Austria also was soon compelled to give way before the persistent demands of the Hungarian patriots for their ancient constitution, which happily blended monarchy and democracy.  Accordingly, the centralised Hapsburg monarchy was remodelled by the Ausgleich (compromise) of 1867, and became the Dual-Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, the two parts of the realm being ruled quite separately for most purposes of government, and united only for those of army organisation, foreign policy, and finance.  Parliamentary control became dominant in each part of the Empire; and the grievances resulting from autocratic or bureaucratic rule vanished from Hungary.  They disappeared also from Hanover and Hesse-Cassel, where the Guelf sovereigns and Electors had generally repressed popular movements.

Greatest of all the results of the war of 1866, however, was the gain to the national cause in Germany and Italy.  Peoples that had long been divided were now in the brief space of three months brought within sight of the long-wished-for unity.  The rush of these events blinded men to their enduring import and produced an impression that the Prussian triumph was like that of Napoleon I., too sudden and brilliant to last.  Those who hazarded this verdict forgot that his political arrangements for Europe violated every instinct of national solidarity; while those of 1866 served to group the hitherto divided peoples of North Germany and Italy around the monarchies that had proved to be the only possible rallying points in their respective countries.  It was this harmonising of the claims and aspirations of monarchy, nationality, and democracy that gave to the settlement of 1866 its abiding importance, and fitted the two peoples for the crowning triumph of 1870.

CHAPTER I

THE CAUSES OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR

     “After the fatal year 1866, the Empire was in a state of
     decadence.”—­L.  GREGOIRE, Histoire de France.

The irony of history is nowhere more manifest than in the curious destiny which called a Napoleon III. to the place once occupied by Napoleon I., and at the very time when the national movements, unwittingly called to vigorous life by the great warrior, were attaining to the full strength of manhood.  Napoleon III. was in many ways a well-meaning dreamer, who, unluckily for himself, allowed his dreams to encroach on his waking moments.  In truth, his sluggish but very persistent mind never saw quite clearly where dreams must give way to realities; or, as M. de Falloux phrased it, “He does not know the difference between dreaming and thinking[7].”  Thus his policy showed an odd mixture of generous haziness and belated practicality.

[7] Notes from a Diary, 1851-1872, by Sir M.E.  Grant Duff, vol. i. p. 120.