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106 The Translator’s InvisibilityHe was incapable of producing in German the literature andphilosophy he produced in French. It is to be deplored that the greatpreference for England which dominated a part of the family couldnot have taken the direction of familiarizing him from childhood onwith the English language, whose last golden age was then inbloom, and which is so much closer to German. But we may hopethat he would have preferred to produce literature and philosophyin Latin, rather than in French, if he had enjoyed a strict scholarlyeducation.(Lefevere 1977:83)Here the vernacular nationalism in Schleiermacher’s cultural politicsbecomes more evident: the king is taken to task not so much becausehe is not “scholarly” (he is in fact portrayed as being genuinelyinterested in “literature and philosophy”), but because he doesn’t writein German, or in a language “closer to German” than French. WhereasGottsched seems to be lamenting the dearth of literary patronage(“sufficient encouragement”) because the Prussian aristocracy isFrancophone, Schleiermacher is more concerned about the unequalcultural production in German and French: “He was incapable ofproducing in German.”Schleiermacher’s criticism of the king is a nationalist protest againstFrench domination in Germany, and it is consistent with his intenseactivity in the Prussian movement for German unification during theNapoleonic wars. As Jerry Dawson makes clear,the war between France and Prussia in 1806, with the resultingcollapse of the Prussian armies and the humiliating peace termsdictated to Prussia by Napoleon, proved to be the final factorneeded to turn [Schleiermacher] to nationalism with a complete andalmost reckless abandon.(Dawson 1966:51) 3“Germany” did not actually exist at this time: West of the Rhine wereseveral petty principalities, which, after 1806, Napoleon organized intoa “confederation”; east was the dominant German-speakingmonarchy, Prussia, now dominated by the French. The Prussian defeatcaused Schleiermacher to lose his appointment at the University ofHalle, and he fled to Berlin, the Prussian capital, where he lectured atthe university and preached at various churches. His sermons urgedpolitical and military resistance against the French armies, developing