The numbers of the lesser nobility--in consequence of the right of every nobleman's son, of whatever grade, to bear his father's title--were so great, and since the introduction by the great Elector,[A] and his royal successors, of the new system of taxation, their revenues had become so small, that they considered themselves entitled to the monopoly of all the higher offices of state, and regarded every citizen of culture, fortune, and consideration with jealousy, as an upstart.

The new monarchic constitution of 1808-12, which has immortalized the names of Frederick William III., and of his ministers, Stein and Hardenberg, altered this system, and abolished the vassalage and feudal service of the peasants in those provinces that lie to the east of the Elbe.

The fruits of this wise act of social reform were soon apparent, not only in the increase of prosperity and of the population, but also in that steady and progressive elevation of the national spirit which alone made it possible in 1813-14 for the house of Hohenzollern to raise the monarchy to the first rank among the European powers.
[Footnote A: The friend and brother-in-law of William III.] The further development in Prussia of political freedom unfortunately did not keep pace with these social changes; and so--to say no more--it happened that the consequences of all half measures soon resulted.

Even before the struggles of 1848, down to which period the story of our novel reaches, the classes of the more polished nobility and citizens, instead of fusing into one band of _gentry_, and thus forming the basis of a landed aristocracy, had assumed an unfriendly attitude, in consequence of a stagnation in the growth of a national lower nobility as the head of the wealthy and cultivated _bourgeoisie_, resulting from an unhappy reaction which then took place in Prussia.

The feudal proprietor was meanwhile becoming continually poorer, because he lived beyond his income.