Mlle. Marianne Lamprecht had drawn my attention to this young man as a sort of _princeps juventutis_. Her father thought highly of him and assisted him in his undertakings. The society of which he was the leader had ramifications throughout lettered and scientific Germany. All its members were serious workers; its mere existence had overwhelmed with ridicule the reputation of the old aristocratic “corps,” those little courts of idlers, where the gilded youth of the fatherland, under the pretence of study, spends all its days in drinking, duelling, and drabbing. The appearance of M. Wilhelm Baum surprised me. Over his night-shirt he had hastily donned a short and seedy jacket; his hair was untidy; he was a small man of awkward aspect. The cinders from the stove, scattered here and there, scrunched under our feet. My eye was caught by the teaspoon, still wet, among the manuscripts. The man was in keeping with his surroundings. Yet, when I had seated myself on an ancient sofa with broken springs, my second glance at this “prince” aroused sympathetic feelings. A secret flame illumined the blue eyes, the ascetic brow, and the sickly countenance, revealing, in this shy youth of twenty-five, a strong and lofty soul. He, likewise, confided to me his hopes. They differed little from those of M. Moritz von Bethmann. But on the lips of M. Baum they received an apostolic breadth. The young banker had not shown that he felt any insurmountable horror of war, which he regarded merely as a useless expense. M. Baum, on the other hand, whose entire mentality was under the influence of evangelical radicalism, detested war as barbarism and as a manifestation of antichrist. At one o’clock, since I could not make up my mind to leave him, I persuaded him to dine with me at my hotel. Marcel Chabrières had spent the morning at the museum among the tinted marbles of Max Klinger. He was astonished to find that I was already on a friendly footing, almost intimate indeed, with this young German.