In less than one month the emperor was a prisoner, and in seven months his empire was swept out of existence; the Germans were in Paris—and King William, Unser Fritz, Bismarck, and Von Moltke were quartered at Versailles.
Here it was that the dramatic climax was reached when King Ludwig II. of Bavaria, in the name of the rest of the German States, laid their united allegiance at the feet of King William of Prussia, as the head of the German Empire, begging him to assume the crown of Charlemagne, which should be hereditary in his family! Poor, mad suicide though he was, for this act Ludwig's memory should be forever enshrined in the German heart, for he certainly first suggested, and then carried to completion, this splendid consummation, apparently indifferent to the fact that his own kingly dignity would be abridged. Adoring the picturesque and dramatic as he did, perhaps it seemed to this royal spendthrift not too much to pay a kingdom for the privilege of acting in one scene so imposing and dramatic!
So, in January, 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors in the palace of Versailles, King William assumed the title of "Emperor of Germany"—a Germany richer by two French provinces and an enormous indemnity from the conquered state; great in prestige and under the best of emperors and greatest of prime ministers, augmenting hourly in all that constitutes power in a state. In less than one decade—not yet ten years from Bismarck's return to Berlin—a new Germany had arisen from the fragments of the old, a Germany so great and powerful she was likely to forget the degradation and humiliation of only a quarter of a century ago.
CHAPTER XII.
When that kingly old man, Emperor William, sank at last under the weight of years, the crown so brilliantly won at Versailles in 1871 rested on the head of Unser Fritz—no longer in the flush of victorious youth, but a poor, stricken man. The tardy honors had come too late. In vain he struggled against the inevitable, striving to inaugurate the beneficent policy which had been the dream of his life. Unhappy Frederick! His death-chamber seemed the playground for every hateful human passion, and the Furies to have made it their abode, as his unfulfilled life slipped away from his loosening grasp! At last it was ended. The untarnished soul and the tortured body parted company, and William II. reigned in his stead.
The sensibilities of the world had been shocked by the unfilial conduct of this youth, and it was with little respect that he was seen restlessly flitting from one court to another, displaying his imperial trappings like a child with new toys. People laughed to think they had ever been afraid of this aimless boy. Upon one point only was he relentless. Man or newspaper breathing faintest whisper of praise for the dead Frederick came swift under the political guillotine! Did he wish to efface his father's memory from the hearts of his people? Would he really, if he could, tear that brief, sad chapter from his nation's history? It seemed so. Europe watched him much as one does a headlong boy, who, with the confidence born of vanity and ignorance, plays with deadly weapons, and imperils his own and his neighbors' safety. The peace of the continent lay more than ever in the hand of Bismarck, who alone had power to restrain this dangerous young ruler.
But when William II. posed as the friend of the workingman and ally of the socialist, the absurdity and the unexpectedness were amusing. What did he care for industrial problems and the condition of the laboring classes? The idea uppermost in his restless brain was that he was a predestined hero, not fitted for the rôle of a Merovingian king, with a maire du palais. He would be the artificer of his own policy, and be enrolled among the great sovereigns of history.
There were rumors of dissension with his chancellor, whom finally he removed, and said practically, "l'etat, c'est moi." There was nothing now to restrain his restless vagaries, and a catastrophe seemed at hand.
This is the way it looked a few months ago. But writing current history is much like drawing pictures upon the sand, which the incoming tide effaces.