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5642 , he preferred to use his own words — that Prussia should remain Prussia.

Frederick-William IV. acknowledged his obligations to Bismarck for his defence of the privileges of the Prussian crown, by appointing him in 1851 minister to the Bundestag at Frankfurt, where he remained till 1859. The letters he wrote at that time show very little respect for his colleagues, who seem to have at once exasperated and amused him by their slowness and their love for empty form. The eight years which he spent in their society were, however, of immense service to him. He had an opportunity of studying in their minutest details all the political questions which were then agitating Europe, and especially of coming to the conclusion that the relations between Austria and Prussia, as they then existed, could not endure — Austria on every occasion asserting a sort of supremacy to which Prussia could no longer submit.

"Our relations with Austria must inevitably change," he said to Count Karolyi, the Austrian ambassador in Berlin; "they must become either better or worse. The government of his Majesty the king of Prussia would most sincerely prefer the first alternative; but if the Austrian cabinet refuses to meet us half-way, it will become necessary for us to prepare for the second."

When Bismarck spoke thus in 1862, he was minister for foreign affairs in Berlin, but the opinion he expressed was founded on what he had seen and felt while he represented Prussia at the Bundestag.

From Frankfurt, Bismarck went in 1859 as Prussian minister to St. Petersburg. There he met with the warmest welcome. Prince Gortschakoff, who had been in Frankfurt from 1850 to 1854, was on very friendly terms with him. They sympathized on many points. The Russians had bitterly resented the attitude of Austria during the Crimean war, and "Austrian ingratitude" was still proverbial in St. Petersburg. Bismarck openly expressed the opinion that Prussia would make a great mistake if she became Austria' s ally against France and Italy. This being known not only at court, but among the public, made him at once popular. The good understanding between the Prussian and the Russian governments, which proved of such great service to Prussia in 1870, while, at the present moment, it is so advantageous to Russia, may, no doubt, be traced in its origin to the family ties which unite the emperors William and Alexander, but it has been singularly strengthened by that friendly policy of Prussia towards Russia which Bismarck invariably recommended.

He left St. Petersburg in the beginning of 1862, and in May of the same year was appointed minister to Paris. He remained only a few months in France, and as it was summer-time and Paris was empty, he passed the greater part of his time away from his official residence. We hear of his being at Trouville, Chambord, Biarritz, Luchon, Montpeilier, Toulouse, etc. He travelled over a good deal of French ground, and his observant eyes saw a good deal of the French people. His relations with the government were excellent; he was liked at court, and particularly distinguished by the emperor Napoleon III.

Then came what has been called in Prussia "the conflict." William I., who in January 1861 had become king of Prussia, could not agree with the representatives of the people. He wanted money for the reorganization of the army, and they would not vote the budget which his ministers required. The House of Nobles sided with the king against the Lower House; but the king required a man of more than common energy, as president of the cabinet, to fight his parliamentary battles. Neither Prince Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, nor Prince Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, had shown themselves competent. William I. saw only one man who was both willing and able to fill efficiently the post of premier in a cabinet, which was firmly resolved to maintain the royal will to the last, — and that man was Bismarck. In September 1862 he assumed the presidency of the cabinet.

The new prime minister fully justified the king's choice. He threw himself boldly into the fight; and seeing that it was impossible to win over the majority of the Chamber on the military question, and that a dissolution and new elections did not bring him nearer to his object, he undertook to govern the country without a budget regularly voted by Parliament. Like the king, he was convinced that Prussia must have a strong army; on that point he would not yield; and it was while defending the position he had taken up on that question that he used the words which have so often been quoted since: "The great questions of the world," he said, "are not settled by speeches or by the decisions of a parliamentary majority, but by blood and iron."

It is but right to note here that Bismarck's resistance to the Chamber was based on his interpretation of a particular