to the emperor
and the empire. Consequently the terms emperor and commander-in-chief
appear to be the synonyms in all languages. And by virtue of this
synonymy of words the Emperor of Germany exercises over his subjects a
power very analogous to that which a general exercises over his
soldiers. Bismarck should have known this. And knowing this
truth--intelligible to far less penetrating minds than his--Bismarck
should in his colossal enterprise have given less prominence to the
emperor and more to Germany. He did precisely the contrary of what he
should have done. The Hohenzollern dynasty has distinguished itself
beyond all other German dynasties by its moral nature and material
temperament of pure and undisguised autocracy. The Prussian dynasty
has become more absolute than the Catholic and imperial dynasties of
Germany. A Catholic king always finds his authority limited by the
Church, which depends completely on the Pope, whereas a Prussian
monarch grounds his authority on two enormous powers, the dignity of
head of the State, and that of head of the Church. The autocratic
character native to the imperial dynasties of Austria is greatly
limited by the diversity of races subjected to their dominion and to
the indispensable assemblies of the diet around his imperial majesty.

But a king of Prussia, always on horseback, leader in military times,
defender of a frontier greatly disputed by formidable enemies, whose
soil looks like a dried-up marsh from which the ancient Slav race had
been obliged to drain off the water, is required to direct his
subjects as a general does an army. The intellectual, political, and
military grandeur of Frederick the Great augmented this power and
assured it to his descendants for a long epoch. It has happened to
each king of Prussia since that time to perform some colossal task,
grounded in an irreducible antinomy. Frederick William II. devoted
himself to the reconciliation of Calvinism and Lutheranism as divided
in his days as during the thirty years war, which was maintained by
the heroism of Gustavus Adolphus, and repressed by the exterminating
sword of Wallenstein. Frederick William IV. endeavored to unite
Christianity and Pantheism in his philosophical lucubrations; the
Protestant churches were deprived of their churchyards and statues by
virtue of and in execution of Royal Lutheran mandates, as was also the
Catholic Cathedral of Cologne, restored to-day in more brilliant
liturgical s