songs, and right at hand the homes and haunts of the inspired singers whom I especially reverenced.  I was most fortunate in my companionship, the bearing of the youth was marked by no flippancy, he venerated as I did the lofty spirits into whose retreats we had penetrated.  He was familiar with their masterpieces and we felt for them a like appreciation.  His soldierly garb accorded perhaps ill with the peaceful suggestions of the hour and place, but in his mind plainly the sentiment lay deep, a warm recognition of what gave his country its best title to greatness.  We took thought too of Wieland and looked in silence at the fine statue of Herder standing before the church in which he long ministered; but the supreme personages for us were Goethe and Schiller.  What became of my sympathetic young soldier I have never known.  If he escaped from Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte and Sedan I am sure that he must have matured into a high-souled man.

I had an opportunity, during a visit to Strassburg in the spring, to see the soldiery of France.  At the time the prestige of the Second Empire was at its height, Magenta and Solferino were considerable battles and the French had won them.  Turcos and Zouaves had long passed in the world as soldiers of the best type and in our Civil War we had copied zealously their fantastic apparel and drill.  When the Franco-Prussian War broke out the world felt that Germany had the hardest of nuts to crack and in many a mind the forecast was that France would be the victor, but even to my limited judgment the shortcomings of the French troops were plain.  They were inferior in physique, lacking in trimness and even in cleanliness, and imperfectly disciplined.  I wondered if the rather slovenly ill-trained battalions of small pale men could stand up against the prompt rigid alignment of the broad-shouldered six-footers I had seen manoeuvring on the other side of the Rhine.

I had received word in the spring from my bankers in Paris that my letter of credit was not in regular shape and they advised me to draw at Berlin a sum of money sufficient for present needs and transmit the letter to them, promising to adjust the matter in such a way that both they and I would be relieved of some inconvenience.  In June I drew a small sum and sent my letter to Paris in accordance with their instructions, the agreement being that I was to call a month or so later on the correspondents at Munich of the Paris bankers and receive from them the corrected letter.  I then travelled as far as Vienna where all unforeseen the news startled me of the outbreak of the war.  I hurried to Munich, my little store of money being by that time much depleted.  At the banking house I learned to my consternation that they had heard nothing of me or my letter of credit.  Still worse, there was no prospect of hearing, communication with Paris was completely broken off.  The rumour was that McMahon had crossed the Rhine at Strassburg with one hundred and fifty thousand