the new school. The anxious captain, knowing that divinity was not to
be on the program at Castle Solitude, sought to evade his sovereign's
kindness by pleading that Fritz had set his heart upon the service of
the church. The reply was that something else, law for example, would
no doubt do as well. Resistance to the earthly Providence was not to be
thought of by a man in Captain Schiller's position; and so the step was
taken which deprived some Suabian flock of a shepherd and gave the
world instead a great poet.

It was on the 17th of January, 1773, that schoolboy Schiller, with
disappointment in his heart, said farewell to his tearful mother and
took his cold way up the long avenue which led from Ludwigsburg to
Castle Solitude. According to the official record he arrived there with
a chillblain, an eruption of the scalp, fourteen Latin books, and
forty-three kreutzers in money. Soon afterwards his father signed a
document whereby he renounced all control of the boy and left him in the
hands of his prince.

The school at Solitude had now come to be known as the Military
Academy, and well it deserved its name. The duke himself was the
supreme authority in large matters and in small. The nominal head,
called the intendant, was a high military officer who had a sufficient
detail of majors, captains and lower officers to assist him in
maintaining discipline. Under the eye of these military potentates the
_eleves_, as they were called,--for the official language of the school
was French,--lived and moved in accordance with a rigid routine. They
rose at six and marched to the breakfast-room, where an overseer gave
them their orders to pray, to eat, to pray again, and then to march
back. Then there were lessons until one o'clock, when they prepared for
the solemn function of dinner. Dressed in the prescribed uniform,--a