This, it will be observed, came with peculiar ill grace from Wilhelm, who, like the first Emperor of the French, demeaned himself to direct personally his Secret Service, and to associate with the cashiered army officers, agents provocateurs, etc., of this branch of government.
"What if Otto, as Emperor of the Slavs, sets up a claim for all Poland, Your Majesty's with the rest?" Bülow had asked.
"I would rather see my sixty millions of people dead on the battle-field than give up an inch of ground gained by Frederick the Great and the rest of my ancestors!" cried the War Lord, as if he were haranguing a mob. "Besides, why should Otto, more than Franz, covet my patrimony?"
"Because of his relationship with the Saxon Court through her Imperial Highness Josepha."
"Pipe-dreams——" snarled the War Lord contemptuously. Then, seeing Bülow redden, he added: "On Otto's part, I mean."
"I beg Majesty's pardon—not entirely," quoth Wedell. "Dresden is still making sheep's eyes at Warsaw, and when Your Majesty spoke about a grand Imperial palace to be built in Posen, King George remarked: 'Suits me to the ground. I hope he'll make it after the kind American multimillionaires boast of.' This on the authority of a Saxon noble whose family established itself in the kingdom long before Albert the Bold."
"Children and disgruntled aristocrats tell the truth," commented the War Lord; "sometimes, at least," he added after a while. Then suddenly facing Bülow, he continued in an angry tone: "That black baggage, wherever one turns. Unless there be a Lutheran Pope, Monsieur l'Abée de Rome will try and catholicise Prussia, even as Benedict XIV. tried to do through Maria Theresa."
"It was another Benedict, was it not, who offered public prayers that Heaven be graciously pleased to foment quarrels between the heretic Powers?" suggested Bülow, pulling a volume on historic dates from the shelf as if to verify his authority.
"What of it?" demanded the War Lord impatiently.
"One of the heretic Powers prayed against was England, Your Majesty."