the lands from which it started to overthrow Rome. The Eastern
question, as it is called, forces itself once more upon the attention
of Christendom, and craves an answer. Twenty years ago it was deferred
by the interference of France and England. France is now _hors de
combat_, and England has better work elsewhere. Berlin, Vienna and St.
Petersburg have the decision in their hands. It would be a waste of
time to speculate upon coming events. Even the negotiations plying to
and fro at this moment are veiled in the strictest secrecy. Possibly
no one of the trio, Bismarck, Andrassy and Gortschakoff, dares to look
beyond the hour. The question may be deferred again, but it must be
decided some day upon a lasting basis. Stripped of unessentials, it
is a question of race-supremacy. The downfall of European Turkey being
conceded as a foregone conclusion, which of the two races, the Slavic
or the Germanic, is to oversee and carry out the reconstruction of the
region of the lower Danube? Is Russia, already so immense, to place
herself at the head of Panslavism and extend her borders to the
Dardanelles? Or is Austria, backed by North Germany and aided by
the Hungarians and the Roumanians, to resume her mediæval office as
_marchia orientalis_ and complete the mission for which she was called
into being by Charlemagne? A question which even the most prophetic of
politicians would hesitate to answer. Yet, in any case, it is possible
that Vienna and Berlin may become the centres of a great Pangermanic
reflux not unlike the efflux that swept over Northern Gaul and England
in the fifth century. In view of such a possibility it behooves us to
study these two capitals more closely--to consider their origin and
growth, their influence and their civic character.

Their history exhibits in many respects a marked parallelism. Each was
founded as a frontier-city, as the outpost of aggressive civilization.
Each has shared to the full the vicissitudes of the dynasty to which