The Washington herald., 1915-03-21

the sword of the victor: and her ply
stefan sighed: Never did Queen
The peace OF Tilsit cut Prussia in
two and left the HohenZollerns with
only half the kingdom bequeathed to
them by Frederick the Great less than
twenty years before. For three years
and more Louise remained in exile
from her capital while Napoieon's
were the darkest years in the history
of the kingdom. when the queen and
her children were reduced to palmer
fare than some of her subjects in the
towns of her sojourn. She parted with
the family plate that il might be coin
ed into money for the empty treasury
of the nation and she sold her dia-
monds. She kept only her pearls: for
pearls" she said. "betoken tears, and
/. have shed so many of them" But
Where those tears fell new Prus-
took root.
The Storm of '4s.
Louise's husband. with a miniature
of her next his heart, continued on
the throne thirty years afDr her
death. when her eldest son succeeded
as Frederick William ". the mild
eyed side whiskered statue next in
line in the Sieges Alice. Upon his
reign. after quarter of century of
reaction and repression throughout
Europe following Napoleon's over
revolution of 1918 burst. Although the
people. not the princes. had broken
the letters of the Corsican. they had
been denied all share in the fruits of
their victory. the Kings. with princely
indifference to their obligations. hav
ing violated the pledges to establish
constitutional and representative gov
eminent.
Perhaps now for the first and only
time since Frederick lronteeth, the
HohenzoIlcrns turned their guns on
ba and stained the q
of their capital with the blood of their
subjects. Out of the smoke of that
conflict. however. came a constitu-
ton and a legislature for Prussia. At
last the Hohenzollerns had admitted
the people to a voice in the govern
ment and amended their cherished
dogma of absolute rule by right di-
vine.
1t was this same king who discover
ed in an obscure. carousing, duelling,
red-nosed. unkempt country squire:
his coat and his silk hat on the back
of his head. the raw material of the
great iron chancellor. Bismarck then
was ignorant of both French and Eng
lish and without any training in di-
plomacy. The courtiers and old diplo-
mats were greatly shocked by the ap-
pointment of such man to he the
Prussian minister of the national leg
islative body of all the German states.
which then held it's useless sessions at
Erankf,ort, The big monument nun to the
.
therefore, is also q monument to the
king.
The Old xAi.er.
Frederick Williams mind began to
give way five years before his death.
in 1861; the only instance of the kind
in all this sculptured row of clear
eyed, square-headed Hohenzollern
rulers. The demented king being child
less, his younger brother, William, was
his heir and as such exercised a re-
gency for three years before he be-
saH UnbaSzo,iarn Wv NE LAM e.. u,.,-
come to the throne than William /.
Those who recOllect the affectionate
popularity that he enjoyed in the latter
half Of his reign cannot conceive Of the
rage against him at the time of his
crowning. The people believed that 1t
was he who had ordered the first shots
fired at the revolutionists of 1S4s So
furious was the feeling against him that
he accepted the advice of the King and
fed the country. /After the revolution