I am certain that it was his reading of the campaign of 1870-1 that set this precious Wilhelm--this Emperor of the penny gaff--on his last enterprise. If one hunts up the old newspapers of 1870 one will read in every telegram from the German front of the King of Prussia and the Crown Prince marching to Victory, in the campaign started by a forgery and a lie, by that fine type of German trickery, unscrupulousness, brutality, and astuteness, Bismarck. Wilhelm could not endure the thought of the glory of his house being centred in those who had gone before him, and he chafed at the years that were passing without history repeating itself. He could with difficulty restrain himself from his attempt to dominate the world until his first-begotten was old enough to dominate the demi-monde of Paris--“Wilhelm to-day successfully stormed Le Chemin des Dames,” was the telegram that he sent to the Empress, in imitation of those sent by his grandfather to his Augusta. _Le Chemin des Dames!_--beyond a doubt his dream was to give France to his eldest, England to his second, and Russia to the third of the litter. After that, as he said to Mr. Gerard, he would turn his attention to America. That was the dream of this Bonaparte done in German silver, and now his house is left unto him desolate--unto him whose criminality, sustained by the criminal conceit of his subjects, left thousands of houses desolate for evermore. But we are now in the Garden of Peace, whose sweet savour should not be allowed to become rank by the mention of the name of the instigator of the German butcheries. There is little under my eyes in this garden to remind me of one on the Rhine where I spent a summer a good many years ago. Its situation was ideal. The island of legends, Nonnenworth, was all that could be seen from one of the garden-houses; and one of the windows in the front was arranged in small squares of glass stained, but retaining their transparency, in various colours--crimson, pink, dark blue, ultramarine, and two degrees yellow. Through these theatrical mediums we were exhorted to view the romantic island, so that we had the rare chance of seeing Nonnenworth bathed in blood, or in flames of fire. It was undoubtedly a great privilege, but I only availed myself of it once; though our host, who must have looked through those glasses thousands of times, was always to be found gazing through the flaming yellow at the unhappy isle. From the vineyard nearer the house we had the finest view of the ruins of the Drachenfels, and, on the other side of the Rhine, of Rolandseck. Godesburg was farther away, but we used to drive through the lovely avenue of cherry-trees and take the ferry to the hotel gardens where we lunched. Another of the features of the great garden of our villa was a fountain whose chief charm was found in an arrangement by which, on treading on a certain slab of stone at the invitation of our host, the uninitiated were met by a deluging squirt of water.