It is not, however, the conflict between rich and poor, between labor and capital in general, and between manufacturers and their people in particular, whose natural course is here detailed.

And this is a point which an English reader must above all keep clearly in view.

He will otherwise altogether fail to understand the author's purpose; for it is just here that the entirely different blending of the social masses in England and in Germany is displayed.

We have here the conflict between the feudal system and that class of industrial and wealthy persons, together with the majority of the educated public functionaries, who constitute in Germany the citizen-class.

Before the fall of the Prussian monarchy in 1807, the noble families--for the most part hereditary knights (Herrn _von_)--almost entirely monopolized the governmental and higher municipal posts, and a considerable portion of the peasantry were under servitude to them as feudal superiors.