peace. This has given me great pleasure and happiness.

"Give my regards to Galimberti and lay my respects at the
feet of the Pope.

"Thy devoted nephew,

"WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA."

With his future subjects Prince William was brought into close
relations only in a very limited way. No one, save perhaps Bismarck,
seems to have known or suspected his true character and aims. This was
natural enough, since it is not until a man comes to occupy some
influential or prominent position that the public begins to take an
interest in him. His father would be Emperor before him, and fate
might have it that he himself would not live to come to the throne.
Royal highnesses are not uncommon in a country with such a feudal
history and so many courts as Germany. The young Prince, moreover, was
never, to use a phrase of to-day, in the limelight. He was never
involved in a notorious scandal. He had not, as his eldest son, the
present Crown Prince, has, published a book. He was more or less
absorbed in the army, the early grave of so many dawning talents. And
there was no newspaper press devoted to chronicling the doings and
sayings of the fashionable world of his time. His natural abilities
would doubtless have secured him reputation and success in any sphere
of life, but, as he himself would probably be the first to admit, much
of his fame, and even much of his merit, is due to the splendid
opportunities afforded him by his birth and position.

At the same time it is obvious that if his people at this period had