The fall of Vienna, however, enabled the King of Prussia to take another step towards absolutism, and General Brandenburg was appointed Minister in spite of the opposition of the Liberals. The King himself had withdrawn to Potsdam: and the Assembly resolved almost unanimously to send a deputation to the King, to entreat him to dismiss this Ministry. The deputation had to wait for a long time in a dark gallery, the King refusing at first to receive them otherwise than through the Ministers; but a Ministerial despatch arrived, calling attention to this deputation; and thus the King's scruple was removed, and he consented to hear them. When the address was completed he took it up, folded it, and prepared to withdraw; but Johann Jacoby exclaimed, "We are not come here merely to present the address, but to explain to Your Majesty the true condition of the country. Will you not grant us a gracious hearing?" The King refused, upon which Jacoby uttered the memorable words: "It is the misfortune of Kings that they will not hear the truth." Then Frederick William withdrew in great anger, and refused to have any further communication with the deputies. On November 6 he announced that, if the Assembly did not accept the Ministry, they would be dissolved by force; and two days later he declared unconditionally that he should remove the Assembly by force to the town of Brandenburg; or, as he epigrammatically put it, the choice was between "Brandenburg in the Chamber, or the Chamber in Brandenburg."
Von Unruh, the President of the Chamber, read this announcement to his colleagues, but declared that he would not carry it out without the sanction of the Assembly; and, when General Brandenburg tried to speak, in order to command the closing of the Assembly, the President informed him that he was out of order, and, if he desired to make an explanation, he must ask leave to speak. Brandenburg then declared that the further sitting of the Parliament was illegal; and, accompanied by seventy members, he left the House. The Assembly then, by 250 votes against 30, decided to continue their sitting. They further resolved that "the Assembly finds at present no reason for changing their place of deliberation; that it cannot grant to the Crown the right to remove, to adjourn, or to dissolve the Assembly against its will; that the Assembly does not consider those officials who have advised the Crown to take this step capable of presiding over the Government of this country; and that those officials have become guilty of grave violations of their duty to the Assembly, the country, and the Crown." They further resolved that, although they were obliged to adjourn, the President and Secretaries should remain all night at their post, as a sign of the permanence of the Assembly. On November 9 General Brandenburg answered this defiance by a letter, in which he declared that these resolutions were illegal, and that he held Von Unruh and others responsible for the consequences. In the meantime Brandenburg had appealed to the Civic Guard to prevent the Members from attending the meetings; but the commandant of the Civic Guard denied the right of the Ministers to send him this order, and further protested against the proposal to remove the Assembly to the town of Brandenburg. The Town Council tried to reconcile the Parliament to the King; but Von Unruh, while declaring his desire to avoid bloodshed, denied that the Assembly could yield on any point, and the Members issued an appeal to the country in which they denounced the illegal conduct of the King and his Ministers, but urged the people to maintain a strictly legal position in the defence of their liberties. The address concluded with these words: "The calm and determined attitude of a People that is ripe for freedom will, with God's help, secure the victory of freedom."
The situation had become terribly dangerous; for General Wrangel, soon after his return from Schleswig-Holstein, marched his troops into the market place, in front of the building in which the Parliament was sitting, and on November 11, Von Unruh and the other Members, coming to hold their meetings, found the doors locked, and the soldiers guarding the place. They then adjourned to the Hotel de Russie, where they declared Brandenburg guilty of High Treason, and called on the people to refuse to pay taxes. Deputations came in from Magdeburg, Breslau and Frankfort, declaring their sympathy with the Assembly; and the Civic Guard refused to give up their arms to Wrangel. Wrangel now declared all public meetings prohibited, announced that the Civic Guard was dissolved; and declared Berlin in a state of siege. But the addresses of sympathy came in more freely than ever; and it was rumoured that Silesia was actually in a state of insurrection. Even several citizens of Brandenburg itself sent an address to the Assembly, declaring that they would resist the transfer of the Parliament to their town. The opposition between the bourgeoisie and the workmen, which had been caused by the riots of June, July and August, had now entirely disappeared in a common zeal for Constitutional freedom; and the Town Council permitted the Assembly to meet in their Hall. But even there Wrangel would not leave them in peace, and soon after they were driven from this refuge also. Even the ex-Minister Hansemann became an object of denunciation to the Court party; and on November 15 the Assembly put into a formal vote the proposal which they had already hinted at, that no further taxes should be paid. This vote was carried just after they had been driven from the Town Council House to another meeting place. The next day soldiers were called out, who threatened the Civic Guard with violence, but finally marched off without firing; and some soldiers and officers were dismissed for not consenting to act against the people. Taxes were beginning to be refused in various parts of Prussia; several arrests were made in Cologne; and Düsseldorf was declared in a state of siege. The soldiers were forbidden to read the National Zeitung; while on the other hand printers and publishers offered to print the decrees of the Assembly without any compensation for loss of time. Attempts to enforce the payment of taxes led to riots in Bonn and Breslau; and in Coblenz the people attacked officers for speaking evil of the National Assembly. The Government tried, in some cases, to cut off the payment of deputies; but the people insisted on making the payment, in spite of this prohibition; and even a Government official in Düsseldorf declared his belief that if the Brandenburg Ministry lasted three or four days more, none of the official boards would consent to act. One of the Roman Catholic bishops of Silesia appealed to his flock not to refuse taxes, as otherwise they would be damned for "refusing to give to Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's." To this appeal several Roman Catholics of Silesia retorted by an address in which they expressed their fear for the spiritual condition of the clergy, since they had never paid taxes at all.
On November 27, the Government resolved on a new act of violence. While the deputies were met at the Hotel Mylius, Major von Blumenthal entered at the head of a band of soldiers, and ordered the deputies to leave the Hall.[18] Jacoby asked him what he wanted. The Major answered, "I come in the name of the law." Jacoby: "Of what law?" Major: "In the name of the highest law." Jacoby: "Of what law do you speak?" Major: "I speak in the name of the Constitutional law." Jacoby: "There is no law that forbids us to meet in an hotel in the day-time." Elsner: "Even Wrangel's proclamations contain no prohibition of this kind; we are no club."[19] Major: "That does not concern me. I act under the authority of my board." Jacoby: "What is your name?" Major: "I am the Major Count Blumenthal." Jacoby: "Who has given you this authority?" Major: "The board set over me." Several voices: "Name the board." Major (after a pause): "Gentlemen, do not embarrass me." Jacoby: "Well, then, I declare to you that you are not acting in the name of law, but of force; and it is a sad thing that the soldiers are misemployed for such acts of violence." The Major then ordered them once more to leave the Hall, and seized on the parliamentary papers. Jacoby denounced this seizure as robbery, and attempted to make a copy of the documents. The Major snatched the papers from Jacoby's hands; upon which the latter exclaimed, "Go on with your robberies, and scorn all laws; some day you will be brought to account for this." Then the deputies, still refusing to leave the Hall, were driven out by the soldiers.
In the meantime, the members of the Right had been meeting at Brandenburg; and at last von Unruh and many of his friends joined them there; but demanded, at the same time, that the Assembly should accept all the resolutions passed in Berlin between the 4th and the 15th of November. But, on December 5, the King finally dissolved the Parliament, announcing that it should meet on February 26 in Berlin, and that he would then issue a new Constitution. The Liberal members all flocked to Brandenburg to protest against this dissolution; and the King found it necessary to suppress meetings even in Brandenburg, as dangerous to his authority.
It was impossible in the then state of Germany that any organized insurrection could produce a satisfactory result. On the one hand the Republican leaders had weakened their cause by spasmodic and useless appeals to insurrection, at times when Constitutional action would have been perfectly possible; while in Prussia itself, the differences between the workmen and the bourgeoisie made the permanent coherence of a Constitutional party almost impossible. On the other hand, the Parliament at Frankfort, abandoned by many members of the Left, had been growing ever more and more timid, and had not only passed a resolution condemning the resistance of the Prussian Parliament, but had even sent Bassermann, one of the Frankfort Ministers, to Berlin, to persuade the Parliament to yield. Under these circumstances, the passive resistance of Von Unruh and his friends was, in all probability, the wisest and most dignified course which was open to the champions of liberty; and when the Assembly actually met again in February, the leaders of the Left were received with enthusiasm by the people, as men who had deserved well of their country. If the King of Prussia had heartily accepted the new condition of affairs, he might even now have done something to secure a better future for Germany than any that it has since achieved; for the Frankfort Parliament had come to the conclusion that the only hope for the unity of Germany lay in its acceptance of the King of Prussia as its head. They had repudiated the connection of Germany with Austria; Archduke John had resigned his post as Administrator of the Empire; and on March 28, 1849, they finally resolved to offer the crown of Germany to the King of Prussia. But the flavour of freedom and independence which still lingered, even in these later months, about the Frankfort Parliament, made this offer distasteful to a King whose liberalism, always superficial, had now quite evaporated. The Frankfort Parliament had been the result of a popular movement; and it had elaborated a free Constitution, which it desired to treat as a necessary part of the proposed monarchy. Under these circumstances, therefore, Frederick William IV. refused to accept the crown of Germany, unless it were offered to him by the Princes of Germany; and by this refusal he put an end to the hope that the German question might be settled in a peaceable and Constitutional manner.
In the meantime, experience was showing that it was almost as difficult in Austria as in Prussia to reduce parliamentary government to a mere tool of despotism. The members of the Bohemian party in the Viennese Parliament had withdrawn from its sittings after the murder of Latour; and had attempted to find a free place for deliberation in Olmütz. About the same time Ferdinand, grown weary of the struggles of parties and races, unsatisfied as to the contending claims of Kossuth and Jellaciç, and unable to reconcile himself to the proceedings either of Windischgrätz, or of the Viennese Democrats, listened to the advice which the clique around him were pressing upon him, and consented to resign his throne, not to his brother and lawful heir, but to his nephew, Francis Joseph, who, being a mere boy at the time, would fall easily under the power of the Camarilla, who were governing Austria. The advisers of Francis Joseph, however, still thought that they could keep up an appearance of parliamentary government; and they, therefore, summoned a parliament to meet at Kremsier in Moravia early in December.
It soon became apparent, however, that the men who met in the Kremsier Parliament were by no means less zealous for freedom, hardly even less democratic than those who met at Vienna. Those Bohemian members, who had objected to the rule of terror in the Viennese Assembly, had appealed, even from Olmütz, to the Emperor not to deal too harshly with Vienna; and they now showed themselves as zealous for freedom as any German could be. Men, too, like Borrosch, Löhner, Schuselka and Fischhof, who had not acted with the Bohemians at Vienna, were ready to take part in the Kremsier Parliament. On the motion of Schuselka, that Parliament, early in January 1849, abolished all privileges of rank; the right of summary arrest was also taken away, and trial by jury secured; while the freest criticisms were passed on the action of the Austrian Government in Vienna, Hungary and Italy; and Rieger specially denounced the desire of the Ministry to crush out all feeling for the special nationalities. The Parliament began to attract the attention of many who were at first disposed to speak of it with scorn; and even those courtiers who had hoped to use it as a weapon against the Magyars, became alarmed at its evident democratic leanings. Acting under their advice, Francis Joseph, on March 7, announced that this Parliament, from which he had hoped so much, had driven off still further "the restoration of peace and law, and of public confidence," and had raised the hopes of "the not wholly conquered party of disorder." He therefore dissolved the Parliament, and announced, as the King of Prussia had done, that he would settle the Constitution without their help. The Bohemian leaders united with the Germans to protest against this final act of violence; and so ended for about ten years all hopes of Constitutional Government in Austria.
In the meantime affairs in Italy had been also hastening in the direction of a more violent solution of difficulties than had been wished for in the early days of the movement. In spite of his apparent abandonment of the policy embodied in the encyclical of April 9, in spite even of his acceptance of Mamiani as Minister, Pius was still hesitating between two different policies. He was disposed to rely continually on Cardinals who were out of sympathy with his Ministers; and he was particularly anxious to assert that, in introducing a Parliament, he had not surrendered his absolute authority as Pope. This conflict of feelings in Pius IX. led to a curious exhibition at the opening of the Roman Parliament of June 4, 1848. On this occasion the Pope entrusted Cardinal Altieri with a discourse which had not had the approval of Mamiani. Mamiani, on the other hand, as Prime Minister, read to the Chamber a discourse in which he declared that the Pope abandoned to the wisdom of the deputies the care of providing for temporal affairs, and spoke of entrusting the papal volunteers in Lombardy to the leadership of Charles Albert. In spite of the action of Altieri, Mamiani declared that his speech had been approved by the Pope; but the Papal Nuncio in Vienna repudiated the language of the Papal Prime Minister. This continual jar between the Pope and his Ministers naturally excited distrust in the Assembly; and when the Austrians crossed the Po and occupied Ferrara, the cry for war rose, not only in the Assembly, but also in popular meetings out of doors; and the feebleness of the papal protest against this second occupation of Ferrara, increased the distrust of the Pope which was now growing in Rome. At last, in August, Mamiani, finding his position impossible, resigned; and, for a time, an old man named Fabbri was accepted as Minister by the Pope, as a kind of stop-gap. But he, too, speedily found the position impossible, and resigned his post.
It was under these circumstances that Pius IX. called to his counsels the man whom he had previously desired to employ, the former ambassador of Guizot, Pellegrino Rossi. Rossi was known for his previous services to the cause of liberty, in the early part of the century; for his careful study of Roman law, and for his attempt to devise a Constitution for Switzerland. He was a personal friend of Pius IX., and had desired even a wider Constitution than that which the Pope had granted. He was further known to have gained respect from some of the Italian exiles in Paris. On all these grounds he naturally seemed to Pius a fit person to be trusted with his confidence. But though a man of sterling honesty, he was the worst possible Papal Minister at this juncture. His friends expected him to be welcomed as a former sufferer in the cause of Italian liberty. He was, on the contrary, hated as a friend of Guizot, and as the former representative of Louis Philippe. Sterbini, one of the fiercest democrats in Rome, declared that, if Guizot's friend appeared in the Assembly, he would be stoned. And, while he was hated by the Jesuits for his desire for secular Government, and for his Protestant wife, an outcry was at once raised against his Ministry by the Liberals, when it was found that it contained two Cardinals. While, too, in his own way, he wished for the freedom and independence of Italy, his way was exactly opposite to that which was then desired by the people.