good deal of the inner life of kings and queens and princes in Berlin.
There is something almost painful in reflecting on the kind of life
which Humboldt must have led among these people, whom he so cordially
despised, and whom in his private chroniclings he so held up to scorn.
The great philosopher assuredly had a huge treasure of hatred locked up
in his heart. He detested and scorned these royal personages, who so
blandly patronized him, or were sometimes so rough in their
condescending familiarity. Nothing takes the gilt off the life of courts
so much as a perusal of what Humboldt has written about it. One hardly
cares to think of so great, and on the whole so noble a man, living a
life of what seems so like perpetual dissimulation; of his enduring
these royal dullards and pert princesses, and doubtless seeming
profoundly reverential, and then going home of nights to put down on
paper his record of their vulgarity, and selfishness, and impertinence.
Sometimes Humboldt was not able to contain himself within the limits of
court politeness. The late King of Hanover (father of the now dethroned
King George) was a rough brutal trooper, who had made himself odious in
England as the Duke of Cumberland, and was accused by popular rumors of
the darkest crimes--unjustly accused certainly, in the case where he was
charged with the murder of his valet. The Duke did not make a very bad
sort of King, as kings then went; but he retained all his roughness and
coarseness of manner. He once accosted Humboldt in the palace of the
late King of Prussia, and in his pleasant graceful way asked why it was
that the Prussian court was always full of philosophers and loose
women--describing the latter class of visitors by a very direct and
expressive word. "Perhaps," replied Humboldt blandly, "the King invites
the philosophers to meet me, and the other persons to please your
Majesty!" Humboldt seems to have had little liking for any of the
illustrious personages he met under the roof of the King of Prussia. A
brief record he made of a conversation with the late Prince Albert (for
whom he expressed a great contempt) went far when it was published to
render the husband of Queen Victoria more unpopular and even detested in
Ireland than another George the Fourth would have been. The Irish people
will probably never forget that, according to the statement of Humboldt,
the Prince spoke contemptuously of Irish national aspirations, declared
he had no sympathy with the Irish, and that they were as restless, idle,
and unmanageable as the Poles--a pretty speech, the philosopher remarks,
to be made by the husband of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.
Some attempt was made when this record of Humboldt's came to light to
dispute the truth of it; but Humboldt was certainly not a liar--and
anyhow the Irish people believed the story and it did no little
mischief; and Humboldt in his grave might have had the consolation of
knowing that he had injured one prince at least.
What we learn of the King of Prussia through Humboldt is to the same
effect as the teaching of Varnhagen's cynical spirit; and I think, if
these keen irreverent critics did not do him wrong, his Majesty must
have softened and improved with the responsibilities of royalty. In many
respects one might be inclined to compare him with the English George
the Third. Both were indeed dull, decent, and fanatical. But there are
some wide differences. George the Third was obstinate in the worst
sense; his was the obstinacy of a stupid, self-conceited man who
believes himself wise and right in everything. Now, I fancy the King of
Prussia is only obstinate in what he conceives, rightly or wrongly, to
be questions of duty and of principle; and that there are many subjects,
political and otherwise, of which he does not believe himself to be the
most competent judge, and which therefore he is quite willing to leave
to the consideration and decision of others. For instance, it was made
evident that in the beginning of the transactions which were followed by
(although they cannot be said to have caused) the present war, the King
more than once expressed himself willing to do certain things, of which,
however, Count von Bismarck subsequently disapproved; and the King
quietly gave way. "You know better than I do; act as you think best,"
is, I believe, a quite common sentence on the lips of King William, when
he is talking with this or that trusted minister. Then again it has been
placed beyond all doubt that George the Third could be, when he thought
fit, the most unabashed and unscrupulous of liars; and not even hatred
itself will charge King William with any act or word of falsehood or
duplicity.
Steadily did the King grow more and more unpopular after his coronation.
All the old work of prosecuting newspapers and snubbing, or if possible
punishing, free-spoken politicians, came into play again. The King
quarrelled fiercely with his Parliament about the scheme of army
reorganization. I think he was right as to the scheme, although terribly
wrong-headed and high-handed in his way of forcing it down the throats
of the people, and, aided by his House of Peers, he waged a sort of war
upon the nation's representatives. Then first came to the front that
extraordinary political figure, which before very long had cast into the
shade every other in Europe, even including that of the Emperor
Napoleon; that marvellous compound of audacity and craft, candor and
cunning, the profound sagacity of a Richelieu, the levity of a
Palmerston; imperturbably good-humored, illimitably unscrupulous; a
patriot without lofty emotion of any kind, a statesman who could
sometimes condescend to be a juggler; part bully, part buffoon, but
always a man of supreme courage, inexhaustible resources of brain and
tongue--always in short a man of genius. I need hardly add that I am
speaking of the Count von Bismarck.
At the time of the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, there was probably no
public man in Europe so generally unpopular as the King of Prussia,
except perhaps his Minister, the Count von Bismarck. In England it was
something like an article of faith to believe that the King was a
bloodthirsty old tyrant, his Prime Minister a combination of Strafford
and Sejanus, and his subjects generally a set of beer-bemuddled and
servile blockheads. The dislike felt toward the King was extended to the
members of his family, and the popular conviction in England was that
the Princess Victoria, wife of the King's son, had a dull coarse
drunkard for a husband. It is perfectly wonderful how soon an absurdly
erroneous idea, if there is anything about it which jumps with the
popular humor, takes hold of the public mind of England. The English
people regarded the Prussians with utter detestation and contempt. Not
only that, but they regarded it as quite a possible and even likely
thing that poor brave little Denmark, with a population hardly larger
than that of the city of New York, could hold her own, alone, against
the combined forces of Austria and Prussia. One might have thought that
there never was a Frederick the Great or an Archduke Charles; that the
only part ever played in history by Germans was that of impotent
braggarts and stupid cowards. When there seemed some prospect of
England's drawing the sword for Denmark, "Punch" published a cartoon
which was very popular and successful. It represented an English sailor
and soldier of the conventional dramatic style, looking with utter
contempt at two awkward shambling boobies with long hair and huge
meerschaums--one booby supposed to represent Prussia, the other Austria;
and Jack Tar says to his friend the redcoat: "They can't expect us to
_fight_ fellows like those, but we'll kick them, of course, with
pleasure." This so fairly represented the average public opinion of
England that there was positively some surprise felt in London when it
was found that the Prussians really could fight at all. Towards the
Austrians there was nothing like the same ill-feeling; and when
Bismarck's war against Austria (I cannot better describe it) broke out
shortly after, the sympathy of England went almost unanimously with the
enemy of Prussia. Ninety-nine men out of every hundred firmly believed
that Austria would clutch Italy with one hand and Prussia with the
other, and easily choke the life out of both. About the merits of the
quarrel nobody in England outside the range of a very few politicians
and journalists troubled himself at all. It was settled that Austria had
somehow come to represent the cause of human freedom and progress; that
the King of Prussia was a stupid and brutal old trooper, hurried to his
ruin by the evil counsels of a drunken Mephistopheles; and that the
Austrian forces would simply walk over the Prussians into Berlin. There
was but one newspaper in London (and it has since died) which ventured
to suggest, first, that perhaps the Prussians had the right side of the
quarrel, and next, that perhaps they would have the better in the fight.
With the success of Prussia at Sadowa ended King William's personal
unpopularity in Europe. Those who were prepared to take anything like a
rational view of the situation began to see that there must be some
manner of great cause behind such risks, sacrifices, and success. Those
who disliked Prussia more than ever, as many in France did, were
disposed to put the King out of their consideration altogether, and to
turn their detestation wholly on the King's Minister. In fact, Bismarck
so entirely eclipsed or occulted the King, that the latter may be said
to have disappeared from the horizon of European politics. His good
qualities or bad qualities no longer counted for aught in the estimation
of foreigners. Bismarck was everything, the King was nothing. Now I wish
the readers of THE GALAXY not to take this view of the matter. In
everything which has been done by Prussia since his accession to the
throne, King William has counted for something. His stern uncompromising
truthfulness, seen as clearly in the despatches he sent from recent
battle-fields as in any other deeds of his life, has always counted for
much. So too has his narrow-minded dread of anything which he believes
to savor of the revolution. So has his thorough and devoted Germanism. I
am convinced that it would have been far more easy of late to induce
Bismarck to make compromises with seemingly powerful enemies at the
expense of German soil, than it would have been to persuade Bismarck's
master to consent to such proposals. The King's is far more of a typical
German character (except for its lack of intellect) than that of
Bismarck, in whom there is so much of French audacity as well as of
French humor. On the other hand, I would ask my readers not to rush into
wild admiration of the King of Prussia, or to suppose that liberty owes
him personally any direct thanks. King William's subjects know too well
that they have little to thank him for on that score. Strange as the
comparison may seem at first, it is not less true that the enthusiasm
now felt by Germans for the King is derived from just the same source as
the early enthusiasm of Frenchmen for the first Napoleon. In each man
his people see the champion who has repelled the aggression of the
insolent foreigner, and has been strong enough to pursue the foreigner
into his own home and there chastise him for his aggression. The blind
stupidity of Austria and the crimes of Bonapartism have made King
William a patriot King. When Thiers wittily and bitterly said that the
Second Empire had made two great statesmen, Cavour and Bismarck, he
might have said with still closer accuracy that it had made one great
sovereign, William of Prussia. Never man attained such a position as
that lately won by King William with less of original "outfit" to
qualify him for the place. Five or six years ago the King of Prussia was
as much disliked and distrusted by his own subjects as ever the Emperor
of the French was by the followers of the Left. Look back to the famous
days when "Bockum-Dolff's hat" seemed likely to become a symbol of civil
revolution in Germany. Look back to the time when the King's own son and
heir apparent, the warrior Crown Prince who since has flamed across so
many a field of blood, felt called upon to make formal protest in a
public speech against the illiberal, repressive, and despotic policy of
his father! Think of these things, and say whether any change could be
more surprising than that which has converted King William into the
typical champion and patriot of Germany; and when you seek the
explanation of the change, you will simply find that the worst enemies
of Prussia have been unwittingly the kindest friends and the best
patrons of Prussia's honest and despotic old sovereign.
I think the King of Prussia's subjects were not wrong when they disliked
and dreaded him, and I also think they are now not wrong when they trust
and applaud him. It has been his great good fortune to reign during a
period when the foreign policy of the State was of infinitely greater
importance than its domestic management. It became the business of the
King of Prussia to help his country to assert and to maintain a national
existence. Nothing better was needed in the sovereign for this purpose
than the qualities of a military dictator, and the King, in this case,
was saved all trouble of thinking and planning. He had but to accept and
agree to a certain line of policy--a certain set of national
principles--and to put his foot down on these and see that they were
carried through. For this object the really manly and sturdy nature of
the King proved admirably adapted. He upheld manfully and firmly the
standard of the nation. His defective qualities were rendered inactive,
and had indeed no occasion or chance to display themselves, while all
that was good of him came into full activity and bold relief. But I do
not believe that the character of the King in any wise changed. He was a
dull, honest, fanatical martinet when he turned his cannon against
German liberals in 1848; he was a dull, honest, fanatical martinet when
he unfurled the flag of Prussia against the Austrians in 1866 and
against the French in 1870. The brave old man is only happy when doing
what he thinks right; but he wants alike the intellect and the
susceptibilities which enable people to distinguish right from wrong,
despotism from justice, necessary firmness from stolid obstinacy. But
for the wars and the great national issues which rose to claim instant
decision, King William would have gone on dissolving Parliaments and
punishing newspapers, levying taxes without the consent of
representatives, and making the police-officer the master of Berlin. The
vigor which was so popular when employed in resisting the French, would
assuredly otherwise have found occupation in repressing the Prussians. I
see nothing to admire in King William but his courage and his honesty.
People who know him personally speak delightedly of his sweet and genial
manners in private life; and I have observed that, like many another old
_moustache_, he has the art of making himself highly popular with the
ladies. There is a celebrated little _prima donna_ as well known in
London as in Berlin, who can only speak of the bluff monarch as _der
suesse Koenig_--"the sweet King." Indeed, there are not wanting people who
hint that Queen Augusta is not always quite pleased at the manner in
which the venerable soldier makes himself agreeable to dames and
demoiselles. Certainly the ladies seem to be generally very enthusiastic
about his Majesty when they come into acquaintanceship with him, and to
the _prima donna_ I have mentioned his kindness and courtesy have been
only such as are well worthy of a gentleman and of a king. Still we all
know that it does not take a great effort on the part of a sovereign to
make people, especially women, think him very delightful. I do not,
therefore, make much account of King William's courtesy and _bonhomie_
in estimating his character. For all the service he has done to Germany
let him have full thanks; but I cannot bring myself to any warmth of
personal admiration for him. It is indeed hard to look at him without
feeling for the moment some sentiment of genuine respect. The fine head
and face, with its noble outlines and its frank pleasant smile, the
stately, dignified form, which some seventy-five years have neither
bowed nor enfeebled, make the King look like some splendid old paladin
of the court of Charlemagne. He is, indeed, despite his years, the
finest physical specimen of a sovereign Europe just now can show.
Compare him with the Emperor Napoleon, so many years his junior--compare
his soldierly presence, his manly bearing, his clear frank eyes, his
simple and sincere expression, with the prematurely wasted and crippled
frame, the face blotched and haggard, the lack-lustre eyes which seem
always striving to avoid direct encounter with any other glance, the
shambling gait, the sinister look of the nephew of the great Bonaparte,
and you will say that the Prussians have at least had from the beginning
of their antagonism an immense advantage over their rivals in the
figurehead which their State was enabled to exhibit. But I cannot make a
hero out of stout King William, although he has bravery enough of the
common, military kind, to suit any of the heroes of the "Nibelungen
Lied." He never would, if he could, render any service to liberty; he
cannot understand the elements and first principles of popular freedom;
to him the people is always, as a child, to be kept in leading strings
and guided, and, if at all boisterous or naughty, smartly birched and
put in a dark corner. There is nothing cruel about King William; that is
to say, he would not willingly hurt any human creature, and is, indeed,
rather kind-hearted and humane than otherwise. He is as utterly
incapable of the mean spites and shabby cruelties of the great
Frederick, whose statue stands so near his palace, as he is incapable of
the savage brutalities and indecencies of Frederick's father. He is, in
fact, simply a dull old disciplinarian, saturated through and through
with the traditions of the feudal party of Germany, his highest merit
being the fact that he keeps his word--that he is "a still strong man"
who "cannot lie;" his noblest fortune being the happy chance which
called on him to lead his country's battles, instead of leaving him free
to contend against, and perhaps for the time to crush, his country's
aspirations after domestic freedom. Kind Heaven has allowed him to
become the champion and the representative of German unity--that unity
which is Germany's immediate and supreme need, calling for the
postponement of every other claim and desire; and this part he has
played like a man, a soldier, and a king. But one can hardly be expected
to forget all the past, to forget what Humboldt and Varnhagen von Ense
wrote, what Jacobi and Waldeck spoke, what King William did in 1848, and
what he said in 1861; and unless we forget all this and a great deal
more to the same effect, we can hardly help acknowledging that but for
the fortunate conditions which allowed him to prove himself the best
friend of German unity, he would probably have proved himself the worst
enemy of German liberty.
VICTOR EMANUEL, KING OF ITALY.
I have before me just now a little silver coin picked up in Savoy very
soon after Italy had become a kingdom, and Savoy had ceased to be part
of it. That was in truth the only thing that made the coin in any way
specially interesting--the fact that it happened to be in chance
circulation through Savoy when Savoy had no longer any claim to it. So,
for that little scrap of melancholy interest I have since kept the coin
in my purse, and it has made many journeys with me in Europe and
America; and I suppose I can never be utterly destitute while it remains
in my possession. Now, the head which is displayed upon that coin is not
of kingly mould. The mint has flattered its royal master much less than
is usual with such portrait painters. An English silver or gold coin of
this year's mintage will still represent Her Majesty Queen Victoria as a
beautiful young woman of twenty, with features worthy of a Greek statue
and a bust shapely enough for Dryden's Iphigenia. But the coin of King
Victor Emanuel has little flattery in it. There is the coarse, bulldog
cast of face; there are the heavy eye-brows, the unshapely nose, the
hideous moustache, the receding forehead, and all the other beauties and
graces of the "bloat King's" countenance. Certainly the face on the coin
is not bloated enough, and there is too little animalism displayed in
the back of the head, to do justice to the first King of Italy.
Moreover, the coin gives somehow the idea of a small man, and the King
of Italy finds it not easy to get a horse strong enough to bear the load
of Antony. But for a coin it is a wonderfully honest and truthful piece
of work, quite a model to other mints, and it gave when it was issued as
fair an idea as a little piece of silver could well give of the head and
face of Europe's most ill-favored sovereign.
What a chance Victor Emanuel had of being a hero of romance! No king
perhaps ever had such a chance before, and missed it so persistently.
Europe seemed at one time determined, whether he would or no, to make a
hero, a knight, a _preux chevalier_, out of the son of Charles Albert.
Not Charles Edward, the brilliant, unfortunate Stuart himself, not
Gustavus Adolphus even seemed to have been surrounded by such a romantic
rainbow of romance and of hope. When, after the crowning disaster of
Novara, Victor Emanuel's weak, vacillating, unlucky, and not very
trustworthy father abdicated the crown of Sardinia in favor of his son,
the latter seemed in the eyes of liberal Europe to represent not merely
the hopes of all true Italians, but the best hopes of liberty and
progress all over the world. There was even then a vague idea afloat
through Europe--although Europe did not know how Cavour had already
accepted the idea as a principle of action--that with her tremendous
defeats Piedmont had won the right to hoist the standard of one Italy.
This then was the cause which the young King was taken to represent. He
had been baptized in blood to that cause. He represented Italy united
and free--free from Austrian and Pope, from political and religious
despotism. He was at all events no carpet knight. He had fought bravely
on more than one fearful field of battle; he had looked on death closely
and undismayed; he had been wounded in fighting for Italy against the
Austrian. It was said of the young sovereign--who was only Duke of Savoy
then--that on the night of Novara, when all was over save retreat and
humiliation, he shook his dripping sword at the ranks of the conquering
Austrians and exclaimed, "Italy shall make herself for all that!"
Probably the story is substantially true, although Victor Emanuel may
perhaps have used stronger expressions if he spoke at all; for no one
ever doubted his courage and coolness in the hour of danger. But true or
not, the anecdote exactly illustrated the light in which the world was
prepared to regard the young sovereign of Sardinia--as the hope of Italy
and of freedom, the representative of a defeat which he was determined
and destined to convert into a victory.