Reminiscences of the King of Roumania

F. Mándy Bucharest. Art Repro Co. London. Carol
REMINISCENCES OF THE KING OF ROUMANIA
EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
SIDNEY WHITMAN
WITH PORTRAIT
AUTHORIZED EDITION
NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS 1899

Volk und Knecht und Ueberwinder, Sie gestehn zu jeder Zeit; Höchstes Glück der Erdenkinder Sey nur die Persönlichkeit.
Goethe ( West-Oestlicher Divan ).
As so often happens in such cases, the work grew beyond the limits originally entertained. But the task was no easy one, and involved the labour of several years. However, the result achieved is well worth the trouble, for it is an historical document of exceptional political interest, containing, among other material, important letters from Prince Bismarck, the Emperor William, the Emperor Frederick, the Czar of Russia, Queen Victoria, and Napoleon III. It is, in fact, a piece of work which a politician must consult unless he is to remain in the dark concerning much of moment in the political history of our time, and particularly in the history of the Eastern Question. The Reminiscences of the King of Roumania constitute an important page in the story of European progress. Nor is this all. They also contain a study in self-revelation which, so far as it belongs to a regal character, is absolutely unique in its completeness—even in an age so rich in sensational memoirs as our own.
The subject-matter deals with a period of over twenty-five years in the life of a young European nation, in the course of which she gained her independence and strove successfully to retain it, whilst more than trebling her resources in peaceful work. In this eventful period greater changes have taken place in the balance of power in Europe than in many preceding centuries. A republic has replaced a monarchy in France, and also on the other side of the Atlantic, in Brazil, since the days when a young captain of a Prussian guard regiment, a scion of the House of Hohenzollern, set himself single-handed the Sisyphean task of establishing a constitutional representative monarchy on a soil where hitherto periodical conspiracies and revolts had run riot luxuriously. Just here, however, our democratic age has witnessed the realisation of the problem treated by Macchiavelli in Il Principe —the self-education of a prince.