IX. THE FAILURE OF THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848.

THE reactionary party have given themselves infinite trouble to represent the revolutions of Milan, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, Munich, as mere imitations of the February revolution. Just as the people of the continent use to look at Paris for the cut of their coats, these revolutions or revolts, as they call them, which have cost hundreds of human lives, are said to be but a matter of mere fashion. The nations were so satisfied, they lived so securely, so prosperously under the paternal regimen of the "Holy Alliance," that they did not think of revolutions when these wicked Parisians aroused Europe out of its happy sleep. Can any one who has but superficially glanced at the history of the continent since the downfall of Napoleon, who has beheld all these deceived hopes, these broken constitutions, unfulfilled promises, violated oaths, these military insurrections, Carbonari conspiracies, "Burschen-Verbindungen" persecutions of writers, confiscations of books, oppressions of newspapers, depositions of Professors, these intrigues of Jesuits and Russian agents, these Galician slaughters, and that Silisian famine; we say, can any one who has witnessed all these things in the different countries of the continent, believe for one moment that the people were extremely satisfied, that the revolutions in the capitals of Europe were but created by Poles, Frenchmen and Jews," "* in imitation of Paris? It would lead us too far for our purpose to paint only in Prussia, a country which is said to have had the least reason for a revolution, the increasing dissatisfaction from year to year, especially since the reign of the present king. Some few incidents, however, may give an idea of the

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* The professed opinion of the "Kreuz Zeitung" at Berlin.

state of public feeling in that country. The good people of Prussia did not forget the law of the 22nd of May, 1815, or those fine phrases so abundantly spent in the hour of danger; but they were too kind-hearted to trouble the last days of an old king, who had gone through so many reverses. We will wait, they thought, till his son Frederick William IV. comes to the throne; then we will remind him, that he, as the heir of his father, has inherited the duty of paying his debts to the nation.

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When Frederick William IV. according to the usage, was crowned at Koenigsberg in 1840, the town-council alluded in submissive words to the royal promises of 1815, "You will lose my grace," shouted the angry king, and turned his back on the deputation. "Sire," answered the burgomaster, we ask for our right, not for your grace. The provincial diets, established by the late king, were held in secret, nothing of their transactions were allowed to be published, notwithstanding it was whispered throughout the kingdom, that the diets of the Rhenish provinces of Posen and Silesia, had demanded the final fulfilment of the law of 22nd May, 1815, and that the king had answered in a tone which showed that anger and passion had over-stepped the limits of royal dignity. The persecutions against the universities by the hated minister Eichhorn; the attempt against the independence of the judges; a famine in a part of the most fruitful province, unknown to the government before it had already killed whole villages; the incorporation of Cracow into Austria, which damaged the trade of Silesia by more than a million of thalers a year, could not be counteracted by such half concessions as the publicity of trials, though without a jury, or by the establishment of a "Obercensur-gericht." The anxiety with which the prohibited writings of Schön

* These diets were composed of the most conservative elements, such as great landed proprietors, great commercial men and burgomasters of the larger towns.

† A commission of high functionaries to which an Author could appeal against the "crossing over" of a censor.

(minister of state with Stein), of Jacoby, Simon, and other liberals were swallowed by the people, manifested to every imperial eye the approaching storm. At last the king saw himself compelled to do something to appease the public excitement. The "Patent" of the 3rd February, 1847, was issued. The Provincial Diets sent their deputies to the "United Diet" (Vereinigten Landtag) at Berlin. Frederick William IV. was, as usual on such occasions, very eloquent. "As heir of an unimpaired crown which I must and will preserve unimpaired for my successors, I know that I am entirely free from every obligation in regard to that which is not yet executed (gegen Nichtausgeführtes,) especially, that from the execution of which his truly paternal feeling has kept back my august predecessor." "But I have preserved for me the especial right, without those lawful occasions, to call together this great assembly, whenever I consider it as good and useful; and I shall do it willingly and oftener, if this diet give me the proof that I can do it, without violating higher monarchical duties.". "It urges

me to the solemn declaration, that no power on earth shall succeed in compelling me to change the natural relation between Prince and people, which with us creates so much power by its internal truth, into a conventional, constitutional one; and that I never will allow (nun and nimmermehr,) to intrude a written leaf of paper between our Lord and God in heaven and this country, like a second Providence, in order to govern us with its paragraphs, and to replace by them the old and holy fidelity." .Such were the words with which the king opened the "United Diet," on the 11th April, 1847. To talk too much is one of the weaknesses of this monarch. On the 18th of March, 1848, a very, very small portion of the power on earth, the inhabitants of one town, succeeded in compelling him to change the natural relation between Prince and people into a conventional, constitutional one-the written leaf of paper intruded. Kings should never tell be

fore what they will do, or what they never will do, if they are not expressly obliged to do so; bad enough for them that they are often compelled to enter into future engagements by a "political oath." Frederick William mistook greatly his age; his phraseology would have worked well four centuries ago; but in the age of material interests and "material guarantees," far from exciting submissive admiration, it afforded but a rich harvest to the wit and irony of the people. No king, indeed, has been in Germany so much the object of incessant caricature and blasphemy, as the "SpreeRomantiker."

The eyes of the people of the continent were directed owards Paris. The Holy Alliance had long since succeeded in changing the hatred towards the French, which naturally animated the Germans during the socalled "Freiheitskriege" into sympathy. The hatred was now directed towards the East. Russia was justly acknowledged as the head of the Holy Alliance, as the head quarters of despotism. Her influence, especially in Germany, worked not only in secret intrigues, but was openly manifested by incessant demands to restrict the freedom of the German universities, by her denunciations of everything which indicated a spirit of liberalism. The intimate friendship of Nicholas with his father-in-law, king Frederick William III. entailed by no means a friendship between their two countries.

The Italians had never hated the French; the "Tedeschi," popery, and the king "Bomba,' were the objects of their antipathy; the Spanish Peninsula also had forgotten its days of Saragossa. Continental Europe, dissatisfied and oppressed, waited for France. Every word spoken in the "Chambre de Députés" was listened to with the greatest anxiety; and Louis Blanc has certainly, as far as politics go, the right to say, ce Paris, cœur et cerveau du monde." From France was expected the rise of the storm. Can we commence the struggle against despotism, said the liberals in Germany, whilst Paris is tranquil; will not

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our own legions, if necessary, assisted by a hundred thousand Cossacks, pour down upon us at once, and crush the first germ of freedom? And where shall we commence, in Vienna, Berlin, Cologn, Koenigsberg, Dresden, or Frankfort? We are too decentralized. A revolution in Vienna will be but a revolution in Vienna and nowhere else; and Berlin in arms will see Frankfort, Dresden, or Munich, quiet and looking on. But a revolution in Paris means a revolution in France, and a revolution in France will be a revolution in Rome, Milan, Vienna, Berlin. The centralization of France, the cause of all her internal misfortune, made her the heart and brain of political Europe. The "July-days" of 1830, in Paris, were the author of the 26th of August in Brussels; of the 29th of November in Warsaw, they created the insurrections of Modena, Parma, Sicily, and the State of the Pope; they even taught the king of Saxony, the elector of Hessen-Cassel, and the Duke of Brunswick, that they cannot always rely on the wonted patience of German subjects.

The general opinion in Europe was, that Louis Philippe would manage to keep himself on the throne to the end of his days, but that his death would be the signal for a universal stir. All popular demands were deferred to this moment. When the reform banquets commenced in 1848, Europe listened in feverish anxiety. The throne of the bourgeois king was burnt, and the Republic proclaimed once more. The effects in Italy and Germany are well known.

But why did a revolution fail which was so long prepared in the public opinion of Europe, and justified by the proceedings of the "Holy Alliance" and the sway of barbarous Russia?

We speak here especially about the revolutions in France, Italy, and Germany. One object was, perhaps, common in these three countries, which we might call "freedom;" but what practical shape this general idea had to assume, in that the three countries were naturally different.