La Fontaine has said that it is difficult to please every one and his father. The Emperor must have felt this when he learned that certain of his subjects, nevertheless, resented that closing part of his speech which would seem to imply that the Franco-Prussian War was a sort of family affair through which the grateful Brandenburgers decided to present the imperial crown to their beloved overlord. Through such an interpretation the position and interests of Bavaria, for instance, became for Bavarians somewhat too incidental. If, then, foreign critics have drawn a distinction between Prussia and Germany, the distinction has, therefore, a certain warrant, since it seems to be made by the Emperor himself. The heir to the Bavarian crown took occasion to object in one of his speeches to the conception that the affiliated sovereigns are "vassals of the Emperor." That he should have gone so far would indicate that, in his mind at least, there was a disposition to make them so. He was even more emphatic in a speech delivered in May, 1900, before the Association for the Furtherance of Inland Navigation in Bavaria. "I do not see," he said, "why we, if we belong to the German Empire should not enjoy precisely the same rights and privileges as North Germany, for the German Empire was welded together just as much through Bavarian blood as through the blood of any other German stock; and for that reason we do not wish to be regarded as minor brothers, but as brothers with full rights and privileges." So, too, it is said that the King of Würtemberg left the Emperor's side in anger and withdrew from the army manoeuvres in 1894. It will be plain to any one who reads the Emperor's speeches that very few of them are made in South Germany. Münich, Leipzig, and Stuttgart have been visited by him less frequently than certain foreign capitals. This is due in part, no doubt, to the fact that the reigning sovereigns of these capitals do not wish to see a greater at their side. But it is likewise true that in most of these districts the Emperor's reception at the hands of the populace would be far less warm than that accorded to him at Breslau and Berlin; for, if the Emperor is warranted in expecting a particular loyalty from his Prussians and Brandenburgers, so, too, are the hereditary rulers of Bavaria, Saxony, and Würtemberg warranted in expecting a particular recognition at home, which must necessarily be deducted from the possible tribute which can be paid the Emperor, who is likewise a rival King and King of a province which has not always enjoyed the favorable consideration of South Germans.