The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-01-18
THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE.

the age, we are apprlsed by the oorrespon-
dents, occurred on the 18th of December
last, at Versailles, that superb palace which
Louis XIV. had erected at an almost
boundless expense, wrung from the labor
of an impoverished and misgoverned peo-
pie. On that day the representatives of
united Germany waited upon King Will
liam, of Prussia, to offer him Crown
Imperial. Two centuries ago, lsays
writer in the Philadelphia Press, who
seems to be thoroughly informed in Ger
man history,) when Jules Hardouin Man
sard was constructing Versailles, and be-
fore he had constructed the water-works
of Marty to supply its fountains, Prussia
did not exist as kingdom, for Frederic l.
who assumed the crown in 1901, was only
Elector of Brandenburg.
AT this moment the Prussian prince is the
most powerful potentate in Europe. He
may be said to have conquered Fortune
rather by the goodness of his cause, the
wisdom of his councillors, the conduct of
his generals, the valor of his army, and
the blunders and errors of his enemies,
than by any great capacity of bis own:
He has been patient and persistent, even
when his own subjects misunderstood and
resisted him, and now has como the end.
The electorate of Brandenburg has ex-
banded into the empire of Germany.
On the memorable day in question,
when the representatives of the Reichstag,
or Parliament of the German Confedera-
ton of princes and peoples, waited upon
King William at Versailles, the president
of this representative body was DR.. SIM
son. who, in. 1913, had also been the
official who, in the name of the Frankfort
Parliament, offered the Imperial name and
sway to him, then Crown Prince, and now
King, who refused it then because the pear
was not ripe, and accepts it now because it
is. The hour and the man have arrived.
and Germany united and free, having dug
the crown of Barbarossa from the debris
under which it had been hidden for GEN.
turtles, now offers it to a prince of the
Hohenzolern line.
In Versailles, where the later Bourbon
princes had lived and revealed where the
treaties of Utrecht, of Ryswick, and of
Nimeguen had been devised where, in
1914, and again in 1916, William of Prus-
sia, then in his teens, had accompanied his
father, one of the conquerors of Paris
where are the headquarters of the German
army WHICH he created in that Versailles
where Louis lived like Sardanapalus, this
simple-mannered and almost austere
prince gave audience to German embassy
which prayed him to accept the title of
Emperor. History has told us by
what ingenious man@uvring and ma
chinery the two Napoleons, uncle
and nephew, contrived that venal officials
should appear to offer them the diadem
and sceptre, and by what manipulation of
the pls6iscite it was made to appear as if
France had called them to the throne but
here was an aged man, who, so far from
soliciting Or intriguing for the imperial
dignity, left it doubtful, for time, whe-
ther he would accept. However, the re-
ply, brief and simple, was that for the
sake of that Germany which he loved SO
well, the soltlier-king would accept the
responsibility of the position rendered to
him.
When peace returns, Emperor William
will doubtless be installed with dignity
and grandeur. Already has come a request
from (the formerly free town off Frank
fort on-the-Main, the former seat of the
German Diet, to the effect that the corona
ton OF the Emperor shall take place in
her Cathedral. 1t will be remembered
that in the Election Chapel (Wablkapelle)
the former chiefs of "the Holy Roman
Empire" were chosen, and that forty-six
princes, so elected, were afterwards crown
I'd in front of the high altar of the Cathe-
1ral. Still in the Town Hall of that ancient
,ity remains the banqueting-room, or Kali
jersaal, in which each new Emperor was
waited on by kings and |
there, in that irregular,
homboid-shaped apartment, hang the
portraits of fifty-two German Caesars in
from Conrad l. to Francis II.
nasmuch as neither King William, nor
ret Count Bismarck, is stickler for the
I'D feudalism which lay so long ar d so
heavily, like an incubus, upon the heart
# Germany, it is not improbable that,
lnder the nav order Of things, the corona
ion will take place 10 Berlin, now the
ctual capital Of the empire. 1t may be
.ssumed, too, that in accordance with the
nipple, almost homely, manners and
astes of the new Emperor, the nu-
aerous officials, with high-sounding
tiles, who crowded around the former
,@sars of Germany, will be dispensed with
nder the new regime. In 1904, when
Napoleon Bonaparte assumed the crown,
e adopted, from the then existing Ger
han empire, numerous and costly corps