e restored Metz and
Strasburg had he not been prevented in performing this act by the
historical necessities of his position." In proof of all which things,
this article cites his telegrams of sympathy, the splendid bouquets
which he has sent to our illustrious dead, his wish to pay homage to
France in 1900, etc., etc.

The journalist grown old in harness, who has dared to write such
monstrous things as well as such nonsense, will no doubt be greatly
astonished when I inform him that no foreign reporter, however
inexperienced, of any nation great or small, is ignorant of the fact
that William II is relentlessly determined to achieve the
re-establishment of absolute autocracy as it was conceived by certain
Emperors of Rome and Byzantium. His motto is _Voluntas Regis Supremo
Lex_, which, on the occasion of his first visit to Muenich, he wrote
there with his own Imperial hand. On the first occasion of the opening
of the States of Brandenburg, he declared that he counted on their
fidelity to help him to crush and destroy everything that might oppose
his personal wishes. Is it necessary to say once more for the
hundredth time that he never has the oath taken by his recruits without
telling them that "they must ever be ready to fire on those who oppose
his rule, even though they should be their own fathers, mothers and
brothers"? The other day, did he not make his brother Prince Henry
read a letter to the sailors of his war-ship the _Wilhelm Imperator_
(the vessel appointed to attend the Jubilee of Queen Victoria), in
which letter he held up to the execration of the army and navy those
"unpatriotic" Germans who refused to provide him with millions for his
wild scheme of increasing the navy, that is to say, about nine-tenths
of the Reichstag? There is in Germany one institution which commands
very general respect, and enjoys traditional liberty, viz. the
University. For the last year William II has opened a campaign against
the liberties of University education, and the scandalous manner in
which he has attacked the professors at Berlin because of the dignity
with which they have defended their rights of scientific research, are
known to every one except "this brilliant Chronicler of the Boulevards."

From one end of Germany to the other they go into ecstasies whenever,
either before, during, or after his acts of politeness to France,
William finds some new pretext for humiliating, humbling, or
threatening us. [10]