401 MEETING OF MUNCHEN-RRATZ. 



her. The Decree decides the future fate of Germany, and we may 

 regard it as of still greater importance than that of Charles X. In 

 July it was a single prince who placed himself arbitrarily in advance, 

 it was one of those flashes of lightning, which illumine the horizon 

 of a calm and serene 'day, the harbingers of a storm, whose relations 

 and extent we do not perceive at the time. But in this case, the 

 whole line of Despots deploys itself upon the political scene, their 

 banner is raised, and they have given Europe to understand, what are 

 the public rights and law, according to which they intend to govern 

 the destiny of the people. Nations who flattered themselves with 

 the hope that the last revolution of France would have served as a 

 lesson, and would have taught them to abandon to the necessity of 

 the times, certain dogmas of their arbitrary creed, clearly perceive, 

 that they have laid aside none of their principles or antipathies, and 

 that the example of the two great constitutional nations has only con- 

 firmed them more and more in their obstinacy and arrogance. 



The declaration of the German Diet is but another link in the 

 chain, with which the Congress of Vienna, in their chimerical hope 

 of having finally consummated their act, had bound the happiness of 

 the psople. " All the powers," it was then said, "of necessity, 

 requiring to be united in the head of the State, the Sovereign ought 

 not to be tied down to the co-operation of the Chambers, except in 

 the exercise of certain rights." Is it in virtue of these certain rights 

 allowed to the people by their Constitution, that it is now-a-days 

 declared the States can in no case refuse taxes, and the discussions of 

 their Chambers ought to be superintended by a commission of the 

 Diet ? In the face of France which has finished her revolution, and 

 England which has brought about her Reform ; thisjrwza of de- 

 spotism arrived upon the political scene, and from its matchless 

 assurance, one w r ould be led to suppose, that Charles X. had triumphed 

 over his insurgents, or that the Duke of Cumberland was President at 

 St. James's. The stupid people of Germany have not the brains to 

 judge of the extent and importance of this event; they have not the 

 tact and political courage, which in constitutional countries, renders 

 the people so far-sighted in these cases. This apathy might have 

 been accountable a few years ago, when both the internal and external 

 relations of Germany were so differently circumstanced, when in 

 England there ruled' Castlereagh, and in 'France, the Bourbons, but 

 now it is unaccountable. The Emperor of Austria, however, at the 

 head of the Diet, fears that even slaves may be excited by long acts 

 of tyranny, for he himself declares " that the revolution in Germany 

 marches onwards to its maturity with gigantic strides." In the face 

 of these new difficulties, real or imaginary, despotism unfolds new re- 

 sources. An Ordinance destroys the liberty of the press. The cen- 

 sorship which was formerly imposed upon writings of twenty pages, 

 is now extended to all foreign books, whose circulation is absolutely 

 forbidden, and the system of Austria is thus extended to all Germany. 

 A special commission is charged with the surveillance of the Cham- 

 bers, and the debates of the constitutional assemblies are no longer 

 any thing else than the disputes of coffee-house politicians, subjected 

 to the espionage of police ; and now comes the conference of Munchen- 



