UC-NRLF ^B EflT DbT 'V Appletons Town and Country Library PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY. edition.) CK Johnson. cheap edition.) mpbell-Pkaed. 1. The Steel Hamiaer. By Lours Ulbach. 2. Eve. A. Novel. By S, Baeing-Gould. 3. For Fifteen Years. A Sequel to "The Steel Uammer." By Locis Ulbach. 4. A Counsel of Perfection. A Novel. By Lucas Malet. 5. The Deemster. A liomance. By Hall Caine. 6. A Virg-inia Inheritance. By Edmund Pendleton. 7. Ninette : An Idyll of Provence. By the author of " V^ra," 8. " The Right Honourable." A Romance of Society and Politics. By Justin McC^AETHY and Mi-s. Gampbkll-Peaed. 9. The Silence of Dean Maitland. By Maxwell Geey. 10. Mrs. IiOfiTTifir: A fetudv in Black and White. Rv LirrjAS Malet. 11. The Ele 12. The My 13. Aristoci 14. A RecoJ 15. The Sec 16. The Ma 17. Donova: 18. This M< 19. A Fair 20. The Ap. 21. Raleigrh 22. Arius tl 23. Constar 24. We Tw< 25. A Drea] 26. The Lac 27. The Rei 28. Near to 29. In the "^ 30. Lace. A 31. America 32. Won by 33. The Sto 34. The Lig 35. Mistresi M. E. 36. Knight- 37. In the C 38. Giraldi; 39. A Hard 40. The Ro: Olakk 41. Passion 42. The Aw ^ 43. Countes er. 44. Slind Lovtn ".y ii n^n^ic \j\ji.uii-\o. 45. The Dean's Daug-hter. By Sophie F. F. Veitch. 46. Countess Irene. A Komance of Austrian Life. By J. Fogkbty. 47. Robert Browningr's Principal Shorter Poems. 48. Frozen Hearts. By G. Webb Appleton. 49. Djambek the G-eorg-ian. By A. O. von Suttneu. 50. The Craze of Christian Engrelhart. By Ueney Faulkner Darnell. 51. Lai. By William A. Hammond, M. D. (A new cheap edition.) 52. Aline. A Novel. By Heney Geeville. 53. Joost Avelingh. A Dutch Story. By Maaeten Maabtens. 54. Katy of Catoctin. By Geoege Alfeed Townsend. 55. Throckmorton. A Novel. By Molly Elliot Seawbll. 56. Expatriation. By the author of '• Aristocracy."' 57. Geoffrey Hampstead. By T. S. Jaevis. 58. Dmitri. A Romance of old Russia. By F. W. Bain, M. A. 59. Part of the Properly. By Beateice Whitby. 12mo, paper cover, price 50 cents each. (With a few exceptions the volumes are also in neat uniform cloth bindinor, price 75 cents each.) Noble Foster Hogg son. Daughter. By Life. By W D. APPLETON & CO, Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond St., New York. ■ V "The Manor" Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/bismarckintimeirOOIiaywricli BISMARCK INTIME. L \\ BISMARCK INTIME THE IRON CHANCELLOR IN PRIVATE LIFE BY A FELLOW STUDENT TRANSLATED BY HENRY HAYWARD fVITH PORTRAITS NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1890 3 5 Authorized Edition. • » % * m t t C « » t TABLE OF CONTENTS. • — ♦ — CHAP. PAGE INTRODUCTION AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE . . 9 I. BISMARCK AS A STUDENT . . . . .I? II. BISMARCK AS A YOUNG MAN ..... 27 v| III. BISMARCK HAS ALWAYS HAD AN EXALTED IDEA OF HIS OWN ABILITIES 33 IV. THE MARRIAGE OF PRINCE BISMARCK — BISMARCK'S HOME. ... .... 39 >i V. PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER .... 64 VI. BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG . . • . IO4 VII. BISMARCK'S POPULAR4TY — HIS BIRTHDAY PRESENTS I30 ^III. BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS 1 69 APPENDIX 213 ivil36224 LIST OF PORTRAITS. PAGE PRINCE OTTO VON BISMARCK-SCHONHAUSEN . Frontispiece WILLIAM I. . . 71 FREDERICK 1 94 PRINCE BISMARCK AND HIS SON, COUNT HERBERT . Face I49 COUNT CAPRivi, Bismarck's successor as chancellor . 177 WILLIAM IL, emperor OF GERMANY, AND HIS SON, THE CROWN PRINCE 204 PRINCESS BISMARCK Face 215 BISMARCK IN PRIVATE LIFE. ' INTRODUCTION AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. IT IS not intended, in this work, to deal with the subject of it in his character of politician, or of the Minister who has achieved the greatness of Prussia and the unity of Germany. In the annexed pages it is " the man him- self" who is depicted. Bismarck was born in 1815, at the Castle of Schonhausen — his father being a cavalry captain, and his mother a lady of com- paratively humble family. He was educated at Gottingen and Berlin, and after having passed his volontariat in the Foot Guards, he entered a Government office — in which, cid BIOGRAl'HICAL NOTICE. however, he did not remain, for he was event- ually elected Deputy, and still later on entered diplomatic life, and worked his way up to the high position which he has just quitted. The following story is told about his mother's marriage. The palace of the Crown Prince at Berlin, a building of somewhat simple and mean appearance, was a scene of great rejoicing and jubilation on March 22nd, 1797. A second son had just been born to the Crown Prince William and his wife, who was subse- quently the beautiful Queen Louise. This was their third child, in a married life of two years and a half. The eldest, a princess, had only lived a few hours ; the second was a sturdy boy, who lived to become King Frederick William IV. Spring was back- ward, and the weather was still wintry, when this third child was born ; torrents of rain mingled with hail were falling without, and the wind howled savagely. It is not likely that the mother had any inkling of the future in store for the child she BIOGRAPHICAL NO! ICE, ii had just brought into the world, nor of the glorious part he would one day play. At the commencement of this century there was at Potsdam a certain garden unequalled for its beauty. It belonged to a Cabinet Councillor, Herr M , a man as remark- able for his wit as for his learning, and who was passionately fond of gardening. As time wore on the two Royal Princes often came to walk in this garden, accompanied by their tutor, Dr. Delbriick. Prince William had a special predilection for these walks, for he was almost always sure to meet the daughter of the house. This young lady, Louise Wilhelmine by name, was strikingly handsome and just budding into womanhood, and she had a great liking for the little Prince, who loved her as a second mother. One fine summer evening the young Prince, then about five or six years of age, was in the garden with his tall lady friend, and the latter, seated on a bench, was telling him some interesting: stories. Suddenlv the 12 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, garden bell rang, announcing a visitor ; the servant in attendance on the Prince went to see who it was, and returned to tell Fraulein M that a young gipsy girl wished to speak to her. The young Prince was curious to know all about this gipsy, and Wilhelmine told him with a smile that no doubt she was coming to tell them their fortunes, and her heart beat quickly at the thought, for young ladies of that age are all generally more or less superstitious The gipsy girl was ushered in to see her, and a very handsome specimen she was. She commenced by addressing a solemn little com- pliment to Fraulein M , and then, after having studied the lines on her hands, said : " You will become the wife of an offi- cer wearing a tiger-skin covered with gilt ornaments, and golden shoulder-knots and tags. But you won't be married just yet, for the trophies at the Brandenburg Gate [at Berlin] will first be carried away dur- ing the night, and there will be a war with unlucky consequences for Prussia." BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 13 At the first words of the gipsy, Fraulein Wilhelmine blushed crimson, for there did happen to be a young officer of Hussars who, for some time previously, had been very assiduous in his visits to the house. The gipsy continued : — " Your first son will become a great man, and will be entitled Prince." Wilhelmine burst out laughing at these words ; the astonished little Prince, however, did not budge, and the gipsy girl went on with her fortune-telling. " He who will bestow all these dignities upon your son will be a mighty Emperor. And this future Emperor — there he is ! " Fraulein Wilhelmine laughed still more heartily at this ; but the servant, who was present at the whole scene, afterwards told the story with all its details ; what is still more strange, he saw the fulfilment of all these prophecies, and died just after the proclamation of the Empire at Versailles. His last words were : *' Lord, Thy servant can now die in peace, having seen the 14 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, fulfilment of the predictions made in his presence." How much of truth is there in all this ? We cannot say. But at any rate Fraulein Louise Menken, the friend of the young Prince, married Lieutenant von Bismarck-* Schonhausen, and this officer's third son — not his first, as the gipsy had foretold — was Otto von Bismarck, until recently Chancellor of the German Empire. Before entering upon our subject, we think it desirable to say a few words about the character and disposition of the great Chancellor. His character, which is eminently Prus- sian, is incomprehensible to us. There is in it a mixture of the rollicking student, the cadet, the lieutenant in the Guards, the diplo- matist, the revolutionist, and the despot ; the whole being seasoned with a kind of ironic imagination which constitutes an artist, and almost a poet. Mons. G. Valbert, in an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, said : '* He is an BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, 15 aristocrat to his fingers' tips, not from pre- judice, nor from respect for tradition, but from temperament, from an innate hatred of all that is liberal. His mind is based upon Scepticism ; in a word, he is a man who has never taken a bladder for a lantern." And yet the entrance into the world of this wonderful man was announced in this strange fashion in the Vossische Zeitung of April 1 1 th, 1 8 1 5 ; — " I have the honour to announce to my friends, that yesterday my wife was safely delivered of a son, and I excuse them from offering congratulations. " Ferdinand von Bismarck. " SCHONHAUSEN, April 2nd, 1815." It is very possible that if the late Chan- cellor's father could have come back to the earth, and witnessed the prominent part played by his son, he would hasten to recall this funny announcement. And now let us pass to the study of the i6 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, man — the man in his private capacity, and not the diplomat. It is for the reader to judge whether the late Chancellor, as a man, rises to the height of the adulation which has been addressed to him as a diplomatist. The Author. STUDIES OF BISMARCK, CHAPTER I. BISMARCK AS A STUDENT, THE grave ex-Chancellor, the man whose frown has made the whole of Europe tremble, had a rather stormy youth. It is curious, too, that through all his es- capades there runs an endless vein of his domineering temperament. It must be said, also, that in later life he has not disdained to hoax and mystify those around him ; when he was a student, however, it was he himself who had to pay the cost. We are going to tell a few of these tales, well known in Germany ; and from them the reader will be able to see that the man's character has changed but very little, if at all, during the last fifty years. 2 i8 BISMARCK AS A STUDENT. Are Herr von Bismarck's Boots done ? Being invited to a soiree In high-class society, Bismarck ordered a pair of patent- leather boots for the occasion from a bootmaker in Berlin. He was not quite satisfied as to the punctuality of this son of Crispin, and, besides, he was teased by his, companions, who, having heard of the order, chaffed him continually, saying, — '* You won't get your boots ! " Bismarck's answer was : ** You will see that I will get them." The day previous to the one fixed for the soiree he called upon the bootmaker, " Are my boots ready ? " " Alas ! no, sir." " Very well ! I give you notice that if they are not ready by the stipulated time to- morrow my dog shall devour you." And he walked out majestically from the shop, followed by his huge mastiff. ylslext day, commencing as early as six o'clock in the morning, the poor cobbler was BISMARCK AS A STUDENT, 19 visited every quarter of an hour by a com- missionaire, who asked him each time in a warning voice, — "Are Herr von Bismarck's boots done?" This was kept up the whole day through, until the bootmaker, almost driven out of his wits, managed to finish the boots in time. On getting them Herr von Bismarck danced about like a maniac. From that day forward this impatient customer had not the slightest complaint to make on the score of his bootmaker's punctuality. His boots were always de- livered before the appointed time. Bismarck the student enjoyed a certain reputation among his fellows at Gottingen, not only on account of his robust physique, his tall stature, and his great bodily strength, but also for his numerous duels ; and the students at Jena, having heard of his fame, invited him to pass a few days in their midst. He no sooner received the invitation than he started off, accompanied by his inseparable 20 BISMARCK AS A STUDENT. comrade Von Trotha. The '' Thurlngla " students turned out to meet him with a great show of ceremony, and fetes followed fetes, and feasting and drinking went on at an enormous rate. The two friends enjoyed themselves in this way for several days, " casting all care aside," until, one fine morning, when Bismarck was sleeping the sleep of the untroubled, and dreaming the rosiest of dreams, the beadle of the Jena University appeared in his room. This functionary had been charged to announce to Bismarck " that he had to quit the precincts of the University within two hours in the custody of the beadle of the University of Gottingen, the two students being accused of depraving the academical youths of Jena." The news of this spread through the town like wildfire, and the ** Thuringia," as well as a large proportion of the other students, concerted measures for conducting the two expelled ones out of the place with great pomp and ceremony. BISMARCK AS A STUDENT, 21 The two young gentlemen — Von Bismarck and Von Trotha — accordingly left Jena in a coach and six, accompanied by their friends, singing along the road in stentorian voices : ** Gaudeamus tgitur, juvenes dicm sumus.'' In his capacity of student at Gottingen, Bismarck was a member of the " Georgia Augusta" Club. He was assiduous in his attendance at the dinners, and was oftener seen in the fencing-rooms than in the lecture- hall. At Gottingen alone, it is said, he had as many as twenty-seven duels, out of all of which he came safe and sound. He was an astonishingly free drinker too, absorbing enormous quantities of liquor, whether beer or wine. One day there was a great dinner given at the *' Golden Crown," and the formidable number of empty bottles lying about showed to what extent they were all enjoying them- selves. In fact their enjoyment was so great that at a given moment an empty bottle flew through the window without its being apparent from whose hand it came. A / 22 BISMARCK AS A STUDENT. policeman happened to be passing in the street at the time, and, without apprising the jolly dogs of what he was going to do, went and reported the circumstance. Next morning, Herr von Bismarck was quietly smoking his pipe at the window — perhaps dreaming of his future fame, but certainly not thinking in the least of the bottle the day before sent flying through the window — when some one tapped at the door. "Come in!" It was the University beadle, holding in his hand a bit of paper so well known to German students — '' Domimis de Bismarck citatus estr It must be mentioned that Bismarck was in his dressing-gown and slippers. "All right!" he said to the beadle; "I'll follow you." And he actually went after the man dressed just as he was, and with his dog at his heels, the latter never leaving his master for a moment. The Rector was awaiting the culprit in BISMARCK AS A STUDENT, 23 his Study. What was his astonishment at seeing an enormous dog bound into the room, with an air which inspired but little confidence! His first care was to ensconce himself behind a barricade of chairs, after which, trying to assume a demeanour suited to the occasion, he asked Bismarck what he wanted. ** Me ! I want nothing," was the reply. "It is you, it appears, who have something to say to me, seeing that you have sent me this * Dominus de Bismarck citatus est!'' The Rector, whose bearing had been anything but dignified since the entry of the mastiff, now began to recover his self- possession. " Sir," he said, " in the first place I condemn you to pay a fine of five thalers for having brought that animal here ; and, secondly, will you be good enough to explain how it was that bottle came to be thrown through the window of the * Golden Crown ' Hotel last evening, of which I have the pieces here?" 24 BISMARCK AS A STUDENT. " Mein Gott, sir ! The bottle probably flew out of the window of itself." " You know very well that a bottle cannot fly of itself, and that some one must have thrown it." ** Perhaps so, sir." '* There is no perhaps about It. Please to be more explicit." " Well, then ; it probably happened some- what in this way." And seizing a bulky inkstand standing on the desk, Bismarck made as if he would hurl it at the poor Rector's head. The latter, however, fearing to see the projectile fly from the young man's hand, hastened to dismiss him, and the fine, it would appear, was never paid. During his second half-year at Gottlngen University, Bismarck was summoned to appear before the Academical Tribunal, accused of having compromised himself in the matter of a duel with pistols, and he gave the following evidence : — BISMARCK AS A STUDENT, 25 ** I entered, quite by accident, into the Gurkenkrug Brewery, and I found there some fellow-students who were in a bit of a quandary. A duel with pistols had been arranged, and the person chosen for umpire had not arrived. My comrades urged me to take his place, and I consented. I did all I could to induce the young men to make it up, but in vain ; so I insisted on the condition that the two adversaries should fire at ten paces, and not over a handkerchief as had at first been agreed upon. My proposal having been accepted, I measured the distance, counting twelve paces. And when you consider the length of my legs, you will see, gentlemen, that my intention was to render the duel less dangerous. But this was not all : I stipulated that only just enough powder should be put into the pistols to force out the bullets. I think, then, I have some reason to believe that all the merits of the harmless issue of this duel belong to me." According to the University archives. 26 BISMARCK AS A STUDENT. however, this pleading does not seem to have met with all the success which it deserved ; for it therein is written that the student Bismarck was condemned to three days' confinement in the black hole. CHAPTER II. BISMARCK AS A YOUNG MAN. ON leaving the University, young Bis- marck went to reside on the estate of Kniephof, which his father had just given him, and here he passed the first years of his early manhood. The story goes that the young squire led a life there which was not exactly that of a hermit, and which gained for him, from the country bumpkins around him, the nickname of the "young rake." In the seclusion of the chimney-corners of the country round, tales were told of the young squire's extravagant goings on, and the nameless orgies of which Kniephof was the scene. His neighbours said his con- sumption of champagne was phenomenal, 28 BISMARCK AS A YOUNG MAN, and the way in which he raced about on horseback during the night made the country-people think that the *^ Demon Hunter" was at his tricks again. At other times the whole neighbourhood was roused up in the middle of the night by numberless shots fired in quick succes- sion. Was it brigands ? or a revolution ? or what was it ? It was simply the young squire of Kniephof amusing himself by firing pistol-shots. The consequence of these various ex- cesses was that the neighbours re-named the place '' Kneiphof " instead of Kniephof.* Prince Bismarck has never made any secret of his having led this unsteady life, but, on the other hand, he has never boasted of it. Even when he had arrived at almost a mature age, he seems never to have forgotten his escapades as a student, and was as fond of playing his pranks as of old. There are abundant examples of * " Kniephof" means nothing in German; but "Kneip- hof" means something like " RoUicker's Farm." BISMARCK AS A YOUNG MAN. 29 this, and annexed is one picked out from numerous others at hazard. Just after Bismarck had joined the cavalry, and at the time of his appointment as officer in the Landwehr, he was staying for a few months with the 4th regiment of Pomer- anian Uhlans, in garrison at Treptow. The Colonel of the regiment, who was a strict disciplinarian, was very particular that the officers' conduct and deportment should be irreproachable. This, naturally, did not very well suit the tastes of the younger officers, who, always and in all countries, are very apt to break through the bonds of strict discipline. At this date smoking in the streets was prohibited, both for officers and men, and this prohibition went very much against the grain of the smokers. Most of them, there- fore, broke the rule whenever it was possible to do so without running too great a risk of being discovered. One day the Burgomaster of Treptow, 30 BISMARCK AS A YOUNG MAN. thinking to ingratiate himself with the Colonel, went and informed him that a great many of his officers set this regula- tion boldly at defiance, and that they were not averse to smoking in the public thorough- fares like common labourers. The Colonel boiled over with rage on hearing this, and called his officers together to remind them of the regulation prohibiting smoking. He wound up his harangue with the following words : "I forbid you to walk in the streets with a lighted cigar," and while he was saying the words he fixed his eyes in a significant way upon Lieutenant von Bismarck, whom he knew to be an inveterate smoker. Next day this young Lieutenant, accom- panied by several other officers who were in the plot, went and seated themselves on a wooden bench placed just underneath the Burgomaster's windows. As soon as they had taken up their position there, they all lighted up enormous cigars, the smoke from which was carried through the windows into the apartments of their BISMARCK AS A YOUNG MAN. 31 denouncer ; and thus they passed the greater part of the afternoon. On several suc- ceeding days this conduct was repeated, until the Burgomaster, nearly smoked out, went again with his complaint to the Colonel. It may be easily guessed what was the defence of the culprits when they were again summoned to the bar to answer for their fresh infraction of the rule. The Colonel laughed at the joke ; but from that day forward it was forbidden to the officers not only to walk, but also to seat them- selves in the street and smoke. It may not be generally known how Bismarck went to work to compel his land- lord to fix up bells at his lodgings, when he was Prussian delegate to the Federal Diet at Frankfort. He had taken apartments in the house of a patrician of this Free City, who held the Prussians in great repugnance ; and when Bismarck applied to him to have a bell fixed up in his servant's room, he answered 32 BISMARCK AS A YOUNG MAN. that that was not in the agreement, and that if Bismarck wanted a bell he must get it fixed himself, and at his own expense. A few days later, the whole house was turned topsy-turvy. A loud report of fire- arms was heard to proceed from the delegate's room. The landlord, frightened to death, rushed up to his lodger's apart- ments, and bursting, all out of breath, into BIsmark's study, found him seated at his desk before a great pile of documents and calmly smoking his big pipe. There was a pistol lying on the table, still smoking at the barrel. " For the love of heaven, what has happened } " asked the frightened landlord, more dead than alive. ** Nothing, nothing," answered Bismarck quietly. " Don't disturb yourself ; I was only calling my servant. It is a very harm- less signal, to which you will have to ac- custom yourself, for no doubt I shall want oftentimes to use it again." The bell was fixed up next day. CHAPTER III. BISMARCK HAS ALWAYS HAD AN EXALTED IDEA OF HIS OWN ABILITIES. WHEN he quitted the University, young Bismarck occupied himself with managing his father's property. One of his favourite recreations was hunting, for which he had quite a passion. Towards the end of 1840, he was Invited to join a great hunting expedition in the south of Sweden, on the estate of a lieutenant with whom he was very Intimate, and who was afterwards Grand Marshal at the Swedish Court — Rodolph Tornerhjelm. Having returned from one of these hunts, and after having partaken of an excellent dinner, the two friends passed into the smoking-room. Their conversation, at first, was gay and familiar, but suddenly 3 34 BISMARCK HAS ALWAYS HAD AN it assumed a more serious tone. From hunting stories and such like subjects congenial to young men, they passed to a topic of much graver import. The subject was Germany, and its political situation. Bismarck dwelt upon the weak constitution of the country, and explained what grand results would be achieved if it could only be united. All at once he was carried away by a burst of enthusiasm, and with hair bristling (he had some at that time !) and eyes lit up with a strange fire, he exclaimed, — " But I will be the saviour of my coun- try ; from all these fragments I will make a harmonious whole ; and one day Germany will be a great and powerful empire." Now that the thing has been accom- plished, one might very well doubt the truth of this story, if it were not that It comes in a direct line from the mouth of Rodolph Tornerhjelm, who is not a German. EXALTED IDEA OF HIS ABILITIES. 35 Another little story : Before the war of 1866 Bismarck directed the whole Prussian policy. That is not the same as saying that he was over-popular in his own country. On the contrary, not only did the press attack him ruthlessly, but public opinion was terribly incensed against him, and the result was that several attempts were made upon his life. One of these attempts was that made by young Blind, son of Karl Blind, a noted German re- volutionist at that moment a refugee in London. After the attempt, Bismarck said to the persons around him : " At the present mo- ment nothing would better please the people than to hang me on the nearest lamp-post ; but I shall have my revenge. In a few years I shall be the most popular man in Germany." And he was not mistaken. In all sorts of circumstances Prince Bismarck has shown the unbounded 36 BISMARCK HAS ALWAYS HAD AN confidence he has in himself. He gave abundant proofs of it when he was still young, and when there was, as yet, no- thing standing to his credit to justify his pretensions. When Manteuffel was President of the Cabinet he recommended Bismarck to the King of Prussia (Frederick William IV.), saying he would make an excellent dele- gate to the Germanic Diet. The King, who was then at Sans-Souci, sent for Bismarck and offered him the post in question ; the latter replied without hesitation : ** If your Majesty is willing to try the experiment, I am ready to accept the post." Naturally the King was much surprised at this prompt decision, and thought that Bismarck could not be aware of its serious import, and he set about explaining to him what a responsible position it was, and all the difficulties which would have to be encountered by him who filled it, etc., etc. EXALTED IDEA OF HIS ABILITIES. ^y Bismarck, however, who had not listened very patiently, hardly allowed the King time to finish his speech, before he said, ** Your Majesty might at any rate try the experiment with me, and if it does not turn out well, then your Majesty can recall me in six months' time or less." The King was quite dumfoundered by this second bold rejoinder, but he gave Bismarck the post. The sequel is no longer anecdote, but history. Here is one more little narrative, and the neatest of all, with which to close this chapter. It will have been gleaned, from the foregoing lines, that Bismarck alw^ays had a kind of presentiment of the important part he would play, and of the eminent services he would one day render to his country, and that he was not backward in giving expression to it. The authentic anecdotes here given are sufficient proof of this. At the time when Bismarck was Prussian Ambassador at Paris, the Hessian 38 GUIZOT, THIERS, AND BISMARCK. Charge-d'Affaires in France was Graf Enzenberg. It was this nobleman's hobby to collect the autographs of famous states- men. On one of the pages of his album Guizot had written the following : — **A11 through my long career I have learned to forgive much and often, but to forget nothing." M. Thiers had written underneath : — " A little shortness of memory cannot detract from the sincerity of forgiveness." Bismarck was asked to inscribe something on the same page, and so he wrote at the bottom : — "As for myself, existence has taught me to forget many things, and to get myself forgiven for a great many more." Without appearing at first sight to be so, this was a much more pretentious sentiment than that expressed by either of the two French statesmen. CHAPTER IV. THE MARRIAGE OF PRINCE BISMARCK- BISMARCK'S HOME, PRINCE BISMARCK'S marriage took place under such strange circumstances that the reader will not fail to be interested in their narration. In the course of the summer of 1846 he took a journey in the Harz country, in company of the Blanckenburg family, who were very intimately connected with his own. This family took with them Fraulein Johanna von Puttkammer, with whom Bismarck had fallen in love a long time previously, but he had never made her acquainted with his senti- ments. He had seen her for the first time at the wedding of his friend Von Blanckenburg with Fraulein von Thadden-Triglaff, whose bridesmaid was Fraulein von Puttkammer. 40 BISMARCK'S MARRIAGE, On his return from this famous voyage in the Harz, Bismarck, who has always favoured energetic measures, wrote direct to the young lady's parents, with whom he was not acquainted, and demanded their daughter in marriage. The good people were naturally much surprised at a direct attack like this ; they were very simple folk, leading a very quiet life, and they were rather frightened at the reputation for high living which the candi- date enjoyed. As, however, their daughter intimated in discreet terms that she did not look upon the young gentleman with an unfavourable eye, and as there was no doubt that the young man's parents had a reputation as good as their son's, Herr von Puttkammer decided not to hurry matters, either in one direction or the other. Consequently he wrote to young Bismarck, inviting him to come and see them.. Every one did their best at Reinfeld to give the visitor a suitable reception ; Fraulein BISMARCK'S MARRIAGE. 41 von Puttkammer's parents put on an air of grave solemnity, and the young lady stood with eyes modestly bent upon the ground, when Bismarck, on alighting, threw his arms round his sweetheart's neck and embraced her vigorously before anybody had time to tell him that this conduct was hardly proper and correct. The result was, however, an immediate betrothal. Prince Bismarck is very fond of telling this tale, and he is careful to always finish the story by this reflection : ** And you have no idea w^hat this lady has made ot me. His wife's parents also, probably had no idea to what high destinies this ominous son-in-law would one day attain. By his marriage with Fraulein von Puttkammer Prince Bismarck had three children : — Count Herbert, who came to be Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ; Count William, who is godson to the late Emperor William ; and 42 BISMARCK'S HOME, The Countess Marie, who, since 1878, has been the wife of Count von Rantzau. Prince Bismarck has been noted for keep- ing as liberal an establishment as any man in Germany. And there are scores of facts to prove that he deserves the reputation. Let us take a few as they come: — On April ist, 1885, the day on which the Prince reached his seventieth year, he gave a great dinner at his residence. After dinner an endless string of toasts followed each other, but the best conceived was certainly that of a Wiirtemberg guest. This worthy Wlirtemberger began with a rather cloudy exordium, in which Goths and Vandals, etc., etc., figured. No one had the least notion of what it all meant. Presently when the speech was finished, the orator turned round to Frau von Bismarck and over- whelmed her with compliments. The lady was much confused, and cast suppliant glances at her husband in the hope that he would release her from her critical situation ; but he BISMARCK'S HOME. 43 did not stir, and contented himself with giving the orator frequent approving nods. The sturdy Wiirtemberger told her, among other things, that in her the German people honoured the Princess much less than the modest and devoted wife, the support and consolation of her husband, and the model of German women. While this was going on, Bismarck gradually edged nearer his wife, and when the toast was at an end he kissed her affectionately on both cheeks. All this had passed so rapidly, and at a time when it was least expected, that the company was nonplussed for a moment ; but they soon recovered themselves, and offered the Chancellor their warmest congratulations. While Prince Bismarck was passing along the Unter den Linden in Berlin on May 6th, 1 866, a fanatic named Blind approached him and fired a pistol at him. The assassin's hand trembled, however, and the attempt failed. The Prince seized the man with his own 44 BISMARCK'S HOME, hand, but not before the latter had time to fire three more shots from his revolver, with out, however, hitting anyone. After having given Blind into the custody of the police, Bismarck walked quietly home, where he found a rather numerous and distinguished company, and he took his seat among them, and joined in the conversation, without making the slightest allusion to what had happened. It was only on going to the dining-room that he took his wife aside and whispered in her ear, — '' My dear, I have been fired upon, but lam not hurt." Meantime the news of the outrage had spread rapidly through the capital, and at last reached the ears of King William. The King ordered his carriage immediately, and drove straight to Prince Bismarck's, whom his Majesty found at table conversing with his guests on ordinary topics in the most engaging manner, the company having no suspicion of what had taken place. It was BISMARCEPS HOME. 45 the King who first apprised them of the occurrence. Immediately the King had departed, Bismarck yielded to the clamour of a great crowd which had collected in front of the house, and went out on the balcony, and made the following little speech : — ** It is always sweet to die for one's king and one's country, even if it is in the street and at the hands of an assassin." The life lived by the Prince and his family at Friedrichsruh has always been quite of the patriarchal type. Fetes have been as rare as possible there, as indeed they also have been at Berlin. The head of the family enjoys unbounded respect and absolute au- thority, and no one thinks of disturbing him either in his occupations or in his recreations. A German book, devoted to the glorifica- tion of the Prince, gives a curious anecdote to illustrate this. A deputation of Liibeck people had craved 46 BISMARCK'S HOME. an audience of Prince Bismarck, and the great man had announced to them that he would expect them at five o'clock in the evening, and that, at the same time, he would ask them to dine with him. The good people of Liibeck, in their anxiety not to be too late, arrived a great deal before the time appointed. They were received by the Princess, who assured them her husband would be with them pre- sently. They waited, and waited, until they began to get impatient, and, casting de- spairing glances at their watches, whispered to each other that they had been hoaxed. They had waited already two hours beyond the time, and yet no Bismarck came ; they felt sure, however, that he was in his study. At last the Princess, struck with pity at the dejected air of these honest Ltibeckians, went to see what was the matter. And this is what it was — her husband had fallen asleep in his arm-chair over a huge bundle of documents. Another hour of waiting passed before Frau von Bismarck could make up her BISMARCK'S HOME. 47 mind to awake her husband, and it was eight o'clock, instead of five, when they sat down to table. It was not, however, astonishing * that at his age he should take long afternoon naps, seeing that it was his custom to pass the greater part of his nights at work. Rarely was he in bed before two o'clock in the morning. Even at Kisslngen, when he was undergoing treatment for reducing his corpulence, he was at his desk until two and sometimes three o'clock in the morning, going through his State documents — busying himself, in short, about the affairs of the State — reading and answering his corre- spondence. At Berlin he always kept his subordinates up till two in the morning, both the high functionaries and the sub- alterns, and on Sundays they had to be in attendance up to seven o'clock m the evening. This rule was especially applicable to those of his assistants who were employed in writing or deciphering dispatches. When working through the night like 48 BISMARCK'S HOME. this It was Bismarck's custom to swallow occasional mouthfuls of a broth made of green wheat, and now and then a glass of champagne ; and he would He in bed till* ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, thus securing from eight and a half hours to nine hours of sleep. Four detectives were in constant attend- ance on the great Chancellor; and when he travelled he was always accompanied by eight men and an inspector, who never lost sight of him. During his last stay at KIssingen, these men, who were always in private clothes, were quartered in two lodges close to the castle. Minute descriptions of the Chancellor's palace have been published in abundance; it is therefore useless to repeat them here. It is more to the purpose to give a few more details respecting his private life. He is passionately fond of tobacco. Count d'Herisson, in \i\s Journal d'un Officierd'Or- donnance, recounts how Bismarck expatiated BISMARCK'S HOME, 49 before Jules Favre upon the benefits derived from the cigar. But Bismarck does not only smoke the cigar ; he greatly prefers the pipe. He has an admirable collection of the bulky German porcelain pipes, for his fellow-countrymen have considered it a duty to send him boxes of them on the various anniversaries of his birthday. The most handsome pipe he has ever received is probably the one sent to him on his seven- tieth birthday by a group of his admirers living at Wernigerode, a town in the Harz. One great peculiarity concerning this famous pipe is that the various parts of which it is composed were manufactured exclusively by the persons forming the group who presented it. An address was sent with the pipe, in which every particular respecting its fabri- cation was recorded. It stated, for example, that ** the turner invented the arrangement for keeping back the nicotine, and it was he who had mounted the *' Reichskanzlerpfeife " (** pipe of the Chancellor of the Empire "). 50 BISMARCK'S HOME, The artist decorated the bowl with the portrait of ** the wild man of the Harz," and put on the following inscription : — "Es griine die Tanne, es wachse das Erz; Gott gebe uns alien ein frohliches Herz ! " ''May the pine grow green, and the iron-ore increase; May God give us all a heart to rejoice!" The jeweller furnished the mountings in Harz silver, and the poet of the locality sent with the present some verses of his own composing, which ended thus: — "Wenn Durchlaucht dann nach Tages Last Am Abend nach der Pfeife fasst, Soil Tabak d'rin ergliihen Aus deutschen Kolonien." " When his Highness after the fatigues of the day Takes up his pipe in the evening, May there be tobacco burning in it Coming from German colonies." Bismarck loves to smoke this pipe, the different parts of which are connected with each other by threads of the colours of the German Empire and of the town of Wernigerode. BISMARCK'S HOME. 51 Prince Bismarck's carriage was a very- familiar object in Berlin ; as soon as it was sighted the people stopped, uncovered, and shouted " Hoch ! " (" Hurrah"), and crowds would run up in all directions in the hope of catching sight of the great man's features, and to testify their admiration by frantic cheering. On alighting from his carriage, whether before the House of Parliament or at the Imperial Palace, the vehicle was sure to be besieged by a crowd of people, especially by provincials visiting the capital, and who were loth to return home until they had seen the Chancellor's carriage. And yet there was nothing very striking about it. Just the contrary : a worn-out carriage of dilapidated appearance, with a solemn and rather antiquated look, and its inside lining of black leather worn and faded ; the horses, looking as ancient as the carriage, and hardly able to draw it apparently, even at the pace of a funeral coach ; and then the coachman and the footman in their light 52 BISMARCK'S HOME, blue livery, having anything but an imposing appearance. These aged quadrupeds, this old-fashioned coach, this faded livery, formed altogether a striking contrast with the brilliant and exalted position of their owner. However, he always had a kind of affection for the lumbering old thing, not only because he hates all that is showy and pompous, but also because he is in his old age a man of economy. It is a substantial old vehicle, and never requires any costly repairs. The mode of living of the Bismarck family is in every way peculiar. The sons evidently have not inherited their father's genius ; this much must be said, however, that they have as yet had no opportunity of showing what they are capable of. But it is a certain fact that their father has succeeded in infusing into them a portion of his own energy, and coached them so successfully in diplomatic affairs that they have been his most useful colleagues. That, at any rate, is the opinion BISMARCK'S HOME, 53 which Prince Bismarck himself expressed in a conversation which he had on this subject not long ago with Professor Gneiss. This is only the carrying out of the well- known principle of Louis XIV. ; namely that State secrets should be confided to the small- est number of persons possible. Bismarck consequently never confided his State secrets to any but the members of his own family, in whose discretion and devotion he could put implicit trust ; and it must be added that he is more severe in expecting this from the members of his own family than from anyone else. Not only, however, has he utilized his sons' services, but he has imparted a thorough diplomatic education to the Countess von Rantzau, his daughter, who possesses an intelligence of the first order. In the matter of writing and deciphering cipher dispatches, indeed, this lady is said to have attained to a degree of cleverness surpassing any of the employes at the Foreign Office. She is, besides, of a very lively disposition, 54 BISMARCK'S HOME. exceedingly witty, and happy and prompt at repartee. It is stated that even in his moments of gloomiest melancholy the ex- Chancellor has never been able to keep from laughing at his daughter s flashes of wit. The eldest son, Count Herbert, has been a model of punctuality in the public service, and an amusing tale is told in Germany in this connection. The incident occurred some time ago at Friedrichsruh. The Prince had invited a certain number of people to dinner, according to custom. The soup had just been served, and the repast bade fair to be a pleasant one, for the host was in the best of humours, and the life and soul of the company. At the moment when the party was about to attack the soup a telegram from Berlin was brought in. Bismarck left the table instantly, to the great astonishment of the guests, and on his return after a few moments' absence, one of the company ventured to make a remark on BISMARCK'S HOME. 55 the subject. The reply which he elicited was the following : — " I daresay you think this dispatch was one of the greatest importance. It was nothing of the kind. But I lost no time in replying to it because it came from my son Herbert. If I had kept him waiting only a very short time, he would have sent off another telegram marked * Urgent.' He is a great lover of punctuality and promptitude, and he is right. If, when I was young, I had only worked half as hard as my son has, I should perhaps have attained to something greater than I am." Prince Bismarck lives entirely in the bosom of his family, which he governs, too, as a colonel does his regiment, and to break the monotony of his rather quiet life he has had recourse to distractions of which the following will serve for an example. It is a whim of his to try the weight and measure the height of persons staying at Fried- richsruh. The weights and measurements 56 BISMARCK'S HOME. are immediately marked down in a conspi- cuous place, so that they can be compared with the results obtained on the next occa- sion. In pursuance of this caprice, on the evening of St. Sylvester in the year 1880, the Prince made all his family pass under the measuring-rod, himself superintending the operation to see that no one cheated, and, when each one had been measured, he himself wrote down their height on one of his bedroom door-posts. At that date the heights of the various members of the Bismarck family were the following : — Bismarck . 5 ft. II in Count Herbert : • 5 » 10 » Count William • 5 J) 9^ »j Count von Rantzau • 5 » 7 j> Princess von Bismarck . 5 » 4i » * Countess von Rantzau . . 5 » 4i „ Prince Bismarck attaches great importance to the knowledge of the weight of the different members of his family, and one * By the side of these figures the Prince placed a note saying that the Princess tiptoed a little. BISMARCK'S RESIDENCES. 57 reason of this, perhaps, Is that his own weight has varied considerably In the course of a few years. Ever since 1874 he has gone every year to recruit his health at KIssIngen, and the first thing and the last thing that he does on each occasion is to try his weight, and the weighing-machine he has been accustomed to use has been christened *' Bismarck's balance.** He has diminished considerably in weight since 1879; but his policy did not follow the same course — that lost nothing of its weight. ^ Prince Bismarck's Residences. While still Imperial Chancellor, Prince Bismarck occupied a mansion at Berlin, situated No. *](i, Wllhelmstrasse. Behind the mansion a park extends for a considerable distance, In which are magnificent trees, but which Is overlooked by some of the houses In the Koniggratzstrasse. These houses look down directly upon the park, and at a very short distance, so that the movements 58 BISMARCK'S RESIDENCES, of those walking In the park were visible from the windows. The occupants of these houses, as was quite natural, were not slow to avail them- selves of the opportunity thus placed in their way for making money easily; and they used to let out their windows overlooking the park, at so much per day, to people who were eager to get a near view of the great Chancellor — principally English people. Very soon it appeared to Prince Bismarck that he enjoyed less privacy in his own home than anywhere else, for these people, not content to watch him through spectacles and opera glasses, did not even shrink from addressing questions to him. This at last moved him to cast about for some radical means of ridding himself of these Importunate and disagreeable neighbours. The plan he adopted was simply to stretch immense canvas screens, fastened to poles, across the side of the park which was overlooked, and after that he was not annoyed by his neighbours. THE CHANCELLORS DOG. 59 The castle at Friedrlchsruh has been described by so many writers that it is hardly necessary to repeat the process here. Formerly the park attached to it was open to the public, but it was closed some years ago, because the numerous visitors who walked through it could not refrain from tearing up the plants and plucking the flowers under the pretext of carrying away a souvenir. On one occasion, when the Prince caught some ladies breaking off branches from the trees, he said to them : " Supposing now, mesdames, that every visitor did what you are doing, my trees would soon be as bare of leaves as my head is of hair." The Chancellor's Dog. The ex-Chancellor has always had a great liking for dogs, especially for big dogs. Already when he was a student he had a large one who followed him wherever he went ; and for some years now his dog 6o THE CHANCELLORS DOG, Tyras has been his close and constant companion, always watching over his master while he slept. The Germans nicknamed him the ** Reichshund " ("Dog of the Empire"). It would appear, however, that this canine favourite is not gifted with the sweetest of tempers ; witness the reception he once accorded to Prince Gortschakoff. On the other hand, it was remarked that he showed the utmost cordiality to the papal nuncio, Masella. Although not very tender towards his fellow-men. Prince Bismarck forgives his dog everything. When the latter has com- mitted any offence his master gives him a good scolding (which the animal perhaps takes but little notice of), and sometimes apologizes to the victim of the dog's ill- temper. One day a friend, who came to congra- tulate Prince Bismarck on the marriage of his daughter with Count von Rantzau, had his hat torn into fragments by Tyras, BISMARCK'S BANKER. 6l and the only remark the dog's master made on this occasion was, — ** The rascal will end by making all my friends fall out with me." Tyras is getting old now, like his master. The animal, however, intended to replace him has already been looked out ; but the new one will hardly receive an official cognomen like his predecessor. It is scarcely possible to talk about Bismarck without at the same time saying something with reference to his banker, the renowned Bleichroder. He is small of stature and has Israelitish features of the most pronounced type ; his complexion is sallow, his face full of deep wrinkles, and his beard and hair are quite grey. His face is half hidden by a pair of big blue spectacles ; but this is only a bit of affectation, for the Berlin Croesus has been almost totally blind for a number of years. The history of this man is closely 62 BISMARCK'S BANKER. connected with that of his country, for it was the war of 1866 that made his for- tune. Let us, in a few words, recall what occurred. Bismarck, the Prussian Minister, was at that moment in complete disagreement with the Diet, the members of which would on no account hear of a war with Austria ; and they backed up their opinions by refusing to vote the credits required of them. It was then that Bleichroder stepped in, and he advanced forty millions of thalers to the Government, who were just then in sore straits. Prussia came out of the war victorious, and Bleichroder had no reason to repent of having placed confidence in the success of Bismarck's policy. The banking-house, which up to that time had only very modest pretensions, blossomed forth as a bank of the first order. After the war of 1870, the settlement of the question of the war indemnity was entrusted to Bleichroder, and he naturally BISMARCK'S BANKER, 63 did not overlook his own little profits in the transaction. It was he, besides, who advised Bismarck to demand five milliards from France. CHAPTER V. PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. PRINCE BISMARCK'S character pre- sents the most striking contrasts : he is at once abrupt, haughty, and familiar. Whenever he is resisted he is stubborn, and almost always insulting. There are plenty of examples in proof of this. If the reader is desirous of satisfying himself on this score, all that he need do is to read one of his speeches in the Reichstag in reply to Richter or Windhorst, or indeed to any of the Socialist Deputies. In these speeches the reader will find such expres- sions as **You are a liar" by the dozen, and a host of other amiable compliments of the same nature King Frederick William IV., however, PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 65 knew the man well. In the month of November 1849, the overthrow of the Radowitz Ministry was . on the cards ; everything was prepared for it, and a list of the new Cabinet was even drawn up, and on this list the name of Herr von Bismarck-Schonhausen appeared. It was presented to the King, but his Majesty refused to accept it ; he drew a very thick mark through Bismarck's name, and wrote opposite it in the margin : " Red-hot re- actionary ; likes the smell of blood ; may be employed later on." It is noted in the foregoing lines that Bismarck is insulting towards those who resist him. This is true not only in regard to his inferiors, but also to his superiors. Here is an incident narrated of him a propos of the battle of Koniggratz. When the Austrian troops began to give way, the Germans rushed impetuously for- ward, their leaders at their head, King William being in the very front rank, and his Prime Minister by his side. The 5 66 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. Austrian artillery, to cover the retreat of their troops, then began to shower upon the Prussians a perfect storm of bomb-shells, and at one moment the King was on the point of being carried away by the retreating Austrians ; it was observed, too, that his Majesty was in the thickest of the melee, and that he ran great risk of being knocked over by a bullet. At this juncture Bismarck approached him, and respectfully intimated that his Majesty was uselessly exposing himself. The King is said to have replied : " When my army is under fire it is my duty to be in the midst of it, for I am its Commander-in- Chief." Bismarck bowed, without saying another word ; but a moment or two later, on some shells bursting under the horses of the King's escort, he went up again to his Majesty and said : — ** As a Major, of course I have no military advice to offer your Majesty ; but as Presi- dent of the Ministerial Council, responsible PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, 67 to the Prussian people for your Majesty's safety, I must beg — earnestly beg yoar Majesty not to risk your life in that way." The King thought proper to follow this advice, and, nodding his head in token of acquiescence, faced about in order to reach a less exposed position in the rear. Bismarck, of course, kept near his Majesty, and deeming that the King's, horse was not going fast enough, he took his foot from the stirrup and struck his spur into the King's horse's flank, and the animal at once bounded off at a gallop. The whole character of the man is mani- fest ia this stroke of the spur. Dr. Schweninger (as will be seen further on) is one of the few persons who ever dared to resist the Iron Chancellor. It was to the great man's profit though, for after a year of the doctor s treatment his weight was reduced to two hundred and thirty-seven pounds, and it became further reduced as the years went on. 68 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. As regards the doctor himself, he remained attached to the person of his illustrious patient, who got him appointed Professor at the Berlin University, and caused him to be decorated a little time ago. Another indication of the character of the man is to be found in the judgments he has formed of the leaders of the different groups in the German Parliament. The following are some of them : — EuGi:NE RiCHTER. "As soon as Richter gets up to speak I leave the Chamber ; not because I don't think myself capable of replying to his speeches, but because the odour of opppsition which exhales from his whole person has a peculiar effect upon my nerves, and also because he has a way of answering a rude remark by the grossest insults. As for what he has to say, I treat it with the greatest contempt ; I shall not convert him, and he will not crush me. It is better, then, that we should admire each other at a distance." PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, 69 ViRCHOW. " If this man does not take better care of Statesmen than he does of the State itself, it would be very imprudent to trust oneself in his hands." Bamberger. ** In his house it is as is written in the Epistle to the Romans — there is ' one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour.' I have never made a mistake in using his vessels, although a maitrank bowl of his is often as much like a soup-tureen or any- other utensil. What is the use of getting into a passion if the bottle breaks as soon as it is empty 1 '* The ex-Chancellor has always had, or at any rate has always pretended that he had, a deep-seated aversion for the Latin char- acters, either printed or written. When, therefore, he has happened to receive a telegram printed by the Hughes apparatus, 70 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, one of his clerks has had to re-copy it in Gothic characters before he would look at it — but, be it observed, without translating it. This, of course, produces a strange effect — a French or English message written in German characters ! At all periods of his life Bismarck has been noted for his haughty bearing, not only to his subordinates, but also towards his chiefs. This will already have been seen from what is written in the foregoing pages. But in order that these assertions may not be doubted, several corroborative examples are recorded in the following lines. He has never tolerated that anyone should be wanting in the respect which he con- sidered due to him. When he was a mere supernumerary, he was one day treated in a somewhat off-handed manner by the president of some association or other who met him in society. Bismarck told him to his face, firmly but politely : — WILLIAM I., LATE EMPEROR OF GERMANY. ) > ■> ^.•' ' PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 73 " In society, sir, Herr von Bismarck is just as good as the President von X ." It is said that the president did not relish the remark. Bismarck being one day in the office of a higher Minister, the latter went to the window and imitated piano-playing with his fingers on the glass — his intention, no doubt, was to make it appear that he was oblivious of the other's presence. Bismarck immediately went to another window, and played with his fingers on the panes, and when the chief heard the tapping he appears to have become more polite. In the month of May 1851, he had been appointed First Secretary of the Prussian Embassy accredited to the Federal Diet. His first care on arriving at his post was to go and pay his respects to the Austrian Ambassador, Count von Thun-Hohenstein. This nobleman received Bismarck with that easy nonchalance which the Austrlans always 74 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, affected at that time when they came in contact with Prussians. Keeping his cigar in his mouth, he did not so much as offer his visitor a chair. Although Bismarck was wounded to the quick by this, as It seemed, studied want of politeness, nevertheless he kept his countenance. He drew a cigar from his case, and, walking up to the Count, asked him in the most amiable of accents : "Would your Excellency have the kindness to give me a light 1 " Although taken aback at his visitor's assurance, he gave him a light, and then Bismarck, without the slightest ceremony, helped himself to a chair and sat down and chatted as if nothing unusual had happened. But this was not the only incident which occurred in connection with this noble Austrian. Some years later, in fact, Bismarck replaced General von Rochow as Ambassador at the same capital where he formerly served as Secretary. The Count von Thun-Hohenstein was still there. PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, 75 and he had become such an inveterate smoker that he always had a lighted cigar in his mouth, even at the sittings of the Diet. The Prussian General von Rochow did not attempt to imitate him, considering it much too unceremonious. But as soon as Bismarck arrived on the scene matters took a different turn. At the very first sitting he attended, he was seen to take a cigar from his case, and light it with great coolness. But the strange spectacle of two only of the Am- bassadors of the Great Powers smoking in the midst of this venerable assembly was not destined to last long. Only a few days passed, after Bismarck had set this ex- ample, when first the Bavarian Ambassador, and then the Hanoverian, were seen to strike a light in the course of the sitting. Eventually, and it was not long afterwards, all present at these meetings lit up their cigars. From that time till now the smoking of cigars has been allowed in all the deliberative assemblies in Germany. 76 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, Patience is very far from being one of the principal traits of Bismarck's character. What happened at his first interview with Dr. Schweninger, of Munich, is a sufficient proof of this. The Prince was at that time so excessively stout that his life was thought to be seriously endangered on this account. Having heard of the marvellous cures which Dr. Schweninger had effected, he sent for the famous practitioner. This stirred up a great hubbub in Prussia, where this Bavarian doctor was regarded with a jealous eye. But this will be referred to further on. At all events, Schweninger waited upon Prince Bismarck, and he listened to the account which the patient had to give of his malady. The doctor, however, was not sufficiently enlightened by the sick man's account of himself, and he plied him with question after question. At first Bismarck answered with the best grace possible, but as the doctor's interro- gations were multiplied he lost his patience entirely and broke out with, — PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. jj " Come now ! haven't you nearly done cross-examining me ? You are beginning to irritate me with all these questions, which appear to me to have no end." "Just as your Highness pleases," replied the doctor. •* But I must inform you that if you want to be cured without having to answer questions you would do better to go to a horse doctor. Those people are accustomed to treat their patients with- out putting any questions to them." At these words the Chancellor jumped up from his chair in a rage, and almost annihilated his interrogator with his furious glances. Schweninger remarked afterwards that '' if his eyes had been pistols I should have been shot dead upon the spot." But the doctor knew his man, and did not flinch ; he met the savage glances of his patient with a steady eye, until the Prince grew gradually calmer, and presently the latter re-seated himself, and said, in the quietest tone imaginable, — " Very well, question me then if you 78 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. must, but get it over as soon as you can. I may venture, however, to hope that your talent as a physician will be at least as remarkable as the rudeness which you have just shown me." Schweninger then continued his examina- tion, and the treatment he prescribed for his patient was a complete success. One consequence of this wonderful cure was that the Bavarian physician was called to Berlin and made a Professor in the University at that city. This gave great offence to the Prussian faculty, and no stone was left unturned by Schweninger's rivals to induce Prince Bismarck to re- consider his decision. But those who raised this stir could scarcely have known the kind of man they had to deal with. Bismarck met their efforts with the most determined resistance, and what is more, he appointed Schweninger to be his private physician. Another attempt was made, however, some time afterwards, on the part of a number of Professors of Medicine, PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 79 to deprive Schweninger of the Chancellor s favour, but the only result was that a few days later the great man's protege was named Knight of the Order of the Red Eagle of the Third Class. The Berlin Professors now began to see the futility of their unfriendly endeavours, and from that day JDr. Schweninger ha s lived an honoured and tranquil life in the capital of the new German Empire. The great man, however, is not only stiff in his demeanour ; he can also be extremely savage and unyielding towards those who displease him or who differ from him in opinion. His rejoinders in reply to members of the Opposition in the Reichstag have, as a rule, been exasperat- ing and offensive ; and several instances are recorded of his having, in private Hfe, been guilty of actual violence. One day, when he was very thirsty, he went into a cafe in Berlin and ordered a bock [glass of beer]. At the tables 8o PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. adjoining his were seated a number of worthy Berliners drinking white beer and talking politics. The conversation gradually became animated, and presently some remarks were made respecting a prince of the blood royal. It would appear that these remarks were not too flattering to the exalted person- age in question, for suddenly Bismarck rose to his feet, and, addressing those who were conversing, said, — " Get out from here now, all of you. If I find a single one of you still here when I have emptied my glass I'll break it on his head." The politicians were thunderstruck, and the talk ceased for a moment ; but it soon went on again in the same vein as if nothing had happened. Bismarck quietly emptied his glass, and then, rising and walking slowly up to the man who was talking the loudest, struck him on the head with his glass and smashed it. The poor fellow fell off his chair and rolled under the table, but his companions were intimi- PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, 8i dated by Bismarck's bold assurance, and never said a word, and the future Chan- cellor, who did not for a moment lose his self-possession, paid his score and left the place without being molested. This incident occurred, of course, more than fifty years ago. Bismarck was one of the first to hear of the death of Napoleon III. ; he even knew of it before the Emperor William. The following is the conversation he had with his wife on the subject, in the presence of a German merchant who had a house of business at Melbourne, and who was taking breakfast with them at the time. The meal was nearly over, when a messenger arrived with a dispatch, addressed to the Chancellor by the German Ambas- sador in London. Bismarck took the message, laid it on the table, put on his eye-glasses, and again took up the telegram and read it attentively. After having got through it, he turned to his wife and said, — 82 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. " I told you Napoleon would not get over the operation. He died this morning." And then addressing the messenger, he asked him whether the telegram had been communicated to his Majesty. '* No, your Highness, it has not." "Very well, then. You will take it to him at once." When the man had gone out the Princess said to her husband, — ** I suppose you will wear mourning for Napoleon, Otto ?" Bismarck replied that Napoleon was a worthy man enough, but too weak ; that he was incapable of forgetting a service rendered him ; and that he had only deceived him (Bismarck) once — that was on a certain day in 1866, after the battle of Koniggratz, when he telegraphed that if the Prussians entered Vienna he would declare war against them. "/ have never forgiven Mtu for that^^ added Bismarck; ''but, at any rate, he has been cruelly punished in his turny PRINCE BISMARCK' S CHARACTER. 83' But the Iron Chancellor could be a jolly- fellow enough at times. Many little spicy anecdotes are told of him, in which one is astonished to find, not the tyrant, but a man actuated by benevolence, not, how- ever, without just a seasoning of humour with it. He had a valet w ho was very attentive to him, whose name was Friedrich. One day when he entered his study, which he had only quitted for a few moments, he caught Friedrich drinking from his glass of beer. He knew that the man was not fond of drink, and that if he was drinking out of his master's glass it was simply because he might be able to say some day — that he had drunk from Bismarck's glass. He was struck with pity at the sight of the poor fellow who stood there trem- bling in every limb and not daring to raise his eyes ; and putting as much mildness into his voice as he could, he said, — " You can take the glass and keep it, Friedrich, if it takes your fancy. It is not 84 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, big enough for both of us though. You had better bring me another ; and make haste, I am thirsty." The delight of Friedrich can easily be imagined. He carried off the precious glass, and had engraved upon it the memor- able date on which it had been presented to him. Varzin first came into Bismarck's pos- session in 1867, and he purchased at the same time the estates of Mussow, Misdow, Puddiger, Chomitz, and Charlottenthal from Adalbert von Blumenthal. There was no railway station at Varzin at that time, the nearest one being that of Schlawe. As soon as he had concluded the purchase of this estate he thought he would like to visit it, and in the course of the journey he had the following amusing adventure. Everybody knows that in small towns, when the gossips have nothing else to do, they loiter about the station to see the passengers alight from the trains, and stare PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 85 those out of countenance who are going on further. On a certain afternoon, then, in pursuance of this custom, a master shoemaker of Schlawe was at his post closely scrutinizing '^the strangers arriving by the two o'clock train. Presently he caught sight of a traveller of gigantic proportions stepping out of a first- class carriage. He walked up and down on the platform for a while, then stopped and lit a cigar, and then resumed his walk, and finally seated himself on a bench. The honest cobbler, who had not taken his eyes off this well-grown stranger for a moment, could contain himself no longer ; spurred on by curiosity, he went up to him with an air of smirking shyness, and sat down on the bench by his side. Seeing that the stranger made no sign, he asked him with as much politeness as he could muster : " I suppose you come from Berlin ? " "Quite so. Who are you ? " ** Oh ! my name is X , and I am a 86 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, master shoemaker in Schlawe. And — may I ask to whom I have the honour " " Well, I am a shoemaker, too." ** There ! that's funny now ! But I sup- pose you have a good many customers at Berlin ? " **Yes, thanks; pretty fair." Thus encouraged, the worthy bootmaker was about to address a new string of questions to the stranger, when he saw a post-boy approach in full uniform, and with a most respectful air addressing the portly gentle- man, he said : ** I have the honour to inform your Excellency that the coach is ready." The poor man was almost knocked over with surprise on hearing these words, but he soon recovered himself, and begged the Chancellor's forgiveness for having dared to speak to him ; and Bismarck tapped him on the shoulder and said, in a friendly way, — ** If ever you have occasion to come to Berlin, call at my workshop. No. "j^, Wilhelmstrasse. Good day ! " PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 87 On one of those very estates enumerated above, there was a tenant-farmer, who, al- though a worthy fellow in the main, was a confirmed drunkard. Seeing that this man could not conquer his continual craving for drink, Bismarck one day gave him notice to quit. The man, however, was no coward, and flatly refused to go. " No, your Excellency," he said, " I shall not go. I have my agreement, you know." " I don't care for that. If you won't go of your own accord, I shall turn you out." ** I would like to see you try it on," answered the man. The farmer, of course, had right on his side, and the Chancellor said he could remain in his holding, but from that day he changed his drunken habits. The following amusing anecdote will serve as a concluding one in illustration of this aspect of Bismarck's character. Like all great and prominent men, he has been severely caricatured — in the public 88 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, prints, in ballads, and in pamphlets ; and these attacks have sometimes thrown him into a violent rage. The Prussian Government had just put in force the new Press Law, when Count von Beust, then Minister of Foreign Affairs in Saxony, came to Berlin to arrange for the participation of his country in the Franco- Prussian treaty of commerce. Bismarck one day proposed that Beust should accompany him in the evening to the theatre, and accordingly they went together to the Wallner-Theater, where the piece being played was ** A New Spark." In the course of this piece the popular actor Hel- merding sang a little ditty which never failed to bring down the house. As before men- tioned, it was just at the time when the Press Law was promulgated, and in the course of the heated discussion which arose on the Bill, Bismarck had made a speech in which he made use of the expression : " Always preserve your freedom of^ speech." This re- mark was taken up and repeated everywhere. PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 89 Helmerding took the character of a car- penter and joiner in the piece at the theatre, and at a given moment he had to sing a couplet which he rendered in this style : — " We are now living in very strange times, We keep ourselves s-s-s-summ-summ ready. And we are disposed s-s-s-summ-summ With the mouth to s-s-s-summ Always preserve our freedom of speech I " In Hesse, s-s-s-summ-summ-summ, idle. At home s-s-s-summ-summ We manage to s-s-s-summ Always preserve our freedom of speech 1 ** The — s-s-s-s confiscated, The — s-s-s too confiscated ; Why are s-s-s confiscated ? Everything is s-s-s-s- confiscated But always preserve your freedom of speech ! Da capo. »j • • • • ••s. .• • . . summ . . • • • s... • • . s . . . 1 • • . summ . . • s . . . • . . s . . , , • • . summ . • . .. I s... . . . s . . . . . . summ , . . . . dare not. But always preserve your freedom of speech »* * Of course the translation will not carry a rhyme like the original 90 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, The song was frantically applauded, the grimaces of th*e actor while singing it being inimitable, and the two Ministers were as loud in their approval as anybody. Bismarck was a first-rate horseman when a young man, and he had gained quite a reputation by the long rides he took on the back of his tall mare Caleb. She carried him once from Polzin, a little watering-place in Pomerania, as far as Kollin, near Stargard and Stettin ; the distance between the two places being over fifty miles. But there was nothing peculiar or unusual about the ride itself. When he was about half way, however, Bismarck was dying of hunger and thirst, and he stopped at a roadside tavern in a little village through which he passed. The landlord set before him plenty of good food to satisfy his hunger, but his wine was hardly fit to drink, and his beer detestable. There happened to be stopping at the same inn a traveller in the wine trade, with samples of his liquors. PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 91 Bismarck asked to taste his samples, and the traveller consented, and in an incredibly- short time every bottle was emptied, and Bismarck walked away, warmly thanking the man for his kindness. As soon as the traveller realized that all his stock was gone he became dreadfully excited, but was unable at first to form a correct idea of the loss he had sustained through his liberality to the thirsty stranger. However, he soon came to himself, and saw what a folly he had com- mitted. The landlord came up to him just in time to prevent him from tearing his hair out ; he gave him a note from Herr von Bismarck containing a heavy order for wine, and the commercial traveller did not lose by the occurrence after all. Bismarck, in the meantime, was jogging along on his journey, enjoying the joke immensely. Here is a tale the ex-Chancellor is fond of telling about the battle of Sadowa, against the Austrians. 92 PRINCE BISMARCK' S CHARACTER, ** On that day I rode my big chestnut horse. I was thirteen hours in the saddle, and all this time the animal had nothing to eat. He behaved splendidly under fire, was not in the least afraid of the dead bodies lying about, and came out of it all apparently much less fatigued than I was. I slept that night on the pavement at Horschitz, for every house was filled with the wounded, and the King passed the night on a sofa with all his clothes on. For myself, I slept as sound as a top, and were it not for a touch of lumbago next morning, I should not have had so much to complain of." When the Council of War was held at Nikolsburg, it appears to have been the opinion of the personages attending it that the war should be continued and carried into Hungary. Bismarck, however — and he alone — held a contrary opinion ; he feared to penetrate into the wide plains of that country in the midst of a hostile population ; and besides, the cholera was beginning to make ) M FREDERICK I., LATE EMPEROR OF GERMANY. PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, 95 frightful ravages in the ranks of the Prussian army. But notwithstanding all the argu- ments he put forward in support of his opinion, he got no one to support him. Seeing, therefore, that he could accomplish nothing by reasoning, he changed his tactics. He went Into a room adjoining that in which the Council was being held, threw himself on a sofa, and began to weep bitterly. The two rooms were only separated by a thin partition, so that the others heard his sobs and groans. . . . After another long discussion the majority of the Council pronounced in favour of Bismarck's view. The following is a fact with which pro- bably only a very few persons have been acquainted. On the day when the German troops re- entered Berlin after the war with France, the Emperor William stood in front of the statue of Bliicher to see them file past. The Chancellor was at the head of the troops as they marched up, and after passing the 96 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. saluting point he turned off, and, going up to the Emperor, said something softly In his ear. His Majesty replied in the same fashion, and Bismarck, who had just been named Prince y went to take his place behind his sovereign with the other officers of the Staff. But he was evidently very fidgety ; he could not re- main still a moment, turning about uneasily in his saddle and looking around him in all directions. A person standing near, who knew him, noticing these manoeuvres, went up to him and asked, — " Does your Excellency require any- thing ? " The reply was, " A pencil and paper." A police officer was found, who could fur- nish these requisites, and placing the leaf of paper on his knee, Bismarck wrote a few words upon it. When he had finished he held the paper over his head and said aloud, " Here is a dispatch. Is there anyone who will take it to the telegraph office .^ " " I will," cried the same person alluded to above. PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, 97 ** Thank you ! " answered the Prince. ** And to reward you for your kindness I will allow you to read it." This is what the message contained : — "To THE Commander of the German Outposts before Paris. " If the French outposts continue to move forward you will attack them immediately. " Bismarck.'* The Germans did not attack, however, thanks to the efforts of Count von Waldersee, at that moment Military Plenipotentiary in Paris. Bismarck has now been depicted from a good many points of view ; but here is one aspect under which, as yet, he has not been seen in these pages. Although he is a man who does not be- lieve in much, he is superstitious beyond all description. The following are a few examples in support of this statement. The number " thirteen " has a very deep meaning for him. He will never sit down 98 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. to table where he would make the thirteenth. Count Bismarck- Bohlen narrates that one day in 1870, at Rheims, when the Chancellor gave a dinner, one of the invitations had to be countermanded, because otherwise there would have been thirteen at table. General Boyer, Bazaine's envoy, arrived at the German headquarters in Versailles on Friday, October 14th, but Bismarck would not see him till the next day, saying that he would never do anything of im- portance on any Friday, much less on a Friday the date of which coincided with the anniversary of Hochkirch, Jena, and Auerstadt. He was talking one day of a defeat the Germans had experienced in the course of the campaign of 1870. ** I beg you to observe, gentlemen," he said, ** that that happened on a Friday." Bismarck does not believe in a lucky or unlucky star, but he is convinced that his life is seriously influenced by a certain mystic number. Several of his intimate PRINCE BISMA R CK' S CHA RA CTER. 99 friends, indeed, affirm that he said to them one day at Versailles : ** I shall die at siich an age, in such a year ; I am sure of it, for I know the mystic number which rules my whole existence." It is said, too, that several years later he expressed the same conviction at Varzin. At the close of the battle of Sadowa there was a severe storm accompanied by heavy thunder. The Chancellor interpreted this celestial music in his own favour. '*See," he said, **the Eternal Father is firing salutes to announce our victory." Nothing, in fact, escapes his notice, and a very slender indication is sufficient for him to base an opinion upon. At a moment when the battle of Sadowa was as yet undecided, and when, indeed, the Prussians appeared to be losing ground, Bismarck was wandering over the battle-field like a soul in agony. Certain historians have gone so far as to say that he kept a loaded revolver in his holster for the express purpose of blowing his brains out if the 100 PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, Austrians had won the day. Presently he fell In with Von Moltke, who was quietly looking on at the fight. Being anxious to arrive at an idea of the exact state of affairs, he pulled out his cigar-case, in which only two "londres" were left — one of them extra good, and the other of very inferior quality. He handed the case to Von Moltke, who, after examining the cigars for a long time, silently helped himself to the best. That was enough for the Chancellor, and he remarked to some one at hand, — **When I saw Von Moltke use such de- liberation in choosing his cigar, and above all when he chose the best, I knew that was a sign that things were going well with us." And he was right. Prince Bismarck wears a heavy Iron ring, on which Is engraved the Russian word ** Nitschewo." The meaning of this word Is " Never mind ! " or, ** What does It matter ? " And this is why he wears It : — PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTIER, lq\ In 1862, when he was Prussian Ambassador at St. Petersburg, he was invited to an Imperial hunt which was to take place about a hundred versts from the capital. He was passionately fond of hunting, and accepted the invitation with alacrity. He drove down to the meeting-place, therefore ; but as he had arrived a day too soon he took the opportunity of making an excursion in the neighbourhood, and lost his way. After tramping about for a long time in all directions, he came to a small village of most miserable appearance. He asked a peasant whom he met how far it was to the place of rendezvous. The man replied, " Twenty versts." " Will you drive me there ? " " With pleasure, sir." A few minutes later he was installed by the side of the peasant in a diminutive sledge drawn by a pair of diminutive horses. ** Try and get there punctually," said Bismarck. " There is no time to spare." 7 102 \FiiINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER, " Nitschewo," replied the driver. A moment or two later he said : " But they are crawling rats you have got there, instead of horses." ** Nitschewo/' repeated the man in a grumbling tone. And, giving the horses the reins, the sledge flew forward at head- long speed. ** You are losing your senses, man ! This is the other extreme, and a mad pace it is." " Nitschewo." ** Look out ! You will turn us over \ " " Nitschewo." And in the twinkling of an eye they were both rolling in the snow. Bismarck was furious, and he seized a sort of iron rod which had been wrenched from the sledge, and felt inclined to belabour the peasant's shoulders with it. But the man did not take his eye off him for a moment, and said again, — " Nitschewo." This stoical reply had the effect of calming Bismarck's anger ; but he preserved the PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER. 103 rod, and had a ring made out of it with the word engraved upon it : ** Nitschewo." How Bismarck came to be called the Iron Chancellor. The nickname of *' Iron Chancellor" was given to Prince Bismarck on account of a famous speech he made, in which he said : ** The unity of Germany can only be effected by blood and iron." After Kullmann's attempt upon his life on April 29th, 1877, an *' iron " statue of him designed by the sculptor Helnrlch Manger, was raised at KIssIngen, as an expression of the joy the German nation felt at his escape from so serious a danger. \ CHAPTER VI. BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG. LEAVING out of sight for a moment the ex-Chancellor's political genius, he has proved to be an orator of the first rank — not only on the score of the clearness of his views and his happy way of explaining them, but still more by reason of the con- summate skill he manifests in Interesting his hearers. He had, however, a very bitter opponent in the person of Eugene Richter, the leader of the Opposition party, and whose name will frequently appear in the following pages. Herr Richter Is a man possessing great dialectic skill and astonishing self-possession. His speech is rapid and fluent, and he Is an extremely well-informed man ; besides which, he is a perfect master of sarcasm. It BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, 105 is rare that a speech from him misses its effect; and were not the instinct of obedience as strong as it is in the Germans, he would more than once have placed the Chancellor in a difficult position, the latter having occasionally failed to refute in a satis- factory manner the damaging statements and vexing questions put forward by the former. But this is wandering from the subject. Let us see what have been the habits and attitude of Bismarck in the Reichstag — or Imperial Diet, as the word means. His voice is the first thing to be noticed. This is what a shorthand writer in the Chamber says of it : — ** It cannot be said that Prince Bismarck is an orator in the full acceptation of the term. One is surprised to find that this man, whose size and proportions are much above the average, has only a woman's voice. It is especially weak at times when the Prince is labouring under his nervous affection. At these moments he can scarcely be heard lo6 BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, at all, and the difficulty is increased by an intermittent cough, which is sometimes very troublesome. After these fits of coughing, only disconnected sentences can be made out, and what he says no longer partakes of the nature of a speech. However, he never appears to be at a loss for words, and I have often suspected that this cough might perhaps be an oratorical trick, by which he was enabled to collect his ideas, and at the same time produce an effect. But, however that may be, it is a very wonderful cough. ** He will begin, for example, by a rude and impolite remark, and everyone is ex- pecting it to be followed by another still more scorching, when, suddenly, the cough comes on, followed by an expression very different from what was looked for. Here is a case in point, which has remained fixed in my memory : — " ' I am in the Emperor's service. I do not care in the least to know whether I shall sink under the task or not, and you — [here BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, 107 a fit of coughing] — you probably care just as little; " Everybody expected an insulting remark to follow, but no ! the little fit of coughing had changed the current of his thoughts." It is quite probable that this reporter was right. Prince Bismarck, when he indulges in a cough, probably proceeds on the principle of those persons who, not able at the moment to find a satisfactory answer to a question, get the question repeated in order to gain time for reflection. Some time ago the Neue Freie Presse published a sketch of Bismarck from the pen of Herr Theophilus Zolling, and this is worth repeating : — ** Prince Bismarck took his seat on the end chair in front of the Ministers' table, his colossal form being wrapped in the undress tunic of the Magdeburg cuirassiers. His bright buttons and the bullion of his general's epaulets glitter in the light which io8 BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, falls Upon them from the glazed dome. He has to hold his head quite upright, owing to the stiff black stock round his neck and the high yellow coat-collar outside it. His features, which look as if they were cast in bronze, are well known to everybody. His complexion, once fair and smooth, is a deeper colour now, and his white moustachios and long eyebrows stand up stiffer than ever, and are very prominent objects. He has a pair of greyish-blue eyes, and his face is lined with deep wrinkles, which tone down in some degree its fatness. His nose is inclined to be snub, but very well formed, and seems smaller than it really is, on account of his bushy eyebrows and heavy moustache. His grey hair is short, and of quite the regulation cut. A high forehead rises above it all, furrowed with the lines of care and study, and over this one would search in vain for the three famous hairs once invented by the Kladderadatsch, **The Chancellor listens very quietly while the representatives of the nation are speaking. BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG. 109 meantime swallowing enormous quantities of water, with which he mixes a few drops of cognac. This, however, Is not a prescrip- tion of Dr. Schweninger's, who had the good fortune to considerably reduce his corpulence : It Is rather a departure from his doctor's advice. Now and then he plays with his eye-glasses, which He on the table before him — quite an antique pair, mounted In horn ; then he will take a look round at the galleries. But all this does not prevent him from listening to what Is going on, nor from taking notes with his pencil. And what a pencil ! A pencil like this Is not seen every day. It is yellow in colour, and of an inordinate length. It is whispered that after every sitting these pencils regu- larly disappear — taken away by the Deputies, who give them to their wives as relics of Bismarck. Presently a sigh of impatience seems to make his moustache bristle up. Oh, these professional talkers ! They little think what valuable time they waste. If only his son Herbert were there by the no BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, side of him — as he usually Is at the Reichstag sittings, opening dispatches and passing them to him ! But the Under Secretary, of State for Foreign Affairs Is unwell at this moment. Ah ! here comes a footman bringing a huge black leather portfolio, which he places upon his master's knees. - ** Bismarck now takes a bunch of keys from his pocket, opens the portfolio, and takes from It two bundles of papers — one red and the other blue ; all the most Im- portant documents are there. He runs over them, and lays on the table In front of him those which he will have occasion to consult ; then he glances at his watch, for the long- winded orator Is still on his legs. **When this speaker has finished, Wind- horst gets up to speak ; and finally, when he has delivered himself, Bismarck's turn comes. He rises slowly from his chair, and one gets almost a shock at seeing this Herculean form towering so high above the table that his hands do not reach down to it. His body is by this means deprived BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, ni of any support, and he rocks about un- steadily. His arms swing backwards and forwards, and his hands (the only part of him, it would seem, bearing visible signs of their owner's great age) shake a good deal as they feel about for something to rest upon ; now the fingers are nervously twirling the heavy moustache, now one of them is poked into his ear ; at one moment they are playing with the skirts of his tunic, at another they are clutching the Iron Cross, the only decoration which the Chancellor is wearing. At another time a hand will pass into the hind pocket of the tunic and bring forth a pocket-handkerchief, and he blows his nose with noise and energy. " And his voice ! By heaven, it astonishes a person who hears it for the first time. One expects to hear a kind of thunder issue from that capacious chest, but instead of that it is a tiny baritone, very agreeable, and very pleasant to listen to at first, but after a few fits of coughing it gets stronger. And then each word is accompanied by a 112 BISMARCK IN 2HE REICHSTAG, movement of the body which seems to facilitate its utterance. When he arrives at the end of a period his words tread on each other s heels in their impatience to break forth, and now they are no longer accompanied by inarticulate sounds, and coughings and clearings of the throat ; the idea is plainly there, lucid and mature, and yet another is waiting in the background to take its place. His speech is clear, with a somewhat antiquated accent, and his final r s are not pronounced strongly. His tone is never solemn, and never pathetic, even when he is deeply moved, or when he is talking of his great age, of his Majesty the Emperor, or of his country. It is quite in the style of a drawing-room chat, addressed to the Deputies seated near him, the people in the galleries not appearing to be taken into consideration at all. These listeners have to content themselves with a few fragments caught up at hazard ; but indeed, if they will only wait until the evening, they will find reports in extenso in the public prints. Besides, BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, 113 the Chancellor's speeches are much better when read in print ; he is not what one might call an orator, and does not even want to be one. This is what he once said himself in the Reichstag : * I am no orator ; I have not the gift of influencing your minds, nor of obscuring the real mean- ing of things by a cloud of words. My discourse is simple and clear. ... A good orator is seldom a statesman.' He hates professional talkers too ; and one day he said : * When a man is too fluent of speech he talks too long and too frequently.' ** Immediately the Chancellor sits down, the voice of Eugene Richter is heard, and every one knows how the Chancellor dis- likes it. The speeches of this man have spoilt some of his best triumphs, upset his good humour for weeks at a stretch, and often caused him to make a breach in his parliamentary manners. Richter's physique is anything but agreeable to the eye. He is stout and short, with a full beard, and a thick head of black hair shining with pomade, 114 BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTA G. and brushed so as to conceal a commence- ment of baldness. That is the appearance of the famous Progressist Deputy, and he is much like Emile Zola to look at. His nose is energetic, without being, large, his eye is bright and intelligent, and his delivery is easy and elegant, and void of the slightest emphasis. "While Richter is speaking, Bismarck appears to be the victim of lively emotion. His face changes colour — from very pale at first it becomes crimson — his eyes seem to be starting from his head, and they shine with a melancholy lustre. He then clutches his pencil convulsively, and jots down hur- ried notes upon his paper. Sometimes he tries to join in the general hilarity, but his laugh has something forced and harsh about it. Suddenly he jumps up in the midst of the uproar caused by Richter's speech, and pulls down the skirts of his tunic with the air of a man who is preparing himself for a severe tussle, and his chest heaves and expands with violent throbs, as if he had BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG. 115 the greatest difficulty In fetching his breath. But while he is looking at the audience and taking the measure of his opponent, he re- gains the mastery of himself, and his temper changes suddenly. His gay humour gets the upper hand again, and a smile lights up his countenance : he is cool and self-possessed once more, and he replies to his adversary in a jocular style, doing all he can to make fun of him and turn the laugh against him. He begins by scoffing, in a pleasant way, at Herr Richter's political ideas — every arrow is well aimed, and every stroke tells ; and the gayer Bismarck grows, so much the more does Richter get gloomy and cross. From time to time the latter is heard to mutter in a low voice, * That's all non- sense ! ' and he throws himself back in his chair and directs furious glances towards the Ministerial bench. Then, when he has worked himself up to a good pitch of ex- citement, his neighbour (Traeger, the poet of the Gartenlaube) says a word to him, and he relapses into a smile. ii6 BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG. " This oratorical duel finished amid general laughter. I saw Bismarck leave the Chamber, and walk across to his palace. With his erect head, his firm step, and his right hand always uplifted, either to shade his eyes from the sun or to respond to the salutes of the passers by, the Chancellor passed on — the very picture of health, of strength, and of good humour : a young man of twenty would not have had a more lively manner than he." * This has been the usual routine In the Reichstag : The President rises and an- nounces that ** Herr Richter will next ad- dress the House against the Bill presented by the Government." At the same moment the bells are rung for the members, who are Instantly seen rushing out from the refreshment bar or from the dining or smoking rooms. They are all eager to hear what the famous Opposi- ♦ Translated from the German {Neue Freie Presse: Th. Zoning). BISMA RCK IN THE REICH STA G. 117 tion Deputy has to say. And at the same moment, to form a striking contrast, the Imperial Chancellor would be seen to rise up quietly from his seat and leave the hall. A few minutes later loud cheering goes up from the Left and low^mutterings from the Centre, and then the speaker leaves the rostrum, and Bismarck reappears. This comedy is enacted every time the leader of the Opposition gets up to speak. It is Richter's business, of course, to oppose all the measures introduced by the Government, and as he is naturally applauded by the Left, the Right interrupts vociferously, and the representative of the Government stays away meanwhile. There Is certainly a good deal about it which looks like child's play, and one would hardly have thought it possible In the case of a man of Prince Bismarck's age and tem- perament. Those of his partisans who have sought to excuse him, say tnat ne has acted in this way t)ecause Richter, who is a ii8 BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, redoubtable debater, has always taken advan- tage of these occasions to make a personal attack on the Chancellor, and sometimes to grossly insult him. And yet, strange to say, these two implaca- ble enemies on one occasion found that they were of the same opinion. How that came about no one can say ; but the fact is suffi- ciently astonishing of itself — all the more that Richter, for many years past, has invariably adopted views diametrically opposed to those of the ex-Chancellor. Those who are able to read the German papers will have seen with what skill and talent he maintains them. One day, then, in the Reichstag, Bismarck had to defend a measure the adoption of which Herr Richter had advocated only a few moments previous. The usual impa- tience was shown in the Chamber to hear the Chancellors opinion, and he arose and said : — " My first intention was not to reply to the statements of the honourable member BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG. 119 (Richter), until I had heard the opinions of some other speakers on questions which are not altogether within my competence ; but I have a variety of other urgent » business to transact, and this impels me to reply at once, and"^! do so with all the greater readiness that I find myself, for the first occasion in this house, in perfect agree- ment with Herr Richter on many points — a thing which, I repeat, has never happened to me before " (great laughter). *' I will refer to this circumstance again later on, so as to preserve the good impression up to the last, and to be able to reply to a few remarks he made towards the end of his speech, which appear to leave the impression that he was very much annoyed at finding him- self in agreement with me on so many points. . . ." Further on, when alluding again to Herr Richter, he said : ** We cannot always en- tirely refute the assertions of an orator, we therefore allow him to have the last word. According to my opinion, the tax on property 120 BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG. was a great injustice, and I am very happy to learn to-day that Herr Richter has de- clared himself strongly opposed to the law which established it. I am so much aston- ished at this, that I could not have believed it if I had not heard it with my own ears ; but I am glad of it, and I take this opportunity of offering my congratulations to Herr Richter" (applause and laughter). It has already been shown that Bismarck is no orator, but he flavours his speeches with quips and jokes, and is besides a master of sarcasm ; he is gifted with irony, no doubt, but he uses his gift with a heaviness of hand that does not always savour of the gentleman. In 1 88 1, when the military tax (for people exempt from service) was being debated, he expressed his opinion of the measure in something like the following terms : — ** No one likes to pay taxes ; besides, the fact of having to pay money never has a BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, \2\ tendency, of itself, to improve people's char- acters ; on the contrary, for these taxes crush the middle classes. But it is quite a different thing when taxes fall on property ; in that case the middle classes look with complacency upon the eagerness and the pleasure which we landed proprietors take in discharging these liabilities." It need scarcely be added that the Chan- cellor's words afforded great amusement to his audience. Some time ago, Mr. White, who was formerly United States Ambassador at Berlin, read a lecture before a numerous audience, the subject being ** Germany." In the course of the lecture he spoke of Bismarck as he appeared in the Reichstag. •*The great Chancellor," he said, "sits with the other Ministers on the right of the President. He does not attend the sittings regularly. When one sees him for the first time, one hardly expects to find that he is a good orator. He appears to put forth all 122 BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, his Strength in order to get his words out. His speeches are generally a great deal too long, although at first he seems to be at a loss what to say. He puffs and snorts, as it were, and utters ill-founded assertions, and phrases which appear to have no meaning. Then, all of a sudden, one hears a sentence sufficient of itself to explain his whole policy, an expression which of itself suffices to floor his opponent, or a word which electrifies the nation, among which it circulates like wild- fire. After this there will be a few more reminiscences of the past, and suddenly again, in the midst of these, he gives an historical illustration in the highest degree convincing. Finally, after a few personal observations, he gathers up his arguments, and then follows a direct provocation launched in the face of an adversary, followed by an appeal to the whole German nation, to future generations, etc., etc., which never fails to produce a stirring effect. I have known many clever speakers, but I have never known one capable to the same degree of BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG. 123 electrifying his audience and carrying the whole country with him." Annexed is an example of Bismarck's oratory. In the course of one of the sittings of the Reichstag, one of the members said that, in looking through official documents, he had come across an account of an interview between the Chancellor of the Empire and the Italian General Gavone. According to this account. Prince Bismarck had remarked to the Italian that he was not so much a German as a Prussian, and that he might easily be induced to give up a portion of the left bank of the Rhine to France. Bismarck was not present when the mem- ber made this statement, but on his arrival he was informed of what had transpired. On the impulse of the moment he rushed to the rostrum and delivered himself as follows : — ** I have just been informed that in the course of the present sitting a member of 124 BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG. this House (Herr von Mallinckrodt) has stated that at an interview with the Italian General Gavone I intimated that I would be willing to cede back to France the districts on the Moselle or the Saar. I feel it my duty to contradict the honourable member in the most energetic terms, and to state that all that he has advanced is a pack of shameful lies, of which, perhaps, he may himself have been a victim. However, he ought to be more careful, and not make such important statements without being quite sure of his facts. It is all a pure invention ; in fact, it is an audacious falsehood, the slanderous intention of which is perfectly clear. I have never given the slightest hint to anybody whatever of a possible eventual retrocession of a province, or of a village, or even of a clover-field. All that has been said on this subject is, I repeat, nothing but a brazen- faced lie, uttered for the purpose of blacken- ing my character in the eyes of my fellow- countrymen and of my sovereign." This little example will perhaps suffice to BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, 125 give the reader a pretty clear idea of the late Chancellor's attitude and bearing in the Reichstag. A good deal has been said and written of Prince Bismarck's favourite beverage, and so much that is inexact has beensaid on the subject, that it is as well to give some particulars respecting it. It is certain that during the sittings of the Reichstag, and especially while speaking, it has been his custom to consume prodigious quantities of a yellowish liquid, which some have taken to be a light Moselle or Rhine wine, and others have declared to be alcohol, etc., etc. Now this yellow liquor is nothing but weak brandy and water, generally mixed for him by the servants of the House. But on great occasions, when it was a question, for ex- ample, of getting an important Bill passed, or of getting considerable credits voted, — in a word, when the Chancellor had a serious bit of work before him, — the drink would be 126 BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG mixed by the Ministers at the table. Count Herbert Bismarck generally presided over the group engaged in this business, and regulated the proportion of brandy to be put into the water, but sometimes another Minister would hold the brandy bottle. When the glass had to be re-filled, each of those who superintended the replenishing of it would taste it — some one of them would pronounce it too strong, then a little of it was drunk and more water added — the others would perhaps say it was too weak, and then a little more brandy would be put in. And they would often be so intently occupied with what they were about, as not to notice the dumb appeals of the Chancellor in his impatience to wet his lips again. The correspondent of the Times once reported that on a certain memorable occa- sion the Prince emptied his glass eighteen times. The pencils used by the Chancellor had also a wonderful reputation in Germany. BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG. 127 They were of enormous size, and had exactly the appearance of those used by carpenters. He used up an astonishing number of them at every sitting of the House, because the Deputies, even those of the Opposition, would pick them up when the great man was not looking. They liked to carry them home as souvenirs ; and many a gentleman's residence in Germany contains a "■ Chancellor's pencil" mounted under a glass shade. There are plenty of people who can only write with a quill pen ; Bismarck was always unhappy when he had not one of his huge pencils to take his notes with. A few years ago when taking the train to , as soon as he was seated in the carriage he found that he had either lost or forgotten his pencil. The people in his suite offered him a number of little pencils, but these would not do for him. Presently the platform superintendent came up — the sly dog!— with a pencil of massive proportions, which he handed to the Prince. The latter was quite delighted, and a few days afterwards he sent the worthy super- 128 BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, intendent a silver pencil-case for a keepsake, upon which he had the date engraved. No doubt the Herr Stationsinspektor has ever since declared this to be " the happiest day of his life." An Englishman who heard of the incident offered the man an extravagant price for his keepsake, but he would not part with the precious relic on any terms. There is yet one more trait of Bismarck that is worthy of illustration. We all know that most diplomatists are more or less be- dizened with decorations ; but not one of them, possibly, has won so many as Prince Bismarck. In fact, he possesses forty-eight. His military titles are : — General of Cavalry (a superior grade to that of General of Division), and Commanding Officer of the regiment of the Magdeburg Cuirassiers (No. 8). The most exalted decoration he has received is the *' Ordre Pour le Merite " (the holders of which are entitled to the command of a Corps-d'Armee) ; this was conferred BISMARCK IN THE REICHSTAG, 129 Upon him, by the Emperor William, on September ist, 1884, on the occasion of the twenty- second anniversary of his joining the Ministry. The Prince of Wales holds as many as one hundred and twenty-nine titles, orders, and decorations. CHAPTER VII. BISMARCK'S POPULARITY— HIS BIRTHDAY PRESENTS. FOR a long number of years Bismarck has been the most popular man in Germany. But it was not always so : there was a time when it was far otherwise, not only in Germany generally, but also in Prussia, his own country. The following letter, which appeared in the German papers in June 1866, will give an idea of this : — *' Herr von Bismarck having the intention of making war (upon Austria) in his capacity of Major in the Landwehr, and as I should be delighted to see him ^/le guest for a certain period of the Emperor of Austria, I hereby offer a reward of one hundred florins to the soldier who shall get possession of the Count's person, whether by his own efforts HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS. 13 1 or by the assistance of others, and whether the said Count be taken alive or dead. " (Signed) Dr. Joseph Hundegger." But not so long after that appeared Dr. Hundegger would have tried in vain to get any such thing inserted in any journal what- ever, and even if he did succeed he would have run the risk of being literally torn to pieces. Whenever the Chancellor went out, either on foot or on horseback, the news would run through the streets like the firing of a train of gunpowder. As the word passed that he was coming, shops, offices, warehouses, factories, public-houses would be emptied in- stantly, as if by enchantment ; and everyone would press forward to catch a glimpse of the renowned Chancellors features. And then there would be bowings and scrapings and salutes without end. The very street Arabs would run after him, and tell each other what that stalwart cuirassier had done for the ag- grandizement of his country ; they would put 132 BISMARCK' S POPULARITY, on an air of great importance in repeating the lesson which perhaps they had only learned the day before, and they would follow in his train right up to the gate of his palace. Beyond this point there was no possibility of penetrating ; and then the great man would turn and salute the crowd for the last time, and the throng would gradually melt away. But this was not the only way in which the multitude would show their enthusiasm ; this has also been done by the writing of poetry, the making of speeches, the sending of addresses and gifts, etc., etc. The reader will perhaps find some pleasure in a descrip- tion of some of the most original presents made to Prince Bismarck. At the same time some instances will be given of the extra- ordinary degree of admiration shown him, not only by Germans, but also by foreign- ers — principally Englishmen, Austrians, and Italians. Let us begin with the most substantial HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENS. 133 proof of this admiration ; that is, by gifts in kind. Every year, on the anniversary of his birth, the inhabitants of J ever have been accustomed to send him a hundred and one plovers eggs, accompanied by a piece of poetry written for the occasion. The eggs were always probably more prized than the verses, which were signed ** the faithful ones of Jever." Bismarck once sent to this group of *' faithful ones," by way of showing his gratitude, a goblet in the shape of a plover's On April ist, 1875, he kept his sixtieth birthday. This time there was a whole avalanche of verses, of telegrams, of tangible presents, eatables and drinkables ; but the most original gift of all was that sent by an Elberfeld manufacturer, and which con- sisted of a clothes brush, the bristles of which were so arranged as to form the Chancellor's name and initial ; namely '* O. v. Bismarck " (Otto von Bismarck). The back of the brush bore his arms cleverly carved upon it. 134 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY, This present was accompanied by a letter, in which the sender expressed the following wish : ** I hope this brush may serve to remove the dust from your Highness's clothes, and that your Highness, preserving for a long time to come the vigour of your intelligence, may succeed in brushing from off the Imperial mantle of Germany all the dust and maggots of the time gone by." On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, the German colony in Constantinople sent him a sword of honour. As soon as it reached him Bismarck drew it from its scabbard to examine the blade, which was of splendid temper, and in the course of his scrutiny he discovered that the weapon had once belonged to Ali, the Pasha of Janina. The blade bore an inscription in Arabic, the meaning of which was something like this : " Happy he who shall perish by this sword : death will seem sweet to him, given by such a perfect blade." " That is all very fine," observed Bismarck; HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS. 135 ** but I think I shall be quite satisfied to keep It and admire it." What will be said of the gift sent to him in 1885 by Herr Pschorr. the great brewer of beer at Munich ? The description of this present is given in a German book, from which the following is taken : — ** On the seventieth anniversary of his birth, Prince Bismarck received an enormous box from Munich. When it was opened an oak cask was found in it, bound with iron hoops, and the hoops were covered with beautifully chased ornamentation. On the front end of the cask, cut in bold relief, was a view of the city of Munich, and on the other end were carved the arms of that city, also in bold relief. The whole was executed in a most remarkable and artistic manner." The Munich journal which announced the sending of this gift by Herr Pschorr, described at the same time the ceremony 136 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY, to be observed in presenting It to Bismarck in the following words : — " The cask contains about thirty-three gallons, and weighs about five hundred- weights. Herr Pschorr will attend in per- son to hand over the cask. The latter will be slung on poles of white polished wood, and carried by four stout brewer's- men, who will set It down before the Chan- cellor on a stolledge of carved oak. Herr Pschorr will then hand to the Chancellor an address written on parchment, In red and gold letters, and enclosed In a tasteful casket. The following are the terms of the address : — " * Serene Highness, — The undersigned very respect- fully takes the liberty of presenting you with this address as a token of his profound and sincere admiration, and to roll at your feet a cask of his best beer, brewed last year for export. He would be the happiest man on earth if your Highness should find pleasure in drinking a glass of this refreshing beverage on the occasion of your seventieth birthday. May God bless and protect our Imperial Chancellor, and grant him many and man HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS. 137 long years to live, for the glory, honour, happiness, and welfare of Germany. " * I remain, with the profoundest respect, " * Your Highness's " * Most humble servant, " * Georg Pschorr, Brewer. "•Munich, 28M March, i885."» But the donor did not stop there in his impulse of patriotic generosity — and perhaps, also, he had an eye to business. Means must be provided for enabling the Chancellor to taste the beer at the very moment of its arrival on the morning of April ist. Accompanying the cask, therefore, were two tankards. One of these was of silver, and bore the Imperial arms and the Chancellor's initials, and on the lid a gay Gambrinus waved a goblet of frothy beer. The other tankard was of fine porcelain, with a lid of solid silver, on which was a figure of a Bavarian waitress with fresh complexion and radiant features, and clad in the richly coloured national costume. 138 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY. This figure had in her hands two full jugs of beer, holding them out in a tempting manner to the thirsty souls expecting them, and seeming to repeat the old Bavarian saying : — " Hopfen und Malz, Gott erhalt's ! " "God preserve the hops and malt!" • The Germans estimated the value of this gift to be about ;^ioo. Here is a present which was not lacking in originality. A workman of Cologne, a sort of wharf- labourer, a poor wretch whom everybody knew not to be possessed of a brass farthing, put down his name for twenty marks (;^i) on a subscription list going round the town at the time of the seventieth birthday. Now this poor fellow was receiving a monthly allowance from the public relief- fund, and the overseer of his parish seeing his name on the subscription list sent for him and said, — HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS, 139 "Well now, what is the meaning of this ? You get parish pay, don't you ? " "Yes, sir." " Then just explain to me how you are able to put down twenty marks for the estimonial to Prince Bismarck." " I don't intend to put them down, sir, by your leave." "What do you mean?" '* I haven't paid anything, and when they come for the money I shall ask them to let me off with so many days in gaol." " Oh, that's it, is it ? '* answered the functionary. " I understand. But that can't be done you know, unfortunately." " Well then you must just scratch out my name," said the man. He had no doubt had some experience of that kind of thing before the magistrate : "So many shillings or so many days"! It was on this occasion especially (the seventieth birthday) that Germans of the 140 BISMARCFCS POPULARITY. North, as well as Germans of the South overwhelmed him with presents. Bismarck is a great smoker : he is fond of a cigar, but he much prefers a pipe. It was only natural, then, that his admirers should think of sending him something to smoke and something to smoke out of; and this they had already done on a liberal scale at the time of the war of 1870 — numerous boxes of Havana cigars reaching him from all the towns of Northern Germany. Wlirtemberg especially distinguished itself at this time by sending an enormous batch of presents to Bismarck. The little town of Nagold, in the Black Forest, sent a con- gratulatory address, covered with signatures gathered from the surrounding neighbour- hood, and richly ornamented with designs. This was all very nice, of course, but the good provincials feared that the Chancellor might perhaps think their address a little too platonic, if there were not something sub- stantial added to it; so the worthy Nagolders HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS. 141 informed him in a postscript that they were sending him at the same time, by post, a box containing a little of the produce of the Black Forest. The box contained a dozen quart bottles of raspberry brandy, with handsome labels, each surrounded with a bordering of the three German colours — red, white, and black. It would be far too heavy a task, however, to enumerate all the queer presents the Chancellor received at the time of this anniversary. Let it suffice to mention two or three more of the strangest ones. In 1885, ^ Bavarian organ-builder, named Edenhofer von Regen, sent him a huge organ-pipe set to ** the normal," and with it an explanatory note, in which the honest Bavarian stated his reasons for making such a singular offering : — *' For many years past," the letter went on to say, " your Highness has set the tone for all 143 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY. Europe, and indeed for the whole world. You have always given the proper note, and this excites the surprise and admiration of every- one. But now that you have arrived at your seventieth year, and as that great age generally brings with it little infirmities which might have a disturbing influence on the exactitude of the note, I venture with all respect to offer to your Highness an organ- pipe set to * the normal,' with the devout wish that your Highness may be able, for many long years to come, to set the proper note without having to go to the pipe for it." History does not record what were Bismarck's reflections on receiving this strange gift. He received another singular present in the same year — 1885. It was — a whip ! sent by the inhabitants of Stanaitschen. Whips, it may be mentioned, form the staple article of manufacture in this small locality, and the goods are notorious throughout Germany for their excellent quality. HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS. 143 An address was sent with this present also, in the shape of some verses, in which the Stanaitschen people said, in substance, that " considering the difficulties of the times in which we are living, and the continual necessity in which the Chancellor found himself of keeping many people in order, it is absolutely necessary that he should have a trusty whip." The plovers* eggs sent by the inhabitants of J ever caused many a sleepless night to the people of Westerhayn, in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, and they at last resolved to get themselves talked about in like manner. When, therefore, the seventieth birthday of the Prince came round, they despatched to his address a case of hams. There was nothing extraordinary in this, of itself, but the senders had conceived the ingenious idea of so arranging the hams, that looked at from one direction they represented Bismarck's initials, and from the other direction the Imperial arms. 144 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY, The educational inspectors of Liidenscheid also showed that they held the great Chancellor in their remembrance, only they did it in a much more modest fashion than the persons mentioned above. They were content to send Prince Bismarck a telegram on his seventieth birthday. And as the cost of telegrams was high, and the schoolmasters rather poor, they worded their telegram as follows : — "To Prince Bismarck, Berlin. ''^ Sir achy lo ; verse 5. "The Educational Inspectors of Ludenscheid." Naturally Bismarck got down the book on opening the dispatch, and this is what he found at the place indicated : — " The successes of a ruler are in the hands of God, and He giveth him a good Chancellor." They were no fools, these schoolmasters ; but their idea was not a new one, for the Americans had frequently had recourse to the same expedient. The ex-Chancellor has a companion who never leaves him (already alluded to at the HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS, 145 commencement of this book) — his dog Tyras, which the Germans have nicknamed the '* Reichshund " (** Dog of the Empire"). Every time a party is given at the mansion, the dog is sure not to be forgotten, all the more that he is well known to all those invited to the Prince's Frilhschoppen (early luncheon). On his master s seventieth birthday Tyras was presented with a magnificent blanket, on the four corners of which were embroidered his initials ; several costly collars were also sent him, and lastly — a sofa ! The latter gift was accompanied by a verse of four lines, of which the meaning was probably hardly understood by Tyras. They were as follows : — " Tyras, sei hiibsch, artig und gut, ^ Sei es bei Tag, sei es bei Nacht. Bewache unsern Kanzler gut ; Dann wird als Prasent dir dies Kanapd gebracht." " Tyras, be gentle, good, and kind, All day long, and through the night, Watch over our Chancellor faithfully, And this gift of a sofa you'll receive." Very pretty and touching, isn't it ? 146 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY, A certain Bavarian poet also sang the praises of Bismarck in the old Bavarian dialect. The piece is too long to be re- produced, but the following Is the substance of it :— • ** A waggoner, a mason, a carpenter, a hunter, and a tradesman are seated around the table at a brewery tap, discussing the genius and abilities of Bismarck. " The waggoner says that he ought to have been a driver, because he knows how to go at a great pace without upsetting the coach. " The mason says that the Pnnce ought to have joined Ais profession, because he has pulled down a great number of small erections, and has raised in their place a large and substantial building. ** The carpenter claims him for /its trade ; in the first place because he has rebuilt the old edifice, and in the second place because he has surrounded it with an insurmountable barrier. HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS, 147 " The hunter maintains that all the others are wrong, and that there was only one career open to Bismarck : he ought to be a hunter, because he has never missed his aim. "The tradesman spoke last, and declared that each of his companions were equally mistaken : that Bismarck had done much better in becoming himself^ In 1877 he received a congratulatory telegram from an address which was of itself enough to excite surprise. This dispatch, of which the following is a translation, was sent him from — the Moon ! " Highness ! we congratulate you ! True it is that you're accustomed to it ; But certainly it must rarely have happened to you To be addressed by people in the Moon." These Inhabitants of the Moon, however, were only the regular customers at an ale- house In Weissenfels with the sign of " The Half Moon." 148 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY, Bismarck replied to this telegram by a quatrain which ran as follows : — ** That congratulations of any kind Could reach me from the Moon, Where the inhabitants are very few, I should never have believed." When he celebrated the fifteenth anni- versary of his entry into the Ministry, one of his admirers published, through a Berlin bookseller, a sort of epic poem entitled ** Triglaw-Bismarck." This admirer was gifted with a very fantastical imagination, as will be seen. The idea worked out in his verses was the following : — Bismarck is such an extraordinary per- sonage that future generations will take him for a myth ; so much the more so, that nearly all the acts of his life will present themselves In a symbolical form to those who in the dim future shall look back upon them. These people will involuntarily think of Triglaw, the god of the Wends. This said Triglaw had, it appears, three PRINCE BISMARCK AND HIS SON, COUNT HERBERT. HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS, 149 heads : Bismarck had at first three tufts of hair on his head, reduced subsequently to three hairs. But this is not all ; for, ac- cording to the poet, the figure "three" crops up continually in his hero's life. The following are some examples, — He is the third child of his parents. He has himself three children. He has been elected three times member of the Landtag. Three times has he been Ambassador. He has served three Princes of the House of Hohenzollern. Three times has he vanquished his country's enemies. These victories were won in three wars, by the trio — Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon. In the course of his lifetime he has borne three noble titles — Gentleman, Count, and Prince. He has three places of residence — Berlin, Friedrichsruh, and Varzin. He has cemented the alliance of the Three Emperors. 10 150 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY, He has fought against three factions. His very coat-of-arms, which contains a trefoil, bears the motto : " Trinity is strength." ? ? ? Another poet, in equally as bad a way as the one noticed above, composed the following acrostic : — " B orsensteuer (a financial tax), Innungen (guilds). S ocialreform (social reform). M ilitaretat (war budget). A ntisemitismus (anti-semitism). R eichstagswahlen (elections for the Reichstag). C holeranachrichten (news of cholera) (I I) K olonialpolitik (colonial policy).'* Verily, this is astonishing ! The town of Darmstadt, too, celebrated Bismarck's seventieth birthday in a very brilliant manner. Of course there was a banquet, which was attended by all the big- wigs of the place. They did full justice to the solid refreshments set before them, and a little more than full justice (as it would HIS BIRTHDAY PRESENTS. 151 appear) to the liquids. Some time after midnight, however, the hall began to empty ; but a little greengrocer, a vigorous tippler and a jovial fellow, could not be prevailed upon to leave. At last, however, worried by the continued importunities of his friends, who said it was late, it was time for him to go home, etc., etc., he exclaimed in a deeply injured tone : ** Shut up, will you ? I must drink one more glass to his health : he certainly does deserve it." The following is a little story which will give some idea of how the Germans wor- shipped their Chancellor : — A certain German, by the name of Berch- hof, settled at Melbourne, happened to be in Berlin on business. He was President of the German Club, too, at Melbourne. On his departure from Australia for the Fatherland, his fellow-countrymen begged him to bring back with him some good portraits of the Emperor, the Crown Prince, and Bismarck. He purchased these things 152 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY. when he got to Berlin, and bethought himself that it might be possible for him to get the Chancellor to put his signature at the bottom of his own portrait. He betook himself, therefore, to Bis- marck's mansion, where he was told that he could not be received, as the Prince was busy. In a tone of great disappointment he explained what he had come for, said he had journeyed from a very long way, and that he wanted to speak to the Prince most particularly. While the wrangle was going on, Bismarck himself came to the doorway, and Berchhof hastened to introduce himself and told him his story, and the Chancellor then asked him to step inside. The man followed with alacrity, and was no sooner in the Prince's study than he produced the portrait and placed it before the original, with the request that he would deign to write his signature at the bottom. Bismarck took his pen and wrote his name, but the pen spluttered so abominably that he threw it on to the floor. HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS, 153 Herr Berchhof thereupon picked it up, and asked to be allowed to carry it away with him, and the permission was granted him. Finding the great man in such good humour, he next begged that he might be permitted to take away with him, as a souvenir, a cuirassier's helmet, which was lying on a chair near the writing-table. Bismarck smilingly granted this request also, and then dismissed his visitor, fearing perhaps he might be tempted to ask for something more. It appears, according to what was said in a German paper some time ago, that these two precious relics — the pen and the helmet — were subsequently placed under a glass case in the German club room at Melbourne, of which they are considered to be the most brilliant ornaments. But it is not by his compatriots only that Bismarck has been admired. For many years he has been the object of admiration on the part of numbers of foreigners. 154 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY. Several anecdotes might be given to prove the truth of this, and the following appears to be the most amusing. It dates from the time of the Universal Exhibition at Vienna. One day a tall and portly man, with an imperious look, but a lively and intelligent face, was examining, with great attention, the articles in the glass cases in the Austrian jewellery section of the Exhibition. The exhibitor of the goods, who was present, kept his eye on the person in question, saying to himself : '* Yes, yes ; it must be him. That expression on his face is how he must have looked at the moment he entered France." Then, suddenly taking the bull by the horns, he went up to the gentleman, who was closely examining the trinkets, and with a profound bow began : *'Your Highness " But a freezing look from the stranger prevented him from finishing his sentence, and after a few moments' reflection the jeweller concluded he was wrong in thus addressing a man who evidently was anxious HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS, 155 to remain incog. ; so he thought he would repair the stupid blunder. Approaching him then, timidly, he re-commenced as follows : — " Permit me, as the proprietor of the articles in this case, to inquire if there is any object there which takes your fancy?" The stranger answered dryly : ** They are not so bad, all those little trinkets ; especially this one." And he pointed to a handsome diamond ring. The jeweller immediately opened the case, and taking out the ring begged the gentle- man to do him the distinguished honour of accepting it. This offer appeared to considerably embarrass the stranger at first; but after a while he asked the jeweller the price of the ring. The latter replied, with a deeply offended look, that he had never before been asked such a question, and that he should be the happiest man in the world if he were allowed to make a present of the trinket to such a distinguished personage. The stranger still looked as if he couldn't understand it, and hardly knowing what to 156 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY. make of it all ; at last he took the ring, which the jeweller had packed in a little box with one of his business cards. The recipient, not to be outdone in politeness, took one of his visiting cards from his pocket-book, and handed it to the jeweller, whose face was radiant with pleasure ; and he, taking care not to look at the inscription on it, laid it on the counter with a gesture which was intended to mean : " Your High- ness knows very well that you can't deceive people like me. Why, bless you, I have known you for a long time ! " After an exchange of most polite bows, the stranger walked away rather hurriedly, for the other had just proposed that he should walk through the building with him. Hardly had the jeweller got behind his counter again, when he heard a little way off loud and enthusiastic cheering. "Aha!" said he ; ** they have recognized him after all. How could he think to walk about and preserve his incognito ? But listen ; the noise appears to come nearer." HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS. 157 Five minutes later an immense throng of people crowded past his stall, in the wake of Count Andrassy and Bismarck. The mob was shouting "Bismarck! Hurrah for Bismarck ! " " What are those people shouting about ? " said the jeweller to himself. " That's not Bismarck. The man with Count Andrassy is not at all like the man who But here is his card." And then in order to prove to himself that he was right, he picked up the card and read, — ^^ Alexander Schnabel^ Bavaria^* It made the poor man ill. But he never got his ring back. The following narrative will prove that, even in France, Bismarck has had admirers of both sexes, who never feared to apprize him of their sentiments. A little German book entitled Bismarck- Anekdoten ("Anecdotes of Bismarck") tells how a young Parisian lady wrote to Bismarck 158 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY, when Chancellor. She said in her letter that she was too young to hate him for having fought against France, .that she felt deep admiration for his genius, and that she would be much pleased to have some reliable news as to his state of health ; " for," she said, " what is said on this subject in the French papers can hardly be relied upon." Bismarck sent a very polite reply to Mademoiselle Alice Bernaux. He told her that no war whatever could make him angry with such amiable Parisian ladies as his correspondent, and he thanked her sincerely for her kind expression of sympathy. As for his health, he added, it was not so bad, much to the regret of Frenchmen ; but, nevertheless, he suffered a good deal from rheumatism in his joints. This recalls an incident of the same kind which occurred not long ago to a General much talked of in France. Some German students sent him a telegram of which the substance was : " We wish with all our HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS. 159 hearts that you will attain to power as soon as possible, so that you may ruin France." The General's secretary, who presumably knew but very little about German, did not catch the real meaning of the message, or else he was a bit of a wag (which was quite possible) ; at any rate, he sent to the stu- dents, in reply to their telegram, a visiting card, containing these words : — "General , " Sincere thanks.^* The Germans had a good laugh at this. But it is most astonishing to find Victor Hugo among those who sent their congratu- lations to Prince Bismarck on the occasion of this famous seventieth anniversary of his birth. The fact was revealed at the time by the Weimar Zeitung, the editor of which had obtained the Prince's permission to copy the letter of the great French poet. The letter was written in that grandiose style which Victor Hugo affected whenever i6o BISMARCK'S POPULARITY. he wrote, or believed he wrote, in the name of his country's honour. The address was ** Victor Hugo to Otto Bismarck," and the letter was worded as follows : — " The giant salutes the giant ! the enemy salutes the enemy ! the friend sends his greeting to the friend ! I hate you cruelly, for you have humiliated France. I love you, because I am greater than you. You kept silence when my eighty years sounded from the belfry of my glory ; but I speak now, because the stolen clock which stands upon your desk refuses to announce to you that your seventieth year has come. I am eighty, you are seventy . eight for me, and seven for you, and humanity in shape of a zero behind us! ** If you and I were united in one person, the history of the world would be ended. You the body, I the mind ; you the cloud, I the lightning; you the power, I the glory! " Which is the greatest of the two — the conqueror or the conquered ? Neither is greatest. HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS. i6i " The poet is greater than either, because he sings of both. Great men are nothing but what the poet makes them ; they only seem to be what they really are. ** But you, you are great, for you know not what fear is. Therefore I, the poet, offer my hand to you, the great man. *' France trembles, Germany trembles, Europe trembleSj all the world trembles. And we two only are great. Nod your head, and I will do the same, and the great union of the peoples, the everlasting peace, will be an accomplished fact. *' Hugo." Bismarck countersigned this letter as follows : — •*Otto: Adieu!" The following two examples will serve to show how mistaken we may be in our estimate of men. When Bismarck was recalled from Paris in 1862,* to take a Minister's portfolio, he * He was th n Prussian Ambassador in Paris. i62 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY. went to present his letters of recall to the Emperor Napoleon, who made the following remark about him after he was gone, — " He is not a serious man." He learnt the contrary, however, to his bitter cost, and at the expense of all France too, unfortunately. Some time previous to the war of 1866, M. Guizot said in an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes: — *' At the present moment there is but one bold and ambitious man in Europe, and that man is Bismarck." In the later years of his Chancellorship, Bismarck must have had some curious re- flections about the position he had attained. Before 1866 he was without dispute the most unpopular man in Germany. This unpopu- larity peeped out in a thousand ways — some harmless and some injurious. If the greater number of his opponents contented them- selves with lampooning him, writing verses about him, and caricaturing him, there were others who did not hesitate to have recourse HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS. 163 to extreme measures, such as attempted assassination. But all that soon changed, and Bismarck became the greatest popular favourite in Germany. What a contrast ! In 1866, at the outbreak of the war with Austria, the Federal army sang : — "The eighth corps fights just like one man. The first Alexander leads it on. He'll take us straight into Berlin And Bismarck '11 be in our clutches soon." At Frankfort-on-the-Main mothers sang the following ditty when they rocked their children to sleep : — "Sleep, darling, sleep; Be always gentle and good; Or Vogel von Falkenstein* he will come And carry you off in a sack. Bismarck, too, will come after him, And he eats up little children." All this, however, very soon changed. What Bismarck himself has thought about * A Prussian General, who commanded the three divisions, under Goeben, Manteuffel, and Bayer, which captured Frankfort on July 16th, 1866. i64 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY. the orations of which he was made the sub- ject may be gathered from these words of his own : — " It is very disagreeable either to be ogled at, at fifteen paces ; or to be stared at, at five. At first one is much flattered to find himself the object of so much attention, but this little movement of vanity soon disap- pears. The vanities of this world have no charms excepting when they are not sought for. But when once we have succeeded in dismissing them from our mind, we perceive the truth of King Solomon*s saying : * All is vanity ! * Fame does not bring any real satisfaction with it. I cannot therefore un- derstand how anyone can bear to live who does not believe there is another life in a better world." His fame, as already pointed out, has ex- tended far beyond the limits of his own country. Hosts of examples of this are cited by Bismarck's panegyrists. The fol- lowing are two out of the number. HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS. 165 A German Professor in an English Uni- versity went once on a tour into Greece, in order to become acquainted with the land of the old classics. In the course of his journey he came to Mycenae, where he went out to study the Cyclopean walls. He became so absorbed in his task that he did not notice the sun was setting, and suddenly he found himself in total darkness. This fact, and the know- ledge that he had to return to the town for the night, caused the Herr Professor to draw largely upon his agility, and he started off like a practised athlete. All at once he found himself face to face with a couple of sturdy goat-herds, who barred the way, " Who are you ? " they inquired, " I am a German." ** Who is your King ? " *' The King of Prussia." " Ah ! then you are Bismarck !" And the two peasants pulled off their hats and made off in the darkness. The name alone of Bismarck had sufficed to save the 11 i66 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY. Professor from the hands of these two brigands ! ! Se non e vero . . • • The Americans, who are the high-priests of advertising, have not failed to profit by the renown of Bismarck. They have utilized his name in every possible way. We have from the Americans Bismarck pipes, Bismarck sprinklers, Bismarck cravats, Bismarck hair- brushes, and a host of other things. His name also figures largely In advertise- ment punning questions ; for instance, ** What is the difference between Bismarck and Spauldlng's stickfast paste?" Reply: "There is no difference ; because they both stick so tight to what they get hold of that it is impossible to get them away from it." Here is another specimen of an adver- tisement : — " Sozodont and Bismarck. — From a mere glance at Prince Bismarck one can form no idea of the mighty power which he wields. His manner is calm and tranquil. S'ozodont HIS BIRTHDA Y PRESENTS, 167 likewise makes no outward sign of the magic power which it possesses. It is like any other preparation to look at. But both Sozodont and Bismarck perform what they promise. The latter is death to the enemies of the German Empire, and the former is death to all parasites of the teeth." This, of course, points to a most widely- extended popularity, but it is very doubtful whether Prince Bismarck has ever experienced any great satisfaction in seeing his name coupled in this fashion with stickfast paste and parasite-killers, and with all the other products more or less odd in their nature which the 'cute imagination of the Yankee has been able to invent. On account of its rarity, and as a suitable close to this chapter, we will repeat one small " voice in the desert," uttering a protest against the great Chancellor. At the time of the electoral campaign which preceded the last renewal but two of the Reichstag, one of the Oldenburg i68 BISMARCK'S POPULARITY, candidates (a Progressist) alluded to Bismarck in the following terms : — " I look upon this personal government of the Chancellor as a misfortune for our country; all the more that he has only one object in view — to curtail the rights and the influence of the people's representatives. As regards interior administration, the Chan- cellor totally lacks the necessary experience ; and his foreign policy is hesitating and shifty, and only calculated to arouse a feeling of mistrust and uncertainty m the conduct of public affairs." It is needless to say that the man who had the temerity to attack in this way the arbiter of Germany's destinies had not the slightest chance of being elected at that time. CHAPTER VIII. BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. EVERY Statesman and politician is more or less accused — if not by his contemporaries, at least by posterity — of having perpetrated any number of puns and jokes. Flashes of wit — of very doubtful taste sometimes — have often been fathered by journalists upon such or such a man of note, merely for the sake of obtaining ^^urrencyf^ r them. It is not to be wondered at, then, that the paternity of many a witty saying has been fastened upon Prince Bis- marck. A few only, however, are really his, but we can vouch for the correctness of the following, which are repeated without any attempt at chronological order. We will commence, however, with the cruel conundrum put by King William of 170 BISMARCK* S WITTY SA YINGS. Prussia at the expense of the Emperor of Austria, without the slightest shadow of excuse. It dates from 1867. The Emperor Francis Joseph had already been beaten, but his future ally must needs try to kill him also with ridicule. Talking one day with his Chancellor, King William asked him point blank, — " Wissen Sie wer der beste Baumeister in Europa ist ? " (" Do you know who is the best architect in Europe ? ") "No, sire." " Well, then ; it is the Emperor Francis Joseph." "Why, sire?" " Es ist Ihm nie etwas eingefallen." This was a play upon words, for the phrase can be translated in two ways : First , " He has never got a useful idea into his head" (and that is what King W^illiam meant to say) ; secondly, " Nothing that he has built has ever fallen in upon him." Bismarck laughed heartily at this fun of his sovereign's, and his backbiters say that BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS. 171 he often served it up afresh with abundant comments of his own, and they always went off with the greatest success. It is said that at the commencement of the war of 1870, King William asked his Chancellor, — "What shall we do with France?" ** Wir spielen mit Ihr sechs und sechzig." (Literally : ** We will play sixty-six* with her.") This alleged reply of the Chancellor might appear charming to a person knowing nothing of what was going on at the time ; but to those who are aware how uncertain Prussia felt of success at the outset of the campaign, the genuineness of the saying will appear very doubtful. At the time of the Berlin Congress, the then Crown Prince gave a farewell dinner to the delegates, styling it a ** Friedens- diner" ("Dinner of Peace"), Prince Bismarck • A game of cards very popular in Germany. 172 BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS, was requested by the Crown Prince to ar- range with the delegates about the date on which the dinner should be held, and he addressed himself in the first place to the English Premier, Lord Beaconsfield, asking him whether the following Thursday would suit him. *' But," said Beaconsfield, " does your Serene Highness talk so soon of peace and parting? That is what we call selling the bearskin before you have killed the bear." ** Well," answered Bismarck, ''you kill the bear then." *' That's just what I intend to do," was Beaconsfield's rejoinder. Bismarck could not avoid laughing at this double- entendre, although, of course, it was aimed at Russia, Prussia's ally. When Bismarck was sent as Prussian delegate to the Federal Diet at Frankfort, one of the first visits he made was to Prince Metternich, the Austrian Minister, who was staying at that time at his castle BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. 173 of Johannlsberg. It must be mentioned that Prince Metternich was the life and soul of society at Frankfort. He was a delightful and untiring talker, especially when he could be led into the subject of the French Revolution. He had been an eye-witness of some of the scenes enacted during this troublous period, having been at the time a student of philosophy at Stras- bourg,* and his tutor left him to enter a Jacobin club. A few days after this visit to Metternich, Count von Thun met Bismarck and said to him, — " You must know that Prince Metternich is quite delighted with you. What have you done to get into his favour.'*" " Oh, a very simple matter," replied Bismarck. " I listened to the Prince's conversation for three whole days without interrupting him, looking as enlightened and interested all the time as I possibly could." * He had Benjamin Constant for fellow-student. 174 BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS, In the spring of 1854 the King of Ba- varia held a grand review of his army, and numerous foreign officers were invited to the display, among them being an Austrian General. All the visitors were resplendent with stars and orders. Bismarck was among the guests, and he had donned for the occasion his uniform of Lieutenant in the Landwehr, and wore on his breast a goodly number of decorations, conferred upon him by the Princes of the Confederation. The Austrian General was rather annoyed at seeing Bismarck decked out with all this " tin-ware," as he called it, and going up to him, and pointing to the orders on his breast, said in a low but rather bantering tone, — ** Donnerwetter, Excellency! Did you win all those stars before the enemy .-^ " " Certainly," replied Bismarck ; " I won them all before the enemy — at Frankfort-on- the-Main ! " In April 1857 Bismarck had just had an BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, 175 interview with the Emperor Napoleon III. The relations between Prussia and France were at that time rather strained, and in a letter to his sister, Frau von Arnim, he described how embarrassed and upset he was at that period. " I am cold," he wrote, ** although I have five fires going ; I never know what time it is, although I have half-a-dozen clocks ; and although I possess eleven large mirrors, my tie is always askew." Mention has already been made in the foregoing pages of the strenuous opposition Bismarck encountered in Prussia when he thought fit to appoint Dr. Schweninger, of Munich, his private physician, and to nomi- nate him Professor in the Berlin University. One day, when he was exasperated at the fresh objections which poured in upon him from all quarters, he sent to one of the most embittered objectors (Herr von Gossler) the following reply : — " If Schweninger goes back to Munich 176 BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, I go with him. You may do what you like in the matter ; but my mind is fully made up." It has already been stated that Dr. Schweninger was elected and kept in Berlin. It is pretty well known that the Kladder- adatsch^ made a certain trio of prominent men the favourite subjects of its puns and caricatures: these were Napoleon III., the Sultan of Turkey, and Bismarck. When the first of these three personages died, it was a great loss to the comic print, as it was thereby deprived of one of its choicest objects of ridicule. Some time after the Sultan felt annoyed at all the fun that was made of. him, and made representations on the subject to the Prussian and Austrian Governments (for the Austrian journals imi- tated the Kladderadatsch in casting ridicule upon these three great men). The result was that the Sultan was let alone, and * German comic paper ; similar to our Punch. COUNT CAPRIVI, BISMARCK'S SUCCESSOR AS CHANCELLOR. BISMARCK* S WITTY SA YINGS. 179 Bismarck was the only one of the trio left for these papers to fling their jokes at. Bismarck is stated to have alluded to the subject in the following terms : — " Very good ! I am the only one left now to be a butt for their sorry wit. We shared the business hitherto, but now the Sultan has also disappeared. It is very provoking, for I really don't know whether I shall suffice for it all by myself." Field- Marshal Von Moltke — a long time ago, and with perfect reason — was dubbed "the Great Silent One." Bismarck, in speaking of him one day, gave the following description of him, which is certainly not lacking in wit : — " Every time there is a declaration of war on the tapis, even Moltke gets talkative, and when that of 1870 was resolved upon, he suddenly got ten years younger. Pre- vious to that he was always crabbed and surly ; but no sooner was war decided upon i8o BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. than he became quite chatty, recovered his liking for champagne and strong cigars, and forgot all about the gout which he had contracted through reposing so long upon his laurels, which had grown damp and cold." Bismarck was one day in company, when, among other things, the subject of how much it cost to gain experience in life cropped up. He kept silent for a time, but presently he joined in the conversation and said : — " Fools pretend that you can only gain ex- perience at your own expense, but I have always managed to learn at the expense of others." The man's whole policy was defined in these few words, and it would have been difficult to express it in a shorter sentence, more cynical or more true. The following little anecdote is narrated by the German papers of April 23rd, 1889: — " Yesterday the Chancellor took his usual BISMARCK'S TVriTY SA YJNGS. i8i ride on horseback to the Thiergarten, going by way of Charlottenburg, and he found some difficulty en route in responding to the enthusiastic cheers and salutes of the people among whom he passed. Suddenly a well- dressed lady, belonging, apparently, to the upper class of society, rushed up to him and exclaimed, — "* Ah, your Highness! how glad I am to have seen you once in my life ! * "The Prince was taken aback for a moment, but quickly recovered himself, and replied with a smile, * I trust, Madame, it will not be the last.' " And applying his spurs to his horse, he went off at a gallop." The Treaty of NIkolsburg was, as is well known, concluded in the castle of the same name belonging to Count von Mensdorff- Pouilly. It is a very ancient structure, but a marvel of architecture and of excellent interior arrangement. When Bismarck en- tered it for the first time he was struck with i82 BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. admiration at the sight of the splendid objects which it contained, and turning to Count von Keudell, who accompanied him, he said : — " My old mansion of Schonhausen is a very poor thing compared with this magnifi- cent castle, and yet I greatly prefer being at home here with Count Mensdorff to having him at home with me.'* Very shortly after the Bohemian campaign, Bismarck was invited to dine with an old General, who was known throughout the Prussian army for his stupidity. The dinner was served in a magnificent dining-hall, the walls of which were covered with animals' horns and antlers, and all kinds of hunting trophies. The Chancellor was never able to let slip an opportunity for cracking a joke, whatever might be the result for himself, and addressing his next neighbour at table, at the moment of their sitting down under a splendid pair of urochs- horns, he said to him : — "According to all appearances, your BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS. 183 Excellency, it appears to me that our worthy and excellent host has invited us to dine in the hall of his ancestors." As this bit of fun might not appear very sensible or Intelligible to some of the readers of these lines, It may be as well to mention that the German word '* Hornvieh " not only means horned cattle, but sometimes means ** blockheads." The Chancellor caught a slight cold on one occasion after a walk in his park at Friedrlchsruh. He sent for his physician, and asked him for a remedy which would cure him quickly. '* I recommend your Highness," said the doctor, **to take a Russian bath." ** A Russian bath ? My dear doctor, you make a mistake ; a Russian bath would only make me worse, in the state that I am. I should much prefer a Roman bath." — . During the summer of 1848 Bismarck belonged to the party of the extreme Right, 12 i84 BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. and he could never go out in the evening without being followed by some suspicious- looking individuals, about whose intentions there could have been but little doubt, but who found it difficult to carry out their design. One evening, however, he was later than usual ; the street was quite deserted on this occasion, and he noticed one of these men following him. He was resolved to know what the fellow wanted, and slackened his pace ; but the other only followed his ex- ample. Bismarck then went on faster, and the other quickened his pace immediately. When he arrived within sight of a police- station, Bismarck stopped suddenly and turned right-about-face, and drawing some- thing from his pocket which gave an ominous ''click," he pointed it at the man who had so persistently dogged his footsteps. This threatening movement, and the significant click which accompanied it (which, however, meant nothing), so terrified the man that he took to his heels, fearing at every moment to hear a pistol shot behind him. BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS. 185 Bismarck then, seeing that he had routed his would-be assailant, quietly returned the dreaded implement to his pocket : it was nothing but a hunting knife whjch opened with a spring, the click of which resembled the noise made in cocking a pistol. In every-day life, exactly as in matters of State policy, Bismarck has always been fond of making fun of people, A fat German manufacturer — who had the honour of being admitted to his intimacy, and who, from that very fact, considered him- self a good authority on important political subjects — happened to be at Friedrichsruh at a time when the Egyptian Question was greatly exercising the minds of people in Europe. Accosting 'the Chancellor with a confi- dential air, he inquired of him in a mysterious whisper, — " Well, your Highness, what will come of this Egyptian Que^^tion ? " i86 BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, Bismarck replied with feigned reluctance, — ** I really can'^t tell you, Herr Kommer- zienrath : I haven't read the morning papers yet." He was on a journey in Hungary in 1852 ; he kept up a correspondence all the time with his sister, Frau von Arnim, and the following is a translation of one of his letters : — ** I am now travelling in a country where, It is said, the most noted highway robbers are to be found. I suppose this is because the river Theiss, the marshes, and the arid plains which surround it render the exter- mination of these gentry difficult, if not im- possible. These Betyares are splendidly mounted and well armed. They go about in bands of fifteen or twenty, and attack travellers, farms, and isolated houses, and next day they are heard of again at twenty miles distance. They are very polite, though, to persons who treat them politely. I left the greater portion of my valuables with BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. 187 Prince W , and I was travelling with only what was strictly necessary In the way of change of clothing. I was In the highest degree curious to fall In with these mounted robbers, clothed in thick furs, with their double-barrelled guns in their hands, pistols in their belts, and under the command of a masked leader. Unfortunately I had not the good fortune to meet them I am told that nobles of lower rank, belonging to the country often join these bands of brigands. A few days ago there was a fight between a number of these fellows and some armed policemen. Several of the policemen bit the dust, but two of the robbers were cap- tured and afterwards shot at Keskemet. Such a thing as this has never happened in our dull and tedious Pomeranla." On one of Crispi's visits to Friedrichsruh the famous Italian statesman was entertained by the Chancellor and his son Herbert. One day at dinner the conversation ran on Ministers in general, their families, etc., and i88 BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, Signer Crispl, wishing to compliment his host, remarked, — " Your Highness affords an example quite without precedent in history ; for we have never before seen a father and son guiding between them the policy of a great nation." ** Pardon me," observed Prince Bismarck, who was better read in history than his guest ; " I beg your Excellency to remember the two Pitts." "Yes, yes," was the reply. ** But that is not quite the same thing." ** How is that ? Not the same thing ? Why it seems to me that they resembled us in many points. Here is one, for example, — they were always on their guard against France." Count d'Herisson, in his Journal d'un Officier cC Ordonnance, tells of the stratagem by which he was enabled to save the colours of the Paris garrison. The story was received with great incredulity both in Germany and in France ; nevertheless it was perfectly BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. 189 authentic. A very short time after the pub- lication of the book, Prince Bismarck — who had read it — informed the author that he had experienced great pleasure In going through his work, and that he congratulated him in a special manner upon the victory that he had scored over him (the Chancellor). It has already been shown that Bismarck has always preserved something more or less of the student in the foundation of his character. He was hunting one day with one of his fellow-delegates to the Federal Diet. When the time for luncheon arrived, the two hunters compared notes and found their bill of fare was a very meagre one : they only had be- tween them a slice of bread and a sausage. Exactly over against the place where they sat down was the cemetery of GInnhelm. Now Bismarck knew that the sight of a cross or a tombstone always gave his com- panion a fit of melancholy. When once he was put on the scent he would immediately iQO BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, begin to moralize on the frailty of things here below, on the awfulness of death, etc., etc., and if he had anv appetite he was sure to lose it. On the occasion now under our notice the sausage was small, and Bismarck's appetite was enormously big, and in order to procure a chance of satisfying his hunger he did not shrink from employing the ordinary means — he drew his companion's attention to the cemetery, remarking how nicely it was laid out, and not sparing him the smallest detail. Then, when he had obtained the desired effect, — that is, when his friend began to expatiate on the vanity and the shortness of life, etc., — he began his lunch, and did not cease until he had consumed the lot. At Warsaw a kind of club has been esta- blished by the Germans residing in that city. One day a discussion arose at this club about the Chancellor s favourite drink. Some would have it that he liked beer the best, and others maintained that he preferred wine. BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS. 191 Heavy bets were then laid on the question, and to solve the matter Bismarck was written to, with the request that he would vouchsafe to inform them what was his favourite liquor. Not wishing to deceive anybody, and know- ing that considerable sums were staked on the result, he replied through his secretary as follows : — "His Highness directs me to inform you that you are all of you right : he is equally fond of good wine and good beer, and drinks about the same quantity of each, excepting on days when he is unwell." When two-mark (two-shilling) pieces were first coined, a wag proposed that they should be called ** Bis-mark " pieces, giving at the same time the reasons which seemed to militate in favour of the appellation. ** It will be the means," he said, ** of satisfying all the political parties of the new Empire. For the National Liberals will have the ' Bis-mark ' in their pocket, the Socialists will see it strtuk, the Ultra- 192 BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS. montanes will be able to change it, and the Poles to chavge it into roubles " [this latter, however, is a very far-fetched play upon words : the German word is verjubeln\ . *' Further," he added, ** Bismarck will still preserve his influence after he has withdrawn from public life." A few years ago the Chancellor, who was greatly shaken in health, seriously made up his mind to retire. He had placed his resignation in the hands of the Emperor, but the aged monarch returned it to him in a few minutes with a single word for answer : " Never ! " Yielding, then, to the urgent wish of his master, he remained in office, and at the first audience he had of the Emperor after- wards, his Majesty said, — " I cannot understand why you want to retire ; here am I, much older than you, but I can still mount my horse." The answ^er Bismarck made to this remark was, — , BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, 193 " Just SO, sire ; that's the rule. The rider always holds out much longer than his horse." On a certain occasion in the Reichstag the sittings were extremely boisterous ; the German Deputies, casting aside their habitual attitude of deference towards the Government, clamoured at every moment for the presence of such and such a Minister, who, when he appeared, was attacked with the virulence characteristic of Germans when quarrelling among themselves. The Chancellor had made his arrangements in consequence : he had caused a little work-room to be fitted up contiguous to the chamber, and all through these stormy sittings he sat with the door of communication open, so that he could hear all that passed without being actually present. A Deputy complained one day in a loud and violent tone of not seeing in his place the Minister whom he desired to interrogate. It was Bismarck that the member wanted, 194 BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS, and the latter immediately appeared at the door, exclaiming, — " You need not be at the trouble of calling for me, sir ; your voice is so loud that I can hear you quite plain enough in the next room." A very amusing story was told about the Chancellor by Earl Russell. The incident occurred at Versailles, during the war of 1870. Lord Russell was to have an audience, and he was waiting for Count von Arnim to leave Bismarck's study. Presently Von Arnim came out, fanning himself furiously with his handkerchief. ** I really cannot understand," he said, ** how Bismarck can live in such an at- mosphere : he is continually smoking ; and the strongest cigars, too. I had to ask him to open the window, for I could not stand it." Then he took leave of Lord Russell and went his way. As soon as Lord Russell entered the room, Bismarck said to him, — BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. 195 " What Strange tastes some people have ! There is Von Arnim, now, who has just gone out of the room ; it is a fad of his to scent himself up to an unbearable degree, and to-day the perfume was so intense that I had to open the window." Every time Lord Russell related this anecdote he hastened to add, — "What the truth of the matter was, I really cannot say." On his return from Kissingen in 1888, the country people crowded round the railway stations to see him pass through. At Halle, among other places, an imposing demonstration was got up, and the station was filled to overflowing with people anxious to catch a sight of the Chancellor's face. Only a few personal friends, however, were admitted on the platform. Worn out by these repeated demonstrations, he said abruptly to one of his friends, — *' I daresay you fancy I am going to make you a long speech. Well, you ^re 196 BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, mistaken then, for I am a great deal too tired for that." The English are, generally speaking, fervent admirers of Bismarck. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of his entry into the Ministry, Lord Ranelagh made him a present of a table cast entirely out of cannon-balls. On receiving this curious present Bismarck observed, — " Heaven grant that all cannon-balls may in future be put to such peaceful uses as these.'* In 1850 General von Manteuffel, who was Minister at the time, had been charged by the King to bring about an understanding between the Prussian Conservatives and what was called the Gotha or Gagern party (Gagern was the name of the party leader). To this end Manteuffel invited Bismarck and Gagern to a select supper. The meal had proceeded some time without a word of pplitics having been uttered on either side, BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. 197 when suddenly Manteufifel, on some pretext or other, rose from the table, and left his accomplice alone with the dissentient Deputy. Bismarck opened the siege at once ; but Gagern scarcely gave him a chance of get- ting a word in : he gesticulated, rolled his eyes, looked as fierce as possible, and acted as if he were making a speech at a popular meeting. Bismarck allowed him to go on, seeing that he could do nothing with him, and when Manteuffel returned Gagern soon after took his leave. "Well," asked the Minister; **how have you succeeded ? " ** Not at all," replied Bismarck. " The man is simply a blockhead ; he took me for a public meeting." ** I thought that was how it would end. But what can you expect ? He is only a chatterbox, and you can make nothing of him." In the days which followed the fighting around Metz, the German army had to 198 BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS. undergo great privations, for the victualling department was disorganized, and food came forward irregularly. The scarcity affected headquarters as well as rank and file. One day Bismarck was out in search of food, when he met a soldier carrying under his arm a fowl ready plucked, but not cooked. He stopped the man, purchased the precious biped of him, and stuffed it into one of his holsters. A little farther on a sutler asked him to buy a roasted fowl. He bought it and paid for it, and gave the uncooked bird into the bar- gain, saying to the sutler as he did so, — " I hope, if we meet again before the war is over, that you will bring it me back cooked. But if not I shall expect you to make it good as soon as we get back to Berlin." A young English lady, an ardent admirer of Bismarck, wrote to him some time ago, enclosing her album, and begged him in high-flown terms to write a few words in it, adding that it would be an everlasting happiness for her to possess his autograph. BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. 199 Although the Chancellor had a great re- pugnance for this kind of thing, he yielded to the request of his fair correspondent, and returned her album after having written therein the following sentence : — ** Always beware, my dear young lady, of building castles in the air ; they are the most easy edifices to erect, but the most difficult to demolish." The following incident occurred at the meeting of the Emperors, at Skiernevice : — After dinner the three Emperors met for conversation, and at the same time the Empress chatted with Bismarck. All at oiice looking towards the group of monarchs, the Empress said, — " This meeting of the three Emperors is a great satisfaction to me. It ought to have taken place long ago." To this it is said Bismarck made the following reply : — " I beg your Majesty to believe that I regard it as my bounden duty to perpetuate 13 200 BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. this happy understanding. If fate should will it that thiscompact should ever be broken, I beg to assure your Majesty that I shall cease to be Minister from that moment." And he remained Minister up to a short time ago. During the war of 1870 the Emperor commissioned him to decorate with the Iron Cross of the First Class a soldier who had accomplished some daring act of bravery. With that liking for playing jokes which has been so strong throughout his career, he determined to have some fun with this poor fellow. But the sequel will show that it was he himself who was caught on this occasion. When the soldier had been brought Into his presence, he addressed him in this way : — " My friend, I have been commissioned to hand you the Iron Cross of the First Class ; but if it should prove that you are of a poor family, I am authorized to offer you a hundred BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS, 201 thalers instead of the Cross. You are at liberty, therefore, to choose between the two.*' The soldier began by asking how much the Cross was worth ; and on being told that it was worth about three thalers, he said, — " Very well, then. Highness ; I'll take the Cross and ninety-seven thalers." Bismarck was so surprised at this reply, denoting, as it did, a shrewdness and in- telligence a little out of the common, that he gave him both the Cross and the money on the spot, and when the Chancellor told the Emperor the tale of " the biter bit " a short time afterwards, his Majesty laughed heartily at it. Windhorst, the leader of the Clerical party in the Reichstag (the uncompromising enemy, therefore, of the Chancellor), and whom the German people call the ** Little Excellency," was a fellow-student of Bismarck's at the Gottingen University. Political differences, 202 BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS, however, have not prevented the two former comrades from meeting in a friendly way in private life. Windhorst one day, in the Reichstag, launched forth a tirade against the Frilh- schoppen (morning drinking parties), especially against the students' morning parties. A short time after Prince Bismarck gave a parliamentary breakfast at his house, and Windhorst, who had been invited, attended it. Hardly had he taken his place in front of his glass of beer, when a telegram was brought to him from the Rostock students, couched in the following terms : — " Excellenz auch beim Fruhschoppen ? " Na, ein Ganzes ! " " Your Excellency takes the morning glass too ? Then here's to your health." Windhorst telegraphed back Immediately : — " Probiren geht iiber Studiren. Komme nach ! " To test is better than to study. Here's to your's ! " WILLIAM II. AND HIS SON THE CROWN PRINCE. BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. 205 Some time ago Prince William (the pre- sent Emperor) was keeping the birthday of one of his sons, and Prince Bismarck came to the party, bringing with him, not only his good wishes, but a present in the shape of a barrel-organ. A few days subsequently the Chancellor came again to the Palace, when he received the thanks of the little Prince, who told him at the same time that he couldn't play it any longer, for it made his arms ache. Bismarck, then, without hesitation, took the instrument and turned the handle so vigorously that all the little Princes ran up, attracted by the music, and began to dance. Prince William had come up in the meantime, and amused at the lively scene, he said to the Chancellor, — "• That's astonishing ! Here are all these little Emperors of the future already dancing to your tunes." It will be in the recollection of the reader that seven or eight years ago the relations between Germany and Russia were very 2o6 BISMARCK'S WITTY SA YINGS. Strained. So much so that the latter Power concentrated her troops on her western frontier, and the German papers waged a fierce war against her, and especially against Emperor Alexander II. Notwithstanding this, however, the Czar always received General von Schweinitz, the German Am- bassador, with the greatest kindness and cordiality, and on terms of the closest inti- macy ; none of the other ambassadors being favoured to such an extent. On presenting himself one day at the Czar's private apartments, the General found him in a furious rage against the action of the German Press and the crooked policy of Bismarck. The General was profoundly embarrassed, but he kept his countenance, and without making any reply seated himself at the card-table. The Emperor's excitement soon calmed down, and before the General quitted the apartment his Majesty begged he would take no notice of anything disagreeable to which he might have given utterance BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, 207 A few weeks later General von Schweinltz was at Berlin on leave, and he informed Bismarck of what had occurred. The Chan- cellor tapped him on the arm, saying, — " Believe me, my dear General, that I have rendered greater services by what I have not said than by anything that I have said." A young lady one day requested Moltke and Bismarck to write a few lines in her album. The Marshal took up the pen first and wrote : — " Falsehood passes away : truth remains. "Von Moltke, Field-Marshal." After reading what Moltke had written, Bismarck took the pen and added the following : — " I know very well that truth will prevail in the next world ; but in the meantime a Field-Marshal himself would be powerless against falsehood in this world. " Von Bismarck, Chancellor of the Empire. 2o8 BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. At a certain dinner party which Bismarck gave in 1878, he began to talk about himself, and called himself an old man. His wife interrupted him, saying, — " But you are not an old man ; you are only sixty-three ! " "That is true," was the reply, **but I have always lived very fast and paid cash down." And turning towards his guests, he added, by way of explanation, — "When I say *^cash down,' I mean that I have always been heart and soul in my business, and that all the success I have obtained has been paid for at the price of my health and strength." Bismarck's promotion to the grade of Honorary Colonel of the 7th regiment of Cuirassiers gave currency to a story far too interesting to be overlooked. Following the custom in vogue in the German army, as soon as he was promoted he went to inspect his regiment, and the BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS. 209 officers invited him to the traditional ** dinner » of welcome," a meal which usually wound up with an enormous consumption of liquor. The officers of the regiment, every one of them giants, all promised themselves a rare bit of fun at the figure their new Colonel would cut on receiving the huge tankard filled with champagne, which had to be drained to the last drop to the health of the regiment. They said among themselves that Bismarck, a diplomatist and no military man, would never be able to accomplish this feat. ** And we," they added, " will show him how to do it." But they reckoned without their host. When the cloth was removed the servants brought the glasses, several bottles of cham- pagne, and the said tankard, which they filled to the brim and placed with some ceremony in front of the illustrious guest. Put on his guard by some roguish glances which he caught directed towards him, Bismarck began to see that he would have to maintain the reputation which he gained 210 BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, as a Student. Rising, then, at a given moment, he proposed a warm toast to the welfare of the regiment, and — presto ! — he emptied the tankard at a single draught, although it contained almost as much as two bottles of champagne. He then resumed his seat and began conversing in the quietest possible manner, as if nothing out of the ordinary way had happened. But his hosts could not take their eyes off him now, for he had grown considerably in their estima- tion. What was their astonishment, a few minutes later, when, in the calmest voice, he requested that his little jug might be refilled ! The excitement increased to delirium! We will conclude with one or two opinions expressed by the ex-Chancellor respecting some of the most prominent political men of Germany. The Leaders and Members of the Right. ** These gentlemen regard me as their BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, 211 chief, and then they are bound to follow me; or else they fight for their own hand, and in that case they must leave me to decide when I shall make common cause with them, and up to what point. There is no middle course. The pawn is no doubt an important piece on the political chessboard, but I can never admit that it should, at any given moment, pretend to take the place of a castle or a knight." Windhorst. " There are not two souls in the party of the Centre, but there are seven minds, which take all the colours of the political rainbow, from the extreme Right to the most radical Left. For my part, I admire the skill which the coachman of the Centre [Windhorst] displays in keeping in hand all these restive spirits." Lord Lytton said, in a speech he de- livered at Hatfield in 1884 : — "Would you like me to tell you, in a 212 BISMARCK'S WITTY SAYINGS, few words, what is the opinion entertained of Mr. Gladstone by the greatest statesman in Europe ? Well, then, according to what has been repeated to me by a person in close attendance upon him. Prince Bismarck has expressed the following opinion : — * If in the course of my long diplomatic career I had drawn down upon Germany only half as many snubs and insults as that gentle- man has brought upon England, I should never have the courage to stand again before my fellow-countrymen,*" APPENDIX. AS an Appendix to the authorized translation of Bismarck Intime the annexed anecdotes have been collected from various sources, and should prove of interest to the admirers of The " Iron Chancellor." Madame Carette, the private reader to the Empress Eugenie, in her interesting volume of souvenirs of the Court of the Tuileries, entitled The Eve of an Empires Fall, tells the following story of Bismarck's Last Waltz. At a grand ball given at this time (1867) at the Tuileries, and during the cotillon, which I myself led off, the roguish thought entered my mind to offer to Count Bismarck, who was in a corner watching the dancing, a bunch of roses, which was the signal for a waltz. M. de Bismarck was at that moment the object of general attention. He accepted the 214 APPENDIX, bouquet, and yielding to my invitation danced a long waltz with me, making his way very cleverly through the crowd of other dancers. This little incident, so little in accordance with Count Bis- marck's gravity, and with the part he was already playing in the affairs of the world, afforded much amusement to the sovereigns and the others present, for they scarcely expected to see M. de Bismarck mixing with a crowd of youthful dancers. In escorting me back to my place, he took an artificial rosebud from the lapel of his coat, and, offering it to me, said : " Be pleased, madame, to preserve this as a souvenir of the last waltz I shall ever dance, and which I shall never forget." Bismarck as an Organ-grinder.* Prince Bismarck was one day passing through the Royal Palace at Berlin, when he entered a room in which the young princes were merrily romping and dancing to the music of a barrel-organ. The youngsters insisted that Prince Bismarck should stay and dance with them. " I am too old," said the stiff and stately septuagenarian ; " and really I cannot dance ; but if the Crown Prince will dance, I will grind the organ." The bargain was at once struck. The Crown Prince joined his two brothers, and Prince Bismarck ground away merrily * This is another version of the story told a few pages back. c c c c c c c < c c < t t c c PRINCESS BISMARCK. APPENDIX, - 215 at the organ while the children danced on in high glee. In the midst of their mirth the door opened, and the young Kaiser entered. He smiled to see the redoubtable Reichskanzler grinding the barrel- organ, and, after a word of greeting to his sons, he observed, in mock displeasure to Prince Bismarck: " You begin in good time to make the Heir Apparent dance to your piping. Why, this is the fourth generation of HohenzoUerns to whom you devote yourself I '* A Glimpse at the Princess. If little is known in England of the private life of Prince Bismarck, still less, says Mrs. Pereira, is known of the lady who for more than forty-two years has shared his home. The Princess Bismarck is described as the very model of a practical, methodical German matron, with an eye for every detail of household arrangement and economy, and a heart for the comfort and well-being of each house- mate, from the highest to the lowliest. Weddings, it has been observed, not seldom give rise to other weddings. It was at the wedding of a friend that Bismarck first met with Fraulein Johanna von Putt- kammer. She was one of the bridesmaids, and the stately lady made then and there an impression on the young Baron which culminated in an offer of miirriage three years later. The key to the Princess's 2i6 - APPENDIX. character is to be found, says the same biographer, in her words : " That my husband is a public char- acter is a fact to which I often find it painful enough to resign myself. But as for me, his wife, what have I to do with publicity ? I do not exist for publicity, but wholly and solely for him." This perfect union of souls, however, Mrs. Pereira confesses, has not prevented the Princess's husband from posing occasionally as a victim to family claims. In one letter he says, referring to a projected ex- cursion to the seaside : " I have held out against it for a long time ; but, as all the mothers and aunts are unanimous in declaring that nothing but sea air and sea water can do poor Mariechen any good, I know that if I still refuse, every cold in the head which may befall her to the seventieth year of her age will be set down to my avarice and paternal barbarity." Again he writes : ^' Yesterday I was reduced to such a state of despair by all these plannings that I was positively determined to give up the whole journey ; and I went to bed with the firm resolution at all events to travel straight through without stopping anywhere on the way. But Johanna attacked me in the night, with the youngster in her arms, and, by dint of all the arts which drove man out of Paradise, she of course gained her point, and the original scheme is to be carried out." It is only fair to the Princess, after this, to quote her husband's loving letter from Biarritz: "I have a bad cold APPENDIX, 217 science, because I am seeing so much that is beautiful without you. If you could only be carried hither through the air, I would go with you this very moment back to San Sebastian." A Farewell Cup. One of Prince Bismarck^s last visits before leaving Berlin was to a restaurant-keeper in the popular Grunewald, near Berlin, who had been his cook for many years, and to whom he came, attired in the uniform of the Cuirassiers, to say farewell. Having ordered a cup of coffee, the Chancellor invited his former cook to come and sit beside him at one of the little garden tables, and then confidentially told mine host of the Restaurant Paulsborn that the coffee tasted the better because it was served in so large a cup, especially as he had been forbidden to take coffee at all. After a hearty handshake with his friend the cook, the Prince left the establishment, accompanied by the cheers of the visitors in the garden. Prince Bismarck's Seventy-fifth Birthday. A grand torchlight procession, organized in honour of Prince Bismarck's seventy-fifth birthday by thirteen hundred railway officials, took place at Friedrichsruh. On arriving outside the ex-Chancellor's residence the procession halted, and after the Prince had walked 14 2i8 APPENDIX, along the line, Herr Krahn, the president of the organizing committee, delivered a congratulatory address, concluding by calling for three cheers for the Prince and his family. This was responded to with unbounded enthusiasm, the whole vast assemblage afterwards with one accord singirig the well-known patriotic song, *' Deutschland, Deutsch- land, iiber Alles." Prince Bismarck then delivered a short speech, which was listened to with breathless interest. He gave a retrospective sketch of the establishment of railways, and referred to the opposition which it had at first encountered, adding that he himself had always been an advocate of rapid means of communication. At the present time, he continued, coal and iron were inseparable from each other. The railway was now the vehicle of civilization. It had been a difficult task for him in the reign of the late Emperor William, to carry out the centralization of the railways or their conversion into State property ; and only when his colleague, Herr von Maybach, became Minister of Public Works did matters go more smoothly, and he would never forget the services rendered by this man. After he had once put him in the saddle Herr Maybach really did everything himself. He (Prince Bismarck) recommended a continuance of the work of piercing tunnels and bridging rivers, but at the same time recommended his hearers APPENDIX, 219 to proceed with care, as there were also hard rocks which could not be penetrated. In conclusion, the Prince expressed the hope that even as a private individual he might continue to maintain neighbourly relations with the railway adminis- tration ; and after cordially shaking hands with Herr Krahn and thanking him for the great ovation in his honour, the Prince once more walked along the entire length of the proces- sion, being greeted on all sides with deafening cheers. The visitors' books were signed by four thousand persons, who came to Friedrichsruh from various parts of the country to present their congratula- tions. Telegrams arrived by thousands, including many from the German reigning Princes. Great quantities of flowers and an immense number of presents were also sent. The Emperor presented to the Prince a life-size portrait of himself, as well as a handsome pipe, accompanied by an autograph letter, which was brought by one of his Majesty's adjutants. During the whole of the day, from the early morning until late at night. Prince Bismarck was engaged in receiving deputations and musical societies, but although deeply moved by these many demonstra- tions of sympathy and devotion, he showed no signs of fatigue, his upright and soldierly bearing being generally .remarked. 220 APPENDIX. This letter from Prince Bismarck was published in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zettung : — " On the occasion of my resignation and the celebra- tion of my birthday I received a great number of sympathetic messages of every description, from the Empire and abroad. To my deep regret it is impossible for me, in accordance with the desire of my heart, to answer each of these friendly messages separately. I therefore request all those who have given such kind expression to their friendly feelings for me, to accept my most sincere thanks through this medium." Proposed National Monument. The proposal having been made in various quarters that a national monument should be erected to Prince Bismarck in Berlin, a number of influential men of all shades of political opinion met to take preliminary steps for issuing an appeal to the public for contributions to a fund to be raised for defraying the cost of the proposed monument. The memorial committee invited the Emperor to give his patronage to the scheme. Herr von Levetzow consented to act as chairman of the committee. It is noteworthy that the committee formed for the erection of a monument to Bismarck received a letter from the Emperor, in which he stated that he had learned with deep pleasure of the forma- APPENDIX, 221 tion of a Provisional Committee, with the object of erecting a monument to the Prince, and expressed his conviction that all classes of the population would cordially welcome the prospect of such a memorial, and give their hearty co-operation. The Emperor declared that he desired also on his part to support and forward the erection of this impor- tant monument, and announced that he accepted with pleasure the request of the committee that he should act as patron. Talks with Prince Bismarck. M. des Houx, the Comte de Chambord*s friend and a clerical journalist, paid a visit to Prince Bismarck in May 1890. M. des Houx went to Friedrichsruh on purpose to try and see the Prince. When he sent up his card and a letter he was led to expect that his request could hardly be complied with ; but in the afternoon he received an invitation to dinner in which he was asked to come at six and not in a dress-coat. At one end of the dining-room is hung the parting gift of the Emperor, namely, his full-length portrait. A large bunch of Marshal Niel roses was placed on the table before the Frenchman, and the compliment emphasized by his being asked how he pronounced the word " Niel." The Prince spoke in French, and was careful in the choice of words. When he was at a loss for a 222 APPENDIX word, he would not use the one suggested by M. des Houx, but chose another and a more appropriate one. He was dressed in a frock coat, buttoned up to the neck, and wore a white cravat. He had not, he said, had an evening coat made for twenty years. His wife had ordered a swallow-tailed coat for the silver wedding, but he never wore it. After dinner the ex-Chancellor was the first to rise. He and the guests went in procession to the drawing-room, where his meerschaum pipe awaited him. He spoke of suffering from neuralgia, which the pipe calmed His remedy for rheumatism was a long daily ride on a good horse whatever the weather. He is still a hard drinker. Before dinner, caviare, plovers' eggs, and other whets to the appetite, were served. He said he prided himself on his cellars, and could tell his butler where to lay his hand on any particular vintage. Prince Bismarck was reserved in speaking of the Emperor, who, he said, was well-meaning but young. He talked a good deal about French history in its bearings on Germany, and spoke of French kings and emperors as having the lust of conquest. Napoleon HI. was ignorant of history and statistics. He proposed to Bismarck to join with him and United Italy in driving England out of the Medi- terranean, for which Prussia would be allowed a free hand to crush Austria. The ex-Chancellor said that he was urged by the military party to attack APPENDIX, 223 France in 1867, when she was given up to her exhibition, but refused. He thought it immoral to attack her because her chassepot guns were not ready, and in 1870 he honestly tried to prevent war, though Alsace-Lorraine was absolutely necessary to the safety of a united Germany. Speaking of the danger ahead, he said it lay in the sentimental anger of France for the loss of these provinces. Supposing she and Russia crushed Germany, who would be the sole gainer? Russia to a certainty would next devour France. Germany was the bulwark of Western Europe against a Russian invasion. Prince Bismarck also said that had it not been for the help he gave M. Thiers and the Versailles Assembly against the Commune, Paris would have been a mass of ruins. The Novate Vremia publishes some further very interesting details of the interview of its correspondent with Prince Bismarck. ''Austria," said the Prince, " is not so near her decay as is imagined. The evil there lies in the weakness of monarchical principles, and in a four-hundred years' bad government. You ask why we need Austria ? For the same reason that you need France. You think that only Russia and Germany have a future, and there is some truth in the belief. Before the Berlin Congress I had quite the same opinion ; but I became aware that it would be difficult for us to go hand-in-hand, and I 224 APPENDIX, was obliged to regard the Russians with other eyes. Your Prince Gortschakoff always regarded me as his pupil ; as long as I was less than he, he was my friend, but when I rose he could not forgive me. He did all he could to be in my way, even when I acted in Russia's interest. I once said that for my share in the Berlin Congress I had expected the diamonds of the Andreas Order. In Russia my words were regarded as a joke. I was quite in earnest, however, for I had the greatest desire to meet Russia half way, and I defended her interests at the Congress as if I myself had been Russian. For instance, I learned from Count Schuvaloff that Russia desired Batoum. I immediately went in the night to Lord Beaconsfield. He made some opposition, but I told him that if he opposed me I would close the Congress. He subsequently acceded to my demands, and Batoum became Russian. Notwithstanding, Russia soon afterwards became hostile towards me." The correspondent here remarked that Russia accounted Prince Bismarck answerable for the dis- crediting of Russian Stocks, and believed he had tried to injure Russia economically. "Oh, that is a mistake ! " said the Prince, with emphasis. " I give you my word of honour, not as the diplomatist who bamboozled Napoleon, but as Prince Bismarck, that I wished only to be free from Russian Stocks, and to make Germany buy none but German paper. My intentions went no farther, and if the German press APPENDIX. 225 declared war against you, and injured Russia, and even my own organs joined in the campaign, it took place against my will. I have always been against war with Russia. If anyone thinks that fighting with Russia would not be terrible, he is very much mistaken. If Russia were to invade Germany it would be different. The severe winter, and the great distances in Russia, would be terrible weapons against an attacking force. *' Finally, what do we want from Russia, or she from us ? We should receive no milliards from you, nor you from us. It would be a crime to Germany to endeavour to extend her frontiers beyond Memel, for the Baltic provinces without Poland would be of no value, and the annexation of Poland, with its nine millions of Catholic Poles, would raise the number of Catholics in Germany to one-half the population, and would be a misfortune for Germany, just as the acquisition of East Prussia would be unprofitable to Russia. A war with Russia is therefore almost impossible." Prince Bismarck admitted, what is already known, that he prevented the marriage between Prince Alexander of Battenberg and Princess Victoria. The recent International Labour Conference he characterized as a blow in the air. The discontent of the capitalists, he said, was much more dangerous than that of the workmen. In speaking of his resignation, the Prince remarked that the Emperor 226 APPENDIX. had once said to him : " Prince, I have every con- fidence in yoU; but do you think yourself that you are likely to remain in office ? " Prince Bismarck assured his Majesty that he wished to retain his position until his death. "And then a few months later," said the Prince, "I found myself painfully deceived." Narrow Escape from Drowning. When quite a child at Kniephof, Bismarck took great pleasure in wandering about the garden and park, and manifested a more than childlike interest in bird and animal and plant life; he soon knew every bird in bush and tree, not only by its plumage, but by its flight and its song, as he would know every animal by its track. The carp in one of the ponds were special favourites of his, and he would often stand and feed them. One day while thus occupied, he ventured too close, and fell into the water, which was rather deep. He never knew exactly how he managed to get out ; but, covered with weeds and slime, he struggled back to terra firma^ and walked back to the house as if nothing unusual had occurred. The only remark he made was that he felt rather cold. A Wounded Hero. Young Bismarck soon became a great admirer of heroic feats, and loved to hear and read tales of APPENDIX, 227 daring deeds. Among the frequent guests of his parents at Kniephof, were several officers from the neighbouring garrison town, whose brilHant uniforms were greatly admired by young Otto. One day, Major von Schmerling, an old friend of the family, who had just returned from active service, came on a visit to Kniephof. He was a Knight of the Iron Cross, and had been wounded in action, and still wore his left arm in a sling. Otto, who was sitting with his brother Bernhard at a side-table, Hstened with eager attention to the major's narratives of his experience in '* flood and field," and could scarcely take his eyes from him ; but it was the shattered arm that attracted the child's attention, more than either the uniform or the iron cross. Suddenly he sprang up from his chair and ran up to the maimed warrior, and, standing before him with his legs outstretched, his hands on his hips, and his eyes sparkling with excitement, exclaimed : " Were you shot by a cannon-ball?'* Forgot His Supper. On coming to bid his mother '* good-night " one evening, the good lady asked young Bismarck : " Have you had your supper. Otto ? " Otto kept silent, and stood considering for a while ; then he suddenly turned and rushed from the room. In a few moments he came back and said, "Yes, mamma." He had been so busy all the evening with several (for 128 APPENDIX. his youthful mind) important matters, that he had entirely forgotten whether he had had his supper or not. It was to clear up his doubts upon this point that he had scampered off to the kitchen to Miss Schmeling; who certainly would know all about it. He was unwilling to answer his mother's question on the strength of a mere supposition. Childish Impatience. In their own immediate circle, young Bismarck's father was called the heart and his mother the brain of the family. The saying did not merely portray the relations which the couple held towards each other, but it further marked the influence which they brought to bear upon the bringing up of their children. The good-natured Herr. Rittmeister von Bismarck was tender and indulgent in the extreme towards his offspring; and was especially fond of Otto, the youngest, although the latter was some- times rather unruly and self-willed. Once when Otto was sitting in his usual place at the children's table waiting for his dinner, the time seemed long, and his impatience got the better of him, and he took up a posture scarcely befitting a well-brought- up lad. With his back half turned towards the table where his parents sat, and his knees pressed against the leaf of his own table, he sat swinging his legs to and fro, keeping time with them like APPENDIX. 229 pendulums. The Mater, observing this, was about to call the future statesman to order for his unpar- liamentary attitude, but the good Pater intervened to arrest the rebuke, and before the mother could get out her words, the father said in his softest tone : " See, Minchen, how the boy is sitting there dangling his little legs." It was this indulgence of the father, indeed, which determined Frau von Bismarck, although extremely fond of her son, to get young Otto away from home as soon as possible, so that, when only seven years old, he was packed off to " Plamann's Educational Institute " in Berlin. Haughty as a Boy. A person who was at Plamann's Institute when young Otto first made his appearance there, and who was one of the first to greet the new pupil, thus describes the circumstance: — "We were all assembled on the middle floor, when the street-door opened and Herr von Bismarck's coachman, wearing the voluminous cloak with its immense collar in vogue at that time, walked in with Otto in his arms, the boy also being enveloped in a cloak of the same cut. He was a tall boy, even then, and, sitting in the coachman's arms, his head towered considerably above the servant's. We all pressed towards him to welcome him, but he did not change a feature, and looked down upon us in a most imposing 230 APPENDIX. manner. How is it that for more than fifty years the expression on the face of this boy should be so deeply engrafted upon my memory, although at that time a perfect stranger to me? Was it a presentiment which struck me that he was destined to attain a much higher position in life than any of us?" The Regime at Plamann's. Ernst Krigar, one of Bismarck's schoolfellows, thus describes the daily routine at Plamann's Institute : — "A little bell rang us up punctually at six o'clock. Our breakfast consisted of milk and bread. At seven o'clock we began our lessons, after having gone through a little religious exercise. A hymn was sung, the master (Plamann) gave a short address, and then we sat down to our studies. At ten o'clock we had lunch and half-an-hour's run in the garden ; the lunch consisted of bread and salt, to which, in summer, a little fruit was added. At twelve o'clock the bell was rung for dinner, and we all crowded into the great hall, where each teacher and each pupil received his portion from the hands of either Frau Plamann or a niece of hers. It was very simple fare, but substantial and nicely prepared. If any one wanted a second plateful he had to carry his plate himself to Frau Plamann and ask for it. In case, however, any one could not or would not APPENDIX, 231 eat the whole of his plateful, he was sent on to the terrace in the garden after dinner was over, and he had to stand there with his plate until he had eaten up the remains. Every day, three or four pupils might be seen stationed on the terrace in this manner. Lessons again from two till four, and then teatime — at this meal we were again regaled upon bread and salt ; afterwards put back to studies until seven. After seven, out-of-door work or games were indulged in until supper-time. The supper con- sisted, as a rule, of warm beer and slices of bread and butter. Our studies would often have been of intolerable length for us if they had not been broken by at least two hours of athletic exercises. These were a great source of recreation for us, the fencing lessons being especially appreciated." Homesick. The new pupil could not conquer his reserved disposition towards his schoolfellows for a long time, although he gradually managed to fall in with the usages and routine of his new life. The double separation from father and mother and from the familiar scenes of his boyish pranks hung heavily upon him at first. It was springtime, too, when he entered the Institute, and he felt like a caged bird, shut up as he was within the walls of the town in the most pleasant time of the year. But he got occasional walks into the country in procession with 232 APPENDIX. his fellow-pupils, and then the yearning after his rural home would be awakened in his childish mind with such force that the sight of a peasant ploughing or sowing in the fields would bring tears into his eyes. But this feeling was conquered at last, sooner, perhaps, than the new scholar himself wished ; and this was brought about by the attitude his older schoolmates took up towards him, and which called forth his whole strength and firmness of character. A Plot to duck him. As usual in all schools, the Plamann boys behaved rather roughly to each other out of schooltime, and new-comers had as a rule to submit to the tyranny of the older pupils, and had to " pay their footing " in various disagreeable ways. Young Bismarck, however, could not knuckle down to this kind of thing, to the wonder and surprise of the other boys. On account of his reserve, which was put down to either pride or ill-humour, the majority of the lads were banded against him, and a formal conspiracy was hatched to the prejudice of the intractable youngster who refused to be dealt with as other new-comers had been. It was resolved that on the first occasion which presented itself he should be punished for all this. The plan hit upon by the conspirators was the following : In the summer-time the boys were taken by one of the tutors at certain intervals, and whatever the state of the weather APPENDIX. 233 might be, to bathe in the sheepwash, and this was to be the scene of revenge. The greatest pkick had to be shown on these occasions, and whoever shrank from plunging headfirst into the water, or showed the sHghtest signs of cowardice or hesitation, had to suffer severely for it. The tutor would take the unwilling one by the shoulders, push him towards the deepest part of the water and throw him in head- long, and when he struggled out the other boys were permitted to repeat the punishment until the novice's repugnance was quite cured. Otto von Bismarck's enemies longed for the moment when it should be his turn to take his ducking in the sheepwash. They determined to ^' give him a fairly good doing," and stood ready on the edge of the pool as soon as Bismarck had stripped. The new boy, however, came up with the greatest coolness, plunged headlong into the water, dived, and came up on the opposite bank. An unanimous " Ah ! " broke from the lips of his surprised comrades, none of whom dared to put a hand upon him. How often has the mature man found himself in similar circumstances to those at the sheepwash, and on most, if not all, occasions shown himself the same skilful swimmer and diver who set all his enemies' plans at nought ! " To THE Lime Tree ! " — Bismarck as Ajax. History, and especially the history of his own country, attracted the lively attention of young 15 234 APPENDIX. Bismarck, and the impressions he received from this branch of his studies had an enduring influence upon his after life. The spirit which prevailed at Plamann's is illustrated in a very pleasing way by a scene which might often have been witnessed in the garden of the Institute in the boys' recreation time. One of the scholars had received from his parents a copy of Becker's "Old-World Narratives." The book was so eagerly read that a single copy was quite inadequate to satisfy the lads' thirst for knowledge ; a great number of the other pupils, therefore, obtained a copy from their parents. And now the Trojan War was fought over and over again. Otto von Bismarck was the first to learn this part of the book by heart. At the end of the garden stood a splendid lime tree ; it was the only tree on the premises the boys were allowed to climb, and this was the favourite gathering-point out of school hours. " To the lime tree ! " was the cry when anything important had to be discussed or communicated. Here young Otto usually read aloud the history of the Trojan War, and his favourite perch was on a branch of the lime tree. Some of the other boys would also climb the tree, and others would seat themselves underneath it. The lads followed the recitation with the closest attention, and the heroic deeds of the Greeks before Troy excited so much enthusiasm, that Bismarck was soon re- christened by the lads after one of the heroes — Ajax. APPENDIX, 235 Captain of Snowballers. Young Bismarck endeavoured to bear himself like the hero whose name he bore, especially in the games played by the lads in their leisure time. Formerly, their recreations had been mere athletic exercises; but after Bismarck's appearance they took quite another character. The boys began to divide themselves into two parties, and to conduct ^?/as/- warlike operations against each other. Otto drew up the plans of action and directed the opera- tions with such exactitude that he kept a diary in which he entered every important event connected with the sham-fights. In winter, when snow was on the ground, these military exercises took the shape of formal snowball engagements, in which the tutors often took part. Otto was in his element here. He generally took command of a troop which had to storm another party in possession of the garden terrace. He had a quick eye for any weak point in the defence, and under cover of a general bombardment he would lead a chosen few to the assault. With a loud " hurrah," and amid a shower of snowballs, he would press toward the terrace at the head of his forlorn hope, and here a hand-to- hand encounter would take place, in which excite- ment ran so high that few heads came out of the fray without bruises. On one of these exciting oc- casions, the youthful warriors heard but heeded not 236 APPENDIX. the sound of the lesson bell ; even the voices of the tutors were powerless to stop the fight. And then Bismarck-Ajax, after the example of his Greek hero, who used large boulders for missiles in the fight before Troy, armed himself with his school-bag, and rushed among his schoolmates, bidding them in such imperious tones to desist, that peace was soon restored. "A Bright Boy." After a stay of five years in the Plamann Insti- tute, Bismarck was transferred, at the beginning of his thirteenth year to the Friedrich-Wilhelms- Gymnasium in Berlin. Here he won the esteem of a master who exercised a powerful influence over him in his later school days. It was Professor Bonnell, afterwards director of the Grey Cloisters. On the very first day the worthy professor was struck with the manner and bearing of the youth, and was greatly prepossessed in his favour. To use Professor Bonnell's own words : — " The new scholars sat in the schoolroom on benches placed behind each other, so that during the inauguration proceed- ings they should be directly under the eyes of the tutors. I was struck with the earnest attention depicted on the features of Otto von Bismarck — his bright eyes and fresh and cheerful countenance ; and I said to myself : *■ That is a bright boy, I'll have a special eye to him.' " He did not belie his master's APPENDIX. 237 estimate of him, for he proved one of the smartest scholars in the establishment. Trine Neumann and her Omelettes. While attending at the Gymnasium Otto lodged with his elder brother Bernhard at the Berlin family mansion, and in the summer when the parents went into the country the young man's bodily necessities were administered to by an old housekeeper named Trine Neumann, who was thus described later on by the roguish Otto in the following terms: — *' Trine Neumann came from my father's estate of Schon- hausen in the Altmark. She was very fond of us youngsters, and anticipated our smallest wants. Almost every evening she prepared us our favourite dish : omelettes. If we went out before the meal was ready, Trine would be sure to say to us : * Don't bide out too long now, till the omelettes are overdone.' And just as regularly, on our return, she would say : ' Late again ! Ah, when will young men learn reason ? The omelettes are all spoilt again ! ' But her anger would soon dissipate when she saw with what gusto we devoured her overdone omelettes." Confirmation, The years slipped away, and the Confirmation day arrived. This was in the year 1830. What a deep impression the ceremony made upon his devout mind 238 APPENDIX. is clear from the fact that all through the changes and chances of his Hfe the impression was never effaced from his memory. He was prepared for the occasion by the celebrated Berhn preacher, Schleier- macher ; and in after years, long after he had reached manhood, in writing to his sister, Frau von Arnim Krochlendorff, he recalled Schleiermacher's parting words to him : — " Whatever you do, do it for God, and not for men." " I still remember, as plainly as possible," he wrote, "the place where I sat among the other young people in the church, and how my heart beat when I was called up to take my place before the altar." In the Grey Cloisters. When Bernhard went into the army, Trine Neumann^s task was done, and Otto was put into Professor Prdvost's boarding establishment; and at the same time he was removed from the Gymnasium to another educational establishment. This was called the Grey Cloisters, and here he came again under the influence of his old admirer, Professor Bonnell, who in the meantime had been placed at the head of this establishment. Very soon after this, too, he went into the Grey Cloisters as a boarder. Respecting the stay of Otto with the Bonnell family, the good Professor wrote in his diary : — "At Easter, 1830, Otto von Bismarck came to my house as a boarder, where he gave the least trouble and made APPENDIX. 239 himself as pleasant and agreeable and familiar as possible. He was thoroughly amiable in every relation in life. He very seldom went out of an evening ; and when, as it sometimes happened, I was not at home, he would spend the time chatting pleasantly with my wife, and showed a strong inclination for domestic life." His Friendship for his Old Tutor. The following extract from the memoirs which Professor Bonnell left behind him will serve to show the degree of respect and friendship which Bismarck entertained for his faithful old tutor, e^^en after he had become a mature and celebrated man: — "The 17th April, 1 87 1, was the day on which the city of Berlin entertained for the first time the assembled members of the German Reichstag in the great banqueting-hall of the new Rathhaus, I was among the invited guests. In the busy throng of members and notabilities of all kinds Bismarck was of course the centre of attraction. Suddenly the great man stood before me and offered both his hands in the old friendly manner. The heat of the place had made my face red, and he expressed his pleasure at seeing me so well. * I can return your Highness the comphment/ I said, * although you have taken so great a part of late years in the world's history.' ' Well,' he replied, * I certainly have woven a few of its threads.' And then there 240 APPENDIX, was a little friendly chat, inquiries after my wife, etc., etc." Next day the papers were full of the im- pression made on the eye-witnesses of this scene in the banqueting-hall, and one of the reports con- cluded thus : — " Who is this httle old man with whom Bismarck chatted so long and in terms of such familiarity ? It is Dr. Bonnell, formerly the Prince's tutor. It does one good to see with what respect the noble pupil now treats his old schoolmaster." Longing for the Cholera. — A Crushed Leg. Although, however, young Bismarck found such comfortable quarters in Professor Bonnell's house, the old longing for his parental roof, the country life, and the scenes of his boyish recreations would thrust itself upon him, especially in the summer-time ; and it was with the greatest eagerness that he looked forward to every vacation as it came round. On one occasion when the school term was nearly ended, something occurred which was characteristic of the lad's impatient self-will. It was at the hottest season of the year, and the spectre of cholera had arisen in Eastern Europe and filled the inhabitants of the large cities on the Continent with horror as they saw it stalking ever nearer and nearer. Otto received word from his parents that at the first outbreak of cholera in Berlin he should start off immediately tor Kniephof. He now yearned for news that the epi- demic had made its appearance in the capital; but APPENDIX. 241 it did not come, and his longing changed to im- patience. One day the idea suddenly seized him that he would go out and see for himself whether the cholera was not approaching Berlin. He thereupon hired a horse, the fleetest he could find, and galloped towards one of the eastern gates of the capital. But his adventurous course came to a sudden end. The clatter of the horse brought out the watch, the steed shied and stumbled, and fell on the top of his rider. The latter was picked up with a crushed leg and sent home in a cab. Under the united care and nursing of Frau Bonnell and an attentive surgeon, however, Bismarck soon recovered the use of his bruised limb, but his hope of a speedy return to Kniephof was destroyed; the cholera that he had longed for had in the meantime made its entry into the city, and it was some weeks before he was permitted to leave the capital for his country home. Pistol Practice. As he neared his eighteenth year, young Bismarck began to fed the power that was in him, and which impelled him to all manner of rash though boyish actions. One day he determined to pay his elder brother a visit. The latter was now a Landwehr officer in Berlin, and lived in the family mansion in that city. His brother was out when he arrived there, so he decided to wait his return. On the wall near the bookcase in the room where he was waiting 24i APPENDIX, hung his brother's long cavalry pistols, and as soon as Otto clapped his eyes upon them he at once saw how nicely he could while away the time with such playthings. He reached them down, cocked and uncocked them, and presently loaded them, and after hanging a target in front of the open bookcase he began firing away at it, to the great dismay of the neighbours and the people in the house, until his brother returned and put a stop to the mad practice. A Shot at Hercules. It was a much more harmless freak which the young marksman played one day at Schonhausen. On the margin of a sedgy pool in the park stands a stone figure, representing Hercules with his club, and one hand resting on the small of his back. As young Otto was coming through the park one day with his gun on his shoulder, and cast his eyes upon the Greek demi-god disrespectfully turning his back towards him, his fingers suddenly itched to fire a shot at Hercules' hind-quarters, and the gun went to his shoulder and the bullet went flying before he could count six. A moment later Hercules' back got a bullet-mark which it bears to this day. A few days after, Herr von Bismarck was walking through the park with his son, and he noticed the humiUating treatment to which the statue had been subjected. He put on a serious look, and asked : " Did you do APPENDIX. 343 that, Otto ? " The youth answered, in a merry and natural voice, '* Yes, father, it was me ; but I did not think it would hurt him so. He put his hand to the place directly it was done, and he has kept it there His Latin not very refined. In the year 1832 the time had arrived when Otto von Bismarck's school-days must come to an end, and he must pass his final examination. Although no prodigy of learning, he had studied seriously and honestly, and was well grounded in all the essentials, and able to look forward with confidence to the final ordeal. In fact, he passed with honours, and his deep knowledge of history gained him great praise. As regards his Latin, however, the verdict was : ^' Oratio est lucida ac Latina, sed parum castigata ; " which means that his language was clear and Latin- like, but not very refined. At Gottingen — Pipes and Silhouettes. The result of a family council held at Kniephof was that Bismarck was sent to the University of Gottingen. There he gradually fell off from his studious habits, and entered heart and soul into the excitement of student life. It was quite a new existence in which Otto — " the Fox," as he was now called — found himself. During the first year he lived at a shoemaker's in the Rothestrasse, and, 244 APPENDIX, like all students' lodgings, his domestic arrange- ments were of the simplest. By the side of the necessary household utensils, a select collection of pipes occupied the most conspicuous place in the room, and formed its principal decoration. Besides this, however, there were placed over the sofa a number of silhouette portraits of friends cut out in black paper, pasted on cards, and each surrounded with a gold border. During the last half-year he occupied a sort of garden-lodge belonging to one Voss. The time he spent in his lodgings, however, while a student at Gottingen, was very short indeed when compared with that spent in other places. The Four Hanoverians. One day when he had received a scolding from the Rector of the University, four young Hanoverian fellow-students, who seemed to have had some notion of what had been going forward, laughed in his face as they passed him in the street. This raised young Bismarck's ire, and he stopped and asked them whether they were laughing at him. " Yes, certainly ; can't you see ? " was the reply. *'A set of fools!" were the words that followed from Bismarck's lips. '^ Who ? I ? " asked each of the Hanoverians. " All ~ four of you." And turning on his heel Bismarck went his way, and left the four staring with astonishment. He knew very well what was likely to be the result of his APPENDIX, 245 calling the young fellows fools; and he began to make his arrangements in view of a sanguinary encounter. But the incident had the very opposite effect from that which he expected. The plucky behaviour of ^* the Fox " had considerably increased the Hanoverians' respect for him. One of them, who lodged in the same house as Bismarck, and who had watched him with a good deal of interest for some time, came to the conclusion that he was made of the kind of stuff which would enable him to hold his own wherever he was, and he prevailed upon his three friends to go with him to Bismarck, and try to make it up. The thing turned out as he wished. The Hanoverians withdrew their insulting remarks, and Bismarck retracted his expression, *' A set of fools," and a fast friendship was cemented between them on the spot. Twenty-eight Duels. Bismarck's compact with the Hanoverian clique in the University gave great offence to the Brunswick party, and a duel with the leader of this party was the first consequence of it, in which the Brunswicker came off second best. After this, duels followed each other rapidly, and between August 9th, 183^, and January i8th, 1833, seven were fought; and during the three half-years he passed at the Gottin gen University, the total number he figured in was twenty-eight. But he came out of them all a 246 APPENDIX. conqueror; not one of his antagonists succeeded in wounding him, and he acquired, in consequence, the sobriquet of ^^the Invulnerable Achilles." Once, indeed, he got a slight scratch in the cheek, but that was because his antagonist's sword broke, and flew in his face. A Peacemaker. Bismarck once acted as mediator in one of these student's quarrels. 1 At a ball in January 1833, a student from Cumberland, named Knight, had a difference with a stranger present, named Baron von Grabow, which they both confessed was based upon a misunderstanding. Bismarck tried to con- ciliate the two, but as a challenge to a pistol duel had been made and accepted in the heat of the moment, the code of honour required that a meeting should take place, and at least one shot be exchanged. Bismarck accompanied Knight to the ground as interpreter, and as Von Grabow came without a second he consented to act as umpire. He did his best to render the encounter harmless, and in measuring off the ground not only increased the number of paces, but took immense strides with his long legs. The result was that no one was hurt but Bismarck himself; for his part in the ^ffair he was punished with ten days' confinement, and an additional day for not having come up at the first summons. APPENDIX. 847 A Bet with a Yankee. Young Bismarck was always an enthusiastic lover of his country, and the then map of Germany, containing thirty-nine divisions, was a great eyesore to him, and he seemed to have a presentiment that it would not always be so. He himself tells the tale of how, when he was at Gottingen, he made a bet with an American that Germany would be united within twenty years. The stakes were twenty-five bottles of champagne. The winner was to pay for the champagne, but the loser was to cross the ocean to help drink it. "In 1853," said Bismarck, in telling the tale, " Germany had not become united ; and I was prepared to take my journey across the Atlantic, but I found on inquiry that the Yankee was dead. His name, certainly, was one which did not smack of a long life — it was Coffin. But what is marvellous in connection with the incident is that I should have already at that time — 1833 — indulged in the hope which, with God's help, has now been realized." Sausage versus Quinine. Bismarck had, however, to contend with one antagonist who brought him very low indeed, although eventually he escaped his clutches. In the third half-year of his student life he was attacked by ague, which obliged him to keep his bed, and 248 APPENDIX. robbed him of sleep, appetite, and of all pleasure in life. Quinine was what the physician prescribed to combat the enemy. But this remedy seemed to the sick patient worse than the disease itself. Presently he received from home a box of fresh-smoked goose- breasts, and some sausages and ham, which the loving mother had sent to her youngest born, not knowing that he was lying on a sick bed. He was just getting over the worst attack of the fever when the parcel arrived. He opened it with childish eagerness, and the spicy perfume which streamed towards him when he raised the lid sent him into ecstasies. The sausages were the first to meet his gaze, and after holding them up, and metaphorically devouring them with his eager looks, he cut a modest piece off from one, and devoured it literally, when lo ! his appetite suddenly returned, and piece after piece of the sausage disappeared, and the fever- stricken young man enjoyed the first full meal that he had had for many a day. Next day when the doctor came, his patient got up to meet him with a beaming countenance, saying : ' Thank God, doctor, the fever seems to be gone ; it hasn't come back again." "• Ah, I thought I had stopped it," replied the doctor ; " famous stuff, that quinine ! " " But I didn't take much of your medicine," said Bismarck. ** The wonderful effect is due to a remedy which my mother sent me from our Pomeranian home. See here; yesterday I ate a couple of pounds of this APPENDIX, 249 splendid pork sausage ; and I would recommend you, doctor, to prescribe the same remedy to your next patient." Certificate of Conduct. When Otto von Bismarck went home for his hoHdays after the third half-yearns " studies '* at Gottingen, he did not return to that University, but went to the Berhn University instead. It is thought that his mother failed to see in her son, after a year and a half at Gottingen, the budding diplomatist that she expected. The certificate of conduct which the Rector forwarded to his parents from Gottingen, stated that Leopold Edward Otto von Bismarck of Schonhausen, entered the University on May lOth, 1832, and had been pretty regular at his studies. "As regards his personal behaviour, however, it must be remarked that, besides a few punishments of more or less rigour, he has been condemned to ten days' confinement for being present at a duel ; to three days* confinement for being mix'ed up with another duel ; and to four days' strict confinement for breach of the regulations laid down for the observance of the students." " Music hath Charms," etc. For some time after his return to Berlin, and notwithstanding the influence of his mother, young Bismarck could not cast himself loose from the free 16 2SO APPENDIX, and easy mode of life he had been accustomed to at Gottingen ; and it was only as his state examination drew near that he called " Halt ! " and set himself in earnest to recover his lost time. But when he once gave his mind to it he soon recovered himself, and at Easter, 1835, he passed with honours his first examination in the Law. He was greatly affected by good music. He lived for some time in Berlin with a young Graf Kaiserlingk, who was afterwards Curator of the University of Dorpat, in Courland. This young man was a splendid musician, and from him Bismarck acquired a taste and a love for music, towards which he had never before had the slightest inclination. When Kaiserlingk played Beethoven's Sonatas to his friend in the quiet hours, the latter would listen with rapt attention, and show signs of deep emotion, and give up his whole soul to the softening influences of the thrilling tones. And often in later life, in the midst of the strife and vexations of public business, has he revived his energies and mollified his feelings by listening to the strains of refined music. John Lothrop Motley. One of his bosom friends in Berlin was the American, John Lothrop Motley, who lodged for a time in the same house and afterwards bloomed into the celebrated historian. Bismarck was not fast and reckless in forming friendships, but when once he APPENDIX, 251 opened his heart to anyone, it was for life, and so it was with John Lothrop Motley. The correspondence published some time ago between the two men is a sufficient proof of this. His Impatience at the Bar. After he was called to the Bar he was often entrusted with a brief in minor cases before the city magistrates. He did his best, in this position, to maintain the demeanour befitting a court of justice, but the old roguish spirit would sometimes get the better of him, and then he would behave as if he was unaware in whose presence he was. One day he had to examine a witness who was a Berlin cockney. This gentleman had the assurance characteristic of his kind, and his glib tongue and disrespectful behaviour had such an effect on our young barrister, that he jumped up and thus ad- dressed the witness in the box: ''Sir, if you are not more temperate in your behaviour, I'll turn you out" The presiding magistrate thought it was the barrister who was intemperate now, and in a quiet official tone he said : " I would suggest to Counsel that it is my place to order any person from the court." Bismarck took the reproof quietly, and sat down biting his lip. The proceedings then went forward, and it was not long before our barrister again lost patience. Once more he sprang up, and annihilating the witness with his furious glances he 25a APPENDIX, bawled to him in a voice of thunder : " Be careful, sir, or I'll have you turned out by the magistrate/ The expression on the magistrate's countenance may be easily conjectured ; it was his turn now to bite his lip. Disgusted with the Law. Bismarck was at this time often engaged in divorce and legal separation cases. In one of these he had to try and persuade a lady to agree to a separation from her husband, but in vain. In his difficulty he went back to the senior counsel in the case and asked for his advice and assistance. This gentleman merely shrugged his shoulders at the helplessness of his junior, and undertook the case himself. But he fared no better than the junior. The lady was incurably obstinate, and the proceed- ings fell through. This want of success in so simple a matter made a deep impression on Bismarck, and went very far towards disgusting him with a career which scarcely seemed congenial to him. "Guards' Measurement." It was at a court ball that Otto von Bismarck was first introduced to Prince William — " his Majesty's son,'^ as he was called, in contradistinction to Prince William, '* his Majesty's brother." A young friend of Bismarck's, who was also studying the law, was APPENDIX. 253 introduced at the same time. They were both fine, tall fellows, and when they stood before the Prince he looked them up and down with evident pleasure and satisfaction, and said, *^ Well, I should think the Law takes her recruits by Guards' measure- ment!" '*Your Royal Highness," answered Bismarck, "lawyers must be soldiers too, and they would reckon it their greatest honour should his Majesty and the country call upon them." How often after- wards did the then Prince William, as king and emperor, look into Bismarck's eyes and admire the gigantic proportions not only of his body but of his mind 1 " Down With the Heretic." In 1836 Bismarck took Government service at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) under the President von Arnim-Boizenburg, and he began with the greatest industry to prepare himself for his diplomatic career. Soon after his arrival at Aachen he found himself in conflict with the populace in the open street, on the occasion of a Catholic festival, when a procession with streaming banners was passing through the town, amid the roar of mortar-firing and church-bell ringing. This ecclesiastical pomp and ceremony was a new thing for Bismarck, and he stood at the corner of the street to see the procession go by. He did not notice that when the "host" went past everybody fell upon their knees, and ^54 APPENDIX, presently he was standing erect alone in the multi- tude, and in his tall hat seemed to loom up like a giant among them. In a moment a heavy blow was dealt upon his hat from behind, and then a broad- shouldered fellow in a blue blouse stood before him with his fist raised in a threatening manner, and cries rose around him, "Take off your hat!" "Down with the heretic 1 " " Prussian Junker ! " But Bis- marck was not in the least disposed to be dictated to in this style ; he slashed the broad-shouldered fellow across the face with his Spanish cane, and sprang into the midst of the soldiers bringing up the rear of the procession. No one dared to follow him ; arid after walking with the troops for a short distance he regained his dwelling without further molestation. The Type of a Real Englishman. Bismarck made friends of many distinguished foreigners, who were all charmed with his noble demeanour, his fine tact, his ready wit, and his depth of character. They marvelled, in fact, to find such qualities in a mere Pomeranian country squire. The Duke of Cleveland said of him that the young German nobleman was the exact stamp of a real Englishman, and when this was repeated to Bismarck he shelved the compHment, saying that his endeavour was to reach the ideal of a real German. APPENDIX. 255 Moral Influence. That a certain moral influence always surrounded Bismarck, even when a young man, is shown by an incident which occurred while he was at Aachen. He one day boxed the ears of a waiter for insolent conduct, and this man swore he would have a san- guinary revenge. He waylaid Bismarck on several occasions with a loaded pistol in his pocket. But at the sight of his bright eyes and cheerful countenance and gay demeanour as he passed along, the hand which raised the pistol ready to fire sank nerveless to his side, until at last he gave up his pernicious intent altogether. An Original Opinion. Bismarck soon found that Aachen was not a place where a man could develop into a sharp Govern- ment official. There was not business enough to be done to employ his capacious mind, so he asked to be removed to Potsdani, that old town whence the genuine Prussian discipline had its origin. His request was granted, and in the autumn of 1837, he went to Potsdam. Here he was placed as " Referendarius " under Councillor Wilke, an old friend of the Bismarck family, who took kindly to the young man, and admired his blunt" straightfor- wardness and his dislike for red-tape and officialism. He had several opportunities for showing that he »S^ APPENDIX. was capable of forming strong and original opinions. On one occasion a matter was referred to him in his official capacity concerning the compensating of per- sons whose property was required for the carrying out of public improvements. In the opinion he gave he boldly pronounced it to be an injustice that people should thus be forced against their will to part with their property ; and he asked why free scope should be given to this hankering after improvement whereby homes were demolished, estates cut up, and old scenes and associations trodden underfoot. *^ No," he said, ''you cannot compensate me with money if you turn my father's park into a fishpond, or Change the site of my revered aunt's grave into an eel-swamp." This strongly-worded opinion did not fail to be brought under the notice of the Govern- ment officials, and then spread from mouth to mouth in all directions, and it was the first expression of Bismarck's that became a common saying. Saving his Servant's Life. Bismarck passed through his year's volontariat in the army in 1838, after which he went to Kniephof, where he lost his mother on November 1st, 1839; ^rid here he remained for a while. In 1 84 1 he was appointed lieutenant in the Land- wehr, and in 1842 he was summoned to take part in the military manoeuvres with the regiment of Pomeranian Uhlans. In the afternoon of the 24th APPENDIX, 257 of June he rode with Lieutenant von Klitzing and two servants to the Wendel Lake. On arriving there the officers dismounted and stood upon the bridge, while Hildebrandt, his servant, and an Uhlan named Kuhl, rode the horses into the water. Hildebrandt was first in the lake with his horse, but instead of going straight out from the shore the horse persisted in turning round and round. On his rider tugging at the reins to lead him in the proper direction the horse plunged so furiously that Hilde- brandt was thrown in deep water. The Uhlan, Kuhl, observing the accident, rode his horse into the lake to his comrade's assistance, but at the spot where he left the land the water was deep close up to the shore, and both he and his horse pitched in headlong. In an instant Lieutenant von Bismarck stripped off his tunic, leapt off the bridge, which stood several feet above the water, and after having helped the sinking Uhlan ashore, swam out to the assistance of his own servant, who by this time was quite exhausted. He managed to bring Hildebrandt safely back to land, and then he went into the water again and got the horses ashore, thus saving at one stroke, and at the risk of his own life, the lives of two men and two horses. Stoned in the Street. In April 1847, King Frederick-William IV. 258 APPENDIX. called together the first '* United Landtag of the Monarchy," and Bismarck attended as deputy from the Saxon Provincial Assembly; and in 1848 he was frequently invited by the King to Sans-souci, v^ho consulted him on various important matters. He, more than any other, supported the King in his determination not to accept the Imperial crown offered him by the Frankfort Parliament. The King said at the time that "the crown that does not impress the stamp ^by God's grace' upon the head of the wearer is no crown at all." This royal saying found an echo in an expression of Bismarck's. He said : '' The Frankfort crown may be a very splendid diadem, but the precious metal for im- parting to it its real truth and value would have to be obtained by melting down the crown of Prussia." This saying gave great offence to several sections of his countrymen, among others to the democrats of Rathenow, for which place Bismarck was elected to the Second Chamber. This feeling took the form of open hostility, and one day when he was driving through Rathenow several stones were flung at him. One of the missiles entered the vehicle in which he sat, and wounded him in the left arm. On the impulse of the moment Bismarck picked up the stone, and standing up at full length in the carriage he sent it back flying in the midst of the mob, who thereupon fell back and made way for him to pass. APPENDIX, 259 Silencing a Chatterbox. The firm and rather severe features of Bismarck, together with his crisp beard, and the cold sharp glances from his eyes, gave him a rather domineer- ing aspect, and that strangers were easily cowed thereby was proved in the case of Herr Nelke.* In a railway carriage one day, Bismarck was travelling with an old lieutenant-colonel of his acquaintance. A loquacious commercial traveller got into the same compartment, and talked politics in noisy and self- confident tones, and he even went so far as to annoy and insult the grey-headed lieutenant-colonel. Bis- marck cast one or two impatient glances at the man ; but he continued his oration till the train drew up at the Berlin terminus. When they got on the plat- form, Bismarck suddenly put on his very severest look, and placing himself face to face with the troublesome politician, directed such fierce glances at him that he shrank back a pace or two. Bismarck silently took another step in his direction, and the man retreated until his back came in contact with the wall. Then Bismarck, still looking him in the face, quietly said ; " What is your name ?" " Nelke ; my name is Nelke," stammered the politician, pale and frightened. " Then look here, you Nelke, you had better take care, or I'll pluck you from your stem." With that he turned on his heel, leaving • " Nelke " in German means pink, or carnation. 26o APPENDIX, poor Nelke leaning against the wall a wiser but sadder man. '* Is He fit for the Post ? " On July nth, 185 1, the then Prince of Prussia passed through Frankfort in order to inspect the troops, and was received on the railway platform by all the delegates to the Federal Council, as well as the higher military officers. When Bismarck was introduced to him, the Prince had an agreeable con- versation with him ; but on his way to the hotel he expressed to General von Rochow, who rode with him, his doubts whether '^ this Landwehr lieutenant " (Bismarck had appeared in uniform) was really fit for the exalted post to which he had been appointed. General von Rochow replied : — " The choice is good, your Highness; he is lively, intelligent, and trust- worthy, and will answer all your Highness's expec- tations." " I really believe," remarked General von Rochow later on, " that the Prince only wished he was a few years older and grey-headed ; but whether grey hairs and increase of years will suffice for the carrying out of the Prince's plans, is somewhat doubtful." Evenings at Home. While at Frankfort, Bismarck lived in Roths- child Villa, a short distance out of the city, and sur- rounded with lovely gardens, which was what he \ APPENDIX, 261 most enjoyed. His ^' Johanna " arranged a very snug and comfortable home for him here. He was fond of passing the evenings by the fireside, stirring the fire when it wanted poking ; and when his wife or the daughters of the painter Jakob Becker played Beethoven's sonatas before him he forgot all about the cares and annoyances of his public life. Here, too, he received his friends, and charmed them with his amiable and entertaining conversation. Who- ever passed an evening of that kind in the Bismarck dwelling went away refreshed in heart and mind with the peace and cheerfulness which reigned in that interior. At times, however, Frau Bismarck would make visits to her parents in Pomerania ; and then her husband would grow melancholy in his villa and long for the presence of wife and child. In this mood he once wrote to his wife : — '* I feel as I should on a fine September day, gazing on the sere and yellow leaves of the trees ; I am well and cheerful enough, with a cast of melancholy, however, together with just a suspicion of home-sickness, and there is within me a longing for forest, lake, and plain, you and the children — all mixed up together with Beethoven and sunset." Too Busy to Sleep. — Bathing by Moonlight. The cosy and familiar evenings spent in Rothschild Villa, however, were often after all only pleasant intervals between the work of the day and the work 262 APPENDIX, of the night. Over and over again, a h'ght might be seen burning in Bismarck's study a long time after midnight. There he sat, after the guests had gone, and all was quiet in the house, smoking his cigar and dictating important letters and reports, often till the dawn of day, when he would quickly seal them up and send them off by the early five o'clock post for Berlin. He would not go to bed at all on these occasions, but, lying back on the sofa when his work was done, would make up with a short nap for the lost night's rest ; and if when he woke again, his limbs felt stiff, he would order his horse and gallop for miles through the beautiful country on the banks of the Main or the Rhine ; or sometimes he would take a refreshing dip in the cool stream. On one occasion he wrote : — " On Saturday evening I drove with Rochow and Lynar to Riidesheim ; here I hired a boat, and after pulling from the shore I took a bath by moonlight. With nose and eyes only above the surface of the tepid water, I swam as far as the Mouse Tower, near Bingen, where the wicked bishop came to grief. There is something very unreal and dreamlike, floating in the water on a warm still night, slowly drifting with the tide, look- ing up at the moon and stars, and gazing upon the wooded mountain tops and church steeples in the distance bathed in a flood of moonlight, and no sound but the gentle ripple caused by one's own movements ; I should like to do it every evening." APPENDIX, 263 Six Days in the Snow. In 1859 Bismarck was sent as Ambassador to St. Petersburg. The very thought of the ice-bound Neva made him shiver, but he packed his trunk and set off via Konigsberg to the cold capital of the North. '' A chilly journey," said Bismarck to him- self, as he took the outside seat on the heavily-laden eight-horse mail-coach which was to carry him through the deep snow across the Russian steppes. It was a six days* journey from Konigsberg to St. Petersburg, and we will let him describe it in his own words : — ^^ We journeyed for ninety-six hours from Konigsberg without making a halt, and only at Kowno we got two hours' sleep, and three at Egypt (a place near Dunaburg). I don't feel so badly now it is all over ; but my face smarts terribly, as I had to sit outside almost the whole of the night, and the temperature fluctuated between one and t\yelve degrees below zero. The snow was so deep that with six or eight horses we were often literally brought to a standstill, and had to get down before the coach would move. The slippery hills were even worse than this, especially in going down them. We took an hour to go twenty paces, and four times all the horses were down and mixed up in almost inextricable confusion. And then the dark- ness and the wind I It was, indeed, a dreary wintry journey, and the cold was so severe that, as I sat on 264 APPENDIX. my outside seat I found it impossible to get a wink of sleep. This went on from early Friday morning till Monday evening, till I reached the railway, and then besides the first and last nights on the line, the only sleep I got from Wednesday morning till Tuesday evening was on one occasion for three hours, and at another time for two hours, on a sofa in a station waiting-room. The skin had all peeled off my face when I got to my journey's end. But it is all over now, and I can afford to laugh at it. Here (at St. Petersburg) the Neva is frozen as hard as granite." " The Prussian shot all the Bears I " His favourite recreation while in Russia was wolf and bear hunting. He never felt better than when, wrapped in heavy furs, and in the severest weather, he tramped over the snow in the track of a, bear or a wolf. He soon got to be a keen and skilful hunter, and his luck at bringing down the big game was proverbial in St. Petersburg. On one occasion he made one of a party of seven for a bear hunt. On their return one of the seven was asked : " How did you get on ? " " Not at all well," was the reply ; *' the first bear came trotting by, and the Prussian shot him ; up comes the second bear, I missed, and— the Prussian shot him. On the arrival of the third bear. Colonel M fired twice, and missed, but — the Prussian shot him. APPENDIX. 265 Thus Bismarck shot all three bears, and no other was sighted that day. That was my hunting luck." Ready for Anything. After he was re-called from St. Petersburg in the spring of 1862, the King was very assiduous in taking his advice and learning his opinions. The formation of a new Ministry was the most important piece of work in hand just then, and some remarks made by Bismarck in a letter to his wife show what was in the King's mind. " I was as good as looked out for the post of Prime Minister," he wrote. "But perhaps they will see some one they will like better, when I am once out of their sight. I shall do nothing towards it either way. I am ready for anything that Providence destines for me. If I am not con- vinced that it must be, I shall not accept. To leave the King in the lurch on the plea of ill-health, however, I hold to be cowardice and disloyalty. If it must bCy then — Forward, as our coachman says when he takes the reins." But his time was not yet come. An Olive-twig in his Pocket-book. After fining the post of Ambassador at Paris for a short time Bismarck was summoned back to Berlin by telegraph, and made Prime Minister; and he ap- peared in the Chamber of Deputies in his new capacity for the first time on September 29th, 1862. 17 266 APPENDIX, He now became deeply involved in the conflict be- tween the Crown and Parliament on the subject of military reform. Although loyally supporting his King, Bismarck did his Best to stave off a crisis, and one day in a Committee of the House, he took a little olive-twig from his pocket-book, and holding it up he said : '' I plucked this in the south of France, with the intention of offering it to the Progressist Party as a token of peace ; but I see that the time for it has not come yet." And afterwards he added : '^ The pressing questions of the time are not to be solved by speeches made, and resolutions passed in the House, but by blood and irony "Here I am!" Scarcely did any statesman ever enter office in more difficult circumstances than did Bismarck when he accepted the post of Prime Minister in 1862. King William had informed his Ministers, even while Prince Regent, that the " Prussian army must be strong enough to command respect if it is to throw its proper weight into the political scale ; *' and he had been studying the subject of miHtary reform for years in conjunction with trusty co-adjutors, Von Roon, the Minister for War, being the most conspicuous. In January i860, however, when the King brought his measure of army reorganization before the Landtag, the money vote was thrown out, and after repeated attempts at reconciliation the APPENDIX. 267 Ministry resigned. In this critical situation it was imperative that the King should find a man of cool courage and iron will, who could take upon himself the thorny task of piloting the state. It was decided that Bismarck was the man, and Von Roon was despatched to have an interview with him. Every one was asking: "What conditions will Bismarck lay down ? "What programme will he insist upon ? " It was the sturdy Von Roon's business to find all this out. It proved, however, that all this anxiety was in vain and uncalled-for. Bismarck's simple answer when he heard the summons was : *' Here I ami" A Prophetic Dream. About the time which followed the Danish war, and before the Austrian campaign had been entered upon, Bismarck recounted a dream he had had while at Biarritz. He was climbing a steep and narrow mountain path, which became narrower and narrower the higher he got. At last he found him- self before a high and inaccessible wall, and by his side was a bottomless abyss. For a moment he stood to consider whether he had not better turn back, but a sudden resolution seized him, and wield- ing his cHmbing rod, he struck a heavy blow at the wall. Instantly the obstacle disappeared, and the path lay free and open before him. One w^all — > the Danish difficulty — had indeed just fallen before 268 APPENDIX, his master-stroke, and yet another was on the point of falling. His Keen Sight. On the day of Koniggratz, the tall Land wehr Major passed many hours by the side of the King, riding to and fro between Dub and Sadowa. At midday the Prussians were putting forth all their strength, and with anxious hearts the army leaders were awaiting the arrival of the Crown Prince's army. Under his spiked helmet, Bismarck's eagle eye was piercing the distance, when suddenly he observed certain lines on the far horizon. "They are the furrows of ploughed fields," was said by those around him. Another anxious silence prevailed for a little time, and Bismarck's eye resumed its search- ing investigation. *' Those are no plough-furrows," Ll last he exclaims ; " the intervals between are not regular; they are lines of troops on the march." And sure enough his was the first eye to spy the advance of the second army — the Crown Prince was there ! Sleeping "where the Cows had been." Bismarck is fond of narrating the straits he was put to, to find a sleeping berth on the night following the battle of Koniggratz. He first "put up" on a carriage-cushion laid on the pavement in the street at Hoic, without straw or anything else. Every APPENDIX, 269 house was filled with wounded. The Duke of Meck- lenburg found him there, and took him with him to share half his room, — a very timely rescue, as it soon came on to rain. On telling the story at table one day, Bismarck said : — " I could have done with- out a pillow very well if only I had had a little clean straw. But all the straw had been used up for horses' fodder, and had become a rare and costly article. The dilapidated cushion I had got hold of was thick in the middle and thin at the sides, and much too short, and I get a pain in the loins every time I think of it. Once I had to camp in the open market, in a frightful Bohemian den with an un- pronounceable name. I managed to get a hard sofa for the King, on which I left him tolerably comfort- able. The streets were dark, and all the houses shut. I knocked at half-a-dozen doors, and banged at a dozen windows, but not a soul stirred. Presently, through a narrow gateway, I came to an unpaved yard, and advancing in the dark the ground failed from beneath my feet, and I found myself reposing on a dung-heap. I could not complain that my couch was hard, but I couldn't get accustomed to the perfume. So I jumped up, and got back into the street, and eventually into the market-place. There were pillars standing round — whether Ionic, or Doric, or Bohemian, or what not, I cannot say : but the latter most likely. However, I thought to myself, here at any rate is a roof over my head; so I 270 APPENDIX, stretched myself on the naked flag-stones. I soon felt certain signs which proved that cattle miist have been stalled on that very spot not many hours before. However I would not stir again, as I felt no desire for further wanderings. I was completely fagged out; and was soon as fast asleep as a mole. And yet this was not the worst ' shake-down ' I met with in Bohemia. The most uncomfortable one I had was a child's cot." "A child's cot I" exclaimed one of the guests ; " the Prime Minister of Prussia in a child's cot ! But how could you get into it, Count ? " ** Oh, that was simple enough 1 I doubled myself up like a pocket-knife 1 " His Last Cigar. At the battle of Koniggratz he only had a single cigar left in his case, and he treasured this up the whole day as a miser does his hoard, and feasted himself with the bliss in store for him when, the battle over, he would be able to smoke it in peace and quietness. But he was robbed of the pleasure he so anxiously looked forward to, and how this was done we will let him say in his own words : — " It was a poor dragoon who deprived me of this jealously-guarded treasure. The poor fellow was lying with both legs crushed, moaning, and begging for some refreshment. I felt in all my pockets, but there was nothing in them but gold, and what good was that to him in his extremity ? But stay, I had APPENDIX. Vjx one long-cherished cigar. I lit it up, and placed it between the wounded soldier's lips. You should have seen the poor fellow's look of gratitude ! And never did a cigar taste so sweet to me as this one — which I did not smoke." Three on a Straw Bed. But Bismarck was sometimes put to great shifts also during the war with France. After the battle near Mars la Tour, for instance, all the houses were filled with wounded for two or three miles around. All the baggage had been left behind at Pont-k-Mousson, and it was a difficult matter to find a bivouac at Vionville for the King himself. At last a garret was found in which stood a camp bed, a chair, and a table. On taking possession of these quarters the King inquired : " And where are Moltke and Bismarck ? " " They have found no lodging yet," was the adjutant's reply. '^ Then let them come and camp here with me," continued the King, laughing; "the camp bed can be taken away, and let some straw be brought, and a blanket or two ; that will do for all three of us." And so it was arranged. The three greatest men of Prussia passed that rainy night in a garret with a truss of straw for a bed. A Strange King's Bench. It was a strange '' King's Bench " on which King William and Count Bismarck were sitting on the 27a APPENDIX, evening of the day on which the severe engagement near Gravelotte was fought. They were waiting to hear how the day had gone. The bench consisted of a ladder, one end of which was resting upon a tottering barrel and the other on a dead French cavalry horse. Close at hand a cloth-mill was burning, and lit up the neighbourhood with its weird hght. Suddenly Moltke gallops up: "Your Majesty, the victory is ours 1 " The King looked up with a grateful glance, but his face was sad and earnest, for he was thinking of the thousands that must have fallen that day, and of the coming grief of their wives and families. Meantime some of the escort had called up a passing sutler, and the exalted personages filled their flasks with his red wine of doubtful quality. The King drank his out of a footless glass, while Bismarck tried his teeth upon a crust of hard regulation bread. That night the King made shift at Rezonville, his bed consisting of two carriage cushions and a cloak. An Intercepted Letter. On September 3rd, 1870 (after Sedan) Bismarck wrote a letter from Vendresse to his wife, which never reached its destination, as that day's mail to Germany was captured by Jranc-iireurSy and this letter, which was singled out from all the rest, was afterwards published in a French paper. It ran as follows : — APPENDIX, 273 ' My Dearest Heart! "I left my quarters here the day before yesterday morning at daybreak, and returned to- day, having in the meantime assisted at the great battle of Sedan, in which we made thirty thousand prisoners, and drove the remainder of the French army (which we had followed up from Bar-le-Duc) into the town, where, with the Emperor, they had to surrender as prisoners of war. At five o'clock yesterday morning, after having been up till one o'clock in negotiation v^th Moltke and the French generals respecting the terms of capitulation. General Reille (whom I know) awoke me to say that Napoleon wished to speak to me. Without breakfast, and without even waiting for my morning ablutions, I rode towards Sedan, and found the Emperor in an open carriage, with three adjutants also in the carriage, and three others on horseback. I dis- mounted, greeted him with the same courtesy as I did in the Tuileries, and inquired what his pleasure was. He said he wished to see the King, and I replied with perfect truth that his Majesty was three miles away, at the place I am now writing from, where he had his quarters. On Napoleon asking where he had better go to, and as I was not acquainted v/ith the neighbourhood, I suggested Donchery, a village close by Sedan ; he adopted my suggestion, and, accompanied by his six officers, by myself, and Carl (who in the meantime had followed 274 APPENDIX. me on horseback), he drove away in the misty morning. On the journey he seemed to shrink from the idea of possibly meeting with a crowd of people, and he asked me whether he could not alight at a lonely workman's cottage which stood by the roadside. I sent Carl to see what it was like, and he returned with the report that the place was poverty-stricken and dirt3^ * Nimportej said Napoleon, and presently I was ascending with him a rickety narrow staircase. It led to a room about ten feet square, containing a deal table and two rush-bottomed chairs, and there we sat for an hour, the others remaining below. What a contrast was this with our last meeting in '6/ at the Tuileries ! Our conversation was difficult and halting, as I wished to avoid any subject which might wound the already heavily-stricken man. I had despatched Carl back to the town to fetch some officers, and to beg Moltke to come. When they arrived we sent one of the officers to reconnoitre the neighbourhood, and about half a mile away, at Fresnois, a chateau with a little park was found. I accompanied Napo- leon thither, with an escort of cuirassiers which had in the meantime arrived ; and there with General Wimpffen we settled the terms of capitulation, according to which from forty to sixty thousand Frenchmen — I can give no nearer estimate — with all their belongings gave themselves up as prisoners. Yesterday and the day previous, therefore, have cost APPENDIX, ^n France a hundred thousand men and an Emperor. To-day the latter, with all his attendants, horses, and carriages, have started for Wilhelmshohe near Cassel. This is a great historical event — a victory for which we must humbly give God the glory, and which ends the war, even if we have to carry it further against the country deprived of its leader. But I must conclude. I was pleased to see, by the letters received from yourself and Maria to-day, that Her- bert had arrived home. I spoke to Bill [his son Wilhelm] yesterday, as I have already told you by telegraph, and embraced him in view of his Majesty, I being on horseback, and he standing up straight on his feet. He is very well and happy. " Good-bye, darling. Kiss the children for m.e. *' Ever your " Von B." " A Light, please ! " On the 1st of March, 1871, when the German troops marched into Paris, Bismarck paid a visit to the French capital. He was dressed in his well- known cuirassier's tunic, and rode along the high- way at a footpace. On speaking of this visit afterwards, he said : — ^' The people gathered about the entrance into the city must have recognized me, for they gazed at me with dark and threatening looks, especially the men. But I knew the folk I had to deal with. I rode straight up to one of the 276 APPENDIX. men, whose looks were darker and more threatening than those of his comrades, drew a cigar from my case and poHtely asked him for a Hght. The man, in the humblest fashion, immediately handed me a short clay pipe he was smoking, and I calmly lit my cigar and rode on as far as the Arc de Triomphe, and then returned by the same way." A French General's Opinion of Bismarck. The French General de Wimpffen published a book in 1871, entitled Sedan, in which he gives the following opinion of Bismarck : — " His speech is fluent and elegant, even in foreign languages. Every word he says appears to be chosen with the greatest care, as the best fitted to attain the end he is striving for. The Count, whom I have met on two very important occasions, seems to me the most seductive and the most dangerous man that one could find himself opposed to. As inflexible as General von Moltke himself, he knows when to appear obliging and when to be reserved — to show himself propitiable, or stiff and unyielding — to raise hopes or drive to despair, and according to the results which follow he guesses at everything that he desires to learn from his antagonist. And added to all this, he possesses a dauntlessness which is astonished at nothing and shrinks from nothing, and which suddenly points out to him without cir- APPENDIX. 277 cumlocution the way of obtaining his desired end, as soon as his far-seeing mind can perceive and measure the means whereby the object is to be gained." How Bismarck tamed Thiers. After the capitulation of Paris (January 28th, 1 871) nearly a month passed before the peace pre- liminaries were agreed upon, and the signing of the conditions did not take place until Bismarck had listened to mighty' floods of eloquence from ''the little old man," Thiers, who conducted the negotiations on the French side. The little man, in his excitement, often appeared ready to jump out of his skin. To stop his swelling tide of words, Bismarck one day had recourse to an expedient which proved entirely successful. The discussion was proceeding in French, and the question was the amount of the war indemnity. When Thiers heard the words " Five milliards " he sprang up in a pas- sion from his chair and exclaimed in French, " It is a scandalous robbery; a base and mean advantage !" " I regret," remarked Bismarck, " that I don't quite catch the meaning of those words " [of course he understood them quite well], " and I see that I am not so well acquainted with French as I thought I was. From this moment, therefore, we shall have to talk in German, and I really don't know why we have not done so all along." Count Bismarck then continued 278 APPENDIX. the conversation in German, and M. Thiers saw himself compelled to do the same; but the use of this language was such a difficult matter for him that his wrath soon cooled down, as he could not find words fast enough to express it. He soon became quite meek and yielding, and was so dis- posed to make concessions that Bismarck said at last, with a smile : *' On this basis, then, I am ready to resume the negotiations in the French tongue." Rest at Varzin. When he could escape the toils of office, Bismarck loved to run down to Varzin to enjoy a little peace and quiet, but he found it difficult even here to protect himself from importunate visitors and corre- spondents. He gave instructions that letters ad- dressed to him there should be returned unopened to Berlin. For their ame was legion, and numerous were the manoeuvres to which the writers had recourse to induce or to force the Chancellor to open and read them. One would write on the envelope : '' Not to be opened by any other person." Another would write : ^' Very important. Only to be read by yourself." In one single year the Varzin post- master says that as many as 6,500 letters and 10,000 telegrams passed through his hands for Prince Bismarck. During one of his stays at Varzin the amount of contributions solicited from him for one APPENDIX. 279 thing and the other totalled up to a million and a half of thalers. It was just the same with im- portunate visitors. In order to escape from such, the Prince had a secret doorway made (his " sally- port" he called it), behind which was a winding staircase which led no one knew whither. " Once a visitor came," relates the Prince, " who sent me in word that if I would not receive him he would immediately go and hang himself. I sent him back a reply that if he had thoroughly made up his mind about it, I would have the newest and strongest rope on the premises supplied to him ; but he didn't press for its delivery. He went away at last, and I certainly felt no qualms of conscience at the message I sent him." A Narrow Escape for Varzin. One evening in company, Prince Bismarck told the following story: — "Do you know that in 1870 I was within an ace of losing my comfortable country house at Varzin ? While we were in France a despatch fell into our hands which contained an order to the commander of the French Baltic squadron to attempt a landing on the coast, send a detachment to surprise my country seat, and burn it down, and raze it to the ground. Dispositions were taken to render an attempt of this kind fruitless, and so the German Empire was perhaps spared the expense of building me a new residence." 28o APPENDIX. The Kullmann Attempt. In the spring of 1874, Bismarck was ill for some time, and he was ordered to Kissingen to drink the waters there. Every day at one o'clock he drove in a Bavarian court equipage from his residence on the right bank of the Saale to the wells, and a crowd of people invariably collected to see him drive away. On the day when the German Emperor was to meet the King of Bavaria, as he passed through Munich (July 13th), there was a greater crowd than ever lining both sides of the road between Prince Bis- marck's house and the Saale Bridge, and loud cheers greeted him as he passed. At the moment when the vehicle turned from the carriage-drive into, the street, there was suddenly a short pause, brought about by a man in clerical costume, who ran across the road close to the horses' heads, as if to get a better sight of the Prince. At the same moment a mean-looking fellow appeared at the carriage door, and fired a pistol point-blank at Prince Bismarck. The latter had just raised his right hand to his hat in answer to the cheering of the crowd, and the bullet flew between this hand and his temple, and grazed his wrist. Greatly vexed, but not for a moment losing his self-possession, the Prince stepped out of the carriage, and returned on foot to the house amid the frantic cheers of the people. In the meantime the would-be assassin had been seized APPENDIX. 281 and taken to the lock-up, having first narrowly escaped being lynched. After the wound was dressed, the Prince drove in an open carriage with Count Pappenheim to the Court-house where the culprit was confined, and had an interview with him. It transpired that the man was a cooper by trade, by the name of Kullmann, from Neustadt-Magdeburg ; that he belonged to the so-called " Catholic Men's Union," and that he had acted under the influence of a fanatical Catholic priest named Storrmann, to whom the ecclesiastical law was a grievance. The wound was not a serious one, and healed up in a few days. The Reichshund in the Dark. The ex-Chancellor once related the following story : — " I had a strange experience last night. While lying in bed half asleep I suddenly heard a remarkable moaning, whining noise in my close proximity. I got up to strike a light, but my ever- attentive wife had closed the window-shutters in order that no noise from without should disturb me, and the consequence was that I was in total dark- ness, and couldn't find the matches. The noise soon ceased, however, and I fell asleep. Soon after, the same moaning, complaining voice woke me again, and then I felt a bulky something nestling close to me, and putting its arms around me. I began to feel rather uncomfortable. I put out my 18 282 APPENDIX, hand, and it came in contact with a ribbon, and clutching it I broke it. The moaning instantly ceased, and the bulky something stole away. It turned out to be the Reichshund. On my birthday I always gave my dog an extra meal, and put a red ribbon round his neck. The faithful creature, on this occasion, had no doubt tried to rid himself of this ribbon, and in doing so had only pulled it tighter. He had, therefore, come to me to ask me to loosen it for him." Bismarck's Condescension. In a recent sketch of Prince Bismarck's life, by one of his own countrymen, it is recorded that in private life he was noted for his condescension towards, and affection for, his humble subordinates. He has always been on the most friendly footing with his servants and tenants, and has never been known to deal harshly with them. At Bar-le-Duc, during the French war, he one night cut off a piece of bread from his own loaf and carried it out himself to the famishing sentry standing outside of his quarters on duty ; and after the fight near Beaumont he was seen to give drinks of brandy to marauding Bavarian camp-followers from his own field-flask, and to divide the contents of his cigar-case among them. He was a frequent visitor to the wounded in the lazarettos^ and on one occasion, when a maimed soldier uttered a longing wish for a taste APPENDIX, 283 of apple-marmalade, he promised to send him some and on reaching his own quarters ordered some to be taken to the wounded man. Frau Bismarck's Modesto Prince Bismarck's wife is described as being as modest and unassuming in her demeanour as she is plain and neat in her outward appearance. She has no desire to be looked upon as an "illustrious lady " merely because she has an " illustrious man " for a husband. She knows that a lady's excellence is not to be measured by the degree to which she is talked about, and she will not allow that even the wife of a man who has been an Imperial Chancellor can be any exception to this rule. She does not wish — so it is recorded — to exist for the world at large, but only for her revered and beloved husband. At a dinner some years ago, when one of the guests persisted in addressing her as " Excellency," she interrupted him thus : — " I beg you will not call me ' Excellency,' that is a title which I have a great objection to. There are people who, in their wish to gain some desired end, will fling * Excellency ' at me ten times in a breath, and that has put me out of conceit with the title. I like best to be called 'Frau von Bismarck;' that brings back the sweet remembrance of a quiet, gladsome time when Otto and myself, as simple rural gentry on the banks of the Elbe, in our fine old Schonhausen, had leisure 284 APPENDIX, to live for each other and for our village folks — but now my husband belongs to all the world." Bismarck was present, and heard his wife thus express her sentiments. "My dear/' he said, "these good old times will come back again, God willing, when we grow old and the world can make no further use of us." Was there not a touch of prophecy in this ? A Parliamentary Soiree. The following is a description of the parliamentary soireeSy or supper-parties, which Bismarck, while Chancellor, was in the habit of giving : — " It was a sight worth seeing, to witness how the Princess, in her neat but exquisite costume, would walk through the apartments, greeting the guests with natural heartiness, and, in her agreeable chats with each, choosing with admirable tact the subject in which each one felt most interested. Not the slightest trace of conventional phrases or of cold formality, and no sign of pride or superiority in either the lady of the house or her husband. While he, the Prince, has a way of taking hearts by storm, she, the Prin- cess, has a way of gently winning them. He, the German knight and hero, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot ; she, the German lady, full of grace and amiability. The Prince now in- vites and encourages his guests to take some solid refreshment from a well-loaded table of comestibles. APPENDIX. 285 or to partake of a draught of foaming beer or sparkling wine. Standing or sitting groups are now soon formed, in which the most famous men in Germany are engaged in lively conversation. No guest, whatever his rank, is overlooked, the Chan- cellor himself handing full glasses in every direction, accompanied by some friendly words. Now he sits down, and opens a discussion, and a dense circle soon gathers round him ; all hang upon his words, and soon it is no longer a discussion, for the Prince gradually gets all the talking to himself, and his speech is always open-hearted and straight to the point. He knows very well that he can say things here to the members of the Reichstag which he cannot utter in open Parliament, and many a sub- ject receives a very different handling on these occasions from that which it received in Parliament. At last, when midnight strikes, and most of the guests have departed, a little knot remains behind, the intimate friends of the family ; and they sit for another half-hour in famihar chat and gossip, the Chancellor in the midst of them, contentedly puffing away at his great long pipe. Such occasions as these are never forgotten in a lifetime, and would not be exchanged for untold gold." Comparison between England and Prussia. In a debate in the Landtag respecting the principles upon which the Prussian monarchy was based 286 APPENDIX, Bismarck said : — " A comparison has been drawn between the way in which the English people in 1688, after the banishment of James II., stood up for their own rights, and the way in which the Prussian people are now able to get their rights recognized. Comparisons with foreign nations are always misleading. Russia is dangled before us as a pattern of religious forbearance, and the French and Danish financial systems are recommended to us as patterns of orderly administration. To return to the year 1688, and to the English example — I must beg to direct the attention of honourable members to one fact: At that time the English nation were in a very different position from that of the Prussian people at the present time. Through a century ol revolution and civil war it had attained a position in which it had a crown to give away, and with this gift it could exact any conditions it liked, and these the Prince of Orange accepted. On the other hand, the Prussian monarchs owe their position to God's grace and not to the gift of the people; it is a crown not hampered by any conditions; and they have voluntarily ceded to their people certain of their rights — an example which is very rare in history." APPLETONS' Town and Country Library. PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY. Bound in tasteful paper covers, at 50 cents each ; also in cloth, at 75 cents each (excepting when price is otherwise given). 1. THE STEEL HAMMER. By Louis Ulbach, author of "Madame Gosselin." " 'The Steel Hammer,' by Louie Ulbach, is not only a splendid bit of fiction, finely conceived and vividly wrought out, but it has the rare merit of appealing to the two classes that go so far toward making up the general reading public. ... It is this happy combination of objective and subjective treatment which makes of 'The Steel Hammer' a story worthy of Gaboriau, while at the same time it is a study of the human conscience which might have evolved itself from the mind of Balzac."— 7%^ Critic. 2. EVE. A Novel. By S. Baring-Gould, author of "Red Spider," " Little Tu'penny," etc. " The machinery of the plot is made the vehicle for vigorous study of charac- ter and description of quaint and interesting life in a secluded part of England. Jasper and his brother, Barbara, Eve, and the two seniors, are wrought out with artistic and painstaking skill, and several of the minor personages are studied with hardly less effect. The novel is strong, bright, and eminently readable."— Eclectic Magazine. 3. FOR FIFTEEN YEARS. A Sequel to '• The Steel Hammer." By Louis Ulbach. "Though 'The Steel Hammer,' the story to which 'For Fifteen Years' is the sequel, was a fascinating one, it was a comparatively tame prelude to one of the most powerful denouments possible to conceive. The plots and counter-plots are worked out with a power and devotion which are startling in their intensity." — Baltimore American. 4. A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION. A Novel. By Lucas Malet, au- thor of " Colonel Enderby's Wife," " Mrs. Lorimer," etc. "It would require us to go back to Miss Austen to find anything that better deserved the praise of fine form, fine grouping, fine coloring, hnmorona delinea- tion, and precision of design.''— London Spectator. 5. THE DEEMSTER. A Romance. By Hall Caine. " The spiritual grandeur of its conception and the tremendous nature of tho forces engaged raise it to the region of tragic drama. . . . Grandly conceived and grandly executed." — London Academy. 6. A VIRGINIA INHERITANCE. By Edmund Pendleton, author of "A Conventional Bohemian." (In cloth. Price, $1.00.) "... It has an interest and freshness of its own ; in parts it is amusing; in parts witty ; here and there wise. The courtesy of the Chesters, their oddities, their reckless acceptance of every claim of exorbitant hospitality, their indolent carelessness, their embodiment of the ' hospitable, out-at-elbow, irrelevant, sympathetic South.' are set forth in a manner which has a sort of £ftr«cirwkion."-* The Saturday Review, Loudon. Applet ons' Town and Country Library. I. NINETTE : An Idyll of Provence. By the author of " V4ra." "A very charming Provenfal idyll. The author of 'Vera' must be reckoned among the very few English writers who are capable of reproducing the atmos- phere of Continental life."— 2'A€ Athenceum. 8. " THE RIGHT HONOURABLE." A Romance of Society and PoU- tics. By Justin McCarthy and Mrs. Campbell-Praed. " The moral is sound. It is one of duty victoriously achieved tliough at great cost; and perhaps verisimilitude is not strained by the idealization which im- putes to the v/oman's superior strength of renunciation and moral stamina the successful passage through tlie last and most fiery trial. Incidentally there is much bright description of fashionable life and people."— iVew' Yo7k 'Iribune. 9. THE SILENCE OE DEAN MAITLAND. By Maxwell Grey. "The story culminates in a scene which is almost unequaled and unexampled in fiction. ... As a tale of spiritual struggle, as a marvelously graphic and vital picture of the action and reaction of human lite, ' The Silence of Dean Maitland' 18 a book that is destined to an extraordinary recognition and permanent fame in literature."— Bo«to/i Traveller. 10. MRS. LORIMER : A Study in Black and White. By Lucas Malet, author of " Colonel Enderby's Wife," " A Counsel of Perfection." "'Mrs. Lorimer' is not onlv brimful of cleverness, profuse and careless cleverness, as of one rich in intelligence, and of genuine, softly reflective humor, such as critics love ; but of power of a kind so separate that it is hard to charac- terize without quoting in justification the whole book. It is as a story of rare prominence, alike of humor and of pathos, that we recommend 'Mrs. Lorimer.' " —London Spectator. II. THE ELECT LADY. By George MacDonald, author of "Home Again," etc. " Rich in imaginative beauty and fine insight into the mysteries of spiritual life."— Zowtfon Spectator. " There are some good bits of dialogue and strong situations in the book."— The AtherKBum. 12. THE MYSTERY OF THE "OCEAN STAR." A Collection of Maritime Sketches. By W. Clark Russell, author of "The Wreck of the * Grosvenor,' " etc. "Mr. Clark Russell occupies a peculiarly happy position in literature. He is absolutely without competitors. Opinions may differ as to the best writer in almost any other line or work, but there is only one fabulist of the sea, and, in one respect. Clark Russell is a better story-teller than any of his colleagues in other branches of fiction." — San Francisco Examiner. 13. ARISTOCRACY. A Novel. (In cloth. Price, $1.00.) "A very clever and amusing piece of novel-writing is ' Aristocrficv,' by an unknown author, who seems to have a sufficient knowledirB of the manners and tone of good society in England to satirize them unmercifnllv, while adliering in a considerable degree to the truth. ... He also knows how to write an Intorest' ing story, and his book has not a dull page in iV—Tfie Sun, New York. Appletons' Town and Country Library, 14. A RECOILING VENGEANCE. By Frank Barrett, author of " His Helpmate," " The Great Hesper." With Illustrations. " A very pretty, natural, and refreshing story is ' A Recoiling Vengeance.' . . . It is a story told iu the first person of a struggle for the inheritance of a wealthy lawyer in a country town, and in its clearness and brightness reminds us not a little of the manner of Anthony Trollope.''— London Saturday lieview. 15. THE SECRET OF FONTAINE-LA-CROIX. A Novel. By Mar- GARET Field. The heroine of this story is an Englishwoman, but the events occur principally in France. In the main the story is domestic in character, affording some charm- ing pictures of life in a French chfiteau. but scenes in the Franco-German War are also depicted, and the action leads up to a striking and most dmmatic Bituation. "An interesting story well to\di.''''— Christian Union. "Altogether a delighcful story. ^'—Philadelphia Bulletin. 16. THE MASTER OF RATHKELLY. A Novel. By Hawley Smart, author of " A False Start," " Breezde Langton," etc. "The Master of Eatbkelly" is an Irish landlord, and the incidents of the Btory illustrate the nature of the present conflict in Ireland in a striking manner. 1*7. DONOVAN : A Modern Englishman. A Novel. By Edna Lyall. New cheap edition. (In cloth. Price, $1.50.) A cheap edition of " Donovan " has long been called for by those who have recognized its merits, and wished to see its influence extended. It falls within the range of thougbi stimulated by " Robert Elsmere," and books of its class. 18. THIS MORTAL COIL. A Novel. By Grant Allen. "Mr. Grant Allen's is a good story, a little burdened with the constant effort for a sparklin? narrative, but fairly true to life, and speaks through its charac- ters."— TVie Athenaeum. 19. A FAIR EMIGRANT. By Rosa Mulholland, author of " Marcella Grace," etc. "The ' fair emisrant' is a young lady who returns to her father's country for the purpoee of trying to clear his name from the distrrace of a crime with which he was falsely charged. ... A very interesting narrative."— 7'Ae Spectator. " A capital noveV— Scotsman. 20. THE APOSTATE. A Novel. By Ernest Daudet. "The Apostate" is a novel of mnch more than ordinary power, and in a field somewhat new. In morals it is unobjectionable, and in style noble and imprees' ive. The translation has been carefully done. D. APPLETON & CO., Pdbushbbs, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Stbbet, New Yorsi. Appletons' Town and Country Library. 21. RALEIGH WESTGATE; or, Epimenides in Maine. By Heleh Kendrick Johnson. The time of this ptory is just before and during the rebellion, but the reader is carried back to some curious episodes in the early history of Maine, the tradi- tions of which supply part of the material for the plot. "Out of the common run of fiction."— fio^ton Beacon. "An atmosphere of quaint husnor pervades. the hodk.'^— Christian Inquirer. 22. ARIUS THE LIBYAN : A Romance of the Primitive Church. A new cheap edition. (Also in cloth. Price, $1.25.) " Portrays the life and character of the primitive Christians with great force and vividness of imag;'mation.'' —Harper's Magazine. " Beside this work most of the so-called religious novels fade into insignifi- cance."— /Sprmg/?€/6? Republican. 23. CONSTANCE, AND CALBOT'S RIVAL. By Julian Hawthorne. " The reader will find a fascinating interest in these strange and cleverly told stories which are as ingenious in conception aa they are brilliant in develop- ment."— ^5fon Gazette. 24. WE TWO. By Edna Lyall, author of "Donovan." New cheap edition. (Also in cloth. Price, $1.50.) "We recommend all novel readers to treat this novel with the care which such a strong, uncommon, and thoughtful book demands and deserves." — London Spectator. 25. A DREAMER OF DREAMS. A Modern Romance. By the author of " Thoth." *' Of an original and artistic type . . . near to being a tremendous feat of timcy.''''—Athenceum. " Resembles its predecessor ( " Thoth " ) in the weirdness o^ the plot and the incisive brilliance of style."— Xon^ion Literary World. 26. THE LADIES' GALLERY. A Novel. By Justin McCarthy and Mrs. Campbell-Praed. " It is interesting and racy, anrl abounds in clever sketches of character and in good situations. Both authors are, so to speak, on their native heath. . . . Altogether, the book abounds in amusement." — London Guardian. " An absorbing, powerful, and artistic work." — London Post. 21. THE REPROACH OF ANNESLEY. By Maxwell Grey, author of "The Silence of Dean Maitland." " The Reproach of Annesley " will be welcomed by every reader of " The Silence of Dean Maitland." a novel that has been pronounced by both English and American critics a work possessing striking power and originality. 28. NEAR TO HAPPINESS. A Novel. Translated from the French by Frank H. Potter. "The plot is strong and clearly constructed, and the characters are sketched with marke-i force and artistic skill. The era of the incidents is that of the Franco-German War, and the point about which they revolve Is a tender love- story to which a deep dramatic interest is imparted.'"— Boston Gazette. Appletons* Town and Country Library. 29. IN THE WIRE-GRASS. By Louis Pendleton. "An unusually clever novel is 'In the Wire Grass,' by Louis Pendleton (Appletons). It presents a vivid pictuie of Southern life by a native of the South, and abounds in incidents and characters racy of the soil. . . . The humor ib everywhere bright and genuine, and the action uniformly brisk."— 2'Ae /Sun. 30. LACE. A Berlin Romance. By Paul Lindau. " ' Lace,' Lindau's novel, of which the Appletons have just published a thor oughly iiooA translation, gets its name from the fatelul rSle held in it by a mar- veKius mantle of Brabant lace. This mantle wanders through the mazes of this story like a specter that will not down, and, rarely beautiful as it is, grows in the end into a veritable robe of Nessus. . . . Altogether, ' Lace ' is one of the most effective pieces of work that we have seen for a long time.''''— Vomtnefcial Advertiser. 31. AMERICAN COIN. By the author of "Aristocracy." A satirical picture of impecunious Entrlish peers in search of fortunes, and of the daughters of American millionaires in search of titles. " ' American Coin ' is a remarkably clever and readable story."— A^. Y. Herald. 82. WON BY WAITING. By Edna Ltall. "The sentiment of the story i^ delicate and uplifting, and the style is uncom- monly spirited and active."— J?o«^on Gazette. 38. THE STORY OF HELEN DAVENANT. By Violet Fane. "Neither Misa Braddon nor the author of 'The House on the Marsh' could have contrived a more ingenious story than that of 'Helen Davenant.'" — The Academy. 34. THE LIGHT OF HER COUNTENANCE. By H. H. Botesen, author of " Gunnar," " Idyls of Norway," " A Daughter of the Philistines," etc. The scenes of this story open in New York, but the action soon shifts to Italy. The characters are mainly American and English. The incidents are picturesque, and the movement animated. 35. MISTRESS BEATRICE COPE; or. Passages in the Life of a Jacobite's Daughter. By M. E, Le Clerc. " A simple, natural, credible romance, charged with the color of the time and satisfying to the mind of a thoughtful reader."— 2%e Athenceum. 36. KNIGHT-ERRANT. By Edna Lyall. "'Knight-Errant' is marked by the author's best qualities as a writer of fiction, and displays on every page the grace and quiet power of her former works.' '— T/ie Athenceum. SY. IN THE GOLDEN DAYS. By Edna Lyall. "The central figure of her story is Algernon Sidney, and this figure she in- vests with singular dignity and power. Some of the scenes are remarkably rivid. The escape is an adirirable narrative, which almost makes one hold one's breath to read."— 7%e Spectator. ^ppletons' Town and Country Library. 38. GIRALDI ; or, The Curse of Love. By Ross George Dering. "'Giraldi' is undeniably a clever book; satirical, humoroue, and amusing : full of consistent sketching of character; ... an original and readable novel.'' — The Saturday lieview. 39. A HARDY NORSEMAN. By Edna Lyall. "All the quiet power we praised in 'Donovan' is to be found in this new story."— 2%€ Athenaeum. 40. THE ROMANCE OF JENNY HARLOWE, and Sketches of Mari- time Life. By W. Clark Rdssell. " ' The Romance of Jenny Harlovve,' supplemented by other sketches of soa life, otter capital reading. The story is exciting enough to satisfy the moew exacting on this score.'" — The Academy. 41. PASSION'S SLAVE. By Richard Ashe-King. " Mr. King is a relined and pleasant writer. . . . His tact is generally beyond reproach."— r^e Athenceum. 42. THE AWAKENING OF MARY FEN WICK. By Beatrice Whitby. *' We have no hesitation in declarini; that ' The Awakening of Mary Fenwick ' is the best novel of the kind that we have seen for some years. It is apparently a first efibrt, and as such is remarkable." — The Alhenoeum. 43. COUNTESS LORELEY. From the German of Rudolf Menger. "An exciting novel, the scene of which is laid principally in Germanyjnst before and af.er the Franco- Prussian War. The characters, which embrace be- sides the two principal ones a Breton duelist, a lion-hearted Englishman, a Russian diplomat, and others, are presented in a spirited manner."— .Boi ton Gazette. 44. BLIND LOVE. By Wilkie Collins. With a Preface by Walter Besant. This posthumous novel was unfinished at the time of Mr. CoUins's death, although in course of serial publication. By means of the ample notes left by the author, Mr Besant was enabled to complete it along the lines laid down by the author. "The plot of the novel." says Mr. Besant, " every scene, every situation, from beginning to end, is the work of Wilkie Collins." 45. THE DEAN'S DAUGHTER. By Sophie F. F. Veitch. "The passages in it which deal with the morally distorted and trade passion of "Vera Dormer recall to some extent the vanished hand of the author of 'Jane Eyre.' ''—The Academy. 46. COUNTESS IRENE. A Romance of Austrian Life. By J. Fogerty. "This is a charming story, interestimr and mouvemenfe, with some liighly dramatic incidents. . . . The pictures of Viennese life and manners are admira- ble, and the descriptions of Austrian country-house life amid the magnificent scenery of the Salzkammergut are most attractive.''— Westminster Beview. 12mo, paper cover. Price, 80 cents each. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street Appletons' Town and Country Library, 47. ROBERT BROWNING'S PRINCIPAL SHORTER POEMS. Browning was so voluminous a writer that his complete works are practically in- accessible to many readers. The present collection includes everything by which he is best known, except the dramas and very long poems. 48. FROZEN HEARTS. A Romance. By G. Webb Appleton. "A well-laid plot, strong characters, and striking situations, give the story an- absorbing interest throughout."— Z^a/rtwwe American. " It is a clever, well Avritten, interestins story of Paris in the earlier days of the Orleans succession, rich in Waterloo, the Napoleonic and Bourbon reminiscence, and as clean as clever French authors can make the same subjects unclean."— JSrooA^/yn Ecigle. 49. DJAMBEK THE GEORGIAN. A Tale of Modem Turkey. From the German of Von Suttncr, by H. M. Jewett. A romance in a new field, affording some novel pictures of life, social and political, interwoven with and subordinated to a stirring and romantic love-story. "'Djambek the Georgian' strikes us as altogether a spirited and probably faithful presentation of conditions which existed prior to the last Russo-Turkish War, and which have certainly been changed for the better since then, though not through Turkish reforms of any kind."— ^ew; York Tribune. 50. THE CRAZE OF CHRISTIAN ENGELHART. By Henry Faulk- ner Darnell. " A novel of more than ordinaiy quality and strength is 'The Craze of Christian Engelhart.' It is marked by vigorous action, original types of character, and a mystic atmosphere enveloping sume of the most remarkable passages. As an in- tellectual effort it deserves high praise."— A'ez^ York Sun. 51. LAL, By William A. Hammond, M. D. '•It possesses the great merit of being interesting from beginning to end. The characters are striking, and several of them have an element of originality ; the in- cidents are abundant and effective."— A^e;z7 York Tribune. 52. ALINE. A Novel. By Henry Greville. 53. JOOST AVELINGH. A Dutch Story. By Maarten Maartens. "No novel superior to this has appeared in the Town and Country Library, of which it is No 53. . . . The story surprises the fiction readers of the world. . . . The story at times rises into the intense, and descends at last into the ' vale of peace. . . . The story is realistic in a very high degree, and is beautiful as a picture of Holland with its life and politics. ... To read the story is like passing throusrh all kinds of dangerous roads, with storms, precipices, and raging streams, to come out at last upon a high, central table-land where the sun shines in beauty, the air is full of charm, and the soul dwells in safety and high endeavor for evermore." — Public Opinion. 12mo, paper cover*. Price, SO cents each. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. Appletons* Town and Country Library. 64. KATY OF CATOCTIN; or, The Chain-Breakers. By George Alfred Townsend. " I think the historical value of ' Katy of Catoctin ' is great and permanent.''— The Hon. Jamks G. Blaine. " Katv is a beautiful character, and as a heroine preserves her piety, sincerity, and pure and loving nature to the end.:''— Brooklyn Eagle. " Much that passes for authentic history is not more literally true than this novel, and Is certainly not half as readable."— Jowrno^ of Commerce. 55. THROCKMORTON. By Molly Elliot Seawell. "The pint of the story is excellent— full of quick turns and surprises. . . . The way in which Judith falls in love with the hero, notwithstanding the uncanny barrier that lies between the two, and the way that barrier disintegrates and fades away, in the end, is well worked out, and in a fashion to charm all who believe that the course of true love ought, at least, to run smooth."— 7%« Commercial Advertiser. " Taken as a whole, it is an entertaining picture of Southern family life, and as such recommends itself to lovers of romance, and is an excellent addition to Apple- tons' Town and Country Library."— 2%e Springjidd Bepublicariy 66. EXPATRIATION. A Novel. By the author of " Aristocracy." " This skit on the bad manners of the titled Briton and his American imitator is animated and biting. . . . The story will have a short life and a merry one ; and it deserves commendation in so far as it preaches a sturdy Americanism and ridicules the Anglomaniac's effort to seem other than he \s,:'—Tfie New York Tribune. "' Expatriation'' ... is a bright and clever novel by an author whose former work attracted considerable attention for its biting, sometimes almost violent satire. It ia a book which somehow carries on its face testimony that convinces us that its satire Is deserved, and so it makes us blush for ourselves."— 7'Ae Chicago Times. 67. GEOFFREY HAMPSTEAD. A Novel. By Thomas S. Jartis. "There are so many vivid pictures in 'Geoffrey Harapstead' . . . that it is hard to pick out a chief one among them in the matter of narrative, emphasis, or of tragic force ; and, after all the passages of intenser character have been considered, it is still diflBcult to determine whether they are not all made secondary by the great interest of the philosophical discussions in which this strong and versatile book abounds."— The New York Sun. " ' Geoffrey Hampstead ' ... is a novel of much ingenuity and force. While it is a story of incident, it presents several keen, analytic studies of character also, and the novelist makes the incident illustrate the characters without going into long, tiresome analysis and description."— The Chicago Times. 58. DMITRI. By F. W. Bain, M. A. " The story of the impostor Dmitri, the wandering raonk who learned soldiering ttom the Cossiicks of the Dnieper, and, pretending to be the son of Ivan the Terrible, overthrew Boris and Feodor Godrimoff, and reigned for a while in their stead, is one of the most remarkable chapters in Russian history, and might well be taken as the framework of an historical novel."— 7%e Saturday Review. "■ He has g.)t a capital subject— the story of the ftxlse Czar— and he has treated it with freshness and spirit. 'Dmitri' is a decidedly promising first effort."— 7%e Athenceum. 12mo, paper cover. Price, SO cents each. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. n^HE ICE AGE IN NORTH AMERICA, and its J- Bearings upon the Antiquity of Man, By G. Frederick Wright, D. D., LL. D., F. G. S. A., Professor in Oberlin Theo- logical Seminary ; Assistant on the United States Geological Survey. With an Appendix on " The Probable Cause of Gla- ciation," by Warren Upham, F. G. S. A., Assistant on the Geological Surveys of New Hampshire, Minnesota, and the United States. With 147 Maps and Illustrations. One vol., 8vo, 640 pages. Cloth, $5.00. The writer has personally been over a large part of the field containing the won- derful array of facts of which he is now permitted to write, but he is one only of many investigators who have been busily engaged for the past fifteen years (to say nothing of what had been previously accomplished) in collecting facts concerning the Glaciai period in this country. His endeavor has been to make the present volume a fairly complete digest of all these investigations. The numerous maps accompanying the text have been compiled from the latest data. Tlie illustrations are more ample than have ever before been applied to the subject, being mosdy reproductions of photographs taken by various members of the United States Geological Survey in the course of the past ten years, many of them by the author himself. T HE GREAT ICE AGE, and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man. By James Geikie, F. R. S. E., of H. M. Geological Survey of Scotland. With Maps and Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $2.50. A systematic account of the Glacial Epoch in England and Scotland, with special references to its changes of climate. P RINCIPLES OE GEOLOGY; or. The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants, considered as illus- trative of Geology. By Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. Illustrated with Maps, Plates, and Woodcuts. Two vols., royal 8vo. Cloth, $8.00. The " Principles of Geology" may be looked upon with pride, not only as a repre- sentative of Flnglish science, but as without a rival of its kind anywhere. Growing in fullness and accuracy with the growth of experience and observation in every region of the world, the work has incorporated with itself each established discovery, and has been modified by every hypothesis of value which has been brought to bear upon, or been evolved from, the most recent body of facts. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., I, 3, & 5 Bond Street. D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 'J^HE HISTOR Y OF ANCIENT CI VI LIZA TION. J- A Hand-book based upon M. Gustave Ducoudray's " Histoire Sommaire de la Civilisation." Edited by the Rev. J. Ver- SCHOYLE, M. A. With numerous Illustrations. Large i2rao. Cloth, $1.75. "With M. Ducoudray's work as a basis, many additions having been made, derived from special writers, Mr. Verschoyle has produced an excellent work, which gives a comprehensive view of early civilization. ... As to the world of the past, the volume under notice treats of Egypt, Assyria, the Far East, of Greece and Rome in the most comprehensive manner. It is not the arts alone which are fully illustrated, but the literature, laws, manners, and customs, the beliefs of all these countries are contrasted. If the book gave alone the history of the monuments of the past it would be valuable, but it is its all-around character which renders it so useful. A great many volumes have been produced treating of a past civilization, but we have seen none which in the same space gives such varied information." — The New York Times. f^REAT LEADERS: Historic Portraits from the v>^ Great Historians. Selected, with Notes and Brief Biographical Sketches, by G. T. Ferris. With sixteen engraved Portraits. i2mo. Cloth, $1.75. The Historic Portraits of this work are eighty in number, drawn from the writings •f Plutarch, Guote, Gibbon, Curtius, Mommsen, Froude, Hume, Macaulav, Leckv, Green, Thiers, Taine, Prescott, Motley, and other historians. The sub- jects extend from Themistocles to Wellington. " Every one perusing the pages of the historians must have been impressed with the graphic and singularly penetrative character of many of the sketches of the distin- guished persons whose doings form the staple of history. These pen-portraits often stand out from the narrative with luminous and vivid effect, the writers seeming to have concentrated upon them all their powers of penetration and all their skill in graphic delineation. F'ew things in literature are marked by analysis so close, discernment so keen, or effects so brilliant and dramatic." — From the Preface. L IFE OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS, de- scribed from Ancient Monuments. By E. Guhl and W. Koner. Translated from the third German edition by F. Hueffer. With 543 Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. " The result of careful and unwearied research in every nook and cranny of ancient learning. Nowhere else can the student find so many facts in illustration of Greek and Roman methods and manners." — Dr. C. K. Adams's Manual 0/ Historical Literature. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subjea to immediate recall. 5Apr'57PW REC'D LD REC'D >-'-' ^^ 1951 MAY 9 196Q 'ySZfilj pwc vD ] n RCC D LD #lT-&4 GJL-i- FEB 1 8 1962 6 Dec'57ES re F?"C'D LD iL :ciPJULi7i984 '^ <^/, DEC 1 1557 4fc- isncvi^^'^ \m i ' ^ ^Q^^ F^Eq a iy'' 2oMay'6t^'C m 2 2 '63 '4 PM ^/fcw. ^i^^^fifr LD 21-100 (B9311sl0) )||||L ^ ^J^%aiyetsb^%{ cltiiltt Berkeley LD 2lA-40m-ll '63 (El602slO)476B . General Librarr University of California Berkeley YB 25370 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES CD0fl73S177 M136224 .D B;j THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY . »