"It is always a pleasure to me when on such occasions I can
convince myself of the Christian disposition of the imperial
family. In our for the most part unbelieving age this family
seems to me like an oasis in the desert."

Prince Hohenlohe was succeeded as Chancellor by Prince von Buelow, who
had held the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for the
preceding two years, and practically conducted the Emperor's foreign
policy during that time. He had served as Secretary of Embassy in St.
Petersburg, Vienna, and Athens, was a Secretary to the Congress of
Berlin, fought in the war with France and after seven years as
Minister in Bucharest spent four years as Ambassador in Rome. Here he
married a divorced Italian lady, the Countess Minghetti. After acting
as deputy Foreign Secretary for the late Baron Marschall von
Bieberstein, he was appointed permanent Foreign Secretary, and on
October 17, 1900, was called by the Emperor to the most responsible
post in the Empire next to his own, that of Imperial Chancellor. The
Emperor's choice was fully justified, for the new Chancellor proved
himself to be the most brilliant diplomatist and parliamentarian since
Bismarck.

IX

THE NEW CENTURY

1900-1901

German writers, commenting on the turn of the century, claim to
discover a change in the Emperor's character about this period. He has
lost much of his imaginative, his Lohengrin, vein, and has become more
practical, more prosaic and matter-of-fact. To use the German word, he
is now a _Realpolitiker_, one who deals in things, not words or
theories, and drawing his gaze from the stars makes them dwell more
attentively on the immediate practical considerations of the world
about him. His nature has not changed, of course, nor his manner, but
he has begun to see that he must employ means and ways different from
those he employed previously. He has not become a Bismarck, for he
still pursues his aims more in the spirit of the colonel of a regiment
leading his men to the attack with banners flying, drums beating,
swords rattling in their scabbards and mailed gauntlets held
threateningly aloft, than in that of the cool and calculating
politician ruminating in his closet on the tactics of his opponents,
and deliberating how best to meet and confound them; but he gives more
thought to what is going on about him, to party politics, to the
economic necessities of the hour, and to modern science a