"That rule of etiquette is observed only towards the natives, not towards strangers, and particularly not towards Englishmen. Come, this is a gala-day, and we shall go to the masquerade to-night as well. I must have at least one court dinner and court ball in my journal of travels, to be in the fashion. To-morrow we shall leave Cassel, which doesn't interest me, and go by way of Magdeburg to Berlin." Dick was glad to hear this last intention, for, unlike the Landgrave Frederick II. of Hesse-Cassel, King Frederick I. of Prussia (who was also Duke of Magdeburg) had shown some favor to the American cause, having some months ago forbidden the passage of Hessian soldiers through his dominions to embark for America. So Dick complied the more cheerfully with Lord George's wish. Cassel then, as now, was mainly on the west bank of the river Fulda, and consisted of the "old town," large and irregular, and the "new town," where the nobility and the court officers had fine houses. The circular platz in which the travellers lodged was at the southwestern extremity of the old town, and by proceeding a short way southwest from the platz, one reached the winter palace and the new town. A few steps of their carriage horses brought Lord George and Dick to the palace, then a large Gothic castle, west of which was the great rectangular open space now known as the Friedrichsplatz. South of this space, and between the new town and the Fulda, was a flat-roofed villa, used by the Landgrave as a summer residence, and surrounded by parks, gardens, an orangery, and a menagerie. But though September was not yet past, the Landgrave was now occupying the winter palace. The guard officer at the palace, to whom Lord George showed his order for entrance, caused a footman to conduct the visitors into a large decorated room, where a number of officers stood about in groups, talking in low tones. One of these, whom Lord George had met in the forenoon, greeted the two with the utmost courtesy, which seemed like a compound of French politeness and English gravity. Dick observed that this officer spoke in French, which indeed was so much the court language in Germany while Frederick of Prussia set the fashion, that the use of German was deemed a mark of vulgarity. In France the craze was for everything English; in Germany for everything French.