m, making Germany a Republic. A "president"?
That would come to the same. Thus they must revive the old Imperial
dignity. But--as, of course, a prince was to be emperor--who should
it be? Certainly none of the _Dii minorum gentium_, from
Reuss-Schleitz-Greitz-Lobenstein-Ebersdorf up to Bavaria; neither
Austria nor Prussia would have borne that. It could only be Austria or
Prussia. But which of the two? There is no doubt that, under otherwise
favorable circumstances, this august Assembly would be sitting up to
the present day, discussing this important dilemma without being able
to come to a conclusion, if the Austrian Government had not cut the
Gordian knot, and saved them the trouble.

Austria knew very well that from the moment in which she could again
appear before Europe with all her provinces subdued, as a strong and
great European power, the very law of political gravitation would draw
the remainder of Germany into her orbit, without the help of any
authority which an Imperial crown, conferred by the Frankfort
Assembly, could give her. Austria had been far stronger, far freer in
her movements, since she shook off the powerless _crown_ of the German
Empire--a crown which clogged her own independent policy, while it
added not one iota to her strength, either within or without Germany.
And supposing the case that Austria could not maintain her footing in
Italy and Hungary, why, then she was dissolved, annihilated in Germany
too, and could never pretend to reseize a crown which had slipped from
her hands while she was in the full possession of her strength. Thus
Austria at once declared against all imperialist resurrections, and
plainly demanded the restoration of the German Diet, the only Central
Government of Germany known and recognized by the treaties of 1815;
and on the 4th of March, 1849, issued that Constitution which had no
other meaning than to declare Austria an indivisible, centralized, and
independent monarchy, distinct even from that Germany which the
Frankfort Assembly was to reorganize.

This open declaration of war left, indeed, the Frankfort wiseacres no
other choice but to exclude Austria from Germany, and to create out of
the remainder of that country a sort of lower empire, a "little
Germany," the rather shabby Imperial mantle of which was to fall on
the shoulders of His Majesty of Prussia. This, it will be recollected,
was the renewal of an old project fostered already some six or
eight years ag