robably never settled by example: what number of steps
down stairs does she come? The arm-chair (FAUTEUIL), is that to
be denied me?" And numerous other questions. The official people,
Baireuthers especially, are in despair; and, in fact, there were scenes.
But I held firm; and the Berlin ambassadors tempering, a medium was
struck: steps of stairs, to the due number, are conceded me; arm-chair
no, but the Empress to "take a very small arm-chair," and I to have a
big common chair (GRAND DOSSIER). So we meet, and I have sight of this
Princess, next day.

In her place, I confess I would have invented all manner of etiquettes,
or any sort of contrivance, to save myself from showing face. "Heavens!
The Empress is below middle size, and so corpulent (PUISSANTE), she
looks like a ball; she is ugly to the utmost (LAIDE AU POSSIBLE), and
without air or grace." Kaiser Joseph's youngest Daughter,--the gods,
it seems, have not been kind to her in figure or feature! And her mind
corresponds to her appearance: she is bigoted to excess; passes
her nights and days in her oratory, with mere rosaries and gaunt
superstitious platitudes of that nature; a dark fat dreary little
Empress. "She was all in a tremble in receiving me; and had so
discountenanced an air, she could n't speak a word. We took seats. After
a little silence, I began the conversation, in French. She answered me
in her Austrian jargon, That she did not well understand that language,
and begged I would speak to her in German. Our conversation was not
long. Her Austrian dialect and my Lower-Saxon are so different that,
till you have practised, you are not mutually intelligible in them.
Accordingly we were not. A by-stander would have split with laughing at
the Babel we made of it; each catching only a word here and there, and
guessing the rest. This Princess was so tied to her etiquette, she would
have reckoned it a crime against the Reich to speak to me in a foreign
language; for she knew French well enough.

"The Kaiser was to have been of this visit; but he had fallen so ill, he
was considered even in danger of his life. Poor Prince, what a lot had
he achieved for himself!" reflects Wilhelmina, as we often do. He was
soft, humane, affable; had the gift of captivating hearts. Not without
talent either; but then of an ambition far disproportionate to it.
"Would have shone in the second rank, but in the first went sorrowfully
eclipsed," as they say! He could not be a great