Empress Augusta-Victoria has been so supremely happy in her married life that she has always felt a certain amount of gratitude to Bismarck, which tended to obliterate her childhood’s impressions against him; and no more striking indication of her sentiments towards the famous statesman can be given than the fact that she travelled all the way to Friedrichsrueh at a moment when the sickness of her children demanded her presence by their bedside, in order to attend the private and home funeral of the man who had publicly described her father as the most stupid prince in all Europe; who had deprived him of his throne, and who had sent him to an early grave as a broken-spirited and thoroughly embittered man.

While the empress takes but little part in politics, on her favorite ground, that women should have no concern whatsoever in the conduct thereof, she has at least on two occasions, to my knowledge, intervened in important crises.  Thus in 1892, when General Count Caprivi, having differed with William on the subject of the new education laws, had written to tender his resignation of the office of chancellor, the empress at once indicted an autograph letter, in which, with expressions of mingled pathos and dignity, she appealed to him so strongly not to desert her husband, or to subject the latter to the anxiety, the trouble, and even the odium of another ministerial crisis, that he at once traveled down to Huebertuesstock, where the emperor was staying, and informed him that he withdrew his resignation, and would remain in office.

Two years later, when Caprivi again resigned, it was largely the personal entreaties contained in the letters which she addressed to old Princess Hohenlohe which led to the latter’s withdrawal of the opposition that, until then, had stood in the way of Prince Hohenlohe’s acceptance of the chancellorship.

Like most other consorts of reigning sovereigns and princesses of the blood, Empress Augusta-Victoria holds the colonelcy of a number of Prussian and Russian regiments, whose uniform she occasionally wears in a somewhat feminized form at those grand military reviews of which the kaiser is so fond.  Her favorite garb of this kind is the uniform of the second regiment of Pomeranian Cuirassiers, one of the oldest and most celebrated corps of cavalry of the Prussian army.  The regimental tunic is of snow-white cloth, and held in its place by the silver shoulder-straps of a colonel is the orange ribbon of the Order of the Black Eagle, which crosses her breast to the left hip, where the jewel of the order is attached by a large rosette.  The star of the order is worn on the left breast, while just above it are a number of smaller decorations.  With this white tunic, with its silver buttons, its silver embroidery and scarlet facings, a white cloth skirt is worn, while in lieu of the helmet now in use by the regiment, the empress has adopted the old-fashioned, broad-brimmed cavalier hat, with the flowing white