Then came, without warning, one of those terrible, world-changing moments wherein destiny reveals her face to the awed beholder--moments about which the imagination of the outside public lingers with curiosity forever unsatisfied. No one will ever tell what happens in that soul-trying instant of time, We shall never know, for example, just what William felt and thought one March day in 1887, when somebody--identity unknown to us as well--whispered in his ear that the Crown Prince, his father, had a cancer in the throat. The world heard this sinister news some weeks later, and was so grieved at the intelligence that for over a year thereafter it fostered the hope of its falsity, and was even grateful to courtier physicians and interested flatterers who encouraged this hope. Civilization had elected Frederic to a place among its heroes, and clung despairingly to the belief that his life might, after all, be saved. But in the inner family circle of the Hohenzollerns there was from the first no illusion on this point. The old Emperor and his Chancellor and the Prince William knew that the malady was cancerous. Their information came from Ems, whither Frederic went upon medical advice in the spring of 1887, to be treated for “a bad cold with bronchial complications.” Later a strenuous and determined attempt was made to represent the disease as something else, and out of this grew one of the most painful and cruel domestic tragedies known to history. At this point it is enough to say that the Emperor and his grandson knew about the cancer before even rumours of it reached the general public, and that their belief in its fatal character remained unshaken throughout. To comprehend fully and fairly what followed, it will be necessary to try to look at Frederic through the eyes of the Court party. The view of him which we of England and America take has been, beyond doubt, of great and lasting service to the human race--in much the same sense that the world has been benefited by the idealized purities and sweetnesses of the Arthurian legend. We are helped by our heroes in this practical, work-a-day, modern world as truly as were our pagan fathers who followed the sons of Woden. Every one of us is the richer and stronger for this image of Frederic the Noble which the English-speaking peoples have erected in their Valhalla. But it is fair to reflect, on the other hand, that this fine, handsome, able, and good-hearted Prince could not have created for himself such hosts of hostile critics in his own country, could not have continually found himself year by year losing his hold upon even the minority of his fellow-countrymen, without reason. It is certain that in 1886--the year before his illness befell--he had come to a minimum of usefulness, influence, and popularity in the Empire. Deplore this as we may, it would be unintelligent to refuse to inquire into its causes.