V. CHLODWIG KARL VICTOR, prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst (1819-1901), statesman, was born on the 31st of March 1819 at Schillingsfurst in Bavaria. His father, Prince Franz Joseph (1787-1841), was a Catholic, his mother, Princess Konstanze of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a Protestant. In accordance with the compromise customary at the time, Prince Chlodwig and his brothers were brought up in the religion of their father, while his sisters followed that of their mother. In spite of the difference of creed the family was very united, and it was to the spirit that rendered this possible that the prince owed his liberal and tolerant point of view, which was to exercise an important influence on his political activity. As the younger son of a cadet line of his house it was necessary for Prince Chlodwig to follow a profession. For a while he thought of obtaining a commission in the British army through the influence of his aunt, Princess Feodora of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (_nee_ princess of Leiningen), Queen Victoria's half-sister. He decided, however, to enter the Prussian diplomatic service. His application to be excused the preliminary steps, which involved several years' work in subordinate positions in the Prussian civil service, was refused by Frederick William IV., and the prince, with great good sense, decided to sacrifice his pride of rank and to accept the king's conditions. As auscultator in the courts at Coblenz he acquired a taste for jurisprudence, became a _Referendar_ in September 1843, and after some months of travel in France, Switzerland and Italy went to Potsdam as a civil servant (May 13, 1844). These early years were invaluable, not only as giving him experience of practical affairs but as affording him an insight into the strength and weakness of the Prussian system. The immediate result was to confirm his Liberalism. The Prussian principle of "propagating enlightenment with a stick" did not appeal to him; he "recognized the confusion and want of clear ideas in the highest circles," the tendency to make agreement with the views of the government the test of loyalty to the state; and he noted in his journal (June 25, 1844) four years before the revolution of '48, "a slight cause and we shall have a rising." "The free press," he notes on another occasion, "is a necessity, progress the condition of the existence of a state." If he was an ardent advocate of German unity, and saw in Prussia the instrument for its attainment, he was throughout opposed to the "Prussification" of Germany, and ultimately it was he who made the unification of Germany possible by insisting at once on the principle of union with the North German states and at the same time on the preservation of the individuality of the states of the South.