with the
object of setting at rest forever the popular superstitions and rumors
on the subject. Neither King Frederick-William IV., nor the late
Emperor William would ever hear of such a thing, and the late Emperor
Frederick, who was the least superstitious and most matter-of-fact
of men, grew grave and silent, when it was suggested to him that he
should give the desired permission. As for the present emperor, he
has sternly forbidden that the matter should even be mentioned in his
presence. This extraordinary reluctance displayed by both the kaiser
and his predecessors to discover what there is behind that brick wall
leads to the conviction that the mouldering remains of the victim
of the treacherous hospitality of a prince of Prussia lie concealed
there.

CHAPTER XVI

It is among the crowned heads and princes of the blood in the Old
World that St. Hubert, the patron of the chase, finds his most fervent
devotees, and nowhere is his cult followed with a greater degree
of pomp and ceremoniousness, and, I might almost add, religious
sentiment, than at the Courts of Berlin and Vienna.

The foremost Nimrod of Europe is undoubtedly old Emperor
Francis-Joseph, who finds his only relaxation from the cares of state
in stalking the chamois, and who is celebrated in the annals of sport
as the most successful and fearless hunter of that excessively shy and
difficult quarry.

No man living possesses a larger collection of gemsbock beards, which
constitute the hunter's trophy of this form of the chase. They
number nearly three thousand, and the only person whose score at all
approximates the emperor's is his intimate friend and crony, the
aged King Albert of Saxony. Both monarchs are now old men, with hair,
whiskers and moustache, of a snowy white, but neither their years,
nor their sorrows, which have contributed so much towards aging them
prematurely, have been permitted until now to interfere with their
chamois-hunting expeditions in the Styrian Alps. On these occasions
the two sovereigns make their headquarters at Francis-Joseph's
picturesque shooting-lodge, or rather chateau, at Muerzsteg. They are
usually accompanied by the emperor's eldest son-in-law, Prince Leopold
of Bavaria, Archduke Francis-Ferdinand, heir apparent to the throne,
some younger members of the imperial family, and a few of the
dignitaries of the court who have been the longest attached to the
service of his majesty, prominent among whom is Bar