to the utmost the power of the crown. He was _plus royaliste
que le roi._ In the ordinary sense he was no orator. He hesitated, he
coughed, he sought for words; his voice, in spite of his herculean
frame, was feeble. But sturdy in his loyalty, although inexperienced in
parliamentary usage, he offered a bold front to the liberalism which he
saw to be dangerous to his sovereign's throne. Like Oliver Cromwell in
Parliament, he gained daily in power, while, unlike the English
statesman, he was opposed to the popular side, and held up the monarchy
after the fashion of Strafford. From that time, and in fact until 1866,
when he conquered Austria, Bismarck was very unpopular; and as he rose
in power he became the most bitterly hated man in Prussia,--which hatred
he returned with arrogant contempt. He consistently opposed all reforms,
even the emancipation of the Jews, which won him the favor of
the monarch.

When the revolution of 1848 broke out, which hurled Louis Philippe from
the French throne its flames reached every continental State except
Russia. Metternich, who had been all powerful in Austria for forty
years, was obliged to flee, as well as the imperial family itself. All
the Germanic States were now promised liberal constitutions by the
fallen or dismayed princes. In Prussia, affairs were critical, and the
reformers were sanguine of triumph. Berlin was agitated by mobs to the
verge of anarchy. The king, seriously alarmed, now promised the boon
which he had thus far withheld, and summoned the Second United Diet to
pave the way for a constituent assembly. In this constituent assembly
Bismarck scorned to sit. For six months it sat squabbling and fighting,
but accomplishing nothing. At last, Bismarck found it expedient to enter
the new parliament as a deputy, and again vigorously upheld the absolute
power of the crown. He did, indeed, accept the principle of
constitutional government, but, as he frankly said, against his will,
and only as a new power in the hands of the monarch to restrain popular
agitation and maintain order. Through his influence the king refused the
imperial crown offered by the Frankfort parliament, because he conceived
that the parliament had no right to give it, that its acceptance would
be a recognition of national instead of royal sovereignty, and that it
would be followed probably by civil war. As time went on he became more
and more the leader of the conservatives. I need not enumerate the
subje