The members of the German Diet then rose in their seats; they were as silent and shy as night-owls startled from their dark hiding-places by a stray sunbeam. They left the old session-hall at Ratisbon in gloomy silence, and when the door closed behind them, the German Diet had been buried, and the lid on its coffin had been closed.
The last night-owls of the deceased German empire hurried in mournful silence from the session-hall at Ratisbon, where the old portraits henceforth watched alone over the grave of the German empire.
When they stepped out into the market-place, a carriage just rolled past the city-hall, and the gentleman seated in it leaned smilingly out of the coach-door, and saluted kindly and affably the pale, grave, and sad men who came from the city-hall.
This gentleman was Count Clement Metternich, who was going to Paris as special envoy of the Emperor of Austria for the purpose of offering to the Emperor of France on his birthday the congratulations of the Emperor of Austria. [Footnote: Ibid., p. 168.]
On the 6th of August the German empire had died and was buried!
On the 15th of August the Emperor of the French celebrated his birthday; and the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and all the sovereigns who had been members of the late German empire, celebrated the great day in the most solemn manner.
Napoleon had a new victory—a victory which laid the whole of Germany at his feet. He had buried the German empire, but stood on the grave of the august corpse as its lord and master.