When the revolution of 1848 broke out, which hurled Louis Philippe from the French throne its flames reached every continental State except Russia.  Metternich, who had been all powerful in Austria for forty years, was obliged to flee, as well as the imperial family itself.  All the Germanic States were now promised liberal constitutions by the fallen or dismayed princes.  In Prussia, affairs were critical, and the reformers were sanguine of triumph.  Berlin was agitated by mobs to the verge of anarchy.  The king, seriously alarmed, now promised the boon which he had thus far withheld, and summoned the Second United Diet to pave the way for a constituent assembly.  In this constituent assembly Bismarck scorned to sit.  For six months it sat squabbling and fighting, but accomplishing nothing.  At last, Bismarck found it expedient to enter the new parliament as a deputy, and again vigorously upheld the absolute power of the crown.  He did, indeed, accept the principle of constitutional government, but, as he frankly said, against his will, and only as a new power in the hands of the monarch to restrain popular agitation and maintain order.  Through his influence the king refused the imperial crown offered by the Frankfort parliament, because he conceived that the parliament had no right to give it, that its acceptance would be a recognition of national instead of royal sovereignty, and that it would be followed probably by civil war.  As time went on he became more and more the leader of the conservatives.  I need not enumerate the subjects which came up for discussion in the new Prussian parliament, in which Bismarck exhibited with more force than eloquence his loyalty to the crown, and a conservatism which was branded by the liberals as mediaeval.  But his originality, his boldness, his fearlessness, his rugged earnestness, his wit and humor, his biting sarcasm, his fertility of resources, his knowledge of men and affairs, and his devoted patriotism, marked him out for promotion.

In 1851 Bismarck was sent as first secretary of the Prussian embassy to the Diet of the various German States, convened at Frankfort, in which Austria held a predominating influence.  It was not a parliament, but an administrative council of the Germanic Confederation founded by the Congress of Vienna in 1815.  It made no laws, and its sittings were secret.  It was a body which represented the League of Sovereigns, and was composed of only seventeen delegates,—­its main function being to suppress all liberal movements in the various German States; like the Congress of Vienna itself.  The Diet of Frankfort was pretentious, but practically impotent, and was the laughingstock of Europe.  It was full of jealousies and intrigues.  It was a mere diplomatic conference.  As Austria and Prussia controlled it, things went well enough when these two Powers were agreed; but they did not often agree.  There was a perpetual rivalry between them, and an unextinguishable jealousy.