On such an occasion, after the
remarks on "justice and equity," which he made on board the _Pothuau_,
the hot-headed Emperor was bound to deliver himself in some such strain.

The next toast was that which he proposed at Hamburg in honour of King
Humbert and Queen Marguerita. This one is emphatic and at the same
time gracious, for William II cultivates every style and all the arts.
On this occasion the King of Prussia, Emperor of Germany, referred as
usual to the solidity of the Triple Alliance and to the mandate which
it has assumed for the preservation of peace. He spoke as the grandson
of William I. King Humbert replied as the grandson of Victor Emmanuel
(_sic_), skilfully gliding over the question of the indissoluble nature
of the Triple Alliance and reminding his hearers that Germany has no
monopoly in the pursuit of peace, but that all the Governments of
Europe are equally concerned in endeavouring to attain it.

A movement is taking shape in Italy, full of danger and of promise, as
events will prove. The clericals and the republicans have sketched the
outline of an understanding, which looks as if it might be approved by
Leo XIII. The danger of this union between the parties will lead King
Humbert back to a more national, a more peninsular, policy. The strong
opposition that it has to face is useful, in that it will oblige the
country's rulers to pay more attention to home affairs and to the
nation's interests than to the glorification of the dynasty.

September 28, 1897. [16]

"Germany is the enemy," Skobeleff used to say at Paris in 1882,
speaking to the younger generation of Slavs in the Balkans. These
prophetic words were inspired in the hero of Plevna by Germany's
intrigues at the Berlin Congress, intricate intrigues, full of menace
for the future of the East. They should have haunted the spirit of
every chancellery ever since, and become the formula around and about
which European diplomacy should have organised its forces to resist
Prussia's invading tendencies.

Until 1870 the liberal, philosophic, learned and federalist genius of
Germany, was spreading all over the world through its literature,
science, poetry and music, a genius whose attitude and equilibrium were
the fruit of an equal fusion of the mind of North Germany with that of
the South. By the victories and conquest of 1870, this genius became
suddenly and entirely absorbed in Prussian militarism, and has now
grown to be a fo