might cage the "eagle" as they would, his influence, however, was not to be withstood; he had started a movement which stirred Germany to the very heart and spread the tenets of socialism and co-operation over the length and breadth of the Fatherland.

As soon as he was liberated, he determined to go to Berlin in spite of the law forbidding all radicals and democrats to enter the capital. A difficulty of this kind stimulated his daring spirit. He took the position by storm, got into the city disguised as a carter, and through Alexander von Humboldt obtained permission from the king to remain there. As was to be expected, the Countess soon established herself in the same place, and it was these further relations with her that gave such a handle to Lassalle's enemies, who stated openly that he made use of and spent her money. During this period he wrote his great work on Heracleitus the Dark, which was the outcome of all the studies and meditations of his early years. It is easy all through to see the affinity between Heracleitus and Lassalle. He

puts many of his theories and philosophical ideas into its pages, and gives a tolerably accurate account of his own scientific life in his youth. He had been a pupil of Hegel, and shared his master's admiration of the "old Ionian sage, and he seems all through to try and prove that Hegel's was a continuation and further development of Heracleitus'. Although it is from this work that we principally derive our knowledge of the great political agitator, it was by his speeches and pamphlets that he ruled the people of his time, and put himself at the head of the great "Labor League."

"I hear everywhere from the operatives," he says, words to this effect: We must forge our concentrated and united will into a mighty sledge-hammer, which we must place in the hands of a man in whose intelligence and strength of character we have implicit confidence, and he must strike for us.

It is evident that by this man Lassalle meant himself. "You placed before my name a von,' to which I can lay no claim," he says in one of his love-letters to a young lady whose name has never transpired, but who, like Helena von Racowitza, has published an account of

her intimacy with him, for the benefit of society at large. "I have not the honor of being noble, but am by birth a plain citizen, and by my heart one of the people, and will fight for them, and if necessary die for them. He was destined, alas! to throw away his life for a very different cause.

The friendship between Lassalle and Bismarck was an interesting one, and was the natural outcome of the celebrated split between the social democrats and Fortschritt" men, the latter being the avowed enemies of Bismarck. The comprehensive quickness of Lassalle's mind enabled him from the moment that Bismarck first appeared in the arena of politics, and while the odium against him was at its height, to discern in the youthful politician the "man of the future, and predict the great career there was in store for him. One of the most interesting portions of Madame von Racowitza's book is the account of the interview between him and Bismarck, which she relates at first hand from her lover's lips.

great iron-man wishes to take me captive, and

"Yes, I went to see him," he says. "The

iron is a costly metal, strong, hard, and reliable; what has not iron done in the world? Almost everything is made and strengthened by iron; but there is another metal more malleable, more easily bent, not made for heroic deeds of arms, and yet more powerful than iron, Gold! What iron destroys, gold re

builds. The shower which won the heart of

Danäe was golden! Yes, yes, you 'Golden Fox!' it is still a question which of the two metals is the strongest, the most enduring. In

elevated circles, it is true, they say gold is

Jewish ;' its real worth is only to be tested by a practical trial. And, besides, iron rusts, and rusty iron is only fit to be cast out amongst mulated by centuries of tradition and ignorAway then, among the rubbish accu

rubbish.

ance! But as to what Bismarck wants of me, and what I want of him, it is enough for me to tell you it is out of the question, and quite impossible! We are both too cunning, and are fully aware of our intention to deceive one another. Were we not so well trained, we would laugh in one another's faces; as it is, we confine ourselves to the courtesies of social intercourse."

clever?" asks she. Clever! what do you "Do you like Bismarck? Do you think him mean by clever? If you and I are clever, Bismarck is not; he is cutting and powerful, is indeed iron. Refine iron, it becomes steel, out of which we make polished, sharp weapons, but only weapons! I like gold better. You will see, my heart, what you and I will accomplish with gold!"

We fear the expression of such sentiments will hardly make us believe in the unselfishness and generosity of "Ferdinand, the chosen of the people," the "political messiah." Vanity and ambition were the ruling passions of his life, and these revelations, written by the woman whom he loved, show still more distinctly the feet of clay on which the popular idol of the day was supported.

It was when overworked, disappointed with the results of his efforts, invaded by that weariness which generally comes over the most dauntless when they reach what the Tuscan poet calls " the middle of the path of life," with every hope chilled, and every desire for the benefit of humanity unattained, that his fate, in the shape of Helena von Doenniges, again came across his path, and it is on these few years that the memoirs before us throw so much light.

Helena was the daughter of a Bavarian diplomatist for some time Minister in Italy. She represents her father as an ambitious, clever man, indifferent to his children; in fact, she states, that from her fifth to her sixteenth year, she hardly exchanged a thousand words with him. Her mother was vain, frivolous, and worldly, and took the greatest delight in plunging her daughter, while yet a child, into all the gaiety and excitement of a worldly life. At the age of twelve she was engaged by her parents to a man thirty years her senior, an Italian count whom they met while travelling in the island of Sardinia-the only reason, their dutiful daughter says, that she could see for their doing so being" that he cooked well." The child, who certainly showed extreme precocity for her age, was occupied less with her studies than with thoughts of marriage and prospective engagements. She delighted in receiving letters from her fiery Italian lover, which she showed to her youthful companions, "to make them envious." This was all very well, however, so long as he was at a distance, but when he appeared on the scene some few years afterwards and expected her to keep her promise, she found him detestable, and absolutely refused to do so. Her grandmother taking pity on the poor girl, and wishing to save her from her fate, asked her to come and stop with her at Berlin, and here, according NEW SERIES.-Vol. XXXIII., No. 9. 5

to her own account, she soon became the queen of a large and intellectual circle. Among her most devoted slaves was the young Boyar, Count Yanko von Racowitza, who, owing to the swarthiness of his complexion and his dark eyes, immediately received the nickname of Othello." After several years of this life she returned again to Italy, where Russian naval officers and other male figures appear on the scene of her life, and the Italian count vanishes from it for ever; in fact, the whole time (passed principally at Nice) seems to have been entirely taken up with balls, fêtes, and gaieties, and it was then, as she says, that she lost her power of discriminating between good and evil, between right and wrong. It was her grandmother who, deeply concerned for the welfare of her favorite, again stepped in to save her. A second visit to Germany was arranged and welcomed by the young girl with delight, and after a journey through France, Switzerland, and the south of Germany, she and her grandmother reached Berlin in the winter of 1861, where her friend Yanko was again pressed into the service, and made her daily companion at concerts, lectures, picture-galleries, and balls. eye-witness at this time relates “that she was more piquante" than beautiful," an accomplished mistress in the arts of the toilet, clever, with an amount of culture beyond the average of German women.' She bore the character of being eccentric, adventurous, and had, moreover, a fortune of 70,000 thalers.

An

One evening at a friend's house she met Lassalle. She had already heard a great deal about him and his adventurous career, notably the affair of the cassette and his intimacy with the Countess.

She had asked her grandmother about him, but was told he was a dangerous demagogue, who had once been concerned in some robbery, in fact, a person no one could know. She had then turned to her friend Yanko, who advised her to make no further inquiries, as such people were quite out of her sphere. Conceive the delicate feeling of a woman who can put down such a statement, even second-hand, about a man she was once supposed to love!

In spite of all the warnings she had received, however, the first meeting with

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him was a coup de foudre. "I had expected," she says, "to see a small, insignificant, ugly-looking Jew, and was astonished to find a tall, slight, handsome man, with a head like a Roman emperor, and beautiful beaming eyes!" Henceforth there was but one man in the world for her, and he, as he afterwards told her, "for the first time felt his life complete, and as if something, long wanting, had been added to it." They talked together the whole night, made many mutual confidences, and applied the familiar epithet "du" to one

another.

At four o'clock in the morning, when Helena rose to go, Lassalle took her in his arms, carried her downstairs (there were three flights), and accompanied her to her own home. Well might Heine say that the Sons of the New Time knew nothing of abnegation and shamefacedness. She excuses the peculiarity of her behavior by confessing that he exercised a sort of magnetic inflence over her. She tells us that she always felt paralyzed, as if she had lost all will and power over herself, whenever he came near her. This feeling was strengthened all the more by her lover's declaration that they were made for one another; that he was her fate, against which it was useless to struggle. So imbued did she become with this feeling, that she plainly told her friend, the poor devoted Yanko, that she had met a man, with whom, if he would marry her, she would elope whenever he wished."

Circumstances, however, were stronger even than the will of her fiery lover. A point-blank refusal was given by her parents to his request to be allowed to become a suitor for the hand of their daughter, and we rather think in her heart of hearts Fräulein von Doenniges never wished for their consent.

"I had up to now," she says, only given as much as I chose; I had put all men under my yoke, and they had looked on the smallest favor as an inestimable treasure, but here was one who insisted on all or nothing."

She was half frightened, half pleased, at his impetuosity, and in spite of the veto of her parents, still continued to see her lover, and to carry on secret communications with him. Her egotism and self-laudation are only exceeded by his; they talk as if the eyes of the world

were fixed on them, and mutually congratulate one another on their superiority, cleverness, and power, to an extent that is almost ludicrous. On one occasion, when he tells her of the observations made about him, and the persecutions to which he has been subjected, she answered, "Oh yes, I understand it well, La supériorité est une infirmité publique !'"'"

On the death of her grandmother, she was obliged to leave Berlin, and return to her family, who, in consequence of her mother's health, were living at Nice. Here Yanko resumed his visits, and again she seems to have been on most intimate terms with him, and to have encouraged his attentions in every way. She says that these were the last bright memories she has retained of her father's house. In the beginning of May, she was seized with a fever, from which she took a long time to recover. The doctors ordered a change to a northern climate, and mountain air, and as a young English friend of hers was contemplating an expedition to Switzerland, with her children, she made up her mind to accompany her. According to Helena's account, the idea of going to the Righi was suggested by her friends, and she describes how it unexpectedly and suddenly occurred to her, while riding along the road towards her destination, to ask if there was an establishment for the curd-cure? (It is a curious coincidence, however, that she mentions shortly before having had a letter from her friend Holthoff, telling her that Lassalle had been ordered to the Righi for his health.)

"Yes," answered her guide; "two : one in Closterli, and one here in Kaltbad."

She immediately bent down towards a little boy of eight, who was standing close by, and whispered, "Tell me, my child, do you know if a Dr. Lassalle is stopping at the Sanatorium ?''

The boy looked at her, and replied, "I think so," upon which she said, "Then go and tell him to come here.

The boy vanished to do her bidding, but suddenly she started, for she heard a voice beside her saying, "By all the gods of Greece, it is she!" Turning, she beheld Lassalle; whom, after the first start of surprise, she introduced to

Thus runs her narrative. We now give that of Lassalle himself. He writes to his old friend, the Countess, on the 27th of July, and thus describes the meeting :

"The day before yesterday I was sitting in my study writing in the midst of the most hideous weather, which has lasted without intermission ever since I came, when a peasant boy came in and said, 'There is a lady on the terrace who wishes to speak to you.' I immediately thought, 'Who can it be? I know no one here! I took my hat and stick, however,

and hastened down. There whom should I see on horseback, accompanied by an English lady, an American and a Frenchman? Who?

but Helena, the Golden Fox!

"She had been informed in a letter received from Holthoff that I was here, and had at once, with her friends, organised a party for the Righi, so as to take me up at the Kaltbad. Naturally, I started at once with them for the summit, where we all spent the night.

"Unluckily, the English lady's child is recovering from scarlet fever, and the mother could not be persuaded, in spite of the horrible weather, to stay a day longer.

Poor Helena ill, and suffering from her chest, had, like the rest of us, to descend early the next morning through dense mist and rain. We parted where we had met, but one courtesy deserves another, and I have promised Helena to be in Germany between the 15th and 25th of August.

"Is it not truly a wonderful piece of luck that at the age of thirty-nine and a half years I should find a wife so beautiful, of such a free, and to me suitable character, who loves me so dearly! and lastly-what is to me an absolute necessity-one who submits so entirely to my will.

The Countess answers in a long letter, and asks, "Cannot wisdom, friendship, and the beauties of nature satisfy you for a time?"

"Ah! how little you know me," is his answer. "I wish nothing so ardently as to be able to retire to the enjoy ment of science, friendship, and nature; but I am too old and too great for child's play."

He was, it appears, inconstant, and eager of conquest where women were concerned; fascinated for the moment, and quite as susceptible to the triumph

of his vanity as to that of his heart. He tries to persuade Helena to elope with him. Once, he said, their marriage had become a fait accompli, her parents could make no further objection. He employed all his eloquence to try and influence her, but she remained firm, pleading as an excuse his political opinions and intimacy with the Countess. Lassalle assured her " that his old friend valued his happiness above all things, and would never stand in the way of his marrying." She laughed, but at the same time doubted the entire satisfaction of the Countess.

The letters exchanged at this time between the three individuals concerned are of the most remarkable description, and could only have been produced in a state of society sadly at variance with all the laws of morality and right. Each is a study in its way: there is the fiery, vain, egotistical democrat, writing to the woman to whom he had once been attached, to tell her that his last love is fair, fair, and by her individuality the only woman that suits me." En avant, "then over the Rubicon. It leads to fortune for you also, good Countess ; at least as much as for me. The old

46

strength is still there; the old luck there also. I will carry everything to the most brilliant issue.

As a contrast to him, there is the girl he wants to marry, with her frivolity, her weakness, and her flightiness, declaring that she will and shall be his wife, acknowledging herself to be "willless' as a child.

"But this time, friend Satan, the child will show you that it feels its devilish kinship; that your demoniac neighborhood has at last worked on it, that Nature has waked out of her sleep, and that a drop of your satanic strength and joy to live. blood has rolled into her veins, giving her The hard

est thing for her, however, to bear,' she writes, is the thought of Yanko, and of the deathstroke she will deal him, by engaging herself to another. In spite of my terrible frivolity I never had a trace of coquetry in my composition, and I never had been able to amuse myself by attaching a man, however slightly, to me, and then laughing at his sufferings with cruel indifference.

The most dignified figure of all is the Countess Hatzfeldt, who saw all the difficulties and dangers of the position, and tried to warn Lassalle from the brink of the precipice. "Remember,"