With one exception, all the articles collected in this book have been
taken from Madame Adam's "Letters on Foreign Politics" in _La Nouvelle
Revue_. Together they constitute a remarkable testimony to the
political foresight and courage of _la grande Française_, and an
equally remarkable analysis of the policy and character of Germany's
ruler.





AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Modesty is out of fashion nowadays: what is wanted is the glorification
of every kind of courage. That being so, I hold myself entitled to
claim a Military Cross, for my forty-five years of hand-to-hand
fighting with Bismarck and with William the Second, and to be mentioned
in despatches for the past.

JULIETTE ADAM.




CHAPTER I

1890


William II, the "Social Monarch"--What lies beneath his declared