In the December of 1862 the Crown Prince and Princess made a short stay in Vienna. The American historian, Motley, was visiting Austria at the time, and it was characteristic of the Princess that the only person, outside the Imperial family, whom she desired to see was this brilliant writer. He gives a charming account of the interview in a letter to his mother: "She is rather _petite_, has a fresh young face with pretty features, fine teeth, and a frank and agreeable smile and an interested, earnest and intelligent manner. Nothing could be simpler or more natural than her style, which I should say was the perfection of good breeding." The Crown Princess told Mr. Motley that she had been reading Froude with great admiration, and she was surprised to find that, though Motley admired Froude and had a high opinion of him as an historian, he had been by no means converted to Froude's view of Henry VIII. The Princess was evidently disposed to admire that polygamous party, and was also a great admirer of Queen Elizabeth. The Princess also spoke of Carlyle's _Frederick the Great_, which she had just read, but we are not told whether she agreed with Motley's view that Carlyle was a most immoral writer, owing to his exaggerated reverence for brute force, so often confounded by him with wisdom and genius. CHAPTER IX FIRST RELATIONS WITH BISMARCK After the death of Prince Albert, the relations between the Crown Princess and Bismarck become of absorbing interest to the student both of politics and of human nature. Bismarck seems to have first met Prince Albert in the summer of 1855, when Queen Victoria and the Prince paid their state visit to Paris. In his _Reminiscences_, Bismarck says that in the Prince's manner to him there was a kind of "malevolent curiosity," and he convinced himself--not so much at the time as from subsequent events--that the Prince regarded him as a reactionary party man, who took up sides for Russia in order to further an Absolutist and "Junker" policy. Bismarck goes on to say that it was not to be wondered at that this view of the Prince's and of the then partisans of the Duke of Coburg descended to the Prince's daughter. "Even soon after her arrival in Germany, in February, 1858, I became convinced, through members of the Royal House and from my own observations, that the Princess was prejudiced against me personally. The fact did not surprise me so much as the form in which her prejudice against me had been expressed in the narrow family circle--'she did not trust me.' I was prepared for antipathy on account of my alleged anti-English feelings and by reason of my refusal to obey English influences; but, from a conversation which I had with the Princess after the war of 1866, while sitting next to her at table, I was obliged to conclude that she had subsequently allowed herself to be influenced in her judgment of my character by further-reaching calumnies.