It was only in his short tales that he succeeded in producing the effect of unity. _Philander_ is a clever and pleasing imitation of the style of Moscherosch, a writer who lived in the days of the Thirty Years' War. In _Fürst Ganzgott und Sänger Halbgott_, we have a humorous variation of the favourite Romantic "Doppelgänger" theme, based upon an extraordinary likeness between two half-brothers who do not know each other; the story is at the same time a travesty of the stiffness and burdensome conventions of small courts. But Arnim's best and most characteristic work is the short tale, _Der tolle Invalide auf dem Fort Ratonneau_. In it we have all his quaint extravagance, without any breach of the laws of possibility; and the central idea is touchingly human. The story, like most of Arnim's, has a whimsically grotesque introduction. The old Commandant of Marseilles, Count Durande, is sitting in the evening by his crackling fire, shoving olive branches into the flames with his wooden leg, and dreaming of the construction of new kinds of fireworks, when he suddenly awakens to the fact that his leg is on fire. He shouts for help, and a strange woman, who is in the act of entering the room, rushes up to him and attempts to stifle the flames with her apron; the burning wooden leg sets fire to the apron, but the two are saved by people rushing in from the street with buckets of water. The woman's errand is to present a petition on behalf of her husband, whose behaviour has been peculiar ever since he received a wound in the head. He is a most capable, deserving sergeant, only at times so irritable that it is impossible to get on with him. Partly out of compassion, partly because the case interests him, the Commandant gives this sergeant charge of a fort which only requires a garrison of three men, where, therefore, he runs no great danger of falling out with those about him. Hardly has he entered the fort before he has an attack of furious madness; he turns out his good wife, refuses to admit his two subordinates, declares war against the Commandant, and opens fire upon Marseilles from his high, inaccessible nest upon the cliffs. For three days he keeps the town in a state of terror. Preparations are made for the storming of the fort, in spite of the certain prospect of loss of life and the fear that the madman may blow up the powder magazine. His brave wife, who loves him, mad as he is, begs that she may first be allowed to try to get into the fort, and, if possible, disarm her husband. He fires upon her, but, led by her love, she climbs undismayed up the narrow rocky path at the top of which two loaded cannons face her. And now, as the result of this terrible excitement, the old wound in the madman's head bursts open again; he comes to his senses, totters to meet his wife--he and she and the town are saved.