The conflict between them and the imperial government became more intense in 1872. One expression in a speech which the pope had made on June 25 was regarded by the majority of Germans as a direct wish for the overthrow of the empire, and intensified the sore feelings which had been produced by the pope's rejection of the cardinal prince Hohenlohe, whom the German government wished to appoint as minister at the papal court. As it was a common opinion that the religious excitement prevailing in the Catholic districts of Germany was largely due to the influence of the Jesuits, the Reichstag and federal council adopted in June a law which provided for the suppression of all the houses of the Jesuits and of affiliated orders. This law, which toward the close of the year 1872 was gradually executed, did not define which other religious orders were comprised within its terms; but the Redemptorists, Lazarists, ladies of the Sacred Heart, and a few others shared at once the fate of the Jesuits. The bishops of Germany assembled in November, in a general conference at Fulda, and bitterly complained of this persecution; and the pope, in an allocution made in December, in terms still more severe, denounced the impudence of the anti-Catholic legislation, to which the imperial government of Germany replied by breaking off all diplomatic intercourse with the papal court.

Thus the relation between the Catholic church and the imperial government at the beginning of 1873 was one of open war. This was particularly the case in the kingdom of Prussia, where the relation between church and state was regulated by a number of new laws which all the bishops positively refused to obey. The government then imposed heavy fines upon the bishops, and in many cases withdrew the support which the ministers and institutions of the church had received from the state government. An interesting correspondence on the subject took place between the pope and the emperor. The pope expressed the hope that the cruel laws against the church did not meet the approbation of the emperor, and asked for his personal interference in behalf of the church: to which the emperor replied that in a constitutional state like Prussia every law required the sanction of the sovereign, and that the former peace between the different Christian churches had been wantonly disturbed by the unlawful conduct of the bishops.

A germ of new difficulties between the state governments and the Catholic church was the legal position claimed by the Old Catholics, who maintained that the pope and the bishops who adhered to the decree of the Vatican council had abandoned the Catholic church, and that they alone were entitled to be regarded as the true representatives of that Catholic church which in Germany until 1870 was regarded as one of the state churches. Although the state governments, in view of the comparatively small number of the Old Catholics, declined to accept their view of the ecclesiastical situation, they at the same time refused to treat them as seceders from the Catholic church, and took the ground that the movement was an internal affair of that church, with which the state had no right to meddle. In Prussia, the missionary bishop of the Old Catholics was accordingly recognized in October, 1873, as a bishop of the Catholic church, and as such he at once received a salary from the state. The political changes in France greatly encouraged the hopes of the Catholic opposition in Germany, and in several southern districts of Bavaria led to threatening demonstrations against the very existence of the German empire.

As a similar effect was produced by the political attitude of the French government in Italy, the visit of the king of Italy to Berlin was enthusiastically hailed by the liberal parties, both in Italy and in Germany, as an indication that the two governments intended to act in full concert against the common enemy. The relations between the governments of the smaller states and the emperor up to the close of 1873 were friendly, and no serious discrepancy of opinions on any important subject was shown in the deliberations of the federal council.-Among the best historical works on Germany are K. A. Menzel's Geschichte der Deutschen (8 vols., 1815-'22), and Neuere Geschichte der Deutschen (12 vols., 1826-'18); Luden's Geschichte des deutschen Volkes (to the 13th century, 12 vols., 1829-'39); and Giesebrecht's Geschichte der deutschen Kaiser-zeit (vols, i.-iii., 3d ed., 1862- 8).