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to the authorities in the others." At the same time a proclamation was issued by the governor of Milan against a secret society, entitled “La Jeune Italie," described as the most dangerous species of Carbonarism, and against the members of which the severest penalties of the criminal code were threatened.

CHAP. XXVII.

1834.

53.

at Frank

is put under

1834.

Since the occupation of Frankfort by the troops of Austria and Prussia, a species of forced tranquillity had Fresh riot prevailed within its walls, arising from a sense of the over- fort, which whelming military force which could be brought at any martial law. moment against the insurgents. This was disturbed, May 2, however, the following year, by a tumult which was got up in order to effect the liberation of the persons imprisoned on the charge of the former insurrection, and whose trial, according to the usual and deplorable tardiness of German legal procedure, had not yet been brought to a close. Five prisoners escaped, but they were all soon retaken, except one. This incident, in itself trivial, acquired importance from its being made the pretext for the placing the city under martial law, and vesting the supreme direction of it in the hands of the Austrian governor. This strong step in a free city, and the seat of the federal legislature, was justly regarded as affording the clearest indication of the despotic dispositions which had now got possession of the allied councils. The congress agreed to in the preceding year met at Vienna on January 12, and immediately commenced their deliberations, which were almost entirely directed to the means of suppressing, by the forces or authority of the Confederacy, the refractory disposition of the estates, or the anarchical efforts of the people in the lesser states. By a decree agreed to then, and sanctioned by the Diet on 30th October ensu- Oct. 30, ing, it was provided that, in the event of a difference ensuing between the government and the representative assembly of the state upon the interpretation to be put on any part of the constitution, or in consequence of a refusal to vote the necessary supplies, and after all legal and

1834.

XXVII.

1834.

CHAP. constitutional attempts to adjust the dispute had failed, the parties interested were to apply to a tribunal constituted for the purpose of settling such differences, composed of thirty-four members, two chosen by each of the federal states having a voice in the Diet, whose decision was to be final, and immediately enforced by the authority and forces of the Confederacy. These judges were to be elected for three years, and re-elected at the expiration of that period, and decided all questions by a majority of votes. As Austria and Prussia commanded a majority of votes in the Diet, it was easy to see how a tribunal thus constituted would decide every important question which came before them. In the same session a variety of still more stringent regulations were passed, for the purpose of controlling the universities, and preventing their entrance into the secret societies. As to the press, it was 1 Decree of already subjected to such a rigorous censure in every part of Germany, that it was not deemed worth while to pass HA any additional regulations on that subject. The trial of the Frankfort rioters was not finished till the end of the 108; Doc. year 1836, when the greater part of them were sentenced to imprisonment for life, or for twenty years, and a few acquitted.1

Nov. 13.

Diet, Oct. 30 and Nov. 13,

1834; Ann.

Hist. xvii. 574, 575,

and 106,

Hist. lxix.

296.

54.

1835 in the

So much had now been done by the Federal Diet, during Decrees of the three preceding years, to fritter away or restrain reDiet. presentative assemblies, extinguish the liberty of the press, and coerce the universities and the students, that the attention of succeeding Diets only required to be turned to lesser details and objects of social solicitude. This change was soon apparent in their public acts, and bespoke the substitution in the general mind of questions of social for those of political interest. Two decrees were passed in 1835. By the first, the travelling of workmen from states in the Confederacy where trades' unions were * Ann. Hist. prohibited to those where they are permitted, was stopped, and those coming from the latter countries were placed under the strict surveillance of the police.2 By the second,

Jan. 15.

xviii. 413,

414.

XXVII.

the society of writers, known by the name of "Junge CHAP. Deutschland," was denounced, and the publication of all writings, by five members of it specially named, prohibited under severe penalties.

1835.

55.

Emperor

Francis, and

his successor's communication to the Diet.

1835.

On 12th March in this year, the Diet received the official intimation of the death of the Emperor Francis, Death of the who had closed his long and eventful reign at Vienna on the 8th of the same month. In Austria, however, as in all states governed by an aristocracy, the demise of the emperor made no change on the policy of the monarchy. March 12, Metternich remained, and the ruling oligarchy of three hundred nobles who directed the empire was unchanged and unchangeable. The new emperor, Ferdinand I., early gave token of this, in the official communication which he addressed to the Diet, immediately after his accession to the throne. "As to what concerns the affairs of the German Confederacy," said he, "the path is traced out. His Majesty will remain for ever faithful to it. The most conscientious discharge of the federal duties, an active and continual co-operation in the maintenance and consolidation of the alliance, an immovable resolution to contribute everything to the exterior and interior security of Germany, and to protect by all possible means the independence and inviolability of the different states,such were the sentiments with which the Emperor Francis was animated for the bringing to perfection of that great work, due in a great degree to his paternal laws; and the 1Ann. Hist. Emperor Ferdinand will be ever animated with the same 414. sentiments and principles." 1

xviii. 413,

56.

the public

Germany

The task which devolved on the young emperor, of solving the many knotty points, and keeping together the Change in heterogeneous members of the Germanic Confederacy, was mind in much facilitated in the first years of his reign by the re- towards mamarkable change which, in Germany as in other parts of terial obEurope, took place at that period, in the object of general thought and public interest. One law only of importance -that providing for the uniform punishment of state

jects.

XXVII.

1836.

CHAP. offences, and mutual extradition of political offenders against the constitution of any of the states of the Confederacy-marked the annals of the immediately succeeding years.* Material objects had come to supersede political; projects of gain occupied every mind. The railway mania, which soon after seized so violently on the public mind in England and France, extended also to Germany, and with it the passion for extravagant speculation and gambling in shares, with which unhappily these undertakings, when generally embraced, are found to be attended. The thoughts of making a fortune in a few days or hours by a fortunate speculation, possessed irresistible attractions for a people so little accustomed to the whirl of commercial excitement, and for the most part leading so simple and patriarchal a life as the people of Germany. The first railway on the Continent was laid down in Germany; and numbers were soon set on foot, which have nearly all been since completed, and formed the spacious network of iron communication which overspreads the Fatherland, and has so essentially modified the habits, ideas, and inclinations of its inhabitants. The mania spread from the people to their governments; and for some years the legislatures of the small states, which had been such a prolific source of discontent, were occupied entirely with projects of public utility or private advantage. The passion spread to Austria, generally the last to embrace any projects of innovation; and a great society was established to promote the navigation of the

xix. 295,

1 Ann. Hist. Danube, remove its obstructions, and restore it to the destiny intended for it by nature-that of being the great artery of Germany.1

297.

The determination of the Diet to entertain no projects

* "Toute tentative contre l'existence, l'intégrité, la sûreté de la Confédération, ou de chacun des états dont elle se compose, doit être jugée et punie suivant les lois déjà en vigueur ou toutes celles qui seraient à l'avenir sur les divers délits contre la dite Confédération. Les états de la Confédération s'engagent réciproquement à livrer tout individu qui serait coupable des délits ci-dessus spécifiés."-Edit de la Diète, 18 Août, 1836; Ann. Hist. xix. 295, 296.

XXVII.

1838.

57.

the diet to

constitution

1838.

which tended to the extension or restoration of public CHAP. rights was strikingly evinced in the year 1838, in regard to an application from the town of Osnaburg, in the kingdom of Hanover. In 1837 the King of Hanover, in Refusal of consequence of the tumults which had arisen in his restore the dominions from the contagion of the French Revolution, of Hanover. abolished, of his own authority, the constitution which Sept. 6, had been solemnly established in his dominions in 1833 by the consent of all the estates. The town of Osnaburg upon this, in the succeeding year, petitioned the Diet for its restoration, appealing to the 56th article of the Final Act of Vienna of 15th May 1820, which bore that "the constitution of states at present in vigour cannot be changed but in a constitutional way." As there was no question that the constitution of Hanover had been changed in an unconstitutional way, having been abrogated by the sole authority of the sovereign, the Diet was not a little embarrassed how to elude the demand. At length, after a silence of six months, they returned an answer, that "they did not consider themselves in the situation of being bound to interfere; a decision which distinctly showed that they regarded that article as intended to prevent a change of constitution forced upon 1 Ann. Hist. a reigning prince by his subjects-not one forced upon xxi. 238. his subjects by a reigning prince.1

*

tween the

government

This affair made, as well it might, a great noise in 58. Germany at the time, and tended powerfully to revive Dispute bethe political agitation which had been so much allayed by Prussian the prevalence of projects of gain and material progress and the in the preceding years. The agitation, however, was in a great measure neutralised by a dispute which arose at the same period between the Prussian government and the

* "La Diète Germanique fait connaître au magistrat et aux conseillersmunicipaux de la ville d'Osnabruck, par le Docteur Hessenberg, leur fondé de pouvoirs, qu'elle ne trouve pas, dans le cas qui lui est soumis, qu'ils aient été autorisés légitimement par l'acte de la Confédération à adresser l'exposition ci-dessus mentionnée de leurs griefs."—Reponse du Diète, 6 Sept. 1838; Ann. Hist., xxi. 237, 238.

Pope regarding the Archbishop

of Cologne,

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