f attempts, or reputed attempts, at assassination. In
1875, while he was at Kissingen, a young man shot at him; he stated that
he had been led to do so owing to the attacks made on the Chancellor by
the Catholic party. No attempt, however, was made to prove that he had
any accomplices; it was not even suggested that he was carrying out the
wishes of the party. It was one of those cases which will always occur
in political struggles, when a young and inexperienced man will be
excited by political speeches to actions which no one would foresee, and
which would not be the natural result of the words to which he had
listened. Nevertheless, Bismarck was not ashamed publicly in the
Reichstag to taunt his opponents with the action, and to declare that
whether they would or not their party was Kuhlmann's party; "he clings
to your coat-tails," he said. A similar event had happened a few years
before, when a young man had been arrested on the charge that he
intended to assassinate the Chancellor. No evidence in support of the
charge was forthcoming, but the excuse was taken by the police for
searching the house of one of the Catholic leaders with whom the accused
had lived. No incriminating documents of any kind were found, but among
the private papers was the correspondence between the leaders in the
party of the Centre dealing with questions of party organisation and
political tactics. The Government used these private papers for
political purposes, and published one of them. The constant use of the
police in political warfare belonged, of course, to the system he had
inherited, but none the less it was to have been hoped that he would
have been strong enough to put it aside. The Government was now firmly
established; it could afford to be generous. Had he definitely cut
himself off from these bad traditions he would have conferred on his
country a blessing scarcely less than all the others.

The opposition of the parties in the Reichstag to his policy and person
did not represent the feelings of the country. As the years passed by
and the new generation grew up, the admiration for his past achievements
and for his character only increased. His seventieth birthday, which he
celebrated in 1885, was made the occasion for a great demonstration of
regard, in which the whole nation joined. A national subscription was
opened and a present of two million marks was made to him. More than
half of this was devoted to repurchasing that par