winter they returned to Schoenhausen to settle down to a quiet country
life. Fate was to will it otherwise. The storm which had long been
gathering burst over Europe. Bismarck was carried away by it; from
henceforth his life was entirely devoted to public duties, and we can
count by months the time he was able to spend with his wife at the old
family house; more than forty years were to pass before he was able
again to enjoy the leisure of his early years.

The revolution which at the end of February broke out in Paris quickly
spread to Germany; the ground was prepared and the news quickly came to
him, first of disorder in South Germany, then of the fall of the
Ministry in Dresden and Munich; after a few days it was told that a
revolution had taken place in Vienna itself. The rising in Austria was
the signal for Berlin, and on the 18th of March the revolution broke out
there also. The King had promised to grant a Constitution; a fierce
fight had taken place in the streets of the city between the soldiers
and the people; the King had surrendered to the mob, and had ordered the
troops to withdraw from the city. He was himself almost a prisoner in
his castle protected only by a civilian National Guard. He was exposed
to the insults of the crowd; his brother had had to leave the city and
the country. It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm and wild
delight with which the people of Germany heard of these events. Now the
press was free, now they also were going to be free and great and
strong. All the resistance of authority was overthrown; nothing, it
seemed, stood between them and the attainment of their ideal of a united
and free Germany. They had achieved a revolution; they had become a
political people; they had shewn themselves the equals of England and of
France. They had liberty, and they would soon have a Constitution.
Bismarck did not share this feeling; he saw only that the monarchy which
he respected, and the King whom, with all his faults, he loved and