Work of Leopold von Ranke

At the first glance nothing seems of less national character than the work of Ranke, the historian. If one glances down the list of his books one finds that Italians, Spanish, Turks, Servians, Greeks of Peloponnesus, Venetians, Roman Popes of the great period, French and English are dealt with, but in the midst of all this German and Prussian affairs seem to be lost.

In his capacity of professor, too, this illustrious scholar, who cast so much splendour over the Berlin University, scarcely resembles the historians of the new school, those apostles of Prussianism who turned their University chairs into political rostrums. With a penetrating and discreet mind and aristocratic tastes, that man, who was one of the "companions" of a most pious and conservative King, Frederick William IV, and of his suite of diplomatists and statesmen, lived quite outside the political questions of the day. He never sought the position of a deputy. He lived only for his science, sharing his life between his peaceful study, peopled with books, his lecture-room at the University of Berlin, and the meetings of the Academy of Sciences.

His political inclinations even were by no means those of the noisy, blustering national historians who for a long time gave trouble to the Prussian Government. Towards the end of his life he seemed quite a stranger among that democratic society which invaded Berlin after the convocation of the Imperial Reichstag. With his fine old head covered with white hair, his courteous and pleasant manners, his politeness that seemed of another age, he would have been taken, said one of his contemporaries, for an old marquis of the time of Minna von Barnhelm.

And yet this man of the old school was in a number of respects quite a modern man. No one had such a penetrating insight into the politics of the day. At the time when the Liberal national historians were waging an implacable war against the policy of William I, Ranke, in the silence of his study, approved of it entirely. Later, he had nothing to deny, nothing to ask pardon for. He had always been a good and faithful servant of the Prussian monarchy, above all, disinterested and discreet. He did not parade his ideas and sentiments in his works. Like a good disciple of Niebuhr, he believed that the lessons would not be the less striking because be had taken the trouble to conceal them. With him one must first break the shell before one gets at the kernel, but it is not less pleasant on that account.

Let us try to unravel all this ... We shall see that his labours are not less real because they were not very noisy: that he, too, by his historical conception and the lessons to be learned from his works, is connected with the powerful movement in Prussian historiography. In going over his life and his activity as a historian carefully, we shall be astonished at what we find in it, and we shall end by recognizing that his part in the common work was not lacking in splendour.

Ranke is one of the most characteristic examples of the way in which Prussia, from the beginning of the century, was able to win over adherents to its policy. By his ancestry he belonged to old Germany. Born at the beginning of the last century (1795) in Wiehe, a little agricultural town of Thuringia, where life flowed peacefully and without trouble, he was brought up in a middle-class family, of good solid education and strong virtues.

Who would suspect that at the time when he was born great upheavals were taking place elsewhere? With its old castles in ruins dating from the time of the Empire, Thuringia, that country of legends where still the mountain in which old Barbarossa sleeps is pointed out, seemed completely dead to modern life. Its schools, the first in Germany, were nurseries for grammarians and philologists. What was taught there had not changed since the time of the Reformation. At a time when, in France and England, the reign of the applied sciences had begun, when the intellectual horizon receded until it almost reached the end of the earth, these people still had their eyes turned towards the past.

There was no political life. In those rich valleys, on the fruitful plains dotted with fields and forests, the inhabitants lived in peace under the fatherly authority of the King of Saxony, and none of these good Protestants found it strange at that time that their King should be a Catholic.

But these things were not slow in changing. Life from without appeared among them: it came, as it did to many other corners of Germany, in the train of Napoleon's armies. Jena and Auerstadt are at the gateway of this country. When Davout's cannon roared, Ranke, a boy twelve years old, climbed up the mountains near Wiehe to hear the noise of the guns. Later he saw the French marshals with embroidered uniforms bedizened with crosses enter the town. At that time, like all Saxons, it was with distinct sympathy that he greeted the arrival of the French : he read with admiration the bulletins of the Grande Armée. But gradually these sentiments dwindled. At school the teachers made their pupils read the Agricola and awakened their patriotic feelings. Until that time Ranke had only been a Saxon: but his teachers showed him that above that little Saxony fatherland there was the great Germany fatherland, the ideal fatherland. From that time forward he no longer regarded the French as liberators. On the contrary, he read with joy in his house the manifestoes of the Allies. A powerful feeling of patriotism did not yet stir within him, but hatred was increasing in the bottom of his heart: he sighed for the tyrant's fall.

Ranke has admirably related all this in his "Autobiography" : he also tells us how he came to see that the Germans should be united to prevent the return of such disasters, and how he came to be convinced that Prussia alone was capable of creating this unity. But even at that time he did not think that dreams of liberty would suffice to do this. He had a prudent and reflective mind. At a time when all the young people were filled with enthusiasm for liberal ideas, when those patriotic associations, the Tugendbund and Burschenschaft were founded, he prudently kept aside. He even reproved the more hot-headed ones; but this did not prevent him, however, from thinking that the repression of governments is as unjust as it is revolting."

Already at that time Ranke was, as he was to remain for the rest of his life, a good Prussian. But this, however, was not brought about by Ranke alone. In 1815, when Thuringian Saxony was annexed by Prussia, Ranke, who was then a student at Leipzig University, recognized that it was not without grief that he experienced this "snatching away from the Saxon fatherland." But his father, who was a practical man, at once saw the advantages resulting from this, and made his son understand them. He was a Saxon magistrate of positive temperament, who for a long time had praised "the superiority of the Prussian administration and the usefulness of Frederick the Great's institutions" : he predicted that "the future of Germany was reserved for Prussia". "He wished me," said Ranke, "to follow up my career in Prussia, and at length I fell in with his point of view."

From that moment Ranke became a good and faithful servant of the Prussian monarchy: in 1818 he began his career in Prussia as Professor at the college of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. "There," he said, "in the company of Prussian officials, I learned to appreciate the vigilant and enlightened administration of my new fatherland." Seven years later, in 1825, he was called to Berlin to fill the chair of Professor of Modern History at the University. From that time on the union was complete. The Thuringian died completely within him, and if his accent had not still been a little raucous and guttural, and thus betrayed his High-Saxon origin, he would have been taken towards the end of his life for a Berliner of Berlin, a Berliner of the old school.

In the question of political outlook the identification was complete. The man who had not shared, at twenty years of age, the illusions of the young Liberals was ready to accept the Hohenzollern policy, made up of sound administration and wise government. And some years later he could write with truth : "It is a real pleasure to be part of a State with whose ideals one so heartily agrees."

When he arrived at Berlin in 1825, Ranke was a young scholar who had never yet taken any interest in politics. By instinct and temperament he was conservative, and as a Prussian little inclined to innovations. The first time he had to give an opinion on the questions of the day was at the house of Varnhagen von Ense, where he often went, and where he met a new kind of man which he had not seen before —"Liberals," he said, "who were enamoured of the political struggles of the French Chambers, and who thought more or less that the future of liberty in Europe depended on the result of these struggles."

Asked to take part in this, Ranke, who could not become enthusiastic about something with which he was not acquainted, began to study history. The principal problem of the age seemed to him to be that of the French Revolution, and after examining it from all sides he tried to solve it. To him the problem was thus stated: "Has the Revolution a general interest which gains the support of the mind and heart and claims a complete sympathy, or is it only an ordinary event which has its origin in certain particular facts, and which was the result of a concurrence of circumstances which might have been different?"

But who cannot see that to state the problem thus is, in a manner, to solve it, or to show at least that it is solved already in spirit? Ranke had the same illusion as many historians who believe that historical facts always help to prove the value of the political principles whose result they are, and in this case he saw that, as the French Revolution had failed in its essential task, the principles under whose authority it passed were bad ones. "While fully recognizing," said he, "its universal importance and what it was for each one of us in particular, yet I deliberately took my stand among those who opposed it."

Ranke did not like idealists in politics. Having met one day, at Vienna, a Saxon fellow-countryman, the philosopher Schneider, who expressed to him his admiration for the French Revolution, he wrote contemptuously of this man : "He is one of the race of idealists, liberals, rationalists, who foster the grossest prejudices with regard to history. Their convictions may well have the appearance of strict continuity and relationship: but for all that their falsity is none the less obvious."

This was precisely the reproach he levelled at the French Revolution. The idealism of its legislators was repugnant to his realism. He argued like Burke, whose thoughts had a great influence over him. The "Reflections on the French Revolution" of the great English publicist formed the creed of Ranke's political faith.

But there was another thing in the case of Ranke. If he did not like the ideas of the French Revolution it was because he saw in them a danger for Germany.

In his opinion one of the most marked traits in the French character was the liking for spreading their ideas. "To spread their ideas," he said, "the French; would willingly make war." He could see proofs of this in the whole of modern history, "from that day when young noblemen, in their love for glory, embarked for America under the command of Lafayette, down to the wars of conquest (Eroberungsgeliiste) of the Revolution and Napoleon." Hence his notion of the particular psychology of the French people which he laid down at the beginning of his "History of France". "Endowed with a national spirit, powerful, ambitious, conquest-loving and warlike, the French people are always ready to take the offensive; they defend themselves unceasingly against real or imaginary enemies and oppress free nations."

The consequence of this with Ranke is that in his opinion revolution and desire of conquest are synonymous terms among the French. He cannot see a movement towards liberty on the banks of the Seine without thinking that soon conquering armies will be marching on the Rhine. He shows this occasionally in an amusing fashion in his correspondence.

In August 1830, for example, when travelling in Italy, he learned, in a village hidden in the Apennines, the news of "the three vainglorious." At once he becomes excited. "What 'la grande nation' requires," he cries, "is some one who will put her in order without upsetting her neighbours on that account."

In 1848, again, "he thought he could see a new danger to Germany at the hand of that nation always ready to make war (Schlagfertige franzosische Nation)."

Yet Ranke was not one of those fanatical Teutomaniacs who, whenever any one spoke to them of France, saw red at once. He had often spent holidays in that country and he had illustrious friends there. He even liked the Frenchman as an individual, enjoyed "his sociability and his delicate taste in the arts." He also recognized what civilization owed to "la grande nation," and this time I think there was no sarcasm in his use of this expression.

But what Ranke did not like in the French was their politics. He thought that if Germany wished to do any good she should take an opposite course to that of France and consequently take care not to borrow anything from her.

Ranke expounded these ideas throughout the articles published in the Politische-Historische Zeitschrift (Berlin, 1831-36), which he founded for the express purpose of combating French influence in Germany. "The sympathies for what was happening in France were so lively and wide-spread," said he, "that I allowed myself to speak my opinion on the situation."

Ranke's programme was clear and simple. " Let us make our own organizations without troubling to imitate our neighbours." This conformed with the philosophy of history which past experience had taught him.

"We have to undertake," said he, "a task which only concerns ourselves, a task that is entirely German. We have to form a real German State which will correspond to the genius of our nation. Above all, we must take care not to imitate the forms which the French nation have found satisfactory for themselves.

French interests are quite different from our own .... I do not blame them for having done what they have: that they should be what they wish, or what they can be, is their own business. . . . As for ourselves, all the efforts of our great literary period, all the scientific discoveries of our great men, all that has become great in Germany, has never succeeded save by opposition to France."

But this had no echo among the crowd. The German middle-class was not ready yet for these ideas. "Irremediably indifferent to politics," said one of the historians who later was to have an influence in transforming it, "the middle-class was satisfied with venerating Canning, with agitating against reaction, shaking its fist at Polignac, before going back to its business or going to bed." It was evident that, to awaken it from its sluggishness, something more than academic-phrases was required. Now Ranke, a man of aristocratic talent and refined diplomacy, excelled in discussing questions, but lacked the passion necessary to make another share his convictions. There was nothing popular in him. His qualities were those of a historian, not of a political writer, and still less a controversialist. He spoke more to the intelligence than to the heart or will. At the beginning of his undertaking he wrote : "I need more than ever, moderation, restraint, intelligence, and wisdom." But that is diametrically opposed to what he needed in order to succeed. The crowd knows nothing of the subtle distinctions of thought, of delicate distinctions and shades. It must be spoken to in a direct and powerful language. As soon as Ranke began to give his reasons it would no longer listen to him.

By wishing, moreover, to satisfy all, he did not succeed in pleasing anybody. "How I was mistaken," said he, "in thinking that every one would approve. Just the opposite happened : my old friends Varnhagen von Ense and Alexander von Humboldt, who saw the salvation of the world in the progress of the French Revolution, showed coldness towards me and became estranged from me. My friends of that time, Radowitz and Gerlach, who had just established a Conservative paper, could not tolerate me because I did not entirely approve of the Revolution."

Ranke ended by renouncing his undertaking. Three years later the paper had ceased to exist. This check had this advantage for the historian, that it made him sceptical of all theories. Twelve years later he was completely won over to the policy of practice. In the midst of the Revolution of 1848, in the midst of the general confidence and joy, he understood that the votes of a parliament would never be able to complete the unity of Germany. He now expected nothing but from the good sword of Prussia.

This he said with considerable directness to the King, Frederick William IV, who, astounded by what was happening in those days in March at Berlin, had asked his advice on the situation. Ranke summarily replied to his sovereign: "Grant a constitution. . . . The constitutional system should be considered, without affection or hatred, as the political form which modern societies affect. In the actual state of our affairs two things militate in favour of a constitution : in the first place the old Prussian administration, which was so great in its day, which rendered such great services, has ceased to exist. . . . The second reason is that men are accustomed nowadays only to consider political life under the constitutional form. The countries on the banks of the Rhine have judicial institutions, the ideas of which do not agree with those of the hereditary States of Prussia: and these institutions have in their own countries the force of laws. . . . If we do not take any notice of that, there is another thing which we should consider—our relations with the rest of Germany."

In these circumstances Ranke showed a remarkable political insight. But, like a good Prussian, he did not wish that the constitutional institutions should take over everything. The King's authority should remain intangible. It was the cornerstone of the new political arch. The King should not receive the "word of order" from the street, and to assure Frederick William IV, who was shaken by the Berlin rising, he said to him: "At bottom the people have no interest in polices . . . what they want is just to live. . . . Their heart is good, but they are suffering. . . . They listen to the leaders. They only wanted, in the Revolution, an opportunity of showing their discontent. Put right their just demands and they will sever their connection with the professional rioters. We must before anything find work for those who need it."

Thereupon Ranke develops the whole of a daring programme which is a sort of State Socialism, which the future imperialists might well have envied him. "We shall organize companies of workmen," he said, "who will be employed in public works, in the improvement of rivers, the cultivation of waste lands, and other works of this kind. On the other hand, to those who have little property we shall grant but few political rights." In the question of Prussian politics Ranke is no less positive: "Prussia has a mission to perform in Germany: she should not flinch before her task r she should restrain the rebellious by force. You are master of the situation," he said to the King, " since you have the army."

Then follows a passage about the Prussian army: " It is a tree with ancient roots. Storms have smitten and stripped it of some of its branches, but since then it has grown . . . strong and proud. . . . The other troops have no such history : they are too weak to be called armies. . . . The Prussian army alone it was which put an end to the dangerous consequences which a union of constitutional ideas with destructive tendencies might have. Was it not this army that was able to protect the Frankfort Assembly?"

Conclusion: " With so fine an army " we can dictate our conditions to the Germans; we can subdue "the rebellious princes"; we also can, "if Austria will not understand that to relieve her of her interests in Germany is to do her a service, convince her of it by force of arms (Krieg wagen)." And this word in conclusion, worthy of Bismarck himself: "I have no doubt that Prussia, by approaching the revolutionary elements in this qualified fashion, will gain thereby a greater position in the world : but the action must be rapid, resolute, and energetic."

Frederick William IV, intelligent enough to understand the situation but not energetic enough to deal with it (he himself said to the delegates at Frankfort who offered him the imperial crown: " Frederick the Great would have been your man; as for me, I am not a great king")—Frederick William IV, I say, was satisfied to lock up this advice in his drawer and leave to better times and another king the task of putting it into practice.

As for Ranke, who for a moment had left his historical works to give his opinion on the situation, he returned to them with more calmness than ever. He knew that the policy he recommended was the right one— that it was, as he said, "in the logic of the history of Prussia"; and while waiting until that man should appear who could, who ought to, realize it, he, for his part, went on preparing the coming generation for it by the political teachings which he intended to give with his historical lectures.

It is said that, at a congress of historians, a zealous Protestant, author of a history of the Reformation, equally noted for the orthodoxy of his opinions and for his partiality, accosted Ranke and said to him, with vainglorious pride: " We have this in common, you and I, dear colleague: we are both historians and Christians." "But," replied Ranke, "there is one difference between us: I am a historian first and then a Christian." This most authentic anecdote gives an admirable description of Ranke. The moment he approached history, he left his individual feelings at the door. His ideas were dear to him, but dearer still was his love of truth. This man, apparently so calm, became excited when truth was at stake.

"What I seek," he wrote in one of his letters, "is truth, not glory : I aspire with all my power to this truth . . . error ought gradually to disappear."

Ranke's career as a historian had no other origin than this same search after truth. When he taught history to his young students at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, he set about rewriting the history by going back to the actual sources, in order to be certain of its truth. This work decided what his calling should be. When studying the fifteenth century, and at the time when Louis XI was occupying his attention, Scott's historical novel, "Quentin Durward," which deals with this period, came into his hands. "I read it," he says in his Autobiography, "and found a great deal of charm in it, but one thing shocked me, and that was the liberties the author had taken with Charles the Bold and Louis XI, quite contrary to all historical tradition, even in matters of detail. I studied Commines and the contemporary accounts, and became still more convinced that a Charles the Bold, a Louis XI, such as Walter Scott represented them, never existed. The worthy novelist knew this himself: and I could not excuse him for having given his story characteristics destitute of historical value. By comparing his account with the truth, I was convinced hat historical truth was far more beautiful and far .more interesting than romantic fiction. From that time forward I devoted myself to the former, and resolved to avoid in my works all imagination and invention, and to restrict myself severely to facts."

Ranke summarized his purpose as a historian in the Preface to his first work, "Histories of the Roman and German Peoples" : "I desire simply to relate the facts as they actually occurred." At first sight nothing seems simpler and even more ordinary than this purpose. To speak the truth —all sincere historians desire to do this. There is no doubt about this, but in practice it is a difficult thing to realize. It is not enough merely to wish to do so; a peculiar grace is necessary, and this is granted to but a few.

This grace, which consists of certain natural gifts, which are perhaps negative qualities, such as balance of faculties, weight of judgment, wisdom, but also of positive qualities, such as goodness and faith, Ranke possessed in the highest degree. He never took offence, and sought always to be fair to every one, and said : "Before anything else we must be just and good." [He thought this could be accomplished by hard work, and a certain hygiene which he summarized in these words: "Man's duty is to be at peace ( with himself and to keep himself in a condition of self-satisfaction."

Therein, it may be said, was the secret of his power. This wise man exuded from his Hps the honey of Nestor. His experience is full of peacefulness. He saw from above, he saw from afar: he saw rightly too.

His vision was never troubled by passion or prejudices. At an early stage he reached that state of wisdom, the fruit of experience, which is granted only to old men. And this wisdom—there is no doubt about it—gave his intellectual faculties all their force and the whole of their range.

Ranke was not a genius: he was even lacking in originality, but he was very intelligent. Endowed with great gifts, he had shown, from childhood, a great universality of aptitudes. As a historian he was not a man of one idea or of one science. On the benches of the University, at a time when that enormous work of specialization beyond measure began, he devoted himself to the most varied studies—history, philosophy, law, literature, and theology. He showed, indeed, a kind of horror for that kind of scholar, so frequent in Germany, who is nothing more than a learned man. " This colossal race," he said, "works all the harder at a subject the more insignificant it is."

Niebuhr even did not find grace in his sight. He thought him too erudite, and not sufficiently literary. "There are other things than mere texts to examine," he said. The great ideas of history ought also to be investigated by the historian.[ The interest which Ranke took in history was a human one. "To look at the world, past and present," said he : "to absorb it into my being as far as my powers will enable me: to draw out and appropriate all that is beautiful and great, to see with unbiased eyes the progress of universal history, and in this spirit to produce beautiful and noble works : imagine what happiness it would be for me if I could realize this ideal, even in a small degree. "

Ranke had something of Goethe's spirit in his conception of history. He has expressed this admirably in the following lines : "The real interest we take in the world consists in our trying to make something within us of what is without us."

Elsewhere he expounds the same thought in the following way: "History has no other task than to record the actions and sufferings of that multiple being which we are, at once savage, violent, powerful, good, noble, calm, soiled and pure : to follow it from its birth and in its shaping. I am rereading the Universal History.' My heart beats rapidly when considering human affairs."

In order to obtain this knowledge of man, Ranke assigns two tasks to the historian: the first is to place in its own type of truth the individuality of the great historical actors and the nations they represent: the second is to mark their role in the concatenation of universal history, which is to him definitely the supreme object of history. The individuality of nations and the concatenation of Universal History are the two characteristics of Ranke's history.

Ranke in the first place attaches a great deal of importance to the study of individuals. As opposed to Buckle, who believed that the great historical movements were determined by physical laws in which men had, so to speak, no part, and of which they are only the instruments, Ranke holds that history is nothing more than "the work of certain minds fulfilling more or less certain conditions, and each having a certain peculiar sphere of influence."

Without going as far as Carlyle in his belief in the missions of historical men, Ranke was convinced that the development of a nation or a period depends upon the great men who have best personified its spirit. "It has not been doctrines that have overthrown the world," said he, "but the powerful personalities who are the incarnation of these doctrines." Now it is a point to notice—and history proves it—that these great historical figures do not appear save as the manifestation of a general tendency which exists without them, and that they belong at the same time to an order of the moral world of which they are the incarnation. Great men are also, then, a product of nations, and they do not appear save "at a comparatively advanced, stage of civilization."

We must study, then, with great care the nation and race, and, since they are made up not of unconscious and blind forces, but of compounds or aggregates of free individuals, we must try to determine the characteristics of "this collective individuality" which are to be found in each of its components.

If Ranke gives great importance to this "individuality of peoples," it is because in his eyes it determines their historical action—that is, their politics, their art, their poetry and their religion. It is by means of this that he explains the differences between peoples, races, and periods, and that is why he wished to be acquainted with it to the utmost detail, and why he prosecutes a full inquiry with respect to each people and all its historical representatives. Ranke discovered that this inquiry had never hitherto been sufficiently prosecuted, and he insisted that universal history, which is only known to us by tradition, should be subjected to new investigations.

This was an enormous enterprise which one man alone could not carry out with success. Ranke was satisfied to set an example. His first works, "History of the Roman and Germanic Peoples" (1824), "The Moors and the Spanish Monarchy " (1827), and " History of the Popes" (1834-36), covered the history of Europe from the end of the fifteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Beyond anything else he sought original documents, at first hand. He read all the chronicles, all the letters of the period. At Berlin he discovered in the Royal Library some narratives by the Venetian Ambassadors, rich in details explanatory of the political life at that period. This was a discovery that had a great influence on his career as a historian. It determined what manner of research he was to make, inclining him more and more towards diplomatic history. In fact, it added to his historical talent some of diplomacy's most marked characteristics : diplomatic delicacy, reserve, and a mind capable of understanding all shades of opinion, all of which he acquired by associating with those subtle Italian diplomatists who saw everything and said nothiug, and for whom the diplomacy of intrigue and secret service had no more secrets.

For the writing of the works which followed immediately after—"German History at the Time of the Reformation" (1839-43), "History of France" (1852-56), "History of England" (1859-68)—he levied contributions on the archives of the principal cities of Europe.

But to collect material was for Ranke only a part of the historian's task: to make a critical study of it was more important in his eyes. Ranke's criticism resembles in no way that of Niebuhr, although it was derived from his. It is exercised not on the word but on the idea—that is, it is concerned more with the witness than with his evidence.

This can be understood: in view of the multitude of facts in modern history it would be impossible to establish the strict authenticity of each of them. We should be satisfied to examine their source—that is, the amount of good faith in their narrator. That is why Ranke concerns himself above all with the critical study of sources. He finds out in the first place whence the authors derive the facts which they relate, and whether they were actual witnesses or only reproduce a story from hearsay: under what circumstances they wrote their works, what was their character, their mode of life, their manner of work, etc. And it is not until he is in possession of this information that Ranke accepts the evidence of a writer on any event.

This mode of criticism was not new. Many writers had employed it before Ranke. It was Sainte-Beuve's method, for example, in literary criticism. To succeed in this more psychological instinct is needed than actual science. And Ranke was well provided with this spirit of subtlety.

Beyond this versatile critical genius Ranke had a synthetic spirit of the widest radius. Indeed, it is the combination of these two characteristics, one of which as a rule precludes the other in the same man, which makes up the originality of Ranke's talent as a historian. While devoted to the study of detail, his mind likes to soar to embrace the whole. Even as a young man, when the began to write history, he said he wished "to write history from the highest point of view, to establish the inter-relationship of events,'' "to study the march of progress of mankind," "to reach the very core of history," and "to put an end to the regrettable fault of universal histories, all of which are fragmentary."

Ranke is still regarded as a universal historian. From his earliest works, he tried to write portions of universal history. But he never saw the magnitude of his task until he began his "History of the Popes." Enthusiastic over his discoveries, he then exclaimed: "Gradually the history of the most important periods of the world sinks into me almost without my knowledge : to make this history plain and to write it will be the purpose of my life. I am satisfied to know what I live for: my heart beats violently when I foresee the happiness which the elaboration of this important work will give me: every day I promise myself to bring it to a successful end: every day I take an oath not to budge by a hairbreadth from truth once I have recognized it as such. I am often reproached with extending my horizon too far : I am told that an aim nearer at hand would be more easily reached, that I do myself wrong by staying so long in foreign countries. But these words no more than strike my ear, and I continue my forward march without listening to them."

Indeed, it was an immense political history of Europe, of each nation at the most brilliant period of its life, which he thus saw rise from the dust of the papers found in the libraries of Italy, France, Germany, and England.

In his "History of the Roman and Germanic Peoples," he attempts to prove that in spite of the abyss that seems to be sunk between the two great races of Western Europe, the Germanic and the Latin races, both these peoples have worked with the same object: the elaboration of European civilization: in his "History of the Moors and the Spanish Monarchy," he depicts for us the most brilliant period in the life of these nations at a time when "their history had a European significance"; the "History of the Popes" is conceived as an enormous fragment of European history at the time when pontifical power reached its fullest expansion, in one of those "decisive phases on which the fate of the world depends";his "History of Germany at the Time of the Reformation" shows the part in universal history played by Luther. His histories of France and England are taken at times "when the history of these countries was involved in European history"—in France the reign of Louis XIV, in England the time of the religious and political struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."

In all "these moments of universal history" what Ranke pre-eminently brings to light is civilization. This does not mean that Ranke wrote histories of civilization. On the contrary, his conception of history is purely political. One can even see that diplomatic negotiations take up a very large place in his books, but what Ranke regards, after all, as the aim of human activity is civilization. In this respect this national historian is still a German of the eighteenth century. His inspiration seemed human rather than strictly national. Above the rivalry of races, peoples, and religions, what he continually brings to light is the triumph of civilization. This word "civilization" (Kultur) comes continuously from his pen, as if it gave us the key to the general tendencies of his mind. In his "History of France," deploring the death of Henry IV, he cries : "If Henry IV had lived he might perhaps have spared Germany the horrors of the Thirty Years War and saved that late sixteenth-century civilization, which might have been surpassed in what concerns development of science and inventions, but which was far more comparatively widespread among all classes of society." Elsewhere in his "Universal History" he showed that if Julius Caesar is so great it is because his victorious armies gave new openings to civilization and attacked in order to conquer barbarianism in an important part of the earth.

With this Ranke was not far from sharing Hegel's notion, which became that of all the Prussian historians —namely, that civilization is spread only by war: that "the bloody human battles are only at bottom the struggles of moral energy." But Ranke did not parade these ideas in his works and he did not seek therein a pretext triumphantly to show the superiority of the Germanic race over other races. He was satisfied to believe that " God uses wars for purposes which we do not know, and that it is moral influences which regulate the greatness and decline of men and nations."

With the characteristics which we have just recognized in Ranke's work—the universal tendency and aesthetic inspiration—it scarcely seems possible to range his work among the creations of national history.

Yet Ranke thought so. He thought that he also by his works had contributed his help to his country's policy. In truth, he attached a different meaning to his task as historian from that of his confreres. The historian, in his opinion, had no other mission than to fortify political judgment. For that the historical method, well applied, was sufficient. By relating in good faith affairs as they really happened, he thought that was the best way of preparing future generations for the tasks which awaited them.

Ranke was a pupil of Niebuhr. "My conception of history," he said in his Autobiography, "arose from the notion of the individuality of peoples as opposed to the French theories of Republics or Universal Empires." Like Niebuhr, he believed that the State is only "a modification of national life, that is, Nation and State are one and the same thing."

This idea he made the foundation of all his works, and thus it was he thought to work as a national historian. And, indeed, we might say of his work that it is the expression of the historical development of the peoples of modern Europe: Italians, Turks, Spaniards, Serbians, French, and English. In telling this to the Germans, he showed them what they had to do.

But that was not good enough for the national historians. From 1830 on it was seen that the historian was expected to take a side. At the time of the rising of the Greeks, they found it strange that a national historian, instead of attacking Metternich or celebrating in a lyrical tone Navarino and Missolonghi, should make learned researches about the ancestors of these heroic men, and should show us, in a charming picture, what was Peloponnesian life in the sixteenth century. A little later, in 1833, at a time when one could already foresee the Prussian Kulturkampf, they were angry that he should paint with an artist's affection the figures of the sovereign pontiffs, whose excesses had caused the Reformation.

The publicist Gustav Freytag undertook, in the name of his fellow-countrymen, to tell Ranke his opinion.

But the latter was unmoved. It is true that, after the publication of his History of the Popes, he wrote a "History of Germany in the Time of the Reformation," but this was not as a concession to the wishes ot the Prussian patriots: he merely wished to write a "counterpart to his first work."

Yet Ranke recognized that there was something particularly national in the German Reformation, which he called "the act by which the German nation had best shown its deep-rooted unity, since there was a time when Protestantism was the religion of all the Germans." He added: "But this German idea was repelled soon afterwards by the powerful efforts of the opposite party ... so that the attention of historians has been directed towards the State in which Protestant thought had displayed the greatest political energy. I even had friends who considered the history of Prussia as the second part of the History of the Reformation. But he kept aside from all exaggeration.

At the time when Ranke was completing this work, in 1843, the political horizon in his country was clouded. In addition to the questions of national unity, of Great and Little Germany, there was now another political question even more burning than the others— the question of constitutional freedom. We know already at what conclusion Ranke had arrived on this point. He did not think that the constitutional institutions were a universal panacea. "It is a mistake of our times," he said, "to believe that the happiness and safety of societies is in the wisdom of deliberating assemblies and written constitutions. . . . The true destiny of Prussia is to be and to remain a military monarchy. . . . The true representative of a people is the King. . . . What use is there in rebelling against historical right? The winds of heaven drive the sands hither and thither, but the mountains they leave where they were."

But Ranke thought that the time had come to do something else, and by means of history he wished to prove the truth of his thesis. The history which seemed best suited for that was the history of the French Revolution. The German middle class were at that time most enthusiastic about this event, with which they were only acquainted by means of the extenuating histories of Thiers and Mignet, which were spread throughout Germany in thousands of copies. Ranke was convinced that, by describing this Revolution just as it had actually taken place, the account of it authorized by French historians would be destroyed for ever. To do this seemed to him to be a work of national interest, and in 1843 he left for Paris to collect necessary material.

Ranke has told us in his Autobiography how, in view of the insufficiency of State papers placed at his disposal, he was obliged to give up his undertaking, and how at the same time chance threw in his way a most valuable account of Prussian affairs in the eighteenth century. This was the letters of Valori, French Ambassador at the Court of Frederick the Great, which contained some very interesting information about the politics of the Prussian King.

"With the permission of my friend Mignet the historian," said Ranke, "I took a copy of this, and provided with this valuable prize I returned to Berlin. . . . This was the beginning of my work Nine Books of Prussian History, in which I sought to explain how the Brandenburg Electorate had become a first-class Power."

To turn from the French Revolution to the history of Prussia was not, in Ranke's opinion, a change of subject, since the one presented, in politics, the positive side of the problem of which the other was the negative.

By showing the normal and regular development of the Prussian State, he arrived at the same result as in describing the French Revolution: he showed the Germans how their unity might be brought about. Again without positively interposing himself in his story, after the manner of Prussian historians, he admits "that he takes an active part in the events which he relates," for without that sympathy, he says, "such a history would not be possible." He recognized even that in this history he has never lost sight of the general interests of Germany. "The ideas of Frederick the Great on this subject," said he, "appeared for the first time with the third volume, when Charles VII became Emperor."

But he avoids all exaggeration. Far from seeing, for example, in the Kings of Prussia any extensive schemes or fixed purpose to inaugurate a great German policy, he shows, on the contrary, that the extraordinary state of affairs in Germany at a later period originated in the "altogether Prussian" labours of those Kings. Now that is a most accurate conception, and one which, far from depreciating Prussia, makes her seem greater.

This German conception of Prussian history was confirmed by the war of 1870. At that time Ranke, without becoming intoxicated by victory like a large number of his compatriots, believed that this date marked a new phase in universal history and that it opened to Germany's future infinite prospects. From that time he gave himself up by preference to researches in national history relating to events of the past which had some connection with this war. He wrote the "Origins of the Seven Years War" (1871) , "The German Powers and the Confederation of Princes"—history of Germany from 1780-90 (1872) , "The Genesis of the Prussian State" (1873), and " The Origin and Beginnings of the Revolutionary Wars, 1791-92" (1875).

In the first of these works, "The Origins of the Seven Years War," Ranke tried to show the close relationship between this war and the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870. He said in his Preface : "After the declaration of war in 1870, days and weeks passed in which it was not possible to concentrate one's attention on anything which was not closely related to this event. While waiting for the result that was to determine the fate of Germany and Europe, the historian's attention was irresistibly directed towards the distant events of the past which brought about this war. One of these events is the war of 1756. Has it not been proved indeed that the war between Prussia and Austria would have ceased had it not been for the participation in it of France? . . . So that while the young men were getting ready around me to take part in this war, I took up, at the moment when the hour for departure had struck, this essay, already begun and laid aside, on that great event which had a certain relationship with the great fight for which every one was getting ready. ... I can now attempt to offer this writing to the public : it is the tribute I bring to the great events and actions of last year."

But Ranke was satisfied to set out his point of view in his Preface. In the body of the book it never intervenes, and, although France was then Prussia's enemy, he does not take advantage of that, like so many of his country's historians, in order to rail against the "unruly and vain Gaul." He was satisfied to set out facts. It is true that at times these facts have a terrible eloquence.

But Ranke, with all this, was a slave to historical truth. He was incapable of hiding or concealing facts, even though they contradicted his most cherished opinions. Thus it is that, in his "Origin of the Revolutionary Wars," he sided flatly against Sybel, who wished absolutely to lay the blame of this war on the Girondins. Ranke shows that the Girondins were not responsible for it, but that the Governments of Europe were truly to blame, who by their stupid interference with French affairs over-excited the self-love of the French people and made war inevitable. It is stimulating to notice here that it was the old Prussian Conservative who defended the national interests of a people, while the National-Liberal Sybel thought quite natural those claims of the Kings, drawn up by Kaunitz, to dictate to the French their course of action. But Ranke was a true historian who knew how to sacrifice his personal preferences to truth.

This does not mean that Ranke was absolutely denuded of all the prejudices of Prussian historians. Although there could be nothing less chauvinistic than his type of mind, he willingly believed that Modern Germany was called to take the first place in Europe. The war of 1870 thus had in his eyes a symbolical meaning: it was not merely the victory of one people over another, it was also the victory of one policy over another, of one civilization over another. Indeed, it was in order to enunciate this idea that he resolved, at eighty years of age, to write a large universal history whose purpose he thus expounds : " The universal prospect which is now opened to Germany and the world has induced me to devote my last strength to this work."

In his mind, the whole matter was to indicate the place of each race or each people in the work of common civilization. Death stopped him before he could come to modern times. If he had reached it there is no doubt but that, in spite of the leading purpose of the work—to summarize in Modern Germany the civilization of the nineteenth century— he would have done justice to France. In short, Ranke, in spite of his political notions, was by no means one of those Germans who depreciated the part of France in universal history. At the time of greatest victory he warned his fellow-countrymen against senseless chauvinism. "There is," he said, "a patriotism which is only manifested in the exclusion of what is foreign and which despises its worth. Such a spirit will only pervert the true national spirit. Which of us can boast that he has not been influenced by the French mind?"

Ranke was always a man of taste and breeding.

In his own country he never had to ask pardon for excesses of pen. As such he was often a good Prussian who, at all times, defended the age-long policy of the Hohenzollern house. At a time when the Liberal historians cried down certain Kings of Prussia, such as Frederick William II, Frederick William III and Frederick William IV, Ranke put forward his efforts, on the other hand, to have their memory respected.

He only half succeeded as regards the first two. He limits himself, moreover, to pleading extenuating circumstances : he says that events at that time were too powerful, that they dominated men: that Prussia could not at that time take a place in Europe out of proportion to its strength: that the only thing she could do with the means at her disposal was to live and to maintain herself. "The policy of neutrality, which is so condemned," he added, "has this advantage about it, that it allows the development of the arts: the eleven years which elapsed between the Peace of Basel and the battle of Jena were the most fruitful in German literature, the richest in original productions. This was the time of Fichte, Schelling, Voss, Wolf, and the historical school of Gottingen, the period in which appeared the "Roman Elegies," "Hermann and Dorothea," "Wilhelm Meister," the "Bell," "Wallenstein," "William Tell" and the "Maid of Orleans." The literature of that period had the character of being cosmopolitan in ideas: the time was to come when it would lose it, and when patriotic feelings would take hold of all minds."

With regard to Frederick William IV his task was still more difficult. No Prussian King has left behind him so sorry a memory, nor has been so badly treated by historians, who, as a rule, were respectful towards the Hohenzollern. Ranke found excuses for all the acts of this King: if he refused the Imperial crown in 1848, it was because he thought the moment unfavourable: if he shamefully recoiled at Olmiitz, it was because Prussia was not yet ready: if his conduct was weak and hesitating in the Crimean War, " his neutrality on the other hand was repaid by the gratitude of the Czar, who did not forget it in 1870."

This was what Nietzsche called "paying court to the powerful." It must be said, however, that Ranke had this indulgence not only for the Kings of Prussia but for all historical personages, whether Loyola or Luther, Wallenstein or Gustavus Adolphus, or Robespierre. One might even say that it was part of his philosophy of history. Ranke was one of the German historians who accepted most completely the sovereignty of facts. He is the antipodes of that historical school which, with Schlosser, made use of the Kantian imperative; in his historical judgments he only regarded time and circumstances.

"I do not know," he said, with regard to Frederick William III, "whether people have any right to speak as they do of mistakes committed, opportunities lost, and culpable omissions. Events rule men : they live their lives under a sort of inevitable necessity: they have on them the seal of fate."

To become truly national, a history should join to those already enumerated another quality: it should have beauty of form. Ranke had this quality to the highest degree. He is one of the great German classics of the nineteenth century. His works are an everlasting treasure in the literature of his country.

At the time when Ranke began to write, in 1824, Germany had no literary historians : there were still only large octavos crammed with learning for the use of the initiated alone. Elsewhere in Europe were published new and original works. There was some doubt as to whether any such would appear in Germany when Ranke published his "History of the Roman and Germanic Peoples," a book simple, clear, and of great elegance in form. High literary society in Berlin, ready to acclaim the appearance on the horizon of an Augustin Thierry, thought it had found in Ranke what it was waiting for. It welcomed him.

"They count on me to revive history," Ranke wrote to his brother. And indeed he was going to renovate history, but not in the way they expected. He was not going to create master-works whose beauty should consist above all in form: historical interest always took the first place with him: but by the lucid order of his narration, his elegant and clear prose, he was to show the Germans for the first time that " specialized knowledge, no matter how precise in terms, can speak in a language accessible to all, to the greatest advantage of the nation."

He himself, it is true, was but half satisfied.

"What I write," he wrote to his brother, "suffers from too much learning. I should like to write something that could be read by everybody." That was his ambition, and Berlin was about to show him how he might achieve it.

Berlin at that time was scarcely the literary capital of the Germans. It was a city of Philistines, where a primitive simplicity reigned. The Court was first in setting examples of this simplicity. The parsimonious habits of Frederick William III had reduced it to its absolute minimum of officials. "Once a year," said Lord Loftus, who was then Secretary to the British Embassy at Berlin, "the King gave a déjeuner dansant to the corps diplomatic, which commenced at 10 a.m. : and as it was generally in the dark days of January, it was necessary to shave by candlelight. At one the dinner was served, and before six the company retired, in order to permit His Majesty to make his nightly appearance at some theatre."

From an intellectual point of view the capital of Prussia left much to be desired. It is true it had the best University in Germany, but in Germany a gathering of professors never made up society. As for what is called "the world," it took no interest whatever in intellectual things. Treitschke the historian, a man who is scarcely suspect of partiality for the nobility, recognized that at that time Prussian aristocracy had need to be taught "that respect to which scholars have a just claim."

The nobility, moreover, rarely appeared in Berlin. Those who did not spend their winter in the country on their estates went by preference to some provincial capital, Miinster, Magdeburg, or Breslau. There were at Berlin, where, indeed, they had not even town houses, no well-appointed palaces such as one sees in Vienna.

The life, again, that was spent there was very monotonous. If one believes Alexander von Humboldt, who was used to the elegant drawing-rooms of Paris, a certain courage was needed to live there. "Berlin," said he in his Berlin dialect, "I am sick of you : you are, and will remain, a town of bears." In the matter of society there were a few houses of intelligent officials like Ancillon, or rich Jewish bankers like the Mendelssohns and Meyerbeers : or a few drawing-rooms of amateurs and artists like those of Rahel and Varnhagen von Ense—a sort of workshop of over-elaborated wit which mimicked the manners of the Parisian drawing-rooms at the time of the Restoration. Everywhere France was imitated as a model, and Ranke, who, with very German ideas and tastes, had in the matter of form certain French qualities—proportion, delicacy, soberness and elegance —recognized what he owed to Berlin society. "Association with men of superior intellect," he said in his, "and the society of distinguished ladies had an effective influence over me which no provincial town of second-rate importance could have had."

Ranke had an intuition for form: all his works are intelligible and pleasant to read. With a penetrating mind, capable of perceiving fine shades, what he excels in describing is the policy of motives, of undercurrents and diplomatic negotiations. No one among the historians of his country has equalled him in understanding political questions. As an explanatory writer he is inimitable. Brilliant like Voltaire, he understands everything and gives us admirably the inner meaning of things. What could be more attractive than the lines with which he opens his The Ottoman and the Spanish Empires? "Humble, indeed, is the description the Ottomans give of their own origin. They relate that Othman, the founder of their Empire and name, himself followed the plough with his servants, and that when he wished to break off from work at noon he used to stick up a banner as a signal to call them home. These servants and none besides were his first followers in war, and they were marshalled beneath the same signal. But even he, they add, had in his day a forecasting of his house's future greatness, and in a dream he beheld a tree grow up out of his navel that overshadowed the whole earth."

This fragment gives one a good idea of Ranke's style. His narrative moves swiftly and lightly, with sober images scattered by the way. In an elegant description he unfolds to our eyes the young Christian prisoners of the Sultan, "lightly dressed in linen or cloth of Salonichi: they wore caps of Brusa stuff, elsewhere he pictures for us the sixteenth century at Lesbos : " We see the people tilling their fields and planting their vines, attending to their springs and watercourses and cultivating their gardens."

In his great historical pictures Ranke is not so happy: he lacks relief and colour; he cannot, like Macaulay and Michelet, design in fresco great scenes from the life of peoples. And that is wanting in certain of his works—for example, his "History of the Reformation in Germany," where one might expect to find some great scenes or impressive pictures of the life of the time. On the other hand his little genre scenes and portraits are perfect, when he describes the Court of Ludovic the Moor, Florence at the time of Savonarola, the interior of the Sultan's harem, etc. Ranke has little colouring, but his rendering of what might be called the moral expression of individuals, things, and groups of human beings—in short, what makes up the atmosphere of an environment—is admirable. Here, for example, is a glimpse at Calvin's Geneva which is very accurate in tone :—

"Geneva still continued to be the great commercial city it had always been . . . but all was order, discipline, and industry. It was still, as it always had been, a principal point of communication for Central Europe, but it was especially so for the refugees on account of religion who assembled here, and, having been instructed in the churches or in the newly erected schools, went forth thence once more into the world ... it had outstripped even the tendencies of Lutheran reformation itself. . . ."

This is a very well drawn portrait of Calvin the humanist: "He was disgusted with persons who, when they had conned a few positions out of Melancthon's Manual, held themselves to be thoroughly learned divines: for his own part, he was accustomed to study till late at night, and, when he awoke in the morning, to review in quietness and retirement all that he had read: these undisturbed habits of feeling and thinking contributed greatly to his success. He often said that he had no higher wish than to continue these practices throughout life, for he was timid by nature and disposed to avoid strife."

But above all in his master-work, "The Popes of Rome," Ranke showed his talent as a portrait-painter and his power of narrative. There is to be found in this work a series of scenes, portraits, views of Rome, interiors of palaces, Cardinals' conferences, all intermingled with reflections on Papal politics, theological considerations and artistic discussions that exhibit the full wealth of his mind.

Ranke did not write his works according to the best classical models. There is a charming abandon in his work which relieves us after the historical works written in sections by college professors who know how to make the necessary connections and gradations.

As a subtle analyst of human passions it is in moral portraiture that he has succeeded best. He has shaded his interiors of the mind with the art of a Tolstoi or a George Eliot. He looks at them at all times of their lives, takes them by surprise in their daily habits, with their movements and familiar tricks, which he catches as they pass, and omits no physical peculiarity which might help us to understand their nature better. Thus we learn that Pope Gregory XV was "a small, phlegmatic man . . . feeble, sick, and bent with age": we see Emperor Charles V ill, "his back bent, pale as a corpse, white lips, dragging himself with difficulty about the room, leaning on a stick." Elsewhere we have a picture of the Sultan Amurath III, described when receiving ambassadors; how he would "stare at them with his large lacklustre, melancholy eyes, and perhaps nod his head to them: when he had done this he went back to his garden." Later there is a description of Leo X, who went out for a walk in Rome " without a surplice . . . and with boots on his feet ... to the despair of his Master of the Ceremonies."

Ranke liked to notice those homely traits which make the portraiture stand out in relief. Thus he tells us of Pope Adrian VI how he brought an old woman-servant with him from Louvain to look after his house. Of Paolo Sarpi he said: " His father was a man of small stature, dark complexion, and turbulent, quarrelsome temper." Of another, Peter Aldobrandini, Pope Clement VIII's nephew, he said: "His person was insignificant, he was marked with smallpox, he had an asthma and coughed incessantly."

It is by a multitude of small touches, added one to the other, that Ranke lets us see the inner being of these great people. All his figures are painted in the same style. Here are a few examples taken from his "Popes of Rome" : "He [Leo X] had a passionate love of music. . . . The walls of the palace daily echoed with the sounds of music: the Pope was heard to hum the melodies that delighted him. . . . Leo X was full of kindness and sympathy. . . . 'He is a good man,' says an observing ambassador to his Court, ' very bounteous and of a kindly nature; if he were not under the influence of his kinsmen he would avoid all errors". "Adrian VI was of a most spotless fame; upright, pious, and industrious, of such a gravity that nothing more than a faint smile was ever seen upon his lips, yet full of benevolent, pure intentions ... he rose at earliest dawn, said Mass, and then proceeded in his accustomed order to business and to study, which were only interrupted by the simplest meals. . . . He loved Flemish art . . . and of the race of poets [at Rome] he would hear nothing." And all the others come to life again with their individual characteristics. Clement VII: "He displayed extraordinary acuteness on all subjects : penetrated to the very bottom of the most perplexing circumstances and was singularly easy and adroit in discourse and argument"." Paul III was of an easy, magnificent, liberal nature ... he weighed every word with the double consideration of both matter and form, and uttered them in a soft voice and with the slowest deliberation". "Paul IV had already attained the age of seventy-nine, but his deepset eyes still gleamed with all the fire of youth: he was extremely tall and thin, he walked quickly and appeared to be all sinew. His daily life was subject to no rule or order: he often slept by day and passed the night in study. ... In everything he followed the impulse of the moment." All these portraits, and a thousand others like them, give one the impression that Ranke knew all the people whose history he wrote.

And yet it is not these descriptive characteristics which distinguish Ranke as a historian. He was not attached to form for its own sake. His work is not a succession of scenes, a gallery of portraits. What he wished to paint was the great moments of European politics, and all the detail is only given to add to the value of the whole. Again, what preponderates in his work is general ideas—bird's-eye views. Diplomatic negotiations or political discussions have more space in his writings than anecdotes : everywhere Ranke seeks to jbnng out the spirit. The result is that his language—delicate, direct, and finely shaded—has rather an abstract tone. Ranke in his phraseology belongs to the writers of the eighteenth century : he resembles Montesquieu in that free and easy style that gives his phraseology an appearance of familiarity, he resembles Lessing in his brightness united with grace, and, moreover, in a certain sweetness which never degenerates into insipidity or archness. "You have been able to keep your freshness in your old age like a flower of youth," wrote in Greek verse the Rector of Schulpforta at the time of his eightieth birthday, "and from your lips distils the honey of Nestor." And this expresses it well. Until the end of his life Ranke retained the grace and freshness of youth. At eighty-four years of age he wrote to his old friend : "When spring made signs of coming this year I was deeply touched. The spring itself was astonished that my eighty-fourth year again wished to enjoy the flowers and verdure. I said to it: 'Come now, we are old friends, you and I; let me enjoy your company once more.' It seemed to wish to grant me this, but perhaps it is for the last time."

The man who wrote this in extreme old age was not of that race of which Frederick the Great could say once : "The Germans are a thorough and hard working people; when they take hold of anything they work at it with a heavy hand." In fine, Leopold von Ranke had two qualities of style which are rare everywhere, but particularly so, it would seem, among his fellow-countrymen—vivacity and grace.

We can understand after this, then, that Ranke has never been popular in his own country. He had neither all the qualities nor perhaps all the ordinary defects of his race. What often distinguishes the German in history is individualism, carried at times as far as eccentricity. Ranke, on the other hand, impartial, just, and deliberate, tried to hold the middle course between opposite opinions, to be the more certain of getting nearer to the truth. This moderation was made a reproach to him, as if it were a lack of originality. Objection was taken, also, to his diction; they said that if it had the clearness of water it had also its insipidity. Heinrich Heine found him too sugared : "Ranke," said he in a bantering fashion—"a very fine talent: mutton nicely cooked with carrots."

The Germans of the South, the Catholics of the school of Bohmer above all, who only liked the decayed strength of old German art, disliked "these importations from the North," as they called them, "that arid and charmless rationalism of Berlin." The bookworms, so numerous in Germany, thought that his books were not learned enough, and were not worthy to be placed upon the shelves of University libraries. The greater number of them despised these works, saying there was nothing to be learned in them. All were agreed that Ranke was by no means a true historian, that he lacked originality and was dull.

Among the politicians and statesmen the reception was colder still. That prudent and diplomatic manner of solving historical problems satisfied nobody. The old Prussian Conservatives would not pardon him certain favourable remarks about the Liberals. The Liberals, on the other hand, thought him too reactionary. The parliamentarians of the school of Gervinus did not like him so well as the old historian Schlosser, who was then the representative in Germany of Kantian morality and the honest democracy. As for the national historians, they reproached him with being neither fish nor flesh. Droyson laughed at his pliancy and his relationship with the fickle romanticists". Sybel could not understand his "colourless objectivism." Treitschke said : "He who looks at history as it really is, seldom indeed notices that soft sunlight, scarcely darkened from time to time by the lightest clouds, which illuminates in Ranke's works an elegant circle of noble and refined men." Mommsen, on his part, reproached him for optimism. "You have the truly surprising gift," he said to him ironically, "of seeing in every man what makes him look best. You do not paint men as they are, but as they should be." Perhaps: but in the face of these historians, brutal in their attacks, it will be accounted some day to Ranke's honour that he never depreciated human dignity.

Ranke, moreover, can be satisfied that he never had on his side the dilettanti nor the pedantic scholars, nor those historians fired with the Prussian tendency. He had on his side, and—a matter which is of far greater importance—still has on his side the intellectual class : in Germany, the dialecticians, like David Strauss, Julian Schmidt, and Canon Dollinger: in France, Victor Cherbuliez, Albert Sorel, and Gabriel Monod: in England, the historians Freeman, Seeley, Stubbs, Green, and Gardiner, who looked upon him as their master and applied his methods better than any one else.

Ranke also had the approval and admiration of several statesmen of the highest rank. Thiers regarded him as the greatest statesman of the nineteenth century, and Bismarck was not far from sharing that opinion. When he was asked at an interview for his three favourite books, he said, "The Bible, Shakespeare, and Ranke." This is not an idle opinion, coming from this great maker of history.

On the death of the historian, Bismarck wrote to his sons that he had always felt himself in a close communion of ideas with their father. That means that under his modest and peaceful exterior Ranke had a Prussian radicalism by which, one day, even the Iron Chancellor was daunted. People still remember the sensation caused by his letter to Manteuffel, in which he bluntly advised the Imperial Government to annex Switzerland to destroy a harbour of socialism dangerous to the rest of Europe. Bismarck contented himself with writing on the margin of this letter three great exclamation marks. But he had quickly recognized the ally in Ranke. He knew that in this studious Thuringian who never troubled himself about militant politics he could find a valuable support. King William knew it, too. At a time when the future acclaimers of the Empire conducted a furious campaign in the Prussian Chamber against military reform, Ranke saw through the designs of the Government at once and gave them his approval. One day, indeed, he was summoned to the King's palace. There, in the silence of his study, William explained to him his policy. "He who wishes to govern Germany must conquer it. Gagern's plan is impossible. That Prussia is destined to take the lead in German affairs is what all her history proves: but when and how—that is the question." And the historian could only blindly agree, for that was exactly the policy which, in 1849, he had recommended the King's own brother, the unfortunate Frederick William IV, to take up. Again, on returning to his house that evening, he was able to write in his notebook under the date of June 13, 1860: "During a half hour I was in the locality of historical political conceptions in the company of a man who knows and can" (welcher verstet und vermag).

Were we not right in saying that Leopold von Ranke was a good and faithful servant of the Prussian Monarchy, above all a disinterested and discreet servant?

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