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Upon this occasion an accident, rather than any previous reputation of Goethe, was probably the determining occasion which led to his favor with the future sovereign of Weimar. A new book lay upon the table; that none of the strangers had read it, Goethe inferred from observing that the leaves were as yet uncut. It was a work of Moser, (Patriotische Phantasien😉 and, being political rather than literary in its topics, it presented to Goethe, previously acquainted with its outline, an opportunity for conversing with the prince upon subjects nearest to his heart, and of showing that he was not himself a mere studious recluse. The opportunity was not lost; the prince and his tutor were much interested, and perhaps a little surprised. Such subjects have the further advantage, according to Goethe’s own illustration, that, like the Arabian thousand and one nights, as conducted by Sultana Scheherezade, “never ending, still beginning,” they rarely come to any absolute close, but so interweave one into another, as still to leave behind a large arrear of interest In order to pursue the conversation, Goethe was invited to meet them soon after at Mentz. He kept the appointment punctually; made himself even more agreeable; and finally received a formal invitation to enter the service of this excellent prince, who was now beginning to collect around him all those persons who have since made Weimar so distinguished a name in connection with the German literature. With some opposition from his father, who held up the rupture between Voltaire and Frederick of Prussia as a precedent applying to all possible connections of princes and literati, Goethe accepted the invitation; and hence forwards, for upwards of fifty-five years, his fortunes were bound up with those of the ducal house of Weimar.

The noble part which that house played in the great modern drama of German politics is well known, and would have been better known had its power been greater. But the moral value of its sacrifices and its risks is not the less. Had greater potentates shown equal firmness, Germany would not have been laid at the feet of Napoleon. In 1806 the grand duke was aware of the peril which awaited the allies of Prussia; but neither his heart nor his conscience would allow of his deserting a friend in whose army he held a principal command. The decisive battle took place in his own territory, and not far from his own palace and city of Weimar. Personally he was with the Prussian army; but his excellent consort stayed in the palace to encourage her subjects, and as far as possible to conciliate the enemy by her presence. The fortune of that great day, the 14th of October, 1806, was decided early; and the awful event was announced by a hot retreat and a murderous pursuit through the streets of the town. In the evening Napoleon arrived in person; and now came the trying moment. “The duchess,” says an Englishman well acquainted with Weimar and its court, “placed herself on the top of the staircase to greet him with the formality of a courtly reception. Napoleon started when he beheld her, Qui etes vous? he exclaimed with characteristic abruptness. Je suis la Duchesse de Weimar. Je vous plains, he retorted fiercely, J’ecraserai votre mari; he then added, ‘I shall dine in my apartment,’ and rushed by her. The night was spent on the part of the soldiery in all the horrid excesses of rapine. In the morning the duchess sent to inquire concerning the health of his majesty the emperor, and to solicit an audience. He, who had now benefited by his dreams, or by his reflections, returned a gracious answer, and invited himself to breakfast with her in her apartment.” In the conversation which ensued, Napoleon asked her if her husband were mad, upon which she justified the duke by appealing to his own magnanimity, asking in her turn if his majesty would have approved of his deserting the king of Prussia at the moment when he was attacked by so potent a monarch as himself. The rest of the conversation was in the same spirit, uniting with a sufficient concession to the circumstances of the moment a dignified vindication of a high-minded policy. Napoleon was deeply impressed with respect for her, and loudly expressed it. For her sake, indeed, he even affected to pardon her husband, thus making a merit with her of the necessity which he felt, from other motives, for showing forbearance towards a family so nearly allied to that of St. Petersburg. In 1813 the grand duke was found at his post in that great gathering of the nations which took place on the stupendous fields of Leipsic, and was complimented by the allied sovereigns as one of the most faithful amongst the faithful to the great cause, yet undecided, of national independence.