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lieve that the apprehension of such a catastrophe may kindle new zeal in those estates whose legitimate , task should be to maintain and extend the reformation , but who , far from making good any advance * have of late been sleeping on their guard , if they have not absolutely deserted it . It is high lime , at all events , that the days of quibble and compromise were over , for they have vexed the people long enough .
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PORTRAITURES OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF PRUSSIA . THE KING AND THE PRINCE . THE QUEEN AND THE PRINCESS . One of the most important questions ; not only for Prussia but for Germany in general , is at this moment the inquiry as to what policy the Regent intends to pursue towards Austria . If the antecedents of the Prince are to be received as data for coming to any conclusion in this respect , matters would certainly be supposed , under his administration , to assume necessarily a different aspect to that which they bore during the reign of the King . The King , it is known , was no enemy to the House of Hapsburg . He cared little for carrying out the traditional policy of his more ambitious ancestors . Although , in 184 S , he rode
Only on one occasion the King ventured to place himself in opposition to Austria—viz . when the Court of Vienna demanded entry into the Bund for all its non-Gerniaa dominions , for Hungary , Gallicia , and Lombardy , so that the Hapsburg might have weighed in the councils of Frankfort as the representative of 40 , 000 , 000 of people . This , Frederick " William IV . refused , for the very powerful reason that it would have been tantamount to his complete extinction . But then , the simple fact of Austria having the audacity to make such a demand showed Drettv clearly how she calculated upon her influence
over the mind of the King . We have referred back to these events the better to afford a contrast to the attitude of the Prince . He looked on with sullen anger at all these philb Austrian vagaries of his brother . It is true the Prince also refused to enter into the plans of the Gotha party who , after Frederick William had declined to accept the imperial , circlet , intended to make him the Emperor of Germany . But it was not from any fear of wounding Austrian pride , or encroaching on the rights of a fellow-monarch , that the Prince held aloof in this matter . With him , the all in all was his intense hatred of the revolutionary cause , a cause he could not bring himself to endure even when it assumed loyal and dynastic
airs . He too , therefore , declined the imperial purple—much to the regret of his ambitious wife . It is rumoured that , on the occasion , some animated scenes took place between the Queen and the Princess . These two royal ladies had at no time had any very remarkable affection for each other . Their mutual ' dislike found now an opportunity , of showing itself stronger than ever when such objects of high policy were at stake . It was an intolerable thought for the Queen , the scion of the House of Bavaria , the relation of the Hapsburgs , that the little Princess of Saxe-Weimar should be placed over her head as Empress of Germany . Thus the two Princesses confronted each other with angry looks , and , it is said , allowed their feelings ,, to find vent in no very refined language—a modern Kriemhild and Brunhilde .
However , though the . Prince , in this emergency , acted on the same princi p le as his brother , the difference between them , in matters relating to the Court of Vienna , soon made itself apparent . The Prince was foremost amongst those who wanted to profit by the difficulties in which Austria was in volved , in order to curtail her influence in German affairs . In 1849 he insisted , in the councils of the Court , on refusing to any longer acknowledge the authority of the so-called Vicar of the Empire , the Austrian Archduke John . He also opposed the Drooosition of placing the army that was to march
against insurgent Baden and the Palatinate under the orders of the central authority at Frankfort . He carried his point—namely , that he should himself be nominated to the command of that army , and . that the central authority should have no power of interference whatever . We have before us a curious official correspondence referring to these events . It was indiscreetly published , and throws ample light on the then state of affairs . We see from it that the Prince , though Liberty had unsheathed the sword in South-Western Germany , was so much imbued with his specific Prussian .
notions , and so deeply antagonistic to the Court of Vienna , that he would not hear of any Austrian cooperation . More to his taste would it have been to have bearded the Hapsburg after the same fashion as he had the democratic insurgent . Some years afterwards , in the HesserCassel question , he also tried to push matters to the extreme . Ho would willingly have lighted up afresh a fratricidul war in Germany , in order to maintain Prussian hegemony against Austrian influence . As it was , the King was averse to an armed struggle , and the affair ended , ridioulously enough , with the soi'disant " battle of BronngelL . ' * Thus on ovcry emergency dit
return , pur et simple , to the state of things before 1848 . This not being granted , he held for some time aloof from governmental affairs . His av ersion to the Constitution became at last a fact universally known and regretted throughout the country . Now that he is Regent , no doubt policy will compel ) um to veil his real sentiments , and acknowled ge for a time the existing state of things . But no one caa be uncertain as to the quarter in which his true sympathies lie . Even though his wife , the Princess , keep up her correspondence with all the notabilities of the Constitutionalist party—as she is known to do—the sentiments of the Prince will hardly undergo a change . He is no favourer of the popular cause , and , even so recently as a few days ago , lie is reported to have spoken ironically of the Constitutionalists as " the friends of my wife !"
The military principles of the Prince manifested themselves most unmistakably during the complications of the Neufchatel question . He , at tliat time , was at the head of the party that called out for war against Switzerland . So little under control was his passion for warlike bluster , that he frequently tried , on parade , to inflame the ardour of the troops by speeches which sounded furious enough beside the diplomatic language of the Berlin Government . This is the more remarkable as , during the war against the Czar Nicholas , no such words of flame fell from the lips of the firc-euting Prince . Hostilities against Switzerland were a safer field for his superabundant courage . A crusade against Russia was another and more serious affair , which he lacked both inclination and valour to
undertake . Altogether the attitude , of the Prince , 'during the late European struggle , had been much misrepresented .. Unscrupulous journalists have held him up as an eager champion of Western civilisation , who was only kept down by sheer force from accomplishing great and magnanimous deeds . A more ridiculous statement thaii this could hardly be invented . It is true , the feudalist Kreuz-pai-ty , with whom the Prince was never on good terms , set spies upon him during the Russian war , and managed even to get a portion of his private
correspondence stolen ; but the world has not heard that this theft brought to light any p lans or plots for the furtherance of " Western civilisation" in which the Prince was concerned . The whole ' affair _ was a bottle of smoke . For the preservation of his military renown , and to offer a paroli t o the King , the Prince may have found it expedient to propagate rumours of his inclinations towards the Western Powers . But not a single fact is there to show that he was in earnest—not even such . a fact as the one afforded us for judging of his se ntiments in the Neufchatel affair .
A more recent occurrence , with respect to the Prince ' s sentiments towards Russia , is the journey to Warsaw , undertaken shortly before the establishment of the Regency . When the camarilla ot the King and Queen showed themselves loth to abandon the reins of power , Prince William , m order to break their resistance , hastened to lay the case before the Czar . That potentate he recognised as an all-sufficient umpire . The Chambers , who were fully competent to settle the matter according to the Constitution , the Prince would not accept in nificantin
tlmt capacity . This , wo think , is a sig , - cident . The future Regent of Prussia , wilting upon the Czar , as it were , to receive the investiture into his new offlqe , is a singular illustration oi tno vaunted anti-Muscovite inclinations . Nor hus tno confidence thus placed in the Autocrat oi nil uio Jlussias been left unrewarded , for iiiimcdmluly nitor the homage rendered at Warsaw , tho King was induced to sign tho necessary decree for tlio t ™» ww of power . / JL' o give the finishing touch to tlio picture , wo must not omit to add nnothor aow 1 ' 1 " ? occurrence—viz . that the Court of St . l > e crslnug tho first officially to acknowledge tlio no \ v
was Prussian rulor , —this comforting ncknowledtfimmi arriving from tho Russian capital , « s tho J o » id journals observed , with " a rapidity almost incredible !"
tho Prince is seen to have pursued a policy - ferent from tho pro-Austrian leanings of the King . Here wo liavo the secret link whioh binds a portion of the Gotha party to him , though in other respects lie has done but little to merit their suffrages . Indeed , nothing could bo more dissimilar than tho Constitutionalist inclinations of tho Gotha party , and tho military tendencies of tho Prmoo . Tho Prince , we have shown in & preceding , avtiolo , was an enemy oven to thai ; sham Constitution whioh tho King had granted in 1817 . In 1318 , it was certainly not the Prince who exerted himself for the establishment of representative government . After the revolution had been vanquished , chiefly through his sanguinary measures , 1 >© is known to have desired the
up and down the streets of Berlin with the German banner in hand , proclaiming himself the champion of national unity , it was no willing act that he then performed . He had ceased , fqr the nonce , to be a free agent . He played , and that but badly , a part forced upon him by the course of the revolutionary movement . His object was to allay the irritation of the people , to make them forgetful of the thunder of his guns , the echo of which had hardly died upon their ears , to charm their eyes from the ghastly spectacle of the mangled corpses which his troops had cut up ; and when he-was persuaded to believe that the unfurling of the national tricolor
would produce that magical effect , he was eager enough to become the standard-bearer . But apart from this mountebank performance for his own benefit , nothing was farther from his intentions than any real desire to despoil the House of Hapsbung of its dominions or its influence in Germany . The programmes of the Gotha party were hy no means the expression of his wishes . He now and then affixed his signature to these programmes , yielding unwillingly to the force of circumstances ; but he never meant to keep to their provisions . When in 1849 the majority of the Frankfort Parliament , influenced by the Gotha party , offered him the
Imperial Crown , he declined the glittering bait . Etc had an objection , it is true , to accept a diadem from a party whom , in the madness of his dynastic pride , h e regarded as encroaches upon the right divine of monarchy . But he had , at the same time , a wholesome fear of incurring the risk of coming into conflict with Ins fellow-monarchs of the Confederation . From many reasons , therefore , 1 ) 0 put aside the tempting offer , and by so doing rendered to Austria an incalculable service . It is probable the Queen had no little share in tins resolution . Catholic herself , and in constant correspondence with the Courts of Munich and Vienna , sue was continually working , in those years of trouble ,
for the interest of Austria . So well did she succeed in this , that , year after year , Prussian policy was Sa dually made subservient to tho interests of the ansburg dynasty . Thus , when tho Schleswig-Holstein war was on tho point of being concluded , Austrian troops were permitted to cross the dominions of King Frederick William , and to march triumphantly into the duchies . Nay , to mark even better the secondary position Prussia then assumed , Prussian pioneers were employed to clear tho way and construct bridges over the Elbe for tho invading Croat . This was the first time since the days of Wallenstein that an army of Imperialists had
penetrated so far north in Germany . The pride of tlio " speoifio Prussian" party smarted under this humiliation . Other humiliations were , however , in store for it , of an even more poignant oharaoter . We need only allude to the result of tho Hesso-Cassol complication , and to the famous journey to Olmuta . This latter event marked a most important phase in the life of Frederick William IV . Tho journey to Olmiitz , in fact , was nothing short of a personal apology of tlio King to the Kaiser for any anti-Prussian acts of policy that might have oocurrod duringthe revolutionary epooh . Tho conclusion of the treaty for an Austro-Prussinn Customs Union is another instance of this same subservient policy .
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London Mechanics' Institution . —Lord Murin ) hoj written to tho corresponding Socrotnry oxproaai »„ . concern that ' * ho . ' parent Mechanics' Institution ol Wg lond should bo in need ofoxtrnneou * assistance , in < . i closing a draft for 100 / , in aid of a fund for pftio " « " « tho lonaoof tho building , nnd tl . ufl oxt nm « i » «™ heavy annual charge for rout . The total ra «» » " effectitbia desirable object 1 b 3500 / . j tlio eubacrii . i Ions from private jsaurcoa amount to about 400 / ., nnu we doratnnd that a public npponl la shortly to bo m « ui « -
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1133 THE LEADER . [ No . 448 , October 23 , 1858 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 23, 1858, page 1132, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2265/page/20/
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