re subjects. He is credited with ability, but is not
believed to have inherited the intellectual manysidedness of his
father. The only part he can be said to have taken in public life as
yet is having called the imperial attention to the Maximilian Harden
allegations regarding Count Eulenburg and a court "camarilla,"
referred to later, and having, while sitting in a gallery of the
Reichstag, demonstrated by decidedly marked gestures his disagreement
with the Government's Morocco policy.

Since his marriage the Emperor has more than once publicly
congratulated himself on his good fortune in having such a consort as
the Empress. The most graceful compliment he paid her was in her own
Province of Silesia in 1890, when he said:

"The band which unites me with the Province--that of all the
provinces of the Empire which is nearest to my heart--is the
jewel which sparkles at my side, Her Majesty the Empress. A
native of this country, a model of all the virtues of a
German princess, it is her I have to thank that I am in a
position joyfully to perform the onerous duties of my
office."

Only the other day at Altona, after thirty years of married life, he
referred to her, again in her home Province and again as she sat
smiling beside him, as the

"first lady of the land, who is always ready to help the
needy, to strengthen family ties, to discharge the duties of
her sex, and suggest to it new aims. The Empress has
bestowed a home life on the House of Hohenzollern such as
Queen Louise, alone perhaps, conferred."

Queen Louise, the famous wife of Frederick William III, died in 1810
and is buried in the mausoleum at Charlottenburg, the suburb of
Berlin. She has remained ever since, for the German nation, the type
of womanly perfection.

III.

PRE-ACCESSION DAYS

1881-1887

The seven years between the date of his marriage and that of his
accession were chiefly filled in by the future Emperor with the
conscientious discharge of his regimental duties and the preparation
of himself, by three or four hours' study daily at the various
Ministries, among them the Foreign Office, where he sat at the feet of
Bismarck, for the imperial tasks he would presumably have to undertake
later.

Emperor William I, now a man of eighty-four, was still on the throne.
Born in 1797, he lived with his parents, Frederick William III and
Queen Louise, in Koenigsberg and M