The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1917-09-01

powers of Europe was a desperate one.
On the one hand, the kaiser was max
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 a further game was being played.
namely, that while the kaiser was maxi
ing p%retence of being the best friend Of
the sultan Abdul Hamid, visiting Con-
stantinople and Palestine, building
fountains, endowing institutes, yet he
was also secretly supporting the Young
Turk party so as to effect the sultan's
downfall.
Herr Anton had been paying a num-
Der of flying visits to Berlin, and had
many private audiences of both kaiser
and sultan.
Suddenly all of us were surprised by
the announcement that the kaiser's ia
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 1t
Rome. A week after that news was
spread l met them both in Kranzler's
in Inter 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 en-
peror.
Truth to tell, the old woman's men,
ton of Herr R~eitschel's name caused
me considerable misgivings, because
three weeks before I had gathered GER
tain strange facts from a 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
PDiNu dpob} III lCpollo upOu lllOSS Id
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 a
week later, / had witnessed Herr Reit-
schel's French wife bow before the
emperor and empress and noticed how
graciously the kaiser had smiled upon
her.
Nearly three months passed.
The Trip to IImenau.
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 CONSTANT
nople in the unsuspicious guise Of a
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 n of
the most famous shooting estates In
the empire. 1t was not, therefore, sur
prising that the emperor, to mark his
favor, should express a desire to shoot
capercailzie there-a desire which, of
course, delighted Herr Reitschel, who
had only a few days before been dec
grated with the Order of the Black
Eagle.
One afternoon in midautumn the en-
peror, accompanied by the crown
prince and myself, together with the
suite, arrived by the imperial train at
the little station of nlmenau, 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 a
slight cold, and in consequence, just
before we left Berlin, / had been in
structed to summon by telegraph a GER
tain Doctor Vollerthun from Augsburg,
who was a perfect stranger to us all,
but who had, I supposed, been recon-
mended to the emperor.
While the emperor and his host were
out shooting / remained alone in a