of this body was
the Archduke Louis, representing the crown; but the
actual direction of its proceedings fell to
Metternich. H. von Sybel, Die Oesterreichische
Staatskonferenz von 1836, in _Historische
Zeitschrift_, 1877.]

[Footnote 652: On Austria during the period of
Metternich see Cambridge Modern History, X., Chap.
11, XI., Chap. 3; Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire
Generale, X., Chap. 17; A. Stern, Geschichte
Europas (Berlin, 1904-1911), I., Chap. 3; A.
Springer, Geschichte Oesterreichs seit dem Wiener
Frieden 1809 (Leipzig, 1863), I., 275-322; H.
Meynert, Kaiser Franz I. (Vienna, 1872).]

IV. THE REVOLUTION OF 1848

*500. The Fall of Metternich.*--The crash came in 1848. Under the
electrifying effect of the news of the fall of Louis Philippe at Paris
(February 24), and of the eloquent fulminations of Kossuth, translated
into German and scattered broadcast in the Austrian capital, there
broke out at Vienna, March 12-13, an insurrection which instantly got
quite beyond the Government's power to control. Hard fighting took
place between the troops and the populace, and an infuriated mob,
breaking into the royal palace, called with an insistence that would
not be denied for the dismissal of Metternich. Recognizing the
uselessness of resistance, the minister placed in the hands of the
Emperor his resignation and, effecting an escape from the city, made
his way out of the country and eventually to England. March 15 there
was issued a hurriedly devised Imperial proclamation, designed to
appease the populace, in which was promised the convocation of an
assembly with a view to the drafting of a national constitution.

*501. Hungary: the March Laws.*--On the same day the Diet of Hungary,
impelled by the oratory of Kossuth, began the enactment of an
elaborate series of measures--the so-called March Laws--by which was
carried rapidly toward completion a programme of modernization which,
in the teeth of Austrian opposition, had been during some years under
way. The March Laws fell into two principal categories. The first
dealt with the internal government of the kingdom, the second with the
relations which henceforth were to subsist between Hungary and the
Austrian Empire. For the