the period
1848-1851. There is a serviceable account in L.
Leger, History of Austria-Hungary from the
Beginning to the Year 1878, trans. by B. Hill
(London, 1889), Chaps. 30-33. Older accounts in
English include W. H. Stiles, Austria in 1848-9
(New York, 1852), and W. Coxe, History of the House
of Austria (3d ed., London, 1907). The Hungarian
phases of the subject are admirably presented in L.
Eisenmann, Le compromis austro-hongroise (Paris,
1904).]

V. THE REVIVAL OF CONSTITUTIONALISM: THE AUSGLEICH

*505. Constitutional Experiments, 1860-1861.*--The decade 1850-1860 was
in Austria-Hungary a period of political and intellectual torpor.
Embarrassed by fiscal difficulties and by international complications,
the Government at Vienna struggled with desperation to maintain the
_status quo_ as against the numerous forces that would have overthrown
it. For a time the effort was successful, but toward the close of the
decade a swift decline of Imperial prestige compelled the adoption of
a more conciliatory policy. The Crimean War cost the Empire both
allies and friends, and the disasters of the Italian campaigns of 1859
added to the seriousness of the Imperial position. By 1860 both the
Emperor and his principal minister, Goluchowski, were prepared to
undertake in all sincerity a reformation of the illiberal and
unpopular governmental system. To this end the Emperor called
together, March 5, 1860, representatives of the various provinces and
instructed them, in conjunction with the Reichsrath, or Imperial
Council, to take under consideration plans for the reorganization of
the Empire. The majority of this "reinforced Reichsrath" recommended
the establishment permanently of a broadly national Reichsrath, or
Imperial assembly, together with the reconstitution of the old
provincial diets. The upshot was the promulgation, October 20, 1860,
of a "permanent and irrevocable" diploma in which the Emperor made
known his intention thereafter to share all powers of legislation and
finance with the diets of the various portions of the Empire, and (p. 457)
with a central Reichsrath at Vienna, the latter to be made up of
members chosen by the Emperor from triple lists of nominees presented
by the provincial diets.

In Hungary this programme was r