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The marriage with a princess of Schleswig-Holstein was not only an event of general interest from the domestic and dynastic point of view. It had also political significance, for it meant the happy close of the troubled period of Prussian dealings with those conquered territories.

A story throwing light on the young bride's character is current in connexion with her wedding. One of the hymns contained a strophe—"Should misfortune come upon us," which her friends wanted her to have omitted as striking too melancholy a note. "No," she said,

"let it be sung. I don't expect my new position to be always a bed of roses. Prince William is of the same mind, and we have both determined to bear everything in common, and thus make what is unpleasant more endurable."

Since the marriage their domestic felicity, as all the world is aware, has never been troubled, and the example thus given to their subjects is one of the surest foundations of their influence and authority in Germany. The secret of this felicity, affection apart, is to be sought for in the strong moral sense of the Emperor regarding what he owes to himself and his people, but no less perhaps in the exemplary character of the Empress. As a girl at Primkenau she was a sort of Lady Bountiful to the aged and sick on the estate, and led there the simple life of the German country maiden of the time. It was not the day of electric light and central heating and the telephone; hardly of lawn tennis, certainly not of golf and hockey; while motor-cars and militant suffragettes were alike unknown. Instead of these delights the Princess, as she then was, was content with the humdrum life of a German country mansion, with rare excursions into the great world beyond the park gates, with her religious observances, her books, her needlework, her plants and flowers, and her share in the management of the castle.

These domestic tastes she has preserved, and the saying, quoted in Germany whenever she is the subject of conversation, that her character and tastes are summed up in the four words Kaiser, Kinder, Kirche, and Küche—Emperor, children, church, and kitchen—is as true as it is compendious and alliterative. It is often assumed, especially by men, that a woman who cultivates these tastes cultivates no other. This is not as true as is often supposed of the Empress, as a journal of her voyage to Jerusalem in 1898, published on her return to Germany, goes to show. Following the traditions and example of the queens and empresses who have preceded her, she has always given liberally of her time and care, as she still does, to the most multifarious forms of charity. She has a great and intelligible pride in her clever and energetic husband, while her interest in her children is proverbial. She appears to have no ambition to exercise any influence on politics or to shine as a leader of society. Like the Emperor, she is not without a sense of humour, and is always amused by the racy Irish stories (in dialect) told her and a little circle of guests by Dr. Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin, who is a welcome guest at the palace.

The offspring of the marriage, it may be here noted, is a family of seven children—six sons and a daughter—as follows:—

Crown Prince Frederick William, born 1882

Prince Eitel Frederick " 1883

Prince Adalbert " 1884

Prince August William " 1887

Prince Oscar " 1888

Prince Joachim " 1890

Princess Victoria Louise " 1892

The Crown Prince was born on June 6th at the Marble Palace in Potsdam. He was educated at first privately by tutors, and later at the military academy at Plön, not far from Kiel. When eighteen he became of age and began his active career as an officer in the army. He is now commander of the First Regiment of Boay Guards ("Death's Head" Hussars) at Langfuhr, near Danzig, with the rank of major. He was married in June, 1905, to Cecilie, Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and is the father of four children, all boys. The Crown Princess is one of the cleverest, most popular, and most charming characters in Germany, of the brightest intelligence and the most unaffected manners. The leading trait in the Crown Prince's character is his love of sport, from big-game shooting (on which he has written a book) to lawn tennis. In May last he began to learn golf. He is personally amiable, has pleasant manners, and is highly popular with all classes of his future subjects. He is credited with ability, but is not believed to have inherited the intellectual manysidedness of his father. The only part he can be said to have taken in public life as yet is having called the imperial attention to the Maximilian Harden allegations regarding Count Eulenburg and a court "camarilla," referred to later, and having, while sitting in a gallery of the Reichstag, demonstrated by decidedly marked gestures his disagreement with the Government's Morocco policy.

Since his marriage the Emperor has more than once publicly congratulated himself on his good fortune in having such a consort as the Empress. The most graceful compliment he paid her was in her own Province of Silesia in 1890, when he said:

"The band which unites me with the Province—that of all the provinces of the Empire which is nearest to my heart—is the jewel which sparkles at my side, Her Majesty the Empress. A native of this country, a model of all the virtues of a German princess, it is her I have to thank that I am in a position joyfully to perform the onerous duties of my office."

Only the other day at Altona, after thirty years of married life, he referred to her, again in her home Province and again as she sat smiling beside him, as the

"first lady of the land, who is always ready to help the needy, to strengthen family ties, to discharge the duties of her sex, and suggest to it new aims. The Empress has bestowed a home life on the House of Hohenzollern such as Queen Louise, alone perhaps, conferred."

Queen Louise, the famous wife of Frederick William III, died in 1810 and is buried in the mausoleum at Charlottenburg, the suburb of Berlin. She has remained ever since, for the German nation, the type of womanly perfection.