DONAU-ESCHINGEN AND METZ
The time came very soon when Prince Joachim was sent away, the victim of
acute home-sickness, to join his brothers in Ploen; and it was then
resolved that the Princess, who felt his absence keenly, should be also
provided with the necessary stimulus and society of children of her own
age.
From the _Augusta-Stift_, an aristocratic ladies’ school in Potsdam in
which the Empress was much interested, three suitable young maidens of
good family were chosen.
Every morning they were fetched at half-past seven by a royal carriage
and brought to the New Palace, where they shared the lessons and games
of the Princess until half-past twelve, when they were reconducted to
their _Stift_. It was fondly hoped by the ladies of the Court that this
arrangement would put a stop to the constant interruption of lessons--a
hope which was scarcely realized, for it made not the slightest
difference.
Girls in high-class German schools lead a very different life to those
in similar institutions in England. They must all wear uniform, ugly for
choice; they must have their hair plaited in the tightest, most
uncompromising of plaits, which is not allowed to hang down, but is
pinned by multitudinous hairpins into a hard knob. Their whole
existence is absorbed in the acquisition of knowledge, and the exercise
they take is a matter not of pleasure but of health. If they do anything
naughty, or are untidy, they wear ribbon rosettes whose colours show
nicely-graduated degrees of infamy, and they must weep bitterly when
they don’t know their lessons, and ask forgiveness for a failure to
indicate the exact position of Kamschatka. They are usually nice, happy,
pleasant-mannered girls, expert at making _Knixes_, those quaint little
German curtsies which seem to carry one back into Jane Austen’s books.
They kiss the hands of their elders, and as soon as they are _confirmiert_
and leave school, blossom out into very fashionably-dressed, handsome
young women, with hair done in the latest fashion, and a decided
_penchant_ for young lieutenants. Their highest ambition is to be
_verlobt_ as soon as possible, and they never turn their thoughts again
in the direction of Kamschatka or any other part of the globe existing
beyond their immediate sphere of observation. They make excellently
self-sacrificing wives and mothers, and help to preserve in their
husbands that attitude of infallibility which is the peculiar
prerogative of German mankind. They invariably converse fairly well in
English and French, and are able to quote Goethe, Schiller and
Shakespeare in a manner which, if a little mechanical, still gives an
agreeable impression of culture and is some relief from the domestic
pursuits which, after marriage, they fulfil with praiseworthy ardour.
They are as opposed to the self-possessed, slangy, sporting English
schoolgirl with her multifarious ambitions as can well be imagined. They
never desire to go on the stage, never want a vote, and are perfectly
content with the limited prospect which life offers to their sex. So in
their ill-fitting black frocks, in hard, round, black straw sailor hats,
with their luxuriant hair strained brutally off their foreheads into the
tightest, hardest of coils, every morning came three little girls to
share the studies and recreations of the Princess. There had been some
heart-burning among the parents of the young ladies of the _Stift_, as
each one considered that her child had peculiar qualifications as a
possible companion to royalty; but the final decision lay in the hands
of the head-mistress and the tutor of the Princess, and the choice
ultimately made was undoubtedly a wise one, though sometimes the more
unregenerate officers of His Majesty’s suite ventured the opinion that
the girls in question were “_zu gut erzogen_"--too well brought up--from
which it may be gathered that they desired to see a little more natural,
healthy naughtiness exhibited. It is, however, unreasonable to expect a
child, even if endowed with gifts in this direction, not to put a good
many curbs on her inclination when she is chosen to share the
comparatively pleasant life at Court in exchange for that of the
_Stift_; and as they were expressly encouraged to assert their own
rights and not to let the Princess always win at the games they
played--a deplorable tendency which had its root as much in the
Princess’s superiority at games as in the ill-advised instructions of
foolish parents--they soon discovered, as children will, a democratic
level of existence which was invaluable as an educational factor. Each
child, including the Princess, was called by her Christian name, and it
was a matter for congratulation when one of the “_Stifts-Kinder_,” as
they were called, was found to have an immense superiority over the
Princess in the matter of evolutions on the parallel bars. This
quartette of young people worked and played together amicably for some
years--until, in fact, the time approached for the confirmation of the
Princess, that great event in the life of a German girl which seems to
make a sharp, decided finish to her childhood and flings her
full-fledged into a new existence.
When the Court was staying in Berlin, the _Stifts-Kinder_ came under a
lady’s escort by train every morning from Potsdam to Berlin, where they
were driven straight to Belle Vue. They had four little desks side by
side in one of the big empty salons there, and their cheerful faces and
gay shrieks of laughter as they jumped over the flower-beds in the
intervals of lessons, or in wet weather chased each other through the
stately rooms with their decorous suites of brocaded furniture, added a
pleasant element of youth and freshness to the old palace.
The Princess told many interesting facts about Belle Vue. Among other
things, when I was admiring the blue satin curtains in one room and
remarking on their newness, she said, “Yes, of course; that was because
of the Shah of Persia.”
“Why?” I inquired, wondering what the Shah had to do with curtains in
Belle Vue.
“Oh, don’t you know? He and his suite stayed here once, and they used to
kill sheep in this room, and wiped their hands on the blue satin
curtains; and they had to be replaced, of course!”
She said further that the old “Shah,” the one who threw chicken-bones
and asparagus-ends over his shoulder to the servants standing behind,
tried to imitate European manners and eat with a fork instead of his
fingers, but being unaccustomed to the implement, compromised on Persian
and European methods by picking up the meat with his fingers, sticking
it on the fork, and thus conveying it to his mouth.
“When Great-Grandmamma Augusta once offered him a dish of strawberries,
instead of taking a few on to his plate, he just ate them from the dish
while she held it. Fancy! Great-Grandmamma Augusta--who was so
particular! Everybody nearly had a fit!”
An intense interest in human nature was one of the traits which the
Princess shared with her father, the Emperor. She liked, if possible, to
merge herself in the crowd, to watch people going about their daily
affairs, to see young people making love, old people cooking or reading
the papers. She had a healthy, vital curiosity; knew all about the
brothers of the _Stifts-Kinder_, and to whom they were, or were likely
to be, engaged. One particular friend among the boarders at the
_Stift_--not one of those who came daily, but another who was frequently
invited to the Palace, a very nice American girl called Yvette
Borup--had a brother who accompanied Peary on his expedition to the
North Pole. After coming safely through all the dangers and hardships of
the Polar expedition, this brother a year or two later was unfortunately
drowned in America while boating; but at the time of which I write he
was absent with Peary, and there were few days when the Princess did not
wonder “where Yvette’s brother had got to now.”
In the daily afternoon walks in the neighbourhood of Potsdam, after
Prince Joachim had gone to Ploen and there was consequently no governor
or tutor to accompany the Princess and her lady, a private detective was
detailed to dog her footsteps, for there were many undesirable
characters about and Her Majesty insisted that we should have some kind
of escort.
These men deserved the greatest sympathy, for the Princess found it most
irksome to be followed, and would take the greatest pains to “throw them
off the scent.” When they began to realize their obnoxiousness to this
tempestuous daughter of the Hohenzollerns it was amusing to see them
unobtrusively materialize from behind a tree after she had passed by,
skulking from bush to bush, withdrawing into the shadows of the houses,
or pretending to be mere harmless passers-by absorbed in the study of
shop-windows.
The Princess, whose sharp eye instantly detected their manœuvres,
once observed: “If we had not known they were detectives we might have
thought them murderers lying in wait.”
Men new to their duties would begin by showing too much zeal, and
invariably found that all their instructions from head-quarters,
whatever they might be, were immediately negatived and rendered of no
effect, for if they approached within not merely speaking, but shouting
distance, they were treated with withering scorn, and the Princess would
fly through the bushes on rapid, indignant feet, while the unfortunate
man puffed gallantly but hopelessly in the rear.
Finally the footman was told to instruct the detectives as to the
probable direction of her walks, so that they could make occasional
cross-country cuts; and they quickly learned the necessity of “taking
cover” and becoming merged in the surrounding landscape as soon as the
keen-eyed Princess appeared in sight. They were not only absolved but
strictly prohibited from bowing or saluting, and were urged to be
“unmannerly rather than troublesome”; and they soon learned to carry out
their duties so unobtrusively that when, as often happened, they were
requisitioned for the service of the Emperor, the suite remarked on the
excellent training and wonderful tact of the _Geheim-Polizisten_, quite
unaware how much of their education had been due to a young
“_Backfisch_” in a blue serge suit.
Royalties, especially German Royalties, spend a large portion of their
existence in travelling; and it may here be noted how much the advent of
the automobile has tended to simplify life at court, and to abolish
those manifold small ceremonies, red carpets and constantly-bowing
officials, which were formerly attendant on the shortest royal journeys.
It has relieved the royalties themselves, as well as the functionaries
of the Court, of an infinite multitude of tedious, tiresome, small
formalities and duties, and the motor-car is now invariably used
excepting for very long journeys.
Donau-Eschingen is the name of the residence of Prince Max Egon, Fürst
zu Fürstenburg, with whom His Majesty stays every year for a few days to
shoot capercailzie, which abound in the woods of the region bordering on
the Schwarzwald. On one occasion the Empress and her daughter
accompanied the Emperor, who had just returned from Norway.
The train of the Empress left Berlin at eleven o’clock on Friday night,
and before that the Princess had retired to bed, though it is not easy
to sleep in a station among the hootings and trumpetings that accompany
the comings and goings of trains. All through the night the train
travelled slowly, with many jerks and stops, for it was not due to
arrive until ten o’clock next morning at the place where the Emperor
would join it. The route lay through the most beautiful forest scenery
of the Thüringer-Wald.
At nine o’clock we breakfasted in the train with the Empress, and
shortly afterwards stopped at a station surrounded by an enormous crowd.
There were the usual tiers of faces pressed to the railings row above
row. No ceremony was observed on this occasion. The Emperor could be
seen in his green hunting-uniform crossing the line with his adjutants,
and the Empress and the Princess descended to the platform to welcome
him. He looked very brown and well from his long sea-voyage, and was
obviously in very good spirits. After a few minutes the train started
again, no luggage having been transferred, as the train that brought His
Majesty had been coupled on to that of the Empress.
At one o’clock we all dined together in the restaurant car, where the
ladies wore hats and simple walking-dresses, without jackets. A long
table ran down the centre of the saloon, and one of the gentlemen, whose
duty it was, showed us our places. The Emperor and Empress sat facing
each other at the middle of each side.
There was very little room for the footmen to pass round behind the
chairs, especially for those unfortunate men who, in the course of their
service at court, had acquired a certain rotundity of figure; and as the
train jerked and swayed along it was all that some of them could do to
avoid being flung, soup and all, over the people they were serving. The
_consommé_ was handed round in little bowls with curved-in rims, but at
the best it was a very elusive liquid, and most of it evaded pursuit
and was taken back to the kitchen.
After the soup came mutton cutlets with _purée_ of potatoes, and this
dish the Emperor ordered to be set in front of him, for he obviously
objected to the possibility of having an avalanche of chops on his head.
At German meals every dish, even a joint, is always offered to the
guests to help themselves; there is no carving at the sideboard. The
meat is previously cut up in the kitchen, and then the slices laid
together again to look as though the joint were whole, so that only a
fork is needed to serve oneself; but it always impressed me, especially
after once seeing a servant, owing to a sudden paroxysm of the train,
fling a whole leg of mutton over a lady’s shoulder into her lap, as a
custom which places too much responsibility on the waiter. So the
gentleman and the Empress held the plates while the Emperor slapped
chops into them as fast as possible, so that they had, as he observed,
“no time to grow cold,” and the dish was soon empty.
He was laughing and chatting all the time, evidently in most exuberant
spirits, and introduced one gentleman to me, who had newly arrived at
court, giving a short biography of his life--as for instance, “He’s been
to America and got scalped there by Indians.” The gentleman in question,
raising his hat, ran his hand over his smooth and hairless cranium as
though in corroboration of His Majesty’s statement.
“Speaks wonderful English,” went on the Emperor--“wonderful English, all
learnt in America. You can talk to him as much as you like.”
As my energies were at that time concentrated on keeping my knife and
fork out of my features, I did not talk very much to the gentleman from
America, though I afterwards found that he did speak very good English
indeed.
The train began slowly to ascend the beautiful mountains of the Black
Forest. It was the month of May, and against the dark background of
pine-forest ran the vivid green of the larches breaking into leaf.
Little streams and waterfalls continually came into view as we rose
higher and higher, and often a sudden shower fell and a rainbow spanned
the valley below us. The train passed through more than thirty tunnels.
When luncheon was finished we still stayed some time at the table, and
one of the generals in the Emperor’s suite who had recently begun to
study the English language took the opportunity to practise what he knew
of it upon me. He was a very delightful, handsome old gentleman, and had
fought in the Franco-Prussian War. He told me all the books he was
reading in English, and quoted sentimentally, _apropos_ of nothing, “Let
me Dream again.” I wondered where he had learned that Early-Victorian
melody.
“That is all Lowther Castle,” laughed the Emperor: “started them all
learning English; they’ve been taking lessons ever since.”
When they accompanied the Emperor to stay with Lord Lonsdale, all the
German gentlemen found themselves so dreadfully “out of it” for want of
English, that as soon as they returned to their native land they one and
all, regardless of age or possible ridicule, immediately sought out a
teacher and studied hard, with, at least in the case of the old general,
most satisfactory results, for he was able to talk quite fluently with
me. I recommended him to read “The Visits of Elizabeth,” which had just
appeared in Tauchnitz, and the Emperor remarked that he had read it, and
was sure it was all true, especially the part about France. He was very
kind in pointing out pretty bits of scenery, and kept the table in a
perpetual roar with his jokes, which he always laughed at most heartily
himself.
When the train arrived at Donau-Eschingen a large party, composed of the
Prince and Princess Fürstenburg with their eldest daughter, a girl about
the same age as the Princess, and sundry head-foresters, _Land-Rats_,
and other officials in black coats and white ties, was on the platform
to receive the Emperor and Empress.
There were five children at the Schloss, two girls and three boys, and
the Princess was delighted to have so many children to talk and play
with. She was always interested in new people, and never shy. She took
all her meals with them and their governess and tutor, and played
furious games of hide-and-seek all over the garden. Nor did she neglect
to visit the stables, and tried to ride a donkey bare-backed without a
bridle--a very difficult feat, as she found to her cost, for being
uplifted with pride at being able to stick on for a few minutes, she
rode into the front of the Schloss, where the donkey tipped her
ignominiously on to the gravel before the assembled ladies and gentlemen
and then raced back to the stables. Beyond a few scratches she was not
much hurt.
In the district of Baden, where Donau-Eschingen is situated, and in the
various valleys of the Black Forest, the peasant costumes are extremely
quaint and varied, each valley being distinguished by its own particular
_Tracht_. At the invitation of the Prince of Fürstenburg all the
inhabitants of the surrounding district came to greet the Emperor and
Empress. It was a most beautiful and picturesque sight, these masses of
people in their many-coloured head-dresses and wonderfully embroidered
bodices. Some of them had huge erections made of brilliantly coloured
beads on their heads, in shape like a wedding cake, and often weighing
close on twenty pounds; others wore straw hats covered with bright red
or black silk pompons; while another characteristic head-dress was a
sort of pointed, stiff black silk cap, from which hung long streamers of
black ribbon. They had wonderfully embroidered bodices worked in silver
lace, and short pleated skirts of a portentous width all round.
The Emperor and Empress and all the guests stood on the balcony after
they returned from church--it was of course Sunday when the fête took
place--and watched the procession go by. The inhabitants of each valley
walked together and carried a flag bearing the name of their particular
district. The cheerful, sunburnt peasants moved slowly through the
beautiful gardens, men and women, marching past in their quaint
picturesque dress, which, though so crude in colour, yet blended
together in a riot of delightful beauty, threading in and out in a
long-drawn-out line of marvellous effect. The sun glinted from the
masses of opalescent beads carried on the heads of three or four hundred
sturdy maidens, or lit up the wide stretch of red pompons which cut
across the procession like a field of poppies, then wandered to the
bright red waistcoats worn by the men, shone on the green silk aprons or
the broad cerise ribbons and the wonderfully starched and plaited white
cambric sleeves.
Three of the women, each wearing a different costume, came up to the
balcony and presented an address to the Empress, who talked with them in
her usual kindly manner. The peasants were three women of great dignity
and a certain nobility of manner, self-possessed and apparently not in
the least intimidated. Probably in ordinary costume they might have
created a different impression, and would have appeared commonplace and
ordinary in type and feature; but the marvel of these peasant dresses is
that the plain woman looks in them almost as well as the handsomest;
they bestow a piquancy, an alluring attractiveness on the least
prepossessing of womankind. In detail they exploit the bizarre, the
unexpected, often the ludicrous, yet subtly blend into a complete and
satisfactory whole, as incomprehensible as it is fascinating.
For the rest of the day the Schloss garden was crowded with groups of
peasants, some of them tiny boys and girls, all anxious to see the
_Kaiserin_, and above all “_die kleine Prinzessin_,” who has always kept
a very special place in the hearts of the German people.
A curious rumour, one of those inexplicable tales which, though totally
devoid of foundation, are yet firmly accepted and become one more of
those popular errors so tenaciously held, a whispered story with regard
to the Princess, with which she herself is much amused, has always been
current in Germany--even in the remotest corners of the Empire--to the
effect that she is deaf and dumb. How this extraordinary idea arose can
never be known, for at every stage of her existence the Princess has
lagged noways behind other children in volubility of expression and
quickness of hearing.
Once at the seaside a faithful forester, a true and loyal German
subject, approached the Court physician, who was in attendance on the
royal children, paddling in the “briny” a short distance away, and
expressed his unmitigated sorrow at the misfortune suffered by the
Imperial Family, in that their only daughter should be so deeply
afflicted.
At the moment one of those healthy spells of _zanking_ happened to take
place between the Princess and her brother.
“Do you hear that?” said the genial doctor. “Can you hear your
deaf-and-dumb Princess talking?” She was indeed talking in tones that
carried to quite a distance. “Go a little nearer and listen.”
The man stopped a short distance away, and drank in the sounds as though
they were heavenly music. The poor afflicted child of his imagination
fled for ever. He turned with his face radiating joy.
“_Gott sei dank!_” he ejaculated. “Now I know it’s not true, but I was
always afraid. People always said she was _taub-stumm_. Now I can tell
them what fools they are. I’ve heard Her Royal Highness with my own
ears.” He departed joyously to spread the glad tidings.
But many people are hard to convince. One dear old lady in Berlin whom I
knew was always making doubtful inquiries of me on this subject, and,
like Thomas, refused to believe.
“Ach, yes!” she would say, “of course you dare not tell me the truth.
You have to _say_ that she is all right.”
“Of course,” I mocked, “it is essential for a deaf-and-dumb person to
have an English teacher, isn’t it--and another one for French? She is
deaf-and-dumb in three languages.”
The lady was still doubtful, and I left her deeply pondering.
After three days we left Donau-Eschingen for Strasburg, a very beautiful
town, disfigured by a terribly ugly modern palace, which the Emperor
calls the “Railway-palace,” as he considers it to be of that hideously
harsh, painful form of architecture we have been accustomed to bear
with, for purely utilitarian purposes. “They built it before my time,”
he hastens to tell every one. “Makes me feel ill every time I see it.”
It was a huge, square gaunt building, surrounded by a palisaded garden,
which contained not a solitary spot where any one could be free from the
attentions of the crowd.
Whenever the Princess walked in it for a few minutes, or wanted to sit
and work under a tree, the whole length of palisade, only a few yards
away, became a mass of human bodies: the butcher-boy with his basket,
the maidservant on her way to market, the workman with his pipe, rows
upon rows of schoolboys and girls with their teachers, clerks and
washerwomen, all welded themselves into a solid mass and concentrated
their gaze upon one poor unfortunate child. She fled into the house for
the time, and then the crowd melted away, only to re-form the moment any
one reappeared. The Emperor gave orders that the palisades should be
boarded up inside, but of course it was impossible to do it at once, so
that all that week of lovely weather the Princess had to stay indoors
or content herself with drives round the town, followed by a clattering
contingent of schoolboys. The people seemed to be delighted to see the
Princess, and were continually waving pocket-handkerchiefs as soon as
she appeared. They also greeted the Emperor and Empress with great
enthusiasm when they arrived; but whether this was just the German
portion of the population, who tried to cover up by their exuberant
loyalty any deficiencies on the part of the French, it is hard to say.
The Princess went with her mother to visit the lovely old Cathedral of
Strasburg, and saw the wonderful clock and its flapping cock and moving
figures, and then drove through the old, picturesque part of the town,
among queer old wooden houses with carved beams.
The Empress visited hospitals and orphanages all day, and in the
evenings big, tiresome official dinners took place, at which every one
looked bored. The Princess was not there, but peeped at them between the
big red-velvet curtains which shut off a portion of the dining-hall.
The last day of the journey was spent at Metz, where the Emperor
reviewed an army corps. Their entry into this town must have seemed
strange indeed to their Majesties, accustomed as they are to smiling,
shouting crowds. Here there was no welcome, no smile, not a single flag.
The people who stood in the streets looked on idly, like spectators of a
curious show, as the long procession of carriages with their outriders
moved on, to the sound only of the rumble of their own wheels. Sometimes
a lady remarked resentfully on the strange absence of enthusiasm. The
names over the doors were French, the faces were French, there was an
atmosphere of French hostility.
Under a little awning, in the burning sunshine, the Empress stood for
two hours, smiling and bowing while the troops marched past. The Emperor
was on his horse a little distance away, amidst a group of officers. On
the roof of a neighbouring building were gathered together the only
Germans in the town. Here was a flutter of white, a shouting of Hurrah!
a movement of welcome and delight, a little lonely outpost of loyalty
and patriotism. The people on the roof and one or two rather dirty
little boys were the only spectators present. The beautiful town went on
with its own affairs while the German soldiers marched and rode past.
It seemed something of an anomaly and a mistake that these stalwart
brown young men, good-tempered and patient as all German soldiers appear
to be, should be living in a kind of exile within their own Empire,
cordially disliked by the people among whom their lot is cast, not for
any personal reason, but solely as a heritage left to them by a
dead-and-gone generation. None of them were born at the time of the
Franco-Prussian war, but they have their share of its aftermath. The
Prussian spirit is not conciliatory. It has a knack of letting the
conquered drink to the dregs the cup of humiliation; its press is
bombastic, and has none of the large-minded tolerance which would enable
it to appreciate the acute sufferings of a proud, humiliated people.
About five years after the end of the Boer war, a German lady who was
dining at court drew me aside after dinner.
“To-day,” she said, “I have been talking to a German gentleman who has
been living in your Orange River Free State, or whatever you call it;
and he tells me that the Boers are quite content now to be under your
Government--they do not want to change back again.”
“Are they?” I said. “Is he quite sure?”
“Oh, quite, quite certain. He knows. He is a German. They know he is a
German. They tell him the truth. He says they are absolutely satisfied.
Now tell me: how do you manage it? And with so few soldiers, I am
told--hardly any at all. How _do_ you do it? In five years! And look at
us in Elsass-Lothringen. We don’t know how to satisfy them. They will
never be satisfied. We are always in fear of war. Tell us your secret.”
She laid her hand on my arm and looked at me intently, as though she
could surprise the secret out of me.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said lamely. “You see we’ve had a lot of practice
at governing, and made an awful lot of mistakes, and we’ve learned a
little by our past mistakes; I suppose that is one reason. So we know
what are the kind of things that people won’t stand. And we let them a
good deal alone afterwards, and play cricket and football with them and
things of that kind; and we let them vote the same as the rest of us,
and--er--well, we don’t treat them any differently from the rest, as far
as I can make out--just let them alone to conspire or do as they
like--and then if they know they can, they don’t want to. See? And then
our Tommies--our soldiers--are very good too; they’re not brought up to
be so patriotic as yours--so, of course, it’s less galling: they’d just
as soon chum up with the enemy afterwards as not. Yours are brought up
to look on him rather as a criminal, aren’t they? Not the officers, of
course, but the others. They are patronizingly kind and pitying, and no
one likes that, do they? You don’t want conquered people to lose their
self-respect. Well, I don’t know, I’m sure----”
“Cricket and football,” the lady murmured, “and not too patriotic, and a
vote, and let them conspire if they want to, and the soldiers are
‘chummy.’ Ach! We cannot do that. It is a matter of national
temperament, I suppose, but it is sad, very sad. Here in five years you
pacify your enemy, and in forty years we have not begun to pacify ours:
it is a constant fear--a constant terror--one expects every day to hear
that war has broken out. And you will not tell us your secret. How do
you learn to govern like this? No, it is impossible! It must be, as I
said, national temperament.”
She sighed and cast her eyes upward and walked away looking troubled.