the soup.' And so, as I really needed recreation, and Spandau was too far from the sea for oysters, and the Spandau fowl-broth did not tempt me especially, and the Prussian chains were very cold in winter and quite detrimental to my health, I resolved to journey to Paris, and there, in the fatherland of champagne and the Marseillaise, to drink the one and to hear the other sung." Few particulars of Heine's Parisian life are known, notwithstanding that during its earlier period he reached the zenith of his fame and popularity, and lived, according to his own statement, like a god--a life to end, alas! only too soon. He set himself during these years to the task of bringing about a mutual understanding between the French and the German people, and with this end in view he wrote his famous essays on the _Romantic School_ and _Religion and Philosophy in Germany_, and sent to the Augsburg _Allgemeine Zeitung_ those letters on the politics and art of the day which give one of the most brilliant and vivid pictures in existence of Paris under the "Citizen" monarchy. Well for Heine if those bright Parisian days had lasted! He was overtaken only too soon by a fate as terrible as any that martyr was ever called upon to endure. His nervous organization had always been an exceedingly sensitive one, and he had long suffered from severe and frequent headaches. During the latter part of his life in Paris his health gradually declined, until in 1848 he received his deathblow in a stroke of paralysis which left him almost blind, crippled and helpless, and subject to frequent attacks of intense physical agony--a blow which did not kill him, however, for eight years. His patience--nay, his heroism--through all his lingering torture was the testimony of every one who was a witness of his sufferings; and, what was more wonderful, he retained the powers of his mind in undiminished vigor to the very end. He died in February, 1856, poor as he had almost always lived, and almost in obscurity, for the world had withdrawn from the spectacle of so much suffering, and only a few friends remained to him to the last.