Unification of Germany and Italy 565 on your part, and of which during the whole course of your Majesty's glorious reign you have deigned to give me so many proofs. Europe, sire, is involved in a crisis which much exceeds the bounds of political movements. It is a crisis in the social body. I foresaw the event ; I have combated it con- sistently during a ministry of well-nigh forty years. To check the torrent is no longer within the power of man. It can only be guided. My efforts have been in vain. And as I do not know how to steer a middle course, or to remain in a situation repug- nant to my moral sense, I have retired from the scene. Too advanced in years to hope to witness the events which may ultimately, according to my views, put an end to the present crisis, it only remains for me to offer to my master and to my country the good wishes which I shall not cease to enter- tain for their inseparable happiness. . . . Condescend, sire, to retain a kind remembrance of me and permit me to assure you of the most profound respect. I remain, your Majesty, etc., etc., Metternich. Vienna, March 14, 1848. After a few months' triumph the revolutionary gov- ernment in Vienna was overthrown by the bombardment and capture of the city, October, 1848, by Windischgratz, the emperor's general, who had just suppressed the Bohemian revolution. The city had decided to surren- der, when it was encouraged to a last futile resistance by the arrival of an army from Hungary ready to for- ward the revolution. An Englishman, an eyewitness, stationed outside the city, published the following nar- rative in the English newspapers. The beautiful street leading to the Prater [a park] had been the scene of the hardest fighting of all, as it had been fortified by a succession of barricades, built up to the first- floor windows in a half-moon shape, with regular embrasures
