It was the problem to which no German of the North could show indifference; and it was the one subject which brought Prussia to the fore, and put her reigning house in the van, forcing the Hohenzollerns into predominance. This was a crucial point, and wondrous to record! the will of Bismarck on that exceedingly curious detail brought the Hapsburgs together with the Hohenzollerns; Frederick with Marie-Therèse, Wallenstein's camp with Rebels, in an unescapable atmosphere of rank Germanism!
But here again the first step of the forthcoming ruler was taken in obedience to an irresistible, though, perhaps, unavowed, national suggestion. The sense of _all_ that the past had given to German history, to the power of German thought, formed a part of Bismarck's very nature, and spite of the timidity of his experienced statecraft, he could not disobey the promptings of the German conscience.
When the quick-witted French public applied to Professor Lévy Brühl's work the title of "The idea whence comes the fact," they awarded it its permanent signification; it is the development of the German conscience that causes the imperial unity of Germany, and no one is more thoroughly aware of that than the famous chancellor.
We feel with whomsoever was a witness of the crowning struggle, that nothing can even paint its gigantic character more aptly than the concluding phrase of the now famous French historian:--
... "Thus was formed the virtual German nation,--the nation that willed to be, and for long years could not be because reality refused to bear out practically all its ideals. It was in truth, _l'ame qui cherche un corps_!"
These words can never be improved upon. The chancellor knows their truth, as the _Kronprinz_ knew it, but the years lying between them threw a certainty of glory into one which the other could not attain to,--and Bismarck, too, was a man of old Prussia, of her ancient traditions and formalities, while the crown prince was modern amongst moderns--a soldier, yes! but pre-eminently a man, a citizen; but though each felt his conviction differently, its strength was one and the same in both.
The unity of Germany was the creation of no individual. German unity and the imperial unity sprang from the whole past of German history and German thought. The State existing now is the outcome of Germany's own self, of the idea, of the soul of Germany.