Naturally, all this has served to render Prince Adolph and his wife extremely unpopular throughout the length and breadth of Germany; and when a short time ago there was a question of appointing the prince as regent of the Duchy of Brunswick in succession to Prince Albert of Prussia, who is tired of the post, or as a stadtholder of Alsace-Lorraine in the place of Prince Herman Hohenlohe, the press throughout Germany, and even in Prussia, raised its voice in protest against the emperor’s forcing his brother-in-law into places for which he was in no sense of the word fitted, either by his talents, his administrative skill, his tact, or his intellectual abilities.

CHAPTER IX

Although Germany’s young crown prince has until now been more or less of a stranger to court functions and gaieties at Berlin, his time being absorbed by his studies at the military academy of Ploen, and his holidays spent in travel and Alpine expeditions, yet, as he is about to celebrate his majority, and has passed from the stages of boyhood to those of manhood, he will be from henceforth a personage of the utmost importance—­second only in rank to the emperor.

Destined, in course of time, to succeed to the throne and to the immense responsibilities of his father, and to become virtually the autocratic ruler of a nation of fifty million people, as well as the absolute master of the greatest military power on the face of the globe, every scrap of information concerning this youth must naturally be of vast interest, not only to his future subjects, but also to the entire civilized world.  Under the circumstances, therefore, it is satisfactory to be able to say truthfully that Germany’s future kaiser is a fine, healthy-minded, healthy-bodied lad, disposed to take an extremely serious view of his duties and his obligations, and who, thanks to the excellent education which he has received both from his parents and his teachers, seems destined to prove a wise as well as a popular monarch.

It seems but the other day that the young crown prince, as a chubby ten-year-old lad, was being introduced by his father to the officers and men of the first regiment of Foot Guards at Potsdam, to which, in accordance with traditional usage, he was appointed on his tenth birthday as lieutenant.  There may be some of my readers who were present on that occasion, and who may remember the spectacle presented by the little fellow, vainly endeavoring to keep step with the giant strides of these huge grenadiers, the tallest men in the German army, during the march-past that followed the ceremony.  Since then there have been so many portraits of the crown prince published, as he appeared at that time, that this taken in conjunction with the rapid flight of years, renders it difficult to realize that he is now no longer a little boy, but a youth considerably taller and almost as broad and stalwart as his father, whose best friend he has become.