For two or three weeks the action of the Emperor with regard to the Chinese mission of atonement brought him into universal ridicule. Prince Chun, a near relative of the Chinese Emperor, who had been appointed to conduct the mission, reached Basle in September, 1901, on his way to Berlin. Here he lingered, and it soon became known that a hitch had occurred in his relations with Germany. It then transpired that the delay was caused by the Emperor's having suddenly intimated that he expected Prince Chun to make thrice to him, as he sat on his throne at Potsdam, the "kotow" as practised in the Court of China. In view of the surprise, laughter, and criticism of Europe, the Emperor modified his demand for the "kotow" to its symbolic performance by three deep bows. Prince Chun thereupon resumed his journey. An impressive, if theatrical, scene was prepared in the New Palace at Potsdam, where the Emperor, seated on the throne, his marshal's baton in his hand, and flanked by Ministers and the officers of his household, received the bearer of China's expressions of regret. Whatever one may think of the scenic effect provided, the reply the Emperor made to Prince Chun, after the three bows arranged upon had been made, is a model of its kind--general not personal, sorrowful rather than angry, warning rather than reproachful. The Emperor said-- "No pleasing nor festive cause, no mere fulfilment of a courtly duty, has brought your Imperial Highness to me, but a sad and deeply grave occurrence. My Minister to the Court of his Majesty the Emperor of China, Freiherr von Ketteler, fell in the Chinese capital beneath the murderous weapons of an imperial Chinese soldier, who acted by the orders of a superior, an unheard-of outrage condemned by the law of nations and the moral sense of all countries. From your Imperial Highness I have now heard the expression of the sincere and deep regret of his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China regarding the occurrence. I am glad to believe that your Imperial Highness's royal brother had nothing to do with the crime or with the further acts of violence against inviolable Ministers and peaceful foreigners, but all the greater is the guilt which attaches to his advisers and his Government. Let these not deceive themselves by supposing that they can make atonement and receive pardon for their crime through this mission alone, and not through their subsequent conduct in the light of the prescriptions of international law and the moral principles of civilized peoples. If his Majesty the Emperor of China henceforward directs the government of his great Empire in the spirit of these ordinances, his hope that the sad consequences of the confusion of last year may be overcome, and permanent, peaceful and friendly relations between Germany and China