the Emperor spoke, besought him not to tire himself by talking. "I
have no time to be tired," he murmured, in a flicker of the sense of
duty which had been a lifelong feature of his character, and a few
hours later he passed quietly away. The funeral, headed by Prince
William and the Knights of the Black Eagle, took place on the 20th.
The new Emperor Frederick, who had hurried from San Remo on receiving
news of the Emperor's condition, was too ill to join it, but stood
behind a closed window of his palace and saluted as the coffin went
by.

The incidents of the Emperor Frederick's ascent of the throne, the
amnesty and liberal-minded proclamations to his people, and in
particular the heroic resignation with which he bore his fate, are
events of common knowledge. One of them was the so-called Battenberg
affair. Queen Victoria desired a marriage between Princess Victoria,
the present Emperor's sister, then aged twenty-two, and Prince
Alexander of Battenberg, at that time Prince of Bulgaria, so as to
secure him against Russia by an alliance with the imperial house of
Germany. Prince Bismarck objected on the ground that the marriage
would show Germany in an unfriendly light at St. Petersburg, and might
subject a Prussian princess to the risk of expulsion from Sofia.
Another account is that the Chancellor feared an increase of English
influence at the German Court with the Prince of Bulgaria as its
channel. In any case, the result of the Chancellor's opposition was to
place the sick Emperor in a delicate and painful situation. It was
ended by his yielding to the Chancellor's representations, and the
marriage did not come off.

Meanwhile, the Emperor's malady was making fatal progress. The Shadow
was growing darker and more formidable. A season of patiently-borne