[p. 511]
Quite differently from how this hypothetical, concealing style reads, quite differently from the sense that only a deliberation was reserved, that an outcome of the deliberation should be laid before the King only in the future, and then only if one were obtained, the assembly in its very next sitting expressly states the opinion of its address to the effect that it had thereby declared that only on the basis of the old Württemberg constitution could negotiations be conducted on the newer modifications brought about by particular circumstances.
After the speech of Herr Count von Waldek and the reading out of his prepared address, there followed, once only a single deputy had made some exhortatory remarks urging the signing of the address, the silent, unanimous acceptance of it by the assembly.
The calculated style of report and content of the speech and address, interwoven on the one hand with a boldness that one could even call mockery and on the other hand contrived, concealed, stiff, has already been pointed out. The diplomatic negotiations of more recent times show, for all the caution, circumspection and calculation of expression, an open, direct, dignified bearing and, with the greatest prudence, least of all a self-satisfied cunning. How much more should one have expected from a German assembly of estates frankness, liveliness and dignified openness in its first declaration, instead of the repellent contrivedness and concealment and then of the dumbness with which the rest of the assembly hid behind that contrivedness!
But what it afterwards always prided itself greatly upon in this is the unanimity with which the resolution to accept the address is said to have been passed. What the truth was with this, and with the external manner of pushing the address through in the sitting, is shown by the following sitting and the further course of the proceedings. In this sitting (of 17 March) six gentlemen of the nobility
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