Williams news., 1917-09-06

powers of Europe was desperate one On the one hand, the kaiser was mak- ing pretence of fair dealing with Great Britain and France, yet on the other his agent, Herr Reitschel, was ever busy lending money in all directions in order to secure favor in Germany's in- terest.
 Yet further game was being played, namely, that while the kaiser was mak- ing pretence of being the best friend of the sultan Abdul Hamid, visiting Con- startnople and Palestine, building foun,.--'- andowing institutes, yet he was also se.- supporting the Young Turk party so as .- Feet the sultan's downfall.
 Herr Anton had been paying -n- Der of flying visits to Berlin, and Ina, many private audiences of both kaiser and sultan.
 Suddenly all of us were surprised by the announcement that the kaiser's fa- vored civilian in Turkey had married Mademoiselle Julie de Lagarenne, daughter of Paul de Lagarenne, son of the great French sugar refiner, and secretary of the French embassy at Rome. A week after that news was spread met them both in Kranzler's in Unter den Linden, and there he in- troduced me to a pretty, dark-haired, vivacious young Frenchwoman, who spoke German well, and who told me that her husband had already given in her name for presentation at the next court.
 That was about a month prior to Orville Wright's flight and the mid night visit of Frau Kleist to the em- peror.
 Truth to tell, the old woman's men, ton of Herr Reitschel's name caused me considerable misgivings, because three weeks before had gathered cer- tain strange facts from secret report of a spy, who in Constantinople had been set to watch Herr Reitschel's do- ings. That spy was Frau Kleist's son.
 The kaiser trusts nobody. Even his favorites and most intimate cronies are spied upon, and reports upon those fa- miliar blue papers are furnished regu- larly. In view of what I had read in that report from Karl Kleist, I stood amazed when, at the grand court week later, had witnessed Herr Reit- schel's French wife bow before the emperor and empress and noticed how her.
 Nearly three months passed.
 The Trip to lImenau.
 Herr Reitschel often came from Con- stantinople, and frequently brought his handsome young wife with him, for he was persona grata at court. To me this was indeed strange in view of the reports of the ex-opera dancers son who, by the way, lived in Constanti- nople in the unsuspicious guise of carpet dealer, and unknown to the bank director.
 The latter had, assisted by his wife's fortune, inherited from her grand mother, purchased the Schloss Langen- berg, the splendid ancestral castle and estates of the princes of Langenberg, situated in the beautiful Thuringian forest, and acknowledged to be one of the most famous shooting estates in the empire. It was not, therefore, sur prising that the emperor, to mark his favor, should express desire to shoot capercailzie there-a desire which, of course, delighted Herr Reitschel, who had only few days before been dec orated with the Order of the Black Eagle.
 One afternoon in midautumn the em- peror, accompanied by the crown prince and myself, together with the suite, arrived by the imperial train at the little station of nmenau, where, of course, Reitschel and his pretty wife, with the head and underforesters, and all sorts of civil officials in black coats and white ties bowed low as the all- highest stepped from his salon. The kaiser was most gracious to his host and hostess.
 The emperor had complained of slight cold, and in consequence, just before we left Berlin, I had been in- structed to summon by telegraph a cer- tain Doctor Vollerthun from Augsburg, who was a perfect stranger to us all, but who had, I supposed, been recom- mended to the emperor.
 While the emperor and his host were out shooting I remained alone in .