at unity was accomplished in despite of them, by sword and fire, as
Bismarck said, that is to say, by the wars of 1866 and 1870. Care was
taken, however, not to abase them more than was strictly necessary, for
it was intended to maintain the hierarchy. What was wanted was a
monarchical unity, made from above down, and not a democratic unity
brought about by popular impulsion.

On the other hand, the smaller nobles formed, after 1820, a vast
association for the defense of their rights, the Adelskette. Moreover,
they could not be sacrificed, in the first place, because they had
rendered invaluable services in the wars of independence, they had
arisen as one man, and they had ruined themselves in sacrifices for the
national cause, they had organized the people and led it to victory,
finally because they served to restrain the high nobility whose
domination was feared. They sustained the throne against the princes,
the higher nobility against the democracy, the lesser nobility against
the higher, the two forming an intermediary class between the monarch
and the nation. That was the social conception which prevailed with
those who were working to realize the unity of Germany, so that the
nobility, lesser or higher, in default of its privileges retained its
functions.

Treitschke, in his last lessons, about 1890, called it "a political
class." For the bourgeois, he said, wealth, instruction, letters, arts.
Their part is fine enough. The nobility is apt at governing. That is its
special distinction. For a long time, in fact, the nobility has filled
alone or almost alone the great administrative, governmental, and
military posts.

Bismarck was the finished type, the representative par excellence of
this class of men. He had their intellectual and moral qualities carried
to the highest degree of superiority. But he underwent evolution after
1871, and his caste with him, under the pressure of general
circumstances.

Bismarck was a Junker, a Prussian rustic, monarchist, particularist,
agrarian and militarist. Each of his qualities is an attribute of a
mentality of caste, a very curious one, not lacking in grandeur, but
very narrow and not always adequate to the conduct of affairs.

Monarchist means anti-Parliamentarian. The fine scorn of rhetoric and
even of public discussion, a conviction that democracy will not lead to
anything beyond a display of mediocrity, that is one of the salient
features of his mind. Patriotism conc