the name of the Royal and Imperial Government." "Certainly," answered
Bismarck. There was a dead pause in the conversation. Prokesch
afterwards officially admitted that the statement had been incorrect.

This association with the Press formed in him a habit of mind which he
never lost: the proper use of newspapers seemed to him, as to most
German statesmen, to be not the expression of public opinion but the
support of the Government; if a paper is opposed to the Government, the
assumption seems to be that it is bribed by some other State.

"The whole country would rejoice if some of the papers which are
supported by foreign sources were suppressed, with the express
recognition of their unpatriotic attitude. There may be
opposition in the internal affairs, but a paper which in Prussia
takes part against the policy of the King on behalf of foreign
countries, must be regarded as dishonoured and treated as such."

Politically his position was very difficult; the Diet had been restored
by Austria against the will of Prussia; the very presence of a Prussian
Envoy in Frankfort was a sign of her humiliation. He had indeed gone
there full of friendly dispositions towards Austria; he was instructed
to take up again the policy which had been pursued before 1848, when all
questions of importance had been discussed by the two great Powers
before they were laid before the Diet. Bismarck, however, quickly found
that this was no longer the intention of Austria; the Austria which he
had so chivalrously defended at Berlin did not exist; he had expected to
find a warm and faithful friend--he found a cunning and arrogant enemy.
Schwarzenberg had spared Prussia but he intended to humble her; he
wished to use the Diet as a means of permanently asserting the
supremacy of Austria, and he would not be content until Prussia had been
forced like Saxony or Bavaria to acquiesce in the position of a vassal
State. The task might not seem impossible, for Prussia appeared to be on
the downward path.

Of course the Diet of Frankfort was the place where the plan had to be
carried out; it seemed an admirable opportunity that Prussia was
represented there by a young and untried man. Count Thun and his
successors used every means to make it appear as though Prussia was a
State not of equal rank with Austria. They carried the war into society
and, as diplomatists always will, used the outward forms of social
intercourse as a means for obtain