Frederic William and King Louis of Bavaria were the two most literary of contemporary sovereigns. But Louis encouraged Art under whatever form it appeared, whereas Frederic William wished it to be drilled into a sort of auxiliary to despotism. Feeling himself constrained, like our great satirist Boileau, to give an example of good manners to both court and city, he began a correspondence with Louis, in the course of which he sent the latter a quatrain commenting on the scandal caused by his intimacy with Lola Montes. The King of Bavaria replied in another which made the round of all the courts of Europe. "Contempteur de l'amour, dont adore l'ivresse, Frère, tu dis que, roi sans pudeur, sans vertu, Je garde à tort Lola, ma fille enchanteresse. Je te l'enverrai bien.--Oui; mais qu'en ferais-tu?" And, by general consent of the wits, the laugh remained on the side of the versatile King Louis. After six years of domiciliary visits, suppressions, and summary expulsions of offending journalists, the Prussian Diet at length assembled at Berlin. In his opening speech the king addressed the deputies thus: "Recollect, gentlemen, that you are here to represent the interests of the people, but _not_ their _sentiments_." A little later in the year, Frederic William inaugurated his Divine Right by observing as he tore up the Constitution: "I shall not allow a scrap of paper to stand between my people and their God!" meaning, though he did not dare to say it, "between my people and me." Then the revolution of 1848 burst forth, and did not spare Berlin, which was soon in full revolt. The king lost his head completely. In leaving the town he had to drive past the dead bodies of rioters killed in the struggle. There was a shout of "Hats off!" and the king was obliged to remain uncovered while the people sang the famous hymn composed by the Great Electress. "Jesus, my Redeemer lives." Every one knows how Absolutism succeeded in dominating the National Assembly, and how presently reaction brought the following leaders into power: Manteuffel, whose policy led to the unfortunate Austrian triumph at Olmutz. Westphalen, who revived provincial councils, and brought the king to the famous Warsaw interview. Statel, a converted Jew and Protestant Jesuit, a Grand Inquisitor who had missed his vocation. And, lastly, the two Gerlachs, intriguers of the first water, whose history belongs to that of the two spies, Ladunberg and Techen. Although the Constitution, establishing two Chambers, was sworn to by William IV, February 6th, 1850, it was not until his successor, William Louis, was on the throne that both Upper and Lower Chambers began to legislate. A league was now formed by the bureaucracy, the orthodox clergy, the provincial squirearchy, and some of the proletariat. This was the origin of the famous association inappropriately designated the _Patriotic_ Association, which had for its aim the annihilation of the Constitution.