The affair was, it may be designedly, dragged on ad infinitum until the death of the king in 1816, when his son and successor, William, who had gained a high reputation as a military commander and had rendered himself extremely popular, zealously began the work of conciliation. He not only instantly abolished the abuses of the former government, as, for instance, in the game law,[2] but, in 1817, delivered a new constitution to the Estates. Article 337 was somewhat artfully drawn up, but in every point the constitution was as liberal as a constitutional charter could possibly be. But the Estates refused to accept of liberty as a boon, and rejected this constitution on the same formal grounds upon which they had rejected the preceding one. The Estates were again upheld by a grateful public, and the few deputies, more particularly Cotta and Griesinger, who had defended the new constitution on account of its liberality and who regarded form as immaterial, became the objects of public animadversion. The populace broke the windows of the house inhabited by the liberal-minded minister, von Wangenheim. The poet Uhland greatly distinguished himself as a warm upholder of the ancient rights of the people.[3] The king instantly dissolved the Estates, but at the same time declared his intention to guarantee to the people, without a constitution, the rights he had intended constitutionally to confer upon them; to establish an equal system of taxation, and "to eradicate bureaucracy, that curse upon the country." The good-will displayed on both sides led to fresh negotiations, and a third constitution was at length drawn up by a committee, composed partly of members of the government, partly of members belonging to the Estates, and, in 1819, was taken into deliberation and passed by the reassembled Estates. This constitution, nevertheless, fell far below the mark to which it had been raised by public expectation, partly on account of the retention, owing to ancient prejudice, of the permanent committee and its oligarchical influence, party on account of the too great and permanent concessions made to the nobility in return for their momentary aid,[4] partly on account of the extreme haste that marked the concluding deliberations of the Estates, occasioned by their partly unfounded dread of interference on the part of the congress then assembled at Carlsbad.
In Wurtemberg, however, as elsewhere, the policy of the government was deeply imbued with the general characteristics of the time. Notwithstanding the constitution, notwithstanding the guarantee given by the federative act, liberty of the press did not exist. List, the deputy from Reutlingen, was, for having ventured to collect subscriptions to petitions, brought before the criminal court, expelled the chamber by his intimidated brother deputies, took refuge in Switzerland, whence he returned to be imprisoned for some time in the fortress of Asberg, and was finally permitted to emigrate to North America, whence he returned at a later period, 1825, in the capacity of consul. Liesching, the editor of the German Guardian, whose liberty of speech was silenced by command of the German confederation, also became an inmate of the fortress of Asberg.
In Hesse and Brunswick, all the old abuses practiced in the petty courts in the eighteenth century were revived. William of Hesse-Cassel returned, on the fall of Napoleon, to his domains. True to his whimsical saying, "I have slept during the last seven years," he insisted upon replacing everything in Hesse exactly on its former footing. In one particular alone was his vanity inconsistent: notwithstanding his hatred toward Napoleon, he retained the title of Prince Elector, bestowed upon him by Napoleon's favor, although it had lost all significance, there being no longer any emperor to elect.[5] He turned the hand of time back seven years, degraded the councillors raised to that dignity by Jerome to their former station as clerks, captains to lieutenants, etc., all, in fact, to the station they had formerly occupied, even reintroduced into the army the fashion of wearing powder and queues, prohibited all those not bearing an official title to be addressed as "Herr," and re-established the socage dues abolished by Jerome. This attachment to old abuses was associated with the most insatiable avarice. He reduced the government bonds to one-third, retook possession of the lands sold during Jerome's reign, without granting any compensation to the holders, compelled the country to pay his son's debts to the amount of two hundred thousand rix-dollars, lowered the amount of pay to such a degree that a lieutenant received but five rix-dollars per mensem, and offered to sell a new constitution to the Estates at the low price of four million rix-dollars, which he afterward lowered to two millions and a tax for ten years upon liquors. This shameful bargain being rejected by the Estates, the constitution fell to the ground, and the prince elector practiced the most unlimited despotism. Discontent was stifled by imprisonment. Two officers, Huth and Rotsmann, who had got up a petition in favor of their class, and the Herr von Gohr, who by chance gave a private fete while the prince was suffering from a sudden attack of illness, were among the victims. The purchasers of the crown lands vainly appealed to the federative assembly for redress, for the prince elector "refused the mediation of the federative assembly until it had been authorized by an organic law drawn up with the co-operation of the prince elector himself."—This prince expired in 1821, and was succeeded by his son, William II., who abolished the use of hair-powder and queues, but none of the existing abuses, and demonstrated no inclination to grant a constitution. He was, moreover, the slave of his mistress, Countess Reichenbach, and on ill terms with his consort, a sister of the king of Prussia, and with his son. Anonymous and threatening letters being addressed to this prince with a view of inducing him to favor the designs of the writer, he had recourse to the severest measures for the discovery of the guilty party; numbers of persons were arrested, and travellers instinctively avoided Cassel. It was at length discovered that Manger, the head of the police, a court favorite, was the author of the letters.
Similar abuses were revived by the house of Brunswick. It is unhappily impossible to leave unmentioned the conduct of Caroline, princess of Brunswick, consort to the Prince of Wales, afterward George IV., king of England. Although this German princess had the good fortune to be protected by the Whig party and by the people against the king and the Tory ministry, she proved a disgrace to her supporters by the scandalous familiarity in which she lived in Italy with her chamberlain, the Italian, Pergami. The sympathy with which she was treated at the time of the congress was designedly exaggerated by the Whigs for the purpose of giving the greatest possible publicity to the errors of the monarch. Caroline of Brunswick was declared innocent and expired shortly after her trial, in 1821.
Charles, the hereditary duke of Brunswick, son to the duke who had so gallantly fallen at Quatrebras, was under the guardianship of the king of England. A constitution was bestowed in 1820 upon this petty territory, which was governed by the minister, Von Schmidt-Phiseldek. The youthful duke took the reins of government in his nineteenth year. Of a rash and violent disposition and misled by evil associates, he imagined that he had been too long restricted from assuming the government, accused his well-deserving minister of having attempted to prolong his minority, posted handbills for his apprehension as a common delinquent, denied all his good offices, and subverted the constitution. He was surrounded by base intriguers in the person of Bosse, the councillor of state, formerly the servile tool of Napoleon's despotism, of Frike, the Aulic councillor, "whose pliant quill was equal to any task when injustice had to be glossed over," of the adventurer, Klindworth, and of Bitter, the head of the chancery, who conducted the financial speculations. Frike, in contempt of justice, tore up the judgment passed by the court of justice in favor of the venerable Herr von Sierstorff, whom he had accused of high treason. Herr von Cramm, by whom Frike was, in the name of the Estates, accused of this misdemeanor before the federative assembly, was banished, a surgeon, who attended him, was put upon his defence, and an accoucheur, named Grimm, who had basely refused to attend upon Cramm's wife, was presented with a hundred dollars. Häberlin, the novelist, who had been justly condemned to twenty years' imprisonment with hard labor for his civil misdemeanors, was, on the other hand, liberated for publishing something in the duke's favor. Bitter conducted himself with the most open profligacy, sold all the demesnes, appropriated the sum destined for the redemption of the public debt, and at the same time levied the heavy imposts with unrelenting severity. The federative assembly passed judgment against the duke solely in reference to his attacks upon the king of England.
[Footnote 1: The king bitterly reproached his brother Henry, to whom he said, "You have accused me to my peasantry."—Pfister History of the Constitution of Würtemberg.]
[Footnote 2: Pfister mentions in his History of the Constitution of Wurtemberg that merely in the superior bailiwick of Heidenheim the game duties amounted, in 1814, to twenty thousand florins, and five thousand two hundred and ninety-three acres of taxed ground lay uncultivated on account of the damage done by the game, and that in March, 1815, one bailiwick was obliged to furnish twenty-one thousand five hundred and eighty-four men and three thousand two hundred and thirty-seven horses for a single hunt.]
[Footnote 3: Colonel von Massenbach, of the Prussian service, who has so miserably described the battle of Jena and the surrender of Prentzlow in which he acted so miserable a part, and who had in his native Würtemberg embraced the aristocratic party, was delivered by the free town of Frankfort, within whose walls he resided, up to the Prussian government, which he threatened to compromise by the publication of some letters. He died within the fortress of Cüstrin.]
[Footnote 4: The mediatized princes and counts of the empire sat in the first chamber, the barons of the empire in the second. The prelates, once so powerful, lost, on the other hand, together with the church property, in the possession of which they were not reinstated, also most of their influence. Instead of the fourteen aristocratic and independent prelates, six only were appointed by the monarch to seats in the second chamber. Government officers were also eligible in this chamber, which ere long fell entirely under their influence.]
[Footnote 5: He endeavored, but in vain, to persuade the allied powers to bestow upon him the royal dignity.]