embers of the existing eight provincial assemblies, and organized
in two chambers--a house of lords and a house containing the three
estates of the knights, burghers, and peasants. But the issue was
unhappy. As Metternich had predicted, the meeting of the Diet but
afforded opportunity for a forceful reassertion of constitutional
aspirations, and the assemblage refused to sanction loans upon which
the sovereign was bent until its representative character should have
been more completely recognized. The king, on his part, declared he
would never allow "to come between Almighty God in heaven and this
land a blotted parchment, to rule us with paragraphs, and to replace
the ancient, sacred bond of loyalty." The deadlock was absolute, and,
June 26, the Diet was dissolved.

*266. The Revolution of 1848.*--The dawn of constitutionalism was,
however, near. The fundamental law under which Prussia still is
governed was a product--one of the few which endured--of the
widespread revolutionary movement of 1848. Upon the arrival in Berlin
of the news of the overthrow of Louis Philippe (February 24) at Paris
and of the fall of Metternich (May 13) at Vienna, the Prussian
Liberals renewed with vigor their clamor for the establishment in
Prussia of a government of a constitutional type. The demand was
closely related to, yet was essentially distinct from, the
contemporary project for the inauguration of a new constitutional
German Empire. As was proved by the vagaries of the Frankfort
Parliament (May, 1848, to June, 1849), conditions were not yet ripe
for the creation of a closely-knit empire;[363] and one of the reasons
why this was true was that a necessary step toward that culmination
was only now about to be taken, i.e., the introduction of constitutional
government in the important kingdom of Prussia. Apprehensive lest (p. 250)
the scenes of violence reported from Paris should be re-enacted in his
own capital, Frederick William acquiesced in the demands of his
subjects in so far as to issue letters patent, May 13, 1848, convoking
a national assembly[364] for the consideration of a proposed
constitution. Every male citizen over twenty-five years of age was
given the right to participate in the choice of electors, by whom in
turn were chosen the members of this assembly. May 22, 1848, the
assembly met in Berlin and entered upon consideration of the sketch of
a fundamental law which the king laid before it. The meeting was
attended by