TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

The success which "Um Szepter und Kronen" has met with on the Continent justifies an English translation. The author, who writes under the nom de plume of Gregor Samarow, is, if report speak truly, himself one of the characters described in his work as the friend and confidant of the chivalrous and unfortunate sovereign who is its principal hero. This explains the ease and familiarity with which the various courts and cabinets are described, the author's personal acquaintance with the statesmen and diplomatists he has pourtrayed, and it accounts for the value of the work as a clever and interesting political sketch. It is as a political sketch, and not as an ordinary novel, that it is offered to this country.

Although the great events of 1870 and 1871 have almost swept from memory the history of preceding years, yet the struggle of 1866--the Seven Weeks' War--must ever be memorable; it was the prelude to the great Franco-German War, and its immediate result was that immense increase in the power of Prussia which placed her in her present position of supreme leader in Germany.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Chapter
I.[Bismark and Manteuffel].
II.[Fair Wendland].
III.[Vienna].
IV.[Napoleon].
V.[George V].
VI.[An Erring Meteor].
VII.[The Duel and the Rose].
VIII.[Francis Joseph II].
IX.[Helena].
X.[Berlin].
XI.[The Last Day at Herrenhausen].
XII.[Campaigning begins].