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sary to get him out of Zitta’s claws and out of the atmosphere of separate peace negotiations. The allhighest adventures of Karl with automobile in Soč and elsewhere have already been told, but one could relate entire scandalous chronicles about his doings. We have a wealth of material on this period, but I shall only describe briefly the general sentiment and atmosphere of the imperial court.

Karl maintained no relations with his kinsmen on the side of his great-uncle, Francis Joseph; he used to say that they had caused the trouble and now he had to bear the consequences. He would not read their letters, and sometimes he returned them unopened. But he was afraid of Archduke Frederick and Archduchess Marie Valerie. When the Hapsburg family council met once in a long while, it used to be very stormy and full of recriminations.

The ministers decided nothing; they were Karl’s playthings. They submitted reports to which none paid any attention. The government was a matter of willfulness ,caprice and accident. Only those ministers had any influence who were connected by some sort of a personal tie with the young emperor, especially those who had goodlooking daughters. Premier Seidler managed to maintain himself in office, because he had not only a pretty daughter, but a pretty wife. Whenever this genius started to make an extensive oral report embellished with much learning, His Majesty would glance around from object to object, from wall to wall, and when Seidler kept on talking, Karl would interrupt by asking: “How is the young lady today?” or “Give my compliments to the ladies.”

Charles was known in Vienna as Karl der Plotzliche, Charles the Sudden, because he not only was in the habit of constantly changing his decisions, but he also liked to surprise his ministers in their offices or call them up over the telephone, in order to give them the craziest orders and instructions. He did the same thing about appearing suddenly in the great headquarters.

Like all the Hapsburgs he hated the Jews, but like his predecessors he feared them and placed himself under obligations to

Courtesy of “The Americas.”

A General View of Prague.