THE QUESTION OF HESSE . . G ERMAN " questions " are, on
the whole, decidedly soporific. They resemble nothing so much as a good Chancery suit, carried through half a century, support- ing generations of lawyers, and ending in an expensive com- promise. For more than thirty years the European public have been entertained, in a lugubrious sort of way, by the Schleswig-Holstein question, which, so far from showing any signs of a coming solution, seems, on the contrary, to grow more portentous with every succeeding year, and now the heading of certain paragraphs in our daily papers announces the birth of another dispute, registered as "THE QUESTION or HESSE." Probably, nine-tenths among English readers, glancing at the ill-omened title, will skip over the contents, under the vague impression that their peace of mind is threatened by another Schleswig-Holstein rigmarole. Even careful readers, who skip nothing, not even the Irish intel- ligence, will scarcely arrive at any other conclusion. Inter- minable notes, penned by obscure diplomatists, in the ser- vice of half forgotten sovereigns, badly translated, and con- densed with a thorough contempt for the essential points, are by no means satisfactory reading. This question of Hesse, however, will have to be studied, for it is the elieval de hataille of the German Unitarians, and may be this year the cause of the final contest for supremacy within the confede- ration. Already the " notes " are becoming angry, the Prussian Chamber rings with phrases which are menaces in disguise, and a few weeks hence English readers may be anxiously asking the history of a dispute so clear to Germans that they always fail to explain its cause. The electorate of Hesse-Cassel is one of the worst governed countries of Europe ; certainly the worst of the thirty-two German states. The evil is more than a century old. The c ustom of selling subjects like cattle was first invented in Hesse; and the fashion of building huge seraglios, stocked with court-fools, chamberlains, and mistresses a la Louis Quatorze, was first of all introduced in Hesse, after the great French prototype. Elector Frederic II. sold twenty-two thousand of his subjects to the British Government, for hard cash, with which he built himself a little Versailles, still visible near Cassel, and greatly admired by travelling cock- neys. Frederic's successors took good care to keep up the very profitable sale of fighting Hessians, worth, on an average, a round million sterling per annum. Even Napoleon was disgusted with this shameless sale of human flesh and blood, and, to show his utter contempt of the Electoral rule, swept it from the map of Europe, instituting in its place the king- dom of Westphalia, with merry brother Jerome on the throne. For seven long years the electors ate the bread of exile, miming back only with the Bourbons, and, like them, having ." learnt nothing and forgotten nothing." At the Congress of Vienna, the ruler of Hesse, untaught by adversity, argued openly in favour of serfdom ; he, alone of all the German princes, to the antiquated and unmeaning title of Elec- tor, and he insisted that his troops should war long-tailed wigs, and cocked-hats, and remain as of old under the rule of the stick. The sultan element was great in this Elector William I; but greater still in his son, William II., who as- cended the throne in 1821. His notions of government were those of a cattle-driver, and his morals those of a lax French abbe. His :court was composed of the lowest characters ; and he was shameless enough to force a vulgar, mistress into the company of his consort, a daughter of King Frederic William II. of Prussia. The latter, having suffered all sorts of brutalities, at last fled the court, and the mistress had it all her own way, ruling alike the Elector and the electorate. Madame Ortlep, promoted to be Countess Reichenbach, be- gan governing Hesse-Cassel after the manner of a Turkish pashalik. Places, honours, and dignities were openly sold ; justice publicly corrupted; and religion ostentatiously out- raged. Whosoever displeased Madame Ortlep was thrown into prison, and had to thank his stars if he could save his head. So things went on till the year 1830, when the Paris insurrection set the Continent in flames, producing small earthquakes and volcanic eruptions everywhere. Madame Ortlep and her friends quitted Cassel in hot haste, and the Elector on a sudden became quite liberal, and thoroughly im- bued with constitutional feelings. A Diet was summoned, the pleasantest promises were made, and a new constitution, "on the English pattern," was framed and adopted. The Elector solemnly took his oath to obey the Constitution on .Tanuary 5th, 1831. It is this "Constitution of 1831" which forms so important a part in the great "Question of Hesse" now pending before the tribunal of Europe. Not six months after the solemn oath-taking, Madame Ortlep returned to Cassel. Her arrival was signalized by the fresh activity of the police, the filling of all the prisons, and the suspension of the laws which protected the liberty of the press. The excitement thereupon rose to such a height, that the Elector once more began to fear the loss of his crown, and, to secure it, admitted a co-regent, in the person of his eldest son. Madame Ortlep also was induced to retire a little into the background ; but only to make room for another lady of more ability, but nearly as questionable repute. Co-regent Frederic William I., like his sire, was under the in- fluence of a fair one, Madame Gertrude, formerly the wife of a non-commissioned officer, a very expensive lady ; scarcely less so than Madame Ortlep ; though, according to the " Al- manach de Gotha," a wife " of the left hand." That, soon after the co-regency had been declared, she was made Princess of Hanau and Cotiptess of Schaumburg was nothing ; nor that she made the fortune of a dozen Jews by purchasing their diamonds. But far more serious was it, that she, too, inter- fered in the government of Hesse, and succeeded in up- holding, by means of her creatures; a thorough despotism. Possessed of a higher ability than Madame Ortlep, though also a shade more avaricious, Madame Gertrude contrived to establish her sovereignty on a firm basis, from which she has not yet been ousted. The death of the old Elector, in 1847, left her mistress of the field, and absolute ruler of near a million of Hessians. Her chief object now became to make provision for herself; and the nine children she had brought her liege lord ; after the Pompadour motto—Apr.1g nous le deluge. Forms of constitution being greatly in the way of such provision-making, they were all swept away successively by the hands of Madame Gertrude. First, the much praised Constitution of 1831 was abrogated by a num- ber of special decrees ; and this not proving effectual enough, a new code of constitutional law was promulgated by the Government. The manner in which this was accomplished, was sufficiently clever, and a proof that Madame Gertrude was not without diplomatic ability. In the time of the former electors, Hesse had been unwaveringly the ally of Prussia, to which the country was drawn by geographical position, and the reigning family by blood alliances. To gain a firm support, Madame Gertrude now bethought her- self of offering her influence to Austria. The bait was ac- cepted at Vienna, and the Imperial Government openly de- dared itself the protector of Hesse. As a first move, the Diet of Frankfort, then and now the obedient tool of Aus- tria, declared the Hessian Constitution of 1831 "contrary to the Federal laws," and called upon the Elector to frame a new "fundamental law of the state." No reasons were given for this absurd and unprecedented decree of the Diet ; and, in fact, reasons were unnecessary, when every one was ac- quainted with the real origin of the enactment. The Elector, of course, at once obeyed the order of the Diet ; but the whole of his subjects protested to a man against this arbi- trary use of power. Even the men who were called upon to form a sort of mock representation under the new code, opposed the electoral despotism on every occasion, and Chamber after Chamber having been dissolved, the country at last got into a state of chronic insurrection, manifested, however, merely by passive resistance to the Go- vernment. It is only within the last few weeks that the op- position has passed the bounds of passiveness, and risen into the active state. The brave Hessians, acting once more "on the English pattern," resolved to pay no taxes which had not been voted by their legal representatives in Parliament assembled. What now followed is stated in the Cassel cor- respondence of a Berlin paper, under date February 14 : "Yesterday a division of the pioneer corps stationed here proceeded to Hanau to support the tax-collectors in the work of breaking open the money chests in the houses of those in arrear with their payments ; and this morning— the same day on which the question of Electoral Hesse was debated in Berlin—the work of arbitrary power began. According to the Zeit, one of the pioneers was about to break open a cash-box, when the owner remarked upon the illegality and unpatriotic nature of the proceedings, and the man remarked, with tears in his eyes, that it grieved him much, but he must do his duty. He could not succeed, however, in forcing the padlock, and the tax-collector was obliged to content himself by pawning some golden articles, and to satisfy his demand with the proceeds." So far the "Question of Hesse," as regards Hesse itself. And now we come to the German, or rather European aspect of the affair.
The wretched Electoral despotism, everybody feels, cannot endure much longer. This they know at Vienna as well as at Berlin. Morganatic Madame Gertrude is near upon seventy, and though her nine electoral bairns may get the scrip and the diamonds, they will not obtain any share of political rights. The heir to the throne is a certain Landgraf Frederic of Hesse, married, in first nuptial; to a sister of Czar Alexander, and in a second union, still existing, to a daughter of Prince Charles of Prussia. This Landgraf Frederic has likewise some claims upon the crown of Den- mark—of prospective vacancy through another " morganatic" alliance—and his accession to the Electorate is, therefore, rather doubtful. Moreover, Prussia possesses an ancient title to Hesse, in form of a family pact, called an erbverbriiderung or "heritage-alliance," made in 1457, and renewed in 1614. Consequently, Prussia takes a great interest in Hesse, and for very good reasons. But Austria, too, has an interest. Madame Gertrude and the Elector, as already mentioned, have put themselves under the especial protection of the Cabinet of Vienna ; and the de facto interest thus created has been evinced already once, in 1852, by the occupation of Hesse by Austrian troops. At present the Austrian troops are whispered of again, as having been solicited by his Electoral Highness to assist in breaking open the money-chests of his loving subjects. The game, as will be seen, is getting desperate, and there is no time to lose. So, too, thinks Count Bernstorff, who has been letting off this week his political fireworks at Berlin. The Prussian Chambers, we are informed, in their sitting of the 16th inst., voted, by 241 against 58, in favour of a resolution requesting the Govern- ment to interfere in Hesse, for the purpose of re-establishing the Constitution of 1831. During the debate, which ex- tended over two days, the Minister of Foreign Affairs made a significant remark : "I can appeal," said Count Bernstorff, "to the confidence of the Chamber. The Government will not neglect anything to obtain the object in view." There was loud applause on all sides, for everybody tacitly under- stood what the phrase meant. It was a remark made by a statesman of Vienna, some twenty years ago, that Austria and Prussia had begun a struggle for supremacy in the eighteenth century which had to be finished in the nineteenth. All signs of coming things tell that the hour for the battle is drawing nigh. The cry for unity is loud in Germany ; even more vehement than the cry for liberty ; and few doubt that to achieve the former either Austria or Prussia must be subdued, so as to leave the decided guidance of the nation to one state. Prussia is the Piedmont of Germany, and the votes of all the Liberals in the country are in her favour. The only doubt is whe- ther King William I. can become a Victor Emanuel, and Count Bernstorff a Cavour. Speculation will not have to wait long for an answer, now that German affairs have come to a partial crisis in the dreaded "Question of Hesse."
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