Class 1)1) 20G 
 
GERMANY 
 
 AND 
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 BY 
 
 PROFESSOR^GOERRES, 
 
 LATE EDITOR OF THE RHENISH MERCURY. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN, 
 
 By JOHN BLACK. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 1820. 
 

 &%* 
 
 Printed by Strahan and Spottiswoode, 
 Printers- Street,, London. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 ± he conferences at Carlsbad, and the pro- 
 ceedings of the Diet of Frankfort, which 
 immediately followed them, filled Ger- 
 many with consternation and alarm, and 
 threw a damp over the public mind through- 
 out the rest of Europe. The resolutions of 
 the Diet were completely at variance with 
 the spirit of the present age, and what was 
 generally understood to be the opinions and 
 sentiments of the great body of the people 
 of Germany. They may be said to form 
 the first overt act of an sera which must 
 terminate either in the most unqualified 
 despotism, or in a revolution in Germany ; 
 and they cannot therefore be viewed with 
 indifference by other nations. 
 
 The Resolutions in question have been 
 inserted in all the journals of this country, 
 a 2 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 and as they are yet fresh in the public re- 
 collection, it is unnecessary to enter here 
 into any particular account of them. It 
 may be enough to state, that they put an 
 end to all the hopes of constitutions which 
 the people had been led to entertain from 
 the thirteenth article of the Federal act ; 
 that they struck at the independence of the 
 universities ; that they placed the press in 
 a state of the most abject thraldom ; and 
 that they established a secret tribunal at 
 Mentz, with the most ample inquisitorial 
 powers, to the dungeons of which suspected 
 persons were to be conveyed from every 
 corner of Germany, with the view of com- 
 pletely extirpating every vestige of liberty 
 and independence. If any thing were 
 wanting to place the character of these re- 
 solutions beyond the possibility of doubt, 
 it was supplied by the famous circular from 
 the cabinet of Berlin to its ambassadors at 
 foreign courts, in which the most arbitrary 
 and despotic sentiments are unequivocally 
 avowed. 
 
 But these public acts, although they 
 throw a strong light on the views and sen- 
 timents of the sovereigns of Germany, and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 prove that great dissatisfaction prevails 
 there, leave us altogether in the dark as 
 to the particular grounds and causes of the 
 dissatisfaction, respecting which little is 
 known with certainty in this country. 
 Germany is a world within itself, to which 
 the south of Europe and even this country 
 are in a great measure strangers. No lan- 
 guage is perhaps the depository of such 
 stores of information on all subjects as that 
 of Germany. Literature and philosophy 
 are assiduously and extensively cultivated 
 by the Germans, and the multitude of new 
 publications entered twice every year in the 
 Leipsic catalogues fill all strangers with 
 astonishment. But the difficulties which 
 the acquisition of the language presents to 
 the natives of the south of Europe, and 
 even to the people of this country (though 
 the English and German are radically kin- 
 dred languages) are such that the know- 
 ledge of it is yet very rare, and will hardly 
 ever become general among them. From 
 this ignorance of the language proceeds 
 an ignorance of the state of the country 
 and the feelings and opinions of the peo- 
 ple. The meagre extracts from journals, 
 
 a 3 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 which occasionally appear in the French 
 and English newspapers, serve to whet 
 curiosity rather than to gratify it. 
 
 The work of which I here submit a tran- 
 slation to the public, is calculated to afford 
 that information respecting Germany which 
 is most wanted at the present moment. It 
 contains a masterly review of the conduct 
 of the different governments from the over- 
 throw of Napoleon down to the present 
 time, and of the sentiments and opinions 
 of the different parties, during the same 
 period. The author, M. Goerres, is held 
 in high estimation in Germany, as a literary 
 and political writer, and from his connec- 
 tion with various individuals, high in station 
 and influence, he was amply qualified for 
 the task which he undertook. The work 
 has been already partially translated in 
 French, and, according to the German 
 journals, it has been translated even into 
 the Swedish language. The author was 
 the editor and principal writer of the Rhe- 
 nish Mercury, a journal of the greatest 
 influence in Germany, and well known in 
 this country, which was suppressed in the 
 commencement of 1816 by the Prussian 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 Government. He is a native of Coblentz, 
 where the Rhenish Mercury was published. 
 On the formation of the Cis-Rhenan Re- 
 public, he was named by his fellow citizens 
 a member of the committee in whose hands 
 the government was vested, and hewas after- 
 wards appointed one of the deputies sent 
 from the Rhine to Paris to effect the union of 
 the Cis-Rhenan with the French Republic. 
 He is allowed, even by those who disapprove 
 of his opinions, to be a most honourable 
 and upright man, and no individual enjoys 
 in a greater degree the confidence of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 The following summary of his literary 
 and political merits, from the pen of the 
 celebrated Renjamin Constant, may not be 
 unacceptable to the reader : — 
 
 " When I resided in Germany six years 
 ago, I anxiously wished to become person- 
 ally acquainted with M. Goerres, or to 
 correspond with him. His extensive know- 
 ledge, his high fame as a professor and 
 author, the works which he published on 
 the religions of antiquity, induced all tra- 
 vellers who possessed a regard for science 
 and learning to visit him. Though he 
 
 a 4 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 declared himself against us during our vic- 
 tories, his motive justifies him in the eyes 
 of every impartial Frenchman. He de- 
 fended the independence of his country. 
 He rendered the greatest services to Ger- 
 many. He wrote for Prussia and for his 
 King when they were weighed down by an 
 oppressive yoke. Without Goerres, without 
 Arndt, without Jahn, the kingdom of the 
 great Frederick would now probably be in 
 the condition to which it was reduced by 
 the defeats of 1806. Whoever has truly 
 served his country has claims on our ho- 
 nour." 
 
 Of the importance attached to the work 
 of M. Goerres, in Germany, a better proof 
 cannot be afforded than the strict pro- 
 hibitions against printing or selling it, 
 which have been repeated in every corner 
 of that country; and the persecution 
 which it has drawn down on the author. 
 The work was confiscated, though a 
 number of copies had previously found 
 their way to the public, and the following 
 order was issued by the King of Prussia 
 for the seizure of his papers: — 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 To Lieutenant- General von Hacke, and the 
 Minister* of State Von Ingersleben. 
 
 " The culpability of Professor Goerres, 
 who, in his work committed to the press, 
 entitled " Germany and the Revolution," 
 notwithstanding he enjoys from the libe- 
 rality of the State a salary of 1800 rix-dol- 
 lars, has not refrained from making use of 
 the most disrespectful language towards his 
 own and foreign sovereigns ; and, under the 
 appearance of warning the people against 
 revolution and illegal violence, and recom- 
 mending peace, has endeavoured, by the 
 most audacious censure of the measures of 
 government, to fill the people with rage 
 and discontent, is so evident, that I hereby 
 commission you to seize the whole of his 
 papers, and to transmit them under Seal to 
 the minister Von Schuckman. 
 
 " Frederick William." 
 
 " Berlin, 30th Sept. 1819." 
 
 The seizure of the papers of M. Goerres 
 was to have been accompanied by his arrest ; 
 but he contrived to make his escape in time 
 to Strasburg. Shortly after his entrance 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 into France, the following letter appeared 
 in the Parisian journals : — 
 
 Sir, Strasburg, Oct. 25. 1819. 
 
 The French Papers have occupied them- 
 selves of late with the persecution I have 
 been subjected to, on account of my work, 
 Germany and the Revolution, — and I have 
 to express my satisfaction with the honour- 
 able manner in which all of them, either 
 in writing or in remaining silent, have 
 acted towards me on this occasion. — 
 Seeing myself arbitrarily deprived of the 
 benefit of the Civil Law, I felt myself 
 obliged to throw myself under the protec- 
 tion of the Law of Nations, not to oppose 
 authority which I respect, but to place it 
 in an impossibility for its own interest, of 
 proceeding otherwise in this cause than 
 by legal means. Yes, during the war, I 
 frequently and forcibly raised my voice 
 against France ; but in this I followed the 
 dictates of duty and honour ; I should 
 even have fought with arms in my hands, 
 if an occasion had presented itself; but in 
 defending the liberty, the honour, and 
 independence of my country against a 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 foreign yoke, I never forgot what man 
 owes to man. After the passage of the 
 Allies, when the Russian police first, and 
 the Prussian police afterwards, brought 
 from twenty to thirty French employes to 
 Dresden and Wetzlar as suspected persons, 
 these men and their families, through a 
 confidence, which was flattering to me, 
 applied in preference to me, though they 
 were not ignorant of my political opinions, 
 and I procured for them, from the 
 governor-general of that town, not merely 
 their liberty, but assistance to several of 
 them to return to their own country. I 
 now claim the same hospitality, not as a 
 favour, which would be incompatible with 
 my honour, but as a right. Even the Be- 
 douin exercises this hospitality towards his 
 enemy ; and surely it ought to be a law 
 for civilised Europe, in times full of 
 trouble, party rage, revolutions, unex- 
 pected changes, in which no writer, no 
 statesman even, has any certainty, that 
 what he grants to-day, may not be claimed 
 for himself to-morrow. 
 
 " GOERRES." 
 
XI 1 PREFACE. 
 
 The translation of the work of M. Goer res 
 is by no means an easy task. M. Scheffer, 
 the French translator, gave only an incom- 
 plete translation of rather more than the 
 half of it, and abandoned the rest in despair. 
 " The German language," he says in his 
 preface, " admits of modes of expression 
 {tournurei) full of force and energy, which it 
 is impossible to convey in French, and no 
 writer employs them more frequently than 
 M. Goerres, who is justly esteemed one of 
 the most eloquent men of his country." 
 The English language admits, in common 
 with the German, of many combinations 
 incompatible with the genius of the French; 
 but still such is the flexibility of the German, 
 and the extent of its psychological resources, 
 that it possesses many words for which there 
 are no synonymes in any modern language, 
 and of whichit is extremely difficult to convey 
 the precise meaning even by periphrasis. I 
 have, however, endeavoured to struggle with 
 the original as well as I could, and I have 
 omitted nothing. The reader who has re- 
 flected on the aid which the mind derives 
 from language, in enabling it to attain a pre- 
 cise knowledge of its conceptions, will know 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 liow to appreciate the difficulty of convey- 
 ing the meaning of expressions, for which 
 we have no synonymes. 
 
 The French translation is accompanied 
 by a communication from M. Goerres to 
 M. Scheffer, which may be considered as a 
 valuable key to many parts of the work. It 
 has been on that account prefixed to the 
 present translation. 
 
 JOHN BLACK. 
 
COMMUNICATION FROM M. GOERRES 
 
 TO THE FRENCH TRANSLATOR. 
 
 Having learned that a translation of my 
 work was in preparation at Paris, I con- 
 ceive myself bound to add a few words, in 
 order to establish the point of view under 
 which it ought to be considered. 
 
 In the first place it ought to be kept in 
 mind, that the situation of public affairs in 
 Germany, far from being the same as in 
 France, is, in many respects, diametrically 
 the reverse. 
 
 In France, the third Estate produced the 
 Revolution. Experiencing resistance on 
 the part of the other Estates, it destroyed 
 their privileges, and triumphed over them 
 after a short struggle. When, at length, 
 the Dynasty, the Aristocracy, and the supe- 
 sior Clergy, emigrated with the ancient his- 
 tory, of which they were the principal ele- 
 ments ; the Revolution, that had main- 
 tained itself for twenty-five years, became 
 a new history, which is now struggling 
 with the one that has returned. In this 
 conflict between new and old interests, the 
 
XVI COMMUNICATION 
 
 Syncretism*, established and fixed by the 
 charter, seeks to consolidate itself by the 
 conflict of parties. 
 
 In Germany it is quite the reverse. 
 There, it is not the third Estate which has 
 produced a revolution ; on the contrary, 
 the cabinets have effected a revolution 
 under the protection of a foreign power. 
 They have expelled the superior clergy 
 from the empire, and have shared among 
 them their possessions. They have, in the 
 same manner, destroyed the high imme- 
 diate aristocracy of the empire ; they have 
 possessed themselves of their estates. As 
 to the nobility, they have, for a long time, 
 been in a state of complete subjugation; 
 the ancient liberties of the third Estate have 
 been unable to resist the encroachments of 
 power, aided by foreign bayonets. By the 
 same means the Princes also have suc- 
 ceeded in destroying the unity of the em- 
 pire. To the totality of these usurpations, 
 and these acts of despotism, they have 
 given the name of Sovereignty. 
 
 * Syncretism Syncretismus, the endeavour to reconcile 
 opposite opinions. Trans, 
 
FROM M. GOERRES. XV11 
 
 Such was the situation of things in Ger- 
 many, when, in 1813, the German nation 
 rose against this yoke of foreigners. . Hav- 
 ing freed themselves from the yoke, they 
 soon found that these usurpations of power, 
 which the usurpers wished to defend at all 
 hazards, formed the principal obstacles to 
 their prosperity and their future safety. 
 
 From that moment be^an the struggle 
 which agitates Germany in all its elements ; 
 the struggle between the ancient and his- 
 torical liberties of the third Estate, and the 
 pretensions of that Sovereignty, which de- 
 fends with all its strength, and with all its 
 means, its history of a few weeks, against 
 that which has endured for several centu- 
 ries, and which the people claim along with 
 unity and liberty. 
 
 Such, in a few words, is the true state of 
 affairs in Germany, which it is impossible 
 to compare with what is observable in 
 France. With us, those who avail them- 
 selves of the forms and practices of Jaco- 
 bins, are the partisans of despotism, while 
 the friends of liberty defend, in part, the 
 principles of the French Ultras. Hence 
 that confusion, which, at first sight, troubles 
 
XVHl COMMUNICATION 
 
 and confounds the foreign spectator who 
 contemplates this movement. 
 
 It is in the conviction of this difference 
 of position that my work was composed, 
 which has been claimed both by the Libe- 
 rals and Ultras, but of which the true cha- 
 racter may be easily known by the persecu- 
 tion it has drawn down on me. 
 
 As Germany is still in want of a charter 
 in which the conflict of parties may be 
 conciliated, it is the duty of writers to 
 direct their efforts constantly towards this 
 point, which alone can bring about a re- 
 conciliation. A people who see themselves 
 menaced, on the one hand, with subjection 
 to the yoke of despotism in their interior, 
 without any guarantee from foreign attacks ; 
 and who, on the other hand, foresee all the 
 horrors of a revolution, ought, from the 
 very nature of things, to seek a rallying 
 point, to which all parties, notwithstanding 
 their animosities, may be obliged to repair, 
 except they wish to run the risk of a 
 terrible explosion, and the most dreadful 
 extremities. 
 
 These few .words will also serve to ex- 
 plain the reasons which induced me to 
 
 13 
 
FROM M. GOERRES. XIX 
 
 declare myself in my country in so ab- 
 solute and unqualified a manner against 
 the mockery of French liberalism. I am 
 convinced that there exists in France a 
 powerful party of sincere, disinterested, 
 and well-intentioned men, who defend 
 whatever is just and true, and form 
 the true public opinion of that country. 
 He who from an absurd feeling of hos- 
 tility should undertake to deny this truth, 
 would commit a folly, the consequences of 
 which would only fall on his own head. 
 But jealous, on the one hand, of the honour 
 and independence of my nation, I wished 
 it to form individual maxims and signs for 
 relations which are peculiar to it ; and I 
 wished, on the other hand, to proscribe the 
 courtier-like liberalism, which in its servile 
 baseness would truckle to every species of 
 despotism, and flatter every description of 
 power ; and which endeavours in return 
 to deceive itself and impose on others 
 by the sounding words of liberty and in- 
 dependence. 
 
 J. GOERRES. 
 
 Strasburg, 
 Oct. 26. 1819. 
 
Neque sic accipiatis,, tamquam exprobraturus praeterita 
 surrexerim. Nam veterem quidem culpam intempestive 
 objicere, inimici et alienis erroribus petulanter insultantis 
 animi est : probi viri et salutis communis studiosi, pec- 
 cata civitatis tegere, aut excusare noalunt, nisi quoties ad 
 calamitatem publicam amoliendam, praeteritarum offen- 
 sarum iecordatio grande momentum habet. Nam ab 
 e^rore quidem omni, homines quum simus, immunes 
 haberi velle, nimium et superbum: sed ad eumdem 
 Lapidem crebro. impingere ; neque saltern eventu teme- 
 ritatem castigante ad cautionem erudhi, id verojam vix 
 bene humamm est. Liv. D. u\ L. xii. c. 1 2. 
 
GERMANY 
 
 AND 
 
 THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 After a violent party struggle of four years* 
 a blind and foolish opposition to the claims 
 of the age, and partial concessions to them 
 on the one hand, and exaggerations of 
 various descriptions on the other, things 
 have at length come to such a pass, that 
 the minds of men throughout all Germany 
 are in a state of the most violent excita- 
 tion ; and that disposition has become 
 universally prevalent, which is usually seen 
 to precede great catastrophes in history. 
 What the most active, the most crafty, and 
 deceitful demagogues, with all their in- 
 trigues, could never of themselves have 
 effected from below, has been successfully 
 accomplished by the dexterous co-operation 
 
Z GERMANY AND 
 
 of those who have taken the business in 
 hand by the long arm of >he lever from 
 above ; and thus the peaceful, the tran- 
 quilly disposed, the sober-minded, and 
 moderate people of Germany, have been 
 agitated in all their elements and all their 
 depths, and worked up to the utmost 
 degree of bitterness and rage. And that 
 these agitators may, with the utmost justice, 
 lay claim to the greatest part of the honour 
 of this achievement, they are now prepar- 
 ing with the utmost joy and alacrity to 
 supply, in a short space, what little may 
 yet be wanting to give the last finish to the 
 whole ; that the work, in all its parts, may 
 exhibit the hand of a master. As when- 
 ever the agitated passions seemed in any 
 measure to subside, they have always, at 
 the suitable moment, supplied new incen- 
 tives to discontent and irritation ; as with 
 inimitable dexterity they have contrived to 
 find out the weak side of every one, and 
 availed themselves of every occurrence of 
 the times to apply its sharp edge to the 
 sore, or yet imperfectly cicatrised places; 
 they have thus actually discovered a secret 
 for rousing the whole body of the people, so 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 that a common feeling of discontent prevails 
 from one end of the country to the other ; 
 and the governments are at this time en- 
 tangled in a hopeless contest with all that 
 is good and noble and energetic, and are 
 lost in errors from which they will never 
 be able to extricate themselves by the ways 
 they have hitherto pursued. As in a sultry 
 and oppressive summer-heat, when the sky 
 begins to overcast, the dread of the dark 
 and boding tempest is unable to extinguish 
 the inward longing of nature for the re- 
 freshing coolness which follows in its train ; 
 in like manner public opinion has now 
 almost reconciled itself to all that is most 
 dreadful in events, if they only promise to 
 relieve us from our present ignominy, and 
 open to us a source of pure hope in the 
 heavens, the face of which is now obscured 
 by a vapour which veils every happy star 
 from our sight. Hence those birds of 
 presage, harbingers of the approaching 
 tempest, the youths who, to remove out of 
 the way the base and unworthy in its 
 organs, devote themselves to death, fill it 
 not with alarm ; nor was it surprised when 
 the discovery of a great and wide-spread 
 
 b 2 
 
GERMANY AND 
 
 conspiracy for the establishment of a Ger- 
 man Republic was announced from Berlin, 
 because the experience of the last age has 
 sufficiently inculcated the knowledge of the 
 universal law in nature, that every extreme 
 has a necessary and inevitable tendency to 
 produce its opposite. Only one thing 
 amidst the alarm created by the breaking 
 open of trunks, and boxes, the going and 
 coming of gens d'armes and police agents, 
 the precaution which seemed to have been 
 taken purposely, as it were, to trample on 
 all judicial forms, the trouble and uneasi- 
 ness given to peaceable men, whom the 
 least tact or knowledge of the world would 
 at once have acquitted beforehand, the ex- 
 aminations and sealings of papers, arrests, 
 and discharges from arrest ; only one thing 
 was wondered at in the midst of all these 
 fearful movements, that, while searching for 
 traces of secret conspiracies carried on in 
 the dark, these profound politicians should 
 see nothing of a grand conspiracy, which 
 spreads its extensive ramifications over all 
 Germany, throughout every rank and age 
 and sex; which sits murmuring by every 
 hearth, which raises its voice aloud in 
 
THE REVOLUTION. O 
 
 markets and highways, which is easily per- 
 ceived in all its members without any sign, 
 and which, without secret heads, and with- 
 out impulse from a common centre, works 
 constantly in concert and with the very 
 best understanding to promote one common 
 end; which stares with many thousand open 
 eyes into the most hidden recesses, and 
 which has many thousand arms constantly 
 at command; that conspiracy, namely, in 
 which the irritated feelings, the disappoint- 
 ed hopes, the wounded pride, the sufferings 
 and oppression of the nation, have associ- 
 ated themselves together against the rigid 
 obstinacy of arbitrary power, the mechanism 
 of lifeless forms, the devouring poison of 
 despotic maxims of government unconsci- 
 ously acted on, the fruit of the corruption of 
 the times, and the blindest prejudices ; and 
 which conspiracy, powerful and formidable 
 to a degree that no former one ever yet 
 reached, and growing every day in power 
 and activity, is so sure of attaining its ob- 
 ject, that the danger will not certainly arise 
 from the tardiness, but from the excessive 
 rapidity of its progress. 
 
 b 3 
 
6 GERMANY AND 
 
 In this situation of affairs, till the hand 
 which wrote to the French their Mene 
 Tekel and Peres in the flames of Moscow, 
 shall also write our irrevocable doom in let- 
 ters of fire in the heavens, the command 
 has gone forth to every man whose senses 
 the tumult of the times has not perplexed, 
 and who still holds his head in quiet self- 
 possession above the agitated waves, to stand 
 on the watch-tower of the times, patiently 
 to observe their signs, to call out and to 
 warn without ceasing. Assuredly there is 
 a time for silence and a time for speech. 
 When self-conceit boldly bestrides, and 
 recklessly gives the rein to the high horse, 
 on which it furiously gives chace to every 
 lust of the imagination, and every noxious 
 passion ; when, forgetting the power of its 
 origin and the eternal standard of things, 
 irritated by times, which it is unable to 
 comprehend, and . still less knows how to 
 controul, it loses all presence of mind, and 
 madly throws down all the fences by which 
 the angry Nemesis is separated from us, 
 and not merely breaks through the ethical 
 limits of the allowable and the unallowable, 
 but even betrays an ignorance of all the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 7 
 
 more delicate relations of what is becom- 
 ing, and what never can be becoming, and 
 proceeds without consistency at one time 
 to exercise acts of the most tyrannic vio- 
 lence ; and then, having, by such violence, 
 forfeited every right, relapses again into 
 weakness and yieldingness, and displays 
 signs of the most imperturbable placidity : 
 in the approach of such a paroxysm, an 
 individual may certainly be allowed to step 
 quietly aside, confiding in the powerful law 
 which God has given to society as well as 
 to nature, and which, with tranquil and 
 invisible working, and a scarcely percep- 
 tible resistance, easily repels the efforts of 
 arrogance, and hurries on every excess to 
 its own destruction. But when a remis- 
 sion again succeeds to the paroxysm, and 
 when in favourable moments something 
 like self-possession returns ; when the na- 
 ture of things has repelled the attack, and 
 the metallic band, by which the whole is 
 girt round, has only been drawn tighter by 
 the shock ; then a word of exhortation may 
 again be suitable, and we are commanded 
 to speak. All great and general events 
 have their internal natural necessity, their 
 
 b 4 
 
8 GERMANY AND 
 
 transits, their cycles, and their returns ; 
 and the frenzy of the present times has 
 also its stationary intervals, its periodical 
 risings and declensions, and its critical 
 moments, and in so far the cause of things 
 cannot be altered by human efforts. But it 
 is only the passions which fetter us to this 
 power of nature. On the other hand, 
 whatever of pure thought and undisturbed 
 volition is instrumental in the bringing 
 about of events, to that extent, they are 
 subject to the influence of freedom ; and as 
 Providence only during the absence of the 
 latter, arms the former against each other, 
 like the physician, who, when one of the 
 vital powers is in a state of distempered 
 activity, calls forth another power from a 
 state of repose to make head against it, in 
 the same manner, whoever would work 
 with salutary effect on a diseased age, must 
 first endeavour to introduce a clear light 
 into the prevailing confusion of ideas ; and 
 then things are so ordered in the world 
 that when the mind can look with clear 
 intelligence into itself, the daemon-powers 
 must even involuntarily become subser- 
 vient to it. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 9 
 
 The author of these pages, during the 
 course of the last war, frequently addressed 
 himself to the nation, and acquired its 
 confidence. Having afterwards, from mo- 
 tives which he has just now in part alluded 
 to, withdrawn from the public scene, he yet 
 allowed no important occasion to escape 
 for impelling, restraining, assisting and 
 arresting, censuring: and exhorting his 
 countrymen, according as he thought the 
 exigencies of the times demanded, in order 
 that he might prove himself not unworthy 
 of their confidence. A stranger to the fear 
 of men, and that timid apprehension which 
 would only tell the truth by halves, he has 
 always spoken the sentiments of his heart 
 without hesitation, and without reservation. 
 He has sought only the truth, and whenever 
 he was convinced he had found it, he never 
 failed to take the liberty of expressing it ; 
 for truth without freedom is as a buried 
 treasure, " a spring shut up, a fountain 
 sealed." * But freedom without the love of 
 truth, is the " treasure of wickedness in the 
 
 * Solomon's Song, iv. 12, 
 
10 GERMANY AND 
 
 house of the wicked, and the scant measure 
 that is abominable ;" * the Pallium and 
 Palladium of the utmost malice and the 
 most refined deceit, as Haman had occasion 
 to observe. Holding in small estimation 
 what is commonly called worldly prudence, 
 but by no means therefore withdrawing 
 himself from that higher prudence which is 
 compatible with simplicity of heart ; it has 
 been his constant endeavour, with the least 
 possible deviation, to tread in the path of 
 justice, and every day has added strength 
 to his conviction, that this path uniformly 
 leads most speedily to the object in view. 
 Resigning himself in security to the guidance 
 of an instinct which has more than once 
 been his preservation, perplexing himself 
 not with over-anxious enquiries into the 
 consequences of action, as for every act 
 which has its origin in pure motives, and 
 on a view of the relations of things not 
 altogether disturbed, there is provided an 
 outward room and an effect, while what is 
 tortuous uniformly annihilates itself; he has 
 
 Micah, vi. 10. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 11 
 
 followed with a tranquil eye its circle in the 
 waves, till, extending itself more and more, 
 it has at last disappeared in the distance. 
 Never renouncing the rights of truth, 
 though sometimes, it is said, in the zeal of 
 speech, exposing with too little tenderness 
 the errors of individuals, he has never been 
 seriously attacked, because that internal 
 feeling of justice among the Germans, 
 which happily can never be altogether ex- 
 tirpated from the breast, even of the most 
 callous, operated always secretly in his 
 favour ; and the wicked who raised their 
 arm against him, in the hurry of their 
 passions impeding and neutralising the 
 blows of each other, always left a course 
 open for him between them, through which 
 he could pass with safety. The impar- 
 tiality with which he surveys the contest, 
 must therefore appear as a more particular 
 call on him, and a more pointed duty, to 
 speak in the language of reason so long as 
 it may yet be time, and before swords shall 
 become tongues to cut their sentences into 
 the raw flesh. Let the following pages 
 therefore be considered as a mirror of the 
 time, by looking seriously into which, it 
 
12 GERMANY AND 
 
 may view its own shape and semblance. 
 May the spirit which lives in these words, 
 be as the warning fire* on the mast of the 
 vessel of our country, that it may prepare 
 itself for the coming dangers, and either 
 seek a secure harbour, or stand out betimes 
 to the open sea ! If laid to heart, and received 
 in the ground of the present age, which has 
 given way in so many places, it may per- 
 haps become the seminal principle of a 
 better futurity ; if not, it may be considered 
 like all that preceded, as an appeal of the 
 better part of the present to a future time, 
 and as an attempt to preserve its sound 
 understanding from evil suspicion, which is 
 but too much justified by events. 
 
 When an evil which has been generated 
 under the influence of malignant stars, and 
 
 * St. Elmsfeuer, in the original, St. Elmsfeuer or Helen- 
 enfeuer, a species of ignis fatuus arising from evaporations 
 in ships, which attaches itself to the masts and yards, and 
 is considered by sailors as a certain sign of their ap- 
 proaching fate. Pliny tells us, that, when in a storm 
 two lights appeared on a vessel, the sailors called this 
 phenomenon Castor and Pollux, and, when only one 5 
 Helena, , Trans. 
 
THE DEVOLUTION. 1 5 
 
 growing with the nutriment of unfavourable 
 circumstances, has every day acquired more 
 and more internal consistency, till it at 
 length reaches the point of violent explo- 
 sions ; if we wish to ascertain, by a satis- 
 factory investigation, whether there is any 
 possibility by a concurrent effort of guiding 
 such a calamity to an advantageous result, 
 it will always be best to go back to its 
 origin, to the point where it first flowed 
 together from a number of hidden springs, 
 and to follow it through all the stages of 
 its development, till it attains its final 
 configuration, and then to oppose the in- 
 sight, which we have thus gained, to the 
 complicated movements which at present 
 constitute one of the main sources of all 
 moral and social evil. In proceeding on 
 this principle, when we speak of the cala- 
 mity of Germany, we must, at least, go back 
 to the congress of Vienna, which again has 
 reference, no doubt, to relations that en- 
 dured for centuries ; but yet, in so far as it 
 is a free work of our contemporaries, be- 
 comes responsible to the present and future 
 times, which, though conscious that it was 
 itself the offspring of predecessors pregnant 
 
14 GERMANY AND 
 
 with mischief, will still justly consider it as 
 the fruitful womb of their evils — evils that, 
 when once delivered to the light, soon 
 found an aliment for their vigorous growth 
 in the corruption of the age. 
 
 The hopes and expectations of Germany, 
 which were but too miserably disappointed 
 in the first peace of Paris, were patiently 
 carried to this Congress ; and estimating, 
 no doubt, too highly a few years of pass- 
 ing elevation as opposed to centuries of 
 pitifulness and degeneracy, trod with the 
 language of complaint into the midst of 
 that assembly. Public opinion expected 
 great things from the convocation, which, 
 after the downfal of the universal monarchy, 
 was here assembled to restore and to build 
 up again the ruined fabric of the European 
 republic. It was justly thought, that if 
 Germany, the central fortress of this com- 
 monwealth, were, not re-established on a 
 strong and durable foundation, every thing 
 like tranquillity and order, peace and equi- 
 librium, was quite out of the question in 
 all times to come. By looking back into 
 history, it was seen that this empire was 
 the only true protection and strong hold of 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 15 
 
 Christendom, and a bulwark against internal 
 and external foes, when, secure within itself, 
 its active and animated multiplicity was held 
 together under the unity of an emperor. 
 
 Hence, from a correct natural instinct, 
 most men were led to the opinion, that 
 the stone which the enemy refused, ought 
 to become the head stone of the corner ; 
 that the old idea ought to be revived in the 
 new times, and that, strengthened by the 
 youthful life which the progress of deve- 
 lopment had called forth, it ought to be 
 born again and renovated. , It was thought 
 that an Emperor might again be placed at 
 the head of the empire, with the dignity he- 
 reditary in the same family ; and that for the 
 protection of freedom under this hereditary 
 sway, and the preservation of the opposition 
 which had risen up, a German King should 
 be placed by his side; that the dukes of 
 the empire, its princes, counts, prelates, and 
 other dignitaries, should be assembled in 
 a Chamber of Peers ; that the commons 
 should be assembled in a Second Chamber 
 of the Imperial Parliament; and thus, every 
 member of the whole, limiting and limited, 
 all the dignitaries being made co-ordinate, 
 
16 GERMANY AND 
 
 no one domineering over the others, and 
 all serving with freedom under the same 
 head, Germany would have received the 
 only constitution permanently adapted to 
 the character and way of thinking of the 
 nation. After this arrangement, Germany 
 would have entered into the community of 
 the European states with the whole weight 
 of its power and dignity, borne aloft by the 
 renewed spirit of its people, and the other 
 affairs of the European Republic might then 
 have been arranged agreeably to the prin- 
 ciples of justice, and the common interest 
 of the parties concerned. 
 
 But when the darkness, in which that 
 assembly was veiled, began in some measure 
 to clear up, the world perceived with asto- 
 nishment that there was here no trace of a 
 grand and masterly plan in the ground- 
 work of the transactions ; the Uranus of the 
 old age, emasculated by the Saturn of the 
 revolution, wholly ceased to generate, and 
 the omnipotent Jupiter, who precipitated 
 the latter from the throne, had not yet 
 terminated the great conflict. Providence 
 had determined, however, that a feeble 
 semblance of life should not be formed of 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 17 
 
 the dry and withered substances above, but 
 that the idea should shoot up with luxuri- 
 ance from the fresh life below. Hence, 
 while the people were carried away by their 
 enthusiasm for freedom and independence, 
 the courts, by no means participating in the 
 intoxication, had prudently secured their 
 separate interests in various treaties ; and 
 now, when the business of the Congress 
 commenced, and the two powers who held 
 the fate of Germany in their hands, were 
 more especially called on to act together 
 in concert, and (making themselves sacri- 
 fices, and thereby entitling themselves to 
 command sacrifices in return), to proceed 
 with mild earnestness and dignified firmness 
 in settling with the less powerful the affairs 
 of the empire, they were obliged, in order 
 to make good their claims, to seek a foreign 
 aid, and thus Austria and Prussia ranged 
 themselves under English and Russian in- 
 fluence. 
 
 There could no longer be any mention of 
 Germany ; it had ceased to exist in Europe. 
 Austria seized on Italy, Russia on Poland, 
 and England on the German Coast, from 
 the Elbe to the Downs of Dunkirk; but 
 
18 GERMANY AND 
 
 Prussia was frustrated in a similar attempt 
 on Saxony, and driven to the Rhine. All 
 the rest now followed as a matter of course ; 
 the more feeble soon began, after the ex- 
 ample of the more powerful, to renounce 
 the folly of wishing to form a single and 
 entire empire ; and when some slight fits 
 of bashfulness, occasioned by the presence 
 of the obstinate and observing age, were 
 once got the better of, all the passions 
 began to display themselves, without re- 
 serve, in the old game which they had so 
 often before played. Although the con- 
 queror had previously broken the golden 
 frame of the German imperial crown, and 
 distributed the pieces as decorations among 
 his vassals, the sovereign powers had bound 
 themselves to restore the former state of 
 things, and the congress were by no means 
 entitled to manufacture a new work out of 
 the scattered fragments. The courts, one 
 and all, it is true, excommunicated the 
 great robber of the European society ; but 
 they declared his pillage to be lawful prize, 
 and made the state of things to which his 
 acts gave rise, and the de facto possession, 
 the foundation of the future arrangements 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 19 
 
 in the empire, that, in consequence, re- 
 mained dismembered and annihilated. 
 
 And now, in conformity to this principle, 
 they proceeded to divide the booty which 
 they had gained, and the Imperial City was 
 converted into an exchange, where souls 
 were weighed and reckoned like pieces of 
 money, and where the most bitter strife 
 and contention took place in the adjust- 
 ment of the shares. And when the disputes 
 had proceeded to such length, that the 
 swords began to spring from their scab- 
 bards, Providence, enraged at the unholy 
 doings, sent the Man of the Island among 
 them. This individual, on whom eternal 
 justice had already exercised her rights, the 
 man whom the Pope had anointed, to whom 
 all persons had bowed the knee, before 
 whom the world had humbled itself, whom 
 a conceited age had gazed on as its highest 
 organ, and whom, though believing in no- 
 thing else, and regarding nothing else, it 
 had adored with the most profound devo- 
 tion ; who, to shame his idolators to the 
 very bottom of their souls, had demon- 
 strated his own nothingness in himself 
 before their astonished eyes ; and, after 
 c 2 
 
2Q GERMANY AND 
 
 exercising justice on himself and them, had 
 withdrawn into an ignominious obscurity : 
 this man was once more chosen by the 
 enraged heavenly powers, to fill the over- 
 whelming cup of scorn to the very brim, to 
 become again the scourgeof his own slightly 
 improved nation, and to overset the table 
 of the royal Jews. 
 
 The nation had already deeply felt the 
 ignominy of those transactions, and in the 
 disheartening consideration of what experi- 
 ence had already produced, and with the 
 presentiment of what was still reserved for 
 them, all classes of the people thought, as 
 the cities of Sicily did, who invited over 
 Pyrrhus the Epirot to assist them in obtain- 
 ing freedom from the yoke of the Romans, 
 when their deliverer attempted to frame a 
 still more unsupportable yoke for them : 
 in words which Livy has handed down to 
 us, in the 18th Chapter of the 14th Book 
 of the Second Decade, Irritatis ob hcec animis 
 mussare primum homines, mox pedant queri : 
 cur igitur prioris status pcenituisset, si nunc 
 etiam tolerandaeademforent? frustra vocatum 
 receptumque Pyrrhum, si studeat (Emulari 
 mores, quos puniturus advenisset. Neque aeri- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 21 
 
 ®rem ullius injuria sensum esse quam cujus 
 auctor habereiur idem Me, qui vindex esse 
 debuisset. In the mean time, when the new 
 war began, the former enthusiasm was not 
 yet entirely extinguished, and a secondary 
 note was again struck ; a brilliant victory, 
 equalled by few in history, seemed to pro- 
 mise to Germany and its revived national 
 feeling, the re-acquisition of all that had 
 been wrested from it by its enemies for 
 many generations ; but, in the second peace 
 of Paris, it reaped the first-fruit of its divi- 
 sion, which was now sanctioned, and of the 
 subaltern state to which the most petty 
 selfishness had reduced it ; its integrity 
 before the war was not even restored ; the 
 few fortresses which were ceded to it, were 
 unequal to the defence of its frontiers ; the 
 few pecuniary payments stipulated, could 
 never atone for the general disgrace : con- 
 quered France, strengthened by a constitu- 
 tion, came, like all the other powers, more 
 powerful than ever out of this struggle ; 
 while conquering Germany remained more 
 powerless and dismembered than it had 
 ever yet been at any former time. 
 
 What the Congress, in haste, had agreed 
 c 8 
 
22 GERMANY AND 
 
 on, was now confirmed, and reduced to 
 something like a system. " The new order 
 of things in Europe, as one of the illus- 
 trious participators in a former well-known 
 declaration afterwards formally expressed 
 it, was to be a system of connection of 
 interests, and of the reciprocal relation of 
 duties, the work of the events brought 
 about by Divine Providence. A general 
 union of all, against every description of 
 disturbers of the general tranquillity, was to 
 guarantee the permanency of this system ; 
 every other alliance entered into from fear 
 or ambition in opposition to this union, 
 being incompatible with the spirit of the 
 age, would only give rise to a conflict of 
 faithlessness with fidelity to obligations; and 
 the wishes of the nations, and the blessing 
 of heaven, would not allow the result to 
 remain long doubtful. The fulfilment of 
 these views required a certain supremacy 
 of the higher powers over states of the 
 second and third rank, exercised collective- 
 ly, and according to deliberative forms ; but 
 not, however, in such a way as to increase 
 the strength of the more powerful, or to 
 endanger the independence of the more 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 23 
 
 feeble." This surrogate of an executive 
 power, vested in the hands of the powers 
 of the first rank, was, in the sequel, wholly 
 dissolved at theCongressof Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 and a pure state of negation in the reci- 
 procal relations of the different govern- 
 ments, was all that remained as the found- 
 ation of the European union. Instead of 
 concerning themselves with measuring the 
 strength of the powers to be placed in op- 
 position to each other, as in the old system 
 of balance, all idea of counterpoise was now 
 given up, or at least allowed to remain 
 dormant ; every thing like interchange of 
 friendly and hostile relations was purposely 
 overlooked ; no one state was, by its pre- 
 tensions or interference, to disturb another 
 in its proceedings, and thus, by mutual 
 abstinence, the cheerful calm of a long 
 peace was to be introduced into the con- 
 flicting elements. 
 
 As, however, it was felt, that some 
 positive principle ought to serve as the 
 foundation and security of so absolute a 
 negation, the Holy Alliance was entered into. 
 The principles on which this alliance was 
 concluded, were, indeed, such as we must 
 
 c 4 
 
24 GERMANY AND 
 
 presuppose all christian princes to be go- 
 verned by, independently of any compact ; 
 but their renewal, and the repeated sanc- 
 tion thereby given to them, was, at all 
 events, commendable enough. Had this 
 alliance gone hand in hand with the restor- 
 ation of the Empire before the Congress, 
 and the proceedings of the Congress been 
 governed by its principles ; had it there, by 
 the first proof of its beneficial influence, 
 gained the confidence of the minds of men, 
 which were then so susceptible of every 
 favourable impression, it might certainly 
 have formed a grand epoch in history, and 
 have introduced a new aera. But coming, 
 as it did, as a sort of expiation and atone- 
 ment for acts, certainly not very christian, 
 in the irritation which succeeded these acts, 
 it could only give rise to suspicion ; and 
 no permanent consolation in the state of de- 
 pression produced by disappointed hopes, 
 could possibly be derived from it. This Holy 
 Alliance, which occupied the place of the 
 antient Holy Roman Empire, might indeed 
 serve as a guarantee for the mutual religious 
 toleration of the different sects compre- 
 hended within it ; but the very religious 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 25 
 
 indifference which rendered this religious 
 guarantee superfluous, deprived the neces- 
 sary guarantee of the toleration of all poli- 
 tical contrarieties in the various members 
 of the alliance, of every thing like a firm 
 foundation, and of every species of security. 
 If public opinion was in this manner, and 
 by all these measures, but little tranquillised 
 in its apprehensions of a future pregnant 
 with calamity, on the other hand, it could 
 not be denied, that this policy of a vacuum, 
 so very convenient for the complete im- 
 potence of public life, (as it at once con- 
 fidently transfers to futurity all problems, 
 which the present times might despair of 
 being ever able to solve, and refuses to 
 fatigue itself in anticipation with the rela- 
 tions of generations to come,) was cer- 
 tainly natural to an age which, for a period 
 equal to the ordinary life of man, has been 
 exhausted with furious wars and convul- 
 sions ; and now, more than saturated with 
 them, impatiently longs for repose on any 
 terms, and will not concern itself with the 
 affairs of neighbours, except in cases of the 
 most urgent necessity. Applied to Euro- 
 pean society, in a period which, according 
 
26 GERMANY AND 
 
 to a universal law of nature, was inclined 
 to separation, with a fervor equal to the 
 fury of the former endeavour to destroy 
 all distinctions and demarcations, and in 
 which, from the progress of events, the 
 belief in the power and the great influence 
 of human wisdom in the direction of human 
 affairs, was sunk to a very low ebb ; if all 
 the previous conditions had been fulfilled, 
 the foundation of an European Republic, at 
 the feet of the unknown God, instead of 
 the universal monarchy which was just over- 
 thrown, must have appeared not merely 
 suitable, but the only course that could 
 properly have been taken. But then it 
 would have been previously necessary to 
 extricate the empire from its anarchy, and 
 to restore order to its movements ; the 
 central point, with respect to situation, if 
 not made the central point of powers, 
 ought at least to have been in equilibrium 
 with them ; as when the supporting point of 
 the balance is itself a balance, the former 
 will be secured from oscillation. 
 
 Instead of this, however, the same fun- 
 damental principle was also adopted in 
 Germany; this little Europe was to be a little 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 27 
 
 holy union in the midst of the great union, 
 not guaranteed by its own power, the neces- 
 sary condition of every secure guarantee, 
 but merely by foreign protection and the 
 collision of interests. As every thing like 
 internal consolidation was wholly rejected, 
 a course was now opened to all these in- 
 terests. Austrian, Russian, Prussian, Danish, 
 English, and French interests, were to issue 
 from their long peninsulas into this eternally 
 agitated inland-sea, which, formless, faith- 
 less, and mutable in itself, was destined to 
 retain, in a state of separation by gentle 
 excitation, what alone possessed a solid 
 consistency, and to hold it together, at the 
 same time, in a feeble bond of union. As, 
 by this institution, the union which public 
 opinion sought was wholly annihilated as a 
 nonentity, it was placed in a state of irre- 
 concileable opposition to the new order of 
 things ; and as the object of this new order 
 could only be attained according to the 
 course on which it had entered, by perfidy, 
 subjugation, blood, and war, the constitution 
 was nothing but a suspension of the right of 
 the strongest, a truce proclaimed by the altar 
 lor an indefinite period, at the expiration of 
 
2§ GERMANY AND 
 
 which the jaws of the more powerful might 
 again open to swallow up the less power- 
 ful, and avarice might again go about like 
 a roaring lion, seeking whom it should 
 devour. 
 
 The necessary consequences of these ar- 
 rangements can only be, that the whole 
 country must be worn out with perpetual 
 preparation in peace, without ever being 
 able to make an effort in actual war ; and 
 €very part must bear the same excessive 
 burdens as if it was a whole, without obtain- 
 ing any thing by the most patient perse- 
 verance, but an aggravation of the general 
 misery. As no internal cement holds the 
 different parts together to avoid the external 
 disuniting powers, they must necessarily at- 
 tach themselves to the nearest soliciting 
 interests ; every war will, of necessity, be a 
 civil war; the land will be harassed equally 
 by friends and enemies; and, at a peace, 
 generosity will always be practised at its ex- 
 pense, and the same condition of things, so 
 convenient to all, will be carefully restored. 
 
 In the mean time, the following panacea 
 received the approbation of the Congress ; 
 after various plans had been discussed. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 29 
 
 each more silly than another, the Federal 
 art was at last adopted in all its pale 
 and complexionless universality, creating 
 what history had never before witnessed, 
 a council in which not the majority of 
 votes, but the most perfect unanimity 
 should decide. A pure Democracy, of 
 which the Demos was composed of courts 
 of the most various sentiments, interests, 
 and degrees of strength ; a central force 
 which does not command, but is com- 
 manded by the separate parts ; an executive 
 power wholly destitute of power, and 
 which, as it cannot act against the refrac- 
 tory, is not in a condition to execute any 
 one thing whatever, as it never can obtain 
 the deficient vote requisite to admit of 
 execution ; a legislative power which will 
 never investigate its own competency, and 
 a judicial power which no one is bound to 
 obey, where all acts of authority are con- 
 stantly sought in an eternal diplomatic 
 agency, and never found : such a constitu- 
 tion, had it succeeded, would have been to 
 the nations a striking proof of the utter 
 inutility of all government, and none but 
 Germans, irj whom it is impossible ever 
 
30 GERMANY AND 
 
 utterly to extinguish the faculty of hoping, 
 would have ever dreamt that any thing 
 beneficial could possibly result from it. 
 
 But the daughter could not belie the 
 mother who bore her ; the theory of reci- 
 procal apathy and inactivity, applied to the 
 complicated relations of Germany, where 
 circumstances imperiously demand a posi- 
 tive efficacy, a spirited interference, and a 
 well-concerted and intelligent activity, could 
 not fail to produce the most ruinous results. 
 Those principles which prevailed in the first 
 formation of the work, necessarily propa- 
 gated themselves throughout its progress ; 
 and as it was a received maxim with the 
 powers at the Congress, not to consent to the 
 smallest sacrifice for the constituting of Ger- 
 many, nor to exact any such sacrifice from 
 others who should be unwilling to make it, 
 the courts included in the federal union 
 could find out no ground for their adopting 
 another rule of behaviour, and therefore it 
 necessarily happened, that the federation, 
 according to an apposite expression, fell 
 into as many factions as it had members, 
 who were only unanimous in one thing, 
 namely, their legitimate right of disunion. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 31 
 
 Notwithstanding the plausible inaugural 
 dissertation at the opening of the Diet, not- 
 withstanding the number of apposite quot- 
 ations from Schiller and Montesquieu which 
 resounded from time to time from the 
 table of the assembly, notwithstanding the 
 strained and vigorous movements which, to 
 appearance, were going on internally, but 
 which, however, like a false labour never 
 produced any result as a birth, opinion 
 could entertain but very faint hopes from 
 a work of so feeble and diseased a com- 
 plexion ; and the despondency encreased 
 from day to day, at the aspect of the inces- 
 sant but fruitless struggle of this shapeless 
 machine to give itself something like form 
 and shape. 
 
 At length time brought on the decisive 
 period when a combination of circum- 
 stances, which may hardly occur again in an 
 age, produced a scarcity of the primary 
 articles of subsistence, and the governments 
 of the various divisions of the same people, 
 with determined selfishness, boldly shut 
 out, by their restraints, all love of their 
 neighbours ; and thus the contrivances of 
 man, concurring with the niggardliness of 
 
32 GERMANY AND 
 
 nature, produced a half artificial famine. As 
 the Diet was then unable to afford any means 
 of assistance ; as it could not afterwards 
 even agree on a half serious declaration 
 that such an evil should not again occur : 
 the whole nation saw, with dismay, what it 
 had to expect from such an order of things, 
 if these impulses of the most cruel selfish- 
 ness were to be associated with the dread 
 of external force, by which parts of the 
 country might be threatened or occupied ; 
 if alluring seduction were to corrupt selfish- 
 ness, or a crafty diplomacy were to sow 
 the seeds of discord, and a great price were 
 to be set on treason to the country. From 
 this time forward, sentence of condemnation 
 was universally pronounced against the fe- 
 deral constitution by the nation, and Ger- 
 many now also considered itself completely 
 deceived in its second great and just 
 hope. All that afterwards took place, the 
 fruitlessness of every attempt at efficacious 
 activity, the refusal to come to a decision 
 on the most sacred claims, the termination 
 of the most important, the most urgent, 
 and the most influential transactions in 
 empty forms, endless delays, and petty 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 33 
 
 machinations of selfishness and obstinacy; 
 the proceedings respecting the liberty of 
 the press, literary piracy, constitutions, 
 definition of competency, the protection of 
 the German navigation, the Elsfleth toll, 
 the previous transactions in the Rhenish 
 Navigation committee (another Diet on a 
 smaller scale), and finally, the duties im- 
 posed for the revival of German trade, 
 which, like the serpents in the statue of 
 Laocoon, gradually surround parent and 
 children, and coolly destroy them one after 
 the other : all these things were felt indeed 
 as a deep indignity, but they no longer gave 
 rise to any astonishment, as they flowed na- 
 turally from the premises which had been 
 laid down. 
 
 The nation, deceived in its most just 
 expectations, and feeling deeply at heart 
 the sting of public insult, was now 
 compelled to turn its views towards con- 
 stitutions in the several states of the 
 federation, and devoted all its strength, 
 and, in cases of refusal, all its defiance, to 
 the attainment of this last object, from 
 which, at a future period, it might yet 
 hope to regain, in a more solid and satis- 
 
 D 
 
34 GERMANY AND 
 
 factory manner, all that it had previously 
 lost. The thirteenth article of the federal 
 act, coined at first agreeably to a pretty 
 fair standard, but afterwards daily cut, 
 dipt, and filed down by the arts of dealers 
 in political counterfeits, was at length 
 thrown in its present state into circulation 
 without stamp or impress, and so illegible 
 and defaced, that the attemptwas afterwards 
 hazarded to construe its inscription into a 
 mere right of expectation on the part of the 
 people for an indefinite period of time. 
 
 Along with it, the King of Prussia had, 
 in the Concessions of the Patent of the 5th 
 April, added the substance to the former 
 edict of the 5th May, 1814, establishing the 
 form of the future representation, and 
 thereby fixed the constitution itself in its 
 most general features. 
 
 The commencement of a constitutional 
 undertaking had already been made in one 
 German state, namely, in Wurtemberg. 
 In no other place, perhaps, was the mad- 
 ness of sovereignty carried to a higher 
 pitch, and it was necessary, above all things, 
 that the most decided counterpoise should 
 there be called forth. When the court 
 
THE REVOLUTION, 35 
 
 perceived from the Congress the move- 
 ments of the new times, it seemed to it an 
 easy thing to satisfy their loud claims with 
 a little liberal juggling, without deviating a 
 single step from the old path of unlimited 
 arbitrary rule. The power, which des- 
 potism had hitherto exercised under des- 
 potic forms, wished to place an illusory 
 freedom in these liberal forms, the efiiu- 
 ence of its sovereign perfection, as Napoleon 
 did on the 18th Brumaire ; and then, in- 
 stead of being obliged to retrograde, it would 
 have attained the very summit of arbitrary 
 power, deridingly commanding, in cabinet 
 orders, the existence of what it chose to 
 dignify with the name of freedom. Thus 
 the first constitution of Wurtemberg was 
 commanded, and the assembly of the states 
 was summoned. 
 
 But there still lived in that land too 
 many men who had at least seen the last 
 rays of departing freedom, and in them an 
 opposition developed itself quite naturally. 
 They made a determined appeal to their 
 antient rights, and wholly denied that the 
 usurpation, and all that grew out of it, 
 could be considered as the foundation 
 D 2 
 
36 GERMANY AND 
 
 of right, entrenched themselves behind the 
 old constitution on the firm ground of 
 history and record, and from thence loudly 
 accused the usurping power of a violation 
 of oaths in the face of the world. To such 
 a united mass of light, right, power, and 
 firmness, it was impossible to make head 
 from the position of an ill-consolidated 
 power, whose arm was crushed by the 
 overthrow of the supreme head from which 
 it had been derived ; and after the useless 
 struggle had lasted for a time, the court 
 saw itself under the necessity of proposing 
 the well-known twelve articles, in which a 
 sincere freedom at least was commanded. 
 
 The conflict after this was confined en- 
 tirely to matter of form, when the person 
 of the ruler changed, and the successor, 
 who possessed the usurped authority, not 
 as an acquisition of his own, but as an in- 
 heritance merely, inspired greater con- 
 fidence. The twelve articles were embodied 
 in a constitution, which was laid before the 
 States. But in the heat of the long struggle, 
 passions of a personal nature were excited, 
 from which the suspicion, that had once 
 found an entrance into men's minds, con- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 37 
 
 tinned to derive fresh nourishment. The 
 States were distrustful of a work, the found- 
 ation of which was laid in the favour and 
 good-will, in their nature necessarily muta- 
 ble, of the ruler, and demanded that it 
 should rest on the ground of their antient 
 rights, records, and traditions ; that by be- 
 ing rooted in this manner, it might have 
 the sanction of the whole of the period 
 which was past, and thus possess a greater 
 degree of legitimacy than the ruling family 
 itself. The court, conscious this time of 
 its good intentions, was irritated at an op- 
 position which, as it was directed against 
 so much of what, even by the confession of 
 the adverse party themselves, was good and 
 beneficial, seemed altogether irrational to 
 it. The States, on the other hand, in the 
 consciousness of their valid historical right, 
 which was necessarily stronger than any 
 effervescence of the present time, however 
 well-intentioned, were on their part in 
 no manner inclined to give way, being 
 justly of opinion, that even the favour 
 of the moment ought to be declined, 
 when purchased at the expense of the 
 whole of their past privileges, and that 
 d 3 
 
38 GERMANY AND 
 
 what a people already possessed as their 
 native rights, ought to be considered as the 
 stem on which every additional security 
 should be engrafted. 
 
 In the conflict which now arose, the party 
 which stood out for chartered rights was 
 joined, as usually happens in similar cases* 
 by that bigotted and petty obstinacy which: 
 is incapable of discriminating between prin- 
 cipal and secondary objects, by that narrow 
 and limited range of intellect which cannot 
 distinguish what is essential from what is 
 merely accessory, by that short-sightedness 
 which cannot raise its view beyond its 
 accustomed circle, and that spirit of litiga- 
 tion and pedantry which would supersti- 
 tiously adhere to what is wholly unsubstan- 
 tial and useless. On the other hand, the 
 advocates of the present times defended 
 not merely what is praiseworthy in them, 
 but also the abuses peculiar to them ; that 
 arrogant trampling on things, situations, 
 connections, and relations ; that fantastical 
 reduction of every thing specific to general 
 abstractions ; and that self-conceit which 
 imagines, that with such unsubstantial 
 shadows it can command the whole fulness 
 
THE KEVOLUTION. 39 
 
 of what is peculiar in all things ; and that 
 levity, in short, which, from the facility 
 with which such airy figures can be created 
 and disposed of, would keep every thing 
 in a perpetual state of restlessness and 
 change, so that no one thing can ever gain 
 a secure balance or a firm footing. 
 
 In this warfare of parties, the cause which 
 lay between them could not fail to be a 
 sufferer ; and things came to a crisis, when 
 the king, accustomed as a general to ra- 
 pidity of execution, but forgetting the old 
 military maxim of building a golden bridge 
 for a flying enemy, adopted the resolution 
 of fixing a definite period of eight days for 
 the acceptance or rejection of the proposed 
 constitution, and thus left no choice to the 
 assembly of the Estates. The Estates, con- 
 vinced that a constitution could only be 
 properly established in a constitutional 
 manner, by agreement, and that a co?n- 
 manded freedom which should, in reality, 
 begin with an act of slavery, could afford 
 little security for its durability, like an able 
 minister who afforded the first example in 
 Germany of defending his opinions and 
 views in a becoming manner by personal 
 d 4 
 
40 GERMANY AND 
 
 dexterity, but who has neglected to resign 
 at the proper moment, rejected for a second 
 time the constitution attempted to be im- 
 posed on them by a great majority of votes, 
 which they were enabled to do, as the 
 commons prudently avoided all controver- 
 sies with the nobles as to future preten- 
 sions, but carried on in concert with them 
 the war against the court. 
 
 When the champions of unlimited power 
 triumphed at this result, they evinced a 
 short-sightedness which was almost with- 
 out a parallel. The rejection of two suc- 
 cessive constitutions, the one on account of 
 its substance, the other principally on ac- 
 count of matters of form ; the appeal of a 
 court from the Estates to the primary as- 
 semblies, and, as the result soon demon- 
 strated, the fruitless appeal ; the utmost 
 unanimity of sentiment among all who were 
 interested in this work : all these were a 
 certain indication, that the thread of the 
 negotiations which had been snapped, must 
 sooner or later be again joined, and con- 
 sequently they were by no means signs at 
 which tyranny ought to rejoice. They 
 proved the degree of security and con- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 41 
 
 fidence which the cause of the people had 
 already acquired ; they proved what power 
 and might there must be in the circum- 
 stances of the times, when such advantageous 
 offers could be rejected without danger ; 
 and they afforded a great and striking 
 example in the centre of Germany, at once 
 monitory and instructive of the mode in 
 which the great litigation between super- 
 annuated power and imprescriptable privi- 
 leges must be carried on. Here then had 
 been demonstrated, on a small scale, what 
 history every where teaches us on a great ; 
 that whenever affairs are pushed to an 
 extreme, an opposition begins always in 
 secret to form itself, which grows up at 
 first silently, and strengthens itself in con- 
 cealment ; and when power or insolence 
 conceives itself to be on the point of attain- 
 ing its long wished-for aim, it advances like 
 an armed force against the astonished ad- 
 versary, and drives him from his position 
 far beyond the point from which he ori- 
 ginally advanced. 
 
 In the centuries in which usurpation, 
 pursuing its interests with a blind selfish- 
 ness, neglected every other object, the 
 
42 GERMANY AND 
 
 power, which we usually call public opinion, 
 had formed itself from small beginnings, 
 and opposed itself to the violence, the 
 devouring, and never-to-be-satiated covet- 
 ousness, the inanity and moral degradation 
 of courts. When the revolution burst into 
 European society with the fury of a whirl- 
 wind to meet this force, an opposing force 
 was soon matured ; and when the Com- 
 mons — at first ordered out against their 
 demagogical half, then as involuntarily 
 united with their despotic half, driven to 
 death in all directions, and subservient 
 always to the caprice of arbitrary power 
 and the vilest interest — had, at length, in 
 the general rising, completed as the con- 
 scious and animated agents of a higher 
 might, what the elements, the blind instru- 
 ments of Providence, began : they became 
 then fully alive to the feeling of their 
 strength, and public opinion had become a 
 power, which did not indeed sit at the 
 Congress, but which forced from it terms 
 of peace, and the concessions of the 13th 
 article. This was the first time in which 
 it had had a seat and a voice in any regular 
 proceedings for the recovery of its old 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 43 
 
 rights. The specimen was sufficient to 
 show the force which it had gained, and it 
 now cast a dark and furious look to what 
 was going on in the mean time in the 
 north of Germany. 
 
 There Prussia, which to the edification of 
 Germany, seemed to have acted hitherto on 
 the principles of her Anti-Macchiavel *, 
 seemed to be now earnestly employed in an 
 examination of the Principe of the daring 
 Florentine, to cull from it those principles 
 which might in some sort be found com- 
 patible with a good-natured sincerity. Two 
 parties, which are spread over all Germany, 
 the advocates of the Old Antediluvian state 
 of things, forming the great majority in 
 Prussia, and those of the New Napoleon 
 state of things, differing less, however, in 
 interests and principles from each other 
 here than they do elsewhere, as every thing 
 has throughout Prussia been rendered sub- 
 servient to military government, had united 
 towards the end of the war, in order, 
 
 * A Refutation of The Prince of Macchiavel, by 
 Frederick II. of Prussia. Trans. 
 
44 GERMANY AND 
 
 by a re-action, to expel the ideas equ* 
 odious to both, which forced their way to 
 them, and incommoded them in their 
 operations. 
 
 We will not be so unjust as to condemn 
 both the elements of this coalition, often 
 united in the same person as equally im- 
 pure and equally deserving of reprobation. 
 Of all the divisions of Germany, Prussia 
 alone has, in late times, had a history, 
 and given a great man to the age. The 
 laurel twined round his brows, was not 
 indeed a civic crown ; and the blood of 
 kindred people, part of his own nation, 
 stained his sword ; but he was not the 
 first that had shed such blood, and what 
 his bold and powerful arm cut down was 
 before-hand rotten and worm-eaten, and 
 threatened a speedy downfal. He has 
 been reproached, and not unjustly, with 
 introducing foreign manners, ideas, senti- 
 ments, and maxims of a poisonous nature ; 
 but it ought not to be forgotten, that those 
 which he found existing were stupid, 
 limited, petty, and pedantic to an insup- 
 portable degree ; and that, though what he 
 introduced may now appear to a more 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 45 
 
 matured age, in the light of frivolousness, 
 it was then countenanced by ingenious 
 men, and must, at the time, have ap- 
 peared as a very bold and praiseworthy 
 emancipation. It is true, no doubt, that 
 rendering all relations subordinate to his 
 objects, he introduced into all public affairs 
 that destructive mechanism, which still, 
 like an incurable lameness, holds Prussia 
 enthralled in a state of internal torpidity ; 
 but it was not his fault if succeeding 
 times had not sufficient discernment to 
 know what would be beneficial to them, 
 and superstitiously honoured the empty 
 husks from which his spirit had already 
 extracted every thing valuable, and pre- 
 served them as the palladium of their 
 salvation. 
 
 That affection should offer up her sacri- 
 fice to the manes of the departed, was what 
 could not be objected to ; and it was just, 
 that what was really good and useful in the 
 legacy of former times, should not be aban- 
 doned with levity merely to please a sense- 
 less spirit of innovation ; but then it ought 
 not to have been forgotten, that Prussia, by 
 the accession of so many elements of the 
 
46 GERMANY AND 
 
 utmost diversity, was no longer the same ; 
 that the times became every day more and 
 more unlike what they once where ; and, 
 above all, that the most definite and in* 
 controvertible rights which could not be 
 set aside, and the clearest and most un- 
 ambiguous promises had been interposed 
 between the state of things which once 
 existed, and that which was now called for. 
 However, the example of Spain was at 
 that time but too seductive for the depo- 
 sitaries of power. The old state of things 
 had there been re-introduced with so much 
 ease along a spacious road, the innovations 
 had there been expelled with so much 
 facility from the country, the people had 
 come back with such apparent willingness 
 to their former relations, that a victory, 
 gained at so trifling an expense, and at- 
 tended with such advantageous results, 
 could hardly fail to inspire other govern- 
 ments with a feeling of emulation. The 
 same attempt, it is true, had already been 
 made in France ; but it failed so completely, 
 that though the result in form was the same 
 as in Spain, it was, in effect, directly the 
 reverse, for the attempt terminated with 
 
THE REVOLUTION, 47 
 
 the complete expulsion of the minority. 
 So prone, however, are we to confide in 
 our own good fortune, that every one thinks 
 it is reserved for himself, by more dextrous 
 management, to succeed in an object in 
 which others have already failed ; and, in- 
 deed, even in France itself, in which the 
 experiment had been first tried, the belief in 
 the possibility of future success was by no 
 means extinguished. After the allied powers 
 had carefully collected together and replaced 
 all that was dispersed in the explosion, the 
 parties reinstated conceived they had merely 
 erred, through a weak and excessive spirit of 
 yieldingness, and thus the thread which 
 had been snapt was again joined, and 
 merely spun more coarsely ; till at length, 
 as is now the case with us, resistance and 
 friction became so strong as to demand the 
 whole power of the state, and government, 
 with its over-well meaning friends, was re- 
 duced to a complete stand. 
 
 It was wished, but could scarcely be 
 hoped, that Prussia would spare itself the 
 mortification of a similar attempt. For a 
 considerable time there had existed a secret 
 union called the Union of Virtue ( Tugend- 
 
48 GERMANY AND 
 
 bund), entered into, as was pretended, for 
 the purpose of striving with united powers 
 for the attainment of freedom, without 
 infringing on the fidelity due to the legi- 
 timate princes, and of defending individuals 
 and the nation from every species of thral- 
 dom, but more especially thraldom to a 
 foreign power. This Union was said to 
 consist of various degrees distinguished 
 from each other by signs, attributes, duties, 
 and rights ; all the members were bound 
 by the most sacred oaths to the society and 
 its objects, and, without knowing any thing 
 of the operation of others, were subject only 
 to their superior, as the latter again was to 
 the grand-master, from which superior they 
 received all orders and commissions, and 
 having once, after a free deliberation, un- 
 dertaken to execute them, they were bound 
 to proceed with blind and implicit con- 
 fidence, abstaining from all enquiry into 
 grounds and motives ; all the secrets of the 
 Union were to be kept with the most in- 
 violable fidelity, under the pain of death ; 
 the members were to be equally inacces- 
 sible to the influence of fear and hope, and 
 no human force was to have power to 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 49 
 
 protect the guilty traitor from the venge- 
 ance of the society. 
 
 During the period in which the country 
 was suffering from the oppression of the 
 enemy, such plans may, perhaps, have 
 entered into the heads of individuals, and 
 the experiment may even have been made 
 of attempting to carry them into execution. 
 Availing themselves of an old artifice* ... in 
 which an insufficiency of means is con- 
 cealed, by connecting the measures exhi- 
 bited in perspective with a supposed secret 
 in the back ground, and thus influencing 
 the mind by a belief in the presence of a 
 dark and unlimited agency, the more pow- 
 erful may then have impressed the more 
 weak with a belief in the existence of a 
 completely organised society of this de- 
 scription, that through the influence of 
 fear, and the charm of such an optical 
 illusion, they might be able to awaken them 
 from their cowardly torpor, and stimulate 
 them to energy against the French. Men 
 of a weak character were pleased, at that 
 time, with the idea of such an invisible as- 
 sistance ; the enemy was kept in a state of 
 alarm by the stories respecting it, which 
 
50 GERMANY AND 
 
 continually reached him ; and the govern- 
 ment itself seemed far from displeased that 
 such a belief should gain ground, and even 
 affected to participate in it. But now, when 
 it was thought the suitable moment had 
 arrived, this union was brought up for the 
 purpose of being employed as a weapon 
 against the inventors themselves. Suspicion 
 seems inseparable from the condition of 
 princes, one of those evils which are al- 
 lotted to them in the order of things, as a 
 sort of compensation to other mortals for 
 the many advantages possessed by their 
 rulers. " It is a miserable state of mind," 
 says Bacon, " to have few things to desire, 
 and many things to fear ; and yet that 
 commonly is the case of kings, who, being 
 at the highest, want matter of desire, which 
 makes their minds more languishing ; and 
 have many representations of perils and 
 shadows, which make their minds the less 
 clear. And this is one reason also of that 
 effect which the scripture speaketh of, that 
 the kings heart is inscrutable. For mul- 
 titude of jealousies, and lack of some pre- 
 dominant desire, that should marshal and 
 put in order all the rest, maketh any man's 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 51 
 
 heart hard to find or sound." For this rea- 
 son, courts will always be a theatre for 
 similar machinations. 
 
 Immediately after the second peace of 
 Paris, a manuscript report, or memorial of 
 twenty-one sheets, with the title of " What 
 have we to Fear or to Hope from Secret 
 Political Associations in Germany?" was 
 presented to the King by a person who 
 filled an office of consideration. In this 
 work the Tugendbund was exhibited as 
 pregnant with the utmost danger. It was 
 observed, that many men of the greatest 
 consequence in the state were directly or 
 indirectly implicated in it ; and though it 
 had hardly contributed any thing to the 
 salvation of the monarchy, it now threat- 
 ened its tranquillity, and even existence, by 
 the most alarming intrigues. During the 
 war, this union had been the means of 
 throwing a number of dangerous ideas into 
 circulation ; through concessions of various 
 kinds, wrung from the misfortunes and 
 necessities of the government, a spirit of 
 boldness had in consequence begun to raise 
 its head aloft, and notions had found their 
 way into the minds of the people to which 
 
 e 2 
 
52 GERMANY AND 
 
 hitherto they had been strangers. Prussia, 
 it was said, being necessarily a military 
 state, was, on that account, essentially 
 monarchical, and the admixture of liberal 
 ideas, as it would disturb the purity of the 
 monarchy, must also essentially endanger 
 the existence and safety of the State. The 
 means for making head against this evil were 
 then pointed out. The hopes which were 
 entertained, and of which every thing like 
 sound policy forbad the fulfilment, ought, 
 it was said, to be radically destroyed ; the 
 men who had become dangerous from their 
 popularity ought to be gradually removed ; 
 the statesmen employed in distant diplo- 
 matic missions, the generals, dexterously 
 laid aside, and the subordinate participators 
 at once deprived of all influence. Every 
 thing, in short, was conceived in the spirit 
 of that crafty and astute policy which finds 
 an entrance into the minds of the children 
 of the age when God wishes to bring their 
 pride and self-conceit to shame. * 
 
 * To give an example of the levity with which people 
 of this description proceed on such occasions, and as a 
 warning which may not be without its use during the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 53 
 
 The King, whose indignation had been 
 dexterously excited against certain men 
 
 present rumours of conspiracy, I shall here cite a passage 
 from the last page but one of that report, where the 
 author undertakes to answer the question, " Who can 
 be received into the King's party ?" The passage is as 
 follows : " The members of the Tugendbwid receive all 
 persons possessed of talents and influence without regard 
 to their moral qualities, Were not this the case, they 
 could never have contaminated themselves by the ad- 
 mission of a Reisach, a Griiner, and a Gorres. The 
 first of these made his escape from Bavaria as a criminal; 
 the second violated his word of honour in 1812, and 
 placed the state to which he was pledged in the greatest 
 danger, married the mistress of a Frenchman, &c. &c. 
 Gorres was a French agent down to 1813, and in those 
 days wrote in the spirit of the Jacobins, as he now writes 
 in the spirit of the members of this society." Mr. v. B. 
 has been named to me as the person who, from his senti- 
 ments, views, and his former situation, was, in all pro- 
 bability, the author of this report. I shall write his 
 name at full length when I have obtained certainty as to 
 this point ; at present I shall merely content myself with 
 proclaiming the author, whoever he may be, a disho- 
 nourable and worthless liar, not on account of what he 
 has said of me, as I conceive my honour is not depend- 
 ant on the idle and impertinent scandal of cabinets and 
 courtiers, but on an account of an irreproachable lady, 
 whose name, for the sake of the affair, I have been ob- 
 liged to mention, and to whom the opinions of the people 
 of Coblentz, under whose eyes she grew up, will afford 
 the best satisfaction for the attacks of her calumniators. 
 
 E 3 
 
54 GERMANY AND 
 
 and certain opinions, started back with 
 affright from the abyss now pointed out to 
 him as opened at his feet, and the party 
 proclaimed their views, as far as they were 
 communicable to the public, in the well- 
 known work of Schmalz. The manner in 
 which this work was received in Prussia, 
 and indeed throughout all Germany, might 
 have taught the party, on their very first 
 attempt, the hour which had now struck ; 
 a general and undivided irritation had the 
 effect of bringing public opinion imme- 
 diately under arms; never was the supe- 
 riority of truth, energy and talent, over 
 malicious and cowardly wickedness, more 
 decidedly evinced ; never was there a more 
 complete and humiliating defeat ; and the 
 party, beaten in every one of their attempts, 
 confounded at the unexpected resistance, 
 and not being withal blessed with an ex- 
 cess of courage, in the impossibility of 
 allaying the movement which they had so 
 incautiously and so wantonly called forth, 
 in any other manner than by an act of 
 power, fled for refuge behind the throne, 
 and the King commanded that the affair 
 should no more be talked of: a step as 
 
THE REVOLUTION. - 55 
 
 unworthy of Majesty, which ought never to 
 connect itself with party, as it was insult- 
 ing to the nation, to which the right of 
 expressing its sentiments with freedom on 
 public affairs can in no case be refused, but 
 least of all in cases of public accusation. 
 
 The impression which these offensive 
 proceedings produced on the minds of the 
 whole nation could not easily be mistaken. 
 The grave accusation, as justice demanded, 
 was gravely received, and when the charge 
 of treason, to the disgrace of its originators, 
 ended in vapour and smoke, and the whole 
 tissue was quickly seen through in all its 
 coarseness, the nation could perceive no- 
 thing but the most insolent ingratitude in 
 every quarter, and, in this unsuccessful 
 attempt, the introduction only to a return 
 of the old and odious abuses. From this 
 unlucky moment suspicion took the alarm, 
 and began with an inquisitive eye to watch 
 the conduct of the government, for the 
 purpose of obtaining a full and complete 
 certainty. 
 
 The proceedings which immediately fol- 
 lowed, soon, alas, proved, that the party 
 was indeed silent, but had not the more on 
 
 e 4 
 
56 GERMANY AND 
 
 that account renounced their plots and in- 
 trigues. On the contrary, all that was re- 
 commended in the memorial, seemed to be 
 advancing step by step towards a complete 
 execution. A general, high in the public 
 estimation (Gneisenau), was removed from 
 his command, and the whole pack of those 
 hounds which, since the time of Napoleon 
 had been starving at their chains, were let 
 loose at him in the journals, and particu- 
 larly in the Allgemeine Zeitimg. In their 
 howling? nothing was to be heard but 
 Wallenstein, and the Seni and Piccolo- 
 mini % w T hom they had also discovered ; 
 and nothing was wanting but the halberd f 
 to complete the infamous spectacle which 
 they exhibited before the eyes of in- 
 dignant Germany. At the same time, 
 the prelude to the shameful deductions 
 which have since become but too familiar 
 to the public, began to be acted in these 
 journals, namely, that the King was not 
 
 * Characters in a well-known Tragedy of Schiller. 
 
 Trans. 
 t Alluding to the manner of Wallenstein's death. 
 
 Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 57 
 
 bound to keep his promise, and therefore 
 might either give no constitution, or one 
 altogether illusory, as he pleased. These 
 articles, which, assuming an official air, have 
 now been continued for nearly four years, 
 and are of an insulting, dishonourable, hol- 
 low, and worthless character, have contri- 
 buted, more than seems to be supposed, to 
 embitter and inflame the minds of men ; 
 but the government, as it would appear, 
 could never discover their treasonable tur- 
 pitude, or at least has never till this hour 
 made the least allusion to them, even in the 
 State Gazette. 
 
 As the organisation of the Rhenish pro- 
 vinces, which were pourtrayed in these 
 accounts as the focus of revolutionary in- 
 trigues excited by ambitious Proconsuls, 
 happened to take place at this time, it 
 seemed a matter of the greatest importance 
 to apply the principles in question imme- 
 diately to them, and to extinguish these 
 dangerous flames with the least possible 
 delay. The work was completed in the 
 haughty and insolent manner for which 
 so marked a preference was now shown. 
 All the rights and privileges of the natives 
 
58 GERMANY AND 
 
 were trodden under foot ; all sorts of in- 
 terests were injured ; the most sophistical 
 expositions were resorted to, in order to 
 avoid the performance of promises ; even 
 the proposals of the commissioners them- 
 selves were not adhered to ; and every 
 thing was arranged off hand according to 
 the w T ill and pleasure of two ministries 
 wholly unacquainted with the relations of 
 these provinces. Irritated by previous pro- 
 ceedings, disquieted by the general distrust 
 so recently allayed which had again taken 
 root, these provinces were prepared for this 
 treatment from the government ; and as 
 the government now acted precisely as it 
 had done in Poland, it seemed to them 
 that Old Prussia was come again, and they 
 conceived themselves on that account well 
 warranted in resuming the old hatred. 
 When the first violation of solemn pro- 
 mises followed, every thing else was ex- 
 pected as a matter of course. Confidence 
 was lost, public opinion, which had hitherto 
 remained off its guard, now stept forward 
 armed at all points for resistance, and since 
 that moment a spirit of opposition and 
 defiance has existed which no subsequent 
 
THE REVOLUTION* 59 
 
 conciliation will be able to allay. The 
 government forgot, at the most unfortunate 
 of all conjunctures, the advice of the Roman 
 Consuls in the affair of the Aricini and 
 Ardeates, whose territories the Romans 
 wished to seize ; famce quidem acjidei damna 
 major a esse quam quce cesti?nari possent. 
 
 In the rest of the north of Germany, 
 the situation of things was not such as to 
 promise results and prospects of a much 
 more consolatory nature. In the Cimbrian 
 Peninsula, in Holstein and Lauenburg, a 
 commission, chosen from the prelates, 
 knights, towns, and jurisdictions, met in 
 1816, to deliberate on the plan of a. con- 
 stitution communicated by the court ; and 
 the deliberation, notwithstanding the most 
 praiseworthy spirit of accommodation dis- 
 played by the higher orders, has not up to 
 this hour been conducted to the expected 
 termination. The court refused to comply 
 with the just demand to extend the new 
 constitution to Schleswig, and at the same 
 time stated, that it was not disposed to 
 do one whit more than the stipulations of 
 treaties demanded ; and as it would only 
 
60 GERMANY AND 
 
 concede a deliberative vote to the estates, 
 it evinced that it had also arbitrarily inter- 
 preted those treaties in the manner most 
 favourable to uncontrolled power. 
 
 In the two halves of the country of 
 Mecklenburg, where fortune has been so 
 unequal in her distributions, where an order 
 of things developed in former centuries has 
 continued almost untouched to this day, 
 where a powerful nobility have divided the 
 country into plantations among one an- 
 other, on which the peasant serves as a 
 slave, and where the free middle class has 
 not yet obtained sufficient power to enforce 
 the claims to which the times entitle it ; 
 from the nature of things the impression of 
 the age could not be very perceptible. 
 Hence, when the oaths to the government 
 were taken, the old state of things, with 
 respect to laws and rights, was there con- 
 firmed merely by a grasp of the hand ; and 
 an organic political-law of the two ruling 
 houses regulated the manner in which the 
 disputes of the Estates with the govern- 
 ment were to be settled, now that there was 
 no longer any judicial supremacy in conse- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 61 
 
 quence of the dissolution of the empire. * 
 The only opposition which was made to 
 this new arrangement of affairs, as it rested 
 on no historical foundation, but merely on 
 the basis of general 'ideas, could hardly fail 
 to end in airy nothing, as all attempts at 
 universal equalisation usually do ; and the 
 proposition of one of the members of 
 the state, to transform at once all those 
 who enjoyed the protection of the state 
 into members of the state, who should 
 exercise their rights either in an immediate 
 assembly of the people or by delegation, 
 and, more particularly, to abolish the two 
 institutions, which, connected as they are 
 with each other, must stand or fall toge- 
 ther ; that of an hereditary nobility which 
 rises to an undue height above the middle 
 
 * By the constitutions of the Empire, an appeal lay 
 to the highest imperial tribunals from the superior tri- 
 bunals of the several states, except such as had an un- 
 limited privilegium de non appellando. Mecklenburg, by 
 Art. XV. of the peace of Teschen, was promised this 
 privilege ; but it could not be granted, as the two Dukes 
 and their subjects could not come to an agreement re- 
 specting the courts which should supply the place of the 
 imperial tribunals. Trans, 
 
62 GERMANY AND 
 
 class, and that of a predial slavery which 
 sinks as far below it, was not altogether 
 unjustly, though rather in language some- 
 what two high flown, rejected as a piece of 
 arrogance and presumption. 
 
 In the kingdom of Saxony, the old con- 
 stitution of the Estates had been again intro- 
 duced ; that rotten, complicated, cumbrous, 
 patchwork of the last centuries, which, 
 without plan and comprehension, without 
 either greatness of conception, or even 
 practical fitness, destitute for the most part 
 of every thing like an instinctive and plastic 
 tendency to improvement, and merely cal- 
 culated to provide for the next emergency, 
 had been incessantly placing rag over rag, 
 and heaping mass on mass. Such a mode 
 of representation was only too much cal- 
 culated to give a government the power 
 of excluding every thing like progressive 
 improvement, under the pretence of ex- 
 ercising a necessary circumspection. The 
 representation of the yeomanry, such an 
 improvement of the constitutions of towns 
 as should render their deputies their 
 real representatives, an admission of the 
 possessors of estates incapable of sitting in 
 
 12 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 63 
 
 the Diet, were all out of the question; and 
 even the assembling of the smaller and 
 larger committee of the equestrian order 
 was refused. The government would only 
 admit the estates to the right of a deli- 
 berative vote, and denied their competency 
 to submit any effective propositions, or 
 even to vote on the measures submitted to 
 them. The diminution of the standing 
 army, solicited by the Estates, was rejected 
 as impracticable ; the production of all in- 
 formation respecting the different branches 
 of the public expenditure and income was 
 refused, because it was said, the king, dur- 
 ing his fifty years' government, had never 
 demanded more than the necessities of the 
 state required ; but the donations granted 
 by them were thankfully received. 
 
 In Hanover, in like manner, the new and 
 unruly spirit of the times had not yet been 
 in action a sufficient length of time to break 
 up, along with the old manners, the tracks 
 and paths of the mighty aristocracy of that 
 country, and they soon succeeded in taking- 
 possession of the whole circle of powers 
 which they formerly filled. The return of 
 the aristocracy to authority and influence 
 
64 GERMANY AND 
 
 was accompanied by the return of the old 
 government, which possessed a kindred 
 spirit. This government was regular, equit- 
 able, and well-intentioned, but at the same 
 time heavy, helpless, and punctilious to 
 excess. It could not so much be said to 
 resist the claims of the age, as (what is 
 still a great deal worse) to be wholly ig- 
 norant of them, like its own university, 
 which, with a high air of beggarly pride, 
 affects an ignorance of the new spirit that 
 has shed its refreshing influence on science, 
 as if what we have not taken any notice 
 of were wholly extinguished and renounced 
 by the world. An assembly of estates 
 which withdrew itself from publicity, in 
 which the various elements were bound 
 together in a species of satiety, and a vis 
 inertice alone prevailed, was little calculated 
 to convert an essentially oscillatory into a 
 progressive movement, and to infuse spirit 
 into the stagnant life of this people, who, 
 accustomed in so many things to a slavish 
 imitation of the ruling islanders, cannot, 
 however, adopt their activity. Yet, impelled 
 by that spirit to which no one, however 
 refractory, can ever be wholly insensible,- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 65 
 
 many a salutary and praiseworthy object 
 was promoted ; an economical adminis- 
 tration of the ecclesiastical possessions still 
 remaining, and a conscientious application 
 of them to the wants of the church and the 
 advancement of education ; the abolition 
 of exemptions from taxation, a measure no 
 doubt tending solely to benefit the public 
 treasury, as the rate of taxation was not 
 thereby in any degree lowered ; an equa- 
 lisation as far as possible of the various 
 parts of the country with respect to land- 
 tax ; the allowing a diet for the seven 
 lordships of East Fries] and, and the re- 
 storation of the magistrates in the principal 
 towns of that province ; the abolition of the 
 torture and the oath of purification ; the 
 deliberating on a proposition for the intro- 
 duction of juries ; — all these proceedings, 
 though defective wherever practical dex- 
 terity and ability were requisite for their 
 execution, and wherever extent of view 
 and clearness of conception were necessary 
 in their plan, are still entitled to thanks as 
 a praiseworthy commencement. 
 
 In Hesse, to the advantages to be de- 
 rived from a return to the old state of 
 things, were, at an early period, associated 
 
 F 
 
66 GERMANY AND 
 
 the disadvantages which follow in the train 
 of an unfortunate predilection for the an- 
 tiquated ; disadvantages which were still 
 farther augmented by an excessive passion 
 for heaping up money. Hence, with the old 
 appearance of the army, now become ludi- 
 crous, the old and odious starvation system 
 had also returned. Hence, too, all the nego- 
 tiations entered into with the Estates became 
 abortive whenever an attempt was made to 
 separate the property of the State from the 
 private property of the Prince. The dis- 
 pute which now arose revived all the 
 odious recollections of former times in the 
 minds of the people. A constitution was 
 then offered for sale for a certain sum <of 
 money ; and when the purchase did not 
 take place, nothing more was heard of the 
 fulfilment of the 13th article. This sort 
 of chaffering was not indeed unheard of in 
 former times ; but it by no means belonged 
 to that part of the practices of former times 
 which ought to have been revived. Hence 
 the disputes with the purchasers of domains 
 were more dexterously adjusted in Bruns- 
 wick and Hanover than here, where, with 
 the most obstinate harshness? justice and 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 67 
 
 injustice were confounded together, and 
 new laws were issued by the ruler to his 
 own courts for their guidance in particular 
 cases where he himself was a party. This 
 disgraceful proceeding, the subject of uni- 
 versal reprobation, placed the impotence of 
 the Germanic constitution in the most 
 unequivocal light ; and the effects of the 
 indignation, to which it gave rise, will with 
 difficulty be removed by a general law of 
 the diet applicable to similar cases in time 
 to come. Hence, too, all the crying abuses 
 in the judicial and other departments re- 
 mained untouched. Hesse continued quite 
 stationary, separated, as it were, from the 
 community of the nation, and seemed, by 
 its conduct, to justify the reproach to which 
 it was deemed more obnoxious than any 
 other state, of taking little or no interest in 
 public affairs. 
 
 This course which affairs had taken in 
 the North of Germany, was ill calculated to 
 tranquillise public opinion, which longs for 
 vigorous and popular institutions, for the 
 security of the present and future times, 
 and an active and animating public spirit 
 diffused throughout the whole nation. Re- 
 
 f 2 
 
68 GERMANY AND 
 
 pose, and a quiet apartment, are, no doubt, 
 more especially necessary for the present 
 times, which have been almost exhausted 
 with unceasing restlessness ; but the repose 
 which they need is not the repose of indo- 
 lence, but that firm and sustained equa- 
 bility which does not wear itself out with 
 pure bustle, but proceeds with steadiness 
 and certainty to the accomplishment of its 
 objects with the least expense of exertion. 
 Germany can never be benefited by a 
 return to that lazy, lame, and stupid state 
 of things that prevailed anterior to the 
 movements of latter times, where public 
 life, without hill and dale, resembled a flat 
 and dreary heath, on which pen-folds were 
 erected for the various civil communities. 
 
 Such fearful storms have not passed over 
 Europe, that while the thunder-clouds are 
 still rolling in the distant horizon, we 
 should again collect and put together the 
 fragments of the kingdom of mediocrity 
 shattered by the storm, in which all energy 
 was a dissonance, all talent a dangerous 
 power, every idea was considered a plague, 
 and every thing like elevation of purpose 
 and enthusiasm was treated as perilous in- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 69 
 
 sanity. That ossification which held all the 
 noble and vital parts in a state of torpid 
 inactivity, will not again be considered by 
 us as health ; nor the obliteration of every 
 vestige of an idea of representation, and 
 constitutional laws, be any more considered 
 as an advancement in the career of huma- 
 nity, and a way of thinking befitting a citizen 
 of the world. 
 
 The common-place routine, unacquainted 
 with every thing like extension of view, and 
 which cannot even form a conception of 
 what is great or elevated ; which, without 
 dignity in action, gives itself up to all that 
 is confined and petty, and which, from an 
 inability of seeing in any thing the relation 
 between cause and effect, is perplexed by 
 the most usual occurrences, and hurried on 
 to acts of precipitancy, will no longer do 
 for us. The work of the times cannot be 
 furthered by that stiff and unwieldy pedan- 
 try, which, in every thing, would observe the 
 most rigid method, and therefore on every 
 unforeseen occurrence, and on all important 
 concerns where rules treacherously leave 
 their slaves in the lurch, is totally without 
 presence of mindand without resources. That 
 
 f 3 
 
70 GERMANY AND , 
 
 spirit which has descended to wrestle with 
 us, if we still continue to conduct ourselves 
 in the struggle like so many lame invalids, 
 instead of strengthening us for the coming 
 time, will throw us down with shame and 
 disgrace, and then, laughing us to scorn, 
 leave us to our fate. 
 
 The persons of whom history is now 
 in want, are not smooth, superficial, and 
 worn-out courtiers who pursue unmean- 
 ing insignificancy as a study, and inanity 
 as a trade ; nor ministers who can only 
 seat themselves at the end of a long row 
 of clerks, and then display a mastery of 
 the letters of the alphabet, but who know 
 nothing of the world or life ; nor generals 
 who hold the scabbard higher than the 
 sword, and who esteem the appearing to 
 advantage in a court drawing-room as the 
 highest blessing on earth ; nor men in 
 office, and soldiers, whose whole vigour 
 evaporates in empty show. Efficient, active, 
 and experienced men are wanted, in whom 
 there is spirit and life, who are ready to 
 pay the claims of the times with their per- 
 sons, and who esteem forms according to 
 their worth, but disdain to be slaves to 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 71 
 
 them ; men who can courageously bestride 
 the rapid courser, and govern its wild 
 impetuosity. 
 
 It is, no doubt, one of the problems of 
 the times to restore tranquillity and comfort 
 to the mass, as the secure foundation of the 
 future public life ; but the lukewarm indif- 
 ference, the unsympathising carelessness, 
 the superficial triviality of sentiment, the 
 miserable insipidity of a former period must 
 not again return on us ; and least of all will 
 we consent to take for our model the cob- 
 bling and bolstering-up system of the times 
 that preceded the last, which crawled on 
 without ideas and elevation of purpose, and, 
 without vigour or dignity, guided only at 
 best by a sort of obtuse notion of justice. 
 That cabinet-despotism which had its origin 
 in Italy, but was practised in France to a 
 greater extent than in any other country, 
 and which was transplanted from thence to 
 Germany in the period in question, can by 
 no means supply, with us, the place of a 
 regulated will, free because it yields obe- 
 dience to the law, and strong because it 
 keeps within its just boundaries. The 
 financial delusions which have been the 
 
 f 4 
 
72 GERMANY AND 
 
 ruin of Europe, will never be improved and 
 transformed into liberal institutions by re- 
 mission ; it is onlj by additional exaction 
 that the balance can be restored. Neither 
 is avarice, though it usually clings to age, 
 on that account a venerable idea and a 
 dignified principle of government. More- 
 over, an order of things in which duties and 
 rights are not apportioned to individuals 
 with an equal measure in the same institu- 
 tions, and do not reciprocally modify each 
 other in their rising and falling, but would 
 rather seem to be divided and to be allot- 
 ted separately to different bearers, will no 
 longer be able to maintain itself; nor can 
 an obsolete personal servitude any further 
 be suffered to exist, when free and intelli- 
 gent consent comes voluntarily forward to 
 relieve it from its burden. The age did 
 not long for the return of the old, merely 
 that it should be forced on it in all its cor- 
 ruption, when advantageous to arbitrary 
 power and sinister interests, as was, for the 
 most part, the case in the North; but that it 
 should be withheld from it where it would 
 be able to restrain both, as was the case in 
 Wurtemberg, for instance. The charm of 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 73 
 
 the wicked spell which came from abroad, 
 and held all the power of Germany fast 
 bound, has now lost its virtue ; and that 
 country is determined to have no longer 
 any part in the blessing of Issachar the 
 son of Jacob, and to be as an ass under 
 burdens. 
 
 If the state of the North led the nation 
 to considerations like these, the condition 
 of the South could not fail to awake other 
 considerations of an opposite description. 
 This portion of the empire had, for a con- 
 siderable length of time, formed a part of 
 France; the Rhenish provinces having been 
 united with it even in the earlier demo- 
 cratic times of the Revolution, and the 
 States on the right bank having been re- 
 duced to a condition of vassalship to it by 
 the confederation of the Rhine at a more 
 recent period, and forced to take part in all 
 its wars and operations. While, therefore, 
 in the Rhenish provinces united with 
 France, democratic ideas had very exten- 
 sively diffused themselves amongst the 
 third estate, and whilst a spirit of free in- 
 dependence had sprung up in that quarter, 
 in the States of the Confederation, the courts 
 
74 GERMANY AND 
 
 alone were active, and transplanted the 
 Revolution, in the form which it then pos- 
 sessed, into Germany. 
 
 This Revolution was a great judgment of 
 God, held in that land in order to punish 
 first it, and then the rest of the world, for 
 the shame and transgressions of many 
 years, and at last to extinguish the blood- 
 guiltiness * which, augmented by interest 
 and the accessions of ages, advanced with a 
 fearful growth from generation to gener- 
 ation ; in the same manner as Providence 
 called forth the Reformation to sit in judg- 
 ment on and to punish the fall of ancient 
 discipline within and without the church, 
 the torpor which had seized the higher 
 spiritual life, the universal hypocrisy, self- 
 ishness, and callousness, and the obstinate 
 
 * Blut-schuld in the original. This word occurs fre- 
 quently in Luther's, translation of the Bible. In the 
 corresponding passages of our translation, the word 
 blood-guiltiness is used as " Deliver me from blood- 
 guiltiness, O God." (Psalm li. 14.) Adelung defines 
 Blut-schuld the crime of shedding innocent blood, which 
 seems the meaning in the above passage of the Psalms ; 
 but the definition of Frisch, — Scelus, quod sanguinis 
 effusione puniendum, is evidently the sense in which it is 
 used in the text TVans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 75 
 
 stupidity with which empty formulae were 
 adhered to after their life was fled. 
 
 The courts of the North, in those days, 
 were at first impelled by the popular move- 
 ment, but afterwards taking a part in it* 
 they contrived to master it ; and when the 
 devil, on being driven from affirmation, 
 laughing the world to scorn, took refuge in 
 negation, what began with the purification 
 of the church, ended with its shameful spo- 
 liation throughout the whole of protestant 
 Europe, and the grand idea of ecclesiastical 
 dominion, internally hollowed by selfish 
 ambition, and dissolved in luxurious lazi- 
 ness, was, in this insurrection, destroyed 
 by the same degree of selfishness in the 
 re-action ; and thus the triple crown of the 
 Pope was either divided among the Princes 
 as spiritual sovereigns, or seized by the 
 spiritual aristocracy, or even shared by the 
 various congregations themselves. The 
 very same thing happened now. The courts 
 of the West, with the Revolution in their 
 rear, having entered into an alliance with 
 the most unlimited despotism, the plunder 
 of the other half of the church which had 
 yet escaped the Reformation, the oppression 
 
76 GERMANY AND 
 
 and devouring of all the weaker members 
 of the empire, the abolition and destruc- 
 tion of all the old rights, customs, and re- 
 collections of the people, and the complete 
 annihilation of the German empire, the 
 other idea of the middle ages, were the 
 necessary consequences of this alliance. 
 
 In the presumption and emergencies of 
 such a period, a class of statesmen had 
 been formed of a description quite different 
 from the majority of those in the North, who 
 consisted either of the remains of the age 
 which preceded the great convulsion, or of 
 men who have since been educated in their 
 principles. The statesmen of the latter 
 description are the slaves of custom, ac- 
 knowledge only what already exists, and 
 entertain the deepest aversion for every inno- 
 vation ; the former, again, neither acknow- 
 ledge nor esteem any thing present or past, 
 and hate all that is positive as an obstacle 
 in the way of their restless activity. Whilst 
 the one set of men dare not venture even 
 to touch any thing that has been handed 
 down to them, and dragging after them the 
 dead body of what perished from age till 
 it is overtaken by corruption, plod on, like 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 77 
 
 slaves on the estate to which they were 
 attached, in a bolder and more enterprising 
 period; the others consider every thing 
 that has been as lapsed and forfeited to 
 death, and themselves as lords of the pre- 
 sent and tyrants of the future. Children of 
 the day which brought them forth, denying 
 the authority of all that formerly was, they 
 still entertain the hope that their commands 
 will be listened to by a coming age, to 
 which they in turn will have been a past, 
 and which to morrow may annihilate their 
 labours with as much justice as they anni- 
 hilated the labours of yesterday. Exer- 
 cising the most unlimited controul over 
 every thing existing, by which the other 
 class are controlled, in their restless acti- 
 vity, they mix and confound all things 
 together. With the rapidity with which 
 one thought succeeds another in the human 
 breast, they endeavour to remodel their 
 world. In the pruriency of their lust of 
 change, they convert first one peculiarity 
 and then another into some mis-shapen 
 figure, which, when the whim seizes them, 
 they again, without hesitation, dash into a 
 thousand pieces to make way for another 
 
78 GERMANY AND 
 
 creation of their desires. Restless, as if 
 possessed by the evil spirit, they drive and 
 hunt men and things up and down, and 
 through and through each other, so that 
 no one thing can have time to take root. 
 As they have not even a conception of the 
 still, quiet, and easy way in which nature 
 unfolds her works, their impatience has 
 recourse to mechanism, and the state be- 
 comes in their hands a great steam-engine, 
 in which they themselves ascend and 
 descend as a hot vapour, impelling, with 
 deafening noise, an immense lever, at once 
 serving to put in motion works for the 
 coining of money, for raising of water, for 
 hammering, spinning, and writing, and, at 
 last, producing another machine like itself. 
 In this mechanism, in which every thing 
 becomes lines and numbers, all the lines 
 must terminate in one central point, and 
 all the numbers must form one unit, that 
 arbitrary power may, from the centre, cal- 
 culate and control the different move- 
 ments at pleasure, and no human or muni- 
 cipal relations may presume to assert an 
 opposing and destructive independence. 
 Every thing is violently sacrificed to the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 79 
 
 idea which happens to have the ascendancy 
 for the time. Nothing has so firm a 
 foundation that the whirlwind of their rage 
 for organization cannot at last blow it 
 down. Every thing great which has struck 
 a deep root in time, and which, tranquil 
 and secure within itself, does not give way 
 at the precise moment they wish it to do 
 so, appears punishable and rebellious in 
 their eyes ; and they avail themseves of all 
 the elements to blow up and destroy it, 
 that nothing may remain but the gigantic 
 work which has been painted in perspective 
 by them. As neither truth, love, custom, 
 habit, piety, nor aught that agitates the 
 human breast, is necessary for their work, — 
 as an understanding, clear and transparent 
 as water arranges and disposes every thing, 
 they can proceed unrelentingly in their 
 course through all human relations, and 
 pawns, bishops, rooks, and knights, are 
 moved at pleasure from one end of their 
 chess-board to another. Their constitu- 
 tions are not social unions entered into by 
 independent men for mutual protection 
 and liberation ; they are books, of which 
 the leaves, formed of substances once pos- 
 
80 GERMANY AND 
 
 sessed of vegetable life, afterwards worn to 
 rags, next decomposed, and finally recast 
 in the shape of paper, have been written 
 over with their ordinary thoughts, and 
 then numbered and bound up with gilt 
 edges, and when the edition is disposed of 
 make their re-appearance in a new edition. 
 Hence all their labours are without a bless- 
 ing, as they build only on self-conceit. 
 Every succeeding day destroys what the 
 preceding day brought forth. Like Saturn 
 they are perpetually obliged to devour their 
 own children, till, at length, the enraged 
 mother presents them with the stone, and 
 rears the avenger. Being, generally speak- 
 ing, men of energy, determination, intellect, 
 and talents, they might have been the salt 
 of their country ; but, slaves to pride, they 
 have been to it as a devouring poison ; 
 and thus these wild and ardent minds, 
 having obtained the mastery over one-half 
 of Germany, and the other lazy and creep- 
 ing beings having obtained the mastery 
 over the other half, our country has been 
 reduced to the pitiful condition in which we 
 now behold it. On the one side it appears 
 as if struck by a palsy, on the other as if 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 81 
 
 seized by St. Vitus's dance ; and while the 
 one half, labouring under an asthenia, 
 broods over dull and empty dreams, the 
 other, in a state of hyperstJienia, wears itself 
 out in fantastic and extravagant delirations. 
 The proceedings in the times of the con- 
 federacy of the Rhine, which took place in 
 the States of that confederation, are yet 
 fresh in our memories, and it would be 
 both useless and invidious to revive such 
 disagreeable recollections. When the em- 
 pire of Napoleon was overthrown, and 
 public opinion expressed itself vehemently 
 against these courts, a re-action w^hich 
 developed itself from the conflict of the 
 utmost diversity of motives was then 
 formed in them. The pleasant habits of 
 arbitrary power, previously indulged in, 
 were not easily reconcileable with the new 
 claims of the age ; while the good-will, so 
 characteristic of Germans, though keenly 
 alive to the sting of the conscience, strug- 
 gled with the wounded pride that endea- 
 voured to retain its importance against the 
 new order of things then bursting in, and 
 angrily resented the importunity with which 
 old offences were brought forward. On these 
 
82 GERMANY AND 
 
 occasions too little allowance was perhaps 
 made for the power of the circumstances 
 in which these offences originated. 
 
 In this emergency, those statesmen of 
 the second class who had formerly had the 
 guidance of the change effected according 
 to the principles of Napoleon, now pro- 
 posed a convenient mode of solving the 
 difficulty. Like their master, after his 
 return, they threw themselves on the li- 
 beral side, but took special care to make 
 all those reservations which they deemed 
 necessary to their views. By yielding to the 
 times a few concessions which it was hardly 
 possible to refuse, enough was done to 
 satisfy the good-will above alluded to, and 
 to lull the conscience asleep, and the most 
 urgent and importunate demands were thus 
 got rid of by payment in a depredated coin. 
 For the claims afterwards to be given in, 
 which, like the French national debt, had 
 already been pared down according to law, a 
 rich store was collected of those papers and 
 phrases which never pass current at their 
 nominal value; and a well-furnished shop 
 was set up of the gimcracks with which the 
 Revolution furnished us, and with which the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 83 
 
 spirit of the times playfully sported, like the 
 bird with the silver ball ; concessions which 
 cost nothing, but which always tell for 
 something on the parade ; liberties which 
 either mean nothing, or determine to do 
 suit and service to arbitrary power for their 
 bread ; grants prudently limited by laws of 
 exception ; hollow formulae and hypocritical 
 and gilded lies, in which vanity delights to 
 deck itself, and that may be termed the 
 auxiliaries with which the prudence of this 
 world endeavours to force its way through 
 all its difficulties. When the small wares 
 began to find admirers, a hope was enter- 
 tained that they might serve to purchase 
 back the more early concessions : the result 
 was every thing that could be wished for ; 
 and arbitrary power, which was now in pos- 
 session of that state of preparation which 
 the fashion of the time demanded, became 
 again a saleable article in the market. 
 
 Thus the Duchy of Nassau, even before 
 the meeting of Congress, had obtained a 
 constitution, which, in a theoretical point 
 of view, was not particularly objectionable, 
 but from which little practical advantage has 
 ever been derived. Under the pretext tha£ 
 
 g 2 
 
84 GERMANY AND 
 
 the perpetual changes of territory would 
 not admit of the calling together the Estates, 
 the constitution remained unexecuted for 
 three years, during which interval an ap- 
 paratus was contrived for checking and 
 keeping down, before they could display 
 themselves, all such passions as might by 
 possibility be dangerous, and all such 
 agitations as might be produced by dema- 
 gogues. Hence, on the pretence that the 
 Estates ought to be constituted, but by no 
 means to be constituent, they were allowed 
 to take no part in the formation of the 
 institutions, which effected a complete change 
 in all their internal relations; and their 
 unqualified assent was demanded to the 
 most important edicts relating to subjects, 
 in which the necessity for consultation was 
 increased with the number of parties and 
 interests affected by them. 
 
 To meet the alarming power and the 
 stormy character of twenty elective repre- 
 sentatives of the people, the government 
 had endeavoured to strengthen and in- 
 trench itself agreeably to the most approved 
 rules of fortification. A compact and close 
 united army of office-bearers, powerful, dis- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 85 
 
 tinguished, wearing uniform, subject, like 
 the nobility, to a free* jurisdiction, relieved 
 as well as their sons from liability to mili- 
 tary service, many of them connected by 
 the ties of relationship with the Prince, 
 ready to obey every nod of their com- 
 mander, and removable individually by a 
 stroke of the pen from one end of the 
 country to the other, guiding and directing 
 from one common centre through the dif- 
 ferent bailifs (Schultheissen), the most minute 
 matters of the various communes, formed 
 here as well as every where else, the prin- 
 cipal work. The former independence of 
 
 * The mere enumeration of the various jurisdictions 
 which existed in Germany under the Empire, and the 
 relations they bore to each other, would fill a volume. 
 It may suffice to observe, that a free jurisdiction probably 
 means, in the language of the German jurisconsults, a 
 jurisdictio administratoria, vicar ia, officialise exercised in 
 the name of the State, in contradistinction to a jurisdictio 
 patrimonialis, praediatoria, praedialis, &c. The following 
 is the order of judicial procedure for the nobility and 
 privileged class of officers of the State in the Duchy of 
 Nassau, according to Hassel : the Senate of Justice at 
 Ehrenbreitstein in the first instance, the Palace Court 
 at Wiesbaden in the second instance, and the Supreme 
 Court of Appeal at Dietz in the last instance. Trans. 
 
 G 3 
 
86 GERMANY AND 
 
 the church might have left a weak point, 
 but this had been fortunately covered. 
 In the union of confessions, the members 
 of the clerical order had also been first 
 centralised through the testament of the 
 superintendents to the survivors, and after- 
 wards subjected to a complete change of 
 condition by the farming of the church 
 lands, by giving salaries to the clergy, and 
 creating a central fund for the payment of 
 servants of the state, and officers of the 
 church in the pay of the government* 
 Physicians and advocates, both independ- 
 ent classes in every other country, and 
 who, as is well known, acted a terrible part 
 in the French Revolution, were here, with 
 great dexterity, rendered completely harm- 
 less. The former, after a very short period 
 of activity, became officers of the state? 
 whose salaries were partly derived from 
 the treasuries of the Communes *, and the 
 
 * A Commune [Gemeinde or Gemeine) or Community, 
 the inhabitants of a particular village, or other place, 
 who possess certain lands, pasturages, woods, buildings, 
 &c. in common. These Communes, like our Corpor- 
 ations, are of various degrees of wealth. Some of them 
 are very rich, and the privilege of becoming a member 
 of them is then sold at a high rate. Their administration 
 is altogether republican. Trans, 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 87 
 
 latter were rendered incapable of filling any 
 municipal offices. The incorporated com- 
 panies, the degrading remains of feudal 
 slavery as they were termed, States within 
 the State, and therefore by possibility capa- 
 ble of becoming focuses of rebellion, were 
 next dissolved. The nobility still re- 
 mained, and as many of that body were 
 not to be gained by favours, and main- 
 tained a troublesome independence, an 
 allowable artifice was resorted to, in order 
 to sow dissensions between them and the 
 third Estate. To the right and left a division 
 was made between Ultras who wished to 
 do all without the people, and Jacobins who 
 proposed to carry every thing with a high 
 hand through the people. The former were 
 opposed to the privileged part of the Estates, 
 and the latter were opposed to such resist- 
 ance as might be experienced in the Second 
 Chamber. When, at length, after an election 
 managed in a suitable manner by the com- 
 missioners, the dreaded democracy assem- 
 bled, ministerial despotism was enabled to 
 take its station quietly in the centre with the 
 people, as was pretended ; and that it might 
 not be removed from this imposing attitude 
 
 g 4 
 
88 GERMANY AND 
 
 by the unanimity of the Estates, who car- 
 ried up in a body the address of thanks to 
 theJPrince, the latter was made to protest 
 in some measure against this unanimity, as 
 if it were something unconstitutional. Ibel, 
 the commissioner of the government, fitted 
 out with the power and experience which 
 his position gave to him, now trod, in all 
 the superiority which a dexterous talent for 
 business and a domineering will can give, 
 into the midst of a few r deputies, part of 
 them dependent on the government, and 
 all of them unacquainted with business, 
 impeded on all sides, and full of timidity, 
 and there he unrolled before them the 
 record of his former brilliant transactions, 
 decrees, and creations, which they, by 
 their approbation, were to seal and to 
 sanction. How was it possible for the 
 small spark of the democratic principle to 
 compare itself with this burning bush ? 
 When the Estates, alarmed at so powerful 
 a guardianship, demanded a speaker (Syn- 
 dicus) as a guide and leader, this w T as pro- 
 nounced a piece of silly and ridiculous folly, 
 and almost high treason. When districts 
 of the country availed themselves of the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 89 
 
 right of petitioning the Estates, conceded 
 to them by the constitution, and exposed 
 to them the real grievances of the country, 
 the demagogical opposition, to which we 
 have alluded, was happily discovered, and 
 a dreadful cry was raised against so asto- 
 nishing an attempt ; and at the same time a 
 violent persecution was set on foot against 
 the originators of this step, which ended 
 with expelling an efficient and worthy 
 office-bearer from his situation, and finally 
 compelling him to exile himself from his 
 country. 
 
 Thus all the ways of access to the States, 
 except that which was left open to the 
 government, were closed up. It had been 
 laid down as a principle, that all the rich 
 domains of the various parts of the coun- 
 try which had been united into the Duchy, 
 were the incontestible private property of 
 the former Counts and Princes of Nassau, 
 when they took the Ducal Hat ; and the 
 court was thus rendered wholly independ- 
 ent of the grants of the Estates ; and the 
 necessities of the State, thronging of them- 
 selves into the courses into which they 
 have once been directed, from this side also 
 
90 GERMANY AND 
 
 there was nothing to fear. The taxes had 
 been before regulated agreeably to the most 
 praiseworthy principles of equality, with 
 reference to land and industry ; a consider- 
 able portion of the expenses of adminis- 
 tration, with the salaries and fees of the 
 local authorities and receivers, had been 
 thrown on the treasuries of the different 
 communes, as were also either wholly, or 
 for the greatest part, the allowances to 
 physicians, surgeons, midwives, forest- 
 officers, in so far as they inspect the woods 
 of the communes, schoolmasters, wood and 
 field keepers, servants of the church, and 
 night-watchmen ; so that nothing remained 
 for the Budget but the charges of the 
 higher mechanism of the government ; and 
 the Estates had hardly any thing to do 
 but to revise the tables of income and 
 expenditure submitted to them, in the 
 manner of a higher audit chamber. They 
 deducted from the article of court-buildings 
 the sum by which it exceeded the proper 
 amount; struck out here and there a few 
 trifling articles ; burdened the taxes with 
 the redemption of the feudal duties at- 
 tached to the domains which formerly, in 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 91 
 
 a fit of liberality, were about to be re- 
 nounced gratuitously ; and, lastly, freed also 
 the domain-forests from the rights of usu- 
 fruct possessed by the communes, and then 
 dissolved themselves in order to carry home 
 with them the praise of peaceable, intel- 
 ligent, and well-disposed Estates bestowed 
 on them by the government, but at the same 
 time to meet the loud reproaches of the 
 people whom they had disappointed. 
 
 The suppressed discontent, irritated by 
 these reproaches, could hardly fail, in the 
 nature of things, to break out in some way 
 or other in the next assembly ; and as, 
 under existing circumstances, this could 
 hardly happen in a measured manner, and 
 in a vigorous, secure, and firm opposition, 
 it found a vent in the violent explosion 
 that took place when the favours granted 
 to the domains, by pressing severely on 
 many of the communes, rendered the in- 
 troduction of poor-rates necessary. This 
 explosion ought to serve as a lesson to 
 arrogance, that human patience has its 
 limits, and that, when too much abused, it 
 breaks unexpectedly loose, and avenges 
 itself on those who presume too much on 
 
92 GERMANY AND 
 
 it. As, however, all irruptions are, from 
 their nature, temporary, and a despotism 
 founded on calculation never renounces its 
 activity, such a despotism could not fail to 
 become in a very short time the master of 
 the explosion in question ; and the whole 
 of this resistance, which was altogether 
 without a plan, ended at last in a second 
 act of violence exercised towards another 
 office-bearer, and the secret was found out 
 of completely annihilating a constitution, 
 not bad in itself, by means of itself. 
 
 Thus there was here established a pat- 
 tern-state of the modern constitutional 
 school, by which all men are made equal 
 in one common servitude, and freedom 
 appears a mere piece of delusion and 
 mockery. The work was executed agree- 
 ably to the model of France, a microcosm 
 of the macrocosm of Napoleon, and behold 
 the master saw that it was good ! Council 
 of State, Chambers, Budget, two parties of 
 Ultras and Jacobins yoked to the triumphal 
 car, from his exalted seat on which the 
 charioteer guides it with an iron hand to 
 the goal ; in front of the procession, odes 
 to freedom, the flourish of trumpets, an 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 93 
 
 official Moniteur, which at one time waves 
 the thyrsus of liberal ideas, and shouts Evoe 
 Bache ! at another blows the bird-call with 
 which liberal bull-finches * are caught ; and 
 then again, as a constable with a staff keeps 
 the disordered people in order, bears down 
 all opposition with scorn ; here and there 
 rubs a scolding mouth with the sweet honey 
 of general expressions of liberality, till, 
 perceiving the grateful taste, it closes in 
 astonishment; then severely chides the most 
 modest doubt ; in the train, vanity and shal- 
 low self-sufficiency, the rage for organisation 
 and innovation, centralising and paralysing, 
 show and paper activity, fiscal rapacity, 
 impurity and deceit ; and by way of finish 
 to all these grand things, Hunt and the 
 Spafields meeting in the county of Katzen- 
 ellenbogen, and the bliss over and above 
 of an investigation into an extensively 
 diffused conspiracy. Dreadful folly of an 
 age, false and untrue even to the very 
 marrow of its bones, which, after it has Ions* 
 deceived the world, at last gives credit to 
 
 * Gimjpel {bullfinch) is applied by the Germans to a 
 simpleton. Trans. 
 
94 GERMANY AND 
 
 Its own lie ; and, after stripping off every 
 vestige of nature, in its audacious presump- 
 tion allows no subject to remain sacred 
 from the exercise of its histrionic arts, and 
 converts society, state, church, the most 
 venerable objects on earth, into a mere 
 farce. 
 
 What was brought to a successful ter- 
 mination in the manner above described 
 in the Duchy of Nassau, had been already 
 attempted in Bavaria, by the minister 
 Montgelas, who gave it a constitution so 
 far back as 1808, and proclaimed a second 
 constitution at the period of the Congress. 
 This man, who possesses all the qualities, 
 both good and bad, which in the preceding 
 pages have been ascribed to the whole genus, 
 at the very moment when he was grasping 
 at the dignity of Chancellor of State, to the 
 great amazement of all those who shared his 
 opinions and sentiments, in consequence of 
 certain circumstances, the real connection 
 of which is not yet before the world *, was 
 
 * It is supposed that he was sacrificed to the dislike 
 which the Austrian Court entertained towards him, on 
 the marriage of a Princess of Bavaria to the Emperor 
 Francis. Trans, 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 95 
 
 suddenly precipitated from his elevation, 
 and succeeded by a ministry, not a little 
 jealous of its power, indeed, but which nei- 
 ther possessed the influence, the craft, nor 
 the violence necessary to reduce it into so 
 complete and consistent a system. The 
 King gave a charter, in which, it is true, 
 an excessive anxiety to preserve the pre- 
 rogatives of the crown was perceivable ; 
 but which placed at the same time the 
 commons in a position with respect to the 
 throne, that may enable them to rid them- 
 selves by degrees of the influence of de- 
 fective institutions, and procure the intro- 
 duction of better in their stead. The 
 re-action on the constitution to which this 
 is likely to give rise, may, in turn, improve 
 what still remains defective in it. 
 
 Hence the Diet which was here held, 
 was something more than one of those blue 
 exhalations which ascend for the purpose 
 of mocking the age. Much of an objec- 
 tionable nature found, no doubt, an admis- 
 sion into this assembly, but as it did not 
 seat itself in the centre, and from thence 
 exercise a preponderating influence over 
 the whole, there was not very much to be 
 
98 GERMANY AND 
 
 said against it, as worthlessness has as 
 much a right to be represented as stupidity. 
 Hence, after the first apprenticeship was 
 over, along with a good deal of heavy help- 
 lessness, pettiness of conception, and igno- 
 rance of constitutional matters, there was 
 developed at the same time in the Second 
 Chamber, a trust-worthy business-like un- 
 derstanding; and a just, moderate, and 
 honourable disposition, open to the recep- 
 tion of every thing good and valuable. 
 Many of the secret evils by which States 
 are oppressed in the present day, were 
 there disclosed ; many a steady and pene- 
 trating glance was thrown into the late 
 odious and abominable times, notwithstand- 
 ing all the care which had been taken to 
 guard against this ; many a good measure 
 was readily adopted by the government, 
 and a path was cleared for many institutions 
 of an improved nature ; a stop was put for 
 the future to glaring abuses, and the dis- 
 order of the age was thus brought to a 
 crisis. 
 
 When the Chamber, however, in its 
 peaceful and unanimous investigation into 
 the defects of the commonwealth, having 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 97 
 
 sounded the extremities, reached by de- 
 grees to the internal vital parts, and began 
 at length to touch the great and peculiar 
 sore by which all the States of the present 
 day are consumed, namely, the excessive, 
 and beyond all measure extravagant number 
 of the double soldiery of the civil and mili- 
 tary establishments ; the disordered state of 
 the finances occasioned by these numerous 
 and brilliant establishments ; the abuses 
 caused by these financial disorders, when, 
 after resorting to everv form of taxation, 
 things had at length come to such a pass, 
 that the government held the bank at the 
 pharo-table against its own subjects ; the 
 cabinet and ministerial despotism which 
 interferes even with the administration of 
 justice : — then the patience of the liberality 
 to which a pretension had been rather in- 
 discreetly made, became exhausted ; and 
 the whole of the dregs of the bad passions 
 with which Germany has so often been 
 harassed from the same quarter, were 
 again stirred up. The moment was now 
 come when the First Chamber considered 
 itself called upon to interpose itself as a 
 dam against the waves of the Commons, 
 
 H 
 
98 GERMANY AND 
 
 which had risen to too great a height ; the 
 Council of the Kingdom (Reichs-rath *) 
 condemned the pretensions of the Second 
 Chamber, as being of too practical a nature ; 
 the taxes ought, according to this council, 
 to be granted magnanimously agreeably to 
 the constitution, without an endeavour to 
 connect with them any conditions of radical 
 improvement ; and after the scandalous 
 scene exhibited with respect to the ad- 
 dresses of the army, whose admission to 
 the constitutional oath had been rejected 
 on the ground of its not being a deliber- 
 ative, but, on the contrary, a purely 
 dependant body, though it was* here, not- 
 withstanding, allowed to deliberate on 
 constitutional matters, the person of the 
 ruler was at last introduced in a manner 
 very unsuitable to his dignity, into a dis- 
 pute, which, as the first commencement of 
 a conflict, whose termination is yet un- 
 certain in respect to time, but by no means 
 so in respect to result, is of the utmost im- 
 
 # This is the name given to the first Bavarian 
 Chamber. Tram, 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 99 
 
 portance in whatever point of view it is 
 considered, 
 
 Similar causes have led to similar results 
 in Baden. This country had been for years 
 one of the principal foci of the changes 
 introduced by the times. More constitu- 
 tions than ever were produced by France, 
 had there followed one another in rapid 
 succession, one of which, in order to give 
 something like an air of originality to 
 German folly, was drawn up objectively 
 and subjectively, according to the title ; and 
 the change of ministers had been more 
 frequent than that of consuls in ancient 
 Rome. The court, by way of fulfilling the 
 13th article, gave in like manner a charter, 
 which, from the political embarrassment it 
 was placed in at the time, was intended to 
 conciliate public opinion in its favour, as 
 being distinguished above every other con- 
 stitution for its liberality. This constitution 
 was, in reality, received with very general 
 approbation. 
 
 In the assembly which met here, the 
 
 quick, active, animated, and clever spirit 
 
 which the inhabitants possess in a greater 
 
 degree than those of many other coun- 
 
 h 2 
 
100 GERMANY AND 
 
 tries, soon began to display itself along 
 with real talent, and, as far as could be 
 seen, a great deal of practical skill. In 
 this assembly, too, many important sub- 
 jects were brought into discussion ; and if 
 occasionally, as for instance in the affairs 
 relating to the church and the nobility, 
 they sometimes proceeded with a degree 
 of partiality, this may well be excused, 
 when we think of the mass of absurdity, 
 every where in motion, to which it was 
 opposed. 
 
 Here also, when affairs had been brought 
 to the critical point; when the important 
 and appropriate question respecting the 
 just participation of the Estates in the de- 
 crees of the Federal Diet came to be inves- 
 tigated ; when the excessive excrescences 
 of the civil list were, as justice demanded, 
 cut down in order to cover the deficit ; 
 when the miles perpetuus was again called 
 on to consent to a deduction (far too small, 
 no doubt,) from his allowance ; then the 
 court began to view the audacious work 
 with alarm, and surprised at the increasing 
 seriousness of the undertaking on which it 
 had so lightly entered, and little prepared 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 101 
 
 to satisfy the just claims of a time agitated 
 even to its innermost parts, it determined, 
 by an abrupt interference, to put a stop at 
 once to the proceedings. Here also the 
 Prince was unable to conquer his irritated 
 sensibility ; he prorogued the assembly, 
 with unbecoming haste, in the midst of 
 their proceedings respecting the budget ; 
 with the violation even of common de- 
 cency, the Estates were not dismissed, but 
 driven out : on their return to their homes, 
 they were placed under a regular quaran- 
 tine ; and the constitution, though in form 
 entire, was yet, on its very first trial, ma- 
 terially violated, as the Estates had been 
 prevented from exercising their just rights. 
 This furnished another proof of the degree 
 of worth of any constitution, which, without 
 historical foundation, without the security 
 of free institutions, and strong and well- 
 established corporations, rests merely on 
 the mutable will of a ruler, and can be 
 given by one cabinet-order, and taken 
 away by another. 
 
 The secret and venerable power of the 
 old rightful constitution in Wurtemberg, 
 had opposed a better resistance to similar 
 
 o 
 
 II o 
 
102 GERMANY AND 
 
 irruptions on the part of arbitrary caprice. 
 The King, enraged at the unexpected op- 
 position he met .with in carrying his well- 
 intended purposes into execution, had, 
 re-acting with Malchus, thrown himself 
 also into the arms of the school already 
 described; but the triumph of the moment 
 was here succeeded by a complete over- 
 throw. To punish this unworthy begin- 
 ning, the Nemesis did not recur to dagger 
 or poison : a slight error in calculation* 
 which concealed itself under figures lil^e a 
 serpent under flowers, was sufficient to 
 prepare a disgraceful end for this grand 
 undertaking. Hence, though after the dis- 
 solution of the States, many an impure cry 
 was to be heard in that country along with 
 the ebullitions of patriotism ; although all 
 the arts of seduction of the times were 
 then resorted to, and every endeavour 
 was made to confound and perplex the 
 people ; the cause of plain and unvarnished 
 right and jtf&tiGe was at length victo- 
 rious. The King, with meritorious self- 
 denial, and a confidence worthy of all 
 praise, summoned a new constituent as- 
 sembly ; and Wurtemberg, as a reward for 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 103 
 
 its adherence to its ancient rights, and for 
 not allowing itself to be deceived into a 
 confidence in light-minded theories, now 
 enjoys the distinction of which no other 
 German people can boast ; that by an ami- 
 cable arrangement with the government 
 itself, it is preparing its constitution in a 
 constitutional manner, and securing it on 
 a truly immovable foundation. 
 
 If, in Rhenish-Hesse, the harmoniously- 
 concurring and placable way of thinking, 
 though yielding nothing to the rights of the 
 people, afforded the first tranquillizing and 
 grateful phenomenon witnessed for years ; 
 on the other hand, the smothered agitation 
 which has prevailed in that country for 
 some time past, cannot fail again to wound 
 it the more deeply. A truly benevolent, 
 well-disposed Prince, whose mind is insus- 
 ceptible of any evil purpose, but who, per- 
 plexed by the times which h6 can with 
 difficulty comprehend, allows himself to be 
 hurried on to many a mistake that he fre- 
 quently endeavours, with an uncommon 
 degree of good nature, to make good in an 
 affecting manner ; add to this, an extra- 
 vagant expenditure on many favourite ob- 
 h 4 
 
104 
 
 GERMANY AND 
 
 jects, though it is less, perhaps, for his own 
 sake, than for the sake of those who are 
 benefited by them, that he is unwilling to 
 determine on retrenchment ; a ministry 
 divided among themselves, who, without 
 compass, and without knowledge of the 
 stars, sail with every wind that blows, 
 without knowing whither they are directing 
 their course ; an active people, oppressed 
 in a number of ways, acquainted with their 
 rights, and pursuing them with zeal ; a me- 
 ritorious perseverance, and a praiseworthy 
 participation in public affairs, not to be 
 turned aside by any opposition or resist- 
 ance from the prosecution of their purpose 
 of enforcing their rights, claims, and de- 
 mands : — such are the elements of this 
 dispute, which now indeed seems alarming, 
 but which, with so much benevolence on 
 the one part, and so much firmness on the 
 other, cannot fail to have a favourable ter- 
 mination. 
 
 The contrast between the North and 
 South of Germany, which prevails in ge- 
 neral, has, however, its exceptions. The 
 newly reformed constitutions of the Tyrol 
 and Gallicia, as well as that of the small 
 
 14 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 105 
 
 territory of Vaduz, which Germany viewed 
 with delight for a time, have transplanted 
 the lame and timid character of the northern 
 conformations into the South; while in the 
 North, again, a prudent, active, but very 
 self-willed Princess *, opposes her imperious 
 and ambiguous liberality to the old rights 
 of her subjects, in as tyrannical a manner 
 as has ever been witnessed in any of the 
 States of the Rhenish confederacy. 
 
 While, in the one part of Germany, the 
 political reformation has, by degrees, forti- 
 fied itself at a stage which may be com- 
 pared with that at which the ecclesiastical 
 reformation of the episcopal church of 
 England stopped, the dissenting provinces 
 of the Rhine may, on the other hand, be 
 said to have reached a sort of political Cal- 
 vinism, of the description of that of which 
 Switzerland before set an example, and which 
 the Swabian and Rhenish towns fruitlessly 
 endeavoured to obtain, but which the Dutch 
 Provinces afterwards, and Relgium at last, 
 were more successful in realising. In the 
 
 The Princess of Lippe-Detmokl. Tram. 
 
106 GERMANY AND 
 
 blunt, austere, unimaginative spirit, pecu- 
 liar to the political school . so universally 
 established in that quarter,- tbe deputies* of 
 the Circle of the Rhine voted in the general 
 assembly of the Estates of Bavaria. How- 
 ever much, in general affairs, they might 
 frequently be carried, away by fixed ideas 
 and preconceived opinions, they always 
 prqved themselves strenuous and praise- 
 worthy representatives in all that related to 
 ^h,e practical interests of their province. The 
 sanie spirit has openly manifested itself in 
 mo$£ §f tj-ie -pubJic votes which have been 
 gl$£nJn Cis?l^£na*n r Hesjse.* In the smaller 
 jjjUstifcjta.op the RJiine, a violent opposition 
 .to-the distant governments has been formed ; 
 and, in the Prussian territory, where most 
 of the Rhinelanders are united together in 
 one mass, it could not fail to display itself 
 in the most decided manner. 
 
 When these tracts of country were united 
 to Prussia, it was as if the extreme points 
 of permany had been violently bent to- 
 ward^ each other in all directions. A diplo- 
 
 * That part of the Grand Duchy of Hesse on the left 
 bank of the Rhine- , w Trans. 
 
THE INVOLUTION. 107 
 
 matic blessing was indeed pronounced on 
 the union, but Heaven, up to this very hour, 
 has refused to confirm that blessing. On 
 the one hand, we see a State held toge- 
 ther solely by the idea of the King, who, 
 by cabinet orders and ministerial edicts, 
 without a constitution limited and regulated 
 by law, wields the sceptre of a mild despot- 
 ism ; office-bearers who carry on their oper^ 
 ations in secret agreeably to indefinite 
 instructions, and who proceed with the 
 most tedious formalities, and an adminis- 
 tration of justice equally circumspect ' and- 
 secret, ancl observant of .rules and prece- 
 dents; a military spirit, which, though some- 
 what mitigated, is yet of the most rigid arid 
 austere character, pervading every thiag, 
 and disposed, as it were, to deprim life of 
 every thing like volition or consciousness, 
 and to hold it tightly pressed down under 
 the forms of a relentless subordination. 
 On the other hand, we see a people with- 
 out any native princes, a country without 
 courts, or capitals, a nobility almost wholly 
 extinct, an impoverished clergy ; a third 
 Estate, till lately not affluent, but raised 
 to prosperous circumstances by the saie of 
 
108 GERMANY AND 
 
 public property, yet a stranger to luxury, 
 but feeling its power, and even inclined 
 to arrogance ; obedient, but not submis- 
 sive, subject to the law, but easily irritated 
 by every act of an arbitrary nature, though 
 originating in the best intentions ; in all 
 things accustomed to what is practical, and 
 therefore inimical to whatever is irregular 
 or confused ; accustomed to a rapid mode 
 of carrying on business, and fond of pub- 
 licity ; by no means averse to arms, but 
 abominating the stiffness, rigidity, and 
 overbearingness which usually accompany 
 the military spirit. 
 
 Contrarieties of so decided a nature, 
 when first brought into contact, could 
 hardly fail to produce a severe shock ; and 
 it was impossible that the conflict to which 
 it gave rise, should not turn out to the 
 disadvantage of the new government, as it 
 appropriated to itself whatever there was 
 to do, and assigned the natives a passive part. 
 From the time, therefore, that the govern- 
 ment first forfeited their confidence by its 
 attempt at organisation, they betook them- 
 selves to observation, and succeeded only 
 too soon in discovering all its weaknesses. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 109 
 
 The present state of things having been 
 unanimously rejected as completely inse- 
 cure, their whole attention was immediately 
 directed to the progress of the government 
 in the business of the constitution. The 
 appointment of the council of state was 
 viewed with satisfaction as the first intro- 
 ductory step to this business, though after 
 its appointment it turned out nothing more 
 than an administrative board. In like man- 
 ner the appointment of a committee for 
 framing the constitution was thankfully re- 
 ceived, as was the more recent abolition of 
 the secret police, and also the institution 
 of the immediate justice-commission at a 
 former period. When, on the motion of 
 the chancellor, three members of the com- 
 mittee of justice proceeded through the 
 different provinces for the purpose of ob- 
 taining a knowledge of the existing and 
 former laws and institutions of those pro- 
 vinces, this measure, though too long- 
 delayed, was also considered in the light of 
 an advancement. But when these commis- 
 sioners returned, and delivered in a report 
 of the various laws and institutions of the 
 country, and no second sitting of the com- 
 
110 &ETIMANY ANB 
 
 mittee was seen to follow, this tardiness in 
 the movements of government- began to 
 excite an apprehension that it was on the 
 point of adopting a retrograde course. 
 
 In the mean time the chancellor visited 
 the Rhenish provinces, and his appearance 
 gave rise to fresh hopes. He received the 
 well known address ; and the discussions 
 which took place on that occasion, as they 
 were public, could not fail to excite a belief 
 that the re-action had at least reached its 
 extreme point, and that all the disputes, if 
 a spirit of mutual good-will and conciliation 
 were only displayed, and an allowance made 
 for former misunderstandings, would soon 
 be happily settled. But when the King did 
 not redeem the promise which his manda- 
 tory was fully empowered by him to make; 
 when the inhabitants saw that an act in 
 every respect legal, and executed with all 
 due respect and reverence, subjected them 
 to an ungracious reprimand, and that they 
 were reproached with doubting the fulfil- 
 ment of the royal promise, though they had 
 expressly said they did not entertain the 
 smallest doubt ; when they saw the King 
 express displeasure at the conduct of the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. Ill 
 
 local administrations, because they allowed 
 what they could not with any show of 
 justice have prevented; and when those 
 only were praised, who by violent proceed- 
 ings had stifled the expression of the public 
 voice ; the people were silent, as they did 
 not even then forget their respect for ma- 
 jesty, when they saw it entangled in error ; 
 but a rent had taken place, and the old 
 wounds which the brilliant semi-official 
 and even indecorously witty answer after- 
 wards returned, was unable to heal, and 
 still less the prolix familiarity of another 
 publication following immediately in its 
 train, and written with the view of admi- 
 nistering consolation, exhortation, and dis- 
 suasion, now gaped more widely than ever. 
 If the Rhinelanders, on their part, too 
 loudly censured the conduct of some mem- 
 bers of the nobility on this occasion, they 
 thereby proved, that if in the agitations of 
 the period through which they had T passed, 
 their sense of independence had been very 
 much sharpened, they had, at the same time, 
 lost the feeling of natural equity. This was 
 proved in the clamour, very unreasonable for 
 the most part, which was raised against the 
 
112 GERMANY AND 
 
 step taken by the nobility of the Netherlands 
 with the best intentions, and from the purest 
 motives, as well as against the paper, which, 
 on that occasion, they delivered into the 
 hands of the chancellor. As the equitable 
 nature of the sentiments which were display- 
 ed by the nobility in that paper could not be 
 disputed, suspicion attached itself to a pre- 
 tended mysticism in the style, which, it was 
 said, concealed some secret malice ; and 
 having rejected with republican pride the 
 co-operation of a body which never can 
 again be with us dangerous to the general 
 freedom, they had, at the same time, re- 
 nouncing in their excessive eagerness the 
 old rights on which the claims both of the 
 nobles and third Estate were founded, sur- 
 rendered themselves at discretion ; and as 
 they had not acted agreeably to equity, they 
 thus renounced all claim to similar equity 
 on the part of the more powerful aristocracy 
 elsewhere. 
 
 From that moment, however, the belief 
 in a retrogression in the principles of the 
 government became rooted in the opinion 
 of the public, and every subsequent occur- 
 rence has merely served to afford nourish- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 113 
 
 ment to this belief. The foundation of the 
 University of Bonn, and the very promising 
 termination of the labours of the Imme- 
 diate-justice-commission, were gratefully 
 received from the government ; but the 
 impressions produced by the financial oper- 
 ations which followed, could not fail to ex- 
 tinguish, in a short time, this favourable 
 disposition. When the taxes, which were 
 abolished by the provisional government, 
 on account of their odious nature, were 
 successively re-introduced ; when the cus- 
 tom-duties, demanded perhaps as a protec- 
 tion against foreign countries, interrupted 
 all commerce with the interior, and op- 
 pressed and impeded the places on the 
 frontiers, in a variety of ways ; when a duty 
 imposed on brandy, amounting to three- 
 fourths of the price of the commodity, by 
 putting a stop to its manufacture, ruined the 
 agriculturists ; when a duty on must, on 
 an average five times the amount of the 
 land-tax, was demanded from the impover- 
 ished vine-husbandman, which reduced him 
 to the necessity of threatening to grub up 
 the vines if it was persisted in ; when of all 
 the liberality of former years, nothing now 
 
114 GERMANY AND 
 
 remained but a military law, strained beyond 
 all proportion or measure, by which, under 
 the pretext of elevated ideas, the whole po- 
 pulation, without exception, were reduced to 
 a liability to serve in the army ; — then tha 
 opposition necessarily diffused itself through 
 the whole mass of the people; and when 
 they could not, by supplicatory means, ob- 
 tain the good they wished, they endeavour- 
 ed, at least by protesting, to avert from 
 themselves the evil which they appre- 
 hended. And when the local administra- 
 tions, after having officially proved that the 
 existing taxes of the province actually 
 amounted to the four rix-dollars demanded 
 for each soul, felt themselves under the 
 necessity of declaring the introduction of 
 new taxes absolutely impossible; and when 
 the minister had reproved the town-council 
 of Coblentz for the narrowness of their 
 views in political economy, disclosed by 
 them in their protest, and consoled them 
 with the prospect of a speedy imposition of 
 still higher duties ; then indeed the rigid 
 consistency of a system, which it was im- 
 possible to disconcert, to whatever absurd 
 length it was pushed, certainly gave rise to 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 115 
 
 no ordinary degree of astonishment; but 
 the people felt, at the same time, that it 
 was high time a constitution should set 
 some limits to this stoical inflexibility. 
 
 In addition to these political relations, 
 the whole of Catholic Germany was agita- 
 ted by other considerations of a still higher 
 nature. The influence of these consider- 
 ations was felt on the Rhine, but most of 
 all in Westphalia. The condition of the 
 Church, and the disgraceful thraldom in 
 which it w r as held, gave rise to them. The 
 arrogance which had long existed in Protest- 
 ant Germany, after the tri-centenary cele- 
 bration of the Reformation, reached the 
 most insupportable height, and the excess 
 displayed on the one side naturally gave 
 rise, on this occasion, as it always has done, 
 to an equally strong re-action on the other. 
 It was not that just, pious, and modest 
 Protestantism, which takes its stand in all 
 humility before the gates of the mysterious 
 and impenetrable kingdom wherein the 
 things that cannot be known are contained, 
 and which, though it restricts its belief to 
 the written word, does not, on that account, 
 trample with contemptuous scorn on the 
 
 i 2 
 
116 GERMANY AND 
 
 common belief of all ages and times in* 
 volved in Catholicism, as something beyond 
 measure absurd and objectionable ; — it 
 was not in a belief of this description, be- 
 tween which, and the common belief of 
 Catholicism, the coincidence is always the 
 greater, the more room has been allowed for 
 pure and disinterested conviction, and the 
 further the free enquirer has penetrated into 
 the depth of things, that this intolerance had 
 its origin; for, on carefully tracing the course 
 of each particular part, it will at last be found 
 to have an intimate connection with the 
 whole ; and when the dross is removed 
 from what has been drawn up from the 
 depth on both sides* the same silver ore 
 meets our view, so that in this respect Pro-; 
 testantism and Catholicism may be consi- 
 dered, with respect to each other, as in the 
 relation which the integral bears to the dif- 
 ferential calculus. 
 
 But here* also, it is that spirit of self-con- 
 ceit, which, unable to dissever even the ex- 
 ternal ties of gravity, presumes, notwith- 
 standing, to tear itself loose internally from 
 all that is historical ; which, not satisfied with 
 examination and enquiry into the universal 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 117 
 
 laws by which things are connected toge- 
 ther, attaches itself, with an insolent refrac- 
 toriness, to what is perishable, fleeting, and 
 unreal ; and, from a mode of viewing ob- 
 jects superficial in the extreme, deems its 
 imaginations, its vanities, and passions, to 
 be great and important laws of nature, and 
 takes its seat by cross-roads to communicate 
 instruction to history, which, borne along in 
 her rapid career by her celestial coursers, 
 perceives not the mote that plays in her 
 beams. From this spirit proceeded the 
 clamour which was raised in Protestant 
 Germany, and which resounded over the 
 Rhine, that Catholicism in itself was dead, and 
 its burial had merely been neglected; that its 
 dogmas were untenable, and even altoge- 
 ther irrational ; that the infallibility of the 
 Church was the true slavery of the mind ; 
 and that its hierarchy was the work of an 
 odious priestcraft, and an insupportable 
 tyranny. In its zeal and brotherly love, it 
 then compassionately offered to accompany 
 the corpse to the grave, and to do the last 
 honours to the departed ; and having burst 
 asunder the degrading chains by which the 
 votaries of Catholicism were weighed down, 
 
 i 3 
 
118 GERMANY AND 
 
 it proposed that they should then take the 
 field together, to effect the downfall of 
 tyrants. 
 
 On the same grounds as those that for- 
 merly united together the princes against 
 the Imperial power, which had long been 
 a mere shadow, a similar union was 
 preached against the Pope, the great tyrant 
 of Christendom, whose spiritual power is 
 now reduced to the same low ebb. When 
 the Catholics held their tongues, and mere- 
 ly shrugged their shoulders, at sight of this 
 commencement, the public attention was 
 then directed to the Jesuits in Switzerland, 
 where a dreadful phantom was conjured up. 
 The zealots of Protestantism collected toge- 
 ther, in the Opposition Journal, and others 
 of a similar character, all the impurity of 
 ancient times, all the bad and wicked acts of 
 which the Popes had ever been guilty, into 
 one heap, and, like the Berlin watchmen of 
 Zion, in former days, they scented out se- 
 cret intrigues in every direction, and calum- 
 niated and abused most honourable men 
 who refused to abandon their belief, and 
 their conviction. That that admirable de- 
 scription of liberality, which would concede 
 every thing to power, if power will only 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 119 
 
 assume the forms to which it is attached, and 
 second its private views, might here also be 
 displayed in all its perfection, the prin- 
 ciple adopted in Protestant churches, 
 namely, that the prince is the first bishop 
 of his country, was now, we were told, to be 
 extended also to the Catholics who were sub- 
 ject to Protestant governments. Inthisman- 
 ner the prince, already commander in chief, 
 supreme judge, and police director, propri- 
 etor of the land which the cultivators hold 
 from him by lease, was also, as Pontifex 
 maximum to sit in judgment on men's con- 
 sciences, in order that, like Henry the 
 Eighth, by act of Parliament the defender 
 and supreme head of the Church of Eng- 
 land, but, in reality, its tyrant, oppressor, 
 and plunderer, he might preside over con- 
 vocations, pass bills of six articles, and pub- 
 lish Institutions and Eruditions of Christian 
 Men*; and that, after his example, should 
 
 * Henry the Eighth, without consulting the Convo- 
 cation, published a manual of faith, called the Institution 
 of a Christian Man, and, soon afterwards, another, called 
 the Erudition of a Christian Man, differing from the 
 former, to both of which he in turn required the belief of 
 the nation. Trans. 
 
 i 4 
 
120 
 
 GERMANY AND 
 
 fanaticism again raise its head, he might 
 burn those who adhere to the Pope, and 
 break on the wheel those who abjure him. 
 Hence the clamour against the Bavarian 
 Concordat, the most objectionable parts of 
 which are the concessions therein made to 
 the State ; and hence the tender regard for 
 Wessenberg, who may be a well-meaning 
 man, but who has acted unjustly in taking 
 refuge behind temporal power, in order to 
 succeed in his impure purpose, and realize 
 his ill-founded claims against the Curia 
 of Rome ; and thus, under the pretext of 
 defending the liberty of the Church, actu- 
 ally betraying it to the sovereign. * 
 
 The suspicion which these ill-dissembled 
 plans excited in men's minds, was consid- 
 erably strengthened when a concordat-com- 
 mission from the Protestant princes, filled 
 for the most part with Protestants, opened 
 its sittings, and the preliminary discourse 
 
 * The conduct of Wessenberg is exhibited in a very 
 different light, in a volume containing an account of his 
 dispute with the Pope, published by Ackermann, in 1 8 1 9, 
 under the title of " Reformation in the Catholic Church 
 of Germany." Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 121 
 
 of the minister, Von Wangenheim, held out 
 hopes that the internal regulation of the 
 Catholic church, and its future relations 
 with the Pope, would be settled in that 
 synod; when a journal blabbed out the pro- 
 positions intended to serve as the ground- 
 work of the proceedings, which began with 
 stripping the Pope of all the functions of 
 his primacy, and reducing him to the con- 
 dition of a fisherman abandoned by his first 
 predecessor the Apostle, in order to follow 
 the Lord ; and when at length they learned 
 that the decree for the abolition of celibacy 
 in a neighbouring country, neatly copied 
 out and ready for signatures, had found its 
 way into the minutes, and would have been 
 carried into execution, but for one of the 
 courts concerned, which dissuaded this 
 measure merely on account of the burden 
 of the widows' pensions: — all this could 
 not fail to have the most unfavourable in- 
 fluence on public opinion, though the re- 
 sult of the labours of this commission tran- 
 quillised those at least to whom they were 
 known; for the extension of the right of 
 election to the inferior clergy in deaneries, 
 as well as the establishment of the princi- 
 
122 GERMANY AND 
 
 pie that bishops should only be tried by their 
 peers, weremeasures in every respect deserv- 
 ing of the most unqualified approbation. 
 Those however who were at all acquainted 
 with Catholic affairs, could not fail to be firm- 
 ly persuaded that the Curia of Rome would 
 never renounce its right to send a delegate 
 to represent the public ministry in such tri- 
 bunals, nor tolerate the schism which the 
 petty jealousy of temporal sovereignty had 
 introduced into the hierarchy by the aboli- 
 tion of archbishops ; and that it would now 
 be less than ever disposed to forget itself so 
 far as to concede to Protestant princes the 
 right of naming Catholic bishops. 
 
 Prussia, containing within its bounds 
 more than four millions of Catholics, had 
 not acceded to the union ; and from this re- 
 fusal an inference was drawn that it was de- 
 termined not to allow itself to be surpassed 
 in point of liberality on this occasion. The 
 King, on taking possession of his new terri- 
 tories, had made the most distinct pro- 
 mises ; the chancellor had repeated them 
 in the audience to which an allusion has 
 already been made ; and the concession of 
 the right of election, demanded by the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 1 23 
 
 chapter of Munster, had been viewed as a 
 pledge for the fulfilment. But the line of 
 conduct now adopted, was an exact repeti- 
 tion of what took place respecting the con- 
 stitution ; and the church, to the scandal of 
 all men, was suffered to remain in a more 
 miserable state than it ever knew under the 
 French dominion, and told to subsist, as 
 well as it could, on the pitiful means as- 
 signed for its support. The Holy Alliance, 
 written out on parchment, was carefully 
 preserved in the archives ; edifying dis- 
 courses on piety and Christian virtue had 
 partly driven out the old style of diplo- 
 matic formality : but the Christian rule, to 
 give every one his own, was, in substance, 
 though not in appearance, as much violated 
 as ever. The last domains, the miserable 
 remains of the grand robbery, and, at the 
 same time, the only existing security for the 
 debt of the country, and the only source 
 from which the church could possibly be 
 endowed, was exposed to sale, in defiance 
 of every protestation ; the whole of the mi- 
 nistry of state, unmindful of the royal debt, 
 subscribed the contract of sale ; as if the 
 subscription of numbers could give a more 
 
124 GERMANY AND 
 
 legal character to the act; and as if what in 
 itself is unchristian could become Christian 
 by the participation of several persons in 
 the same sin. The brood of miserable so- 
 phists which this age has hatched, and who 
 are always ready, for a paltry fee, to prosti- 
 tute their talents to every power that will 
 employ them, now taught, that the State 
 could never consider itself in peace and se- 
 curity so long as the servants of the Church 
 should not, like other officers, be fed from 
 its bounty. Moreover it was said, domains 
 only serve to stimulate the cupidity of the 
 enemy, and it would be better, therefore, at 
 once to free the country from so dangerous 
 a possession ; upon the very same principle, 
 that the documents and manuscripts belong- 
 ing to the province, recently brought back 
 from Paris, were, under the pretence of in- 
 security, conveyed to the Prussian capital. 
 
 When, still more recently, the spiritual 
 foundations were suppressed, without the 
 concurrence of the parties interested ; 
 when the Calvinist church of the country 
 could, with difficulty, defend its liberties 
 against the ministry, and the various 
 governments, in the question respecting 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 125 
 
 mixed marriages, which ought only to be 
 arranged with the Pope, attempted to com- 
 pel by force the Catholic clergy to accede to 
 their views ; when one of these govern- 
 ments, in the heat of dispute, even pro- 
 ceeded so far as to place the priests under 
 the superintendence of the burgomasters, 
 and the clergy, who had done nothing more 
 than their duty, were accused, in a cabinet 
 order, of intolerance ; when various other 
 doings, accusations, and disappointments, 
 became generally known in their details ; — 
 then public opinion was not long in deter- 
 mining as to the part which was to be 
 taken, and unanimously declared for the 
 clergy, who, covered by this double shield, 
 remained secure and immovable. The go- 
 vernment now betook itself to the general 
 negativeness of the age, by way of retreat ; 
 but suspicion was wakened, and that dispo- 
 sition of the Catholics inclining them to the 
 historical, which alone could relax the rigid 
 political feeling, already compared by us to 
 that of theCalvinist confession, now irritated 
 in its turn, added greatly to the former fer- 
 mentation. 
 
 This fermentation has been most loudly 
 
126 GERMANY AND 
 
 displayed in writing. After Prussia had 
 subjected the public journals to a timid, 
 anxious, and petty censorship, which could 
 not even tolerate the Westphalische Anzei- 
 ger 9 another asylum was sought for the free 
 expression of opinion. Such an asylum 
 was found in the constitution of Weimar, 
 one of the fundamental laws of which was, 
 the abolition of all censorship. This con- 
 stitution, which, from the limited nature of 
 the relations of the state of Weimar, has ne- 
 ver, up to this hour, produced any import- 
 ant results, with the exception perhaps of 
 the disbanding of regular soldiers, as they 
 were found incompatible with the charges 
 of an expensive court in so small a territory, 
 had, from the freedom of discussion which 
 it promised, acquired an importance in the 
 eyes of all Germany. From thenceforward 
 began the petty warfare of the age, strug- 
 gling for emancipation with that state- 
 police which would restrain it with all its 
 power and impotence in a condition of the 
 most degrading thraldom. Whilst the Isis *, 
 
 * Physiological, scientific, metaphysical, and political 
 journals, published at Weimar. Trans. * 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 127 
 
 shaking the sistrum * of elementary nature, 
 explained the hieroglyphics of animal life, 
 the vulture-headed Osiris f waved with a 
 powerful hand his scourge over every 
 abuse, and Anubis f , the Latrator, stood 
 sentinel at the gates of the kingdom of 
 mind, watching lest power should attack it 
 by surprise ; whilst the Nemesis f anxiously 
 endeavoured to keep within the bounds of 
 moderation and rule, and though constantly 
 declining in energy, sowed much good and 
 valuable seed, especially in the higher cir- 
 cles ; whilst the Patriot f, with intelligence, 
 decision, and dexterity, defended opinions, 
 very often characterised by their partial- 
 ity;— in answer to their loud call, other 
 voices resounded from the mountains of 
 Switzerland, through Wurtemberg, and to- 
 wards the Danube, where the Allgemeine 
 Zeitung J, to the no small entertainment of 
 
 * Sistrum, a brazen instrument, a species of rattle 
 used in the rites of Isis. Trans. 
 
 f See the note on the preceding page. 
 
 X A journal well known in this country, published at 
 Augsburg, formerly a free Imperial city, now part of 
 Bavaria. Trans. 
 
128 GERMANY AND 
 
 the public, opened aFair of Plundersweiler*, 
 in which buyers and sellers, mountebanks 
 and gypsies, honest men and rogues of all 
 descriptions, passed and repassed each other, 
 always, however, under the vigilant super- 
 intendence of the local magistrate f; and 
 then illuming the Upper Rhine with co- 
 ruscations of intellect, and ascending the 
 Maine, burst forth with a loud report, heard 
 throughout all the south of Germany ; while 
 not a tone nor a sound was heard in the 
 
 * A dramatic satire, by Goethe, in which French 
 tragedy is very roughly handled. Trans. 
 
 f The Allgemeine Zeitung was open to communica- 
 tions from all parties in all countries. The same num- 
 ber would frequently contain an article from an agent of 
 the French ministry, attacking the Liberals and Ultras ; 
 an article from the Liberals attacking Ultras and Mi- 
 nisters, and an article from another correspondent abus- 
 ing all three ; articles in praise of and against constitu- 
 tions, and recommending and condemning arbitrary mea- 
 sures. The proprietor, M. Cotta, of Stutgard, in Wur- 
 temberg, is one of the greatest booksellers in Europe, 
 and distinguished himself, in the Estates of Wurtem- 
 berg, by his speeches in favour of the government. As 
 he is a privy counsellor of Prussia, the conduct of Prus- 
 sia was always touched with a tender hand. Such was 
 the Allgemeine Zeitung. What it is at present it is 
 hardly possible to say. Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 129 
 
 mute north, except that in the tree town of 
 Bremen*, at one time only wavering and ti- 
 mid, and in Hamburgh, where the Observer f 
 strove, with number and measure, to com- 
 prehend the measureless age, an effort was 
 made to save, in some degree, its honour. 
 These voices formed altogether a chorus, 
 not always indeed of the most harmonious 
 description, nor the most observant of the 
 laws of prosody, but which, nevertheless, 
 called to the recollection of the buskined 
 heroes, who with tragic step stalked over 
 the stage, many a wholesome practical rule 
 of life, many a valuable truth which had 
 escaped them, and many a useful advice 
 which they had despised. 
 
 But this chorus, long expelled from the 
 modern stage, which has adopted, instead 
 of it, confidants and gentlemen in waiting, 
 having thrust itself forward so uncalled for, 
 and set at defiance the three unities, with- 
 out the least consideration for the refine- 
 ments of high life, was little relished at 
 court, and endured only for a time with 
 
 * The Bremen Journal. Trans. 
 
 f The German Observer. Trans. 
 
 K 
 
130 GERMANY A1?D 
 
 great impatience. The unrelenting egotism 
 which prevails in German courts soon con- 
 certed measures for the removal of this 
 odious innovation. Diplomatic campaigns 
 were commenced against the journalists, in 
 which, as in grand hunting-matches, the 
 noble animal is provoked by dogs, teased 
 with hallooings, and chased by pursuing 
 hunters, till at last lie falls down breathless, 
 or sees himself under the necessity of 
 plunging into water or bogs. The German 
 forms of judicial proceedings were precisely 
 such a bog to the persecuted writers in the 
 State, in which a freedom from censorship 
 had lately been established ; the most ar- 
 dent of these writers, after remaining a very 
 short time in this mud-bath, found the 
 cooling quite sufficient to deter them from 
 exerting themselves any longer with an 
 over-abundant zeal in the cause of their 
 country ; and the German assessorial-jury, 
 (schoffen-jmy,) in beautiful figures of rhe- 
 toric, pursued with fire and lightning those 
 who thereby escaped a watery death. That 
 court liberality might here also become the 
 derision of the world, the inconvenient te- 
 diousness of all constitutional forms was 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 131 
 
 soon laid aside, and after allowing Oken to 
 choose between a rope for himself, or the 
 continuance of his Isis, they without cere- 
 mony soon dismissed both him and his 
 journal. 
 
 Others, foreseeing this fate, and having 
 too much self-regard to expose themselves 
 in such a manner to the rage of the agitated 
 elements, had prudently adopted a safer 
 course, and entered into an amicable ar- 
 rangement with power for mutual satisfac- 
 tion. To speak of liberty and liberal senti- 
 ments in general terms, while in practice 
 they glossed over and justified every act of 
 despotic violence, and every detestable in- 
 stitution, seemed to them the only course 
 compatible with an age in which all regard 
 for justice was laid aside. It was allowable 
 to exhibit on the parade all the heroes of Plu- 
 tarch, provided every man were held up as 
 insane who wished, in any manner, to imitate 
 them. To repeat abuse against the nobility; 
 to speak on ecclesiastical affairs in the tone of 
 bold illumination ; to treat the Jesuits with in- 
 sult; to rail against the middle ages ; to in- 
 veigh as much against feudal oppression, as 
 the heart could desire; to arraign the Ul- 
 
 k 2 
 
132 GERMANY AND 
 
 tras in France, and expatiate on their folly ; 
 to exhibit mysticism in all its nakedness ; 
 to hold forth against bad passions, and the 
 prejudices which every where obstruct the 
 progress of improvement ; to enlarge, with 
 energy and freedom, on the blunders of the 
 King of Spain; and to rally, from time to 
 time, the German John Bull ; —this is the 
 liberal arena on which they display their 
 skill and activity. On the other hand, they 
 are ready to cover with the cloak of Love 
 the most infamous acts of tyranny, of him 
 whose bread they eat ; concede to him, with 
 the most affectionate kindness, every ex- 
 ception from elevated principle, and to put 
 themselves forward on all occasions as his 
 champions. On these conditions, letters of 
 marque are then issued out against the 
 neighbouring governments, till they are 
 weak enough to come into their terms, when 
 a mandate is immediately issued that it 
 would be illiberal and injurious to the Ger- 
 man cause, to dwell longer on the faults hi- 
 therto stigmatised by them. Parasites of 
 princes, torturers of the truth, hypocrites 
 in politics, impudent sophists, whose opi- 
 nions are as much at the command of the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 138 
 
 court, as they wished the church to be ; — 
 these wretches are to be found in every 
 part of Germany. They know, and praise, 
 and lend a helping hand to each other, and as 
 false friends of the cause, they are more dan- 
 gerous than its open enemies, as they blind 
 and confuse the people with the show of li- 
 berality which they are perpetually making. 
 Opinion, therefore, irritated as much at 
 the falsification of the simple truth, in 
 which these personages indulge, as at its 
 entire suppression by others, has begun to 
 betray rather a disinclination for the press, 
 and a fondness for oral speech and tradi- 
 tion. From the animation which charac- 
 terises the present movements of society ; 
 from the rapid circulation of opinions, and 
 the prodigious intercourse which brings the 
 most distant objects in contact with each 
 other, public life may be said to have be- 
 come completely transparent ; and in this 
 medium minds approach so near to each 
 other, that they become like a conducting 
 chain, along which opinions, like lightning, 
 flash with rapidity from one extremity to 
 the other, in all directions. Hence nothing 
 that happens in any quarter remains hid 
 
 k 8 
 
134 GERMANY AND 
 
 from tradition ; for as all feel the ignominy 
 which attaches to their country, and every 
 man wishes to throw it on his neighbour ; 
 in like manner one individual always loudly 
 proclaims the honour of another, that the 
 same favour may be shown to himself in 
 return. The opinion which is formed re- 
 specting things and persons, is, therefore, 
 generally founded on facts ; and though at 
 first adopted, perhaps, on light grounds, 
 this error is soon corrected by diversity of 
 views. Mitigated or sharpened at pleasure, 
 it seldom remains unjust for any length of 
 time ; though an age, irritated beyond mea- 
 sure at the frequent deceptions which it has 
 experienced, may often feel too little love 
 for individuals, and too strong a disposition 
 to condemn them. 
 
 In this severe tribunal of the living all 
 the printed lies above alluded to pass for 
 nothing ; all the beautiful phrases are strip- 
 ped from off the truth which they conceal. 
 Those who sally forth in the dark, wrapped 
 up in the wide mantle of human vanity, are 
 marked with the names which have been 
 assigned them in this tribunal ; and facts 
 and events ? supposed to be shrouded in 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 135 
 
 concealment, are known to the whole 
 world. The parties concerned are alone 
 seldom aware of this, except their con- 
 science gives them an obscure intimation 
 of it, when they sometimes attempt an an- 
 swer without any previous challenge. The 
 more the press is fettered or poisoned, the 
 more this tribunal is severe and unrelent- 
 ing, and its decress are generally injurious 
 to those who practise this constraint or fal- 
 sification, and have now no opportunity of 
 defending themselves. Many events, which 
 appear inexplicable, can only be cleared up 
 and rendered intelligible by a knowledge of 
 this traditional opinion of the people. 
 
 During the various movements occa- 
 sioned by the events and incidents already 
 alluded to, the Liberals, as they are called, 
 who in the years of our liberation were only 
 agreed in general as to the necessity of the 
 introduction of a better and more worthy 
 condition of things in Germany, without 
 coming to any understanding as to the 
 way in which this was to be effected, di- 
 vided themselves into two leading parties. 
 The one, called the Historical, were of opi- 
 nion, that a better state of things formerly 
 
 k 4 
 
136 GERMANY AND 
 
 existed in Germany, when united under one 
 Protector, and divided again into members 
 and parts subordinate to these members, 
 provinces, estates, and flourishing corpora- 
 tions, it remained secure within itself, free, 
 energetic, and rich in its peculiar manners 
 and customs, and independent organisation, 
 externally honoured, esteemed, dreaded, 
 and commanding, and in a situation to re- 
 pel, with ease, every foreign force which 
 should attempt to attack it. They were 
 further of opinion, that confusion and dis- 
 ease first crept into this flourishing body, 
 from the head becoming stupid and besot- 
 ted, and the members wanton and arrogant ; 
 that from the continual increase of this pro- 
 portion, the disorder had perpetually gain- 
 ed ground, till at length, after the Reform- 
 ation, it broke out in that furious pa- 
 roxysm which introduced into the empire the 
 organic defect of a dissension, hitherto in- 
 curable ; a wound inflicted with a poisoned 
 sword, like that of Titurel, from which, 
 like him, without dying and without re- 
 covery, it continued to drag out a miser- 
 able existence for two or three centuries, 
 till hostile power at last overthrew the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 137 
 
 reeling and marrowless body, trod it under 
 foot, bound it to the triumphal car, drag- 
 ged up and down the dishonoured remains, 
 a melancholy spectacle for gods and men, 
 and scattered about the mutilated members, 
 as Medea did those of Absyrtes. 
 
 They were further of opinion, that as, 
 with respect to the people, the form alone 
 is perishable ; and as, after every decay, a 
 regeneration in another form must follow, 
 the new Germany ought necessarily to be 
 born again in the peculiarity of the old, in 
 its customs and ways of thinking, from the 
 elements still existing, and in the type 
 which still unconsciously pervades all their 
 efforts at developement ; in order that men 
 may see that the spirit of the fathers still 
 dwells with the children, and that they are 
 not a new people, the bastards of the neigh- 
 bouring nations, who have found their way 
 into the country, and built another temple 
 on the heights of Garizim. 
 
 They were further of opinion, that the 
 problem which these times were called on 
 to solve was, the removal of all the addi- 
 tions introduced by the corruptions of cen- 
 turies ; the abandonment of all that in the 
 
138 GERMANY AND 
 
 reprehensible departure from history and 
 the nature of things, depraved selfishness, 
 senseless vanity and despair, built, without 
 any foundation, in empty space, especially 
 in the last two centuries ; the renunciation 
 of the old blind self-love which, by a dread- 
 ful example, was taught that every national 
 calamity must inevitably fall on the heads 
 of individuals ; and then collecting toge- 
 ther again the detached threads which, 
 amidst all the confusion, are still discernible 
 in our manners, sentiments, and institu- 
 tions ; joining new threads, where the 
 changes effected in our relations render 
 such a proceeding advisable, and thus re- 
 uniting the separate elements, and holding 
 them together by these bonds in one entire 
 whole ; the introduction of new life into 
 that which is no longer possessed of life, 
 where possible, and the revival of the old 
 animal spirits ; the extrication of what is 
 truly good, which lies hid under the rub- 
 bish of our public life, thereby effecting the 
 restoration of a new Germanv from the cor- 
 ruption of the old. 
 
 The other party, by which the above was 
 immediately encountered, considered things 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 139 
 
 from another point of view. What, said 
 they, have we to do with old Germany? 
 What are these rags of old splendour to 
 us ? It may have been good enough in its 
 day, as it was founded on the circumstances 
 of the times in which it existed, but it is 
 now gone for ever. How ridiculous the 
 superstition which affects to idolize the 
 bones of old heroes and saints ! What do 
 these knights want with our times ? Their 
 spirit is no longer among us, their castles 
 lie broken on every mountain and hill ; the 
 old cathedrals are deserted, and another 
 faith has found its way into them. These 
 institutions and regulations may have been 
 suitable for their age; but the rubbish and 
 ruins of them, which still remain in society, 
 are only a burden to us ; and their parch- 
 ments lie mouldering in our archives. In 
 these remains we now see only predial sla- 
 very, violence, and superstition ; feudal op- 
 pression, and the figures of a few great 
 men, wandering about in the dark night of 
 the middle ages, as in the shades below, 
 whom no dead-offerings can conjure again 
 into life. Two tremendous events, which 
 also belong to history, the Reformation 
 
140 GMMANY AND 
 
 and the Revolution, have separated them 
 from us. Another people has since occu- 
 pied the seats of the old, new in manners, 
 sentiments, and ways of thinking, endowed 
 with other rights and other necessities. 
 Another world has since emerged from the 
 flood, in the place of the departed middle 
 ages. Forms become old ; what is muta- 
 ble comes and goes ; but a new life is per- 
 petually springing up with verdant fresh- 
 ness ; and as the ages continue to flow, and 
 the relations of men are in a state of con- 
 stant change, every succeeding generation 
 ought prudently to build in the manner 
 which best suits its own necessities. Every 
 present age must raise structures for itself, 
 as it alone can know what may be useful 
 and serviceable for it ; and the house will be 
 found most convenient if built agreeably to 
 a particular plan. As old Germany is dis- 
 solved, things have returned to the prime- 
 val condition that existed previous to the 
 constitution of the empire ; a state of things 
 with respect to which history can afford 
 little instruction. But if you will take his- 
 tory for your guide, then let the Revolu- 
 tion be your instructor. The course of 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 141 
 
 many lazy centuries has been filled in that 
 event in the period of a few years. The 
 history of the world has there passed before 
 your own eyes, andyet you have lived without 
 reading it. Your own heart and your own 
 senses might have enabled you to see and 
 comprehend it, while the history of the 
 middle ages appears before your eyes, like 
 a pale nebulous speck seen through a tele- 
 scope. 
 
 This contrariety, only in another pro- 
 vince, is the very same which exists be- 
 twixt Catholicism and Protestantism, and 
 therefore every man who in his modest 
 enquiries has penetrated into the depth of 
 history and of his own being, and has 
 withal retained the plain simplicity of na- 
 tural feeling, and a clear view, undisturbed 
 by preconceived opinions and passions, 
 easily recognises this contrariety in the in- 
 most recesses of the higher and nobler parts 
 of his own nature. If, for instance, it can- 
 not be denied that every independent peo- 
 ple, along with what is common to every 
 other, possesses something peculiar to it- 
 self, which makes its appearance in its his- 
 tory and in every part of its being ; and if, 
 
 12 
 
142 GERMANY AND 
 
 moreover, every individual of that people 
 possesses a character common to the whole, 
 and as by the external bond of the same 
 language he can communicate with all, his 
 feelings and modes of thinking are equally 
 connected by an internal bond of sympathy 
 with them : then it follows that whatever 
 each separate and purified peculiarity inde- 
 pendently generates must necessarily be in 
 harmony with that which history has pro- 
 duced in the whole community. This pe- 
 culiarity will not renounce its connection 
 with history, but will always act unconsci- 
 ously under its influence. 
 
 On the other hand, the historic party will 
 exclude neither the Reformation nor the Re- 
 volution from the history which they would 
 consult ; — because they are aware, that 
 history, as a whole, is perpetually renewed 
 in the history of each particular state ; and 
 that as the history of the Jews and that of 
 the Greeks is under other circumstances 
 that of the Germans, the English Re- 
 volution is, in like manner, that of the 
 French. Both these Revolutions have cast 
 up, as the most essential institution, a Com- 
 mons House, for which, even in the middle 
 
THE REVOLUTION, 143 
 
 ages, an effort was also made in Italy, and 
 at a more recent period in Germany, under 
 the first Swabian Emperors ; and it was 
 chiefly because such a Commons House 
 was not obtained, that the empire was worn 
 out and torn to pieces in the revolt of Swit- 
 zerland, the quarrels between the unions 
 of the towns, and the princes and nobles, 
 and afterwards in the war of the peasantry. 
 As all the religious confessions centre in 
 God, in like manner both these parties were 
 connected by the idea of country, and they 
 remained united so long as they retained 
 this idea; and the enthusiasm which it 
 excited in men's minds at the time of our 
 liberation, continued to prevail, though the 
 historical principle evidently preponder- 
 ated, because it seemed the most inimical 
 to the French. 
 
 But enthusiasm operates only by starts, 
 and for a few moments in history. During 
 the long intervening periods, the scene is 
 occupied by passions and interests that con- 
 tinue to widen more and more the breach 
 which, during the ebullition, appears slight 
 and of little importance, till it reaches an 
 extremity where every attempt to heal it 
 
144 GERMANY AND 
 
 becomes impossible. The historical prin- 
 ciple is a generality, which, in its wide ex- 
 tent, comprehends objects of the utmost 
 diversity. If the better way of thinking had 
 merely adhered to what was best in the re- 
 mains of former times, the different inte- 
 rests might have found their advantage in 
 this ; and if the former inclined more to 
 earlier and less corrupted times, the latter 
 were more inclined to the more recent 
 times, in which selfishness had yet a fresh 
 root. But in addition to what was really 
 valuable, every abuse, every prejudice, every 
 thing torpid and dead, was called his- 
 torical ; and the period antecedent to 1806, 
 in Prussia, found even its admirers, who 
 called themselves the friends of the 
 good old times. These parties were joined 
 again by two classes, who, in Germany, 
 easily find their way into every good cause, 
 and soon become masters of it, namely, the 
 visionaries and the pedants. The former, 
 in their dreams of the middle ages, peopled 
 them with the contents of the old books of 
 chivalry. The latter again clung to all that 
 was torpid and inanimate, would admit 
 nothing as documentary but the dead 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 145 
 
 letter; and the book of Haller*, which* 
 with much that is good and meritorious, 
 contains also much that is erroneous, inter- 
 preted according to the views of each class, 
 formed schools among both. 
 
 With this theoretical trifling, practical 
 interests of a more powerful and irritating 
 nature came into operation. Among the 
 institutions still in actual existence which 
 have reached us from the past ages, that of 
 nobility was the one which possessed the 
 most importance, and of which the influence 
 was most immediately felt in public life. 
 The nobles had, at the Congress, succeeded 
 in obtaining a separate article in favour of 
 themselves, declaring them the most pri- 
 vileged class in the state. As the territorial 
 princes, at one time on an equality in point 
 of rank with them, had now outgrown 
 them, and both at the Congress and the 
 Diet would concede nothing to them, nor 
 consent to the smallest sacrifice, but con- 
 trived to attend exclusively to their own 
 
 * A Swiss author, whose writings are held in as great 
 aversion by a large class in Germany, as the writings of 
 Bonald are bv the Liberals in France. Tram, 
 
146 GERMANY AN0 
 
 interests ; these nobles in their turn ex- 
 perienced no wish to show themselves more 
 magnanimous than those who were more 
 powerful than themselves. They insisted 
 therefore on what they in turn called their 
 ancient rights, and explained the above 
 article in the manner best calculated to 
 promote their own advantage. 
 
 But when the period of execution came, 
 and when their indemnification for the most 
 part could only take place at the expense 
 of the commons, the latter raised a violent 
 opposition, and the old times on which 
 these claims were founded became, on that 
 account, an object of suspicion. When the 
 long series of other privileges and demands, 
 from the highest to the lowest, in all their 
 degrees, connected themselves with the 
 claims of the nobles* and when so many 
 princes delayed the fulfilment of their pro- 
 mises, all this delay and hesitation was 
 ascribed to the nobility who possess their 
 ear. This, however, was not altogether 
 just, for if there is any room for complaint 
 in this respect, the courtiers alone ought to 
 bear the accusation. In consequence of 
 this constantly increasing irritation, the 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 147 
 
 past times could not fail to attract to them- 
 selves a great part of the aversion for which 
 the present times were responsible, and, 
 in the agitation that took possession of 
 men's minds, history appeared to them 
 only in the light of an armoury, wherein 
 every absurd pretension, every tyrannical 
 claim, and every brutal or more refined 
 despotism, may find the armour necessary 
 to its designs. 
 
 While Germany, from the complication 
 of its relations, wore itself down in this 
 manner, and prepared the way for a fresh 
 convulsion, and a repetition of its former 
 self-forgetfulness, France had speedily re- 
 erected the stage which fell to pieces with 
 the overthrow of Napoleon, and, instead of 
 the grand tragic pieces derived from the 
 times of Imperial Rome, grand civic-dramas, 
 Henriades with the necessary addition of 
 liberality of sentiment, and exhibited with 
 the best ensemble, came now into vogue. 
 There, in strophes and anti-strophes, ultras 
 and liberals carried on a powerful combat : 
 they divided themselves to the right and 
 left in bands and parties, which, when 
 necessary, advanced in a combined mass 
 
 l 2 
 
148 GERMANY AND 
 
 against the centre, and thus separating one 
 moment and uniting again the next, they 
 besieged ministers in the court citadel. 
 This drama, which was acted with spirit 
 and dexterity, began again to amuse the 
 Germans in the chagrin caused by their 
 own domestic affairs. They immediately 
 remarked, that the ultras were the very 
 same people of the middle ages, who, 
 descending from the north in their long 
 and stiff cues, preached the cane and the 
 cudgel, and predial slavery, the Prussian 
 system and secresy, and whatever else had 
 at home gladdened their ear with similar 
 sounds of delight. The liberals again 
 seemed to be pretty much like themselves, 
 to entertain the same wishes, to suffer the 
 same evils, and to combat for the same 
 cause. Easily appeased, and soon forget- 
 ting old grudges, in the good-natured way 
 peculiar to them, they soon began again to 
 acquire a relish for the light French wines, 
 sipping them at first with moderation, and 
 with a feeling of bashfulness, and merely 
 for the sake of forgetting their domestic 
 chagrin ; but gradually drinking them from 
 habit, and pushing the pleasure to intoxi- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 149 
 
 cation. When once heated, they began to 
 become clamorous, and to take part in the 
 conflict, first by their acclamations and 
 encouragement, and soon afterwards by 
 scuffles among themselves. Although the 
 emancipation of Germany is partly con- 
 nected with the condition of the liberals in 
 France, as its repose and security are with 
 that of the ultras, with their usual disinter- 
 estedness they did not hesitate a moment 
 to take part against the latter, and put up 
 the most fervent prayers for their complete 
 destruction and annihilation. 
 
 When the French, so contrary to their 
 expectations, found new shoots of friend- 
 ship germinating in the hearts of the 
 Germans who had returned from the cru- 
 sade, whom they believed to be still filled 
 with indignation on account of late insults, 
 the old waning hope began to revive within 
 them, and they determined not to suffer 
 these good dispositions to pass unprofited 
 by. They established in the Times, as well 
 as in German papers, peculiar tribunes for 
 the affairs of Germany ; in which the Fox 
 once more, though still rather vaguely, 
 preached to the Geese, testified to them 
 
 l 3 
 
150 GERMANY AND 
 
 their gratitude for their kindness, and sym- 
 pathy with their welfare, assured the libe- 
 rals of every assistance, and promised to 
 do his best again for them after his own 
 domestic affairs were in some measure 
 arranged. 
 
 The courts of the west of Germany, with 
 whose sovereignty the French liberality, 
 which had become reconciled to Napoleon, 
 was more compatible than the German 
 liberality, which insisted on the unity of 
 the country so much an object of abhor- 
 rence to them, in addition to the establish- 
 ment of a solid liberty, gave free admission, 
 under the French stamp, to that freedom of 
 discussion which was a contraband com- 
 modity at home, smoothed the way for the 
 foreign bride, and allowed her to be con- 
 ducted with pipes and cymbals throughout 
 the whole land. When the hills and valleys 
 of the Confederation of the Rhine rung 
 once more with the delightful notes of the 
 voice which they so well knew, it was heard 
 by the tribe who, when the tempest of the 
 Lord passed over the age, buried them- 
 selves in the alarm of an evil conscience in 
 holes and corners ; and they now crept 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 151 
 
 forth to bask once more in the sunshine, 
 and when they perceived the procession 
 they joyfully followed in its train. The 
 admirable genus of liberals, who pursue 
 liberality as a fashionable elegance, which 
 cannot fail to ensure them success with 
 high and low, great and small, and who 
 serve God as well as Belial, at once per- 
 ceived their opportunity, and snatched it 
 by the forelock. Others, who had carefully 
 preserved the old ideas imprinted on their 
 minds in their youth, through all the time 
 of Napoleon's dominion, and who were 
 thrown into some degree of perplexity on 
 the breaking in of the new time upon them, 
 soon resumed their confidence in the good 
 old faith which had so often been exposed 
 to severe trials, and their hopes began again 
 to revive. Moreover all sensible men, and 
 consequently the great mass of the people 
 in many parts of Germany, who had ob- 
 tained through the Revolution many really 
 useful and suitable institutions, were not 
 in the slightest degree inclined to exchange 
 them for fantastic images and hopes, or for 
 those other heterogeneous, antiquated, and 
 
 l 4 
 
152 GERMANY AND 
 
 paralysed institutions with which they were 
 threatened. 
 
 Hence it happened, that the second party 
 gained ground in the same proportion as 
 the former was silenced by the barbarous 
 stupidity that displayed itself more and 
 more every day. The progress of the 
 second party was favoured by the number 
 of practical men who, despairing of the 
 possibility of ever extracting any thing- 
 good from the incurable disorder of Ger- 
 many, — of ever gaining any thing beneficial 
 from that still stagnant bog, overgrown with 
 verdure, in which all the better part of 
 former times lies buried under mud and 
 putridity, now attached themselves to this 
 party. Paris is now, therefore, once more 
 on the point of becoming the capital of the 
 liberal, as it lately was of the servile, world. 
 As the courts of all countries formerly 
 studied in that school, it now promises in 
 like manner to become the school in which 
 liberals are to acquire the lessons of free- 
 dom; and as the eyes of the popular assem- 
 blies in Smithfield are turned in that direc- 
 tion, the institutions of Germany must also, 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 153 
 
 it seems, be modelled after Gallic manners, 
 peculiarities, and sentiments. 
 
 We, it seems, must also obtain similar 
 courts and chambers of peers, appearing 
 like a fortified camp in the midst of an 
 enemy's country. The courts of Germany, 
 who, casting their eyes in all directions, to 
 their despair, found themselves in a friend's 
 country, from the abundant seeds of hatred 
 sown by them, and their artificial system of 
 finance, have truly paved the way for such 
 a state of things. We therefore must, it 
 seems, content ourselves with the same 
 parliamentary comedy, and gain similar 
 Houses of Commons, which rest on no 
 other foundation than the coteries of a 
 capital and journals, and, in the midst of a 
 despotism, extending itself through every 
 element of the state, are the sole repre- 
 sentatives of freedom. Perpetually oscil- 
 lating between insurrection and subjugation, 
 they continue, without ending, to repeat 
 the same tedious farce, in which the oppo- 
 nents of ministers, who try to keep them- 
 selves in equilibrium by all the arts of rope- 
 dancing, endeavour to drive them from 
 their places, to fall at last themselves by 
 
154 GERMANY AND 
 
 the same arts which they practised against 
 others. 
 
 It is to be hoped, however, that the in- 
 stitutions of France will, in time, acquire a 
 greater degree of strength and stability. 
 
 In that country important elements of 
 public life have developed themselves, 
 which ought to be held by us in esteem 
 and honour, though belonging to a foreign 
 nation, as we are now reconciled to it by 
 peace. Above all there has arisen there a 
 school, in which prudent, dexterous, and 
 crafty statesmen are formed, who easily 
 overreach and dupe the pale-visaged and 
 timorous pupils of our sedentary and scrib- 
 bling school. But with all this, little has 
 yet been done for. the internal happiness of 
 the people. In the people of Germany are 
 to be found germs of a very different nature, 
 which will unfold themselves in a much 
 more fruitful manner, if we do not, in blind 
 self-conceit, despise the good merely be- 
 cause it is foreign, or in still more foolish 
 self-forgetfulness, sacrifice what is valuable 
 among ourselves to a ridiculous imitation 
 of foreigners. 
 
 As these party-views were accompanied 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 155 
 
 rirst by ill-humour, then by discontent, and 
 at last by the rage occasioned by the times ; 
 as interests of the most opposite descrip- 
 tions threw every thing into confusion, and 
 the most intentional misrepresentations 
 were associated with the usual sources of 
 misunderstanding ; and as the suspicion 
 which gradually gained possession of men's 
 minds, poisoned and distorted every thing : 
 then arose the dreadful perplexity of ideas 
 characteristic of the present times, in which 
 no man can understand another, and opi- 
 nions run through all points of the com- 
 pass, and blow from every region ; and in 
 which, as in the building of the Tower of 
 Babel, the labourer brings mortar instead 
 of stones, and wood in place of bricks, and 
 from the confusion of tongues, according to 
 the old joke, sack is the only word common 
 to all. 
 
 Davoust, a foreigner, said in answer to a 
 certain deputation, " There is no Germany 
 now, I know only Prussia, Bavaria, Hano- 
 ver, &c." The unity of the country has 
 now become in like manner, folly in the 
 eyes of one part of the nation, and high 
 treason in the eyes of another. That it is 
 
156 GERMANY AND 
 
 the province of the German to belong in 
 beautiful universality to all nations, is the 
 fashionable doctrine of the day. At once 
 the Swiss, Jew, lackey, and prize-fighter of 
 the whole world, he must never, if he would 
 avoid punishment and severe reprehension, 
 bestow a moment's attention on his country 
 which he sees torn to rags; We may hang 
 about our persons, all the baubles and 
 gewgaws of other countries ; but when our 
 youth lately endeavoured to restore the old 
 fashion and dress peculiar to Germany, this 
 was censured and held up to ridicule as the 
 most extravagant madness. When a num- 
 ber of German artists in Rome united them- 
 selves fraternally into one society, and, in 
 order that, by their honest efforts, they 
 might extend the honour of their country, 
 endeavoured to revive the good old Ger- 
 man school, this was immediately construed 
 into mysticism, revolutionary innovation, 
 and a return to the darkness of the middle 
 ages. The court, to which, in their vene- 
 ration for the old imperial house, they 
 exhibited their works, disowned them in 
 presence of strangers, whose malice was 
 thereby amply gratified, .and who made 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 157 
 
 both parties the subject of their derision ; 
 and in addition to this mortification, in all 
 the German journals, they saw themselves 
 abused by the zealots of protestantism and 
 antique arts, and insulted by the counsels 
 which were compassionately lavished on 
 them. 
 
 The cross on the battle-field of Leipsic 
 has been thrown down, and the act, as was 
 to be expected, has foun,d its defenders. 
 As a new species of patriotism begins at 
 every frontier, which it is to be hoped will 
 soon be protected by special custom-house 
 regulations, Saxony, of course, has an in- 
 disputable right to a patriotism of her own. 
 They keep Napoleon fast bound to the 
 rock, lest the old blind Samson should 
 escape, and seizing again the pillars of the 
 rotten European political system, bury him- 
 self under the ruins of the house on which 
 Caphtorim and Philistines are seated. His 
 institutions are still all of them in good 
 preservation, his ideas held in high honour; 
 his money only, with the addition of a little 
 base alloy, has been recoined into small 
 change. France guards with care the free- 
 dom which she received from us, while we, 
 
158 GERMANY AND 
 
 for our reward, have carried back with us 
 her old servitude. 
 
 What, at an earlier period, during the 
 influence of our enthusiasm, was spoken 
 and done by us, is now viewed as the ve- 
 nial sins of our youth, which we blush to 
 remember. Those, however, who wish to 
 live in the ideas of that period, who obsti- 
 nately refuse to reconcile themselves to the 
 subsequent changes, are chained like so 
 many lunatics, till it can be ascertained 
 whether they are yet capable of acquiring 
 the flexibility which has constantly carried 
 the others with an unabashed front through 
 all their shame. These others, however, 
 who are now at the head of affairs with the 
 same justice as when they corresponded 
 with the enemy, and betrayed to him every 
 re-action against the slavery of the country, 
 were impudent enough at a later period to 
 justify their conduct by citing the greatness 
 of the times. 
 
 In such a complete revolution within so 
 short a period, the whole circle of ideas of 
 the cautious Germans has necessarily been 
 disturbed, displaced, and inverted. By one 
 class every thing historical is viewed with 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 159 
 
 superstitious reverence; with another, every 
 defence of rights is a revolutionary abomi- 
 nation. In such confusion all manner of 
 opinions cross and succeed each other. No 
 principle is firmly established ; no bond 
 holds the checquered world of thought to- 
 gether; there is nothing to connect the idea 
 which was received yesterday, with the idea 
 which will be received to-morrow. A short 
 memory, becoming every day shorter, buries 
 the past in happy oblivion. According to 
 one party, the princes are all excellent 
 throughout the whole German land, and 
 every thing would be well were it not for a 
 wicked nobility, the origin of all evil, who 
 think of nothing but means and ends for 
 re-erecting their dungeons to beset the 
 highways as of old, and to restore club-law, 
 [Fausi-recht*) though without arms, to wield 
 the clubs. According to another party, a 
 set of jacobins have sprung up in the 
 empire, who are plotting a subterraneous 
 revolution, and after cutting all the princely 
 and noble throats, then intend to establish 
 a republic one and indivisible. The various 
 estates, no longer members of the same 
 body, refuse to act with each other ; like 
 
160 GERMANY AND 
 
 so many different nations they have taken 
 the field against each other ; their mutual 
 attacks are carried on with all the bitterness 
 of rage. Every one, according to his pecu- 
 liar views and interests, fashions his own 
 world, and the constitution which he thinks 
 suitable, but no common axis runs through 
 the various contrarieties. Following the 
 example set by those in higher stations, no 
 man will consent to any sacrifice whatever ; 
 and as all civil order is a giving and taking, 
 and taking and giving, it is impossible that 
 any such order can take place, where all 
 wish to be takers, and there are no givers. 
 In the midst of all this confusion the go- 
 vernments are in a continual state of os- 
 cillation, without counsel and without de- 
 cision. The stars of heaven have veiled 
 themselves in anger from their sight, the 
 earthly compass is unsteady and deceitful, 
 their policy is no longer in stead to them, 
 and tradition has abandoned them. That 
 which can help them inspires them with 
 fear, that in which they place confidence 
 breaks and falls to pieces, and remains 
 powerless in their hands. The order of 
 things to which they are attached, seems 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 161 
 
 pedantry to the age, and whatever possesses 
 energy and volition, appears, in their eyes, 
 jacobinism. Those, who with calm dignity 
 and justice ought to have separated the 
 contending parties, have themselves joined 
 the ranks of the combatants, and having 
 taken a part in the conflict, in the heat of 
 the battle they will be trodden under foot 
 with the rest. 
 
 It was natural that these dissensions of 
 our distracted times should have a parti- 
 cular influence on our youth. If a new 
 creating and organising spirit is really to arise 
 from the past decay, it must necessarily be 
 born in the new generation sent to com-* 
 mand the coming age. Let the departing 
 generation, on consulting the still small 
 voice of conscience, rejoice when it can in 
 the review of its deeds ; let it weep over its 
 errors, or labour with stupid obstinacy to 
 defend its follies. The rising generation 
 will advance with all the feelings of youth- 
 ful energy on the stage of history. The ex- 
 perience of the past ought not to be despised 
 by it, but it may justly waive its claim to 
 the inheritance of the errors and follies of 
 former times. It ought, above all things, 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 GERMANY AND 
 
 to take a keen interest in all public affairs, 
 that, by such a preparation, it may strengthen 
 itself for the work which it is called on to 
 complete. 
 
 This summons our youth obeyed with 
 honour, when they rushed forward to pro- 
 tect our new-born freedom, and, like the 
 Curetes and Corybantes, with armed dances 
 and brazen sounds, to conceal the infant 
 Jupiter from the lurking enemy. On re- 
 turning from the field, the universities re- 
 ceived many of them into their bosoms, and 
 fed with the pure milk of discipline their 
 spirit, because strong and powerful. It is 
 an absurdity therefore to complain of this 
 natural dev elopement ; in guiding it, the 
 wisdom of the old will alone be shown. If 
 you have conjured up good spirits, why are 
 you afraid of them ? If they are bad whom 
 you have summoned, then your mistake 
 will only cost you your alarm ; for, if you 
 yourselves are pure, Satan, with all his 
 angels, can have no power over you ! 
 
 It was necessary, therefore, above all 
 things, to appear composed and collected 
 in the presence of these youths. But, in- 
 stead of this, you manifested fear, and 
 
THE REVOLUTION, 163 
 
 thereby laid the foundation for much evil, 
 both to yourselves and them. When the 
 anniversary of the Reformation was cele- 
 brated, beside the bones of Luther in Wit- 
 tenberg, the spirit of the Reformer ascended 
 the Wartburg, where some hundred youths, 
 actuated by a kindred disposition to his 
 own, had assembled to partake of this so- 
 lemnity, — enraged that the same Reform- 
 ation in head and members, which he pointed 
 out to the church, should be approved of, 
 while it was refused to the state, when it 
 was required by the sentiments of the 
 age, thereby preparing a second terrible 
 judgment for Germany. The proceedings 
 of that day, characterised in general by dig- 
 nity and decency, have been laid before the 
 world. It is known also, that in the even- 
 ing, after the example of the reformer, the 
 symbols of the old servitude, and a number 
 of books, of which a very few may have 
 been improperly selected, but of which by 
 far the greatest number had long been con- 
 demned and judged by the nation, were 
 solemnly committed to the flames. 
 
 This act might, one would think, have 
 excited the wholesome reflection, that the 
 
 m 2 
 
164 GERMANY AND 
 
 same state of things, after a lapse of 
 three centuries, had given birth to the same 
 phenomenon. The errors which the ruling 
 church then committed, might have been a 
 warning lesson to those who now follow the 
 same course. But it could do no good to 
 break out into a blind fury against the 
 symptom of this hidden disease ; nor was it 
 suitable to enter into a contest with these 
 youths with respect to an act which was 
 only important from the consequences which 
 It was wished to assign to it. Instead, how- 
 ever, of calmly estimating the transaction 
 according to its real import; instead of 
 praising what was praise-worthy, and re- 
 proving with something like pleasant irony 
 what gave rise to dissatisfaction ; first- 
 impressions, and the clamour of offended 
 vanity, were allowed to carry the day ; the 
 world was filled with complaints against the 
 unheard-of and audacious crime; investi- 
 gations and embassies were set on foot, 
 which all ended in nothing, and first 
 awaked in these young people the idea of 
 their great importance, and, at the same 
 time, betrayed in a moment the whole secret 
 of the weakness of the other party. 
 

 THE REVOLUTION. 165 
 
 When the students, at the aspect of the 
 dreadful condition in which the country had 
 been placed by division, wished to banish this 
 division from universities at least, and endea- 
 voured to unite the provincial associations 
 (Landsmannschafteri) into one general asso- 
 ciation [Burschenschaft) : if the govern- 
 ments wished to take any notice of this, 
 they might, through the influence of those 
 who possessed the confidence of the youths, 
 have gradually contrived to manage matters 
 so, that, as the provincial associations were 
 equally founded in natural relations, they 
 should not on that account be extirpated, 
 but adopted into the unity, the diversity 
 serving to excite the unity, and receiving 
 tranquillisation in return from it. But it 
 seemed as if the very idea of unity was 
 odious. The becoming dignity, the moral 
 worth, and the tranquillity to which the ge- 
 neral union gave rise, seemed to be much 
 more disliked than the contrary qualities 
 which had hitherto characterised the pro- 
 vincial associations. The provincial asso- 
 ciations were therefore countenanced by the 
 governments ; and thus it has happened, as 
 an incurable separation took place between- 
 
 m 3 
 
166 GERMANY AND 
 
 them and the unitarians, that to the four 
 sects now hostilely arrayed against each 
 other, a fifth has been added, (especially as 
 the harsh and clumsy manner in which the 
 university of Gottingen * was treated, has 
 scattered its provincial associations over all 
 Germany,) and that our universities have 
 become an image of the public confusion, in 
 which unity, which ought to be in harmony 
 with multiplicity, is now in conflict with it. 
 
 * Gottingen and Heidelberg were the two German 
 universities in which the provincial associations were not 
 supplanted by a general association. But Gottingen 
 clung with most tenacity to the old system. This may 
 partly be accounted for from what M. Goerres has? 
 said with respect to that university, and from the 
 decided opposition of the Duke of Cambridge to the ge- 
 neral associations. In former times, Germany was con- 
 sidered an aggregate of four lands or leading provinces, 
 namely, Saxony, Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia, and 
 the students at the universities were divided into asso- 
 ciations (landsmannscJiqften), taking their names from 
 these lands. The university of Glasgow would seem to 
 have borrowed the division of its students into nations, as 
 well as several other peculiarities, from Germany. It 
 would, indeed, be difficult to account for the division of 
 Scotland into the four nations, of the Clyde, Rothsay, 
 Lothian, and Beyond the Forth, on any other principle 
 than that of imitation. 
 
'THE REVOLUTION. 16*/ 
 
 The youths who defended the system of 
 unity, irritated at the opposition they ex- 
 perienced, enraged at the general perse- 
 cution which they had to encounter, and the 
 lurking suspicion that watched all their 
 steps, and even converted the public exer- 
 cises of boys in the gymnasia (turn-platzen) * 
 into an object of dread, they now betook 
 themselves in some measure to secresy. As 
 the condition of their country was the subject 
 of their deliberations, and as, from the con- 
 duct observed with respect to them by the 
 governments, they conceived themselves 
 called on to introduce as speedily as pos- 
 sible a better order of things ; that spirit 
 necessarily developed itself in secret in 
 them, which, when it came to be publicly 
 displayed on some recent occasions, seemed 
 
 * In the north of Germany, plans of intellectual and 
 moral improvement have been connected with public 
 exercises. The universal diffusion of these exercises, to 
 which has been given the name of turnen, (the German 
 or Latin origin of which has been much disputed, thougli 
 in all probability it is derived, as well as tournament, from 
 the Latin tornare,) and the enthusiasm with which they 
 were prosecuted, were attributed to the well-known 
 Jahn. 
 
 M 4 
 
16$ 
 
 GERMANY AND 
 
 wholly to deprive the governments of every 
 thing like prudence or self-possession. 
 
 The conflict of the times soon found its 
 way to them, and they had therefore to 
 choose their side. To the minds of youth, 
 history appears in a subordinate light ; and 
 with their own life their particular history 
 may be said to begin. That internal sense 
 which perceives the future in the past, is 
 slightly developed in them, and their whole 
 being may be said to be limited to a pre- 
 sent existence, fresh, full, effervescent, and 
 ungovernable, and which conceives that all 
 that is to be is contained within itself. In 
 the consciousness of so much fire and active 
 power, they are not much inclined to stop 
 short in their career, and to look around 
 them to view the things which once were, 
 and following therefore their natural im- 
 pulse, they attach themselves in preference 
 to that ideal party which endeavours to 
 shape the world according to its own fancy, 
 and, like the spider, is both the loom and 
 the weaver of the web which is produced by 
 itself. From their situation, the German 
 youth considered themselves the represent- 
 atives of their country, the chosen instru- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 169 
 
 ments for effecting, in the struggle with the 
 degeneracy of the present day, the restor- 
 ation to the better order of things which 
 once existed, and for vindicating the honour 
 of Germany against the attempts of other 
 countries. Belonging in this endeavour to 
 the historical party, and sharing in its per-; 
 secution, they were thus placed in a state 
 of opposition to themselves, which they 
 conceived might be most easily and simply 
 obviated by going a step further back in 
 German history than was taken by the 
 reformation in the church, and selecting 
 that period in the life of the people which 
 corresponded to the stage of existence they 
 had themselves reached. 
 
 That history was by all means to be 
 honoured, was their opinion ; but then 
 behind history lies a state of nature which 
 yet belongs to it : and now that all the ties 
 of society are rotten, that all the estates of 
 the empire are destroyed by time, that the 
 powers and the families of the ancient 
 nobles have become gradually extinct, a 
 similar condition of things is externally re- 
 turned, and a new constitution, derived 
 from the freshness of nature, ought to be 
 
170 GERMANY AND 
 
 established. This was a return to the 
 contrat-social, modified only according to 
 German forms. And as, a few years before, 
 our youth were occupied with philosophical 
 constructions of the universe, the construct- 
 ing powers were now exercised in the ar- 
 rangement of social relations ; and after 
 going through the various dimensions of 
 the Constitution, their consideration was 
 very naturally directed to the centering of 
 $11 of them in a republic. 
 
 In the mean time the course of events 
 was such, that no incitement was wanting to 
 their zeal, no fuel to their passions. Madam 
 von Krudener *, fantastical and extravagant 
 in her devotion, but well-meaning, affec- 
 tionate, and humane in her conduct, had 
 been calumniated by priests, insulted by the 
 different polices, and at length conveyed by 
 a succession of brigades of gens-d'armerie 
 to the frontiers of Russia, merely because 
 
 * The Emperor Alexander frequently visited Madam 
 Krudener, when in France, and was supposed to be not 
 a little influenced by her advice. A very curious account 
 of Madam von Krudener, and of her intimacy with 
 Alexander, was given in the Rhenish Mercury. Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 171 
 
 she not only prayed with the people, and 
 announced the day of judgment to them, but 
 also clothed the naked and fed the hungry. 
 The Emperor Alexander then sentKotzebue 
 among us, and if the slightest appearance 
 of enthusiasm throws the cowardly age into 
 agitation and trembling, this man, who on 
 his very entrance into the world in early 
 youth, began with a capital of depravity 
 equal to that with which other men, by no 
 means deficient in that respect, usually end 
 their career, and who afterwards might be 
 said to become the king of all the vulgar, as 
 he was the abomination of all the well-dis- 
 posed, — this man was just such a person 
 as the age wished ; and, while censorships 
 and tribunals watched every word which a 
 regard for the welfare of Germany called 
 forth against the pestiferous abuses of the 
 age, he was allowed to set himself down in 
 the midst of the land, and to deride with 
 impunity whatever was dear and venerable 
 in the eyes of the people. The intention 
 of the emperor in sending him was in all 
 probability innocent enough. He wished 
 him no doubt to observe and explain the 
 Various movements of this country, a matter 
 
172 GERMANY AND 
 
 certainly difficult enough to understand. 
 But having made the most unfortunate of 
 all choices for this purpose, it was hardly 
 possible that an unfavourable suspicion 
 should not attach to the object of this mis- 
 sion from the character of the person em- 
 ployed in it. 
 
 This suspicion received only too much 
 confirmation, when Kotzebue, taking an 
 unfair advantage of his commission, basely 
 calumniated the most honourable men ; and 
 when, on the discovery of this wickedness, 
 the severity of the law was not directed 
 against the calumniator, but, however in- 
 credible it may seem, solely against the 
 calumniated, merely because they had 
 dragged the work of darkness to light. 
 The irritation and rage became still 
 stronger, when in the treatise of Stourd- 
 za*, originating perhaps in no evil inten- 
 tion, but avowed with the most shameless 
 
 * A memorial against the German universities drawn 
 up in the views of the Russian government, and sub- 
 mitted to the Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, which may 
 be considered as the groundwork of the late measures of 
 the German diet with respect to those seminaries. 
 
 Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 173 
 
 audacity, as official at a later period, the 
 language held, with respect to the Ger- 
 mans and their institutions, was such as no 
 people wiU willingly bear with from 
 foreigners. The general disgust to which 
 this treatise, and still more the visible im- 
 pression produced by it on the higher 
 regions, gave rise, — the rage at seeing the 
 country, to which public opinion had long 
 been in the habit of ascribing the annihi- 
 lation of so many of our hopes and expect- 
 ations, now taking such an unfair advantage 
 of the weakness of Germany, and interfer- 
 ing in so barefaced a manner with its most 
 domestic concerns, could not fail to be in- 
 tensely felt by our youth, whose liberties, 
 the last miserable remains of the state of 
 things which existed in earlier and better 
 times, were now attacked with such crimi- 
 nal audacity. Among such a number of 
 ardent and susceptible young men, whose 
 whole heart, and soul, and endeavours, 
 were directed to our national affairs, it 
 was hardly possible that a spark from 
 the flames which had been so incautiously 
 kindled, should not descend into the region 
 of dark energies which surrounds the hu- 
 
174 GERMANY AND 
 
 man breast, and spreading the conflagration, 
 awake their sleeping powers from their 
 repose ; that the rage and indignation, 
 which had been excited, rising higher and 
 higher every day, should not at last boil 
 over. In Sand the mound was first broken 
 through, and it was natural that he should 
 be the first victim of the devouring flood 
 who laboured with the greatest assiduity to 
 undermine its barrier. The youth took 
 it upon him to write out himself the com- 
 mission for the deed, and to execute it with 
 his own hand. When his measure was filled 
 to the brim, and ready to flow over on his 
 head, he whom he sought was delivered 
 into his hands. He himself, however, gave 
 his own life as a propitiation to the enraged 
 Nemesis ; according to the ancient doc- 
 trine, that blood demands blood. 
 
 The deed struck the people like light- 
 ning. Since the years of our rising, no- 
 thing had taken place which they could 
 comprehend ; but what had long remained 
 unintelligible, and struggled for meaning, 
 now found a language. A bloody deed had 
 again become the point in which the 
 thoughts of all were collected, and opinion 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 175 
 
 was soon agreed respecting this event. 
 Disapprobation of the act with approbation 
 of the motives, a renovated feeling of the 
 presence of eternal justice in all human 
 things, a clear light thrown over the con- 
 dition of the country, and a keen interest 
 in public affairs, were the results of the 
 general agitation which followed in a short 
 space. Public opinion had passed a grand 
 climacteric ; a profound seriousness came 
 over the age, which, up to that period, had 
 entered into public affairs with less ear- 
 nestness. 
 
 To this blow, which agitated men's minds 
 so profoundly, another speedily followed, 
 fearful and alarming from the very rapidity 
 with which it succeeded. A young *man, 
 to whom the Machiavelian system, in 
 which his native province was entangled, 
 had long been an abomination, possessed 
 of a good-natured and composed but 
 moody and close disposition, was also in- 
 stigated by the bitter rage which burned 
 within his bosom, to adopt the determin- 
 
 Loehning. Trans, 
 
176 GERMANY AND 
 
 ation of tearing asunder the net by an act 
 of violence. He selected the President 
 Ibell, whom he considered as the author of 
 that sj^stem, for a sacrifice. But to obtain, 
 by an overbearing energy, a tyranny over 
 the multitude, who, by legal ways, may de- 
 fend themselves from slavery, even though 
 means of an unjustifiable nature may have 
 been resorted to, is by no means a crime 
 deserving of death. A people can only en- 
 joy so much freedom as they know how to 
 deserve ; and violent actions can never 
 supply the deficiency of merit. This was 
 the second error of the young man, in ad- 
 dition to that which he shared with Sand ; 
 and he atoned for both with his life. But 
 the angel of death passed by the object of 
 his attack. It darted, however, a furious 
 look at him ; and it is to be hoped that 
 this look was understood. May the dread- 
 ful catastrophe tend to the welfare of his 
 soul. 
 
 Thus then the destiny with which they 
 had so long amused themselves on the 
 stage, advanced with terror into the midst 
 of them, when the levity gave place to 
 alarm, and a profound dread of its obscure 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 177 
 
 power. Having renounced the God of 
 Christians, the old Jehovah again descended; 
 u a jealous God, a revenger, full of anger, 
 and of great power, whose ways are in 
 storms and tempests, before whom a de- 
 vouring fire goeth forth, while darkness is 
 under his feet, and who thunders with his 
 thunder, and doeth great things, and yet 
 is not known." The hour in which the 
 first blood is shed in civil dissensions, and 
 in which the first sacrifices fall, is a dread- 
 ful and decisive hour. It is the hour that 
 gives birth to a whole ominous futurity, 
 which takes its shape from the influence of 
 the good or evil stars, at that time predo- 
 minant. It is still a sign, therefore, be- 
 tokening happiness, and a pledge that 
 Heaven is still merciful to Germany, that 
 the signal was not in this, as in so many 
 other cases, given by cold and naked atro- 
 city ; but that an act of violence was exe- 
 cuted in the error of the heart, by hands in 
 other respects pure. The two-fold charac- 
 ter of this act therefore leaves two ways 
 still open for our choice, the way of light 
 and the way of darkness. 
 
 But this has occurred to very few of those 
 
 N 
 
178 GERMANY ANB 
 
 who have publicly spoken of die deed ; $m&- 
 thus we have here a proof how much tfe& 
 worldly prudence of the book- learned is 
 below the sound sense of the people- That 
 the deed was not Christian, has been de- 
 cidedly pronounced by all our writers after 
 Steffens ; but God sometimes stirs up a 
 heathen virtue to punish that Christian 
 hypocrisy, which, while it concludes witk 
 levity the most unjust wars, wherein hun- 
 dreds of thousands ofm^n perish, bethinks 
 itself only of Christianity, when the flames* 
 which it beheld with delight from afar, at 
 length catch its own roo£y 
 
 The actor has been reproached with pride 
 and arrogance in having with his limited and 
 feeble powers, taken upon him the work o£ 
 God and the magistracy. This is the just and 
 true point of view for themselves and others 
 who may long to commit such a deed ; but 
 to hold this language to the actor after the 
 completion of his purpose, argues a dispo- 
 sition by no means over-christian. What 
 would those who prefer such an accusation 
 be able to answer, were the young man fco 
 defend himself in this way. " Thou speakeat 
 of pride ; but take care test thou be not 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 179 
 
 thyself possessed of spiritual pride, whep 
 thou exclaimest, I thank thee, God, I am 
 not like this man ! Thinkest thou that I 
 determined lightly on this deed, the fearful 
 responsibility of which 1 so well knew? 
 Thinkest thou that God would so cruelly 
 destroy, by a cold spiritual pride, a life 
 hitherto led in purity and piety, so cruelly 
 blind a spirit, in other respects enlightened, 
 that it should no longer be able to with- 
 stand the illusion of a vulgar vanity. 
 
 M If thou knowest not the dark kingdom 
 of the aby$s which nature has closed, happy 
 wilt thou be if to thee it should ever re- 
 main closed ! All its dark powers has the 
 mind conquered, and inclosed within that 
 abyss. But deep springs arise in the heart 
 of man, and flow into its darkness. All the 
 passions throng around the entrances, eager 
 for a passage, but, closed and sealed by re- 
 ligion and morality, they are held firmly 
 down ; and so long as the command of the 
 gates is retained, the life above is gay and 
 cheerful ; but when crime, or the calamity 
 of the times, has broken the seal, and burst 
 open the gates to the kingdom below, then 
 all manner of horrors ascend from the 
 
 n 2 
 
180 GERMANY AND 
 
 gulph ; like a whirlwind they burst from 
 the abyss ; they seize their victim with 
 demoniac force, and the will alone is no 
 longer able to withstand the dreadful power 
 by which it is assailed. Night and all the 
 furies of life ascend through the gulph, self- 
 murder and every bloody deed. They sent 
 to me the spirit which the Roman saw in 
 Asia and at Philippi, and he conquered not 
 without a hard struggle* 
 
 " But, who burst open the gates of the 
 kingdom below ? Who let loose all the 
 passions ? Who conjured up those furies ? 
 Who first poisoned all the springs of public 
 life with hatred and suspicion ? When the 
 Romans took Edessa, the soldiers, as the 
 old story informs us, plundering the tem- 
 ple, and greedily digging for treasures be- 
 low its foundations, at length tore up the 
 stone consecrated by ancient Magi with 
 sentences and holy rites, that sealed up the 
 abyss in which contagion was enclosed. 
 It spread itself immediately over the whole 
 of the inhabited earth, and at once swept 
 away the third part of the human race. 
 
 " You speak of Christianity; but who first 
 broke its power by making it a cloak for 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 181 
 
 avarice, and every base and wicked passion? 
 Who still crucifies the Lord in his temple, 
 and casts dice for his garments ? With 
 words I hear his doctrine frequently pro- 
 fessed, but where are the works ? I see the 
 justice-seat surrounded with people de- 
 manding right and justice ; but where are 
 the judges ? Hence the idle sword sprung 
 of itself from the wall, and smote a guilty 
 head. Therefore, and inasmuch as we are 
 all sinners, judge your brother in mercy, 
 that you also may be judged in mercy. Do 
 what is enjoined you by divine and human 
 laws, and then the abyss will close of itself, 
 and I shall be the last victim whom it will 
 devour." 
 
 Events of such a serious and alarming 
 character could not fail to attract the keen 
 attention of the different governments. 
 They are seated at the helm of state, that 
 they may guide the vessel through every 
 danger. But the more furiously the 
 billows heave, and the more violently the 
 surges foam, the more coolly and self-col- 
 lectedly ought the pilot himself to remain. 
 If he wishes to guard against real danger, 
 he must not tremble with apprehension at 
 n 3 
 
182 GERMANY ANtf 
 
 the danger which is only imaginary ; the 
 uncertainty which perplexes the ignorant 
 ought to be a stranger to him. With a 
 sharp eye and practised hand, he should 
 make even the raging of the element obe- 
 dient to his views, so that uncompliant and 
 refractory powers may even be conducive 
 to his object. The more a government 
 contains of the nature of the primum mobile, 
 the less it will be affected by the oscil- 
 lations of that which is moved. Viewing 
 things from an elevation, looking down on 
 them from the firmament, as it were, the 
 extent of the field of observation, and the 
 manner in which objects are shaded by 
 each other, cannot confound it. By seizing 
 the heads of all the elements of society, it 
 can easily direct their movements. 
 
 There is an incorruptible conservative 
 power in social unions. The same instinct 
 which first led men to form them, watches 
 incessantly over their preservation and 
 existence, and no government is under 
 the necessity of having recourse to wicked 
 instruments to hunt out secret intrigues* 
 If the government is any way deserving of 
 regard, all the good will be in a sort of 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 183 
 
 secret understanding with it, and will not 
 ■easily allow an atrocity which requires the 
 concurrence of many for its execution, to 
 remain in concealment. If government, 
 therefore, wishes to command the great 
 arid public movements of society, it ought 
 not to dread hidden attacks, more espe- 
 cially in Germany, nor to allow itself to 
 deviate in the slightest manner from the 
 course which wisdom recommends. A cool 
 and steady attention will enable it to inter- 
 fere with activity, when activity is necessary. 
 It ought to watch the evil-disposed, till the 
 disaffection breaks forth, in readiness to 
 meet it, if possible ; or if it fails in this, to 
 visit the overt act with severity. The 
 English government is a model in this 
 respect. The Germans have hardly a con- 
 ception of the first elements of such a 
 system j audi of this the late events which 
 have taken place in Prussia, unfortunately 
 afford a fresh proof. 
 
 It would, seem, that eitherYroTn the in- 
 fluence of locality, water, air, or some in- 
 comprehensiblespiritual cause, the faculty of 
 seeing- spectres has for years been endernical 
 in Berlin. This disposition wa& formerly 
 
 n 4 
 
184 GERMANY AND 
 
 displayed in things of a more innocent 
 nature, and gave rise to many a ludicrous 
 incident. The government had long been 
 disturbed by visionaries* to whom, how^ 
 ever, after the history of the Wartburg 
 transactions, less attention was paid. But 
 enraged at the events of the late days of 
 judgment, it had appointed a species of 
 committee of safety, invested with the most 
 ample inquisitorial powers, with a view to 
 have some light thrown on these things. 
 This committee, instead of coolly examin- 
 ing the obvious facts, when this was pos- 
 sible, and proceeding in the way of analysis 
 to connect these facts together, and to form 
 with them, and such secret particulars as 
 should come to their knowledge, a skilful 
 and consistent tissue of proofs, and thus 
 rising, by gradual induction, from effect 
 to cause, through a whole series to the first 
 cause, if there were auy such ; preferred to 
 this drudgery, so unworthy of their genius, 
 the method of synthesis ; and having 
 assumed the subject of their search as an 
 undeniable fact at the outset, and laid it 
 down for themselves and trje world as a 
 dogma, or, at least, a postulate of pure 
 2 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 185 
 
 reason *, when they precipitated them- 
 selves from it by a salto ?nortale, to an 
 enquiry into the nature of the reality. 
 
 Hence the existence of a grand exten- 
 sive treasonable conspiracy, a crime de- 
 serving of death in every country ; the 
 centre of all the movements of the age, 
 which had displayed themselves peripheri- 
 cally in these two acts of violence, was 
 proclaimed to wondering Europe ; and 
 when, in order to connect the centre with 
 the circumference, by means of proofs in 
 the shape of fragments of writings, agents 
 of the police were sent to all parts of Ger- 
 many, in the certain expectation that ex- 
 perience would necessarily confirm the 
 positions derived from absolute contem- 
 plation. But experience was very refractory 
 with respect to the constructive metaphy- 
 sics of the high transcendental police ; at 
 least all that has yet come to the know- 
 ledge of the world, is altogether insufficient 
 to fill up the yawning gulph. 
 
 A constitution, originating in a debating 
 
 * Pure reason, a term in the philosophy of Kant. 
 Trans. 
 
186 GERMANY AND 
 
 society, of which a young man publicly 
 avowed himself the author, which, if printed, 
 would not perhaps have found a hundred 
 readers, and in which, moreover, there can 
 be nothing deserving of punishment, except 
 an attempt should be made to introduce it 
 by force ; a small collection of Jacobinical 
 sentences and metaphors, for which Goethe 
 and Novalis are partly responsible, and 
 which might easily receive a twenty-fold 
 augmentation from the tragedians of all 
 nations ; the expressions, as taken down by 
 a student, of a man *", against whom no 
 other charge can be brought than that in 
 speaking he has never, perhaps, been suf- 
 ficiently guarded, and that, in giving free 
 scope to his eloquent tongue, he has always 
 laid himself but too open to the designs of 
 crafty villainy ; a few daggers, of which 
 one, worn in the period of the German 
 costume, and inscribed Ornament of the 
 citizen, an inscription which pious zeal 
 construed into an exhortation, to ornament 
 the citizen by murderous weapons; a few 
 
 * Professor Jahn, Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 187 
 
 fragments of letters obtained by search, in 
 which young people poured out their hearts 
 to each other, in all probability but too 
 ioften filled with the most bitter indigna- 
 tion : — such was the miserable result, to 
 obtain which so many acts of violence had 
 been resorted to. Unable to comprehend 
 how deeds such as those of Sand and 
 Loehning could possibly be the fruit of 
 solitary meditation, taking counsel only 
 from itself, it was assumed as an incontro- 
 vertible position, that these deeds were the 
 work of certain associations. Searching 
 then for the heads and first founders of 
 these associations, every man at all dis- 
 tinguished for his sentiments, became the 
 object of suspicion ; they were not aware 
 that, with youth more especially, every man 
 cowardly enough to endeavour to excite 
 others to the commission of an act of 
 violence, without taking any part in it 
 himself, would for ever forfeit their honour- 
 able regard and confidence. 
 
 Thus public characters, honoured with 
 the esteem of the nation, no part of whose 
 conduct ever afforded the least ground for 
 suspicion and against whom there was not 
 
188 GEftMANY AND 
 
 even the slightest charge, were treated in 
 the most insulting manner. Commissions 
 were dispatched to examine their papers, 
 on the ground of their being suspected 
 of participating in criminal conspiracies. 
 These commissioners, after heedlessly dis- 
 regarding all judicial forms, and thereby 
 enabling the world to decide as to the 
 degree of deliberation with which they acted, 
 burst with violence into houses, and then set 
 on foot an inquisition into all papers, with- 
 out exception, down to those relating to the 
 most private family affairs ; to perfect the 
 character of which nothing was wanting, 
 but a dissection of the living body, to dis- 
 cover the thoughts still remaining in embryo 
 in their secret recesses. Young people, 
 whose blood burns within them, to speak 
 in the language of Shakspeare, were treated 
 like cold-blooded criminals, and inquiries 
 were instituted into sentiments, which had 
 never escaped from the sanctuary of the 
 breast, and into words uttered years before, 
 which had never received any effect ; and 
 when all these proceedings led to no dis- 
 covery, a most unheard-of maxim was 
 resorted to, by way of excuse, namely, that 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 189 
 
 it was not conceived the searching for 
 objects of suspicion, rendered those persons 
 suspected who were searched ; a doctrine 
 which would deliver over the most inno- 
 cent men a prey to every abuse of arbitrary 
 power, whenever it might feel inclined to 
 seek for thieves, where no thieves ever 
 were harboured, j 
 
 That part of the conduct of the Spanish 
 inquisition, which has always been most 
 bitterly inveighed against, is the striking 
 its victims without naming their crime. 
 What shall we say of a proceeding, in 
 which the existence of a crime being first 
 laid down hypothetically, in order to dis- 
 cover the perpetrators, every honourable 
 man is arbitrarily accused of it ; and accord- 
 ing to which, if we could really suppose 
 any thing serious in contemplation, the 
 prince himself, in consequence of what he 
 did, what he proclaimed, and what he pro- 
 mised in 1813 and 1814, must be con- 
 demned as the first demagogue of the 
 land ? But this mode of proceeding has 
 already severely revenged itself on the 
 actors. The world, after all these charges 
 of conspiracy, persists in demanding the 
 
190 GERMANY AND 
 
 proofs, which are no where to be found., 
 All Europe, which has been called in ta 
 witness the deed, and to which traitors 
 have been promised, waits to receive the 
 guilty sinners, and they cannot be deli- 
 vered. Truly, it must be confessed, if Prus- 
 sia, since the war of liberation, has ever 
 begun to conduct herself again with undue 
 arrogance, her destiny has forced her to 
 atone for it, by a most cruel humiliation. 
 Perhaps all the most reputable men of 
 that country will at length deem it neces- 
 sary to unite for the purpose of rescuing a 
 government, of which the good intentions 
 manifested in so many other things cer- 
 tainly merited a better fate, from the danger 
 to which it has exposed itself by such 
 hallucinations, and in availing themselves 
 of all the legal means at their command, in 
 order to fix some limits to the madness of 
 certain men, who, if, as they say, there are 
 five degrees in the conspiracy, namely, 
 those who belong to the gymnastic socie- 
 ties, students, those who wear daggers, 
 leaders, and persons unknown ; are them- 
 selves the very unknown persons of whom 
 they are in search. Like the worthy citizen 
 in the story, they have set fire to the house 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 191 
 
 to destroy the mice, and though with ail 
 these acts of violence, they have been un- 
 able to make the slightest discovery, their 
 suspicions are not, on this account, in the 
 least weakened, being fully convinced that 
 their labours have only been unsuccessful, 
 because they did not go to work with the 
 utmost degree of prudence, and that they 
 have been so unfortunate in their search, as 
 not to stumble on the proper persons* 
 
 The people of Germany, who have been 
 attentive observers of all these proceedings, 
 were struck with one thing more particu- 
 larly, namely, that while in all good and 
 beneficial measures, which require any thing 
 like a common co-operation, years pass 
 away without producing the slightest 
 result ; on this occasion, a few days only 
 were requisite to institute a general chace 
 after conspirators, from Holstein to Frey- 
 burg. 
 
 These transactions could not fail to pro- 
 duce the most unfavourable influence on 
 the disposition of the nation, In the 
 violent irritation which prevailed, such an 
 inconceivable blunder as this, was all that 
 was wanting to complete the general dia- 
 
192 GERMANY AND 
 
 gust felt by all men who had the honour 
 of their country at heart, and to increase 
 the discontent, hatred, contempt, distrust, 
 and all the bad passions, that had only 
 found too much nourishment in preceding 
 events, to such a degree, that a problem, 
 which four years ago might have been 
 solved with the utmost ease, namely, the 
 settlement of our public affairs, threatens 
 now to set the utmost efforts of human 
 strength at defiance. The ministers who 
 met under these circumstances at Carlsbad, 
 were called on to point out a remedy, 
 where a remedy could not easily be found ; 
 and now for the first time, circumstances 
 urgently demanded from the diplomatists, 
 who had hitherto acted entirely on the 
 negative principle, the adoption of positive 
 measures, for which there is no prepara- 
 tion. Austria, in particular, seemed to 
 call for this assembly with the greatest zeal. 
 She thought it advisable to withdraw her- 
 self from the restless empire, for the sake 
 of peace and quiet ; but an intimate con- 
 nection of so long standing cannot be 
 shaken off on such advantageous terms ; 
 the gain cannot be all on one side, and 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 19,3 
 
 accordingly, after sacrificing all her popu- 
 larity in this attempt, she is now at last 
 seized with the most alarming appre- 
 nensions. 
 
 History sits incessantly in judgment; the 
 French have been punished, and other 
 nations in their turn have to answer for their 
 sins, which they must atone for with fear 
 and tribulation. 
 
 As the whole system was founded on a 
 calculation that nothing would take place, 
 now that something has actually taken 
 place, and that we are threatened with still 
 more from the future, the most distressing 
 embarrassment has succeeded. A machine 
 was invented, which has indeed proved 
 itself admirably adapted for exciting all 
 manner of hopes from its mere unwieldi- 
 ness ; but in the moment of alarm, when 
 it ought to serve some purpose, it mali- 
 ciously refuses to perform any sort of 
 service whatever. No endeavour was ever 
 made to bind even the slightest contrariety. 
 Every species of dissonance has been 
 allowed to increase, till it can no longer be 
 cured. Nothing that pressed forward has 
 ever been refused admission ; all things 
 
 o 
 
194 GERMANY AND 
 
 have been confounded together ; and those 
 which, from their nature, are the most 
 opposed to each other, have been super- 
 ficially reconciled; and, when enraged nature 
 has at last revolted against a confusion, at 
 the sight of which the head becomes giddy, 
 they have deprived themselves of every 
 means of resorting to any measure calcu- 
 lated to restore tranquillity. Every thing 
 like intellect is neutralized by folly ; every 
 force is destroyed by an opposing force ; 
 every movement is impeded by a counter 
 movement, so that all exertion must 
 necessarily end in useless deliberations. 
 
 If attaching themselves in appearance to 
 the historical party, they should interpret 
 the 13th article to mean only the restora- 
 tion of the former corporate estates, in all 
 the imperfection of latter times,suchan inter- 
 ruption is altogether at variance with what 
 has already been done in the way of con- 
 stitution, or which it is still intended to do. 
 The corporations in question have by 
 degrees become extinct, and the historical 
 party is by no means to be gained over at 
 so cheap a rate ; their sense is not to be 
 sought for in the ossification of the last age, 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 195 
 
 nor will they lend themselves as a screen 
 for arbitrary power in disguise. 
 
 A resolution may, no doubt, be adopted 
 of deciding authoritatively with respect to 
 the relations which first came into discus- 
 sion in the chambers of Baden, and render- 
 ing the decrees of the diet obligatory on 
 the chambers, without any concurrence on 
 the part of the estates ; but then, as every 
 thing like a constitution would become a 
 mere mockery, such a proceeding must 
 necessarily give rise to a conflict between 
 power and the nature of things, which, as 
 the latter always turns out the strongest in 
 the long run, cannot fail to terminate at last 
 in its favour. If it should be wished to 
 invest the diet w T ith an executive power, the 
 affections of the nation are withdrawn from 
 this institution, which it has been accus- 
 tomed to view in the light only of a pro- 
 visional tribunal ; and besides, it has not the 
 slightest longing for the shadow of an 
 emperor without a chamber. The powerful 
 have allowed the favourable moment to 
 escape them, and the opportunity which 
 they neglected to seize, is now at the com- 
 mand of others. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 GERMANY AND 
 
 What avails all the arts of diplomacy 
 against the mighty natural power which 
 disengages itself every day more and more 
 in the nations ? The first source of a stream 
 may be struck by a horse's hoof out of the 
 earth, but no human power will afterwards 
 be able to restrain it in its course. The 
 chambers even will come off victorious in 
 the struggle for their right of influencing 
 the decrees of the diet ; they will consti- 
 tute collectively the second chamber, and 
 when once their powers are understood 
 and admitted, it will become necessary, as 
 a matter of course, in order to strengthen 
 the collective executive power, to give a 
 head to it in its concentration. This is the 
 natural order of things, the progress of 
 history, against which all the arbitrary 
 power of man will be found unavailing, 
 which no congress can arrest. The nation 
 is impelled towards unity, and this impulse 
 is like the growing of a tree, or the blow- 
 ing of the wind ; no effort can stop it in its 
 progress. The means on which the depo- 
 sitaries of power may determine to further 
 this work, will operate directly to further 
 it -, those which they adopt with the view 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 197 
 
 of impeding it, will indirectly conduce in 
 their opposition to promote the same end, 
 as they will serve to arm with additional 
 strength the power to which they are op- 
 posed. 
 
 From the diplomatic art, which from the 
 nature of things rests only on itself, there 
 is no salvation to be expected for Germany, 
 and hope and fear are, in this respect, 
 equally vain. The lightning of heaven has 
 scathed the German oak ; its top has be- 
 come dry and withered ; the root only, 
 which it has struck in the earth, and the 
 ample trunk, still continue green and 
 strong, and vigorous at heart, and must 
 send forth new shoots. The power of 
 nature, which once impelled upwards that 
 luxuriant tree, in whose branches the birds 
 of the air found a refuge, having attained 
 the extremity of its range, and the vertical 
 point of its curve, remained first stationary, 
 and then changed its course, falling back 
 within itself, and in its remission towards 
 its source collecting its powers in all direc- 
 tions, in order that, renovated thereby, and 
 re-invigorated like the boiling fountains of 
 the northern island, it might again elevate 
 
 o 3 
 
198 GERMANY AND 
 
 its branches towards heaven. Herlce the 
 whole history of Germany, for more than 
 three hundred years, has been one continued 
 withering, and one continued drying up; 
 hence all our institutions stretch forth only 
 naked and dead branches into society ; 
 hence all has become formal, rotten, in- 
 jured by the elements and decayed ; hence 
 a spirit of corruption pervades our political 
 edifice ; as in old ruins we hear a gentle 
 cracking in its walls and foundations, as if 
 the tooth of time were perceptibly gnawing 
 its structure ; we hear the piles on which 
 it rests giving way, the stones toppling 
 down, the walls starting, which only indeed 
 continue to stand from their being held 
 together by the green Ivy that has wound 
 itself around them. The mass, however, 
 from some mysterious connection it still 
 retains with the primitive rock from which 
 it was hewn, and, continuing to exist with 
 it uncorruptibly in a common natural life, 
 in the course of thousands of years has not 
 yet become grey, still remains sound at 
 heart, and is susceptible of a new con- 
 figuration. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 199 
 
 In old times, when states reached this 
 point, Providence made choice of the irrup- 
 tions of nations as a means for effecting her 
 purposes. By opening up springs from 
 beneath, and pouring floods of barbarians 
 over the dry and withered surface, the 
 stagnant life was refreshed by the new 
 blood which was infused into it ; and the 
 dry and faded was again clothed with a 
 new verdure. But these fountains no longer 
 flow with the same abundance since culti- 
 vation rooted out the primaeval forests, and 
 the plough-share has tamed the wild earth 
 to a subjection to man. The same culti- 
 vation, however, has opened a communica- 
 tion with another world, which, by its 
 mental energies, replaces the natural power 3 
 whose sources are drying up, and dis- 
 charges its functions in the transformation 
 of states, namely, that mysterious world of 
 ideas, which, filling according to ancient 
 doctrine, the infinite space of the kingdom 
 of spirits, and like the ethereal heaven ex- 
 tended above our self-consciousness, pours 
 down its light through all the clefts and 
 corners of the lower world, and gives ani- 
 mation to all bodies and shapes. As, accord- 
 
 o 4 
 
200 GERMAN* AKft 
 
 ing to the same doctrine* souls descend 
 from that world to animal matter, lead a 
 life in time here below, and then return to 
 their eternal home ; in like manner, the 
 ideas which proceed from it, hold states 
 together as being the peculiar emanation 
 of their spiritual nature, bind and connect 
 them in themselves by mental attraction, 
 and thoroughly illume them with mental 
 light ; and thus bound in the just proportion 
 through matter, and invisible in themselves, 
 having, through matter, obtained a visible 
 representation, promoting life as the inhe- 
 rent plastic and conservative power, they 
 lose themselves in that medium by which 
 they are represented. When, however, the 
 course of this life has been run through, 
 and the State has become old, it can no 
 longer contain the inherent idea ; that idea, 
 which was before latent in it, becomes now 
 disengaged and radiating ; and, in propor- 
 tion as it feels an affinity to the spiritual 
 kingdom above alluded to, and attracts and 
 draws down other kindred ideas to itself, 
 it becomes more and more estranged from 
 the existing materials ; and thus the idea 
 which was before conservative, becomes 
 
TME REVOLUTION. 201 
 
 ilow destructive, and having determined to 
 construct for itself a new edifice, bursts 
 asunder all the bands of the old organi- 
 zation, to obtain space for the existence of 
 the new. 
 
 And thus it happens, that in these times 
 of transition, the mental lightning flashes 
 throughout society which it convulses, and, 
 in an instant, all heads are set on fire as if 
 influenced by a general contagion. The 
 manner in which the kindling thought 
 spreads itself, whether by inhalation through 
 a common and all-connecting medium, by 
 language or by usage, or by some secret 
 sympathy, cannot be known. All men, 
 however, have become suddenly of one 
 mind, and the flame spreads only the more 
 rapidly the more endeavours are made to 
 oppose it. This is caused by the mental 
 spirit of the social union having disengaged 
 itself. Freed now from its bonds the dis- 
 embodied spirit of the social union roams 
 about, and, like the cloven tongues of fire 
 which appeared unto the apostles, descends 
 on the heads of the organs of the age, and 
 there dissolved in dazzling light, penetrates 
 through the avenues of the senses into all 
 
202 GERMANY AND 
 
 minds, to consecrate them for the newly 
 begun work. Hence, of all follies, that of 
 interrupting this great work of creation, and 
 endeavouring to arrest the course of ideas, 
 is the most unpardonable. No one ever 
 yet conquered who engaged in this bold 
 conflict. Let them proceed quietly with 
 their task, and let us favour their move- 
 ment, by dexterously endeavouring to aid 
 it ; and then unfolding themselves tran- 
 quilly, and proceeding by gradual meta- 
 morphoses, they will effect the new con- 
 figuration and rejuvenescence. Stripping 
 off only what has become useless and dead, 
 they will then peaceably settle in the new 
 structure. If, however, instead of imitating 
 the practice adopted in the culture of bees, 
 and by suitable and sonorous sounds afford- 
 ing only measure and harmony to their 
 operation, they are clumsily disturbed and 
 confounded ; then the various instincts be- 
 come furious and enraged, and a terrible 
 tumult arises in the hive; a dreadful war 
 of all the passions commences ; every im- 
 pulse is powerfully directed to violence and 
 universal revolution, and a voice goes forth 
 through all lands : let the sword of ideas 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 203 
 
 fall on the head of all who presume to 
 oppose them. 
 
 To us, therefore, whom the course of the 
 times has brought to such a point of transi- 
 tion, there are two ways open to our choice; 
 either to enter into arrangement with the 
 ideas in the peaceable manner above de- 
 scribed, and allow them to settle without 
 molestation in the midst of us ; or to allow 
 ourselves to be forcibly overcome by them, 
 and placed by a Revolution completely at 
 their mercy. It is impossible not to see, 
 that hitherto the course of things strongly 
 tends to the latter alternative ; that the 
 witches' cauldron, in which it is forcibly 
 attempted to boil this age young again, is 
 filled with the poisons of all kingdoms and 
 with all sorts of wicked magical herbs, and 
 that by means of a brisk fire it is constantly 
 kept boiling and foaming over till the wished 
 for hour of midnight has struck. The 
 parties have for some time reached the 
 proper symptom, for they are resolved no 
 longer to understand each other. 
 
 All the things which singly have been 
 considered as the cause of insurrections 
 and revolutions ; namely, grinding taxes 
 
204 GERMANY ANt) 
 
 and duties, violent changes of laws and 
 customs, the violation of rights and privi- 
 leges, general oppression, the promotion of 
 unworthy persons to public places ; an op- 
 pressive want and decline of trade, the 
 abuse of standing armies, and factions 
 driven to despair, — have we contrived to 
 crowd together in the present day ; and no 
 ordinary industry has been displayed in 
 producing the present rare unanimity of 
 discontent. Love and confidence have 
 disappeared, and the whole system rests 
 now solely on the instinct of obedience, 
 which is deeply rooted in the human 
 heart. But this also will at length be 
 got over, for incessant complaints which 
 never find a judge, and edicts wholly at 
 variance with reason, summon men but too 
 frequently to lawful resistance, which soon 
 prepares the way for unlawful resistance, 
 and for every species of self-assistance. 
 
 This bold game having now been carried 
 on for a length of time, the thought of the 
 possibility of a revolution has suddenly 
 seized us. This idea has been received by 
 both sides in a manner equally unbecom- 
 ing ; by the one with mental alarm, and by 
 
 12 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 205 
 
 the other in some degree with criminal 
 levity. Revolutions are like death, at 
 which cowards only tremble, but with 
 which frivolity only would think of sport- 
 ing. These catastrophes in history are of 
 such fearful importance, and of such a 
 serious and awful nature, that none but 
 mad or desperate men would think of 
 wishing for them. A revolution can only 
 be the work of passions. Hence religion, 
 morals, intellect, science, and experience, 
 are all obstacles in its way. As nature in 
 the most violent ^stages of fever, compas- 
 sionately wraps the mind in delirium, that 
 by its inspection it may not disturb the 
 vital powers in their operations at that 
 critical period ; in like manner, in such a 
 paroxysm, a people must be seized with 
 madness before the disease can actually 
 come to a powerful crisis. Hence at first 
 it is found the easiest thing in the world to 
 make the weak give way to greater talents, 
 and all then wears a most promising 
 appearance ; for an unusual feeling of life, 
 and a warm enthusiasm, find little difficulty 
 in carrying through good and proper mea- 
 sures, and the first parties comprehend in 
 
206 GERMANY AND 
 
 them the great majority of the well dis- 
 posed. But when the axis, which holds to- 
 gether all the elements of the social union is 
 broken, and every separate element follows 
 its own law of gravity, the supremacy of 
 what is mental, which is essentially mea- 
 sured and regulated, can no longer exist, 
 and being under the necessity of gradually 
 following the pathetic powers, the animal 
 parts of man assert their right, and obtain 
 the mastery in a time which essentially be- 
 longs to the dominion of physical power. 
 Hence every following Jparty must neces- 
 sarily go beyond the preceding in every 
 species of exaggeration ; every one which 
 succeeds in impelling an affair one step 
 nearer to the extreme point, will of neces- 
 sity precipitate and destroy the more mo- 
 derate ; the Protesters and Resolutioners, 
 as in England, will be followed by Millen- 
 arians, who acknowledge no government ; 
 these again will be followed by the Level- 
 lers, who insist on an equality of property ; 
 and at last the Antinomians, who reject 
 even the ethical duties as a tyranny ; as in 
 France Girondists, Jacobins, Cordeliers, 
 drove out each other, by turns ; and as in 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 207 
 
 the Netherlands, the Gueux were succeeded 
 by*: the Image Breakers ; the madness of the 
 former stage always appears cold indif- 
 ference in the eyes of a succeeding one ; 
 till at length, step by step, the whole ladder 
 of human atrocity is climbed, every thing 
 existing precipitated, every thing solid 
 dashed to pieces, every thing exalted razed, 
 and every possession has changed its 
 owner. 
 
 When Nature has exhausted herself in 
 this manner in anarchical fury, the domi- 
 nion of unity again succeeds as a necessary 
 reaction. By this dominion the exhausted 
 powers are at first easily constrained, but 
 as the violent agitations of the preceding 
 period have excited great contrarieties, and 
 the most violent centrifugal directions, it 
 becomes necessary to grasp the mass with 
 more and more firmness. From one step 
 to another, the highest degree of despotism 
 is at length reached, when another opposite 
 course of atrocity is run through, which 
 terminates in some external or internal 
 catastrophe. The circle being then com- 
 pleted, the extremities are again directed 
 towards the centre. This is the march 
 
208 GERMANY AND 
 
 which the English, the French, and every 
 other revolution has taken. A German 
 revolution would form no exception to this 
 order of nature, as what a colder blood 
 might perhaps mitigate, may be easily coun- 
 terbalanced by spiritual beverages, as was 
 demonstrated in the war of the Boors. In 
 addition to the ideas, from whose agitation 
 France underwent a complete change, we 
 have one peculiar to ourselves, the influence 
 of which was hardly felt in that country ; 
 namely, that of unity, and such an increase 
 of the fermenting matter must necessarily 
 give rise to a stronger fermentation. A 
 German revolution would inevitably end 
 with the expulsion of all the ruling dynas- 
 ties, with the destruction of all ecclesiastical 
 forms, with the extirpation of the nobility, 
 with the introduction of a republican con- 
 stitution. When it found its more fortu- 
 nate Wallenstein, as every revolutionised 
 people are necessarily a conquering people, 
 it would then burst its frontiers and over- 
 throw the whole of the rotten political fa- 
 bric of Europe to the borders of Asia. But 
 all this splendour, like that of the Nether- 
 lands at an earlier period, would be pur- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 209 
 
 chased with the blood of .many millions, 
 with the destruction of half the rising gene- 
 ration, with the annihilation of the whole of 
 the property of Germany, and with the 
 devastation of all her provinces by a long 
 war; and after all little more would be 
 gained than may be obtained in a much 
 cheaper way. 
 
 Prospects of such a nature cannot possess 
 any attraction either for governments or 
 people, or even for foreign countries which 
 might be tempted to take advantage of the 
 disturbances ; and therefore all parties, if 
 they listen only to reason, would prefer 
 adopting the first of these courses. But 
 things are not so ordered that any party 
 may first try every other course, and in- 
 dulge in every species of abuse ; and then 
 at last, when matters come to an extremity, 
 may still have it in their power to adopt 
 the wiser and better course. So long as 
 the passions are yet under controul ; so 
 long as the wild spirits are still chained 
 down, the voice of reason will be listened 
 to, and the gradual transformation may be 
 happily effected. But when events have 
 once reached the brink of the steep preci- 
 
210 GERMANY AND 
 
 pice, then all appeal is vain, all discourse is 
 fruitless. It is as if we should attempt to 
 reason with earthquakes and tempests. No 
 one then stops to ask after consequences. 
 The kindling spark runs along like a train, 
 so long as it comes in contact with any 
 thing inflammable, and blow follows blow, 
 in proportion as the powers are let loose ; 
 and how quickly the fire spreads when the 
 tinder is once prepared for it in men's 
 minds, even without any concert or con- 
 nection, has been exemplified in the risings 
 against the Jews. Hence the more hollow r 
 the sounds which are heard along the 
 deep, indicative of the approaching storm ; 
 the more loudly the mass is heard to rave, 
 the greater the giddiness which has taken 
 possession of the governments, and the 
 more violent the agitation of the dark bil- 
 lows by which they are surrounded ; the 
 more urgent it is for the different parties to 
 come at least to an understanding in one 
 point; namely, to transform the vortical 
 and fermenting movement into a flowing 
 one, by which the danger which threatens 
 to burst through all otir dikes and mounds, 
 may be turned aside, 
 
THE REVOJX'TION, 211 
 
 As the whole mass of the conflicting 
 parties, from what has been stated, may be 
 in the first place considered to form two 
 leading divisions, of which the one is chiefly 
 anxious to support that which exists on a 
 historical foundation, while the other advo- 
 cates independent substitutes for our pre- 
 sent defective institutions, we should begin 
 with an endeavour to reconcile this contra- 
 riety, the success of which supposes an 
 equal honesty in each party, and which 
 therefore could only be attempted with the 
 better description of those on both sides. 
 Supposing both parties to be sincerely ac- 
 tuated by the desire of mutual correction 
 of views and opinions, an enquiry, con- 
 ducted on such a principle, would soon 
 show, that if justice were done to each 
 party, the dispute would terminate of itself! 
 It would be easy to convince both, that the 
 various epochs and ages in the life of a 
 people, in their succession, belong as ne- 
 cessarily and inseparably to each other, as 
 the various institutions and peculiarities 
 which subsist together in the same age. 
 The latter form the immanent state, the 
 former together form the permanent state. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 GERMANY AND 
 
 Hence, as duties and rights are reciprocal, 
 with the rights to which every succeed- 
 ing age succeeded by inheritance, duties 
 founded also at an earlier period must be 
 associated. It would further be ascertained, 
 that as every age has been endowed with 
 nearly an equal measure of creative powers, 
 though differently distributed in different 
 ages, — as an earlier age cannot transmit to 
 a later more than it possessed itself, — the 
 creations are therefore to be estimated 
 according to the measure of the powers 
 employed on them. If later ages stand on 
 a broader empirical foundation, an earlier 
 age may in return have the superiority in 
 every thing higher and ideal. 
 
 If we are but enabled to ascertain the 
 nature of every species of activity by its 
 fruits, then history will soon teach us with 
 what fulness the period of the middle ages 
 developed itself, and most of all in Ger- 
 many; that from the same onyx stone, on 
 which the Church was founded, the Gothic- 
 Bvzantine imperial fortress, another Mont- 
 Salvaz, was hewn out and built around its 
 minster; that all its institutions were framed 
 with an intelligence, the deep sense of 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 213 
 
 which is obvious to the most superficial 
 consideration, while the most profound 
 cannot fathom it; and formed a union of 
 powers harmoniously co-operating with 
 each other, in one sound, energetic, and 
 flourishing political body ; that in the im- 
 perial laws a system of legislation was com- 
 menced of which no other people had even 
 an idea; that its manners, its public and 
 private life, its views and ways of thinking 
 were consistent and connected ; that in 
 every species of art and poetry it can be 
 exceeded by no other age ; that even in its 
 scholasticism, which has been treated with 
 so much contempt, in the animated Gym- 
 nastics exhibited in its combats of philo- 
 sophers and poets, before the eyes of a 
 nation viewing them with lively interest, a 
 mental acuteness, dexterity, and a power 
 of discrimination were acquired far beyond 
 any thing of which we are capable ; that in 
 all its proceedings, in short, in the fulness 
 of its youthful creative energy, an anima- 
 tion and activity were displayed, of which 
 we have scarcely even a conception: all 
 this we know from history, and the ruins 
 
 p 3 
 
214 GERMANY AND 
 
 which have come down to our times, bear 
 loud testimony to the truth of it. 
 
 But if our age, in one of those fits of 
 self-conceit with which it is frequently 
 seized, should hold a discourse, in presence 
 of the past, respecting its foundation, it 
 would be placed in a very difficult situation 
 if this mandate were issued : " Tell us what 
 thou hast completed, and expose to us what 
 thou hast formed and constructed, that we 
 may award to thee the honour to which 
 thou art entitled, and the praise which thou 
 hast merited!" And if its poverty were 
 then to be displayed before this severe 
 judge, and the theatrical wardrobe of its 
 virtues examined by its sharp and pene- 
 trating eye, the following condemnatory 
 sentence would probably be pronounced: — 
 
 " Behold, thou hast, with an eloquent 
 tongue, related thy deeds, and praised thy 
 glory ; and we have examined its quality, 
 and seen that all is founded on vanity and 
 nothingness. In no one thing have we 
 perceived any traces of a real creative power 
 in thee; the fountain of all truly formative 
 impulses is dried up in thee ; the still and 
 
THE REVOLUTION. € 215 
 
 collected fervour which tends to preserve, 
 thou hast renounced ; hi return, a devour- 
 ing flame has entered into thee ; thy whole 
 being is destructive, and thy strength con- 
 sists only in pulling down. 
 
 " I built for thee a Church, the found- 
 ations of which are encircled by the 
 waters of the earth, while the clouds of 
 heaven enveloped its towers ; so firmly 
 founded in itself, that though the ground 
 yielded under it, the structure remained 
 nevertheless unshaken for many centuries : 
 but thou cast the fire-brand into it, under 
 the pretext of separating from it all that 
 was earthly and inflammable, and now the 
 naked walls alone remain ; the vaults have 
 been driven in by the rains of heaven, the 
 naked arches remain uncovered, grass and 
 shrubs grow in the sanctuary, and birds 
 nestle in the columns. 
 
 " Thy Germany have I girt round with a 
 mural crown, as with strong armour; its 
 knights defended the old fortifications; 
 within all was life and animation ; but thou 
 hast broken open the gates, blown up the 
 towers with the force of powder, levelled 
 the walls to the ground, and employed the 
 
 p 4 
 
216 GERMANY AND 
 
 materials for domestic purposes ; so that 
 the empire has become like an open village, 
 guarded by custom-house officers ; the 
 embroidered imperial mantle, which em- 
 braced the whole, has been cut in pieces by 
 the feudatories ; and having decked them- 
 selves with the rags, they strutted about 
 with them like so many negro kings, in the 
 foreign state which they had purchased 
 with the liberties of their subjects. 
 
 " With the savings of centuries, I richly 
 endowed the church and state, to give them 
 an organ on earth, that they might thereby 
 obtain earthly consistency. The military 
 estate, the communes, and even the incor- 
 porated companies, I also rendered inde- 
 pendent. But all , these immense posses- 
 sions thou hast scattered to the winds in a 
 few years : ideas having been separated 
 from their real bases, now roam about like 
 spirits and unessential shadows in society, 
 driven about by the wind of opinion, to a 
 dependency on which they have been re- 
 duced ; and for all this thou hast not, in 
 the whole extent of the empire, founded 
 one monument calculated to descend to 
 posterity. 
 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 217 
 
 " Thy presumption thou hast carried into 
 the region of faith, and, measuring divine 
 things by a human standard, thou hast 
 drawn them down to the earth. The 
 simple uncoloured ray of truth has, in the 
 disturbed medium, been broken down into 
 many colours, and rendered opaque; and 
 what was once united, has rapidly separated 
 into parties the most implacable towards 
 each other. 
 
 " All the sciences, forgetful of their 
 celestial origin, hast 'thou seduced through 
 sensual charms, till, forgetful of their source, 
 they have degraded themselves to unessential 
 shadows in the world of appearances, — like 
 the spirits of nature, the Gnomes, Sala- 
 manders, Sylphs, which are said to lead 
 only a mortal life, without an immortal 
 soul ; and thus thy intellectual operations 
 have become a coarse and sensual pleasure, 
 and an artificial game with the atoms of 
 the world of elements, and a masked dance 
 of higher powers, shrouded in animal dis- 
 guises or lower gradations. 
 
 " Thou hast separated the arts from their 
 sacred destination, and made them the in- 
 struments of thy pleasure: without sub- 
 
£18 
 
 GERMANY AND 
 
 stance, depth, and signification, they have 
 become children of the world, tributary to its 
 empty, light-minded, and frivolous desires ; 
 and though music has occasionally soared 
 again to higher things, the tinkling cymbals 
 of folly, and the voluptuous dance, have been 
 introduced into the temple of the Lord. 
 
 " Thy diplomacy is in theory and practice 
 an absolute nothing, pursued through all 
 the categories ; a substitution of grimaces 
 to the skill and dexterity which history 
 demands. Thy art of government is idle 
 scribbling, which has long been a stranger 
 to every thing like nature, and separated 
 from all tradition and experience; and which 
 lives only in artificial abstractions. It runs 
 after the shadows of empty theories, and 
 from this artificial and imaginary world 
 grasps from time to time at realities, which 
 it only serves to confound. 
 
 " Thy politics have only been displayed 
 in destroying: the great discoveries of which 
 thou boastest in the affairs of the Common- 
 wealth, are, in my eyes, no great matter ; 
 thy freedom and equality form only that 
 relation of the elements of society towards 
 each other with which every constitution 
 
 
 
THE INVOLUTION. 219 
 
 has begun ; and are the play of chemical 
 powers, which are alone efficacious in the 
 lowest stage of the life of States. This 
 anxious separation of powers, while estates, 
 orders, and every thing truly organised by 
 the impulse of nature, are run together in 
 one mass ; these two Chambers, in which 
 the whole freedom of the nation has ob- 
 tained a domestic settlement ; all these 
 seem to be but a poor reparation for the 
 mischief which thou hast done. When I 
 look at thy freedom, I see merely an eman- 
 cipated slave which still bears the marks of 
 his chains, and therefore perpetually oscil- 
 lates between abjectness and liberty ; when 
 I consider thy force, I see only a powerless 
 mannerly despotism, indistinctly divided 
 between arbitrary power and liberality ; 
 when I look at the whole history of thy 
 public life, I see nothing but a nauseous 
 struggling between a timid self-will and a 
 dreadful licentiousness, a mutual fearing 
 and inspiring with fear, a fermenting move- 
 ment without any result ; a dishonourable 
 veiling, covering, and lieing; a cloaking 
 over and deceiving ; a contesting without 
 strength and dignity. 
 
220 GERMANY AND 
 
 " Hence all thy proceedings are founded 
 on mere phrases ; and a tacit agreement, to 
 deceive and be deceived, extending to the 
 lowest occupations of life, is what thou hast 
 extolled to us as thy worldly prudence. In 
 destroying and forming plans alone, thou 
 hast an undoubted right to carry away the 
 palm from every other age." 
 
 Thus might the enraged past shame, 
 with ease, that self-conceit which refuses to 
 acknowledge its folly, and the presumption 
 certainly deserves such a censure. Still, 
 however, what irritation has here sharply 
 and cuttingly urged, will admit of an 
 answer, and, with a proper self-knowledge, 
 and a calm and tranquil view of things, it 
 would not be difficult for the subject of this 
 heavy accusation to conduct its defence in 
 this manner : — 
 
 " Thou hast indeed built a strong house 
 for God and the Empire ; but even hills, 
 which nature has erected on the eternal 
 foundations of the earth, have been thrown 
 down and dashed to fragments, when the 
 internal conservative life has been destroyed 
 by age ; and thou, also, must have founded 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 221 
 
 thy new work on the destruction of a flou- 
 rishing part in a still more early antiquity. 
 
 "Am I to blame that every thing on earth 
 has its times and climacterics ? And that 
 States, when their phoenix-period is run 
 through, are impelled to consume their 
 earthly part in the devouring flames, for a 
 new regeneration ? 
 
 " The dome of thy church towered up in- 
 deed to heaven ; but the stones with which 
 thou constructedst the work, are not dead 
 masses, but free independent natures, 
 which easily resign their will to the idea : 
 — Is it my fault that they endeavour to 
 regain their unpledged liberty, and that the 
 foundations are now moving, and the ele- 
 ments hastening to unite in new shapes ? 
 
 " Thou madest, indeed, Germany strong ; 
 but the power of gunpowder has burst the 
 Cyclops' walls ; and the invention of the 
 monk was only the symbol of the dreadful 
 mental power which began to develope 
 itself nearly about the same time. 
 
 " Thy constitutions, resting on sensible 
 ideas, on calm and fixed possession as their 
 organ, have been swept away by a flood of 
 
222 
 
 GERMANY AND 
 
 gold from a distant part of the world; the 
 attack of money, which, moveable, fleeting, 
 and unsteady as thought, has operated a 
 transmutation in the old sinewy and athletic 
 body, and introduced a plethora into the 
 relaxed vessels, by which their activity was 
 but too soon destroyed. — Could I prevent 
 that which, when the time comes, is eter- 
 nally repeated in the case of every man ? 
 
 " When the upper extremity became 
 dead, what remained still fresh in the orga- 
 nisation, must, according to the eternal laws 
 of nature, have either absorbed what was 
 dead, or expelled it, in proportion as it grew 
 withered, or was abandoned by the inherent 
 spirit. Thus the idea of the Emperor ter- 
 minated before the external representation 
 disappeared. Thus the Church, in its most 
 spiritual organs, first became withered, and 
 the spirit of the feudal system became 
 altogether extinct. When the possessors 
 quitted the stage, the property of course 
 devolved to the survivors. The third Es- 
 tate has obtained possession of the greatest 
 part of it, and the endowment of what of 
 ideas still lives, or will of new obtain life, 
 is a charge on the produce. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 223 
 
 " Spirits are winged : God has created 
 them free ; and they can, at their own risk, 
 attempt whatever they please. Could I 
 prevent them from at last using their right; 
 and taking their flight from the secure, the 
 safe, and warm nest of the mother ? Is not 
 reason, like every other possession, a gift of 
 God ? and is it an atrocity when it makes 
 trial of its innate power ? 
 
 " It is an error to suppose that faith only 
 moves in a higher light, but that reason, a 
 fallen spirit from pride, rules in darkness ; 
 pride is merely a temporal ruin. When 
 pride broke into the church, the church 
 became torpid in the re-action ; reason, how- 
 ever, when, self-renouncing, it follows with 
 honest endeavour and purity of spirit the 
 innate impulse of freedom to the end, will 
 then find itself at the place from which it 
 set out, and faith and knowledge will, when 
 correctly estimated, prove themselves the 
 same. The dividing into parties is in the 
 way to this end, and is the necessary con- 
 sequence of every exercise of freedom. It 
 is only when stone and steel come into 
 collision, that the intellectual spark is 
 elicited. 
 
224 GERMANY AND 
 
 " No doubt all knowledge has become 
 more comprehensible and sensible. The 
 course of ages, descending from height to 
 depth, necessarily produces this. The in- 
 ferior organs of the State, the third Estate, 
 having become flourishing, knowledge has 
 in consequence adapted itself to this order, 
 and become more practical, blunt, and 
 vigorous. Sciences have become tributary 
 to necessities, and arts to recreation. But 
 behold the structure which my mind has 
 been erecting for three centuries, planned 
 like a farm-house ; though Satan has con- 
 veyed many a stone for this building, it 
 will, notwithstanding, be at last a house of 
 God. 
 
 "Freedom is indeed still young, and knows 
 not how to conduct itself; arbitrary power 
 having, however, become grey and feeble 
 from age, cannot reconcile itself to the hard 
 choice between being and not to be. The 
 old is not yet past, and the new has not yet 
 become young. The mass is still raw, and 
 flowing with difficulty, it will not yet admit 
 of a pure cast. Hence all is merely a hissing 
 and a conflicting, a shaping and a melting 
 down, a forming and destroying, and I must 
 
. THE REVOLUTION. 295 
 
 perpetually watch that the fire may not go 
 down, and the boiling may go on quickly. 
 
 " Hence my whole being is one continued 
 contradiction. When attraction and im- 
 pulse deserted the internal powers, the old 
 chaos in society returned, and I, a terrible 
 destroyer, followed the old Creator. But, 
 from death alone can come life ; and the 
 forming power of the world, when in the 
 cup of Hermes the elements were first 
 mixed, and when raving, fermenting, hiss- 
 ing, thundering, the powers displayed them- 
 selves in wild confusion, made many an un- 
 successful attempt at creation, which are 
 now inclosed within the hills, before the 
 correct proportion was hit in the configur- 
 ation of the work. Do not, therefore, 
 demand from me the formation of any 
 thing permanent at a single effort. Thou 
 may est interrogate futurity respecting my 
 work." 
 
 If the former reproach was calculated to 
 cast down an overweening arrogance, this 
 defence again may preserve us from an ex- 
 cessive humility, and it will then be easy 
 to find the correct middle course, where the 
 past, which was once a present, is allowed 
 
 Q 
 
226 GERMANY AND 
 
 its rights, that the present, which will, in 
 turn, be as a past to the coming times, is 
 not even entitled to give up. For history 
 consists of ages, and whoever denies an age, 
 must deny all that preceded. In all ages, 
 that which wishes to remain separate is 
 destroyed. Every thing general, every thing 
 which acts efficaciously and in the manner 
 of interest in the mass, ought as such to be 
 honoured and esteemed. Whoever would 
 exclude this agreeably to the principles of a 
 false theory, may be certain that he is pro- 
 ceeding in the ways of error. 
 
 The first relation in which the opposition 
 of times and views is practically evinced, 
 and which demands the above mediation, 
 is that of the state to the church. . Accord- 
 ing to the idea of antiquity, the church in 
 the great community of the faithful, repre- 
 senting what was ideal, and the European 
 republic in the empire, and the State in par- 
 ticular, represented what was real. Such is 
 the relation, however, of the two spheres to 
 each other, that the ideal in its nature is free, 
 reposing on itself, master of itself, and trans- 
 parent to itself, and lighted up by the ideas, 
 which, like stars in their effusions of light, 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 227 
 
 reciprocally irradiate each other. The ideal 
 again, from its nature, though surrounded 
 by the former like the earth by the firma- 
 ment, is, however, complete within itself, 
 and within its peculiar sphere of activity, 
 moves according to the definite laws of a 
 natural necessity in a perpetual circle, and, 
 in so far as it is subject to that necessity, it 
 is deprived of freedom, and bound to its 
 particular laws. Hence the one is certainly 
 a symbol of the other, and the ideal precedes 
 the real, as being the first in dignity. But? 
 in so far as the idea, in its naturul side, is ac- 
 tually incorporated in the medium by which 
 it is represented, in so far it has left the 
 province of the ideal, and the latter must 
 now consign it to the natural laws of the 
 real sphere. 
 
 Thus the superiority of the ethical over 
 the pathetical is by no means doubtful, and 
 the ethical in its province recognises in no 
 manner the dominion of the passions, and 
 the dark side of man ; but it at the same 
 time renounces the exercise of any direct 
 dominion in the province of the passions 
 themselves. It can at most through the 
 law of the beautiful descend so far, and 
 
 Q2 
 
228 GERMANY AND 
 
 can only take on itself to order and regulate, 
 as far as possible, the breakings out of the 
 impulses of nature. Hence the Church is 
 in rank the first, though not prevailing 
 with exclusive rule. The State, however, 
 in its more narrow province, determined 
 by a multiplicity of earthly relations, pos- 
 sesses its particular independent autonomy, 
 which the Church can consecrate, but can- 
 not itself claim. 
 
 When the spirits of the deep ascend 
 with audacity, when, like Ahrimann in the 
 Persian mythology, they ascend to the 
 ether, and veil and combat its stars, then 
 what is threatened properly asserts its 
 higher dignity, and forcibly precipitates 
 the struggling enemy into the deep. This 
 happened when, in the time of Henry the 
 Fourth, the irrational Hyle* revolted 
 against the order of the world. The great 
 man j* was then sent whom recent times 
 in their blind folly have so severely abused, 
 
 * Hyle, *TA>j, a Greek word used by philosophers to 
 signify elementary matter, i. e. the first shapeless matter 
 from which the elements are derived. Trans. 
 
 f Pope Clement VII. Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 229 
 
 because with his lightning he cast down 
 rising audacity, and preserved the free- 
 dom of the Church. In the violent struggle, 
 however, according to the usual course of 
 things, the other extreme took place, and 
 the Church, arrogant from her victory, 
 overflowed on her part her banks, and, in 
 many things, arrogated to the succeeding 
 Popes a supremacy in the temporal matters 
 which came within the circle of its effi- 
 ciency. This deviation again from the 
 only correct and harmonious consonance, 
 could not fail to excite another re-action, 
 which attained its complete developement 
 in the Reformation. 
 
 Since that period a political sect has 
 arisen, which affirms the Church is com- 
 prehended in the State, and as the State 
 cannot tolerate any equal, it must neces- 
 sarily have dominion over the Church. 
 Such a doctrine as this, which places 
 necessity above freedom ; which consigns 
 what is mental to a thraldom under what 
 is earthly, a thraldom Christianity freed 
 itself from in the contest with ancient 
 Paganism ; which chains down thought, 
 that ought, on the contrary, to give signa- 
 Q 3 
 
& 230 GERMANY AND 
 
 ture and name to all that is sensible, in the 
 fetters of matter ! — such a doctrine, though 
 quite suitable to the spirit of this age, is 
 yet in itself so humiliating and revolting, 
 that this will surely become the critical 
 point, when this spirit, which has now 
 reached its extremity, will be constrained 
 to cede the field to higher and more worthy 
 views. A church which should be obliged 
 to pay court to the German sovereigns, 
 which, following in their steps, should 
 divide itself into as many factions as the 
 Commonwealth is at present divided into ; 
 which should degrade itself so far as to 
 yield up the power over consciences to the 
 humours, whims, common-place notions, 
 and frivolities of courtiers ; which should 
 yield up its doctrine a prey to the wind 
 of theories, to be blown about in every 
 direction, would soon become the most 
 contemptible of all institutions, as there 
 would not even be a Diet to give an appear- 
 ance of connection to the loose members. 
 
 If, therefore, in former times, the cham- 
 pions of freedom clung to the State when 
 the object was to combat the real Napo- 
 leonism of the popes, in the present 
 
THE REVOLUTIONS 231 
 
 disgraceful oppression of the Church its 
 freedom and independence should be de- 
 fended against the encroachments of secular 
 power, and the idea should be saved from 
 the bonds by which an usurping power has 
 held it chained down. In the Catholic 
 Church, therefore, we ought at present to 
 reject every principle of subordination, and 
 to allow only of that of the co-ordination of 
 the temporal power with the spiritual ; and 
 the declinatory movement by which co- 
 ordination has been transformed into sub- 
 ordination, must be compelled to retrograde 
 till it reaches the point of equilibrium, when 
 the relations can then be fixed. In the re- 
 ciprocal relations of both, a perfect equality 
 of rights can only be admitted. The prin- 
 ciple of Christian morality ought to be 
 obligatory in this as well as in other cases, 
 " As ye would that men should do to you, 
 do ye also to them likewise ;" as has been 
 very ably and practically demonstrated by 
 the Canon of Droste, in his publication on 
 the subject of Church and State. 
 
 To reach this point, however, the Church 
 must attach itself more strongly than ever 
 to its unity, and present to arbitrary power 
 Q 4 
 
%3 £ 2 GERMANY ANB 
 
 the close and firm phalanx of her hierarchy, 
 against which it has more than once spent 
 itself in vain. When it has in this manner 
 obtained light and freedom, and the just 
 endowment which the State still with- 
 holds from it, it will then, from the im- 
 mense power of reproduction which be- 
 longs to it, soon perfect itself in a manner 
 suitable to the age, and regulate itself by 
 synods and councils ; and in proportion as 
 ideas acquire new life, it will again exist in 
 all the strength of youth. Then will be 
 the time for making head against any 
 species of despotism which may possibly 
 develope itself in the Church ; for Catholic 
 Germany feels as little inclination to sub- 
 mit to an ecclesiastical as to a political 
 despotism. 
 
 The Protestant Church, however, which 
 cannot retrograde in this sense without 
 renouncing its character, has no other 
 course left for it, but to terminate the Re- 
 formation in the direction in which it began, 
 and to carry it to such an extent, that this 
 power shall every where be vested in the 
 congregation, as Sommer has admirably 
 pointed out in his book " On the Church 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 283 
 
 in the present Age." The same relation 
 in the way of universality, which the Ca- 
 tholics must seek in the way of unity, would 
 then be restored. Ecclesiastical power 
 would then be connected with the ideal 
 side of each individual member of the 
 Church, and from the internal division in 
 human nature would be sufficiently sepa- 
 rated from the real power of the State, of 
 which the focus is by no means the same 
 as that of the Church. All other divergent 
 directions, either originating in preconceived 
 opinions, partial views, or a prejudiced 
 way of thinking, and called forth by any 
 particular interest, or even by ill-judged 
 good intentions, from their very confusion 
 and nothingness in themselves, would enter 
 into collision with each other, and cannot 
 therefore be adopted by history, which 
 merely acknowledges what floats down the 
 main current of each of her movements. 
 
 These considerations lead us to the 
 second great opposition, the foundation of 
 another division in this age ; that, namely, 
 which exists between the monarchical and 
 democratical principle ; and with respect to 
 which the great object is to ascertain and 
 
234 GERMANY AND 
 
 determine the relation of the government 
 to the people. Antiquity, guided in all its 
 operations and creations by a correct natural 
 instinct, (unconsciously for the most part,) 
 formed and regulated a community of living 
 organic individuals, according to the laws, 
 and in the forms of organic life ; so that 
 the power of formation, advancing from 
 the individual to the community, repro- 
 duced in it merely the type of individual 
 organisation. We have here two sorts of laws, 
 as it were, and two sorts of operations, and 
 the same number of systems ; namely, the 
 automatous and the arbitrary. The former, 
 in which the beating of the heart, every 
 pulsation, and, in short, every movement 
 of the inferior life is carried on, has in 
 itself its separate rights and its peculiar 
 order; it has its peculiar inherent soul, 
 which divides its formative and conserva- 
 tive instincts among many independent or- 
 gans, and has its separate and independent 
 train of thought and connection of ideas ; 
 but which, however, are subject in it, as in 
 a dream, to the laws of an universal natural 
 necessity. The second, however, namely, 
 the arbitrary, in which all the arbitrary 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 235 
 
 movements of the higher organisation are 
 comprehended, is also subject to a higher 
 mental supremacy; but instead of the 
 former obscure instinct, a self-conscious 
 contemplation, and a free self-determining 
 volition, here regulates and determines all 
 the different operations ; consequently the 
 movements do not take place in a circle 
 previously marked out; they are merely 
 mediately connected with external natural 
 relations ; these relations are therefore un- 
 conditionally subject to that higher arbi- 
 trary, which commands them in such a 
 way, that the whole are accessible to it, 
 even in the most minute details. Both 
 systems, connected by leading intermediate 
 organs, reciprocally strengthening and ani- 
 mating, preserving and giving exercise to, 
 nourishing and inspiring each other, form 
 a complete and free whole within them- 
 selves, which appears to us as the highest 
 work of art of the creation. 
 
 The former, however, as we have shown, 
 will have more of the nature of the real in 
 itself, and consequently will properly be 
 the prevailing element of the state; the 
 second, however, standing nearer to the 
 
236 GERMANY AND 
 
 ideal, will appear the new ecclesiastical ele- 
 ment. In the Church itself, the former 
 will contain more of the Protestant, the 
 latter more of the Catholic character; but 
 in the State, the one will represent the de- 
 mocratical, the other the monarchical prin- 
 ciple. Democracy, from its nature, wilfully 
 strives to depend solely on itself; it wishes 
 to determine for itself as much as possible, 
 and shuns every power that would assume 
 a right of ordering and deciding from above 
 according to general abstractions ; it is 
 therefore essentially dividing and dissect- 
 ing; resolving what is general into the 
 most minute parts, till individual person- 
 ality, as last element of the commune, sets 
 bounds to the division. Hence authority 
 is nothing to it, and its own conviction 
 alone the only criterion of action; the 
 community has merely a power delegated 
 from below ; unity is merely derived from 
 an unanimous multiplicity, and without this 
 has in itself no ideal existence, and no 
 power. The monarchical principle is es- 
 sentially renunciation and self-deprivation ; 
 it ascends synthetically, by a train of ab- 
 stractions, to the highest power, and con- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 237 
 
 siders, descending again from thence, every 
 thing subordinate as effluence of that unity 
 which comprehends every thing within 
 itself. Therefore the separate part here 
 can maintain no existence in itself; it loses 
 itself voluntarily in that whole, from which 
 all the parts have emanated, and which 
 holds them in a constant community; so 
 that every one may exist in another, and 
 every part which happens to be the organ 
 of the whole may receive all its power. 
 Hence the essential character of the mo- 
 narchical, is belief in and obedience to that 
 one universality, which has proceeded from 
 the renunciation of every thing particular, 
 and which has united the different ages 
 historically, in one general living tradition. 
 Hence, as every youthful state must first 
 develope its mental qualities, and take root 
 in the sphere of nature, in the constitutions 
 of antiquity, (more particularly in those of 
 the Greeks,) and also in those of such 
 parts of the new world as have attained 
 independence, the democratic element 
 predominates ; and in the church the 
 polytheism of paganism may be compared 
 with the dissenting sectarianism. The 
 
238 GERMANY AND 
 
 Greek constitutions were, in all their ele- 
 ments, as family, commune, state, tho- 
 roughly automatous, and the indispensable 
 monarchical ingredient was added in an 
 aristocracy, in itself, again, a more restricted 
 Demos. 
 
 All these democracies were therefore 
 founded in and preserved by an instinct for 
 the most part acting without conscious- 
 ness. The emigrating tribes moved along 
 like storks, according to the natural impulse 
 of birds of passage. Those who settled, 
 built themselves habitations like beavers 
 beside the waters, and sent forth colonies 
 like bees. In the interior of the society 
 every thing was regulated according to 
 periods of nature, and according to cycles. 
 Ascending and descending forces of nature 
 were represented in the different powers. 
 The divisions of the country were formed 
 according to natural divisions; every where 
 great types of nature were discernible. 
 Even custom ruled like a physical force, 
 and the bond of the state was a union of 
 repellingand attracting contrarieties. Rome, 
 internally constituted according to the same 
 principle, bore externally the monarchical 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 239 
 
 character, though still in the sense of an- 
 tiquity, with respect to its great dominion. 
 The provinces were essentially in a state of 
 subjection ; and Rome comprehended what 
 was arbitrary in all nations within its own, 
 as its Jupiter Capitolinus ruled over all the 
 gods of a conquered world. 
 
 AVhen the Germans, issuing from their 
 woods, stormed the bulwarks of this em- 
 pire, they also adopted in their state of 
 nature more and more of the mental unity 
 of the monarchical principle, which has 
 now received, through Christianity, its found- 
 ation in a higher world, and from thence 
 received its consecration and delegation. 
 When, therefore, the sword of the Franks 
 had given unity and security to the whole 
 of the west, Charlemagne founded the first 
 empire in the spirit of the new Christian 
 times. He himself, the first Prince by the 
 grace of God, and the choice of the people, 
 capitulated with the freedom of his Franks, 
 and the other tribes subjected to him by 
 their arms ; and possessing great, noble- 
 minded, and liberal, though at the same 
 time intelligent views as to what the altered 
 situation of the world demanded, honour- 
 
240 GERMANY AND 
 
 ing the principle of the old Germanic free- 
 dom, and promoting every species of deve- 
 lopement emanating from the people, he 
 dexterously connected his sovereignty with 
 the Christian-monarchical principle, which 
 descended through a whole series of im- 
 perial office-bearers, who in war and peace 
 received their powers only from the highest 
 authority, and thus formed the first truly 
 organical state, comprising within itself the 
 whole man in all his physical and mental 
 regions. 
 
 When, in the following age, the unity 
 which had perhaps been too rigidly ex- 
 ercised by him in his long wars, weakened 
 by various relations, lost somewhat of its 
 all-penetrating energy, then the automatous 
 principle, gaining always more and more 
 room, ascended higher and higher towards 
 the centre, and binding the multiplicity in 
 an exponential series of unities constantly 
 super-ordinate to it, till the last lost itself 
 in the imperial power, the whole political 
 body was formed in a gradation of organs 
 declining in such a manner in dignity and 
 importance, that the lower always appeared 
 as the root of the higher. Thus the im- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 241 
 
 perial officers, uniting with the democracy 
 of the possessors of land in an armed aris- 
 tocracy, formed the whole feudal system of 
 the middle ages in its seven powers, and 
 with its seven shields. The Emperor, as the 
 highest unity, bore the first shield ; the 
 Bishops and Prelates, who were Princes, 
 bore the second ; the Lay Princes the third, 
 the Barons and free Vassals were distributed 
 under the fourth and fifth, and then the 
 order descended through the * Ministeriales 
 of the sixth shield, at last to those who 
 were not bondsmen, and without being 
 noble, could boast of a pure birth and a 
 free possession, and who ranked under the 
 seventh. Thus all the possessors having, 
 as it were, resigned on their entrance into 
 the State their personal freedom, as well as 
 their Estates in favour of the community, 
 in order to receive it again, secured and 
 guarantied by that community, they formed 
 
 * Dienstmannen in the original. They were a de- 
 scription of Vassals who held their fiefs on the condition 
 of performing court services, in contradistinction to 
 Vassals, properly so called, who were bound to perform 
 military services. They are called Ministeriales in the 
 Latin of the middle ages. Trans. 
 
242 GERMANY ANP 
 
 themselves in this seven-fold divided mass 
 into a well-defended fortress of shields, for 
 mutual service and mutual protection ; and 
 in the middle ages, all who had not a home, 
 all who did not belong to these divisions, 
 all who were reduced to subjection by force 
 of arms, were considered as doomed to 
 predial slavery, and condemned to a mild 
 servitude. 
 
 In this sort of mixture of the two prin- 
 ciples, Germany, in the middle ages, ran 
 through its second brilliant period, and was 
 elevated to the rank of Head of Christen^ 
 dom. But, in the progress of time, that 
 democratic principle from which the whole 
 organisation emanated, spreading always 
 wider and wider, could not fail to destroy 
 its own work. After Germany was no 
 longer ruled by the powerful Emperors of 
 the Swabian dynasty, while their dignity 
 remained elective, that of the office-bearers 
 of the Empire became hereditary, and the 
 law of the strongest {Faustrecht) gained 
 ground more and more eyery day. The 
 unity of the Empire was soon lost in multi- 
 plicity. The second, and more especially 
 the third shield, could not fail to acquire 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 243 
 
 more and more strength, as they possessed 
 most unity. This increase of strength, 
 however, took place at the expense of the 
 Imperial power, which they undermined, 
 and at the expense of the inferior vassals 
 at the same time, whom they partly op- 
 pressed and partly gained over to their in- 
 terests by corruption. 
 
 The territorial sovereignty was thus 
 gradually developing itself, when the inven- 
 tion of gunpowder, rendering the military 
 assistance of the feudal vassals less neces- 
 sary, converted them either into courtiers 
 or regular soldiers. The discovery of Ame- 
 rica having poured streams of gold into 
 society, gave rise to a system of taxation 
 which soon rendered the territorial rulers 
 independent of the aid of the landed pro- 
 prietors. The breaking out of the Reform- 
 ation gave the finishing blow to the whole, 
 as it reduced the Church also to a com- 
 plete state of subjection. Thus the Em- 
 pire became the prey of a multitude of 
 petty and more powerful tyrants, who toler- 
 ated only the appearance of a Judge and 
 Supreme Head over them, but in their 
 
 r 2 
 
244 GERMANY AND 
 
 constant progress downwards buried and 
 overpowered the democratic principle. 
 
 In order to effect this the better, the Cen- 
 tralisation-system, as it is called, was de- 
 vised. Under this system the State drew 
 every thing down to the most minute 
 object under its management ; the most 
 trifling matter was managed from the cen- 
 tre ; the police, as it is called, from its ele- 
 vation, extended its discipline through all 
 the members of the community, interfering 
 even with the most private family con- 
 cerns ; and the Church itself was subjected 
 to the degradation of becoming an instru- 
 ment of this policy. But injured nature 
 took a severe revenge of those who made 
 choice of such an absurd system. These 
 centralised operations required to be con- 
 ducted by natures of a more exalted descrip- 
 tion than are to be found in the common 
 run of men, and for the most part devolved 
 on impotent instruments, who, as might be 
 expected, were in vigour and knowledge 
 below mediocrity ; while from below, 
 where all autonomy became more and 
 more paralysed, isolated power could derive 
 neither aid nor encouragement. 
 
 *5 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 245 
 
 Thus, in proportion to the insatiable 
 gluttony with which it devoured every 
 thing that came in its way, in the same 
 proportion it became feeble and impotent. 
 When the machine happened to get out of 
 order in any respect, the feeble spring on 
 which the motion of the whole depended, 
 was less able to encounter resistance, and 
 to overcome the friction. 
 
 As all manner of instincts were every 
 day rendered more inefficacious and blunt- 
 ed, and the impulses of nature less power- 
 ful, the whole economy of the state became 
 an artificial work of the understanding, 
 without life and without nature. When the 
 possession of land gave way to money, and 
 money to paper, all organical vital power 
 became a piece of mere mechanism, oper- 
 ating within a particular circle, which had 
 little or nothing to do with the actual 
 world. In this manner states might be 
 compared to animals in those physiologi- 
 cal experiments in which their brains have 
 been taken out, and the cranium filled with 
 a mixture of zinc and quicksilver, when, 
 on the application of galvanic stimulants 
 
 r 3 
 
246 
 
 GERMANY AND 
 
 they rise, run about, leap, and exhibit 
 altogether a dreadful resemblance of life. 
 
 While this system was in its full career 
 of advancement, a re-action was forming 
 itself in secret. This proceeded from the 
 sixth and seventh shields, which were borne 
 by the Ministeriales, and those who were 
 not bondsmen, and were the children of 
 lawful marriage, of whom the Saxon Mir- 
 ror P says, " as it is not known where the 
 seventh world will end, so it is not known 
 whether they can have fiefs or not," — but 
 who, when their time came, began in turn 
 to rise and advance in growth. Under the 
 protection of this shield, the freemen as- 
 sembled in the towns, in their different in- 
 corporated companies, and in the Hanse- 
 associations these communities united 
 themselves again in corporations of a higher 
 order. At length an independent order of 
 peasants was established by the Revolution 
 of Switzerland. The influx of money in- 
 creased the number of independent proprie- 
 
 * The old laws of Saxony exist under the title of 
 Saxon-Mirror, ( ' SacJisen-Sjpiegel. ) Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 247 
 
 tors,and soon broughtthegreatest partof the 
 landed property into the hands of the free 
 Commons. Service in the standing armies 
 gave them the honour of arms; Printing, 
 the knowledge and science, which before 
 had been monopolised by the higher or- 
 ders ; and the Reformation soon added the 
 freedom of belief. 
 
 Thus the democratic element, in all its 
 purity, grew up in silence, in the same pro- 
 portion as the monarchical, grasping exten- 
 sively at every thing around it, weakened 
 and destroyed itself intensively* Disre- 
 garding the liberties of the Estates, the 
 only remaining obstacle in its way, the mo- 
 narchical element seemed to be on the 
 point of swallowing up the democratical, 
 when the violent re-actions which neces- 
 sarily resulted from this course, gave a re- 
 trograde direction to the whole movement. 
 In this way the Revolution in England, and 
 the Revolt of the United Provinces, took 
 place. In our times, the French Revolu- 
 tion gave to the democratic element in 
 Germany the highest degree of tension, at 
 the very time when the territorial system 
 had, from the complete dissolution of the 
 r 4 
 
248 GERMANY AND 
 
 Empire, attained its utmost perfection ; 
 and as the most extensive and most com- 
 plete contrarieties are here ranged in oppo- 
 sition to each other, we may conceive the 
 urgent necessity of some endeavour to har- 
 monise them, if we would avoid those vio- 
 lent explosions which have broken out 
 elsewhere. 
 
 If we were to compare the present 
 internal condition of Germany, with any 
 peculiarity in organic life, we should find 
 in magnetic somnambulism, a most ad- 
 mirable coincidence with it. In this con- 
 dition, the whole of the higher mental life 
 has descended into the inferior animal life, 
 and all independent volition has become 
 extinct ; the various movements no longer 
 listen to the command of those higher 
 powers above, but receive from below the 
 direction of sleep-walking ; all the senses 
 are closed, and centered in themselves, 
 and the mind sports in unreal visions, as 
 in a glimmering reflection, after the de- 
 parture of light. In like manner autho- 
 rity, in its attempts to spiritualise and 
 separate itself from the whole of the 
 inferior life, is thrown into a condition 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 249 
 
 resembling that produced by the highest 
 degree of irritability, and becomes nearly 
 powerless and deprived of consciousness. 
 
 As in the condition to which we have 
 been alluding, the lower animal life has 
 acquired an accession of all that has been 
 taken from the higher, as new instincts 
 have been awaked in it, a new sense has 
 manifested itself in it, which, bound in 
 another manner to the forms of space and 
 time, looks with ease into itself, as well ^s 
 into the surrounding world ; in like manner, 
 particularly since the great excitement of 
 the war of liberation, the same concaten- 
 ation of phenomena has been displayed in 
 the third estate. All the faculties formerly 
 possessed only by the higher organisation 
 of the state, have been developed in the 
 third estate ; prophetical organs have 
 opened and unfolded themselves in it ; 
 formative impulses, long dormant, have 
 again awaked ; a sense in the shape of 
 public opinion has displayed itself in it, 
 which guides all movements, even against 
 the will of the public organs ; which looks 
 through all the social relations, and at the 
 same time both perceives their peculiar 
 disease, and assigns the means for curing it. 
 
250 GERMANY AND 
 
 This common sense, however, rende 
 imperiously i .ry. that the existing 
 
 discontent should be tranquillised. by con- 
 necting the clemocratical with the monarch- 
 ical element in such a manner, that the 
 former may reach upwards to the monarch., 
 stationed in his irresponsibility at the head 
 of society, while the latter descends as 
 low afl the commune, which, as a distinct 
 community of heads of families, forms the 
 basis of society. In the middle membc 
 however, both elements, regulated with 
 due reference to each other, ought to work 
 together simultaneously ; so that the 
 monarchical principle may always pre- 
 ponderate more and more as we ascend. 
 while, in descending, the democratical prin- 
 ciple may become always more decidedly 
 powerful. 
 
 The communes, where such communes 
 as the old Germanic are in actual existence. 
 ought necessarily to be left in a state of 
 freedom to perform every good and bene- 
 ficial operation ; their Schoffen* should be 
 
 * Schoffen^ individuals chosen bv the commun- 
 
 the decision ^: T ::■ 
 
THE BI 251 
 
 allowed, without molestation, to settle dis- 
 putes : their mag: and heads ought [ 
 be allowed to administer then uernal 
 affairs, and both should, by independent 
 election, be chosen from among them in 
 such a manner that as er and 
 bailiff or justice of pea ultheiss oder 
 Friedensrichter) are the link which con- 
 nects the monarchical element with the 
 commune, their election aloiir uld be 
 confirmed by the government. As writ 
 law and tradition ought to serve the burger- 
 master as a guide in his de:: b :::?. the law 
 of the state ought to be the guide of the 
 bailiff or justice of peace, and both of them 
 in their property of heads the eommv 
 should be fully independent, and only con- 
 nected with the higher government by 
 means of this positive ie. 
 
 This tie immediately connects the j 
 xaal and admiiristrative bodies with 
 above m free and independent 
 
 societies ; and the bodies in p con- 
 
 nect together on the one hand all th 
 communal bodies into on- . and on 
 
 the other hand, become the links which 
 connev higher ui:: 
 
252 GERMANY AND 
 
 In this position then functions partake of 
 a threefold character : — in the first place, 
 looking downwards, they have a general 
 superintendence of the administration of 
 justice in the communes, merely however 
 limiting the abuse of freedom, but interfer- 
 ing in no manner with the use of it ; in the 
 second place, looking around them, they 
 have the regulation and disposition, with- 
 in the determined and distinct circle of 
 their activity, of the more general relations 
 which come within that circle, not however 
 with the same freedom as the communes, 
 but still with a certain degree of indepen- 
 dence, functions which ought, as far as 
 possible, to be discharged in person ; and 
 lastly, with respect to the higher authorities 
 over them, they are exposed to a still more 
 rigid superintendence over themselves, than 
 that which they exercise over those below 
 them, and must yield unconditional pbe- 
 dience to the executive power in every 
 thing that is legal and just. 
 
 These higher tribunals will therefore, 
 with respect to those immediately below 
 them, be in the relation of the monarchical 
 to the democratical element, and hence in 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 253 
 
 proportion as they rise in the hierarchy of 
 powers, they ought to be members more 
 and more concentrated. The ministries 
 ought to be regulated on the principle of 
 offices or bureaus, the provincial adminis- 
 trations as colleges, but much more com- 
 pressed than hitherto, as the estates would 
 represent the collegiate multiplicity. Two 
 of these collegiate bodies ' might be under 
 one president, who, as a central point, 
 might, through the intermediation of a pre- 
 fect, be connected with the ministries. The 
 provincial councils should be placed in the 
 same relation to the administrations, and 
 connected in various ways with the burger- 
 masters and heads of communes. The same 
 order of things has been proved by expe- 
 rience adapted for the judicial department. 
 While the president, however, as organ of 
 the higher body, and at the same time head 
 of the inferior, may unite the Carolingian 
 Sendgraves and Gaugraves * in his person, 
 it would be better that in matters of justice 
 a separation of authorities should take 
 
 * Village and district officers, who in old times exer- 
 cised administrative and judicial duties. Tram. 
 
254 GERMANY AND 
 
 place. The determination of the fact 
 should also be entrusted to elective juries, 
 but the application of the law only to the 
 judicial authorities. 
 
 As all the office-bearers of the inferior 
 orders should, as they descend, partake 
 more and more of the democratic element, 
 it is indispensably necessary, that in all the 
 Provinces their particular laws should again 
 be restored, in order that the peculiar re- 
 lations of a Province may be adopted as the 
 rule for regulating its concerns. All the 
 office-bearers of the commune ought to be 
 freely chosen by those who possess pro- 
 perty and money in it, or, what is equiva- 
 lent, exercise an independent industry, in 
 order that the State may not be destroyed 
 by the dominion of the mob, the govern- 
 ment confirming the election as a matter 
 of course ; but the higher officers of justice 
 and administration, down to the procurators 
 and presidents in the different districts, 
 should be chosen by the government from 
 a three-fold list. The highest of all, how- 
 ever, should be named simply and directly 
 by the executive power, which ought also 
 to be empowered to recall them, whereas 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 255 
 
 the elective officers should only be remove- 
 able from their places by a legal decision. 
 
 To regulate the march of this host of 
 office-bearers, and to harmonise the laws 
 and regulations under which they act with 
 the democratic element, provincial assem- 
 blies should be chosen for the more narrow 
 circles of local relations, and an imperial 
 parliament for the general relations, in 
 order that acting on the ministries and mi- 
 nisterial persons, and acted on by them in 
 return, and carried along and strengthened 
 by all those automatons institutions in 
 which they have struck their roots as in 
 their native earth, they may give form and 
 configuration to what may be advantageous 
 to the welfare of the community, and what 
 may be suitable to its condition. 
 
 In this way only public opinion deems 
 it possible to succeed in recovering what 
 we lost in centuries of confusion, and in 
 solving for ourselves the problem which 
 each of the various ages of German history 
 has solved in its own way. Till the com- 
 munes be again replaced in their natural 
 independence, and the stagnating eddy be 
 again converted into a current, it is im- 
 
256 GERMANY AND 
 
 possible to revive the dead feeling of inter- 
 est and participation in public affairs ; it 
 is impossible otherwise to waken those 
 dormant interests with which the preserv- 
 ation of the commonweal is essentially con- 
 nected. By their more certain and unerring 
 activity in their particular spheres, the in- 
 definite activity which grasped at every 
 thing, however distant, will gradually be 
 confined within its proper banks, and the 
 diseased excitability will naturally become 
 blunted and tranquillised. 
 
 A free communication of thought, limited 
 only by the condition of truth in the state- 
 ment of facts, and of moral equity in the 
 expression of opinions, and of which the 
 abuses are only cognisable by a jury, will 
 keep up a mental circulation. And now, 
 the Constitution, with all its institutions, 
 being placed under the all-penetrating in- 
 spection of the whole community, the ever- 
 lasting and altogether inadmissible controul 
 of the central government, one of the prin- 
 cipal causes of that excess of writing, which 
 may be considered the great disease of all 
 Continental States, will no longer be ne- 
 cessary. If each Board has its own parti- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 257 
 
 cular limits, within which on its own 
 responsibility it discharges its particular 
 functions, and if these functions are dis- 
 charged personally and immediately, as 
 much as possible, this would remove an- 
 other most prolific source of ruinous abuses. 
 The people are now ruled solely by the 
 lowest office-bearers, and the orders which 
 they receive only serve to confound and mis- 
 lead them. Impelled by the natural course 
 of things, they are perpetually hovering on 
 the brink of anarchy. The monarchy, there- 
 fore, in its abstract world, is either in a 
 state of complete impotence, and can boast 
 of almost no influence whatever in real 
 affairs, or it is obliged to have recourse to 
 rude violence and force. But instead of 
 this loose-paper bond which now connects 
 the monarchy with the democracy, let a 
 truly organic bond hold together the various 
 spheres in a living body, in which one 
 member shall perpetually be supported by 
 another, and both shall mutually promote 
 the common welfare. Should the wholly 
 unsubstantial formality of the system of 
 government of the present day give way 
 in this manner to a more substantial and 
 
258 GERMANY AND 
 
 vigorous system, the monarchical principle 
 would then receive the fulness and strength 
 of which it is susceptible, and the govern- 
 ments would then cease to flit about like 
 so many ignes fatui over a treacherous 
 ground, approaching him who prays, and 
 flying from him who curses them. By 
 leaving so vapoury a condition, and enter- 
 ing into a fresh and vigorous life, strength- 
 ened by all manner of sound impulses, they 
 themselves would become one with it, and 
 then the State, animated by them, would 
 again be elevated to a true organisation. 
 
 After the institutions which seem to 
 secure the safety and tranquillity of the 
 state, those which have reference to de- 
 fence and protection, are next entitled to 
 our consideration. The army summoned 
 by the general bann, in the Carolingian 
 times, assumed under late emperors the 
 forms of the feudal system, which inclined 
 more to the democratic; and an army 
 formed in this manner, proved itself, during 
 many centuries, well adapted for making 
 head against every species of danger, and 
 extended the name and fame of the Ger- 
 mans over all Europe. But when fiefs 
 became hereditary, the army soon dege- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 259 
 
 nerated into a Janissary cast. All the 
 disadvantages of this system then began to 
 be developed in it, and remaining, like a 
 plant, inseparably connected with the soil, 
 it could not fail to lose, in a short time, 
 that external activity which is requisite for 
 war, and it only retained that internal 
 activity which disposed it to tumults and 
 disturbances. 
 
 When the new mode of warfare was 
 introduced, the military spirit of the nation 
 threw itself unwillingly into the opposite 
 extreme; and now standing armies were 
 resorted to, in the institution of which the 
 monarchical principles solely and exclu- 
 sively prevail. Blind obedience is the 
 only band which holds the whole together, 
 and the peculiar and specific honour of 
 arms, is the only impulse by which it is 
 animated. But when experience had de- 
 monstrated the detriment, of which this 
 extreme was in turn the cause ; when 
 it was soon shown that the same me- 
 chanism, in which the constitution be- 
 came paralysed, extinguished every thing 
 like mind and courage, and confined the 
 attention to absurd military foppery, 
 and the vain arts of parades ; and, as in 
 
 s 2 
 
260 GERMANY AND 
 
 both instances, the mind, deprived of all 
 field for its exertion, lost itself in empty 
 theories, without any commerce with 
 reality, and practical knowledge and dex- 
 terity, were no where to be found, it was 
 perceived that a re-juvenescence in the 
 fountain of perpetual youth was become 
 indispensably necessary. The landwehr 
 system was then attempted. It was per- 
 ceived that, as the system of standing 
 armies had become general, and the whole 
 art of war had taken its shape from that 
 system, a necessary historical developement 
 was, at all events, represented in it, and that 
 an individual state cannot, without danger 
 to itself, renounce an institution which, 
 from its moveability, from its concentration, 
 from its flexibility, and the harmony of its 
 movements, can be operated upon by the 
 governing idea, with an efficaciousness 
 urgently demanded by the nature of things, 
 which cannot easily be attained in any other 
 way. Hence it is universally allowed, that 
 so long as the present military relations 
 exist, there is a necessity for continuing 
 the army, the proper force of the executive 
 power, the peculiar domain of the mo- 
 narchical principle, and the representative 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 261 
 
 of the old warlike train of the prince ; and 
 that to give permanency to the idea, a fund 
 for the support of this institution ought 
 to be granted, in connection with the 
 civil list. 
 
 But then to this army, in its nature essen- 
 tially obedient, as a foundation for its exist- 
 ence, and as the basis of the executive power, 
 there ought to be added the landwehr, in 
 which the democratic principle essentially 
 predominates. The warlike train is con- 
 nected with the person of the Prince, and 
 advances under his banner. From the 
 nature of this force, as the complete renun- 
 ciation of volition which it requires cannot 
 be claimed, but can only be granted by a 
 free determination, it ought in time of peace 
 to consist of volunteers and free-recruits 
 alone, bound by the oath of service. But 
 the landwehr connected with the soil, des- 
 tined for its protection, and merely bound 
 by the civil oath, should consist of all those 
 who have not passed from the protecting to 
 the protected class, merely because they 
 have become fathers of families, or have 
 embraced a business incompatible with 
 arms ; and among those capable of this ser- 
 vice, no other exception should be allowed 
 
 s 3 
 
262 GERMANY AJTO 
 
 than that which necessarily results from an 
 equitable appreciation of circumstances and 
 relations. But as the landwehr is of a civic 
 nature, the civic element ought to pre- 
 dominate in it. It ought neither to be 
 trained in the minutiae of parade arts, nor 
 forced to practise them, but merely receive 
 that degree of discipline essentially neces- 
 sary for war. As the warlike train within 
 its circle is bound by its own peculiar laws 
 of discipline, and only by way of exception 
 in the case of civil crimes is amenable ta 
 the civil law, the landwehr-man, on the 
 other hand, is essentially subject to the ge- 
 neral civil law, and ought only, as an ex- 
 ception, when under arms, to be placed 
 under a strict, severe, and suitable disci- 
 pline, calculated to preserve order and re- 
 gularity, without extinguishing the inde- 
 pendent feelings of the citizen. As in the 
 standing armies, every movement is regu- 
 lated by directions from the head, and all 
 the appointments proceed from the supreme 
 power, in the landwehr again the sub- 
 officers up to a certain rank ought to be 
 freely elected by the body of the landwehr, 
 the election receiving confirmation from the 
 government. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 263 
 
 In this institution, for which the present 
 landwehr regulations of Prussia can only 
 be considered as a preparatory trial, the 
 knowledge of arms, like reading and writ- 
 ing, would be a general qualification pos- 
 sessed by all the natives. Warlike exer- 
 cises would be one of the many civic duties 
 we owe to our country ; and were a com- 
 monweal actually gained, this duty would 
 soon be viewed as a pastime ; whereas 
 now, that nothing remains of liberality, but 
 its burdens, the hope only of a better state 
 of things in future, renders it at all sup- 
 portable. 
 
 When we have regained the exercise of 
 arms for our youth, and a participation in 
 public affairs for persons of mature age ; 
 when a high degree of strength and 
 fulness has been communicated internally 
 to the state, by the conservative powers 
 introduced into its constitution, and when 
 strength and dexterity have been given 
 externally to the mass by warlike exercises, 
 it might then be possible to revive, in 
 modern states, a part at least of the fair 
 proportion and symmetry which distin- 
 guished those of antiquity. It ought, how- 
 ever to be the endeavour of the Estates to 
 
 s4 
 
264 GERMANY ANB 
 
 establish this symmetry between the form- 
 ative elements, and the formative powers ; 
 to preserve it, when once established ; to 
 see that the balance may not be disturbed 
 by pursy indolence and self-indulgence* or 
 petty routine notions on the one hand, and 
 on the other, to guard against indolence and 
 early exhaustion of the vital powers, from 
 the total consumption of their alimentary 
 material by gymnastic exercises, as was the 
 case with the Athletae of antiquity* — By a 
 prudent exercise of their power over the 
 public purse, they may set limits to the 
 excessive increase of the warlike train in 
 time of peace, while in war they can easily 
 strengthen the standing army to any 
 amount which the circumstances and re- 
 lations of the times may render necessary, 
 by determining the number of those who* 
 under the banner of the nation, shall pass 
 over to it from the landwehr. 
 
 We come now to the third point of dis- 
 pute, which in these times has given rise 
 to much animosity, namely, the relation 
 in which the various Estates ought to be 
 placed with respect to the constitution. 
 Antiquity, in this as well as in other 
 things, following unconsciously its plastic 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 265 
 
 formative impulse, without availing itself 
 of a scaffolding of logical abstractions, com- 
 menced the structure of its constitutions 
 upon the ground, as it were ; and in this 
 respect, the State developed itself organi- 
 cally in all its creations, in the order of a 
 mathematical series, with constantly in- 
 creasing exponents of the uniting mem- 
 bers. In the remotest periods of antiquity, 
 these different Estates were distinguished ; 
 The primaeval comparison of the learned 
 Estate, or order, and the whole of the 
 priesthood to the head, of the defensive 
 order to the arms, and the productive order 
 to the body, or rather to the internal vital 
 parts, prove that the State was then viewed 
 as a living organisation, and that the 
 various parts of the community were con- 
 sidered as having a relation and adaptation 
 to each other. 
 
 This division, originally founded by 
 Nature herself in the diversity of races, 
 was first introduced in those constitutions, 
 which were founded through the superiority 
 of the sword over a mere vegetative life, 
 and a like superiority of the mind over 
 the sword. The noble races, whose vic- 
 tories enabled them to found these states, 
 
266 GERMANY AND 
 
 endeavoured to preserve the purity of their 
 blood by strictly separating their casts from 
 the rest of the community. Their rights 
 and possessions were transmitted by in- 
 heritance from generation to generation. 
 According to law and custom, the different 
 casts were not entitled to intermingle with 
 each other ; but when any departure from 
 the rule took place, and various half-bloods 
 were produced by the mixture of casts, the 
 limits and functions of each of them were 
 again strictly defined and circumscribed. 
 
 Christianity, by proclaiming the equality 
 of all men before God, and by choosing its 
 first organs from the lowest classes, sapped 
 the foundation of slavery, and the system of 
 casts at the same time. As all those who 
 had been without rights were admitted to a 
 participation of rights, the casts were first 
 changed into estates or orders, in which an 
 inclination was originally manifested to 
 adhere to the former rigid system of ex- 
 clusion ; but as the ideal spirit of the new 
 faith and the new manners to which it gave 
 rise began to gain ground, these unions 
 were gradually compelled to relax their 
 exclusive principles, and to open their 
 closed ranks, and thus the lines of separ- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 267 
 
 ation were gradually lost in a general in- 
 deflniteness. The estates of the European 
 Republic of the middle ages, though 
 originally founded, like the old casts, in the 
 right of war and conquest, did not, how- 
 ever, like these casts, form various tribes, 
 who, having erected their Stem-Burgs * at 
 various heights, from the lofty summit 
 down to the marshy bog, must, in a rapid 
 overthrow of privileges and distinctions, 
 pass from the overweening pride of the god- 
 like regenerate to the lowest depression of 
 those whom God, in his anger, has doomed 
 to a state of reprobation. Christianity has 
 reconciled these cutting distinctions ; it has 
 mitigated the transactions, and softened the 
 claims of power, By acknowledging the 
 spiritual equality of birth of all men, and by 
 declaring the lowest of the people to be 
 regenerated by baptism, it has drawn the 
 divided parts nearer to each other. A 
 
 * In Germany, the Burg, or fortified residence oc- 
 cupied by the founder of a particular family is called the 
 Siem-Burg (Stamm-Burg) of that family. Thus, for in- 
 stance, the Castle of Hapsburg, in Switzerland, is tho 
 Stamm-Burg of the Austrian family ; and the Castle of 
 Hohenzollern, in Swabia, is the Stamm-Burg of the 
 family on the throne of Prussia. Trans. 
 
268 GERMANY AND 
 
 common bond of love has connected them 
 together in one community. Various hos- 
 tile souls no longer dwell in one body ; but 
 rather various faculties of the same soul, 
 which is merely impelled to display itself 
 in different ways in different members. 
 
 Hence the learned Estate was essentially 
 the preserver of all divine and human wis- 
 dom, propagated by tradition from age to 
 age. It was the possessor of the whole of 
 the mental property which circulated in 
 society. It represented in the State the 
 Logos, the regulating principle which, from 
 its height, gave order and proportion to 
 the irregular movements of the lower 
 world; and hence the reverend was its 
 attribute. 
 
 The defensive Estate, in the middle and 
 central part of which the Prince had his 
 portion as prime mover, took its station as 
 the protection and rock of safety of the 
 social union and of the throne. The 
 strength of the whole was supposed to be 
 united in this Estate: courage was its 
 essential character, bravery its instinct, 
 honour its inheritance, its sword the per- 
 petual protection of the feeble. According 
 to ancient doctrine, it was the Thymos in 
 
 7 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 269 
 
 the social union, and its attribute was 
 honourable. 
 
 Finally, in the productive Estate, the 
 children of the earth fixed on earthly ob- 
 jects ; occupied with the management of 
 them, collecting their treasures by the la- 
 bour of their hands, and conducting the 
 circulation of property from the base to 
 the summit, and from the summit again to 
 the base, constituted the Epithymia in the 
 State, and honesty in dealing, and in all its 
 proceedings was its characteristic. 
 
 As the productive Estate is essentially 
 moveable, moveable property perpetually 
 divided and perpetually re-collected is 
 its' possession. As the learned Estate, 
 however, from its nature, must be con- 
 templative, and essentially tranquil, its 
 property ought to be placed under the se- 
 curity of a divine interdict. But as the 
 defensive Estate occupies the medium be- 
 tween the moveable and the tranquil, its 
 domain by the feudal system was placed in 
 a relation to it, which fluctuated between 
 the permanent and the moveable. 
 
 In the same feudal system, nobility, 
 which has its portion between the idea 
 and its real representation, is also divided 
 
270 GERMANY AND 
 
 between the democratical and monarchical 
 principle, which are united in the aristo- 
 cracy. And as the aristocracy was divided 
 into seven shields, the hierarchy of the 
 church, which is essentially monarchical, 
 was also divided into seven shields, namely, 
 the pope and his presbytery, the archbi- 
 shops, bishops, archdeacons, deans and 
 priests, and conventuals. Of the last of 
 these, the conventuals, as in the case of the 
 free-born men of the seventh shield, it is 
 difficult to say whether they belong to the 
 episcopal hierarchy, or whether they do not 
 form a class by themselves. 
 
 As however all consecration and author- 
 ity descend in the other estates, in the 
 productive estate all dignity and all right 
 are centered in possession. In states 
 essentially democratical, or which, on the 
 occurrence of anv disorder, struggle to 
 
 »/ * Oct 
 
 become democratical, the same disposi- 
 tion to split into a sevenfold division has 
 been manifested. The patricians, mer- 
 chants, incorporated and unincorporated 
 trades in the towns, the members of com- 
 munes, (Einsassen,) and persons residing 
 in, but not entitled to a share in the pro- 
 perty of the commune (Hi?itersas$en), in 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 271 
 
 the country, with the persons who have no 
 fixed homes, form, in like manner, seven 
 distinctly marked gradations. 
 
 When later times began to introduce a 
 representation of these different estates, by 
 way of controlling the territorial power, 
 the fundamental idea adopted on that occa- 
 sion, was the adding the learned estate to 
 the productive and defensive estates, in 
 order that if a conflict should arise between 
 rights and interests, and power and claims, 
 which two parties could not possibly settle, 
 a third might be present as a reconciliatory 
 power, related to the one by its dignity, 
 and to the other through the ecclesiast- 
 ical communion, and qualified to decide 
 with impartiality between the contending 
 parties. 
 
 A still more recent time, struck with the 
 various deficiencies which were exhibited 
 in the carrying these ideas into actual 
 execution, has set forth another doctrine. 
 This scaffolding of various states, it is said, 
 founded originally in force, and the ad- 
 vantages taken of simplicity by cunning, 
 is not merely useless but dangerous ; and 
 this ascending by powers, though it may 
 take place in nature, is for society, which 
 
272 CxERMANY AND 
 
 consists of elements of a description alto- 
 gether different, wholly untenable, and can 
 only have the most prejudicial influence on 
 its developement. As Christianity has 
 established the principle of the complete 
 equality of all men before God, the same 
 equality ought to be recognised by the 
 state and the law. What is spiritually true, 
 will not be found really untrue, in a cor- 
 poreal point of view. 
 
 On these pretended rights, first usurped by 
 overweening power, and afterwards handed 
 down by inheritance from generation to ge- 
 neration, time itself has gradually taken a 
 severe vengeance, and thrown down the 
 fences which mere convenience had arbi- 
 trarily erected. The ecclesiastical profes- 
 sions have long ceased to be the exclusive 
 property of the priesthood. All the Estates 
 have participated in the honour of arms, and 
 the productive Estate has long ceased to 
 recognise the obligation of burdening itself 
 with all the toils of life for the mere con- 
 sumers. Nothing can be so foolish, there- 
 fore, as the anxious wish to retain these 
 artificial limitations, after they have been 
 broken through in all directions. The dis- 
 inction too between the industry of towns 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 273 
 
 and the industry of the country no longer 
 exists. The restraints and limitations of 
 corporations are still more ridiculous, as 
 every man ought to have the liberty of 
 following that branch of industry or trade 
 for which he is qualified. Moreover, what 
 can be more unjustifiable than the privi- 
 leges of the nobility, which in themselves 
 are necessarily an infringement on the 
 rights * of others ? The claim, too, of the 
 clergy to control freedom of conscience, is 
 
 * Rights and privileges are in German Rechte and 
 Vorrechte. But to a German the word Vorrecht conveys 
 a more odious idea than privilege does to an Englishman, 
 as it distinctly denotes that the individual possessing it 
 has more than his right, and consequently that he possesses 
 part of the right of others. The German being an ori- 
 ginal language, presents more powerful and distinct 
 ideas to the mind than any language not formed from 
 roots within itself can possibly do. In the latter case, 
 the compound words, having no primitives to give clear- 
 ness and permanency to their meaning, are perpetually 
 changing their signification. Thus, the word privilege, 
 which originally signified a law applicable to individuals, 
 has since received all manner of significations, and is at 
 present used at one time in the sense of distinction or 
 advantage, and at another in the sense of right ; but the 
 German word Vor-recht, containing, like the English 
 word water-mill, for instance, a fixed definition within 
 itself, cannot change its meaning. Trans, 
 
 T 
 
274 GERMANY AND 
 
 ridiculous in the present day, when the ideas 
 on which such a constraint were founded are 
 annihilated. 
 
 No mediate body ought therefore to be 
 interposed between the Prince and the 
 people, which, adhering to both by turns, is 
 thus constantly enabled to extort new fa- 
 vours and privileges, and to gain a footing 
 at the expense of both. But if the con- 
 test between this avaricious aristocracy and 
 the people were once at an end, the medi- 
 ation of the clergy would also be completely 
 superfluous. Every fence of property, con- 
 fining that which from its nature ought to 
 be perpetually fluctuating, to a dead hand*, 
 is therefore a robbery of the community, 
 and the unnatural restraint cannot be too 
 soon broken through, that the consecrated 
 estates may again enter into general circula- 
 tion, on which, like the circulation of blood 
 in the body, the support and strength of the 
 state is dependent. 
 
 Let this moveability of possession be 
 therefore, in all time to come, the only 
 basis of the community, and no other rule 
 of possession ought to be allowed. Let 
 property in land, therefore, be the demo- 
 
 * Mortmain. Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 275 
 
 cratic element, and property in money the 
 monarchical. Let there be no domains in 
 the state which belongs to the people, and 
 let taxes alone be allowed, so that there 
 may only be monarchical institutions in it, 
 commanded by money, in the manner of 
 their payment, and democratical institu- 
 tions secured in the liberated land. Hence, 
 let there be only a prince in the centre 
 surrounded by office-bearers and soldiers ; 
 but, in the periphery, let the people remain 
 in possession of the whole mass of pro- 
 perty. 
 
 That the centre, however, having no firm 
 basis, but remaining suspended merely over 
 the community, yet containing, at the same 
 time, great elasticity in a narrow space, may 
 not violently disturb this state of things, 
 firm and secure in its basis, but spread over 
 a wide extent, let a representation be ap- 
 pointed. This representation should not 
 be connected with any corporation, any 
 general fantastical idea, any moral personi- 
 fication, not even with any territorial divi- 
 sion, province, county, town, or borough, as 
 in England; the number should be regulated 
 alone by property, and measured according 
 to the number of those capable of voting. 
 t 2 
 
276 
 
 GERMANY AND 
 
 Such a representation, which does not, like 
 the Feudal Estates, represent casts merely, 
 but the whole community, will serve as a 
 counterbalance to the weight of the office- 
 bearers, and the collision between these 
 two powers will serve to elicit what is most 
 advantageous to the public. 
 
 It is easy to perceive, that the character 
 of this system, as it is founded on the con- 
 flict of opposite powers, is altogether phy- 
 sico-mathematical. Although, therefore, in 
 the order of history, it is an actual advance, 
 when considered with reference to its real 
 value, as contrasted with the former organic 
 system, it is a retrogression. The explan- 
 ation of this contradiction must be sought 
 for in the character of the age, which should 
 be viewed as a period of transition to an- 
 other, when what has been destroyed shall be 
 reconstructed on a broader foundation and 
 with a higher elevation. The powers, there- 
 fore, which are by their conflict to deter- 
 mine the equilibrium, are altogether earthly 
 powers. The specific egotistical power of 
 landed property, which, like gravity, in- 
 clines always to its own centre, and to its 
 peace and security, is placed in collision with 
 the universal power of money, which, in 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 277 
 
 perpetual systole and diastole, rushes from 
 the common centre to the extremities, and 
 from the extremities again to the centre, 
 and contending with individual obstinacy, 
 guides it against its will into a distinct and 
 definite course. 
 
 This course, however, when, by the for- 
 tunate balancing of powers and counter- 
 powers, it has been at length found, can 
 only be steadily pursued during the con- 
 tinuance of the equilibrium, as to which 
 we can hardly calculate on the influence of 
 any moral powers. On the preponderancy 
 of the one principle, it will run eccentri- 
 cally into democracy ; and if the other pre- 
 vails, it will run concentrically into des- 
 potism. Such changes may be introduced 
 with the more ease, as the nature of the 
 representation brings the opposite powers, 
 which have been collected, as it were, in 
 two foci, close to each otherj in the 
 chambers. The democracy chooses its of- 
 ficers with as much freedom as the Prince 
 his officers: its will is as much concentrated 
 in its deputies, as that of the Prince in his 
 ministries. As the soldiers of the Prince 
 are numbered according to their regiments, 
 the electors are also numbered in their own 
 
 t 3 
 
278 GERMANY AND 
 
 service ; and these two hierarchies rise and 
 fall like the orders in the decimal system. 
 In the conflict of the two powers, depend- 
 ing on the Prince's and the people's favour, 
 the friction when the oxygen comes into 
 contact with an inflammable substance must 
 necessarily kindle a violent flame. 
 
 This catastrophe antiquity endeavoured 
 to guard against. By admitting, for exam- 
 ple, in the incorporations of trades, some- 
 thing of the monarchical element into the 
 democratical, it could push this automatous 
 principle in the corporation of nobles as far 
 as the throne; and by the interweaving 
 and uniting the opposite powers throughout 
 the whole political body, their edges were 
 blunted. The rays which, w 7 hen collected 
 into one focus, produce a violent flame, 
 when distributed over the whole society 
 diffused a mild and agreeable warmth. 
 
 The lawgivers of that age, not guided by 
 abstract systems, but rather moved, like the 
 poets, by inspiration, in the fulness of a 
 sort of an instinctive formative-impulse, in 
 addition to the mere quantitative bodies, 
 founded on number, as freehold, tithing, 
 hundred, district or province (gau), and 
 duchy, and which, as they belong to the 
 
THE REVOLUTION* 279 
 
 original forms of the constitution, are the 
 only bodies which the present age will 
 acknowledge, admitted also qualitative bo- 
 dies, founded on internal specific and higher 
 differences, into the various Estates. Their 
 constitutions, removed from the province 
 of mere chemistry, were actually elevated 
 to that of a higher movement of life. In- 
 stead of that political Brownonianism which 
 would merely acknowledge the relation of 
 two factors in life, and subject it by turns 
 to a state of sthenia and asthenia, a trulv 
 organic view of the phenomena of life in 
 the political body was entertained. In this 
 view, the political body was composed of 
 systems connected in many ways, display- 
 ing their innate powers in many different 
 directions, and internally softening every 
 collision of a more severe nature bv a con- 
 tinual gradation of members. 
 
 They were very well aware, that by thus 
 increasing the number of bodies by an ideal 
 series, along with the general interest, 
 which, like the feeling of life, pervades the 
 whole, they created a number of particular 
 interests, which might easily come into a 
 destructive conflict with it ; but they w£re 
 also aware that in conflict alone all life is 
 t 4 
 
280 GERMANY AND 
 
 produced, and that if the higher connecting 
 love is not wanting to the community, the 
 dissension will always be tranquillised 
 before it ends in a total destruction. They 
 knew also, on the other hand, that impulses 
 of nature, which form interests in society, 
 are not necessarily annihilated, because 
 they have no organ in the constitution ; 
 and that it is absurd to suppose, that in a 
 general corporation the particular faculties 
 would remain dormant and inactive, if 
 their existence were not recorded in par- 
 ticular institutions. 
 
 They were also well aware that the prin- 
 ciple of universal equality, once acknow- 
 ledged for ideal relations, must, to be logi- 
 cally consistent, go back to an Agrarian 
 law, and can only remain tranquil in a 
 decided democracy. In the Florentine 
 history, the inferior nobility first mastered 
 the higher ; the inferior nobility were then 
 expelled by the corporate companies; these 
 were attacked, in their turn, by the half 
 incorporated * ; and they again were com- 
 
 * Halbziinftigen. By this the Author must mean the 
 inferior trades (Arti Minori), of which there were 14 
 in Florence ; the number of superior trades ( Arti Mag- 
 giori) was 7. Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 281 
 
 bated in a furious insurrection by the rab- 
 ble * ; and at last, after all order was dis- 
 solved, this free State was left a ready and 
 easy prey for any tyrant That tyrant 
 soon arose in the person of the first 
 Medici, from the midst of the third Estate 
 itself. 
 
 In like manner, according to the notions 
 prevailing in the present day, the privileges 
 of towns will appear to the inhabitants of 
 the country an intolerable tyranny ; and as 
 the freemen of corporate towns do not 
 amount to half the number of the coun- 
 try people, they will soon be overcome 
 and driven off by them. In the progress 
 of things, the villages, towns on a small 
 scale, will become odious to the old Saxon 
 Friborgs f ; and the exclusive possession of 
 
 * Heimathlosen, literally homeless. The Author must 
 allude here to the Tumulto de' Ciompi, an insurrection 
 commenced by the persons employed by the woollen 
 and other manufacturers, on the pretence of insufficiency 
 of wages. Trans. 
 
 f The Author here supposes the Friborg or Treo- 
 borhz to have been a smaller collection of houses than 
 a village, something more like a hamlet. In Spehnan, 
 Somner, Du Cange, &c. on the authority of the 19th 
 Chapter of the Laws of Edward the Confessor, it Is 
 stated to be a college or society of ten of the principal 
 
282 GERMANY AND 
 
 the manor by the freemen will next be an 
 abomination in the eyes of the lowest class 
 of the. peasantry (Hintersassen) ; and thus 
 things can never rest till all the villages 
 are dissolved, all properties divided, and 
 every inhabitant receives his equal portion. 
 As, therefore, the old system of casts is 
 founded on the inequality of men establish- 
 ed by Nature, secured to the race, and 
 enforced by superior power, the system of 
 the present policy is founded on an ideal, 
 which can only be realised at the end of 
 time, when, through the power of money 
 and industry, all inequality of possession 
 has been removed ; when the difference of 
 natural endowments has been destroyed by 
 cultivation ; when all estates have been so 
 intermingled, that every head of a family 
 may at the same time be High Priest, 
 Commander-in-Chief, and the enlarger and 
 supporter of the whole empire. As, how- 
 
 men in each village, who were responsible to the King 
 for each other. The Saxon word Borge, a security, is 
 by etymologists generally derived from Burg, a fortress, 
 as affording security, so that the word Friborg may either 
 be interpreted free security, or the free place, by which 
 the security was given. Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 283 
 
 ever, the present is interposed between the 
 beginning and the end of things, and in all 
 probability is nearer the commencement 
 than the termination, both systems are 
 equally inapplicable, and the last more so 
 even than the first ; and it would be well, 
 therefore, to have recourse to a medium, 
 the modified Estates-system. 
 
 Having reached this point, we can now, 
 without difficulty, explain the ground of 
 the whole of the misconception in the 
 present theory, which lies in this, that the 
 idea, though essentially free and uncondi- 
 tional in itself, on its entrance into a real 
 representation, is subject to the conditions 
 of a natural necessity, which, on any violent 
 revolution or change, may, indeed, be 
 warded off for a time, but which on the 
 re-action soon takes a dreadful revenge for 
 this inattention to the universal laws of 
 Nature. Hence Christianity, which merely 
 considers the ideal man, could pronounce, 
 without hesitation, the equality of men 
 before God ; but the inequality of men in 
 the eye of the State is connected with va- 
 rious relations, for instance, with the man- 
 ner in which Nature has dealt out her 
 
284 GERMANY AND 
 
 gifts, with the manner in which the living 
 has taken possession of the real, and with 
 positive rights derived from earlier times. 
 In like manner, the alchemists might 
 establish theoretically the idea (well-found- 
 ed in itself) of the similarity of all metals ; 
 but when they endeavoured to realise this 
 idea by transmutation, they found in these 
 laws of Nature, by which they were repre- 
 sented in a divided state, an unconquerable 
 obstacle to their attempts. 
 
 Those very metals, which should pass 
 for more or less in society, according to 
 the measure of the advantage derived from 
 them, have become for it an image of the 
 internal specific difference, as their relative 
 price is established agreeably to a standard 
 altogether conventional, and in no manner 
 according to their utility. In the same 
 manner in paper money, the same rag, 
 without any intrinsic worth whatever, passes 
 for one, ten, or a hundred, of any supposed 
 value, merely because society has agreed to 
 take it at such and such a rate. The State 
 has proceeded, with respect to the Estates, 
 on the principle followed in fixing the 
 value of metals. The Estates may certainly 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 285 
 
 be modified by a reformation, in such a 
 manner as to adapt them to the age ; but 
 they can only be wholly abolished by a 
 revolution. 
 
 In the remotest times a nobility existed 
 in Germany. These nobles, after many 
 conflicts in the expeditions of the Franks, 
 succeeded in subduing all Germany, and 
 at length almost all Europe. At a later 
 period, under the feudal system, they 
 formed the knighthood, and partly elevated 
 themselves to the situation of immediate 
 estates of the empire. At a still later 
 period, they again entered the retinue in 
 the standing armies and the court service, 
 and thus they have come down to us in a 
 determinate shape, and with positive rights. 
 With these rights they now enter into the 
 great contest for right. The conduct of 
 the Congress up to this hour, has convinced 
 them, that to make sacrifices without con- 
 straint, is a piece of folly ; and that self- 
 willed power, in the long run, succeeds in 
 carrying every point. This maxim they 
 intend to act on in their turn, and they 
 demand back their privileges as their right, 
 without infringement. 
 
286 GERMANY AND 
 
 On the other hand, the third Estate are 
 enraged in the highest degree, that their 
 rights must discharge all the debts of the 
 past and the present times. In vain they 
 are told of the romantic and the middle 
 ages, the patriarchal condition of old times, 
 of ideal and real characters. Their sound 
 sense and correct tact tell them that they 
 have long outgrown their old relations ; 
 that the forms, dead in themselves, have 
 long become top narrow for their enlarged 
 life. They feel, that if old rights have 
 devolved to the nobles from the remotest 
 antiquity, young rights have arisen in 
 themselves, which they are in no way 
 warranted in surrendering. They feel, in 
 short, that the time is come for concluding 
 a completely new contract between the 
 different classes of society. However much 
 the conflicting parties may in the heat of 
 a dispute deny each other's rights, and to 
 whatever length they may carry exagger- 
 ation, yet when a contract is in contempla- 
 tion, the contracting parties must commence 
 with a mutual guarantee of the durability 
 of their separate existences. 
 
 However much, therefore, we may extol 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 287 
 
 the princes with corrupting eulogies, and 
 attack the nobles as the only source of all 
 mischief; the princes will never seriously 
 persuade themselves that an estate of which 
 the rights rest on the same foundation with 
 their own legitimacy, is essentially hostile 
 to them. The nobles, again attracted by 
 their interests to the throne under ordinary 
 circumstances, now feeling themselves vio- 
 lently driven from the third Estate, must 
 necessarily devote themselves to the policy 
 of the court with an accelerated motion. 
 And accordingly this has uniformly taken 
 place in Bavaria, Baden, Nassau, and every 
 where else, as soon as the empty combats 
 with the tongue began to terminate in any 
 actual result. 
 
 On the other hand, a bold and dangerous 
 game is now played by those members of 
 the nobility, who, delaying by their in- 
 trigues the conclusion of a salutary work, 
 add only to the general irritation, and waken 
 all the dormant passions. When the en- 
 raged animal breaks loose, when the raging 
 sea has forced its way through the feeble 
 sand-banks, the deluge will then overtake 
 these audacious men. Both parties have, 
 
288 GERMANY AND 
 
 indeed, an equal interest in coming to an 
 amicable arrangement. The one party 
 should prudently give up what cannot be 
 retained, and satisfy themselves with a part 
 of their claims, which are certainly well 
 founded, in a legal point of view. The 
 other should bethink themselves, that in 
 the most despotic of all constitutions, that 
 of the Turks, there are no nobility, and 
 that consequently the mere disappearance 
 of that body affords no additional security 
 against the arbitrary power of the ruler. 
 By accepting of a remission of claims under 
 a peaceable arrangement, instead of anni- 
 hilating the whole by force, a general bank- 
 ruptcy will be prevented, in which it is true 
 all positive law would yield to the law of 
 Nature ; but other debts would be incurred, 
 for whose payment every individual, from 
 the highest to the lowest, must be per- 
 sonally answerable. 
 
 Such an arrangement in Germany seems 
 evidently to be favoured by events. The 
 gulph of a revolution actually passed, is 
 not interposed here as in France between 
 the parties ; on the contrary, circumstances 
 themselves have prepared the way for a 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 289 
 
 union. The third Estate following in its 
 developement the general course of nature, 
 has agreeably to that course produced from 
 itself the two higher Estates, namely, the 
 Learned Estate, in the literati properly so 
 called, who, under the name of philoso- 
 phy, dedicate themselves to the profane 
 sciences; and a nobility of merit, who, during 
 the late times, have more particularly ac- 
 quired distinction and honour in war ; and 
 as citizens, now demand their place in the 
 chamber and the aristocracy of property 
 and talent. On the other hand, the nobles, 
 when as land proprietors they have been 
 forced to rely chiefly on themselves, as in 
 the Rhenish provinces, for instance, have 
 joined the third Estate ; and the clergy 
 may almost be said to flourish now only 
 in their popular element, of priests and 
 curates. 
 
 Sound sense would, therefore, seem to 
 point to the only means of reconciliation 
 which still remains. The third Estate, with 
 its new nobility and clergy of to-day and 
 yesterday, should recognise the old Estates 
 of the same name, which came down to us 
 from past times ; and both should enter 
 
 u 
 
290 GERMANY AND 
 
 into a union with each other, mutually re- 
 nouncing old privileges and new preten- 
 sions, at variance with a constitution suited 
 to the times. The historical nobles would, 
 by recognising, in addition to birth, merit 
 as the second necessary efficient of the 
 future nobility, and by entering into a 
 union by means of this very efficient, with 
 the moveable nobility of merit of the 
 third Estate, would thereby renovate them- 
 selves. Let the clergy no longer flee 
 from science as the deceitful serpent, but 
 rather, by the power of conviction, convert- 
 ing its centrifugal direction with regard to 
 religion into a centripetal one, constrain it 
 to devote its services to truth, and thus 
 honouring the rights of that mental free- 
 dom which the age can in no manner re- 
 nounce, restrain it solely through itself, 
 and thereby introduce religion once more 
 into life. The devising the institutions by 
 means of which this union, here alluded to 
 only in a general manner, may be carried 
 into execution in all its details, will be the 
 problem for the employment of the times 
 immediately succeeding the present, and the 
 solution of which, as we believe, will mark 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 291 
 
 in the most essential point the character of 
 the future constitutions. 
 
 In such an order of things, as the anti- 
 quated will be refreshed from the fountain 
 of perpetual youth, which flows in the third 
 Estate, and by its mellow oleaginous quality 
 matured in the course of years, will soften 
 and temper, in turn, the fiery and ungovern- 
 able nature of the recent wine ; a new and 
 durable organisation, of which centuries 
 may witness the existence, before it attains 
 another climacteric, will be obtained from 
 the elements of the old and ruinous politi- 
 cal body, by a gradual developement, with- 
 out recurring to the dangerous revolution- 
 ary incantations of Medea. As the third 
 Estate is according to property, divided 
 into moveable wealth and land, and as the 
 latter again is divided into the flowing and 
 the fixed, the nobility will, in like manner, 
 be twofold, a nobility of merit, which 
 grounded every where in the choice of the 
 people, as a war-estate in the Landwehr, 
 as a peace-estate in the office-bearers of the 
 democracy and in its representatives, and a 
 nobility of birth, which descending from 
 past times, and placed by authority as a 
 u 2 
 
292 GERMANY AND 
 
 military estate chiefly in the standing army, 
 and in civil relations, in places at court 
 about the person of the Prince, ranks among 
 the civil officers named by the Government, 
 and among the hereditary representatives 
 in the legislature. As the popular choice 
 may as often fall on birth, as the choice of 
 the Prince may fall on merit, both elements 
 may cross each other in all these institu- 
 tions. In like manner the learned Estate 
 will complete its twofold character, when 
 on the one hand the clergy, as the guard- 
 ians of belief, resting on the Scriptures, and 
 tradition, shall cherish the esoterical, handed 
 down from past ages, and not exclude the 
 exoterical, the result of experience and 
 speculation in the sciences, but rather ac- 
 knowledge thern as the real side of religion. 
 By greeting the cultivators of science as 
 their associates, as was the case in old times, 
 and not living merely in the past, but enter- 
 ing into an animated commerce with the 
 present age, a state of things might be es- 
 tablished, which it may seem impossible 
 indeed to introduce elsewhere ; but which, 
 from the direction the German philosophy 
 
the Devolution. 293 
 
 has taken in latter times, may be considered 
 as something altogether national. 
 
 In this manner the two elements of the 
 Estates will be united together in the 
 most perfect manner. Authority descend- 
 ing from above as an expression of majesty, 
 connecting itself with the authority of the 
 Church, will descend through the Court, 
 the nobility of birth, the establishment of 
 office-bearers, and the army, all emanations 
 from legitimacy ; while freedom, essentially 
 an emanation from the people, will first 
 establish the basis of life in the third Estate, 
 and then display its volition in the Land- 
 wehr and the office-bearers of the demo- 
 cracy. It will at last elevate itself, in the 
 shape of public opinion, to the mental 
 height, and obtain an organ in the learned 
 Estate. 
 
 In the same order and union the repre- 
 sentation will collect the scattered rays of 
 these three faculties in one focus. In recent 
 times the example of England has led to 
 an almost general preference of the system 
 of two Chambers, uniting a majority of the 
 nobility with a minority of Prelates and 
 Deputies from Universities in one Cham- 
 
 u 3 
 
294 GERMANY AND 
 
 ber, and composing the second wholly of 
 Commons. Such an order of things, from 
 the almost complete absorption of the men- 
 tal element, converts the three powers into 
 two, and introduces all the disadvantages of 
 an opposition, without any connection. 
 The nobility, which predominates in the 
 Chamber of Peers, cannot from its nature 
 be a mediator between the Commons and 
 the throne. Being an emanation from 
 majesty, it is overshadowed by it, and in 
 the ordinary course of things will be on its 
 side. In a conflict, therefore, it is opposed 
 as a party to the third Estate. In the 
 Chambers, authority and freedom contend 
 for their respective interests, and if the one 
 has a veto on the other, the opposed and 
 equal powers neutralise each other. The 
 whole proceedings in all important things 
 become a mere piece of grimace, -a pure 
 political farce, a parade, where there is 
 much fighting and much marching and coun- 
 termarching, but where, after all, nothing 
 serious is effected. Moreover, as the con- 
 flicting parties, separated by walls, can only 
 communicate with each other, by means of 
 the dead letter, they are cut off from that 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 295 
 
 approximation which living and oral inter- 
 course introduces ; and the hostile brothers 
 remain shut up in their separate houses, 
 most implacably disposed towards each 
 other. Public opinion naturally combats 
 for one of the Chambers ; the other, sepa- 
 rated from the people, must withdraw 
 sullenly into a corner, and bask in the 
 favour of the Court. The nobility, how- 
 ever, deprived of every opportunity of wrest- 
 ling with the Commons in a living combat, 
 has no opportunity of acquiring the quali- 
 fications demanded of them, and spoil and 
 rot in their tedious solitude. 
 
 To introduce, therefore, a fresh and rapid 
 animation into the assembly of the Estates, 
 and to call forth an active interchange of 
 powers, in which every description of 
 talents should participate for the advan- 
 tage of the community, it will be found 
 most advisable to unite the three Estates in 
 one Chamber, and arrange them in three 
 Curiae. The first would comprehend the 
 Commons, and in such a manner that the 
 principal interests should be represented, 
 in which this Estate is divided. As the 
 Corporations are for the most part abol- 
 
 u4 
 
296 GEltMANY AND 
 
 ished, and their re-introduction by Govern- 
 ment would merely be a repetition of the 
 violence which took place at the abolition ; 
 and as the division of the representation 
 in the present relations of the trades 
 would be altogether trifling and unprofit- 
 able ; the only divisions which, under the 
 present circumstances, can be seriously 
 thought of, is that of country and town. 
 
 The commerce of towns may be com- 
 pared to the breath of life ; and agricul- 
 ture in the country, to its nourishment. 
 Although in the animal economy the appa- 
 ratus for the latter function is, in respect to 
 quantity, much greater than that which 
 serves for the process of breathing, yet with 
 respect to quality they are fully equal to 
 each other, being equally necessary to its 
 existence. In like manner both functions 
 of society are of equal importance, and in 
 dignity the latter is one step higher than 
 the other. Hence the effect of the exclu- 
 sively qualitative representation would be 
 shown most evidently in this, that if the 
 representation of the country should always 
 be double in number to that of the towns, 
 as soon as the representatives come to an 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 297 
 
 understanding respecting their interests, on 
 the question respecting the proportion of the 
 direct to the indirect taxes, corn laws, &c. the 
 most detrimental consequences would be 
 exhibited. It might, therefore, be agreeable 
 and advisable to allow to both together a 
 greater number of representatives than are 
 sent by the two higher Estates : but to place 
 the town and the country on an equality with 
 each other in this respect, and to divide them 
 into two benches. The town bench might 
 also be subdivided into two others ; that of 
 the possession of money for merchants, ca- 
 pitalists, &c. and that of trade and industry, 
 for manufacturers and tradesmen, chosen 
 according to the number of voters. The 
 bench for the country might be chosen 
 according to the relation of property. 
 
 The second Curia of the nobility would 
 also be divided into two benches ; one per- 
 ennial, consisting of hereditary peers of the 
 old nobility, on account of birth ; the other 
 periodical, consisting of the nobility of 
 merit, nominated by the prince, from the 
 office-bearers of the democracy, the heads 
 of the Landwehr, &c. Finally, the third 
 Curia> would in like manner consist of one 
 
298 GERMANY AND 
 
 bench filled by the priesthood of the vari- 
 ous confessions, partly in virtue of election, 
 and partly in virtue of their office ; and by 
 another bench of learned men. In the pro- 
 vincial assemblies, the directors of Gymna- 
 sia, and other institutions for education, 
 may sit as the abbots of convents did in 
 former times ; and the election and en- 
 dowment must then necessarily be con- 
 nected with the democracy ; but in the 
 Imperial assemblies, deputies should be 
 sent from these institutions, and others 
 from the universities and academies. 
 
 In such a chamber the two principal ele- 
 ments of every constitution would run 
 through all the three Curiae. By their spe- 
 cific division, however, into various organs, a 
 certain healing power would be infused 
 into the whole, by means of which the two 
 opposite elements might be tranquillised, 
 and the disputes arranged internally ; and 
 thus the evil would be avoided of allowing 
 things to proceed to an extremity, as in the 
 system of two chambers, or having recourse 
 to a forcible adjustment. 
 
 As in such an order of things, the union of 
 the two higher Estates with the Court, a cir- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 299 
 
 cumstance not only conceivable, but which 
 has but too often taken place, might easily 
 oppress the Commons ; to provide against 
 such an event, their great and permanent 
 interests ought to be secured by the manner 
 of voting, which might be variously modi- 
 fied, according to the character of the sub- 
 ject to be determined. As in the grants 
 of taxes and conscriptions, geometrical and 
 ponderable magnitude of possession on the 
 one hand, and arithmetical numbers on the 
 other hand are concerned, the division 
 ought here to be regulated by a simple 
 majority of votes on a telling of the voters, 
 on which occasion, the third Estate ought 
 properly to have the casting vote. In all 
 investigations which have any reference 
 to the democratic element of the consti- 
 tution, and its relations upwards, or to the 
 aristocratical element, and its relations 
 downwards, the voting by benches ought 
 to be adopted. In all the more ele- 
 vated relations, in all subjects of higher 
 legislation, in all matters in which the 
 monarchical principle and the ecclesiastical 
 preponderate, as it must be presumed that 
 a knowledge of them belongs as essentially 
 
300 
 
 GERMANY AND 
 
 to the government and the higher Estates, as 
 fitness, ability, and knowledge of affairs to 
 the people, it might be proper to vote by 
 Curiae ; with this proviso, however, that in 
 all essential changes of the constitution ; as 
 originally agreed on, along with the consent 
 of the Prince, a majority in the three 
 Curiae should be required. In all other 
 disputes of an important nature, as three 
 elements are always present, a third will 
 of course be interposed between the two 
 conflicting parties ; and as the nobles and 
 commons will, from their interests, come 
 most frequently into collision, the learned 
 Estates may then discharge the functions 
 of an umpire between them. 
 
 These forms, although fashioned accord- 
 ing to the laws of nature, may receive various 
 other applications, and may be modified in 
 various other ways ; as nature, though in 
 all her living formations she selects the 
 human form for her fundamental type, yet 
 displays the greatest variety in the modifica- 
 tion of the elements and relations of which 
 the whole is composed ; but these forms 
 contain merely the automaton of the State, 
 which is nothing but a lifeless carcase when 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 301 
 
 deprived of the internal soul that can alone 
 preserve and move it, and give to it its 
 spirit and character. 
 
 There are three fundamental principles 
 of this communication of soul, which differ 
 in dignity according to the elevation of the 
 faculty in which they are rooted. The first 
 is religion, which deriving its consecration 
 from a higher region than the earth, seeks 
 to infuse a sanctity into what is earthly, 
 and converts the State into a sacrament. 
 The ancient priesthood, — States, with which 
 history every where begins, as the first 
 government on earth had the form of 
 theocracy, — were characterised by the pre- 
 dominancy of this principle. The priest- 
 hood having, in the course of time, allowed 
 themselves to be carried away by arrogance, 
 power, strength, and courage, soon asserted 
 their right ; and kings arose, who at the 
 head of their followers subjected the nations 
 from east to west, and gradually founded 
 those universal monarchies, of which the 
 acts are recorded in the book of ages. 
 Here honour and the military virtues pre- 
 dominated ; and the sword, as a sceptre, 
 succeeded to the pastoral staff. But when 
 1 
 
302 GERMANY AND 
 
 power degenerated into despotism, and 
 oppressed the natives with an insup- 
 portable burden ; all those in whom any 
 energy, and any mental elasticity still re- 
 mained, threw off at last the yoke from 
 their necks, and democracies arose. Mea- 
 sures, and standards, and the plowshare, 
 now came to be held in honour ; civic 
 virtues and republican feelings now came 
 to be in request ; to honour succeeded 
 honesty ; to consecration, ethical dignity, 
 resting on the moral nature of man and the 
 conscience. 
 
 This is the march which constitutions 
 have taken throughout all antiquity, de- 
 scending from the height of motives, tran- 
 scending the region of the senses, down to 
 a sensible, blunt, and business-like reality. 
 Thus it was in the East ; thus it was with 
 the Greeks in the time of the priests, 
 through the heroical age, down to the age 
 of the people ; thus it was with the 
 Romans, whose theocracy originated in the 
 Etruscan, who then run rapidly through 
 their second period under their kings, to 
 fill at last the greater part of their career in 
 democracy. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 303 
 
 Antiquity, however, represents to us 
 only the ascending half of history. — 
 Modern history, down to the middle ages, 
 exhibits the same ascent in a different 
 order. After this ascent in the people 
 of ancient cultivation had terminated in 
 the ruin of democracy, through Alexander 
 and the Roman emperors, and Christianity 
 had founded a new priesthood-State, the 
 north, entering into the circle of culti- 
 vation for the first time, developed from 
 the still vigorous democracy of the Ger- 
 manic tribes a new universal monarchy 
 under Charlemagne, and then through that 
 monarchy, diffused the great theocracy 
 over all Europe. But when under the 
 Rhenish-frank emperors, in the highest 
 stage of their dominion, a severe struggle 
 took place between the warriors and the 
 priests, these two powers were both severe 
 sufferers from this conflict. The temporal 
 power, however, first withered, and with 
 the Swabian emperors the fame and the 
 strength of Germany terminated. But the 
 priesthood, after their support had fallen 
 from beneath them, were equally weakened 
 by internal dissension, ruined bv de- 
 
304 GERMANY AND 
 
 generacy, overthrown at last by the Reform- 
 ation in the whole of the north, and shaken 
 to their very foundations in the south. 
 The empire followed the church, having 
 been supplanted by territorial sovereignty. 
 This last, again, has lost itself in its ab- 
 stractions. And thus, as when the flower 
 has withered, and the plant become dry, 
 the life inclosed in the seed returns to the 
 earth ; in like manner, in the midst of 
 the reign of universal despotism, the ori- 
 ginal democracy has been restored, though 
 not de facto, yet potentialiter by a second 
 ascending movement. 
 
 It) is not indeed the old vigorously- 
 shooting forest-power, with its fulness of 
 natural impulses, which here returns ; for 
 there is a whole epoch of cultivation be- 
 hind it ; and the reproduction preceded in 
 the character of the history which was ad- 
 vancing. But what was lost in the pro- 
 vince! °f nature has been compensated for 
 in thd mental province. Hence an internal 
 instinct impels the age unconsciously to- 
 wards! every thing by which it can fill the 
 new circle which is opened to it. It 
 struggles with all its strength to extricate 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 305 
 
 itself from that arbitrary power, more 
 especially with which it feels there can no 
 longer be any agreement, no longer any 
 security externally, and no peace internally, 
 no dignity, no hope, no love. 
 
 Arbitrary power itself has paved the 
 way for this disposition. The lumber of 
 statistics, the politico-economical doctrine 
 of feeding, which would fatten men like 
 so many cattle at the stall, and for the sake 
 of gain would cram the bodily at the ex- 
 pense of the mental part of man, if all had 
 succeeded according to its wishes, and men- 
 tal emotions had not burst forth against its 
 will with the rapidity of lightning, would 
 have ended at last with that abominable 
 Cretinism, in which the whole of the higher 
 man, having sunk down into the mere 
 vegetative sphere, lives merely in the glands. 
 All this proved that authority had been 
 long in a diseased state, and nearly on the 
 point of falling a prey to the automatous. 
 
 Hence it is quite in the spirit of an age, 
 bent, like the present, on emancipation, 
 that, in the feeling of its necessities, and 
 knowing where its strength and its weak- 
 ness lies, it should shut its ear to every 
 
 x 
 
306 GERMANY AND 
 
 thing that is not obvious to the senses. 
 We may discover, without much difficulty, 
 the source from which it has derived the 
 fondness for constructing constitutions, like 
 machines, according to the laws of the 
 lever and the inclined plane, and in which 
 landed property forms the dragging weight, 
 and money the impelling spring ; the cham- 
 ber, the pendulum which regulates all the 
 movements. The inclination to this me- 
 chanical system, as matters are now situat- 
 ed, is not to be condemned. Every age 
 must act in the spirit which animates it, 
 and the formative Proteus being now a 
 mechanician, employed inputting together 
 political machines, we must not by our 
 obstinate opposition disturb him in his 
 operations. 
 
 But at the same time we must never 
 forget, that as in external mechanics we 
 have long acknowledged the laws of nature 
 to be fixed, and considered every attempt 
 to oppose them egregious folly, we ought 
 in like manner to admit in mentally-politi- 
 cal mechanics the ethical laws, which 
 stand on an equal degree of elevation with 
 these physical laws, and punish in an 
 
 15 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 307 
 
 equally unrelenting manner every violation 
 of them. The physical propositions, that 
 with unequal ends of the lever, and with 
 equal weight, the burdens must be in the 
 inverse ratio of the length of the ends, or 
 that in the descent of bodies the spaces are 
 in the ratio of the squares of the periods of 
 descent, are not more certain, not more 
 unconditionally true in nature, than are, in 
 the mental world, the moral laws, that 
 rights and duties, freedom and obedience, 
 giving and taking, are conditional with 
 respect to each other ; that every act of 
 violence calls forth an opposite act of vio- 
 lence, and every extreme an extreme to 
 combat it ; that the omission of an enjoined 
 good is as blameable an offence as the com- 
 mission of a prohibited evil ; that war holds 
 necessarily the extreme points of opposi- 
 tion, while peace is only found in the tem- 
 perature of the middle, &c. All these 
 ethical laws ought to be received in society 
 as equal in certainty with mathematical 
 axioms ; they ought, as inviolable maxims 
 of universal application, to be mixed up with 
 all its elements. When this is the case, it 
 may then follow its instinct without danger ; 
 
 x 2 
 
308 GERMANY AND 
 
 it may then found its constitutions solely 
 on agriculture and commerce? on joint stock 
 shares and the aristocracy of property: 
 dividing the operating and living powers in 
 the constitution in various ways, and unit- 
 ing them again diagonally, it may prose- 
 cute its mathematical amusements, and its 
 stoichyometrical calculations, reduce society 
 to the lowest stage of life, and convert it 
 into a thousand-armed polypus. 
 
 When civic virtue becomes the only po- 
 litical prudence, this mechanism will then 
 receive its animation, such as the age can 
 give it, and only then, as an organic body, 
 will it be able to protect and preserve itself. 
 But never will this object be attained, if, 
 assuming the badness of all men as an un- 
 doubted fact, according to the prejudice 
 which at present prevails, more especially 
 in France, we suppose we can find in forms 
 and all their guarantees, and equipoises 
 and controls, a surrogate for honesty. 
 Every attempt on this principle has 
 failed, and we may well consider this 
 as a pursuit in the moral world, of a phan- 
 tom still more unessential, if possible, than 
 that of the perpetuum mobile in mechanics. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 309 
 
 With the most perfect justice, therefore, 
 and with the most praiseworthy constancy, 
 Adam Midler in all his writings directs his 
 attacks from the higher ground, on which 
 he takes his station, against this dreadful 
 error, which, originating in the coarsest 
 and most material views, is as peculiar to 
 the French in politics, as the system of 
 enjoyment and self-love, well understood, 
 has been in morals since the time of Hel- 
 vetius. If Germans, however, have also 
 participated in such a system, this has only 
 been an error of individuals, which will 
 never strike a durable root in the ethical 
 sense of the nation. 
 
 Every thing, on the contrary, is now in- 
 clining to a different point. A general 
 rectitude, and the idea of republican virtues, 
 mitigated and supported by the remains of 
 religious motives still in operation, are on 
 the point of becoming the prevailing spirit 
 of the public life of the nation. We ought 
 not to complain that the course of the times 
 has driven us to the adoption of views of 
 too material a nature respecting state and 
 constitution. This is the necessary con- 
 sequence of what preceded : in the mo- 
 
 x 3 
 
310 GERMANY AND 
 
 ther's womb the plastic powers alone pre- 
 dominate in the obscurity of secresy, and 
 the same thing has taken place in the work 
 of formation of this century. We should 
 preserve for the future all the parts of the 
 former stage of formation, which still appear 
 verdant and vigorous, and secure them 
 against the wild tendency to destruction, 
 which has taken possession of the present 
 age. Pointing to a higher state of things, 
 we may still kindle the spiritual flame where 
 it burns dimly ; and the spirit which re- 
 mains hovering above the mass, will, in 
 those who have out-run the age, give mo- 
 tion to its wings, that the breath of life 
 may penetrate the work with its warming 
 and genial influence. 
 
 But we can no more make futurity the 
 subject of a postulate, than we can again 
 awake the times which are past. Religion, 
 which for the most part has withdrawn into 
 the hearts of men, has for a time ceased 
 to be a great constructing principle, as well 
 as the old honour, which, in the general 
 absence of honour during late centuries, be- 
 came dried up. Hence the master in the 
 present times employs only as workmen 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 311 
 
 those whom he finds still vigorous, and 
 uses the others merely as assistants, ac- 
 cording to their strength and power. When 
 the generation, who, in the exigencies of 
 a stormy period were strengthened only 
 for the present, at the expense of their 
 feeling for the future and the past, are once 
 departed ; when democracy has once ex- 
 tricated itself from the formal despotism to 
 which it was bound, and struck a root in 
 the old ground, and thereby given strength 
 also and animation to powerless monarchy ; 
 w T hen tranquillity and impartiality have 
 succeeded to former suspicion ; — then what 
 is of a higher character will gradually as- 
 sert its rights, and the movement, which 
 for so many centuries has been continually 
 in a descending order, will become ascend- 
 ing, as the impelling power of the spiritual 
 faculty developed in the people, will at 
 length overpower the inert mass, and again 
 serve to elevate it. 
 
 The rivalry between the nobility of merit 
 and the nobility of birth, will then convert 
 true honour into a prevailing impulse. 
 Holding a middle station between religious 
 belief and earthly comprehensibility, it will 
 
 x 4 
 
812 GERMANY AND 
 
 then receive intrinsic value from the vigo- 
 rous foundation of merit, and current value 
 from the agreement of society ; and may 
 become a point of reunion of strong powers 
 of will in times of danger or great move- 
 ments. In proportion as the old nobility 
 perceive that their true test is the test of 
 merit, the desire which is natural to man, 
 of transmitting his honour, like every other 
 possession, to a worthy posterity, will again 
 revive also in the plebeians. Honour* will 
 not then lose itself as a mere wave in a 
 stormy ocean, but go forth like a continuous 
 stream throughout ages, and thereby be- 
 come a still stronger bond of union. If 
 this renovation of vigour, and this inherit- 
 ance, at the same time, through many 
 generations should be realised, then we 
 should, as in ancient Rome, possess families 
 who, having either descended to the people 
 or risen from amongst them, as quiet and 
 permanent types of character, endure be- 
 yond the mere passing day, and continue 
 to be estimated not only through them- 
 selves, but also through the rich inherit- 
 ance of old honours, always present in the 
 remembrance of the people. They would 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 313 
 
 attach the people to them both by inclina- 
 tion and gratitude ; the acquisition of either 
 of which is never even thought of in the 
 present contemptible system. The time 
 will then come, when all the different tribes 
 of Germany will act in the spirit which 
 even now dwells in them, perceiving that 
 their multiplicity is a valuable possession 
 which they alone enjoy of almost all the 
 nations of the present day ; but that this 
 blessing becomes a curse when destitute 
 of any connecting unity ; and that as many 
 a confederation has already proved itself 
 insufficient in the exigencies of the times 
 for the common freedom and security, this 
 unity should again be exercised by a power- 
 ful family, that the crown of Charlemagne 
 may not with its burden oppress him whom 
 his mantle fits, and who is in a condition 
 to wield his sword. 
 
 In the mean time the religious sense will 
 again escape from its present quality, and 
 men will once more acknowledge univer- 
 sally that religion is not an old woman's 
 tale told to the nations in their infancy, 
 but the tie which holds minds together, the 
 word of the creating Spirit of the world, 
 
314 GERMANY AND 
 
 pronounced in human language ; that even 
 nature unconsciously celebrates her mys- 
 teries ; that the state is merely the ground- 
 floor of the church ; and that public life 
 and the cultivation of the sciences are di- 
 vine worship. From the moral purity which 
 still generally characterises the Catholic 
 clergy in Germany, the higher sense and 
 the enthusiasm calculated to dissolve the 
 present deadness and numbness, and to 
 communicate to forms their forgotten con- 
 tents, may with great reason be expected 
 to flourish again in that body. They will 
 perceive that a dull and heavy obscurantism, 
 which, in its foolish zeal, would persecute 
 the light, the noblest gift of God, will not 
 lead to this end. This would be an insult to 
 wisdom, which has every where victoriously 
 maintained its ground, which a confused 
 knowledge only can disturb, and which a 
 complete and thorough knowledge will al- 
 ways secure and preserve. It would be an 
 insult to that freedom which God has 
 granted to man, which, when only partially 
 enjoyed, leads occasionally to error, but 
 when fully developed sets bounds and mea- 
 sure to itself, when accompanied only by 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 315 
 
 sincerity of heart. Let the Catholic clergy 
 then kindle the torch in the sanctuary itself, 
 which will disperse along with darkness the 
 frivolity in which alone infidelity has ever 
 struck root. The Protestant clergy will aid 
 this endeavour by making a proper use of 
 their freedom, and by ceasing to confound 
 the self-willed and capricious doctrine that 
 comes and goes with men with the eternal 
 truth, which is suitable to all ages. Guided 
 by the Scriptures, they will, in their pecu- 
 liar manner, deduce, from the relations of 
 finite personality, the relations of the in- 
 finite. But they must first purify the scrip- 
 tures from all the accessions of bigotry, sel- 
 fishness, and worldly passions, that through 
 the clear water of the precious stone the 
 higher light may penetrate, which haughti- 
 ness and pride, by agitating the mud of 
 human conceit, too often obscure and 
 cloud. 
 
 The Sciences, if not pursued as a mere 
 mechanical trade, dragging the cultivator 
 down to the wretchedness of the earthly 
 existence, but withdrawn, in the manner of 
 ancient times, to the contemplation of the 
 highest mystery, in philosophy as well as 
 
316 GERMANY AND 
 
 religion, will no longer drag down the 
 striving spirit with a heavy weight, but 
 assist in bearing it aloft to its higher des- 
 tination. The various confessions will then 
 approximate to each other and their com- 
 mon source, not formally, from humour, or 
 with a view to promote any particular pur- 
 pose entertained by power, which only 
 serves to waken a dormant fanaticism ; but 
 because a complete freedom bends itself to 
 necessity. New fathers of the church will 
 then arise, who, in a still greater degree 
 than the old appropriated the knowledge 
 of the Greeks, will obtain a mastery over 
 the wisdom of the age, which will yield a 
 ready obedience to its sovereign, and thus 
 the sciences will again adorn their head 
 with her starry crown. They will not at- 
 tempt to found a system of priestcraft, 
 which, under the pretence of sanctity, has 
 nothing but worldly objects in view, and 
 endeavours to pass, off common passions 
 for the suggestions of a higher spirit, be- 
 comes the slave of a craftv ambition, or 
 revels in gross luxury and sensuality. This 
 is all destroyed, torn asunder, and abo- 
 lished, and never more will the age consent 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 317 
 
 to its restoration. Bat a worthy and vener- 
 able priesthood it will once more obtain, 
 having, like every thing earthly, a root in 
 earth, but whose domains lie in the mental 
 kingdom which every day serves to enlarge, 
 and from whose mouth the long-promised 
 Comforter * so often looked for by the age, 
 will speak to the people. 
 
 These views may be ridiculed as the 
 dreams of a sanguine folly, but Christianity, 
 which changed the shape of the world, was 
 founded on such folly, and the present spirit 
 of a sharp, cold, worldly, prudence, in its re- 
 ligious aphelion, will not surely be more 
 immortal than the inspiration of earlier 
 times in their warm perihelium. That 
 lying and deceitful spirit, however, can 
 point out no other way which does not lead 
 to the effusion of blood, to civil war, insur- 
 rection, and atrocity. Above all things, 
 however, the hope of masked rapacity, 
 which conceives, that by pursuing the ter- 
 ritorial system, it may attain supreme domi- 
 nion by a subjugation of the various tribes 
 
 * " And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
 another comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." 
 St. John, xiv. 16. Trans. 
 
318 GERMANY AND 
 
 from the awakened national feelings, and 
 the numerous insurmountable obstacles 
 which God has implanted in the nation, 
 cannot fail to come to a shameful and dis- 
 graceful end. A German republic is less 
 fantastical, and the establishment of a 
 federal state in the forms of the Ame- 
 rican is much more probable, than that any- 
 State will be allowed to take a lead over the 
 rest. No one State is willing to consent 
 to such an assumption on the part of an- 
 other. Hence all by-ways are cut off 
 by the very nature of things, and we can 
 only follow the single, straight, historical 
 road, which leads directly to one end. 
 All opposition is fruitless, all attempts to 
 impede it superfluous, all artifices are 
 powerless, the path must be trod. It mat- 
 ters not whether they tremble, or whether 
 they are enraged, whether they have re- 
 course to artifice or force, History will 
 move on towards her accomplishment ; the 
 overpowering flood will rush on, though 
 all the Kings on earth seat themselves 
 along the sea-shore. We ought, therefore, 
 to make human will subservient to the 
 Divine Council, if we wish to prevent it 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 319 
 
 from being brought to shame. We ought 
 to allow things to take their course, and 
 not attempt, from above nor from below, 
 to impede the progress of events. The 
 nature of the German leads him to act with 
 truth and justice, and whenever he departs 
 from them, all that he does is characterised 
 by awkwardness and stupidity, and un- 
 attended with a blessing. 
 
 In the first place, then, ye of the third 
 Estate ! allow vourselves in no manner to 
 deviate from the path of legality ! You 
 have raised your voice against the phan- 
 toms of arbitrary power, which despotic 
 ministers and courtiers of foreign countries 
 first devised for the attainment of their 
 ends, which imperious mercenaries estab- 
 lished, and which, when introduced into 
 this country, abstract writers, strangers to 
 every thing like life, and jurists, who every 
 where justly deserve the reproach of having 
 treacherously lent their aid to cheat the 
 people out of their liberties, reduced to a 
 pedantical form that blunted its sharpness 
 indeed, but rendered it on that account 
 the more detrimental to the public. While 
 rising up against the unessential abstrac- 
 
520 GERMANY AND 
 
 tion, which has thrust itself, like a ghost, 
 between the monarchy and the people, you 
 have demanded back your ancient impre- 
 scriptible liberties, and you cannot fail to 
 obtain them. You will no longer assess and 
 pay according to the good pleasure of 
 others, as if all the members of the cham- 
 ber were their dependants and slaves ; you 
 wish rather, as in former times, to supply 
 the State with taxes voluntarily granted, 
 and not imperiously demanded. You will 
 no longer allow yourselves to be ordered 
 out with the army on every feud, but are 
 determined to confine your preparations 
 and your services to the necessary defence 
 of the country against foreign invasion, as 
 your forefathers did before you. You will 
 not receive justice from tribunals which 
 lose themselves in empty forms and so- 
 phistries ; you will henceforth allow your- 
 selves to be tried only by Schopfen and 
 juries. You wish that merit should ba- 
 lance every distinction of rank, and that 
 commerce, speech, and opinions, should be 
 free as the air you breathe. You will not, 
 in any one thing whatever, allow your- 
 selves to be made the blind instruments of 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 321 
 
 arbitrary power ; but in free submission 
 alone, yield obedience to the laws to which 
 you yourselves have previously consented. 
 These are your rights, and they cannot be 
 combated. Their concession is not a fa- 
 vour, which can ever be postponed and 
 delayed, and least of all, in an age which 
 incessantly teems with new and most ruin- 
 ous organisations and pretensions as with 
 monsters. 
 
 But these rights, so good and well founded 
 in themselves, you ought not to injure by 
 any illegal acts of your own. In so doing 
 you would only gratify your enemies. If 
 Heaven has overpowered the monstrous 
 Titan who swallowed up the Revolution, 
 and acted in all its dreadful power, what 
 else can withstand it in this age ? Every 
 attempt against your rights will be fruitless ; 
 it is a striving against the stream of history : 
 let the fools wear themselves out; when 
 they suppose they have ascended a great 
 way, they will land in a breathless condition 
 lower down than the point from which they 
 began to swim. On right and justice alone 
 can authority rest, and if they attempt to 
 trample on them, their complete impotence 
 
 Y 
 
322 GERMANY AND 
 
 will soon convince them of the error they 
 have committed. All the armies on earth 
 are unable to annihilate a single mathema- 
 tical truth, and still less can they shake a 
 single universal ethical law. All injustice 
 is abandoned by God, who assists the just 
 cause alone. Though power should be ar- 
 rayed on the side of injustice, it soon in- 
 volves itself in its own contradictions, 
 becomes entangled in its own sophisms, 
 ensnared in its own inconsistencies, till all 
 escape becomes at length impossible. 
 
 But then it is not the dead right which 
 exists only on paper that can be main- 
 tained ; the rights which have forced their 
 way from the heart into life, can only, and 
 will easily, be victorious. The more auda- 
 cious the attempts of arbitrary power, the 
 more closely ought you to stand by one 
 another. If the light of all your eyes is 
 always directed to one spot, a flame will be 
 there collected as in a focus, which the 
 most fire-proof will be unable to resist. 
 Cease not to demand what belongs to you. 
 Return incessantly to the same point ; but 
 in your course take care, lest in your im- 
 patience you should be tempted to overleap 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 323 
 
 any of the intermediate steps, lest you 
 should take a step in advance, which you 
 may be compelled to measure back again. 
 If you only stand up with courage and de- 
 termination for your cause, the result must 
 crown your endeavours. But while you 
 demand your own rights, cease not to re- 
 spect the rights of others ; and while you 
 refuse to consent to any departure from 
 the strictness of principle, do not refuse to 
 proceed with equity in its application ; for 
 theory is sharp as the edge of a sword, and 
 devouring as a flame ; but all that is human 
 is made up of opposites, and tempered by 
 mild transitions, and its nature hates, like 
 poison, all excess and intemperarice. Do 
 not allow yourselves to be instigated into 
 any foolish contest ; the very impurity of 
 the source from which this instigation is- 
 sues, ought to fill you with suspicion. 
 While you are quarrelling, they are pluming 
 themselves with the idea of carrying off the 
 spoil. Do not believe that you can come 
 into the enjoyment of a new freedom, with- 
 out a new exertion, and that the good, with- 
 out any effort on your part, will come to 
 you in your sleep. The whole of the 
 
 y 2 
 
324 GERMANY AND 
 
 struggle of the present day can only have 
 one rational meaning, namely, that it is the 
 result of a determination to proceed with 
 more spirit, life and ability, than in the 
 former struggle. Proceed in this manner, 
 then, and your exertions will also be 
 crowned with better fortune. If you act 
 otherwise, you will find yourselves miser- 
 ably disappointed ; for constitutions are 
 nothing without civic virtue. Had this 
 been possessed by us, we should not have 
 lost our freedom. The mere demand for 
 its restoration, is not in itself a proof that the 
 fitness for it has returned. The reproach- 
 ful charge against the present age, that it 
 is unwilling to obey, and yet knows not 
 how to be free, is but too well founded. 
 This is one great justification of the con- 
 duct of the governments, amidst all the 
 injustice of which they have been guilty ; 
 for the reins of government cannot be 
 given to the winds. The whole of the liber- 
 ality of this generation has too often proved 
 itself merely a masked arbitrary power. 
 This has been frequently enough shown in 
 the conduct of the most liberal, when en- 
 abled to carry their own principles into 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 325 
 
 execution. Whoever would have all for 
 himself, and allow nothing to others, is a 
 tyrant, and consequently a slave. Whether 
 this disposition is shown by an individual, by 
 an estate, or a corporation, it is the same 
 thing, for freedom exists only in the mid- 
 dle ; and the liberality which consists in 
 taking only, without conceding any thing 
 in return, is incompatible with it. 
 
 Ye of the Nobility ! remember the two- 
 fold nature which ought to be united in you ; 
 the one inclined towards the monarchy, 
 the other inclined towards the people. 
 By devoting yourselves in latter times 
 almost exclusively to the interests of the 
 former ; by placing yourselves in a state 
 of unconditional submission in the service 
 of courts and in standing armies, the pecu- 
 liar honour of your rank and condition dis- 
 appeared from amongst the people, who 
 could see in you only the slaves of territorial 
 sovereignty. You shared with this territo- 
 rial sovereignty the pillage of the empire, 
 by appropriating to yourselves, in your fiefs, 
 the fund allotted for war. When you 
 reflect on these things, you will not surely 
 shut your ears to equity in the present con- 
 y 3 
 
326 -GERMANY AND 
 
 test with the commons. No prescription, 
 no antiquity of title, can maintain its ground 
 against revolutions. They fly with rapidity 
 over centuries to the origin of the abuse, 
 and the French Revolution, in one instant? 
 demanded back from the Barons the whole 
 of their feudal possessions. Do not, there- 
 fore, turn your backs on the equitable 
 arrangement, which would concede to you 
 your possessions, and refuses only to ac- 
 knowledge the legality of the wrongs, which, 
 through the corruption of the times, have 
 become rights. Henceforward you ought 
 to lay claim to no rights over persons ; in 
 taxation, your ambition ought rather to be 
 to contribute proportionally more than 
 others, than less, as you wish to pass for 
 more than them. As even territorial sove- 
 reignty itself must consent to new arrange- 
 ments, and make new concessions in every 
 thing that relates to the constitution, you 
 ought in nowise to withdraw yourselves 
 from the just claims of the age for a renewal 
 of the old covenants. But you have a good 
 right to demand that the settlement should 
 take place on the principle of an amicable 
 arrangement; and you are also en titled to de- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 327 
 
 mand, that, when the principles have once 
 been established, the necessary interval 
 should be allowed for carrying them into 
 execution. The more you prove that the 
 honour of your rank and condition still lives 
 within you, the more will this idea extort 
 esteem even from your opponents ; but if 
 you merely wish to exist as pensioners of the 
 dissolved empire, your extirpation will then 
 become a desirable object. Patch-work, 
 such as later centuries have only furnished, 
 is not required in the constitution. We 
 want no diplomatic slurring over, no me- 
 chanical divisions, no violent unions of ob- 
 jects dissimilar in their nature, leaving all 
 parties equally unsatisfied. All the spurious 
 additions of a diseased age must be stript 
 from the body of the State, that every organ 
 may have what properly belongs to it; and 
 the community may again flourish in health 
 and vigour. But whoever would represent 
 wicked abuses, seeks to perpetuate the dis- 
 eased state of his country, and ought to be 
 considered as an internal enemy, and even 
 as the source of disease. Cover not, therefore, 
 your unjust claims with your just rights, 
 that your just rights may not be rejected 
 
 t 4 
 
828 GERMANY AND 
 
 along with your just claims. All that owes 
 its existence only to abuse, and to defects 
 in the constitution, finds no longer any 
 favour in the eyes of public opinion. The 
 folly of the empty pride to which mere con- 
 ventional advantages gives rise, the puffed- 
 up conceit of hollow vanity, the whole of 
 the absurd and unintelligible pretensions, 
 grounded only on nobility of extraction, 
 (Junkerthum*), have become the fable and 
 the jest of the age ; but a true, rightful, 
 vigorous, and honourable nobility are every 
 where wanting, and most of all in the high- 
 est situations, where but too frequently the 
 
 * It is hardly possible to convey, in English, the mean- 
 ing of this word. In this country, nobility is confined 
 to one individual in a family, all the rest falling into the 
 rank of commoners ; but in Germany and the Continent 
 in general, all the descendants of a noble family claim 
 to be included in the nobility, who thus form a consider- 
 able proportion of the nation. According to the Au- 
 strian conscription lists, the male nobles of the German 
 and Hungarian part of that empire amounted in number 
 to 239,505, while the whole of the male mechanics, 
 tradesmen and other inhabitants of towns, amounted only 
 to 448,589. A Junker is a person of noble extraction, 
 without any particular title, and the word is never used 
 except with the view of expressing contempt. Trans. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 329 
 
 boldest, the most superficial, the most in- 
 sipid and pitiful vulgarity, without dignity, 
 decorum, or a trace of noble sentiments, 
 appears only in a more glaring light from 
 the frippery of its external decorations, and 
 disgraces, on all occasions, the nation in the 
 eyes of strangers. Such a nobility, not 
 swoln with conceit in the tedious idleness 
 of courts, nor boorish from a perpetual resi- 
 dence in the country, can alone be found 
 in an active public life, in the gymnas- 
 tics of the chambers, and the arming of 
 the people ; and such a school the nobles 
 must seek, if they wish they should not be 
 blotted out of the nation. 
 
 Ye of the Clergy ! you are called on to 
 preach to the people, obedience to magis- 
 trates. Follow then this vocation. Teach 
 the people to honour and reverence civil 
 order, even in its deepest degradation ; to 
 depart not from the paths of legality, and 
 never to attempt, by insurrection, to burst 
 with violence through the restraints of mo- 
 rality. But advance at the same time into 
 the presence of princes, and their councils ; 
 and, under the protection of your sacred 
 office, warning and punishing them like 
 
330 GERMANY AND 
 
 their conscience, endeavour to awaken 
 them to a sense of their duty. Admonish 
 them to tempt God no longer, and after 
 the signs which he has already wrought, and 
 which these necromancers have expounded 
 agreeably to their vain knowledge, that 
 they ask no more from him, lest at last 
 his wrath be kindled, and he send them a 
 sign which shall consume them and their 
 generation. The object is not merely the 
 obtaining of constitutions, for whatever 
 may be their wishes, constitutions they can 
 no longer withhold ; but these alone, as the 
 experience of the last age has proved, are 
 little in themselves, mere sounding brass 
 and tinkling cymbals, so long as the spirit 
 remains against which they were invoked, 
 namely that arbitrary system, which pro- 
 ceeds with the most complete absence of 
 consciousness of itself, that violence which 
 forcibly bursts through all our relations, 
 that forgetfulness of Germany, and that 
 ignorance of all higher and nobler motives 
 in public affairs, that endless centralisation 
 and writing, that system of financial delu- 
 sion, which a perpetual state of war in the 
 midst of peace has introduced, and that 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 331 
 
 dreadfully unlawful state of things, which, 
 if not so characterised by violence as in the 
 times which followed the destruction of the 
 empire, so much condemned and decried, 
 is yet nearly equally insupportable. The 
 people call for their rights, which arbitrary 
 power withholds from them ; they have 
 exposed their documents and their charters. 
 History is on their side, and gives testimony 
 in their favour ; all divine and human laws 
 are with them, and honour and the sanctity 
 of contracts, and the inviolability of oaths. 
 All amicable means have been attempted, all 
 lawful respites have expired. The Princes 
 have been placed by God in the judg- 
 ment seat; he has made them the dispens- 
 ers and the representatives of his eternal 
 justice, and woe to those who will not do 
 what their sacred office imposes on them, 
 who are deaf to the voice of justice, and 
 turn away from well-founded complaints. 
 Say to them, that all the responsibility of 
 the future rests on their head, that they 
 will be called to account before the judg- 
 ment seat of God, both for the wickedness 
 they have done, and the good which, though 
 commanded, they have omitted to do. Re- 
 
332 GERMANY AND 
 
 mind them how often God, during the last 
 age, has visited their omission on Germany, 
 and that all their passive well-meaningness 
 was accounted as nothing in the day of his 
 anger. Tell them, that if in their elevated 
 station, they confound and perplex right 
 and wrong, lawfulness and tyranny, justice 
 and violence, the same confusion will soon 
 be communicated to the mass, whose 
 strength is alone kept under by the mea- 
 sure of the middle ; and that when the 
 irritated feeling of right, which has no 
 where found justice, has once in its fury 
 determined to do justice to itself, the con- 
 test will soon be at an end. No plan of 
 conspiracy has been found on paper. Nay, 
 after the charges of high treason, which 
 have been preferred before the eyes of all 
 Europe, they have been obliged to deny 
 officially that even any enquiry into a 
 conspiracy took place. But the fire, though 
 smothered, does not the less continue to 
 burn in the hearts of men ; and from time 
 to time a small flame darts forth, as a 
 sign of the subterraneous burning, which 
 is daily spreading, and awfully hollowing 
 the ground beneath our feet. It is, there- 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 33 
 
 2 
 
 fore, adviseable to grant justice to those 
 that demand only their rights, lest a longer 
 delay should compel them to comply also 
 with the demands of those who wish for 
 more than their rights. The object of the 
 better disposed persons in the present day 
 is not to undermine authority, or to execute 
 every audacious innovation which has en* 
 tered into any disordered head. This in- 
 curable rage for innovation is possessed by 
 arbitrary power, and it is against such a 
 rage that the age has declared itself. That 
 a usurper, to whom the bloody inheritance 
 of a revolution devolved, should turn its 
 own demagogical arts against itself, is 
 natural enough ; but what have legitimate 
 princes, good-natured and well-meaning as 
 ours in general are, to do with the shadow 
 of a power which a tyrant only can really 
 possess and exercise, and which for them is 
 only the shirt of Nessus, which the Cen- 
 taur, having saturated with blood, left them 
 in death, as a legacy of perdition. The 
 ruling houses, who have accompanied the 
 people from the depth of centuries, who 
 are one and the same with them, and united 
 
334 GERMANY AND 
 
 with them through a series of so marij 
 generations, ought not to rule like em- 
 perors, by the bayonet, by the dead letter, 
 by prohibitions and cabinet orders ; but 
 like fathers in the circle of their families, 
 through the reverence of age, the love of 
 blood-relationship, the confidence which 
 wisdom and justice, frequently proved, never 
 fails to inspire, the esteem which moral 
 dignity every where commands, and the 
 fondness which hereditary mildness in- 
 fuses into all hearts. These are motives 
 of which the present age is perfectly sus- 
 ceptible, should confidence again be re- 
 stored ; but there is scarcely a trace in it 
 of the brutal superstition, which, when 
 limited and fallible human wisdom assumes 
 the privileges of omniscience, when impo- 
 tence lays claim to omnipotence, and in 
 the agitation of personal passions would be 
 thought to possess infallibility, is ready to 
 acquiesce in the^e arrogant demands. The 
 age demands that an end should be put to 
 this unworthy and degrading idolatry ; that 
 the wind of vain theories should no longer 
 sweep through the dry leaves of protocols, 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 335 
 
 but that human understanding should take 
 council even in human things, and that life 
 and the spirit should again assert their 
 rights in those cases where sad experience 
 has shown that their assistance is most in- 
 dispensable. All this you should say to 
 them, and still more where necessary, that 
 they may acknowledge the wonders which 
 Heaven has done, and prostrate themselves 
 before the world of ideas, which has dis- 
 closed itself in this age. Twenty years 
 have they fought against these ideas, and 
 been beaten almost to extermination ; and 
 when God at length took compassion on 
 their calamity and their humiliation, and 
 again sent forth a sign to them, they then 
 trampled in turn over the enemy who had 
 changed parts with them. Their au- 
 thority is merely an idea of the same rank 
 with other ideas, their consecration and 
 anointment took place also in the name of 
 the idea ; whoever among them denies the 
 authority of ideas, sinks to the rank of com- 
 mon mortals. He alone continues to rule 
 who bears his head in their ether ; but 
 whoever breathes only with difficulty and 
 
336 Germany And the revolution. & Zc > 
 
 pain in earthly vapours, must serve as a 
 slave, were it only to his own errors and 
 passions, and History will blot out his name 
 from her books. 
 
 Discite justitiam mofniti, et non teranere Divos ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by Strahan and Spottiswoode, 
 Printers- Street, London. 
 
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