e the confidence of the German people in
Parliamentary government was broken. Moreover, it was the first time in
the history of Europe in which one of these struggles had conclusively
ended in the defeat of Parliament. The result of it was to be shewn in
the history of every country in Europe during the next thirty years. It
is the most serious blow which the principle of representative
government has yet received.

By the end of August most of the labour was completed; there remained
only the arrangement of peace with Saxony; this he left to his
subordinates and retired to Pomerania for the long period of rest which
he so much required.

During his absence a motion was brought before Parliament for conferring
a donation on the victorious generals. At the instance of one of his
most consistent opponents Bismarck's name was included in the list on
account of his great services to his country; a protest was raised by
Virchow on the ground that no Minister while in office should receive a
present, and that of all men Bismarck least deserved one, but scarcely
fifty members could be found to oppose the vote. The donation of 40,000
thalers he used in purchasing the estate of Varzin, in Pomerania which
was to be his home for the next twenty years.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FORMATION OF THE NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION.

1866-1867.

We have hitherto seen Bismarck in the character of party leader,
Parliamentary debater, a keen and accomplished diplomatist; now he comes
before us in a new role, that of creative statesman; he adopts it with
the same ease and complete mastery with which he had borne himself in
the earlier stages of his career. The Constitution of the North German
Confederation was his work, and it shews the same intellectual resource,
the originality, and practical sense which mark all he did.

By a treaty of August 18, 1866, all the North German States which had
survived entered into a treaty with one another and with Prussia; they
mutually guaranteed each other's possessions, engaged to place their
forces under the command of the King of Prussia, and promised to enter
into a new federation; for this purpose they were to send envoys to
Berlin who should agree on a Constitution, and they were to allow
elections to take place by universal suffrage for a North German
Parliament before which was to be laid the draft Constitution agreed
upon by the envoys of the States. These treaties did not actually create
th