When I became acquainted with my native city, I loved more than anything else to promenade on the great bridge over the Maine.  Its length, its firmness, and fine aspect rendered it a notable structure.  And one liked to lose oneself in the old trading town, particularly on market days, among the crowd collected about the church of St. Bartholomew.  The Roemerberg was a most delightful place for walking.

My father had prospered in his own career tolerably according to his wishes; I was to follow the same course, only more easily and much further.  He had passed his youth in the Coburg Gymnasium, which stood as one of the first among German educational institutions.  He had there laid a good foundation, and had subsequently taken his degree at Giessen.  He prized my natural endowments the more because he was himself wanting in them, for he had acquired everything simply by means of diligence and pertinacity.

During my childhood the Frankforters passed a series of prosperous years, but scarcely, on August 28, 1756, had I completed my seventh year, when that world-renowned war broke out, which was also to exert great influence upon the next seven years of my life.  Frederick II. of Prussia had fallen upon Saxony with 60,000 men.  The world immediately split into two parties, and our family was an image of the great whole.  My grandfather took the Austrian side, with some of his daughters and sons-in-law; my father leaned towards Prussia, with the other and smaller half of the family; and I also was a Prussian in my views, for the personal character of the great king worked on our hearts.

As the eldest grandson and godchild, I dined every Sunday with my grandparents, and the event was always the most delightful experience of the week.  But now I relished no morsel that I tasted, because I was compelled to listen to the most horrible slanders of my hero.  That parties existed had never entered into my conceptions.  I trace here the germ of that disregard and even disdain of the public which clung to me for a whole period of my life, and only in later days was brought within bounds by insight and cultivation.  We continued to tease each other till the occupation of Frankfort by the French, some years afterwards, brought real inconvenience to our homes.

The New Year’s Day of 1759 approached, as desirable and pleasant to us children as any preceding one, but full of import and foreboding to older persons.  To the passage of French troops the people had certainly become accustomed; but they marched through the city in greater masses on this day, and on January 2 the troops remained and bivouacked in the streets till lodgings were provided for them by regular billeting.

Siding as my father did with the Prussians, he was now to find himself besieged in his own chambers by the French.  This was, according to his way of thinking, the greatest misfortune that could happen to him.  Yet, could he have taken the matter more easily, he might have saved himself and us many sad hours, for he spoke French well, and it was the Count Thorane, the king’s lieutenant, who was quartered on us.  That officer behaved himself in a most exemplary manner, and if it had been possible to cheer my father, this altered state of things would have caused little inconvenience.