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independence and self-reliance which he so admired in the English. For
two hundred years English traditions had absolutely forbidden the
sovereign to allow his personal and family sympathies to interfere with
the interests of the country. If the House of Hohenzollern were to
aspire to the position of a national monarch it must act in the same
way. At this very time the Emperor Napoleon was discussing the Prussian
marriage with Lord Clarendon. "It will much influence the policy of the
Queen in favour of Prussia," he said. "No, your Majesty," answered the
English Ambassador. "The private feelings of the Queen can never have
any influence on that which she believes to be for the honour and
welfare of England." This was the feeling by which Bismarck was
influenced; he was trying to educate his King, and this was the task to
which for many years he was devoted. What he thought of the duties of
princes we see from an expression he uses in a letter to Manteuffel:
"Only Christianity can make princes what they ought to be, and free them
from that conception of life which causes many of them to seek in the
position given them by God nothing but the means to a life of pleasure
and irresponsibility." All his attempts to win over the King and Gerlach
to his point of view failed; the only result was that his old friends
began to look on him askance; his new opinions were regarded with
suspicion. He was no longer sure of his position in Court; his
outspokenness had caused offence; after reading his last letter, Gerlach
answered: "Your explanation only shews me that we are now far asunder";
the correspondence, which had continued for almost seven years,
stopped. Bismarck felt that he was growing lonely; he had to accustom
himself to the thought that the men who had formerly been both
politically and personally his close friends, and who had once welcomed
him whenever he returned to Berlin, now desired to see him kept at a
distance. In one of his last letters to Gerlach, he writes: "I used to
be a favourite; now all that is changed. His Majesty has less often the
wish to see me; the ladies of the Court have a cooler smile than
formerly; the gentlemen press my hand less warmly. The high opinion of
my usefulness is sunk, only the Minister [Manteuffel] is warmer and more
friendly." Something of this was perhaps exaggerated, but there was no
doubt that a breach had begun which was to widen and widen: Bismarck was
no longer a member of th