It will take no great effort of the imagination to see how the world had treated the young prince. The Court distinguished him with special attentions; the ladies petted him; the men sought him. In this hot-house atmosphere of high life he came quickly to maturity, and, like most children brought up among older persons without companions of their own age, he was of a thoughtful, even suspicious, temperament. As, in addition to this, he looked at everything from a critical, almost skeptical, point of view, insisting on getting to the bottom of every question, he did not make the mistake of most young men in his position--the mistake of thinking the attentions paid him homage to his own talent. Perfectly frank with himself, he recognized that they were paid to his title and fortune. “What do these people really know of me?” he often asked himself, on coming home from some Court festival to the solitude of his magnificent palace. “Nothing, and yet they scarcely wait for my mouth to open to applaud my speech! But if all the words I spoke this evening were written down and submitted to a man of sense, his honest verdict would have to be: ‘Well, perhaps this fellow isn’t exactly a fool, but he certainly is mighty little over mediocrity.’ Yet the world persists in treating me as if I were somebody! But it is not _me_--Louis--that they are really concerned with, but only Prince von Hockstein,” etc. _Louis_ was actually jealous of _the Prince_. The latter seemed to him an enemy, bent on thwarting and overshadowing his real self, and the noble ambition awoke in him to amount to something, in himself, apart from his rank and fortune. But this was easier said than done; everywhere the Prince von Hockstein, etc., barred the way for Louis and would not let him pass. He enrolled himself at the University--the most aristocratic set among the students hastened to pay him court. The professors even, men whose genius until then he had revered, were overcome with joy when he appeared in their classrooms, and addressed their words markedly to him. He soon had enough of this, and tried the army. His colonel thanked him for the honor he did the regiment in joining it; his superiors paid him flattering attentions; his fellow officers bored him. Then, too, the pettiness of garrison life was not much to his taste, so he quitted active service, but not until he had been rapidly promoted to the rank of major. Of course, all this time women had played some part in his life. There were a few trifling affairs with actresses that did not go deep, and some passing flirtations with women of the world. These last he quickly found unbearable, for--except in being a thousand times more exacting--the great ladies amounted to no more than did the ballet girls.