successor
had not scrupled to ally himself with revolutionary France. This rigid
insistence on a rule of right, this nice determining of questions of
conscience, seemed better suited to the confessor's chair than to the
advisers of a great monarch. And the principle to which he was asked to
sacrifice the future of his country,--was it after all a true principle?
Why should Prussia trouble herself about the internal constitution of
other States, what did it concern her whether France was ruled by a
Bourbon or an Orleans or a Bonaparte? How could Prussia continue the
policy of the Holy Alliance when the close union of the three Eastern
monarchies no longer existed? If France were to attack Germany, Prussia
could not expect the support of Russia, she could not even be sure of
that of Austria. An understanding with France was required, not by
ambition, but by the simplest grounds of self-preservation.

These and other considerations he advanced in a long and elaborate
memorandum addressed to Manteuffel, which was supplemented by letters to
the Minister and Gerlach. For closeness of reasoning, for clearness of
expression, for the wealth of knowledge and cogency of argument these
are the most remarkable of his political writings. In them he sums up
the results of his apprenticeship to political life, he lays down the
principles on which the policy of the State ought to be conducted, the
principles on which in future years he was himself to act.

"What," he asks, "are the reasons against an alliance with France? The
chief ground is the belief that the Emperor is the chief representative
of the Revolution and identical with it, and that a compromise with the
Revolution is as inadmissible in internal as in external policy." Both
statements he triumphantly overthrows. "Why should we look at Napoleon
as the representative of the Revolution? there is scarcely a government
in Europe which has not a revolutionary origin."

"What is there now existing in the world of politics which has a
complete legal basis? Spain, Portugal, Brazil, all the American
Republics, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Greece, Sweden,
England, which State with full consciousness is based on the
Revolution of 1688, are all unable to trace back their legal
systems to a legitimate origin. Even as to the German princes we
cannot find any completely legitimate title for the ground which
they have won partly from the Emperor and the Empire, partly fr