kingdom of Hungary and the countries now represented in the Austrian
Imperial Parliament, or (to use convenient though not quite accurate
terms) between Austria and Hungary.

The essential features of this alliance or compromise, which is in its
nature a treaty far more than an act of legislation, may be thus summed
up.

At the head of the whole monarchy stands the Emperor-King. The rules for
the succession to the throne indeed secure that the Imperial and the
Hungarian Crown shall always devolve upon the same person. The Crowns,
however, are distinct, the monarch on whose head they rest governs two
distinctly different peoples, bound to him by different ties of
allegiance. He has Hungarian subjects and Austrian subjects, but he can
claim authority over no man as a subject or citizen of Austria-Hungary.
The monarch (and this is a matter of supreme importance) is not only the
nominal, but the real link connecting the two halves of his dominions.
He is moreover a true ruler. Englishmen hear of a Parliament at Vienna
and of a Diet in Hungary, of Austrian ministers and of Hungarian
ministers, and they fancy that Francis Joseph is a constitutional king
after the type of Queen Victoria of England, or King Humbert of Italy.
No idea is more erroneous. He is the actual head of the State; he is the
real commander of the army. In the Austrian Empire he exercises a
predominant influence on the Government, and observers who look at the
past exertions of Imperial prerogative, and who weigh well the immense
power of temporary legislation reserved under the Imperial constitution
to the Emperor, suspect that in his Austrian dominions, Francis Joseph
might if he chose as easily suspend constitutional government, as he did
in fact suspend it (though for a most legitimate object) in 1886. In
Hungary the parliamentary constitution is a reality, but the King of