The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-06-19 00:00:00

BY M. EDMOND ABOUT.

The following pamphlet is believed to be in-
spired frOm the same source as '4.4e Pape et le
Congres." It was published ou the very day the
French Emperor set out for Baden• Baden and is
creating a tremendous sensation. It is believed
to be a faithful sketch of the plan which the
Emperor means to pursue towards Germany.
We give it in extenso.
On dit that the Emperor had a copy of About's
pamphlet sent to the Prince of Prussia, and to
the other Sovereigns about to assemble at Baden,
several days ago, in order to do away with the
awkwardness of breaking ground.'' The pam-
phlet was sent beforehand to clear the way.

" France and the Emperor have no other feelings than
those of friendship towards the German nation. After
the great wars of the first empire, Europe, as second in
a heroic duel, having declared that the honour of the
combatants was satisfied, they gave each other the
hand without rancour. Although the armies of Germany
had covered themselves with glory the flag of France
had suffered no humiliation. Jena was not surpassed by
Leipsic, anil the battles of 1813, 1814, and 1815 did not
efface fromhistory 'our triumphs of 1805.
"Alone the progress of enlightenment, our tempered
manners, and the work of time, would have sufficed to
extinguish ,in all hearts the last spark of national
hatred. We must even acknowledge having felt a
deeper sympathy for the Germans in proportion as we
have better known them. German philosophy reigns in
our schools. Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, those great
thinkers from beyond the Il hive, have dethroned the
great talkers of eclecticism. In literature and poetry
we both admire and love Goethe, Schiller, Leasing,
Hoffmann, Henri Heine, Hacklaendar, Uhland; and
not long since, a work by Gustave Freytag appeared in
the Ilionitcur of the French empire. Dr. Straus, trans-
lated by M. Littre ; Kreutzer, elucidated by N. Guig-
nant ; have taken their places among French master
spirits. Our learned men are honoured in corresponding
with Liebeg, Vogt, Graefe, Diffenbach ; our sculptors
and painters have rendered full justice to the• talent pf
Rauch, of Kaulbach, and of Cornelius ;- whilst Kraus
and Winterhalter are our own by adoption. We not
only confess to an adoration of Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck,
Haydn, and Weber, the masters of German music, but
Meyerbeer reigns without a rival in our greatest lyric
theatres; and the day in which Richard Wagner, un-
known and not understood, presented himself to us, the
French composers politely withdrew to give place to him.
" It is not only to the illustrious names of Germany
that France and its Sovereign can render justice. We
have all for the mass of the people an affection founded
upon esteem. This honest and laborious race, simple
in its manners and honest in its relations, would have
every claim to our friendship, even did we 'not know
that German blood flows in the veins of the French
people.

" 11.
Whether the Germans know it or not, the friend-
ship of a nation like our own is to-day of a certain
value. The time is past in which the majority of
Frenchmen, despoiled of their political rights for the
benefit of a privileged'few, vainly protested against the
ruin of our influence and the oppression of our enemies.
It is not by the speeches of an useless opposition in
her parliament, not by the cries of children in her
streets, that France manifests her good intentions to
those she loves ; it is by acts. We , have seen her
soldiers penetrate to the remotest parts of, the Black Sea
to delay the fall of the Ottoman empire, while her diplo-
matists claimed from Turkey herself the civil and religious
freedom of her Christian populations. The deliverance
of the Moldavians and Wallachians, and their union
into a nation possessing all political rights, solely by the
influence of our friendship and without shedding of blood,
has not been forgotten. Italy, our august mother in
civilisation and the fine arts, has, under the auspices of
France, entered on the path of independence and unity.
It is our armies who have opened out the way in which
she now marches alone under the guidance of Piedmont.
If God allows this great work to be accomplished, and
a nation of 26,000,000 of inhabitants is organised at
our gates, France will take no offence. Faithful to her
generous traditions, she will sacrifice her private suscep-
tibilities to the general welfare and for a peaceful future,
for European order will not be firmly established until
the day in which there shall be neither nationalities
oppressed nor kings insupportable to their subjects.

" 111.

"Germany, like Italy, is impelled• forward by a legi.

timate aspiration in the path of progress and unity.
Ancient feudalism and modern diplomacy, and the sel-,
fishness and blindness of a swarm of petty princes,. who

buy and sell their subjects as they would their flocks,
has divided this great nation into a deplorable multi-
tude of governments. Its laws, money, weights, and
measures, its language even—everything in this nation
which should be homogenous, is unlike and dis-
cordant. The nation suffers from this abnormal state.

Its intelligence and its pride suffer with impatience
an order of things so little in conformity with the spirit
of the times, and more worthy of the thirteenth than
the nineteenth century. It is in vain that the German
Princes leagued together against the people, have
formed a compact for the maintenance of their privileges.
The Diet, that permanent conspiracy of feudalism, will
nOt'be always stronger than the nation. The German
people have learned that it is useless, and almost ridicu-
lous, to support thirty-seven different governments when
one alone would be sufficient. They foresee the enor-
mous increase of strength and prosperity, of dignity and
greatness, that centralisation will one day produce, and
they march towards that object with a firm step, and
over every obstacle.
" Never was this noble nation greater than from 1813
to 1815, for she was never more united. When a
Frenchman speaks with admiration of campaigns so
terrible to France, his testimony is worthy of credit.
The feeling of Germanic honour and independence,
revolting at the idea of subjection, effected miracles.
Germany had but one passion, but one heart ; she rose
as ofie man, and the defeat of our incomparable armies,
showed of what unity Germany was capable. Since
that glorious epoch all Germans worthy of the name,
Wive pursued their dream of unity. They have created
the Zoilverein, or a commercial union of Germany.
In 1849 the national assembly of Frankfort made
a still bolder effort. Only a little assistance
from the Bing of Prussia, and the patriotic hope
of all good citizens had become a living reality ;
the union was created; Germany was complete.
Unfortunately Frederick William, already of a feeble
mind and under the influence of the Queen, feared to
alienate the petty dynasties of the Confederation. lie
failed in energy at the decisive moment, and feudalism
remained master of the field of battle. But notwith-
standing this deception, a vigorous hope survives in tl)e
hearts of German patriots. You have seen with what

fanatical unanimity they celebrated only the other day
Schiller jubilee. Do you think that those solemn fetes,
that popular emotion, and overflowing of poetry and
eloquence, was a simple homage rendered to the memory
of the poet ? Nc, it was, above and before all the out-
break of a nation which, divided for centuries, seized
the first pretext, a remembrance, a glory, a name, to
become again united.

it Then let Germany be re-united ; France has no
more ardent or dearer wish, for she loves the German
nation with disinterested love. If we were possessed
with that vulgar ambition of which its Princes accuse us
we should not inducethe Germans to enter on the path
of unity. States divided among themselves are more
easy to invade than when united, and diviser pour refiner
will always remain the maxim of conquerors. May
Germany be united; may she form a body so compact
that the idea of encroaching upon it will never present
itself. France, which sees without apprehension an
Italy of 26,000,000 constituted in the south, would not
fear to see 32,000,000 of Germans form a great nation
on her eastern frontier.

dg what German Sovereign shall have the honour 01
founding this union ? Two great states enter the lists—
prussia and Austria.

Austria represents the doctrine of Divine right, in
its most absolute rigour. Political and religious des-
potism, abnegation of all the rights of the people, the
most enormous concessions to clerical authority, a blind
worship of the past and an obstinate hatred of all pro-.
gress ; these are the worm-eaten bases of the Austrian
monarchy. Upon these foundations, on 'which a dis-
jointed empire is tottering, shall we try to build up the
great Germanic edifice ? All the architects in the uni-
verse would accuse our imprudence.
"This artificial empire, a patchwork of the most
different nations, formed by marriages and family com-
pacts, without the consent of the peoples it annexed,
preserved in its integrity by the severity of the police
or the sanguinary brutality of the soldiery, inspires but
little sympathy to the German nation. As long as
the hegemony of the German States remained in the
hands of the Hapsburgs they governed the affairs of a
nation in a dynastic interest, endeavouring to procure
the aggrandisement of Austria at the expense of Ger-
many. On the day when the Germanic spirit, liberal in
its essence, entered on the path of religious reform,
Austria placed herself at the head of the ultramontane
reaction. Sigismund and Ferdinand H. rivalled the
zeal of Philip-It. of Spain ; Tilly and Wallenstein
served the Court of Rome as harshly as the Duke of
Parma and Alva. How could Germany possibly forget
these rigours when the Emperor Francis Joseph, by a
disastrous concordat, breaks filially with the Germanic
spirit, and places the policy of Austria under the domi-
nation of Rome ? . .

" Nevertheless, Austria has Mends in the German
nation. On what suffrages could she reckon if the
annexation were, ever to be put to the vote ? I look
everywhere, but can only find a few princes and the
sacred battalion of the squirearchy. The aristocratic

party has its reasons for loving Austria. Family cadets
find a Mare-rapid advancement in her service than in
that of the other Genian states where the competition
of talent is greater. It is on this account that the
German nobility, and particularly that of the Catholic
Southern States, turns to Austria as the magnet to the
Pole. One single figure will give you the ratio of that
affinity : Wurtemburg numbered, in 1858, more than
500 officers in the Austrian army.

" But the German people, properly so called, the
industrious, enlightened, liberal people, set no store by
Austria. They see in her a latent power, in a reli-
gious point' of view; a Sclavonic Magyar, Italian
power, mixed and doubtful as far as nationality is
concerned. They know that in accepting the domina-
tion of. Austria they must renounce even a hope of
progress ; they see Austria closed to German manu-
factures (for she obstinately remains out_of the customs
union); they hear it said that German ideas are severely
denied entrance at all the gates of Austria; they know
that a German, arriving at the German frontier, is as
much a stranger as a Frenchman, equally suspected of
being a dangerous philosopher, and finds almost as much
difficulty in making himself understood. They think
that the natural allies of the Emperor Francis Joseph
are at Rome and at Naples, rather than at DreSden or
Berlin, and that the Imperial throne would perhaps be
better placed at the foot of the Appenines than ou tbe
banks of the Danube. . .

"If it were requisite to prove by facts the indifferenca
of Germany to the destinies of Austria we might be
content to look back at the campaign of 1859. Austria
was fighting single-handed in Italy against France and
Piedmont ; she was making heroic efforts to retain
under her sceptre an oppressed province. Assuredly,
the Germans would have required no pressing if our
soldiers had invaded the German fatherland. They
would have poured down as a torrent to repel the Franco-
Sardinian invaders. But as it was merely an Austrian
possession that was in peril they thought it better to
look curiously upon the struggle, prepared against any
emergency, and arrayed with shouldered arms around
Prussia, their natural leader.

"Austria represents by her population a confused
heap of nationalities ; by her government the despotism
of Divine right ; by her Concordat, the oppression
over consciences ; by her customs laws, the spirit of pro-
hibition. Prussia personifies German nationality, reli-
gious reform, commercial progress, constitutional libe-
ralism; she is the greatest of really Germanic monar-
chies ; consciences are there more free, enlighten-
ment more widely spread, political rights more exclu-
sive than in most other German states. It is she
who, by founding the Zollverein, paved the way for
free trade ; therefore the people of Germany love
Prussia. They behold her progress with sympathising
admiration and filial interest; it is to Prussia they
would appeal for succour, if any peril were impending.
It is to her they would entrust, in preference, the
glorious task of national unity. Were she to make up
her mind to play the part of Piedmont the whole of
Germany with the exception of the princes and squire-
archy would hasten to remove the obstacles in her way.

"At the present time especially, the Regent of the
Kingdom, his Royal Highness the Prince of Prussia,

seems to be the object of a worship which borders on
fanaticism. The granting of a few liberties, the mani-
festation of a few good intentions, a certain resistance

opposed to the squirearchy ; nothing more was wanting,.

the national impulse contributing its aid to place this
Prince.on a pedestal.

"We are happy to discover. that German unity has
found its centre, its rallying point,,and nothing could
be more agreeable to us than to behold the nation group-
ing itself around a firm and upright mind. If nothing
occurs to put a stop to the progress of this pacific revo-
lution, it may be hoped that the Princes themselves,
carried along by the movement of their people, will bow
to the protecting spirit of Prussia, and that the unity of
Germany will be effected without the shedding of a
single drop of blood. Diplomacy can raise no objection
against this internal reform. An Austrian Germany, by
uniting within the same band over 70,000,000 of men,
would have threatened the equilibrium of Europe and
alarmed the Powers ; a Prussian Germany, with 32,000,000
of citizens, can cause alarm to none.