The solution of the difficulties of the empire would, he held,
solve the Croatian question too. If it did not, he promised to consider
that question with sympathy, and examine it in all its details. He
concluded by proposing an address to the Emperor which should point out
that it was the want of constitutional life in the whole empire which
hindered the progress of Hungary; and that, while an independent
government and a separate responsible ministry were absolutely essential
to Hungary, it was also necessary that the Emperor should surround his
throne, in all matters of the Government, with such constitutional
arrangements as were indispensably demanded by the needs of the time.
This utterance has been called the "Baptismal Speech of the Revolution."
Coming as it did directly after the news of the French revolution, it
gave a definiteness to the growing demands for freedom; but it did more
than this. Metternich had cherished a growing hope that the demand for
constitutional government in Vienna might be gradually used to crush out
the independent position of Hungary, by absorbing the Hungarians in a
common Austrian parliament; and he had looked upon a Croatian question
as a means for still further weakening the power of the Hungarian Diet.
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