a, and a separate
chancellorship for each of those last-mentioned provinces" (Hartig,
_Genesis of the Revolution in Austria_). There were also a house, a
court, and a state chancellor for the business of the imperial household
and foreign affairs, who were not, however, the presidents of a board.
These "aulic" (i.e. court) officers were in fact secretaries of the
sovereign, and administrative or political rather than judicial in
character, though the boards over which they presided controlled
judicial as well as administrative affairs. In the case of such
statesmen as Kaunitz and Metternich, who were house, court, and state
chancellors as well as "united aulic" chancellors, the combination of
offices made them in practice prime ministers, or rather
lieutenants-general, of the sovereign. The system was subject to
modifications, and in the end it broke down under its own complications.
We are not dealing here with the confusing history of the Austrian
administration, and these details are only quoted to show how it
happened that in Austria the title chancellor came to mean a political
officer and minister. There is obviously a vast difference between such
an official as Kaunitz, who as house, court, and state chancellor was
minister of foreign affairs, and as "united aulic" chancellor had a
general superiority over the whole machinery of government, and the lord
high chancellor in England, the _chancelier_ in France, or the
_canciller mayor_ in Castile, though the title was the same. The
development of the office in Austria must be understood in order to
explain the position and functions of the imperial chancellor (_Reichs
Kanzler_) of the modern German empire. Although the present empire is
sometimes rhetorically and absurdly spoken of as a revival of the
medieval Empire, it is in reality an adaptation of the Austrian empire,
which was a continuation under a new name of the hereditary Habsburg
monarchy. The _Reichs Kanzler_ is the immediate successor of the _Bundes
Kanzler_, or chancellor of the North German Confederation (_Bund_). But
the _Bundes Kanzler_, who bore no sort of resemblance except in mere
name to the _Erz-Kanzler_ of the old Empire, was in a position not
perhaps actually like that of Prince Kaunitz, but capable of becoming
much the same thing. When the German empire was established in 1871
Prince Bismarck, who was _Bundes Kanzler_ and became _Reichs Kanzler_,
took care that his position should be as like a