in the court of Weimar, a sphere of action as honourable for themselves as advantageous to the literature of their country. The French ascendency in literature had thus ceased at the very point of time when the French political ascendency came to lie heavy and oppressively on the nation; the literary honour sharpened that bitter feeling of political shame, and the more the German people learned to feel it, the stronger became its impatience to liberate itself from that condition into which it had been reduced by the French. But on whom must this feeling have seized more powerfully than on the student? To whom must the situation of Germany have occasioned more serious apprehensions than to him? On the one hand, sufficiently instructed to perceive the dangers which threatened the political and literary liberty of Germany; on the other, full of youthful spirit, and of desires to help the oppressed Fatherland,--such sentiments must have weaned the students from the trivial pursuit of Landsmanships and Orders, and accordingly those of the same sentiment united themselves into a Burschenschaft. The object of this first union was noble; namely, to rescue the Fatherland; and in order to be able to do this worthily, to raise up men strengthened to the utmost completeness of both moral and physical constitution. Thence came it, that bodily exercises, especially gymnastics, rose into new existence; that the Burschen sought to invigorate themselves by hardships of every kind; thence, that they strove after the greatest possible purity of manners, and displayed a spirit of hostility towards the less pure tendencies of the yet existing orders. Germany's noblest sons belonged then to the Burschenschafts. These unions had their leaders and laws, much in the same manner as the Chores. Their leaders were the so-called _Rügemeister_, monitors, or judges, and had their speaker, who, in the assembly, made statement to the people of whatever affairs appeared of importance to them. In these companies ruled no aristocratic power, as was the case in those of the Chores, especially towards the younger members. To establish a thorough union amongst the students, was a main object of the Burschenschaft. On this account the duel was not permitted between the members of the union; and duels between the members of the orders were very much circumscribed, and only in cases of real injuries, or gross offences, and then under certain conditions, permitted by the court of honour. The Burschenschafts of different university cities stood in combination with each other, and members from one city were in the habit of making visits to the members of the other university cities. The Burschenschafts, as then constituted, were in most places allowed, or at least, tolerated. They celebrated often, and with the consent of the prorector, their so-called foundation-day, or anniversary, with great banqueting, public processions, music, and torch-trains.