The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-09 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

mind of youth at the time. The sentiments
of Perthes in Germany were shared by
Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey in Eng-
land; and the opinions of the former seem to
have undergone much the same course of
modification as did the latter.

The master of Perthes had several daughters ;
the youngest, Frederika, loved to amuse herself
with the apprentices. Perthes conceived a
violent passion for her. His attached friend
and fellow-apprentice, Nessig, was ensnared
by the same little beauty, who seems to have
been something of a coquette. Perthes re-
solved to conquer his passion ; but she had
wound her chains round him too tightly to be
soon broken :

In 1702, while this straggle was going on, Perthes one
day found himself placed opposite to Frederik', at a dinner
given by Biihme in honour of some strangers who were
visiting Leipsic. She paid him the most marked attention,
and drew him in to every conversation ; he was animated,
and took wine, and when after dinner she happened to
draw near, and reach over his chair to take something
from the table, approaching him so closely that he felt her
heart beat through her blue silk dress, he could command
himself no longer, but rushing out into the dark night,
wandered for hours through the fields like a maniac. " I
felt as if annihilated," he wrote a few years later ; " in that
hour the sanctuary of my thoughts lost its purity; I deter-
mined to take vengeance on myself—l resolved never again
to look into the maiden's eyes—l could not resist, however
—I looked, but found there nothing but a deathlike cold-
ness. She was no longer the same ; she was cold as ice,
and hard as iron. Then began a desperate struggle with
myself, in whizh I called all my energies, all my strength of
will to my aid, and succeeded—not indeed in annihilating,
but in overcoming the passion for a time."

In the end, Perthes resolved that he would
endeavour to win her for his friend Nessig,
and to this resolve he adhered for some years ;
but when he had succeeded in establishing
himself in business, and when Nessig also was
in a position to offer her a home, they laid
their claims at her feet, inviting her to choose
between them :
Each made an offer of his hand ; the choice was to rest
with her, and the rejected was to withdraw in peace, and,
in all fidelity, to live and labour for the beloved pair.—
" Frederika," wrote Perthes, " listened without changing
colour, remained silent for a short time, and then, with
deep earnestness, replied, I love Perthes, I love Nessig;
bu: my hand I can give to neither.' And now," proceeds
Perthes, " I feel sad and perplexed ; for is it not I who
have called forth this decision of Nessig's destiny ? "

Perthes was at this time four and twenty. He
thought himself doomed, as thousands of
youths have thought before and since, to per-
petual sorrow and desolation. A better destiny
was in store for him.

Even before his apprenticeship had expired
he had attracted so much favorable notice,
that Hoffman, a Hamburg bookseller, wished
to engage him as an assistant, and persuaded
his master to set him free before his time.
Bohme consented, gave an entertainment in
his honour, and then presented him with the
symbols of freedom, a sword and a slap on the
cheek. Pertbes went to Hamburg, remained
with Hoffmann four years, and then, obtain-
ing a loan of a few nundred pounds, estab-
lished himself in business at Hamburg. He
had formed the acquaintance of some distin-
guished Germans, and had gained their
esteem by his quick sensibility and noble
aspirations. Friedrich Jacobi and Specter
were among his early friends, and as his busi-
ness extended he became known to all the
distinguished writers who at the close of the
last century raised German literature in every
branch to the highest excellence. ani pro-
foundly impressed the mind of all Europe.
On a visit to Holstein, he became acquainted
with Matthias Claudius, the excellent and
patriotic editor of a periodical celebrated in
its day, the Wandsbeck Messenger. The eldest
daughter of Claudius was two years younger
than Perthes when he first met her :

Although there was nothing remarkable or dazzling in
her general aprearance, notwithstanding her fine regular
features, her slender figure, and her delicate complexion,
yet the treasures of fancy and feeling, the strength and
repose of character, and the clearness of intellect which
shone in her deep hazel eyes, gave her a quiet but irre-
sistible charm. Throughout her whole life she inspired
unbounded confidence in all Who app.'ached her. To her
the glad brought their joys, secure of finding joyous sym-
pathy, and to many of the afflicted, both in body and in
mind, she ministered consolation, taught resignation, and
inspired them with fresh courage. Accustomed to the
simple life of her parental home, contact with the bustle of
the outward world appeared to her as fraught with danger
to her childlike simple walk with God. Household duties,
study, and music, occupied her time. When more ad-
Yawed in life she retained a rich clear voice, and a fine

759

musical taste. She was acquainted with the modern lan-
guages, and had gone far enough in Latin to enable her
subsequently to assist her sons.

The result may be imagined. The union
was in every respect a happy one. It is with
marriage that the romance of fiction usually
ends. It was with his marriage that the romance
of Perthes' life began.
For some years his business was fairly pro-
sperous, though disturbed by the political
troubles of the time. His family increased
around him, but in the father he never lost
sight of the citizen. The aggression of France
inspired him with indignation and alarm. He
had " grown up with a true Kaiser-loving
heart." In 1804 he wrote to Jacobi, " Our
" hearts must and should be filled with shame,
" burning shame, at the dismemberment of
" our fatherland." This sentiment increased,
when Hamburg, having long been suffered to
remain independent, was at last, in 3810, de-
clared to be incorporated with the French
empire. Some months previously Perthes had
commenced a periodical, the National Museum,
intended to support national sentiment, and
to embody the patriotic thought and intellec-
tual energy of Germany. It could no longer
be continued. Perthes was in despair at the
darkness of his country's fortunes, and more
especially when he saw some of the most
eminent of his compatriots inclined to accept
Napoleon as the man destined by Providence
for universal rule. The intellectual mind,
always too prone to acknowledge and worship
successful force, sunk down in Germany before
the French emperor's wonderful successes.
Johannes Muller was one of those who, after
Austerlitz and Jena, thought that further re-
sistance to Napoleon would be rebellion
against Providence. "It is God," he said,
" who sets up Governments ; who then is at
" liberty to set himself against them ?" This
doctrine was not accepted by Perthes. He
was impressed with a profound conviction that
the system of Napoleon could not last, and he
looked to the awakening of German nationality
as the means of its overthrow. He hoped
most from Prussia, as Prussia was the real
representative of the Teutonic race.

With French domination, the trade of Ham-
burg was almost annihilated :

Owing to the general insolvency which followed the
issue of the French regulations, Perthes's personal losses
involved all that teu years of toil and anxiety had realised.
In Mecklenburg alone he reckoned his losses at 20,000
marks.
• * • • • • •

Trade and shipping were annihilated; of the 422 sugar-
boiling houses, but few now stood : the printing of cottons
had entirely ceased ; the tobacco-dressers were driven
away by the Government. The imposition of innumerable
taxes, door and window tax, capitation, and land tax, tte.,
along with the vexations that attended their collection,
drove the inhabitants to despair. Charitable institutions,
such as the orphan-house, the hospital, and the alms-
houses, were deprived of their revenues, and their very
existence was threatened—landed property was depreciated
in value, and the interest of the public debt could not be
paid. The once proud and flourishing city now presented
the appearance of complete decay.
Harder trials were at hand. The destruction
of Napoleon's grand army in Russia inspired
hope of deliverance throughout Germany, and
nowhere more warmly than in Hamburg. The
Ft ench garrison was feeble; the burghers
were numerous and determined. Perthes was
one of the most active in organising resist-
ance, but he experienced even more than the
ordinary vexation of the leaders who at such
times attempt to guide the convulsion and
control the effervescence of popular move-
ments. Individual jealousy and hatreds, and
irreconcileable differences of political opinion,
prevented concerted action. The sage coun-
sels of Perthes were disregarded ; the burghers
from want of military experience were power-
less against regular troops, and they were
compelled to look for their deliverance from
without. It is curious to mark the enthu-
siasm with which the advance of Russian
troops was then hailed. On the 23rd of
February, 1813, the wife of Perthes wrote to
her father :

Yesterday morning there were Cossacks at Perleberg.
seventpsix miles from this,—ah! that I had a thousand
voices to sing " Benedictus qui venit " The city is all
alive, and assuredly some great step is about to be taken.
On the 12th March following, the French
evacuated the city, and the Russians entered
it :

760

" My dear papa," wrote Caroline a few hours before
their arrival, " how can I give you any idea of the univer-
sal joy of old and young, rich and poor, bad and good ?
To have seen, and heard, and felt it, is indeed a thing to
be thankful for. I will not inquire into the causes of the
joy, bnt its expression was unspeakably grand, and it
appears to spring from a good and pure source. An ad-
vanced guard of thirteen Cossacks entered the city yester-
day evening, with long flowing mantles, and adorned with
the spoils of the French—at any rate adorned with parts
of the French military dress. Every throat was strained
to welcome them, and every heart thanked God in heaven,
and the Russians on earth. Never, dear papa, have I seen
such a union of hearts, the feelings of thousands all cen-
tred in one point. Ah ! could we but so centre ourselves
in the best point of all, what a glorious Church we should
form ! The Cossacks advanced at a gallop, their lances
lowered, and waving their caps, and looking wonderfully
honest and friendly. The people crowded round them,
bringing brandy, cakes, and bread. People who were yes-
terday quite desponding, are to-day full of hope and cou-
rage. if the depths of the soul were more frequently
stirred, it could not bat be attended with good results."
But the Russian force was too small to hold
the city, when Davoust, at the head of 6,000
men, advanced to recapture it. Perthes then
threw himself heart and soul into the defence
of the city. The Burgher Guard was formed,
and he held an influential post in it. He ex
posed himself to danger wherever it was to be
confronted ; for twenty-one nights he never
rested in bed. While exposed to the fire of
the enemy, Caroline, surrounded by her child-
ren, trembled for his fate. In the distinct
and graphic picture presented to us of this
household, we see the hopes and terrors which
agitated thousands of German homes in the
great struggle. The burghers could not with-
stand their enemy when left unassisted to
fight itheir battle. When the success of the
French became certain—
To escape a prison and a rebel's death by the hangman's
hand, Perthes himself drove on through Rahlstadt under
cover of the night.

A fugitive and a rebel, with heavy liabilities
to meet, and a wife and seven children to
comfort and support, Pcrthes had need of all
his courage to face his difficulties. His first
care was for his creditors he could only
meet their claims by assigning to them his
debts :

He works from morning to night (wrote Caroline) with
the exception of an hour after dinner, which we devote to
thinking over our position, or rather to sleep; for we rise
at four o'clock, and require some repose during the day.
Perthea is perfectly clear and calm, and, I may say, in
some respects more cheerful than formerly, and so am I,
while he is with me.
Meanwhile, all his stock at Hamburg had
been confiscated by Davoust. The city was
doomed to suffer terribly :

What Davoust did may perhaps find its excuse in his
position as a beleaguered general, but the manner in which
he did it could only have been devised by the rage of a dis-
appointed villain. He began his cruelties with the robbery
of the Bank, and the moat cruel treatment of the burghers.
On the week following the Christmas festival, the suburbs.
all the surrounding villages, and the fine country houses
on the Alster, were set on fire after only eighteen hours'
notice, and 20,000 people were driven out of the city desti-
tute and homeless ; first the young and strong as dangerous,
and then the old and weak as superfluous. The children
were next brought out of the orphan•house, the infirm poor
from the almshouses, the criminals from the prisons, and
all were driven outside the gates, and there left to their
fate. At mid-day, on the 30th December, Davoust gave
orders that the hospital, in which were 800 sick and idiots,
should be vacated and set on fire, and by the same hour on
the following day it was in flames, but not till, through the
incredible exertions of the burghers, the helpless inmates
had all been removed, while bands of drunken soldiers were
struggling with the sick for their clothes and their bedding,
and scenes of reckless plundering were being enacted on
every side. The troops at the same time set fire to the ad-
joining houses, and gave themselves up to deeds of un-
mitigated atrocity. The intense excitement, and the
bitter cold of a Rummy night, cost 600 of the sick their
lives.

The Russians at length advanced in force ; the
French withdrew, and on 31st May, 1814,
Perthes with his family returned to his
home:—

Even to render the house habitable was a difficult
undertaking. The pleasant and beautiful apartments on
the ground-floor had for many months been used by
French soldiers as guardrooms, In the middle of the
largest room was a huge stove; trunks of trees had been
dragged in through the windows to feed it. All the wood-
work that could be pulled down had been burnt; the
smoke had found an outlet through the windows. The
upper part of the house had been inhabited by General
Loison, but even there the soldiers had conducted them-
selves so riotously that the whole house was little better
than a heap of filth. All the furniture had been taken
away ; some of it, by kind friends who had concealed it
where they could, and the rest by the French prefect.
There was not a single habitable room—dirt and rubbish,
a foot high, covered the floors. Chairs and tables, beds
and bedding, and the whole apparatus of the kitchen, had