of Princes, a renewal of the old Federal Diet, was called
upon to sit in judgment on that Constitution which had already been
promulgated as law. And at the same time Prussia concentrated troops
at Kreuznach, three days' march from Frankfort, and called upon the
smaller States to follow its example, by also dissolving their
Chambers as soon as they should give their adhesion to the Frankfort
Assembly. This example was speedily followed by Hanover and Saxony.

It was evident that a decision of the struggle by force of arms could
not be avoided. The hostility of the Governments, the agitation among
the people, were daily showing themselves in stronger colors. The
military were everywhere worked upon by the Democratic citizens, and
in the south of Germany with great success. Large mass meetings were
everywhere held, passing resolutions to support the Imperial
Constitution and the National Assembly, if need should be, with force
of arms. At Cologne, a meeting of deputies of all the municipal
councils of Rhenish Prussia took place for the same purpose. In the
Palatinate, at Bergen, Fulda, Nuremberg, in the Odenwald, the
peasantry met by myriads and worked themselves up into enthusiasm. At
the same time the Constituent Assembly of France dissolved, and the
new elections were prepared amid violent agitation, while on the
eastern frontier of Germany, the Hungarians had within a month, by a
succession of brilliant victories, rolled back the tide of Austrian
invasion from the Theiss to the Leitha, and were every day expected to
take Vienna by storm. Thus, popular imagination being on all hands
worked up to the highest pitch, and the aggressive policy of the
Governments defining itself more clearly every day, a violent
collision could not be avoided, and cowardly imbecility only could
persuade itself that the struggle was to come off peaceably. But this
cowardly imbecility was most extensively represented in the Frankfort
Assembly.

LONDON, July, 1852.

XVII.

INSURRECTION.

SEPTEMBER 18, 1852.

The inevitable conflict between the National Assembly of Frankfort and
the States Governments of Germany at last broke out in open
hostilities during the first days of May, 1849. The Austrian deputies,
recalled by their Government, had already left the Assembly and
returned home, with the exception of a few members of the Left or
Democratic party. The great body of the Conservative