Though out of office, his personal influence continued very great both at Munich and Berlin and had not a little to do with favourable terms of the treaty of the North German Confederation with Bavaria, which embodied his views, and with its acceptance by the Bavarian parliament.[2] Elected a member of the German Reichstag, he was on the 23rd of March 1871 chosen one of its vice-presidents, and was instrumental in founding the new groups which took the name of the Liberal Imperial party (_Liberale Reichspartei_), the objects of which were to support the new empire, to secure its internal development on Liberal lines, and to oppose clerical aggression as represented by the Catholic Centre. Like the duke of Ratibor, Hohenlohe was from the first a strenuous supporter of Bismarck's anti-papal policy, the main lines of which (prohibition of the Society of Jesus, &c.) he himself suggested. Though sympathizing with the motives of the Old Catholics, however, he realized that they were doomed to sink into a powerless sect, and did not join them, believing that the only hope for a reform of the Church lay in those who desired it remaining in her communion.[3] In 1872 Bismarck proposed to appoint Cardinal Hohenlohe Prussian envoy at the Vatican, but his views were too much in harmony with those of his family, and the pope refused to receive him in this capacity.[4] In 1873 Bismarck chose Prince Hohenlohe to succeed Count Harry Arnim as ambassador in Paris, where he remained for seven years. In 1878 he attended the congress of Berlin as third German representative, and in 1880, on the death of Bernhardt Ernst von Bulow (October 20), secretary of state for foreign affairs, he was called to Berlin as temporary head of the Foreign Office and representative of Bismarck during his absence through illness. In 1885 he was chosen to succeed Manteuffel as governor of Alsace-Lorraine. In this capacity he had to carry out the coercive measures introduced by the chancellor in 1887-1888, though he largely disapproved of them;[5] his conciliatory disposition, however, did much to reconcile the Alsace-Lorrainers to German rule. He remained at Strassburg till October 1894, when, at the urgent request of the emperor, he consented, in spite of his advanced years, to accept the chancellorship in succession to Caprivi. The events of his chancellorship belong to the general history of Germany (q.v.); as regards the inner history of this time the editor of his memoirs has very properly suppressed the greater part of the detailed comments which the prince left behind him. In general, during his term of office, the personality of the chancellor was less conspicuous in public affairs than in the ease of either of his predecessors. His appearances in the Prussian and German parliaments were rare, and great independence was left to the secretaries of state. What influence the tact and experience of Hohenlohe exercised behind the scenes on the masterful will and