Matters had evidently come to an extremity. The system of granting concession after concession had failed even to conciliate the populace, and had brought the royal authority into contempt, and the country to the brink of ruin. The Ministry of General Von Pfuel, the fourth since March, finding itself unable to meet the difficulties of the crisis, insisted on resigning; and the King, now driven to adopt a different policy, called to his counsels Count Von Brandenburg, whose principles were avowedly hostile to the opinions of the Liberal party. The action of the new Minister was prompt and decided. On the 9th of November, the very day on which his appointment to the office of President was announced, Count Brandenburg appeared in the Assembly. When he rose to address the House he was stopped by the President, on the ground that he was not a member. Upon this he sat down, and handed in a royal decree. It was read amid violent exclamations and protests. After alluding to the display of Republican symbols, and to demonstrations of force to overawe the Assembly, it stated that the transfer of the sittings from Berlin to Brandenburg, where they would be free from intimidation, had become a matter of necessity, and declared 'the sittings of the Constituent Assembly to be prorogued' to the 27th of the month.

The deputies were thrown into a paroxysm of rage by the reading of this decree. Cries of Never! never! We protest We will not consent! We will perish here sooner!' resounded through the hall. In the midst of the tumult Count Branden

VOL. III.

burg rose, and having in the name of the King summoned the Assembly to suspend its sittings forthwith, and adjourn to the time and place named in the royal decree, he left the Chamber, followed by his colleagues and fifty-nine of the members.

The members who remained passed a series of resolutions defying the decree, and declared that they would sit ir permanence. The President and thirty of their number remained in the Chamber all night. On the following morning the rest of the body returned to the place of meeting, but found the building surrounded by a strong body of troops under the command of General Von Wrangel, who informed them that those who were in the House might leave it, but that no one should go in. 'How long do you mean to keep your troops here?' the General was asked. 'A week if necessary; my men are used to bivouacking.' Clearly nothing was to be made of this plain-spoken and resolute soldier. The President directed the members to retire under protest, and meet elsewhere next day. They then left the Chamber attended by the Burgher Guard, which had warmly espoused their cause. Early next morning (the 11th) they met to the number of 225 in the hall of the Schützen Gild, protected by a strong body of the Burgher Guard, and cheered by the mob. Addresses of sympathy were presented to them from the Town Council and other public bodies. In the course of the day a proclamation was issued dissolving the Burgher Guard, and calling on them to give up their arms. They intimated their intention to disobey this order, and it was repeated on the following day in more peremptory terms; but as they still disregarded it, General Wrangel, who was now at the head of 30,000 soldiers, declared the city in a state of siege.

Next day (the 13th) the refractory members of the Assembly, still bent on carrying out their own views, met again in the Schützen Hall, but they were summoned by one of General Wrangel's officers to disperse, as being 'an illegal assembly.' The

19

Vice-President, who was in the chair, refused to move, and the Deputies shouted, 'Never! never! until forced by arms.' Two or three officers now entered the hall, followed by a body of soldiers, and repeated the summons. It was answered as before with vociferous cries. The soldiers then advanced, and lifting the chair in which the Vice-President was sitting, carried him and it into the street. The members followed, protesting all the way against this outrage. On the 15th they met again-this time in the hall of the Town Council, but they once more dislodged by the soldiers. They re-assembled the same evening at a café. But while they were engaged in discussing a resolution that the Ministry is not authorized to levy taxes until the National Assembly could safely resume its sittings in Berlin, the military once more appeared on the scene and commanded them to dismiss. They obeyed the order, but not until they had by acclamation adopted the resolution against the payment of taxes.

were

The resolution was as futile as it was unwise. It was promptly denounced by the Diet at Frankfort as having 'deeply shaken the foundations of civil society, and brought Prussia and with it Germany to the verge of civil war.' In Prussia itself the resolution was condemned by the Liberal party, and was entirely disregarded: the taxes were paid and collected as though it had never been passed. Although the Burgher Guard refused to deliver up their arms, they submitted to be disarmed. A considerable number of the leaders of the recent disturbances were arrested, confidence was restored, and Berlin began to recover from the paralysis of industry which the political agitation of a few months had brought upon it. Frederick William 'seemed at least to have learned that his attempts to cultivate a mob popularity by grandiloquent and delusive phrases about freedom and equality, only endangered the stability of his throne' and the safety and prosperity of his kingdom.

Nothing remained but to get rid of the Assembly which had now, by its extreme and violent proceedings, and its utter want of business habits, forfeited the confidence of the public. When it resumed its sittings at Brandenburg on the 27th of November, the refractory members refused to attend for some days, so that a House could not he constituted. They at last entered the Chamber, in order to make a trial of strength; but being defeated on a vote, they at once retired, and the Assembly, in consequence of the paucity of its members, adjourned till the 7th of December. In the meantime, however, on the 5th of that month, to their indignation and dismay, they were dissolved by royal proclamation. On the same day the draft of a new constitution which had been prepared by the Ministry was promulgated. As it was in all its essential provisions identical with that of Belgium, it gave satisfaction to the great body of the Liberal party in Prussia. The Rump of the Assembly sunk into contempt; tranquillity was restored to the capital; and notwithstanding the fickleness and feebleness of the sovereign, his authority was re-established in the country.

The Grand Duchy of Posen, which formed part of the territory allotted to Prussia in the infamous partition of Poland, was the scene at this time of peculiarly shocking atrocities. A large German and Jewish population had grown up there since it was included in the Prussian dominions, although the great bulk of the natives were still Poles who cherished a bitter hatred of the Germans, by whom they were systematically insulted and ill-treated. After the revolution of the 18th March had occurred at Berlin, a deputation of the Poles waited upon the King, and obtained from him the promise that several muchneeded reforms should be carried into effect, and in particular that the Duchy of Posen should be divided into two parts—the one Polish and the other German-and that each should obtain a separate local administration. This arrangement, however, was

THE revolutionary whirlwind that swept over Europe in 1848 was strongly felt in that large assemblage of States which bore the general designation of Germany, for nowhere were men's minds more bent on securing the advantages of popular institutions and responsible government. The promises of free constitutions which the sovereigns of these states had made to their subjects, to induce them to take up arms against the oppressive domination of Napoleon, had been shamelessly violated; and though in some states the arbitrary authority of the sovereign was slightly concealed under the veil of constitutional forms, the people had in reality no share in the government, and no control over the acts of the ruler and his advisers. But although the continental despots seemed perfectly secure on their thrones, their authority had in reality been undermined by an under-current of democratic agitation which was secretly leavening the community with its speculations; and the great body of the German nation were only waiting for an opportunity to translate their cherished theories into action. On a people in such a situation, the French revolution operated with the instantaneousness and force of an electric shock. 'Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Powers' were scattered by it like leaves before a storm in autumn. In the first wild outbreak of the German people,

society was upheaved to its lowest foundations. Class was arrayed against class—the populace against the nobles, the burghers against the army; and a war of opinion as well as of the sword commenced, which threatened the overthrow of all authority, and the total ruin of the best interests of the community.

em

There was one marked and important. difference between Germany and France, which exercised a salutary and to some extent a conservative influence in the former country. There was an intense desire among the whole German people for national unity. The different States of Germany were, in one form or other, the scene of revolutionary agitation; but all cherished the idea that a great central authority ought to be established, which should bring the whole German pire under one system of administration. Accordingly, at the popular assemblages in all the States throughout Germany-Baden, Nassau, Hesse Cassel, Hanover, Bavaria, Saxony, and others—a strong opinion was expressed in favour of the formation of a great German Confederation, in which all the States throughout the country should be represented. A movement to that effect was initiated on the 5th of March by fiftyone influential persons, including the most distinguished members of the Opposition of the different chambers of Prussia, Bavaria,