y^^.' ./ "^*. '-^m^ . *

o V

-f^. .<t

^^. «

,-0 0°"°" 'o^

0^ T'^^^M; "bV^

^oV"

* ^^

>p'^^.

4 o ■0? %<^

MY RECOLLECTIONS

V^Jl

RECOLLECTIONS

BY

ATHERINE I^ADZIWILL

NEW YORK JAMES POTT & COMPANY

1904

i

i

r cv

v^

jj.t JiJi jiv' Ji^;^ J)»' J

JK'; j^^! J

1?. p,

/ ■ J.-

: m l.i JM^ lf-,,i ,.. I" . .!K;. 1''; l\ J .,

MY RECOLLECTIONS

BY

PRINCESS CATHERINE I^ADZIWILL

NEW YORK JAMES POTT df COMPANY

1904

(^Bi

7 ¥-

06

TO IN MEMORY OF THE THIRTEENTH.

PREFACE

THIS book has no pretensions to be any- thing else but a simple narration of things I have seen, and descriptions of people I have met. It does not aspire to be considered as a volume of memoirs destined to clear up historical points of interest. It is merely a little book of recollections which perhaps may amuse those who have lived through the same scenes, and moved in the same circles that I have done in various parts of Europe. Existence nowadays is such a rush that the events of yesterday are just as much forgotten as those of a century ago, and I dare say that very few men and women will be found who give a thought to what happened ten or twenty years ago. Everything changes so quickly that it has seemed to me it would be interesting to fix the remembrance of those last days of the century which so recently came to an end. The whole aspect of the political and social world was then so entirely different from what it has become since the commanding personality of Prince Bismarck was withdrawn from the stage

of this world's affairs.

vii

PREFACE

When I entered society, the German Empire had been scarcely three years in existence. PVance was writhing still in the convulsions of her late defeat ; Russia was slowly trying to re- cover the many advantages of which the Crimean war had deprived her. Motor-cars were unknown, electric light was still spoken of as something quite extraordinary, and the telephone was not yet one of the resources of civilisation. Manners, too, were different from those which prevail to-day. The hunt after notoriety had not transformed individuals into self-advertising per- sonages of a stamp which is only too familiar. Society was quieter, more sedate ; adventurers had still a bad time of it, and the American ele- ment had not altogether invaded us. Whilst I was writing this book, I often asked myself whether it was possible that I had lived in times so entirely different from the present.

It is because society has altered that this book

may amuse some people and bore others. The

only merit I will claim for it is, that it is a

true account of events of which I am cognisant.

Personal feeling has played such an important

part ahke in the German and Russian Courts

that it is only by knowing people that one can

understand political incidents. I have tried to

make the book just in its appreciation of indi-

viii

PREFACE

viduals, and if I have wounded any suscepti- bilities such has been far from my intention. I have met with many kindnesses in the world, and after all I have not found it such a bad one; perhaps because I have never asked much from it, having tried to practise the maxim of Beaumarchais, that it is better to laugh than to cry. I have come across bad people, of course, but I have also met characters such as those of the late Emperor and Empress Frederick, who alone would convince the greatest of misanthropes to acknowledge the more lofty claims of humanity. My book, I hope, will be accepted by its readers for what I have meant it to be — a tribute of gratitude to some people and of kind feehngs to others. More than that it does not profess to be.

CATHERINE RADZIWILL.

London, August 17th, 1904.

IX

I

i CONTENTS.

j - CHAPTER I.

PAGE

My Birth and Ancestry— The Family Curse — The Golden- Bearded Hetman — My Family Home— My Father and his First Wife — Korsoun — My Father's Brothers — A Dangerous Mission — Emperor Nicholas I. — A Family Ghost Story— The Empress Eugenie — The New Emperor — 'The Burial Ground of the Czars '—My Father's Noble Character 1-91

CHAPTER n.

My Aunts— Madame Lacroix' Deception — Her Salon— The Biblio- phile Jacob— M. de St. Araand — Madame de Balzac — The True Story of the Balzacs -What is Happiness ? — The Hotel Balzac — L'Abbe Constant— The Commune — * Madame ' and ' Citoyenne ' 22-38

CHAPTER HI.

My Mother's Family — The PaschkofFs Reminiscence of the Polish Mutiny — Attempt on the Czar's Life — Character of Alexander H. The Beautiful Princess Dagmar — Franco-Prussian War — The Surrender of Sedan — In Paris after the Commune — I am Engaged to be Married — My Presentation at Court — My Wedding 39-60

CHAPTER IV.

Berlin After the War — Emperor or King? — The Old Radziwill Palace — Family Parties — The Emperor William's First Love — I meet Von Moltke — My First State Dinner — Am Presented to the Empress — The Prince and Princess Charles — The Red Prince — A Court in Mourning — ' Un Cadeau de la Reine ' — Entertainments at Court — The Beautiful Duchess of Man- chester— I dine with the Emperor 61-87

CONTENTS. CHAPTER V,

PAGB

The Real Emperor William I. — His Tact and Unselfishness as a

Man — His Rapacity as a Sovereign — Relations with Bismarck 'j

— The Crown Prince Frederick contrasted with his Father — I

His Pride in the Empire — His Scruples — His Sympathy with me in my first great Sorrow ...... 88-105 ,

CHAPTER VI.

Prince Bismarck and the Kulturkampf — ' Politique en jupons ' — The Chancellor under-estimates the Folly of his Opponents — The Radziwill Palace as the Centre of Catholic Intrigue — Archbishop Ledochowski's Imprisonment — The Catholic Leaders, Mallinkrodt and Windthorst — Bismarck's Attitude towards the Crown Prince — and towards the Emperor — The Character of Princess Bismarck — Count Herbert — How the Iron Chancellor won his Way 106-133

CHAPTER VII.

The Princess Victoria's Influence on Berlin Society — Lord Ampthill — The other Ambassadors — The Princess of Wales — A Story of the Russian Empress's Visit to England — Court Entertain- ments— Outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War — SkobelefF and Osraan Pasha — An Incident of the Shipka Pass — The Treaty of San Stefano 124-140

CHAPTER VIII.

A Double Royal Wedding — ^Prince Bismarck does not Dance — Hodel's Attempt on the Emperor William's Life — Nobiling's Crime— Days of Suspense—The Regency — Assembhng of the Berlin Congress — Lord Beaconsfield — Other Figures at the Con- gress— The Congress itself a Farce 141-154

CHAPTER IX.

The King's Recovery— Marriage of Prince Henry of the Netherlands —The Difficult Position of the Regent— Emperor William's Return to Berlin— Enthusiasm at the Opera— The Crown Prince and Anti-Sociahst Legislation — Herr Bebel-— Death of the Princess Alice and of Prince Waldemar— The White Lady— The Emperor's Golden Wedding 155-166

CONTENTS. CHAPTER X.

PAGE

The Growing Unpopularity of the Czar— His Treatment of the Empress — A Reign of Terror in St. Petersburg— Death of the Empress — T'he Emperor Marries the Princess Dolgorouki — Assassination of Alexander H. — The Scene at the Death-bed — Alexander HI.— Count Ignatiev — I go to Constantinople . 167-180

CHAPTER XL

Stay at Consttintinople— Different Sights — Life on the Bosphorus — Lord and Lady DufFerin^The Corps Diplomatique — Osman and Mukhtar Pachas — Departure for Russia . . . 181-189

CHAPTER XIL

My First Winter at St. Petersburg — The Emperor Alexander HL and the Empress — Russian Society at the beginning of their Reign — General Ignatiev and his Struggle with General Tcherewine — The Zemski Sobor — Fall of Ignatiev — General SkobelefF and his Speeches — His Death in Moscow . 190-214

CHAPTER XIII.

The Death of Madame de Balzac — Return to Berlin — Silver Wedding of the Crown Prince and Princess — Prince William of Prussia — The Coronation of the Emperor Alexander III. 215-236

CHAPTER XIV.

A Few more Words about Moscow — The Beginning of the Bulgarian Trouble — Prince Bismarck and the Expulsion of Russian Subjects from Germany — Another Winter in Berlin — The Position of Prince William— Relations with his Father — The Marriage of the Grand Duke of Hesse — I receive a Message from Queen Victoria — Countess Schleinitz — A Summer in Dieppe — Death of Lord Ampthill — The Alexander Dumas — Death of Mme. Lacroix 23T-254

CHAPTER XV.

Brussels and Madame de ViUeneuve — We spend a Part of the Winter in St. Petersburg— Death of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia and of Field-Marshal von Manteuffel — The Appointment of his Successor — Various Intrigues— Death of Prince Orloff, Russian Ambassador in Berlin— The Celebration of Prince Bismarck's Seventieth Birthday 255-265

CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVI.

PAGE

Appointment of Count Schouwaloff as Russian Arabanssador in Berlin— Our Dinner in his Honour— Its Consequeii ices — The Marriage of M. Bernard von Bulow, the present ; German Chancellor — The Epidemic of Measles — I nearly Die faVrom them — My Husband's Serious Illness— Last Interview with the Crown Prince — We are ordered to Egypt for my H usband's Health— Our Winter there— First Rumours about the ; Crown Prince's Dangerous State of Health . . . . \ . 266-281

)

CHAPTER XVII. <^

We return to Russia— The Emperor William's Death — Theri^ Begin- ning and End of a Reign — My Father's Death — We setVAi''^ in St. Petersburg — The First Days of the Empress Frederick's Widowhood — St. Petersburg Society under Alexander III. — Bismarck's Fall — A Season in London — The Duke of York's Wedding 282-293

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Winter of 1893-1894— Beginning of the Illness of Alexander III. — Our Journey to Italy- — An Audience of Pope Leo XIII. — Cardinal Ledochowski — Another Summer in England — Death of Alexander III 294-306

CHAPTER XIX.

The Emperor's Funeral — I see the Empress Frederick in BerHn — Her Appreciation of Events in Russia, and her Opinion of its future Empress's Character^Nicholas II. 's Marriage — Impres- sion produced in St. Petersburg by his Consort — Address of the Zemstwo of Twer — Death of General Tcherewine . 307-316

CHAPTER XX.

Another Coronation — The Consolidation of the French Alliance — Nicholas II. 's Journey to Paris — Prince Bismarck's Death — I spend a Winter on the Riviei-a — My Last Interview with the Empress Frederick— The Beginning of the End . 317-328

CHAPTER XXI.

Cecil Rhodes — An Appreciation — Cecil Rhodes' Character— A Man of Moods— His Colossal Ambition — His Satellites — Personal Relations — His Last Hours — His Inner Thoughts— His Conduct

during the War 329-346

xiv

MY RECOLLECTIONS

CHAPTER I.

My Birth and Ancestry — The Family Curse — The Golden- bearded Hetman — My Family Home — My Father ami his First Wife — Korsoun — My Father'' s Brothers — A Dan- gerous Mission — Emperor Nicholas I. — A Family Ghost Story — The Empress Eugenie — The New Emperor — ^The Burial-grou/nd of the Czars'' — My Father'' s Nolle Character.

I WAS born on the 30th of March, 1858, in St. Petersburg. My father. Count Adam Rzewuski, belonged to one of the oldest, and most illustrious families of Poland. One of his aunts had been the wife of King Stanislas Leszczinski (not Leczinski, as the French generally speU it), the father of the consort of Louis XV. His great- grandfather is remembered to this day as one of the heroes of Polish History; he was among the few nobles whom Catherine II. of Russia com- plimented by having them seized one night and carried off to Siberia, so thoroughly did she fear their opposition to her favourite. King Stanislas Poniatowski. One of my ancestors had besieged the Kremlin at Moscow, and taken it by storm at the time of the false Demetrius, during the reign of King Sigismund Augustus. Another had died from wounds received at the famous siege i Vienna by Kara Mustapha. He was a personal friend of King John Sobieski, and he left behind

MY RECOLLECTIONS

him the memory of a great name and an un- blemished reputation. We came of a strong, clever, brave race, famous for personal courage and re- markable intelligence; indeed there is a proverb which says 'the wit of a Rzewuski,' just as one speaks in France of 'I'esprit des Mortemart,' but we were never a lucky or a happy race. The shadow of a curse lay upon us — a curse which like the secret of the Strathmores has been transmitted from father to son, and darkened the lives of all those who bore our name. Tradition says that in bygone days a Rzewuski walled up his mother alive in one of the towers of their old castle, and that she cursed all their descendants, and pro- phesied for them ill luck in all they would attempt to do, and either a violent or a sudden death. The prediction has been strangely fulfilled, for scarcely a member of my family has died in his or her bed, and certainly misfortune has dogged their footsteps. Gifted with singular personal beauty, with the rarest qualities of heart and mind, they have never kno^vn what happiness was, and led, most of them, mise- rable lives. One of my aunts was a friend of the ill-fated Queen Marie Antoinette, and like her, perished on the scaffold. People say that as she was about to be seized by the executioner, she turned round, and facing the angiy crowd for the last time, shouted out in a loud voice, 'Vive la Reine ! '

Her daughter, rescued later on by my grand- father, married her cousin, Wenceslas Rzewuski, who also met with a strange fate. He was one

2

A FAMILY ROMANCE

of the leaders of the great Polish mutiny of the year 1830, and disappeared mysteriously during the battle of Daszow. A legend says he made his escape to the East, and lived there for many years in the mountains of Libanus. He had been before that a great traveller in Syria and an admirer of Lady Hester Stanhope, and among his family papers my father had curious letters from her addressed to the golden-bearded Hetman, as he is called to this day in Little Russia, where minstrels still wander, singing ballads about him and his exploits. His sword was picked up on the battlefield by a Russian officer, who was killed himself at the siege of Sevastopol, and when dying gave it to my father, who always looked upon it as one of his most precious possessions. It bears the following inscription in Polish : ' Sewerin Rzewuski, second Hetman of the Republic, son of Wenceslas Rzewuski, great Hetman of the Re- public, grandson of Stanislas Rzewuski, great Het- man of the Republic, gives this sword to his son and comrade Wenceslas Sewerin, for the defence of faith and liberty.' What became of the owner of the weapon no one knows, and he rests in his unconsecrated grave, far away from all his kindred, from all those he loved and who loved him.

He left three sons: the youngest entered the Russian service and was killed in the Caucasus. The eldest, Stanislas, was at one time a candidate for the throne of Belgium, and died from a fall from his horse. The only one who survived sold the old family castle to Prince Sanguszko in the hope,

3

MY RECOLLECTIONS

he said, of doing away with the curse, and it is still one of the show places of Poland. The bones of our murdered ancestress were, it seems, found by him, during some reparations done to the walls, but how far this is true I know not. My father was always very touchy on the point, and never liked to hear it mentioned in his presence. He had quarrelled with his cousin in consequence of this sale, the latter having refused to dispose of the property to one of his own family in spite of their having repeatedly made him offers to buy it, and though they made it up at last, yet relations be- tween them were never very cordial. I don't remem- ber having seen my uncle, though I have a very faint remembrance of his mother, my aunt Rosahe, the daughter of Marie Antoinette's friend. She died in 1865, and I was taken to see her a year before that at Warsaw, where she lived, and where she occupied a position almost regal in its importance. She was a tall, thin old woman, with piercing eyes, and a wig which deeply impressed my childish imagination. She had been a great friend of my mother's, in spite of the disparity in their ages, and I found among the latter's papers a great number of letters from her which told me a good deal about our family history. She had an immense reputation for cleverness, and was perhaps more feared than liked. Her only daughter, Calixte, married the Duke of Sermoneta, and was the mother of the present holder of the title, the hus- band of the once lovely Miss Wilbraham. She died young, regretted by all who knew her, leaving

4

A GRAND SEIGNEUR

behind her the sweet remembrance of one of those beings almost too perfect for this* world. Her son has inherited a great deal of her personal charm and good looks, and he is undoubtedly one of the few very clever men Italy can boast of at the present time.

The Duchess of Sermoneta and her brother were the last representatives of the elder branch of our house. It is now extinct, and my father with his sisters were the only survivors of all that generation. He was himself the second son of the last ambassador the Polish Republic sent to London and to Copenhagen, where his portrait may be seen in the public picture gallery. My gi*andfather must have been a remarkably hand- some man; his face and figure appear singularly expressive as they detach themselves from the canvas. The eyes have a dreamy expression, and the smile a mixture of mockery and mourn- fulness, which makes it strangely attractive. It is the image of a grand Seigneur of the olden times, and the haughtiness one sees behind the grace of the attitude, makes one realise and under- stand the character of a man who, if we are to believe the reputation he left behind him, was always faithful to the motto of his race, ' Offend not, and do not forgive offences.'

Our family has always played a great part in politics ; since the fifteenth century my ancestors' names figure in all the important events and crises which finally led to the partition of Poland. As unfortunately was but too often the case in that country, they were often divided amongst them-

6

MY RECOLLECTIONS

selves, and one brother was fighting on one side whilst the other gave his adherence to the opposite party^ My great-uncle, the grandfather of the Duchess of Sermoneta, was one of the nobles who signed the famous confederation of Targowice, which practi- cally gave up the country to the Russians. He was naturally hated by his countrymen, but subsequent events have proved that he was right, and had his advice been followed the Republic might have preserved a good many of its liberties, and acquired a strength it sadly needed. But as is usually the case with the wise he was not listened to, and ta this day his political role is not understood by many people. His brother, who in opposition ta him was one of the members of the Confederation of Bar, married an heiress, the daughter of Prince Michael Radziwill, and of the last descendant of the famous Prince Jeremiah Wiszniowiecki. She brought into our family the old fortress which had been stormed at such sacrifice of human life by the bloody Prince. It stands to this day almost in the same condition as it did at the time of the great Cossack rebellion, which he crushed so ruthlessly, only the drawbridges have been replaced by per- manent ones, and the ditches are planted with flowers and shrubs. But there is still standing- an old pavilion which was used as a gunpowder magazine ; under the long old house exist under- ground passages leading to the open plain, and in the park may be seen a brick column erected on the spot where Prince Jeremiah caused three hundred Cos- sacks to be put to the stake in one day. The place

6

MY FATHER

reeks with blood, and everywhere may be seen the traces of the terrible struggle which so very nearly saw the end of the Polish Republic. It has got the traditional ghost or ghosts, and under the vault of the church all my ancestors sleep their last slum- ber. There rests my father, with his brothers and parents ; there lie all those who have given or added something towards the reputation of our race. We are all devoted to this home of ours ; we all remem- ber the days when as children we used to run in those old rooms, and look curiously upon the old pictures of the men and women whose example we were told to follow.

My father was an exceedingly proud man — one who loved to look back upon the heroic deeds of those whose blood ran in his veins. He also was un homme d' autrefois^ with a certain amount of prejudice, but gifted with unusual courage, and perfectly fearless as regards the opinions of the world. He was born at the very beginning of last century, on Christmas Eve, 1801. Brought up first at the Jesuit College of Lemberg, then at the Military Academy at Vienna, he entered quite young the Austrian military service, which, how- ever, he very soon left, and in 1821 was admitted as officer in a Russian cavalry regiment. His father died in 1825, and in virtue of an arrange- ment with his elder brother, who did not care to take upon himself the burden of heavily encum- bered family estates, he came into possession of the old home of his race. He fought brilliantly in the Turkish campaign of 1828, was wounded, and

7

MY RECOLLECTIONS

upon his return married a lady twenty-two years older than himself, who held an immense position at the Russian Court, and, if we are to believe the letters of Princess Lieven, was at one time the flame of the Emperor Alexander I., Madame Gerebtsoff, born Princess Lapoukhyn, the sister of that Prince Lapoukhyn, who was the husband of the beautiful Madame d'Alopeus, of the ' Recit d'une Soeur ' fame. Madame Gerebtsoff was gifted with unusual loveliness, to which her portraits which I have seen abundantly testify. She was also a most clever woman, who through her tact suc- ceeded in neither making herself nor her husband ridiculous, which would have been easy con- sidering the disparity in their ages. My father certainly owed to her the brilliant career he made, and he used always to say that she was the woman he had loved the most in his life. They had one daughter, who died young, but with her first husband Madame Gerebtsoff had had a girl one year older than my father, who, at the time of her mother's marriage, was herself the wife of Count (afterwards Prince) OrlofF, the famous favourite of the Emperor Nicholas I., and one of the signatories of the Paris Treaty, whose son was afterwards for so many years Ambassador to the third Republic. I remember old Princess OrlofF when I was a little girl. She had settled permanently at Florence, and there she died in 1876 or 1877. She was a formidable old lady, very clever, and who could be amiable when she liked. Her relations with my father remained always cordial, though stiff.,

8 \

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD

He had behaved with extreme delicacy in money matters after his wife's death, and both Princess Orloff and her husband showed themselves grate- ful, but my father, strange to say for a man of his character, stood always a little in awe of his step- daughter, and, as far as I can remember, never felt quite at his ease in her presence ; she was the only person who could cow him, and I have never been able to make out whether it was em- barrassment or the memory of his dead wife which used to influence his behaviour towards the Prin- cess. The old Prince I never saw — he died when I was quite a baby ; but I can conjure to my mind ■one of Madame GerebtsofTs sisters. Countess KoutaissofF, and can just remember having been taken to Korsoun, the country seat of the Lapoukhyns, and having been petted by a very old lady, who I was told was the mother of Alexandrine de La Ferronays. The circumstance which impressed her on my childish mind, was that in order to be shown to her I had been kept out of bed until eleven o'clock at night, which was the only time she appeared, having the strange habit of sleeping the whole day, and only getting up when everybody else was thinking of doing the reverse. She and her husband used to Uve in almost kingly state on their magnificent estate — one of the show places of Southern Russia. It has now passed into the possession of a nephew of the old Prince, who has been allowed to resuscitate the title, but the brilliant days of Korsoun are no more, and pro- bably will never be revived

9

MY RECOLLECTIONS

It is when I think of all these links with a past which has already become a part of history that I realise how old I am, and how very Uttle I have got to do with the present generation. All these people whose doings and sayings formed part of my childish days, are forgotten even by their own descendants, and in telling their story it is hard for me to believe I am also relating my own.

My father had two brothers. The elder. Count Henry Rzewuski, has made for himself a name as one of the most famous authors of fiction of his time in Poland. His novels, historical ones, in the style of Sir Walter Scott's, are to the present day almost as popular as Scott's ; he also wrote a few French books, but these were not of the fii'st rank,, and are now forgotten. One of them was the story of our family curse, and I remember once a discus- sion my father had with his brother on the subject, when I heard for the first time the words which since that day have been so often repeated in my presence whenever a new misfortune happened to one of our family, * We owe this again to the " Kunicka," ' this being the maiden name of our dreaded ancestress.

My uncle Henry was one of the wittiest men in his country; there are innumerable sayings of his which have become public property, and which are quoted whenever the occasion arises. He died at a very advanced age in 1867; he was about fifteen or twenty years older than my father, and, consequently, all my remembrances;

10

LINKS WITH THE PAST

of him are those of a very old man, walking- with great difficulty. He had an immense head, piercing eyes, with bushy eyebrows, and a gene- rally unkempt appearance. Between him and my father there existed a great affection, although they were always quarrelUng upon one subject or another. My uncle was the only ugly member of a singularly handsome family ; my father, on the contrary, was one of the best-looking men of his time, and when the two brothers found nothing else to nag about, they used to start a discussion about the influence beauty has or has not on the lives of men. As they were both most brilliant talkers, it was intensely amusing to Hsten to their conversations, which I only regret I was too young- to appreciate as they ought to have been.

My uncle died from heart disease quite sud- denly, at the last, though he had been ill for a long time. He left no son, only two daughters, one of whom became the mother of that lovely Madame de Kolemine, whose marriage with the Grand Duke of Hesse, followed as it was the next day by a divorce, made such a stir at the time it happened. I shall have a good deal to say about it later on.

My father's younger brother, who, if not quite so briUiant as the other members of the family, was nevertheless a very clever man, died in the early sixties. I don't remember having seen much of him ; but his son, who perished during the Turkish campaign of 1877-78, was a frequent visitor at our house. He left no male pos-

11

MY RECOLLECTIONS

terity, so I will have nothing further to say about him, except that he had the reputation of being one of the handsomest men, as well as one of the bravest officers, in the Czar's service.

To come back to my father, I will say that after his marriage with Madame Gerebtsoff he settled in St. Petersburg, and in a very short time became not only a general favourite in society, but also of the Emperor Nicholas I., who, up to his death, reposed in him the greatest con- fidence, and several times entrusted him with missions of importance abroad.

During the Pohsh mutiny of 1830 my father was aide-de-camp to Field -Marshal Diebitch, in command of the Russian army. At one time the position of the Russian troops was most critical. The Army Corps commanded by General Rudiger was completely cut off from its communication with headquarters, and the insurgents commanded by General Dwernicki caught every one of the officers sent by the Field-Marshal with orders to Oeneral Rudiger. The situation was becoming very serious, when Count Diebitch sent for my father, and, after warning him that were he to be taken prisoner, it would not mean for him capti- vity but death, on account of his Polish nationality, he asked him whether he would undertake to cross the hnes of the insurgents, and transmit verbal orders to the invested General. My father at once accepted the mission, and, disguising himself as a pedlar, succeeded after three weeks, in making his way through the whole of the Polish army without

12

POLAND IN 1830

being recognised, and, reaching General Rudiger, gave him the information which allowed the latter to take once more the offensive, and to join the headquarters, with the result that Dwernicki, to- gether with Ramorino, another leader of the mutineers, was compelled to seek refuge across the Austrian frontier, and to lay down their arms there. I have often heard my father relate the details of this adventurous journey, during which he risked his life the whole time ; for there is little doubt he would have met with no mercy at the hands of the Poles. His name would have singled him out for a swift retribution. This daring deed had, I believe, much to do with the ultimate success of his career, though he would never himself own it was the case, and it had a sequel, which I must relate, as it honours my father just as much as it does that much-caluminated sovereign, the Emperor Nicholas I.

It is not generally known that he was pas- sionately attached to his Polish army, and not only did he keenly feel the treason with which his good intentions were repaid, but he was particularly incensed at the fact of his former troops having sought refuge in Austria, instead of trusting to his own generosity. When the mutiny was at last sup- pressed he had the colours of the few regiments who had not been able to cross the frontier put up in the Kremlin at Moscow, with an inscription saying that these were the flags of the traitorous Polish army, who had broken all its oaths to its sovereign. My father happened to hear of this

13

MY RECOLLECTIONS

intention of the Emperor's a few days before it was actually executed, and he wrote to him a letter begging him to reconsider his decision, and not to give way to his resentment in a manner which would harm him before history and pos- terity. It was a beautiful letter, full of feeling and respect for his sovereign, but at the same time one of the most daring epistles that has ever been addressed by a subject to a monarch. After making an allusion to his own fidelity to his oath, he ended with the words, ' I beg your Majesty not to sully his glory by an act of mean revenge, and to remember that it is preferable for a sovereign to have on his brow a stain of blood than one of mud.' I will repeat the words in French, as they are more expressive, and convey their meaning better than in an English translation : ' Je sup- plie Votre Majeste de se souvenir qu'il est parfois preferable pour un Souverain d'avoir sur son front une tache de sang qu'une tache de boue.' If one remembers what kind of monarch was Nicholas, and at what time that letter was written, one can only marvel at the courage of a young man in thus addressing him ; but the Emperor was one of these generous souls who understand nobility and generosity in others. He rose to the occasion, and sent the letter to my father's wife, with the remark, ' Je vous renvoie la lettre de votre mari, Madame ; comme Souverain je devrais punir, comme ami, je veux oublier.'

Few historical personages have been more maligned than the Emperor Nicholas, and to me,

14

THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS

Vfho have had the opportunity to hear the truth, it is often a wonder to read and listen to all the lies that are told about him. In reality the Emperor was one of the most generous of men, and he was simply worshipped by all those who had ever had anything to do with him. I will describe in another book life at the court of that northern potentate, and how different it was from what is com- monly known about it. The anecdote I have just related will perhaps change some people's minds about the great-grandfather of my present sovereign.

During this same Polish campaign a curious adventure befell my father, which perhaps will in- terest all lovers of the supernatural. In order to make people understand it, I must say that one of my ancestors, the same one who was seized and thrown into captivity by the great Catherine, had died and been buried in a little town in the kingdom of Poland called Chelm. The condition of the country was so troubled at the time that it was not possible to convey the body to the family burial- ground. Now, on the eve of the battle of Grochow, one of the important engagements of the war, my father, who in the meanwhile had been promoted to the command of the Cuirassier Regiment of Prince Albert of Prussia, was asleep in his tent and dreamed that he saw an old man, whom he recog- nised from the pictures he had seen to be his great- grandfather, enter his tent. He noticed that he wore the old Pohsh dress, with yellow boots worn out at the toes. The ghost, if one may call it by

15

MY RECOLLECTIONS

that name, sat down beside his bed, and told him he was his ancestor, and that the vault in which he was buried had that very night been broken open by the mutineers, and his body taken out of its coffin and put against the wall. He added that my father was to go to Chelm and to bring it to the family grave to be reburied there, and also to erect two crosses in memory of the event, one in the park, and another in a spot which he carefully in- dicated at the turning of the high road leading to the house on the family property. He added that my father would be wounded the next day. Well, that next day the battle took place, and my father was shot in the leg. He was ill for a long time, and, it must be owned, forgot all about his dream. More than ten years later he happened to be at Chelm with the Emperor for some manoeuvres, and curiosity led him to the church. It had been closed ever since the mutiny, but my father insisted upon the vault being opened for him, and when he entered it he saw his grandfather's body standing erect against the wall, in the very dress and the same worn-out boots he had seen him in, on the night of his dream. He had the body removed and buried it on his estate, and the two crosses stand to this day as a commemoration of an event which, to say the very least, must be called singular.

After the mutiny my father hardly ever left the Emperor. He was appointed to be in special at- tendance upon him, and this distinction, which was. quite apart from that of General Adjutant, which he

16

THE EMPRESS EUGENIE

got later on, has been shared with very few people in Russia. When the Sultan Abdul Medjid ascended the throne, my father was sent as a special ambas- sador to congratulate him on his accession, and at the same time was entrusted with the mission of going on to Egypt and stopping with a threat of Russian intervention Mehemet Ali from continuing his march on Constantinople. Later on he took part in the Hungarian campaign, and was selected to convey to the town of Moscow the news of the final victory of the Russian troops. In 1851 he went to Spain on a diplomatic mission with a view of re-establishing relations between the Russian Government and that of Queen Isabella. In the correspondence of Count Raczynski, then Prussian Minister at the Court of Madrid, with Donoso Cortes, which was published a few years ago, curious details are given about my father's arrival and stay in the Spanish capital. He remained there rather longer than he intended at fii*st, and among the souvenirs he carried away from this journey were a Madonna by Murillo, which was given to him by the Queen, and — dearer still — the remem- brance of a most lovely girl to whom he entirely lost his heart, and who, a few years later, occupied the attention of the world when she married the Emperor of the French.

I have often heard my father speak of the Empress Eugenie, and the extraordinary impression her supreme loveliness produced on all those who saw her. He had been very much struck with her cleverness as weU as with the brilliancy of her

17 c

MY RECOLLECTIONS

conversation, and used always to maintain that her inteUigence equalled, if not surpassed, her beauty. When the disaster of Sedan put an end to the worldly career of the Countess de Teba, and when later on the Prince Imperial fell in Zululand, my father was strangely moved, and for some time could neither speak nor think of anjrthing else. * Poor Empress ! poor Empress ! ' he used to say, *how will she bear it?'

Madame Gerebtsoff died about that time, a few months, I think, before my father's mission to Madrid, though I am not quite sure about the date. She was ill for long weeks, and I have often heard my grandmother speak of the devotion with which her husband nursed her, adding that it had encou- raged her to allow my mother to marry him, in spite of the disparity in their ages and the dif- ference in their religions.

I shall speak later on of my mother, and her family. My father married her in 1853 ; she was one of the loveliest women at the Russian Court, and at the Coronation of the Emperor Alexander II. was considered the most beautiful one among all those who attended it. During her short married life the Crimean war took place, and in its early stages my father was in command of a division at Eupatoria. He was, however, soon recalled and appointed Military Governor of St. Petersburg. It was whilst he was occupying this position that the Emperor Nicholas died ; and with his disaj}- pearance my father's career came virtually to an end. He was never liked by Alexander II., and did ntot

18

ALEXANDER II.

escape the fate which overtakes all the favourites of a reign when it passes away. He was given one more command during the second Polish mutiny of 1863, but very soon after that he retired from active service and settled on his estates in the south of Russia, where he died on Palm Sunday, the 17th of April, 1888. The Emperor Alexander II. had never liked him, and never forgiven his independence of speech nor a certain reply he had made to him on a memorable occasion. It was after the last Polish rebellion. Harsh measures were adopted by the Government against the landowners of the South Provinces who had either taken part in, or sympa- thised with the insurrection. A deputation went to St. Petersburg to present an address to the sovereign, begging for clemency. My father was asked to head it, to which he consented. Some mischievous person, with the intention of harming him, told the Emperor he meant to make a speech. At the same time he was himself warned that the sovereign did not wish him to do so. The depu- tation was introduced into the Imperial presence ; my father read the address, after which ensued a painful silence, each party waiting for the other to speak. At last Alexander II., growing impatient, seized my father by the arm, and leading him to the window, whence could be seen the golden spires of the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, where at that time political prisoners were confined, he exclaimed in a threatening tone, *Rzewuski, do you see V ' Yes, your JNIajesty,' was my father's cool reply, * the burial-ground of the Czars.' The

19

MY RECOLLECTIONS

Emperor dropped his arm, but it was a long time before he would speak to him again.

I have perhaps Ungered too long over all these anecdotes concerning my father, but I would have liked to be able to give to my readers a just idea of the qualities which made of him such a remarkable personality. Very few people are now alive who remember him, and I think it a great pity that before his death he destroyed the very curious memoirs he had written, which certainly would have thrown a new light on the reign of the Emperor Nicholas. My father was not only clever, he was also a chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, incapable of a mean act, always brave, always ready to defend the weak, to help the distressed. His kindness surpassed anything I have ever seen ; he was never weary of helping others, and used his great position for the good of many who afterwards repaid him with the vilest ingratitude. And yet he was disliked by many people. His independence, the fearlessness with which he used to express his opinions, made him dreaded by high and low. He did not spare on his side those whom he disliked, and the sharpness of his tongue often wounded when it was not necessary. He had a marvellous self-control and a ready wit, that always took his opponents unawares. This, combined with a cer- tain haughtiness, which in spite of the extreme courtesy that was one of his characteristics, he could not quite subdue, helped to make him un- popular with a certain class of people. As some one once remarked, ' Rzewuski will always shake

20

COUNT RZEWUSKI

hands with you, but then he has got such a d d

way of making you feel that he is going to wash them afterwards.' The words were true, and they explain certain animosities which pursued my father during his whole life, and even after his death. But friends or foes, all those who ever met him recognised his immense intelligence, and the extraordinary insight he had into politics, as well as the great learning which made him one of the most remarkable personages of his time. It would be hard to meet a man whose conversation was brighter or more instructive, whose knowledge was more uni- versal, or whose powers of assimilation were greater. Everything interested him ; with every person he came into contact, no matter how dull he or she might be, he found a subject of conversation. He was an attractive man, a clever man ; and he was also something better than either, he was a good man.

21

CHAPTER II.

My Aunts — Madavie LacroiaP Deception — Her Salon — The Bibliophile Jacob — M. de St. Amaiul — Madame de Balzac

— The True Story of the Balzacs — What is Happiness ?

— The Hotel Balzac — VAbbe Constant — The Commune — ' Madame ' and ' Citoyenne.''

I HAD four aunts, all of them beautiful, all of them clever — one extraordinarily so, and all of them women who made their mark in the world. One of them was a favourite of the celebrated Madame de Krudener, and made society ring with the fame of her loveliness at the beginning of last century. She was the eldest of her whole family, and treated my father as if he were still a little boy. She had married three times, buried one husband, divorced the second, and led the life of the grandes dames of the eighteenth century who loved so well and so often. After the Revolution of 1848 she settled permanently in Paris, and married a French author, M. Jules Lacroix, the brother of the famous Bibliophile Jacob. There is an amusing anecdote connected with that marriage. At the time it took place my aunt was far advanced in the sixties, but she had kept her good looks in such an extra- ordinary way that one could easily have taken her for a woman of forty. At the time she was born, registers were kept very slackly in Poland, and most of them were destroyed during the civil wars,

22

A FRENCH SALON

My aunt could not produce her birth certificate when she was married to M. Lacroix, and had to replace it by a declaration as to her age and parentage. A few months after her marriage she became seriously ill, and her hfe was despaired of. They sent for a clergyman, who was going to administer the last rites of the Church to her, when she called her husband to her bedside, ex- claiming, 'Jules, Jules, I cannot die in peace; I have deceived you!' My uncle, who it must be said, was as much in love with his wife as if she had been a girl of eighteen, was horrified, but nevertheless entreated her to be calm. But nothing would pacify her. ' Jules, Jules,' she went on, ' I have deceived you : I am ten years older than I told you ! ' One of my cousins, who was present at the scene, was wicked enough to burst out laughing in spite of the tragical circumstances.

Madame Caroline Lacroix was one of the nota- bilities of Paris ; she had a salon which was as celebrated in its way as those of Madame Re- camier or Madame Swetchine, and one was sure to meet at her house all the remarkable men and all the beautiful women, not only of France but of Europe. She was a brilliant conversationahst, was quite as attractive in the last years of her life as during her younger days, and people were as eager to hear her talk as they had formerly been anxious to feast their eyes upon her beauty. She was pas- sionately fond of society, was never happy unless she had seen about twenty persons during the day, gave dinners which were as admirable from a culi-

23

MY RECOLLECTIONS

nary point of view, as they were pleasant on account of the society one met at them. Her apartments, No. 22 Rue d'Anjou St. Honore, were the rendezvous of hterary people as well as of political personages, of journaUsts, and of finan- ciers. She was always eager for new acquaintances, always desirous of adding to the number of her friends. For thirty years she held a most despotic sway on a certain circle of Paris society, and when she died it was quite an event among those who for years had come to her house for news, when for nothing else.

She retained her good looks, as well as all the freshness of her mind, until the last. She was the type of a grande dame of the eighteenth century, always beautifully dressed, with long flowing gowns of velvet or satin, wrapped up in old and priceless laces, sitting up erect in her chair with a figure which might have put to shame many a young girl. She had remained in Paris during the whole of the siege, and my father once got a letter from her which had been sent by a carrier pigeon, in which she said that the only thing she found hard was to be obliged to eat what she characterised as ' horrible things ' {des horreurs). She died on the 15th of July, 1885, after an illness of three months, during which she struggled with death with all the energy of a much younger per- son. She had broken her right arm about a year before, and in spite of the doctors' predictions that she would not be able to use it any more, she made a wonderful recovery and could write letters

24

MADAME LACROIX

six weeks after the accident. In one word she was an extraordinary old lady, marvellous not only by her intelligence, but also by the interest she kept to the very last in all the gaieties as well as in all the important events of the world. She had also a wonderful memory, and used to relate anecdotes and describe people who long before had either entered into the domain of history, or else been forgotten by the world in which they had played a prominent part. My aunt had met Alexander I^ of Russia, had conversed with the great Napoleon, could remember the marriage of Marie Louise and the birth of the King of Rome, had been present at the Opera the night that the Duke of Berri was assassinated, later on had watched Louis Philippe escape from the Tuileries, and had witnessed the entry of the Empress Eugenie at Notre Dame, on the day which saw the Imperial Crown of France put on her head. She had been in correspondence with Mazzini, had entertained Madame de Castiglione, and reckoned among her friends the Princess Lieven as well as the Duke of Morny. I don't think there was one person in Europe worth knowing that she did not know, one celebrity that had not sat at her hospitable board* When she died she was far advanced in the nine- ties, and she was a living encyclopaedia of all the famous or clever men and women of her century.

Among the people whom one used to meet constantly at her house was her brother-in-law, the bibliophile Jacob, that amiable old man who was such a well-known member of Paris society*

25

MY RECOLLECTIONS

He was the librarian at the Arsenal, and used to live in the old house of Sully, buried among his books, and always ready to show them to the curious visitor. One of the most brilliant talkers of his time, it was a delight to listen to him, and to hear him discuss one thing or another. After the war, however, he retired from society. He was an ardent Bonapartist, and at a time when every one was more or less turning their backs upon the unfortunate Emperor and his family, he re- mained true to them, and never left off proclaiming his allegiance to their cause. Personally, I am indebted to the bibliophile for the first encourage- ment I ever got to try my hand at literary work. Another Bonapartist who often dined at my aunt's, was the charming Baron de St. Amand, whose death a few years ago was a great source of regret to his numerous friends. M. de St. Amand was amiabihty itself, and if slightly superficial in his talk, he never left off being delightful. He had col- lected a number of anecdotes, and was never weary of relating them. I think that, with the Countess Xavier de Blacas, he was the last survivor of the group of people whom one used to meet almost daily at my aunt's. I have often talked with him about her since her death, and we always agreed in the opinion that the present generation has no great ladies of the type which she represented so well, and with such dignity.

Very different from my aunt Caroline was her sister, Madame de Balzac, the widow of the cele- brated novehst, whose influence on French htera-

26

MADAME DE BALZAC

ture is still so powerful. The correspondence which has been published has made her a famiUar figure to the pubhc, but though it has revealed to the world the passion which one of the greatest men who have ever left their impress on the literary tendencies of their country, as well as of their century, had for her during long years, I doubt whether it has given any real knowledge as to her moral worth to those who have not had the privilege of meeting her. She has gone down to posterity as the woman whom Balzac loved, whilst she deserved to have been known as the one being to whom he was indebted for the develop- ment of his marvellous genius, and also as his collaborator in many of his works. For instance, the novel called Modeste Mignon is almost entirely written by her pen, and certainly some of her illustrious husband's best books have had some- thing or other added to them by her hand. When Balzac wrote to Madame Hanska, as she was at that time called, the famous letter in which he used those remarkable words, which are the best description of love that has been ever given : * With you moral satiety does not exist ; what I tell you now is a great thing — it is the secret of happiness,' he only expressed in eloquent terms what every one who knew my aunt felt from the very first, and that was the fact that they stood in the presence of quite an exceptional being. Madame de Balzac was perhaps not so brilUant in conversation as were her brothers and sisters. Her mind had some- thing pedantic about it, and she was rather a good

27

MY RECOLLECTIONS

listener than a good talker, but whatever she said was to the point, and she was eloquent with her pen. Among the innumerable letters from her which I possess, either addressed to myself or my mother, there is not one which would not deserve to be printed. Political appreciations written at the time of the Crimean war, are almost prophetic in their utterances. She had that large glance only given to superior minds which allows them, accor- ding to the words of Catherine of Russia, ' to read the future in the history of the past.' She observed everything, was indulgent to every one. She had learned the truth of the old axiom, ' One must understand all, in order to forgive all.' My aunt had forgiven, and learned the hard lesson of life without being in the least embittered by it. Her large and lofty mind had risen above the vice, fret, and wretchedness of earth, until it had reached those higher regions of peace where one rests in the supreme indifference to the judgments of society, which a clear conscience alone can give.

Her marriage with Balzac had so much of romance in it, that I feel tempted to relate it, if only to correct the many untruths that have been written about it. My aunt, who had been married whilst a mere child to a man much older than herself, but possessed of immense wealth, lived a very retired life in the country, and hardly ever left Russia. Almost isolated, thrown on the com- panionship of a man certainly inferior to her in every way in spite of his soHd qualities, she sought refuge in study and reading, in order to forget the

28

MADAME DE HANSKA

secret disappointments she did not care to own. She had all kinds of books sent to her, and one day she received one of Balzac's first novels ; I don't remember now which of them it was. She was so impressed with it, that she wrote to the author enclosing a criticism of the work, and sent it on to his pubhsher. Balzac was so struck in his turn with her letter that he replied to her, and from that day they corresponded without having ever met for several years. At last they met at Geneva, and the admiration which the noveUst had conceived for Madame Hanska's intellect was extended to her person. He went to see her at her Russian home, and spent months in that distant place. The house passed later on into my father's hands, who bought it from his niece the Countess Mniszech, to whom it had reverted after M. Hanska's death. The rooms which Balzac occu- pied are still left in the same condition they were in when the novelist used to occupy them. His portrait painted by Boulanger, of which mention is so often made in his correspondence, is hanging on the wall, the last memento of one of the great love romances of the world. I have often stood and gazed at it, and wondered at the incidents of this romance, but my aunt never liked to hear the subject mentioned, though she was passionately devoted to the memory of her illustrious husband.

When Madame Hanska became a widow it seemed as if nothing could prevent her from marry- ing Balzac, but, as is usual in such cases, other people interfered. Her family did not wish her

29

MY RECOLLECTIONS

to ally herself to a personage who, according to their aristocratic prejudices, was nothing but a French novel-writer. Pecuniary considerations were put forward, and people began attributing sordid mo- tives to Balzac. The struggle lasted for a few years, and then my aunt put an end to it by giving up all the great fortune, of which she had the disposal under her husband's will, to her daughter, who in the meantime had married Count George Mniszech. After this sacrifice she was united to the man of her choice, and thus ended *this beautiful heart drama,' to use Balzac's own words, ' which had lasted seventeen years.' Six months later he died, and my aunt found herself for the second time a widow, with the burden of her husband's large debts and that of his great name which she bore with such dignity for thirty years longer. She never spoke of the blow his death had been to her. She must have felt it deeply, and she would not have been human if she had not cherished resentment against those whose opposition to her wishes had robbed her of some years of happiness ; but if this was the case she never let any one guess it. Once only I heard her make a remark which gave me a strange in- sight into her inner life. We were talking about happiness in general, and I observed how very eager people were to interfere with that of their neighbours. My aunt looked at me for some time, then slowly said : ' I think that this comes from the fact that so very few people understand what real happiness is; they mostly look upon it as:

30

A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION

a superficial thing, and treat it with that hght- heartedness they apply to all the other enjoyments of existence. If they understood and realised what it really means to those who consider life in its true and serious light, they would respect it more. If I had my way I would bring children up to respect happiness just as one brings them up to respect religion. I would teach them that it must be reverenced as we do all rehgions, even those we do not belong to.'

I have often echoed my aunt's remark, and thought how much better humanity would be if it were educated according to the principle she had laid down on that day.

Madame de Balzac never left Paris after her husband's death, except to spend the summer at a property she had near Villeneuve St. George, called Beauregard. She had become very infirm and immensely stout. All traces of the beauty for which she had been renowned in her youth had disappeared, but the incomparable charm, which had fascinated the author of the Comedie Hwnaine, never left her. Her family, who stood more or less in awe of her, treated her with great respect and consideration. Her house was a meeting-place where all events relating to the welfare of her kindred were discussed. We all of us had a great opinion of the soundness of her judgments, and liked to consult her in any of our difficulties or embarrassments. She was always indulgent, even v>hen severe, and Aunt Evelyn, as we used to call her, was our refuge

31

MY RECOLLECTIONS

in many a sad hour, and a comforter in many a struggle when heart and duty were divided. We felt instinctively that she had sacrificed so much to what she considered to have been her duty, that she was the best person to point out where it really lay to those who were hesitating as to the path they ought to enter upon. My father, who was absolutely devoted to his sister, never failed to consult her whenever he was in doubt as to what he ought to do ; but strange to say he was not, in spite of this feeling, in sympathy with her mind or her intellect. My aunt was very sceptical in matters of religion, and absolutely refused to bow before what she called superstitions. She had been very much under the influence of her own father, who was imbued with the Voltairean ideas which had taken hold, more or less, of every deep-think- ing person at the end of the eighteenth century; she refused to accept the theory of a hell and of an eternal punishment for sin. She was very much against the influence of the clergy in private life, and always deplored the abuse which was made of religion in relations and events with which it ought never to have had anything to do. I be- lieve she thought on this subject more strongly even than she would admit in public, for she was always very chary of hurting the feelings of her neighbour.

She never left the little house Balzac had built and arranged for her when they married. It was No. 22 Rue Balzac, on the spot where the pavilion of the financier Beaujon formerly

32 I

BALZAC'S HOME

stood, and where may now be seen the sumptuous mansion and gardens of Baroness James de Roths- child. Except a marble slab on the wall, which records that on that spot the house in which died the author of the Comedie Humaine once stood, nothing remains to remind one of the two people whose love had filled the walls now pulled down and destroyed. I always avoid the street when I am in Paris. It is too painful to cross it and not to find the familiar landmarks, not to ring at the porte cochere which opened on the little courtyard whence one entered the house. It was a tiny habitation, full to overflowing with costly works of art, pictures, and old china. The long drawing- room with its three windows had a big fireplace, opposite which stood on a table the colossal bust of Balzac, by David d'Angers. My aunt used to sit between it and the fireplace at the middle win- dow of the room, near a little table on which her books and knitting were laid. In this room, and near that table, all that was illustrious in French literature has congregated, and from the large arm- chair, in which she sat esconced, some of the most trenchant criticisms on modern opinions, and the events which have made our society what it is now, have been delivered. Madame de Balzac, though living absolutely retired from the world, never lost her influence over those who played a part in that world's drama or comedy.

She never, or hardly ever, entertained. Her daughter used at one time to go out a good deal in Parisian society, but the doors of the Hotel

33 D

MY RECOLLECTIONS

Balzac, as it was called, were never opened in the evening save to a few old and tried friends who, on certain days of the week, used to come and dine with its mistress, and her daughter and son- in-law who lived with her. The painter Jean Gigoux was one of them, and remained my aunt's closest friend up to her death. Another personage who used to put in a regular appearance on Wed- nesdays, always impressed my young imagination by the legend which surrounded his name. It was the famous Abbe Constant, known in Paris as Eliphas Levy, a priest who had left holy orders, and whose life was devoted to the study of occult sciences, on which he had written many curious books, now forgotten, except by those who take an interest in such things. LAbbe Constant, a venerable figure with a flowing white beard, and long hah', was supposed to be gifted with the talent of prophesying, and though he absolutely refused to exercise his knowledge in our behalf, my cousins and myself were always trying to induce him to tell us our future. We never succeeded, except on one occasion, when the result proved to be too uncanny to be pleasant. One of the circumstances which had given great prominence to the science of fortune-telling which Eliphas Levy was sup- posed to possess, was the fact that a few days before the Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Sibour, was assassinated, a young man came to consult him on some business or other. The old philosopher told him to take care as he was on the point of committing a great crime. The young man, who

34

THE ABBE CONSTANT

was none other but Verger, the murderer of the Archbishop, was so struck by this extraordinary- guess, that after he was arrested he exclaimed he was sorry not to have listened to the Abbe Con- stant. This made a great stir at the time, the more so that Eliphas Levy, being an unfrocked priest, was naturally an object of suspicion, and I believe he was subjected to great annoyance in consequence of his warning to the youthful assassin. Whether this had anything or not to do with his subsequent reluctance to use his supposed knowledge of the future, I cannot say, but it is certain he did not care to be reminded of it.

My aunt was very fond of the Abbe Constant. Their rehgious opinions were, I believe, identical, and their minds were much aUke in the firm grasp they had of the grave problems which have in turn shaken humanity, and brought it from belief to incredulity, and from false knowledge to true science. They both possessed that grave indulgence which is only attained in old age, and which can afford to smile on the self- content and arrogance which is so inseparable from youth. Nei- ther of them ever tried to impose their opinions upon others, or to convert the younger generation to their ideas. They knew that ideas as well as opinions change according as to how the lesson of life is learned, and that the young man who declares he will never alter, is not to be blamed but to be pitied for the inexperience which makes him think his judgment can never be modified by circum- stances. They were both very reserved in the

35

MY RECOLLECTIONS

presence of strangers, and both nervously afraid of inflicting pain on any living creature. I have often wondered in later years whether this dread was due to the amount of suffering which had been dealt out to them by others.

During the Franco - German war and the horrors of the Commune my aunt remained in Paris. She was very infirm, and could hardly leave her armchair, but never thought for one moment of seeking safety in flight. Her property of Beauregard was occupied by the German troops, who considerably damaged it. A good many of her manuscripts were either stolen or burned, and a marble bust of herself, the work of the Italian sculptor Bartolini, had its nose broken. In spite of our urgent request to allow the damage to be repaired, my aunt absolutely refused to do so. She was an ardent French patriot and liked to nurse the memory of her country's wrongs. The bibliophile Jacob, who was not devoid of a certain tinge of malice, declared that it was not so much the Prussians she hated as the Emperor Napoleon III., whom she accused of all the mis- fortunes which had followed upon the war, and whose share in it she wished to be reminded of by the sight of her noseless image. It was true that my aunt was an ardent republican, with a strong tendency to socialism, but this did not prevent her from stigmatising, as they deserved, the ex- cesses of the Commune. And this brings me to another passage in her life, which it may perhaps amuse the public to hear.

36

INCIDENT DURING THE COMMUNE

During the last dreadful days of the struggle of 1871, the Hotel Balzac was invaded by a de- tachment of insurgents. My aunt happened to be alone in her house when they burst into it. The leader of the band entered the room in which she sat, with his cap on his head, and began ad- dressing her as 'Citoyenne.' Madame de Balzac without showing the least discomposure, pointing with her finger to the head-dress of her inter- locutor, ' Take off your hat,' she said, ' I am not used to people talking to me with their heads covered ; and call me Madame, I am too old to be addressed as Citoyenne.' The man was so surprised that he hastened to obey her, and after many excuses left the house with his companions. My father was very fond of chaffing his sister on the incident, and to ask her what she would have done had the Communard proved refractory ; * I would have pulled off his cap myself,' she used to reply, ' I was not going to let that ruffian be rude to me !' upon which my father retorted by saying that she was not consistent in her radical opinions, and that she ought to have welcomed with open arms the representative of that demo- cracy to which she professed to belong. The result was invariably a quarrel.

I have Ungered more than I ought to have done on the character of my aunt, but she has exercised such a great influence on my own opinions and Ufe that I feel I cannot dismiss her lightly, or in a few words. I owe to her all the good that is in me; I certainly am indebted to

37

MY RECOLLECTIONS

her for any power of resistance I may possess. But for her lessons and example it is probable I would have been a different being from the one I have become, and though I might perhaps have been a better, I certainly should have been a weaker one. She taught me that though circumstances may break a human creature, they ought to be unable to make her bend under them, when any vital principle is at stake.

CHAPTER III.

My Mother's Fatmly — The PascKkoffs — Reminiscence of the Polish Mutiny — Attempt on the Czar's Life — Character of Alexander II. — The Beautiful Princess Dagmar — Franco - Prussian War — The Surrender of Sedan — In Paris after the Commune — / am Engaged to he Married — My Presentation at Court — My Wedding.

My mother was the daughter of M. Dmitri DaschkofF, Secretary of State for Justice in the early years of the Emperor Nicholas I.'s reign. The Daschkoffs, who are quite a different family irom the one to which the Princess DaschkofF, so well known in history as the friend and favourite of the Empress Catherine, belonged, are of Tartar origin, and bear as such the crescent in their coat-of-arms. A DaschkofF was sent as Ambassador to the Sublime Porte during the reign of Peter the Great. My grandfather, who died when my mother was quite a little girl, left the reputation of having been a great statesman. He worked at the reform of the penal code, and was credited with liberal opinions, which, at the time he was living, was considered more or less as Si singularity. He was very much respected, and, if we are to judge from his correspondence, must have been a remarkable man. He died at a com- paratively early age, leaving a young widow and three small children. My grandmother never

39

MY RECOLLECTIONS

married again, and gave up the world absolutely^ after her husband's death. She was by birth a Mademoiselle PaschkofF, of Moscow. The Pasch- koffs were a very wealthy family of merchant origin, who, through their immense riches, secured for their daughters alliances with the noblest blood, in Russia. My grandmother had two brothers and two sisters. One of the latter married Prince WassiltchikofF, and for many years was a foremost personage in Russian society. She was a for- midable old lady, dreaded by the younger gene- ration, who kept her numerous nephews and nieces in salutary awe of her. She had a sharp- tongue, and administered rebuJfFs, when she thought they were deserved, with a severity which was almost merciless. Her two sons played an im- portant part in the reform movement which signalled the first years of the Emperor Alex- ander II.'s reign. The eldest one, Alexander by- name, was also one of the leaders of the Panslavist movement, and exercised by his writings, as well as by his opinions, a wide influence over a certain, section of St. Petersburg society. He, too, died relatively young, leaving one son and two dauga- ters, the youngest of whom was married to Count StrogonofF, and died at twenty years old in the full radiance of a marvellous beauty.

My grandmother's youngest sister became the wife of Count LewachofF, and both her brothers left several children, one of them being the father of that Basil Paschkofl^, who, owing to his adoption of the doctrines of T^ord Radstock, got himself

40

M. DE BLOWITZ

exiled from Russia, and lived for many years ii> England.

Of cousins, nephews, nieces, my grandmother had a great number. There is scarcely a family in Russia which is not allied in one way or another with the PaschkofFs. The celebrated General SkobelefF was one of those who through my grandmother was a cousin of mine ; and this reminds me of a most ridiculous article contributed by the late M. de Blowitz to the Matin about me in which he gives a most fantastical account of the marriage of SkobelefF's mother. I have often wondered where he got his information, which is devoid of one single word of truth, for certainly Mr. PoltawtsofF was not the son of a serf, and the PaschkofFs were never landowners in the Government of Poltawa. My grandmother lived to a very advanced age. She was a real saint, and when she died in the small town of Riazan, the whole population of it followed her to her grave, and all the poor of the place subscribed for a wreath to be upon her coffin, with an inscrip- tion, which we afterwards had inscribed on her tombstone. It ran thus : ' Receive her, O Lord, as she received all the poor and unfortunate.' My grandmother had never got over the shock of her only daughter's death, but she went on living for duty's sake, and tried to forget her own grief in soothing the sorrows of others. I have never met a more unselfish person. I loved her more, perhaps, than she knew, for she was of a stern disposition, and not given to effusion, and I

41

MY RECOLLECTIONS

Avas always more or less afraid of her, but even now, after so many years have passed, and so many sorrows have overtaken me, her death re- mains a distinct, sharp, and inconsolable grief, amongst all others. 1 never feel my loneliness more than when I think of her.

My mother was twenty-three years old when she married my father at Stuttgard, in the private chapel of Queen Olga of Wurtemberg. She was radiantly beautiful, and, like all those whom the gods love, she was carried off young, dying in the full splendour of her youth and of her happiness, five days after my birth. She had passionately longed for a child during the short years of her married life, and when that child was at last given to her, she had to go away there where pain and sorrow are no more, and to leave it to face the world alone. She passed away in full consciousness of her approaching end, with a resignation which can be called heroic, thanking her husband for the years of happiness he had given to her, and re- conciled to the will of the Almighty.

My father married again two years after my mother's death, and this created a breach between him and my grandmother. It was then that my aunt, Madame de Balzac, interfered, and began to take the gi-eat interest in my education which she always manifested. She was almost the only person who used to speak to me about my mother, and to relate to me anecdotes concerning her. I avoided the subject with my father, and my grandmother was always silent as to her

42

POLAND IN 1863

own sorrows. My aunt was, therefore, the only being with whom I could talk of the beautiful young creature who had died in giving me birth.

One of the first remembrances of my childhood belongs to the Polish Mutiny of 1863. My father was in command of an army corps on the Austrian frontier, and was stationed in a small town called Oustiloug. I don't know to this day why he had his wife and children with him. It was scarcely a spot for ladies and babies to be in, and we were all huddled up together in a horrible Uttle Jewish house, where there was scarcely place to turn in. My little brother died there of convulsions, and as there was no room for me and my nurse in the house, we spent a night or two in a tent which had been hastily erected on the lawn. I can see it well, even now, and the astonishment with which I watched the Cossacks who guarded the place saddle and exercise their horses every morning. It was then I made my first acquaintance with death, and I remember my surprise when I was taken to see my little brother, and could not under- stand why he was so white and still, and would not look at the flowers I had gathered for him in the fields that same morning. Another fact connected with that event is also impressed upon my mind. The day of the funeral of that small boy (he was two years old) happened to be the one following upon a skirmish between the Russian troops and the insurgents. As the body was being carried to the church, borne, according to custom, on the shoulders of my father and his staff, we met a

43

MY RECOLLECTIONS

party of Cossacks escorting some prisoners. They stopped when they saw the procession, and one of the captives recognising my father, who was known to them all, turned round and began cursing him, saying that his child's death was a punishment of God for his having gone over to the enemy, and drawn his sword in favour of the Russian Czar. One of the Cossacks of the escort, indignant at this piece of brutality, lifted his whip and was going to strike the man on the mouth, when my father raised his voice, and in a sharp, ringing tone ordered him to desist. The Pole was suddenly cowed, and with a brusque movement took off his cap that he had up to that time kept on his head. My father turned round, and after gravely saluting with his sword the long Une of prisoners,, gave the order for the procession to resume its. march.

This incident forms one of the clearest remem- brances of my baby days. I was but five years old when it occurred, but I have never been able to forget it. I have often wondered at my father's self-control on this painful occasion ; I wondered still more when I learned many and many years later, that he had done his utmost to get the man who had so grossly insulted him at a moment when he could not retahate, released from the sentence of exile which was inflicted upon him.

This time of the Mutiny must have been a most interesting one. It was followed by a period of repression, the traces of which are not yet effaced. Alexander II. had neither the generosity nor the

44

ALEXANDER II. AND POLAND

fearlessness of his father; he never forgave his PoHsh subjects their revolt, and allowed the insur- rection to be ruthlessly suppressed. In 1831 they hung a few people, sent a few others to Siberia, but no laws of exception were ever promulgated ; no children were ever punished for their father's sins. In 1863 things were very different, and the famous reply of the Emperor to the address which was presented to him at Warsaw, 'Messieurs, pas de reveries,' is still remembered there. Personally, I have no sympathy with the Polish cause; I am afraid that the Tartar blood which is in me has got the upper hand of the Polish one : or rather that the independence which has always been one of the characteristics of the inhabitants of Little Russia, from whence my father's family originates, constitutes an impassable barrier between myself and Polish aspirations. I cannot understand them, and the way in which religion is used by them for the furtherance of their political animosities is pro- foundly repugnant to me. I do not understand God being invoked in order to spread one's hatreds and revengeful feelings. I am essentially a Russian in opinions, ideas, affections ; I love my country with a passionate devotion, and would not belong to any other.

After the rebellion was suppressed, my father returned to St. Petersburg, and beyond a few trifling incidents I do not remember much of the next two or three years. We made several journeys to Paris to see my aunts, and tremendous under- takings they were at a time when the railway only

45

MY RECOLLECTIONS

extended as far as the German frontier, and when the journey there had to be performed in a travel- ling carriage, which in appearance resembled nothing so much as a Noah's ark. Neither did railways exist from St. Petersburg to KjefF, in the neigh- bourhood of which town my father's estates were situated. There was a public road more or less well kept, and upon which the mails used to be carried, and it was a great source of amusement to me when we met a little cart which bore the magic words, ' His Majesty's Post,' and which was, by reason of this appellation, given the preference in the matter of horses. But I do not think I have anything to relate about those years, except one incident which, by reason of the influence it exercised over the future of my country, deserves to be specially mentioned.

It was in St. Petersburg, one April afternoon. We had just finished dinner, my father keeping to the old custom of having that meal at three o'clock, when one of his friends, Admiral Count Heyden, was announced. He took my father aside, and they had a long conversation in one corner of the room, whilst my stepmother looked on with evident surprise, forgetting in her agitation to send me back to my nursery. I could see my father was strangely moved; at last he asked the Count to wait, and went out of the room, returning in a few minutes dressed in full uniform. They drove away together, and then my stepmother called my gover- ness, and they had a hurried conversation, after which she put on her walking things and went out

46

A DASTARDLY CRIME

too. The news brought by Admiral Heyden was that of the attempted assassination of the Emperor by a student called KarakazofF as he was taking his usual afternoon walk with his daughter, the now Dowager Duchess of Coburg, in what is called the Summer Garden, in St. Petersburg.

A chapel now stands at the spot where the dastardly attempt was made, and reminds the public that the long series of crimes of which it was the first, began with that pistol-shot. Up to that moment no one in Russia had even admitted the possibility that the sovereign whose name will for ever remain associated with that great reform of the emancipation of the serfs, could become the object of an attack of the kind. Kara- kazofTs deed rudely dissipated these illusions, and the discoveries which followed upon his abominable deed shook Russian society to its very depths. Emperors had been murdered before, but the con- spiracies against them had always had their origin in, and been confined to, the ranks of the upper classes. A popular manifestation of discontent had never been even dreamt of, and no one had thought for a moment that what are called in Europe the middle classes, could become imbued with revolutionary ideas or opinions, and aspire to play a part in the government of the State. The conspiracy of the 14th of December, 1825, which nearly cost Nicholas I. his throne as well as his life, had been entirely the work of some disappointed noblemen. The nation as a whole had had nothing to do with it. The movement

47

MY RECOLLECTIONS

was headed by a Mourawieff Apostol, a Prince Wolkhonski, and a member of the illustrious house of Troubetskoi. It had not rallied to itself any one belonging to another sphere of society than that of the upper ten. KarakazofFs attempt, on the contrary, was an immense revolt of hitherto untried forces of the nation, against an authority which refused to acknowledge their existence, and which challenged their right to share it with them. It was the real beginning, not so much of nihilism, as of anarchism ; and as such it must neither be looked upon as an isolated instance of political fanaticism, nor as the act of a madman. The unfortunate young man who had been led into it, was but the precursor of that other fanatic whose shell destroyed the sovereign his bullet had missed.

The emotion produced by KarakazofFs attempt was immense ; it shook the whole nation as I have already said, but it did so in a very different sense than the authorities imagined at first. It familiar- ised the masses with the idea of regicide, and it stimulated the thinking classes of society — the holders of liberal opinions which had been smoulder- ing for so long, but had never dared to express themselves openly.

We were at that time in the great period of reforms which perhaps failed because they were entered upon too hastily, and without suffi- cient preparation. It was a kind of revolution Alexander II. had accomplished by a stroke of the pen equal to the one Peter the Great had had the

48

THE EMPEROR'S CHARACTER

strength to carry through. The Emperor had neither the energy, nor sufficient poUtical per- spicacity to understand that an attempt of the importance of the one he was undertaking required time, patience, and was bound to be accompanied by a few disappointments. He was a curious mixture of autocracy and HberaHsm. Brought up with immense care, he had become imbued with what were called in Russia at the time Occi- dental ideas, but at heart he was more authorita- tive than his father had ever been. Nicholas also had thought of the best way in which the independence of the serfs could be accomplished, but he had understood that a reform of that magnitude could not be rushed ; also perhaps that his son not being bound, as he was, with certain traditions, could put his hand to it more easily than would have been possible for himself. But the question had been closely studied, and my father had in his possession several memoirs which had been submitted to the Emperor on that subject, of which he had kept copies. Had the unfortunate Crimean war not interfered, it is probable the matter would have been discussed openly. External complications caused it to be put aside, until the new sovereign took it up almost immediately upon his accession to the throne.

The very mention that such a thing was in contemplation created an amount of enthusiasm such as Russia had never known before. Even the revolutionary party which had its headquarters at Geneva publicly declared its intention of laying

49 E

MY RECOLLECTIONS

down arms until the result of the young Emperor's venture was known. The excitable Russian masses became quite frantic, and they lived in expectation of a new millennium setting in, as well as of its taking place immediately. They thought that the individual ideas they had assimilated could at once be understood by the bulk of the nation. A wave of excitement shook every man and woman, in the highest as well as in the lowest classes. People enrolled themselves among the ranks of the new set of officials, whom the reforms had suddenly called into existence. Young guardsmen, whose only conception of life to that day had been the enjoyment of the various gaieties of St. Petersburg, declared themselves willing to give them all up, in order to serve upon the Zemstwos or new local councils, for the administration of the different provinces. The introduction of the jury was supposed to give every one the certainty of a fair trial. The sovereign became a kind of half-god, rnd was deceived into believing that the popu- larity which he appeared to have attained would be a lasting one.

Alas ! for all these hopes ! Russians belong to the class of people who cannot wait. When years went on and the reforms so enthusiastically an- nounced dragged themselves out, without bringing any perceptible change in the existing condition of things, people began to grumble. To the latent discontent which had existed for years, and sad- dened the end of the reign of Nicholas I., succeeded an open revolt. The Emperor was accused of

50

A FATAL MISTAKE

having promised what he had no intention of granting, and those of his immediate entourage who had always opposed the liberal ideas to which he clung so firmly, made use of the disappoint- ment he was not clever enough to conceal, to try and make him go back on the road he had entered upon.

This was the most fatal mistake he could have made, for if it is possible under certain conditions to withhold from a nation liberties it has never known, it is fatal to attempt to deprive it of those which have been already granted to it. Persever- ance does not figure among Russian national qualities, and as soon as the first reforms of Alexander II. failed to allay the evils for which they were supposed to have been a remedy, they were pronounced by one section of society to be insufficient, whilst the other declared them to be too wide. Between the two parties by which he was surrounded, neither of which were possessed of sound judgment, the Emperor, whose character was already too much inclined towards hesita- tion, began to enter upon the path of vacilla- tion, which at last ended by making him a ruler far more autocratic than his father had ever been.

What I say now is of course founded on hearsay, as I was almost a baby in arms, when Russia was started upon the path which now she is bound to follow, no matter where it may lead her to. The subject, however, has got nothing to do with my personal recollections, and I have only touched

61

MY RECOLLECTIONS

upon it in connection with the KarakazofF incident and its subsequent consequences.

In relating the way in which the news of this attempt were brought to my father, I mentioned Admiral Heyden. I must say now a word about this venerable member of St. Petersburg society, who until his death, two years ago, was its most prominent figure by reason of all the historical re- membrances which were associated with his name.

He was the last survivor of the battle of Navarino, and the last survivor of the household of the Emperor Nicholas I. When he died he had reached his ninety-seventh or ninety-eighth year, and was up to that day in full possession of his faculties. He had been one of my father's closest friends, and many a kindness did he show to my brother and myself. His own brother was for many years Governor-General of Finland, where he made him- self universally liked and esteemed, and whence his departure was accompanied by the keenest regrets.

The two next events which left an impression on my childish mind were the Austrian war and the news of the battle of Sadowa, over which my father got very much excited. He had all along prophesied the defeat of the Austrian troops, but nevertheless did not expect any more than anybody else the crushing reverses which attended the army commanded by General Benedek. He did not care from a political point of view for the aggran- disement of Prussia, and feared it would in the long run bring nothing good for our own country.

52

THE PRINCESS DAGMAR

Little did I suspect in those days, when my in- quisitive little ears were eagerly strained to listen to all the news I could hear, that I was destined to be brought into close contact with the personages whose actions were discussed with such interest by my father and his friends.

In the autumn of that same year, 1866, the heir to our throne was married with great pomp in St. Petersburg to the Princess Dagmar of Denmark. I was taken to see the triumphal entry of the young bride in St. Petersburg ; it was the first time I had witnessed a pageant of the kind, and for days and nights I kept thinking about it, and could not sleep for excitement. Rarely has a foreign Princess been greeted with such enthusiasm as the new Grand Duchess, who from the first moment she set foot on the Russian soil, succeeded in winning to herself all hearts. Her smile, the delightful way she had of bowing to the crowds assembled to welcome her, laid immediately the foundations of that popularity which, instead of waning as is often the case, grew day by day, and increased continually as the years went on. The Empress Marie Feodorowna is at present the most popular woman in Russia, and she has made for herself such a name for goodness, kindness, and the most noble qualities of heart and mind, that even among those who have never seen her, she is absolutely worshipped.

In 1867 I was taken to see the Paris Exhibition, but with the exception of a Mexican temple whose different colours somehow impressed me, I do not

53

MY RECOLLECTIONS

remember much about it. The monuments of Paris interested me more than did the world's great fair. The Conciergerie in particular, where I was taken by my father, made me burst into a flood of tears, as we were shown the dungeon where poor Marie Antoinette had been confined, and the courtyard from whence so many unfortu- nate victims, among whom my own aunt had been included, were dragged to the scaffold.

It was after his journey to Paris that my father definitely gave up his St. Petersburg house and settled in the country, whence he only returned to the capital at the time of the Russo-Turkish war, when he again took a flat in town, where he resided during two or three months every year up to the time of his death. I was growing up, and had little time for anything else but the very severe course of studies to which I was subjected. In summer, 1870, sea baths were prescribed for me, and we went for the season to Odessa. Whilst we were staying there the Franco-German war broke out. At that time, though the Germans were not liked in Russia, yet the remembrance of the Crimean war was still fresh in people's minds, and the strong leanings toward Prussia which, with the solitary exception of the heir to the throne, the whole of the Imperial family entertained, made the public chary in its good wishes for the success of the French arms. The news of the first reverses of the army of Napoleon were therefore rather welcome than otherwise to a Russian's prejudice against that monarch. No one, however, antici-

54

THE SIEGE OF PARIS

pated the series of reverses out of which the new German Empire was to rise. It came therefore as a shock when the surrender of Sedan sealed the fate of the second Empire.

We heard about it at Odessa the same evening. We were walking up and downi the Boulevard, which is the public promenade there, when General Count Lambert, one of the aides-de-camp of the Emperor, approached my father and asked him whether he had learned the news. As it happened he had not, and his first thought was to rush to the telegraph office and to send a wire to his sisters, after which he began discussing the possible consequences of the great event.

When Paris was invested we spent a sad time, and that winter dragged along very slowly and anxiously in the expectation of news, which every day became worse. Metz surrendered, then came all the other French reverses, and at last the capitulation of Paris, and the armistice, very soon after which, we received the first letters from my aunts which gave us the details of the siege. Madame de Balzac never doubted that an insur- rection would be the sequel to that long series of calamities. She wrote to her brother to be pre- pared for the worst, as nothing short of a miracle could prevent civil war from breaking out.

When the horrors of the Commune were over my father started with us for Paris. When we got there the town was still smoking, so to say. The Tuileries were one mass of blackened ruins, and the Vendome Column lay upon the

55

MY KECOLLECTIONS

ground, broken into three large fragments. French society was more or less scattered ; the Bona- partists, who in spite of everything lived in hopes of a restoration, if not of the Emperor, at least of his son upon the throne, kept themselves outwardly very quiet in the fear of exciting the suspicions of M. Thiers. The Orleans Princes were trying to inaugurate that attitude of bon bourgeois which they imagined would be bene- ficial to their interests, until the time when the natural course of events would put them into possession of the inheritance of the Comte de Chambord. The general public believed that a monarchical restoration was only a matter of time. M. Thiers alone knew what he was doing, and where he was leading the country whose destinies he had been called upon to control. He played his cards admirably, as appears now from the beautiful book in which M. Hanotaux has de- scribed the struggle out of which the third Republic was to emerge, probably never to be superseded any more in France by another form of government.

It was during the winter which followed upon the war that I began to feel interested in politics. They were being continually discussed at my aunt's, and one heard nothing else around one but that one subject. 1 spent all the time when I was not studying at the Hotel Balzac ; and, young as I was, I used to get quite excited at all 1 used to hear, and to treasure in my memory many remarks I heard around me. I don't know how

56

BETROTHAL

it was that they allowed me to be present at con- versations which certainly were not intended for a child, but the fact was there, and I owe perhaps to this circumstance many of the tastes to which later on in life I was to cling.

We returned to Russia in the spring of 1873. In the autumn of that same year I became engaged to my husband at the early age of fifteen and a half years, and to this day I am in ignorance how the matter was arranged, but arranged it was between my father and my brother-in-law.

I have often wondered how my father, who loved me so tenderly, could have been a party to such a hurried affair. The only explanation I can find is that he was getting on in years, and wished to see me settled before he died. He had begun at that time to suffer from the heart disease to which he eventually succumbed, which might have had some influence upon the decision he came to. It is also likely that he was tempted by the great position he thought he had secured for me. If my father had any fault it was the pride of birth, and the determination that his daughter should follow in the steps of all his ancestresses, and add to the glory of the great alliances the family had been faithful to, ever since it began to play a part in the history of its country.

No matter what may have been the real reason for my engagement, the fact is that it took place, and as soon as the matter was settled the question arose of my presentation at the Court where it was not intended I should live.

57

MY RECOLLECTIONS

We were in the month of August, the Emperor was expected at KiefFwith the Empress, on their way to the Crimea, so I was taken there to be introduced for the first time to my sovereign.

I felt terribly frightened : the more so that the dreaded presentation was to take place at the railway station, in the presence of all the world and his wife. I was arrayed in a white muslin gown which I believe was atrociously made, and, like a lamb about to be slaughtered, was ushered into the Imperial presence.

The first person who met us was old Countess Bloudoff, a favourite lady - in - waiting to the Empress, and a very great friend of my grand- mother's. She received me most kindly, and began talking to me of my mother. INIy fright gradually subsided, and I allowed myself to be soothed into some kind of composure by the dear old lady. We became great friends in later years, and when she died I experienced one of the great sorrows of my life. She was kindness itself, and I shall never forget the help she was to me at that first trying moment of my life when I looked for the first time upon the world in which I was destined to live and play a part.

The sovereigns soon appeared. The Emperor came into the room first, with the grace and dignity which were one of his chief characteristics. Alexander II. at that time had not become cursed with the suspiciousness which embittered the last years of his life, and made him look upon all those he did not know well as natural enemies.

58

THE EMPRESS MARIE

He was the embodiment of courtesy, and his manner was very regal both in speech and appear- ance. He was a handsome man, holding himself very erect in his uniform, with a countenance which would have been more impressive still, if the eyes had not had a dreamy, almost stealthy look, which seemed to be always wandering. He addressed my father with great afFabihty, and then looking at me said, ' Comme elle rappelle sa mere ! '

The Empress, who made her appearance a few moments after her husband, was already suf- fering from the illness to which she eventually succumbed. She was a slight, graceful woman, with a sweet countenance, but a look of extreme delicacy. I never saw her again, but can remember very well her soft voice, and the low tones in which she spoke. She said a few words to me, but did not show any particular amiabiUty to any one of those who were present, speaking nevertheless to every person in the room. Her daughter, the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrowna, at present Dowager Duchess of Coburg, whose engagement to the Duke of Edinburgh had just been an- nounced, followed her, but kept very much in the background, The whole ceremony lasted only a few minutes. The Imperial couple entered their railway carriage, and the assembly dispersed with, on my part, a feeling of the intensest relief.

This episode of my presentation had a curious sequel. INIy father, I do not know why, had not communicated to the Emperor the news of my en- gagement. He heard of it, of course, very soon

69

MY RECOLLECTIONS

afterwards, and caused his trusted INIinister of the Household, Count Adlerberg, to write a sharp letter to my father on the subject. I do not think he quite liked the idea of a young heiress, such as I was, being sent out of the country, and though his affection for the Prussian Royal family would have prevented him from forbidding the match, yet as I heard later on, he was anything but pleased with it.

I was married very quietly at the parish church on my father's estate on the 26th of October, 1873. My brother-in-law and two of his sisters came over for the ceremony, which was celebrated in the strictest privacy according to the rites of the Greek Church. My husband and myself left almost immediately afterwards for St. Petersburg, on a visit to my grandmother, whence we went to Berlin, where my new and real life began.

60

CHAPTER IV.

Berlin after the War — Emperor or King? — The Old Radzi- will Palace — Family Parties — The Emperor William'' s First Love — / meet Von Moltke — My First State Dinner — Am presented to the Empress — The Prince and Priiwess Charles — The Red Prince — A Court in Mourning — ' Un Cadeau de la Reine ' — Entertainments at Court — The Beautiful Duchess of Manchester — / dine zvith the Emperor.

When I arrived in Berlin in November, 1873, the German Empire was quite a new thing, and the Court as well as society were still what they had been when no thought of future grandeur had entered their minds. The Emperor was mostly called the King, and indeed he never called himself anything else. There was even to be observed a certain regret, on the part of the old Prussian aristocracy, at the merging of their old Kingdom into the new Empire. They keenly regretted the traditions which appeared to them to be inseparable from the Prussian Eagle, and which were not yet incorporated into the Imperial Crown. People were still dazzled by the extra- ordinary series of military successes which had sud- denly raised their country from a small State to the greatest monarchy in Europe. Nothing seemed settled yet, and even in Court ceremonies an un- certaintj^ as it were, prevailed. One never knew

61

MY RECOLLECTIONS

whether to address the sovereign as Emperor or King. He himself clung with a tenacity which lasted up to his death to the old title, whilst the Empress Augusta, and especially the Crown Prince, were very punctilious as to the observance of the new one. I remember a curious instance of this slight difference of opinions. One evening during a ball given by General von Kameke, the then War Minister, the Emperor approached me, and talking about the weather (it was early in March), remarked how mild it was for that time of the year, adding that the ' Queen ' had brought him that morning some violets which she had plucked in the garden of the Palace. The Crown Prince happened to be standing near, and he remarked instantly : ' Yes, the Empress told me about them,' to which his father retorted, 'When did you see the Queen ?'

At that time, which seems to me so far away that I can hardly believe I lived through it, for so many events have crowded themselves in the past thirty years, my husband's family was a very numerous one. They all lived together in the old Radziwill Palace, since bought by the State, which had been left in the same condition it was in at the time my husband's grandmother, the Princess Louise of Prussia, for whom it had been bought, had inhabited it. My mother-in-law occupied one half of the State apartments, whilst her sister, who had married my father-in-law's brother, hved in the other half. The other mem- bers of the family were crowded in all parts of

62

THE RADZIWILL MENAGE

the house, all of them more or less uncomfort- ably, but with no idea of leaving the roof which seemed destined to harbour them up to the time of their death. For my part, I found an apart- ment prepared for me in what anywhere else would have been called the garret, but which re- joiced in the name of appartement aux fenetres en mansarde. We used to dine at the unearthly hour of five o'clock with my mother-in-law, her two unmarried daughters, and her second son. After the meal we were expected to retire into our rooms and to reassemble again at half- past nine, alternatively at my mother-in-law's and at her sister's, where we spent the rest of the even- ing until the stroke of eleven released us. Tea was served at a large round table, and the ladies of the family sat at another, knitting or working. I cannot say that the conversation was lively ; it mostly ran upon the doings of the Court, the health of the Royal family, and other subjects of the like importance. My sister-in-law, a French- woman by birth. Mademoiselle de Castellane, who had all the wit of her family and of her nation, generally did all she could to bring a spark of gaiety into these solemn gatherings, but I cannot say that she was very successful. Even the pre- sence of strangers did not break the stiffness of these wearisome evenings. The visitors, for the most part, were old friends of my father-in-law's, and Poles of note who happened to be in Berlin, with some members of the most exclusive and aristocratic families of Prussia, and the leaders of

63

MY RECOLLECTIONS

the Roman Catholic party in the country and in both houses of the Prussian ParHament. Some- times, oftener than was pleasant for the comfort of the younger members of the family, the Empress — and when she was in Berlin her daughter, the Grand Duchess of Baden — used to put in an appearance quite unexpectedly, when there was a general flight among the male portion of the in- habitants of the house. This kind of thing used to take place during the winter season, when the Court was in the capital, about twice a month ; and about as many times weekly, if not oftener, some of us were invited to spend the evening at the Palace, in what was called the ' Queen's bon- bonniere,' about which evenings I shall have more to say later on.

The Radziwill family, at the time of my mar- riage, was composed of my mother-in-law, her children, and her sister with her children. My mother-in-law, by birth an Austrian, belonging to the illustrious House of Clary Aldringen, was one of the kindest women alive, if not gifted with an over-amount of intelligence. To me she showed herself the best of friends, if sometimes tantalis- ing, and I can only speak of her with affection and respect. Hers had been the life of the vir- tuous woman of which speaks the Scriptures. She had borne nine children, out of whom she lost five, all grown up, and, with one exception, all of consumption. Her married hfe, though admir- ably well-conducted, had I suspect been far from happy. INIy father-in-law, who had died during

64

A WILL OF IRON

the French war, and whom I had never known, was — if one is to believe the accounts that are ^iven of him — a most tyrannical, overbearing, ^nd unbearable personage. He ruled his family with an iron hand, and controlled every one of their actions as well as every detail connected with the immense household of the Radziwill Palace. Neither his wife nor his children were allowed to say one word, or to do the slightest thing he did not approve of. His wife had been absolutely cowed by his iron, inflexible will, until she seemed to have lost every desire to attain individuality of any kind. He held the opinion that women had to be kept in the background, and not allowed to express an interest in anything else but dress, children, and gossip. His influ- ence reigned supreme in his family for years after his death, and I think it was only when the old house, in which he had been born and died, had been sold, that they began to realise it was time for them to begin to live an independent existence.

My father-in-law's mother had been a Princess of Prussia, the niece of Frederick the Great, and this introduction of a Royal Highness in the family had given it a quasi-Royal rank, which began to be contested only when the favourite Master of the Ceremonies of the Empress Augusta elaborated the new rules for precedence for the German Empire. Princess Louise of Prussia, who became the wife of Prince Anthony Radziwill, had been the intimate friend of the unfortunate Queen

65 F

MY RECOLLECTIONS

of the same name, whom she had accompanied during her flight at Memel. Her son, my father- in-law, had been born three days before the little Prince who was destined in the course of events to wear the Imperial Crown of a united Ger- many; they were brought up together, and no- thing in after life ever disturbed their friendship, which was further increased by the passionate love which Prince William of Prussia, as he was called at that time, conceived for the beautiful Elisa Radziwill, my father-in-law's sister. So much has been written about that romance that I feel constrained to correct the story. It is as- serted that my aunt died of a broken heart, after King Frederick William III. refused his consent to her marriage with his second son. People have extolled the sacrifice the unhappy young lady was called upon to make, and transformed her into a victim of State reasons. In reality things were very different. The only victim in this romance was Prince William, who was passionately fond of his cousin, whilst she was more sensible to the material advantages of a union with him, than to the deep affection she had inspired him with. When her marriage had been definitely broken off", she very soon consoled herself, and at the time of her death, which was due to pulmonary consumption, she was actually engaged to an Austrian nobleman, which proves that it did not take her very long to heal her broken heart. The Prince, however, always remained true and faithful to the love of his youth, and Elisa Radziwill's portrait adorned

66

A NIECE OF TALLEYRAND

the writing table of the old Emperor up to his death, whilst the remembrance of his love for her made him look upon her family with eyes different from those with which he looked upon the rest of the world.

To return to my father-in-law: he had not been liked in his family, and, for my part, I was very thankful to have been spared an acquaintance with him. But I found his influence still reigning in the house, and the sort of daily routine he had established was observed as regularly as if he had still been there to see that it was carried out.

My husband had at the time of my marriage three sisters and two brothers, the elder of whom was one of the favourite aides-de-camp of the old Emperor, and the one who conveyed to Benedetti at Ems the message which had for consequence the Franco -German War. His wife is one of the persons I respect most in the world, and cer- tainly one of the few really remarkable women in Europe. Her intelligence recalls that of her great-uncle, the famous Talleyrand ; and, added to this, she has a very warm heart, is a true friend, a generous character, and is possessed of the noblest qualities which can adorn a woman, who has also known many sorrows and disappoint- ments in life, and who has borne them with a smihng face. My sister-in-law is one of the most influential persons in Berlin ; her salon is a social power, and has been such for a long number of years. During the lifetime of the Empress Augusta she had quite a unique position, and, one can say so

67

MY RECOLLECTIONS

now, exercised over the old lady an influence that no one has ever shared with her, and which, I think, I can safely say she never used to harm any one, not even those whom she had reason to dislike. 1 do not know whether I shall ever see my sister- in-law again, but if this book should fall into her hands, I hope she will see in it the great esteem in which I hold her, as well as my gratitude for innumerable kindnesses I have experienced at her hands.

This said, I will dispose briefly of the other members of my husband's family. My other brother-in-law has played too small a part to de- serve notice ; as for his sisters, one died in childbirth in 1877 ; another succumbed to illness at Cairo in 1876 — she was the one with whom I was most intimate ; and the eldest one married Prince Hugo Windisch Graetz.

We reached Berlin, with my husband, one very wet November evening, and were received in the great hall of the Radziwill Palace by my mother- in-law and the whole of her family. It was a Saturday, if I remember well, and one of the first things I was told, almost before any greetings had been exchanged, was that three days later my brother-in-law was giving a very large dinner in my honour. To say I was dismayed would be using a feeble expression. I was a mere child, and felt too frightened for words. I would have infi- nitely preferred to have been given some weeks to get used to my new life and surroundings. But, of course, I could not say anything, and so a few

68

FIELD-MARSHAL VON MOLTKE

days later saw me launched into the midst of Berlin society.

I shall never forget that dinner. I had never seen anything like it, nor attended any function in the least resembling it. Taken straight out of the schoolroom into the great world, I felt as if I should never get used it. Certainly I never sus- pected that the day would come when I should enjoy it.

All the old friends of the Radziwill family were present at the dinner, foremost among them the celebrated Field-Marshal von Moltke, who had been in long bygone days chief of the staff of my father-in-law at the time the latter had been in command of an army corps at Magdeburg, and who had remained on intimate terms with him to the last. He was the personage whom I was most curious to see. My father had specially commis- sioned me to tell him my impressions about the great warrior, so I tried to subdue my fright, and to attempt a conversation with him, when, with a wonderful condescension, he came and sat by me, and began a talk which could by no means have been amusing to him. He spoke French very well indeed, which put me at my ease, for at that time I did not understand one word of German, and I believe he tried to make himself pleasant, as pleasant as he could. It seems, as I learned later, that my face reminded him of his dead wife's, and whether this was true or not I cannot tell, but certainly, so long as I lived in Berlin, the illustrious soldier was always most kind to me, and,

69

MY RECOLLECTIONS

though he had the justly deserved reputation of being silent, yet he never missed an opportunity, when we met, of saying a few kind words to me.

I do not remember very well now who were the other guests at the dinner. I know that long speeches were made, which, I suppose, were a wel- come to the bride, as well as allusions to the virtues of the family she had entered into, for all the women put their pocket-handkerchiefs to their eyes, and my mother-in-law wept quite loudly. As I did not understand one word of what was being said, I suppose I produced upon the assembly the im- pression of being a most callous person.

A few days after this debut into society the Court returned to Berlin from Baden-Baden, and the question of my presentation was at once mooted. My mother-in-law wrote to the Empress, and the very next day was told to bring me with her, to be introduced.

I must confess my heart was beating, and I hated the whole procedure. Apart from every- thing else, I was afraid the Empress would ad- dress me in German, when I felt that the last remnants of my composure would surely give way. However, there was nothing to be done, and I had to make up my mind to face the ordeal. It was a cold morning, the snow covered the ground, and I remember thinking what a terrible thing it was to be dressed en toilette de ceremonie at the early hour of eleven o'clock. I donned one of my trousseau gowns, and we started. My sister-in-law had also been told to

70

THE COURT OF BERLIN

come, and I felt her presence would be a comfort, as probably French would be spoken, her German being also rather indifferent. I was not mistaken in this hope.

We arrived at the palace at the appointed hour, and were at once shown into a large room, called le salon blanc, which preceded the one in which the Empress generally gave her audiences. It was in later years to become almost as famihar to me as my own rooms.

The palace, which was occupied by the old King, was a most unpretentious building, very shab- bily furnished, and which could have been taken for a private house, so simple and modest it was. I had been expecting magnificence, such as I knew was met with at the Russian Court, and was slightly disappointed: a feeling, which, however, gave place to amazement when we were shown, after a few moments' waiting, into the presence of the sovereign.

At the time I write about the Empress Augusta had reached the mature age of sixty-one years, and certainly gave one the impression of being older than that, perhaps on account of the very juvenile manner in which she was dressed. A gown of pale cream, very elaborately trimmed, slightly open at the neck, where it displayed a magnificent pearl necklace, seemed to my inexperienced eyes to be rather out of place at that early hour of the day. She wore a wig, composed of innumer- able curls, the colour of which would have been sufficient to cast doubts as to its genuineness. It

71

MY RECOLLECTIONS

was surmounted by an erection of lace and pink ribbons, which must have had pretensions to be called a cap, but which did not bear much resem-- blance to the article. That strange get-up did not produce a favourable impression, but certainly nothing could be kinder than the welcome I re- ceived, and I felt it was most ungrateful on my part not to be more thankful ; but the Empress, as is well known, was not a sympathetic person, and the extreme affectation, which was her chief cha- racteristic, did her an immense amount of harm^ Her voice was not pleasant, and the peculiar manner in which she moved her hands jarred upon one's nerves. She kissed me, and at once began speaking to me of the virtues of the family which, had become my own, prophesying all kinds of nice things for my future. I listened to her without,^ of course, daring to open my mouth, but in silent wonder, not at what she said, but at her manners, and the sound of her voice. She talked to me for about a quarter of an hour exactly as if she had been repeating a lesson learned by heart beforehand, then, addressing my sister-in-law, at once plunged into other subjects, and discussed, among others, the marriage of the young Duke of Hamilton, whose betrothal to Lady Mary Montague, the daughter of the Duchess of Manchester, as she was called at that time, had just been made public. We were soon after this dismissed, the Empress doing so by getting up and making us a little courtesy, than which nothing could have been more graceful or more dignified.

72

PRINCESS CHARLES OF PRUSSIA

The day which followed my presentation to the Queen I was introduced to her elder sister, Princess Charles of Prussia.

Princess Charles was a very different person from the Empress. Just as affected in her way,, she was yet far more sympathetic and certainly a. great deal more liked. Had she not, like her sister,, persisted in trying to appear young, she would have been quite charming. One thing is certain, she had none of that love for intrigue which was one of the principal characteristics of the Empress, and she had an amount of tact the latter never possessed. The two ladies were not supposed to be inordinately fond of each other. People said that Princess Charles did not quite relish having to give up precedence to her younger sister, and that she secretly envied her the Imperial Crown which had descended upon her head. I do not know, of course, how far this assertion was true, but it did not require a very astute observer to notice that relations between the two sisters were more formal than tender.

Prince Charles himself was in his way just as fascinating a man as his brother, the Emperor. He represented one of the best types of an eighteenth- century grand seigneur, and his manner to women was quite perfection ; neither too much nor too little, but gallant with just a shade of reticence, which suggested that had he been in another position he would have hastened to lay the de- votion of his whole heart at the feet of every woman to whom he was speaking. He was im-

73

MY RECOLLECTIONS

mensely popular in society, and the receptions which were held at the palace on the Wilhelm Platz were far more appreciated than those of the Empress Augusta.

Prince and Princess Charles of Prussia had an only son, the celebrated Red Prince. This for- midable personage, in spite of his brilliant military talents, had never known how to make himself popular in society. His manners were brusque, and rumour attributed to him many most unsympa- thetic qualities, one of which showed itself in his treatment of his wife.

This unfortunate lady, by birth a Princess of Anhalt, was one of the most charming as well as one of the most lovely women of her time. Gifted with the rarest qualities of heart and mind as well as with extraordinary talent both for music and painting, she had led the saddest of lives ever since the day when she was led to the altar by the Red Prince. Being unfortunately very deaf, this in- firmity had helped to make her reticent and shy of the world. But her kindness was genuine, and whenever she had an opportunity she helped other people, and was always ready to advise or comfort them in their sorrows. Personally I shall never forget her goodness or the sympathy 1 invariably met at her hands all through the long years during which I lived in Berlin.

Prince and Princess Frederick Charles occupied a suite of rooms in the old castle in Berlin, and the iirst time I was taken to the Princess, in order to be introduced to her, we found her surrounded

74

GERMAN ROYALTY

with her three daughters, the two eldest of whom were just beginning to go out into society, and equalled their mother in loveliness, whilst the third, young Princess Margaret, now Duchess of -Connaught, was still in short frocks, and not out of the schoolroom.

Leaving aside the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, of whom I shall speak later on, the Royal family comprised, in addition to the persons I have named, the son of the Emperor's youngest brother, Prince Albert, now Regent of Brunswick ; his wife, a Princess of Saxe-Altenburg, and his sister. Princess Alexandrine, whose quarrels with her husband, Prince William of INlecklenburg, were at regular intervals coming up before the public. The two daughters of Prince and Princess Charles of Prussia were rarely, if ever, seen in Berlin, and two cousins of the Emperor, Prince Alexander and Prince George, both unmarried and both more or less eccentric, had no influence whatever in society. Prince Augustus of Wurtemburg, in command of the Corps of the Guards, and brother of the Grand Duchess Helen of Russia was living in BerUn, and going about very much, being a general fa- vourite in society. Prince Frederic of Hohen- zoUern was not married yet, and did not count for much among the Royalties, as he lived quite like a private person.

The Queen Dowager, widow of King Frederick William IV., fell seriously ill at Dresden, where she had been staying with her sister, the Queen of Saxony, about the time I married. She died

75

MY RECOLLECTIONS

early in November, and to my intense dismay I found myself obliged to put aside all my pretty trousseau dresses, and to smother myself in crape, for a person I had never seen. Court mourning was not a joke at Berlin at that time, whatever it may be now. Whenever the notice of it ap- peared the whole of society covered itself with garments of woe, and every kind of gaiety was instantly put a stop to. Queen Elizabeth, having been a reigning sovereign, the mourning for her was as severe as it could well be, and consisted of long black cashmere dresses, a kind of Mary Stuart cap of black crape, and two veils, one falling over the face, and the other trailing behind to the very ground ; the last-mentioned had to be worn indoors, and I remember my mother-in-law insisting on our decking ourselves with it every evening for dinner, in anticipation of a possible visit from the Empress, which event did actually occur two or three times during the period when these trappings of woe were pre- scribed. In Russia black is never worn on holi- days, but in Germany it is different, and even on New Year's Day we went and offered our good wishes to the Emperor and Empress in our crape dresses and veils, and anything more gloomy I am sure I have never seen, either before or after that, in the whole of my life.

The first Christmas that followed upon my marriage was thus spent in all the gloom of black clothes. On the 26th of December, the Empress appeared at my mother-in-law's, accompanied by

76

ROYAL BOUNTY

her daughter, the Grand Duchess of Baden, and brought with her an enormous bag filled with various trifles which she distributed among us as Christmas presents. These occasions were dreaded by everybody, as anjrthing more hideous than the knick-knacks the poor Empress used to bring could hardly be imagined. My husband, with his cousins, had composed on the subject a little song of which the refrain was : —

* Un vilain, vilain, vilain cadeau de la Reine ; Un vilain, vilain cadeau de la Reine.'

The fact was that she never gave a pretty thing, and on this particular Christmas, the first in my experience when I was admitted among the recipients of her bounty, I remember having been scared by the sight of an appalling thermometer in green bronze representing the Column of Victory in Berlin, which in itself is a hideous monument. As my ill luck would have it, I was made the unhappy recipient of this monstrosity, and never could get rid of it in after life. No matter where I moved, the dreadful thing followed me. It would not get broken, or lost, or even mislaid ; it was impossible to give it to a bazaar, and I expect that one day it will turn up again from one of my boxes, when I least expect it.

These presents of the Queen remind me of an adventure which befell one of them, and caused my poor mother-in-law a few sleepless nights. She had received for a birthday present from the Empress a table in white china ornamented by

77

MY RECOLLECTIONS

her Majesty herself with paintings of the kind called Decalcomanie. It was anything but beau- tiful, and was at once relegated to a dark corner of the apartment, whence it only emerged when the good Augusta was expected. This kind of thing lasted for about two years, when at last my mother-in-law thought she might venture to dispose of the ugly thing, and gave it to a bazaar held in her own house. She carefully waited until the Empress had paid it a visit, and then, feeling sure of impunity, sent it there. As it happened the Emperor appeared the next day, and after having been taken round the rooms was at once caught by the unfortunate table, and in spite of frantic efforts made by my sister-in-law to prevent him,, proceeded to buy it as a present for the Empress. One may imagine the consternation ! However,. Augusta, if she recognised her own present, showed herself merciful, for she made no allusion to its fate.

No one could accuse the Court of Berlin of inhospitality. Both the sovereigns liked to en- tertain, and it was rarely that an evening went by without some person being invited to spend the evening at the palace. These daily Soirees were called 'les soirees de la Bonbonni^re' from the room in which they were held, which formed part of the apartment of the Grand Duchess of Baden, the Emperor's daughter. There were rarely more than five or six people invited. The Empress used to preside at one round table, whilst the Emperor,, who usually appeared a little late, sat at the other.

78

'LES SOIREES DE LA BONBONNIERE '

Tea, cakes, ices (always of the same kind), and roasted chestnuts, which were most difficult to eat on account of the gloves it was against etiquette to take off, were handed round in turns. Her Majesty, who usually worked at some kind of em- broidery, directed the conversation in the channel she liked best, and it always took place in French. Any new book was discussed as well as the current reviews, and not a little gossip took place before the King appeared. As it was nearly always the same people who met at these entertainments, one was pretty sure what was going to be related or said before even one entered the room. It would be a stretch of pohteness to say these evenings were not dull, though they gave those who were invited to them the opportunity of hearing a great many things they would otherwise have known nothing about. It was in the Bonbonni^re that the old Emperor once discussed the Berlin Congress with me, the only time I ever talked politics with him, of which conversation I shall speak later on.

Apart from these small gatherings, there were about three or four Court balls during the season^ one of which took place in the small palace which the Emperor occupied, whilst the others were given in the old castle. These were very grand affairs, and comprised all the world and his wife, so far as they were of a rank justifying an invita- tion being extended to them. The last one of the Carnival took place on Shrove Tuesday, and marked the end of the dancing season, for at the time I was married, no one would have thought

79

MY KECOLLECTIONS

of giving or attending a ball in Lent, as it was well known that the Empress had strong Roman CathoUc leanings. Courting her displeasure was more than many would have dared, as it practically meant exclusion from the Court festivities, and, after all, enlertainments in the White Hall of the Old Castle, as it was called, were not to be de- spised. They were really on a grand scale, and certainly the sight of the Imperial cortege enter- ing the ballroom constituted one of the finest spectacles in the world. At the present day they say the White Hall has been modernised and improved, but, at the time I am speaking of, it was already a fine apartment. There were galleries upstairs from whence one could watch the movements of the guests, and which con- stituted an excellent place of retirement for those who were tired, or weary with the crowd, and the necessity of standing through the whole evening. In the ballroom itself, a dais was erected at one end for the Royal family, on the left of which the Corps Diplomatique was grouped, whilst the right side was reserved for the ladies of princely families, having the title of Serene Highness or Durchlaucht. Opposite the throne were the other ladies, with those who rejoiced in the appellation of ' Excellency ' at their head. The ball was generally opened by a waltz, of which the first pair were the maid of honour and the aide- de-camp on duty, followed by one of the young Princesses of the Royal family, and the cavalier she had honoured with an invitation. This was suc-

80

COURT BALLS AT BERLIN

-ceeded by a solemn quadrille in which the Crown Prince and Princess generally took part, after which the stiffness of the evening gave way to more or less general enjoyment.

At about midnight supper was announced, and the company distributed itself in strict order of precedence into different rooms. At the door of each, a chamberlain was stationed to prevent in- truders from invading those which they were not allowed to enter. This supper was always more or less of a crush, but 1 have never seen enacted the scenes of confusion which take place at large Court balls in St. Petersburg.

Popular as these entertainments were, invita- tions to them were not half so eagerly sought after as those to the small ball which once a year took place at the Emperor's own palace. To be asked to it was the ambition of every woman in Berlin society, for the fact of having been invited to thaty^^^ placed at once the lucky being, who had been thus honoured, among, not the upper ten thousand, but among the upper thousand in Germany. Ladies kept their prettiest gowns for that day, and at the beginning of each season it was always a matter of anxiety to mothers of de- butantes to know whether their daughters were going to be admitted to the charmed circle of those who were to enjoy the personal hospitality of the sovereign or not. In reality these dances, for, from the Mmited number of guests one could hardly call them anything else, differed in no way from entertainments given by private people,

81 G

MY RECOLLECTIONS

Nothing could be plainer than their scale, but the great charm of them consisted in the kind way in which the Royal hosts received their guests and bade them welcome. It was on these occasions that the proverbial amiability of the old Emperor was seen to its fullest advantage, and it was at them he displayed the gallantry which had made of him in his youth one of the most fascinating personages in Europe.

Apart from balls the winter season in Berlin was ushered in generally by a large dinner offered by the King and Queen to the Foreign Ambas- sadors, and afterwards by a Drawing - room, or Court, as it was called, which enabled all the different classes of society to offer their homage to the sovereigns. When I arrived in Germany, it consisted in the guests being stationed in the different rooms of the castle, and the Emperor and Empress walking through them on their way to the White Hall where a concert took place; but later on, when the Empress became too infirm for this kind of promenade, it was replaced by her taking her seat on the throne, whilst her guests passed before her in quick succession. This cere- mony generally began at eight o'clock, which necessitated an early dinner, and the pleasure of getting at an unearthly hour into a Court train, tiara, and feathers.

No invitations were sent out for these Courts, but all those who were comprised in what was called Court society made it a point to attend them, as it was generally supposed that when this

82

THE OLD KAISER

was omitted, one's name was struck off the list of Court balls. Members of Parliament appeared on these occasions, as well as representatives of the merchant classes, and the Municipality of Berlin and Potsdam, and it was at one of these enter- tainments that the Emperor lost his temper with a member of the Reichstag, who had on some important military measure voted against the Government, and forgot himself so far, as to tell him he had no business to appear before his sovereign, after the animosity he had displayed against his politics.

Such incidents were not frequent in the life of the Emperor William I., but when they did happen, they of course produced an immense surprise, more so indeed than they deserved, for in spite of all his gentleness and genuine ami- ability, the old Kaiser was at heart a furious auto- crat, and did not brook contradiction even to the smallest extent.

Both the Emperor and Empress attended balls and entertainments at the Foreign Embassies, and at the principal famiUes of the Berlin aristocracy, such as the Dukes of Uyest and Ratibor, Prince Pless, &c. Ministers were also honoured by the Royal presence at their festivities, when they gave any, and every Thursday during Lent, concerts were held at the palace, which went under the appellation of the Empress's Thursdays, and to which the whole of the Royal family. Ambassadors and their wives (once a fortnight), and the rest of society, with the exception of a small circle

83

MY RECOLLECTIONS.

which were honoured with a weekly command, were asked in turns, one person after another. Nothing could well have been duller. Every guest on arriving was assigned his or her place at the table of a member of the Royal family, and there one stuck for the whole of the evening, which began with a long circle, followed by a still longer concert, at which the same artists were heard year after year ; then supper was eaten at the same tables one had sat at the whole evening. This supper was served on the red velvet table- cloths, with which the tables were covered, and consisted invariably of the same menu, salmon with mayonnaise sauce, cold chicken and ices. Princess Frederick Charles, always witty, used to say that a barrel of that sauce was made at the beginning of each season, and had to do its whole length. She used to beguile the tediousness of the evening by drawing some of the funniest and cleverest caricatures I have ever seen in my Ufe.

It was at one of these concerts I saw, for the first time, the present Duchess of Devonshire, then Duchess of Manchester, in the zenith of her mar- vellous beauty. She used to come to Berlin every spring to visit her father. Count von Alten, and her sisters, and was always made much of at Court. I remember well the day when I was introduced to her, and how she struck me as the loveliest creature I had ever set my eyes upon. Indeed, I have only met in my whole existence three women who could be compared to her: they are the present Duchess of Sermoneta, Countess de

84

THE COUNTESS VON BULOW

Villeneuve, and a Russian lady, Madame Kitty Tolstoy. The Duchess d'Ossuna, later Duchess de Croy, though a beautiful creature, could not be compared to them, especially to Madame de Villeneuve, who, dying as she did, in the full possession of her loveliness, did not let her wor- shippers see the change that years are bound to bring along with them.

It was also at these Thursdays that I met the present Countess von Bulow, the wife of the German Chancellor, when she was still Countess DonhofF, and a great friend of the Crown Princess of Germany. Fascinating as few beings can be, gifted with the rarest qualities of mind, reminding one of her distinguished mother, Donna Laura Minghetti, Madame von Bulow, from the first moment she appeared at the German Court, be- came one of its most shining lights, and though at that time no one could have guessed the future which lay in store for her, nor the romance which was to unite her life with one of the cleverest men in Europe, hers was a personality which could not pass unnoticed. She commanded sympathy and admiration from the first moment one set one's eyes upon her.

Easter generally put an end to the Berlin season. The Empress left for Coblenz on the Rhine, or Baden-Baden ; and the Emperor, kept in town by military reviews and exercises, made use of the liberty left to him by the absence of his wife, to go about dining with his numerous friends. June generally saw him on his way to

85

MY RECOLLECTIONS

Ems, and in August both he and the Empress returned to Potsdam, where they spent a month before proceeding on their autumn journeys, and where they entertained largely the few people whose sad fate had condemned them to spend the summer in the capital.

I remember well the first time I dined at Babelsberg, as the residence of the sovereign was called ; it was on the 18th of August, 1875, the anniversary of the battle of Gravelotte. I sat at the right of the Emperor, and next to me was Colonel Lestock, who had been in command of the first regiment of the Guards on that fateful day. When champagne was handed round, the old King got up, and, raising his glass, spoke a few words in honour of the day, and with accents I have never forgotten, nor ever will forget, ex- pressed his gratitude to his faithful army for the devotion to duty and the courage it had displayed five years before. Tears were not only in his voice, but actually rolled down his cheeks, when he mentioned his dead mother, who had suffered so much at the hands of the Corsican adventurer, and when he had finished he held out his hand to Colonel Lestock, saying, as he did so, ' I thank you and my faithful regiment of the First Foot Guards.' Lestock kissed the sovereign's hand, and, raising his glass in turn, called for three cheers for the King. The scene, in its simplicity, had a grandeur which was very impressive. It printed itself on my youthful imagination of seventeen, and made me realise for the first time, perhaps, how terrible

86

ANNIVERSARY OF GRAVELOTTE

and earnest had been the struggle which had resulted in the destruction of one Empire and the creation of another. The spectacle of that old man mentioning his mother's name, and ex- pressing his gratitude to his faithful troops for having avenged her, and wiped away the insults she had been obliged to submit to, made me understand the energy and the courage with which he had faced the task which had been laid before him. His simple words moved his listeners, and gave them an insight into his real character, more than a thousand long speeches would have done.

87

CHAPTER V.

The Real Emperor William I. — His Tact aiul Unselfishness- as a Man — His Rapacity as a Sovereign — Relations with Bismarck — The Crown Prince Frederick contrasted with his Father — His Pride in the Empire — His Scruples — His Sympathy with Me in my first Great Sorrow.

I HAD been already settled three months in Berlin, when 1 was for the first time introduced to the Emperor. He had been ill and confined to his room for a long time, so that, though I was fre- quently asked to the small soirees of the Empress, I had never seen her Royal Consort. When Queen Elizabeth died the Court mourning prevented any festivities, so it was about Christmas I met at last the old monarch. It was at a concert at the palace. He sent for me, or, rather, asked my husband to bring me over to him, when he addressed me with the kindness which made him such an attractive personality to all those who approached him. As time went on, and I knew the Emperor more closely, my admiration for him increased every day, and now, after so many years, I cannot help thinking with affection and gratitude of all the various kindnesses I experienced at his hands. He was certainly one of the remarkable monarchs of the century, and with abilities which did not rank above the average, he contrived, only through his. sense of duty, to achieve far greater results than

88

WILLIAM r. OF GERMANY

even Frederick the Great, with all his genius, had performed. William I. s greatest quality was an absolute unselfishness. Whenever the interests of his beloved country required it, he was always ready to forget his personal feelings, or to sacrifice his personal preferences. He was by nature a soldier, with all the soldier's blind obedience, and with the soldier's respect for authority, which in his case was represented by God alone. He had the deep sense of the duties he knew he was born to fulfil, and was absolutely convinced of the reality of what to him appeared to be his mission upon earth. He was imbued with a sense of obligation to the Creator, and though always ready to forget himself never allowed others not to remember that he was their sovereign. But he performed this with such consummate tact that even when he asserted his dignity, those towards whom he did so could only admire him for it. I will give a personal example of what I mean by these words.

One night at a ball given by the Prince and Princess Charles of Prussia, I had remained in the supper room a little later than the other guests, talking to one of the Emperor's aides-de-camp, Count Goltz. William I. saw us, and began chaffing me about what he called my flirtation. Count Goltz at that time was far advanced in the sixties, and so it could hardly be called dangerous. The Emperor was fond of a little joke, and amused himself in teasing me, ending with a more or less long conversation. Count Goltz made his escape,, and people having gradually left the room, I

89

MY RECOLLECTIONS

remained alone with the Emperor. He suddenly noticed this, and laughingly said, ' We had better go back, or else your husband will be getting jealous.' He then offered me his arm, and led me back to the ballroom. Arrived at the door, he suddenly dropped my arm, in the kindest possible manner, with a joking remark of some kind, and -as I made him a curtsey, he drew himself up and entered the room alone, whilst I followed him a few paces behind, but he never left off talking to me the whole time. Of course, it would have been highly improper for the German Emperor to enter any room, even on a private occasion, let alone an official one, as this was, having on his arm a little girl like myself (I was about seventeen at the time), but I doubt whether many people would have been found who could have done what he did in the same kind way.

I have mentioned this little episode because it will help, perhaps, the reader to form a true opinion of the character of the first German Emperor as applied to private life. He united the just pride of the ruler to the affability of a father, and it was impossible to be brought into contact with him without feeling attracted by his genuine qualities. I am speaking now of his private life, and judging him in his private capacity. If we look at him from the public point of view, my appreciation will perhaps be different from those who have not known him so weU as I have done. It may be that as a Russian I am not quite fair towards him, but it is impossible to have lived during the Russo-

90

THE BERLIN CONGRESS

Turkish War of 1877-78 and not to have felt some kind of resentment at the way Germany, forgetting ivhat Russia had done for her a few short years before, had played into Lord Beaconsfield's hands. The Congress of Berlin is a page of Russian history which ought to be erased as soon as possible, if Russia is to keep up her prestige in the East. Events have already justified the conduct of Count Ignatiev, and the statesmanlike insight with which he had judged the situation, when at San Stefano he had signed the treaty England was to tear up, and Germany, forgetful of her obligations to the Power who had allowed her to crush poor France in 1870, had not insisted upon being respected.

I do not think, however, that the Berlin Congress would have turned out as it did, if the old Emperor had been at the head of the Government at the time of its deliberations. But he was lying on a sick bed struck by the murderous hand of Nobiling, and the Crown Prince, who was Regent in his place, was too sincere an enemy of Russian politics to interfere in any way with the plans and decisions of Prince Bismarck; so that after all England had it her own way, and was the only Power who profited by the tremendous sacrifices Russia imposed upon herself in the struggle which restored to Bulgaria her independence. The Emperor WilUam had a latent conviction that Germany had not performed to advantage the part which was expected of her, and the only time he ever talked politics to me, one evening in the ' Bonbonniere,' he told me that he would

91

MY RECOLLECTIONS

have preferred a smaller Bulgaria placed more directly under Russian influence, and that he had been horrified at the emancipation of Jews in Roumania. He added in a resentful tone that he had not been consulted at all during the Con- gress, and that the Crown Prince had had it all his; own way, adding that ' Prince Bismarck thought it was for the best.' I have often wondered since how this conversation came about, especially that (I repeat it once more) it was not the Emperor's- custom to talk politics with ladies. However, the conversation took place, and was more or less a one-sided affair, because, as the reader may well imagine, I only listened, and never ventured to open my mouth.

To come back to the Emperor as a sovereign, I do not think in spite of Prince Bismarck's memoirs, or of the Crown Prince's diary, that the public at large has realised the extent of his ambition. He was, without doubt, covetous of his neighbours' possessions, and the Chancellor had the greatest trouble in the world, to get him to- consent to the conclusion of peace with Austria, after the decisive battle of Sadowa, or to persuade him it would be impolitic to annex the whole of the kingdom of Saxony. He could not under- stand that material victory did not carry with it the assimilation of the nation which had been vanquished. It was the same in 1870, and during the negotiations which had for immediate result the foundation of the present German Empire. The idea did not appeal to the Emperor, who in.

92

WILLIAM I. AND BISMARCK

his inmost heart would have preferred to be a great King of Prussia instead of the first ruler of an Empire in which he was not the one and only authority. If Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and the different minor States of South Germany could have been swept away, as was the kingdom of Hanover in 1866, he would have been deUghted to cover himself with the purple of the Csesars, but it jarred upon his nerves to find he had, if only in appearance, to share his authority with other monarchs whom he secretly despised. In this particular the Crown Prince resembled his father, though in a different way, as I shall show presently when I describe him.

It has commonly been said and believed that the old Emperor did not give much of his atten- tion to politics, and that he was content to let the Chancellor rule as he liked. This is far from true, as the correspondence published the other day will have proved. The Emperor Uked to be consulted upon every point, and very often he absolutely refused to accept the opinion of Bismarck. He considered the army as his particular department, and in any case where it was concerned, it was the aU-powerful Minister that had to give in to WiUiam I., whose eminent quality was an almost infallible sense of the fitness of certain people for certain places. Without being brilliant, his com- mon sense was nearly akin to genius, and in questions which he beUeved to be vital to the welfare of Prussia he put aside likes or disUkes, and did the right thing at the right moment.

93

MY RECOLLECTIONS

This explains how no intrigue, no effort, even those made by his wife and son, ever succeeded in shak- ing the position of Prince Bismarck. Once, it was in 1875 I think, the dismissal of the Chancellor was accepted as a fait accompli by the whole of Berlin society; it was during the Kulturkampf, and the Roman Catholic party, headed by my husband's family and strongly supported by the Empress, had made frantic efforts to oust the dreaded Minister. For a few short days they imagined they had succeeded, then all of a sudden the Emperor turned round, and wrote to his Chancellor that he hoped he would for long years to come continue to give his attention to public affairs. The sensation produced by this letter was immense. The Queen, quite disgusted, started for Coblenz the next day, and the indig- nation was general ; but this manifestation of the sovereign's personal strength of will effectually crushed all efforts at revolt, and neither the Empress nor any of her friends, ever attempted after that to try their hand at politics, however much they might discuss them among themselves. In this profound sense of patriotism, and this resolution to put the welfare of the State before every private feeling, the Crown Prince was very much akin to his father. He too was ready to sacrifice himself, but with one essential difference : whilst the old Emperor was always conscious of the dignity of the Crown, his son thought more about that of the wearer of it. Brought up in different times, he was all his life more or less

94

FREDERICK AS CROWN PRINCE

under the impression of the humiliation of the events of 1848, which had left a never-to be- efFaeed impression upon his youthful mind. He had grown up under it just as his father had entered life under the more terrible shadow of Jena, and the disasters through which Prussia had seen its very existence threatened. An abyss lay between the two men : the abyss which separates the sacred rights of kings from those of a sovereign people. William I. had seen the foot of the Corsican adventurer pressed down heavily upon his nation and his dynasty ; he remembered the tears of his mother, and all those dark days when the Queen of Prussia wept in a mean little room at Memel. Frederick III. had witnessed the in- vasion of the palace of his fathers by the mob, and its triumph in the streets of the capital. He grew up with the image of Lassalle before his eyes, whilst his father had had that of the great Napoleon.

This explains the difference between the two men of whom I have spoken ; it consisted of the distance which divides opinions from persons. The Crown Prince had, perhaps without realising it himself, felt the influence of the ideas which per- vaded the generation to which he belonged. His father, on the contrary, had never witnessed the struggle which at all times has existed between the old people who are going away, and the young ones who aspire to take their places in the world. In his days no differences divided fathers from their sons; they had one common object in view, the

95

MY RECOLLECTIONS

'defeat of the man in whom they saw the enemy of all that they held dear. It was not a question of taking another generation's place, but the far, far more important one of winning back that place in which an usurper had boldly installed himself. Both old and young found themselves united in a common cause against a common foe. With Frederick III. things were very different. Born with a critical turn of mind, and a most generous -disposition, he was by nature the sort of man who would embrace any new idea, if he thought it could be conducive to his neighbour's good. Brought up in liberal opinions by his mother, profoundly imbued with a sense of obligation to- wards humanity in general, his greatest mistake, if mistake it can be called, was to put that hu- manity before individuahties and nationalities. He ] was not obstinate, and yet there was in him a good deal of the perseverance in opinions, which has always been one of the characteristics of the Hohenzollerns ; devoted to his wife, and influenced by his father-in-law, the late Prince Consort, he had taken him for his model, forgetting that the I position of a German Prince Consort in Consti- tutional England, could not be compared to that j of the legitimate sovereign of Prussia. He did not realise that the great respect which Prince ] Albert displayed, and with which he tried to imbue Queen Victoria, for constitutional govern- ment, might have had its source in the fact that British public opinion would never have forgiven him, had he ever forgotten it. Wisdom is often a

96

HEROISM OF EMPEROR FREDERICK

matter of necessity ; it is certain that at the time of the famous struggle between the old Emperor and his son, in the early days of William I.'s reign, he was right, and the Crown Prince was wrong in fact, however much he might have been justified in theory. This struggle unfortunately created a source of bitterness between the two men, which even the glorious events that led to the restoration of the Empire did not succeed in effacing.

It would have been difficult to find a more loving personality than that of Frederick III., he was everything that is noble, everything that is good ; to listen to him was to grow better, to be near him was to get away from all the pettiness of the world, from all the fret, the evil, the in- justice of so-called society. His mind was noble, his nature was true, his heart was kind. He had known disappointment and sorrow, had measured the ingratitude of mankind, had been confronted by some of the most serious problems of life, and had never failed in any of his duties. His was an heroic existence — as heroic as was his death — he had but few faults in him, and these were mostly of a kind which would have been called qualities in any one else. A dutiful son, an admi- rable husband and father, a faithful friend, a good man, there is no doubt that he would have made an excellent sovereign.

His political abilities have been discussed. It is certain that he had not the proud conviction of the nobility of his mission which distinguished

97 H

MY RECOLLECTIONS

his father, nor the briUiancy which characterises his son, but he had a rectitude of opinions and a sound common sense which would have carried him through any difficulty, public or private. Schooled into submission to circumstances by long years of weary waiting for a Crown which ulti- mately was only to be his for three months, and grateful by nature, it is certain he would never have dismissed Prince Bismarck, nor have at- tempted to rule in defiance of public opinion, as his impetuous son has so often done. He would have put his vast experience of pubHc affairs at the service, not only of his own country, but of the world in general.

As regards his life it was in some respects a painful one. It is certain that at no time, even when he exercised the Regency, did he wield great influence on public affairs ; he was always sus- i pected by his father, and made use of by Bismarck when the latter found himself in want of a support against some opinion of the old Emperor's with which he did not agree. The diary of the Crown Prince during the Franco- German war, compared with the memoirs of Prince Bismarck, throws a curious Hght upon the use that was made of the former, by the real master of the German EmpireJ( one of whose greatest talents was the ability to discover the peculiarities of other people, and to! turn them to the profit of his own schemes. Thus,] during the long negotiations which preceded th( memorable day when the old palace of the kings of France was the scene of the greatest triumpl

98

A ROYAL TRAGEDY

of their immemorial enemies, had it not been for the Crown Prince, it is doubtful whether the proclamation of the Empire could have taken place so easily as it did at last. In this eventful circumstance Frederick III. showed himself a wiser statesman than his father, perhaps because he had at the same time fewer prejudices than was the case with the first German Emperor.

And yet he was, if possible, more imbued than his father with the sense of the inferiority of all other German princes in comparison with the supreme chief they had chosen for themselves. To illustrate my meaning I will relate a curious con- versation I had with the then Crown Prince, after the tragic death of King Louis of Bavaria. We met at the wedding breakfast of one of the greatest friends of the Crown Princess, Countess Schleinitz, with the late Austrian Ambassador in Paris, Count Wolkenstein. I was sitting during the meal next to the Prince, who had that very same morning returned from Munich, where he had represented his father at the funeral of the unfor- tunate king. Of course, the king's mysterious end was the subject of all conversations, and naturally enough it formed part of ours. By a strange coincidence, I had myself returned that same day fi'om Paris, where I had been on a visit to my aunts, and the Crown Prince asked me what was the impression produced in the French capital by the event. The conversation drifted then into another channel, and touched upon the foundation of the German Empire, when

99

LofC.

MY RECOLLECTIONS

the heir to the throne, in recapitulating the different facts which had made this restoration possible, spoke of what in his opinion ought to be the feelings of German princes towards the new organization which they had helped to build. He then used to me these remarkable words in French, which have ever since remained impressed upon my mind, and which struck me so much at the time that they were spoken, that I could not help mentioning them the very same day to a great friend I had, Colonel (now General) De Sancy, then French Military Attache in Berlin, who, if he ever reads this book, will surely remember them. What the Crown Prince said was ' Les princes allemands devraient toujours se souvenir qu'ils ne sont que les pairs de V empire — P-A-I-R-S, vous me comprenez ? ' and he spelled the word slowly, just as I have written it. The key to the whole character of the man may be found in this remark.

I have said that Frederick HI. was at heart a Liberal, and had the most rehgious respect for Constitutional Government. Indeed, he carried this respect almost too far — too far, at least, for the heir to a throne whose principles were so essentially different from those which have helped to make the grandeur of the English monarchy. In that sense he was, perhaps, too much under the influence of his wife, though, on the other hand, the Princess would have been decidedly more popular, if she had not yielded as much as she did to certain opinions of her husband. In many cases the Princess was, I think, given credit for influencing her husband,

100

A MERCIFUL PRINCE

when it was not true, as in one memorable in- stance, that of the execution of the would-be assassin of the old Emperor, young Hodel. At that time (the law has been modified since that day) it was imperative for the King of Prussia to sign personally every death warrant. William I. hated so much this part of his duties that no capital execution had ever taken place during his reign. When he was fired upon by Hodel, he declared at once his intention of pardoning the unfortunate wretch, but then took place the second, Nobihng's attempt, in which the aged monarch nearly lost his life. Whilst he lay on his sick bed, Hodel was tried, and, of course, sentenced to death. The Crown Prince was Regent. It was impossible for him to show himself merciful, especially in view of all that had been said regarding his relations with his father ; but though he never hesitated one moment to do what was his duty, his repugnance to the application of the death penalty, was so profound that he allowed the public to learn some- thing of it. Indeed, he went so far as to tell the British Ambassador, Lord Ampthill, who, with his wife, was among his greatest friends, that he had never felt more unhappy than on the day when, by a stroke of his pen, he had sent a human creature into eternity. The Crown Princess, though quite as kind as her husband, did not entirely share his opinions on that delicate point, as I happen to know. If she had sought to influence him at all, it would have been to overcome his scruples, but she did not; and as people in Berlin always

101

MY RECOLLECTIONS

blamed her for everything they did not Uke in the Crown Prince, she was made responsible for the hesitation, if it could be called by that name, he had displayed, when confronted with one of the most painful duties of his high position. I was not in Berlin at the time of the illness and death of the Emperor Frederick, so can only speak of it by hearsay. I think it, therefore, better to abstain from relating what I have heard on that painful subject, and the differences which arose between the Empress and her eldest son, the present monarch. It is certain there were misunderstand- ings, as usual in such cases, rendered unnecessarily bitter by the interference of third parties. It is- also certain that painful scenes followed upon the passing away of the unfortunate sovereign, but I do not think it wise to bring back to public remembrance events which ought to be forgotten, and actions which certainly are to-day the object of regret to those who were led into their performance. The Emperor Frederick always treated me with the greatest kindness. I hope he guessed what profound admiration I had for his noble qualities, and how deeply I was devoted to him. There are moments in life when sympathy expressed in the way noble hearts alone can express it, helps one to bear the most bitter sorrows, and robs them of a part of their acuteness. The Crown Prince knew how to show sympathy; he found the words ta say in every circumstance, he understood that great art of helping struggling souls. Thus at the time of the first grief that made me realise thCj

102

LAST MOMENTS OF THE EMPEROR

meaning of human life, when my eldest and then only child was suddenly taken away from me, it was the Crown Prince who, first of all those who had crowded around me, with banal expressions of a sympathy which was spoken but not felt, made me realise that I was not alone to grieve, and that there were in the world hearts who, having gone through the same agony I was enduring, could understand my own, and by their example encourage me to bear it in my turn. Now, after so many years, and after I have discovered that there are far more cruel ways to lose one's dear ones than by death, I still remember with gratitude the words spoken by the dead Emperor, and hear his voice ringing in my ears, when he told me not to grieve as grieve those who have no hope.

When Frederick III. had reached the last stage of his terrible illness, my own father was dying, and expired a few weeks before the Em- peror. Family circumstances arose which made my husband ask for Russian naturalisation ; he went to Berlin in regard to certain formalities connected with that affair, and the monarch, who himself was struggling with that dreaded reaper who appears at every door to claim his victims, sent for him for a last good-bye. He could not speak, but he wrote in pencil a message for me, which I shall always treasure as one of my dearest remembrances. It was a farewell which I may be excused, perhaps, if I consider in the light of a blessing.

Having said as much, I must hesitate before 103

MY RECOLLECTIONS

attempting to describe the Crown Princess. Speak- ing of her, touches on one of these subjects which it seems sacrilegious to tackle. On the morrow which followed upon her death, I retraced in a few short pages all she was to me, all I have ever found her. I do not think I can add anything to this sketch, written whilst still smarting under the sorrow with which my heart was almost breaking. The Em- press was something more than a woman, she was as far above humanity as goodness is above wicked- ness, virtue superior to vice. Retrace her suffer- ings, relate what she had to endure, drag out of the cases of my memory, where they are enshrined, the story of all she went through, is almost im- possible ; it would be profanation. I cannot speak of the Empress Frederick, the remembrance of her moves in me a thousand emotions which I believed dead and buried for ever. It is impossible, I repeat it, to write the history of that noble life, and anything one might say about it, would only give a false idea of that ' perfect woman, nobly planned,' who was never understood, never appreciated, and who died as she had lived, solitary and alone among her children, and among the gay world, far above all those who surrounded her, and to whom she was a silent, an involuntary rebuke.

I will therefore only relate incidents connected with her official existence, as they occur to me, whilst going on with the story of these years during which she played such a prominent part in the world. They may perhaps help those who never saw her, to understand certain sides of her magnifi-

104

I

THE EMPRESS FREDERICK

cent character ; but they will never describe her as she deserves to be described, a Queen who, in spite of her great position, did not forget she was a woman, gifted with a woman's tenderness, a woman's charm, a woman's warm heart. I do not feel even worthy to pray for her ; 1 hope she prays for me in that Heaven of which she must be one of the brightest stars.

105

CHAPTER VI.

Prince Bismarck and the KuUurTcampf — ' Politique enjupons'^

— The Chancellor under- estimates the Folly of his Opponents

— TTie Radzimill Palace as the Centre of Catholic In- trigue — Archbishop LedochowsMs Imprisonment — The Catholic Leaders^ Mallinkrodt and Windthorst — Bismarck'' s Attitude towards the Crown Prince — and towards the Emperor — The Character of Princess Bismarck — Count Herbert — How the Iron Chancellor won his Way.

At the time of my marriage Prince Bismarck was still to be occasionally met with in society, or at some great Court function. He had not yet developed into the hermit of Varzin or Friedrichs- ruhe, and his tall, commanding figure could be seen in the drawing-rooms of the Empress or of the Crown Princess. It was at the latter's that I was introduced to him, a month or two after I arrived in Berlin. He was most gracious to me, as was his wife, for whom, let me say it at once, I always had the greatest respect, and with whom my relations always remained excellent ones.

In these early days of 1874, the Kulturkampf was in full swing, and I was in the very thick of the fight that was going on. My husband's family was at the head of the Catholic party in Prussia, and their house constituted the centre of opposition to the Chancellor. He knew it, and

106

COURT INTRIGUES

in this war, which lasted until the dismissal of Prince Bismarck by the present Emperor, he certainly did not use ' white gloves,' or spare his antagonists in any way. He was doubly irritated against my sister-in-law, because of her relation^ ship with the French Ambassador, Vicomte de Gontaut Biron, who was also one of the Empress's favourites, and whom he accused of French intrigues. I must say that the accusation was not unjustified, for certainly many things took place which would have taxed the patience of a man far less irritable than was the Chan^ cellor. Later on the Emperor put an end to this politique en jupons, to use Prince Bismarck's own expression ; but at the time I am speaking of, it flourished to an extent which would never have been tolerated in any other country. Gossip was rampant, and the old King was worried out of his life by his wife, and the numerous attempts she made to induce him to compel his Minister to desist from a hue of conduct which, as she pro- phesied, was bound to result in ruin to the State. At first the Prince did not attach much importance to these intrigues, but later on he grew to con- sider them in a far more serious light than they deserved, especially when the religious situation became more acute, and the opposition in the Reichstag more troublesome. It was then that he developed that tjrrannical disposition with which he will be associated in the minds of posterity, and which was artificially fed in him by his friends and foes alike. He grew sullen, morose, impatient of con-

107

MY RECOLLECTIONS

tradictions, and isolated himself more and more from the world. The faults which in some cases made him unbearable, were caused largely by the solitude in which he had elected to live. Sur- rounded by flatterers, he grew impatient of criti- cisms, and far too much convinced of the infallibility of his own judgments.

He was vindictive to a degree which bordered on ferocity ; his conduct towards Count Arnim was altogether unpardonable, for, as is well known to those who were behind the scenes, politics had very little to do with it. The prosecution was instituted simply because the Prince was determined to gratify his revenge against a man who, after having been for many years his tool, refused, at last, to carry out the work he was ordered to perform, ^nd also against one in whom he feared he might one day find a rival.

To come back to the Kulturkampf, I am going to say what will astonish many people, and that is, that I do not believe it would have reached the acuteness it did in time acquire, if the bishops had not been encouraged in their resistance by the members of the Catholic party at Court. A wrong idea as to the strength and importance of this party existed abroad, dating from the time when Prussia was a small kingdom. Then, when it was trying to recover from its wounds after the humiHations of Jena, its sovereign never aspired to play a large part in European politics, but was con- tent to lead the semi-intellectual, semi-official life which to this day is being led at the smaller

108

BISMARCK AND THE REICHSTAG

German Courts, and allowed the opinions of his familiars to weigh in even the weightiest matters of the State.

The victories of 1866 and 1870 came so unex- pectedly, and in such rapid succession, that people hardly realised their importance, or understood that after his return to Berlin as German Emperor, William I. could not look at things any more in the same light as he used to do when he was simply King of Prussia. Bismarck understood, of course, the change at once, and, perhaps, even before it actually took place, and the old King was dimly conscious of it too. No one among his entourage was. They imagined that a Court intrigue could rid them of the powerful man to whom Germany owed her reconstitution, and that a few words from the Queen, or an appeal to the humanitarian feelings of the Emperor, would finally block Prince Bismarck's path. This stupidity only ex- asperated him, and justified in his eyes a line of conduct destined to prevent the feeble adver- saries with whom he had to deal from having anything to say in regard to the conduct of the affairs of the State. He knew very well that the Reichstag was not sufficiently united to organize a serious opposition to his plans, that in the Prussian Chambers his authority would always remain paramount, and he befieved that a very short time would see the end of the struggle in which he was engaged. Unfortunately for him- self, he did not sufficiently appreciate the strength of the Catholic party and its Church. He forgot

109

MY RECOLLECTIONS

that Pius IX. could not live for ever, and that if he were succeeded by a Pope not afflicted with his determination to oppose a non possumus to every effort at conciliation, not drawn on the lines he wished, his (the Chancellor's) position would be- come impossible. He would, whether he liked it or not, have to surrender, not to those whom he had fought, but to the principle which they represented. He looked upon the struggle he provoked with the glance of a statesman who for- gets that the events of the world are not solely and entirely led by politics, but that sometimes personal intrigues of the lowest kind influence them.

I was but a child in 1874, considered as such by all my family. Later on I am sure that they would never have discussed certain things so freely before me as they did then. But in these early days they all believed they could mould me according to their own ideas. Unfortunately, I had been brought up in the intellectual atmos- phere of the Hotel Balzac, and by a father possessed of all the philosophical principles of the eighteenth century. I had been taught to consider the in- fluence of the clergy in private life, as well as in pontics, as an evil which ought to be fought against with energy.

My father in all his letters constantly en- couraged me to resist all efforts to tempt me into the ranks of those who put the Church before every other consideration. I therefore listened to -all I heard without sympathy, but with great atten-

110

BISMARCK AND THE VATICAN

tion. I regret now that I was not old enough at that time to form opinions of my own as to the value of the struggle that was going on ; but at seventeen one only sees things, it is impossible to appreciate them as they ought to be. What I re- member most clearly from these years is that con- stant communications were exchanged between my husband's family and the Archbishop of Posen, Count (afterwards Cardinal) Ledochowski. I do not think he himself had any illusions as to the issue of the war declared by Prince Bismarck against the Catholic Church, but he was influenced by the great position of the Radziwills, and believed they could, through their influence over the King, obtain from him certain concessions which the Chancellor would never have dreamed of making.

The whole Kulturkampf reposed on this mis- understanding, which Bismarck, with all his genius and acuteness, had not foreseen, because he would not admit that serious people like the Archbishops of Posen and Cologne could believe the assurances of men who had nothing to do with the conduct of State aflairs, that they were in a position to influence the sovereign in opposition to himself. Yet it was the case ; and I am fully convinced that if the Radziwill Palace had not existed, the famous journey to Canossa, which Bismarck undertook so many years later, would never have taken place ; or at least would have been under- taken differently. I remember well the day when the news of the arrest of Mgr. Ledochowski

111

MY RECOLLECTIONS

reached us. It was in February, a dull, bleaks winter morning ; I had gone downstairs to see the wife of one of my brother's cousins, Princess Ferdinand Radziwill, the mother of that Prince Radziwill, attache to the Russian Embassy in Lon- don, whose wife, the lovely Mile, de Benardaky, made such a sensation by her beauty a year or two ago. I found her with an open telegram in her hand containing the news that the Archbishop had been arrested the night before. Both she and her husband were terribly excited, and convinced that the event was destined to have the greatest political consequences. My cousin was a member of the Reichstag, and his brother, Prince Edmund Radziwill — then already in holy orders, and vicar of the little town of Ostrowo, in Prussian Poland, the same one in which the Archbishop was con- fined— obtained the Government's permission to share the prelate's captivity. He was a keen politician, and both in private life as well as in his capacity of member of the Reichstag, took a leading part in the struggle. He was by far the most able man of the whole family, and a perfect saint as regards character. But he was prejudiced, as they all were, and as it was impossible for any one, brought up as my father-in-law had brought up his sons and nephews, not to be.

When Count Ledochowski was thrown into prison the general feeling in governmental circles was, that it would put an end to all attempt at resistance on the part of the Catholics; whilst they thought that it would work the Chancellor's

112

A POLICY OF COERCION

defeat in his designs. Neither of these fore- bodings turned out to be true. The time had gone by for martyrs to be taken au s&ieua^, and it had not yet come for the Church of Rome to renounce the fighting quaHties which have always distinguished it. The result of this mis- taken impression on both sides was an unsettled condition of things which, even when it was for- gotten by the outside world, exasperated the Chancellor into making him exaggerate the dan- gers of a situation he had contrived to create, through not having realised the evil which stupid men may make in the world.

In spite of all the rigour of the Archbishop's captivity, communications were constant between him and the leaders of the CathoHc party. They mostly passed through my cousins, but other people were also eager to act as his emissaries. He himself made up his mind most courageously to accept the consequences of a situation he had falsely judged. He determined, once he was in prison, to stay there; which was certainly the best thing he could have done under the circum- stances.

I never saw Count Ledochowski at that time. Years later I met him in Rome, when he was already Cardinal and Prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. He gave a most warm welcome to my husband and myself, and several interviews we had with him left me in profound admiration of his great qualities, as well as of the strength of his intellect. They

118 I

MY RECOLLECTIONS

made me wonder, more than I had ever done before, how he could have been led into believing that people, not even possessed of an average intelligence, could, simply through their social position in the world, be mighty enough to fight with success the greatest statesman of modern times.

In 1874 the Catholic party in the Reichstag possessed one member whose eloquence made him a great power : it was Dr. MaUinkrodt, one of the ablest speakers in the House, and the only person in all the Centre possessed of a clear appreciation of the new system of politics in- augurated by the foundation of the German Empire. He was a man of sincere convictions, not subordinated to considerations of sympathy or of dynasty, as was the case with Dr. Windthorst. Unfortunately, he died relatively young, in the full force of his political powers, and just as his great reputation was beginning to be universally acknowledged. When he passed away, no one remained except Dr. Windthorst, who brought his Hanoverian sympathies to bear upon every question with which he was concerned, and whose great, though unacknowledged ambition, was to get one day a portfolio in the Prussian Ministry. He was a marvellous tactician, a speaker without rival, and a consummate leader. Through him the Centre party became a disciplined thing which could almost be compared to the German army. He drilled it into absolute obedience to his orders, and never allowed hesitation or a personal scruple

114

BISMARCK AT RADZIWILL PALACE

to interfere with his plans. It is to be for ever regretted that his reconciliation was not effected with the Chancellor, and that a rapprochement between the two men only took place when Prince Bismarck's days as a Minister were already numbered.

Personally I never took any part in the re- ligious quarrels which divided our family and Prince Bismarck. Even at the time when they had reached their most acute stage, I continued visiting once or twice a year at the Chancellor's house, and I remember that, just after the Radziwill Palace had been bought by the Govern- ment, and the Prince had taken up his residence there, I called one morning on the Princess, and found them still sitting at a late lunch. Both she and the Prince took me over the whole house, and he made a few joking remarks at the pleasure I must have felt when I left it. Much later, after the Congress at Berlin, I started on my own account a salon of opposition to the Chancellor, but the religious question had nothing to do with it, and the reasons for my conduct proceeded simply from Russian resentment at his behaviour in 1878, as well as from my admiration for the Crown Prince and Princess, with whom he was at that time at daggers drawn, and also a little from my French sympathies. It was curious to watch the Prince on the rare occasions when he was present at any Court festivity. He always stood in a corner of the room, almost alone, and dominating with the head and

115

MY RECOLLECTIONS

shoulders all the other men present. One occa- sion remains particularly engraved upon my mind. It was at the Crown Prince's, after one of the quarrels between the heir to the throne and the Minister had been patched up by some kind friends. The party was given for the birthday of the Crown Princess, and great was our sur- prise when, upon entering the apartment where the company assembled, we saw the Chancellor. I do not think I exaggerate when I say that everybody strained their heads and their necks to see what was going to happen. The doors were thrown open, and the Royal host and hostess made their appearance. The Princess began speaking to the ladies, then very quietly went up to Prince Bismarck. I could not hear what she said, but she talked with him for a certain length of time, without affectation of an exagge- rated amiability, but also without any marked coldness or stiffness. Master of himself, as the Chancellor generally was, he seemed embarrassed, and was evidently ill at ease. He stooped down to reply to the Princess's remarks, and nervously played with his long military glove. As soon as she had left him, the Crown Prince approached him, and then came the marvellous change which must have struck any person gifted with the slightest degree of observation. Bismarck straight- ened himself up, every trace of annoyance or embarrassment disappeared, he looked the heir to the throne straight in the face, or across the head as the case might be. The arrogance of his

116

A NEW YEAR'S RECEPTION

demeanour was not only marked, but exaggerated ; he scarcely replied to the Prince, and made him repeat one or two remarks. In one word he affected the attitude of being the real master of his future master. The scene would have de- served a St. Simon to describe it.

Another occasion when I saw Prince Bismarck was on a New Year's Day when we had assembled to congratulate the Emperor and Empress. It was only the members of princely families who were admitted to that privilege, so that the com- pany was necessarily small. The Chancellor rarely put in an appearance, being mostly at that season of the year at Varzin. This time, how- ever, he happened to be in town, and, much to every one's astonishment, he came to the palace. When the doors were opened, and the Kaiser perceived him, he at once crossed over to him, and the two began an animated conversation. It was almost touching to watch the great Chan- cellor speaking to the old sovereign ; the respect in his countenance and the expression of his eyes had something peculiar I never remember having seen in them before or after that day. Beside him the Emperor appeared a shrunken little old man, with tottering steps, leaning on a stick (it was the year after Nobiling's attempt when he had hardly yet recovered), whilst gigantic in his white Cuirassier uniform, resembUng a knight of ancient times, the figure of the Iron Chancellor towered above him, as it towered above the Empire he had created out of the ruins of old. The spectacle

117

MY RECOLLECTIONS

was impressive, and I believe everybody present was struck with the grandeur of it, but I doubt if many observed what to me was its most curious part, the homage Bismarck's eyes paid to the sovereign, without whom he never could have become the great man he had risen to be, whom in his inmost soul he respected as much as he loved, and to whom he had given all the admiration, all the affection, his stern heart was capable of feeling.

Few people have realised that peculiarity of Bis- marck's nature. He was essentially affectionate ; a more devoted husband or father never existed. His correspondence with his wife has revealed to us the domestic side of his character. He was a man made for home-life, liking it, finding in it — in the tenderness of his wife and children — a solace amid the cares of the State, and the stupendous responsi- bilities which lay upon his shoulders. He was a good fi'iend, he never forsook those whom he liked. If at times his contempt for humanity made itself apparent in brutalities as great as was his genius, he never lost the real kindness nor the genuineness of his feelings. His experiences of life and man- kind had been numerous, curious, and bitter, but the freshness of certain impressions had remained, as well as love for those to whom ties of relation- ship or friendship united him. In the midst of the most serious affairs of the State, he never forgot to inquire after his grandchildren, and a small ailment of the Uttle mites made him more unhappy than when one of his most complicated political plans had failed.

118

PRINCESS BISMARCK

It would be hardly possible to imagine a more happy life than the one he led with his wife. Even the religious question, upon which their opinions were entirely different, did not ruffle the harmony between him and the Princess. She was, in her way, just as remarkable a personality as her husband. Not at all a woman of the world, not brilliant, she had that strong dose of intelligence and common-sense which goes so far to ensure success ; devoted to the Prince, she knew how to efface herself when it was necessary, and never left off watchmg over him with the tenderness of one who puts the beloved person before all personal ambitions. For her, he was perfection, the one being upon earth, the sole object of her care. During the long years their union lasted, they never had an altercation or even difference, and it is to be doubted whether the Prince would have achieved aU he did, if he had not found in his home the necessary encouragement, and above all that affection which, like faith, moves moun- tains.

In spite of all this, and perhaps because of all this, it must be nevertheless acknowledged that occasions arose when Princess Bismarck harmed her husband. She had certain German prejudices which he did not share, but which, in consequence of remarks she made at times, were attributed to him also. She hated everything that was French, and to use Max O'Rell's expression, firmly be- lieved, 'that the devil at an early stage of his

119

MY RECOLLECTIONS

career was naturalised a Frenchman, and settled permanently in Paris.' For her everything French was an abomination, and she rejoiced at the suc- cesses of the German armies in the same way as the Jews rejoiced at the slaying of the Philistines. In her eyes there was nothing good in France, and it was quite sincerely she prayed God to watch over her husband, and not lead him into temptation when he was in Paris. It was the same in several other things ; she was narrow-minded, did not understand the greatness of the deeds the man to whom she was united had performed, but at the same time, she was fully conscious he was a great man. The gravest matters appeared in her eyes to be important only in so far as they were personal to him, or associated with his name; she was the wife of Prince Bismarck, not the consort of the German Chancellor.

But she was good, kind, charitable, a devoted mother, a careful mistress of her household. She was generally respected, and even the smart set did not turn into ridicule her extraordinary dresses, or simple manners. Her character was sincere, her love of truth remarkable, her piety proceeded from her heart, and had no affectation in it. She made her husband a better wife than, perhaps, any woman would have done who understood better the public side of his character. She was to him the slippers and dressing-gown, without which even a genius cannot live comfortably.

120

BISMARCK'S CHILDREN

Of their three children there is Httle to say. The youngest son, Count Wilham, has already followed his parents to the grave. Prince Herbert has turned into a country gentleman, and will probably never reappear upon the political scene. He was an example of how rarely great men beget children who resemble them. He was not popular in the personal sense, and seemed to think that as the son of the imperious Chancellor, he was a privileged person. It is to be hoped that all that has since happened in the political world has softened his character, and brought to light the qualities which, in spite of his detractors, he, as a son of the greatest genius of modern times, can scarcely fail to possess. Prince Bismarck's daughter, married to Count Rantzau, is the only member of his family who has inherited his extraordinary intel- ligence ; she was a great help to him during the last years of his life, and, after Princess Bismarck's death, tried as well as she could to replace her. It is said she could not bring herself to be polite to William II. when, after his official reconciliation with the Chancellor, he visited Friedrichsruhe. I do not know how far this report is true, but from what I have seen of the Countess, I think it may be correct. I believe no one in the Prince's family has forgiven the Emperor, and strange as it may seem to say so, it was perhaps the old giant whom he crushed so ruthlessly, who best understood his conduct, and in his inmost heart found excuses for him.

I must, before I end this chapter, relate an: 121

MY RECOLLECTIONS

incident which will show in what way Prince Bismarck made war upon those he disliked.

He would not have dared to attack openly my husband's family, unless he had had positive proofs which he could have laid before the Kaiser of their intrigues. These, of course, it was next to impossible to get. He therefore hit upon the following ex- pedient. My brother-in-law had a secretary, called M. von Kehler, a former clerk in the Foreign Office. He had been a Protestant, was converted to the Roman Catholic faith, and like all converts, became a fanatic, which fact did not prevent him from being a very pleasant and amiable man. He was treated as a friend of the family, was in general highly respected, and an influential member of the Reichstag. In May or June, 1874, my brother-in-law was at Ems with the Emperor, most of the family were away from town, and we were about five or six people left in the immense old house. We were startled one day, on going down to dinner, by a visit from the police with orders to search the papers of M. von Kehler, in the room he occupied in the Radziwill Palace, a room in which he did not live, but which he only used as a worki'oom. My husband's cousins loudly protested, but the orders were formal ; the police took possession of the room, and under pretence of looking into M. von Kehler 's drawers, examined every paper belonging to my brother-in-law or cousins. I never knew the end of the story, nor whether anything was found ; but I much doubt it, as the greatest precautions were always ob-

122

BISMARCK'S METHODS

served as regards documents. I do not know whether any complaint of this unwarrantable interference ever reached the Emperor's ears ; but the incident throws a curious hght on the ways in which Prince Bismarck managed to do what he wished, and get what he hked.

123

CHAPTER VII.

The Princess Victorians Influence on Berlin Society — Lord AmpthUl — The other Ambassadors — The Princess ofWales^ — A Story of the Russian Empress's Visit to Eng- land— Court Entertainments — Outbreak of the Russo- Turhish War — Skobeleff and Osman Pasha — An Inci- dent of the Shipka Pass — The Treaty of San Stefano.

Berlin Society, at the time I am speaking of, was very exclusive. With the exception of the Crown Princess, no one ever dreamed of admitting into * society,' people belonging to the middle classes. Artists, journaUsts, literary men, or professors at the University, were rather looked upon as curiosities, when not as necessary evils. The Princess Victoria was the first to give them equality of treat- ment with the narrow circle of what were called HofFahige people. At the small tea-parties given at the Palace, men like Mommsen, Dubois Ray- mond, Helmholtz, Ranke, the historian, Rudolph and Paul Lindau, the journaUsts, were met. Her great intelligence enabled her to discuss with them the studies which had made their names famous ; and often, without knowing it, she helped to educate Berlin society, by speaking with freedom on topics considered — until she brought them into prominence — as the exclusive possession of those

124

LORD ODO RUSSELL

who had devoted their lives to the mastering of them.

The Empress, though she often made a point of encouraging science, hterature, and art, did it in a way which accentuated the distance which separated its representatives from the select circle out of which she chose her intimate friends. BerUn society was not amusing, though amuse- ments were perpetually going on ; but it was hospitable, and it differed in that, at least as regards foreigners, from St. Petersburg in its present days. Diplomats were made much of, and foremost among them ranked the British Ambassador, Lord Ampthill, at that time known as Lord Odo Russell. I do not think that any one who has known that most charming and clever man has forgotten him, nor the tact, the intelligence, and the consummate political ability which made him such a distinguished statesman. He succeeded in remaining on good terms with Prince Bismarck, as well as the friend — I think I can almost say the intimate friend — of the Crown Prince and Princess. His knowledge of the world was marvellous, his experience of affairs quite extraordinary. He knew unerringly the right thing to be done, and never found himself embarrassed, no matter in what situation he happened to be. Married to a daughter of the late Lord Clarendon, he found in her a true helpmate, and one in every respect worthy of him. They entertained most hospitably, and no diplomats before or after them, have ever

125

MY RECOLLECTIONS

succeeded in establishing themselves in the same position they had acquired in society. I cannot help thinking that had Lord Ampthill been alive in 1888, many events which accompanied the illness and death of the Emperor Frederick, would never have taken place.

The Austrian Ambassador was Count Karolyi, whose wife, the lovely Countess Fanny Karolyi, was so much admired in London, and has left such a charming remembrance in the minds of all those who saw her. She also was fond of entertaining, and during the Congress of 1878 her house was the meeting-place of all the notabiUties that crowded in Berlin at that important time.

The Russian Ambassador was Baron d'Oubril, a pleasant httle man, but one who, after the tragic death of his wife (she was drowned whilst bathing) was seen but little in society. Italy had not yet raised her legation to the rank of Embassy, and of the other members of the Corps Diplomatique there is very little to say, with the exception of the two French Ambassadors, the Vicomte de Gontaut Biron and the Comte de St. Vallier.

The fii'st named of these personages had been the first representative appointed by the Republic after the Treaty of Frankfurt. He belonged to one of the oldest and proudest families of the ancien regime, and being a very pleasant, shrewd man, without being a first-rank statesman, he had managed, with the help of considerable tact, to make for himself a good position in the Prussian capital. He was

126

AN ABLE DIPLOMAT

related to my sister-in-law,