Meantime the Emperor had to pass through a season of great annoyance owing to the scandal which arose in connection with the so-called “Camarilla.”  The existence of a small and secret group of viciously minded men among the Emperor’s entourage was disclosed to the public by the well-known pamphleteer, Maximilian Harden, a Jew by birth named Witowski, who as a younger man had been on semi-confidential terms with Prince Bismarck and subsequently with Foreign Secretary von Holstein.  As a result of Harden’s disclosures some highly placed friends of the Emperor were compromised and had ultimately to disappear from public life as well as from the Court.  It was perfectly evident throughout that the Emperor had been totally ignorant of the private character of the men forming the “Camarilla,” and nothing was proved to show that the group which formed it had ever unduly, or indeed in any fashion, influenced him.

An allusion made to the scandal by a deputy in the Reichstag brought the Chancellor, Prince von Buelow, to his feet in defence of the monarch.  “The view,” he said,

“that the monarch in Germany should not have his own opinions as to State and Government, and should only think what his Ministers desire him to think, is contrary to German State law and contrary to the will of the German people”

("Quite right,” on the Right).  “The German people,” continued the Chancellor,

“want no shadow-king, but an Emperor of flesh and blood.  The conduct and statements of a strong personality like the Emperor’s are not tantamount to a breach of the Constitution.  Can you tell me a single case in which the Emperor has acted contrary to the Constitution?”

The Chancellor concluded: 

“As to a Camarilla—­Camarilla is no German word.  It is a hateful, foreign, poisonous plant which no one has ever tried to introduce into Germany without doing great injury to the people and to the Prince.  Our Emperor is a man of far too upright a character and much too clear-headed to seek counsel in political things from any other quarter than his appointed advisers and his own sense of duty.”

The Camarilla scandal was all the more painful as it was made a ground for insinuations disgraceful to German officers as a body.  Such insinuations were, as they would be to-day, entirely unfounded.

Another thing that annoyed the Emperor this year was the publication of ex-Chancellor Prince Hohenlohe’s Memoirs.  The publication drew from him a telegram to a son of the ex-Chancellor in which he expressed his “astonishment and indignation” at the publication of confidential private conversations between him and Prince Hohenlohe regarding Prince Bismarck’s dismissal.  “I must stigmatize,” the Emperor telegraphed,