lts in its own
territories, had re-established its power and threatened Prussia with
war. Russia supported Austria, and Prussia submitted at Olmuetz (1850).
In these stirring years, Bismarck--first as a member of the United Diet
and then as a representative in the new Prussian Chamber of
Deputies--made himself prominent by hostility to the constitutional
movement and championship of royal prerogative. He defended the King's
refusal of the imperial crown, because "all the real gold in it would be
gotten by melting up the Prussian crown"; and he compared the pact which
the King, by accepting the Frankfort constitution, would make with the
democracy, to the pact between the huntsman and the devil in the
'Freischuetz': sooner or later, he declared, the people would come to the
Emperor, and pointing to the Imperial arms, would say, "Do you fancy
this eagle was given you for nothing?" He sat in the Erfurt Parliament,
but had no faith in its success. He opposed the constitution which it
adopted, although this was far more conservative than that drafted at
Frankfort, because he deemed it still too revolutionary. During the
Austro-Prussian disputes of 1850 he expressed himself, like the rest of
the Prussian Conservatives, in favor of reconciliation with Austria, and
he even defended the convention of Olmuetz.

After Olmuetz, the German Federal Diet, which had disappeared in 1848,
was reconstituted at Frankfort, and to Frankfort Bismarck was sent, in
1857, as representative of Prussia. This position, which he held for
more than seven years, was essentially diplomatic, since the Federal
Diet was merely a permanent congress of German ambassadors; and
Bismarck, who had enjoyed no diplomatic training, owed his appointment
partly to the fact that his record made him _persona grata_ to the
"presidential power," Austria. He soon forfeited the favor of that State
by the steadfastness with which he resisted its pretensions to superior
authority, and the energy with which he defended the constitutional
parity of Prussia and the smaller States; but he won the confidence of
the home government, and was consulted by the King and his ministers
with increasing frequency on the most important questions of European
diplomacy. He strove to inspire them with greater jealousy of Austria.
He favored closer relations with Napoleon III., as a make-weight against
the Austrian influence, and was charged by some of his opponents with an
undue leaning towa