"Is there not a heavy tax on tobacco?" inquired my friend and preceptor Klingemann.
"Gentlemen all," said I, "these things must perforce be admitted. We have a chamber of peers, and are thankful for it, because it curbs democracy in the Commons. We have an Established Church, and we honour it, because it has taught the people to fear their Creator and to reverence their queen. Our sovereign is a niece of the King of Hanover, and she has no reason whatever to be ashamed of the connexion. And as to the article of tobacco, I may remark to my learned friend the professor, that revenue must necessarily be raised, and that, moreover, I have not smoked a single decent cigar since I set foot in Germany."
"These are reactionary doctrines!" growled Zitz; "I fear you are no true friend of the people."
"A firmer one never sat under the sign of Geordie Buchanan," said I; "but I suspect your estimate of the people is somewhat different from mine. Pray, Herr Neukirch, will you pardon the curiosity of a stranger, if I ask one or two questions upon points which I do not thoroughly comprehend? I observe, from the tenor of the proclamations issued by Herr von Soiron, that you contemplate the erection of one free, united, and indissoluble Germany."
"That is precisely our object."
"Then, am I right in holding that the Reichsverweser concentrates in his own person the whole power and puissance of the different states?"
"Just so. He is president of Germany."
"So that with him and his council rest the whole responsibility of disposing of the troops of the confederation, of making treaties, of proclaiming peace and war, of regulating coinage and customs, and, in fact, of exerting every royal prerogative?"
"Always with consent of the German parliament," said Zitz. "You may believe we are not such fools as to substitute one tyrant for thirty-eight."
"Then, gentlemen, it appears to me that your whole scheme, upon which I am not qualified to express an opinion, resolves itself into one of extensive and entire mediatisation. If the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia have no power to declare peace or war—if their armies are to obey the orders of the central power at Frankfort—it will follow, as a matter of course, that their kingly privileges are at an end. The interchange of ambassadors with foreign states will be a ceremony so clearly futile that it must at once be abandoned, and the monarchs will become merely the first of a titular nobility."