aiming at fostering the patriotism of the people, but teaching them to beware of bowing low before any earthly king.2

From Ronge sprang what might almost be called a religious revival. The new patriot church gained adherents by thousands: it included Roman Catholics and Protestants.

In glaring contrast to this religious movement was a school that had grown up in Germany to a maturity like that to which Voltaire had brought it in France more than fifty years before. Bauer, Strauss, and Feuerbach had boldly questioned the fundamental truths of Christianity. There was no laughter as in France at the incongruities of revelation; simply a spirit of earnest inquiry, which entreated mankind for a hearing as humbly and as pathetically as the preacher of an established creed might pray to God for the conversion of the infidel.

The new teaching might have stood aloof from politics if politicians had not foolishly run counter to the inevitable issue of the time. When the students of Halle petitioned that a chair in the University might be given to Strauss, they were fined for the impiety of their demand, and the King of Prussia took every possible occasion to declaim against the new doctrines.

The teachers of the creed of Reason were silent for a time till the orthodox party went a step farther. Thinking to stay heresy by a larger demand on credulity, the priests announced that the time of miracles was not yet past. The court party joined them in asserting the truth of a new wonder. Trèves was the scene of the manifestation.' There a coat was to be shown to all good Christians, the existence of which was a miracle. It was a coat which had absolutely been worn by Christ. More than that, Christ had been born in it: it was seamless, and had grown as Christ grew. In the space of eight days one hundred and fifty thousand persons made pilgrimages to Trèves to gaze at the holy coat and pray to it. It naturally performed certain miracles, and did not, like most relics, confine its scope of action to the lower orders. On one occasion it even enabled a countess, lame before, to dance at a ball the night after she had gazed on its seamless sanctity.

Whatever respect the school of freethought had felt for the court party before vanished into thin air when they found that party sympathising with nonsense of this kind. Indeed the worship of the Holy Coat made the new school look upon the court with absolute aversion. The divinity of the freethought teaching was of course Reason, and it was an outrage upon Reason-and so flat blasphemyto ask credence in the miracles of the Holy Coat.3

* The national Catholic Church seems now to be entirely forgotten in Germany, great as was its influence in 1841. Of Ronge himself I have heard from some of his contemporaries very unflattering accounts.

3

' Sybel the historian demolished the pretensions of the coat by a learned treatise, in which he showed with great humour that there were, besides this holy

Estranged therefore from these various schools-ultramontane, national-catholic, and rationalistic-the king sought elsewhere for support. He saw a new hope in the creation of a new nobility. The strength of the hereditary nobility was manifest from the example of England; perhaps in Germany it would be possible to keep it invariably on the side of the throne. To do this it was necessary to make it a separate caste. There was accordingly inserted in the patents of the new nobles a clause forbidding, on pain of loss of title, a marriage with any one of the bourgeois class.

This was in the year 1845. In that same year came the first sound of that weird voice which has so often brought dismay into the souls of king and people, and which in Germany grows louder every day. It was the cry of socialism. In the Hartz mountains there dwelt a large and needy population, whereof the women were just able to live. Now that sewing machines had come into vogue, it seemed that the poor boon of their life was gone. In their despair was a wild outcry against the rich, who seemed utterly callous to the misery of their fellow creatures. A poet of the time represented the child of a woman who had no bread for herself or it, calling for help to the Spirit of the mountain, since no human being would show them pity.

The social movement was seen most clearly in Bohemia and Silesia. There it was put down with the utmost severity; socialist riots being suppressed by the military. An attempted assassination of Frederick William by one Tsesch gave new excuse to all kinds of precautionary measures. Tsesch had really a private wrong, but it was convenient to say he had been led to the attempt by the teaching of the socialists, and to connect it with their theories and present discontent. It was not the last time that would-be assassins were to be of service to German governments.

The crime of Tsesch furnished also an invaluable pretext for Metternich to make a new declaration against the cry for a representative government which was growing so perilously urgent. At a Conference of the States summoned in the year 1846, he begged the assembled princes to remember that it was only under extraordinary circumstances, carefully defined by the Constitution, that any German prince was obliged to summon his Chambers. Further, he stated that it was the duty of all governments to refuse to admit, under any circumstances, any extension of the prorogation of the Chambers for this sole reason:-such extension was diametrically opposed to the due maintenance of the rights of the crown.

But Metternich could not stem the advancing tide, which, as we have seen, various winds were blowing every day into a more and more dangerous wave. Over and above all that stirred them at home, the people of Berlin were growing hourly more and more hostile to the unsewn coat, twenty other holy seamless coats, only there was a certain difficulty about finding out which was the original article.

principle of uncontrolled monarchy, having not far from them a striking example of its effects.

On that example it will not be necessary to dwell for long. Indeed, it may be summed up in one sentence. in one sentence. A brilliant adventuress appeared at Munich, and King Louis presented her to his ministers in these words, Gentlemen, I have the honour of introducing to you my dearest friend.' The rest may be imagined. Lola Montes ruled Louis, and directed the court what creed to favour, what ministers to choose.

The scandal rapidly became common talk: it spread, as was natural, through all Germany. It roused doubts in men's minds. Even at Berlin people began now to be a little uncertain whether princes, with passions and weaknesses like other humanity, should indeed always be thought of as God-inspired, entrusted with uncontrolled power, and subjected to no kind of law.

Frederick William could not fail to see in what directions men's thoughts were turning. He determined, therefore, on a new policy. He would come forth and proclaim himself the friend of freedom, the protector of the liberties of the people, the voluntary and gracious donor of a representative system. But the gifts of monarchs are as dangerous as the gifts of the Greeks. The wooden horse which Frederick William offered contained indeed many armed dangers. He promised to summon a United Diet which should be formed of all the provincial diets assembled together, and of representatives from the various orders. But the new nobility were to attend the assembly also, and princes of the royal blood besides. Taxes were as a rule not to be imposed without the consent of the Diet, but to this rule were numerous exceptions. Further, the king repelled the notion of a charter-the notion dearer than all others to his subjects who thought of the Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. A sheet of paper shall never interfere between me and my subjects; paragraphs shall not rule us, nor shall they replace our time-hallowed reliance on each other.' Whatever concessions he made came, he said, of his own will: Heir to an unweakened throne, I am free from every pledge.'

Thus, assuming still the tone of the despot, Frederick William the Fourth offered the people a little liberty as a royal pourboire.

The new constitution was put forth in a royal patent.. The ministerialists were full of paneygyric, and spoke of the high-minded generosity of the king, who desired nothing but his people's happiness. But one Dr. Simon, who had left the Prussian Government from his own choice some years before, pointed out that the new constitution was not yet a constitution at all; the royal patent would not be the law of the land till the eight existing provisional assemblies had each separately approved it. In a learned but biting pamphlet, which he called Accept or Reject,' Simon briefly pointed out why it was undesirable for the people to take what the king offered. In the

first place, he denied that it was fitting or desirable that laws should come as gifts. Further, he asserted that the patent took away as much as it proffered, for it limited the right of petition. Nor did the patent make any provision whatever for the most crying needs of Germany— a free press, open courts of justice, and the responsibility of ministers. The Chamber separated after a brief and barren sitting. It had assembled in a time of commotion; it was dissolved when the tempest was perilously near. The great policy of delay had at last been foiled. Enthusiasm was winning fast, and none could say how manifest the victory would be, nor how soon forthcoming.

It was not in Prussia only-Hesse, Bavaria, Saxony, Austria, all Germany was now ready; the volcano of democracy might burst forth at any moment. In Bavaria, as we have seen, it was by a foreign Laïs that the fire was kindled. There Lola cost Louis his throne, and then ran away with another man. But the example of Bavaria was not altogether sufficient. A louder trumpet was needed to rouse the forces of liberty into open battle.

It sounded, as everyone knows, from France. To many of the ardent liberals of that day it seemed as though the telegraph had been invented just at that time to bring to Germany with magic speed the new glad tidings of Paris. The July revolution of 1830 had brought its lessons. But it was a bagatelle compared to the February revolution of 1848. When the news came of the overthrow of Louis Philippe, and the building of barricades, and the proclamation of a republic, Germany awoke as though from a dream, What she had imaged to herself only in the eloquence of her orators and the passion of the poets, was now the tangible possession of men living in a neighbouring land.

The news spread from province to province; from town to town. What man has done, man can do, was on the lips of everyone; and then, also, Is Germany to be outdone by France ?

Germany was, indeed, not long to remain behind. The people everywhere demanded a free press and a representative system, and the sovereigns were obliged to obey. Ministers chosen by the people were appointed in the place of ministers of the old régime. In Vienna Metternich fled before the storm. Nor can it be denied that in the eventful days of March, 1848, he played his part with courage and unselfishness. He had devoted all his life, he said, to the maintenance of the monarchic system; he would now serve it best by retiring from office, for his personal, unpopularity might endanger the throne.

Terrible were the apprehensions of Frederick William as the news came to Berlin of the scenes daily enacted around. On March 7 he tried to anticipate the storm by proclaiming the complete emancipation of the press. But the people were not yet satisfied, and on the very same day a large assembly of reformers met in a public garden

and pledged itself to strive for all the requirements of a constitutional monarchy. Political meetings were new in Berlin; the king was dismayed. Had he gone too far in allowing the freedom of the press?-should he again resort to reactionary measures?

The rest of Prussia was now throbbing too. In the Rhineland a petition was hastily drawn up, and as hastily brought to Berlin by the most clarion-voiced of the reformers. It spoke of a representative system, of a free press, of toleration for all creeds. It did not beg for these things-it demanded them. If all that was asked were not granted, it was evident that the Rhineland would secede from Prussia. This gave a very serious aspect to the whole business, and the Chamber in Berlin determined that the petition should be forthwith presented to the king.

Six days had passed since the first reform meeting. The excitement was increasing daily when the king, in the blind stupidity of his fear, forbade all further public meetings. But the people assembled nevertheless. Then the military were called out. A slight collision occurred; there was just one attempt to erect barricades, and then the people disbanded.

Frederick William again grew sanguine. Promises which could be made with very great facility-as his own and his father's experience showed-might allay the discontent. So then came the old Landstag promise. It should be convoked, he said, and soon-on the twenty-fifth of the month. But that was a fortnight off, and the people were now too impatient to wait one day. Then Frederick spoke of a congress which should determine the new constitution. A congress! The people thought with bitterness and rage of the days of Vienna and Carlsbad.

The streets were now full of disturbances, and the baser elements of every revolution time, thieves and noisy disturbers of the peace, were not wanting. The king had an excuse for summoning many regiments to Berlin, and for planting cannon round his palace. 'I have called in my troops,' he said, to protect property. I will have a free people, but the princes, too, must be free; and in saying this I mean no hollow phrases.'

The desire that now lay nearest to men's hearts was the acceptance by the king of the petition of the Rhinelanders. The excitement reached its climax on March 18. On that day a large crowd of people went to the palace to hear whether the petition was to be granted or not. Their temper showed that a refusal might lead to dangerous results. The news was not long coming. A herald appeared and announced that his Majesty had been pleased to grant the petition.

The king now appeared on the balcony and was greeted with much cheering. But new demands were urged; the present ministry was to be dismissed, for its head, Bodelschwing, was known to be the instrument of despotism. The clamour was great, and both the king and Bodelschwing were terrified. Arnim, a well-known liberal, was