After the death of Field-Marshal Baron von Manteuffel, Stadhalter of Alsace-Lorraine, it was suggested that the Crown Prince might be his successor, but the old Emperor refused to consider the notion, while being willing to consider the appointment of the young Prince William. It is said that the Crown Princess herself went to her father-in-law and begged him not to put so great an affront on her husband. The post was, therefore, conferred on Prince Hohenlohe. In the November of 1885, Matthew Arnold paid a visit to Germany in order to obtain information as to the German system of education. The Crown Princess was keenly interested in the inquiries he was making. With her usual energy, she went to considerable personal trouble in order to help him, and she arranged, among other things, that Mr. Arnold should make a short stay on Count Redern's property, in the Mark of Brandenburg. In one of his letters Arnold gives a charming account of a soirée at the New Palace: "The Crown Princess came round the circle, and I kissed her hand, as everyone here does when she holds it out. She talked to me a long time, and said I must come and see her quietly, comfortably." A few days later he dined at the palace, the only other guest being Hoffmann, the great chemist. Arnold sat next the Crown Princess, who "talked I may say all dinner. She is very able and well-informed." A day or two later came a message asking him to tea with the Crown Princess: "She was full of the Eastern question, as all of them here are; it is of so much importance to them. She talked, too, about Bismarck, Lord Ampthill, the Emperor, the Empress, the Queen, the Church, English politics, the German nation, everything and everybody indeed, except the Crown Prince and herself." Mr. Arnold was very anxious to meet "the great Reichs-Kanzler" himself, but this was not easy, as the great man was reputed to be almost inaccessible: but the Crown Princess herself wrote and asked Bismarck to receive her compatriot. Matthew Arnold was struck by the lack in Berlin of what certainly exists in London and Paris, namely, an agreeable, cultivated society consisting mainly of upper middle-class elements. He observed that in Berlin there was, in addition to the Court, only groups of functionaries, of soldiers, and of professors.