552 LEOPOLD VON RANKE. 



delivery. Leaning carelessly back upon his chair, his great blue eyes 

 looking toward the ceiling as though he saw rising there the shadows 

 of the past, he ran together in a feeble voice sentences that were often 

 hardly intelligible, until suddenly a striking word, a brilliant compari- 

 son, a grand thought of universal significance, thrown out with lively 

 gestures, seemed to break through the chain of mysterious oracular 

 sayings like a flash of lightning. At first, continues Stern, Ranke 

 was not attractive to young students. The historical exercises in 

 which, as instructor in a private and select circle, he enjoyed his great- 

 est triumphs, did not establish a reputation until later. 



Ranke's chief activity continued to be in the line of original con- 

 tributious to modern history. From 1839 to 1847 was published his 

 " History of Germany in the Period of the Reformation," in six vol- 

 umes. Fresh materials for this great work were found at Frankfurt 

 on the Main, in the proceedings of the German Diet from 1414 to 

 1613, in ninety-six folio volumes. These archives proved almost as 

 important as the relations of the Venetian ambassadors. Sixty-four 

 folio volumes of records and reports were digested by Ranke for 

 his German History. With remarkable liberality, the authorities at 

 Frankfurt allowed Ranke to take selections from this great collection 

 to Berlin for use in his own library. Other municipal archives were 

 opened to his researches ; for example, the records at Weimar. The 

 royal archives of Prussia and Saxony were likewise placed at his 

 service. By this generosity a vast collection of absolutely new mate- 

 rial was accumulated by Ranke for his work. New contributions 

 drawn from fresh sources of information were always Ranke's aim in 

 writing history. It was a maxim with him not to relate things which 

 everybody knew already. These ideas have borne rich fruit, not only 

 in Ranke's own contributions to European history, but in those made 

 by his students, who, like their master, have widened the domains of 

 historical science. 



Ranke's German History was followed by his "Nine Books of 

 Prussian History," a work afterwards extended to twelve books. 

 This special contribution was partly due to the fact that, in 1846, 

 Ranke was made historiographer of Prussia, an office which he held 

 until his death, and which doubtless suggested further Prussian con- 

 tributions. From Germany, the idea of national history during the 

 period of the Reformation was extended by Ranke to France and 

 England. His work on the History of France is based upon original 

 studies in French archives. It embraces the period of the religious 

 wars and the full development of French absolutism. Ranke's French 



