A ROYAL INTERVIEW

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2362, 19 January 1915, Page 2

A ROYAL INTERVIEW

NURSE.AND KAISER. ... Tho "Daily Telegraph" of December 1 published the following from its Paris correspondent:— The rather, doubtful privilege of an interview with the Kaiser fell to the lot of a French nurse, who vas taken prisoner ',with .her ambulance near Sedan. Threatened with execution as a spy, i she wrote to the Emperor, and was re-, ceiyed into the august presence at Charleville, In the France.de. Domain,. M. Hinzelin tells tho story of. the interview which followed. l]he Kaiser had.taken. up .his quarters in a couple of houses near the station of Charleville His bedroom was protected against possible hostile aeroplane attacks by guns mounted on pivots, and whenever he went abroad for a constitutional on horseback or in ' motor-car he was accompanied by a strong escort. The lady was introduced into tho Kaisers presence by an officer of his staff. Major von Piessen. .When she entered the reception room he was sitting at a table, covered with maps and plans, an officer in a greenish-grey uniform, At her entrance tho officer rose, clicked his heels together in the German way, and said: "I salute ihe ladies< of France." It was tho Kaiser, though she had some difficulty in recognising him. He had not shaved his moustache, but cut it. very close. Thero were heavy pouches under his eyes, and his skin was yellow and drawn. He looked not like the photographs, but like the caricatures of himself. As soon aB she came before him, he asked her to be seated, and with a strange, nervous rapidity sefr her a series of questions, which he answered himself. It was rather a monologue than an interrogatory.

: "Why did France insist on making war on usP" he first asked, following up his question before it could be answered by a second. "Don't you know that France was the first to mobilise?"

Half swamped beneath the torrent of Royal words, the nurse murmured' something about the invasion, of Belgium. The Kaiser caught at Belgium. "They are always reproaching us with that," he said. "Just listen to me. At Brussels we found absolute proof that a treaty existed enabling tho French and English to attack Gormany through Belgium." "Excuse me, sir." said the Frenchwoman, trying to stem the stream of verbiage. "I havo como here to protest against a charge of espionage. But the Kaiser swept her interruption aside.

"I'll tell you what I think of your fine England;" he said, with growing fury. "She is treachery incarnate. She has betrayed everybody.' and me first of all. If I wished she would betray France to-morrow. How can France have mado common cause -with our secular foe? I'oxpeeted better things of you. Yet it is true that- you are proving yourself unworthy of your ancient fame, for you haye summoned savages to your assistance. Just think, bloodthirsty negroes form tho flower of ycur army!" Here the Frenchwoman broke in: "I have never heard, sire," she said proudly, "that our black troops massacre children, shoot down old men, burn churches, aitd desecrate sepulchres." The Kaiser had not the time to answer this charge. It is doubtful whc r ther ho even heard it. At that moment the-politic, von Plessen half-opened the door of the andienco chamber. "Good," said tho monarch hastily. "It appears to us that you have been wrongly accused; and you shall be set at'liberty, hut do not fail to repeat all that we have said to you."