Emperor William I, now a man of eighty-four, was still on the throne.  Born in 1797, he lived with his parents, Frederick William III and Queen Louise, in Koenigsberg and Memel for three years after the battle of Jena, won the Iron Cross at the age of seventeen in the war with Napoleon in 1814, took part in the entry of the Allies into Paris, and devoted himself thenceforward, until he became King of Prussia in 1861, chiefly to the reorganization of the army.  For a year during the troubled times of 1848 he was forced to take refuge in England, from whence he returned to live quietly at Coblenz until called to the Regency of Prussia in 1858.  He was the Grand Master of Prussian Freemasonry.  The attempts on his life in Berlin in 1878 by the anarchists Hoedel and Nobiling are still spoken of by eye-witnesses to them.  Both attempts were made within a period of three weeks while the King was driving down Unter den Linden, and on both occasions revolver shots were fired at him.  Hoedel’s attempt failed, but in view of Socialist agitation, the would-be assassin was beheaded (the practice still in Prussia) a few weeks later.  Pellets from Nobiling’s weapon struck the King in the face and arm, and disabled him from work for several weeks.  The political events of the reign, including the Seven Weeks’ War with Austria in 1866, which ended at Sadowa, where King William was in chief command, and that with France in 1870, when he was present as Commander-in-Chief at Gravelotte and Sedan, are frequently referred to by Bismarck in his “Gedanke und Erinnerungen,” and to these the reader may be referred.

The high and amiable character of the old Emperor, as he became after 1870, is common knowledge.  He was a thoroughgoing Hohenzollern in his views of monarchy and his relations to his folk, but he was at the same time the type of German chivalry, the essence of good nature, the soul of honour, and the slave of duty.  He was extremely fond of his grandson, Prince William, and it is clear from the latter’s speeches subsequently that the affection was ardently reciprocated.

Of Emperor William, Bismarck writes in the highest terms, describing his “kingly courtesy,” his freedom from vanity, his impartiality towards friend and foe alike; in a word, he says, Emperor William was the idea “gentleman” incorporated.  On the other hand, Bismarck tells how the old Emperor all his life long stood in awe of his consort, the Empress Augusta, Bismarck’s great enemy and the clearing-house (Krystallisationspunkt), as he describes her, of all the opposition against him; and how the Emperor used to speak of her as “the hot-head” ("Feuerkopf")—­“a capital name for her,” Bismarck adds, “as she could not bear her authority as Queen to be overborne by that of anyone else.”  The Iron Chancellor, by the way, mentions a curious fact in connexion with the attempt on Emperor William’s life by Nobiling.  The Chancellor says he had noticed that in the seventies the Emperor’s powers had begun to fail, and that he often lost the thread of a conversation, both in hearing and speaking.  After the Nobiling attempt this disability, strangely enough, completely disappeared.  The fact was noticed by the Emperor himself, for one day he said jestingly to Bismarck:  “Nobiling knew better than the doctors what I really needed—­a good blood-letting.”