were to elapse before hostilities began.

We have seen how throughout these complications Bismarck had desired, if
he fought Austria, to fight, not for the sake of the Duchies, but for a
reform of the German Confederation.

In March he had said to the Italians that the Holstein question was not
enough to warrant a declaration of war. Prussia intended to bring
forward the reform of the Confederation. This would take several months.
He hoped that among other advantages, he would have at least Bavaria on
his side; for the kind of proposal he had in his mind, though at this
time he seems to have had no clear plan, was some arrangement by which
the whole of the north of Germany should be closely united to Prussia,
and the southern States formed in a separate union with Bavaria at the
head. He had always pointed out, even when he was at Frankfort, that
Bavaria was a natural ally of Prussia. In a great war the considerable
army of Bavaria would not be unimportant.

At the beginning of April Bismarck instructed Savigny, his envoy at the
Diet, to propose the consideration of a reform in the Constitution. The
proposal he made was quite unexpected. No details were mentioned as to
changes in the relations of the Princes, but a Parliament elected by
universal suffrage and direct elections was to be chosen, to help in the
management of common German affairs. It is impossible to exaggerate the
bewilderment and astonishment with which this proposal was greeted. Here
was the man who had risen into power as the champion of monarchical
government, as the enemy of Parliaments and Democracy, voluntarily
taking up the extreme demand of the German Radicals. It must be
remembered that universal suffrage was at this time regarded not as a
mere scheme of voting,--it was a principle; it was the cardinal
principle of the Revolution; it meant the sovereignty of the people. It
was the basis of the French Republic of 1848, it had been incorporated
in the German Constitution of 1849, and this was one of the reasons why
the King of Prussia had refused then to accept that Constitution. The
proposal was universally condemned. Bismarck had perhaps hoped to win
the Liberals; if so, he was disappointed; their confidence could not be
gained by this sudden and amazing change--they distrusted him all the
more; "a Government that, despising the laws of its own country, comes
forward with plans for Confederate reform, cannot have the confidence of
the German