of his country to his own feelings of love or hatred towards strangers; he is, however, responsible towards God and not to me if he does so, and therefore on this point I am silent.”

This reference to the King is very characteristic.  Holding, as he did, so high an ideal of public duty himself, he naturally regarded with great dislike the influence which, too often, family ties and domestic affection exercised over the mind of the sovereign.  The German Princes had so long pursued a purely domestic policy that they forgot to distinguish between the interests of their families and their land.  They were, moreover, naturally much influenced in their public decisions, not only by their personal sympathies, but also by the sympathies and opinions of their nearest relations.  To a man like Bismarck, who regarded duty to the State as above everything, nothing could be more disagreeable than to see the plans of professional statesmen criticised by irresponsible people and perhaps overthrown through some woman’s whim.  He was a confirmed monarchist but he was no courtier.  In his letters at this period he sometimes refers to the strong influence which the Princess of Prussia exercised over her husband, who was heir to the throne.  He regarded with apprehension the possible effects which the proposed marriage of the Prince of Prussia’s son to the Princess Royal of England might have on Prussian policy.  He feared it would introduced English influence and Anglomania without their gaining any similar influence in England.  “If our future Queen remains in any degree English, I see our Court surrounded by English influence.”  He was not influenced in this by any hostility to England; almost at the same time he had written that England was the only foreign country for which he had any sympathy.  He was only (as so often) contending for that independence and self-reliance which he so admired in the English.  For two hundred years English traditions had absolutely forbidden the sovereign to allow his personal and family sympathies to interfere with the interests of the country.  If the House of Hohenzollern were to aspire to the position of a national monarch it must act in the same way.  At this very time the Emperor Napoleon was discussing the Prussian marriage with Lord Clarendon.  “It will much influence the policy of the Queen in favour of Prussia,” he said.  “No, your Majesty,” answered the English Ambassador.  “The private feelings of the Queen can never have any influence on that which she believes to be for the honour and welfare of England.”  This was the feeling by which Bismarck was influenced; he was trying to educate his King, and this was the task to which for many years he was devoted.  What he thought of the duties of princes we see from an expression he uses in a letter to Manteuffel:  “Only Christianity can make princes what they ought to be, and free them from that conception of life which causes many of them to seek in the position given them by God nothing