into the most burning questions of the day. Kutusoff had just received from Yorck an energetic protest against the proceedings of the Russians at Memel. Paulucci had taken possession of that town at the beginning of the month in the name of the Emperor of all the Russias. He had created a Commandant, Colonel Ekesparre, and an Intendant, Foelkersahm, and these officers had laid their hands upon the public moneys, levied rates for the Russian government, laid an embargo on the Prussian ships in the harbour, and forbidden the officials of the town to hold any communication with the local Prussian Government at Gumbinnen, the centre of

205 the District. Besides Yorck, the President of the District, who was no other than Schön, had also interfered by sending an official to Ekesparre with a protest against these proceedings, and Stein now received a letter from Schön, acquainting him with the disagreeable affair at Memel and demanding that he would obtain satisfaction from the Czar for the insult done to the King's Government. So at least Schön tells us that he wrote, and he would have us believe that he went so far as to declare that if satisfaction were not given "he should be forced to raise the country against the Russians." It is certain at any rate that there reigned in the Province a most dangerous confusion. The King for the French, the people for the Russians, some of the officials against both; and meanwhile the Russian armies already in the Province, and some divisions advanced beyond it to the Weichsel!

In these circumstances then Stein devised and probably draughted the following remarkable document, for which he obtained the signature of the Czar:

We Alexander the First by the Grace of God Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, &c. make known by these presents that, whereas East and West Prussia are in course of occupation by our troops, and are thereby separated from the central point of their Districts since Our relations to His Majesty the King of Prussia remain still unsettled, We have considered it indispensably necessary to take provisional measures of oversight and guidance, in order to guide the Provincial Authorities and make the resources of the country available in favour of the good cause.

In consequence of this, we have commissioned and do commission by these presents the Baron Heinrich Friedrich Carl vom Stein, Knight of the Order of the Red Eagle, to resort to Königsberg and there to take cognizance of the condition of the country in order to avail himself of its resources in military force and money for the maintenance of our undertakings against the French armies. Furthermore we commission him to see that the revenues of the land occupied be faithfully administered in accordance with the above-mentioned object, that the property of the French and of their allies be sequestrated, and that the arming of the Landwehr and Landsturm be arranged in the shortest possible time according to the plans designed and approved in the year 1808 by His Majesty the King of Prussia, and that the necessary supplies of provision and means of transport for the army follow with order and expedition. For this purpose We give full power to the above-named Baron vom Stein to adopt all means which he may hold necessary for the fulfilment of this com

mission, to avail himself of the officials who may seem to him the most adapted to carry our purposes into effect, to dismiss those whom he shall hold incompetent or ill-disposed, but to set watch on, and even to cause to be arrested, such as excite suspicion. We confer upon him the right of causing his office to be represented by a man in whom he may confide. His mission will determine at the moment when we shall have effected a definitive arrangement with the King of Prussia. Then shall the administration of the Province be given back to him, and the Baron vom Stein shall return to us. Furthermore we promise by Our Imperial Word to ratify all which shall be decreed and executed in virtue of the present plenary commission. In attestation of this we have signed this our full power and caused it to be sealed with our small seal. Given at Raczki on the 6th (i. e. the 18th) of January of the year of grace one thousand eight hundred and thirteen, in the 13th year of our reign.

L. S.

(with his own hand) ALEXANDER.

Stein seems to have said nothing to Arndt about the formidable document he had in his pocket, when the two travellers met again the next day at Lyck, on Prussian ground, Arndt coming from Wilna, Stein with the Emperor through Raczki from Suvalki. In fact it is to be observed that of all the scenes which immediately follow, among the most curious, anxious, and important in the history of Prussia, Arndt though present seems to see nothing. He sees indeed the personages, and can describe how they looked, but beyond this he sees only the snow and the misery and the difficulty of getting food. He seems hardly to know what happened in Lyck, for though he remarks that the Emperor Alexander was there, he does not say that he made here his solemn entry, and was received with a gushing speech by the Superintendent Gusevius (called by Schön's friend Schulz "the reverend young-old Gusevius”), and that when the speaker said, "You come not to destroy but to bless," the Czar broke in, "No, I am the friend of your King and the people," and pressed the old man's hand. On the next day Stein, with the faithful poet by his side, set out upon his mission to Königsberg. The next night they were in Schön's house at Gumbinnen, where, to recruit, I suppose, after so many hardships, they delayed two whole days. Schön and Stein must have had at that moment pressing matters indeed to talk of, but Arndt seems

to have heard only ordinary, though animated, conversation. Schön described the flight of the French through his district, how their officers, when they had been quartered upon the richer inhabitants of the town, were afraid to use their tickets and preferred to pay high for a poor lodging in the house of a tradesman, fearing for their lives from the population they had treated so ill. Schön thought that if he had ordered the trumpets to blow and raised the cry of Kill! Kill! not a Frenchman would have ever seen again the other side of the Weichsel. "Why did not you do so then?" exclaimed Stein. "Nay, I do not think you would have done so, angry as you can be upon occasion," replied Schön. "I think I should have given orders to blow," said the other, and the two old friends laughed. This was all that the innocent warm-hearted observer could overhear. On the 21st of January, according to Arndt, the 22nd according to Pertz, Stein re-entered Königsberg, the very town from which he had ruled Prussia as a dictator little more than four years before. This time too he came with very full powers, but strangely enough they were powers from the Czar of Russia.

CHAPTER II.

THE ESTATES OF KÖNIGSBERG.

YORCK'S Convention, and Stein's appearance at Königsberg with a Russian Commission to arm the Province against Napoleon, were decisive steps taken towards re-establishing the old alliance of Prussia and Russia, and they were steps taken quite independently of the Prussian King and Government. So far they resemble each other, but when we compare them more closely we shall see, I think, that the spirit of the two acts is very different. Yorck acts as a Prussian subject of the most devoted loyalty, and if he travels beyond the letter of his military duty does so with anguish of heart,

and only because he believes that in his exceptional situation he can in no other way perform that duty in the spirit. The army of Prussia had been reduced to a very small force, and the corps which Yorck commanded was therefore of the utmost importance to the State. Yorck's Convention might be represented as saving it from the danger of perishing with the Grand Army. It is true that this military justification was not quite sufficient, for Yorck could not make out the danger from the Russians to be serious, and his superior officer Macdonald was able after Yorck's defection to lead home the much smaller force which remained to him. It was not therefore possible altogether to divest Yorck's act of a political character. But then the circumstances were wholly unprecedented; for who could reckon upon the total destruction of so vast an army commanded by the most successful of leaders? Knowing himself to be neither one of Stein's party nor a politician at all, Yorck could not help supposing that what forced itself upon his own mind as the manifest interest of the country would appear such to the Government likewise, and if this should prove the case inaction on his part at that critical moment would be equivalent to a political act, for it would hamper the King's measures in the most serious manner. Macdonald's division, including Yorck's corps, was now the most considerable force left on the military chess-board, and if it should remain decidedly anti-Russian, it might commit Prussia beyond recall to the French alliance. In these circumstances, and receiving at the last moment a message from the King which might be construed as leaving him free, Yorck took an independent decision. Even then he decided as little as he could, for he did not join the Russians, and he left it still open to the King to order him back to his post in the army of France. Thus his act was one which on the theory of military subordination itself intelligently interpreted, might be held justifiable, if not obligatory, and Yorck accompanied it with abject apologies and almost unnecessary offers to lay "his old head," which