On the one hand, after the manner of the Middle Ages, he reveals to us the ancient mysteries of the Cabal, on the other, as an up-to-date emperor, he compels his brother Henry to become a sportsman like himself.  On occasion he will don the uniform of the Navy, interrupt a post-captain’s lecture, and throw overboard the so-called plan of re-organisation, so as to substitute a new strategy of his own making for the use of the German fleet.

So Field-Marshal von Moltke is dead at last.  His place is already filled by the Emperor, who is willing to be called his pupil, but a pupil equal in the art of strategy to his master and a better soldier.  The remarkably peaceful death of Von Moltke only reminds me of the violent deaths that he brought about.  It was to him that we owed the bombardment of Paris.  Only yesterday, Marshal Canrobert said “he was our most implacable foe, and in that capacity, we must continue to regard him with hatred and contempt.”  Von Moltke himself was wont to say “when war is necessary it is holy.”  He leaves behind him all the plans in readiness for the next war.

William II, you may be sure, will proceed to depreciate the military work of Von Moltke, just as he tries to depreciate his diplomatic and parliamentary work.  He has reached a pitch of infatuation unbelievable; and is becoming, as I have said before, more and more of a Nero every day.  At the present moment he is instigating the construction of an arena at Schildorn where spectacles after the ancient manner will be given.  These, according to William, are intended to afford instruction to the masses as well as to the classes.  A very fitting conclusion this, to the fears which he has expressed about seeing the youth of the German schools working too hard and overloading its memory.  For the same reason, no doubt, he has made Von Sedlitz Minister of Public Instruction—­it is an unfortunate name—­an individual who has never been to College, who has never studied at any University, and who only attended school up to the age of twelve.

Now, it seems, William II is bored with the Palace of his forefathers.  For the next two years he is going to establish his Imperial Residence at Potsdam; consequently all his ministers and high officials are compelled to reside partly at Potsdam.  His mania for change leads him to destroy the historic character of the old castle; his scandalised architects have been ordered to restore it in modern style.  And Berlin, his faithful Berlin, is abandoned.  It is said that at a gala dinner the other day the Emperor uttered these words:  “The Empire has been made by the army, and not by a parliamentary majority.”  But it is also said that Bismarck observed to the Conservative Committee at Kiel:  “It is best not to touch things that are quiet, best to do nothing to create uneasiness, when there is no reason for making changes.  There are certain people who seem singularly upset by the craving to work for the benefit of humanity.”  It requires no special knowledge to interpret this sentence as a thinly veiled criticism of the character of William II.