To-night the Emperor gave a grand military banquet in the White Saloon of the Schloss previous to his starting for Thorn—that tremendous bulwark on the Vistula over against the Russian frontier, where the work of concentrating the German troops is proceeding rapidly. At this banquet I was favoured with a seat in the gallery, from which I have witnessed so many pomps and pageants at this Court; and when the third course had been reached, His Majesty (who wore the gala uniform of the Gardes du Corps) rose, and, amid a silence in which you might have even heard the fall of a hair, addressed his guests as follows, in a most resolute and rasping voice:— ‘_Meine Herren_, God has willed it that Germany should draw her sword in defence of her ally, and to God’s high, holy will we all must bow. German loyalty (‘_Deutsche Treue_’) has ever been one of the most conspicuous virtues of our race, and, if we now failed to prove true to our treaty engagements, we should justly deserve to become a mockery and a bye-word among the nations. Remembering, as I do, the very last words almost which were addressed to me by my beloved grandfather, now resting in God, who conjured me to be considerate towards and cultivate the friendship of Russia, it is with a heart full of exceeding heaviness that I look forward to the events that are ahead of us. Nevertheless, it shall be in the power of no one to say that the German Government was ever wanting in fidelity, or the German army deficient in courage. ‘Gentlemen, that courage has been displayed on a thousand glorious battle-fields, and never more so than in those stupendous and heroic encounters which made of us a great and united nation—a nation whereof the safety and integrity would be gravely imperilled by disaster, involving, perhaps, disruption to the dual monarchy of our allies. Such a result, gentlemen, we cannot endure; and it is to obviate the bare possibility of such a thing that we are now about to respond to the solemn call of treaty obligations, by placing some of our heroic troops side by side with the brave army of my august friend and ally, His Majesty the Emperor Francis-Joseph; nor is it to be doubted that this companionship-in-arms, among other things, will have the blessed effect of wiping out all memory of our past conflicts and estrangements, and of re-uniting, in the bonds of fraternal love and loyalty, the two greatest sections of the mighty and invincible German race.