if your majesty should gather your
ministers around you as a regular council of state, and direct their
loyal plans and counsels with that fatherly love for your subjects which
you have manifested at all times, such a step would strengthen the
confidence of your allies, restore the courage of the oppressed nation,
inspire the conquered provinces with the determination of shrinking from
no danger in order to deliver themselves from the yoke of the oppressor,
and counteract, in the countries remaining as yet intact, that
discouragement which cannot but prevent the people from making any
heroic efforts in self-defence. Such, sire," added Stein, drawing a deep
breath, "are my honest opinions and convictions. I lay them before your
majesty with the sincerity and earnestness which the threatening state
of affairs renders it incumbent on me to manifest. My determination to
share the fate of the monarchy, and of your majesty's house, whatever
may be in store for them, is well known. But if you are unwilling to
give up a system that I am satisfied has already brought so many
calamities upon the country, and will continue to do so--if the cabinet
is to remain, and if the council of state, without which I believe
Prussia cannot be saved, is not organized--I most humbly beg your
majesty to accept my refusal."

"You want to threaten me!" exclaimed the king. "You think, perhaps, you
are alone able to save Prussia?"

"No, your majesty," said Stein, looking the king in the face; "no, I
only believe that the present cabinet government is destined to ruin
her."

The king looked down for a while musingly. "Well, what is your idea
about the new council of state which you propose?" he asked after a
pause. "Who is to belong to it? What is to be its object?"

"Its object is to be the intermediate voice between the people and the
king; to lay before him the laws and ordinances, in order to obtain his
approval and signature; to publish such of them as he has sanctioned,
and to be responsible to him for the administration of the country. But
for all these reasons it would be indispensable that the ministers
should be admitted to the king at any time, and be consulted as to any
resolutions which he would take and in reference to any changes he would
decide upon in the general policy of the government. The ministers of
foreign affairs, of war, and of finance, would form the nucleus of this
council, and be as much as possible near the king's pe