THE HOUSE OF HOHENZOLLERN
The immense crowd surrounding the young Frenchman remained for a moment
dumb with stupefaction. Many, not understanding French, failed to
comprehend his meaning, and others who did understand, appreciating his
courage in thug braving a furious crowd, surveyed him with more
astonishment than anger. Others again, who realized that a dire insult
had been offered them, would nevertheless with typical German
deliberation have allowed him time to escape had he wished. But the
young man's demeanour showed that, whatever the consequences of his
bravado, he intended to face them. Presently a threatening murmur of
"Franzose, Franzose," arose from the crowd.
"Yes," said he, in as good German as might be heard anywhere between
Thionville and Memel. "Yes, I am French. My name is Benedict Turpin. I
have studied at Heidelberg and might pass for a German since I can speak
your language as well as most of those here, and better than some. Also
I can use a rapier, pistol, sword, sabre, single-stick, boxing gloves,
or any other weapon you like to choose. Any one wishing for satisfaction
may find me at the Black Eagle."
The young man had hardly finished his audacious defiance when four men
of the lower class advanced upon him. The crowd kept silence, and the
contemptuous words, "What! four to one? Leipzig again! Come on! I am
ready!" were distinctly heard. Then, not waiting to be attacked, the
young Frenchman sprang at the nearest and broke the bottle of champagne
over his head, blinding him with foam. The second he tripped up,
throwing him a good ten paces off, and disposed of the third with a
vigorous blow in the ribs which hurled him against a chair. Then,
seizing the fourth by the collar and grasping his waist he actually held
him aloft in the air for a moment, then flinging him on the ground he
placed a foot on his chest.
"Is not Leipzig avenged?" said he.
Then at last the tempest burst. A rush was made for the Frenchman, but
he, still keeping a foot on his fallen enemy, seized a chair and whirled
it round him so vigorously that for a moment the crowd was held at bay
and only ventured on threats. But the circle drew closer, some one
grasped the chair and succeeded in stopping it. A few moments more and
the audacious Frenchman would probably have been torn to pieces had not
two or three Prussian officers intervened. They forced their way through
the crowd and formed a guard around the young man, one of them addressed
the crowd thus:
"Come, come, my friends, don't murder a brave young man because he does
not forget he is a Frenchman and has cried 'Vive la France!' He will now
cry 'Vive Guillaume IV!' and we will let him off." Then, whispering to
Benedict, "Cry 'Vive Guillaume IV!' or I can't answer for your life."
"Yes!" bawled the crowd, "let him cry 'Vive Guillaume IV!--Vive la
Prusse!' and we will let him go."
"Very well," said Benedict, "but I prefer to do so freely, and without
compulsion. Leave me alone and let me speak from a table."
"Stand aside and let him pass," said the officers, releasing Benedict
and leaving him free. "He wishes to address you."
"Let him speak! let him speak!" cried the crowd.
"Gentlemen!" said Benedict, mounting the table nearest to the open
windows of the café, "oblige me by listening. I cannot cry 'Vive la
Prusse,' because at this very moment my country may be at war with
yours, in which case a Frenchman would disgrace himself if he cried
anything except 'Vive la France.' Nor can I very well cry 'Vive le roi
Guillaume,' because, not being my king, it does not matter to me whether
he lives or dies. But I will recite some charming verses in answer to
your 'German Rhine!'"
The audience heard him impatiently, not knowing what he meant to recite.
They had another disappointment in discovering that the lines in
question were not German but French. However, they listened with all the
more attention. In enumerating his accomplishments Benedict had omitted
those of amateur actor and elocutionist. The lines were those written by
de Musset in response to the "German Rhine," and they lost nothing in
his impassioned delivery. Those among his hearers able to follow the
reciter soon perceived that they had been tricked into listening to
truths they had no desire to hear. Once this was understood, the storm,
momentarily lulled, burst forth with redoubled violence.
Knowing that there would be no further chance of protection, Benedict
was carefully considering the distance between his table and the nearest
window, when suddenly the attention of the crowd was diverted by the
report of several pistol-shots rapidly fired in the immediate vicinity.
Turning towards the sound they perceived a well-dressed young civilian,
struggling desperately with a much older man in colonel's uniform. The
young man fired again, with the only result of further exasperating his
adversary, who seized him with a grasp of iron, and, disdaining to call
for help, shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then, throwing him down,
he knelt upon the would-be murderer's chest, tore the now useless
revolver from his hand, and placed the barrel against his forehead.
"Yes, fire, fire!" gasped the young man. But the colonel, in whom the
bystanders now recognized the powerful minister, Count von Bismarck,
changed his mind. He pocketed the revolver, and beckoning to two
officers, "Gentlemen," said he, "this young man is probably mad, or at
any rate he is a clumsy fool. He attacked me without the slightest
provocation and has fired five times without hitting me. You had better
consign him to the nearest prison whilst I acquaint the king with what
has happened. I think I need hardly mention my name--Count von
Bismarck."
Then, wrapping his handkerchief round his hand which had been slightly
scratched in the conflict, the count retraced his steps towards the
royal palace hardly a hundred yards distant, while the two officers
handed the assassin over to the police. One of them accompanied him to
the prison, where he was at once incarcerated. The crowd having now time
to remember Benedict Turpin found that he had vanished. However, this
did not trouble them much, for the excitement of the more recent event
had changed the course of their ideas. Let us profit by the interval and
glance at the characters who are destined to appear in our recital. But,
first let us examine the stage on which they will play their several
parts.
Least German of all Germanic states, Prussia is inhabited by a mixture
of races. Besides Germans proper, numbers of Slavonians are found there.
There are also descendants of the Wends, Letts, Lithuanians, Poles, and
other early tribes, and a mixture of Frankish refugees. The prosperity,
though not perhaps the grandeur of the House of Hohenzollern, began with
Duke Frederic, the greatest usurer of his day. It is as impossible to
calculate the enormous sums wrung from the Jews as to narrate the means
by which they were extorted. At first a vassal of the Emperor
Wenceslaus, when that monarch's impending fall became evident Frederic
deserted his camp for that of his rival Otho, and when Otho's crown
began to totter, he passed over to Sigismund, brother of Wenceslaus.
In 1400 A.D., the same year in which Charles VI ennobled the goldsmith
Raoul, as a reward for financial help, Sigismund, equally embarrassed,
borrowed 100,000 florins from Frederic, giving him the Margravate of
Brandenburg as security. Fifteen years later, Sigismund having had to
provide for the extravagance of the Council of Constance, found himself
in debt to Frederic for 400,000 florins. Utterly unable to pay, he sold,
or granted in compensation, both the Marches of Brandenburg and the
dignity of Elector. In 1701 the electorate rose into a kingdom and the
Duke Frederic III became the King Frederic I of Prussia.
The Hohenzollerns display the faults and the characteristics of their
race. Their exchequer is admirably managed, but the moral balance-sheet
of their administration can rarely be compared with the financial one.
They have advanced on the lines of Duke Frederic, with more or less
hypocrisy, but with ever-increasing rapacity. Thus in 1525, Albert of
Hohenzollern, Grand Master of the Teutonic knights, then lords of
Prussia, forsook his faith and became a Lutheran, receiving in return
the rank of Hereditary Duke of Prussia, under the over-lordship of
Poland. And in 1613, the Elector John Sigismund, wishing to obtain the
duchy of Cleves, followed Albert's example and became a Calvinist.
The policy of the Great Elector has been summed up by Leibnitz in a
single phrase: "I side with him who pays best." To him is due the
formation of the European permanent standing army, and it was his second
wife, the famous Dorothea, who started shops and taverns in Berlin for
the disposal of her beer and dairy produce. The military genius of the
Great Frederic is beyond dispute, but it was he who, in order to curry
favour with the Russian Court, offered to "supply" the Grand Dukes with
German princesses "at the lowest reasonable rate!" One lady thus
"supplied" a princess of Anhalt, is known as "Catherine the Great." We
may remark incidentally that he also is chiefly responsible for the
partition of Poland, a crime which has weighted the Prussian crown with
the malediction of nations, and which he celebrated by this scandalously
impious summons to his brother Henry, "Come, let us receive the
Eucharist of the body of Poland!" To Frederic also, we owe the
economical maxim, "He dines best who eats at another's table!"
Frederic died childless, a fact for which, oddly enough, historians have
seen fit to blame him. His nephew and successor, William II, invaded
France in 1792. His entry, preceded by the famous manifesto of the Duke
of Brunswick, was ostentatious to a degree, but his departure,
accompanied by Danton and Dumouriez, was accomplished without sound of
trumpet or drum.
He was succeeded by the "Man of Jena," Frederic William III. Among the
numerous stupid, and servile letters received by the Emperor Napoleon in
the days of his prosperity, must be counted those of William III.
Frederic William IV--we are rapidly approaching our own times--came to
the throne in June 1840. According to the Hohenzollern custom his first
ministry was a liberal one and on his accession he remarked to Alexander
von Humboldt:
"As a noble I am the first gentleman in the kingdom; as a king I am only
the first citizen."
Charles X had said much the same on succeeding to the crown of France,
or, rather, M. de Martignac had said it for him.
The first proof the king gave of his liberalism was an attempt to drill
properly the intellectual forces of the kingdom, which duty he entrusted
to the Minister Eichhorn. The name--it means "squirrel"--was quite
prophetic. At the end of ten years the project had not advanced a step,
although the minister himself had done wonders of perpetual revolution.
On the other hand reaction had progressed. The press was persecuted,
promotion and rewards were obtained only by hypocrites and informers.
High office could only be acquired by becoming a servile instrument of
the pietistic party, which was headed by the king.
Frederic William and King Louis of Bavaria were the two most literary of
contemporary sovereigns. But Louis encouraged Art under whatever form it
appeared, whereas Frederic William wished it to be drilled into a sort
of auxiliary to despotism. Feeling himself constrained, like our great
satirist Boileau, to give an example of good manners to both court and
city, he began a correspondence with Louis, in the course of which he
sent the latter a quatrain commenting on the scandal caused by his
intimacy with Lola Montes. The King of Bavaria replied in another which
made the round of all the courts of Europe.
"Contempteur de l'amour, dont adore l'ivresse,
Frère, tu dis que, roi sans pudeur, sans vertu,
Je garde à tort Lola, ma fille enchanteresse.
Je te l'enverrai bien.--Oui; mais qu'en ferais-tu?"
And, by general consent of the wits, the laugh remained on the side of
the versatile King Louis.
After six years of domiciliary visits, suppressions, and summary
expulsions of offending journalists, the Prussian Diet at length
assembled at Berlin. In his opening speech the king addressed the
deputies thus:
"Recollect, gentlemen, that you are here to represent the interests of
the people, but _not_ their _sentiments_."
A little later in the year, Frederic William inaugurated his Divine
Right by observing as he tore up the Constitution:
"I shall not allow a scrap of paper to stand between my people and their
God!" meaning, though he did not dare to say it, "between my people and
me."
Then the revolution of 1848 burst forth, and did not spare Berlin, which
was soon in full revolt. The king lost his head completely. In leaving
the town he had to drive past the dead bodies of rioters killed in the
struggle. There was a shout of "Hats off!" and the king was obliged to
remain uncovered while the people sang the famous hymn composed by the
Great Electress.
"Jesus, my Redeemer lives."
Every one knows how Absolutism succeeded in dominating the National
Assembly, and how presently reaction brought the following leaders into
power:
Manteuffel, whose policy led to the unfortunate Austrian triumph at
Olmutz.
Westphalen, who revived provincial councils, and brought the king to the
famous Warsaw interview.
Statel, a converted Jew and Protestant Jesuit, a Grand Inquisitor who
had missed his vocation.
And, lastly, the two Gerlachs, intriguers of the first water, whose
history belongs to that of the two spies, Ladunberg and Techen.
Although the Constitution, establishing two Chambers, was sworn to by
William IV, February 6th, 1850, it was not until his successor, William
Louis, was on the throne that both Upper and Lower Chambers began to
legislate.
A league was now formed by the bureaucracy, the orthodox clergy, the
provincial squirearchy, and some of the proletariat. This was the origin
of the famous association inappropriately designated the _Patriotic_
Association, which had for its aim the annihilation of the Constitution.
There now appeared as First President of the Association at Königsberg,
the Count von Bismarck, who has played so great a part in Prussian
history. We cannot do less for him than we have done for the
Hohenzollerns, that is to say, we must devote an entire chapter to him
and to the Prussia of to-day. For is not the Count von Bismarck a much
greater monarch than the King of Prussia himself?