[Footnote 7: Their general, Von der Wied, who was taken prisoner at Talavera in Spain and died shortly afterward of a pestilential disease, had done signal service to France, in 1798 in Switzerland, in 1792 in Italy, in 1805 in Austria, in 1806 in Prussia, and finally in Spain.--_Allgemeine Zeitung of 1811, No_. 46.] [Footnote 8: Personal freedom was restricted by innumerable decrees. Freedom of speech, formerly great in Würtemberg, was strictly repressed; all social confidence was annihilated. A swarm of informers ensnared those whom the secret police were unable to entrap. The secrecy of letters was violated. Trials in criminal cases were no longer allowed to be public. The sentence passed upon the accused was, particularly in cases of the highest import, not delivered by the judge as dictated by the law, but by the despot's caprice.--The conscription was enforced with increased severity and tyranny.--The natural right of emigration was abolished.--The people were disarmed, and not even the inhabitants of solitary farms and hamlets were allowed to possess arms in order to defend themselves against wolves and robbers. A man was punished for killing a mad dog, because the gun used for that purpose had been illegally secreted. Pass-tickets were given to and returned by all desirous of passing the gates of the pettiest town. The members of the higher aristocracy were compelled, under pain of being deprived of the third of their income, to spend three months in the year at court.--The citizen was oppressed by a variety of fresh taxes, by the newly-created monopolies of tobacco, salt, etc., and colonial imposts, by the tenfold rise of the excise and custom-house dues, etc. Vide Zahn in the Würtemberg Annual. Zschokke, meanwhile, in his pamphlet already mentioned, "Will the human race gain," etc., advocated republican equality and liberty under a monarchical constitution.] [Footnote 9: The Von Dalbergs of Franconia were the first hereditary barons of the Holy Roman Empire, and one of their race was dubbed knight at each imperial coronation. Hence the demand of the imperial herald, "Is no Dalberg here?" And a Dalberg it was, who, in Napoleon's name, declared to the German emperor that he no longer recognized an emperor of Germany.--In 1797, Dalberg had, at the diet, and again in 1805, expressed himself with great zeal against France; on the present occasion he was Napoleon's first satrap.] [Footnote 10: They sold the demesnes of Hanau and Fulda and received the sums produced by the sale in gift from the grandduke.--_Görres's Rhenish Mercury, A.D. 1814, No. 168._] [Footnote 11: They were barefaced enough to bestow a constitution, and, in 1810, to open a diet at Hanau, although all the newspapers had, five days previously, been suppressed, and orders had been issued that the editor of the only newspaper permitted for the future was to be appointed by the police.--_Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 294._]