with it a separate pleasure on its own account. Winter, which by its
peculiar severity had created the apparent necessity for an armistice,
brought many household pleasures in its train--associated immemorially
with that season in all northern climates. The cold, which had casually
opened a path to more distant hopes, was also for the present moment a
screen between themselves and the enemy's sword. And thus it happened
that the same season, which held out a not improbable picture of final
restoration, however remote, to public happiness, promised them a
certain foretaste of this blessing in the immediate security of their
homes.

But in the ancient city of Klosterheim it might have been imagined that
nobody participated in these feelings. A stir and agitation amongst the
citizens had been conspicuous for some days; and on the morning of the
eighth, spite of the intense cold, persons of every rank were seen
crowding from an early hour to the city walls, and returning homewards
at intervals, with anxious and dissatisfied looks. Groups of both sexes
were collected at every corner of the wider streets, keenly debating,
or angrily protesting; at one time denouncing vengeance to some great
enemy; at another, passionately lamenting some past or half-forgotten
calamity, recalled to their thoughts whilst anticipating a similar
catastrophe for the present day.

Above all, the great square, upon which the ancient castellated palace
or _schloss_ opened by one of its fronts, as well as a principal
convent of the city, was the resort of many turbulent spirits. Most of
these were young men, and amongst them many students of the university:
for the war, which had thinned or totally dispersed some of the
greatest universities in Germany, under the particular circumstances of
its situation, had greatly increased that of Klosterheim. Judging by