Prince Bismarck mid his Policy. 



77 



indicated this; he began to politize, and wished to get 

 married. 



Prince Bismarck found plenty of material for political 

 cogitations. Since the July revolution in France, and the 

 outbreak in Poland, the peace-dream of the continent had 

 been shattered, and many indications showed, that a new 

 epoch would require new conditions and new men, and 

 that new questions and new interests would spring into the 

 foreground. An era of industry, a personal ambition, in 

 short the epoch of individualism had arrived and offered 

 battle to the existing authority. These signs showed them- 

 selves first in France. The last remnants of the old mon- 

 archical traditions fell with the last of the Bourbons, and 

 with them feudal aristocracy. Louis Philip of Orleans, 

 was the citizPM king. Under him France enjoyed a lib- 

 erty and prosperity, which might well cause the envy of 

 Germany. An industrial splendor, wealth, and an ex- 

 tended commerce brought France into successful compe- 

 tition with English industry. The old arrogance towards 

 its neighbors showed itself in the same ratio as the na- 

 tion's wealth increased. The campaign in Belgium, the 

 acquisition of Algeria, whose cultivation swallowed up 

 millions, the desire after the Rhine, showed conclusively, 

 that the citizen kingdom rested upon treacherous soil. 



In Prussia, matters were in a transition period ; while 

 its foreign relations were not imposing yet they were 

 tolerably respectable. Central Europe, by reason of 

 the holy alliance, was safe from aggressions from 

 without. The diet of Frankfort curbed the ambition of the 

 individual state through the power of the whole nation. 

 This was the policy of the European equilibrium, whose 

 founders were Metternich and IS'esselrode, and whose 

 champion was i^icholas L, of Russia — the symbol of abso- 

 lute monarchy in Europe, which had been inaugurated by 

 Louis XIY. During the czar's visit in Berlin, in 1843, 



