“'I belong—' such was the defiant declaration of Herr von Bismarck in one of his first speeches in the chamber—'I belong to an opinion which glories in the reproaches of obscurantism and of tendencies of the middle age; I belong to that great multitude which is compared with disdain to the most intelligent party of the nation.’ He wanted a _Christian state_. 'Without a religious basis,’ said he, 'a state is nothing but _a fortuitous aggregation of interests, a sort of bastion in a war of all against all; without this religious basis, all legislation, instead of regenerating itself at the living sources of eternal truth, is only tossed about by human ideas as vague as changeable_.’” What can be finer or truer than this statement, in which the whole of his own policy as chancellor of the German Empire is condemned in advance out of his own mouth? In every important respect his avowed opinions and political action were diametrically opposite to those of a later date. In fact, his bold and even extravagant advocacy of the cause of the house of Hapsburg, at a moment when (1850) the attitude of Prussia towards Austria was most humiliating, was the first occasion of launching him into the career of foreign affairs. He was sent, with much misgiving on the part of the king and his minister, as Prussian plenipotentiary to the Diet of Frankfort; and here he began to go to school to Prince Gortchakoff, now commenced that world-renowned friendship between these two statesmen which has altered the course of history and for whose _dénoûement_ we are at this moment intently watching.