German character (except for its lack of intellect) than that of Bismarck, in whom there is so much of French audacity as well as of French humor. On the other hand, I would ask my readers not to rush into wild admiration of the King of Prussia, or to suppose that liberty owes him personally any direct thanks. King William's subjects know too well that they have little to thank him for on that score. Strange as the comparison may seem at first, it is not less true that the enthusiasm now felt by Germans for the King is derived from just the same source as the early enthusiasm of Frenchmen for the first Napoleon. In each man his people see the champion who has repelled the aggression of the insolent foreigner, and has been strong enough to pursue the foreigner into his own home and there chastise him for his aggression. The blind stupidity of Austria and the crimes of Bonapartism have made King William a patriot King. When Thiers wittily and bitterly said that the Second Empire had made two great statesmen, Cavour and Bismarck, he might have said with still closer accuracy that it had made one great sovereign, William of Prussia. Never man attained such a position as that lately won by King William with less of original "outfit" to qualify him for the place. Five or six years ago the King of Prussia was as much disliked and distrusted by his own subjects as ever the Emperor of the French was by the followers of the Left. Look back to the famous days when "Bockum-Dolff's hat" seemed likely to become a symbol of civil revolution in Germany. Look back to the time when the King's own son and heir apparent, the warrior Crown Prince who since has flamed across so many a field of blood, felt called upon to make formal protest in a public speech against the illiberal, repressive, and despotic policy of his father! Think of these things, and say whether any change could be more surprising than that which has converted King William into the typical champion and patriot of Germany; and when you seek the explanation of the change, you will simply find that the worst enemies of Prussia have been unwittingly the kindest friends and the best patrons of Prussia's honest and despotic old sovereign.