Emperor William’s intimacy with Count and Countess Goertz may be said to be a sort of inherited friendship, the count’s father, president of the Hessian House of Lords, and his consort, a princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein, having been the most intimate friends of Emperor and Empress Frederick, whose acquaintance they made through the late Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Hesse.  In order to show the affectionate relations existing between the parents of the kaiser and those of the present head of the ancient and illustrious house of Goertz, it is merely necessary to state that Professor Hintzpeter, who for a number of years directed the education of Emperor William and his brother Henry, and who, as their old tutor, retains much influence over both the imperial brothers, was selected by Emperor and Empress Frederick for the purpose, on the personal recommendation of the late Count and Countess Goertz, in whose family he had resided for a number of years as tutor to their son.

In fact, the present Count Goertz, who is some eight or nine years the senior of the emperor, can boast, like the latter, of having been a pupil of old Hintzpeter, who in some respects is the German counterpart of the late Czar Alexander’s tutor, M. Pobietnotzoff.  That William shares the confidence placed by his parents in the Goertz family is shown by the fact that when he found it necessary, at one time, to obtain the services of a tutor for one of his young relatives, in a case, it must be added, of particular delicacy, he at once nominated to the post Professor Krenge, who at the time was tutoring the sons of the present Count Goertz.  Countess Goertz is a woman of great beauty, which she may be said to have inherited from her mother, the so-celebrated Countess of Villeneuve, wife to the Brazilian envoy to the Court of Brussels, and renowned throughout Europe on account of her loveliness.

Although the admiration which the kaiser displays for the fascinating countess is of the most undisguised character, it fails to excite the jealousy either of his consort or the count, and the relations between the empress and the countess are so close that the former has been known to lend to her friend articles of jewelry, and even of dress, for use at fancy dress balls and elsewhere.  The emperor and the count are also as united and unrestrained with each other as two men can be who have the same tastes, who have been intimately acquainted since childhood, and whose parents have been close friends before them.  It is doubtful whether William ever enjoys himself so much, or feels so thoroughly at home, as when visiting the Goertzes at Schlitz.  There his days are spent in shooting and hunting with the count, and the evenings in composing new melodies, and setting songs to music with the countess.  The emperor’s children and the young Goertzes are bound by equal ties of affection, and are old-time playmates, so that there seems every likelihood of this friendship between the Hohenzollerns and the former reigning sovereign house of Goertz being continued in the third generation.