Omaha daily bee., 1918-11-10
Historic Versailles
Scene of. HohenzolIern Rise
y and Fall
BROOKLYN Eagle.

Versailles, where LOUIS AlN CdIileu dooo4u
tism to its highest point, where bolsheviklsm
first snarled at autocracy in 1889, where William
the First was proclaimed German emperor IN
1871, when the doom of the Hohenzollerns is
being pronounced today What theme tor
poet and historian Versailles!
No American who visits Paris fails to visit
Versailles. 1t is the incarnation OF the glory
that was Frances in the days OF Le Rol Soieil,
of Marie Antoinette, of Louis XVI. Its gar
dens are as beautiful in formal way as any in
the world its enormous palace is unrlvaled in
massive splendor.
And today the worlds leaders meeting
there to pronounce sentence against the central
empires at the close of the worlds greatest war.
1t was at Versailles that the armistlce OF 1888
which preceded the peace treaty between Eng
land and the United States was framed. 1t is
at Versailles that the United States and Eng
land, as brothers in arms and in purpose, are
preparing the foundations of new world wade
safe for democracy" at last.
No city has witnessed so much splendor,
none has incarnated in like degree the glories
of a royal dynasty the pomp and circumstance
with which autocracy enforces reverence from
a deluded people And by one of those master
same Versailles, whose glittering glory ntoxi-
Gated the autocrats of France whose Hall of
Mirrors launched Hohenzollernism into grum-
bling world, is the same Versailles which era
died French republicanism and where there is
now building the new order which will rid the
world of autocratic rule.
Libraries are filled with books detailing the
events which have occurred at Versailles The
famous Court Memoirs of the seventh and eigh-
teenth centuries deal largely with the intrigues
and scandals, the plots and camarillas, the fads
and festivals which spiced the lives of those
residing within the precincts of the Versailles
palaces. Some of the best pages of Carlyles
French Revolution" deal with the memorable
events that occurred in and without the palace
during the memorable October days of 1889.
Here are a few paragraphs from his description
of these memorable days:
eyes, friends, hideous, fearful hour, shame
full alike to governed and governor, wherein
governed and governor ANONYMOUSLY testify
that their relation is at an end Rage, rage,
which had brewed itself in 10000 hearts for the
last four and twenty hours, has taken fire; Jer-
ONES Drained corpse lies there as live coal.
1t is, as we said, the infinite elements bursting
in, wild-surging through all corridors and con-
Quits.
But glance now for moment from the
royal windows! roaring sea of human heads,
inundating both courts, bllowing against all
passages; Menadc women; infuriated men, mad
with revenge, with love of mischief, love of
plumber! Rascaty has slipped its muzzle, and
now bays, three throated, like the Dog of Ere
bus
Now too, is witnessed the touching last
flicker Of etiquet, which sinks not here, in the
Cimmerian world-wreckage, without sign, as
the house cricket might still chirp in the peal
ing of Trump of Doom. Monsieur said
some master of ceremonies Zone hopes it might
be De Breze), as Lafayette, in these fearful mo-
ments, was rushing toward the inner royal
apartments, Monsieur lie Ro vous accorde les
grandes entrees-Monseur, the king grants you
the grand entries'-not finding it convenient to7
refuse them!"
Scenes akin to these have already been wit
messed at the Winter palace in Petrograd and
may soon recur at Schoenbrunn and Potsdam,
arising this time from the verdict of demo-
cratic body now in session in the Petit Trianon
on the Versailles palace grounds.
No one who has Travelled in Germany has
failed to see numerous reproductions of the ia
nous historical painting which depicts the cor
onation of the first Hohenzollern as German
emperor in the Hall of Mirrors of the Versailles
palace. Versailles was the headquarters of the
German army during the siege of Paris and
provided well-gilded setting for the corona ton
ceremony The great question in connection
with the event was the exact title which Will
liam the First would assume, whether he would
become German emperor, as Bismarck insisted,
or emperor of Germany, as he himself desired
A paragraph in Bismarck's Memoirs tells the
outcome:
"Ths condition of affairs (William Is in
sistence that he must be crowned as emperor
of Germany, towhich title all the other German
rulers took strong exception) induced me to
hunt up the grand duke of Baden on the morn
ing of the coronation ceremony. He was to be
the first to speak after the reading of the i'm
perial proclamation, and l desired to ask him
how he would address the new emperor He
replied: AS emperor of Germany, according
to the orders of his majesty The most ap-
pealing argument that his concluding cheers for
the emperor could not be called for in that form
which | was able to present was that the text
Of the future constitution was already fixed by
decision of the Reichstag in Berlin. This APP
peal to his respect for constitutional form in
duced him to hunt up the king once more What
was said between the two gentlemen I did not
learn, and l was rather tense with expectation
while the proclamation was being read
THE grand duke avoided the issue and did
not call for cheers for the German emperor or
for the emperor of Germany, but for Emperor
William. His majesty was so much put out
over the issue of the controversy that when he
stepped down from the raised dias reserved for
the rulers he passed the place where was
standing in the cleared space in the foreground,
completely ignoring me and shaking hands with
the generals who were standing behind me.
This attitude he maintained for several days,
and it was only gradually that we got back on
our oil dterms"
1t is the grandson of this first Hohenzolern
emperor who is now anxiously awaiting sentence
at the hands of the world court sitting in this
same Versailles. 1t was according to the
grandiloquent proclamation of 1871, "by the
grace of God and the will of his fellow princes"
that William I became German emperor 1t
will be by the grace of God and the will of the
princes of democracy that William II must re-