they lost.  They were the basis on which the State was built up; they no longer wasted their military prowess in purposeless feuds or in mercenary service; in the Prussian army and administration they found full scope for their ambition, and when the victories of Frederick the Great had raised Prussia to the rank of a European Power, the nobles of Brandenburg were the most loyal of his subjects.  They formed an exclusive caste; they seldom left their homes; they were little known in the south of Germany or in foreign countries; they seldom married outside their own ranks.  Their chief amusement was the chase, and their chief occupation was war.  And no king has ever had under his orders so fine a race of soldiers; they commanded the armies of Frederick and won his battles.  Dearly did they pay for the greatness of Prussia; of one family alone, the Kleists, sixty-four fell on the field of battle during the Seven Years’ War.

They might well consider that the State which they had helped to make, and which they had saved by their blood, belonged to them.  But if they had become Prussians, they did not cease to be Brandenburgers; their loyalty to their king never swerved, for they knew that he belonged to them as he did to no other of his subjects.  He might go to distant Koenigsberg to assume the crown, but his home was amongst them; other provinces might be gained or lost with the chances of war, but while a single Hohenzollern lived he could not desert his subjects of the Mark.  They had the intense local patriotism so characteristic of the German nation, which is the surest foundation for political greatness; but while in other parts the Particularists, as the Germans called them, aimed only at independence, the Brandenburger who had become a Prussian desired domination.

Among them the Bismarcks lived.  The family again divided into two branches:  one, which became extinct about 1780, dwelling at Crevisse, gave several high officials to the Prussian Civil Service; the other branch, which continued at Schoenhausen, generally chose a military career.  August’s son, who had the same name as his father, rebuilt the house, which had been entirely destroyed by the Swedes during the Thirty Years’ War; he held the position of Landrath, that is, he was the head of the administration of the district in which he lived.  He married a Fraeulein von Katte, of a well-known family whose estates adjoined those of the Bismarcks.  Frau von Bismarck was the aunt of the unfortunate young man who was put to death for helping Frederick the Great in his attempt to escape.  His tomb is still to be seen at Wust, which lies across the river a few miles from Schoenhausen; and at the new house, which arose at Schoenhausen and still stands, the arms of the Kattes are joined to the Bismarck trefoil.  The successor to the estates, August Friedrich, was a thorough soldier; he married a Fraeulein von Diebwitz and acquired fresh estates in Pomerania, where he generally lived.