est of the nation at large, in
hastening as much as possible that revolutionary course which for the
old societies of civilized Europe has now become a historical
necessity, before any of them can again aspire to a more quiet and
regular development of their resources.

As to country people that joined the insurrection, they were
principally thrown into the arms of the Revolutionary party, partly by
the relatively enormous load of taxation, and partly of feudal burdens
pressing upon them.

Without any initiative of their own, they formed the tail of the other
classes engaged in the insurrection, wavering between the working men
on the one side, and the petty trading class on the other. Their own
private social position, in almost every case, decided which way they
turned; the agricultural laborer generally supported the city artisan;
the small farmer was apt to go hand in hand with the small shopkeeper.

This class of petty tradesmen, the great importance and influence of
which we have already several times adverted to, may be considered as
the leading class of the insurrection of May, 1849. There being, this
time, none of the large towns of Germany among the center of the
movement, the petty trading class, which in middling and lesser towns
always predominates, found the means of getting the direction of the
movement into its hands. We have, moreover, seen that, in this
struggle for the Imperial Constitution, and for the rights of the
German Parliament, there were the interests of this peculiar class at
stake. The Provisional Governments formed in all the insurgent
districts represented in the majority of each of them this section of
the people, and the length they went to may therefore be fairly taken
as the measure of what the German petty bourgeoisie is capable
of--capable, as we shall see, of nothing but ruining any movement
that entrusts itself to its hands.

The petty bourgeoisie, great in boasting, is very impotent for action,
and very shy in risking anything. The _mesquin_ character of its
commercial transactions and its credit operations is eminently apt to
stamp its character with a want of energy and enterprise; it is, then,
to be expected that similar qualities will mark its political career.
Accordingly the petty bourgeoisie encouraged insurrection by big
words, and great boasting as to what it was going to do; it was eager
to seize upon power as soon as the insurrection, much against its
will, had br