Italy in the nineteenth century and the making of Austria-Hungary and Germany . ation in our own day may besaid to be indirectly due to the second Napoleon. Up to the early part of the present century, the GermanEmpire consisted of no less than three hundred States, largeand small, governed by secular or ecclesiastical princes,each independent of the other, but subject to the Emperoras their federal head; besides which there were free cities,and a class of nobles, chiefly in Swabia and the vicinity ofthe Rhine, who, without enjoying the title of princes, ac-knowledged no superior but the Emper
Italy in the nineteenth century and the making of Austria-Hungary and Germany . ation in our own day may besaid to be indirectly due to the second Napoleon. Up to the early part of the present century, the GermanEmpire consisted of no less than three hundred States, largeand small, governed by secular or ecclesiastical princes,each independent of the other, but subject to the Emperoras their federal head; besides which there were free cities,and a class of nobles, chiefly in Swabia and the vicinity ofthe Rhine, who, without enjoying the title of princes, ac-knowledged no superior but the Emperor. These werecalled freiherren, whose strong castles, together with thefree cities, made up the sovereign States of Germany tothree hundred and sixty. When Napoleon swept with his armies over Germany, hemade short work of these tiny sovereign princes, dukes,landgraves, counts, pfalzgraves, freiherren, and became what are called mediatized princes,—•received pensions in exchange for power, and descended,from being reigning sovereigns, into the rank of EMPEROR WILLIAM I. SADOWA. 267 German geography must have been awful to learn in thedays of those free cities and sovereign princes. Thanks toNapoleon, they were reduced to thirty-nine, and PrinceBismarck has since cut them down to twenty-six, for whichhe deserves the gratitude of all students of geography. In far-back times the Emperor of Germany was electedby nine electors, — the electors of Cologne, Treves, May-ence, the Palatinate, Hanover, Prussia (/. e., Brandenburg),Saxony, Bavaria, and Bohemia (/. e., Austria, whose onlyconnection with the German Empire was through her pos-session of that subject kingdom). But after 143S theimperial crown of Germany became hereditary amongprinces of the house of Hapsburg, rulers of Austria. As our federal representatives meet in Washington, so theGerman federal representatives met at Frankfort. TheDiet was composed of three Chambers. The first wascomposed of the
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