Less known to travellers than many others far inferior in interest, is the Hohenzollern Museum, occupying the Monbijou Palace in the heart of Berlin. This palace, of so much interest to the readers of Carlyle"s "Frederick the Great," has been transformed into a repository for the personal belongings and memorials of the kings and queens of Prussia.
One or more rooms devoted to each sovereign in historical succession make up a fascinating picture of the royal customs of the kingdom for two hundred years. Our attention was called to this museum by an English resident, but its interest far exceeded our expectations. Here are the laces, jewels, and often the entire wardrobes of the Hohenzollern queens, with their writing desks and tablets, jewel-cases, embroidery, work-baskets, mirrors, beds, and other furniture; and the kings have each their own apartment likewise, tenanted by their "counterfeit presentments" in wax, sitting or standing in the very clothes they wore, and surrounded by visible mementos of the life they used to live. The glittering eyes and mundane expression of Frederick William I., father of Frederick the Great, give one a strange feeling, and the chairs and table of his "Tobacco College" must have a vivid interest for every reader of Carlyle"s "Frederick." But when we entered the rooms containing the many mementos of the Great Frederick himself, from his effigy in the cradle and his baby shoes, and threaded all the vicissitudes of that strangely fascinating life by the help of its visible surroundings, and finally stood before the gla.s.s case containing a mask of his dead face and hand surrounded by its laurel wreath, the spell of the past was at its height. It was a bright sunny afternoon, and the golden light came in long slanting lines through windows opening on Monbijou gardens, beautiful even in winter, and lay upon the tessellated floors of the corridors in patterns of shining glory. The chat and laughter of young companions floated from adjoining rooms, and the foot of the guard fell softly in the marble halls. But a kind of awe born of that wonderful past had taken possession of me. I was alone with the spirit of the Great Monarch, and it was more than could be borne. We hurried away from the spot, as when children we fled from fancied ghosts. To one in search of a genuine sensation, we recommend the reading (with judicious skipping) of Carlyle"s "Frederick the Great," and a visit, alone or with a single companion, to the Hohenzollern Museum.
Upwards of twenty years ago, German trade was falling behind in the best markets of the world, because the products of German industry were largely poor in quality and deficient in artistic value. With the Duke of Ratisbon, President of the Herrenhaus, as chairman of a committee appointed to consider the subject, a few leading minds combined in a movement which issued in the establishment of the Industrial Art Museum. The Crown Prince and the Crown Princess were much interested in the subject, and gave the plan their hearty support. Less than ten years since, the fine new building in Zimmer Stra.s.se near Koniggratzer was opened on the birthday of the Crown Princess, to receive the vast treasures acc.u.mulated, by gift, loan, and purchase, for the permanent exhibition. A cursory visit, though most interesting, is sometimes bewildering from the extent and variety of the collection. The centre of the edifice consists of a large court, roofed with gla.s.s and surrounded by two galleries. This is the place reserved for loan exhibitions, and several of importance have already been held here. One of the earlier was of some of the treasures of the South Kensington Museum, loaned by Queen Victoria.
Opening upon these arcades are numerous halls on the lower floor, devoted to the permanent exhibition. The cla.s.sification of the objects exhibited, if not loose, is very general, seeming to us inferior to the method which makes the South Kensington a delight, whether one has hours or months in which to visit it. On the ground floor of this Berlin Museum are "objects in the making of which fire is not used."
This includes domestic and ecclesiastical furniture of different countries and historical periods, musical instruments, tapestries, carvings in ivory and wood, and many other objects widely separated in thought. A fine exhibit is made of articles in amber wrought by workmen of rich old Dantzic, for which Baltic Germany furnishes the raw material. The ancient Italian carved bridal-chests brought vividly to mind our childhood"s favorite story of Ginevra, by chance imprisoned in such a chest on the day which was to have witnessed her marriage.
The upper floor, with an arrangement similar to that of the lower, shows "objects in the manufacture of which fire is necessary." The very extensive collection of pottery and porcelain was surpa.s.sed, in our observation, only by that at Sevres; and there are many rare and valuable specimens of work in gla.s.s and metals. The ancient munic.i.p.al silver service of the city of Luneberg, bought at a cost of $165,000, deserves the attention it attracts; and the work of German mediaeval goldsmiths--particularly of the famous Augsburg artisans--is a revelation of the possibilities of human handiwork. Stained gla.s.s, of much historic and artistic value, fills the windows of the entire building. The specimens of textile fabrics, in completeness and extent, are matchless, and are so arranged as to afford the utmost facility to students of the history of this important subject, as well as great pleasure to the favored visitor who has the opportunity to inspect them.
This "Kunstgewerbe Museum" is open to the public without charge on three days of the week, and for a small fee on the remaining days; while its valuable industrial library may be freely consulted on four week-day evenings. Its influence is already strongly felt along the lines of trade and industry throughout the Empire.
The great Ethnographical Museum adjoining, on the corner of Koniggratzer Stra.s.se, has the kind and variety of objects usually found in such exhibitions, including those connected with several races of American Indians. The other departments were, to us, eclipsed in interest by the Schliemann exhibition of Trojan remains on the ground floor. Here we found, on the walls, framed pencil or India ink sketches of the localities where the earlier excavations were made, plans of the work, sections of the unearthed portions, and the precious old Trojan antiquities themselves, deposited here for inspection and safe keeping.
The Markische Museum, in the Fisch Markt, a centre of Old Berlin, ill.u.s.trates the history and the prehistoric times of the Mark of Brandenburg, including an interesting department of curiosities from the lake-dwellings and tumuli. There are also ancient coins and other objects picked up at different times within the province. One of the later treasures of this unique museum is the box from which the monk Tetzel sold the indulgences which fanned into a flame the rising fires of the Reformation.
VI.
THE GERMAN REICHSTAG AND THE PRUSSIAN PARLIAMENT.
The Reichstag, or Imperial Diet of the German Empire, was, during our stay in Berlin, a focus for the eyes of all Europe and America. The Government, professedly actuated by a fear of war, asked for an appropriation, largely to increase the army annually for a term of seven years. This House of Deputies, elected by the people and numbering nearly four hundred members, contained a considerable element of opposition to the Government. The debate over the Army Bill brought Chancellor Bismarck up from his distant country-seat, where he had spent several previous months, to a partic.i.p.ation in the contest which was antic.i.p.ated on both sides with eagerness and solicitude.
The building on Leipziger Stra.s.se, as severe in inner details as in the sombre gray of its outer walls, was hastily constructed in 1871 for the accommodation of the newly consolidated German Empire, and has long been inadequate to the need. A single gallery surrounds three sides of the hall, and is occupied on the right by boxes for the Imperial household, the diplomatic corps, and high officials. The left is appropriated to English and American visitors; and the centre, immediately above the desk of the presiding officer and the elevated seats of the Chancellor and members of the Bundesrath, is alone left for the general public. When the new building near the Thiergarten shall be occupied, it is hoped that greatly improved acoustics and ventilation may be secured, and the accommodations for visitors such that it may not be said that there are Germans in Berlin who have for years desired visitors" tickets of admission without having been able to secure them.
By a singular good fortune, our tickets gave us seats for this debate in full view of the leaders of each of the great parties. On the first day the Prime Minister made his great speech, and on the second day thereafter, Richter, the leader of the progressive party, took up the speech point by point, and with bold and vigorous oratory for two hours held the attention of all to his own opposing views. A man of robust physique, still in the prime of life, Richter"s dark complexion and facial expression give the impression of "staying qualities"
formidable as lasting. The session opened at eleven o"clock A.M., and the veteran General and Field-Marshal Von Moltke was the first speaker. His rising was the signal for a general hush, and for about a quarter of an hour all listened in breathless silence. Half the width of the hall from the observer, his more than eighty years seemed to sit lightly on "the great taciturnist;" and his fair complexion, fine brow, thin face, and singular firmness of mouth have the fascination of genius. Later, during the long and sometimes denunciatory speech of Richter, he seemed wearied. Rising from his seat in the front rank of the Conservatives on the extreme right, he moved to the rear, stood in the aisle, took a vacant seat,--resting by various changes for fifteen or twenty minutes; but when, between one and two o"clock, the time for Bismarck"s entrance approached, he returned to his own seat and thenceforth listened attentively. Like the aged Emperor, Von Moltke"s age was most apparent in his movements. Sitting or standing, he was the graceful, well-bred gentleman, as well as the dignified chief of the German army. In walking, his movement is slow, and lacking vigor to a marked degree. The offer of the Opposition to vote for the bill with a term of one, two, or even three years, while declaring that they could not vote for seven, was haughtily received by the Prime Minister, who had already given his reasons, supported by the Emperor, by Von Moltke, and other eminent military authority, for adhering to the longer term. "I will not abate a hair"s breadth of the septenate," said he. "If you do not vote it, I prefer to deal with another Reichstag." This on the second day of the debate. On the third day Bismarck replied to some of the positions of the Opposition, in a speech of three quarters of an hour, immediately following his opponent, Richter. The latter, and the members on the left included in the three great divisions of the Liberal party, retired from the hall at the conclusion of Richter"s two hours" speech; but the centre, or Catholic party, among whom were several priests and a number of very keen and watchful physiognomies, remained in their seats, as well as the Conservatives of both grades. Soon Richter was back, though without his supporters. Fumbling a moment at his desk for pencil and paper, he stepped forward in the aisle, so as not to lose the sentences of Bismarck (occasionally somewhat indistinct), and refusing to be diverted for more than an instant by the communications of friends and officials. Cries of _Ja wohl! Ja wohl!_ and _Bravo!_ were heard from the right during the speech of Bismarck, with now and again a general ripple of laughter at some pleasantry accessible to the German mind; but these were much outdone in heartiness by the applause which frequently interrupted Richter when speaking. There is a ma.s.siveness about this scene which rises up in memory with a vividness greater, if possible, than the reality made on our excited and wearied endurance during the hours we spent there. Later, Windhorst, the leader of the Roman Catholic party, made a memorable speech. The dozen great electric lights depending from the ceiling were extinguished when the early afternoon sun faintly struggled with the clouds for entrance through the skylight which forms the entire roof of the room, except those left burning near the seats of Bismarck and Von Moltke, which brought these foremost figures into strong relief. Prince William--now Emperor--and the gentlemen of his party were in gay uniforms in the Imperial box, and the diplomatic box was lighted mainly by the diamonds of the ladies who sat there; while the crowded ranks of the other galleries were in dim twilight. It was a picture to remain in history. The bill was lost. In less than twenty-four hours after we left the Reichstag, Bismarck had read his summary dissolution of the Diet, and before another sunset the hall was closed and silent.
The Iron Chancellor had made his appeal to the country. The war-cloud was heavy over Europe, and great was the excitement in Berlin. Under fear of a bolt which might strike at any moment, the elections for a new Chamber were held, and Bismarck had his will.
The Reichstag is the representative body of the whole German Empire, with its four kingdoms, six grand duchies, and sixteen lesser princ.i.p.alities and powers united under one emperor. Prussia is a kingdom which forms but one, though the most important, of these const.i.tuent parts. The Reichstag is a kind of Upper and Lower House in one; the Bundesrath or Federal Council, with somewhat arbitrary powers, has its private Council-room; but the Chancellor of the Empire is its presiding officer, and, with the members of this Council, occupies the elevated platform at the right of the President of the Reichstag. The chief function of the latter as a legal Chamber of Deputies is to check the power of the Bundesrath. It can thus reject bills and refuse appropriations, but has no power to bring about a change of administration.
The Prussian Diet is composed of two separate houses. The building of the Lower House--the Abgeordnetenhaus--is near the eastern extremity of the Leipziger Stra.s.se, and the House of Lords--Herrenhaus--is adjacent to the Reichstag-Gebaude. The Prussian Lower House is somewhat larger in numbers than the Reichstag, and is of course an elective body. It contained a number of eminent men,--as Herr Windhorst, also the leader of the Catholic party in the Reichstag, and Professor Virchow. On the day of our visit no business of special importance was before the a.s.sembly, and visitors" tickets were obtained with an ease in pleasing contrast to the most difficult feat of obtaining entrance to the Reichstag on a great occasion.
The House of Lords is reputed a dull place, and is seldom visited. In a dwelling formerly occupying this site (No. 3 Leipziger Stra.s.se), and of which some memorials remain, Felix Mendelssohn spent, with his parents and sister f.a.n.n.y, several years of his wonderful youth; and the "Gartenhaus" of this estate witnessed the memorable private performance of the work which first revealed his greatness to the world,--the "Overture to the Midsummer Night"s Dream."
VII.
PROMINENT PERSONAGES.
"I love my Emperor," said "our little Fraulein," laying her hand on her heart, one day when we were talking of him.
It was on our first day in Germany that we, returning from church a little after noon, were kindly greeted by an American lady who saw that we were strangers. "The Emperor lives on this street," she said; "and if we hasten, we may see him when he comes to the window to review his Guards." Soon we were before the palace on Unter den Linden, a substantial-looking building facing the north, with an eastern exposure. The Imperial standard was floating over the palace, denoting the presence of his Majesty. The room on the ground floor, northeast corner, of the palace is the one used by Emperor William I.
as his study; and one back of this was his bedroom, containing the simple iron cot which was the companion of his soldier days, and which remained the couch of his choice to the end of life. At "the historic window" we often saw him. Every day at noon, and sometimes long before, the crowd began to gather in the street opposite this window, for a sight of his Majesty when he came for a moment to review his Guards at a quarter to one. It was touching to see the devotion of the people, standing patiently in all weathers; mothers and fathers holding up their children that they might catch a sight of the idolized Kaiser. Rarely did he disappoint them. As the military music of the guard drew near, and the tramp of the soldiers fell on the pavement before the palace, the aged man would appear at the window in full uniform of dark blue with scarlet tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and silver epaulettes, returning the salutations of the guard, and bowing and waving his white-gloved hand to the people, then retiring within the shadow of the lace curtains. Sometimes the cheering broke forth anew as he was lost to sight, and the welkin was made to ring with the Kaiser-song, or some hymn of Fatherland, until he indulgently appeared again, bowing his bald head, his kindly face lighted up with a smile.
In full-front view he did not look like a man in his ninetieth year.
Many a man of sixty-five or seventy looks older. When he turned, the side view revealed that his form was not erect; but only when he walked with a slow movement could one realize that this soldier of perfect drill--this courtly gentleman--was one who had seen almost a century of life. His earliest memories were of privation and hardship.
In his young boyhood the First Napoleon held Berlin in his grasp, and the family of the King, Frederick William III., fled to Konigsberg.
The beautiful and n.o.ble Queen Louise and her two little boys, afterwards Frederick William IV. and William I., wandered at one time in the forests, and made their food of wild berries. They amused themselves by making wreaths of _cornblumen_,--blue flowers answering closely to our "bachelors" b.u.t.tons,"--which grow wild everywhere in Germany. Thenceforward the _cornblumen_ were dear to the young princes, and they were "the Emperor"s flowers" to the end of his Imperial life. So devoted was he to the memory of his mother, that when in his later years he saw a young girl whose striking beauty of face and form reminded him of Queen Louise, he persuaded her to allow her portrait to be taken, that it might remind him of the mother whom he remembered in her youth. This beautiful portrait is bought, by many Germans even, as that of Queen Louise, and may be known by a star over the forehead. The finest actual portrait of this Queen which we saw was, at the time of our visit, in the Old Schloss at Berlin, and showed a mature and lovely woman, every inch a queen. The exquisite reposing statue, by Rauch, in the Mausoleum at Charlottenburg, over her grave, is well known by copies.
The life led by the aged Emperor was simple and methodical to the last. Rising at half-past seven, he breakfasted, looked over his letters and papers, and was ready by nine or half-past nine to begin his reception of officials or other callers, which lasted till after midday. After lunch, he usually drove for an hour or so in the afternoon, often accompanied by a single aid, bowing right and left to the populace, who thronged for a look and a smile. His plain military cloak enveloped him in cold or rainy weather, and his was often one of the plainest equipages on the brilliant street. "I do not think," said General Grant, after having visited the Emperor, "that I ever saw a more perfect type of a soldier and a man. His Majesty went off into military affairs. I was anxious to change the subject, as I had no interest in the technical matters of war. But the Emperor held me to the one theme, and we spoke of nothing else. I fancied Bismarck sympathized with me, and would have gladly gone off on other subjects, but it was of no use. The manner of Bismarck toward the Emperor was beautiful,--absolute devotion and respect. This was my one long talk with the Emperor. I should call him the embodiment of courage, candor, dignity, and simplicity; a strikingly handsome man."
Sometimes the Kaiser would hold up to the palace window his eldest great-grandson, now Crown Prince, then a beautiful child of four or five years; and the little fellow would go through his military salute of the pa.s.sing guard with great gravity and propriety, while the huzzas of the crowd burst forth with renewed zeal. This child was the favorite of the aged Emperor, and sometimes took liberties with his great-grandsire which would hardly have been tolerated from any one else. If it was touching to see the devotion of the people to their Emperor, it was no less so to see how he trusted himself with them. He could remember when, with the revolutionary spirit of 1848, the mob in the streets of Berlin had so insulted him, a prince, that he had fled for a time from his country. But that he had forgiven and they had forgotten long ago. The times had "changed all that." Now he lived daily in sight of the people, with only a pane of gla.s.s for a shield.
He loved his people, and they worshipped him with no temporary oblations. One of the last occasions in which we saw him in public was that of the spring manoeuvres in the last May-time of his long life.
Some distance south of the Halle gate, the large and finely situated "Tempelhofer Feld" extends to the suburban village of Tempelhof, which was once the property of the Knights of Malta, and which still bears their cross and inscription on its church bells. The intervening ground has been devoted to the annual parades of the Berlin garrison for more than a hundred years. It has ample room for evolutions of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, but a comparatively small s.p.a.ce is devoted to the accommodation of spectators. Only about three hundred carriages can be admitted, and these are distributed among royal personages, officials, and a limited number of distinguished or fortunate visitors. Our application for a carriage place was duly filed with the chief of the Berlin police a month or six weeks in advance of the parade, but, after long waiting, word came that there was no room. By the courtesy and special thoughtfulness of Secretary Crosby, of the United States Legation, a carriage ticket was placed at our disposal, after all hope of obtaining the coveted privilege had been abandoned.
The German Emperor can place, if need be, nearly three million trained soldiers in the field. All able-bodied Germans are liable to service, with few exceptions, from the age of twenty to that of thirty-two, and can in exceptional circ.u.mstances be called out up to the age of forty-two. But the German youth spends only the first three years, of his twelve of liability, with the colors, the remaining nine being spent in different branches of the reserve forces. The effective force in time of peace is about half a million, which is distributed through the Empire in seventeen army corps, of which the Third has its headquarters at Berlin. The ordinary strength of an army corps is about thirty thousand, including infantry, cavalry, and artillery; but the garrison of Berlin and various extra and unattached troops bring the number up to fifty thousand or more, stationed mostly in Berlin and Potsdam. These have their spring manoeuvres at Berlin; and the special parade, for which every day for two months beforehand seemed parade-day in the streets of Berlin, was that for which we were so fortunate as to receive tickets. Nearly every day for a week previous, his Majesty was to be seen, in his low two-horse carriage, pa.s.sing through the Unter den Linden and south through Friedrich Stra.s.se, to the parade-ground. On this grand and final parade-day the three hundred carriages of the privileged spectators were in good time on the ground a.s.signed them, prepared to welcome the Emperor and the Imperial party as loyally as the soldiers themselves. A deafening hurrah burst from the throats of all, as his Majesty appeared in a carriage and drove to his post of observation. Many of his princely retinue, both ladies and gentlemen, were on horseback; and it was formerly his custom to review the troops, mounted on his black war-horse. In spite of a piercing wind which swept over the wide Brandenburg plains, we hugged our warm wraps, and stood in our carriages, like all the rest, in eager watchfulness and admiration, as the evolutions of the most perfectly drilled troops in the world went forward. The infantry marched and countermarched; plumes of all colors waved in the sunlight and kept time to the music; uniforms and men seemed but part of one grand incomprehensible automatic movement; battle-flags scarred with the history of all the wars fluttered their tattered shreds in the wind, waking memories of irrepressible pathos and joy; the artillery rumbled and thundered; the evolutions of the cavalry were like systematic whirlwinds; and the scarlet Zouaves, the blue Dragoons, the white-uniformed and gilt-helmeted Cuira.s.siers, and the dark Uhlands with lances ten feet long poised in air above their prancing horses, commingled the "pomp and circ.u.mstance of war" without its pain. Now the infantry come on at double quick, in the step with which they entered Paris; now the artillery is lumbered across a vast stretch of the field with a rapidity and precision which almost take away one"s breath; and anon the cavalry seem to burst in orderly confusion upon the scene, flying in compet.i.tion, across, around, athwart, until the cheers and huzzas burst forth anew with, "Hail to the Kaiser!" "Long live the Fatherland!" It was with joy that the soldiers received the commendations of their Imperial chieftain on that field-day, and it was to us a fitting place and moment of farewell to the great military Emperor.
"King, the Saxon Konnig," says Carlyle,--"the man who CAN." And Emperor William I. was the man who _could_.
"Fritz, dear Fritz," were the last words of the aged Emperor. "Unser Fritz" was the well-beloved elder brother of the German people. If any doubt as to the real feeling among the South-Germans toward the Imperial house had existed in our minds, it was removed as we journeyed through Saxony, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Darmstadt, Thuringia.
Everywhere, in humble homes, in shops, hotels, and market-places, were the likenesses of the handsome Kaiser and the open, sincere, manly countenance of the Crown Prince to be seen. In Berlin the Crown Prince occupied the palace directly east of that of the Kaiser, separated from it only by the Operahaus Platz. We had heard him called "the handsomest man in Europe." Our study of his kindly face from photographs had revealed manliness enough, but nothing more to justify this epithet. But as one came to be familiar with his look, his figure, his bearing, there was full a.s.sent to his being called, in appearance, "the finest gentleman in Europe." The t.i.tles and tokens of honor that had been showered upon him, and which he wore so gracefully, were his least claims to distinction. He was as great in true n.o.bility of soul as he was exalted in station, as symmetrical in character as he was regal in bearing. When he mated with the Princess Royal of England, he was not even Crown Prince of Prussia, and some of the English papers a.s.serted that the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria had married beneath her. But this opinion was easily dissipated, as the years brought, with increasing honors, development of manly virtues and graces. A hero in the wars in which his country had engaged before he reached middle life, and with all the courage of his Hohenzollern blood, he yet delighted in peace, and was a most humane and liberal statesman. That thirst for liberty which is quenchless in the human breast, and which has had as yet small satisfaction in Teutonic lands, seemed to find sympathy in this enlightened Prince. At the age of thirty he became the heir apparent to the Prussian Crown, when the new king, his father, had reached the age of sixty-four. When he was forty, and his father was proclaimed Emperor of Germany at the age of seventy-four, Frederick became heir to the Imperial throne. A most careful and liberal education, grafted on a genial and wise character, had fitted him to watch the course of events in which, according to the course of nature, he might be expected so soon to take chief part. But the years which made his sire venerable pa.s.sed, and still he had no opportunity to shape public affairs. Absolutism feared his influence and that of his liberal and strong-minded English wife. The prime of life was his; but his best years were behind and not before him as at the age of fifty-five he filially and devotedly filled his own place, the loved and loving son of his Imperial father, whose trusted representative he was on all courtly occasions, the model husband and father, the accomplished and interested patron of art and letters, the polished gentleman, the benevolent and devout Christian. During his last winter of health (1886-1887) he was often to be seen among the people. Accompanied by the Crown Princess and their three unmarried daughters, he walked out and in, along the Unter den Linden, an interested partic.i.p.ator, like any other father of a family, in the Christmas shopping. On one of the culminating days of the great Reichstag debate, it was Prince William who was seen in the Imperial box in the Parliament House, while "Unser Fritz" with wife and daughters were skaters among the crowds on the ice-ponds of the Thiergarten. This by no means indicated indifference to great questions of public concern. None knew better the issue, the times, and the need. But, standing all his mature life with his foot on the threshold of a throne, with talents and training fitting him to do honor to his royal line, to his Fatherland, and to the brotherhood of kings in all lands and ages, he yet knew that while the father reigned, it was not for the son to reign. He was to bide his time.
Alas! an inscrutable Providence made that time to be crowned only with the halo of a dawning immortality, a time in which strength and peace were to be radiated from one anointed by the chrism of pain, and whose diadem was to shine, not among the treasures of earth, but as the stars for ever and ever. When the messenger of the fallen Napoleon III. had brought his unexpected surrender after Sedan, and the flush of startling victory had mantled even the cheek of the pale and reticent Von Moltke, had shaken the leonine composure of Bismarck, and affected the heroic William I. almost to tears, the courtly Frederick forgot himself and the victory of the cause he had helped to win, in sympathy for the vanquished foe. The embarra.s.sed general who brought the surrender of the French had Frederick"s instant devotion, and those first moments of deep humiliation were soothed by the conversation of the Crown Prince and by kind attentions which all others forgot to render. With a truth and devotion to his country which could never be doubted or questioned, he yet had a heart "so much at leisure from itself" that in the supremest moments of life he sympathized with friend and foe, as only regal souls can do.
I saw this foremost prince of Europe in the nineteenth century always and increasingly to admire him, whether in the largest or the smallest relations of life; whether as royal host entertaining the sovereigns of Europe and their representatives when that magnificent a.s.semblage came to greet the ninetieth birthday of his father; dashing on horseback through the streets of the capital and the riding-paths of the park; saluting with stately grace his Imperial sire, as he alone entered the place where the Emperor sat; handing the Crown Princess to her seat, or going down on his knees to find her Imperial Highness"s misplaced footstool in her pew at church; accompanying his daughters to places of public amus.e.m.e.nt and looking upon them with manly tenderness; or standing with military helmet before his face in silent prayer, as he entered the house of G.o.d to worship before the King of kings.
My last sight of his Imperial Highness was on one of the latest occasions of his public appearance in Berlin while in health, in connection with one of those opportunities of hearing grand music in which this city excels the rest of the world. It was that most devotional music ever written,--Bach"s Pa.s.sion Music, rendered once a year, on the evening of Good Friday, in the Sing Akademie of Berlin.
There was a trained chorus of about four hundred voices, with the best orchestra in the city, besides solo singers of repute,--one, a charming alto from Cologne. The simple and touching narrative of the Betrayal and the Crucifixion was sung as it is written in the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh chapters of Matthew, certain phrases and sentences repeated and adapted to the music, but none of it essentially changed in form. One of the ba.s.s soloists took, with the tenor, the soprano and the alto alternating, most of the narrative; and another ba.s.s solo took the words of Jesus, whenever these occur in the sad story. The _arias_ and _recitatives_ were finely given, but no effect was comparable to that of the grand chorus. The single word "Barabbas!" sung, or rather shouted, by these hundreds of voices in perfect time and tune, was overwhelming. Another pa.s.sage of most thrilling effect was that in which every instrument and every voice joined in the deafening but harmonious description of the mult.i.tude who went out with swords and staves in the midnight, to take the unoffending Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. And one could almost hear in the music the sobbing of Peter when, after his denial of the Lord, "he went out and wept bitterly." Another most touching pa.s.sage was that representing the love of the woman who anointed the feet of Jesus. When the shout of the mult.i.tude arose in the words "Crucify Him!" the awfulness was intense. There were times when the audience scarcely seemed to breathe freely, so strong was the spell, so vivid the reality of this saddest and most touching of narratives, as interpreted by this wonderful music. Never but once have I heard the perfection of choral music. It was one of the grand and solemn ancient hymn-tunes which are introduced at certain stages of this composition.
I closed my eyes to the brilliance of the scene before me, that the ear might be the sole avenue of impression. Not the slightest jar or dissonance revealed any difference in the four hundred voices speaking as one; there seemed but one great soul pouring forth the vast volume of the harmony. The mighty cadences rose and fell, breaking in waves of sound against walls and roof, and must have floated far out into the night, now soaring in triumph, now sweet and soft and low as the tones of an Eolian harp; but the voice of hundreds was only as the voice of one. Three hours and more, with one brief intermission, we listened, and lived as it were those last sad hours of the Life so sacred and so majestic, so unutterably full of love. The end came, when the stone was rolled against the sealed door of the sepulchre, and the Roman watch was set. No hint of a resurrection was in the music; but the singers sang, in closing, again and again, in varying strains, "Good-night, good-night, dear Jesus!"
The audience, moved as it seemed by a common impulse, joined in that last song. The Crown Prince, with the Crown Princess and their daughters, and the Princess Christian, then on a visit to Berlin, were in the royal box in the concert-room. With his family and his royal visitors, Frederick, his voice already in the penumbra of a dim, unknown, unforeseen, but fateful shadow, took up the strain. "He sang it through," said a friend to me, who knew him well, "and I could see that he was deeply touched." There we left the story, as almost nineteen hundred years ago it was left, on that Friday evening in Jerusalem, with the full light of the Paschal moon falling on the closed and silent tomb, in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea.
Two days later, on the evening of Easter Sunday, the Crown Prince united in the service of the English Church, with his family, in celebrating the joyous anniversary of a sure resurrection, and during the same week left Berlin in quest of rest and health. He came not back until, before another Good Friday, "Unser Fritz" was Emperor of Germany, and already walking through the Valley of that Shadow in which he sorrowfully sung of his "dear Jesus," one short year before.
Various estimates have been made of the talents and character of the third of the three German Emperors of the year 1888, but the record and the proof of all prophecies concerning William II. have yet to be made. As Prince William we saw him with best opportunity in the Imperial box at the Reichstag, where for three hours he listened intently to the speeches of Bismarck, Von Moltke, and others. A fair young man, in the heavily ornamented light blue uniform of his regiment, to a casual observer his countenance bore neither the marks of dissipation nor the signs of intellectual power and force of character. But he was only in the late twenties, and "there is time yet." He is the idol of the army, and the devoted friend of Bismarck.
Not one of all the great concourse of dignitaries at the celebration of the ninetieth birthday of William I. received such shouts of adulation from the populace as those which rent the air when the State carriage pa.s.sed which bore the Prince and Princess William and their three little sons. Of the Princess William, now Empress Augusta Victoria, there was but one opinion. "None will ever know the blessing which the Princess William has been to our family," once said her father-in-law, the Crown Prince Frederick. From the throne to the hut, blessings followed her, a Christian lady, in faithfulness as wife, mother, friend, and princess, worthy of her exalted place. At a lawn-party given for the benefit of the Young Men"s Christian a.s.sociation, in the magnificent old park of the War Department in the heart of Berlin, Prince and Princess William were present. The Princess walked up and down, chatting now with one lady, now with another, in attire so simple that the plainest there could feel no unpleasant contrast, and in manner so beautiful and genial that we could forget the princess in admiration of the una.s.suming lady.
Of the Empress Frederick much has been said, and much invented, since the days when she left England, a bride of seventeen, to make her home in a foreign land.
"Is the Crown Princess popular?" I said to a young German lady, in the early days of our residence in Berlin.
"Not very."
"She is strong-minded, is she not?"
"Yes, too strong," replied the lady.
Perhaps the Crown Princess Victoria did not sufficiently disguise the broad difference between her birthright as the heir of the thought and feeling of her distinguished father, "Prince Albert the Good," and the low plane still habitual to many German women. She has always been an Englishwoman; and this was the chief charge I ever heard against her, in my endeavor to reach the real statement of the case. And yet all agree that she has been devoted to the best interests of the German people. Everywhere in humane, benevolent, and educational work, we found the impress of her guiding hand. A German lady, of rare ability, sweetness, and culture, was one day giving me the pathetic story of her hopes and efforts for the elevation and education of her country-women. In the course of the conversation she was led to quote a remark made to her by the Crown Princess: "You must _form the character_ of the German women, before you can do much to elevate them." Is not this in keeping with the profound practical wisdom which, notwithstanding the puerilities and small femininities which abound in some of the published writings of England"s royal family, makes their pages still worth the reading, and lets us into the secret of the true womanliness which, despite all blemishes and foibles, Victoria, Empress Queen of England, has instilled into the mind of her daughter Victoria, Empress Dowager of Germany. There is hope for womankind, when "the fierce light which beats upon a throne" shows naught to mar the purity of the home-life which has adorned the palaces and the courts of Germany and of England, so far as these have been under the influence of the two Victorias.