“I am deeply afflicted at not being in a position to offer my respectful greetings to your Majesty the day after to-morrow, in common with my colleagues. I can only lay before your Majesty’s feet, in writing, the heartfelt wish that, in resuming the reins of Government your Majesty may find, in God’s blessing, consolation and satisfaction for the crime and ingratitude of mankind, which must have cut as deeply into your Majesty’s heart as the wound externally inflicted. “The sudden transition from the cure at Gastein to the work in the Reichstag appears to have hindered my recovery, so that even to-day I am not as well as I was in September. But if your Majesty will be gracious enough to allow me four to six weeks’ further leave of absence and forest air, I may hope, with the help of God, that in January I can, with fresh strength, place myself at your Majesty’s disposal for the preparing the work in the Reichstag. This year, owing to the necessity for far-reaching financial and economic reforms, the proceedings in the Reichstag will be particularly laborious; and it is to be foreseen that they will be accompanied by severe struggles between the parties themselves, and against your Majesty’s Government. I do not, however, doubt that, in the financial and economic questions, the result will ultimately be favourable, if concord can be maintained in the Ministry of State and with the more important Federal Governments, and if the Ministry preserves that firmness and decision which your Majesty’s leadership has secured to us in all difficult situations, and to which, next to God, we owe all our great success. “v. Bismarck.” 6. “Friedrichsruh, _December 25, 1883_.