r which anaesthetics were necessary, when, he was prevented at the
very last moment by her imperial highness. It is even stated that she
tore the instruments from his hands, and turned him out of the room
with the most bitter and cutting reproaches. Whatever may be true in
this bit of court gossip, it is certain that a fierce quarrel did take
place between the crown princess and the great surgeon, and that the
cause of this quarrel was the decision taken by the latter to operate
upon the crown prince as the only means of saving his life.

[Illustration:
_THE CROWN PRINCESS AND PROFESSOR VON BERGMANN_
_After a drawing by Oreste Cortazzo_]

The crown princess thereupon summoned to her assistance Sir Morel
MacKenzie, the greatest throat specialist in England, who throughout
his long career was consulted by all the leading singers and orators
of his day. MacKenzie came to Berlin, examined the crown prince,
and utterly rejected the diagnosis of Professor Bergmann, and of the
German physicians. He declared that the affection of the larynx, while
cancerous, would not be bettered by using the knife, at any rate at
that time, and that he believed the malady to be curable by treatment.
Needless to add that his opinion was reviled in Germany as that of
a charlatan, and that the Teuton specialists declared that the crown
prince was doomed to certain death within six months, unless the
operation was performed.

Fearing that some further attempt might be made at Berlin to operate
upon her husband without her knowledge, or in spite of her opposition,
the crown princess took him off to England, and from thence to
the Tyrol, from which place they eventually migrated to San Remo.
Meanwhile, the German newspapers, that is to say, those which were
believed to be receiving their inspiration from Bismarckian sources,
were filled with abuse of the crown princess, who was charged openly
with being willing to sacrifice the life of her husband rather than
her chances of becoming German Empress.

Meanwhile the crown prince became worse and worse, and while at San
Remo had several fits of agonizing suffocation, to which he almost
succumbed, and from the worst of which he was virtually saved by
the late Dr. Thomas Evans, of Philadelphia, who displayed the utmost
devotion and intelligence of treatment in the case of the imperial
sufferer.

It was at this juncture that one of the most dramatic scenes which can
be imagined took place in the ant