Another man of a different type who came yearly was Prince Dohna of Schlobitten, a tall elderly gentleman who was a mighty hunter, and knew all about deer and their habits. We ladies were much indebted to him for instruction in the proper terms of venery—for, as the Princess forcibly impressed on us, it was quite impossible when at Rominten to speak of any part of an animal by its usual name, everything having a special and peculiar designation. “Nose, eyes, ears and tail” were shocking to the ear, and no longer to be tolerated, suffering a change into something technical and sporting. The “ears” of the hare, for example, had to be called its “spoons,” and the feet of the deer became “runners"—I think—but it may have been something else.

One notable visitor came once to Rominten for a short stay of an hour or two on his way back to Russia from America—a rather stern, silent, harassed-looking man with peasant-features, who moved wearily and with an air of abstraction beside the Emperor as they walked up and down on the gravelled space before the Jagd-Haus. It was Herr Witte, the Russian statesman, soon to become Count Witte, on his way home after negotiating terms of peace between his country and Japan. At table he sat eating soup somewhat nervously, with the air of a man in a dream, listening politely to the Emperor’s talk, replying in monosyllables, but conversing with no one else. He was obviously tired and apprehensive.

Soon after dinner we saw his carriage departing for the station. He would be in Russia before nightfall.

Every morning in the early darkness somewhere between five and six, or it may have been even earlier, the panting of a motor-car could be heard outside, and presently it departed, bearing away the Emperor and his loader to some remote corner of the forest where a lordly stag had been marked as coming in the early mornings to browse.

At eight the Princess and I breakfasted alone in the little corridor outside Her Majesty’s sitting-room upstairs. Often we made for ourselves beautiful buttered toast at the big fire which blazed on the hearth; and once the Princess, who always had a fine feminine instinct for that sort of thing, took a large succulent plateful of this delicacy downstairs to His Majesty, who happened for a wonder to be at home for breakfast at the appointed hour. This was a thing which very seldom happened—for, as a rule, we from our window could see the hungry courtiers waiting about the courtyard for the Emperor’s return, which was naturally apt to be rather uncertain as to time, sometimes being postponed till eleven.

Rominten was the only place where Their Majesties breakfasted with the suite. Usually it was a meal taken strictly en famille and at a very rapid pace.

The Emperor appreciated the Princess’s buttered toast so much that the Empress directed that some should be sent up every morning. Now buttered toast is quite unknown in the Fatherland excepting perhaps in large and fashionable hotels where international customs prevail. Rather leathery dry toast is served at tea; but when the royal command for buttered toast reached the kitchen through the medium of the footman it created nothing short of consternation. A flurried lackey came hastening up to me begging for some slight hints as to how it should be made. I foresaw that any instructions I might give when they reached the cook distilled through the footman’s mind would be vague and unsatisfactory. Nevertheless I did my best; but the Empress told me afterwards that the toast was quite uneatable—a result which rather gratified the Princess, who liked to believe that she was the only person capable of making toast for “Papa.”

The lessons with the tutor lasted from half-past eight until twelve o’clock, when a short walk with the Empress was taken, weather permitting. After luncheon, if the stag or stags slain by the Emperor had arrived, we all assembled under the dining-room window for the ceremony of “the Strecke.” The stags were laid on the small lawn beneath the windows, and three of the Jägers of His Majesty blew on hunting-horns the old hunting-call of the “Ha-la-li,” denoting to all who hear the success of the sportsman.

Somewhere between three and four the Emperor in his hunting cart would start off again to shoot, the Empress and suite waiting for his departure and shouting “Waidmann’s Heil” as he drove away. Then Her Majesty, with the Princess and the rest of us, would also climb into other yellow-varnished hunting-carts and drive in another direction, to try and get a glimpse of the stags browsing. Our conversation had to be rather suppressed, for fear of alarming the deer in their “sylvan solitudes,” and we usually descended from the carts to walk to one of the numerous “pulpits” as they were called—small raised platforms screened by a frame of pine twigs, from which the Emperor sometimes shot—although, as a rule, they were used for purposes of observation only, and the shooting was done from behind another screen down below.

It was always a little tantalizing going to see the deer feed, because very often they didn’t appear. The stairs up to the pulpits creaked and groaned as any one rather weighty went up them, and the rest regarded the guilty one with annoyed looks and said “S’sh”; but the more silent and stealthy we were the less the stags showed themselves. When they did, stepping out proudly from the dark shadows of the trees, it was a very fine sight. The deer on the Rominter Heide are remarkable for their splendid antlers, and there are few things more gracefully beautiful than the manner in which a stag carries his splendid wide-spreading ornaments, especially when running with the speed of the wind among the forest trees.

Baron Speck von Sternburg lived in a large house in a corner of the forest where it opened out into a meadow near a village called Sittkehmen. He had three or four children, and his charming wife, herself the daughter of an officer of the Forest Department, was quite as keen, and possessed nearly as much knowledge of woodcraft as her husband.

Once when the Empress had been with the Princess into the village visiting some of the cottages, as we came back to the Schloss, hurrying a little for fear of being late for our one-o’clock dinner, we were met in the drive by an excited footman, who said that an Elch—which I took to mean a moose or elk—had been seen by the Baroness in the forest, that the Kaiser had ordered out all the automobiles and carriages, and that every available person was to serve as beater, Her Majesty and the Princess and the ladies being specially invited in that capacity.

Everybody flew in and out of the Schloss fetching walking-sticks and cloaks, and in a few seconds the first automobile, containing the Emperor and Empress, the Princess and the two ladies, the Emperor’s loader with the heavy sporting rifles being outside with the chauffeur, started off in pursuit of this animal, which, not having a proper sense of political boundaries, had wandered over from Russia in the night. We only hoped it had not wandered back again, but I had a sneaking sort of feeling down in my heart that I should be almost glad if it had done so.

The car flew along, the Emperor talking volubly about the Elch and its habits and his hopes of slaying the confiding creature; and at last we were deposited about eight miles from home on a rather squelchy, marshy piece of ground, where we were met by Baron von Sternburg and commanded to follow him in perfect silence, the Emperor meantime going on in the car in a different direction. After a long damp walk we were all posted at intervals of about a hundred yards along a thick alley of pines, with whispered instructions to stay where we were and prevent the quarry from breaking through, although we all had grave doubts as to our ability to prevent any animal as large as a moose from doing anything it felt inclined. I went up to the gentleman on my left and whisperingly asked what methods I must employ supposing the mighty beast suddenly appeared in front of me, and he indicated a feeble waggling of the hands as being likely to turn it back in the direction of the Emperor’s rifle.

I cannot say if we should have been able to intimidate the moose by means of this manœuvre if it had really appeared; at any rate we were not put to the test, for after having waited for an hour or two, growing minute by minute more ravenously hungry, while the water penetrated into our boot-soles, it became evident that the sagacious animal must have returned to his native wilds, and we returned sadly to our long-delayed, somewhat over-cooked dinner, where we found the unfortunate tutor of the Princess, who had been waiting for his food without any of the alleviating excitement of the chase from one o’clock until three, which was the hour when we at last sat down to our long-delayed meal.

Once on our way from Rominten back to Berlin we had a rather disagreeable adventure in Königsberg, where the Emperor stayed for a few hours for the purpose of dining at the officers’ mess of one of the Grenadier regiments stationed there.

We had started from Rominten very early in the morning, and the Princess, rather unluckily as it turned out, was still wearing her green hunting uniform, although the rest of the party had reverted to the usual less conspicuous costume of ordinary wear. The Emperor and his suite were to stop at Königsberg, while the Empress and her daughter, with the ladies, Prince Eulenburg and the gentleman-in-waiting, Count Carmer, after a short wait of half an hour to let the express pass before us to Berlin, would proceed onwards to Cadinen, there to await the arrival of His Majesty towards evening.

We had all descended on to the red-carpeted platform to witness the reception of the Emperor, and had seen him drive away amidst the cheers of an immense crowd waiting outside the station, when, to our surprise, the Princess begged her mother to fill up the intervening twenty minutes left to us by “a short walk,” as she was very tired of being in the train. Her Majesty too appeared to think that it would make an agreeable diversion, and though somebody suggested the difficulty of moving about in such a crowd as would probably be gathered together, yet, the Princess being very urgent, the expedition was undertaken.

We moved across the space in front of the station, which had been kept clear by the police, in full view of the enormous mass of people gathered there, the young Princess in her green uniform being a very conspicuous object. A pleasant elderly officer was to escort us on what the Empress called our “little stroll through the town,” though that was hardly perhaps the appropriate expression.

Full of apprehension, which was amply justified by our subsequent adventures, we walked over the empty space, the Empress chatting to the officer, while the rest of us looked at each other, trying to think that what we foresaw must happen would perhaps not be so inevitable after all. The people began to cheer wildly as soon as they realized that the Empress was before them, for her name naturally had not been included in the programme of the day’s ceremonies; and as soon as we emerged from the emptiness into the crowd itself, we all realized at once the imprudence of the step taken, and the danger involved, not only to ourselves, but also to the unwieldy mass of humanity.

Most of the extra policemen drafted into the town had naturally been placed on the streets along the route where the Emperor would pass, and as we had directed our steps to a more secluded thoroughfare, there were none to be seen anywhere, with the exception of those near the station.

The enormous crowd seemed to break up at once with a yelp of astonished joy, and to fling itself with that blindly loyal ardour so characteristic of the nation upon our small group.

“Let us get back to the station,” implored the Empress, who saw at once the danger of advancing into that yelling, shouting, scampering, excited mass.

It was wonderful to see the orderly, apparently disciplined crowd of a moment before, which had settled down peaceably to wait for the Emperor’s return, suddenly disintegrate into a wildly-running horde, to watch the policemen, voluble and excited, and absolutely nonplussed at the unexpected turn of events, swept like leaves before the wind. Their shouts, blows and expostulations were powerless to stem that torrent of irresistible humanity. The shriek of their voices betrayed a fearful anxiety and powerlessness, which sounded ominously in our ears.

We all wanted to return to the station—even the Princess was obviously ready to renounce her “little walk” through the town—but a glance behind showed its impossibility. All we could do was to keep on, the officer pointing out a side-street which he thought led back to the station in another direction.

He kept on continually shouting vain appeals to the crowd, which became every moment denser, ruder and dirtier. It was the hour when the workshops and factories vomited forth their occupants for Mittagessen, so that it soon became a crowd composed largely of Socialists and Jewish Poles, who congregate in Königsberg. Unfortunately we took a wrong turning, and our road led through some of the worst quarters of the town.

The cheering and hurrahing soon ceased, but the shouting and yelling went on; we were the centre of a dirty, frowsy mob, who smelt abominably, and treated our small group as though we were a show of some kind out for their amusement. The officer again appealed to the better feelings of the people, and begged the dirty children to remember what they had been taught in school, but they only laughed and darted in and out and laid their filthy hands on the dress of the Empress.

In my younger more unregenerate days I had learned from a schoolboy brother a certain sudden grip at the back of the neck or collar which we often employed in any slight dispute. Our nurses and governesses always characterized it as “most unladylike,” which no doubt it was, but none the less effective; and as these horrible children grew bolder and more repulsive, and tried to dart between the Empress and the Princess, I found this old “choker,” as we had called it, very useful in intercepting them. As a yelling boy bumped along, he was suddenly “brought up short” in mid career and by a grip at the nape of his neck flung back among his comrades, helping to put them also into momentary confusion. Even this slight check was a great help, and although it was warm work for such a hot day, I continued unweariedly, with a certain sporting pleasure which struck me at the time as amusing, to capture one filthy youngster after another and fling him violently back into the roadway. The officer still shouted after policemen, and presently I became aware of one walking beside me, who was also aiding in the good work of “chucking out.” I think he had caught the idea from me. At any rate we toiled in tacit good-fellowship side by side for some time. Then at last a few more policemen were picked up and we got into a rather more respectable neighbourhood; but the crowd was still frightfully dense, and the policemen banged and thrust unmercifully. Sometimes quite innocent, unsuspecting people just coming out of their own doorways were taken by the shoulders and whirled back into their homes again, wondering, I am sure, if dynamite or an earthquake had struck them.

At last we came again in view of the station, and a mass of policemen took us in charge, still rather nervous—the policemen I mean—and very irritated with the crowd and perhaps a little with us.

The time for the train to start was overdue. We scrambled in hurriedly, but the Empress wished to show the accompanying officer some recognition of the strenuous activity he had displayed on her behalf. The gentleman-in-waiting hastily produced a case full of those royal-monogrammed-scarfpins, studs, and brooches, which are part of the travelling equipment of every court. The officer received a tie-pin, and one of the police-officers some studs, thrust into his hands almost as the train moved off, and we were left to review and discuss the experiences of the last half-hour.

“Never, no, never in the whole course of my experience,” declared the Empress, “was I in such a fearful crowd. I really began to think that we never should emerge alive. It was too horrible.”

She shuddered and was obviously unstrung. As for the Princess, she was unusually pale and subdued, and it was a long time before she again proposed “a tiny walk” in a strange town.

In the next morning’s Königsberg Times was a paragraph in the news column to the effect that the Empress and Princess, with a small following, had walked “ungezwungen” (freely) through the town for a short time. Obviously the reporter had not been in the thick of the crowd.

CHAPTER XIV

THE KAISER AND KAISERIN

The Emperor’s conversation at its best has a certain quality of intoxication—is provocative of thought and wit. Men have been seen, grave American professors and others of that type not easily thrown off their mental balance, to retire from talk with His Majesty with the somewhat dazedly ecstatic look of people who have indulged in champagne; then they go home, and under the influence of this interview write eulogistic, apologetic character-sketches of the Emperor.

It may be asked how does he appear in the intimacies of private life, to the inner circle of his Court, to those who see him in unguarded moments? Men often change for the better, or sometimes for the worse, when they retire from the public eye. But the Emperor is much the same everywhere, he has no special reserves of character for domestic consumption only.

At home he inspires much the same charm that he does abroad, and sometimes the same irritation. Unexpected people, whimsical people, are necessarily alternately irritating and charming just as their moods happen to please or displease the circle of people whom they affect. He is a man who is bound to get somewhat on the nerves of those who surround him, to make his service laborious to his servants, his secretaries, his courtiers, who live in a state of continual apprehension, fearing that they may not be ready for some sudden call, some unanticipated duty. There is no more alert place in the world than the Prussian Court.

“We are like the Israelites at the Passover,” grumbled one lady: “we must always have our loins girt, our shoes on our feet—shoes suitable for any and every occasion, fit for walking on palace floors or down muddy roads—our staff in our hand; nobody dare relax and settle down to be comfortable.”

The Emperor disapproves of people who want to settle down and be comfortable. In a jolly, good-humoured but none the less autocratic kind of way, he sets everybody doing something. He likes to keep things moving, has no desire for the humdrum, the usual, the everlasting sameness of things.

No one who knows the Emperor intimately can fail to see how early English influences have helped to mould his character, how intensely he loves and admires English life as apart from English politics, for which he has a perplexed, irritated wonderment and contempt.

“Not one of your Ministers,” he said to me on one occasion, “can tell how many ships of the line you have in your navy. I can tell him—he can’t tell me. And your Minister of War can’t even ride: I offered him a mount and every opportunity to see the manœuvres—‘Thanks very much for your Majesty’s gracious offer—Sorry can’t accept it—I’m no horseman unfortunately.’ A Minister of War!—and can’t ride! Unthinkable!” He gave his short, sharp laugh.

But life as lived in the English country-side has for him irresistible charms.

When some years ago he for a few weeks occupied Highcliffe Castle, near Bournemouth—a proceeding which very much annoyed a section of his subjects, who considered that Germany possessed just as many “eligible residences” for the purposes of a “cure” as did England, of whom those Germans who know least of her are naturally most suspicious—his letters to Her Majesty, portions of which she occasionally read aloud at supper, showed how absolutely he enjoyed that peaceful, comfortable, untrammelled, simple country-house life: how the beautiful gardens—there are no beautiful gardens in Germany—the product of years of thought and labour, a growth of the ages, imbued as they are with the glamour and mystery of the past, appealed to the artistic side of his soul; how “thoroughly at home"—his own expression—he felt there, how rested and refreshed in body and soul.

He wanted the Empress, if only for a week, to come and join him, so that she might share something of his delight and pleasure in the old house, in its wealth of memories, its many treasures of art and historical relics; but there was the difficulty of accommodating the suite, the ladies and gentlemen, the maids and footmen, with which royalty can never dispense, however simple in its own personal needs it may be.

So the plan fell through—the time was too short to arrange matters; but the Emperor in his letters described in minutest detail everything that happened there—his delight in the pretty English children he met, his pleasure in the tea he gave to the boys and girls on the estate, his astonishment at their well-dressed appearance, their reserved, composed manners, at the way in which they sang grace, at the clergyman who controlled the proceedings and knew how to box and play cricket. It is quite impossible to imagine a German Pastor who can play cricket, and as for boxing ...!

“Poor Papa!” said the Princess, “he is quite broken-hearted at leaving his dear Highcliffe.”

Any one living in the atmosphere of German palaces can understand this regret. It is conceded that no one in the world can create like the English that delightful surrounding of freedom and comfort, of cultured, artistic luxury combined with a certain strenuous out-of-door life. The palaces inhabited by the Emperor are huge, magnificent buildings, expensively and uncomfortably constructed; and Germany has too recently been engaged in the stern business of war, her faculties are still too absorbed in the great question of defence, to be able to afford the leisure to accumulate those relics and treasures of past ages which are the charm of England.

“Ah, you have never had a Napoleon to plunder and burn your country houses,” sighed the Emperor, almost apologetically, once, when talking of his English visit: “your Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs, where would they have been if Napoleon’s Marshals or his soldiers had seen them? Perhaps burnt or destroyed, or sent to the Louvre. Think what it must mean to the children of a house to live with one of those pictures, to absorb it unconsciously into their mentalities; they must grow up with a love of beautiful things—they cannot help it. We have nothing of the kind; our houses were stripped and burnt.”

I suggested something about Cromwell and the way his gentle Ironsides in their zeal smashed up the beautiful sculptures of our cathedrals and stabled their horses in the naves. “Though the horses did less damage than the men,” I conceded.

“Ah, Cromwell!” he replied: “Cromwell did nothing in comparison with Napoleon; besides, that was much further back—long ago—Gainsborough and Reynolds not yet born. All our art treasures were absolutely destroyed, burnt, by Napoleon. Art and War cannot live side by side. We have had too much fighting, and now must recreate, rebuild almost from the beginning.”

“Yes, it is lucky for us that we live on an island, and that the French fleet met its Trafalgar,” I said. “Nelson saved our art-treasures for us, I suppose.”

“I expect he did,” returned His Majesty, nodding his head emphatically. “So you recognize that, do you?” and he turned away laughing and still nodding vigorously, thinking, I am sure, a good deal about Nelson and the fleet.

Nobody has ever accused the Emperor of being a diplomatist. He himself believes that he is very astute and can see farther than most men. He is, so to speak, a little blinded by his own brilliancy, by the versatility of his own powers, which are apt to lead him astray. He has never acquired the broad, tolerant outlook of a man who tries to view things from another’s standpoint. He has, in fact, only one point of view—his own—and a certain superficiality characterizes his thought. He has a marvellous memory for facts, deduces hasty inferences, is too prompt in decision, relies perhaps too entirely on his own judgment and his own personal desires and experiences; he does not, in fact, give himself time and opportunity to think things out, to weigh consequences, and he has, unfortunately, few really great minds around him. Conscientious, hard-working men in plenty, but the man of imagination, of original conception, of new ideas—and there are many such men in Germany—does not seem to be admitted to his councils. A great statesman is not at hand just now—one who can impress his thought on the Emperor’s receptive mind and guide his activities, the wonderful forces of his mind, into the best avenues for their development.

In spite of his belief in the special mission of the Hohenzollern family to carry out Divine purposes, an idea not uncorroborated by the course of history, he is in every respect more democratic than his Court. The magic “von” has, under his influence, lost some of its prestige. He has bestowed the coveted syllable on certain people whom he desired to see at Court, and invited to his table many men not enjoying the prepositional advantage. One of them, Herr Ballin, the head and inspiration of the Hamburg-America Line of Steamships, a self-made man with Jewish blood in his veins, was even asked to Rominten, where only the elect expect to meet each other. Not only that—to him was conceded a rare and much-coveted privilege: he was allowed to go stag-hunting, and, worse still, bagged three fine specimens, one of them a stag-royal.

What made this still more galling to the blue-blooded entourage was that a special friend of the Kaiser, a dear, delightful, charming old gentleman whom everybody liked, had been accorded a similar favour, but came back time after time without wearing the coveted spray of oak-leaves in the back of his hat, the leaves whose absence is so painfully eloquent of failure.

A universal groan used to go up from the lingerers in the courtyard as the yellow Jagd-Wagen appeared in sight and still no “Spruch” was visible to the anxious watchers.

“There, the General has again had no luck!” they would remark; and it became quite monotonous to see the General depart, all smiles, in his green uniform amid a chorus of “Waidmann’s Heil,” and watch his return sadly and slowly in the dusk of evening.

The Emperor likes to be identified with successful people of every class, to feel that he has contributed something to their success, to indicate to them further channels of improvement. There are probably few successful artists, architects, engineers, or shipbuilders who have not been at some time indebted to the Emperor for many professional suggestions. It is a matter of common knowledge that all architectural plans for Government buildings, post offices, railway stations, barracks, etc., are invariably submitted to His Majesty—a censorship productive of many terrors and much apprehension in the official mind, for the question of expense is ignored and the Imperial blue pencil strikes out perhaps the toil of months, substituting something maybe less adequate to the intended purpose. Yet, on the whole, this autocratic method has been productive of much good: it has saved the nation from the frightful utilitarian atrocities of the inartistic Town Council, whose hideous square piles of bricks lie like a nightmare on the public conscience. If the Emperor often misses the best, his taste is at any rate on a sufficiently high level of excellence, and it improves with advancing years.

Among the many artists, some good, many of mediocre talents, to whom he has given his patronage, the famous László has painted the most successful portraits of the Kaiser and Kaiserin, and their daughter. Perhaps the most charming of all is that of the young Princess with her hair falling over her shoulders and her hands full of flowers. She and Herr László were very great friends, and it was amusing to hear the Princess attempt to talk about Art—for, to tell the truth, her efforts at drawing had, at that period, not advanced very far. László wished very much to see her productions, and she one day brought him a few rather smudgy charcoal sketches which many people had pronounced “quite nice.” László, however, left her no illusions on the subject. He looked at them and smiled, and laid them down and said, “Well, shall we get on with our picture now?”

The Princess once gave him a doll dressed in Rococo costume, and he painted its portrait in oils and sent it to her on her birthday. It is now one of her most cherished possessions. László’s portrait of Her Majesty was an excellent likeness, and conveyed that air of stately dignity and placid calm so characteristic of the Empress, one which no other of her portraits possesses. Besides these three royal sitters the Crown Prince and Princess too were sketched in oils, and the resulting likeness of the Crown Prince was extraordinarily clever, conveying the curious cat-like, rather mesmeric look of his eyes. It was almost too good a likeness, and many people disliked it extremely—it was so unlike the rather quiet, absorbed expression that most artists give to His Imperial Highness.

To see the Emperor with children is always amusing. His own, with the exception of his little daughter, he has kept as they grew up sternly to their duties, first as schoolboys, then later on as officers in the army. Only of his little girl—now a little girl no longer—has he been heard to relate infantine anecdotes, to tell of her tiny imperious ways and childish wilfulness. But none of them, though they all adored “Papa,” were ever familiar with him. They all were brought up to believe him the most wonderful person in the world, but in that they were not so very different from a good many other children. To see the Emperor with his grandsons is perhaps one of the pleasantest sights in the world; to hear them explain their picture-books to Gross-Papa, to watch them gravely saluting each other when they meet in uniform, or to see the four small boys in white sailor-suits stooping in turn to kiss His Majesty’s hand. They are on the very best of terms, for Gross-Papa has a wonderful knack of finding his way to childish hearts.

The Kinderheim at Rominten is a kind of crèche, established by the Empress for the tiny children, where, when their mothers are working in the fields, they can be cared for by a trained deaconess, who is also the depositary of sundry medical stores supplied by Her Majesty for the use of the villagers.

Every year, on the Sunday before the departure of Their Majesties from Rominten, a small festivity taking the form of a children’s tea is given here by the Emperor and Empress, and His Majesty may be seen in his green uniform, distributing hunks of cake to each sunburnt child; and when their wants are temporarily satisfied, nothing pleases him better than to thrust huge slabs of sticky currant buns into the unwilling hands of the attendant ladies and gentlemen, who, receiving the unwelcome gift with a forced smile, take an early opportunity of surreptitiously slipping it back into the tray whence it was taken.

On the occasion of one of these teas a small boy of six, thirsting for notoriety, barred the Emperor’s path at the moment when he was on the point of leaving the feast to step into the hunting-cart waiting outside with keeper and guns to take him to a part of the forest some miles away, where a lordly “eighteen-ender” was wont to browse at sunset.

This child, who possessed a phenomenal memory, burst into the recital of a poem, to which the Emperor, expecting every line to be the last, lent at first a sufficiently attentive ear; but as time went on, the poetic effusion, which described with unnecessary wealth of detail the events of the recently celebrated Silver Wedding of Their Majesties, seemed to expand its scope and gather strength and volume with each succeeding verse, while the Empress, aware of the portentous length of this rhyming masterpiece, tried to stem the flood of poetry by suggesting that the rest might be said another time.

But the sturdy young peasant, completely absorbed in his task, continued relentlessly, in his broad East-Prussian accent, his eyes faithfully fixed on the toes of the Emperor’s boots. His Majesty, like the Wedding-Guest, “could not choose but hear,” and if he did not listen like a three-years child, at any rate bore manfully with the ceaseless monotone. At last it suddenly descended two tones, stopped, and with a wooden bow the young reciter concluded his stupendous effort, and his Imperial auditor, throwing thanks and praise over his shoulder, went off to deal with the stag, while the small boy retired shamefacedly into the crowd covered with glory and stuffed with cake.

The indefatigable deaconess had trained ten small boys to form a guard of honour and to present arms and go through certain military exercises whenever Royalty appeared, one tiny fellow performing laboriously on a very inadequate drum the while. When the Emperor came in sight they always went through all these evolutions, Präsentirt das Gewehr, Gewehr ab, and so on, the small Unter-Offizier, aged seven, giving his orders with the greatest coolness and precision.

The German Empress has always played a somewhat subordinate rôle, but it is unnecessary to deduce from this obvious fact the idea that she is a nonentity or a mere Haus-frau, because Her Majesty is nothing of the kind, but a woman with wide interests, who from morning till night is occupied with social schemes for the betterment of the people.

Of her it may be said, as Thackeray wrote of Lady Castlewood, “It is this lady’s disposition to think kindnesses, and devise silent bounties, and to scheme benevolence for those about her.... To be doing good for some one else is the life of most good women. They are exuberant of kindness, as it were, and must impart it to some one else.”

And if kindness is the most conspicuous trait in the Empress’s character, it is a kindness directed into many useful public channels, finding an outlet in worthy objects, in social service, and much arduous work for the help and uplifting of mankind.

It is safe to say that perhaps no other woman in the world would have been so admirably suited to the Emperor’s varying moods, to his suddenness, his volcanic outbursts of energy. In the presence of her husband she is self-sacrificing, self-effacing, but when apart from him shows plenty of initiative and self-confidence.

For the first twenty years of her married life she was occupied in the care of her children, but by no means entirely absorbed by them, for she has always been deeply interested in problems of poverty and disease, and in the nurture of children, and has thrown all her influence in the scale against that excessive exploitation of the childish brain against which modern scientists are now upraising their voices. She is not at all pleased when poor little nervous children are thrust forward to recite poetry to her; she much prefers a bunch of flowers and something frankly childish, like the greeting of the small maiden who, having totally forgotten the speech she was to make, and finding the Empress so different from what she expected, just said shortly, employing to the horror of her parents the familiar Du:

“You’re the Empress, aren’t you? I’m Anna Kruger. Here, these flowers are for you.” And the unabashed infant thrust her flowers into the hand of the Empress, turned her back and toddled off.

All the public hospitals of Berlin are under the direct superintendence and control of the Empress, who, as the wife of an autocratic monarch, possesses much more direct authority than most Queen-consorts. Her interest in them is practical and thorough. She allows no alteration in construction, no building to be done, without going into the domestic side of the project. She knows where cupboards are necessary, where doors will save needless footsteps to and fro; she realizes the needs of women, too apt to be ignored where men alone arrange their treatment. She is indefatigable in trying to spread knowledge of the care of children among poor women, often so deplorably ignorant of what they most need to know. She detests the German method of placing men almost entirely in charge of girls’ schools; she has fought with some success against this masculine assumption of authority, nowhere carried so far as in the Fatherland, where little girls may be daily seen taking their walks in Berlin under the charge of a solemn young man in spectacles.

The Empress is tall and well-made, and her hair turned white at a very early age—chiefly, say those people who have an explanation for everything, because of her grief that her only daughter was born deaf and dumb! This popular myth has naturally fitted in nicely with the white hair, so that it is almost a pity that it has no thread of truth upon which to hang. In any case, the white hair is very becoming to the statuesque dignity of the Empress, who grows year by year more impressive, more stately.

Her Majesty’s chief recreation, the one in which she most delights, is riding. Every day, if possible, she takes a brisk canter of an hour or two. She also plays a good deal of lawn-tennis—although during the last year her health has not permitted her to indulge quite so often in this game.

Her reading consists largely of historical memoirs, which interest her deeply; but she has not a mind quickly receptive of new ideas—would perhaps be a little narrowly intolerant if she were not prevented by her essential kindness of heart. Her chief talent has always been the creation of an atmosphere of home for her husband and children, no light task amid the rigid officialism of a court. She has been heard to relate how once, when not feeling very well, she sent to the kitchen for some tea at the unorthodox hour of ten o’clock at night, and was told that to carry out such an order was impossible; there was no provision for making tea at ten, only at five or in the morning from eight to nine. So the Empress went without her tea. The next morning the Haus-Marshall requested Her Majesty in future, whenever she might need tea at ten o’clock, to give orders for it before five, because all the cooks went home at that hour. The Empress at once took steps to enable herself or any one else in the palace to obtain tea at any hour they might need it.

She is an industrious needlewoman, and very much dislikes to sit and talk without having some work to do, declaring that constant occupation of the fingers is very restful to the nerves; and when the old Court doctor remonstrates that she never allows herself to rest, smiles and shakes her head at him and says quietly, “Oh, you men do not understand.”

The Emperor of late years always lies down and rests for an hour or two in the afternoon, but no efforts have ever been successful in making Her Majesty do the same. Up early in the mornings to ride with her husband, walking with him before breakfast, standing more or less all day, and often up to a very late hour of the evening especially in the season, it is surprising how the Empress has been able always to fulfil without fail her varied duties, often at the expense of much bodily weariness and effort.

Once at Königsberg, where the Imperial couple had come for some special festivities, after a day and a night’s travelling in the train, she found herself so utterly overcome with fatigue that at three o’clock in the afternoon she felt that unless she obtained some rest before night she must inevitably break down, for a large dinner was to take place in the evening with a reception to follow. But all round the old Königsberg Schloss was gathered an enthusiastic crowd cheering and calling for the Empress, who at last went out on to the balcony, and, holding up her hand for silence, addressed them to the following effect:

“Good people,—I thank you for your kind reception, but for the next two hours it is necessary for me to have some rest, so I ask you to go away and leave me in peace until five, when you may come again.” She then retired, and the people melted away, and for a space there was silence.

When Her Majesty cruises in her yacht, the Iduna, off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein, and lies up in port for the night, every patriotic soul within a radius of thirty miles is smitten with the selfsame idea—to come and serenade Her Majesty till the small hours with the selfsame song, “Schleswig-Holstein sea-engirdled.”

“Mamma and I are perfectly sick of that song,” said the Princess. “People came and rowed round the Iduna and yelled it into the port-holes while we were dressing and while we dined, and when we came on deck there it was again, and when one lot had finished another lot came and began all over again. It was truly awful.”

In Germany everybody yearns to sing before Royalty. In Wilhelmshöhe one enterprising lady who, as one of the princes remarked, “thought more of her voice than it deserved,” hid herself behind a bush in the public part of the park, and when Her Majesty came walking unsuspectingly in that direction to enjoy the cool evening hour in company with her children, the lady burst into impassioned song and shook out of herself torrents of trills and elaborate shakes into the darkness.

The evenings at Neues Palais in the winter-time were usually very quiet. After supper the Empress and her ladies with their needlework would sit round the big table of one of the salons, while the Emperor looked at the English papers spread about, or, as often happened, read extracts from them aloud. He usually wore glasses when reading, and was very fond of Punch, especially of the political cartoons, in which he so frequently figured under the guise of a sea-serpent, an organ-grinder, or his imperial self, with exaggerated moustaches and portentous frown. I always tried to hide Punch when it was my turn downstairs. His Majesty liked to thrust these embarrassing pictures under my nose.

“What d’you think of that?” he would say. “Nice, isn’t it? Good likeness, eh?” It was often difficult to find a suitable answer on the spur of the moment.

Somewhere about ten o’clock the Empress would rise and depart, followed by the ladies, who all turned and made a curtsy to the Emperor as they went past, he regarding them with a rather mocking, quizzical gaze. When the Emperor was away, the ladies often dined upstairs in the apartment of the Empress, and sat afterwards in her private salon, one of the loveliest rooms in the Palace, all pale yellow satin and silver mouldings.

Until his marriage the Crown Prince was a very frequent visitor at the New Palace, usually staying there at Christmas and other times of festivity. He is the only one of the princes enjoying the title of Imperial Highness, his brothers and sister being only Royal Highnesses.

At the time of the death of the Emperor Frederick and his father’s accession to the throne as William II. the young prince was only seven years old.

So that no invidious distinction could be made between himself and his brothers, the title of Crown Prince was not used until he was eighteen years of age, and the little boy was so unconscious of his right to the title that when he heard that one of the officers had been promoted, and was asked to guess what he had now become, he said with a delighted smile, “Perhaps he’s been made Crown Prince.”

He is, as every one knows, a young man who has devoted much time to sport, and, like his father, has many spheres of activity, having written a book, visited India, and made some good and a few unwise speeches. He is an ardent soldier and a typical Hohenzollern, with supreme confidence in the star of his family, and earnestly desires to live his life in his own way, to move with the times, to be a child of his century; and it is probable that with a little more experience of life, especially perhaps of that discipline of sorrow which initiates most men into a new sphere of thought, he will develop into the man the world hopes to see in him—something steadfast and strong, and perhaps a little more silent. At present he is very good-natured, very kind, very crude in his ideas, very young for his age, very self-confident and rather selfish, as the modern type of young man is apt to be. He is popular in Potsdam, where he picks up little boys for rides on his charger as he comes home from drill, flings gold pieces abroad to poverty-stricken people, gives lifts in his motor-car to weary men on the road. He has all that facile, democratic, easy generosity which wins popularity, and possesses great charm of manner together with a hatred of coercion and restraint. Probably some recent outbreaks have been due to a desire to show his independence of mind, a yearning to cast off conventional shackles and to say what he thinks.

He still has a good deal of the schoolboy in his composition, although since his marriage he has given up his favourite pastime of sliding down staircase banisters.

But it is not so long since, when he and his family were living in the Stadt-Schloss at Potsdam, one wet day when entertainment was hard to find, he had the happy idea of amusing his children by taking their tiny Shetland pony upstairs to the nursery.

The pony had first to be fetched by the Crown Prince and his adjutant from the stables of the Marmor Palais, and was with difficulty dragged and pushed into the automobile, where, in a state of abject terror, it protested all the way against its abduction.

When they arrived at the Stadt-Schloss the pony was led or rather hauled bodily up the stairs, and was so unnerved by its experiences that its behaviour on arriving in the nursery scared the little princes into tears, and they begged for the pony to be taken away again, howling without intermission until the poor animal was, with difficulty, removed.

CHAPTER XV

CONCLUSION

On one occasion the Court had just returned from Berlin after the season, and had settled down comfortably at the New Palace, when some tiresome child in the Communs opposite was found to be suffering from measles, and we were all (with the exception of the Emperor, fortunately absent for two days) hurried off to the Marmor Palais, which happened to be totally unfurnished, all its chairs and tables having been warehoused for the winter and not yet replaced.

We wandered about the garden there, watching the arrival of the vans, which had been hastily summoned together, and now slowly and at long intervals disgorged their contents at every door.

The rooms allotted to the ladies were in a little Dutch cottage in the garden, and contained only a few clothes-pegs, on which to hang hats and coats. By slow degrees washstands, chairs, wardrobes, kept slowly filtering in—though many of us had to wash our hands at the tap in the passage before going to dine with the Empress.

Somewhere about ten o’clock at night the beds began to arrive, and for the next few days existence partook largely of the disjointed, uncertain, intermittent nature of a picnic. Except for the moral support afforded by the white kid gloves and fan, to which we clung convulsively through that long chaos, we should with difficulty have been able to preserve the decent atmosphere proper to a court.

Another sudden exodus occurred once, when the whole Court, including the Emperor, were for the first time installed for the winter in Belle Vue, with its charming garden, which had been recommended by the doctors as a salutary change from the Schloss in the Lust-Garten, which possesses only a few sooty trees on a grass plot two yards square.

Everybody was delighted with the innovation, and the last dresses were being hung in the wardrobes, the finishing touches given to the delightfully quaint, sunny little freshly-painted rooms overlooking the green Tier-Garten, when a rumour ran shuddering through the palace. We were to pack up at once and return to the gloomy old Schloss at the other end of the town. Prince Oskar, just returned from Italy, had developed chicken-pox—that very catching illness—and was to remain in Belle Vue with his adjutant and servants, while the rest of us migrated elsewhere.

So all the luggage had to be re-packed, and before evening we had retired from the chicken-pox, only to find that after all it had come with us—for the young Princess Alexandra of Schleswig-Holstein, who was staying at the Court, and had just become engaged to her cousin Prince August Wilhelm, the Emperor’s fourth son, fell ill of the complaint almost immediately; but we remained where we were and did not travel farther.

Their Majesties were due to pay a visit to England in a few days’ time, and many telegrams passed between the two countries, the Prussian Court fearing to bring the chicken-pox with them, while the English one implored them to come all the same, as nobody there was the least afraid of it. The upshot was that the visit was paid, the Germans spending an apprehensive week in England, always on the alert for symptoms which happily never appeared.

Some time afterwards, the Empress in discussing this outbreak of chicken-pox remarked that she had not been at all anxious about any one but the Emperor. It was entirely for his sake that the doctors had thought it well to move from Belle Vue.

“No, not at all,” vehemently spoke His Majesty, who happened to overhear what his wife said. “I had chicken-pox long ago when I was a boy. I wasn’t at all afraid of it.”

“But, Wilhelm!” said the astonished Empress, “I never knew. Why didn’t you say so then?”

“Nobody asked me,” said the Emperor grimly; “the doctors ordered us off, and there was the end of it. They never told me that it was on my account. I thought that you were afraid of it.”

This is the kind of thing that is apt to occur when people try to be a little too tactful.

“I don’t know,” said the Princess, “why we fly about so much trying to run away from various diseases; we must be always meeting and swallowing microbes.”

In Berlin during the wet weather the Emperor with difficulty can get the exercise he needs. He has had a covered tennis-court built in the grounds of Mon-Bijou Schloss, a short five minutes’ walk from the palace on the Lust-Garten; and here, when the weather continued persistently rainy, His Majesty, in a frightfully overheated building, would play with any young officers who were fairly expert at the game. None of them appeared to enjoy the honour very much. The oppressive atmosphere, combined with the nervous apprehension natural to the occasion—the fear lest an unlucky ball, with the hideous perversity of inanimate dumb things, might perhaps rebound with force against the sacred person of His Majesty or, as sometimes happened, fall into the midst of the tea-table presided over by the Empress—paralyzed the hand of even the least imaginative lieutenant.

“I feel all unstrung and frightened,” confided one of these unfortunate youths to me. “Supposing I happened to give His Majesty a black eye?”

“But,” I objected, “nobody gets black eyes at tennis.”

“No, I know that, but still I’m always thinking it might happen; and you know Von Braun’s ball went bang into the Empress’s teacup and flung the tea all over her gown. His mother was in tears when she heard of it.”

As an alternative to indoor tennis, of which he speedily grows tired, the Emperor rides on rainy afternoons in the fine large Reit-Bahn or riding-school of the royal stables, where one of the regimental bands is stationed in the gallery, and plays the latest operatic music as His Majesty and the adjutants canter round.

To the despair of the Master of the Horse he insists on having the Reit-Bahn also artificially heated.

“The whole stable will be coughing to-morrow,” groan the unhappy officials as they ponder on the evil effects upon the horses of the warm atmosphere. But the Emperor likes to feel that he is “getting rid,” he says, “of a little bit of myself.”

Once, as the riders were trotting round the Bahn, smoke was observed to be issuing from the coat-tails of one of the adjutants, who was carrying a box of matches in his pocket. This small incident amused the Emperor and restored his good-humour, always a little affected by bad weather. At supper he told the tale with all the dramatic exaggerations in which his soul delights, describing the young officer’s plight as “painful in the extreme.”

Nothing pleases the Emperor more than to “chaff” his intimate friends about their private weaknesses. At Rominten he would tell interminable adventures of Admiral von Hollman—“Männchen,” as he used to call him—all hinging on this gallant old officer’s knack of losing his umbrella and his luggage.

“He usually arrives at a state reception without a helmet, or something of that kind. Left it on the steamer or in the train; took it off to have a nap, and then forgot all about it,—and as for umbrellas! He buys them now by the gross. Finds it cheaper!”

The old Admiral shakes his head, but looks a little guilty.

“Yes, yes,” he says dubiously: “umbrellas! they are—they are—a little evasive. I think of them all the time, and then—in a moment—they are gone. It is marvellous, Your Majesty, marvellous how they disappear.”

“Last Christmas,” says the Emperor, speaking to the table at large, “the Empress gives him a beautiful new silk umbrella, with his name and address on it in large letters. What is the result? He sets off home taking his umbrella with him. How far do you think?” The Emperor thumps the table to emphasize the astonishing absent-mindedness of the admiral. “Why, he actually leaves it in the carriage that takes him to the station—leaves it in the carriage—loses it in the first half-hour of possession.”

The Admiral wears a shamefaced smile like a guilty schoolboy.

“But that wasn’t the end of it, Your Majesty—it was found again.”

“Found again!” shouts the Emperor, bursting into a roar of laughter. “Yes, you found it waiting for you on the doorstep when you got home, didn’t you?”

Some one had seen the forsaken umbrella and given it to a footman travelling to Berlin by the same train, who had left it at the Admiral’s house.

The Emperor always talks with great energy, and has a habit of thrusting his face forward and wagging his finger when he wishes to be emphatic. He has a very hearty, infectious laugh, and often stamps violently with one foot to show his appreciation of a joke. His characteristic attitude and manner of rocking incessantly from one leg to another and nodding his head as he talks make it easy to identify him in a crowd.

Sometimes he falls into Napoleonic attitudes, and occasionally attempts to pinch the ear of a particular friend.

On his face, whether grave or gay, stands out prominently the scar on his left cheek, made by the madman who once threw at him a piece of an iron bar. It is not a long scar nor very disfiguring, but the wound must have been fairly deep. An inch higher it might have done terrible mischief. It was dangerously near one of those bright blue, restless, twinkling eyes.

Sometimes, but not frequently, the Emperor talks of his mother, always in terms of affectionate pride and appreciation. Once at supper, discussing books, especially the books one loved as a child, His Majesty mentioned “Frank Fairlegh” as among the chief favourites of his youth.

“I always read it aloud to Mamma while she was painting,” he said, “and I shall never forget how we laughed over it together. Mamma laughed so much that she couldn’t go on painting when I read that part—you remember where George Lawless keeps jumping over a chair to work off the nervous excitement while he waits for an answer to his proposal of marriage——” and the Emperor describes to the assembled adjutants and ladies some of the humorous incidents of the book.

The late Empress Frederick has left her mark everywhere in the New Palace. One of the gentlemen who had belonged to her household remarked that she was never idle, but every evening after dinner would sit with her writing-pad on her knee planning out on paper some scheme, charitable or otherwise, which at the moment occupied her attention.

“Sometimes,” he said, “she would discuss with me some alteration or improvement till perhaps twelve o’clock at night, and in the morning at seven I would receive from her a written statement, with all the details and directions worked out—all in her own writing. She must have written it after I left.”

The gardens and grounds of the Palace were enlarged and beautified under her directions, and the grass under the trees planted with all kinds of wild flowers—campanulas, forget-me-nots, hepaticas and primroses, which still flourish profusely. They are called “Empress Frederick’s flowers” to this day by the gardeners.

On the wall of my sitting-room at the New Palace was a strange-looking memorial made in chocolate-painted wood, commemorating the death of her little son Prince Sigismund, who died at two years of age. There was the date of his birth and death, and a sort of bracket which held two ugly flower vases. The whole erection was in the worst possible artistic taste, a blot on the room and an eyesore. It also served to perpetuate the name of Sterbe-Zimmer or Death-room, always used by the housemaids in reference to this apartment, which was otherwise as gay and sunny as any in the Palace.

The Emperor is not unfailingly humorous and good-tempered, but has his human moments of irritability, and if he is angry or dissatisfied with anybody they are not long kept in doubt on the subject. Occasionally, like other people, he is unreasonable and expects impossibilities, but on the other hand, when his anger has passed, he is always willing to modify a hasty decision.

Once he went from New Palace to Berlin for one night, and the stable authorities did not think it necessary to take over the saddle-horses for that short period, so that when the next morning the Emperor gave orders for his horses to be ready in an hour’s time the adjutants felt uncomfortably anxious. They gave the order, and prayed Providence to interpose with a thunderstorm, but the weather remained unusually calm and beautiful. By great good luck, a horse-box was standing at the Wildpark station, close to the New Palace, and the horses and grooms were crammed into it and taken by special train to Berlin, the journey occupying half an hour. The Emperor had to complain that morning of the unusual slowness of his Jägers in helping him to dress, of their inability to find his favourite riding-whip, of the deliberation with which they brought him what he needed.

“Are you all asleep this morning?” he demanded, unconscious of the deep-laid motive pervading this sluggishness.

One of the adjutants, of a resourceful turn of mind, bethought him of some plans for new barracks which His Majesty had not yet examined, and he managed to interpose these plans at the moment when the Emperor was about to descend the staircase to the courtyard, in which as yet no welcome clatter of hoofs was to be heard.

But at last the horses arrived, not conspicuously unpunctual. They had trotted rather more quickly than usual from the station along the Linden, but the Master of the Horse had saved his reputation for being “always on the spot when wanted.”

It is not a bed of roses to be Master of the Horse to the German Emperor. When the horses of the state carriage in which were seated Queen Alexandra and the Empress of Germany, frightened by the guns of the salute, refused to draw any farther, and threw the whole procession into momentary confusion, it was the unfortunate Master who had to bear the brunt of the blame. He was presented by the Kaiser to King Edward, whom he already knew, with the accompanying phrase “Here’s the man who made such a fearful bungle (hat sich blamirt) with his horses.”

Evidently the Emperor thinks it better to go straight to the point, and that a lingering agony is worse than prompt dispatch.

One of his characteristics is that he can explain everything to everybody; but there is one exception—the suffragettes. He has never been able to explain them. They baffle him entirely. At first he thought they were just disappointed spinsters, but in view of the number of married women in their ranks he was obliged to abandon this idea. Since then he has been groping in vain after a satisfactory solution.

Some of them have been on board the Hohenzollern—not uninvited ones, of course—but a few of the charming English and American ladies who come to Kiel for the yacht-racing, who have sat on his decks and drank his tea, have shocked His Majesty by revealing themselves as sympathizers with the feminist suffrage movement. The Emperor becomes inarticulate at such moments. He wants to know “what in heaven women want with a vote?”

“We are coming to Germany soon, Your Majesty,” smiled one fair lady, with the intrepidity of her sex; “we are going to help on the movement here.”

“Here! There is no movement here, and if you begin burning houses and horsewhipping people in Germany, what do you think the police will do? They won’t send you flowers and newspapers and let you go free two days afterwards. We deal with people differently here, I can tell you.”

It is of no use to explain to His Majesty the difference between militant and non-militant suffragists. This is a distinction too subtle for his mind, which sees them all tarred with the same brush, a menace to the peace of mankind, a clamorous nuisance, and a disturber of settled convictions and ideas.

“Women should stay at home and look after their children,” is his last word on the subject; and if some one points out the flaws in this remedy, as for instance the thousands of women who have no children either of their own or some one else’s to see after, he takes refuge in ridicule. He is quite sure that a vote is a desperately bad thing for women.

However, he allows women to be colonels, honorary colonels, in his army. The Empress, the Crown Princess, Princess Fritz, Princess August Wilhelm, and his young daughter each have their regiments, at the head of which on Parade days they ride in full uniform—though a long riding skirt is perhaps the least practical military garment that can be imagined.

The young Princess Victoria Louise, now the Duchess of Brunswick, received her colonelcy when only seventeen, a few days after her Confirmation, which was the formal ending of her schooldays—the day when German girlhood of whatever class renounces its childhood for ever.

“Confirmation!” said one rather “grumpy” gentleman of the court, a man of occasional cynical humour: “what does Confirmation mean? Why, for the boys it means henceforth permission to smoke cigarettes; for the girls, freedom to go to balls and parties—that’s what Confirmation means in Germany.”

At the Prussian Court it signifies something rather strenuous, and all Hohenzollern Princes and Princesses are strictly prepared for it some months beforehand by the Court Chaplain. It is considered to be a very solemn moment of their lives, and at the ceremony each one of them must read aloud before the assembled congregation a Glaubens-Bekenntniss or Confession of Faith, a declaration of their religious belief, written by themselves, together with their views of what that belief implies as to the guidance of their future lives. It is a very impressive, almost a painful ceremony, this effort of these unformed boys and girls to give expression to their idea of how to shape their future worthily.

The day before the Confirmation, the candidate is examined in religious knowledge by the Chaplain, the Emperor and Empress being the only other persons present.

All the near relatives come to the ceremony; and one very notable old lady was conspicuous at the confirmation of the Princess. This was the venerable widowed Grand-Duchess Louise of Baden—“Aunty Baden,” as she is known in the family.

Daughter of the old Emperor, sister of the Emperor Frederick, mother of the present Queen of Sweden, this grey-haired, straight-backed old lady is a true Hohenzollern in character, of decided opinions and a restless, energetic mind. She still pays frequent visits to Berlin, occupying a suite of rooms in the palace of her late father overlooking the Linden, where the blind of one window remains permanently drawn, reminding the passer-by of the old monarch who daily stood there—as he once laughingly remarked, “because ‘Cook’ says I am there and we mustn’t disappoint the tourists"—to salute the Castle guard as it passed up to its barracks.

“Aunty Baden” has no pity for modern nerves and modern fatigue. She belongs to the old school, to an age of tough fibre. At the opening of the Kaiser-Frederick-Museum, when a statue to the Emperor Frederick was also unveiled, this indomitable old lady examined everything with a fresh, vital curiosity which baffled fatigue, insisted on penetrating into every room, and studying the remotest Greco-Assyrian sculptures with the liveliest interest. Hardly a single scarab or the smallest picture escaped her notice.

When the Empress suggested that it was getting late, and that the crowd of Princes and Princesses who had assisted at the ceremony were very tired and hungry, she only turned with renewed zest to an adjoining gallery.

“Oh, here are a quantity of beautiful things! We must look at these before we go! See how interesting!”

Everybody else was bored to extinction and fainting for lack of sustenance, the time for luncheon being long passed; but the old lady continually made new discoveries, and was with the greatest difficulty at last induced by the Emperor to return to the Schloss.

On the Confirmation-Day of the Princess the Grand-Duchess appeared in the Friedens-Kirche—the Church of Peace, built in the lovely gardens of Sans Souci, where the Emperor and Empress Frederick lie buried—leaning on the arm of her nephew the Emperor William, who treats her always with the greatest devotion and respect.

She had laid aside the black dress she usually wears, and appeared clothed completely in creamy white, a long white veil falling behind almost to the hem of her dress.

All the old teachers and servants who had ever been connected in the slightest degree with the Princess were invited to the church. The old Sattel-Meister—long retired from service—who first placed her on her pony, her former tutors and governesses, as well as the Stifts-Kinder, grown up now and done with black uniforms and tight hair for ever—all were there.

The Lutheran service is extremely simple, and the Chaplain’s address and the reading of the “Confession” occupied the chief part of the time. In an hour it was over.

The Emperor was extremely pleased with the way in which his daughter acquitted herself.

“She is a chip of the old block, isn’t she?” he said proudly, talking about the way in which she read her Glaubens-Bekenntniss. “It was like a Kavallerie-Attacke"—the military comparison did not appear to