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It is said here that Duroc's journey to Berlin was merely to demand a passage for the French troops through the Prussian territory in Franconia, and to prevent the Russian troops from passing through the Prussian territory in Poland. This request is such as might have been expected from our Emperor and his Minister.

Our first excursion I speak of the four who traveled on foot was to the Franconia Notch. It could not well have been otherwise; at all events, there was one of the four whose feet would not willingly have carried him in any other direction. The mountains drew us, and there was no thought of resisting their attraction.

Late in the afternoon of a pleasant summer day in the year 191-, if one may borrow a mode of phrasing that once found favour with the readers of the late G. P. R. James, a solitary balloonist replacing the solitary horseman of the classic romances might have been observed wending his way across Franconia in a north-easterly direction, and at a height of about eleven thousand feet above the sea and still spindling slowly.

He was for a time duke of Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia, as well as emperor. In Hungary he conquered the enemies of Peter the king, and restored him to the throne, receiving his homage as vassal of the empire. He had great success in putting down private war. In 1043 he proclaimed a general peace in his kingdom. He favored the attempt to bring in the Truce of God.

Gustavus Adolphus had flattered him with the promise of the Duchy of Franconia, to be formed out of the Bishoprics of Wurtzburg and Bamberg, and he now insisted on the performance of this pledge. He at the same time demanded the chief command, as generalissimo of Sweden.

He told how he and a "gentleman friend" had been visiting the seaside for their health, how a "chep" came along in a balloon and fell out as he fell in, how he had drifted to Franconia, how the Germans had seemed to mistake him for some one and had "took him prisoner" and brought him to New York, how he had been to Labrador and back, how he had got to Goat Island and found himself there alone.

After the beginning of the next year it continued rapidly to spread, and the different groups of insurgents who were fighting here and there, combined in a common plan of action. Like a flood the movement forced its way eastwards into Austria, westwards into Alsatia, northwards into Franconia, and even as far as Thuringia.

Is it possible, then, to refrain from indignation, when we know that, in this expedition, undertaken for the benefit of such an ally, the great king was destined to terminate his career? Rapidly assembling his troops in Franconia, he followed the route of Wallenstein through Thuringia.

Katt, another patriot, assembled a number of veterans at Stendal and advanced as far as Magdeburg, but was compelled to flee to the Brunswickers in Bohemia. What might not have been the result had the plan of the Archduke Charles to march rapidly through Franconia been followed on the opening of the campaign?

Among their various tribes, both banks of the Upper Rhine were occupied by the powerful and rich Helvetii, who nowhere came into immediate contact with the Romans and so lived in peace and in treaty with them: at this time they seem to have stretched from the lake of Geneva to the river Main, and to have occupied the modern Switzerland, Suabia, and Franconia Adjacent to them dwelt the Boii, whose settlements were probably in the modern Bavaria and Bohemia.