nment was no
longer an undisguised tyranny and since the people themselves were growing
richer, a strong sentiment of personal loyalty to the sovereign began to
spread among them. Constitutional changes were therefore indefinitely
postponed. The great work of the next few years for Prussian statesmen was
the removal of commercial barriers between the various German States, and
the establishment of a _Zollverein_ between them. In this way the sway
of Austria was weakened, and though political union as an aim was carefully
kept in the background, the foundation for the subsequent consolidation of
the German Empire was securely laid. During the two central years of this
process, 1832-4, Lord Minto was at Berlin. The manners of the time were far
simpler and the life at the court far more informal than they were soon to
become. Law and custom still preserved some lingering barbarities: during
their stay at Wittenberg they heard of a man being broken on the wheel.

They stopped at Brussels on the way. There is a characteristic entry in
Lady Fanny's diary describing a visit to the battle-field.

NAMUR, _September_ 6, 1832

We coach-people left Brussels much earlier than the others that we
might have time to walk about Waterloo....

They showed us the house where the Duke of Wellington slept the
night before and the night after the battle and wrote home his
dispatches; then after a long and fierce dispute between a man and
woman which was to guide us, the man took us to the Church, where
we saw the monuments of immense numbers of poor common soldiers and
officers--then to the place where four hundred are buried all
together and one sees their graves just raised above the rest of
the ground. Then we drove to the field of battle, and the man
showed us everything; it was very nice and very sad to hear all
about, but as I shall always remember it, I need say nothing about
it. We are quite in a rage about a great mound that the Dutch have
put up with a great yellow lion on the top, only because the Prince
of Orange was wounded there, quite altering the ground from what it
was at the time of the battle. The monument to Lord Anglesea's leg
too, which we did not of course go to see, makes one very angry, as
if he was the only one who was wounded there--and only wounded too
when such thousands of poor men were killed and have nothing at all
to mark th