This drawing-room is used for receptions, but sometimes the Chancellor also dines here with his family. This reminds me of a characteristic remark of his. On the 6th of April, 1878, I had the honour to be invited to dine with him. Having in the course of the conversation referred to himself as an “old man,” the Princess remonstrated: “Why, you are only sixty-three!” He replied: “Yes, but I have always lived at high pressure, and paid hard cash for everything.” (_Ja, aber ich habe immer schnell und baar gelebt._) Then, turning to me, he added: “Hard cash--that means that I have always put my whole heart into my work: I have paid with my strength and my health for whatever has been achieved.” The German people should be grateful to him for this, instead of allowing themselves to be represented in the Reichstag by men who in their vanity and self-will vie with each other in ingratitude. The Chinese Salon is about twenty-two paces in length by twelve in breadth, and has three folding doors. One of these opens into the dining-room, another into the second antechamber mentioned above, and the third into the billiard-room, which also looks out on the Wilhelmstrasse. The latter is of the same depth as the room just described, and is about three paces less in length. This room is full of historic memories, the spirit of decisive conferences. The decisive interview with the “Duke of Schleswig-Holstein” took place here in 1864, at which he, with his tenacious self-seeking and narrow-mindedness, suddenly found himself transformed into a modest “Hereditary Prince of Augustenburg.” In the last month preceding the war of 1866 the walls of this chamber listened to a fateful exchange of views between Herr von Bismarck and the Austrian Minister. Some time afterwards Prince Napoleon was received here; and in the spring of 1870 the slight figure of Benedetti might be observed waiting in this room for the Minister with whom he was to enter into negotiations. If we now pass through the folding doors which open opposite those leading into the Chinese Salon, we find ourselves in the Chancellor’s study, a room about eleven paces long by ten broad.