SILVER WEDDING: THE CROWN PRINCE'S ILLNESS
The Crown Prince and Princess now looked forward to celebrating their
silver wedding on January 25, 1883.
The festivities were rather dashed by the sudden death, only four days
before, of Prince Charles of Prussia, the Emperor's brother. The old
Prince had never liked his English niece, and it was whispered in the
diplomatic world that he had much preferred to die before rather than
after the celebrations in which she was to be so conspicuous a figure!
Preparations for commemorating the anniversary with due honour had been
made for fully a year before, and money was being collected for various
presentations, when it was intimated that the Crown Prince and Princess
wished the subscriptions to be devoted to public and philanthropic
objects. This made a great impression, and the central committee raised
the large sum of £42,000, mostly in quite small contributions. It was
presented to the Prince and Princess on February 16, with the request
that it should be used for charitable purposes chosen by their Imperial
Highnesses.
The money was accordingly distributed among the various charities with
which the Crown Prince and Princess were connected, and some of which
they had themselves founded--such as the workmen's colonies for
reclaiming the unemployed and finding temporary occupation for them;
institutions for the technical and practical education of working men in
their leisure hours; the promotion of health in the home; the Victoria
School for the training of nurses; and the Victoria Foundation for the
training of young girls in domestic and industrial work. The city of
Berlin had a separate fund, which reached the round sum of £10,000, and
of this £5900 was spent on building a nursing institute.
The death of Prince Charles caused the postponement of the festivities
to the end of February, when they were held in what we should call "full
State." The Prince of Wales represented Queen Victoria, and the Emperor
Francis Joseph also sent his heir apparent.
The principal ceremony was both impressive and artistic, and there we
can trace the influence of the Crown Princess. It consisted in a
representation of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, arranged by the artists
of Berlin. The Crown Prince, in the uniform of the Queen's Cuirassiers,
and the Crown Princess in white satin and silver lace, led the
magnificent procession, in which all the Royal personages took part.
After the Crown Prince and Princess had taken their seats between the
Emperor and Empress, a dramatic representation of the Court of Charles
the Bold, of Burgundy, with its picturesque troubadours, was given,
followed by the Elizabethan Pageant. Then came what was perhaps the most
interesting scene of all--a large assemblage dressed to represent the
great painters of the Renaissance in Italy, Germany, and the
Netherlands, who advanced, one by one, and did obeisance to the Crown
Prince and Princess as patrons of the arts.
In May, 1883, the Princess paid a private visit to Paris. She only
stayed three days, but during those three days undertook more
intelligent sight-seeing than most women of her then age would have
found possible. She was entertained at luncheon by Lord Lyons, and at
dinner at Saint Germain by Prince Hohenlohe, who in his diary rather
ungraciously observes: "Royal excursions with Royal personages are not
exactly among the pleasant things of life."
During this visit the Princess said to a French friend that one of the
lives she would have liked to lead would have been that of a little
bourgeoise of the Rue Saint Denis, going on high-days and holidays to
the Théâtre Français.
The Crown Princess was now able to carry out her cherished project of
building an English church dedicated to St. George in Berlin, largely
with the £5700 which was contributed in England for the silver wedding
celebrations. The wisdom of this employment of the money subscribed may
perhaps be doubted, for it can only have confirmed the idea prevailing
in some quarters that the Princess remained, and would always remain, an
Englishwoman in all her feelings and sympathies. However, the laying of
the foundation-stone, which the Crown Princess performed herself in the
spring of 1884, was carried out with considerable ceremony.
The Crown Prince made a speech on the occasion, in which he recalled
that King Frederick William IV had assigned one of the rooms in the
palace of Monbijou to the use of the English congregation, and that the
King's brother, the then Emperor, actuated by the same feelings, had
granted the land on which the church was to be built. The Crown Princess
took the keenest interest in the building, and followed the carrying out
of the architect's plans in every detail.
After the death of Field-Marshal Baron von Manteuffel, Stadhalter of
Alsace-Lorraine, it was suggested that the Crown Prince might be his
successor, but the old Emperor refused to consider the notion, while
being willing to consider the appointment of the young Prince William.
It is said that the Crown Princess herself went to her father-in-law and
begged him not to put so great an affront on her husband. The post was,
therefore, conferred on Prince Hohenlohe.
In the November of 1885, Matthew Arnold paid a visit to Germany in order
to obtain information as to the German system of education. The Crown
Princess was keenly interested in the inquiries he was making. With her
usual energy, she went to considerable personal trouble in order to help
him, and she arranged, among other things, that Mr. Arnold should make a
short stay on Count Redern's property, in the Mark of Brandenburg.
In one of his letters Arnold gives a charming account of a soirée at the
New Palace: "The Crown Princess came round the circle, and I kissed her
hand, as everyone here does when she holds it out. She talked to me a
long time, and said I must come and see her quietly, comfortably." A few
days later he dined at the palace, the only other guest being Hoffmann,
the great chemist. Arnold sat next the Crown Princess, who "talked I may
say all dinner. She is very able and well-informed."
A day or two later came a message asking him to tea with the Crown
Princess: "She was full of the Eastern question, as all of them here
are; it is of so much importance to them. She talked, too, about
Bismarck, Lord Ampthill, the Emperor, the Empress, the Queen, the
Church, English politics, the German nation, everything and everybody
indeed, except the Crown Prince and herself."
Mr. Arnold was very anxious to meet "the great Reichs-Kanzler" himself,
but this was not easy, as the great man was reputed to be almost
inaccessible: but the Crown Princess herself wrote and asked Bismarck
to receive her compatriot.
Matthew Arnold was struck by the lack in Berlin of what certainly exists
in London and Paris, namely, an agreeable, cultivated society consisting
mainly of upper middle-class elements. He observed that in Berlin there
was, in addition to the Court, only groups of functionaries, of
soldiers, and of professors.
As may be gathered from much that has already appeared in this volume,
the Crown Princess was ever pathetically anxious that England and
Germany should be on the most friendly terms of confidence and
affection. Consequently she went through some days of considerable
anxiety, in the spring and early summer of 1884, over the "inciden" of
Angra Pequena. When Lord Granville decided to recognise German
sovereignty in this territory, the Crown Princess was quite as pleased
in her way as Bismarck was. Lord Ampthill, in a letter to Lord
Granville, observes: "The Crown Princess, who dined with us last night,
was beyond measure happy at the general contentment and altered tone of
the Press."
This Lord Ampthill, the Lord Odo Russell of former days, was a valued
friend of the Crown Princess. She was always, naturally, on terms of
friendship with her mother's representative in Berlin, but Lord
Ampthill's appointment had given her special satisfaction. The
Ambassador's premature death in 1884 was a great grief to the Princess,
and the day after his death the Crown Prince himself came to the villa,
where Lord and Lady Ampthill had lived near Sans Souci, to lay a wreath
on the coffin.
The health of the old Emperor now began to give occasion for anxiety. He
had been born on March 22, 1797, and when he reached his eighty-seventh
birthday in 1884, it seemed as if his course was almost run. In the
circumstances the Crown Prince and Princess could scarcely help
anticipating the time when, as it then seemed, the great powers and
responsibilities of the throne would be theirs. But it is certainly true
to say that the feeling of duty was paramount in their minds, and that
nothing was further from their thoughts than to covet the Imperial
purple for its own sake. They regarded it as the symbol of all that they
were determined to do for the welfare and happiness of the people.
Even if they had been blind to the apparently immediate consequences of
the old Emperor's failing health, they would have been enlightened by
the altered demeanour of Prince Bismarck. He showed clear signs of a
desire to cultivate better relations with the Heir Apparent and his
family, and he even attended an evening party given by the Crown
Princess on the occasion of her birthday.
Not long afterwards, early in 1885, the Crown Prince sounded Bismarck
as to whether, in the event of the Emperor's death, he would remain in
office. The astute Chancellor said that he would, subject to two
conditions, namely, that there should be no foreign influences in State
policy, and that there should be no Parliamentary government; it is said
that the Crown Prince assented with an eloquent gesture.
The real tragedy of the Crown Princess's life surely lies in these years
of waiting. She could not--assuredly she did not--for a moment wish that
the old Emperor should die. She had nursed him devotedly during the long
illness caused by Nobeling's attempted assassination, and it is a
significant fact that she alone had been able to persuade the stern old
soldier to leave his hard camp bed for a soft invalid couch. She knew as
well as anyone the Emperor's noble qualities, and she cherished for him
a warm and filial affection.
Yet it was patent, especially to all those who shared the strong
political and constitutional opinions of the Crown Princess, that the
aged Sovereign had outlived his usefulness to his country. She could not
help being conscious that in her husband, and in herself, too, there
lay, capacities of national service of which William I and his consort
had never dreamed.
If the word "disappointment" is used of the Crown Princess's
long-deferred hopes, it was in no sense the baulking of any commonplace
ambition. The tragedy lay in the failure of the pure and single-hearted
dedication of her husband and herself to bettering the lot of those
vast, silent millions on whose pains and toil the pomp of thrones and
empires, the exquisite refinements of civilisation, the discoveries of
science, and the delights of art and literature, seemed to her to be all
ultimately based.
The sympathies of one of the most warm-hearted women who ever lived were
thus continually torn and divided, for, while it seemed to her loyal
nature an act of treachery to look forward to the old Emperor's death,
she was continually being reminded, by the demeanour of those about her,
that that event, which would so entirely transform her position, was
expected almost daily.
In the midst of this subtle mental and spiritual conflict, the Crown
Princess was struck by yet another arrow from the quiver of fate,
inflicting an anguish of anxiety which even her bitterest enemies would
surely have wished her to be spared.
In April, 1886, the Crown Prince suffered from a severe attack of
measles, which probably left him in a weakened state, as this disease is
apt to do when it attacks a man over fifty. However, he was thought to
have recovered sufficiently to visit the King and Queen of Italy on the
Riviera in the autumn, and it was there, while out driving, that the
Prince caught a severe cold, which brought on an affection of the
throat.
The Princess herself undertook, with great efficiency, the chief
responsibility of nursing the patient. But the throat affection did not
yield to treatment, and the terrible suspicion that it might never so
yield must often have assailed the Princess, even in these early months
of her husband's illness. But she did not betray the anxiety gnawing at
her heart; on the contrary, she showed throughout a gallant optimism
which, as we now look back on it, seems intensely pathetic.
It was the more necessary that the Princess should never for a moment
relax her cheerfulness, because the patient himself soon began to suffer
from periods of deep depression. To one friend he even said that his
time had already passed away, and the future belonged to his son; to
another he declared that he had become an old man and stood with one
foot in the grave.
On the Emperor William's ninetieth birthday, March 22, 1887, the sailor
son of the Crown Princess, Prince Henry of Prussia, was formally
betrothed to his cousin, his mother's favourite niece, Princess Irene of
Hesse.
During the festivities given in honour of the event, it began to be
whispered among the guests that the Crown Prince's throat affection was
more serious than had as yet been acknowledged. But it is said that the
word "cancer" was only first mentioned in connection with the case when,
in deference to the highest medical advice of Berlin, he was sent to
Ems to be treated for "a bad cold with bronchial complications following
on measles."
The Crown Prince and Princess, with their family, went to Ems in the
middle of April and spent a month there. Not only did this bring no
improvement, but the patient became perceptibly worse. He was brought
back to Berlin, and a consultation of the most eminent medical experts,
including Bergmann, Gerhardt, and Wagener, was held, as the result of
which a growth in the throat of a malignant character was diagnosed.
Bismarck in his _Reminiscences_ contradicts two curious stories which
are worth notice, if only for the reason that they have obtained a
certain amount of currency, and one of them is even to be found in an
English work on the Emperor William II.
The first of these stories is that, after his return from Ems, the Crown
Prince signed a document in which, in the event of his surviving his
father, he renounced his succession to the throne in favour of his
eldest son. There is not, says Bismarck, a shadow of truth in this
story.
The other statement is that any heir to the Prussian throne who suffers
from an incurable physical complaint is, by the Hohenzollern family law,
excluded from the succession. The importance of this provision, if it
really existed, is obvious; and, at the period we have now reached, when
the physical state of the Crown Prince became a subject of intense
public interest, it obtained wide currency and no small amount of
credit. If, on a strict interpretation of such a rule, the Crown Prince
was excluded from the succession, it might have been argued that his
eldest son was also incapable of succeeding, owing to the weakened state
of his arm. But Bismarck declares categorically that the Hohenzollern
family law contains no provision on the matter at all, any more than
does the text of the Prussian constitution.
Bismarck goes on to say that the doctors who were treating the Crown
Prince resolved at the end of May to carry out the removal of the larynx
under an anæsthetic without having informed the Prince of their
intention. The Chancellor, however, immediately raised objections;
required that they should not proceed without the consent of the Prince;
and, further, that as they were dealing with the successor to the
throne, the consent of the head of the dynasty should also be obtained.
The old Emperor, therefore, after being informed of the circumstances by
Bismarck, forbade the doctors to carry out the operation without the
consent of the Crown Prince.
It must be remembered, in considering the diagnosis of the German
experts, that laryngology was at that time almost in its infancy, and it
was natural that the Crown Princess should have clung desperately to the
belief that a mistake had been made. Indeed, it is said that Professor
Bergmann himself advised that the opinion of some other eminent throat
specialist should be obtained before it was decided to have recourse to
surgical interference.
This was the position when the eminent English throat specialist, Dr.
(afterwards Sir) Morell Mackenzie was summoned. There is no need here to
go over in detail the painful controversy which was engendered by this
step, and which was embittered, not only by thorny questions of
professional etiquette, but also by irrelevant political passions. Our
purpose is rather to state the principal facts, and leave the reader to
form his own conclusions.
The Crown Princess was widely believed to have insisted that the English
specialist should be called in simply because of her English prejudices,
and this was considered an affront to the medical profession in Germany.
As a matter of fact a list of the most eminent throat specialists in
Europe was drawn up. One was a Frenchman, another a Viennese, and the
third was Morell Mackenzie. The Frenchman was discarded for political
reasons, the Viennese for other reasons, and it was a consensus of
political and medical opinion which led to the choice of the English
specialist.
On May 20, 1887, Dr. Morell Mackenzie arrived in Berlin. The German
physicians informed him that they believed they had to deal with a
cancer, but they desired his diagnosis. Mackenzie performed more than
one small operation to serve as a basis for a microscopic examination,
which was entrusted to Professor Virchow, probably the greatest
physiologist then living. It was Virchow who reported, to the exultant
relief and joy of the Crown Princess, that, while he found a certain
thickening of the membrane, he had "discovered nothing to excite
suspicions of a wider and graver disease."
Henceforth there was a party in Berlin who were convinced that the
growth, if growth it was, in the Crown Prince's throat was benign. But
it may serve as an illustration of the passions which the whole affair
aroused when it is stated that there were many who asserted that Virchow
had been deliberately deceived, and that the English specialist had
refrained from submitting to him those portions of the membrane which
would have clearly shown the presence of malignant disease. It was this
monstrous accusation which chiefly served to inflame the controversy on
both sides.
Virchow's report greatly relieved the anxieties of the Crown Prince and
Princess at the time, and, relying on it implicitly, they went to
England with their daughters in the middle of June for three months.
They stayed at first on the healthy heights of Norwood, in the south of
London, going later to Scotland and the Isle of Wight.
While at Norwood they saw many distinguished English people, though even
then the Prince was prohibited from uttering a word above his breath.
Those who met the Prince at this time were painfully struck by his
appearance. He was much thinner, but the Princess, who, being always
with him, did not notice the gradual change which had come over him, was
full of hope. Indeed, she found time to continue her interest in social
work. She was present at a gathering held in Drapers' Hall to promote
the training of women teachers, and her old friend Lord Granville made a
charming little speech about her youth.
The Crown Prince was present with his wife at Queen Victoria's Golden
Jubilee, and it is still remembered how great an impression was made on
the London populace by his knightly figure in his white Cuirassier
uniform. His was the central and by far the most magnificent presence,
like some paladin of mediæval chivalry, in the mounted escort of princes
which surrounded the venerable Sovereign on her way to and from
Westminster Abbey.
During their stay in Scotland, the Crown Prince was asked by a gentleman
to name his steam launch. He chose the name _The White Heather_, showing
how his thoughts travelled back to the day, nearly thirty years before,
when he had gathered on a Scotch mountain the symbolic sprig of white
heather to give to the Princess Royal.
The Crown Prince and Princess returned to Germany in the middle of
September, and proceeded to Toblach, in the Tyrol. But the climate there
was considered too chilly, and the patient was moved to Venice at the
end of the month. It was from Venice that the Prince wrote to an old
friend a pathetic letter full of hope, in which he said that the real
trouble was now overcome, and that it was only necessary to avoid
speaking and catching cold. Early in October the Prince was again moved
to Baveno, on Lake Maggiore, and at the beginning of November to the
Villa Zirio, at San Remo. From San Remo the Princess telegraphed for Dr.
Morell Mackenzie, who arrived on November 5.
The Villa Zirio was a comfortable house standing in its own grounds. The
first floor, which consisted of two suites of large rooms, was occupied
by the Crown Prince and Princess. On this floor were also the rooms of
the Princess's lady-in-waiting, Countess von Bruschl. The second floor
was assigned to the three young princesses and the rest of the suite.
Unfortunately, owing to the great curiosity and anxiety felt all over
Europe as to the progress of the Crown Prince's illness, the little
Italian town was filled with newspaper representatives, their
headquarters being a large hotel opposite the Villa Zirio. In fact,
during the winter of 1887-8, all the world was watching the race between
the two lives--that of the ninety-year-old Emperor, and that of his son,
already stricken with a mortal disease, on whom so many fair hopes
rested.
The Crown Prince and Princess owed a great deal, at this troubled
period of their lives, to the devotion and vigilant loyalty of their
friend and servant, Count Theodor Seckendorff, whose official position
in the Crown Princess's Household was that of "chambellan."
Seckendorff was once well described by an English friend as "the
Baldassare Castiglione of the present day." He was, indeed, "the perfect
courtier." His father, a distinguished diplomatist, had been attached to
the Prussian Legation in London, and so the Count knew England and the
English intimately. Indeed, he had obtained leave to accompany Lord
Napier of Magdala on the Abyssinian campaign, and he was also with that
distinguished commander on the North-West frontier of India. Afterwards
he was on the staff of the Crown Prince in the Franco-German War, and
was chosen by the latter to be one of the officers to escort Napoleon
III to Wilhelmshöhe. Thereafter the Count's relationship with the Crown
Prince and Princess became even closer.
A man of fine literary and artistic taste, and a really good artist,
Count Seckendorff spoke English, Italian, and French with ease and
distinction, and he retained--what few men and women seem able to retain
in the world of Courts--a great simplicity of manner and absolute
sincerity of nature. While patriotically devoted to his own country, he
was also a true lover of England, and he always did everything that lay
in his power to ease the often strained relations between the two
nations. After the death of the Empress Frederick, Count Seckendorff
continued in faithful and kindly touch with her native country. He
organised the Loan Exhibition of British Art in Berlin as late as 1908,
and his premature death, two years later, caused much sorrow to a large
circle of attached friends in both London and Berlin.
To return to the life at San Remo; in a letter written about this time
the Crown Princess says:
"We are passing through a time of heavy trial, but the knowledge that
the nation has not forgotten us, and that it hopes and sympathises with
us, is a perpetual source of comfort. If it be God's will, this
confidence will remain the Crown Prince's most valued future possession,
and be the greatest help to him in achieving his noble ideals. Who can
tell how many days may yet be granted to him? But when we see him so
virile and fresh, we can only trust to the strength of his constitution
and believe that his health will not fail him in carrying out his
duties, though even in the happiest circumstances he will have to
economise his strength and use his voice as little as possible."
From San Remo, too, the Crown Prince wrote to his beloved French tutor a
touching letter, in which occurs the following passage:
"As to the life we are leading here, it could not be more intimate and
more _gemütlich_. First of all, my wife nurses me as might a true Sister
of Charity, with a calm and knowledge truly admirable. Our daughters
surround us with their loving tenderness, and the Riviera is a
delightful climate and does us much good."
Even then, the Crown Princess had not given up hope. Her husband still
looked in good health; he slept well, and his appetite was excellent.
On December 1, the Princess herself wrote to M. Godet:
"We are profoundly touched by the many proofs of sympathy which reach us
from all sides. I cannot help feeling that it must make you very happy
to know that all the care you took, in old days, in developing that pure
and noble soul, has now brought to him these universal tributes of
respect and confidence."
Alas, even then the Prince had heard from the physicians his sentence of
death, which he received with the same stoicism he had shown on the
field of battle.
Christmas came, and was celebrated with characteristic kindliness by the
Prince, who arranged magnificent gifts for his wife and the little
circle of intimate friends at San Remo. But his health steadily
declined, and a sudden operation had to be performed early in January.
Meanwhile the aged Emperor had caught a chill in the severe Berlin
winter. His magnificent constitution was already enfeebled by age, and
to his physical weakness were now added the distress and anxiety caused
by the news from San Remo, which became continually more and more
disquieting. The end soon came, and the stout old soldier sank and died
on March 9, 1888, less than a fortnight before his ninety-second
birthday.