But easily as we can now understand how invincible were the difficulties, to contemporaries the feeling of disappointment was bitter, and an unprejudiced estimate of their position difficult. Among the patriots of 1813, a small minority were then full of enthusiastic sentimentality; they contrasted their poetical ideas of the old splendour of the German Empire with the bad reality; these _Deutschthumler_--Teuto-maniacs--as they were called after 1815, had been without influence in the great movement Jahn's great beard was seldom admired, and the worthy Karl Mueller found no favour when he began to banish all foreign words from military language. Now after the peace these enthusiasts, for the most part not Prussians, collected together in small communities at the German universities. They sorrowed and hoped, expressed violent indignation, and gave zealous advice; they were agreed together that something great must happen, and they were ready to stake life and property upon it; only, what was to be done was not clear. Between varying moods and wavering projects they came to no conclusion. Politically considered this movement was not dangerous, till the odious persecution of the governments goaded them into hatred and opposition, and throwing a gloom over the minds of some, led to fanatical resolves. It was not the fault of the Prussian government that the hopes of the nation for a new German State were disappointed. But it had incurred another debt. The King had promised to give his people a constitution. If ever a nation had acquired a right to a participation in the government, it was the Prussian; for it had raised the State from the deepest depression. If the greatest State in Germany had, by legal forms, obtained the possibility of a political development of its power, every sensible Prussian would have been contented. The press and a parliament would gradually have given the loyal nation a feeling of prosperity and safe progress, opposing parties would have contended publicly, and those who demanded more for Germany than could at present be attained, would have been restrained by Prussia. The character of the Germans was now freed from the weakness which had pervaded it through a whole generation. The State also could no longer do without the participation of the people, if it was not to fall back into the old state of feebleness, which only a few years before had brought it to the verge of ruin. Now, when life was impressed with new ideas, when in hundreds of thousands a passionate interest in the State had sprung up, the safest support for the throne itself was a constitution. For the Prussians were no longer a nation without opinions or will, whose destiny an individual could dispose of by his will.