The votes were equal. Sittings were secret.
On important occasions the assembly was resolved into what was called the plenum, in which a greater number of votes were assigned to the chief States, and the total number of voices was then increased to seventy. In these cases a majority of three fourths was necessary for any question to be carried.
The leading idea with the founders of the Diet was the preservation of internal tranquillity, the next, the formation of a league which should inspire other nations with respect.
Ambassadors were accredited to the Diet.—Translator.
[5] Russian circular of the 27th May, 1859, concerning the war in Italy.
[6] This young lieutenant was M. de Bismarck. The Landwehr is divided into two levies. The soldier belongs to the first levy seven years, to the second levy for a like period.—Translator.
[7] A writer in a position to be well informed, a former under secretary of state in the ministry of Prince Schwarzenberg, thus narrates the origin of Russian intervention in Hungary, tracing it back to 1833, to the celebrated interview of Munchengraetz between the Emperor Francis I. of Austria and the Czar Nicholas. In one of the confidential conversations, Francis spoke with sadness and apprehensions of the sickly and nervous state of his son and prospective successor, and begged the czar to maintain towards that son the friendship which he had always had for the father. "Nicholas fell on his knees, and raising his right hand to heaven, swore to give to the successor of Francis all aid and succor he should ever need. The old Emperor of Austria was profoundly touched, and placed his hands on the head of the kneeling czar as a token of benediction." This strange scene had no witness, but each of the two sovereigns narrated it some months later to a superior officer who then commanded the division of the army stationed at Munchengraetz. This superior officer was no other than the Prince of Windischgraetz, who, later, in 1848, nominated and made generalissimo of the Austrian army at the critical moment of the Hungarian insurrection, took upon himself to recall to Nicholas, in a letter, the pledge formerly given at Munchengraetz. The czar replied by placing his whole army at the disposition of his imperial and apostolic majesty.—Cf. Hefter, Geschichte Oesterreichs, Prague, 1869, vol. i. pp. 68-69.
[8] Session of the Prussian chamber of the 6th September, 1849. This speech is not reproduced in the official collection of the speeches of M. de Bismarck published at Berlin.
[9] The battle of Sadowa, or as it is more commonly called in Germany, the battle of Königsgrätz, was fought on the 3d of July, 1866, and decided the result of the conflict between Prussia and Austria.—Translator.
[10] We take the liberty of citing on this subject a piquante scène d'antichambre which has its instructive side. There was then at Vienna, in the ministry of foreign affairs, a very original figure, an usher, the memory of whom is not effaced at the Ballplatz. He bore the uncouth name of Kadernoschka; placed in the large waiting room before the cabinet of the minister, it was his duty to introduce the different visitors to the chief. This M. Kadernoschka was an usher of great style: he had been trained by the old Prince Metternich himself and loved to recall that he had "exercised his functions" from the time of the famous congress of 1815! One day, after a long interview with Prince Gortchakof, Count Buol sees this good Kadernoschka entering with a more than usually solemn air. He had a communication to make to his Excellency "in the interest of the service!" And Count Buol learns that the Russian envoy, after having left his Excellency, had appeared entirely overcome and suffocating with anger,—that he had asked for a glass of water; that for half an hour he had walked up and down in the waiting room, gesticulating with violence, talking to himself, and crying from time to time in French: "Oh! some day they shall pay me well for that, they shall pay me for that!"