When the first news arrived of the revolution of February in Paris, Bismarck knew for a fact that the signal for a struggle with the Prussian Monarchy had there been given; he perceived that the wave of revolution would pass over the Rhine, and dash against the throne of his sovereign.
He determined upon manly resistance, and his virile courage was not broken when the terrible truth more than fulfilled his anticipations; when the waves of revolution shot with lightning speed through all Germany; when a want of presence of mind and irresolute counsels, and at times crass cowardice, rather than ill-will or treason, in almost every direction, lamed or broke down the power of resistance.
He saw, sinking and destroyed, bulwarks and dykes he had held to be unassailable; his heart palpitated with patriotic ardor and manly sorrow, but he lost neither courage nor clear insight, like a true dykesman. It had hitherto been his office to protect the Elbe dykes against the floods, and in a similar character it was his duty to act against the floods of revolution. Nor has the valiant man unfaithfully acquitted himself of his severe duty.
The March-days of Berlin pressed hard upon the heart of the sturdy March-squire, and there ensued a long series of days of grief; for he felt as a personal insult every thing spoken, written, or enacted against his royal master. He passed as in a feverish dream through the streets of the capital of his King, filled with threatening forms.[37] He saw flags displayed and colors fluttering unknown to him; Polish standards, tricolors of black, red, and gold, but nowhere the ancient honored flag of Prussia. Even on the palace of his deceased lord and king the three colors flaunted, ever the battle-standard of the enemies of Prussia, never those of the ancient German realm. In place of the proud regiments of Guards, he only beheld citizen-soldiers watching in a half-ludicrous, half-dispirited manner. Men had ceased to speak; all the world speechified and declaimed; vain folly and ignominious treason grasped each other with dirty hands in an alliance against royalty, and those who ought to have been defending the crown, and indeed desired to do so, found themselves caught in the spider-webs of liberal doctrines: trammelled themselves in the sere bonds of political theories, scornfully rent asunder by the rude hands of revolution.
It was sufficient to bring the burning tear to Bismarck’s eye, and his soul struggled in unspeakable torment; but he manfully wrestled insult and vexation down. With a pale but impassible countenance he took his place, on the 2d of April, 1848, in the first session of the Second United Diet.
The White Saloon still existed, but the bright days were gone in which Vincke had sought to polish diamonds with diamond-dust; true, the same men were present, but it was a vastly different assembly. In those former days, certain of victory and intoxicated with power, this assembly now meditated suicide; it could scarcely be quick enough in transferring its legislative functions to the new creation, the first-born of revolution, standing impatiently watching at the door.
The President was still the Marshal of the Guild of Nobles, the Serene Prince of Solms-Hohen-Solms-Lich; but the Royal Commissioner was no longer the Freiherr von Bodelschwingh-Velmede; his place was occupied by the new Minister of State, Ludolf Camphausen—one of the chiefs of the Rhine-land liberal party.