“Why should I serve the Hohenzollerns?” Bismarck is said to have exclaimed. “My family is as good as theirs.” It was the complaint of the yeoman against his fellow who has saved money and bought the lordship of the manor5.
The early history of the state now called Prussia is chiefly the record of a thrifty7 family—the Hohenzollerns. Since the year 1415, when the overlordship4 of the sandy tract8 lying between the middle Elbe and lower Oder and stretching across their banks was conferred upon him by the Emperor for cash down, Frederick of Hohenzollern and his descendants had remained lords of Brandenburg. From Nuremberg, where Frederick had been Burggrave, they had brought with them the vital energy and business ability of successful townsmen. So poor was their new estate that for many generations relaxation9 would have meant ruin. There was therefore no temptation to depart from that policy of adding field to field which is the natural law of the industrious10 countryman. Whether from native superiority or from greater need, the Hohenzollerns were usually a little wiser than their neighbours. With the aid of a family statute11 of 1473, which made primogeniture the rule of succession for Brandenburg, they avoided the consequences of that custom of equal inheritance which has been the bane of Germany. By careful watching of opportunities, by windfalls, by purchase, and by covenants12 for mutual13 succession on failure of heirs made with neighbours whose lines died out, the domain14 of the rulers of Brandenburg was in two centuries increased fourfold. When the Thirty Years’ War broke out and the modern history of Prussia began, the head of the Hohenzollern family, who had long since become one of the seven Electors of the Empire, held sway over an area almost as great as that of Ireland.
Of the territories by which the original Mark of Brandenburg had been augmented15, two were of special importance. In 1525 East Prussia had been5 acquired. This province, which throughout this book will be called by its German name of Ost-Preussen, was richer by far than the Mark, the kernel16 of the Hohenzollern possessions. It had an important city, K?nigsberg, for its capital and a coast-line on the Baltic. It constituted the domain of the old Order of Teutonic Knights17, permanent crusaders whose task had been to spread the faith and civilisation18 of their fatherland among the heathen Slavs. But the Baltic lands had all submitted to the Cross, and the Knights became in their turn the objects of a religious mission. Early in the sixteenth century, the doctrines19 of the Reformation penetrated20 the minds of their High Master, Albert of Hohenzollern. He turned for counsel to Luther himself. In a celibate21 Order which had no more heathen to convert, the husband of the nun22 Catherine Bora could see only a standing23 defiance24 of the laws of nature and of God. By his advice Ost-Preussen was “secularised,” that is, taken from the service of religion to form a Hohenzollern estate, and in time (1618), though still submissive to the suzerainty of Poland, it was added to the main body of the Electoral dominions25. The Hohenzollerns thus became distinguished27 from the mass of German princes by ruling territories to which the Empire had never possessed28 any claim. Ost-Preussen was to them on a small scale what England became in 1688 to the House of Orange, or in 1714 to the House of Hanover. Their policy acquired a new breadth and a new weight. Hitherto provincial29, it became more and more cosmopolitan30, and commerce with the Baltic lands and England began to6 hint to the lord of Pillau and Memel that his future lay upon the water.
A makeweight to Ost-Preussen, which would prevent the centre of gravity of the Hohenzollern lands from shifting eastwards31, was found in 1609, when the family inherited Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg in Western Germany. This acquisition, made on the very eve of the Thirty Years’ War, was accompanied in 1613 by the conversion32 of the Elector, John Sigismund, from the Lutheranism which his grandfather, Joachim II., had established in 1539 to the sterner and more militant33 creed34 of Calvin. This meant that at the very moment when all Germany was taking up arms for the greatest religious war of modern times, the court and people of Brandenburg were hopelessly at variance35 with one another. A Calvinist prince ruled a Lutheran people, and the new Elector, George William (1619–1640), “of Christ-mild memory” but the weakest of his line, proved to be a puppet in the hands of Schwarzenburg, his Romanist prime-minister. Under such guidance did Brandenburg, ill-knit and ill-armed, become the battle-ground between Swede and Hapsburg in their struggle for faith and empire.
What Brandenburg suffered in the terrible decade 1630–1640, between the landing of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany and the accession of the Great Elector, can never be fully36 calculated. The State was rudderless, defenceless, and poor; the combatants on both sides brigands37, whom years of license38 had habituated to every kind of cruelty. What passed could be described by no more patently truthful40 eye-witness7 than Andreas Rittner, the cheery burgomaster of Tangermünde, a little town on the Elbe with a royal history of its own. In his pages may be traced the swift descent of the afflicted41 people through every depth of misery42 down to despair or even annihilation. The invaders—it mattered little whether Swedes or Imperialists—exacted in endless sequence contributions, lodging43, forage44, and loot, drove off the cattle, broke up the coffins45 of the dead, laid waste the land, and hunted down the inhabitants. The mischief46 was only increased by the feeble efforts of the home government to call out and support a militia47. The maddened peasants turned guerilla. Food failed, for who could sow or reap? Men fed on carrion48, even, it was whispered, on human flesh, and soon pestilence49 seized on persecutors and persecuted50 alike.
Anarchy51 and degradation52 brought forth53 torture. The name of the Swedish Drink attests54 the cruelty of the degenerate55 deliverers of Germany. “They laid men awhile upon the fire,” writes Rittner,
“baked them in ovens, flung them into wells, hung them up by the feet, fastened thumb-screws upon them, drove sharp spikes56 under their nails, bound round their heads so tight that their eyes started out, gagged them and sealed their mouths. Matrons and virgins57 were oft-times put to shame. Husbands must often leave their wives and wives their husbands, parents their children and children their parents, even on the bed of sickness, for they were powerless to save them from abuse, and sometimes when they came back they found nought58 of them save some few bones, for all else had the dogs mangled59 and eaten up.”
8 Not less graphic60 is the story told in stone in some of the tormented61 cities. Round the giant church, spared by the Swedes to uphold the Lutheran faith of which it was then the temple and by the Imperialists for the sake of the Roman faith which they hoped to establish anew within its walls, there may be seen the tombs of many generations of citizens. Those of the sixteenth century are covered with quaint62 adornment63 and graven with artistic64 skill. Then, as war sweeps over the land, the series is broken, to be resumed after many decades with a rude clumsiness which shows that wealth and art had fled from Brandenburg together.
Though it would be rash to assume that any single part of the Mark may be regarded as typical of the whole, there seems to be no reason to call in question the dictum of Frederick the Great, that his ancestors needed a century to repair the damage of the Thirty Years’ War. This great task was confided65 to a youth of twenty years, an only son, yet no favourite of his father, the Elector George William, whom he succeeded in 1640. Frederick William, known to history as the Great Elector, was the great-grandfather of Frederick the Great. By common consent he is reputed the founder66 of the glory of the House of Hohenzollern in modern times. He found Brandenburg prostrate67 and threatened with dissolution. It is from the low-water mark of these earliest years, when he with reason bewailed difficulties greater than those of David or Solomon, that the progress of his State is to be measured and his own achievement thereby68 understood.
9 He found his exchequer69 empty, his palace half-ruined, the court seeking safety and even sustenance70 at far-off K?nigsberg, the Austrian papist, Schwarzenburg, supreme71 in the state, the Mark trampled72 underfoot by alien hosts. How should an open country like his, the highroad between Sweden and Austria, be delivered from the endless war? Even if, by miracle, a peace could be devised, which Calvinists and Lutherans could both accept, what prospect73, nay74 what possibility existed that territories so ill-compacted as his could be welded into a single, solid state? All the needful bonds of union seemed to be lacking. What common tie of blood, of faith, of speech was there strong enough to bind76 together Cleves and Brandenburg and Ost-Preussen, units gathered by the chance of recent history into one hand but dissevered by hundreds of miles of alien soil and by chasms77 of sentiment still harder to bridge over? The constituent78 parts of Frederick William’s domain were in 1640 dissimilar in race, in history, and in interest. They had no desire for closer relations; they had not even a uniform calendar; their only common political aim seemed to be to flout79 the Elector, who was the bugbear of them all.
Even were he to make himself master of the centre, dangers clustered thick on either wing, while behind the Polish problems of the East and the Netherlandish problems of the West a seer might have discerned the double peril80 that encompasses81 modern Germany. Peter the Great and his Russia lay yet in the womb of time, but Richelieu and his France were in the10 full flood of successful ambition. Thus the organiser of a North German power must work while his horizon was already darkening. In grasping the lands which formed his birthright the Great Elector was defying, though as yet he knew it not, two of the greatest forces of modern times. Hohenzollern rule on the Niemen was to become a challenge to Russia and to the Slavic advance, while the Hohenzollern lord of Cleves must ultimately reckon with the belief of Frenchmen that the Rhine is the boundary designed by nature for their state.
FREDERICK THE GREAT.
AFTER THE PAINTING BY CHRISTIAN82 WOLFFGANG.
During the first critical years of his rule, however, the plans of the Great Elector were of the humblest. Striving for existence rather than for empire, he was not too proud to beg for help in every likely quarter. Among our own State-papers are to be seen his letters suing for petty favours which Charles I., so long as diplomacy83 would serve, was very willing to grant. The King of England marked the small esteem84 in which he held the untried and obscure Elector by pressing upon him the hand of his niece, a princess of the fugitive85 and bankrupt House of the Palatinate. Frederick William’s relations with Poland, the suzerain of whom he held Ost-Preussen, show yet more clearly how slight was his power at his accession. When the Lutherans of K?nigsberg threatened riot because a Calvinist was chosen to preach the funeral sermon of George William, the Elector did not blush to solicit86 the Papist King, Wladislaus IV., to admonish87 these unruly Protestants. To this end he bade his minister at Warsaw “make humble request to His Majesty11 that His Majesty88 would in friendly—cousinly fashion let it please him to send a letter to our chief Councillors (but as if His Majesty had been informed of this from other quarters and not from us) and thereby to order them to reprove and repress this folly89 of the unquiet theologians.... It will perhaps be best if you solicit this work only after the departure of the Diet.” The request was made and granted, and the minister instructs the Elector how he may palm off the document as a mandate90 approved by the Diet behind whose backs it had been obtained.
Where charity was to be looked for, Frederick William was not too proud to beg. But of all powers the least likely to be charitable was Sweden, whose armies had for nearly ten years been fighting solely91 for material compensation. To Sweden therefore the Elector offered money and was allowed to purchase that deliverance from the war which was essential to all his plans (1641). He could now begin the task of his life—to reduce all his provinces into dependence92 upon himself and to render Brandenburg, augmented and centralised, a formidable military power.
During forty-eight years (1640–1688) he pursued the old Hohenzollern policy of family aggrandisement. His success has earned him the title of the Great Elector, and the place of the first hero of the Prussian state. Yet he is remarkable93 chiefly for his commercial instinct, imbibed94 perhaps during his education among the Dutch, the neighbours to whom he always looked for example and alliance. On12 occasion he could display the soldierly instinct of his race, but in time of peace he was hardly a heroic figure. With domestic virtues96 specially97 to be praised in a monarch98 of that time he combined a weakness for strong drink which damaged his health and temper. He took pride in being abreast99 of the times, reverenced100 London and Amsterdam, and was ready to haggle101 with foreigners for preferential rates. He wrote a good commercial hand, planted cabbages in his garden, and hammered out verses which with a little doctoring might have graced the poet’s corner of a provincial newspaper. He was a thrifty householder, save when he deemed it necessary to keep up his position by building a massive palace or giving a pompous104 feast. A convinced Protestant, he welcomed serviceable Huguenots to his capital with more good-will than serviceable papists. It is not impossible to believe that as a German patriot105 he took favours from the Emperor with more inward pleasure than from Louis XIV. In what Dr. Prothero terms “the ocean of recognised mendacity which we call diplomacy” he floundered without either repugnance106 or great success. He spent his life in unifying107 his dominions and made a will which if carried into effect would have dismembered them at his death. That a man of this stamp is designated Great suggests that he was not only diligent108 but that he was also fortunate in the conditions under which he lived and worked.
In his early years he owed much to the weakness and insignificance109 which have already been described. What rival state was thrown into the shade if Brandenburg13 was allowed to grow? Thus, at the close of the Thirty Years’ War, the Hohenzollern line received indulgent treatment. Their claim to Pomerania was admitted for the eastern half of the duchy. The western half was indispensable to Sweden, but the rights of the Elector were bought up at the price of more valuable ecclesiastical lands scattered110 between the Mark and his possessions in the West. The bishoprics of Halberstadt and Minden and the reversion of the rich archbishopric of Magdeburg were given to Brandenburg, whose part in the war had been contemptible111, by the great Peace of Westphalia, the fundamental pact75 of modern Europe. Yet its sacredness was so little appreciated by the Elector that a few years later he would have renewed the war, had not outraged112 Germany held him in.
The Peace of Westphalia had bestowed113 upon Brandenburg and other German states a gift of more value than many bishoprics—the gift of independence. In outward show Frederick William was still a vassal114 of the Emperor. He continued to be one of the seven Electors who chose the head of the Holy Roman Empire and honoured him with lowly homage115. In virtue95 of his hereditary116 office of Grand Chamberlain it was the duty of the Elector of Brandenburg, prescribed by the Golden Bull of 1356, to appear at solemn courts “on horseback, having in his hands a silver basin with water, and a beautiful towel, and descending117 from his horse, to present the water to the Emperor or King of the Romans to wash his hands.” As a German prince,14 moreover, he had still to look to the Emperor for investiture, leadership, and advice. But his right to determine the creed of his subjects, which the Peace of Westphalia confirmed, and the right to choose allies outside the Empire, which it expressly granted, were inconsistent with real vassalage118. The gift of these admitted Brandenburg to a place in the commonwealth119 of nations. The Elector had become undisputed master in his own house. Soon his horizon expanded far beyond the bounds of Germany. Europe, nay more, as his colonial ventures were to prove, the wide world lay open to the Hohenzollern. Both at home and abroad he could strike with a freer hand. But his power, though irresistible120 in Brandenburg, was made respectable in Europe only by years of toil121. Hence the home policy of the Great Elector was as straightforward122 as his foreign policy was tortuous123. To beat down all competing authority, to establish an armed autocracy124, to develop to the utmost all the resources of the State—such was the plan which the Great Elector designed, which his son and grandson perfected, and the fruits of which Frederick the Great enjoyed.
By steady pressure, by force, and at times by fraud, the Great Elector guarded the future of the Hohenzollern power against the danger of obstructive provincial parliaments. To make the men of Cleves, Brandenburg, and Ost-Preussen feel themselves brethren was indeed beyond his power. But he ruthlessly suppressed the institutions which symbolised their mutual independence of each other and15 of himself. Carlyle, the great panegyrist of coups125 d’état, thus describes one example of
“his measures, soft but strong, and ever stronger to the needful pitch, with mutinous126 spirits. One Bürgermeister of K?nigsberg, after much stroking on the back, was at length seized in open Hall, by Electoral writ,—soldiers having first gently barricaded127 the principal streets, and brought cannon128 to bear upon them. This Bürgermeister, seized in such brief way, lay prisoner for life; refusing to ask his liberty, though it was thought he might have had it on asking.”
The Great Elector’s chief legacy129 was, however, the Prussian army. The ruler of mere103 patches of the great northern plain, “a country by nature the least defensible of all countries,” he girdled it laboriously130 with a wall of men. In an age when France alone possessed a large standing army, this obscure German prince raised his force from a few garrisons131 to a host some twenty-seven thousand strong, well drilled and well appointed.
The lord of Brandenburg now became a condottiere of ever-increasing reputation. His regiments132 brought security to his dominions and gold to his exchequer. In every European struggle their aid was welcome. On the frozen lagoons133 by the Baltic and on the shores of Torbay, on the torrid plain of Warsaw, and in the vine-clad valley of the Rhine—everywhere the men of the Mark approved themselves good soldiers and punctual allies. In 1660 the Great Elector netted his profit from the Northern war by receiving Ost-Preussen free from Polish suzerainty. The heroic moment of the whole reign16 came, however, in 1675, when all the threads of the Elector’s policy—ambition, vengeance134 against the Swedes, military creation, domestic organisation135—guided him to the stricken field of Fehrbellin. While playing his part in the West as a member of the coalition136 against France, he learned that the Swedes, his hated neighbours in Pomerania, had been hurled137 upon his domains138 by their patron Louis XIV. He straightway turned his back upon the Rhine and stalked silently across Germany to rescue his helpless people. His troops had been beaten by Turenne and exhausted139 by the long struggle with rain and mud. Yet he dared to overrule his generals and to strike straight at superior forces trained in the school of Gustavus and posted with a river in their rear.
The bold move succeeded. In a hand-to-hand struggle, amid bogs140 and dunes141, Brandenburg was saved by its chief. At the crisis of the fight he put himself at the head of a wavering squadron, and with one wild charge shattered the Swedes and their prestige together. The result of Fehrbellin was that Brandenburg took rank as the first military power of Northern Europe and that the land had rest for many years.
Fehrbellin forms a conspicuous143 landmark144 on the road to Hohenzollern greatness, but it is separated by no great interval145 of time from a double demonstration146 of the insignificance of Brandenburg when confronted with states of the first order. The Emperor flatly refused to admit the claim of the Elector to portions of Silesia. The King of France dashed17 from his lips the cup of triumph over the Swedes. In an age when rivers were of even greater value than at present, the great waterway of Brandenburg was the Oder. Ere she could draw full profit from the Oder, Stettin, with its splendid harbourage and strong strategic position, must be wrested147 from alien hands. At Fehrbellin hope sprang up that the time was come. With all the tenacity148 of his nature the Great Elector clung to the task. In 1677 Stettin fell, after enduring one of the most desolating149 bombardments in history. Before the close of 1678 the Swedes were driven from all Western Pomerania. They descended150 upon Ost-Preussen, but Frederick William set at naught151 the winter cold and his own infirmity, hurried from Cleves to the Vistula, put his troops on sledges152, and dashed at the enemy across the frozen sea (January, 1679). The triumph of the Elector was complete, but at the Peace of S. Germain (1679) he was compelled to surrender all his conquests at the behest of Louis XIV.
In spite of some failures, however, Frederick William by dogged perseverance153 accomplished154 enough to justify155 his reputation as the founder of the Prussian State. He is still a force in Germany. Frederick the Great and all the later Hohenzollerns of renown156 have paid homage to his memory. William II. embittered157 the downfall of Bismarck by applauding a drama which represented the Great Elector deposing158 Schwarzenburg, the hated counsellor of his father. Throughout Prussia the imperious features of the little hero of Fehrbellin are as familiar to the people as his deeds.
18 With the death of the Great Elector in 1688 the age of iron gave way to the age of tinsel. Frederick, who ruled in his father’s place for a quarter of a century (1688–1713), was a prince who prized culture above character and strove to imitate in his provincial court the splendours of Versailles. From time to time, though less often than in other royal lines, the business instinct of the Hohenzollerns fails, and of such a lapse159 Frederick is an example. Despising the domestic labours of the Great Elector, he was captivated by those ceremonious shadows which the German nation is always wont160 to pursue. Frail161, even maimed, since childhood, he developed a passion for pageants162, robes, and titles. He could not endure the promotion163 of his equals to rank higher than his own. If the Dutch Statthalter rose to be William III. of England and the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg to be Elector George of Hanover, might not he himself, as master of the best troops in Germany, also claim to rise? When in 1696 he was about to visit William of Orange at the Hague he declared that he could not consent to sit upon an ordinary seat while an armchair was placed for the King. The interview therefore was accomplished standing, and when William returned the visit he found armchairs of equal dignity set for the Elector and for himself.
Seldom has a ruler’s weakness done better service to his State. Brandenburg was shielded by its poverty from the ordinary fate of German states whose rulers tried to copy the profusion164 of the kings of France. Frederick, moreover, had not the force19 of will to break with all the traditions of the Great Elector. He continued to take part in every struggle as an auxiliary165, but in none as a principal. His country thus enjoyed the glories of war without its penalties. It was under the command of Prince Eugene, Austria’s greatest general, that Brandenburgers helped to overthrow166 the French before Turin (1706). And since a large army is the most splendid trapping of monarchy167, Frederick made his army very large. He inherited 27,000 men, he bequeathed nearly 50,000 to his son.
The climax168 of his reign102 was reached in 1701, when he prevailed upon the Emperor to make him King of Prussia. In a double sense it may be said with truth that he owed his crown to his weakness. It is generally believed that the chief motive169 which prompted him to sue for it was vanity. For months he could think and speak of nothing else. When at last the imperial license came, the enraptured170 Elector quitted Berlin in midwinter and spent twelve days in moving with a pompous train to K?nigsberg. There, with every detail of ceremony that his imagination could suggest, he placed the crown upon his head. It is doubtful whether a more sober ruler would have prized a throne as he did, and doubtful too whether the Emperor would have consented to the elevation171 of a prince less obviously feeble. But Frederick had carried on without reserve the old Hohenzollern tradition of standing well with the head of the German world. He had even given back to Austria the territory of Schwiebus, which the Emperor had assigned to the Great Elector in settlement20 of whatever claim the Hohenzollerns possessed to portions of Silesia. Now he was prepared to uphold the Hapsburg cause in the War of the Spanish Succession. What harm could there be, the Emperor may well have asked himself, in promoting a vassal so devoted172 as this?
Forty years later, Austria had bitter cause to rue39 the error of her chief. From the very first the crown aggrandised the Hohenzollern dynasty. It consecrated173 their ambition, enlarged their horizon, and gave them, as the Lord’s anointed, a new claim upon the devotion of their subjects. The Order of the Black Eagle, which for two centuries has been the coveted174 prize of service to their state, signalised the coronation of Frederick I.
The Great Elector and the first king of Prussia have this in common—that whatever may be thought of their achievements it is difficult to mistake the men themselves. Of the second king, Frederick William I. (1713–1740), the father of Frederick the Great, the exact opposite is true. His life-work, the establishment of the royal power “like a rock of bronze,” is patent to all. He himself, on the other hand, was a mystery to his own children. His most gifted admirer, Carlyle, sets out to paint a prophet and ends by portraying175 something very like a madman. His theory of his own sovereign office was as mystical as his practice of ruling was simple. He regarded himself, it has been said, as the servant of an imaginary master—the King of Prussia—under whose eye he lived and worked. Baser princes looked on their royalty176 as a privilege to be enjoyed. To21 Frederick William it was a duty calling for endless toil. He struggled to check every detail of government with his own hand, as though Prussia were a single manor and he the squire177. A French critic (Lavisse) thus portrays178 him wrestling with his ever-multiplying tasks:
“Have we not too many officials,” the King enquires179. “Could not several places be merged180 into one? We must see if some of the officials cannot be put down. Why is not the beer so good everywhere as at Potsdam? In order to have wool we must have sheep. Now in Prussia there are nearly as many wolves as sheep. Quick, let me have a minute upon the destruction of wolves. How comes it that the salt tax has brought in less money this year than last from the district of Halberstadt? The number of officials has not diminished, has it? They must have eaten as much salt as last year. There must therefore be fraud or waste somewhere. The Superintendent181 of the Salt Department must be warned to manage matters better than he has done of late. Can it be that my subjects buy salt in Hanover or Poland? Every importer of salt must be hanged.”
His violence was and still is notorious. He flung plates at his children, caned182 his son in public, cudgelled the inhabitants of his capital, and flung the judges down-stairs. He forced his queen, the sister of the English King, to drink to the downfall of England. He vilified183 everything French, and insulted the British Ambassador so seriously that he conceived himself bound to leave Berlin. Yet he kept Prussia at peace steadily184 enough to earn for himself the reputation of a mere bully185 whom the Emperor could lead by the nose.
22 In spite of the contradictions of his character, however, the broad principles of his reign are clear. Having stripped the state of the veneer186 of luxury with which Frederick I. had disguised its poverty, he took up and developed further the ideals of the Great Elector. He made the royal power absolute in the state, and increased the army till a population of about two and a half million souls supported the unheard-of number of 83,000 men under arms. These were drilled to such a pitch of perfection that Macaulay could say that, placed beside them, the household regiments of Versailles and St. James’s would have appeared an awkward squad142. Yet this mighty187 force was used for little save to secure the frontiers of Prussia and the rights of all German Protestants. In territory the “Sergeant King” gained only from the wreck188 of Sweden part of the prize which the Great Elector had grudgingly189 relinquished190 at the behest of Louis XIV.—the mouth of the Oder and with it the islands of Usedom and Wollin, and Western Pomerania as far as the river Peene (1720).
PRUSSIA
After the Congress of Vienna,
1815
In the home department, on the other hand, Frederick William I. made a conspicuous advance from the point reached by his grandfather. He showed the same military zeal191, the same practical insight, the same determination to set to rights with his own hand whatever in his dominion26 was governed amiss, the same contempt for higher education, the same benevolence192 towards the persecuted of other lands who might be made useful to Prussia. But he showed also a power of grasping and of simplifying the whole system of administration such as few rulers23 have ever possessed. His great Edict of 1723 removed friction193 from the working of the Prussian state. Thanks to this, his son Frederick found the organisation described in the sixth chapter of this book—a machine of government answering to every touch of the royal hand. He found at the same time a firm tradition in favour of thrift6, diligence, and activity in the steersman of the state. We have traced the growth of Prussia to 1740; let us now turn to the story of the prince who in that year linked her fortunes with his own.
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20 penetrated | |
adj. 击穿的,鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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21 celibate | |
adj.独身的,独身主义的;n.独身者 | |
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22 nun | |
n.修女,尼姑 | |
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23 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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24 defiance | |
n.挑战,挑衅,蔑视,违抗 | |
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25 dominions | |
统治权( dominion的名词复数 ); 领土; 疆土; 版图 | |
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26 dominion | |
n.统治,管辖,支配权;领土,版图 | |
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27 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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28 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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29 provincial | |
adj.省的,地方的;n.外省人,乡下人 | |
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30 cosmopolitan | |
adj.世界性的,全世界的,四海为家的,全球的 | |
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31 eastwards | |
adj.向东方(的),朝东(的);n.向东的方向 | |
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32 conversion | |
n.转化,转换,转变 | |
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33 militant | |
adj.激进的,好斗的;n.激进分子,斗士 | |
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34 creed | |
n.信条;信念,纲领 | |
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35 variance | |
n.矛盾,不同 | |
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36 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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37 brigands | |
n.土匪,强盗( brigand的名词复数 ) | |
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38 license | |
n.执照,许可证,特许;v.许可,特许 | |
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39 rue | |
n.懊悔,芸香,后悔;v.后悔,悲伤,懊悔 | |
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40 truthful | |
adj.真实的,说实话的,诚实的 | |
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41 afflicted | |
使受痛苦,折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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43 lodging | |
n.寄宿,住所;(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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44 forage | |
n.(牛马的)饲料,粮草;v.搜寻,翻寻 | |
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45 coffins | |
n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 );使某人早亡[死,完蛋,垮台等]之物 | |
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46 mischief | |
n.损害,伤害,危害;恶作剧,捣蛋,胡闹 | |
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47 militia | |
n.民兵,民兵组织 | |
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48 carrion | |
n.腐肉 | |
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49 pestilence | |
n.瘟疫 | |
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50 persecuted | |
(尤指宗教或政治信仰的)迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 ); 烦扰,困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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51 anarchy | |
n.无政府状态;社会秩序混乱,无秩序 | |
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52 degradation | |
n.降级;低落;退化;陵削;降解;衰变 | |
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53 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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54 attests | |
v.证明( attest的第三人称单数 );证实;声称…属实;使宣誓 | |
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55 degenerate | |
v.退步,堕落;adj.退步的,堕落的;n.堕落者 | |
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56 spikes | |
n.穗( spike的名词复数 );跑鞋;(防滑)鞋钉;尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 );偷偷地给某人的饮料加入(更多)酒精( 或药物);把尖状物钉入;打乱某人的计划 | |
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57 virgins | |
处女,童男( virgin的名词复数 ); 童贞玛利亚(耶稣之母) | |
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58 nought | |
n./adj.无,零 | |
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59 mangled | |
vt.乱砍(mangle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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60 graphic | |
adj.生动的,形象的,绘画的,文字的,图表的 | |
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61 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
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62 quaint | |
adj.古雅的,离奇有趣的,奇怪的 | |
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63 adornment | |
n.装饰;装饰品 | |
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64 artistic | |
adj.艺术(家)的,美术(家)的;善于艺术创作的 | |
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65 confided | |
v.吐露(秘密,心事等)( confide的过去式和过去分词 );(向某人)吐露(隐私、秘密等) | |
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66 Founder | |
n.创始者,缔造者 | |
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67 prostrate | |
v.拜倒,平卧,衰竭;adj.拜倒的,平卧的,衰竭的 | |
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68 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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69 exchequer | |
n.财政部;国库 | |
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70 sustenance | |
n.食物,粮食;生活资料;生计 | |
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71 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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72 trampled | |
踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 ); 践踏; 无视; 侵犯 | |
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73 prospect | |
n.前景,前途;景色,视野 | |
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74 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
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75 pact | |
n.合同,条约,公约,协定 | |
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76 bind | |
vt.捆,包扎;装订;约束;使凝固;vi.变硬 | |
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77 chasms | |
裂缝( chasm的名词复数 ); 裂口; 分歧; 差别 | |
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78 constituent | |
n.选民;成分,组分;adj.组成的,构成的 | |
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79 flout | |
v./n.嘲弄,愚弄,轻视 | |
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80 peril | |
n.(严重的)危险;危险的事物 | |
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81 encompasses | |
v.围绕( encompass的第三人称单数 );包围;包含;包括 | |
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82 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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83 diplomacy | |
n.外交;外交手腕,交际手腕 | |
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84 esteem | |
n.尊敬,尊重;vt.尊重,敬重;把…看作 | |
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85 fugitive | |
adj.逃亡的,易逝的;n.逃犯,逃亡者 | |
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86 solicit | |
vi.勾引;乞求;vt.请求,乞求;招揽(生意) | |
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87 admonish | |
v.训戒;警告;劝告 | |
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88 majesty | |
n.雄伟,壮丽,庄严,威严;最高权威,王权 | |
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89 folly | |
n.愚笨,愚蠢,蠢事,蠢行,傻话 | |
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90 mandate | |
n.托管地;命令,指示 | |
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91 solely | |
adv.仅仅,唯一地 | |
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92 dependence | |
n.依靠,依赖;信任,信赖;隶属 | |
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93 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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94 imbibed | |
v.吸收( imbibe的过去式和过去分词 );喝;吸取;吸气 | |
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95 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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96 virtues | |
美德( virtue的名词复数 ); 德行; 优点; 长处 | |
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97 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
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98 monarch | |
n.帝王,君主,最高统治者 | |
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99 abreast | |
adv.并排地;跟上(时代)的步伐,与…并进地 | |
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100 reverenced | |
v.尊敬,崇敬( reverence的过去式和过去分词 );敬礼 | |
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101 haggle | |
vi.讨价还价,争论不休 | |
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102 reign | |
n.统治时期,统治,支配,盛行;v.占优势 | |
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103 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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104 pompous | |
adj.傲慢的,自大的;夸大的;豪华的 | |
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105 patriot | |
n.爱国者,爱国主义者 | |
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106 repugnance | |
n.嫌恶 | |
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107 unifying | |
使联合( unify的现在分词 ); 使相同; 使一致; 统一 | |
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108 diligent | |
adj.勤勉的,勤奋的 | |
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109 insignificance | |
n.不重要;无价值;无意义 | |
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110 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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111 contemptible | |
adj.可鄙的,可轻视的,卑劣的 | |
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112 outraged | |
a.震惊的,义愤填膺的 | |
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113 bestowed | |
赠给,授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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114 vassal | |
n.附庸的;属下;adj.奴仆的 | |
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115 homage | |
n.尊敬,敬意,崇敬 | |
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116 hereditary | |
adj.遗传的,遗传性的,可继承的,世袭的 | |
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117 descending | |
n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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118 vassalage | |
n.家臣身份,隶属 | |
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119 commonwealth | |
n.共和国,联邦,共同体 | |
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120 irresistible | |
adj.非常诱人的,无法拒绝的,无法抗拒的 | |
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121 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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122 straightforward | |
adj.正直的,坦率的;易懂的,简单的 | |
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123 tortuous | |
adj.弯弯曲曲的,蜿蜒的 | |
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124 autocracy | |
n.独裁政治,独裁政府 | |
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125 coups | |
n.意外而成功的行动( coup的名词复数 );政变;努力办到难办的事 | |
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126 mutinous | |
adj.叛变的,反抗的;adv.反抗地,叛变地;n.反抗,叛变 | |
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127 barricaded | |
设路障于,以障碍物阻塞( barricade的过去式和过去分词 ); 设路障[防御工事]保卫或固守 | |
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128 cannon | |
n.大炮,火炮;飞机上的机关炮 | |
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129 legacy | |
n.遗产,遗赠;先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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130 laboriously | |
adv.艰苦地;费力地;辛勤地;(文体等)佶屈聱牙地 | |
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131 garrisons | |
守备部队,卫戍部队( garrison的名词复数 ) | |
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132 regiments | |
(军队的)团( regiment的名词复数 ); 大量的人或物 | |
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133 lagoons | |
n.污水池( lagoon的名词复数 );潟湖;(大湖或江河附近的)小而浅的淡水湖;温泉形成的池塘 | |
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134 vengeance | |
n.报复,报仇,复仇 | |
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135 organisation | |
n.组织,安排,团体,有机休 | |
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136 coalition | |
n.结合体,同盟,结合,联合 | |
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137 hurled | |
v.猛投,用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 );大声叫骂 | |
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138 domains | |
n.范围( domain的名词复数 );领域;版图;地产 | |
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139 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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140 bogs | |
n.沼泽,泥塘( bog的名词复数 );厕所v.(使)陷入泥沼, (使)陷入困境( bog的第三人称单数 );妨碍,阻碍 | |
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141 dunes | |
沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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142 squad | |
n.班,小队,小团体;vt.把…编成班或小组 | |
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143 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
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144 landmark | |
n.陆标,划时代的事,地界标 | |
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145 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
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146 demonstration | |
n.表明,示范,论证,示威 | |
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147 wrested | |
(用力)拧( wrest的过去式和过去分词 ); 费力取得; (从…)攫取; ( 从… ) 强行取去… | |
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148 tenacity | |
n.坚韧 | |
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149 desolating | |
毁坏( desolate的现在分词 ); 极大地破坏; 使沮丧; 使痛苦 | |
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150 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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151 naught | |
n.无,零 [=nought] | |
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152 sledges | |
n.雪橇,雪车( sledge的名词复数 )v.乘雪橇( sledge的第三人称单数 );用雪橇运载 | |
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153 perseverance | |
n.坚持不懈,不屈不挠 | |
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154 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
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155 justify | |
vt.证明…正当(或有理),为…辩护 | |
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156 renown | |
n.声誉,名望 | |
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157 embittered | |
v.使怨恨,激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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158 deposing | |
v.罢免( depose的现在分词 );(在法庭上)宣誓作证 | |
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159 lapse | |
n.过失,流逝,失效,抛弃信仰,间隔;vi.堕落,停止,失效,流逝;vt.使失效 | |
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160 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
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161 frail | |
adj.身体虚弱的;易损坏的 | |
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162 pageants | |
n.盛装的游行( pageant的名词复数 );穿古代服装的游行;再现历史场景的娱乐活动;盛会 | |
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163 promotion | |
n.提升,晋级;促销,宣传 | |
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164 profusion | |
n.挥霍;丰富 | |
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165 auxiliary | |
adj.辅助的,备用的 | |
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166 overthrow | |
v.推翻,打倒,颠覆;n.推翻,瓦解,颠覆 | |
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167 monarchy | |
n.君主,最高统治者;君主政体,君主国 | |
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168 climax | |
n.顶点;高潮;v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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169 motive | |
n.动机,目的;adv.发动的,运动的 | |
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170 enraptured | |
v.使狂喜( enrapture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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171 elevation | |
n.高度;海拔;高地;上升;提高 | |
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172 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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173 consecrated | |
adj.神圣的,被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣,给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 );奉献 | |
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174 coveted | |
adj.令人垂涎的;垂涎的,梦寐以求的v.贪求,觊觎(covet的过去分词);垂涎;贪图 | |
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175 portraying | |
v.画像( portray的现在分词 );描述;描绘;描画 | |
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176 royalty | |
n.皇家,皇族 | |
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177 squire | |
n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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178 portrays | |
v.画像( portray的第三人称单数 );描述;描绘;描画 | |
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179 enquires | |
打听( enquire的第三人称单数 ); 询问; 问问题; 查问 | |
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180 merged | |
(使)混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 ); 相融; 融入; 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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181 superintendent | |
n.监督人,主管,总监;(英国)警务长 | |
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182 caned | |
vt.用苔杖打(cane的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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183 vilified | |
v.中伤,诽谤( vilify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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184 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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185 bully | |
n.恃强欺弱者,小流氓;vt.威胁,欺侮 | |
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186 veneer | |
n.(墙上的)饰面,虚饰 | |
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187 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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188 wreck | |
n.失事,遇难;沉船;vt.(船等)失事,遇难 | |
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189 grudgingly | |
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190 relinquished | |
交出,让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 ); 放弃 | |
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191 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
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192 benevolence | |
n.慈悲,捐助 | |
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193 friction | |
n.摩擦,摩擦力 | |
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