But even this did not complete the humiliation.  Napoleon compelled the King of Prussia—­Frederic William III.—­to furnish him soldiers to fight against Russia, as if Prussia were already incorporated with his own empire and had lost her nationality.  At that time France and Russia were in alliance, and Prussia had no course to adopt but submission or complete destruction; and yet Prussia refused in these evil days to join the Confederation of the Rhine, which embraced all the German States at the south and west of Austria and Prussia.  Napoleon, however, was too much engrossed in his scheme of conquering Spain, to swallow up Prussia entirely, as he intended, after he should have subdued Spain.  So, after all, Prussia had before her only the fortune of Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus,—­to be devoured the last.

The escape of Prussia was owing, on the one hand, to the necessity for Napoleon to withdraw his main army from Prussia in order to fight in Spain; and secondly, to the transcendent talents of a few patriots to whom the king in his distress was forced to listen.  The chief of these were Stein, Hardenberg, and Scharnhorst.  It was the work of Stein to reorganize the internal administration of Prussia, including the financial department; that of Hardenberg to conduct the ministry of foreign affairs; and that of Scharnhorst to reorganize the military power.  The two former were nobles; the latter sprung from the people,—­a peasant’s son; but they worked together in tolerable harmony, considering the rival jealousies that at one time existed among all the high officials, with their innumerable prejudices.

Baron von Stein, born in 1757, of an old imperial knightly family from the country near Nassau, was as a youth well-educated, and at the age of twenty-three entered the Prussian service under Frederic the Great, in the mining department, where he gained rapid promotion.  In 1786 he visited England and made a careful study of her institutions, which he profoundly admired.  In 1787 he became a sort of provincial governor, being director of the war and Domaine Chambers at Cleves and Hamm.

In 1804 Stein became Minister of Trade, having charge of excise, customs, manufactures, and trade.  The whole financial administration at this time under King Frederick William III was in a state of great confusion, from an unnecessary number of officials who did not work harmoniously.  There was too much “red tape.”  Stein brought order out of confusion, simplified the administration, punished corruption, increased the national credit, then at a very low ebb, and re-established the bank of Prussia on a basis that enabled it to assist the government.