regard to them.

The Revolution of Vienna may be said to have been made by an almost
unanimous population. The bourgeoisie (with the exception of the
bankers and stock-jobbers), the petty trading class, the working
people, one and all arose at once against a Government detested by
all, a Government so universally hated, that the small minority of
nobles and money lords which had supported it made itself invisible on
the very first attack. The middle classes had been kept in such a
degree of political ignorance by Metternich that to them the news from
Paris about the reign of Anarchy, Socialism, and terror, and about
impending struggles between the class of capitalists and the class of
laborers, proved quite unintelligible. They, in their political
innocence, either could attach no meaning to these news, or they
believed them to be fiendish inventions of Metternich, to frighten
them into obedience. They, besides, had never seen working men acting
as a class, or stand up for their own distinct class interests. They
had, from their past experience, no idea of the possibility of any
differences springing up between classes that now were so heartily
united in upsetting a Government hated by all. They saw the working
people agree with themselves upon all points: a Constitution, Trial by
Jury, Liberty of the Press, etc. Thus they were, in March, 1848, at
least, heart and soul with the movement, and the movement, on the
other hand, at once constituted them the (at least in theory)
predominant class of the State.

But it is the fate of all revolutions that this union of different
classes, which in some degree is always the necessary condition of
any revolution, cannot subsist long. No sooner is the victory gained
against the common enemy than the victors become divided among
themselves into different camps, and turn their weapons against each
other. It is this rapid and passionate development of class antagonism
which, in old and complicated social organisms, makes a revolution
such a powerful agent of social and political progress; it is this
incessantly quick upshooting of new parties succeeding each other in
power, which, during those violent commotions, makes a nation pass in
five years over more ground than it would have done in a century under
ordinary circumstances.

The Revolution in Vienna made the middle class the theoretically
predominant class; that is to say, the concessions wrung from the
Government were such