yalists the keenest pain, for the
injury done to the strong monarchical feeling of the Prussian people
in the person and the conduct of Frederick William IV was not to be
estimated. Only the simple heroic greatness and the paternal dignity of
an Emperor William could have repaired it.

In the year preceding the revolution there had been a bad harvest,
and frightful stories were told of famine in the weaving districts
of Silesia. Even before Virchow, in his free-spoken work on the
famine-typhus, had faithfully described the full misery of those
wretched sufferers, it had become apparent to the rulers in Berlin that
something must be done to relieve the public distress.

The king now began to realize distinctly the universal discontent, and
in order to meet it and still further demands he summoned the General
Assembly.

I remember distinctly how fine our mother thought the speech with which
he opened that precursor of the Prussian Chambers, and the address
showed him in fact to be an excellent orator.

To him, believing as he did with the most complete conviction in
royalty by the grace of God and in his calling by higher powers, any
relinquishing of his prerogative would seem like a betrayal of his
divine mission. The expression he uttered in the Assembly in the course
of his speech--"I and my people will serve the Lord"--came from the very
depths of his heart; and nothing could be more sincerely meant than the
remark, "From one weakness I know myself to be absolutely free: I do not
strive for vain public favour. My only effort is to do my duty to the
best of my knowledge and according to my conscience, and to deserve the
gratitude of my people, though it should be denied me."

The last words have a foreboding sound, and prove what is indeed evident
from many other expressions--that he had begun to experience in his own
person the truth of the remark he had made when full of hope, and hailed
with joyful anticipations at his coronation--"The path of a king is full
of sorrow, unless his people stand by him with loyal heart and mind."

His people did not do that, and it was well for them; for the path
indicated by the royal hand would have led them to darkness and to the
indignity of ever-increasing bondage, mental and temporal.

The prince himself is entitled to the deepest sympathy. He wished to do
right, and was endowed with great and noble gifts which would have done
honour to a private individual, but could not