be straightened, the first man who felt disposed to build moved forward to the appointed line, perhaps, too, his next neighbor, but perhaps, also, the third or fourth resident from him; by which projections the most awkward recesses were left, like front court-yards, before the houses in the background.  They would not use force, yet without compulsion they would never have got on:  on which account no man, when his house was once condemned, ventured to improve or replace any thing that related to the street.  All these strange accidental inconveniences gave to us rambling idlers the most welcome opportunity of practising our ridicule; of making proposals, in the manner of Behrisch, for accelerating the completion, and of constantly doubting the possibility of it, although many a newly erected handsome building should have brought us to other thoughts.  How far that project was advanced by the length of time, I cannot say.

Another subject on which the Protestant Strasburgers liked to converse was the expulsion of the Jesuits.  These fathers, as soon as the city had fallen to the share of the French, had made their appearance and sought a domicilium.  But they soon extended themselves and built a magnificent college, which bordered so closely on the minster that the back of the church covered a third part of its front.  It was to be a complete quadrangle, and have a garden in the middle:  three sides of it were finished.  It is of stone, and solid, like all the buildings of these fathers.  That the Protestants were pushed hard, if not oppressed by them, lay in the plan of the society which made it a duty to restore the old religion in its whole compass.  Their fall, therefore, awakened the greatest satisfaction in the opposite party; and people saw, not without pleasure, how they sold their wines, carried away their books:  and the building was assigned to another, perhaps less active, order.  How glad are men when they get rid of an opponent, or only of a guardian! and the herd does not reflect, that, where there is no dog, it is exposed to wolves.

Now, since every city must have its tragedy, at which children and children’s children shudder; so in Strasburg frequent mention was made of the unfortunate Praetor Klingling, who, after he had mounted the highest step of earthly felicity, ruled city and country with almost absolute power, and enjoyed all that wealth, rank, and influence could afford, had at last lost the favor of the court, and was dragged up to answer for all in which he had been indulged hitherto,—­nay, was even thrown into prison, where, more than seventy years old, he died an ambiguous death.