EARLY YOUTH 25 



it nor have it conferred on him as an honorary 

 distinction for his merit in that department. 



The Sethes and Haeckels of the earlier gene- 

 ration were not merely zealous jurists, but also 

 characteristic figures of Napoleonic and post- 

 Napoleonic Prussia. Christoph Sethe, the patriarch 

 of the maternal line, was Privy Councillor of the 

 Prussian Government at Cleve at the beginning 

 of the last decade of the eighteenth century, 

 though he was then young. When the French 

 occupied the country he accompanied the Govern- 

 ment to Miinster, in 1802, which had become a 

 Prussian town. But the stalwart German was 

 pursued even there by the detested Napoleonists. 

 He was sent to Diisseldorf as General Procurator 

 in 1808, and came into dangerous conflict with 

 the French authorities shortly before the Emperor's 

 fall. The mobilisation of the troops for the cam- 

 paign of 1812 had led to a disturbance amongst 

 the workers. Sethe's sense of patriotism and 

 justice was affronted by the arbitrary proceedings 

 of the French. He was summoned to give an 

 account at Paris, the chief object being to retain 

 him — the most powerful official in the Ehine 

 district and not a very safe man — as a hostage 

 during the crisis. It was at Paris that he made 

 the finest phrase of his life. Roederer, the 

 minister, tried to intimidate him with the threat 

 that the Emperor might have a dangerous man 

 like him shot at any moment. ^'You will have 

 to shoot the law first," replied Sethe. We are 

 often reminded of this saying in the biography 



