He never feared to press his own views as to the policy which should be pursued.  He also kept up a constant correspondence with Gerlach, and many of these letters were laid before the King, so that even when absent he continued as before to influence both the official and unofficial advisers.  He soon became the chief adviser on German affairs and was often summoned to Berlin that his advice might be taken; within two years after his appointment he was sent on a special mission to Vienna to try and bring about an agreement as to the rivalry concerning the Customs’ Union.  He failed, but he had gained a knowledge of persons and opinions at the Austrian Court which was to be of much use to him.

During these years, indeed, he acquired a most remarkable knowledge of Germany; before, he had lived entirely in Prussia, now he was at the centre of the German political system, continually engaged in important negotiations with the other Courts; after a few years there was not a man of importance in German public life whose character and opinions he had not gauged.

Further experience only confirmed in him the observations he had made at the beginning, that it was impossible to maintain a good understanding with Austria.  The tone of his letters soon changes from doubt and disappointment to settled and determined hostility.  In other matters also he found that the world was not the same place it had seemed to him; he had been accustomed to regard the Revolution as the chief danger to be met; at Frankfort he was in the home of it; here for nearly a year the German Assembly had held its meetings; in the neighbouring States of Baden, Hesse, and in the Palatinate, the Republican element was strong; he found them as revolutionary as ever, but he soon learnt to despise rather than fear them: 

“The population here would be a political volcano if revolutions were made with the mouth; so long as it requires blood and strength they will obey anyone who has courage to command and, if necessary, to draw the sword; they would be dangerous only under cowardly governments.

“I have never seen two men fighting in all the two years I have been here.  This cowardice does not prevent the people, who are completely devoid of all inner Christianity and all respect for authority, from sympathising with the Revolution.”

His observations on the character of the South Germans only increased his admiration for the Prussian people and his confidence in the Prussian State.

He had not been at Frankfort a year before he had learnt to look on this hostility of Austria as unsurmountable.  As soon as he had convinced himself of this, he did not bewail and bemoan the desertion of their ally; he at once accustomed himself to the new position and considered in what way the Government ought to act.  His argument was simple.  Austria is now our enemy; we must be prepared to meet this enmity either by