William sees himself. When he draws you a picture, in which he brings
God face to face with himself, there is about him a certain splendour of
pride, something in his utterance that suggests an Imperial Lucifer. But
beyond these relations between God and the German Emperor, his utterances
reveal nothing beyond commonplace self-conceit. In his perpetual and
personal contact with the Divinity, William's morality becomes more
exacting than even that of God Himself towards His saints, who have long
enjoyed His sanction to sin seven times a day. William II will not allow
of a single sin. Everywhere and in everything he must interfere. Well
may his subjects say, who have just received their catechism: "He is on
heaven, on earth, and within us."



January 1, 1892. [18]

I, who have so long been devoted to the Franco-Russian Alliance, have
followed with acute distress the intrigues of Bismarck in Bulgaria
(intrigues of which the _Nouvelle Revue_ revealed one proof in the
letters of Prince Ferdinand of Coburg to the Countess of Flanders). I
have known that William, in spite of his actual dislike for the
proceedings of his ex-Chancellor, is pleased to approve the impertinences
of a Stamboulof. Nevertheless, I confess I am seized with anxiety at
seeing France enter into diplomatic proceedings with the so-called
Government of Bulgaria. It is very often more dignified to despise and
ignore the enterprises of certain people, then to endeavour to obtain
satisfaction from them. There are certain complicated circumstances in
which the manifestation of a sense of honour or loyalty becomes a
weakness: at all costs one should avoid being led into it.