leet; and so he demands that they be built on the spot. His
Minister resists, pointing out that the approval of the Reichstag is
required, William II flies into a passion, and the wretched Minister
obeys. Suddenly it occurs to him also to remember the existence of a
certain Count Vedel, greatly favoured by the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar.
He summons him by telegraph, and makes him his favourite of an hour.
When it pleases him to remove a superior officer, or to put one on the
shelf, nothing stops him, neither the worth of the man, nor the value of
the services he may have rendered. One can readily conceive that German
generals live in a state of perpetual fright. Add to all this that
William is becoming impecunious. He has taken to borrowing, and is
reduced to making money out of everything. What will the Sultan Abdul
Hamid say when he learns that the Grand Marshal of the German Court has
put up for sale the presents which he offered to the Emperor, his guest,
and which are valued at four millions!

These things bring to mind the threat which William II uttered a few days
before the fall of Bismarck: "Those who resist me I will break into a
thousand pieces."

March 12, 1891. [4]

The many and varied causes which led to the journey of the Empress
Frederick to Paris, and the equally numerous results that the Emperor,
her son, expected from that visit, are beginning to stand out in such a
manner that we can appreciate their significance more and more clearly.
This proceeding on the part of William II, like all his actions, was
invested with a certain quality of suddenness, but at the same time, it
reveals itself as the result of a complicated series of deliberate plans.
The object of these last was, as usual, the young monarch's unhealthy
craving for making dupes. To this I shall return later on. Let us first
examine the causes of William's sudden impulses.

He has acquired, and is teaching his people to acquire, the taste and
habit of sudden and unexpected happenings. It having been the habit of
Bismarck to speculate on things foreseen, it was inevitable that his
jealous adversary should speculate on things unforeseen. Moreover, the
King-Emperor is dominated by that law of compensation, from which neither
men nor things can escape, and from which it follows logically that
Germany, after having profited by methods of continuity, is now condemned
to suffer, in the same proportion, her trials of instability.