During the years 1873 to 1875 I edited the _Hannoverscher Courier_. I then returned to Leipzig, where I was chiefly engaged on the _Grenzboten_, which was published there. At first my connection with the Foreign Office was not very close, and I only occasionally applied to it for information, which always reached me through Bucher, as arranged. At the end of May or the beginning of June, 1873, the latter wrote me that MacMahon was causing a great deal of work, so that he had been engaged until late at night on the three holidays. A few weeks later it seemed to me that there were signs of an approaching crisis, and I accordingly begged him to let me know how I could best serve the Chief in my paper. On the 27th of June I received the following answer:-- “Honoured Friend,--I have succeeded, during the last half hour before the departure for Varzin, in smuggling your letter of the 25th into the Chief’s hands. Here is his answer:-- “‘The most timely topic is the friction to which I am subjected, and which has undermined my health. We have the traditions of absolutism existing side by side with the constitutional machine, and, since 1866, in duplicate. The absolute King has the will, or at least imagines that he has, to decide everything for himself. He was formerly, and still is, however, practically restricted by the lack of indispensable knowledge, and the consequent independence of the departments which sometimes takes the shape of passive resistance (to the Chancellor). The State and Imperial Diets also want to determine what is to be done. And then there are Court influences. The members of the Reichstag are utterly exhausted, and yet they call upon the Ministers, who are no less exhausted than themselves, to immediately set about preparing Bills for the next Session. In the last resort, all the friction arising from this complicated machinery falls upon the main wheel, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor.’