Cologne, May 1. Another new item in the history of the Prussian 
counter-revolution. The King gives the Frankfurt Assembly a 
determined kick and contemptuously casts in its face the proffered 
gold-tinsel crown of an imaginary empire.” 

If at the right time the Frankfurt Assembly had acted with energy, 
it could now order the arrest of this Hohenzollern, who is filled with 
insolence, and commit him to the Assize Court for “insult to the 
National Assembly” (Law of September 1848, published also in 
Prussia’™). As yet there exists no “imperial” law that declares the 
individual sovereigns exempt also from responsibility in regard to 
the “empire”; and the imperial irresponsibility has been rejected by 
the Hohenzollern. 

The new Prussian “imperial” Note of April 28 softens the 
“imperial” kick by a few kind observations about the so-called 
German imperial Constitution. This innocent botchwork is depicted 
in the Note as a supreme example of all that is bad and as an extreme 
product of revolution and secret republicanism “exceeding all 
bounds”. 

St. Paul’s Church as a robbers’ cave of carbonari!?” Welcker 
and Gagern as secret republicans, ‘““M6éros with a dagger under his 
cloak”’*! Bassermann, the man who sees spectres, himself turned into 
one of the “Bassermannic characters’?! That, of course, is 
flattering for the worthy Frankfurt deputies after all the scorn with 
which they have been treated by the people, after all the curses 

@ Schiller, “Die Birgschaft”.— Ed. 

heaped on them by the defeated barricade fighters of Frankfurt 
and Vienna, and there are people of all shades of opinion, right 
down to Herr Vogt, who are capable of really believing such 
nonsense. 

The Prussian Note is the last threat to the Frankfurt Assembly 
even before it is actually dispersed. Once more the stubborn 
Hohenzollern proffers his hand for a “reconciliation”. And, in point 
of fact, after the Assembly has gone so far it could truly make one 
little step further and become completely a tool of Prussia. 

Meanwhile, however, a section of the people, and especially the 
peasantry and the lower middle class of the small south German 
states, cling to the Assembly and to the so-called imperial Constitution. The army is favourably disposed towards the imperial 
Constitution. The people regard every step, however small, towards 
the unification of Germany as a step towards abolition of the petty 
sovereigns and liberation from the oppressive burden of taxation. 
The hatred of Prussia, too, plays a part here. The Swabians even 
made a revolution in support of the so-called imperial Constitution **’; it was, of course, a storm in a teacup, but all the same it was 
something. 

Hence, if the worthy Frankfurt deputies possessed the slightest 
degree of courage, it would not be possible to disperse the Frankfurt 
Assembly without the use of force. They now have a last opportunity 
of atoning at least for a small part of the grievous sins they have 
committed. If simultaneously with the victories of the Hungarians, 
the break-up of Austria, and the fury of the people in Prussia at the 
Hohenzollern-Radowitz-Manteuffel betrayals, Frankfurt and South — 
Germany were to rise up openly in defence of the imperial 
Constitution, they could form a temporary centre for a new 
revolutionary uprising based on Hungary. 

But then the worthy deputies would not have to shrink from 
proclaiming civil war either and, in the extreme case, if it comes to 
making a decision, they would have to prefer a united and indivisible 
German republic to a restoration of the German Federal Diet. 

But anyone who supposes the Frankfurters capable of that is 
greatly mistaken. These gentlemen will make a little noise, offer a 
little resistance, enough to satisfy at least to some extent the 
requirements of decency, and then they will agree to everything that 
the stubborn Hohenzollern dictates to them. Here and there, 
perhaps, the people will erect barricades and —will be betrayed as on 
September 18.7% 

That would be the end of the famous imperial bombastic 
dramatical performance, if it depended on the Frankfurt gentlemen. 

But perhaps the Hungarian hussars, the Polish Uhlans, and the 
Viennese proletarians will have a word to say, and then matters can 
nevertheless take a different turn.