The first election which has occurred in Germany since the
war is that of the Provincial Parliament of Hanover. An address was proposed to the King, exulting in the victories over the foreigner and the "near prospect of a durable peace, which has regained to the Fatherland what it had lost in less happy times," and the "guarantees secured for the power and safety of the land." This address was rejected by the nobles, chiefly, however, on account of some sentences approving the absorption of Hanover, but carried by an immense majority of the burghers and peasants. This vote explains one at least of the astounding blunders com- mitted by Napoleon. His agents in Hanover naturally lived among the nobles, and finding them enanimously opposed to the annexation, imagined that they represented the Hanoverian people. It is by a curious irony of history that Hanover gives the first German vote in favour of tearing provinces from France.
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