[Footnote A: The friend and brother-in-law of William III.]
The further development in Prussia of political freedom unfortunately did not keep pace with these social changes; and so--to say no more--it happened that the consequences of all half measures soon resulted. Even before the struggles of 1848, down to which period the story of our novel reaches, the classes of the more polished nobility and citizens, instead of fusing into one band of _gentry_, and thus forming the basis of a landed aristocracy, had assumed an unfriendly attitude, in consequence of a stagnation in the growth of a national lower nobility as the head of the wealthy and cultivated _bourgeoisie_, resulting from an unhappy reaction which then took place in Prussia. The feudal proprietor was meanwhile becoming continually poorer, because he lived beyond his income. Falling into embarrassments of every sort, he has recourse for aid to the provincial banks. His habits of life, however, often prevent him from employing these loans on the improvement of his property, and he seldom makes farming the steady occupation and business of his life. But he allows himself readily to become involved in the establishment of factories--whether for the manufacture of brandy or for the production of beet-root sugar--which promise a larger and speedier return, besides the enhancement of the value of the land. But, in order to succeed in such undertakings, he wants the requisite capital and experience. He manifests even less prudence in the conduct of these speculations than in the cultivation of his ancestral acres, and the inevitable result ensues that an ever-increasing debt at length necessitates the sale of his estate. Such estates are ever more and more frequently becoming the property of the merchant or manufacturer from the town, or perhaps of the neighboring proprietor of the same inferior rank, who has lately settled in the country, and become entitled to the exercise of equal rights with the hereditary owner. There is no essential difference in social culture between the two classes, but there is a mighty difference between the habits of their lives. The mercantile class of citizens is in Germany more refined than in any other country, and has more political ambition than the corresponding class in England has yet exhibited. The families of public functionaries constitute the other half of the cultivated citizen class; and as the former have the superiority in point of wealth, so these bear the palm in respect of intellectual culture and administrative talent. Almost all authors, since the days of Luther, have belonged to this class. In school and college learning, in information, and in the conduct of public affairs, the citizen is thus, for the most part, as far superior to the nobleman as in fashionable manners the latter is to him. The whole nation, however, enjoys alike the advantage of military education, and every man may become an officer who passes the necessary examination. Thus, in the manufacturing towns, the citizens occupy the highest place, and the nobility in the garrison towns and those of royal residence. This fact, however, must not be lost sight of--that Berlin, the most populous city of Germany, has also gradually become the chief and the richest commercial one, while the great fortress of Magdeburg has also been becoming the seat of a wealthy and cultivated mercantile community.