good deal about the recent crisis. He says the cause of the
breach between the Emperor and Chancellor was a question of
power, and that all other differences of opinion about
social legislation and other things were only secondary. The
chief ground was the Cabinet Order of 1852, which Bismarck
pressed on the attention of the Ministers without the
Emperor's knowledge, and so hindered them from going to make
their reports to the Emperor. The Emperor wanted the Order
rescinded, while Bismarck was against it. Nor had the
conversation with Windthorst led to the breach. A talk
between the Emperor and Bismarck about this conversation is
said to have been so tempestuous that the Emperor
subsequently said when describing it, 'He (Bismarck) all but
threw the inkstand at me.'" To Hohenlohe Bismarck said, as
Hohenlohe remarked that the resignation had surprised him,
"Me also," and that three weeks before he did not think
things would end as they had. Bismarck added: "However, it
was to be expected, for the Emperor is now quite determined
to rule alone."

Finally the Prince's Journal has the following:

"Two things struck me in these last three days: one that no
one has any time and every one is in a greater hurry than
before; and secondly, that individualities have expanded.
Every individual is conscious of himself, while before,
under the predominating influence of Prince Bismarck,
individualities shrank and were kept down. Now they are all
swollen like sponges placed in water. That has its
advantages, but also its dangers. The single-minded will is
lacking."

The period between the great Chancellor's fall and his death nine
years later was marked by so many incidents as to make it almost as
_mouvemente_ as the period of the fall itself. He retired to
Friedrichsruh, all the more immediately as the new Chancellor, General
von Caprivi, showed such indecent haste in taking possession of the
official residence that a portion of Bismarck's furniture was broken
and rendered useless. That Bismarck retired with the angry feelings of
a Coriolanus in his heart, or, as Anglo-Saxon slang would have it, of
a "bear with a sore head," became evident only a few weeks later. He
was visited by the inevitable interviewer, and chose the _Hamburg
News_ as the medium of communicating to the world his opinion