under Bongars, the head of the French police, acted the part of spies upon and secret informers against their wretched countrymen.--The farcical donation of a free constitution to the people put a climax to their degradation. On the 2d of July, 1808, Jerome summoned the Westphalian Estates to Cassel and opened the servile assembly, thus arbitrarily convoked, with extreme pomp. The unfortunate deputies, who had, on the conclusion of the lengthy ceremonial, received an invitation _assister au répas_ at the palace and had repaired thither, their imaginations, whetted by hunger, revelling in visions of gastronomic delight, were sorely discomfited on discovering that they were simply expected "to look on while the sovereign feasted." The result of this assembly was, naturally, a unanimous tribute of admiration and an invocation of blessings on the head of the foreign ruler, the principal part in which was played by John Müller, who attempted to convince his fellow countrymen that by means of the French usurpation they had first received the boon of true liberty. This cheaply-bought apostate said, in his usual hyperbolical style, "It is a marked peculiarity of the northern nations, more especially of those of German descent, that, whenever God has, in His wisdom, resolved to bestow upon them a new kind or a higher degree of civilization, the impulse has ever been given from without. This impulse was given to us by Napoleon, by him before whom the earth is silent, God having given the whole world into his hand, nor can Germany at the present period have a wish ungratified, Napoleon having reorganized her as the nursery of European civilization. Too sublime to condescend to every-day polity, he has given durability to Germany! Happy nation! what an interminable vista of glory opens to thy view!" Thus spoke John Müller. Thousands of Germans had been converted into abject slaves, but none other than he was there ever found, with sentimental phrases to gild the chains of his countrymen, to vaunt servility as liberty and dishonor as glory.[16] John Müller's unprincipled address formed, as it were, the turning-point of German affairs. Self-degradation could go no further. The spirit of the sons of Germany henceforward rose, and, with manly courage, they sought, by their future actions, to wipe off the deep stain of their former guilt and dishonor. [Footnote 1: See accounts of this affair in the Recollections of a Legionary, Hanover, 1826, and in Beamisch's History of the Legion.]