The whole Germany of tradition displayed itself before the eyes of the
Tzarewitch, all its treacherous appearance of good nature, all its
dishonest methods, composed of a mixture of vanity and apparent
simplicity, whose object it is to make people believe in a sort of
unconsciousness of great strength. The German Emperor made an appeal
for a union of princes to resist the restless democracy of our times,
and repeated it with urgency, and in the usual stock phrases. In a
word, William II laid under contribution, to charm the son of the Tzar,
all his arts and spells of fascination. Why wonder that he succeeded,
when we remember that M. Jules Simon, a French Republican, member of
the Government of National Defence in 1870, came back from Berlin
singing the praises of the King of Prussia? Also, that the entire
Press of our country, with the sole exception of the _Nouvelle Revue_,
was wont, at the commencement of William's reign, to speak with
sympathy of the genial character of the "young Emperor," to praise his
schemes of social reform, and to express its belief in the superiority
of a mind which, as a matter of fact, is remarkable only for its
excesses and disorder? But all Germany, like M. Jules Simon and the
French Press, will find out the truth. The country may have gone into
ecstasies over the first acts and first speeches of its young
sovereign, but it will soon learn to know how little connection there
is between the words and assurances of William of Hohenzollern and his
deeds.
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