the Emperor sent an adjutant to Friedrichsruh to express his regret, invited him to attend the festivities on the forthcoming royal birthday, and sent along with the invitation a flask of Steinberger Cabinet from the imperial cellar in characteristic German proof of the sincerity of his feelings, the country was delighted.  Bismarck accepted the invitation and doubtless drank the Steinberger; and the visit to Berlin followed in due time.

The reconciliation was completed amid sympathetic popular rejoicing.  The Emperor sent his brother, Prince Henry, to bring the ex-Chancellor from the railway station to the palace, where the Emperor himself, surrounded by a brilliant staff, stood to welcome the guest.  Bismarck spent the day at the palace with the Royal Family and was taken back to the railway station in the evening by the Emperor.  A few days later the Emperor returned the visit at Friedrichsruh.

The quiet of the ex-Chancellor’s last years was once unpleasantly affected by the Reichstag in 1895, at the instance of his parliamentary enemies, rejecting, to its everlasting discredit, a proposal for an official vote of congratulation to the ex-Chancellor on his eightieth birthday; but against this unpleasantness may be set his gratification at the receipt of a telegram from the Emperor expressing his “deepest indignation” at the rejection.

Prince Bismarck died on July 30th, 1898, and was laid to rest at Friedrichsruh in the presence of the Emperor and Empress, while the world paused for a moment in its occupations to discuss with sympathetic admiration the dead man’s personality and career.  Bismarck’s spirit is still abroad in Germany, and the popular memory of him is as fresh now as though he died but yesterday.  It is more than probable, much rather is it certain, that all trace of irritation with the proud old Chancellor has long faded from the Emperor’s mind:  indeed at no time does there seem to have been sentiments of personal or permanent rancour on one side or the other.  The episode, in short, was an inevitable collision of ages, temperaments, and times, regrettable no doubt as a possibly harmful example of political discord among the leaders of the nation, but—­with due respect for the judgment of so capable an historian as von Treitschke—­leaving no “indelible stain” either on the pages of German history or on the reputations of Bismarck or the Emperor.

VIII.

SPACIOUS TIMES

1891-1899

A great English poet sings of the “spacious days” of Queen Elizabeth.  From the German standpoint the decade from the fall of Bismarck to the end of the century may not inaptly be described as the spacious days of William II and the modern German Empire.  To the Englishman the actual territorial acquisitions of Germany during the period must seem comparatively insignificant, but, taken in connection with the Emperor’s speeches, the building of the German navy, the Caprivi commercial treaties, the growth of friendly relations and of trade and intercourse with America, North and South, they mean the opening of a new era in the history of the Empire—­the era of Weltpolitik.