this period (1850-1866) he was endeavouring to get into relations with the Bavarian government, with a view to taking a more active part in affairs. Towards the German question his attitude at this time was tentative. He had little hope of a practical realization of a united Germany, and inclined towards the tripartite divisions under Austria, Prussia and Bavaria--the so-called "Trias." He attended the _Furstentag_ at Frankfort in 1863, and in the Schleswig-Holstein question was a supporter of the prince of Augustenburg. It was at this time that, at the request of Queen Victoria, he began to send her regular reports on the political condition of Germany. Prince Hohenlohe's importance in history, however, begins with the year 1866. In his opinion the war was a blessing. It had demonstrated the insignificance of the small and middle states, "a misfortune for the dynasties"--with whose feelings a mediatized prince could scarcely be expected to be over-sympathetic--but the best possible good fortune for the German nation. In the Bavarian _Reichsrath_ Hohenlohe now began to make his voice heard in favour of a closer union with Prussia; clearly, if such a union were desirable, he was the man in every way best fitted to prepare the way for it. One of the main obstacles in the way was the temperament of Louis II. of Bavaria, whose ideas of kingship were very remote from those of the Hohenzollerns, whose pride revolted from any concession to Prussian superiority, and who--even during the crisis of 1866--was more absorbed in operas than in affairs of state. Fortunately Richard Wagner was a politician as well as a composer, and equally fortunately Hohenlohe was a man of culture capable of appreciating "the master's" genius. It was Wagner, apparently, who persuaded the king to place Hohenlohe at the head of his government (_Denkwurdigkeiten_, i. 178, 211), and on the 31st of December 1866 the prince was duly appointed minister of the royal house and of foreign affairs and president of the council of ministers.