The idea of ‘Enlightened Despotism’ had died in the French Revolution and could not be revived. Government was more broadly based; German states were run bureaucratically, not autocratically, and a rule-bound system of administration was widely regarded as a more effective limitation on the arbitrary power of the sovereign than representative assemblies were ever likely to be. Often, in any case, the same men belonged to both. As the young Otto von Bismarck (1815–98), who did not enjoy his early experience as a civil servant, remarked in 1838, ‘in order to take part in public life, one must be
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First mentioning of Bismarck in the book.
