This post is by appointment for three years, and, as a rule, men are not reappointed, but von Rottenburg was enjoying his fourth term when Bismarck went out of office. During all those ten years von Rottenburg rarely left the side of his Chief—the greatest man of his day. Speaking of the storm and stress of those years, he once said: “No one can realise the strain of that time. Bismarck was the most remarkable man in the world. His physical health was as wonderful as his mental capacity. He had so much to do, so much to bear, so much to arrange, that I naturally saved him in every way I could, therefore nearly everything of importance went through me. That alone was a great responsibility. I settled all I could, arranged what interviews I thought necessary, and played buffer between him and the great world outside. But I often felt he reposed too much confidence in me.” Bismarck objected to German being written or printed in Latin characters, and never read a book not printed in German letters. Von Rottenburg told me Bismarck had the greatest mathematical head he ever knew and a colossal brain. A man of huge bulk, vast appetite, and unending thirst, he was once at a supper-party in Berlin where six hundred oysters were ordered for ten people. He ate the greater share. “Thank Heaven!” once exclaimed von Rottenburg; “during all those ten years of constant attendance and companionship with Bismarck we hardly ever had a disagreeable word, and instead of taking power from me, year by year he placed more upon my shoulders.” “Practically nothing went to the Chancellor that did not pass through my hands. I shiver to think of the times I was disturbed at night with messages of importance, telegrams, special messengers, or letters marked _Private_; all these things seemed to have a particularly unhappy knack of arriving during the hours one should have had repose. It was very seldom, however, that I went to Bismarck, as I never disturbed him at night unless on a matter of urgent business, feeling that his sleep was as important to him as his health was to the German nation.” “No, I don’t think I am tidy,” von Rottenburg once exclaimed. “I had to be tidy for so many years that I fear I am a little lax nowadays, although I can always find the papers I want myself, and generally know where I have put everything. During those years with Bismarck I had to be so careful, so exact and methodical. One of his little hobbies was that when he was staying in an hotel, or anywhere away from home, he, or I, would carefully search the waste-paper baskets to see no scrap of paper that could in any way be made into political capital was left therein. “Bismarck was most particular about this. He destroyed everything that might, he thought, make mischief, or would do harm of any kind.” Did von Rottenburg destroy his wondrous diaries which I saw a few weeks before he died? Of them I may have more to say in the future.