For, besides the strength and capacity of self-sacrifice, which was still slumbering in the people, a fresh hopeful vigour was already visible in a distinguished circle. Again it was to be found among the Prussian officials. The supreme court of judicature had maintained itself in the high consideration it had gained since the organisation of the last King. It was a numerous body; it included the flower of Prussian intelligence, the greatest strength of the citizens, and the highest culture of the nobles. The elder were trained under Cocceji, and the younger under Carmer--judicious, upright, firm men, of great capacity for work, of proud patriotism and independence of character, who were not led astray by any ministerial rescript. The court _coteries_ did not yet venture to assail these unpliable men; and it is a merit in the King that he held a protecting hand over their integrity. They belonged partly to citizens' families, which for many generations had sent their sons to the lecture-rooms of the professors of law; in the East to Frankfort and Koenigsberg, in the West to Halle and Goettingen. Their families formed an almost hereditary aristocracy of officials. United with them as fellow-students and friends, and like-minded, were the best talents of the administration; also foreigners who had entered the Prussian civil service. From this circle had been produced all the officials, who, after the prostration of Prussia, were active in the renovation of the State, Stein, Schoen, Vinke, Grolmann, Sack, Merkel, and many others, presidents of the administration, and heads of the courts of justice after 1815. It is a pleasure in this time of insecurity to direct our attention to the quiet labours of these trustworthy men. Many of them were strictly trained bureaucrats, with limited ideas and feelings; on the green table of the Board lay the ambition and labour of their whole lives. But they, the chief judges, the administrators of the Province, maintained faithfully and lastingly through difficult times their consciousness of being Prussians; each of them imparted to those about him something of the tenacious perseverance and the confident judgment which distinguished them. Even when they were severed from the body of their State, and were obliged to declare the law under foreign rule, they worked on in their sphere unchanged, in the old way; accustomed to calm self-control, they concealed in the depths of their souls the fiery longing after their hereditary ruler, and perhaps quiet plans for a better time.