PART XXIII

THE LATEST TIMES

CCLXIV. The German Confederation

Thus terminated the terrible storms that, not without benefit, had

convulsed Europe. Every description of political crime had been

fearfully avenged and presumption had been chastised by the unerring

hand of Providence. At that solemn period, the sovereigns of Russia,

Austria, and Prussia concluded a treaty by which they bound themselves

to follow, not the ruinous policy they had hitherto pursued, but the

undoubted will of the King of kings, and, as the viceroys of God upon

the earth, to maintain peace, to uphold virtue and justice. This Holy

Alliance was concluded on the 26th of September, 1815. All the

European powers took part in it; England, who excused herself, the

pope, and the sultan, whose accession was not demanded, alone

excepted.

The new partition of Europe, nevertheless, retained almost all the

unnatural conditions introduced by the more ancient and godless policy

of Louis XIV. and of Catherine II. Germany, Poland, and Italy remained

partitioned among rulers partly foreign. Everywhere were countries

exchanged or freshly partitioned and rendered subject to foreign rule.

England retained possession of Hanover, which was elevated into a

German kingdom, of the Ionian islands, and of Malta in the

Mediterranean. Russia received the grandduchy of Warsaw, which was

raised to a kingdom of Poland, but was not united with Lithuania,

Volhynia, Podolia, and the Ukraine, the ancient provinces of Poland

standing beneath the sovereignty of Russia, and Finland, for which

Sweden received in exchange Norway, of which Denmark was forcibly

dispossessed. Holland was annexed to the old Austrian Netherlands and

elevated to a kingdom under William of Orange.[1] Switzerland remained

a confederation of twenty-two cantons,[2] externally independent and

neutral, internally somewhat aristocratic in tendency, the ancient

oligarchy everywhere regaining their power. The Jesuits were

reinstated by the pope. In Spain, Portugal, and Naples, the form of

government prior to the Revolution was reestablished by the ancient

sovereigns on their restoration to their thrones.

Alsace and Lorraine, Switzerland and the new kingdom of the

Netherlands, the provinces of Luxemburg excepted, were no longer

regarded as forming part of Germany. Austria received Milan and Venice

under the title of a Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, the Illyrian provinces

also as a kingdom, Venetian Dalmatia, the Tyrol,[3] Vorarlberg,

Salzburg, the Inn, and Hausruckviertel, and the part of Galicia ceded

by her at an earlier period. The grandduchy of Tuscany and the duchies

of Modena, Parma, and Placentia were, moreover, restored to the

collateral branches of the house of Habsburg.[4]--Prussia received

half of Saxony, the grand-duchy of Posen, Swedish-Pomerania,[5] a

great portion of Westphalia, and almost the whole of the Lower Rhine

from Mayence as far as Aix-la-Chapelle.[6] Since this period Prussia

is that one which, among all the states of Germany, possesses the

greatest number of German subjects, Austria, although more

considerable in extent, containing a population of which by far the

greater proportion is not German. Bavaria, in exchange for the

provinces again ceded by her to Austria, received the province of

Wurzburg together with Aschaffenburg and the Upper Rhenish Pfalz under

the title of Rhenish-Bavaria. Hanover received East Friesland, which

had hitherto been dependent upon Prussia. Out of this important

province, which opened the North Sea to Prussia, was Hardenberg

cajoled by the wily English. The electorates of Hesse, Brunswick, and

Oldenburg were restored. Everything else was allowed to subsist as at

the time of the Rhenish confederation. All the petty princes and

counts, then mediatized, continued to be so.

The ancient empire, instead of being re-established, was, on the 8th

of June, 1815, replaced by a German confederation, composed of the

thirty-nine German states that had escaped the general ruin; Austria,

Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Wurtemberg, Baden, electoral Hesse,

Darmstadt, Denmark on account of Holstein,[7] the Netherlands on

account of Luxemburg, Brunswick, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Nassau,

Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Gotha (where the reigning dynasty became extinct,

and the duchy was partitioned among the other Saxon houses of the

Ernestine line), Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Hildburghausen,

Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Holstein-Oldenburg, Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt-

Bernburg, Anhalt-Kothen, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg-

Rudolstadt, Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Lichtenstein, Hohenzollern-

Sigmaringen, Waldeck, Reuss the elder, and Reuss the younger

branch,[8] Schaumburg-Lippe, Lippe-Detmold, Hesse-Homburg: finally,

the free towns, Lubeck, Frankfort on the Maine, Bremen, and

Hamburg.[9] At Frankfort on the Maine a permanent diet, consisting of

plenipotentiaries from the thirty-nine states, was to hold its

session. The votes were, however, so regulated that the eleven states

of first rank alone held a full vote, the secondary states merely

holding a half or a fourth part of a vote, as, for instance, all the

Saxon duchies collectively, one vote; Brunswick and Nassau, one; the

two Mecklenburgs, one; Oldenburg, Anhalt, and Schwarzburg, one; the

petty princes of Hohenzollern, Lichtenstein, Reuss, Lippe, and

Waldeck, one; all the free towns, one; forming altogether in the diet

seventeen votes. In constitutional questions relating to regulations

of the confederation the _plenum_ was to be allowed, that is, the six

states of the highest rank were to have each four votes, the next five

states each three, Brunswick, Schwerin, and Nassau, each two, and all

the remaining princes without distinction, each one vote.[10]--Austria

held the permanent presidency. In all resolutions relating to the

fundamental laws, the organic regulations of the confederation, the

_jura singulorum_ and matters of religion, unanimity was required. All

the members of the confederation bound themselves neither to enter

into war nor into any foreign alliance against the confederation or

any of its members. The thirteenth article declared, "Each of the

confederated states will grant a constitution to the people." The

sixteenth placed all Christian sects throughout the German

confederation on an equality. The eighteenth granted freedom of

settlement within the limits of the confederation, and promised

"uniformity of regulation concerning the liberty of the press." The

fortresses of Luxemburg, Mayence, and Landau were declared the common

property of the confederation and occupied in common by their troops.

A fourth fortress was to have been raised on the Upper Rhine with

twenty millions of the French contribution money. It has not yet been

erected.

This was the new constitution given to Germany. According to the

treaty of Paris it could not be otherwise modelled, and it is

explained by the foreign influence that then prevailed. The diet

assembled at Frankfort on the Maine, and was opened by Count

Buol-Schauenstein with a solemn address, which excited no enthusiasm.

An orator in the American assembly at that time observed, "The

non-development of the seed contained in Germany appears to be the

common aim of a resolute policy."

All now united for the complete suppression of the German patriotic

party. In the former Rhenish confederated states, it had been treated

with open contempt[11] ever since Gentz had given the signal for

persecution in Austria. Prussia, however, also drove all those who had

most faithfully served her in her hour of need from her bosom. Stein

was compelled to withdraw to Kappenberg, his country estate. Gruner

was removed from office and sent as ambassador to Switzerland, where

he died. The Rhenish Mercury, that had performed such great services

to Prussia, was prohibited, and Gorres was threatened with the house

of correction.[12] All other papers of a patriotic tendency were also

suppressed. In Jena, Oken and Luden, in Weimar, Wieland the younger,

alone ventured for some time to give utterance to their liberal

opinions, which were finally also reduced to silence.

Patriotic enthusiasm was, however, not so speedily suppressed amid the

youthful students in the academies and universities. Jahn's gymnastic

schools (_Turnschulen_), the members of which were distinguished by

the German costume, a short black frock coat, a black cap, linen

trousers, a bare neck with turned-over shirt-collar, extended far and

wide and were in close connection with the _Burschenschaften_ of the

universities. The prescribed object of these _Turnschulen_ was the

promotion of Christian, moral, German manners, the universal

fraternization of all German students, the complete eradication of the

provincialism and license inherent in the various associations formed

at the universities. They wore Jahn's German costume and always acted

publicly, until their suppression, when the remaining members formed

secret associations. On the 18th of October, 1817, the students of

Jena, Halle, and Leipzig, and those of some of the more distant

universities, assembled in order to solemnize the jubilee on the three

hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, on the Wartburg, where, in

imitation of Luther, they committed a number of servile works,

inimical to the German cause, to the flames, as Görres at that time

said, "filled with anger that the same reformation required of the

church by Luther should be sanctioned, but at the same time refused,

by the state." The black, red, and yellow tricolor was hoisted for the

first time on this occasion. These were in reality the ancient colors

of the empire and were regarded as such by the patriotic students, but

were purposely looked upon by the French and their adherents in

Germany as an imitation of the tricolored flag of the French republic.

The festival solemnized on the Wartburg was speedily succeeded by

others. The _Turner_, more particularly at Berlin and Breslau,

rendered themselves conspicuous not only by their dress but by their

insolence, boys even of the tenderest years putting themselves forward

as reformers of the government and of society, and singing the most

bloodthirsty songs of liberty. The Prussian government interfered, and

the gymnastic exercises, so well suited to the subjects of a warlike

state, were once more prohibited.

At the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, Stourdza, the Russian councillor

of state, a Wallachian by birth, presented a memorial in which the

spirit of the German universities was described as revolutionary. The

_Burschenschaft_ of Jena sent him a challenge. Kotzebue, the Russian

councillor of state and celebrated dramatist, at length published a

weekly paper in which he turned every indication of German patriotism

to ridicule, and exercised his wit upon the individual eccentricities

of the students affecting the old German costume, of precocious boys

and doting professors. The rage of the galled universities rose to a

still higher pitch on the discovery, made and incontestably proved by

Luden, that Kotzebue sent secret bulletins, filled with invective and

suspicion, to St. Petersburg. To execrate Kotzebue had become so

habitual at the universities that a young man, Sand from Wunsiedel, a

theological student of Jena, noted for piety and industry, took the

fanatical resolution to free, or at least to wipe off a blot from his

country, by the assassination of an enemy whose importance he, in the

delusion of hatred, vastly overrated; and he accordingly went, in

1819, to Mannheim, plunged his dagger into Kotzebue's heart, and then

attempted his own life, but only succeeded in inflicting a slight

wound. He was beheaded in the ensuing year. Loning, the apothecary,

probably excited by Sand's example, also attempted the life of the

president of Nassau, Ibell, who, however, seized him, and he committed

suicide in prison. These events occasioned a congress at Carlsbad in

1819, which took the state of Germany into deliberation, placed each

of the universities under the supervision of a government officer,

suppressed the _Burschenschaft_, prohibited their colors, and fixed a

central board of scrutiny at Mayence,[13] which acted on the

presupposition of the existence of a secret and general conspiracy for

the purposes of assassination and revolution, and of Sand's having

acted not from personal fanaticism and religious aberration, but as

the agent of some unknown superiors in some new and mysterious

tribunal. This inquisition was carried on for years and a crowd of

students peopled the prisons; conspiracies perilous to the state were,

however, nowhere discovered, but simply a great deal of ideal

enthusiasm. The elder men in the universities, who, either in their

capacity as tutors or authors, had fed the enthusiasm of the youthful

students, were also removed from their situations. Jahn was arrested,

Arndt was suspended at Bonn and Fries at Jena; Gorres, who had

perseveringly published the most violent pamphlets, was compelled to

take refuge in Switzerland, which also offered an asylum to Dewette,

the Berlin professor of theology, who had been deprived of his chair

on account of a letter addressed by him to Sand's mother. Oken, the

great naturalist, who refused to give up "Isis," a periodical

publication, also withdrew to Switzerland. Numbers of the younger

professors went to America.[14] The solemnization of the October

festival was also prohibited, and the triumphal monument on the field

of Leipzig was demolished.

[Footnote 1: William V., the expelled hereditary stadtholder, died in

obscurity at Brunswick in 1806. His son, William, had, in 1802,

received Fulda in compensation, but afterward served Prussia, was, in

1806, taken prisoner with Möllendorf at Erfurt and afterward set at

liberty, served again, in 1809, under Austria, and then retired to

England, whence he returned on the expulsion of the French to receive

a crown, which he accepted with a good deal of assurance, complaining,

at the same time, of the loss of his former possession, Fulda, a

circumstance strongly commented upon by Stein in his letters to

Gagern. William, in return for his elevation to a throne by the arms

of Germany, closed the mouths of the Rhine against her.]

[Footnote 2: Zurich, Berne, Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Glarus,

Zug, Freiburg, Solothurn, Basel, Schaffhausen, Appenzell, St. Gall,

the Grisons, Aargau, Constance, Tessin, the Vaud, Valais, Neuenburg

(Neufchatel), Geneva. The nineteen cantons of 1805 remained _in statu

quo_, only those of Valais, Neufchatel, and Geneva were confederated

with them, and Pruntrut with the ancient bishopric of Basel were

restored to Berne.]

[Footnote 3: The deed of possession of the 26th June, 1814, runs as

follows: "Not by an arbitrary, despotic encroachment upon the order of

things, but by the hands of the Providence that blessed the arms of

your emperor and of the allied princes and by a holy alliance are you

restored to the house of Austria."]

[Footnote 4: Tuscany fell to Ferdinand, the former grandduke of

Wurzburg; Modena to Francis, son of the deceased duke, Ferdinand;

Parms and Placantia to Maria Louisa, the wife and widow of Napoleon.]

[Footnote 5: Not long before, in the treaty of Kiel, there had been

question of bestowing Swedish-Pomerania upon Denmark; to this Prussia

refused to accede and Denmark agreed to take 2,600,000 dollars in

compensation. Prussia was also compelled to pay 3,500,500 dollars to

Sweden.]

[Footnote 6: Rehfues, the director of the circle, a Wurtemberg

Protestant, published a circular at Bonn, in which he promised full

religious security to the Catholic inhabitants, whom he reminded of

Prussia's having been "the last supporter of the order of

Jesus."--_Allgemeine Zeitung of 1814, No. 234._]

[Footnote 7: Holstein alone, not Schleswig, was enumerated as

belonging to the German confederation, although both duchies were long

ago closely united by the _nexus socialis_, more particularly in the

representation at the diet.]

[Footnote 8: The Reusses, formerly imperial governors of Plauen,

diverged into so many branches that, as early as 1664, they agreed to

distinguish themselves by numbers, which at first amounted to thirty,

but at a later period to a hundred, afterward recommencing at number

one. The family took the name of Reuss from the Russian wife of its

founder, in the beginning of the fourteenth century.]

[Footnote 9: Hamburg had vainly petitioned for the restitution of her

bank, of which she had been deprived by Davoust. She received merely a

small portion of the general war tax levied upon France.]

[Footnote 10: Austria and Prussia contain forty-two million

inhabitants; the rest of Germany merely twelve million; the power of

the two former stands consequently in proportion to that of the rest

of Germany as forty-two to twelve or seven to two, while their votes

in the diet stood not contrariwise, as two to seven, but as two to

seventeen in the plenary assembly, and as two to fifteen in the lesser

one.]

[Footnote 11: Aretin, who, at the time of the Rhenish confederation,

insolently mocked and had denounced every indication of German

patriotism, ventured to say in his "Alemannia," in the beginning of

1817, "'The patriotic colors,' 'the voice of the people,'

'nationality,' 'the extirpation of foreign influence,' are words now

forgotten, magic sounds that have lost their power."]

[Footnote 12: By Sack, the government commissary, who even confiscated

the Rhenish Mercury, an earlier and unprohibited paper, and arrested

the printer, against which Görres violently protested in a letter

addressed to Sack. Görres made a triumphant defence before the

tribunal at Treves, and observed, "Strange that the most violent enemy

to France should seek the protection of French courts!"]

[Footnote 13: The names of these inquisitors were Schwarz, Grano,

Hörmann, Bar, Pfister, Preusschen, Moussel.]

[Footnote 14: Charles Follen, brother to the poet Louis Adolphus

Follen, private teacher of law at Jena, a young man of great spirit

and talent, who at that period exercised great influence over the

youth of Germany, was wrecked, in 1840, in a steamer in North America

and drowned.]

CCLXV. The New Constitutions

Germany had, notwithstanding her triumph, regained neither her ancient

unity nor her former power, but still continued to be merely a

confederation of states, bound together by no firm tie and regarded

with contempt by their more powerful neighbors. The German

confederation did not even include the whole of the provinces whose

population was distinguished as German by the use of the German

language. Several of the provinces of Germany were still beneath a

foreign sceptre; Switzerland and the Netherlands had declared

themselves distinct from the rest of Germany, which, hitherto

submissive to France, was in danger of falling beneath the influence

of Russia, who ceaselessly sought to entangle her by diplomatic wiles.

There were still, however, men existing in Germany who hoped to

compensate the loss of the external power of their country by the

internal freedom that had been so lavishly promised to the people on

the general summons to the field. The proclamation of Calisch and the

German federative act guaranteed the grant of constitutions. The

former Rhenish confederated princes, nevertheless, alone found it to

their interest to carry this promise into effect, and, in a manner,

formed a second alliance with France by their imitation of the newly

introduced French code and by the establishment, in their own

territories, of two chambers, one of peers, the other of deputies,

similar to those of France; measures by which, at that period of

popular excitement, they also regained the popularity deservedly lost

by them at an earlier period throughout the rest of Germany, the more

so, the less the inclination manifested by Austria and Prussia to

grant the promised constitutions. Enslaved Illuminatism characterizes

this new zeal in favor of internal liberty and constitutional

governments, to denote which the novel term of Liberalism was borrowed

from France. Liberty was ever on the tongues--of the most devoted

servants of the state. The ancient church and the nobility were

attacked with incredible mettle--in order to suit the purposes of

ministerial caprice. Prussia and Austria were loudly blamed for not

keeping pace with the times--with the intent of favorably contrasting

the ancient policy of the Rhenish confederation. None, at that period,

surpassed the ministers belonging to the old school of Illuminatism

and Napoleonism in liberalism, but no sooner did the deputies of the

people attempt to realize their liberal ideas than they started back

in dismay.

The first example of this kind was given by Frederick Augustus, duke

of Nassau, as early as the September of 1814. Ibell, the president,

who reigned with unlimited power over Nassau, drew up a constitution

which has been termed a model of "despotism under a constitutional

form." The whole of the property of the state still continuing to be

the private property of the duke, and his right arbitrarily to

increase the number of members belonging to the first chamber, and by

their votes to annul every resolution passed by the second chamber,

rendered the whole constitution illusory. Trombetta, one of the

deputies, voluntarily renounced his seat, an example that was followed

by several others.--The second constitution granted was that bestowed

upon the Netherlands in 1815, by King William, who established such an

unequal representation in the chambers between the Belgians and Dutch

as to create great dissatisfaction among the former, who, in revenge,

again affected the French party. This was succeeded, in 1816, by the

petty constitutions of Waldeck, Weimar, and Frankfort on the Maine.--

Maximilian, king of Bavaria, seemed, in 1817, to announce another

system by the dismissal of his minister, Montgelas, and, in 1818,

bestowed a new constitution upon Bavaria; but the old abuses in the

administration remained uneradicated; a civil and military state

unproportioned to the revenue, the petty despotism of government

officers and heavy imposts, still weighed upon the people, and the

constitution itself was quickly proved illusory, the veto of the first

chamber annulling the first resolution passed by the second chamber.

Professor Behr of Wurzburg, upon this, energetically protested against

the first chamber, and, on the refusal of the second chamber to vote

for the maintenance of the army on so high a footing, unless the

soldiery were obliged to take the oath on the constitution, it was

speedily dissolved.--In Baden, the Grandduke Charles expired, in 1818,

after having caused a constitution to be drawn up, which Louis, his

uncle and successor, carried into effect. Louis having, however,

previously, and without the consent of the people, entered into a

stipulation with the nobility, to whom he had granted an edict

extremely favorable to their interests, Winter, the Heidelberg

bookseller, a member of the second chamber, demanded its abrogation.

The answer was, the dissolution of the chamber, personal inquisition

and intimidation, and the publication of an extremely severe edict of

censure, against which, in 1820, Professor von Rotteck of Freiburg,

supported by the poet Hebel and by the Freiherr von Wessenberg,

administrator of the bishopric of Constance, protested, but in

vain.--At the same time, that is, in 1818, Hildburghausen, and even

the petty principality of Lichtenstein, which merely contains two

square miles and a population amounting to five thousand souls, also

received a constitution, which not a little contributed to turn the

whole affair into ridicule.--To these succeeded, in 1819, the

constitutions of Hanover and Lippe-Detmold, the former as aristocratic

as possible, completely in the spirit of olden times, solely dictated

and carried into effect by the nobility and government officers. The

sittings of the chambers, consequently, continued to be held in

secret.--The dukes of Mecklenburg abolished feudal servitude, which

existed in no other part of Germany, in 1820.--In Darmstadt, the

constitution was granted by the good-natured, venerable Grandduke

Louis (whose attention was chiefly devoted to the opera), after the

impatient advocates, who had collected subscriptions in the Odenwald

to petitions praying for the speedy bestowal of the promised

constitution, had been arrested, and an insurrection that consequently

ensued among the peasantry had been quelled by force.--Petty

constitutions were, moreover, granted, in 1821, to Coburg, and, in

1829, to Meiningen. The Gotha-Altenburg branch of the ducal house of

Saxony became extinct in 1825 in the person of Frederick, the last

duke, the brother of Duke Augustus Emilius, a great patron of the arts

and sciences, deceased 1822. Gotha, consequently, lapsed to Coburg,

Altenburg to Hildburghausen, and Hildburghausen to Meiningen.

In Wurtemberg, the dissatisfaction produced by the ancient despotism

of the government was also to be speedily appeased by the grant of a

constitutional charter. The king, Frederick, convoked the Estates, to

whom he, on the 15th of March, 1815, solemnly delivered the newly

enacted constitution. But here, as elsewhere, was the government

inclined to grant a mere illusory boon. The Estates rejected the

constitution, without reference to its contents, simply owing to the

formal reason of its being bestowed by the prince and being

consequently binding on one side alone, instead of being a stipulation

between the prince and the people, and moreover because the ancient

constitution of Wurtemberg, which had been abrogated by force and in

direct opposition to the will of the Estates, was still in legal

force. The old Wurtemberg party alone could naturally take their

footing upon their ancient rights, but the new Wurtemberg party, the

mediatized princes of the empire, the counts and barons of the empire,

and the imperial free towns, nay, even the Agnati of the reigning

house,[1] all of whom had suffered more or less under Napoleon's iron

rule, ranged themselves on their side. The deputy, Zahn of Calw, drew

a masterly picture of the state of affairs at that period, in which he

pitilessly disclosed every reigning abuse. The king, thus vigorously

and unanimously opposed, was constrained to yield, and the most prolix

negotiations, in which the citizen deputies, headed by the advocate,

Weisshaar, were supported by the nobility against the government,

commenced.

The affair was, it may be designedly, dragged on _ad infinitum_ until

the death of the king in 1816, when his son and successor, William,

who had gained a high reputation as a military commander and had

rendered himself extremely popular, zealously began the work of

conciliation. He not only instantly abolished the abuses of the former

government, as, for instance, in the game law,[2] but, in 1817,

delivered a new constitution to the Estates. Article 337 was somewhat

artfully drawn up, but in every point the constitution was as liberal

as a constitutional charter could possibly be. But the Estates refused

to accept of liberty as a boon, and rejected this constitution on the

same formal grounds upon which they had rejected the preceding one.

The Estates were again upheld by a grateful public, and the few

deputies, more particularly Cotta and Griesinger, who had defended the

new constitution on account of its liberality and who regarded form as

immaterial, became the objects of public animadversion. The populace

broke the windows of the house inhabited by the liberal-minded

minister, von Wangenheim. The poet Uhland greatly distinguished

himself as a warm upholder of the ancient rights of the people.[3] The

king instantly dissolved the Estates, but at the same time declared

his intention to guarantee to the people, without a constitution, the

rights he had intended constitutionally to confer upon them; to

establish an equal system of taxation, and "to eradicate bureaucracy,

that curse upon the country." The good-will displayed on both sides

led to fresh negotiations, and a third constitution was at length

drawn up by a committee, composed partly of members of the government,

partly of members belonging to the Estates, and, in 1819, was taken

into deliberation and passed by the reassembled Estates. This

constitution, nevertheless, fell far below the mark to which it had

been raised by public expectation, partly on account of the retention,

owing to ancient prejudice, of the permanent committee and its

oligarchical influence, party on account of the too great and

permanent concessions made to the nobility in return for their

momentary aid,[4] partly on account of the extreme haste that marked

the concluding deliberations of the Estates, occasioned by their

partly unfounded dread of interference on the part of the congress

then assembled at Carlsbad.

In Wurtemberg, however, as elsewhere, the policy of the government was

deeply imbued with the general characteristics of the time.

Notwithstanding the constitution, notwithstanding the guarantee given

by the federative act, liberty of the press did not exist. List, the

deputy from Reutlingen, was, for having ventured to collect

subscriptions to petitions, brought before the criminal court,

expelled the chamber by his intimidated brother deputies, took refuge

in Switzerland, whence he returned to be imprisoned for some time in

the fortress of Asberg, and was finally permitted to emigrate to North

America, whence he returned at a later period, 1825, in the capacity

of consul. Liesching, the editor of the German Guardian, whose liberty

of speech was silenced by command of the German confederation, also

became an inmate of the fortress of Asberg.

In Hesse and Brunswick, all the old abuses practiced in the petty

courts in the eighteenth century were revived. William of Hesse-Cassel

returned, on the fall of Napoleon, to his domains. True to his

whimsical saying, "I have slept during the last seven years," he

insisted upon replacing everything in Hesse exactly on its former

footing. In one particular alone was his vanity inconsistent:

notwithstanding his hatred toward Napoleon, he retained the title of

Prince Elector, bestowed upon him by Napoleon's favor, although it had

lost all significance, there being no longer any emperor to elect.[5]

He turned the hand of time back seven years, degraded the councillors

raised to that dignity by Jerome to their former station as clerks,

captains to lieutenants, etc., all, in fact, to the station they had

formerly occupied, even reintroduced into the army the fashion of

wearing powder and queues, prohibited all those not bearing an

official title to be addressed as "Herr," and re-established the

socage dues abolished by Jerome. This attachment to old abuses was

associated with the most insatiable avarice. He reduced the government

bonds to one-third, retook possession of the lands sold during

Jerome's reign, without granting any compensation to the holders,

compelled the country to pay his son's debts to the amount of two

hundred thousand rix-dollars, lowered the amount of pay to such a

degree that a lieutenant received but five rix-dollars per mensem, and

offered to sell a new constitution to the Estates at the low price of

four million rix-dollars, which he afterward lowered to two millions

and a tax for ten years upon liquors. This shameful bargain being

rejected by the Estates, the constitution fell to the ground, and the

prince elector practiced the most unlimited despotism. Discontent was

stifled by imprisonment. Two officers, Huth and Rotsmann, who had got

up a petition in favor of their class, and the Herr von Gohr, who by

chance gave a private fete while the prince was suffering from a

sudden attack of illness, were among the victims. The purchasers of

the crown lands vainly appealed to the federative assembly for

redress, for the prince elector "refused the mediation of the

federative assembly until it had been authorized by an organic law

drawn up with the co-operation of the prince elector himself."--This

prince expired in 1821, and was succeeded by his son, William II., who

abolished the use of hair-powder and queues, but none of the existing

abuses, and demonstrated no inclination to grant a constitution. He

was, moreover, the slave of his mistress, Countess Reichenbach, and on

ill terms with his consort, a sister of the king of Prussia, and with

his son. Anonymous and threatening letters being addressed to this

prince with a view of inducing him to favor the designs of the writer,

he had recourse to the severest measures for the discovery of the

guilty party; numbers of persons were arrested, and travellers

instinctively avoided Cassel. It was at length discovered that Manger,

the head of the police, a court favorite, was the author of the

letters.

Similar abuses were revived by the house of Brunswick. It is unhappily

impossible to leave unmentioned the conduct of Caroline, princess of

Brunswick, consort to the Prince of Wales, afterward George IV., king

of England. Although this German princess had the good fortune to be

protected by the Whig party and by the people against the king and the

Tory ministry, she proved a disgrace to her supporters by the

scandalous familiarity in which she lived in Italy with her

chamberlain, the Italian, Pergami. The sympathy with which she was

treated at the time of the congress was designedly exaggerated by the

Whigs for the purpose of giving the greatest possible publicity to the

errors of the monarch. Caroline of Brunswick was declared innocent and

expired shortly after her trial, in 1821.

Charles, the hereditary duke of Brunswick, son to the duke who had so

gallantly fallen at Quatrebras, was under the guardianship of the king

of England. A constitution was bestowed in 1820 upon this petty

territory, which was governed by the minister, Von Schmidt-Phiseldek.

The youthful duke took the reins of government in his nineteenth year.

Of a rash and violent disposition and misled by evil associates, he

imagined that he had been too long restricted from assuming the

government, accused his well-deserving minister of having attempted to

prolong his minority, posted handbills for his apprehension as a

common delinquent, denied all his good offices, and subverted the

constitution. He was surrounded by base intriguers in the person of

Bosse, the councillor of state, formerly the servile tool of

Napoleon's despotism, of Frike, the Aulic councillor, "whose pliant

quill was equal to any task when injustice had to be glossed over," of

the adventurer, Klindworth, and of Bitter, the head of the chancery,

who conducted the financial speculations. Frike, in contempt of

justice, tore up the judgment passed by the court of justice in favor

of the venerable Herr von Sierstorff, whom he had accused of high

treason. Herr von Cramm, by whom Frike was, in the name of the

Estates, accused of this misdemeanor before the federative assembly,

was banished, a surgeon, who attended him, was put upon his defence,

and an accoucheur, named Grimm, who had basely refused to attend upon

Cramm's wife, was presented with a hundred dollars. Häberlin, the

novelist, who had been justly condemned to twenty years' imprisonment

with hard labor for his civil misdemeanors, was, on the other hand,

liberated for publishing something in the duke's favor. Bitter

conducted himself with the most open profligacy, sold all the

demesnes, appropriated the sum destined for the redemption of the

public debt, and at the same time levied the heavy imposts with

unrelenting severity. The federative assembly passed judgment against

the duke solely in reference to his attacks upon the king of England.

[Footnote 1: The king bitterly reproached his brother Henry, to whom

he said, "You have accused me to my peasantry."--_Pfister History of

the Constitution of Würtemberg._]

[Footnote 2: Pfister mentions in his History of the Constitution of

Wurtemberg that merely in the superior bailiwick of Heidenheim the

game duties amounted, in 1814, to twenty thousand florins, and five

thousand two hundred and ninety-three acres of taxed ground lay

uncultivated on account of the damage done by the game, and that in

March, 1815, one bailiwick was obliged to furnish twenty-one thousand

five hundred and eighty-four men and three thousand two hundred and

thirty-seven horses for a single hunt.]

[Footnote 3: Colonel von Massenbach, of the Prussian service, who has

so miserably described the battle of Jena and the surrender of

Prentzlow in which he acted so miserable a part, and who had in his

native Würtemberg embraced the aristocratic party, was delivered by

the free town of Frankfort, within whose walls he resided, up to the

Prussian government, which he threatened to compromise by the

publication of some letters. He died within the fortress of Cüstrin.]

[Footnote 4: The mediatized princes and counts of the empire sat in

the first chamber, the barons of the empire in the second. The

prelates, once so powerful, lost, on the other hand, together with the

church property, in the possession of which they were not reinstated,

also most of their influence. Instead of the fourteen aristocratic and

independent prelates, six only were appointed by the monarch to seats

in the second chamber. Government officers were also eligible in this

chamber, which ere long fell entirely under their influence.]

[Footnote 5: He endeavored, but in vain, to persuade the allied powers

to bestow upon him the royal dignity.]

CCLXVI. The European Congress--The German Customs' Union

The great political drama enacting in Europe excited at this time the

deepest attention throughout Germany. In almost every country a

struggle commenced between liberalism and the measures introduced on

the fall of Napoleon. In France more particularly it systematically

and gradually undermined the government of the Bourbons, and the cry

of liberty that resounded throughout France once more found an echo in

Germany.

The terrible war was forgotten. The French again became the objects of

the admiration and sympathy of the radical party in Germany, and the

spirit of opposition, here and there demonstrated in the German

chambers, gave rise, notwithstanding its impotence, to precautionary

measures on the part of the federative governments. In the winter of

1819, a German federative congress, of which Prince Metternich was the

grand motor, assembled at Vienna for the purpose, after the utter

annihilation of the patriots, of finally checking the future movements

of the liberals, principally in the provincial diets. The Viennese Act

of 1820 contains closer definitions of the Federative Act, of which

the more essential object was the exclusion of the various provincial

diets from all positive interference in the general affairs of

Germany, and the increase of the power of the different princes

vis-à-vis to their provincial diets by a guarantee of aid on the part

of the confederates.

During the sitting of this congress, on New Year's Day, 1820, the

liberal party in Spain revolted against their ungrateful sovereign,

Ferdinand VII., who exercised the most fearful tyranny over the nation

that had so unhesitatingly shed its blood in defence of his throne.

This example was shortly afterward followed by the Neapolitans, who

were also dissatisfied with the conduct of their sovereign. Prince

Metternich instantly brought about a congress at Troppau. The czar,

Alexander, who had views upon the East and was no stranger to the

heterarchical party which, under the guidance of Prince Ypsilanti,

prepared a revolution in Greece (which actually broke out) against the

Turks, was at first unwilling to give his assent unconditionally to

the interference of Austria, but on being, in 1821, to his great

surprise, informed by Prince Metternich of the existence of a

revolutionary spirit in one of the regiments of the Russian guard,

freely assented to all the measures proposed by that minister.[1] The

new congress held at Laibach, in 1821, was followed by the entrance of

the Austrians under Frimont into Italy. The cowardly Neapolitans fled

without firing a shot, and the Piedmontese, who unexpectedly revolted

to Frimont's rear, were, after a short encounter with the Austrians

under Bubna at Novara, defeated and reduced to submission. The Greeks,

whom Russia now no longer ventured openly to uphold, had, in the

meantime, also risen in open insurrection. The affairs of Spain were

still in an unsettled state. The new congress held at Verona, in 1822,

however, decided the fate of both these countries. Prince Hardenberg,

the Prussian minister, expired at Genoa on his return home, and Lord

Castlereagh, the English ambassador, cut his throat with his penknife,

in a fit of frenzy, supposed to have been induced by the sense of his

heavy responsibility. At this congress the principle of legitimacy was

maintained with such strictness that even the revolt of the Greeks

against the long and cruel tyranny of the Turks was, notwithstanding

the _Christian spirit of the Holy Alliance_ and the political

advantage secured to Russia and Austria by the subversion of the

Turkish empire, treated as rebellion against the legitimate authority

of the Porte and strongly discouraged. A French army was, on the same

grounds, despatched with the consent of the Bourbon into Spain, and

Ferdinand was reinstated in his legitimate tyranny in 1823. Russia, in

a note addressed to the whole of the confederated states of Germany,

demanded at the same time a declaration on their parts to the effect

that the late proceedings of the great European powers at Verona "were

in accordance with the well-understood interests of the people." Every

member of the federative assembly at Frankfort gave his assent, with

the exception of the Freiherr von Wangenheim, the envoy from

Wurtemberg, who declaring that his instructions did not warrant his

voting upon the question, the ambassadors from the two Hesses made a

similar declaration. This occasioned the dismissal of the Freiherr von

Wangenheim; and the illegal publication of a Wurtemberg despatch, in

which the non-participation of the German confederation in the

resolutions passed by the congresses, to which their assent was

afterward demanded, was treated of, occasioned a second dismissal,

that of Count Winzingerode, the Wurtemberg minister. In the July of

1824, the federal diet resolved to give its support to the monarchical

principle in the constitutional states, and to maintain the Carlsbad

resolutions referring to censorship and to the universities. The

Mayence committee remained sitting until 1828.

On the sudden decease of Alexander, the czar of all the Russias, amid

the southern steppes, a revolution induced by the nobility broke out

at Petersburg, but was suppressed by Alexander's brother and

successor, the emperor Nicholas I. Nicholas had wedded Charlotte, the

eldest daughter of the king of Prussia. This energetic sovereign

instantly invaded Persia and rendered that country dependent upon his

empire without any attempt being made by the Tory party in England and

Austria to hinder the aggrandizement of Russia, every attack directed

against her being regarded as an encouragement to liberalism. Russia

consequently seized this opportunity to turn her arms against Turkey,

and, in the ensuing year, a Russian force under Count Diebitsch, a

Silesian, crossed the Balkan (Haemus) and penetrated as far as

Adrianople; while another corps d'armée under Count Paskiewicz,

advanced from the Caucasus into Asia Minor and took Erzerum. The fall

of Constantinople seemed near at hand, when Austria and England for

the first time intervened and declared that, notwithstanding their

sympathy with the absolute principles on which Russia rested, they

would not permit the seizure of Constantinople. France expressed her

readiness to unite with Russia and to fall upon the Austrian rear in

case troops were sent against the Russians.[2] Prussia, however,

intervened, and General Muffling was dispatched to Adrianople, where,

in 1829, a treaty was concluded, by which Russia, although for the

time compelled to restore the booty already accumulated, gained

several considerable advantages, being granted possession of the most

important mountain strongholds and passes of Asia Minor, a right to

occupy and fortify the mouths of the Danube so important to Austria,

and to extend her aegis over Moldavia and Wallachia.

In the midst of this wretched period, which brought fame to Russia and

deep dishonor upon Germany, there still gleamed one ray of hope; the

Customs' Union was proposed by some of the German princes for the more

intimate union of German interests.

Maximilian of Bavaria, a prince whose amiable manners and character

rendered him universally beloved, expired in 1825. His son, Louis, the

foe to French despotism, a German patriot and a zealous patron of the

arts, declared himself, on his coronation, the warm and sincere

upholder of the constitutional principle and excited general

enthusiasm. His first measures on assuming the government were the

reduction of the royal household and of the army with a view to the

relief of the country from the heavy imposts, the removal of the

university of Landshut to Munich, and the enrichment on an extensive

scale of the institutions of art. The union of the galleries of

Düsseldorf and Mannheim with that of Munich, the collection of

valuable antiques and pictures, for instance, that of the old German

paintings collected by the brothers Boisserée in Cologne during the

French usurpation, the academy of painting under the direction of the

celebrated Cornelius, the new public buildings raised by Klenze, among

which the Glyptothek, the Pinakothek, the great Königsbau or royal

residence, the Ludwigschurch, the Auerchurch, the Arcades, etc., may

be more particularly designated, rendered Munich the centre of German

art. This sovereign also founded at Ratisbon the Walhalla, a building

destined for the reception of the busts of all the celebrated men to

whom Germany has given birth. The predilection of this royal amateur

for classic antiquity excited within his bosom the warmest sympathy

with the fate of the modern Greeks, then in open insurrection against

their Turkish oppressors, and whom he alone, among all the princes of

Germany, aided in the hour of their extremest need.--With the same

spirit that dictated his poems, in which he so repeatedly lamented the

want of unity in Germany, he was the first to propose the union of her

material interests. Germany unhappily resembled, and indeed

immediately after the war of liberation, as De Pradt, the French

writer, maliciously observed, even in a mercantile point of view, a

menagerie whose inhabitants watched each other through a grating.

Vainly had the commercial class of Frankfort on the Maine presented a

petition, in 1819, to the confederation, praying for free trade, for

the fulfilment of the nineteenth article of the federal act. Their

well-grounded complaint remained unheard. The non-fulfilment of the

treaty relating to the free navigation of the Rhine to the sea was

most deeply felt. In the first treaty concluded at Paris, the royal

dignity and the extension of the Dutch territory had been generously

granted to the king of the Netherlands under the express proviso of

the free navigation of the Rhine to the sea. The papers relating to

this transaction had been drawn up in French, and the ungrateful Dutch

perfidiously gave the words "jusqu' à la mer" their most literal

construction, merely "as far as the sea," and as the French, moreover,

possessed a voice in the matter on account of the Upper Rhine, and the

German federal states were unable to give a unanimous verdict,

innumerable committees were held and acts were drawn up without

producing any result favorable to the trade of Germany.

Affairs stood thus, when, shortly after Louis's accession to the

throne of Bavaria, negotiations having for object the settlement of a

commercial treaty took place between him and William, king of

Wurtemberg. This example was imitated by Prussia, which at first

merely formed a union with Darmstadt; afterward by Hesse, Hanover,

Saxony, etc., by which a central German union was projected. This

union was, however, unable to stand between that of Wurtemberg and

Bavaria, and that of Prussia and Darmstadt. The German Customs' Union

was carried into effect in 1888. An annual meeting of German

naturalists had at that time been arranged under the auspices of Oken,

the great naturalist, and at the meeting held at Berlin, in 1888, the

Freiherr von Cotta, by whom the moral and material interests of

Germany have been greatly promoted, drew up the first plan for a

junction of the commercial union of Southern Germany with that of the

North, as the first step to the future liberation of Germany from all

internal commercial restrictions. The zeal with which he carried this

great plan into effect gained the confidence of the different

governments, and he not only succeeded in combining the two older

unions, but also in gradually embodying with them the rest of the

German states.

The attachment of King Louis to ancient Catholicism was extremely

remarkable. He began to restore some of the monasteries, and several

professors inclined to Ultramontanism and to Catholic mysticism, the

most distinguished among whom was Görres, the Prussian exile,

assembled at the new university at Munich. Here and there appeared a

pious enthusiast. Shortly after the restoration, a peasant from the

Pfalz named Adam Müller began to prophesy, and Madame von Krudener, a

Hanoverian, to preach the necessity of public penance; both these

persons gained the ear of exalted personages, and Madame von Krudener

more particularly is said not a little to have conduced to the piety

displayed by the emperor Alexander during the latter years of his

life. At Bamberg, Prince Alexander von Hohenlohe, then a young man,

had the folly to attempt the performance of miracles, until the police

interfered, and he received a high ecclesiastical office in Hungary.

In Austria, the Ligorians, followers in the footsteps of the Jesuits,

haunted the vicinity of the throne. The conversion of Count Stolberg

and of the Swiss, Von Haller, to the Catholic church, created the

greatest sensation. The former, a celebrated poet, simple and amiable,

in no way merited the shameless outbursts of rage of his old friend,

Voss; Haller, on the other hand, brought forward in his "Restoration

of Political Science" such a decided theory in favor of secession as

to inspire a sentiment of dread at his consistency. The conversion of

Ferdinand, prince of Anhalt-Köthen, to the Catholic church, in 1825,

excited far less attention.

In France, where the Bourbons were completely guided by the Jesuits,

by whose aid they could alone hope to suppress the revolutionary

spirit of their subjects, the reaction in favor of Catholicism had

assumed a more decided character than in Germany. Louis XVIII. was

succeeded by his brother, the Count d'Artois, under the name of

Charles X., a venerable man seventy years of age, who, notwithstanding

his great reverses, had "neither learned nor forgotten anything."

Polignac, his incapable and imperious minister, the tool of the

Jesuits, had, since 1829, impugned every national right, and, at

length, ventured by the ordinances of the 25th July, 1830, to subvert

the constitution. During three days, from the 27th to the 30th of

July, the greatest confusion reigned in Paris; the people rose in

thousands; murderous conflicts took place in the streets between them

and the royal troops, who were driven from every quarter, and the king

was expelled. The chambers met, declared the elder branch of the house

of Bourbon (Charles X., his son, the Dauphin, Duke d'Angouleme, and

his grandson, the youthful Duke de Bordeaux, the son of the murdered

Duke de Berri) to have forfeited the throne, but at the same time

allowed them unopposed to seek an asylum in England, and elected Louis

Philippe, Duke of Orleans, the son of the notorious Jacobin, the head

of the younger line of the house of Bourbon and the grand-master of

the society of Freemasons, king of the French. The rights of the

chambers and of the people were also extended by an appendix to the

charta signed by Louis XVIII.

The revolution of July was the signal for all discontented subjects

throughout Europe to gain, either by force or by legal opposition,

their lost or sighed-for rights. In October, the constitutional party

in Spain attempted to overturn the despotic rule of Ferdinand VII. In

November, the prime minister of England, the renowned Duke of

Wellington, was compelled by the people to yield his seat to Earl

Grey, a man of more liberal principles, who commenced the great work

of reform in the constitution and administration of Great Britain.

During this month, a general insurrection took place in Poland: the

grandduke, Constantine, was driven out of Warsaw, and Poland declared

herself independent. A great part of Germany was also convulsed: and a

part of the ill-raised fabric, erected by the statesmen of 1815, fell

tottering to the ground.

[Footnote 1: Vide Binder's Prince Metternich.]

[Footnote 2: Official report of the Russian ambassador, Count Pozzo di

Borgo, from Paris, of the 14th of December, 1828.]

CCLXVII. The Belgian Revolution

A nation's self-forgetfulness is ever productive of national disgrace.

The Netherlands were torn from the empire and placed partly beneath

the tyranny of Spain, partly beneath the aegis of France; the dominion

of Austria, at a later period, merely served to rouse their provincial

spirit, and, during their subsequent annexation to France, the French

element decidedly gained the ascendency among the population. When, in

1815, these provinces fell under the rule of Holland, it was hoped

that the German element would again rise. But Holland is not Germany.

Estranged provinces are alone to be regained by means of their

incorporation with an empire imbued with one distinct national spirit;

the subordination of one province to another but increases national

antipathy and estrangement. Holland, by an ungrateful, inimical

policy, unfortunately strove to separate herself from Germany.[1] And

yet Holland owes her whole prosperity to Germany. There is her market;

thence does she draw her immense wealth; the loss of that market for

her colonial productions would prove her irredeemable ruin. Her

sovereign, driven into distant exile, was restored to her by the arms

of Germany and generously endowed with royalty. Holland, in return for

all these benefits, deceitfully deprived Germany of the free

navigation of the Rhine to the sea guaranteed to her by the federal

act and assumed the right of fixing the price of all goods, whether

imported to or exported from Germany. The whole of Germany was, in

this unprecedented manner, rendered doubly tributary to the petty

state of Holland.

Belgium, annexed to this secondary state instead of being incorporated

with great and liberal Germany, necessarily remained a stranger to any

influence calculated to excite her sympathy with the general interests

of Germany. Cut off, as heretofore, from German influence, she

retained, in opposition to the Dutch, a preponderance of the old

Spanish and modern French element in her population. Priests and

liberals, belonging to the French school, formed an opposition party

against the king, who, on his side, rested his sole support upon the

Dutch, whom he favored in every respect. Count Broglio, archbishop of

Ghent, first began the contest by refusing to take the oath on the

constitution. Violence was resorted to and he fled the country. The

impolicy of the government in affixing his name to the pillory merely

served to increase the exasperation of the Catholics. Hence their

acquiescence with the designs of the Jesuits, their opposition to the

foundation of a philosophical academy, independent of the clergy, at

Louvain. The fact of the population of Belgium being to that of

Holland as three to two and the number of its representatives in the

states-general being as four to seven, of few, if any, Belgians being

allowed to enter the service of the state, the army, or the navy,

still further added to the popular discontent. The gross manners of

the minister, Van Maanen, also increased the evil. As early as

January, 1830, eight liberal Belgian deputies were deprived of their

offices, and De Potter, with some others, who had ventured to defend

them by means of the press, were banished the kingdom under a charge

of high treason.

The Dutch majority in the states-general, notwithstanding its devotion

to the king, rejected the ten years' budget on the ground of its

affording too long a respite to ministerial responsibility, and

protested against the levy of Swiss troops. Slave-trade in the

colonies was also abolished in 1818.

The position of the Netherlands, which, Luxemburg excepted, did not

appertain to the German confederation, continually exposed her, on

account of Belgium, to be attacked on the land side by France, on that

of the sea by her ancient commercial foe, England, and had induced the

king to form a close alliance with Russia. His son, William of Orange,

married a sister of the emperor Alexander.

The colonies did not regain their former prosperity. The Dutch

settlement at Batavia with difficulty defended itself against the

rebellious natives of Sumatra and Java.

The revolution in Paris had an electric effect upon the irritated

Belgians. On the 25th of August, 1830, Auber's opera, "The Dumb Girl

of Portici," the revolt of Masaniello in Naples, was performed at the

Brussels theatre and inflamed the passions of the audience to such a

degree, that, on quitting the theatre, they proceeded to the house of

Libry, the servile newspaper editor, and entirely destroyed it: the

palace of the minister, Van Maanen, shared the same fate. The citizens

placed themselves under arms, and sent a deputation to The Hague to

lay their grievances before the king. The entire population meanwhile

rose in open insurrection, and the whole of the fortresses, Maestricht

and the citadel of Antwerp alone excepted, fell into their hands.

William of Orange, the crown prince, ventured unattended among the

insurgents at Brussels and proposed, as a medium of peace, the

separation of Belgium from Holland in a legislative and administrative

sense. The king also made an apparent concession to the wishes of the

people by the dismissal of Van Maanen, but shortly afterward declared

his intention not to yield, disavowed the step taken by his son, and

allowed some Belgian deputies to be insulted at The Hague. A fanatical

commotion instantly took place at Brussels; the moderate party in the

civic guard was disarmed, and the populace made preparations for

desperate resistance. On the 25th of September, Prince Frederick,

second son to the king of Holland, entered Brussels with a large body

of troops, but encountered barricades and a heavy fire in the Park,

the Place Royal, and along the Boulevards. An immense crowd, chiefly

composed of the people of Liege and of peasants dressed in the blue

smock of the country, had assembled for the purpose of aiding in the

defence of the city. The contest, accompanied by destruction of the

dwelling-houses and by pillage, lasted five days. The Dutch were

accused of practicing the most horrid cruelties upon the defenceless

inhabitants and of thereby heightening the popular exasperation. At

length, on the 27th of September, the prince was compelled to abandon

the city. On the 5th of October, Belgium declared herself independent.

De Potter returned and placed himself at the head of the provisional

government. The Prince of Orange recognized the absolute separation of

Belgium from Holland in a proclamation published at Antwerp, but was,

nevertheless, constrained to quit the country. Antwerp fell into the

hands of the insurgents; the citadel, however, refused to surrender,

and Chassé, the Dutch commandant, caused the magnificent city to be

bombarded, and the well-stored entrepot, the arsenal, and about sixty

or seventy houses, to be set on fire, during the night of the 27th of

October, 1830.[2] The cruelties perpetrated by the Dutch were bitterly

retaliated upon them by the Belgian populace. On the 10th of November,

however, a national Belgian congress met, in which the moderate party

gained the upper hand, principally owing to the influence of the

clergy. De Potter's plan for the formation of a Belgian commonwealth

fell to the ground. The congress decided in favor of the maintenance

of the kingdom, drew up a new constitution, and offered the crown to

the Prince de Nemours, second son of the king of the French. It was,

however, refused by Louis Philippe in the name of his son, in order to

avoid war with the other great European powers. Surlet de Chokier, the

leader of the liberal party, hereupon undertook the provisional

government of the country, and negotiations were entered into with

Prince Leopold of Coburg.

On the 4th of November, a congress, composed of the ministers of

England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, met at London for the purpose

of settling the Belgian question without disturbing the peace of

Europe, and it was decided that Prince Leopold of Coburg, the widower

of the princess royal of England, a man entirely under British

influence, and who had refused the throne of Greece, should accept

that of Belgium. Eighteen articles favorable to Belgium were granted

to him by the London congress. Scarcely, however, had he reached

Brussels, on the 31st July, 1831, than the fetes given upon that

occasion were disturbed by the unexpected invasion of Belgium by a

numerous and powerful Dutch force. At Hasselt, the Prince of Orange

defeated the Belgians under General Daine, and, immediately advancing

against Leopold, utterly routed him at Tirlemont, on the 12th August.

The threats of France and England, and the appearance of a French army

in Belgium, saved Brussels and compelled the Dutch to withdraw. The

eighteen articles in favor of Belgium were, on the other hand,

replaced by twenty-four others, more favorable to the Dutch, which

Leopold was compelled to accept. The king of Holland, however,

refusing to accept these twenty-four articles, with which,

notwithstanding the concessions therein contained, he was

dissatisfied, the Belgian government took advantage of the undecided

state of the question not to undertake, for the time being, half of

the public debt of Holland, which, by the twenty-four articles, was

laid upon Belgium.

Negotiations dragged on their weary length, and protocol after

protocol followed in endless succession from London. In 1832, Leopold

espoused Louisa, one of the daughters of the king of the French, and

was not only finally recognized by the northern powers, but, by means

of the intervention of England, being backed by a fleet, and by means

of that of France, being backed by an army, compelled Holland to

accept of terms of peace. The French troops under Gerard, unassisted

by the Belgians and watched by a Prussian army stationed on the Meuse,

regularly besieged and took the citadel of Antwerp, on Christmas eve,

1832, gave it up to the Belgians as pertaining to their territory, and

evacuated the country. King William, however, again rejecting the

twenty-four articles, all the other points, the division of the public

debt, the navigation of the Scheldt, and, more than all, the future

destiny of the province of Luxemburg, which formed part of the

confederated states of Germany, had been declared hereditary in the

house of Nassau-Orange, and which, by its geographical position and

the character of its inhabitants, was more nearly connected with

Belgium, remained for the present unsettled. In 1839, Holland was

induced by a fresh demonstration on the part of the great powers to

accept the twenty-four articles, against which Belgium in her turn

protested on the ground of the procrastination on the part of Holland

having rendered her earlier accession to these terms null and void.

Belgium was, however, also compelled to yield. By this fresh agreement

it was settled that the western part of Luxemburg, which had in the

interim fallen away from the German confederation, should be annexed

to Belgium, and that Holland (and the German confederation) should

receive the eastern part of Limburg in indemnity; and that Belgium,

instead of taking upon herself one-half of the public debt of the

Netherlands, should annually pay the sum of five million Dutch guldens

toward defraying the interest of that debt.

The period of the independence of Belgium, brief as it was, was made

use of, particularly under the Nothomb ministry, for the development

of great industrial activity, and, more especially, for the creation

of a system of railroads, until now without its parallel on the

continent. Unfortunately but little was done in favor of the interests

of Germany. The French language had already become so prevalent

throughout Belgium that, in 1840, the provincial councillors of Ghent

were constrained to pass a resolution to the effect that the offices

dependent upon them should, at all events, solely be intrusted to

persons acquainted with the Flemish dialect, and that their rescripts

should be drawn up in that language.--Holland immensely increased her

public debt in consequence of her extraordinary exertions. In 1841,

the king, William I., voluntarily abdicated the throne and retired

into private life, in the enjoyment of an enormous revenue, with a

Catholic countess whom he had wedded. He was succeeded by his son,

William II.

[Footnote 1: "The Netherlands formed, nevertheless, but a weak bulwark

to Germany. Internal disunion, superfluous fortresses, a weak army. On

the one side, a witless, wealthy, haughty aristocracy, an influential

and ignorant clergy; on the other, civic pride, capelocratic

pettiness, Calvinistic _brusquerie_. The policy pursued by the king

was inimical to Germany."--_Stein's Letters._]

[Footnote 2: So bitter was the enmity existing between the Belgians

and the Dutch that the Dutch lieutenant, Van Speyk, when driven by a

storm before Antwerp, blew up his gunboat in the middle of the Scheldt

rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the Belgians.]

CCLXVIII. The Swiss Revolution

The restoration of 1814 had replaced the ancient aristocracy more or

less on their former footing throughout Switzerland. In this country

the greatest tranquillity prevailed; the oppression of the aristocracy

was felt, but not so heavily as to be insupportable. Many benefits,

as, for instance, the draining of the swampy Linththal by Escher of

Zurich, were, moreover, conferred upon the country. Mercenaries were

also continually furnished to the king of France, to the pope, and,

for some time, to the king of the Netherlands. France, nevertheless,

imposed such heavy commercial duties that several of the cantons

leagued together for the purpose of taking reprisals. This

misunderstanding between Switzerland and France unfortunately did not

teach wisdom to the states belonging to the German confederation, and

the Rhine was also barricaded with custom-houses, those graves of

commerce. The Jesuits settled at Freiburg in the Uechtland, where they

founded a large seminary and whence they finally succeeded in

expelling Peter Girard, a man of high merit, noted for the liberality

of his views on education.[1]

The Paris revolution of July also gave rise to a democratic reaction

throughout Switzerland. Berne, by a circular, published September 22,

1830, called upon the other Swiss governments to suppress the

revolutionary spirit by force, and, by so doing, fired the train. The

government of Zurich wisely opposed the circular and made a voluntary

reform. In all the other cantons popular societies sprang up, and,

either by violence or by threats, subverted the ancient governments.

New constitutions were everywhere granted. The immense majority of the

people was in favor of reform, and the aristocracy offered but faint

resistance. Little towns or villages became the centre of the

movements against the capitals. Fischer, an innkeeper from

Merischwanden, seized the city of Aarau; the village of Burgdorf

revolutionized the canton of Berne, the village of Murten the canton

of Freiburg, the village of Weinfelden the canton of Constance; this

example was followed by the peasantry of Solothurn and Vaud; the

government of St. Gall imitated that of Zurich.

Basel was also attempted to be revolutionized by Liestal, but the

wealthy and haughty citizens, principally at the instigation of the

family of Wieland, made head against the peasantry, who were led by

one Gutzwyler. The contest that had taken place in Belgium was here

reacted on a smaller scale. A dispute concerning privileges commencing

between the citizens and the peasantry, bloody excesses ensued and a

complete separation was the result. The peasantry, superior in number,

asserted their right to send a greater number of deputies to the great

council than the cities, and the latter, dreading the danger to which

their civic interests would be thereby exposed, obstinately refused to

comply. Party rage ran high; the Baselese insulted some of the

deputies sent by the peasantry, and the latter, in retaliation, began

to blockade the town. Colonel Wieland made some sallies; the federal

diet interfered, and the peasantry, being dispersed by the federal

troops, revenged themselves during their retreat by plundering the

vale of Reigoldswyler, which had remained true to Basel. In Schwyz,

the Old-Schwyzers and the inhabitants of the outer circles, who,

although for centuries in possession of the rights of citizenship,

were still regarded by the former as their vassals, also fell at

variance, and the latter demanded equal rights or complete separation.

In Neufchatel, Bourguin attempted a revolution against the Prussian

party and took the city, but succumbed to the vigorous measures

adopted by General Pfuel, 1831.

The conduct of the federal diet, which followed in the footsteps of

European policy, and which, by winking at the opposing party and

checking that in favor of progression, sought to preserve the balance,

but served to increase party spirit. In September, 1831, the Radicals

founded at Langenthal, the _Schutzverein_ or protective union, which

embraced all the liberal clubs throughout Switzerland and was intended

to counteract the impending aristocratic counterrevolution. Men like

Schnell of Berne, Troxler the philosopher, etc., stood at its head.

They demanded the abolition of the constitution of 1815 as too

aristocratic and federal, and the foundation of a new one in a

democratic and independent sense for the increase of the external

power and unity of Switzerland, and for her internal security from

petty aristocratic and local views and intrigues. In March, 1832,

Lucerne, Zurich, Berne, Solothurn, St. Gall, Aargau, and Constance

formed a _Concordat_ for the mutual maintenance of their democratic

constitutions until the completion of the revisal of the

confederation. The aristocratic party, Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden

(actuated by ancient pride and led by the clergy), Basel, and

Neufchatel meanwhile formed the Sarner confederation. In August, the

deposed Bernese aristocracy, headed by Major Fischer, made a futile

attempt to produce a counter-revolution. In the federal diet, the

envoys of the _Concordat_ and the threatening language of the clubs

compelled the members to bring a new federal constitution under

deliberation, but opinions were too divided, and the constitution

projected in 1833 fell to the ground for want of sufficient support.

At the moment of this defeat of the liberal party, Alt-Schwyz, led by

Abyberg, took up arms, took possession of Küssnacht, and threatened

the _Concordat_, the Baselese at the same time taking the field with

one thousand two hundred men and fourteen pieces of ordnance. The

people were, however, inimical to their cause; Abyberg fled; the

Baselese were encountered by the peasantry in the Hartwald and

repulsed with considerable loss. The federal diet demonstrated the

greatest energy in order to prevent the _Concordat_ and the

_Schutzverein_ from acting in its stead. Schwyz and Basel were

occupied with soldiery; the former was compelled to accept a new

constitution drawn up with a view of pacifying both parties, the

latter to accede to a complete separation between the town and

country. The Sarner confederation was dissolved, and all discontented

cantons were compelled, under pain of the infliction of martial law,

to send envoys to the federal diet. Intrigues, having for object the

alienation of the city of Basel, of Neufchatel, and Valais from the

confederation, were discovered and frustrated by the diet, not without

the approbation of France, the Valais and the road over the Simplon

being thereby prevented from falling beneath the influence of Austria.

In 1833, five hundred Polish refugees, suspected of supporting the

Frankfort attempt in Germany, quitted France for Switzerland, and soon

afterward unsuccessfully invaded Savoy in conjunction with some

Italian refugees. Crowds of refugees from every quarter joined them

and formed a central association, Young Europe, whence branched

others, Young France, Young Poland, Young Germany, and Young Italy.

The principal object of this association was to draw the German

journeymen apprentices (_Handwerks-bursche_) into its interests, and

for this purpose a banquet was given by it to these apprentices in the

Steinbrölzle near Berne. These intrigues produced serious threats on

the side of the great powers, and Switzerland yielded. The greater

part of the refugees were compelled to emigrate through France to

England and America. Napoleon's nephew was, at a later period, also

expelled Switzerland. His mother, Queen Hortense, consort to Louis,

ex-king of Holland, daughter to Josephine Beauharnais, consequently

both stepdaughter and sister-in-law to Napoleon, possessed the

beautiful estate of Arenenberg on the Lake of Constance. On her death

it was inherited by her son, Louis, who, during his residence there,

occupied himself with intrigues directed against the throne of Louis

Philippe. In concert with a couple of military madmen, he introduced

himself into Strasburg, where, with a little hat, in imitation of that

worn by Napoleon, on his head, he proclaimed himself emperor in the

open streets. He was easily arrested. This act was generously viewed

by Louis Philippe as that of a senseless boy, and he was restored to

liberty upon condition of emigrating to America. No sooner, however,

was he once more free, than, returning to Switzerland, he set fresh

intrigues on foot. Louis Philippe, upon this, demanded his expulsion.

Constance would willingly have extended to him the protection due to

one of her citizens, but how were the claims of a Swiss citizen to be

rendered compatible with those of a pretender to the throne of France?

French troops already threatened the frontiers of Switzerland, where,

as in 1793, the people, instead of making preparations for defence,

were at strife among themselves. Louis at length voluntarily abandoned

the country in 1838.

In the beginning of 1839, Dr. Strauss, who, in 1835, had, in his work

entitled "The Life of Jesus," declared the Gospels a cleverly devised

fable, and had, at great pains, sought to refute the historical proofs

of the truth of Christianity, was, on that account, appointed, by the

council of education and of government at Zurich, professor of

divinity to the new Zurich academy. Burgomaster Hirzel (nicknamed "the

tree of liberty" on account of his uncommon height) stood at the head

of the enthusiastic government party by which this extraordinary

appointment had been effected; the people, however, rose _en masse_,

the great council was compelled to meet, and the anti-Christian party

suffered a most disgraceful defeat. Strauss, who had not ventured to

appear in person on the scene of action, was offered and accepted a

pension. The Christian party, concentrated into a committee of faith,

under the presidency of Hurliman, behaved with extreme moderation,

although greatly superior in number to their opponents. The radical

government, ashamed and perplexed, committed blunder after blunder,

and at length threatened violence. Upon this, Hirzel, the youthful

priest of Pfäffikon, rang the alarm from his parish church, and, on

the 6th of September, 1839, led his parishioners into the city of

Zurich. This example was imitated by another crowd of peasantry,

headed by a physician named Rahn. The government troops attacked the

people and killed nine men. On the fall of the tenth, Hegetschwiler,

the councillor of state, a distinguished savant and physician, while

attempting to restore harmony between the contending parties, the

civic guard turned against the troops and dispersed them. The radical

government and the Strauss faction also fled. Immense masses of

peasantry from around the lake entered the city. A provisional

government, headed by Hiesz and Muralt, and a fresh election, insured

tranquillity.

In the canton of Schwyz, a lengthy dispute, similar to that between

the Vettkoper and Schieringer in Friesland, was carried on between the

Horn and Hoof-men (the wealthy in possession of cattle and the poor

who only possessed a cow or two) concerning their privileges. In 1839,

a violent opposition, similar in nature, was made by the people of

Vaud against the oligarchical power assumed by a few families.

The closing of the monasteries in the Aargau in 1840 gave rise to a

dispute of such importance as to disturb the whole of the

confederation. In the Aargau the church and state had long and

strenuously battled, when the monastery of Muri was suddenly invested

as the seat of a conspiracy, and, on symptoms of uneasiness becoming

perceptible among the Catholic population, the whole country was

flooded with twenty thousand militia raised on the spur of the moment,

and the closing of the monastery of Muri and of all the monasteries in

the Aargau was proclaimed and carried into execution. The rest of the

Catholic cantons and Rome vehemently protested against this measure,

and even some of the Reformed cantons, for the sake of peace, voted at

the diet for the maintenance of the monasteries: the Aargau,

nevertheless, steadily refused compliance.

[Footnote 1: In Lucerne, the disorderly trial of a numerous band of

robbers, which had been headed by an extremely beautiful and talented

girl, named Clara Wendel, made the more noise on account of its

bringing the bandit-like murder of Keller, the aged mayor, and

intrigues, in which the name of the nuncio was mixed up, before the

public. 1825.]

CCLXIX. The Revolution in Brunswick, Saxony, Hesse, Etc.

The Belgian revolution spread into Germany. Liege infected her

neighbor, Aix-la-Chapelle, where, on the 30th of August, 1830, the

workmen belonging to the manufactories raised a senseless tumult which

was a few days afterward repeated by their fellow-workmen at

Elberfeld, Wetzlar, and even by the populace of Berlin and Breslau,

but which solely took a serious character in Brunswick, Saxony,

Hanover, and Hesse.

Charles, duke of Brunswick, was at Paris, squandering the revenue

derived from his territories, on the outburst of the July revolution,

which drove him back to his native country, where he behaved with

increased insolence. His obstinate refusal to abolish the heavy taxes,

to refrain from disgraceful sales, to recommence the erection of

public buildings, and to recognize the provincial Estates, added to

his threat to fire upon the people and his boast that he knew how to

defend his throne better than Charles X. of France, so maddened the

excitable blood of his subjects that, after throwing stones at the

duke's carriage and at an actress on whom he publicly bestowed his

favors, they stormed his palace and set fire to it over his head,

September 7, 1830. Charles escaped through the garden. His brother,

William, supported by Hanover and Prussia, replaced him, recognized

the provincial Estates, granted a new constitution, built a new

palace, and re-established tranquillity. The conduct of the expelled

duke, who, from his asylum in the Harzgebirge, made a futile attempt

to regain possession of Brunswick by means of popular agitation and by

the proclamation of democratical opinions, added to the contempt with

which he treated the admonitions of his superiors, induced the federal

diet to recognize his brother's authority. The ex-duke has, since this

period, wandered over England, France, and Spain, sometimes engaged in

intrigues with Carlists, at others with republicans. In 1836, he

accompanied a celebrated female aeronaut in one of her excursions from

London. The balloon accidentally upset and the duke and his companion

fell to the ground. He was, however, as in his other adventures, more

frightened than hurt.

In Saxony, the progress of enlightenment had long rendered the people

sensible of the errors committed by the old and etiquettish

aristocracy of the court and diet. As early as 1829, all the

grievances had been recapitulated in an anonymous printed address,

and, in the beginning of 1830, on the venerable king, Antony (brother

to Frederick Augustus, deceased 1827), declaring invalid the

settlement of his affairs by the Estates, which evinced a more liberal

spirit than they had hitherto done, and on the prohibition of the

festivities on the 25th of June, the anniversary of the Augsburg

Confession, by the town council of Dresden and by the government

commissioner of the university of Leipzig from devotion to the

Catholic court, a popular tumult ensued in both cities, which was

quelled but to be, a few weeks later, after the revolution of July,

more disastrously renewed. The tumult commenced at Leipzig on the 2d

of September and lasted several days, and, during the night of the

9th, Dresden was stormed from without by two immense crowds of

populace, by whom the police buildings and the town-house were

ransacked and set on fire. Disturbances of a similar nature broke out

at Chemnitz and Bautzen. The king, upon this, nominated his nephew,

Prince Frederick, who was greatly beloved by the people, co-regent;

the civic guard restored tranquillity, the most crying abuses,

particularly those in the city administration, were abolished, and the

constitution was revised. The popular minister, Lindenan, replaced

Einsiedel, who had excited universal detestation.

In the electorate of Hesse, the period of terror occasioned by the

threatening letters addressed to the elector was succeeded by the

agitation characteristic of the times. On the 6th of September, 1830,

a tumultuous rising took place at Cassel; on the 24th, the people of

Hanau destroyed every custom-house stationed on the frontier. The

public was so unanimous and decided in opinion that the elector not

only agreed to abolish the abuses, to convoke the Estates, and to

grant a new constitution, but even placed the reins of government

provisionally in the hands of his son, Prince William, in order to

follow the Countess Reichenbach, who had been driven from Cassel by

the insults of the populace. Prince William was, however, as little as

his father inclined to make concessions; and violent collisions

speedily ensued. He wedded Madame Lehmann, the wife of a Prussian

officer, under the name of the Countess von Schaumburg, and closed the

theatre against his mother, the electress, for refusing to place

herself at her side in public. The citizens sided with the electress,

and when, after some time had elapsed, she again ventured to visit the

theatre, the doors were no longer closed against her, and, on her

entrance, she found the house completely filled. On the close of the

evening's entertainment, however, while the audience were peaceably

dispersing, they were charged by a troop of cavalry, who cut down the

defenceless multitude without distinction of age or sex, December 7,

1830. The Estates, headed by Professor Jordan, vainly demanded

redress; Giesler, the head of the police, was alone designated as the

criminal; the scrutiny was drawn to an interminable length and

produced no other result than Giesler's decoration with an order by

the prince.

In Hesse-Darmstadt, where the poll-tax amounted to 6_fls_. 12_krs_.

(10_s_. 4_d_.) a head, the Estates ventured, even prior to the

revolution of July, to refuse to vote 2,000,000_fls_. (£166,666 13_s_.

4_d_.) to the new grandduke, Louis II. (who had just succeeded his

aged father, the patron of the arts), for the defrayment of debts

contracted by him before his accession to the ducal chair. In

September, the peasantry of Upper Hesse rose _en masse_ on account of

the imposition of the sum of 100,000_fls_. (£8,333 6_s_. 8_d_.) upon

the poverty-stricken communes in order to meet the outlay occasioned

by the festivities given in the grandduke's honor on his route through

the country; the burdens laid upon the peasantry in the mediatized

principalities, more particularly in that of Ysenburg, had also become

unbearable. The insurgents took Budingen by storm and were guilty of

some excesses toward the public officers and the foresters, but

deprived no one of life. Ere long convinced of their utter impotence,

they dispersed before the arrival of Prince Emilius at the head of a

body of military, who, blinded by rage, unfortunately killed a number

of persons in the village of Södel, whom they mistook for insurgents

owing to the circumstance of their being armed, but who had in reality

been assembled by a forester for the purpose of keeping the insurgents

in check.

In this month, September, 1830, popular disturbances, but of minor

import, broke out also at Jena and Kahla, Altenburg, and Gera.

In Hanover, the first symptoms of revolution appeared in January,

1831. Dr. König was at that time at the head of the university of

Osterode, Dr. Rauschenplatt of that of Göttingen.[1] The abolition of

the glaring ancient abuses and the removal of the minister, Count

Munster, the sole object of whose policy appeared to be the

eternalization of every administrative and juridical antiquity in the

state, were demanded. The petty insurrections were quelled by the

military. König was taken prisoner; most of the other demagogues

escaped to France. The Duke of Cambridge, the king's brother,

mediated. Count Munster was dismissed, and Hanover received a new and

more liberal constitution.

While these events were passing in Germany, the Poles carried on a

contest against the whole power of Russia as glorious and as

unfortunate as their former one under their leader, Kosciuszko. Louis

Philippe, king of the French, in the hope of gaining favor with the

northern powers by the abandonment of the Polish cause, dealt not a

stroke in their aid. Austria, notwithstanding her natural rivalry to

Russia, beheld the Polish revolution merely through the veil of

legitimacy and refused her aid to rebels. A Hungarian address in favor

of Poland produced no result. Prussia was closely united by family

ties to Russia. The Poles were consequently left without external aid,

and their spirit was internally damped by diplomatic arts. Aid was

promised by France, if they would wait. They accordingly waited: and

in the interim, after the failure of Diebitsch's attempt upon Warsaw

and his sudden death, Paskewitch, the Russian general, unexpectedly

crossed the Vistula close to the Prussian fortress of Thorn and seized

the city of Warsaw while each party was still in a state of

indecision. Immense masses of fugitive Polish soldiery sought shelter

in Austria and Prussia. The officers and a few thousand private

soldiers were permitted to pass onward to France: they found a warm

welcome in Southern Germany, whence they had during the campaign been

supplied with surgeons and every necessary for the supply of the

hospitals. The rest were compelled to return to Russia.

The Russian troops drawn from the distant provinces, the same that had

been employed in the war with Persia, overran Poland as far as the

Prussian frontier, bringing with them a fearful pestilence, Asiatic

cholera. This dire malady, which had, since 1817, crept steadily

onward from the banks of the Ganges, reached Russia in 1830, and, in

the autumn of 1831, spread across the frontiers of Germany. It chiefly

visited populous cities and generally spared districts less densely

populated, passing from one great city to another whither infection

could not have been communicated. _Cordons de santé_ and quarantine

regulations were of no avail. The pestilence appeared to spread like

miasma through the air and to kindle like gas wherever the assemblage

of numbers disposed the atmosphere to its reception. The patients were

seized with vomiting and diarrhoea, accompanied with violent

convulsions, and often expired instantaneously or after an agony of a

few hours' duration. Medicinal art was powerless against this disease,

and, as in the 14th century, the ignorant populace ascribed its

prevalence to poison. Suspicion fell this time upon the physicians and

the public authorities and spread in the most incredible manner from

St. Petersburg to Paris. The idea that the physicians had been charged

to poison the people _en masse_ occasioned dreadful tumults, in which

numbers of physicians fell victims and every drug used in medicine was

destroyed as poisonous. Similar scenes occurred in Russia and in

Hungary. In the latter country a great insurrection of the peasants

took place, in August, 1831, in which not only the physicians, but

also numbers of the nobility and public officers who had provided

themselves with drugs fell victims, and the most inhuman atrocities

were perpetrated. In Vienna, where the cholera raged with extreme

virulence, the people behaved more reasonably.

In Prussia, the cholera occasioned several disturbances at

Koenigsberg, Stettin, and Breslau. At Koenigsberg the movement was not

occasioned by the disease being attributed to poison. The strict

quarantine regulations enforced by the government had produced a

complete commercial stagnation, notwithstanding which permission had

been given to the Russian troops, when hard pushed by the insurgent

Poles, to provide themselves with provisions and ammunition from

Prussia, so that not only Russian agents and commissaries, but whole

convoys from Russia crossed the Prussian frontier. The appearance of

cholera was ascribed to this circumstance, and the public discontent

was evinced both by a popular outbreak and in an address from the

chief magistrate of Koenigsberg to the throne. The Prussian army,

under the command of Field-Marshal Gneisenau, stationed in Posen for

the purpose of watching the movements of the Poles, was also attacked

by the cholera, to which the field-marshal fell victim. It speedily

reached Berlin, spread through the north of Germany to France,

England, and North America, returned thence to the south of Europe,

and, in 1836, crept steadily on from Italy through the Tyrol to

Bavaria.

The veil had been torn from many an old and deep-rooted evil by the

disturbances of 1830. The press now emulated the provincial diets and

some of the governments that sought to meet the demands of the age in

exposing to public view all the political wants of Germany. Party

spirit, however, still ran too high, and the moderate

constitutionalists, who aimed at the gradual introduction of reforms

by legal means, found themselves ere long outflanked by two extreme

parties. While Gentz at Vienna, Jarcke at Berlin, etc., refused to

make the slightest concession and in that spirit conducted the press,

Rotteck's petty constitutional reforms in Baden were treated with

contempt by Wirth and Siebenpfeiffer, by whom a German republic was

with tolerable publicity proclaimed in Rhenish Bavaria. Nor were

attempts at mediation wanting. In Darmstadt, Schulz proposed the

retention of the present distribution of the states of Germany and the

association of a second chamber, composed of deputies elected by the

people from every part of the German confederation, with the federal

assembly at Frankfort.

The Tribune, edited by Dr. Wirth, and the Westboten, edited by Dr.

Siebenpfeiffer, were prohibited by the federal diet, March 2, 1832.

Schuler, Savoie, and Geib opposed this measure by the foundation of a

club in Rhenish Bavaria for the promotion of liberty of the press,

ramifications of which were intended by the founders to be extended

throughout Germany. The approaching celebration of the festival in

commemoration of the Bavarian constitution afforded the malcontents a

long-wished-for opportunity for the convocation of a monster meeting

at the ancient castle of Hambach, on the 27th of May. Although the

black, red and gold flag waved on this occasion high above the rest,

the tendency to French liberalism predominated over that to German

patriotism. Numbers of French being also present, Dr. Wirth deemed

himself called upon to observe that the festival they had met to

celebrate was intrinsically German, that he despised liberty as a

French boon, and that the patriot's first thoughts were for his

country, his second for liberty. These observations greatly displeased

the numerous advocates for French republicanism among his audience,

and one Rey, a Strasburg citizen, read him a severe lecture in the

Mayence style of 1793.[2] There were also a number of Poles present,

toward whom no demonstrations of jealousy were evinced. This meeting

peaceably dissolved, but no means were for the future neglected for

the purpose of crushing the spirit manifested by it. Marshal Wrede

occupied Spires, Landau, Neustadt, etc., with Bavarian troops; the

clubs for the promotion of liberty of the press were strictly

prohibited, their original founders, as well as the orators of Hambach

and the boldest of the newspaper editors, were either arrested or

compelled to quit the country. Siebenpfeiffer took refuge in

Switzerland; Wirth might have effected his escape, but refused. Some

provocations in Neustadt, on the anniversary of the Hambach festival

in 1833, were brought by the military to a tragical close. Some

newspaper editors, printers, etc., were also arrested at Munich,

Wurzburg, Augsburg, etc. The most celebrated among the accused was

Professor Behr, court-councillor of Wurzburg, the burgomaster and

former deputy of that city, who at the time of the meeting at Hambach

made a public speech at Gaibach. On account of the revolutionary

tendency manifested in it he was arrested, and, in 1886, sentenced to

ask pardon on his knees before the king's portrait and to

imprisonment, a punishment to which the greater part of the political

offenders were condemned.

The federal diet had for some time been occupied with measures for the

internal tranquillity of Germany. The Hambach festival both brought

them to a conclusion and increased their severity. Under the date of

the 28th of June, 1832, the resolutions of the federal assembly, by

which first of all the provincial Estates, then the popular clubs, and

finally the press, were to be deprived of every means of opposing in

any the slightest degree the joint will of the princes, were

published. The governments were bound not to tolerate within their

jurisdiction aught contrary to the resolutions passed by the federal

assembly, and to call the whole power of the confederation to their

aid if unable to enforce obedience; nay, in cases of urgency, the

confederation reserved to itself the right of armed intervention,

undemanded by the governments. Taxes, to meet the expenses of the

confederation, were to be voted submissively by the provincial

Estates. Finally, all popular associations and assemblies were also

prohibited, and all newspapers, still remaining, of a liberal

tendency, were suppressed.

The youthful revolutionists, principally students, assembled secretly

at Frankfort on the Maine, during the night of the 3d of April, 1833,

attacked the town-watch for the purpose of liberating some political

prisoners, and possibly intended to have carried the federal assembly

by a _coup-de-main_ had they not been dispersed. These excesses had

merely the effect of increasing the severity of the scrutiny and of

crowding the prisons with suspected persons.