German federal states were unable to give a unanimous verdict, innumerable committees were held and acts were drawn up without producing any result favorable to the trade of Germany. Affairs stood thus, when, shortly after Louis's accession to the throne of Bavaria, negotiations having for object the settlement of a commercial treaty took place between him and William, king of Wurtemberg. This example was imitated by Prussia, which at first merely formed a union with Darmstadt; afterward by Hesse, Hanover, Saxony, etc., by which a central German union was projected. This union was, however, unable to stand between that of Wurtemberg and Bavaria, and that of Prussia and Darmstadt. The German Customs' Union was carried into effect in 1888. An annual meeting of German naturalists had at that time been arranged under the auspices of Oken, the great naturalist, and at the meeting held at Berlin, in 1888, the Freiherr von Cotta, by whom the moral and material interests of Germany have been greatly promoted, drew up the first plan for a junction of the commercial union of Southern Germany with that of the North, as the first step to the future liberation of Germany from all internal commercial restrictions. The zeal with which he carried this great plan into effect gained the confidence of the different governments, and he not only succeeded in combining the two older unions, but also in gradually embodying with them the rest of the German states. The attachment of King Louis to ancient Catholicism was extremely remarkable. He began to restore some of the monasteries, and several professors inclined to Ultramontanism and to Catholic mysticism, the most distinguished among whom was Görres, the Prussian exile, assembled at the new university at Munich. Here and there appeared a pious enthusiast. Shortly after the restoration, a peasant from the Pfalz named Adam Müller began to prophesy, and Madame von Krudener, a Hanoverian, to preach the necessity of public penance; both these persons gained the ear of exalted personages, and Madame von Krudener more particularly is said not a little to have conduced to the piety displayed by the emperor Alexander during the latter years of his life. At Bamberg, Prince Alexander von Hohenlohe, then a young man, had the folly to attempt the performance of miracles, until the police interfered, and he received a high ecclesiastical office in Hungary. In Austria, the Ligorians, followers in the footsteps of the Jesuits, haunted the vicinity of the throne. The conversion of Count Stolberg and of the Swiss, Von Haller, to the Catholic church, created the greatest sensation. The former, a celebrated poet, simple and amiable, in no way merited the shameless outbursts of rage of his old friend, Voss; Haller, on the other hand, brought forward in his "Restoration of Political Science" such a decided theory in favor of secession as to inspire a sentiment of dread at his consistency. The conversion of