The ambassador who now represents France is the Marquis de Noailles, a scion of one of the oldest ducal houses of the French nobility, whose origin dates back to the crusades.  This being the case, the envoy naturally offers no objection to the attitude of the emperor with regard to the “Marseillaise.”

The kaiser, after all, acts in the matter with a far greater degree of logic and reason than any of his fellow-sovereigns, for the strains of the “Marseillaise” are familiar in the palace of the czar at St. Petersburg, at Windsor Castle, in the royal palace of Madrid, in the imperial Hofburg at Vienna, and even at the Vatican, and it is difficult to conceive anything more paradoxical than a royal band of music playing for the delectation of royal and imperial ears a national hymn, the words of which passionately call upon the people to rise up and to put to death all kings and emperors, queens and empresses, denounced as bloodthirsty tyrants.

Emperor William, even before his accession to the throne, manifested such a pronounced hostility towards the practice of gambling at cards, which is one of the curses of the corps of officers of the German army, that a very widespread impression prevails to the effect that he objects to card games in any shape or form.  This is a mistake.  It is the gambling and not the game itself to which the kaiser is opposed.  In fact, he is very fond of a game of cards, provided the stakes are merely nominal, and I have known him to play an entire evening after a dinner at the castle of Kuckelna, which marked the close of a great pheasant “drive” organized in his honor by Prince Lichnowski.  The game which the emperor played was the German one called Skat, and the point was a German penny.  The emperor was the principal loser, having had poor hands dealt to him throughout the entire game, and when he arose from the table he was out of pocket exactly six cents.  In thus limiting the stakes to a merely nominal amount he has followed the example of his old friend and adviser, the veteran King of Saxony, who is accustomed to play every night his game of skat after dinner, his stakes, like those of the kaiser, never exceeding one penny.

I have often wished that I could see the face of the kaiser’s uncle, the Prince of Wales, were such truly regal stakes as these proposed to him.  His ordinary points and stakes are any sum from five guineas to fifty, and even a hundred, and the only time that I can recollect his having played for less than a guinea was at Hughenden when on a visit to the Earl of Beaconsfield.  Bernal Osborne, father of the Duchess of St. Albans, was one of the party when the prince proposed a game of whist at five-guinea points.  Lord Beaconsfield was a poor man, obliged to count every penny, and Bernal Osborne caught sight of the manner in which his face fell when the proposal was made.  Grasping the situation, and remembering that Lord Beaconsfield had but a few weeks previously added the imperial crown of India to the British regalia, by causing Queen Victoria to be proclaimed Empress of India, he turned to the prince and remarked: