At the Ober-Pollinger I heard in the inn, amid the stormy discussion of the crisis, something quite out of harmony with the spirit of the hour.  The first performance was to be given in the Royal Opera House of a work of Richard Wagner, the Rheingold.  Wagner in those days had not attained his great fame, and, to a man like me, who had no especial interest in music, was a name almost unknown, but I went with the crowd, thinking to help out a dreary evening rather than to enjoy a masterpiece.  The house was crowded.  In the centre before the stage an ample space was occupied by the royal box, richly carved and draped.  Presently the King entered, a slender, graceful figure in a dress suit, his dark rather melancholy face looking handsome in the gorgeous setting of the theatre.  The crowded audience rose to their feet in a tumult of enthusiasm.  The air resounded with “Hoch!  Hoch!” the German cheer, and handkerchiefs waved like a snow-storm.  The King bowed right and left in acknowledgment of the plaudits, and the performance of the evening was kept long in waiting.  The line of Bavarian kings has perhaps little title to our respect.  The Ludwig of fifty years ago was a voluptuary, vacillating, like another Louis Quinze, between debauchery and a weak pietism.  He probably merited the cuts of the relentless scourge of Heine than which no instrument of chastisement was ever more unsparing, and which in his case was put to its most merciless use; but he loved art and lavished his revenues upon pictures, statues, and churches, which the world admires, imparting a benefit, though his subjects groaned.  His successor, whom I saw, was a man morbid and without force, who early came to a sorrowful end.  His redeeming quality was a fine aesthetic taste, which he had no doubt through heredity, together with a sad burden of disease.  The world remembers kindly that he was a prodigal patron of art.

I went to Heidelberg in February, 1870, bent upon a quiet year of study in Germany and France.  Fate had a different programme for me.  My plans were badly interfered with but to see Europe in such a turmoil was an experience well worth having.  Heidelberg that spring was very peaceful.  The ice in the Neckar on which skaters were disporting on my arrival passed out in due course of time to the Rhine, the foliage broke forth in glory on the noble hills and the nightingales came back to sing in the ivy about the storied ruins.  There was no suggestion in the air of cannon thunder.  At Berlin, however, as I have described, I found things wearing a warlike air.  I was eager to perfect my German and sought chances to talk with all whom I met, and often had pleasant converse with the young soldiers who when off duty numerously flocked to the gardens and street corners.  I recall in particular three young soldiers whose subsequent fate I should like to know.  The first was a handsome young grenadier who had talked with me affably as we stood together screened by the bush in the garden of the