AXD TUTOR TO FREDERICK THE XOBLE. 



201 



Yet neither was Godet actually a Prussian subject. 

 Indeed Xeuchatel had been joined to the Swiss Confederation 

 in 1815 by an international compact to which Prussia was a 

 party, to secure the Principality against the renew^al of any 

 French attempt at annexation, and now the attachment to 

 Switzerland was gradually encroaching upon the more ancient 

 and distant connection with Potsdam and Berlin. 



But, as long as the Government should remain in the hands 

 of magistrates loyal to Prussia, Godet would follow them, since 

 Prussia, when contributing to the inclusion of Neuchatel in the 

 Swiss Confederation, had not abandoned any of its rights upon 

 the internal regime of the new Canton. 



The hour for the superseding of the Prussian Loyalists at the 

 head of the State was not to strike for some years yet. 



For Godet, when it should come, the passage from Prussian 

 suzerainty to Swiss citizenship would not wear an aspect of 

 public law only or of foreign policy alone. It would involve 

 his personal conscience in consequence of his oath of 

 allegiance. 



The sacredness of the oath has always ]da}'ed a very great 

 part in Swiss political and military fidelity. The burgesses of 

 Xeuchatel were in the peculiar situation of having contracted a 

 double oath : one of fidelity to the Kings of Prussia and another 

 of fidelity to the Swiss Confederation. As a wiiter on this 

 public topic, the young soldier Godet declared roundly that both 

 pledges must be kept. There are not oaths and oaths, he said: 

 an honourable man has one word only. The conscience of 

 Godet as a Christian and a gentleman was here severely and 

 repeatedly tested. Xeed we add that when this vexed question 

 of the double oath came finally to be settled to the detriment of 

 Prussia, Godet, who viewed it as falling within the purview of 

 individual and personal fhscretion — because it was for him a 

 moral and religious issue — found in the House of Prussia gentle- 

 men ready to meet him half-way because they were Christian 

 and conscientious like himself. 



AVhy cUd Godet, in 1832, clioose Berlin when he made up his 

 mind to prosecute philosophical and theological studies at a 

 University It was quite natural that young men from 

 Xeuchatel, belonc^ino- to what we now like to call les classes 

 dirigeantes (and which were then more strictly called the 

 political classes, because they were the recruiting ground for 

 Governors, Magistrates, Officers and Officials, Lawyers and 

 Divines), should seek their learning at the seat of lioyalty. 

 But it was also pretty plain that, unless he went to Scotland (as 



