"It is to the great abilities, enlightened patriotism, and enduring
constancy of the BARON STEIN that Prussia is indebted for the measures
which laid the foundation for the resurrection of the monarchy."--ALISON.
"Baron Stein," says Bourrienne, "has been too little known;"--and
unquestionably, considering what he was to Prussia, and through Prussia to
Europe, at the most important crisis of recent history, he is too little
known still. Why is this? Plainly, in the first place, because he had the
misfortune to be a German statesman, and not a French one;--these French
do make such a noise in the world, partly with real cannons, partly with
artificial volcanoes and puerile pyrotechny of all kinds, that a man
cannot live and have ears without hearing about them. Celebrity is,
indeed, a very cheap affair, according to the French fashion; restlessness
and recklessness are the main elements of it. Only keep spurting and
spitting about obstreperously, and the most stiff ears must at length be
converted. As to real character and substantial worth, that must not give
you a moment's concern. Is not Catiline to this day as _famous_ a man as
Cicero? and is not the celebrity of Bonaparte, who was (_pace tanti
nominis_) nothing better than a bold and brilliant blackguard, equal to
that of the Apostle Paul, who was a saint? Yes, verily; and M. Thiers, and
the hot war-spirits in France, know it very well: but as for your great,
meditative, unobtrusive, honest, truthful, and laborious German--your
devoted Scharnhorst, for instance, who fell at Lutzen--the great world
hears not of such a man, unless by accident, though his life be a living
epitome of the gospel. But there are other Germans, too, as fiery, and
hot, and volcanic as any Frenchman, of whom, however, Europe hears but
little in proportion to their worth; their reputation suffers partly by
the virtue, partly by the vice, of the people to whom they belong; for the
people in general are not a noise-making people--this is the virtue--and
the German government--this is the vice--are timid and eschew publicity.
The Baron von Stein was one of these hot, glowing, impetuous, volcanic
Germans--a political Luther, as he has most justly been called; but he had
the misfortune to belong to a people who never dreamed of conquering any
thing except transcendental ideas in the region of the moon, and beyond
it; and he served a good, pious, "decent" master, the late Frederick
William III., who, when he was merry, (like a good Christian,) was more
inclined to sing psalms than to crack cannons, and prayed heaven every
morning that he might die a good man, rather than live a great king. Then,
in addition to this, comes the great and authoritative extinguisher of all
German political reputation, the CENSORSHIP--a "_monstrum horrendum
ingens_," and "_cui lumen ademptum_" truly; for it will neither see
itself, nor allow others having eyes to see for it. An honest and thorough
life of Baron Stein is, in fact, in the present slavish state of the
Prussian political press, an impossibility; for the sturdy old Freiherr
was a declared enemy of the whole race of red-tapists, and other officials
of the quill, who, since the peace, have maintained a practical monopoly
of public business in Prussia, and who, in fact, keep the monarch's
conscience, and tie his hands, much more effectually than chancellor or
parliament does in Great Britain. It is only therefore, in the way of
scattered notices, drawn from various sources, that a knowledge of such a
German statesman as Stein can be obtained; and these sources also, from
the same evil influence of the censorship, are necessarily very imperfect;
the men who knew Stein, and were in possession of correspondence and other
papers that might illustrate his life, are all _marked_ men; to the
government of the bureaucracy _suspected_ men--men who had, many of them,
like the Baron himself, been, immediately after the peace, subjected to
the most odious kinds of moral, and sometimes corporeal, persecution.
Their publications, of course, were watched with peculiar jealousy by the
Argus-eyed censorship; and we may always be sure that what they do tell us
is only the half of what they might have told us, had they dared to speak
out. Under these circumstances, the English reader will perhaps be obliged
to us for taking the trouble to sketch out a short outline of the life and
temper of Baron Stein from such scanty materials as time and chance have
thrown in our way; and he will, at the same time, pardon the great
deficiencies that must necessarily exist in the execution of such a
work.[17]
Henry Frederick Charles, _of_ and _at_ Stein, (_vom_ and _zum_ Stein!) was
born in the year 1757, of an old and noble family at Nassau on the Lahn.
His father belonged to that higher class of nobility, according to the old
German constitution, who held immediately of the Empire, (Reichs:
unmittelbare und Landbarfreie,)--a descent which had perhaps a not
unimportant effect in influencing the position which Stein afterwards
assumed; for while the Baron always acted in the spirit rather of the
middle classes than of the princes and their courts, and indeed often
indulged in the strongest expressions of contempt for the whole body of
princes in Germany, he never forgot his own character as a free and
independent baron of the German empire, and was, notwithstanding the
popular character of his great measures, in his tone of mind as much
aristocratic as democratic. Intended by his father to take office under
the Imperial government, he was sent first to Goettingen to study public
law and history, and then to Wetzlar, the seat of the Imperial chamber;
but the name of the Empire in those days had already lost its power over
the minds of ambitious youth. Frederick the Great was the guiding star of
the time; and, as if prophetic of the death-blow that awaited the
crumbling old edifice from the hand of Napoleon in 1806, Stein, so early
as 1780, entered the Prussian service as director of the mines
(_Bergrath_) at Wetter, in Westphalia. In 1784 we find him ambassador at
Aschaffenburg. He was then made president of all the Westphalian chambers,
and in active connexion with this province we find him remaining till
1804, when, on occasion of the death of Struensee, one of the Prussian
ministers, he was called to Berlin, and made minister of finance and of
trade and commerce by Frederick William III. In this capacity he remained
till the opening of the year 1807, when, as the _Conversations Lexikon_
asserts, being at Koenigsberg with the king, after the battle of Jena, "on
account of some differences with the cabinet" he resigned his situation,
and retired to his estates in Nassau. We notice this retirement and the
alleged cause of it particularly, because, as will appear in the sequel,
Stein, with all his talent, seems to have been a man of a peculiar temper,
and not so easily to be managed on many occasions as he was both willing
and able to manage others. However, whatever the cause of the resignation
might be, Frederick William had sense enough to see that these were not
times when Prussia could want the services of any man of real talent and
energy; and accordingly, (some say on the recommendation of Napoleon,) so
early as the harvest of that same year, he called the baron back and made
him prime-minister. Here was a situation worthy of a great man; Prussia,
after the battle of Jena, overthrown, prostrate, and bleeding beneath the
iron tramp of insolent France. How to convert this Prussia into the
Prussia that in a few years afterwards was destined to be a chief
instrument employed by Providence in the overthrow of the general European
tyrant--here was a problem!--one worthy of the worthiest man that the
kingdom of the Great Frederick could find; and most worthily did the Baron
von Stein execute the mission. The reforms which he boldly planned, and no
less boldly executed, in that critical year 1808, followed out as they
were by his able successor, Count Hardenberg, are sufficient to place him
in the very first rank of modern statesmen. He actually changed a nation
of serfs, by a single bloodless blow, into a free people; he did that for
Prussia, morally and socially, which Frederick the Great had done only
geographically; he caused it to rank side by side with the more civilized
and advanced, as opposed to the semi-barbarous (Russia) and stationary or
retrograde (Austria and Spain) powers of Europe. To detail at large the
important social changes thus effected in a single year by this most
energetic man, would lead us too far from our biographical purpose here,
and prevent us from making such a free use as we should desire of the
correspondence published by Von Gagern and Hormayr. We shall therefore
content ourselves with a short quotation from Mr Alison's sixth volume;
and may refer the reader, at the same time, to the more detailed and yet
succinct statement of the same matter given by Mr Russell--_Tour in
Germany_, vol. ii. p. 116.
"So clearly were his ideas formed, and so decided his conviction as
to the only means which remained of reinstating the public affairs,
that he commenced at once a vigorous, but yet cautious system of
amelioration; and, only four days after his appointment as Minister
of the Interior, a royal decree appeared, which introduced a salutary
reform into the constitution.
"By this ordinance, the peasants and burghers obtained the right,
hitherto confined to the nobles, of acquiring and holding landed
property, while they in their turn were permitted, without losing
caste, to engage in the pursuits of commerce and industry.
Landholders were allowed, under reservation of the rights of their
creditors, to separate their estates into distinct parcels, and
alienate them to different persons. Every species of slavery, whether
contracted by birth, marriage, or agreement, was prohibited
subsequent to the 11th November 1810; and every servitude, _corvee_,
or obligation of service or rent, other than those founded on the
rights of property or express agreement, was for ever abolished. By a
second ordinance, published six weeks afterwards, certain important
franchises were conferred on municipalities. By this wise decree,
which is in many respects the Magna Charta of the Prussian burghs, it
was provided that the burghers should enjoy councillors of their own
election, for regulating all local and municipal concerns: that a
third of the number should go out by rotation, and be renewed by an
election every year; that the council thus chosen should assemble
twice a-year to deliberate on the public affairs; that two
burgomasters should be at the head of the magistracy, one of whom
should be chosen by the king from a list of three presented, and the
other by the councillors; and that the police of the burgh should be
administered by a syndic appointed for twelve years, and who should
also have a seat in the municipal council. The administration of the
_Haute Police_, or that connected with the state, was reserved to
Government. By a third ordinance, an equally important alteration was
made in favour of the numerous class of debtors, whom the public
calamities had disabled from performing their engagements, by
prohibiting all demand for the capital sums till the 24th June 1810,
providing at the same time for the punctual payment of the interest,
under pain of losing the benefit of the ordinance. Thus at the very
moment that France, during the intoxication consequent on the
triumphs of Jena and Friedland, was losing the last remnant of the
free institutions which had been called into existence during the
fervour and crimes of the Revolution, Prussia, amidst the humiliation
of unprecedented disasters, and when groaning under the weight of
foreign chains, was silently relaxing the fetters of the feudal
system, and laying the foundation, in a cautious and guiltless
reformation of experienced grievances, for the future erection of
those really free institutions which can never be established on any
other bases than those of justice, order, and religion."
But Stein was too fierce and fiery a spirit, not merely too ardent, but
too open and reckless a "French-hater," to remain long as prime-minister
of Prussia under such a suspicious and jealous-eyed master-general of
continental police as Napoleon. An intercepted letter revealed Stein's
sentiments to the French; and by order of Napoleon, Hardenberg, a man of a
more smooth and polite exterior, (though as true a _German_ at heart,) was
nominated in his place. The reforming baron, after felling a few gigantic
trees, was obliged to surrender the work of perfect clearing of the social
forest to a not unworthy successor, himself retiring, or (to speak more
properly) being banished to Prague. There he lay in a convenient central
position, like a lion nursing his wrath, ready to start off in any
direction--back to Prussia, south to Vienna, north to Petersburg, or
wherever any thing substantial, by word or deed, was likely to be done
against the man whom his soul hated with an intensity of moral indignation
truly grand, even out-Bluchering Blucher. Stein indeed hated Napoleon, not
for one good reason only, but for four: first, as he was a Frenchman,
vainglorious and false; second, as he was a conqueror; third, as he was a
tyrant and an oppressor; fourth, as he was a godless man and a heathen. In
Prague, therefore, Stein remained, in company with Justus Eumer, the
banished Elector of Hesse-Cassel, Karl von Nostez, and many French
emigrants, as it were in a secret-burning focus, and hidden metropolis of
anti-Gallican spirit,[18] for a few years, waiting not patiently, but, in
his fashion, with extreme impatience, for the coming of the great day of
political retribution, in which he believed as firmly as in God, and in
the last judgment. German writers speak with patriotic enthusiasm of the
"_noctes caenaeque deum_"--"_diegoettlichen Abende_," which, with Pozzo di
Borgo and other choice spirits, Stein spent in this important period, when
events no less unexpected than great were knocking at the door. It must
have been a god-like treat, indeed, in these terrible times, when a man in
Germany could hardly draw his breath for fear of Davoust, to have seen
launched from the dark, fiery, Saracenic eyes of Deutschland's political
Luther, those "thundering fulgurations"[19] of indignant German hate,
which were soon to be followed by a tempest of more indignant
cannon-balls; but few and feeble, amid the barrenness of German political
literature, are the voices from those prophetic times that have been
wafted to British ears. The following short notices from Varnhagen von
Ense are all that we have been able to recover.
"Stein lived at Prague in a very retired manner; for though on
familiar terms with the most noble families, by ancient family
connexions, and by social position, he made great demands on those
whom he admitted to his intimacy. German truth and honour, scientific
culture, decision and firmness of character, and, if possible, talent
and wit, were qualities not easily found combined; but such a
combination he required to secure his friendship and respect. He was
often forced, indeed, to content himself with some one of these
qualities separately; and for myself, my principal recommendation to
his notice consisted, I suppose, in my having travelled a good deal
in Germany, in my having been at Paris and seen Napoleon, and, more
than all, in my having fought against the tyrant. When introduced to
him first, I was at once struck by something abrupt in his manner; it
seemed to me he was a person who in every thing he did or said,
asserted his own superiority to the mass of mankind, and was
accustomed to work in all things without respect for time, place, or
person. There was at the same time an unconstrained simplicity about
him, and an utter want of pride and pretence in his manner. In
conversation on public affairs, and matters of social economy, he was
most animated and most instructive; once started on a subject of this
kind, he was carried along irresistibly by his own enthusiasm; and
any ignorance displayed, or doubt expressed, by those with whom he
agreed, only served as a spur to set his ideas more on the gallop.
And he would go with the most admirable patience into long details of
fact, in order to bring round his adversary to his opinion. I was
struck particularly by the decidedly polemical character of his
remarks: ever and anon he drew this or the other Prussian statesman
into the argument, and in criticising severely their conduct, seemed
not seldom to give as much ease to his own heart as instruction to
me. His whole manner was such as in the Opposition side of a British
Parliament might have produced the most extraordinary effects. In his
extreme fits of eloquent indignation, a sort of convulsive tremor
would seize his whole voice and movements; he would shut his eyes,
and could scarcely bring out his words with the due articulation. But
immediately thereafter he would become calm again; and with what a
breadth and penetration of glance did he then look through his
adversary, reading every secret objection on his countenance, and
preparing a new and more terrible onset to carry the citadel of his
doubts by storm! To converse with him was indeed to carry on a
continued battle; for it pleased him, even when the person with whom
he conversed for the moment agreed with him, to consider him as an
adversary, and to argue with him as in all points a decided opponent
of his views: always, however, without any ill-will or the least
personal feeling. This sort of animated irritation gave a peculiar
charm to Stein's conversation; the Emperor Alexander, in particular,
was quite charmed with the roughness and bluntness of his manner;
for, except by a slight admixture of humour, Stein never attempted to
tame the rudeness of his address, even in the presence of the most
august personages.
"In literature, his taste was decidedly anti-speculative, although
rather practical. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were the men of his
heart; he had a high opinion of Niebuhr, both as a historian and as a
practical statesman: Heeren he praised and recommended as the rough
and practical: Fichte gained his good opinion by his patriotic
addresses to the German people; but for philosophy in general he had
no taste: Schleiermacher's philosophical religion was too subtle for
him, and, in respect of orthodoxy, more than suspicious; and the most
famous recent German speculators he declared plainly MAD. But of all
the writers of the time, his sympathies drew him most strongly
towards Arndt. When the second part of this writer's _Spirit of the
Age_ appeared, I found him continually (on the eve of the Russian
expedition) in a state of the most violent irritation and excitement.
He would seize the sheets as they were lying beside him, and read out
the most violent passages to me, always with increasing vehemence.
But seldom could he finish a whole page continuously, so strongly did
the fit of mingled indignation and exultation seize him, so necessary
was it for him to give vent to his own boiling feelings by irregular
interjections. 'Since Burke,' said he 'no such genuine political
eloquence has appeared, no truth that so cuts its way to the heart!'
He then recommended Arndt's style to my imitation.' In this way you
may attempt something--facts!--facts!--and not speculative phrases!
Do you understand me, Herr Metaphysics?'
"It is worthy of remark how intimately Stein's impetuousness and
violence of disposition were connected with his bodily organization.
He asked me once what was the number of my pulses; and, on hearing my
answer, held out his hand to me, and with a smile requested that I
would count his. There were about a hundred in the minute. This
number, he assured me, was the common rate of his pulse when in
perfect health: and it seemed to me that he looked on this gallop of
his blood as a sort of charter from nature, entitling him to be more
passionate and violent, without offence, than other men."
This is a most characteristic passage, and introduces us into the inner
nature of the man more than a whole chapter of dissertation. Verily, a
Luther in every line!--a fitful, impulsive, and tempestuous--a glowing
and a volcanic spirit--a most decided, despotic, and iron-willed German--a
man altogether worthy to hate Napoleon with a perfect hatred, as Luther
did the Pope, and to march to Paris as the true heart's brother of that
hot old septuagenarian hussar, Marshal Bluecher. One thing we have omitted
in the above extract for the sake of brevity, and yet we must allude to it
with a passing word. During the three ears of his residence at Prague,
Stein employed himself assiduously in the study of the French Revolution,
following it minutely through all its phases, through the columns of the
_Moniteur_. His opinion, therefore, on this subject, is well worth
registering; and we give the following two sentences on the subject, not
from Varnhagen, but from Von Gagern's correspondence, (8th June 1825.)--
"Mounier wrote on '_Des Causes qui ont empeche les Francais d'etre
Libres_.' To me they seem very simple. Inconsiderate minsters, who
called together an assembly of 700 Frenchmen, without having arranged
the form of their deliberations, the organization of the persons who
were to deliberate, or their respective rights. Then shallow,
inexperienced, vain talkers, Lameth, Lafayette, and Barrere, &c.,
often abused for the worst purposes by persons of the most abandoned
character, formed the first Assembly--murderers and robbers were
dominant in the second."
But we must proceed in our history of Stein's outward fates. When
Napoleon, in the culminating point of his vainglorious exultation, had
assembled the monarchs of Germany around him at Dresden in the summer of
1812, Stein was still at Prague, and not without apprehensions for his
personal safety. Napoleon had laid violent hands on, and butchered many
less dangerous enemies in Germany--witness Palm the bookseller, and honest
Andrew Hofer; and a German like Stein at the ear of Alexander in the year
of 1812, was equal to an army of 60,000 men. However, by a lucky
negligence of the French spies, the baron escaped to Russia, whither he
had been invited by the emperor, and was in Petersburg during that
eventful winter; a much more dangerous enemy to the French invaders than
the cautious Kutusoff at Moscow. Here he was immediately followed by a no
less fiery French-hater--the man whom we have seen him compare with Burke,
and who was henceforward to act as his secretary--Ernest Maurice ARNDT,
the author of the well-known national song "Marshal Bluecher," and of some
admirable historical sketches. From his "Reminiscences" we extract the
following few but marked lines of portraiture:--
"I arrive at Petersburg on the 26th of August, and proceeded
immediately to the minister. On entering, I was immediately struck by
his likeness to my old philosophical friend Fichte. The same figure,
short, broad, and compact--the same forehead, only broader, and more
sloping backward--the same small sparkling eyes, the same powerful
now--the words racy, clear, decided, and going, like arrows from the
bow, directly to the mark. And I soon also found the same inexorable
moral sternness of character, only with the difference that always
must exist in the whole manner of being between a practical statesman
and a speculative philosopher. In Stein's face there were two
distinct worlds, different and contrary. In the upper part dwelt the
bright and serene gods, with an almost uninterrupted sway. His
magnificent broad forehead, his keen and yet kindly eyes, his
powerful nose, proclaimed conjoined depth and command. A strange
contrast to this was offered in the lower part of the face: The mouth
was too small and delicate for the upper region; the chin also was
weak. Here common mortals had their haunts--here anger and passion
sported terribly--here those sudden fits of impetuousness would rage,
which, however, (thank God,) only required to be firmly met, that
they might be soothed. Strange, truly, was it to behold the lower
part of his face quivering with excitement--the little mobile mouth,
with fearful celerity, brimming with indignant indignation--and yet,
at the same time, the upper region remaining a sunny Olympus, and
even his lightning eyes flashing no fear: one part of his face
freeing the beholder from the terror inspired by the other. On other
occasions, when no violent excitement moved him, every feature, every
gesture, and every word of this noble man breathed honesty, courage,
and piety. He was a man that brought from his mother's womb the
instinct and the necessity to command. He was a born prince and king.
He was one of those who must be first, or he could do nothing. His
whole character was so peculiar and so powerful, that he could not
adapt himself to other people, much less subordinate. Many noble men
have been able to do this, but Stein decidedly could not."
These notices from Arndt and Varnhagen will, we hope, serve to bring the
reader into some personal familiarity with the man; in what follows, the
patriot and the statesman will demand our exclusive attention. The
correspondence with Count Muenster, published by Baron Hormayr it the
second volume of the _Lebensbilder_, commences with a letter dated 6th
October 1811, when Stein was still in Prague. From it we shall make a
short extract, putting in a strong light the state of public feeling in
Germany produced by the insulting despotism of Napoleon, and which was the
main cause that ultimately led to his overthrow.
"Every thing here is based on mere force and oppression of every
kind. Napoleon's endeavour is not, like that of Augustus Caesar, to
bewitch the world into the belief that a universal monarchy is the
best thing for Europe; but, on the contrary, he seems anxious to
seize every occasion, by haughty demeanour, rude despotic forms, and
needless irritation of every noble feeling, to make the weight of the
tyranny which he has superinduced as intolerable as possible. This
conduct has a most beneficial effect, for it keeps alive in the
breasts of men a constant indignation--a striving to break the bonds
that confine them. Had his despotism been more mild, Germany might
have slept the sleep of death.
"But the spirit of indignation thus awakened, acts not only against
the foreign tyrant, but against the native princes, in whom the
German people now see either dastardly poltroons, who, intent only on
their own preservation, and deaf to every feeling of honour and duty,
seek safety in their heels; or titled slaves and bailiffs, who, with
the substance and the life-blood of their subjects, purchase a few
years' lease of a beggarly existence. From this arises a general wish
for a constitution based on unity, energy, and nationality; and any
great man who should be able to give, or rather to restore us such a
nationality and such a constitution, would be sure of a hearty
welcome from the great mass of the people. Nor is there any thing in
the character of those who now fill the petty thrones of Germany,
calculated to react against this feeling of dissatisfaction; on the
contrary, every sort of extra vileness, weakness, and low sneaking
selfishness prevails."
The contempt here expressed for the German princes was (as we have said)
very characteristic of Stein--an old, free baron of the Empire; and the
important matter of German _unity_ and _nationality_ here touched on is
more decidedly brought forward in the following extract from a letter to
the same person, dated Petersburg, December 1, 1812:--
"I am sorry that your Excellency should see only a Prussian in me,
while, at the same time, you reveal yourself to me in the character
of a Hanoverian. I have only one fatherland, and that is Germany; and
as, according to the ancient constitution, I belonged only to my
_whole_ country, and not to any particular part of it, so my heart is
given still to the German fatherland, and not to this or that
province. In this moment of important development, the dynasties are
in fact quite indifferent to me; I view them only as instruments. My
wish is, that Germany should become great and strong, and regain its
ancient integrity, independence, and nationality; and that it should
attain and firmly maintain this position, between France on the one
hand and Austria on the other, is as much the interest of Europe in
general as of this particular part of it; and it seems to me equally
plain, that this great European object cannot possibly be attained by
means of the present rotten and crumbling old machinery. This were to
erect the system of an artificial military boundary on the ruins of
the old baronial castles, and the walls and towns of fortified
cities, and to throw aside altogether the ideas of Vauban, Cohorn,
and Montalembert.
"My confession of faith in this matter is contained in one
word--UNITY. And if my plan does not please you, take another: Put
Austria in the place of Prussia, and make it lord of Germany--if this
be practicable--only don't bring back the old Montagues and Capulets,
and the halls of the old barons. If the bloody contest which Germany
has already stood for twenty years, and is now called upon to undergo
again, be to end in a FARCE, ('_mit einem possenspiel endigen_,') I
for one shall prefer to have nothing to do with the matter, and will
take myself back into private life with all possible speed and
comfort."
In this letter we see applied to the political constitution of Germany, as
it was to be arranged at the peace, all that comprehensive grandeur of
idea, combined with decision and despotism (it would be false to use a
milder word) of execution, which had, in the single year 1808, done such
wonders in reconstructing the social fabric in Prussia. But it was one
thing to deal despotically with the internal government of one
state--especially after a battle of Jena!--and another thing to apply the
same over-riding principle to the complex relations of many states. It was
one thing to say to the debased aristocracy of Prussia, Thou shalt admit
the poor into the participation of thy privileges; the serf shall be a
free man, and the merchant shall shake hands with the noble: quite a
different thing to say to the King of Bavaria, in the spring of 1813,
after the peace, Thou shalt be swallowed up in Austria; and to the Elector
of Hesse-Cassel, Thou, who didst in 1807 flee _from_ Jerome, shalt in 1813
flee _to_ Frederick William III., who, like mighty Brahma, (in the Hindoo
history,) shall absorb thee quite into his Prussian godhead. The eager and
impetuous old Freiherr, with his racing pulse, had manifestly been
anticipating a few centuries, and attempting to dictate to necessity here.
He wished a good thing, perhaps, and a great thing; but a thing that, in
the circumstances, could not possibly be. Hear how sensibly the calm,
cool, and moderate Hanoverian, Graf Muenster, argues the matter. 'Tis plain
that our brave Luther is getting too violent, and will require a
Melancthon and an Erasmus to keep him in order.
"London, 4th January 1813.
"With regard to the future arrangements of the German states, you
yourself say, we should invite the expelled princes to join our
cause; and we cannot do this surely, if we intend, after the risk is
over, to throw them overboard: or is it likely that they will resign
of their own accord, and offer their thrones to either of the two
masters of whom we may give them the option? The peace of Westphalia
you call an abortion. Be it so; but it was better any how than a
thirty years' war; and I see nothing more likely than such war to
arise from any project to _conquer_ Germany, and to make a violent
subjugation of Bavaria, Saxony, Hessia, Baden, Brunswick, &c. In the
most of these lands, the princes themselves will have the chief voice
in determining what side their subjects shall take in the approaching
struggle. I do not speak particularly of the Confederation of the
Rhine, or of the state of things introduced in 1802; but from the
days of Monbod and Hernam until now, Germany has always been divided,
except, indeed, for one short period, during which the country
suffered much misery. It is plain enough, I grant, that the
constitution of Germany was not the work of an enlightened national
will--did not proceed from any clear consideration of the best
interests of the country--but _what constitution in the world is
there that has not been the work, in a great measure, of accidental
circumstances_? Since Solon and Lycurgus, only the Constituent
National Assembly in France, and the stupid Cortes in Spain, have
dreamed of such a thing as constitution-making, and the work of both
has been blown, as we see, to the four winds. 'Tis true England is
trying something of the same kind just now in the Sicilies; but God
preserve us from such a mistaken course! Your criticism on our
constitution is, indeed, altogether too severe; from the principles
of the Teutonic constitution, all public liberty in Europe originally
sprang. The contest in which we are engaged will certainly not end in
a '_farce_;' but why you should go back into private life, preferring
to be rather the grave-digger than the physician of our present
political state, I really cannot conceive. Let us rather endeavour
after what is practically attainable, than grasp at splendid
theoretical possibilities. You are fond of English authorities; let
me, therefore, remind you of him who said--_the practice of a
constitution is frequently very different from its theory_. There is
much that I like in Arndt's book, and its author I highly esteem; but
the way of amelioration (_Verbesserung_) which I propose to follow,
seems to present some prospect of success, where your _revolutionary_
projects bring with them a risk of losing all.
"You say that the _dynasties_ are a matter of indifference to you. To
me they are not. There lives in them a spirit which one can trace
through ages. Read only what Mueller in his _Fuerstenbund_ says of the
Guelphs. 'Need I mention the fame of the Guelphs, whose spirit of
unbending independence has made their name a watchword for liberty?'
Even England has never been so free as under the three Georges, and
the fourth George brings the same sentiments with him to the throne.
Compare with this your slavish Prussian system! I respect Frederick
the Great, but he caused the ruin of Germany by his aggrandizement,
and the ruin, let me add, of his own state too, by creating a body
that only his great soul could animate, and which, after his death,
lay helpless. When I showed the Prince Regent your remarks on the
dynasties, he exclaimed--If Stein is quite indifferent to them, why
does he not name us (Hanover) instead of PRUSSIA? I feel inclined to
put the same question. Let us be content if we can do the best with
the materials given us for our own age. ('_Lassen sie uns doch auch
fuer unsere eigene Lebenszeit sorgen._') Why think particularly of the
King of Prussia, a man whom, with the same breath that you exalt him,
you put under three subjects,[20] and take at the same time his army
into your own hands, to keep him from doing harm? I pray your
Excellency to observe, that while my proposal leaves us free hands
for any possible future improvement, your two plans will offend all
parties: your first plan, to make Austria swallow up Germany, will
offend all Europe, and Germany to boot; your second plan, to divide
Germany between Austria and Prussia, will excite the opposition not
only of Russia, England, and Sweden, but of all those North Germans
who are not prepared to receive as a _boon, the Prussian system with
cell its machinery of boards and councils, of auscultants and
assessors, and its hereditary incapacity to understand that old maxim
of political philosophy_--GOVERNA MEGLIO CHI MEN GOVERNA--He governs
best who governs least.
"Neither am I at all prepared to agree with what you say on the
subject of the German courts. I have lived long in great courts, and
I know not a few small ones; and I can honestly say, that the state
of morals among the peasants in country villages has always appeared
to me more corrupt than in the highest circles of polite and
cultivated society; and I can find little difference in principle
between the case of one man intriguing in high circles for _grandes
entrees_, and that of another setting a similar machinery to work to
obtain the presidency in any church meeting of a small parish, or a
union of parishes; between one who, to attain a selfish object,
flatters a prince, and another who flatters the prefect of a
department. If a difference is to be made, the higher object which
excites the higher passions seems rather entitled to a preference.
"Again, I do not see why we should put altogether out of view, how
much science, civilization, and wealth, have gained by the
multiplication of central points, where all these things may be
cherished, and whence, as from so many life-giving fountains, they
may be beneficently dispensed. What country is there that can compete
with Germany in respect of scientific culture?--and have the courts
of so many princes not contributed to this result? And in ancient
Greece was it not a similar state of things, that, as one great
element at least, produced a similar result? But I will not attempt
to discuss this subject in all its bearings. Enough, if you will
believe me, that in the arrangement of the future political state of
Germany, I do not look for a mere FARCE; while, at the same time, I
feel obliged to protest decidedly, in present circumstances at least,
against your project of uniting Germany under one or two masters."
There are many admirable points in the above letter; and after pondering
it well, no intelligent reader will doubt for a moment that the schemes of
Stein with regard to German _unity_, were not only impracticable in their
main scope, but, in some respects, of very questionable propriety. It
were necessary, however, to have had the experience of a Prussian, and the
heart of a Stein, in the year 1813, if one would fully understand how
imperatively these practical impossibilities must have presented
themselves to the earliest and patriotic minds of those days. Convinced
that the cool Hanoverian is right, we still feel inclined to sympathise
with the hot Prussian, who is in the wrong. "_Malo cum Plutone errare._"
Stein followed Alexander into Germany, witnessed the battles of Lutzen and
Bautzen, disheartening as they were, like all true Germans, undismayed:
and on the 23d August 1813, shortly after the resumption of hostilities,
we find him a second time in Prague, and writing most characteristically
as follows:--
"The spirit of the people here is by no means what it was in 1809;
and for this plain reason, that the government does nothing, and will
do nothing, to rouse it. At that time (1809) the STADIONS held the
helm, and they used every means to waken the nobler feelings of human
nature, and they attained their object. Now, at the head of affairs,
we have a cold, scheming, shallow, calculating man, who is afraid of
nothing so much as an energetic measure--loves nothing more than a
goal at the nearest possible distance from his nose--and is always
ready to help himself out of a scrape with any miserable patchwork
that may serve for the nonce. Hence the marriage introduced by a
divorce, the foolish hope of a partial peace, the childish congress,
the wretched ultimatum, and so forth."
And on the 14th September, after the war was fairly broken out again, we
find the following remarks occasioned by the untoward battle of Dresden:--
"The latest events have taught us what to think of our new allies,
and their commander, (Schwartzenberg.) We have gained an increase in
_mass_, not in _insight_, nobility of sentiment, or vigour; we now
understand what the fruits are of the new system pursued in Austria
since 1810. From 1806 to 1809, the two Stadions gave all their energy
to the great work of elevating the spirit of the nation, and at the
same time strengthening and fully equipping the army; and they
succeeded in both points; the nation was animated by the most devoted
enthusiasm, the army fought with true valour. Since the peace of
Vienna, on the other hand, the new ministry has been concerned only
to purchase a beggarly peace, to disorganize the army, to cripple the
public spirit, and to solve the great problem of European
regeneration by the miserable arts of diplomacy. This also has
succeeded. The nation has become lukewarm, and the army fight with no
very remarkable display of soldiership. * * * The man who
calculates, but without depth, may be a very good book-keeper, but is
no mathematician.
"The result, as we have hitherto seen, is, that we have fought EVERY
WHERE with distinguished success, except where _the grand army_ was
present, that between Russia and Austria no very friendly feelings
prevail, ('_eine grosse Abneigung herrscht_,') made worse, of course,
by the well-known lukewarmness of the latter power. Over and above
all this, Metternich aims at a preponderant influence such as neither
his talents, his character, nor the military position of the Austrian
empire entitles him to. The Emperor Alexander sees all this clearly,
and will very probably undertake the command of his own and the
Prussian army in person; and the movement of masses thus animated,
will then communicate itself to the inert Austrians.
"It is of the utmost importance that some conclusion should be come
to about the settlement of Germany. From * * * expect no
comprehensive views; he seeks for nothing but the shortest and most
comfortable road, and will content himself with respectable vamping
in any shape. The history of the negotiations proves this; and had it
not been for the MADNESS OF NAPOLEON, we should unquestionably have
had for the third, fourth, and fifth time, a ruinous and wretched
peace."
The person so severely handled in two places of these letters where he is
not named, is plainly enough Prince Metternich; a statesman who, whatever
may be his abilities, and whatever may have been his merits--and merits in
the management of German affairs--from the peace of Vienna in 1809, to
that of Paris in 1815, (and it were out of place to attempt discussing
these points here,) was plainly in every respect the _antipodes_ of Stein;
and a man whom the hot Prussian baron could no more form a just judgment
of, than Martin Luther could of Erasmus. Diplomatists and mere
politicians, even the best of them, are seldom--to say the least of
it--the most noble specimens of human nature: there are bad and good
amongst them of course; but Stein, in his despotic sweeping style, was
fond of classing them all together, as in one of his letters to Gagern;
where, after expressing his confident reliance on "Providence, and the
hand of a loving Father who guides all," he adds, but "from the sly crafty
animals called politicians--(the original is English)--from these
_homunciones_ I expect nothing."
The official position which Stein occupied during the eventful year 1813,
was that of Supreme Director of the Interim Central Board of
Administration (_Central Verwaltung_) of the conquered provinces of
Germany, till arrangements should be made for their final disposal in a
general congress. When that congress came to do its work, of course he had
nothing more to do; and it will be pretty evident to the reader, from the
temper and opinions of the man, as above exhibited, that he was in nowise
calculated to work efficiently with such men as Metternich, Talleyrand,
and Lord Castlereagh, at Vienna. The very composition of the congress,
made up of every possible complex and contending interest, rendered from
the beginning the realization of Stein's patriotic views, with regard to
German unity, impossible. In such congregations of working and
counter-working diplomatists, not the triumph of any great principle, but
the compromise of a number of petty claims, is generally the result; but
compromise and patchwork of every kind were, to a man of Stein's temper,
only another name for the DEVIL. The congress of Vienna, so far as Germany
was concerned, ended, according to his views, in a "FARCE;" for not only
were the other German states, great and small, left entire, but SAXONY
also--Napoleon's centre and base in the late war--was preserved, only a
half (instead of the whole) of it being cut off for the great German
object of forming "a strong Prussia." And with regard to this point, we
must confess we feel, in some respects, inclined to agree with the
Prussian baron. If Saxony was to be made an exception to the general rule,
it would have been better, for many reasons, to have handed it over
undivided to the great Northern power. If neither one strong German
empire, nor an equally-poised federal system, was any longer possible, a
strong Prussia was certainly a thing imperatively called for. But
congresses are congresses; and we must even content ourselves with the
most convenient adjustment of contending claims that was found practicable
at the time; and if the result seems unsatisfactory, we may turn away our
eyes from it; occupy ourselves with the best business that offers itself,
and let God work. So at least Stein did. He kept his word to Count Muenster
most faithfully; and, after the decisive thunders of Leipsig and Waterloo,
having done his part to bring the great European tragedy to a worthy
catastrophe, he retired from witnessing the "farce," with all convenient
speed, into private life, and was heard of no more in court or cabinet in
Berlin, from that day till his death. In the spring of 1816, we find him,
in his own ancestral castle in Nassau, addressing a fiend as
follows:--"Yes, dear friend, we have won much; but much also should have
been otherwise. God governs the world, and abandons no German; and if we
remain true and German, (_treu und Deutsch_,) we shall take up the matter
some other day with the French again, and settle the account more
satisfactorily. For myself, I long to depart; _this world is, once for
all, so constituted, that a man cannot walk on the straight path, and yet
ought not to walk on the crooked_. 'Tis even so; circumstances and
relations drive and force men. They act, and think they are the doers; but
it is God that decides." This most characteristic passage expresses only
Stein's feeling, that the French had been allowed to escape so cheaply, by
the generosity of the Allies, at the peace of Paris; but he had much more
substantial grievances to vex him nearer home; and, next to the feeble
machinery of the diet at Frankfort, that which hurt him most was the
political reaction at Berlin that commenced immediately after the peace,
and threatened to undo that great social work which he had so boldly begun
in 1808. However much a Prussian in his political sympathies, Stein was
essentially an Englishman in his principles; the tendency of all his
measures, as they were introduced by himself, or followed out by
Hardenberg, was to temper the military and bureaucratic despotism of
Frederick the Great by a wise admixture of popular influence; he wished a
"constitution" after the English model, as much as circumstances might
permit, not in form merely but in deed; he was not afraid of free
discussion among a well-educated people like the Germans, and was too
noble-minded to imitate, in Berlin or Maine, the spy-system on which
Napoleon had based his immoral monarchy of physical force at Paris. It was
not to be expected, however, that in a country hitherto governed solely by
the Court and by the Bureau, these English views of Stein should not have
met with sturdy opposition; in fact it was mainly by help of the battle of
Jena, that he was enabled to do what he did for creating a Prussian PEOPLE
in 1808. Now that terrible shock had passed; and the host of defeated
bureaucratists and court minions, after the battle for the liberation of
the fatherland had been fought by others, now began to crown into their
old places, and to occupy the ears of a king more honest to promise what
was right than strong to do it. Accordingly, instead of "freedom of the
press" and "constitution" in Prussia, we have heard no sound, since the
year 1815, but that of prohibited books, imaginary conspiracies of
beer-inspired Burschen, deposed professors, and banished old Luther; and
every thing, in short, except what the pious old Frederick William III.
promised, or was made to appear to promise, with such gracious, popular,
and constitutional phrases at Vienna, in the year 1815. Whether the
military and bureaucratic despotism of Germany may not, after all, be a
better system of government on the whole than our strange system of local
and corporate influence of all sorts, of fermenting acids and alkalis,
here is a question which some persons of a speculative disposition may
consider open enough; but that the supreme power having once pledged
itself to give a people a free constitution and freedom of the press,
should act with honour, and do what was promised, seems, (if there be any
such thing as public morals at all,) under any form of government, nothing
more than what common policy as well as propriety would dictate. Those who
bear the rule in Germany, however, have, for the last thirty years, done
every thing that they possibly could do to make the royal word a public
mockery, and a shame; one cannot review the well-known despotic
proceedings of the German diet, first in 1829, and afterwards in 1832,
without subscribing a most full assent to the sentence of the Baron von
Stein, when he says, in reference to those very matters--"the falsehood
that prevails in our age is deserving of the most serious reprehension."
And again, "Our German government sink more and more daily in public
estimation by their timidity and perfidy." With regard to the whole
system, indeed, of Prussian government, the system of doing every thing by
official men, and nothing by voluntary movement of the people, and apart
from this special matter of the "_constitution_," Stein was accustomed to
use the strongest language of reprobation; witness the following letter to
Von Gagern, dated 24th August 1821. Coppenberg was a favourite seat of the
Baron in Westphalia.
"In the lonely woody Coppenberg, I live so remote from the world and
its doings, that nothing can disturb me in the enjoyment of nature
and a country life, except bad weather, which happily has left us a
few days ago, and is not likely soon to return. In Westphalia here,
my friends are more concerned about the new tax, and the new edict
about the peasants, (which satisfies no party,) than about the
schemes of Metternich on the banks of the Danube, and the great
events in Greece. For myself, I can say nothing more about public
affairs, than that, while I have little confidence in the present
leaders, I have an unbounded trust in Providence; and that, necessary
as a CONSTITUTION _is to Prussia, and beneficial as it would be if
fairly worked, I expect nothing from any machinery which will
necessarily be opposed by the persons who have possession of the
king's ear, and the court influence generally_: and I see plainly
that we are still, as we have hitherto been, to be governed by
salaried persons, equipped with mere book-learning, without any
substantial interest in the country, without property, by mere
bureaucratists--a system which will last so long as it can
last--'_Das geht so lange es geht!_' These four words contain the
soul of our and suchlike spiritless (_geistlos_) government
machines:--in the first place salaried--and this implies a tendency
to maintain and to multiply the number of salaried officials; then
_book-learned_--that is, living in the world of the dead letter, and
not in the actual world; _without interest_--for these men stand in
no connexion with any class of the citizens, which are the mass of
the state; they are a peculiar caste, these men of the quill, ("_die
Schreiberkaste_;") lastly, _without property_--this implies that they
stand unmoved by all changes that affect property, in sunshine or in
rain, with taxes high or low, with old chartered rights maintained or
destroyed, with independent peasants or a rabble of mere journeymen,
with a dependence of the peasants on the proprietors, or of all on
the Jews and the bankers--'tis all one to the bureaucracy. They draw
their salary from the public purse, and write--write--write
on--secretly--silently--invisibly with shut
doors--unknown--unnoticed--unnamed--and bring up their children after
them, to be what their fathers were--very serviceable
writing-machines.
"Our machinery--the old military machinery--I saw fall on the 14th
October 1806; possibly the machinery of the desk and the quill and
the red tape has a 14th of October already doomed for it in Heaven."
These are serious words; and though Stein was one of those intense and
strongly accentuating minds that never could state a truth without
overstating it, (as Martin Luther also was continually doing,) they are
not wise who would treat the hard blows from the cudgel of such a man as
if they were puffs and whiffs of angry smoke from some wrathful Heine, or
other furious poetical politician in Paris. Stein was the most practical
of men; he had lived all his life amid the details of practice; and, like
all practical men, in the midst of his violence knew how to preserve
certain sobriety and moderation, without which no such thing as governing
is possible. There is nothing, in our opinion, that any King of Prussia
could do better than seriously to ponder the passage we have just quoted,
and also the few short sentences that follow:--
Nassau, Sept. 29, 1819.
"I expect nothing satisfactory and substantial from the assembling
together, and the deliberations, of mediocre and superficial men.
"The most important thing that could be done for the preservation of
the public peace in Germany, were to _put an end to the reign of
arbitrary power, and, in the place of it, to commence a system of
constitutional law; in the place of the bureaucratists and the
democratic pamphleteers--of whom the former oppress the people by
much and bad governing, and the other excite and confound it--to
place the influence and the activity of the proprietors of the
soil_."
With these memorable words we are willing that the character of Stein, as
an English statesman in Prussia, should grave itself deep in the hearts
both of Englishmen and Prussians. We have only to add that, in his latter
years, Stein occupied himself in organizing a society at Frankfort for
publishing the original documents of German history, which are best known
to the English historical student in connexion with the name of Perz; and
that he took an active share in the business of the provincial states of
Westphalia. He was also (since 1827) member of the council of state in
Berlin; but this dignity, conferred at so late a period, seems merely to
have been intended as a sort of unavoidable compliment to a person of his
rank and standing. It certainly did not imply that his well-known English
principles were intended to assume any greater prominency in the conduct
of Prussian and German affairs than they had enjoyed since the peace.
Baron Stein died on the 29th June 1831, in his castle of Coppenberg in
Westphalia.