for centuries to mechanical obedience; or that an
elemental instinct for conquest and plunder, absorbing to itself the
life of the nation, had simplified its aims and reduced them to
materialism; or that the Prussian character was originally so made--it
is certain that the idea of Prussia always evoked a vision of
rudeness, of rigidity, of automatism, as if everything within her went
by clockwork, from the gesture of her kings to the step of her
soldiers.

A day came when Germany had to choose between a rigid and ready-made
system of unification, mechanically superposed from without, and the
unity which comes from within by a natural effort of life. At the same
time the choice was offered her between an administrative mechanism,
into which she would merely have to fit herself--a complete order,
doubtless, but poverty-stricken, like everything else that is
artificial--and that richer and more flexible order which the wills of
men, when freely associated, evolve of themselves. How would she
choose?

There was a man on the spot in whom the methods of Prussia were
incarnate--a genius, I admit, but an evil genius; for he was devoid of
scruple, devoid of faith, devoid of pity, and devoid of soul. He had
just removed the only obstacle which could spoil his plan; he had got
rid of Austria. He said to himself: "We are going to make Germany
take over, along with Prussian centralization and discipline, all our
ambitions and all our appetites. If she hesitates, if the confederate
peoples do not arrive of their own accord at this common resolution, I
know how to compel them; I will cause a breath of hatred to pass over
them, all alike. I will launch them against a common enemy, an enemy
we have hood-winked and waylaid, and whom we shall try to catch
unarmed. Then when the hour of triumph shall sound, I will rise up;
from Germany, in her intoxication, I will snatch a covenant, which,
like that of Faust with Mephistopheles, she has signed with her blood,
and by which she also, like Faust, has traded her soul away for the
good things of earth."

He did as he had said. The covenant was made. But, to ensure that it
would never be broken, Germany must be made to feel, for ever and
ever, the necessity of the armour in which she was imprisoned.
Bismarck took his measures accordingly. Among the confidences which
fell from his lips and were gathered up by his intimates is this
revealing word: "We took nothing from Austria after Sadowa be