foundation stone of the end of the predominance of the German race ; and from that moment the State itself was bound for destruction. What then followed was the historical evolution of an Empire.
I have no wish to wander off into details, since that is not the object of this book. I wish merely to assemble for the purpose of closer consideration those events which, being always constant as the causes of decadence in nations and States, possess significance for our epoch, and which helped finally to settle the principles of my political thought.
Amongst the institutions which might have indicated to the ordinary citizen, even if not blessed with sharp eyes, that the Monarchy was disintegrating, the chief was that one which ought to have chosen strength as its essential quality—Parliament, or, as it was called in Austria, the Reichsrat.
It is manifest that the Parliament of England, the land of ‘‘classic” democracy, was the parent of that body. That blessed institution was transplanted thence in its entirety and established in Vienna with as little alteration as possible.
The English two-Chamber system inaugurated its new life in the Abgeordnetenhaus and Herrenhaus. But the Houses themselves were somewhat different. When Barry’s Houses of Parliament sprang, as it were, from the waters of the Thames, he drew from the history of the British world Empire inspiration for the ornamenta¬ tion for the 1,200 niches, brackets and pillars of his magnificent edifice. Thus, with their sculptures and paintings, the Houses of the Lords and Commons became the temple of the nation’s glory.
Here was Vienna’s first difficulty. For when the Dane, Hansen, had completed the last pinnacle of the marble palace for the people’s representatives, his only course was to try to ornament it with subjects derived from the Antique. Greek and Roman statesmen and