Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 135.pdf/174

 taken up the study of recent German history at a moment when it is fast changing its aspect. The period to which Stein, Hardenberg, and Scharnhorst belong is now in the act of passing out of twilight into day, and this, it will be remembered, means far more when it is said of a country such as Prussia then was — a country without a Parliament, where government is a secret — than when it is said of our own country. These memoirs are only the most important of several publications of the kind which have lately appeared. Duncker, the late archivarius of Berlin, gave us not long since a paper full of new information on the state of Prussia during the French occupation; Treitschke published a full account of the Constitution dispute which occupied the politicians of Prussia in the early years of the peace, and of which former historians, such as Gervinus, had been able to learn little. More curious and amusing, though less satisfactory, than these publications, have been the selections from the papers of Schön, which have appeared in successive volumes to the number of four during the last two years. Schön was a politician who stood to Stein in the same relation as Shelburne to our own Chatham, but he outlived both Stein and Hardenberg by many years, and was in his old age a patriarch of Prussian liberalism, of whom men said that he was the real author of most of the great legislative acts upon which Stein's fame rested; and indeed for saying so they had the warrant of one who certainly must know, viz., of Schön himself. Diaries, fragments of autobiography, biographical and historical letters from his hand are now before us, and seldom has there been such an exhibition of self-conceit, envy, and reckless malice as they afford. Fortunately most of Schön's calumnies refute themselves by their inconsistency and unskilfulness. But the examination of them has given the Prussian literary world much to do lately. And when the student has digested all this mass of new material he becomes aware, on looking again at what used to be the best histories of the period, eg. Häusser, that they have become insufficient, and that they paint a landscape in twilight upon which the day has now risen.

But if this period is all-important in the history of modern Germany, is it also interesting in itself? What! the battle of Jena — the downfall in a single week of the monarchy of the great Frederick — and then its resurrection seven years afterwards — the War of Liberation — the fall of Napoleon — can a period which offers occurrences like these be other than interesting? And of course all admit the interest of it, but then most come to it with a curious preoccupation, as if all these occurrences belonged to French and not to German history, or at least as if it were only the French aspect of them that was interesting. It is with this chapter of history as with "Paradise Lost"; the character of Satan stands out so strikingly that it kills all the rest of the piece. Just as in the poem we forget to think of what the poet undertook to unfold to us — the destiny of mankind and the grand redemptive schemes of Providence — because all this is dim and remote, and think only of Satan because he is passionate, intense, and dramatic; so does Napoleon, the great deceiver and destroyer, absorb the interest that ought to be given to the progressive movement of Europe in his age. But what is excusable when we are dealing with a poem is less so when we are studying history. Poetically, perhaps, evil is more interesting than good, but it is not so important historically. The work of Napoleon looks smaller and smaller as time goes on, but the work which was done in Germany at the same time looks greater and greater. At the time Napoleon's lawless violence was taken for creative genius; but now we see how small a part of his creation stands the test of time, but that all attempts to revive it only prove its worthlessness more decisively; and how even after being restored it falls again. We can now only praise him negatively, as one who swept away what was bad, and even if we try to represent him as a great impulsive force which roused mankind out of lethargy, we discover that he only produced this effect because he failed, and that had his empire endured, with its centralization and brutal military repression, it would have produced a far more fatal lethargy than any that it disturbed. We see that his place is not among the gods, but among the Titans of history, not with the Cæsars and Charlemagnes, who founded the enduring fabric of civilization, but with Louis XIV., Philip II., and others, who have merely established ephemeral and mischievous ascendencies. Meanwhile the work of those who resisted Napoleon — even if no one of them should ever be placed in the highest class of the benefactors of mankind — has in some cases proved enduring, and nowhere so much as in Germany. They began two great works — the reorganization of 