e parliament should consist of two chambers, the lower to be
chosen by direct manhood suffrage, the upper to be made up half of
members appointed by the princes and half of members elected for six
years by the legislative bodies of the several states. As an executive
some desired a directory of three princes and some wanted a single
president; but the majority voted at length to establish the dignity
of German Emperor and to offer it to Frederick William IV., king of
Prussia.

*207. The Reaction.*--The refusal of the Prussian monarch to accept the
proffered title, save upon the impossible condition that all of his
brother princes in Germany should give their assent to his so doing,
blasted the hopes of the patriots. In May, 1849, the Frankfort
assembly broke up. Not long thereafter Prussia, Saxony, and (p. 199)
Hanover agreed upon a constitution substantially like that which the
Frankfort meeting had proposed. Other states accepted it, and March
20, 1850, a parliament was convened under it at Erfurt. By reason of
the recovery of Austria, however, and the subsidence of the
revolutionary movement generally throughout Germany the experiment
promptly collapsed. The conception of a German empire had been
formulated with some definiteness, but for its realization the day had
not yet arrived. The old Confederation, under Austrian domination,
kept the field. After an upheaval which involved the enforced
promulgation of a constitution, the accession of a new emperor (the
present Francis Joseph), and the threatened loss of Hungary, Bohemia,
and the Italian dependencies, the Austrian monarchy recovered its
balance and inaugurated a fresh era of reaction, during the course of
which there was revoked not only the constitution conceded at Vienna
but also that of almost every one of the German states.[278]

[Footnote 278: See pp. 454-456.]

In Prussia the outcome was more fortunate. In January, 1850, Frederick
William IV, granted a constitution which established a national
legislative assembly and admitted a portion of the Prussian people to
an active participation in the government. Although the instrument
proved a disappointment to the Liberals, it has survived, with some
modifications, to the present day as the fundamental law of the
Prussian kingdom; and the fact that Prussia had become fixedly a
constitutional state, together with the hopeless deadlock which arose
between Prussia and Austria in the at