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Rh Schoenhausen had been very badly treated by the French soldiery during the invasion. Fearful stories as to the cruelty of the enemy were told among the peasantry; and there can be no doubt that young Bismarck's early impressions in regard to Frenchmen were of anything but an agreeable nature. This explains why he was not very willing to listen when, in 1871, complaints were brought him respecting the conduct of the German soldiers in France. He had reasons of his own for believing that his countrymen, when compared to the victorious French in Germany, had behaved with humanity.

At six years old young Otto was sent to school in Berlin. He did not distinguish himself there in any particular way, but he managed somehow, and without taking much trouble, to get in good time through all the classes of the gymnasium. At seventeen — a rather early age — he obtained his qualification for the university. His favorite study at school had been history.

From Berlin, Bismarck went, in 1832, to Göttingen, where he remained during three half-years, and where his memory still lives among his successors at the "Georgia-Augusta" — his college — as an expert rider, swordsman, and swimmer, and above all, a most joyous companion. In a picture of that date, he is represented as tall and slender, with enormous riding-boots called Kanonen, he has a long pipe in his hand, and by his side is an immense mastiff. His predilection for this somewhat dangerous kind of animal has remained unaltered, and he has always had, and still has, at least one dog of that species. His attendance at college while at Göttingen left everything to be desired, — in fact, he scarcely attended at all.

Bismarck concluded his academical studies in Berlin, and began in 1835, at the age of twenty, his official career as Aus-kultator at the Stadtgericht — municipal court of justice — in that town. He spent afterwards some time at Aix la-Chapelle, Potsdam, and Greifswald, and served as a soldier in the Prussian army from 1838 to 1839; but soon afterwards he left the public service altogether to take charge — conjointly with his elder brother, Bernard — of his fathers estates, which were at that time in very bad condition.

Old Herr von Bismarck died in 1845. His son Otto, who of late had been living in Pomerania, on a property called Kniephof, now took possession of Schoenhausen. He added the name of this place, where his family had lived for centuries, to his own, and thenceforward was known as Bismarck-Schoenhausen.

In 1847, at the age of thirty-two, he began his parliamentary career in the first Prussian Landtag, as one of the representatives of the nobility (Ritterschaft) of the Marches. This assembly only sat for a short time: Bismarck, however, found an opportunity to make known his political opinions, which were those of a stanch Tory.

After the Revolution — 18th March 1848 — Bismarck once more appeared in the Landtag at Berlin. He opposed with all his might, but unsuccessfully, the electoral law proposed by the Liberals, which he designated as "the Jena of the Prussian nobility;" and was one of the originators and the leading spirit of the Kreuz-Zeitung, the organ of the Conservative, or, to speak more correctly, the reactionary party in Prussia. It was then — when the Revolution was at the height of its power and seemed irresistible — that Bismarck used words which have become historical, and have often been thrown in his teeth: "All great cities ought to be swept off the face of the earth, for they are the hotbeds of Revolution."

After the dissolution — in the autumn of 1848 — of the first National Assembly, in which Bismarck had not been able to obtain a seat, he was elected, in 1849, member for West Havelland (Brandenburg). His reputation as a fierce opponent of democracy was already well established, and- he confirmed it by his attitude in the Chamber. He boldly declared that the men of '48 — the heroes of March, as they were often called — were merely rebels, and thereby raised a storm of indignation which swept through the whole Liberal press of Germany, and made Herr von Bismarck the most unpopular leader of the Conservative party. During the next two years he took a prominent part in all the political battles which were fought in Germany. "Proud of being a Prussian nobleman," as he declared on several occasions, he opposed all measures which tended to the establishment of a German empire, in which the power of Prussia would have been swamped. Even the offer of the imperial crown to Frederick-William IV. did not make Bismarck waver. He was quite willing, as he proved twenty years later, that his sovereign should become emperor of Germany, but only on condition of his power being supreme. Rather than see the king of Prussia become a vassal of the president of a 