In the year preceding the revolution there had been a bad harvest, and
frightful stories were told of famine in the weaving districts of
Silesia. Even before Virchow, in his free-spoken work on the famine-
typhus, had faithfully described the full misery of those wretched
sufferers, it had become apparent to the rulers in Berlin that something
must be done to relieve the public distress.

The king now began to realize distinctly the universal discontent, and
in order to meet it and still further demands he summoned the General
Assembly.

I remember distinctly how fine our mother thought the speech with which
he opened that precursor of the Prussian Chambers, and the address showed
him in fact to be an excellent orator.

To him, believing as he did with the most complete conviction in
royalty by the grace of God and in his calling by higher powers, any
relinquishing of his prerogative would seem like a betrayal of his divine
mission. The expression he uttered in the Assembly in the course of his
speech--"I and my people will serve the Lord"--came from the very depths
of his heart; and nothing could be more sincerely meant than the remark,
"From one weakness I know myself to be absolutely free: I do not strive
for vain public favour. My only effort is to do my duty to the best of
my knowledge and according to my conscience, and to deserve the gratitude
of my people, though it should be denied me."

The last words have a foreboding sound, and prove what is indeed evident
from many other expressions--that he had begun to experience in his own
person the truth of the remark he had made when full of hope, and hailed