“Last evening at 8 left Berlin with Thaden after supping with Victor and Franz (son and nephew) in the Kaiserhof Hotel.  Paid several visits during the day.  I found Friedberg somewhat depressed.  He is no longer the big man he was in the Emperor Frederick’s time, when everybody courted him.  He knows that the Emperor does not favour Jews.  Then I visited the new chief of the Cabinet (civil), Lucanus, a courtly, polished, obliging man, who looks more like an elegant Austrian privy councillor.  Wilmoski inspires me with more confidence.  At 5 to Bleichroeder’s (Bleichroeder was the great Jew banker).  We spoke, or rather he spoke first, about the political situation.  He is satisfied, and says Bismarck is too.  Only the Emperor must take care to keep out of the hands of the Orthodox.  People in the country wouldn’t stand that. (He is right there, comments Hohenlohe.) Waldersee and his followers, he said, was another danger.  Waldersee was a foe of Bismarck’s and thought himself fit for anything and everything.  Who knows but that these gentlemen wouldn’t begin the old game and say to the Emperor, ’You are simply nothing but a doll.  Bismarck is the real ruler.’  On the old Emperor this would have made no impression, but the young one would be more sensitive.  Bismarck, therefore, wanted Waldersee’s banishment, and would, if he could, send him to Strasburg (where Hohenlohe was Statthalter) as commanding general.  Perhaps he was only aiming at making me (Hohenlohe) sick of my post and so get rid of Waldersee, his enemy, when I cleared out.  Bleichroeder said Bismarck only introduced the compulsory pass system to show the Emperor that he too could act sharply against the French, and so as to take the wind out of the sails of the military party.  Bismarck was thinking above all about seating his son Herbert firmly in the saddle (Herbert was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs).  That is the sole motive of his action and thought.  There was therefore no prospect of matters in the Rhineland improving.  As to Russia, Bleichroeder expected some occurrence, something out of the way (exotisches) by which Russia might be won, either the withdrawal of troops from the frontier or a meeting of Emperors.  The Emperor, Bismarck said, would not begin a war.  If it came, however, it would not be unwelcome to him.”

Prince Hohenlohe also tells of a visit he paid in the month of the accession to the widowed Empress Frederick.  “She is much bowed down,” he said,

“very harassed-looking, and I feel sure that all this recent time, all the last year in fact, she has been displaying an artificial good-humour, for now I find her in deep distress.  At first she could not speak for weeping.  We spoke of the Emperor Frederick’s last days, then she recovered herself a little and complained of the wickedness and meanness of men, by which she meant to allude to certain people....  Herbert Bismarck had had the impudence to tell