keeps for the purpose on wall or palette, so brain and eye were
prepared for sleep at the close of this long day, by sitting in our
carriages, safe sheltered from the soft-falling rain, outside the
great gate which divided the splendor from the darkness, for three
quarters of an hour, in an inextricable tangle of carriages, until the
perturbed coachmen and the sorely vexed police could evolve order from
the temporary confusion, and set the hindered procession again on its
homeward way.
Meantime the day was not over for the much-enduring Emperor and his
royal guests. In the famous White Saloon of the Old Schloss an
entertainment was going forward. Blinding coronets and necklaces on
royal ladies made the interior of this ancient palace more brilliant
than its shining exterior on this birth-night. The Empress Augusta,
leaning on the arm of her grandson, Prince William, was attired in a
lace-trimmed robe of pale green, her diamonds a mass of sparkling
light; the Crown Princess was in silver-gray, the wife of the English
Ambassador in pale mauve, the Princess Christian in turquoise blue;
and the Grand Duchess Vladimir of Russia wore a magnificent robe of
pink satin trimmed with sable, with a tiara of diamonds and a
stomacher of diamonds and emeralds. From the neck and forehead of the
Queen of Roumania flashed a thousand prismatic hues; and the Green
Vault of Dresden sent some of its most precious treasures to keep
company with the fair Queen of Saxony in adding brilliance to the
scene.
Our reverie led from this starry point in history back to the time
when, as on this memorable day, the royal salute of Berlin artillery
shook the city, to announce the birth of a prince ninety years ago. A
rapid, almost a chance recall of the years shows us Washington then
living on his estate at Mount Vernon, Lafayette a young man of forty,
Clay a stripling of twenty, Webster a boy of fifteen. The Directory in
France had not yet made way for the First Republic; the younger Pitt
and Canning held England; Metternich and O'Connell were in their
youth, and Robert Peel was a child of nine. Napoleon Bonaparte was in
the flush of youthful success, soon to become the idol of France and
the terror of Europe, before whom the boy, now Kaiser Wilhelm, and
his royal family fled to Königsberg by the Baltic, while the conqueror
held Berlin and reduced Prussia to a second-rate province. To this boy
the flames of burning Moscow were a transient aurora-borealis under
the pole-star; and Nelson and Wellington were unknown to the stories
of his childhood, for as yet their fame was not. Goethe and Schiller
were in the prime of early manhood; Kant and Klopstock elderly, but
with years yet to live; Scott was just laying down his poet's pen and
preparing to take up the immortal quill with which he wrote his first
"Waverley;" Moore was singing his sweet melodies; Wordsworth had yet
to lay the foundations of the "Lake Poetry;" and the fair boy, Byron,
was chanting his early songs, not yet for many a year to die at
Missolonghi.
This wonderful old man of ninety, gayly stooping to kiss the hand of a
lady to-night in his hospitable palace, like the young man that he is,
has a memory stretching from the battle of Austerlitz across the
gigantic struggles of the century to the battle of Sedan,--all of
which he has seen, and a part of which he has been!
IX.
STREETS, PARKS, CEMETERIES, AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
For a hundred years the picturesque Brandenburg Gate has guarded the
entrance to Unter den Linden from the Thiergarten. It is a monument of
the reversion of royal taste from the devotion to French style, which
characterized Frederick the Great, to the purely classical. It is
nearly two hundred feet in width, its five openings being guarded by
six massive Doric columns about forty-five feet in height. To
foot-passengers, riders, and ordinary vehicles the two outer spaces on
each side are devoted respectively, while the wide central passage is
traversed only by the royal carriages. The celebrated quadriga with
the figure of Victory, on the entablature, was first placed with the
face toward the Park. When the First Napoleon robbed Berlin, along
with other cities, for the adornment of Paris, he carried off this
masterpiece in bronze and set it up in the Place du Carrousel under
the shadow of the Tuileries. Upon Napoleon's downfall in 1814, this
group was restored to its original place, but was set facing the Unter
den Linden, making of the Brandenburger Thor a triumphal arch marking
the victory of Prussia in the long contest.
The famous Unter den Linden, nearly two hundred feet wide and three
fourths of a mile in length, with a double line of lime-trees
enclosing an area of greensward along the centre, would be accounted
anywhere a handsome street, with the palaces of the Pariser Platz at
one end, the Imperial palaces, the Arsenal, the Academy, and the
University at the other, and brilliant shop-windows lining both sides
of the whole length, while the Brandenburg Gate and the great
equestrian statue of Frederick the Great at either extremity close the
fine vista. Leaving out of view, however, these two noble features
which mark its termini, the street seemed not handsome enough to
justify its fame. Perhaps this was because we found the famous
lime-trees, for which the street is named, quite ordinary young trees,
not to be compared with the magnificent elms which line the streets of
New Haven and the Mall of Boston Common.
The characteristic part of Berlin is, to our view, the great space
east of Unter den Linden, surrounded by the palaces, the royal Guard
House, the Arsenal, the University, and the Academy of Arts and
Sciences. These fine buildings and the ornamented open spaces around
and between them, on a sunny afternoon in midwinter, show a brilliant
and unique scene which has hardly its parallel in Europe. The Champs
Élysées is finer at night; Hyde Park, St. James, the Parliament
buildings, and Westminster Abbey far finer on a sunny morning; but the
third city in Europe has no need to be ashamed of its royal buildings
and the scene before them, in the season when the Court is in Berlin,
and the slant rays of an early afternoon sun light up the gay throng
of soldiers in uniform, State carriages, pedestrians, and vehicles
which surge to and fro without crowding the vast spaces.
The Lustgarten is fine; but of the buildings around it, the Old Museum
alone meets the eye with architectural satisfaction. In all lights
that building is beautiful in design and proportions. The Old Schloss
is impressive mainly by its massiveness and its august dome. A most
picturesque view by moonlight is to be had from the east end of the
Lange or Kürfürsten Brücke, southeast of the old palace. Here the
water-front of the old castle is in full view, with the fortified part
unaltered since the early occupation by the Hohenzollerns. This
mediæval building, shaded by a few ancient trees, with here and there
a light reflected from the upper windows at evening, and with tower
and turret duplicated on the surface of the darkly flowing river at
its foot, shares with one the feeling of ancient times, as no other
place in Berlin can do. In the centre of this bridge is the equestrian
statue of the Great Elector, superior as a work of art to any other of
its date. This grand figure is fabled to descend from his horse and
stalk through the streets on New Year's eve, for the chastisement of
evil-doers.
The Wilhelm Strasse, running from a point near the Pariser Platz south
from Unter den Linden, has many palaces and public buildings; but its
chief interest centres about No. 77, the palace of Prince Bismarck.
The front looks eastward, and is built around three sides of a garden
filled with shrubbery and threaded by walks, and shut off from the
street by great iron gates and a high open iron fence. The study,
where the Chancellor spends much time when in Berlin, looks upon a
garden, and is furnished with the same simplicity which characterizes
the private apartments of General Von Moltke. Among the few pictures
which adorn the study of Bismarck is one of General Grant. Here it was
that the famous Berlin Congress met in 1878 for the settlement of the
Eastern Question.
The palace of Prince Albert of Prussia, now Military Governor of
Brunswick, is situated in a magnificent private park, acres in extent,
in the heart of the city. It opens from the Wilhelm Strasse at the
head of Koch. This palace was built in the early part of the
eighteenth century by a French nobleman, with wealth gained in the
great speculations of the Mississippi Scheme, upon which all France
entered in hope of retrieving the bankruptcy entailed by Louis XIV.
Its fine colonnade, its great park, and its position, adjoining the
park of the War Department, between two great railroad stations and
surrounded by tramways, render it one of the most prominent features
of Central Berlin.
The small and elaborately laid-out square of the Wilhelm Strasse,
known as the Wilhelms Platz, with its pretty fountains, shrubs, and
flowers, has bronze statues of six generals of Frederick the
Great,--heroes of the Seven Years' War. Here it is easy to sit and
dream of the olden time, in reverie which not even the Kaiserhof
diplomats nor the Wilhelm-Street autocrats, within a stone's-throw on
either side, nor the throng and glitter of the Berlin of to-day, can
disturb. Here, surrounded by the figures and the faces of the men with
whom Carlyle has made us acquainted, we recall the wonderful story
which he, as none other, has written. How masterly is the way in which
he has portrayed for us this Prussian history whose memorials stand
around us! With feeling how deep and true for the real and the eternal
as against the false, the seeming, and the transient! What a picture
is the history! What a poem is the picture!
At the northeast corner of the Wilhelms Platz is the palace of Prince
Friedrich Karl, one of the leaders of the Franco-Prussian War. It was
once the temple of the Order of the Knights of Malta, but its
sumptuous interior has now for many years been devoted to residence on
the upper floor, and to the famous art and _bric-à-brac_ collections
of the late prince, on the ground floor. It is not difficult to gain,
from the steward, the requisite permission to visit this interesting
palace.
Many private houses, interesting for their associations, might be
found by the sojourner in Berlin who cares to search them out; but
intelligent residents only, and not the guide-books, can facilitate
this search. In the Margrafen Strasse, near the Royal Library, is the
house where Neander lived and studied and wrote. Near the
Dreifaltische Kirche, behind the Kaiserhof, is the old-fashioned
parsonage which was the home of Schleiermacher, and in the
Oranienburger Strasse is the house in which lived Alexander von
Humboldt.
Of the many beautiful parks, the Thiergarten overshadows all the rest,
both because of its commanding location, close to Unter den Linden and
other busy streets, and its great extent. A combination of park and
wild forest, with streams, ponds, bridges, and miles of shaded avenues
and riding-paths in perfect condition, its six hundred acres form one
of the largest, most beautiful and useful parks in Europe. The
elaborate and towering monument to commemorate the victories of recent
Prussian and German wars is the centre of a system of grand avenues in
the northeastern part. This monument was originally intended to
commemorate the Schleswig-Holstein conquest; later, the victories over
Austria in 1866 were to be included; and when the Franco-Prussian War
was happily ended, it was decided to make of it also a fitting
memorial of united Germany. On the third anniversary of the
Capitulation of Sedan, Emperor William I. unveiled the colossal statue
of Victory on the summit of the monument, which commemorates the chief
events of his august reign.
Immense bas-reliefs on the pedestal represent, on one side, events in
the Danish campaign; on another is shown the Decoration of the Crown
Prince by the Emperor on the field of Sadowa, with Prince Friedrich
Karl, Von Moltke, and Bismarck standing by; the third side shows the
French General Reille, handing Louis Napoleon's letter of capitulation
at Sedan; and the fourth, the triumphal entry of German soldiers into
Paris through the Arc de Triomphe. There is also a representation of
the scene, on that day when all Berlin went wild with joy and
exultation over the return of the Kaiser and his troops from Paris, of
their reception at the Brandenburg Gate.
Within the open colonnade of the substructure, a vast mosaic shows, in
symbols, the history of the Franco-Prussian War, closing with a
representation of Bavaria offering the German Crown to Prussia, and
the proclamation of the Kaiser at Versailles. It was King William
himself who refused to have his own image placed here as the Victor,
and who substituted in the design of the artist the female figure of
Borussia with the features of his mother, Queen Louise. The shaft,
rising eighty-five feet above the substructure, has three divisions,
with twenty perpendicular grooves in each. These grooves are filled
with thrice twenty upright cannon, captured from the Danes, the
Austrians, and the French, bound to the shaft by gilded wreaths of
laurel. The Prussian Eagles surmount the column, forming a capital
upwards of one hundred and fifty feet above the pavement; and the
great statue soars nearly fifty feet still higher.
In the southeastern portion of the Thiergarten is a colossal statue
of Goethe, which shows at its best in the twilight of an early summer
evening, framed in the tender greens and browns of the bursting
foliage behind it. Not far away are the statues of Queen Louise and
King Frederick William III., parents of Emperor William I., surrounded
by beautiful flowers, pools, and fountains; and the famous "Lion
Group" marks the intersection of much-frequented avenues in the same
neighborhood. A wide central avenue traversing the whole length of the
Thiergarten from east to west allows space for the tramway to the
imposing edifice of the Institute of Technology and to the Zoölogical
Gardens, where is one of the largest and best collections of birds and
animals in the world, each species with habitations suited to it,
several built in showy Oriental style, amid concert-gardens where
beautiful music may be heard every day.
A favorite walk of ours on sunny winter mornings was in the West End
of Berlin, where are many of the finer aristocratic residences. No
city can show, so far as we know, a handsomer residence quarter than
portions of that which stretches between the Thiergarten on the north,
the Zoölogical Gardens on the west, and the Botanical Garden on the
south. The collections of the latter, like those of the Zoölogical
Gardens, rank among the first of their kind. The great glass house
which shelters the _Victoria Regia_ is attractive chiefly in the
summer, when the plants are in blossom, but the cacti and the palm
houses are interesting the year round. The palm-house is a Crystal
Palace on a small scale. Entering, one finds a tropical atmosphere,
hot and moist. All the larger palms and some of the smaller have each
a furnace to themselves, from four to six feet in diameter and the
same in height. Over this furnace the great tub is set which contains
the roots of the tree, over which water is frequently sprinkled. The
arrangement of the trees is graceful and beautiful. There are
galleries and seats everywhere; and little imagination is required to
transport one's self to Oriental and Biblical scenes, with these
palm-trees towering overhead. A short walk east of these gardens is
the Matthai Cemetery, where repose the brothers Grimm.
The Schiller Platz, so named from the statue before the
Schauspielhaus, is fortunate--if not in the life-size statue of the
poet--in the fine pedestal, with its allegorical figures of Poetry,
History, and Philosophy, which were originally designed to adorn a
fountain. In a still more crowded part of Berlin the Donhof Platz has
recently been transformed, from a barren square surrounding the statue
of that great Prussian, Baron von Stein, into a lovely garden-spot,
with flowers and trees and birds for the cheer of the hurrying
multitudes.
The old Halle Gate, where several streets converge to the southern
extremity of the Friedrich Strasse, is reached through ornamental
grounds known as the Belle-Alliance Platz, in the centre of which is a
column erected to commemorate the peace which followed the wars of the
First Napoleon. Not far to the southwest is the Kreuzberg, the only
mountain in this part of Brandenburg,--a modest eminence about two
hundred feet above the sea-level. It is crowned by an iron obelisk
which affords a good view of the city.
Berlin has no cemetery comparable in extent or beauty to many in the
environs of American cities. Three small burial-grounds, separate but
adjoining, at the southern edge of the city contain the graves of
Neander, with the memorable inscription,--his favorite motto,--"Pectus
est quod theologum facit;" of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, his
parents and his sister Fanny; of Schleiermacher, and of our
countryman, the Rev. Dr. J.P. Thompson, long-beloved pastor of the
Broadway Tabernacle Church, New York. Here, also, Bayard Taylor was
for a time laid to rest, before being finally removed to his native
land. Decorations are not so ostentatious as in Catholic countries;
and quiet ivy, simple greensward, and the shadow of trees in which
birds may sing, make the quaint Berlin cemeteries attractive places.
This was to us especially true of the ancient cemetery connected with
the Sophien Kirche and the old Dorotheen-Stadt cemetery, in the
northern part of the city, where we went to look upon the graves of
Fichte and Hegel, and of several artists famous in Berlin annals. In
the Sophien Kirchof lies the philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn; and in
that of the Garrison Church, De la Motte Fouqué, the author of
"Undine."
One of the most conspicuous public buildings is the Rath-haus, or Town
Hall, erected at a cost of nearly two million dollars. Its lofty
clock-tower with illuminated dial tells the time to all Berlin by
night, and adds a charm to the group of royal palaces and museums on
which it looks down. The ancient town-houses of North Germany most
truly express the spirit of the old Hanse League; and the Rath-haus of
Berlin, while keeping the spirit, adds the grand proportions and
embellishments characteristic of the modern city. The interior
apartments, including the Festival Hall, the Town Council-Room, and
the Magistrates' Chamber, are elaborately adorned with historical
frescos and statues, and the grand staircase has a finely vaulted
ceiling and windows of stained glass filled with Prussian heraldry. A
visit to this edifice by daylight gives one the fine view from the
clock-tower; but to see the famous Raths-Keller underneath, with
characteristic accompaniments, one must go after dark. One evening,
after the adjournment, in an upper hall, of that rare thing in Berlin,
a temperance meeting, a friend led our party through the elegant
apartments of this place of popular refreshment. In the basement of
this costly municipal building is a gilded saloon, upwards of three
hundred feet long, divided into apartments. In some of these whole
families were partaking of their evening "refreshments;" others were
manifestly the appointed trysting-places of friends, while here and
there, in sheltered nooks, the solitary ones sipped their wine or
beer. Everything, so far as we could see, was orderly and quiet, and
we were told that the place was one of eminent respectability. It is
only after witnessing the habits of the people, in their homes and
places of popular resort, that one is prepared to appreciate the
enormous consumption of beer, averaging four glasses per day to every
man, woman, and child in the kingdom, at an average annual cost to
families greater than their house-rent.
The Exchange, or Börse, on the east bank of the river, is a most
imposing building. The excitements of this money-centre may be seen in
a visit here any week-day at noon. There are galleries for visitors,
over the Great Hall, which accommodates five thousand persons.
The Imperial Bank, like the Imperial Mint, is under State control; and
both occupy buildings themselves worthy to be called Imperial.
The great City Prison, on a modern plan, is in Moabit, a northwestern
suburb. This region received its name, "Pays de Moab," from French
immigrants on account of its sterile soil; but a part of it is
becoming an attractive and beautiful residence quarter. To the north
of this is a model state-prison, accommodating twelve hundred
prisoners.
The Insane Asylum is said also to be a model institution. It has
accommodations for fifteen hundred patients; and its buildings are
near Dalldorf, a short distance east of the route to the northwestern
suburb of Tegel. The Medical Department of the University has large
buildings in different parts of the city. Connected with these is the
great Carité Hospital, founded a hundred years ago, and richly endowed
by public and private funds. In its many wards more than fifteen
hundred patients are constantly under treatment. Another interesting
hospital is the Städtische Krankenhaus, completed about fifteen years
ago, on the "pavilion" plan, with the best modern appliances. This is
situated in the beautiful park known as the Friedrichshain, in the
northeastern part of the city. The Bethanien, in the southeastern
quarter, is a large institution for the training of nurses, admirably
managed, under the care of the deaconesses, or Protestant Sisters.
X.
PALACES.
The palaces lately occupied by Emperor William I. and Crown Prince
Frederick were formerly shown to the public during the absence of the
occupants at their country residences; but as this was usually in the
summer, when comparatively few strangers are in Berlin, they were not
commonly included in a sight-seeing programme. They are pleasant
homes, without great magnificence, but containing many interesting
memorials of the lives of their Imperial masters. The palace of the
Crown Prince was not used by him after he became Emperor Frederick
III. The hundred days of pain which remained to him of life were spent
at Charlottenburg and in the Castle of Friedrichskron at Potsdam.