Königsberg

“ Among other educational establishments, Königsberg numbers four classical schools (gymnasia) and three commercial schools, an academy of painting and a school of music. The hospitals and benevolent institutions are numerous. The town is less well equipped with museums and similar institutions, the most noteworthy being the Prussia museum of antiquities, which is especially rich in East Prussian finds from the Stone age to the Viking period. Besides the cathedral the town has fourteen churches.
Königsberg is a naval and military fortress of the first order. ”

“ Then came that terrible winter in which the war-fury was let loose, devastating the old Prussian provinces, and the victorious march of Napoleonic cohorts resounded between the Weichsel and the Memel. Scores of provincial fugitives sought refuge from the invaders within the walls of Königsberg. Every house, from cellar to garret, was crammed with human beings, and in the streets smouldered the bivouac-fires of the soldiers who were camping out in the open air. ”

“ The works consist of an inner wall, brought into connexion with an outlying system of works, and of twelve detached forts, of which six are on the right and six on the left bank of the Pregel. Between them lie two great forts, that of Friedrichsburg on an island in the Pregel and that of the Kaserne Kronprinz on the east of the town, both within the environing ramparts. The protected position of its harbour has made Königsberg one of the most important commercial cities of Germany. ”

“ True friends and trusty messengers have been sent by Goldacker and myself to Prussia, to concert measures there with your adherents, and to rouse them to strong, energetic action. Sebastian von Waldow, superintendent of the palace and captain of Ruppin, assembles your friends together in perfect secrecy, and I daily expect from him exact accounts as to the success of his operations. In Königsberg itself we now have a powerful and efficient friend, who co-operates with us and is like-minded with ourselves. It is the ambassador whom the Emperor has sent to condole with the Elector. ”

“ Without laying hands on the German district of Königsberg, united Poland, by absorbing all the territory at present held by Prussia, in which the majority of the inhabitants are Poles, will take from the latter 70,000 square kilometers and 5,700,000 inhabitants. ”

“ The Lutheran university of Königsberg was founded 17th August 1544 by Albert III., margrave of Brandenburg, and Königsberg. the first duke of Prussia, and his wife Dorothea, a Danish princess. In this instance, the religious character of the foundation not having been determined at the commencement, the papal and the imperial sanction were both applied for, although not accorded. ”

“ Such men as J. Schulz in Königsberg, J. G. Kiesewetter in Berlin, Jakob in Halle, Born and A. L. Heydenreich in Leipzig, K. L. Reinhold and E. Schmid in Jena, Buhle in Göttingen, Tennemann in Marburg, and Snell in Giessen, with many others, made it the basis of their philosophical teaching, while theologians like Tieftrunk, Stäudlin, and Ammon eagerly applied it to Christian doctrine and morality. Young men flocked to Königsberg as to a shrine of philosophy. The Prussian Government even undertook the expense of their support. Kant was hailed by some as a second Messiah. ”

“ These, in the regular course of patrol, had been discovered and swept up within a day or two, but since that fact had not been communicated to the Germans, the Königsberg, doubtless thinking the English sense of humour had prompted them to prepare for her a bit of a surprise in the way of a lift by a German petard, skulked off to the southward, where she was only rounded up after two hours of rending the ether with wireless calls. ”

“ Old Hertz had retired from business some ten years or more, and at this time was living in Dresden, in the "Rentier Corner," as it was, not without reason, called. He had been a merchant in Königsberg, where he was born, and had belonged, so to speak, to the merchant nobility. This home had left a lasting impression on his nature and development.
Königsberg is a commercial town which has obtained its peculiar character from the master-mind of one great man—a fortunate circumstance which sometimes happens in small towns that do not produce many celebrities ”

“ In 1639 he received the chair of poetry at the university of Königsberg, which he occupied until his death on the 15th of April 1659. In Königsberg he entered into close relations with Heinrich Albert (1604–1651) , Robert Roberthin (1600–1648) and Sibylla Schwarz (1621–1638) , and with them formed the so-called Königsberger Dictergruppe. He sang the praises of the house of the electors of Brandenburg in a collection of poems entitled Kurbrandenburgische Rose, Adler, Löwe und Scepter (1661) , and also produced many occasional poems, several of which became popular ”

“ He resolutely, though in mild form, smoothed down the flaming fires of his Clergy; commanding now this controversy and then that other controversy ("de concreto et de inconcreto," or whatever they were) to fall strictly silent; to carry themselves on by thought and meditation merely, and without words. He tamed the mutinous Aristocracy, the mutinous Burgermeisters, Town-Council of Konigsberg, whatever mutiny there was. ”

“ Königsberg (161) , the capital of E. Prussia, on the Pregel, with several manufactures and an extensive trade; has a famous university, and is the birthplace of Kant, where also he lived and died.
Korân (i. e. book to be read) , the Bible of the Mohammedans, accepted among them as "the standard of all law and all practice; thing to be gone upon in speculation and life; it is read through in the mosques daily, and some of their doctors have read it 70,000 times, and hard reading it is" ”

“ At Königsberg, in Prussia, a secret society was discovered which was partly composed of people of rank, who, under pretence of meeting for the exercise of religious duties, gave way to the most wanton license. ”

“ Every year the victory of Sedan is celebrated in Königsberg with great rejoicings. Most of the great Prussian families who have given their sons to the Prussian army have estates in East Prussia, where they are lords of the soil. Their farm-servants, though supposed to be free, are really their serfs, and are kept down with a heavy hand. The Kaiser and his nobles regard East Prussia as the very citadel of their power, and to lose it would be their ruin. ”

“ What they have done and what they have left undone has brought us near to ruin. Trust thine own judgment, thine own heart, and we will trust in thee. We are all thine, master, be strong and true to thyself.'"
But the people of Königsberg had other things to think of than tiny Louisa.
All the patriots of Germany came to and fro, among them Schleiermacher, who had refused to remain in Halle when Napoleon took the city from Frederick William. He believed that Austria and England would join in throwing off Napoleon. ”

“ The Neuer Markt in Konigsberg is a square, of which the lower side is a quay on the Pregel. The river is narrow here. Across it the country is open. The houses surrounding the quadrangle are all alike—two-storied buildings with dormer windows in the roof. ”

“ Raibl lies at the foot of the Königsberg, a lofty mountain containing very productive lead mines, and is only inhabited by miners. There is a small but very decent inn in the village; immediately in the front of it rises a lofty Alp of very singular form, its rocky and barren summit being split into five rounded peaks or cones. Whilst Sir Humphry took a luncheon, I drew a sketch of the place, and we then set out for the source of the Isonzo, which the postmaster of Wurzen, who accompanied us as a guide, assured us was at a short distance up the mountain, and that the road to it was very good. ”

“ They may also fire salvoes. Cambacères will make the proclamation.
No. 78.
June 16th.—Königsberg captured by Soult—"what was left to the King of Prussia is conquered."
To the Empress, at St. Cloud.
Friedland, June 16, 1807, 4 P.M.
My Dear,—Yesterday I despatched Moustache with the news of the battle of Friedland. Since then I have continued to pursue the enemy. Königsberg, which is a town of 80,000 souls, is in my power. I have found there many cannon, large stores, and, lastly, more than 160,000 muskets, which have come from England. ”

“ Their Majesties being desirous to honour the public Rejoicings with their presence, went into the Streets about ten o'clock in a magnificent Coach, accompanied by all their Courtiers on horseback. When they came before the Town-House they were harangu'd by the chief Burgo-Master, who presented them with a Collation in Panniers of Silver, after which they pass'd by the House of the Duke of Holstein Governour of Konigsberg. ”

“ Friedrich Wilhelm starts from Berlin, with the opening Year, on his long march; the Horse-troops first, Foot to follow at their swiftest; he himself (his Wife, his ever-true "Louisa," accompanying, as her wont was) travels, towards the end, at the rate of "sixty miles a day." He gets in still in time, finds Konigsberg unscathed. Nay it is even said, the Swedes are extensively falling sick ”

“ Of the territories by which the original Mark of Brandenburg had been augmented, two were of special importance. In 1525 East Prussia had been5 acquired. This province, which throughout this book will be called by its German name of Ost-Preussen, was richer by far than the Mark, the kernel of the Hohenzollern possessions. It had an important city, Königsberg, for its capital and a coast-line on the Baltic. It constituted the domain of the old Order of Teutonic Knights, permanent crusaders whose task had been to spread the faith and civilisation of their fatherland among the heathen Slavs. ”

“ GOTTSCHED, JOHANN CHRISTOPH (1700–1766) , German author and critic, was born on the 2nd of February 1700, at Judithenkirch near Königsberg, the son of a Lutheran clergyman. He studied philosophy and history at the university of his native town, but immediately on taking the degree of Magister in 1723, fled to Leipzig in order to evade impressment in the Prussian military service. Here he enjoyed the protection of J. B. Mencke (1674–1732) , who, under the name of “Philander von der Linde,” was a well-known poet and also president of the Deutschübende poetische Gesellschaft in Leipzig. ”

“ Of the seven market-places only that in the Altstadt retains something of its former appearance. Among the more interesting buildings are the Schloss, a long rectangle begun in 1255 and added to later, with a Gothic tower 277 ft. high and a chapel built in 1592, in which Frederick I. in 1701 and William I. in 1861 crowned themselves kings of Prussia ”

“ KÖNIGSTEIN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, situated in a deep valley on the left bank of the Elbe, at the influx of the Biela, in the centre of Saxon Switzerland, 25 m. S.E. of Dresden by the railway to Bodenbach and Testchen. It contains a Roman Catholic and a Protestant church, a monument to the composer Julius Otto, and has some small manufactures of machinery, celluloid, paper, vinegar and buttons. It is chiefly remarkable for the huge fortress, lying immediately to the north-west of the town, which crowns a sandstone rock rising abruptly from the Elbe to a height of 750 ft. ”

“ However the work of destruction was furthered in 1819 by a stroke of lightning, which shattered the roof of the tower, and placed the castle much in the condition in which it is now to be seen. It is never likely to be used again as a fortress in these days of long-range artillery, commanded as it is on every side by hills. After all its vicissitudes of fortune and changes of masters, Königstein is one of the grandest ruins in Germany, especially when viewed from the south-east, dark against the sunset. ”

“ C'est une petite perle!" said the admiring Frenchwoman, as the Cologne steamboat rounded the point below the town, and she caught the first fair view of its bustling landing-places, its old wall, its quaint gables, and its antique cathedral spires. A pearl among the smaller German cities it is,—with most irregular streets, always neat and cleanly, noble historic and literary associations, jovial student-life, pleasant walks to the neighboring hills, delightful excursions to the Siebengebirge and Ahrthal,—reposing peacefully upon the left bank of the "green and rushing Rhine." ”

“ Königstein crowning a precipitous rock 748 feet above the Elbe, though in Saxony is garrisoned by Prussians, guards the pass down the river from Bohemia; and Peterwardein is a rock-built fortress, that has been called the Ehrenbreitstein and Gibraltar of the Danube. What are these frontier fortresses but the same on an extensive scale as the Gué du Loir, the Roche Corail, and the Rochebrune? In the Middle Ages every city, every little town had to have its outposts and watch-tower on the look-out for the enemy, and to break the first impetus of an attack. ”

“ Dost thou remember the time when we listened to the rustling and moaning of the fir-trees, like echoes of the voices of olden times? In our dreams we saw the ancient Königsburg in splendour, heard the forest ring with the noise of the hunt, saw the troop of huntsmen ride back to the castle, among them many a knight, earl, and prince, and foremost rode the Kaiser with his blushing daughter Reinhilde. ”