century. While each of the princes enjoyed an
individual vote, the counts and other lords were arranged in groups,
each of which voted as a whole, though the whole of its vote
(_Kuriatstimme_) only counted as equal to the vote of a single prince
(_Virilstimme_). There were six of these groups; but as the votes of the
whole college of princes and counts (at any rate in the 18th century)
numbered 100, they could exercise but little weight.

The last era in the history of the diet may be said to open with the
treaty of Westphalia (1648). The treaty acknowledged that Germany was no
longer a unitary state, but a loose confederation of sovereign princes;
and the diet accordingly ceased to bear the character of a national
assembly, and became a mere congress of envoys. The "last diet" which
issued a regular recess (_Reichsabschied_--the term applied to the
_acta_ of the diet, as formally compiled and enunciated at its
dissolution) was that of Regensburg in 1654. The next diet, which met at
Regensburg in 1663, never issued a recess, and was never dissolved; it
continued in permanent session, as it were, till the dissolution of the
Empire in 1806. This result was achieved by the process of turning the
diet from an assembly of principals into a congress of envoys. The
emperor was represented by two _commissarii_; the electors, princes and
towns were similarly represented by their accredited agents. Some
legislation was occasionally done by this body; a _conclusum imperii_
(so called in distinction from the old _recessus imperii_ of the period
before 1663) might slowly (very slowly--for the agents, imperfectly
instructed, had constantly to refer matters back to their principals) be
achieved; but it rested with the various princes to promulgate and
enforce the _conclusum_ in their territories, and they were sufficiently
occupied in issuing and enforcing their own decrees. In practice the
diet had nothing to do; and its members occupied themselves in
"wrangling about chairs"--that is to say, in unending disputes about
degrees and precedences.

In the Germanic Confederation, which occupies the interval between the
death of the Holy Roman Empire and the formation of the North German
Confederation (1815-1866), a diet (_Bundestag_) existed, which was
modelled on the old diet of the 18th century. It was a standing congress
of envoys at Frankfort-on-Main. Austria presided in the diet, which, in
the earlier years of its history, served,