"I will tell you, and make your soul shudder. The slaves, the down-trodden nations, will free themselves by the fearful means of revolution. It already agitates every soul, and throbs in every heart. The time of peace and tranquillity is at end; the storm no longer rages in the heads and hearts of poets only, but in every human heart. The thoughts and songs of the poets have pierced the heart of nations, and fermented a storm that will soon burst forth; as it sweeps along it will destroy the old and build up the new. With his 'Robbers,' Schiller hurled the firebrand into the mind of youth, and princes and rulers are feeding and nourishing the enkindled flame with the trumpery of their gold-glittering rags, and their vices. This flame will blaze up until it becomes a mighty conflagration. The vices of princes are the scourges chosen by God, to chastise the nations, in order that they may rise up from the dust, and that slaves may become men! Louis the Fifteenth of France, with all his crimes and vices, was an instrument in the hands of the Almighty. And Marie Antoinette, with her love of pleasure, her frivolity, and her extravagance, is such an instrument, as is also Frederick William of Prussia, with all his thoughtlessness, his good-nature, and his indolence. Even this hypocritical generation of vipers, this lying, deceiving brotherhood, these Rosicrucians and Jesuits, must serve God's purposes. Falsehood exists only to make truth manifest; and bondage, only to promote liberty. Therefore I will not complain, although vice should be triumphant for a while. The greater the success of evil now, the greater the triumph of good hereafter. The greater the number of Jesuits who execute their dark deeds now, the greater the number who will be destroyed." "They exist only in your imagination, my exalted friend," said Hardenberg, smiling. "There are not any Jesuits in Prussia."