Word: wilhelm
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Mary found her next husband in a German spa. He was stiff-necked Count Alfred von Waldersee, whose one attraction for Mary was his friendship with Prince Wilhelm, heir to the German throne. In due course, Mary met Wilhelm. She was a svelte 42, he only 21. Noting that his withered left arm made him feel insecure, she put him at ease with a few soulful chats. She earned his gratitude by finding him a submissive little wife, who later bore him eight children. Husband in tow, Mary moved into an elegant house in Berlin overlooking the River Spree. Wilhelm...
Berliners dubbed Mary a "Pompadour in saintly garb." Despite her status as a mistress, she insisted that Wilhelm's morals conform to her own Calvinist standards. First, his pornographic pictures had to go. In a little ceremony by the fireplace, the pair solemnly watched the vast collection consumed in flames; then over oranges and tea, Mary lectured Wilhelm on the duties of a Christian prince. Wilhelm was soon sending swords to friends with the inscription: "In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost." Under her badgering, he lent his name to her efforts to organize Berlin...
...salon, where he led the company in hymns to the Fatherland, and excoriated Jews. Mary dreamed of a pure Protestant empire stretching from the U.S. to Europe to the Middle East, and rabid nationalists from all over Germany swarmed to sit at her feet. Under her influence, Wilhelm lost all interest in liberalism. When he succeeded to the throne in 1888, he dismissed Bismarck (who considered Mary a meddlesome woman, snubbed her salon and its anti-Semitism and irritated Wilhelm by the power he commanded) and appointed Mary's husband Chief of the General Staff of the Army...
...once he was emperor, Wilhelm decided he could fend for himself. He grew his famous bristling mustache, swaggered more than ever. For company he surrounded himself with a crew of homosexuals who found politics tedious...
...Wilhelm tired of Mary. He demoted her husband to a corps commander, and when Mary reproached him, petulantly ordered all the Y.M.C.A. signs torn down in Berlin. Banished from politics at 52, Mary devoted her life to religion. She died at 76, five weeks before the Kaiser led the nation...