UNCONQUERED.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4897, 5 October 1901, Page 4

UNCONQUERED.

With regard to the feud between tbe Empress Frederick and, 3?riuce Bißtnarck, .' M.A.P. ' writes :—Bo: — 8o far as personal feelings are concerned the Empress rel&ttte-, as tne Prince did. Sbe sent tbe. old man — especially after his disgrace — a telegram on bis birthday. She knew his love for wine, and she sent *him some Moselle he had drunk with evident relish at her table But she never relented' or changed in her opposition to his ideas. Tbe day after her husband's death she drove quietly through tbe streets of Berlin ; the people in their rage and hatred turned their backs on her. Tbe storm of hatred and passion which raged against her at that awful moment English people have never fully realised. But she realised ib. Shortly after she was visiting the Stuart collection at the New Gallery. 'I am glad,' she remarked, ' that Queens do not lose their heads now in tbe way tbey did in those days.' And, after a pause, she added, ' I should have lost mine several times during the last few monthß.' And in death, as in life, she flings out her defiant faith. When her last hour was coming, she waves ah the high-titled and ribboned and medalled Teutonic Court chaplains away. It was an Irishman, who is an English canon, who heard her last words of faith, and hope, and farewell ; it was another Irishman, who is an English biebop, wbo, by her express command, read the prayers over her remains. And tbe prayerswere in the tongue of her own country and her own people, from the Prayerbook of her own Church ; the hymns were those which to English sons recall childhood and home, and the beginning of »11 things under English skieß and the domes of English cathedrals. Nay, her coffin was in the flat English shape, and its lid was ornamented with rosettes designed by her own hand, and made after the image of the English rose. It was her last defiance — her final profession of faith.