mystic
helmet _a la_ Lohengrin, tramples the purple underfoot and has the
throne surrounded by his life-guards, wearing the iron-plated bonnets
of the days of Frederick II. Thus he deludes himself with the dream of
absolute authority. His mania for power is boundless, his pride knows
no limits. He recognises only God and Himself.

To his recruits, he says: "After having sworn fidelity to your masters
upon earth, swear the same oath to your Saviour in Heaven!"

But in his moments of solitude, in the privacy of the potentate's
toilet-chamber, must it not be dreadful for him to reflect that his
silver helmet rests on ears that suppurate, that his voice comes from a
mouth afflicted with fistula of the bone, and that there are days when
his sceptre is at the mercy of the surgeon's knife?

December 11, 1890. [17]

The rumour has spread, and has not yet been authoritatively
contradicted, that William is suffering from disease of the brain. Is
not this in itself good and sufficient reason to make him wish to prove
that no one in his Empire can do as much brain work as he can? We,
whose minds are so confused in the endeavour to follow William's
movements at a distance, where little things escape us, can imagine
what it must be to observe them from close at hand!

One of the chief glories of his reign will be to have produced the
diagnosis of a new disease, "locomotor Caesarism" of the restless type.
Before his case, these symptoms were always associated with paralysis.
Here is a discovery that may turn out to be more genuine that that of
Dr. Koch.

The unfortunate Koch is one more of William's victims. It was his
Imperial will that Germany should wake up one morning to find herself
possessed of a Pasteur of her own. He could not even wait long enough
to allow the necessary experiments to be made with a remedy which is so
violent that it may well be mortal. At the word of command "Forward,
march," Koch found himself propelled by His Majesty into the position
of a benevolent genius.

Dr. Henri Huchard has expressed his opinion of Koch's method in the
following words: "In therapeutics, daring is always permissible, so
long as it preserves its respect for human life."

A few days ago, the German Emperor was thrusting his advice on a man of
science, to-day he is overthrowing the most venerable traditions of the
Prussian monarchy with the scheme of M. Miguel, the new system, for
taxing incomes and legacies, ope