Fate, which always was so kind to Bismarck, was not to snatch him away, as it did Cavour, in the hour of his triumph; twenty years longer he was to preside over the State which he had created and to guide the course of the ship which he had built.  A weaker or more timid man would quickly have retired from public life; he would have considered that nothing that he could do could add to his fame, and that he was always risking the loss of some of the reputation he had attained.  Bismarck was not influenced by such motives.  The exercise of power had become to him a pleasure; he was prepared if his King required it to continue in office to the end of his days, and he never feared to hazard fame and popularity if he could thereby add to the prosperity of the State.

These latter years of Bismarck’s life we cannot narrate in detail; space alone would forbid it.  It would be to write the history of the German Empire, and though events are not so dramatic they are no less numerous than in the earlier period.  Moreover, we have not the material for a complete biographical narrative; there is indeed a great abundance of public records; but as to the secret reasons of State by which in the last resource the policy of the Government was determined, we have little knowledge.  From time to time indeed some illicit disclosure, the publication of some confidential document, throws an unexpected light on a situation which is obscure; but these disclosures, so hazardous to the good repute of the men who are responsible and the country in which they are possible, must be treated with great reserve.  Prompted by motives of private revenge or public ambition, they disclose only half the truth, and a portion of the truth is often more misleading than complete ignorance.

In foreign policy he was henceforward sole, undisputed master; in Parliament and in the Press scarcely a voice was raised to challenge his pre-eminence; he enjoyed the complete confidence of the allied sovereigns and the enthusiastic affection of the nation; even those parties which often opposed and criticised his internal policy supported him always on foreign affairs.  Those only opposed him who were hostile to the Empire itself, those whose ideals or interests were injured by this great military monarchy—­Poles and Ultramontanes, Guelphs and Socialists; in opposing Bismarck they seemed to be traitors to their country, and he and his supporters were not slow to divide the nation into the loyal and the Reichsfeindlich.

He deserved the confidence which was placed in him.  He succeeded in preserving to the newly founded Empire all the prestige it had gained; he was enabled to soothe the jealousy of the neutral Powers.  He did so by his policy of peace.  Now he pursued peace with the same decision with which but two years before he had brought about a war.  He was guided by the same motive; as war had then been for the benefit of Germany, so now was peace.  He had never loved