In the electorate of Hesse, the period of terror occasioned by the threatening letters addressed to the elector was succeeded by the agitation characteristic of the times. On the 6th of September, 1830, a tumultuous rising took place at Cassel; on the 24th, the people of Hanau destroyed every custom-house stationed on the frontier. The public was so unanimous and decided in opinion that the elector not only agreed to abolish the abuses, to convoke the Estates, and to grant a new constitution, but even placed the reins of government provisionally in the hands of his son, Prince William, in order to follow the Countess Reichenbach, who had been driven from Cassel by the insults of the populace. Prince William was, however, as little as his father inclined to make concessions; and violent collisions speedily ensued. He wedded Madame Lehmann, the wife of a Prussian officer, under the name of the Countess von Schaumburg, and closed the theatre against his mother, the electress, for refusing to place herself at her side in public. The citizens sided with the electress, and when, after some time had elapsed, she again ventured to visit the theatre, the doors were no longer closed against her, and, on her entrance, she found the house completely filled. On the close of the evening's entertainment, however, while the audience were peaceably dispersing, they were charged by a troop of cavalry, who cut down the defenceless multitude without distinction of age or sex, December 7, 1830. The Estates, headed by Professor Jordan, vainly demanded redress; Giesler, the head of the police, was alone designated as the criminal; the scrutiny was drawn to an interminable length and produced no other result than Giesler's decoration with an order by the prince.