Count Botho’s quarrel with Prince Bismarck, originated in the following manner.  The count, in accordance with a decision reached at a cabinet meeting, spoke as Minister of the Interior in the Prussian Diet in favor of placing the communal councils under the provincial board, instead of under the central government.  He had no sooner sat down than a member arose and said that he was instructed by the Prime Minister, Prince Bismarck, to disavow the view taken by the Minister of the Interior.  This extraordinary action of the prince was due to the fact that he had suddenly decided upon coquetting with the Liberals, for the sake of obtaining their support upon the subject of another of his little inaugurations.  Count Botho immediately sent in his resignation, and did not resume office until after the disgrace of Prince Bismarck.  Previous to this quarrel, however, as I have already stated, the most intimate relations had subsisted between the Eulenburgs and the Bismarcks.  Indeed, Countess Marie, only daughter of Prince Bismarck, was at one time betrothed to Wend, the youngest of the three Eulenburg brothers.  Three days before the day fixed for the wedding, the young man was suddenly seized with typhus, and forty-eight hours later succumbed to this awful disease.  Countess Marie, it may be added, subsequently married Count Rantzau, after having been between times engaged to Baron Eisendecker, once German envoy at Washington, and now the kaiser’s adviser in yachting matters, whom she jilted in consequence of differences of religious opinion.

So much for the Eulenburgs, who may be said to constitute the most influential family at the Court of Berlin, and without a description of whom no history of the life and surroundings of Emperor William could possibly be regarded as complete.

Other cronies of the kaiser, who are less influential in a political sense, and, therefore, less obnoxious to the people, are Counts Douglas, Count Dohna, and Count Goertz.  Public attention, however, has often been drawn to the friendship of the kaiser for the Dohnas by the frequency of the imperial visit with which Count Richard Dohna is honored at his superb old chateau of Schlobitten, and likewise by reason of the fact that on two occasions William almost lost his life through carriage accidents which he sustained while out driving with the count.

[Illustration:  THE RUNAWAY AT PROECKELWITZ After a drawing by Oreste Cortazzo]

The Dohnas are one of the most ancient houses of the old German nobility, and Schlobitten, with its grand old park, shaded by glorious trees, has been in the possession of the family since the fourteenth century.  The castle, as now arranged, is only two hundred years old, having been reconstructed on the site, and with the ruins, of an ancient monastery and dwelling.  The name of Dohna is recorded in the most important pages of Prussian history.  Statesmen, generals, and in particular, confidants and cronies of their successive rulers have borne that name, and there is not a king who has reigned over Prussia, and previous to that an elector who has ruled over Brandenburg, who has not stayed at the castle of Schlobitten and occupied the antiquated four-poster bed, in which the present emperor sleeps whenever he makes a visit there.