[p. 523]
|523| earlier relation, where prince and land each had, as it were, its private chest, the endeavour of both parties had to be directed to shifting as much as possible of the burdens on to the other. Since for the estates there was as yet nothing at all recognised of the existing relation of a state, and in particular the separation of a civil list, to which the King had already declared himself willing in the constitution, had not yet been regulated, indeed had not yet come up for discussion, the notions, taken from past relations and all the more confused in the altered time, of an opposition of the interest of the land and the interest of the state, of a chest of the land and the chest of the state, could have no significance, much less application and efficacy.
The main reply, however, which the estates gave to the King’s call for cooperation in the extraordinary circumstances of the fatherland was that they made such cooperation dependent on the granting of their demand, the withdrawal of the royal constitution and the reintroduction of the Old Württemberg one. That nobility which on 4 April, for itself and, since it believed it could vouch in this respect also for the nobility of the Empire as a whole, for this too, declared in an address to the estates that it recognised as its duty to fight in the ranks of the general arming of the land and with the other estates to sacrifice goods and blood for the fatherland, explained this on the following day to the effect that the declaration submitted was suited merely for the assembly of estates, by no means for the royal state ministry, since essays that flow from the heart are exposed to such manifold interpretations. – In fact this explanation was the most immediate example of such manifold capacity for interpretation. – It therefore subjected its readiness to join in the defence of the fatherland with goods and blood to the preliminary steps to be taken by the assembly of estates.
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