the western frontier of Germany are now well-nigh forgotten, and only the names of towns and rivers remain to remind us how much of what is now German soil, between the Elbe and Oder, had for a long time been occupied by Slavonic tribes, uncivilised and pagan. Albrecht had really inherited this task of subduing and expelling these enemies from German soil from his father, Count Otto, who was the grandson of Count Esiko of Ballenstädt (1050). All these princes and their knights had to spend their lives in settling and defending the frontiers or marks of Germany, or of what had been German soil before the southward migrations of the German tribes began. They held their fiefs from the German Emperors, but were left free to do whatever they deemed necessary in the defence of their strongholds (burgs) and settlements. The first of the Saxon Emperors, Henry I. (919–936), was called the _Burgenbauer_, because he encouraged all over Germany the building of strongholds which afterwards grew into villages and towns, and thus led gradually to a more civilised life in the German Empire. Wherever it was possible churches were built, bishoprics were founded, monasteries and schools established and supported by liberal grants of land. A great share in this Eastern conquest fell to the Counts of Anhalt, and their achievements were richly rewarded by the great Saxon Emperors, Henry I. and Otto the Great. There can be no doubt that these bloody crusades of the German Markgraves against their pagan enemies in the East of Europe, though less famous, left more lasting and more substantial benefits to Germany than all the crusades against the Saracens. I shall carry my historical retrospect no farther, but it may easily be imagined how this long and glorious history of the princes of the house of Anhalt made a deep impression on the minds of the young generation, and how even as boys we felt proud of our Duke. Though the belief in heredity was not then so strong as it is now—and I must confess that even now my own belief in acquired excellencies being inherited is very small—yet standing before our Ascanian[15] Duke, the descendant and representative of so many glorious ancestors, one felt something like the awe which one feels when looking at an oak that has weathered many a storm, and still sends forth every year its rich green foliage. It was a just pride that made even the schoolboys lift their caps before their stately Duke and his noble Duchess, and I must confess that something of that feeling has remained with me for life, and the title of Serene Highness, which has since been changed to Royal Highness (Hoheit), has always sounded to my ears not as an empty title or as inferior to Royal Highness or even Majesty, but as the highest that could be bestowed on any sovereign, if he had deserved it by high ideals, and by true serenity of mind in the storms and battles of life.