With regard to his shooting, there is no scion of royalty who has been the cause of more gun accidents than the prince. He had not attained his majority before he managed, while shooting in the game preserves of his uncle, the Grand Duke of Baden, to wound a gamekeeper so severely that the man was crippled for life, and has since been in the receipt of a generous pension from the prince. Then in Corfu, while clambering up a steep hill, he had the misfortune to unintentionally discharge his gun, the lead lodging in a Greek gentleman who was following a few feet behind him and grievously injuring him; while at a later period he succeeded in inflicting serious damage upon a Turkish dignitary appointed by the Sultan to attend him during his shooting trips in Syria. It is of him, too, that is related the story of how, when asked as a youth of twenty, by Queen Victoria, during one of his stays at Balmoral, what sport he had had while out deer stalking, he replied proudly: "Well, grandma, I did not succeed in killing a stag, but I hit quite a number." It is recorded that there was a painful silence after this remark, and that the prince was not again urged to go out deer stalking during his stay at Balmoral!
Princess Henry is probably the least favored, both as to beauty and brilliancy of intellect, of the daughters of the late Grand Duke of Hesse, and of his consort, Princess Alice, second daughter of Queen Victoria. Her three sisters, the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Sergius of Russia, Princess Louis of Battenberg, and the young czarina, are renowned for their loveliness and their cleverness, the latter inherited from their talented mother; whereas Princess Irene and her brother, the reigning Grand Duke of Hesse, take far more after their father. Princess Irene was born in 1866, during the Seven Weeks" War, when her father was called upon to fight his own brothers in the Prussian army, and his brother-in-law, the late Emperor Frederick, then Crown Prince of Prussia. Her baptismal sponsors were the officers and men belonging to the two cavalry regiments under her father"s special command during that war:--there is no other princess in Europe who has ever had two entire regiments of cavalry for G.o.dfathers! The name of Irene was bestowed upon her by way of grat.i.tude for the restoration of peace, and she used always to be known in her young days at Darmstadt as the "Friedenskind," or "child of peace." After her mother"s death from diphtheria, it was the latter"s eldest sister, the now widowed Empress Frederick, who endeavored, as far as possible, to look after the children, and it was perhaps this that led to Prince Henry"s falling in love with his cousin. The match was strongly opposed by Prince Bismarck, partly upon the ground of the close relationship of the parties, but mainly on account of his hatred for the reigning house of Hesse. But when Prince Henry declared that he would remain single all his life unless he were allowed to marry Princess Irene, consent was given, and the wedding took place at Charlottenburg in the presence of the dying Emperor Frederick, this being the last public ceremony at which he was present. One of the saddest of sights, indeed, was that presented by "Unser Fritz," almost too weak to stand, giving his voiceless blessing after the ceremony to his favorite son, and to his new daughter-in-law, who, having been born in a time of war and misery, was entering upon her new life as a wife at a time when the whole nation was once more sorrowing. While Princess Irene is perhaps less attractive than her sisters, she is more interested in philanthropic movements than any other member of her family, and at Kiel, where she makes her home, she is greatly liked, especially by the poor. She is a magnificent equestrienne, and a very clever shot, being infinitely more successful in this respect than her husband, who is so devoted to her that he bears this superiority with the greatest equanimity.
Although Prince Frederick-Leopold has certainly relieved himself from any imputation of effeminacy by the conspicuous part he took in the long-distance rides between Berlin and Vienna, and by his magnificent horsemanship, yet he does not convey to people the impression of manliness that const.i.tutes so distinguishing a characteristic of his cousins, Prince Henry and the kaiser. He is lacking alike in virility and intellect, and seems to have no other aim and aspiration in life than to live up to his name and reputation as the leader of masculine fashion or "Gigerl Konig," which may be rendered into English as "king of the dudes." They say at the Court of Berlin that he is so particular about the fit of his clothes that he will never remain seated for more than five minutes at a time, not even when traveling, for fear of spoiling the crease in his trousers or of making them baggy at the knees! He does not attempt to disguise the fact that the faultlessness of his coats or of his uniforms is an object of paramount importance. These are, however, very harmless weaknesses, which are more than atoned for by the fact that he is an excellent father and husband, but the obstinacy of his temper and his vagaries as a leader of masculine fashion at Berlin have often been a source of impatience and irritation to the kaiser. It is only just to lay stress on his excellence both as a husband and a father, as all sorts of stories have been circulated, not merely in the foreign press, but also in the German newspapers, charging him with intemperance and with brutality towards his wife, who is a younger sister of the empress, such as to necessitate the intervention of the kaiser.
These stories are pure calumnies, and originate in a confusion between the prince and his father, the celebrated cavalry general. The latter, popularly known as the "Red Prince," was the commander to whom Metz capitulated in 1870, and was not only noted for his hard drinking, but likewise for his rough usage of his amiable and formerly lovely consort when he was in his cups. He is credited with having frequently beaten her, either with his fist or with his riding whip, when crazed with drink; and it is no secret that she left him on three occasions with the avowed intention of securing a separation and even divorce, and was only persuaded to return to her husband by the entreaties of the old emperor.
Of course all this was a matter of court gossip at the time, and three or four years ago the stories formerly current concerning the father, who has been dead for more than a decade, were revived with regard to his son, for no other reason than that the prince had quite frequently rendered himself subject to disciplinary measures by the kaiser. If the latter has, however, ordered him to remain under arrest in his palace at various times, it has not been as a punishment for having horsewhipped his wife when drunk, as some foreign ill.u.s.trated papers would have the world believe, but only because the prince had been guilty of some neglect in military duty, or had disobeyed the wishes of the emperor in connection with the management of his household.
Thus, some two or three winters ago, Princess Frederick-Leopold was almost drowned while out skating near Potsdam; she broke through the ice, was completely unconscious when miraculously rescued by four peasants who happened to be in the neighborhood, and was only brought back to life with the utmost difficulty. The emperor and empress were naturally much concerned and distressed by this accident; but William"s sympathy changed into very serious anger when he learnt that the princess had remained so long under the ice and had been dependent on the courage and bravery of the peasants who rescued her, only because neither her husband nor any of the gentlemen of his household had been in attendance upon her. In fact, she was quite alone with a lady-in-waiting, who lost her head, and was completely unable to offer any a.s.sistance when the mishap occurred. The emperor also discovered that on the previous day the princess had, without any escort whatsoever, skated alone all the way from Potsdam to Brandenburg and back, a remarkable feat, calling for much endurance and attended by no little danger. Now, as I have already stated, it is contrary to the rules of court etiquette and usage for any prince or princess of the blood to leave their residence, unattended, and it was on account of the infraction of this regulation that the kaiser sentenced both the prince and his consort to several weeks" arrest in their palace. It was this circ.u.mstance that gave rise to the ridiculous and sensational tale of the prince having been punished by the emperor in consequence of the latter having caught him in the act of beating the princess while in a fit of drunken fury.
Prince Frederick-Leopold is a great traveller, and has not only spent a considerable time in India as the guest of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Connaught, when the latter was in military command at Bombay, but, moreover, he has visited China and j.a.pan, and devoted several months to a tour in the United States, which was wound up by some rather exciting events at Coney Island before his return home to Berlin.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _SCENE IN DUKE ERNEST GUNTHER"S QUARTERS_ _After a drawing by Oreste Cortazzo_]
Of the bachelorhood days of the kaiser"s other brother-in-law, Duke Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, already mentioned several times in these pages, especially in connection with the anonymous letter scandal, the least said the better. A hard-drinking, dissipated, and somewhat coa.r.s.e-mannered cavalry officer, he has often been a source of perpetual anger to the kaiser and of distress to his sister, the excellent empress. He managed to get his name involved in all sorts of unsavory speculations on the stock exchange and in gambling scandals, invariably, it is true, as a victim; while at least three foreign footlight favorites were expelled from Germany by the police on account of the scandals created by his a.s.sociation with them. On one occasion, he even had the audacity to appear at Charlottenburg with a notorious American "_demi-mondaine_" seated beside him on the box of his drag, although his sister, the empress, was present at the races, as well as a large number of ladies of the court and many great dignitaries. Seeing the servants of his coach arrayed in the familiar liveries of his house, they all naturally imagined that the lady beside the duke was one of his sisters, either Princess Frederick-Leopold or Princess Fedora, and accorded to her the homage which would have belonged by right to either of these two princesses, but which was totally misplaced when conceded to a woman of such unenviable notoriety as the fair stranger who sat beside the duke.
Needless to add that the emperor was furious when he heard of the affair, and after giving orders for the immediate expulsion of the woman, directed the prince to leave Berlin, and to remain at his castle of Prinkenau until he had expiated his gross and flagrant breach of the proprieties.
Duke Ernest-Gunther was a suitor for the hand of quite a large number of princesses, and among those to whom he proposed were the daughters of the Prince of Wales and of the latter"s brother, the Duke of Coburg, his suit being rejected with touching unanimity in each instance, in consequence of his unenviable reputation. Yet strangely enough, as stated previously, he seems to have developed into an exemplary husband, although his marriage was contracted under circ.u.mstances which, verged on a tragedy; for his wife, a mere seventeen-year-old girl, just issuing from the school-room when he made an offer for her hand, was literally flung into his arms by both her parents, who were determined to separate from each other, and who had been informed by Emperor Francis-Joseph of Austria, and by King Leopold of Belgium, that no such step could be tolerated until after the marriage of little Princess "Dolly," the only daughter of this ill-matched couple. The betrothal took place in due course at Vienna.
But before the marriage could follow, the young girl"s mother, namely, Princess Louise of Coburg and of Belgium, deliberately eloped from the Austrian capital with her husband"s chamberlain, the Hungarian Count Keglewitch; and what was worse, took her daughter with her. The trio fled to Nice, where they were visited by King Leopold, who after endeavoring in vain to persuade the princess to return to her husband at Vienna, discarded her in hot anger, declaring that she was no longer his daughter!
The next act in the drama was a challenge issued by Prince Philip of Coburg against Count Keglewitch, who left Nice for the encounter: the duel was fought in the army riding-school at Vienna, the commander of the metropolitan garrison and the minister of war acting as seconds to Prince Philip, although duelling is strictly forbidden by law in Austria, as it is in Germany. Prince Philip received a painful wound in the hand, and the count forthwith left to rejoin the princess at Nice. The publicity given to this duel had the unfortunate result, however, of calling attention to the presence of poor little Princess Dorothy at Nice with her misguided mother and the count, and the princess having been warned by the Austrian authorities and the French police that her daughter would be taken from her by force unless she relinquished her hold upon the child, she sent her back to Vienna, whence the girl was immediately dispatched to Dresden and placed under the care of the mother and the unmarried sister of the German empress, with whom she remained until her marriage.
Shortly after her departure from Nice, her mother was forced to take flight in consequence of the persecution to which she was subjected by her creditors; and with a shamelessness that can only be explained on the score of an unbalanced mind, she deliberately returned to Austria with her lover, and coolly took up her residence at his castle near Agram, where the count actually made preparations for a siege, in order to resist by force any attempt on the part of the authorities to take the princess from him.
Ultimately, both were captured by strategy, and while the princess was conveyed under police escort to Vienna, and lodged at the request of her husband in a lunatic asylum, on the sworn statements of two court physicians concerning her insanity, the count was placed under close arrest at Agram on the charge of grossly immoral conduct, unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. Before he had been very long in the military prison, this charge was changed to one of forgery; for it was discovered that there were notes in circulation at Vienna and Paris to the extent of more than a million dollars, which the count had negotiated, and which bore the forged signature of Princess Louise"s sister, the widowed Crown Princess Stephanie of Austria.
The count of course denied that he had forged the signature, but as the fact remains that he negotiated the notes, and that Princess Louise, who, failing himself, can alone have been the culprit, is officially declared insane, and legally irresponsible, he has had to bear the brunt of the affair, and is now, after having undergone the terrible ceremony of military degradation, working out a sentence of five years" penal servitude in a fortress; doubtless comparing his fate with that of the celebrated Baron Trench, who was imprisoned for years in the dungeons of Spandau, and of Magdeburg, for having compromised the fair name of the sister of Frederick the Great by indiscreet attentions.
Princess Louise is now under strict restraint in an asylum for the insane near Dresden, and inasmuch as both her father, King Leopold of the Belgians, and her husband, have declined to pay any of her debts, public sales of her belongings, even of her dresses and her under-garments, were permitted to take place at Vienna and at Nice for the benefit of her creditors. It is only fair to the unfortunate princess to state that her entire married life has been one of uninterrupted misery, owing to the brutality and drunken habits of her husband, who is noted as one of the most dissolute princes in all Europe. In fact if court gossip at Berlin and Vienna is to be believed, the princess first became enamored of Count Keglewitch when the latter, in attendance on the princely couple as their chamberlain, interfered one day to protect her from the blows of her husband.
It was amidst circ.u.mstances such as these that Princess Dorothy was married to Duke Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, neither her father nor her mother being present at her marriage; the reigning Duke of Coburg, as chief of the Coburg family figuring in the place of her parents, and giving her away at the altar. That with such a father, such a mother, and with a husband of such a past reputation for dissipation and wildness, the little princess should have found happiness in marriage, is, to say the least, surprising. But the duke seems devoted to his little wife, while she on her side is completely wrapped up in her husband, and thinks him perfect, in every way.
Yet another brother-in-law of the kaiser who is a conspicuous figure at the Court of Berlin, is Prince Adolphus of Schaumburg-Lippe, married to Princess Victoria, the least attractive and least popular of William"s sisters. After several flirtations of a rather sensational character with young Count Andra.s.sy, and several other gay diplomats and n.o.blemen, which were a source of amus.e.m.e.nt to the court, although of great concern to her mother, she ultimately fell in love with Prince Alexander of Battenburg, who at the time had just been forced to abandon the throne of Bulgaria, and who was certainly one of the handsomest and most fascinating of European princes. The prince, who was at the time, to put matters plainly, out of a job, being without fortune or future, was persuaded by his relatives, notably by his brother Henry, who had married Princess Beatrice of England, to apply for her hand; this he did, on the understanding that his marriage to her would facilitate his restoration to the German army, from which he had resigned on ascending the throne of Bulgaria; for as a general of the Prussian army, he antic.i.p.ated retrieving the prestige and fame which he had lost as ruler of Bulgaria.
Prince Bismarck, however, set his face strongly against the match on the ground that it would impair the friendly relations between the Courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg, Prince Alexander being for personal reasons an object of the most intense animosity to the late czar. Indeed, it was this hatred on the part of the late Emperor of Russia that had rendered it impossible for Prince Alexander to retain his throne of Bulgaria. Old Emperor William, supported his chancellor in the matter, and while the late Emperor Frederick, at that time merely crown prince, remained quite pa.s.sive, the cause of Princess Victoria and Prince Alexander was strongly championed by Empress Frederick and Queen Victoria. The controversy continued even after the death of old Emperor William, and finally, in face of the persistent hostility in the matter displayed by Prince Bismarck, and by the present kaiser, it was arranged that the couple should be married, not in Germany, but in England, at Windsor Castle, and that they should make their home elsewhere than in Germany. This, however, did not meet the views of Prince Alexander, who thus saw all his ambition for a military career in the German army frustrated instead of promoted by the union. So at the very last moment, within a few days of the date appointed for the wedding at Windsor, and after all the trousseau had been purchased and the wedding presents bought, he deliberately jilted his royal fiancee, and married at Nice, an actress named Mlle.
Losinger, an offspring of the valet and the cook of the old Austrian General Faviani.
The prince, it may be remembered, subsequently abandoned the t.i.tle and status of a Prince Battenberg, secured the t.i.tle of Count Hartenau from his father"s old friend and comrade, the Emperor of Austria, as well as a colonelcy in the Austrian army, and died as major-general in command of a brigade at Gratz.
It was more than a year after this, that Princess Victoria found a husband in the insignificant-looking and inoffensive Prince Adolph of Schaumburg-Lippe, son of Prince George of that ilk, the prince at that time serving as Captain of Hussars at Bonn. Soon afterwards, Emperor William learning that Prince Waldemar of Lippe was dying, took advantage of the fact that he was rather weak-minded to induce him to sign a species of will bequeathing the regency of the princ.i.p.ality at his death to Prince Adolph of Schaumburg-Lippe, the next heir to the throne of Lippe; his brother Alexander of Lippe being an incurable lunatic. On the strength of this doc.u.ment, which was of a purely personal character, and which was neither ratified by the legislature of the princ.i.p.ality of Lippe, nor recognized by the federal council of the German empire, Prince Adolph, with the a.s.sistance of a couple of Prussian regiments, coolly took possession of the princ.i.p.ality of Lippe, proclaimed himself regent, and a.s.sumed the reins of government.
According to the laws of Germany governing the succession of its sovereign houses, the regency in such a case as that presented by the princ.i.p.ality of Lippe, should have fallen to the lot of the nearest living agnate. The latter happened to be Count Ernest of Lippe, chief of the Beisterfeld branch of the Lippe family. Prince Adolph, however, and his brother-in-law, Emperor William, took the ground that Count Ernest was debarred from the regency, and from succession to the throne on the death of the crazy Prince Alexander, by the fact that sometime in the early part of the last century one of his male ancestors had contracted a mesalliance, and thus brought a plebeian strain into the family. This contention was accepted neither by the people of Lippe, nor by the count; they appealed to the tribunals of the empire, and to every reigning family of Germany in turn, the entire non-Prussian press, as well as many newspapers in Prussia itself, espousing their cause.
Finally, the emperor and his brother-in-law were forced by popular clamor to consent to bring the matter before a tribunal of arbitration, composed of the princ.i.p.al judges of the Supreme Federal Court at Leipzig, presided over for the occasion by the dean and veteran of German sovereigns, King Albert of Saxony. The tribunal, after due deliberation, rendered a decision against the emperor and Prince Adolph; directing the latter to at once surrender the regency and the Lippe estates, which are immensely valuable, yielding an income of eight hundred thousand dollars, to Count Ernest of Lippe, on the ground that if a mesalliance such as the one contracted by the count"s eighteenth-century ancestor were to be considered sufficient to invalidate his rights to the regency and to the succession to the throne, as the nearest living male relative of the crazy reigning prince, half the thrones of Germany would have to be vacated by their present occupants.
It was pointed out by the arbitrators that if the contention of Prince Adolph and the kaiser were admitted, the Grand Duke of Baden would have to abandon his throne; the branch of the Baden family to which he belonged being descended from a prince of Baden who contracted a mesalliance at the close of the last century; that all the children of the emperor himself would be barred from succession to the throne of Germany, since the great-grandfather of the present Empress of Germany was the offspring of a terrible mesalliance; while last, but not least, Prince Adolph himself was descended from a prince of Lippe who towards the close of the last century, fell in love with and married the daughter of a mere writ-server, whose blood flows in the veins of the emperor"s brother-in-law.
Emperor William and Prince Adolph bitterly resented the setback to which they were subjected by this decree of the King of Saxony; and although they were forced to yield in the present instance, they threatened to reopen the entire question should anything untoward happen to the present regent, Count Lippe, for they insist that under no circ.u.mstances can any of his sons be permitted to inherit either his rights or his honors, owing to the fact that his wife, the Countess of Lippe, is also the issue of a mesalliance, her mother having been an American girl, a native of Philadelphia, who married Count Leopold Wartensleben. On the strength of this, Prussian authorities, military as well as civilian, while directed to accord to the Count of Lippe the honors due to the regent of a German sovereignty, are forbidden to recognize in any way either the count"s consort or his children, on the ground that these can only be regarded as morganatic, and as such debarred from the tokens of respect due to full-fledged members of a sovereign house.
Naturally, all this has served to render Prince Adolph and his wife extremely unpopular throughout the length and breadth of Germany; and when a short time ago there was a question of appointing the prince as regent of the Duchy of Brunswick in succession to Prince Albert of Prussia, who is tired of the post, or as a stadtholder of Alsace-Lorraine in the place of Prince Herman Hohenlohe, the press throughout Germany, and even in Prussia, raised its voice in protest against the emperor"s forcing his brother-in-law into places for which he was in no sense of the word fitted, either by his talents, his administrative skill, his tact, or his intellectual abilities.
CHAPTER IX
Although Germany"s young crown prince has until now been more or less of a stranger to court functions and gaieties at Berlin, his time being absorbed by his studies at the military academy of Plon, and his holidays spent in travel and Alpine expeditions, yet, as he is about to celebrate his majority, and has pa.s.sed from the stages of boyhood to those of manhood, he will be from henceforth a personage of the utmost importance--second only in rank to the emperor.
Destined, in course of time, to succeed to the throne and to the immense responsibilities of his father, and to become virtually the autocratic ruler of a nation of fifty million people, as well as the absolute master of the greatest military power on the face of the globe, every sc.r.a.p of information concerning this youth must naturally be of vast interest, not only to his future subjects, but also to the entire civilized world. Under the circ.u.mstances, therefore, it is satisfactory to be able to say truthfully that Germany"s future kaiser is a fine, healthy-minded, healthy-bodied lad, disposed to take an extremely serious view of his duties and his obligations, and who, thanks to the excellent education which he has received both from his parents and his teachers, seems destined to prove a wise as well as a popular monarch.
It seems but the other day that the young crown prince, as a chubby ten-year-old lad, was being introduced by his father to the officers and men of the first regiment of Foot Guards at Potsdam, to which, in accordance with traditional usage, he was appointed on his tenth birthday as lieutenant. There may be some of my readers who were present on that occasion, and who may remember the spectacle presented by the little fellow, vainly endeavoring to keep step with the giant strides of these huge grenadiers, the tallest men in the German army, during the march-past that followed the ceremony. Since then there have been so many portraits of the crown prince published, as he appeared at that time, that this taken in conjunction with the rapid flight of years, renders it difficult to realize that he is now no longer a little boy, but a youth considerably taller and almost as broad and stalwart as his father, whose best friend he has become.
William and his eldest boy are fondly devoted to each other. To the crown prince, his father is in every sense of the word "William second to none;" while the kaiser himself is entirely wrapped up in his heir.
For the last few years the emperor has given every spare moment that he could s.n.a.t.c.h away from his multifarious occupations to the task of instilling his ideas and views into the crown prince. In talking and reasoning with him, he has treated the lad as far older than his years, has discussed with him, in fact, as if he were a man; and it is due to this that Germany"s future emperor is at the present moment remarkably mature for his age, and really in a position to view matters with a degree of experience and knowledge that are unrivalled in so young a man. As a general rule, young people are unwilling to accept the advice of their elders, or to benefit by their experience, convinced that their seniors are behind the spirit of the age, and in no sense of the word up to date. But with the German crown prince this is different: he is so imbued with the idea that his father is wiser and better than anyone else in the world, that he is willing and glad to accept the paternal recommendations and to benefit by paternal advice.
Yet with all this the lad is not a prig, nor is he forward or presumptuous. True, he has a keen sense of his own dignity, but it takes the form of an extreme simplicity, and of an absolute lack of affectation, since he is intelligent enough to realize that his rank and position are sufficiently a.s.sured to render it unnecessary that he should call attention thereto either by his manner or by his speech.
He is modest too, very frank, particularly courteous to old people, boyishly chivalrous to women, and firmly convinced that there is no member of the fair s.e.x in the entire world who is so ideally perfect in appearance, as well as in character, as his mother.
I would not for all the world that this description of the crown prince should in any way convey the impression to my readers that he is a milksop or an overgrown child! Devoted to every form of sport, a splendid gymnast, a clever oarsman, a skilful driver and a bold rider, an excellent shot, he is in every sense of the word a manly young fellow, who, however, has been kept free from all contact with the darker sides of life, and who still retains, therefore, mingled with the experience of a grown man, much of the innocence and freshness of mind of a mere boy. Indeed, he is a son of whom any father and mother might well be proud!
Fair-haired and blue-eyed, with the down of a blond moustache upon his upper lip, the young prince is a typical Hohenzollern, and resembles his grandfather, Emperor Frederick, more than he does his father. He is pa.s.sionately devoted to everything military, and keenly relishes the idea that the six months following the attainment of his majority are to be devoted to military duties at Potsdam, for although he has held a commission of lieutenant of the first regiment of Foot Guards since his tenth year, he is only now about to be called upon to fulfil the duties of his rank with the regiment.
It will be in every sense of the word an arduous training, for the first regiment of Guards being considered all the world over as the crack corps of the German army, and as the embodiment of military perfection in every sense of the word, its officers, realizing that it is, so to speak, the star phalanx of Germany, are engaged, morning, noon and night, in maintaining it at its proper standard, and there are no officers anywhere in Europe who are so hard worked as those of the first regiment of Prussian Guards;--that regiment which in the days of Frederick the Great"s father was composed entirely of giants, recruited, or rather purchased often, at a cost of several thousand dollars apiece, from all parts of the world!
The prince must be on the drill grounds and the manoeuvre fields as early as four o"clock in the morning, returning for a sort of luncheon towards ten or eleven; he must devote his afternoon to military studies of one kind or another; while from four o"clock till seven his time will be taken up by barrack-room inspections, company reports, and the other thousand and one duties incidental to regimental life in Germany. In the case of the crown prince the work will be exceptionally heavy, as he is expected to acquire in the course of six months an experience which other subalterns take years to obtain. At the end of the term in question he is to go to Bonn, there to take his seat, like his father before him, on the benches of the celebrated university as an ordinary student.
From his eighteenth birthday the crown prince will have an establishment and a civil list of his own. He will have his court marshal, who will be at the same time the treasurer, governor, and chief officer of his household. He will have his aids-de-camp, who will, as far as possible, be young men of his own age and alive to the responsibilities of their office; he will also have a palace of his own, stables of his own, and his own shooting. Indeed the forest of Spandau has already been for some time past strictly preserved in view of his coming of age.
This particular forest has from time immemorial been a.s.signed as the particular game-park of the heir to the crown. The crown prince is to make his home in the so-called "Stadtschloss" at Potsdam, where he will occupy the same suite of apartments that was tenanted by his parents during the alterations that recently took place at the "Neues Palais." This palace was erected at the close of the seventeenth century, and contains, among other objects of interest, the furniture used by Frederick the Great, the coverings of which were nearly all torn to shreds by the claws of his dog; his writing-table covered with ink-stains, his library filled with Trench books, music composed by himself, etc. The various halls and rooms are kept nearly in the same manner, indeed, as when he used them. Adjoining his bedroom there is a small cabinet, where he used to dine alone or with Voltaire, without attendants, everything coming through the floor on a dumbwaiter, the king himself placing the dishes on the table.
It is in this palace, haunted, one might almost say, at every point by memories and by the spirit of the most famous of Prussian kings, a monarch distinguished as a general, as an administrator and as a philosopher, that Germany"s future emperor will from henceforth make his home until he in turn, on the death of his father, will migrate, as did the latter, from the so-called Stadtschloss to the "Neues Palais," two miles and a half distant. The crown prince is also to have a residence of his own at Berlin, where he is to occupy the Bellevue Palace during the court season.
Among other characteristics of the young crown prince is his fondness for animals, and the extraordinary influence which, even as a child, he has always seemed to exercise over them. He succeeded in training his ponies, his dogs and other domestic pets to perform such clever tricks that on several occasions he managed, with the a.s.sistance of his brothers, to organize very creditable circus performances, usually in honor of the birthday of his father or his mother. There was one instance especially that I may recall, which took place some years ago. This particular performance began in the afternoon at three, with a prologue spoken by Prince August William, in which he mentioned the different items of the programme. Then each of the royal lads led his pony in front of the box in which the imperial couple sat with their guests, and the crown prince put his horse "Daretz," through all kinds of tricks, of a high school character, winding up by making the horse kneel in token of salute before the emperor and empress. More trick riding on another horse named "Puck," belonging to the crown prince, followed, and thereupon there was a comical _intermezzo_, in which Prince Adalbert and Prince Eitel took the part of two clowns. Later on, the crown prince"s dogs were brought on the scene, and his favorite "Tom" went through some extraordinary antics, walking about all over the ring on his hind legs, tolling bells, driving other of the prince"s dogs with reins, and jumping through hoops covered with tissue paper. The whole affair lasted over two hours, was very entertaining, even to grown-up people who did not happen to be related to the organizers of the entertainment, and did great credit to the cleverness of the crown prince, and above all to the marvellous influence which he exercises over animals of every description.
Military tastes in the royal lad have been developed by the games and pastimes in which he and his brothers were encouraged to indulge; hence, in the grounds of the Bellevue Palace at Berlin, as well as in a corner of the great park of the Neues Palais at Potsdam, the boys constructed full-fledged forts with water-filled moats, and cleverly constructed bastions, which were stormed from time to time in due form, and being defended with the utmost tenacity, hard knocks were ofttimes given and received. The playmates of the crown prince and his brothers have been not merely the sons of n.o.bles forming part of the imperial household and court, but likewise the children of employes of much less exalted rank, such as the sons of lodge-keepers, gardeners, game-keepers, etc., who all played and tumbled with the young princes on a footing of the most perfect equality, drubbing one another totally irrespective of rank. It is a pleasant thing to know that friendships thus formed subsist in after life; as an instance, when the kaiser"s sister, now crown princess of Greece, sent to Germany some time ago for a nursery governess for her young children, she was able to acquire the services of her old girlhood playmate, the daughter of one of the gardeners employed at the "Neues Palais."
The crown prince may be said to have traveled over all Germany, and that, too, in the most democratic and sensible fashion. In Germany, and, in fact, all over the continent of Europe, a pedestrian tour, domestic and foreign, const.i.tutes part and parcel of the education of every youth, especially those of the industrial cla.s.ses. No apprenticeship is considered complete without the accomplishment of a trip of this kind, which is usually performed with a knapsack on the back, and in the most economical manner imaginable. This portion of the youth"s life is known as his "_wanderjahr_" and the traveler is known by the name of "_wanderbursche_" The trip serves to broaden the mind of the "_bursche,_" to render him self-reliant, and to give him a knowledge and experience of the world--aye, and of his craft as well--that he could never obtain if he remained at home. Emperor William, who in many things is so exceedingly reactionary, and so apparently a.s.sured that royalty is constructed of an entirely different clay than that used for ordinary folks, gave a manifestation of those democratic notions which const.i.tute such a paradox to the remainder of his character by sending forth his three eldest boys each year during their holidays on a pedestrian tour through the length and breadth of his dominions, just as if they were the sons of artisans, and were compelled to learn a trade for a living. The crown prince and his brothers traveled, not in a palace-car, nor in carriages, but on foot, with knapsacks on their backs, and spending the nights at mere roadside inns. They had no servant with them, only their military governor, Colonel von Falkenheyn, and his a.s.sistant, the latter a lieutenant of the guards, and the name tinder which they journeyed was an incognito one; indeed, so cleverly did they manage to conceal their ident.i.ty that it was hardly ever revealed.
It is difficult to imagine anything that appealed more to the ma.s.ses in Germany than this manner adopted by the kaiser for making his sons acquainted with the world. It was felt that the royal lads, with their knapsacks on their backs, afoot, and with no indication of their rank, would obtain by actual experience a contact with the people and a knowledge which they could never hope to acquire if they had toured through the land in special trains, on horseback, or in splendidly-appointed carriages. Moreover, it makes every German youth, trudging along the dusty roads, and ignorant for the most part of where and how he is to sup and sleep that night, feel that after all his lot is not such a very unenviable one, since even his future monarch has been a "_wanderbursche_," like himself.
It is probable that before the education of the crown prince is considered complete, he will be sent on a trip around the world, mainly with the object of endowing him with that breadth of mind which foreign travel alone can give, and partly also with the idea of reviving the dormant loyalty of Germans who have settled in foreign lands. Emperor William has frequently expressed the opinion that among the hitherto unused factors in German politics, are the Germans established in the United States, in Australia, and in other equally distant climes. While he does not in any way expect or imagine that Germans who have thus emigrated from the Fatherland, will render themselves guilty of any disloyalty to the land of their adoption, yet he believes that by keeping alive their memories of the old country, and their affection for its reigning house they may help Germany by using their political influence in their new home for the benefit of Germany. Thus William, in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, has in contemplation an eventual understanding if not an actual alliance with the United States; this result to be brought about largely through the influence of the immense and prosperous German population in America, and he believes that the project is likely to be promoted and fostered by a visit of his eldest son, the crown prince, to the United States for the purpose of making himself acquainted, not only with the country, but above all with its German inhabitants.
In making the grand tour of the world, the crown prince will be but following in the footsteps of the heirs to the thrones of Austria and Belgium, who have both visited the United States for the purpose of improving their minds, and of fitting themselves more thoroughly for their duties as twentieth century rulers. The present Emperor of Russia, and his younger brother, the late Czarevitch George, likewise started on a tour round the world, which in the case of George was cut short at Bombay by that sickness to which he subsequently succ.u.mbed, while the globe-trotting tour of Nicholas was brought to a sudden close through his attempted a.s.sa.s.sination in j.a.pan.
No pen-sketch of the young Crown Prince of Germany would be complete without a reference to his remarkable skill as a violinist, an instrument which he has been studying steadily ever since his eighth year, under the direction of the Berlin court violinist Von Exner. He seems to have inherited all the musical talent for which the reigning house of Prussia is so celebrated, and to which I propose to devote at least a part of the following chapter.