Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/575

 had far-reaching results. Her untiring work for her own sex brought about a general improvement in the social position of German women. In 1868 at her instance Miss Georgina Archer [see Archer, James, Suppl. II] was invited to Berlin and started the Victoria Lyceum, the first institution in Germany for the higher education of women. Two educational institutions, the Lette Verein (1871), a school for the technical training of soldiers' orphans; and the Heimathaus für Tochter hoherer Stande; or home for girls of the higher middle classes; were mainly set on foot by her exertions, while her interest in modern educational methods was apparent in her patronage of the Pestalozzi-Frobel Haus (1881). No less than forty-two educational and philanthropic institutions flourished under her auspices, and the impulse she gave to women's education throughout Germany swept away most of the old reactionary prejudices against opening to women the intellectual opportunities which men enjoyed.

Despite the public services of the princess, the value of which the German people acknowledged, the humiliating political position of her husband and herself underwent no change. Knowledge of political business was still denied them (, Demieres Années de V ambassade, p. 298). In June 1878 the Emperor William was wounded by an assassin (Nobiling), and the crown prince was appointed regent. But Bismarck contrived that his office should not carry with it any genuine authority. The prompt recovery of his father fully restored the old situation. At the end of 1879 the crown princess withdrew from Berlin on the ground of ill-health, and she spent several months with her husband and family at Pegli near Genoa. During the following years her appearances in public were few. In May 1883 she visited Paris incognito, and on 24 May 1884 she laid the foundation stone of St. George's (English) church at Berlin.

The health of the old emperor was now declining, and the crown prince's accession to the throne was clearly approaching. Bismarck showed some signs of readiness to cultivate better relations with the heir apparent and his family. On 21 Nov. 1884 he attended a soiree given by the crown princess in honour of her birthday (, Neue Tischgesprdche und Interviews, ii. 127).

But the crown princess's long-deferred hopes of a happy change of estate were doomed to a cruel disappointment. In the autumn of 1886 the crown prince contracted on the Italian Riviera an affection of the throat, which gradually sapped his strength. For nearly two years her husband's illness was the princess's main preoccupation, and she undertook with great efficiency the chief responsibilities of nursing. In May 1887, when the Berlin physicians diagnosed cancerous symptoms an English physician, (Sir) Morell Mackenzie [q. v.], was called into consultation with the princess's assent, and his optimism initiated an unedifying controversy with his German colleagues, which involved the princess's name. She treated the English specialist with a confidence which the German specialists thought that she withheld from them. Both prince and princess took part in the celebration of Queen Victoria's jubilee (21 June 1887). After a visit to Toblach in Tyrol they moved in November to the Villa Zirio, San Remo, where the fatal progress of the malady no longer admitted of doubt. On 9 March 1888 the old emperor William died at Berlin, and the crown prince, a dying man, succeeded to the throne as Frederick III.

The Emperor Frederick and his consort immediately left San Remo for Charlottenburg, and in a rescript addressed to the chancellor. Prince Bismarck, the new sovereign announced his intention of devoting the remainder of his life to the moral and economic elevation of the nation. He was no longer able to speak, and all communications had to be made to him in writing. The empress undertook to prepare her husband for necessary business (, Lebenserinnerungen, ii. 220), and Bismarck's jealousy of her influence was aroused. A family quarrel embittered the difficult situation. Already in 1885 the princess had encouraged a plan for the marriage of her second daughter, Princess Victoria, to Alexander of Battenberg, Prince of Bulgaria. But the scheme had then been rejected. It was now revived, and the old quarrel between the empress and Bismarck found in the proposed match new fuel. The chancellor threatened to resign. He declared the marriage to be not only a breach of caste etiquette owing to Prince Alexander's inferior social rank, but to be an insult to Russia, which had declared its hostility to the Bulgarian ruler. The empress, who regarded her daughter's happiness as the highest consideration ignored Bismarck's arguments. The chancellor prompted an unscrupulous press campaign which brought public opinion to his side. The dying emperor