shed enough light to enable men to overlook such shadows! Even in cases where his policy was brilliantly successful he will not hear of acknowledging anything, as for instance the trap which he set for Napoleon in the Spanish affair. He denied the letter to Prim until I reminded him that I myself handed it to the general in Madrid, and that the world is now well aware of it through Rothan.” (So I understood the name, but perhaps he meant Grammont.) On this occasion Bucher also referred once more to his zigzag journey with Salazar and his audience with King Wilhelm at Ems. “The whole candidature of the Prince of Hohenzollern,” said Bucher, “is now represented by Bismarck as having been a purely private affair of the Court, a mere family matter, although he was obliged to confess that it was discussed at a sitting of the entire Ministry.”--I also added some reminiscences, but observed in conclusion that in spite of all that, the Chief remained the great political genius and saviour of the Germans. But he was not qualified to be a historian. He was to such a large extent the author of the history of the past decades that it might be called his history, but he did not understand how to relate it. Bucher, of course, agreed with me, and then continued his account of the last few weeks. Bismarck wanted to attend the Reichstag at all costs, in order to speak against the Commercial Treaties. It was in vain to point out to him the danger of malicious and coarse attacks from the Richter and Bebel corners of the House, and to warn him that the President would now be at liberty to call him also to order. “In that case I would answer him ironically” was the laughing reply. It was only Schweninger who succeeded in dissuading him on medical grounds.--“Hoffmann, of the _Hamburger Nachrichten_, comes every week, and prints whatever the Prince says to him, quite indifferent to the fact whether it is a well-considered statement, or the contrary.” “An old copying clerk has now been set to work on the ‘Memoirs,’ as Chrysander, to whom I dictate my notes, is overburdened with other things, and can no longer manage all the copying.” “They are to be left as a bequest to the sons, but will hardly be published by them,”--because they know that they contain too many misrepresentations of a kind which people could detect and easily disprove, and because they are full of unjust judgments on prominent personages, as, for instance, on most of the Prince’s former colleagues. At the very most, a last chapter might ultimately be published on the preliminary stages of his disgrace, and ultimate retirement. Herbert has made copious and reliable notes on this subject, in which, however, the old gentleman has made all sorts of inaccurate and false corrections. The Princess is still the same.... On my asking after the daughter, Bucher fetched a bottle of old Hungarian wine from behind the green curtain of a bookcase. Countess