[Gutenberg 33819] • Pictures of German Life in the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries, Vol. II.

[...]greatest dangers: one knows that they were sometimes soundly beaten, when they found themselves in a minority, that they were imprisoned by foreign Governments, and more than one of them stabbed; but all this did not frighten them. This evil report lasted till Frederic William II. made his new rules of enlistment. One of the best recruiting places in the empire was Frankfort-a-M., with its great fair; Prussians, Austrians, and Danes, still, at the end of the century, dwelt together there; the Danes had hung out their flag at the "Fir-tree;" the Austrians had, from olden times, stopped phlegmatically at the inn "The Red Ox;" but the restless Prussian recruiting officers were always changing; they were at this time the most distinguished and most splendid. A kind of diplomatic intercourse was maintained between the different parties; they were, it is true, jealous of one another, and endeavoured mutually to intercept each other's news; but they continued to visit and[...]."