self strong enough to refuse any demand and resist any pretension of the conqueror. Opposition, however slight, excited gleams of hope, that the emperor might yet recover in time some means of effectual resistance; a hope which was, also, somewhat encouraged by the appointment of the archduke Charles to the chief command of all the forces of his empire, with full power to effect such reform in the state of the armies as the crisis of the times called for. The defaulters in the late miserable campaign were brought to trial, and many of them received that punishment which their treachery or cowardice fully merited. One general was shot for his conduct at Uim. Neglect ́of duty, arising from no mean or criminal intentions, was far from being passed unnoticed. The prince of Anesburg, by whose neglect and folly the bridge of Vienna, which he had been ordered to burn down, was left standing, was sentenced to an imprisonment of ten years.

Innumerable were the courts martial held, by order of the archduke, in his new and distinguished situation; and in many cases, where no higher punishment was required, a dismissal from the service was the result. Those officers, also, who, from whatever cause, had become i firm, were suspersed ed on respectable establishments; and in the room of men who had shown themselves in the crisis of danger totally incompetent to afford their country protection, were substituted others of high honour, vigorous activity, and alert obedience. The judgment and energy displayed by the emperor's brother in the duties of his department were such as did honour to his appointment. He dismissed all foreigners who held commands

in the Austrian armies. He was convinced that a nation will ever be best protected by its own children. In pursuance of this last idea, the institution of voluntary corps was adopted; and in the capital, and in various parts of the hereditary states, vast numbers obeyed the impulse of honour and patriotis.n, and formed themselves into armed associations, read, at their country's call to fly to her assistance. Arrangements were made to facilitate the means of recruiting, and filing up the different battalions in the service to their correct complement, as well as for increasing the number already on the establishment. The former system of military regulations was succeeded by a new code, calcu lated to introduce simplicity and dispatch: and in few cases has so general and valuable a change been effected in the military ar rangements of a country as in this instance was accomplished.

These regulations were certainly not unnoticed by Bonaparte; but, in the existing circumstances of Europe, the reinforcements of the Austrian armies could not certainly be construed into any deviation from even the spirit of treaties. With Russia, in vast force on the frontiers of Poland, Prussia upon the full war establishment, and Bonaparte himself covering Germany with his battalions, the jus tification of this increase was too obvious to admit of reasonable exception, and the captious vigilance of Napoleon could not pretend that it was not a measure of vindicable and essential policy. In the situation however in which Bonaparte at present was, he had an opportunity of watching the progress of political change. After withdrawing from Bohemia and

Moravia

the peace of Southern Germany, which experience had long since proved could derive no guarantee from the existing constitution, had appointed certain plenipotentiaries to effect arrangements, from which this guarantee would naturally and decidedly result. In consequence of the dispositions which they had agreed on, and which were ratified, the states of the contracting parties were to be for ever separated from the Germanic body, and united by a particular act, called the Confederated States of the Empire. The affairs of this confederation were to be discussed in a congress which should sit at Frankfort, divided into two colleges, respectively of kings and princes, where all disputes should be settled that might arise among the members, who could in no case enter into the service of any other power than the confederation, nor alienate to any other power their sovereignty or territory. The elector archchancellor was to preside in this congress under the title of prince primate, having the city and territory of Frankfort under his complete sovereignty, and on the demise of any prince primate the right of naming a successor should attach to the emperor of France, who was to be proclaimed protector of the confederation. Various cessions and exchanges between the several members of the federation are specified, and very considerable additions of territory were made to many of them, to which they had no other right than what arose from the power of the union. With respect to each member, the limits are minutely set down of his territory and authority, in which the sovereignty of the imperial knightdoms in each state is included. In the event of a continental

war, which should involve either the emperor of France or any individual of the union, all parties should make a common cause, and, in case of preparations for war against one of the parties, his minister should be authorised to demand of the congress a general arming of the confederation. The congress should regulate the proportion of assistance to the emergency of the case, and the summons of the emperor to the parties should be the signal for their taking the field.

The fallen fortunes of the house of Austria, thus stripped of its honours, and compelled to shelter its most distinguished title of emperor in its hereditary states, where, as if by a prophetic anticipation, it had secured an asylum, presents an impressive picture to the imagination. It was a spectacle, of no common interest, to observe the descendant of imperial chiefs through a long series of generations, degraded into a renunciation of his dignity in behalf of a man, who, by his talents and his sword, was enabled to trample on the necks of sovereigns; and by whom family honours, and political establishments, which had endured for centuries, were swept away in promiscuous ruin.

Most of the members of the new confederation, in consequence of their accession to it, found their dominions compacted or extended. The princes, counts, and other members of the ancient establishment, who are not named in the act of confederation, and whose possessions joined or were included in those of the princes whose names were attached to it, lost their ter ritorial sovereignty. The right of maintaining troops, the right of holding tribunals, of raising re

venue, of appointing diplomatic agents, which constitute the chief characteristics of dominion, was transferred to this selection of potentates. A great number of administrations and jurisdictions was thus for ever extinguished. Personages who had kept splendid courts, supported guards, and exhibited in the college of the empire, and in their own dominions, the magnificence of princely revenue, were now suppressed, and the former associates of the splendour attached to the chief of the empire, when high occasions called for a concentration of the dignities of Germany, now participated in his, humiliation. All reverses of this description in the fortunes of individuals will inevitably, in the man of comprehensive and enlightened humanity, excite sentiments of commiseration. But with respect to the inhabitants of Germany, the benefits which may result from the subversion of its cumbrous constitution may easily be supposed great. Its tardy deliberations and complicated forms, which were calculated to repress all useful enthusiasm, and to procrastinate action till energy was impaired, and the opportunity for action was passed, will be superseded by regulations less inconsistent with promptitude and vigour, A security will now be presented to the smaller states of the confederation, in the vigilance and resources of their imperial guardian, who will suffer no infractions, at least beyond his own, to pass unnoticed and unavenged. The substitution of a few despotisms, in the room of many, will certainly not long be deplored by the mass of German population. It is perhaps difficult to paint, in colours stronger than the case would jus

1

tify, the arrogance of the great, and the depression of the little, the rapacity and impoverishment, the pride and abjectness, which were the consequences of that minute subdivision of sovereignty, which existed under the ancient constitution of the empire. To support a pageantry of state, which, to those who had seen the splendors of a powerful and opulent monarchy, would appear deserving of every expression of ridicule or contempt; the territories of these petty sovereigns were exposed to every oppression that inventive poverty could suggest. The extortion of revenue was a summary of the cares of government. The acquisition of that property, from the people which ought to be employed in the means of its security, in the elevation of its sentiments, the development of its resources, the improvement of its valuable establishments, and thus increasing the sympathies which should ever exist between power and subjection, was applied to exhibit as strikingly as possible the contrast of princely splendor and plebeian poverty, and in cherishing that pride and servility which, in these miserable states, too often prevailed over every better feeling, absorbing al the benevolence of authority, all the dignity of submission, and every impulse of manly character. At the funeral of institutions such as these, few tears can be shed by the genuine friends of mankind, who will rather rejoice that the mitigated despotism of a few individuals has supplanted that aristocracy of German potentates, which, with some illustrious exceptions, fetiered the energies of the human mind, and whose haughtiness and avarice involved their subjects, whom they considered as the more

valuable