[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.] CCLXVI. The European Congress--The German Customs' Union The great political drama enacting in Europe excited at this time the deepest attention throughout Germany. In almost every country a struggle commenced between liberalism and the measures introduced on the fall of Napoleon. In France more particularly it systematically and gradually undermined the government of the Bourbons, and the cry of liberty that resounded throughout France once more found an echo in Germany. The terrible war was forgotten. The French again became the objects of the admiration and sympathy of the radical party in Germany, and the spirit of opposition, here and there demonstrated in the German chambers, gave rise, notwithstanding its impotence, to precautionary measures on the part of the federative governments. In the winter of 1819, a German federative congress, of which Prince Metternich was the grand motor, assembled at Vienna for the purpose, after the utter annihilation of the patriots, of finally checking the future movements of the liberals, principally in the provincial diets. The Viennese Act of 1820 contains closer definitions of the Federative Act, of which the more essential object was the exclusion of the various provincial diets from all positive interference in the general affairs of Germany, and the increase of the power of the different princes vis-à-vis to their provincial diets by a guarantee of aid on the part of the confederates.