Romantically as Platen's adversary, Heinrich Heine, starts, the modern spirit soon makes itself perceptible in his prose. Even before he touches on the subject of politics proper, he amuses himself, in his _Reisebilder_, by making taunting allusions to German conditions and to the way in which German stolidity accommodates itself to them. And the love of liberty, abstract, political liberty, was all along the true passion of Ludwig Börne, who long appeared to occupy himself with purely æsthetic matters, being known for whole decades only as a dramatic critic and writer of short stories. That these authors found readers and admirers bears witness to the fact that the thinking part of the German people at the end of the Twenties was laying aside its faith in authority in the domain of politics as well as in general intellectual matters. At this time the persecution of the students' unions (Burschenschaften) was being carried on with the utmost ardour. They were broken up everywhere. But they formed again at once, and in one German State, Bavaria, after the accession of King Ludwig, they were actually sanctioned by the police. The divisions that occurred among them show the directions of the various currents of public opinion at that time. In Erlangen, after 1827, there were three unions, at feud with each other--Teutonia, Arminia, and Germania. Teutonia was the organ of pure Romanticism, of religious mysticism, and declared that politics in no way concerned it. Arminia's principles were strict morality and the pursuit of science; it aimed at the reformation of the conditions of public life, and also at the unity and liberty of Germany. Germania answered to the Radical tendencies of the day. It dropped the older _Tugendbund's_ requirement of strict morality, emancipated itself from the rule of authority, including authority in the matter of religion, and declared the belief that its aim--which in the case of this union also was the unity and liberty of Germany--could only be attained by revolution. Though it was essentially a political organisation, it would be ridiculous to call it an important and dangerous one. These three main movements were soon represented at all the German universities, and significantly enough, it was, as a rule, the one represented by Germania, which had the greatest influence. [1] This is the need of these hard times! These are the hard times of need! This is the hard need of these times! These are the times of hard need! [2] This kiss is for the Moscovites, with their handsome noses; this hand-clasp for Rome with her Jesuits. [3] Console thyself, O poet! 'tis but little the world loses; thou hast long known that on this earth a man can be nothing worse than a German. IV INFLUENCE OF THE REVOLUTION OF JULY