the marriage of
his son Herbert.

The wedding of the latter to Countess Marguerite Hoyos was to take
place in Vienna on June 21, 1892, and on the 18th Prince Bismarck
started with his family to attend it. The journey was a species of
triumphal progress to Vienna, but it was to end in disappointment and
chagrin. As the result of representations from Germany, made doubtless
with the Emperor's assent, if not at his suggestion, Bismarck was met
on his arrival with the news that the German Ambassador, Prince Reuss,
and the Embassy staff had orders to absent themselves from the
wedding, that the widow of the Crown Prince Rudolph, who had accepted
a card of invitation to it, had suddenly left Vienna, and that the
Emperor Franz Joseph would not receive him. The German action was
explained by the publication two months later of the edict,
stigmatized by Bismarck as an "Urias Letter," in which Caprivi warned
foreign Governments against attaching any importance to the utterances
of the Duke of Lauenburg. The Bismarckian and anti-Bismarckian storm
came up afresh in Germany. Bismarck was reproached by the Government
as "injuring monarchical feeling," and by his enemies as a traitor to
his country; while the angry statesman published a statement
expressing the opinion that

"the control of private social intercourse abroad, and the
influencing of dinner invitations, were not tasks for which
high officers of State were selected nor public money for
the payment of diplomatic representatives voted":

doubting, at the same time, "if the foreign archives of any other
country than Germany could show a parallel to the incident."

The storm, notwithstanding, had a good effect, for it brought out in
bold relief the immense regard and respect the overwhelming majority
of his countrymen entertained for the chief architect of their Empire;
and when Bismarck fell ill at Kissingen in 1893 the Emperor,
subordinating his political animosities to the chivalrous instincts of
his nature, telegraphed his sorrow to the patient and offered to lend
him one of the royal castles for the purpose of his convalescence.
Bismarck declined, but not ungratefully, and the way to a
reconciliation was opened. Next year, 1894, Bismarck suffered from
influenza, and when this time the Emperor sent an adjutant to
Friedrichsruh to express his regret, invited him to attend the
festivities on the forthcoming royal birthday, and sent along with the