[p. 552]
|552| which not, but only such things as which essays it should attach to its answer, what title it wished to give them, and such formalities, in a few sittings. On 26 June, four weeks after receipt of the royal resolution, it finally had its reply ready (Section VIII, p. 58 ff.). Nor did this consist in a counter-instruction to its negotiating plenipotentiaries, but in an address to the King. The assembly thus fell back into the old path of its libelling, which had hitherto led to nothing and in whose place, for that reason, the path of oral negotiations with royal commissioners was to have stepped.
The address itself, without touching upon the compliance of the King, is filled only with the expressions of complete disappointment of their hopes, of their nameless pain and consternation, of their impossibly conscientious conviction, with self-praise of their love of truth, to which every impure motive, every selfish intention is foreign, of the testimony of their conscience before God, before whose judgement-seat they will one day be summoned, and such pathos. With regard to the matter the answer was quite simply and naively this, that the royal resolution cannot be reconciled with the principle of the estates. The pathetic conclusion of the address is that they beg, indeed adjure, the King, by God, by all that is holy, that is venerable, by the happiness of his own Most Serene Family, that he may no longer refuse the restoration of the earlier condition of right. Herr Gleich had mingled no such empty pathos into his address, but had developed so much the more reason in it, which, however, did not produce the desired effect; perhaps he would have got further with that kind of pathos, yet at most he would only have averted the insinuation of impure intentions. – Otherwise the usual grounds from positive public law and from the contractual relation are adduced, and in particular it is impressed upon the King that
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.