In truth, Bonn owes a great deal to the Prince Consort--more than most people are aware. If the University has grown great and popular, a favourite with reigning houses, a High School in which every King of Prussia is expected to have pursued his studies, something like a "Christ Church" among German Universities; if the town has grown rich and flourishing, a favourite residence with wealth and position _en retraite_, the merit is in no small measure due to the Prince who, practically speaking, first set the fashion among illustrious folk. No scion of a reigning house, to speak of--none, certainly, to make a mark--had been at Bonn before. Indeed, Bonn, with its associations of the Burschenschaft, of disaffection and of ecclesiastical strife, did not stand in the best of odours. Hence, when a Prince came to break the ice, of more than ordinary promise, and already connected by rumour with a high destiny, very naturally, all eyes were turned upon him. His subsequent marriage with the Queen--at that time certainly the most powerful sovereign in Christendom--following almost immediately upon his studentship, no doubt emphasised the effect and added force to the example. We see at once princes flocking to the _Fridericia Guilelmia Rhenana_--Schaumburgs, and Mecklenburgs, and Schleswig-Holsteins, and Meiningens. Twelve years after we have the heir to the Prussian Crown matriculating as a student. We find the roll of students growing at a bound from 650 to 731--to increase since to above 1,200. In short, we see Bonn developing into a different place. English folk--as the Prince's friend, Professor Loebell, puts it, rather uncomplimentarily, in one of his Belgian letters--send their "young bears" to Bonn in whole batches, "to be licked." Then the parents come themselves, bringing their families with them, to settle there. German rank and fashion follow in their wake, quintupling the population in less than sixty years--and the reputation and position of the town are made.