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324 on condition that their debts should be assumed by Victor Emanuel's government. As a further result of her defeat, Austria was compelled to give legislative independence to Hungary; in 1867 the emperor of Austria was crowned king of Hungary, and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was formed. On the 16th July the king of Prussia invited the states of North Germany to form a new confederation. They responded with alacrity to the invitation, impelled perhaps by profound respect for the kingdom that had carried its victorious arms almost to within sight of the Austrian capital. The confederation lasted until the establishment of the German empire in 1871, and this empire may be said, in some respects, to owe its establishment to the victory of Sadowa.