Instead of saying, as he used to say, “my august confederates and myself,” he has suddenly conceived the pretension that he and he alone is the sole master in Germany.  Accordingly the august confederates by common consent, although invited by the Grand Marshal of the Palace, Count Eulenberg, have refused to take part in the trifling folly of the Golden Throne that William is having made for himself.  Kings, Grand Dukes and Senators of the Free Cities, all have unanimously declared that they will never assist “in the erection of a throne which is the sign and attribute of sovereignty.”

But to continue the list:  At Strelitz, a clergyman refused the request of the Prussian colonel of the 89th Regiment to allow his church to be used for a thanksgiving service in honour of the birth of William II, and preached a sermon declaring that the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and he alone, had the right to have a divine service and a sermon in honour of his birthday.

And yet another instance:  The Emperor has organised a regatta to be held on Lake Wannsee on May 30 for all yachts and pleasure boats owned by princes and by the German aristocracy.  The Archduke, heir to the Austrian Throne, has refused to honour the occasion with his presence.

The toast at Dusseldorf, “Myself the only Master,” has been very generally condemned; equally that which the Emperor addressed to the students at Bonn, when he said to them “Let your jolly rapiers have full play,” or in other words, “Indulge to the top of your bent, and without regard to the laws, in your orgies of brutality.”  People in Germany are beginning to think that William reminds them a little too much of the incoherencies of his great-uncle, Frederick William, who was undoubtedly clever in all sorts of ways, but who died insane.

At the shipyards of Elbing, William II narrowly escaped being wounded by the fall of the large mast of the ship Kohlberg, which had been sawn through in several places.  He has just had his coachman, Menzel, arrested, who very nearly brought him to his death by driving him into a lime tree in a troika presented to him by the Tzar.

At present it is his wish that Holland and Belgium should receive him.  The Queen Regent and Leopold II (in spite of the latter’s violent love for Germany) are hesitating, by no means certain as to the welcome which their peoples would extend to him.  William II proposes to strike the imagination of the Dutch, as he did that of the Belgians, and to make his appearance before them, aboard his yacht, the Hohenzollern, which Dutch vessels are to go to meet and escort.  To make the thing complete (and it may well be that the idea is germinating in his mind) it would only require him to visit the fortifications on the Meuse.  The Berliner Tageblatt in a long article informs us that the Emperor declares them to be perfect.  ’Tis a good word. . . .