Justice requires, however, to add that Grunwald can be called insignificant only in comparison with former days of great power and surpassing splendor. The town is still of vast importance for the whole province in which it is situated. If her flag no longer waves on every sea, her port is still continually crowded with schooners and sloops, and near her wharves many a larger vessel awaits completion on the stocks. If her walls have been torn to pieces by the artillery of the Imperialists, and her ramparts have been razed by the French, the town is still a fortress, whose commandant would not sleep quietly unless he had received from all the guards and posts the report that all is quiet. If the town has lost her ancient privileges, and no longer enjoys as of old perfect freedom and sovereign independence, she has profited on the other hand largely by becoming an integral part of a great monarchy. Grunwald has not only a numerous garrison of infantry and artillery, but is also the seat of the highest court of the province; and above all, as everybody knows, enjoys a university, although the light shed by this seat of the muses cannot be said to penetrate far into distant lands. Grunwald is, moreover, the favorite residence of the surrounding nobility, which is particularly rich, and enjoys a very great influence on public life. When the magnificent crops upon their vast domains have been safely housed, when the trees in their parks lose their foliage in the autumn winds, and the crows migrate from the bare woods to the towns, then all the counts and barons and smaller noblemen also come to Grunwald. From the great island, which lies right opposite the town, and from the whole surrounding country, they come in their lumbering state carriages, all driven four-in-hand, and settle down with children, servants, tutors, and governesses for the whole winter. They own stately houses all over the town, which in summer are easily known by their utter silence, the closed curtains, and the grass growing in idyllic happiness between the flags of their court-yards--far different from the ordinary houses inhabited by ordinary people, who have to pay taxes, enjoy no privileges, and are forced to work summer and winter alike. CHAPTER XIII. It is autumn. The fields are bare; from the linden-trees in the court-yard at Grenwitz the brown leaves are falling in showers. Thick fogs cover the sea, the high shores of the island with their noble beech-forests, and the low coast of the continent. The towers of Grunwald rise out of the mist like giants of former days, and around the lofty steeples crows and blackbirds are fluttering, having left the unhospitable forests to move to warm cities.