"Suddenly the clock struck noon. At the same time the bugles of the Prussian soldiers sounded under our windows, where they had come to drill. "Mr. Hamel rose, pale, but full of dignity. "'My friends,' he said in a low voice--'my friends, I--' But he was not able to finish the sentence. "He turned to the blackboard, and with a piece of chalk wrote, in letters that covered the whole board, '_Vive la France!_' "Then he stopped, leaned against the wall, and without saying a word, he waved his hand as if to say, 'The end has come; go!'" [Footnote 136: _Vār-sa´y´_, French town, 11 miles south-west of Paris, containing a famous palace of Louis XIV., said to have cost £40,000,000.] [Footnote 137: _Jofr_, born 1852.] [Footnote 138: Born 1850.] [Footnote 139: _Mah´di_, false prophet of the Mohammedans, who preached a holy war in the Sudan, that part of Africa south of Egypt and the Sahara. He was conquered by a British and Egyptian force at Omdurman in 1885.] [Footnote 140: _Dō-dā´_, born 1840, died 1897, one of the greatest French novelists of the later nineteenth century. He has been compared, not unjustly, with Dickens.] CHAPTER XII. THE BOYHOOD OF THE KAISER. I must now redeem the promise which I made to you at the beginning of Chapter III., and tell you the story of the present Kaiser. His father was that young prince whom we saw clasped in his father's arms at the great moment when the German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles. His mother was Princess Victoria, the eldest child of our own Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort. So you see that the Kaiser and King George are first cousins. Princess Victoria was a clever, sprightly girl when the Crown Prince came to woo her at Balmoral, and Queen Victoria in her _Journal_ gives the following charming account of how the two young people plighted their troth:-- "_September 29, 1855._ "Our dear Victoria was this day engaged to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, who had been on a visit to us since the 14th. He had already spoken to us on the 20th of his wishes; but we were uncertain, on account of her extreme youth, whether he should speak to her himself, or wait till he came back again. However, we felt it better he should do so, and during our ride up Craig-na-Ban this afternoon he picked a piece of white heather (the emblem of 'good luck'), which he gave to her; and this enabled him to make an allusion to his hopes and wishes as they rode down Glen Girnock, which led to this happy conclusion."