* * * * * Referring to the events of the last summer, the attempted assassination of the Emperor William I., and his own Regency, the Crown Prince remarks: "My best thanks, though late, for your welcome and sympathetic letter in June. You felt with us what a heavy blow had fallen on us all, and rejoiced with us over the recovery of the dear Emperor, whom I found wonderfully well at Cassel and Baden. His freshness and mobility, his memory and spirits are completely restored. Yet those who see him daily, say that mental exertion still tires him easily, and that he is therefore very willing to avoid it. His resumption of official duties is thus postponed still further, so that I shall probably not be free from this burden until December on his return from Wiesbaden to Berlin!... "A few days ago we bade farewell to Henry for two years. Seldom has a separation fallen so heavily on my heart as this. He proceeds round Cape Horn _viâ_ Rio, and will then join his station in Japan. "William has just returned from England and Scotland; he met Charlotte and Bernard in Paris, where they amused themselves immensely in the strictest incognito.... "My wife and I are tolerably well in spite of these troublous times, which in less than half a year have brought me a Peace Congress, marriages, special legislation, dissolution of the Imperial Diet, elections, and the execution of a death sentence. In all these events I see God's will that I should taste of everything that still is set before me. But it is not easy to exercise the rights and bear _all_ the burdens of a monarch to the best of one's ability and conscience without taking the sole responsibility. "To-morrow the Imperial Diet concludes its deliberations; let us hope that the law against social democracy marks the commencement of a radical cure, by means of which this evil may be overcome. It will, however, cost us much pains before we can rid ourselves of this abortion, which has increased with such incredible rapidity since the teaching of this unhealthy society finds a ready market, and the attempted assassinations, which will now multiply still more, show the direction taken by a misunderstood application...." _From_ PRINCE ALEXANDER OF BATTENBERG, _October 20th, '78_. "You can imagine how I have followed the march of political events. The consequence of the unhappy Peace of Berlin will probably be that we, _i.e._, the Russians, shall soon have to draw sword again. Should we then be comrades in arms once more? Probably not! "What do you think of Dondukow's doings? Here in Jugenheim I am too far away to be able to form an opinion, and the papers contain nothing but lies; the events in Bulgaria interest me greatly, as _secret inquiries continue to reach me from time to time_."