Your most faithful v.B.
Hohenmauth, Monday, September 7, '66.
Do you remember, sweetheart, how we passed through here nineteen years ago, on the way from Prague to Vienna? No mirror showed the future then, nor in 1852, when I went over this railway with good Lynar. How strangely romantic are God's ways! We are doing well, in spite of Napoleon; if we are not unmeasured in our claims and do not imagine we have conquered the world, we shall achieve a peace that is worth the trouble. But we are as easily intoxicated as disheartened, and it is my thankless part to pour water into the foaming wine, and to insist that we do not live alone in Europe, but with three other powers which hate and envy us. The Austrians hold position in Moravia, and we are bold enough to announce our headquarters for tomorrow at the point where they are now. Prisoners still keep passing in, and cannon, one hundred and eighty from the 3d to today. If they bring up their southern army, we shall, with God's gracious help, defeat it too; confidence is universal. Our people are ready to embrace one another, every man so deadly in earnest, calm, obedient, orderly, with empty stomach, soaked clothes, wet camp, little sleep, shoe-soles dropping off, kindly to all, no sacking or burning, paying what they can and eating mouldy bread. There must surely be a solid basis of fear of God in the common soldier of our army, or all this could not be. News of our friends is hard to get; we lie miles apart from one another, none knowing where the other is, and nobody to send—that is, men might be had, but no horses. For four days I have had search made for Philip,[19] who was slightly wounded by a lance-thrust in the head, as Gerhard[20] wrote me, but I can't find out where he is, and we have now come thirty-seven miles farther. The King exposed himself greatly on the 3d and it was well I was present, for all the warnings of others had no effect, and no one would have dared to talk so sharply to him as I allowed myself to do on the last occasion, which gave support to my words, when a knot of ten cuirassiers and fifteen horses of the Sixth Cuirassier Regiment rushed confusedly by us, all in blood, and the shells whizzed around most disagreeably close to the King. He cannot yet forgive me for having blocked for him the pleasure of being hit. "At the spot where I was forced by order of the supreme authority to run away," were his words only yesterday, pointing his finger angrily at me. But I like it better so than if he were excessively cautious. He was full of enthusiasm over his troops, and justly so rapt that he seemed to take no notice of the din and fighting close to him, calm and composed as at the Kreuzberg, and constantly meeting battalions that he must thank with "Good-evening, grenadiers," till we were actually by this trifling brought under fire again. But he has had to hear so much of this that he will stop it for the future, and you may feel quite easy; indeed, I hardly believe there will be another real battle.
When you have of anybody no word whatever, you may assume with confidence that he is alive and well; for if acquaintances are wounded it is always known at latest in twenty-four hours. We have not come across Herwarth and Steinmetz at all, nor has the King. Schreck, too, I have not seen, but I know they are well. Gerhard keeps quietly at the head of his squadron, with his arm in a sling. Farewell—I must to business.
Your faithfullest v.B.
Zwittau, Moravia, July 11, '66.
Dear Heart,—I have no inkstand, all of them being in use; but for the rest I get on well, after a good sleep on camp bed with air mattress; roused at eight by a letter from you. I went to bed at eleven. At Königgrätz I rode the big sandy thirteen hours in the saddle without feeding him He bore it very well, did not shy at shots nor at corpses, cropped standing grain and plum-leaves with zest at the most trying moments, and kept up an easy gait to the last, when I was more tired than the horse. My first bivouac for the night was on the street pavement of Horic, with no straw, but helped by a carriage cushion. It was full of wounded; the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg found me and shared his chamber with me, Reuss, and two adjutants, and the rain made this very welcome to me. About the King and the shells I have written you already. All the generals had a superstition that they, as soldiers, must not speak to the King of danger, and always sent me off to him, though I am a major, too. They did not venture to speak to his reckless Majesty in the serious tone which at last was effectual. Now at last he is grateful to me for it, and his sharp words, "How you drove me off the first time," etc., are an acknowledgment that I was right. Nobody knew the region, the King had no guide, but rode right on at random, till I obtruded myself to show the way. * * * Farewell, my heart. I must go to the King.
Your most faithful v.B.
Vendresse, September 3, 1870.
To MRS. VON BISMARCK:
My Dear Heart,—Day before yesterday I left my quarters here before dawn, but came back today, and have meanwhile been through the great battle of Sedan on the 1st, in which we took some thirty thousand prisoners, and shut the remainder of the French army, which we had chased ever since Bar-le-Duc, into the fortress, where they had to surrender, with the Emperor, as prisoners of war. At five yesterday morning, after I had discussed the terms of capitulation with Moltke and the French generals till one o'clock, General Reille, whom I know, called me up to say that Napoleon wished to speak with me. Without washing or breakfast, I rode towards Sedan, found the Emperor in an open carriage with three adjutants, and three more at hand in the saddle, on the main road before Sedan. I dismounted, saluted him as politely as in the Tuileries, and asked his commands. He desired to see the King. I told him, as was true, that his Majesty's quarters were fourteen miles away, at the place where I am writing now. Upon his question, whither he should betake himself, I offered him, since I was unfamiliar with the region, my quarters in Donchery, a village on the Maas close to Sedan; he accepted them, and drove, escorted by his six Frenchmen, by me; and by Carl, who meanwhile had ridden after me, through the lovely morning, towards our lines. He was distressed before reaching the place because of the possible crowds, and asked me if he might not stop at a lonely workman's house on the road. I had it examined by Carl, who reported that it was wretched and dirty. "N'importe," said Napoleon, and I mounted with him a narrow, rickety stairway. In a room ten feet square, with a fig-wood table and two rush-bottomed chairs, we sat an hour, the others staying below. A mighty contrast to our last interview, in '67, at the Tuileries. Our conversation was difficult, if I would avoid touching on things which must be painful to those whom God's mighty hand had overthrown. Through Carl, I had officers brought from the city, and Moltke requested to come. We then sent out one of the first to reconnoitre, and discovered, a couple of miles off, at Fresnoi's, a little château with a park. Thither I conducted him, with an escort of the Cuirassier body-guards, which was meanwhile brought up, and there we concluded the capitulation with Wimpfen, the French general-in-chief. By its terms, from forty to sixty thousand French—I do not yet know the number more exactly—became our prisoners, with everything they have. The two receding days cost France one hundred thousand men and an emperor. He started early this morning, with all his court, horses, and wagons, for Wilhelmshöhe, at Cassel.
It is an event in universal history, a triumph for which we will thank God the Lord in humility, and which is decisive of the war, even though we must continue to prosecute it against headless France.
I must close. With heartfelt joy I have learned today, from your letter and Marie's, of Herbert's reaching you. I met Bill yesterday, as I telegraphed you, and took him to my arms from his horse before the King's face, while he stood with his limbs rigid. He is entirely well and in high spirits. Hans and Fritz Carl and both the Billows I saw with the Second Dragoon guards, well and cheerful.
Farewell, my heart. Kiss the children.
Your v.B.
Gastein, August 30, '71.
Happy the man to whom God has given a virtuous wife, who writes him every day. I am delighted that you are well, and that you have come to be three, to whom I hope to add myself as fourth on the 7th or 8th. * * * You see I have enough mental leisure here to devote myself to the unaccustomed work of making plans; but all on the presupposition that the excited Gauls do not worry my little friend Thiers to death, for then I should have to stay with his Majesty and watch which way the hare runs. I do not think that likely, but with such a stupid nation as they are anything is possible. Hearty love to both fat children.
Your most faithful v.B.
[Footnote 2: From The Love Letters of Bismarck. Permission Harper &
Brothers, New York.]
[Footnote 3: This note has been lost.]
[Footnote 4: In subsequent letters he speaks of her "blue gray-black eyes."]
[Footnote 5: Inspector at Schönhausen.]
[Footnote 6: Compare the enclosure, in which I used often to find the expression of my inmost thought. Now, never any more. (Enclosed was a copy of Byron's poem, "To Inez.")]
[Footnote 7: Fraülein von Blumenthal, afterwards Frau von Böhn.]
[Footnote 8: English in the original.]
[Footnote 9: English in the original.]
[Footnote 10: Von Puttkamer Poberow.]
[Footnote 11: Frau von Blanckenburg]
[Footnote 12: English in the original.]
[Footnote 13: English in the original.]
[Footnote 14: "Right honorable," a common form of address on letters. B. refers more than once to her distinctive way of writing this title.]
[Footnote 15: English in the original.]
[Footnote 16: Fiancé.]
[Footnote 17: Frau von Zanthier, born von Puttkamer.]
[Footnote 18: Military chargé.]
[Footnote 19: Von Bismarck, the oldest nephew.]
[Footnote 20: Von Thadden, commanding a squadron in the First Dragoon
Guards.]
* * * * *
Berlin, December 8, '63.
I have the honor most respectfully to submit a Police report, the printed compilation of the documents relating to the London treaty as commanded, and the telegrams received up to the present. In my most humble opinion it seems expedient to maintain our attitude toward Irminger[22] also outwardly in conformity with that of Austria. It is awkward that Sydow is charged with the report of the committee in the Bundestag, for we shall thus always have to make our declaration first, and before Austria; if your Majesty does not command otherwise I will leave him without instructions on this point, and await tomorrow's committee issues, as the next measure, the letter to Copenhagen, will not be thereby delayed.
The final sentence of the Vienna telegram, that Christian IX. rules also in Copenhagen only by virtue of the London treaty, is not quite right; he rules there because the legitimate heir, Prince Friedrich of Hesse, has resigned in his favor. This legal title, which is in itself sufficient, has only been confirmed by the London treaty, and then extended to the Duchies.
v. BISMARCK.
Marginal note by the King:
Prince Friedrich resigned merely in order that the London treaty in favor of Christian IX. might be effectuated.
* * * * *
Berlin, February 12, '67.
When looking back to the decisive turning point reached by the destinies of Prussia through the glorious fights of the past year, the most distant generations will never forget that the elevation of the Fatherland to new power, and to imperishable honors, that the opening up of an epoch of a rich and, with God's help, a blessing-bringing development are essentially due to your penetration, your energy, and the skilful manner in which you conducted the affairs entrusted to you.
I have decided to show a renewed appreciation of these your most distinguished merits, by the bestowal of a gift of four hundred thousand Thalers.[23] The Minister for Finance has been directed to place this sum at your disposal.
It would be in accordance with my wishes if you devoted this gift, the bestowal of which is to manifest my and the Fatherland's thanks, to the purchase of landed property, and entailed the same, so that with the glory of your name it also may remain permanently in your family.
Your grateful and faithfully devoted King,
* * * * *
Donchery, September 2, '70.
After I came here yesterday evening, by your Royal Majesty's command, to take part in the negotiations on the capitulation, these were interrupted until 1 o'clock in the night, by time for consideration, which General Wimpffen solicited, being granted, after General von Moltke had definitely stated that no other terms will be granted than the laying down of arms, and that the bombardment would recommence at 9 o'clock in the morning if the capitulation were not concluded by that time. At about 6 o'clock this morning General Reille was announced, who informed me that the Emperor wished to see me, and was already on his way here from Sedan. The General returned at once to report to his Majesty that I was following, and shortly afterwards I met the Emperor near Fresnois, about half way between this place and Sedan. His Majesty was driving in an open carriage with three officers of high rank, and was escorted by three others on horseback. Of these officers I knew personally Generals Castelnau, Reille, Moskowa, who seemed to be wounded in the foot, and Vaubert. As soon as I reached the carriage I dismounted, walked to the Emperor's side at the carriage door, and asked for his Majesty's orders. The Emperor at first expressed the wish to see your Imperial Majesty, evidently in the belief that your Majesty was also at Donchery. When I replied that at present your Majesty's headquarters were at Vendresse, thirteen miles away, the Emperor enquired whether your Majesty had decided where he should go, and what my opinion on the subject was. I replied that, as it was quite dark when I arrived here, I knew nothing of the district, and offered to place at his disposal at once the house in which I was staying at Donchery. The Emperor accepted this offer, and drove off at a walking pace in the direction of Donchery; about a hundred yards from the Maas bridge, which leads into the town, he stopped in front of a lonely, workman's cottage, and asked me if he could not stay there. I had the house examined by Councillor of Legation Count Bismarck-Bohlen, who in the meantime had followed me; when it was reported that the interior arrangements were very poor and inadequate, but that there were no wounded men in the house, the Emperor alighted and invited me to accompany him inside. Here, in a very small room containing a table and two chairs, I had about an hour's conversation with the Emperor. His Majesty emphasized especially the wish to obtain more favorable conditions of capitulation for the army. I declined from the outset to treat this question with his Majesty, as this was a purely military question, to be settled between General von Moltke and General von Wimpffen. On the other hand, I asked if his Majesty were inclined to peace negotiations. The Emperor replied that, as a prisoner, he was not now in a position to do so, and to my further enquiry by whom, in his opinion, the executive power was at present represented in France, his Majesty referred me to the Government in Paris. When this point, which was indistinct in the Emperor's letter to your Majesty yesterday, was cleared up, I recognized, and did not conceal the fact from the Emperor, that the situation today, as yesterday, was still a purely military one, and emphasized the necessity arising from it for us to obtain by the capitulation of Sedan above all things a material pledge for the security of the military results we had attained. I had already weighed from all sides with General von Moltke yesterday evening, the question whether it would be possible, without detriment to the German interests, to offer to the military feelings of honor of an army which had fought well more favorable terms than those already laid down. After due and careful consideration we both came to the conclusion that this could not be done. When, therefore, General von Moltke, who in the meantime had arrived from the town, went to your Majesty to submit the Emperor's wishes, he did not do so, as your Majesty is well aware, with the intention of advocating them.
The Emperor then went out into the open air, and invited me to sit beside him just outside the door of the cottage. His Majesty asked whether it would not be practicable to allow the French army to cross into Belgium, to be disarmed and detained there. I had discussed also this eventuality with General v. Moltke on the previous evening and adduced the motive already given for not entering into the question of this course of procedure. With respect to the political situation, I myself took no initiative, and the Emperor went no further than to deplore the ill-fortune of the war, stating that he himself had not wished the war, but was driven into it by the pressure of public opinion in France. I did not regard it as my office to point out at that moment that what the Emperor characterized as public opinion was only the artificial product of certain ambitious coteries of the French press, with a very narrow political horizon. I merely replied that nobody in Germany wished for the war, especially not your Majesty, and that no German Government would have considered the Spanish question of so much interest as to be worth a war. I continued that your Majesty's attitude toward the Spanish succession question was finally determined by the misgiving whether it was right, for personal and dynastic considerations, to mar the endeavor of the Spanish nation to reestablish, by this selection of a King, their internal organization on a permanent basis; that your Majesty, in view of the good relations existing for so many years between the Princes of the Hohenzollern House and the Emperor, had never entertained any doubt but that the Hereditary Prince would succeed in arriving at a satisfactory understanding with his Majesty the Emperor respecting the acceptance of the Spanish election, that, however, your Majesty had regarded this, not as a German or a Prussian, but as a Spanish affair.
In the meantime, between 9 and 10 o'clock, enquiries in the town, and especially reconnaissances on the part of the officers of the general staff, had revealed the fact that the castle of Bellevue, near Fresnois, was suited for the accommodation of the Emperor, and was not yet occupied by the wounded. I reported this to his Majesty by designating Fresnois as the place I should propose to your Majesty for the meeting, and therefore referred it to the Emperor whether his Majesty would proceed there at once, as a longer stay in the little workman's cottage would be uncomfortable, and the Emperor would perhaps need some rest. His Majesty readily assented, and I accompanied the Emperor, who was preceded by an escort of honor from your Majesty's Own Cuirassier Regiment, to the Castle of Bellevue, where in the meantime the rest of the Emperor's suite and his carriages, whose coming had, it appears, been considered doubtful, had arrived from Sedan. General Wimpffen had also arrived, and with him, in anticipation of the return of General von Moltke, the discussion of the capitulation negotiations, which were broken off yesterday, was resumed by General v. Podbielski in the presence of Lieut. Col. von Verdy and the chief of General v. Wimpffen's staff, these two officers acting as secretaries. I took part only in the commencement of the same by setting forth the political and judicial situation in accordance with the information furnished me by the Emperor himself, as it was thereupon reported to me by Major Count von Nostitz, by direction of General von Moltke, that your Majesty wished to see the Emperor only after the capitulation of the army had been concluded—on the receipt of which announcement the hope cherished by the opposite party of securing other terms than those decided on was given up. I then rode off in the direction of Chehery with the intention of reporting the situation to your Majesty, met General v. Moltke on the way, bringing the text of the capitulation approved by your Majesty, and this, when we arrived with it at Fresnois, was accepted and signed without opposition. The demeanor of General v. Wimpffen, as also that of the other French generals, during the previous night was very dignified, and this brave officer could not forbear expressing to me how deeply he was pained that he should have been called upon, forty-eight hours after his arrival from Africa, and half a day after he had assumed command, to set his name to a capitulation so fatal to the French arms, that, however, lack of provisions and ammunition, and the absolute impossibility of any further defence imposed upon him, as a general the duty of suppressing his personal feelings, as further bloodshed could in no way alter the situation. The permission for the officers to be released on parole was received with great thankfulness, as an expression of your Majesty's intention not to hurt the feelings of an army, which had fought bravely, beyond the point demanded by the necessity of our political interests. General v. Wimpffen also subsequently gave expression to this feeling in a letter in which he thanks General v. Moltke for the consideration he showed in conducting the negotiations.
v. BISMARCK.
* * * * *
Berlin, March 21, '71.
With today's opening of the first German Reichstag after the reëstablishment of a German Empire, the first public activity of the same begins. Prussia's history and destiny have for a long time pointed to an event which is now accomplished by its being summoned to the head of the newly founded Empire. Prussia owes this less to her extent of territory and her power, though both have equally increased, than to her intellectual development and the organization of her army. The brilliant position now occupied by my country has been attained through an unexpectedly rapid sequence of great events during the past six years. The work to which I called you ten years ago falls within this time. How you have justified the confidence with which I then summoned you lies open to the world. It is to your counsel, your circumspection, your unwearying activity that Prussia and Germany owe the world-historical occurrence which is embodied in my capital today.
Although the reward for such deeds is felt within you, I am nevertheless urged and bound to express to you publicly and permanently the thanks of the Fatherland and mine. I elevate you, therefore, to the rank of a Prussian Prince (Fürst), which is to be inherited always by the eldest male member of your family.
May you see in this distinction the undying gratitude of Your Emperor and King
* * * * *
Coblenz, July 26, '72.
You will celebrate, on the 28th, a delightful family festival[24] which the Almighty in His mercy has accorded you. I, therefore, may and can not remain behind with my sympathy on this occasion, so will you, and the Princess, your wife, accept my most cordial and warmest congratulations on this great occasion. That both of you always gave the first place, among the blessings showered on you by Providence, to domestic happiness is something for which your prayers of thanksgiving should ascend to heaven. Our and my prayers of thanksgiving, however, go further, as they include thanks to God for having placed you at my side at a decisive moment, and thus opened up a career for my Government far exceeding thought and comprehension. You also will send up your feelings of thankfulness that God graciously permitted you to accomplish such great things. Both in and after all your labors you always found comfort and peace in your home, and that gives you strength in your difficult vocation. To preserve and strengthen you for this is my constant solicitude, and I am glad to learn from your letter through Count Lehndorff and also from the latter himself that you will now think more of yourself than of the documents.
In remembrance of your silver wedding a vase will be handed you which represents a grateful Borussia and which, fragile though the material of which it is composed may be, shall one day express even in every fragment what Prussia owes to you in its elevation to the height on which it now stands.
Your truly devoted grateful King
* * * * *
Varzin, August I, '72.
Your Majesty greatly gladdened my wife and me by graciously evincing sympathy in our family festival, and will, we trust, be graciously pleased to accept our respectful thanks.
Your Majesty justly emphasizes happiness in the home as being among the chief blessings for which I have to thank God, but part of the happiness in my house, for my wife as well as for myself, comes from the consciousness of your Majesty's satisfaction, and the exceedingly gracious and kindly words of appreciation which your Majesty's letter contains are more beneficial to afflicted nerves than is all medical assistance. In looking back over my life I have such inexhaustible cause to thank God for His unmerited mercy, that I often fear everything will not go so well with me until the end. I recognize it as an especially happy dispensation that God has called me on earth to the service of a master whom I serve joyfully and with love, as the innate fidelity of the subject never has to fear, under your Majesty's leadership, coming into conflict with a warm feeling for the honor and the welfare of the Fatherland. May God further give me strength to carry out the will so to serve your Majesty that I obtain the sovereign satisfaction, of which such a gracious testimony lies before me today in the form of the autograph letter of the 26th. The vase, which arrived in good time, is a truly monumental expression of Royal favor, and at the same time so substantial that I may hope not the "fragments" but the whole will be evidence to my descendants of the gracious sympathy evinced by your majesty on the occasion of our silver wedding.
The officers of the fifty-fourth regiment showed a kindly spirit of comradeship by sending their band from Colberg. Otherwise, as is usually the case in the country, we were confined to our family circle; only Motley, the former American Ambassador in London, a friend of my early youth, happened to be here on a visit. Besides her Majesty the Queen, his Majesty the King of Bavaria, and their Royal Highnesses Prince Carl and Friedrich Carl, and his Imperial Highness the Crown Prince, honored me with telegraphic congratulations.
In health I am becoming slowly better; I have, it is true, done no work whatever; but I hope to be able to report myself on duty in time for the Imperial visits.
v. BISMARCK.
* * * * *
Berlin, December 18, '81.
I must tell you of an extraordinary dream I had last night, which was as clear as I now relate it.
The Reichstag met for the first time after the present recess. On Count Eulenburg's entrance the discussion abruptly ceased; after a long interval the President called on the last speaker to continue the debate. Silence! The President thereupon declared the sitting adjourned. This was the signal for great tumult and clamor. No order, it was urged, should be bestowed on any member during the session of the Reichstag; the Monarch may not be mentioned during the session. The House adjourns till tomorrow. Eulenburg's appearance in the Chamber is again greeted with hisses and commotion—and then I awoke in such a state of nervous excitement that it was long before I recovered, and I could not sleep from half-past four to half-past six. All this happened in the House in my presence, as clearly as I have written it down.
I will not hope that the dream will be realized, but it is certainly peculiar. I dreamt it after six hours of quiet sleep, so it could not have been directly produced by our conversation.
Enfin, I could not but tell you of this curious occurrence.
Your
* * * * *
Berlin, December 18, '81.
I thank your Majesty most respectfully for the gracious letter. I quite believe that the dream owed its origin, not exactly to my report, but to the general impression obtained during the last few days from Puttkamer's[25] oral report, the newspaper articles, and my report. The pictures we have in our minds when awake do not reappear in the mirror of our dreams until our mental faculties have been well rested by sleep. Your Majesty's communication encourages me to relate a dream I had in the troublous days of the spring of 1863. I dreamt, and I told my dream at once to my wife and to others the next morning, that I was riding along a narrow Alpine path, to the right an abyss, and to the left rocks; the path became narrower and narrower, until at last my horse refused to take another step, and there was no room either to turn or to dismount. I then struck the smooth rocky wall with my riding whip in my left hand, and invoked God; the whip became interminably long, and the wall of rock collapsed like a scene in the theatre, opening up a wide pathway, with a view over hills and forests such as one sees in Bohemia. I also caught sight of Prussian troops, with their banners, and, still in my dreams, wondered how I could best report this Quickly to your Majesty. This dream was realized, and I awoke from it glad and strengthened.
[Illustration: FRANZ VON LENBACH EMPEROR WILLIAM I]
The bad dream from which your Majesty awoke nervous and agitated can be realized only in so far that we shall still have many stormy and noisy parliamentary debates, which must unfortunately undermine the prestige of the Parliaments and seriously interfere with State business. Your Majesty's presence at these debates is an impossibility; and I regard such scenes as we have lately witnessed in the Reichstag regrettable enough as a standard of our morals and our political education, perhaps also our political qualifications, but not as a misfortune in themselves: l'excès du mal en devient le remède.
Will your Majesty pardon, with your accustomed graciousness, these holiday reflections, which were suggested by your Majesty's letter; for from yesterday till January 9th we have holidays and rest. BISMARCK.
* * * * *
Berlin, September 23, '87.
You celebrate on September 23, my dear Prince, the day on which, twenty-five years ago, I called you into my Ministry of State, and shortly afterwards gave the Premiership into your hands. The distinguished services you had previously rendered to the Fatherland in the most varied and important positions justified me in conferring on you this highest post. The history of the last quarter of a century proves that I did not err in my choice!
A shining example of true patriotism, of untiring activity often to the utter disregard of your health, you have been indefatigable in keeping a close watch on what were frequently overwhelming difficulties in peace and war, and have used them to lead Prussia in honor and glory to a Position in the world's history which had never been dreamed of! Such achievements have been performed that the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 23 must be celebrated with thanks to God for placing you at my side in order to execute His will on earth!
And I now once more impress these thanks on you, as I have so frequently expressed and manifested them hitherto!
From a heart filled with thankfulness I congratulate you on the celebration of such a day, and hope from my heart that your strength may long be preserved unimpaired, to be a blessing to the Crown and to the Fatherland! Your eternally grateful King and friend
P.S.—In memory of the past twenty-five years I am sending you a view of the building in which we have discussed and taken such weighty resolutions which it is to be hoped will redound to the honor and welfare of Prussia and of Germany.
* * * * *
Friedrichsruh, September 26, '87.
I thank your Majesty in deep respect for the gracious letter of the 23d inst., and for the gracious present of the picture of the palace in which for so many years I have had the honor to make my reports to your Majesty, and to take your Majesty's orders. The day received especial consecration for me through the greeting in your Majesty's name with which their royal Highnesses Prince William and Prince Henry honored me. Even without this fresh proof of favor, the feeling with which I greeted the twenty-fifth anniversary of my appointment as a Minister was one of most cordial and respectful gratitude to your Majesty. Every sovereign appoints ministers, but it is a rare occurrence in modern times for a monarch to retain a Prime Minister and to uphold him for twenty-five years, in troublous times when everything does not succeed, against all animosity and intrigues. During this period I have seen many a former friend become an opponent, but your Majesty's favor and confidence have remained unwaveringly with me. The thought of this is a rich reward to me for all my work, and a consolation in illness and solitude. I love my Fatherland, the German as well as the Prussian, but I should not have served it with gladness if it had not been granted to me to serve to the satisfaction of my King. The high position which I owe to your Majesty's favor is based on, and has as its indestructible core, your Majesty's Brandenburg liegeman and Prussian officer, and therefore I am rendered happy by your Majesty's satisfaction, without which every popularity would be valueless to me. * * * Besides many telegrams and addresses from home and abroad, I received very gracious greetings and congratulations on the twenty-third from their Majesties of Saxony and Wurtemburg, from his Royal Highness the Regent of Bavaria, the Grand-Dukes of Weimar, Baden, and Mecklenburg, and other rulers, and from his Majesty the King of Italy and Minister Crispi. The two latter touched politics, and were difficult to answer; as the text of their letters may perhaps interest your Majesty, I have instructed the Foreign Office to forward them.
I pray God that He may still longer grant me the pleasure of serving your Majesty to your Majesty's satisfaction.
[Footnote 21: Permission: Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.]
[Footnote 22: Admiral Irminger was charged with the task of notifying in Berlin and Vienna Christian IX.'s accession to the throne; he was granted no audience in Berlin, and left that city on the 5th for Vienna as, in Bismarck's opinion, the Emperor would more easily receive him than the King of Prussia could.]
[Footnote 23: About £60,000.]
[Footnote 24: Silver wedding.]
[Footnote 25: Minister for the Interior, and Vice President of the
Ministry of State.]
* * * * *
Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
Left school at Easter, 1832, a normal product of our state system of education; a Pantheist, and, if not a Republican, at least with the persuasion that the Republic was the most rational form of government; reflecting too upon the causes which could decide millions of men permanently to obey one man, when all the while I was hearing from grown up people much bitter or contemptuous criticism of their rulers. Moreover, I had brought away with me "German-National" impressions from Plamann's preparatory school, conducted on Jahn's drill-system, in which I lived from my sixth to my twelfth year. These impressions remained in the stage of theoretical reflections, and were not strong enough to extirpate my innate Prussian monarchical sentiments. My historical sympathies remained on the side of authority. To my childish ideas of justice Harmodius and Aristogeiton, as well as Brutus, were criminals, and Tell a rebel and murderer. Every German prince who resisted the Emperor before the Thirty Years' war roused my ire; but from the Great Elector onwards I was partisan enough to take an anti-imperial view, and to find it natural that things should have been in readiness for the Seven Years' war. Yet the German-National feeling remained so strong in me that, at the beginning of my university life, I at once entered into relations with the Burschenschaft, or group of students which made the promotion of a national sentiment its aim. But, after personal intimacy with its members, I disliked their refusal to "give satisfaction," as well as their want of breeding in externals and of acquaintance with the forms and manners of good society; and a still closer acquaintance bred an aversion to the extravagance of their political views, based upon a lack of either culture or knowledge of the conditions of life which historical causes had brought into existence, and which I, with my seventeen years, had had more opportunities of observing than most of these students, for the most part older than myself. Their ideas gave me the impression of an association between Utopian theories and defective breeding. Nevertheless, I retained my own private National sentiments, and my belief that in the near future events would lead to German unity; in fact, I made a bet with my American friend Coffin that this aim would be attained in twenty years.
In my first half-year at Göttingen occurred the Hambach festival[27] (May 27, 1832), the "festal ode" of which still remains in my memory; in my third the Frankfort outbreak[28](April 3, 1833). These manifestations revolted me. Mob interference with political authority conflicted with my Prussian schooling, and I returned to Berlin with less liberal opinions than when I quitted it; but this reaction was again somewhat mitigated when I was brought into immediate connection with the workings of the political machine. Upon foreign politics, with which the public at that time occupied itself but little, my views, as regards the War of Liberation, were taken from the standpoint of a Prussian officer. On looking at the map, the Possession of Strasburg by France exasperated me, and a visit to Heidelberg, Spires, and the Palatinate made me feel revengeful and militant. In the period before 1848 succeed in laying a coat of European varnish over the specifically Prussian bureaucrat. How these observations acted in practice is clearly shown when we go through the list of our diplomatists of those days: one is astonished to find so few native Prussians among them. The fact of being the son of a foreign ambassador accredited to Berlin was of itself ground for preference. The diplomatists who had grown up in small courts and had been taken into the Prussian service had not infrequently the advantage over natives of greater assurance in Court circles and a greater absence of shyness. An especial example of this tendency was Herr von Schleinitz. In the list we find also members of noble houses in whom descent supplied the place of talent. I scarcely remember from the period when I was appointed to Frankfort anyone of Prussian descent being appointed chief of an important mission, except myself, Baron Carl von Werther, Canitz, and Count Max Hatzfeldt (who had a French wife). Foreign names were at a premium: Brassier, Perponcher, Savigny, Oriola. It was presumed that they had greater fluency in French, and they were more out of the common. Another feature was the disinclination to accept personal responsibility when not covered by unmistakable instructions, just as was the case in the military service in 1806 in the old school of the Frederickian period. Even in those days we were breeding stuff for officers, even as high as the rank of regimental commander, to a pitch of perfection attained by no other state; but beyond that rank the native Prussian blood was no longer fertile in talents, as in the time of Frederick the Great. Our most successful commanders, Blücher, Gneisenau, Moltke, Goeben, were not original Prussian products, any more than Stein, Hardenberg, Motz, and Grolmann in the Civil Service. It is as though our statesmen, like the trees in nurseries, needed transplanting in order that their roots might find full development.
Ancillon advised me first of all to pass my examination as Regierungs-Assessor, and then, by the circuitous route of employment in the Zollverein to seek admittance into the German diplomacy of Prussia; he did not, it would seem, anticipate in a scion of the native squirearchy a vocation for European diplomacy. I took his hint to heart, and resolved first of all to go up for my examination as Regierungs-Assessor.
The persons and institutions of our judicial system with which I was in the first instance concerned gave my youthful conceptions more material for criticism than for respect. The practical education of the Auscultator began with keeping the minutes of the Criminal Courts, and to this post I was promoted out of my proper turn by the Rath, Herr von Brauchitsch, under whom I worked, because in those days I wrote a more than usually quick and legible hand. On the examinations, as criminal proceedings in the inquisitorial method of that day were called, the one that has made the most lasting impression upon me related to a widely ramifying association in Berlin for the purpose of unnatural vice. The club arrangements of the accomplices, the agenda books, the levelling effect through all classes of a common pursuit of the forbidden—all this, even in 1835, pointed to a demoralization in no whit less than that evidenced by the proceedings against the Heinzes, husband and wife, in October, 1891. The ramifications of this society extended even into the highest circles. It was ascribed to the influence of Prince Wittgenstein that the reports of the case were demanded from the Ministry of Justice, and were never returned—at least, during the time I served on the tribunal.
After I had been keeping the records for four months, I was transferred to the City Court, before which civil causes are tried, and was suddenly promoted from the mechanical occupation of writing from dictation to an independent post, which, having regard to my inexperience and my sentiments, made my position difficult. The first stage in which the legal novice was called to a more independent sphere of activity was in connection with divorce proceedings. Obviously regarded as the least important, they were entrusted to the most incapable Rath, Prätorius by name, and under him were left to the tender mercies of unfledged Auscultators, who had to make upon this corpus vile their first experiments in the part of judges—of course, under the nominal responsibility of Herr Prätorius, who nevertheless took no part in their proceedings. By way of indicating this gentleman's character, it was told to us young people that when, in the course of a sitting, he was roused from a light slumber to give his vote, he used to say, "I vote with my colleague Tempelhof"—whereupon it was sometimes necessary to point out to him that Herr Tempelhof was not present.
On one occasion I represented to him my embarrassment at having, though only a few months more than twenty years old, to undertake the attempt at a reconciliation between an agitated couple: a matter crowned, according to my view, with a certain ecclesiastical and moral "nimbus," with which in my state of mind I did not feel able to cope. I found Prätorius in the irritable mood of an old man awakened at an untimely moment, who had besides all the aversion of an old bureaucrat to a young man of birth. He said, with a contemptuous smile, "It is very annoying, Herr Referendarius, when a man can do nothing for himself; I will show you how to do it." I returned with him into the judge's room. The case was one in which the husband wanted a divorce and the wife not. The husband accused her of adultery; the wife, tearful and declamatory, asserted her innocence; and, despite all manner of ill-treatment from the man, wanted to remain with him. Prätorius, with his peculiar clicking lisp, thus addressed the woman: "But, my good woman, don't be so stupid. What good will it do you? When you get home, your husband will give you a jacketing until you can stand no more. Come now, simply say 'yes,' and then you will be quit of the sot." To which the wife, crying hysterically, replied: "I am an honest woman! I will not have that indignity put upon me! I don't want to be divorced!" After manifold retorts and rejoinders in this tone, Prätorius turned to me with the words: "As she will not listen to reason, write as follows, Herr Referendarius," and dictated to me some words which, owing to the deep impression they made upon me, I remember to this day. "Inasmuch as the attempt at reconciliation has been made, and arguments drawn from the sphere of religion and morality have proved fruitless, further proceedings were taken as follows." My chief then rose and said, "Now, you see how it is done, and in future leave me in peace about such things." I accompanied him to the door, and went on with the case. The Divorce Court stage of my career lasted, so far as I can remember, from four to six weeks; a reconciliation case never came before me again. There was a certain necessity for the ordinance respecting proceedings in divorce cases, to which Frederick William IV. was obliged to confine himself after his attempts to introduce a law for the substantial alteration of the Marriage Law had foundered upon the opposition of the Council of State. With regard to this matter it may be mentioned that, as a result of this ordinance, the Attorney-General was first introduced into those provinces in which the old Prussian common law prevailed as defensor matrimonii, and to prevent collusion between the parties.
More inviting was the subsequent stage of petty cases, where the untrained young jurist at least acquired practice in listening to pleadings and examining witnesses, but where more use was made of him as a drudge than was met by the resulting benefit to his instruction. The locality and the procedure partook somewhat of the restless bustle of a railway manager's work. The space in which the leading Rath and the three or four Auscultators sat with their backs to the public was surrounded by a wooden screen, and round about the four-cornered recess formed thereby surged an ever-changing and more or less noisy mob of parties to the suits.
My impression of institutions and persons was not essentially modified when I had been transferred to the Administration. In order to abbreviate the détour to diplomacy, I applied to a Rhenish government, that of Aachen, where the course could be gone through in two years, whereas in the "old" provinces at least three years were required.[29]
I can well imagine that in making the appointments to the Rhenish Governing Board in 1816 the same procedure was adopted as at the organization of Elsass-Lothringen in 1871. The authorities who had to contribute a portion of their staff would not be likely to respond to the call of state requirements by putting their best foot foremost to accomplish the difficult task of assimilating a newly acquired population, but would have chosen those members of their offices whose departure was desired by their superiors or wished by themselves; in the board were to be found former secretaries of prefectures and other relics of the French administration. The personnel did not all correspond to the ideal which floated unwarrantably enough before my eyes at twenty-one, and still less was this the case with the details of the current business. I recollect that, what with the many differences of opinion between officials and governed, or with internal differences of opinion among each of these two categories, whose polemics for many years considerably swelled the bulk of the records, my habitual impression was, "Well, yes, that is one way of doing it"; and that questions, the decision of which one way or the other was not worth the paper wasted upon them, created a mass of business which a single prefect could have disposed of with the fourth part of the energy bestowed upon them. Nevertheless, except for the subordinate officials, the day's work was slight; as regards heads of departments especially, a mere sinecure.
I quitted Aachen with a very poor opinion of our bureaucracy, in detail and collectively, with the exception of the gifted President, Count Arnim-Boitzenburg. My opinion of the detail became more favorable owing to my next subsequent experience in the government at Potsdam, to which I got transferred in the year 1837; because there, unlike the arrangement in other provinces, the indirect taxes were at the disposal of the government, and it was just these that were important to me if I wanted to make customs-policy the basis of my future.
The members of the board made a better impression upon me than those at Aachen; but yet, taking them as a whole, it was an impression of pigtail and periwig, in which category my youthful presumption also placed the paternal dignified President-in-Chief, von Bassewitz; while the President of the Aachen Government, Count Arnim, wore the generic wig of the state service, it is true, but no intellectual pigtail. When therefore I quitted the service of the State for a country life, I imported into the relations which as a landed proprietor I had with the officials an opinion, which I now see to have been too mean, of the value of our bureaucracy, and perhaps too great an inclination to criticize them. I remember that as substitute provincial president I had to give my verdict on a plan for abolishing the election of those officials; I expressed myself to the effect that the bureaucracy, as it ascended from the provincial president, sank in the general esteem; it had preserved it only in the person of the provincial president, who wore a Janus head, one face turned towards the bureaucracy, the other towards the country.
The tendency to interference in the most various relations of life was, under the paternal government of those days, perhaps greater than now; but the instruments of such interference were less numerous, and, as regards culture and breeding, stood much higher than do some of those of today. The officials of the right worshipful royal Prussian government were honest, well-read and well-bred officials; but their benevolent activity did not always meet with recognition, because from want of local experience they went to pieces on matters of detail, in regard to which the views of the learned citizen at the green table were not always superior to the healthy common-sense criticism of the peasant intelligence. The members of the Governing Boards had in those days multa, not multum, to do; and the lack of higher duties resulted in their not finding a sufficient quantity of important business, and led them in their zeal for duty to go beyond the needs of the governed, into a tendency to over-regulation—in a word, into what the Swiss calls Befehlerle.[30] To glance at a comparison with present conditions, it had been hoped that the state authorities would have been relieved of business and of officials by the introduction of the local self-government of today; but, on the contrary, the number of the officials and their load of business have been very considerably increased by correspondence, and friction with the machinery of self-government, from the provincial councillor down to the rural parish administration. Sooner or later the flaw must be reached, and we shall be crushed by the burden of clerkdom, especially in the subordinate bureaucracy.
Moreover, bureaucratic pressure upon private life is intensified by the mode in which self-government works in practice and encroaches more sharply than before on the rural parishes. Formerly the provincial president, who stood in as close relations with the people as with the State, formed the lowest step in the State bureaucracy. Below him were local authorities, who were no doubt subject to control, but not in the same measure as nowadays to the disciplinary powers of the district, or the ministerial, bureaucracy. The rural population enjoys today, by virtue of the measure of self-government conceded to it, an autonomy, not perhaps similar to that which the towns had long ago; but it has received, in the shape of the official commissioner, a chief who is kept in disciplinary check by superior instructions proceeding from the provincial resident, under the threat of penalties, and compelled to burden his fellow-citizens in his district with lists, notifications, and inquisitions as the political hierarchy thinks good. The governed contribuens plebs no longer possess, in the court of the provincial president, that guarantee against blundering encroachment which, at an earlier period was to be found in the circumstance that people resident in the district who became provincial presidents as a rule resolved to remain so in their own districts all their life long, and sympathized with the joys and sorrows of the district. Today the post of provincial president is the lowest step in the ladder of the higher administration, sought after by young "assessors" who have a justifiable ambition to make a career. To obtain it they have more need of ministerial favor than of the goodwill of the local population, and they attempt to win this favor by conspicuous zeal, and by "taking it out of" the official commissioners of the so-called local administration, or by carrying out valueless bureaucratic experiments. Therein lies for the most part the inducement to overburden their subordinates in the local self-government system. Thus self-government means the aggravation of bureaucracy, increase in the number of officials, and of their powers and interference in private life.
It is only human nature to be more keenly sensitive to the thorns than to the roses of every institution, and that the thorns should irritate one against the existing state of things. The old government officials, when they came into direct contact with the governed population, showed themselves to be pedantic, and estranged from the practical working of life by their occupation at the green table; but they left behind them the impression of toiling honesty and conscientiously for justice. The same thing cannot be assumed in all their degrees of the wheels in the machine of the self-government of today in those country districts where the parties stand in acute opposition to each other; goodwill towards political friends, frame of mind as regards opponents, readily become a hindrance to the impartial maintenance of institutions. According to my experiences in earlier and more recent times, I should, for the rest, not like to allow impartiality, when comparing judicial and administrative decisions, to the former alone, not at least in every instance. On the contrary, I have preserved an impression that judges of small local courts succumb more easily to strong party influences than do administrative officials; nor need we invent any psychological reason for the fact that, given equal culture, the latter should a priori be considered less just and conscientious in their official decisions than the former. But I certainly do assume that official decisions do not gain in honesty and moderation by being arrived at collectively; for apart from the fact that, in the case of voting by majority, arithmetic and chance take the place of logical reasoning, that feeling of personal responsibility, in which lies the essential guarantee for the conscientiousness of the decision, is lost directly it comes about by means of anonymous majorities.
The course of business in the two boards of Potsdam and Aachen was not very encouraging for my ambition. I found the business assigned to me petty and tedious, and my labors in the department of suits arising from the grist tax and from the compulsory contribution to the building of the embankment at Rotzis, near Wusterhausen, have left behind in me no sentimental regrets for my sphere of work in those days. Renouncing the ambition for an official career, I readily complied with the wishes of my parents by taking up the humdrum management of our Pomeranian estates. I had made up my mind to live and die in the country, after attaining successes in agriculture—perhaps in war also, if war should come. So far as my country life left me any ambition at all, it was that of a lieutenant in the Landwehr.
The impressions that I had received in my childhood were little adapted to make a squire of me. In Plamann's educational establishment, conducted on the systems of Pestalozzi and Jahn, the "von" before my name was a disadvantage, so far as my childish comfort was concerned, in my intercourse with my fellow-pupils and my teachers. Even at the high school at the Grey Friars I had to suffer, as regards individual teachers, from that hatred of nobility which had clung to the greater part of the educated bourgeoisie as a reminiscence of the days before 1806. But even the aggressive tendency which occasionally appeared in bourgeois circles never gave me any inducement to advance in the opposite direction. My father was free from aristocratic prejudices, and his inward sense of equality had been modified, if at all, by his youthful impressions as an officer, but in no way by any over-estimate of inherited rank. My mother was the daughter of Mencken, Privy Councillor to Frederick the Great, Frederick William II., and Frederick William III., who sprang from a family of Leipzig professors, and was accounted in those days a Liberal. The later generations of the Menckens—those immediately preceding me—had found their way to Prussia in the Foreign Office and about the Court. Baron von Stein has quoted my grandfather Mencken as an honest, strongly Liberal official. Under these circumstances, the views which I imbibed with my mother's milk were Liberal rather than reactionary; and, if my mother had lived to see my ministerial activity, she would scarcely have been in accord with its direction, even though she would have experienced great joy in the external results of my official career. She had grown up in bureaucratic and court circles; Frederick William IV. spoke of her as "Mienchen," in memory of childish games. I can therefore declare it an unjust estimate of my views in my younger years, when "the prejudices of my rank" are thrown in my teeth and it is maintained that a recollection of the privileges of the nobility has been the starting-point of my domestic policy.
Moreover, the unlimited authority of the old Prussian monarchy was not, and is not, the final word of my convictions. As to that, to be sure, this authority of the monarch constitutionally existed in the first United Diet, but accompanied by the wish and anticipation that the unlimited power of the King, without being overturned, might fix the measure of its own limitation. Absolutism primarily demands impartiality, honesty, devotion to duty, energy, and inward humility in the ruler. These may be present, and yet male and female favorites (in the best case the lawful wife), the monarch's own vanity and susceptibility to flattery, will nevertheless diminish the fruits of his good intentions, inasmuch as the monarch is not omniscient and cannot have an equal understanding of all branches of his office. As early as 1847 I was in favor of an effort to secure the possibility of public criticism of the government in parliament and in the press, in order to shelter the monarch from the danger of having blinkers put on him by women, courtiers, sycophants, and visionaries, hindering him from taking a broad view of his duties as monarch, or from avoiding and correcting his mistakes. This conviction of mine became all the more deeply impressed upon me in proportion as I became better acquainted with Court circles, and had to defend the interest of the State from their influences and also from the opposition of a departmental patriotism. The interests of the State alone have guided me, and it has been a calumny when publicists, even well-meaning, have accused me of having ever advocated an aristocratic system. I have never regarded birth as a substitute for want of ability; whenever I have come forward on behalf of landed property, it has not been in the interests of proprietors of my own class, but because I see in the decline of agriculture one of the greatest dangers to our permanence as a State. The ideal that has always floated before me has been a monarchy which should be so far controlled by an independent national representation—according to my notion, representing classes or callings—that monarch or parliament would not be able to alter the existing statutory position before the law separately but only communi consensus with publicity, and public criticism, by press and Diet, of all political proceedings.
Whoever has the conviction that uncontrolled Absolutism, as it was first brought upon the stage by Louis XIV., was the most fitting form of government for German subjects, must lose it after making a special study in the history of Courts, and such critical observations as I was enabled to institute at the court of Frederick William IV. (whom personally I loved and revered) in Manteuffel's days. The King was a religious absolutist with a divine vocation, and the ministers after Brandenburg were content as a rule if they were covered by the royal signature even when they could not have personally answered for the contents of what was signed. I remember that on one occasion a high Court official of absolutist opinions, on hearing of the news of the royalist rising at Neuchâtel, observed, with some confusion, in the presence of myself and several of his colleagues: "That is a royalism of which nowadays one has to go very far from Court to get experience." Yet, as a rule, sarcasm was not a habit of this old gentleman.
Observations which I made in the country as to the venality and chicanery of the "district sergeants" and other subordinate officials, and petty conflicts which I had with the government in Stettin as deputy of the "Circle" and deputy for the provincial president, increased my aversion to the rule of the bureaucracy. I may mention one of these conflicts. While I was representing the President, then on leave, I received an order from the government to compel the patron of Külz, that was myself, to undertake certain burdens. I put the order aside, meaning to give it to the president on his return, was repeatedly worried about it, and fined a thaler, to be forwarded through the post. I now drew up a statement, in which I figured as having appeared, first of all as representative of the Landrath, and secondly as patron of Külz. The party cited made the prescribed representations to himself in his capacity as No. 1, and then proceeded in his capacity of No. 2 to set forth the ground on which he had to decline the application; after which the statement was approved and subscribed by him in his double capacity. The government understood a joke, and ordered the fine to be refunded. In other cases, things resulted in less pleasant heckling. I had a critical disposition, and was consequently liberal, in the sense in which the word was then used among landed proprietors to imply discontent with the bureaucracy, the majority of whom on their side were men more liberal than myself, though in another sense.
I again slipped off the rails of my parliamentary liberal tendencies, with regard to which I found little understanding or sympathy in Pomerania, but which in Schönhausen met with the acquiescence of men in my own district, like Count Wartensleben of Karow, Schierstädt-Dahlen, and others (the same men of whom some were among the party of Church patrons in the New Era subsequently condemned). This was the result of the style, to me unsympathetic, in which the opposition was conducted in the first United Diet, to which I was summoned, only for the last six weeks of the session, as substitute for Deputy von Brauchitsch, who was laid up with illness. The speeches of the East Prussians, Saucken-Tarputschen and Alfred Auerswald, the sentimentality of Beckerath, the Gallo-Rhenish liberalism of Heydt and Mevissen, and the boisterous violence of Vincke's speeches, disgusted me; and even at this date when I read the proceedings they give me the impression of imported phrases made to pattern. I felt that the King was on the right track, and could claim to be allowed time, and not be hurried in his development.
I came into conflict with the Opposition the first time I made a longer speech than usual, on May 17, 1847, when I combatted the legend that the Prussians had gone to war in 1813 to get a constitution, and gave free expression to my natural indignation at the idea that foreign domination was in itself no adequate reason for fighting.[31] It appeared to me undignified that the nation, as a set-off to its having freed itself, should hand in to the King an account payable in the paragraphs of a constitution. My performance produced a storm. I remained in the tribune turning over the leaves of a newspaper which lay there, and then, when the commotion had subsided, I finished my speech.
At the Court festivities, which took place during the session of the United Diet, I was avoided in a marked manner both by the King and the Princess of Prussia, though for different reasons: by the latter because I was neither Liberal nor popular; by the former for a reason which only became clear to me later. When, on the reception of the deputies, he avoided speaking to me—when, in the Court circle, after speaking to every one in turn, he broke off immediately he came to me, turned his back, or strolled away across the room—I considered myself justified in supposing that my attitude as a Royalist Hotspur had exceeded the limits which the King had fixed for himself. Only some months later, when I reached Venice on my honeymoon, did I discover that this explanation was incorrect. The King, who had recognized me in the theatre, commanded me on the following day to an audience and to dinner; and so unexpected was this to me that my light travelling luggage and the incapacity of the local tailor did not admit of my appearing in correct costume. My reception was so kindly, and the conversation, even on political subjects, of such a nature as to enable me to infer that my attitude in the Diet met with his encouraging approval. The King commanded me to call upon him in the course of the winter, and I did so. Both on this occasion at smaller dinners at the palace I became persuaded that I stood high in the favor of both the King and the Queen, and that the former, in avoiding speaking to me in public, at the time of the session of the Diet, did not mean to criticize my political conduct, but at the time did not want to let others see his approval of me.
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In the summer of 1855 Count Hatzfeldt, our ambassador in Paris, invited me to visit the Industrial Exhibition;[32] he still shared the belief then existent in diplomatic circles that I was very soon to be Manteuffel's successor at the Foreign Office. Although the King had entertained such an idea on and off, it was already then known in the innermost Court circles that a change had taken place. Count William Redern, whom I met in Paris, told me that the ambassadors continued to believe I was destined to be made a minister and that he himself had also believed this; but that the King had changed his mind—of further details he was ignorant. Doubtless since Rügen.
August 15, Napoleon's day, was celebrated among other ways by a procession of Russian prisoners through the streets. On the 19th the Queen of England made her entry, and on August 25 a State ball was given in her honor at Versailles at which I was presented to her and to Prince Albert.
The Prince, handsome and cool in his black uniform, conversed with me courteously, but in his manner there was a kind of malevolent curiosity from which I concluded that my anti-occidental influence upon the King was not unknown to him. In accordance with the mode of thought peculiar to him, he sought for the motives of my conduct not where they really lay, that is, in the anxiety to keep my country independent of foreign influences—influences which found a fertile soil in our narrow-minded reverence for England and fear of France—and in the desire to hold ourselves aloof from a war which we should not have carried on in our own interests but in dependence upon Austrian and English policy.
In the eyes of the Prince—though I of course did not gather this from the momentary impression made during my presentation, but from ulterior acquaintance with facts and documents—I was a reactionary party man who took up sides for Russia in order to further an Absolutist and "Junker" policy. It was not to be wondered at that this view of the Prince's and of the then partisans of the Duke of Coburg had descended to the Prince's daughter, who shortly after became our Crown Princess.
Even soon after her arrival in Germany, in February, 1858, I became convinced, through members of the royal house and from my own observations, that the Princess was prejudiced against me personally. The fact itself did not surprise me so much as the form in which her prejudice against me had been expressed in the narrow family circle—"she did not trust me." I was prepared for antipathy on account of my alleged anti-English feelings and by reason of my refusal to obey English influences; but from a conversation which I had with the Princess after the war of 1866 while sitting next to her at table I was obliged to conclude that she had subsequently allowed herself to be influenced in her judgment of my character by further-reaching calumnies. I was ambitious, she said, in a half-jesting tone, to be a king or at least president of a republic. I replied in the same semi-jocular tone that I was personally spoilt for a republican; that I had grown up in the royalist traditions of the family and had need of a monarchical institution for my earthly well-being: I thanked God, however, I was not destined to live like a king, constantly on show, but to be until death the king's faithful subject. I added that no guarantee could, however, be given that this conviction of mine would be universally inherited, and this not because royalists would give out, but because perhaps kings might. Pour faire un civet, il faut un lièvre, et pour faire une monarchie il faut un roi. I could not answer for it that for want of such the next generation might not be republican. I further remarked that in thus expressing myself I was not free from anxiety at the idea of a change in the occupancy of the throne without a transference of the monarchical traditions to the successor. But the Princess avoided every serious turn and kept up the jocular tone as amiable and entertaining as ever; she rather gave me the impression that she wished to tease a political opponent.