read to King William at Versailles, asking him to accept the imperial
crown. He assented, and on January 18, 1871, an imposing ceremony was
held in the splendid Mirror Hall (_Galerie des Glaces_) of Louis XIV.,
at the royal palace of Versailles. The day was a wet one, and the king
rode from his quarters in the prefecture to the great gates of the
château, where he alighted and passed through a lane of soldiers, the
roar of cannon heralding his approach, and rich strains of music
signalling his entrance to the hall.
William wore a general's uniform, with the ribbon of the Black Eagle on
his breast. Helmet in hand he advanced slowly to the dais, bowed to the
assembled clergymen, and turned to survey the scene. There had been
erected an altar covered with scarlet cloth, which bore the device of
the Iron Cross. Right and left of it were soldiers bearing the standards
of their regiments. Attending on the king were the crown-prince, and a
brilliant array of the princes, dukes, and other rulers of the German
states arranged in semicircular form. Just above his head was a great
allegorical painting of the Grand Monarch, with the proud subscription,
"_Le Roi gouverne par lui même_," the motto of the autocrat.
The ceremony began with the singing of psalms, a short sermon, and a
grand German chorale, in which all present joined. Then William, in a
loud but broken voice, read a paper, in which he declared the German
empire re-established, and the imperial dignity revived, to be invested
in him and his descendants for all future time, in accordance with the
will of the German people.
Count Bismarck followed with a proclamation addressed by the emperor to
the German nation. As he ended, the Grand-Duke of Baden, William's
son-in-law, stepped out from the line, raised his helmet in the air, and
shouted in stentorian tones, "Long live the German Emperor William!
Hurrah!"
Loud cheers and waving of swords and helmets responded to his stirring
appeal, the crown-prince fell on his knee to kiss the emperor's hand,
and a military band outside the hall struck up the German National
Anthem, while, as a warlike background to the scene, came the roar of
French cannon from Mount Valérien, still besieged by the Germans, their
warlike peal the last note of defiance from vanquished France. Ten days
afterwards Paris surrendered, and the war was at an end. On the 16th of
June the army made a triumphant entrance into Berlin, William riding at
its head, to be triumphantly hailed as emperor by his own people on his
own soil. All Germany, with the exception of Austria, was for the first
time fully united into an empire, the minor princes having ceased to
exist as ruling potentates.
End of Project Gutenberg's Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15), by Charles Morris