Since the marriage their domestic felicity, as all the world is aware, has never been troubled, and the example thus given to their subjects is one of the surest foundations of their influence and authority in Germany. The secret of this felicity, affection apart, is to be sought for in the strong moral sense of the Emperor regarding what he owes to himself and his people, but no less perhaps in the exemplary character of the Empress. As a girl at Primkenau she was a sort of Lady Bountiful to the aged and sick on the estate, and led there the simple life of the German country maiden of the time. It was not the day of electric light and central heating and the telephone; hardly of lawn tennis, certainly not of golf and hockey; while motor-cars and militant suffragettes were alike unknown. Instead of these delights the Princess, as she then was, was content with the humdrum life of a German country mansion, with rare excursions into the great world beyond the park gates, with her religious observances, her books, her needlework, her plants and flowers, and her share in the management of the castle. These domestic tastes she has preserved, and the saying, quoted in Germany whenever she is the subject of conversation, that her character and tastes are summed up in the four words _Kaiser, Kinder, Kirche_, and _Küche_--Emperor, children, church, and kitchen--is as true as it is compendious and alliterative. It is often assumed, especially by men, that a woman who cultivates these tastes cultivates no other. This is not as true as is often supposed of the Empress, as a journal of her voyage to Jerusalem in 1898, published on her return to Germany, goes to show. Following the traditions and example of the queens and empresses who have preceded her, she has always given liberally of her time and care, as she still does, to the most multifarious forms of charity. She has a great and intelligible pride in her clever and energetic husband, while her interest in her children is proverbial. She appears to have no ambition to exercise any influence on politics or to shine as a leader of society. Like the Emperor, she is not without a sense of humour, and is always amused by the racy Irish stories (in dialect) told her and a little circle of guests by Dr. Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin, who is a welcome guest at the palace. The offspring of the marriage, it may be here noted, is a family of seven children--six sons and a daughter--as follows:-- Crown Prince Frederick William, born 1882 Prince Eitel Frederick " 1883 Prince Adalbert " 1884 Prince August William " 1887 Prince Oscar " 1888 Prince Joachim " 1890 Princess Victoria Louise " 1892