emel for three years after the
battle of Jena, won the Iron Cross at the age of seventeen in the war
with Napoleon in 1814, took part in the entry of the Allies into
Paris, and devoted himself thenceforward, until he became King of
Prussia in 1861, chiefly to the reorganization of the army. For a year
during the troubled times of 1848 he was forced to take refuge in
England, from whence he returned to live quietly at Coblenz until
called to the Regency of Prussia in 1858. He was the Grand Master of
Prussian Freemasonry. The attempts on his life in Berlin in 1878 by
the anarchists Hoedel and Nobiling are still spoken of by eye-witnesses
to them. Both attempts were made within a period of three weeks while
the King was driving down Unter den Linden, and on both occasions
revolver shots were fired at him. Hoedel's attempt failed, but in view
of Socialist agitation, the would-be assassin was beheaded (the
practice still in Prussia) a few weeks later. Pellets from Nobiling's
weapon struck the King in the face and arm, and disabled him from work
for several weeks. The political events of the reign, including the
Seven Weeks' War with Austria in 1866, which ended at Sadowa, where
King William was in chief command, and that with France in 1870, when
he was present as Commander-in-Chief at Gravelotte and Sedan, are
frequently referred to by Bismarck in his "Gedanke und Erinnerungen,"
and to these the reader may be referred.

The high and amiable character of the old Emperor, as he became after
1870, is common knowledge. He was a thoroughgoing Hohenzollern in his
views of monarchy and his relations to his folk, but he was at the
same time the type of German chivalry, the essence of good nature, the
soul of honour, and the slave of duty. He was extremely fond of his
grandson, Prince William, and it is clear from the latter's speeches
subsequently that the affection was ardently reciprocated.

Of Emperor William, Bismarck writes in the highest terms, describing
his "kingly courtesy," his freedom from vanity, his impartiality
towards friend and foe alike; in a word, he says, Emperor William was
the idea "gentleman" incorporated. On the other hand, Bismarck tells
how the old Emperor all his life long stood in awe of his consort, the
Empress Augusta, Bismarck's great enemy and the clearing-house
(_Krystallisationspunkt_), as he describes her, of all the opposition
against him; and how the Emperor used to speak of her as "the
hot-hea