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An enormous cheer received the Kronprinzessin. After remaining on the balcony for a few minutes, during which she repeatedly bowed and kissed the fair head of her eldest son, she retired, loud cheers being again raised.

I asked the reason of the demonstration, shivering at the idea that a big success had been obtained by the German and that this was the way the Berlin population expressed loyalty to its rulers.

"Why, she appears every afternoon!" I was told. "A crowd comes here every day at four o'clock. It has been so since the beginning of the war."

"Even when the war news was not very good?" I asked.

"The news has always been very good," said my informant in a contemptuous tone, and away he walked, disgusted at my disrespectful remark.

The crowd had now melted away slowly, and the Lustgarten had resumed its air of aristocratic calm. In front of me was the huge mass of the Imperial Palace, with the large bronze groups given to the Hohenzollern family fifty years ago by the grandfather of the present Tsar.