Thus in the course of a few short weeks, was the proud fabric of the Prussian monarchy levelled with the ground. The government being of a strictly military character, when the army, the pride and strength of the nation, disappeared, every bond of union among the various provinces of the crown seemed to be at once dissolved. To account for the unexampled rapidity of such a downfall, it must be remembered, first, that the Prussian states, many of them the fruits of recent military conquest, were held together by little but the name of the great Frederick, and the terror of the highly disciplined force, which he had bequeathed to his successors; that, in a word, they had not yet had time to be blended and melted thoroughly into a national whole: secondly, that Prussia had rushed into this war not only with imprudent rashness, but with the stain of dishonour on her hands. The acceptance of Hanover, as a bribe, from the French despot, and the hard and brazen reluctance to part with that ill-gotten spoil, even when the preservation of peace with France seemed hopeless--these circumstances, together with the mean desertion of Austria during the preceding campaign of Austerlitz--had, in effect, injured the government deeply and degradingly in the opinion of its own subjects, as well as of other nations: but, thirdly, the imbecile conduct of the chief Prussian officers, in the campaign of Jena, was as little likely to have been foreseen or expected, as the pusillanimous, if not treacherous, baseness of those who, after the army was defeated, abandoned so easily a chain of the best fortresses in Europe. The personal character of King Frederick William was never calumniated, even when the measures of his government were most generally and most justly exposed to suspicion and scorn. On the contrary, the misfortunes of this virtuous sovereign and his family were heard of with unmixed regret and compassion.