to "polish our boots." And in some capacity or other--it must have been a
subordinate one--it had been his fate to be employed in the Prince
Consort's household while the latter was a student at Bonn. What
qualified him for either of these positions I am at a loss to conjecture.
He was nothing of a valet. We used to beg him, for mercy's sake, not to
attempt to remove stains from our clothes, inasmuch as in doing so (in the
only way which seemed to suggest itself to his untutored mind) he
invariably made two smudges out of one by spitting just a little wide of
the mark. At least that was the tradition. For any delicate mission, such
as smuggling liquor into the "Carcer," he was absolutely useless. He knew
well enough how to bandage a man for a "Mensur." And on the bitter cold
days of a North-German winter the huge bowl of his ever-smoking pipe would
be very acceptable as a hand-warmer to those gloved for the fight. He was
honest, no doubt, and strictly faithful, and that must have helped to
ingratiate him with the Prince. But his main recommendation appears to
have been his curious capacity for saying odd things in an odd way, and in
the quaintest of broad Rhenish _patois_, which made them sound doubly
droll. What with quaint habits and quaint sayings, he had become a
"character" at Bonn, generally popular as such, known to every man, woman
and child in the place, and allowed almost any latitude of speech. The
Prince, whose relish for humour was, in his student days, fully as keen as
ever in after-life, appears to have been tickled with the man's unintended
drollery; for, according to "Senius's" own naively frank account, he made
it his amusement to "draw" him, eliciting odd answers by inoffensively
unmerciful chaff. And this may account for "Senius" remaining in the
princely household, and experiencing much kindness at his master's hands.
If gratitude be a return, the Prince had it in ample measure. That "dat
war 'ne johde Heer" was spoken with unmistakable feeling, and it proved
the prelude to a whole string of little anecdotes which--though not
perhaps in themselves particularly remarkable or worth repeating--were
poured forth with such simple earnestness as sufficiently testified, how
firmly a sense of regard and affection had taken root in the old man's
heart, to live there through many years of separation.
"Senius" was not the only person in Bonn who could grow warm upon this
subject. The Prince's death, indeed, set loose in the University town a
whole flood of anecdotes and reminiscences, some very trivial and
commonplace, but all of them evidencing a lively interest and abiding
regard. It is strange what power some persons possess of impressing men's
minds. There have been scores of princes students at Bonn since, some of
them spending more money and making much more of a show; but memory has
closed over them like water over a ripple. There is none remembered like
the then Prince of Coburg--down to the days of his grandson, the present
Emperor, who, of course, conquered local hearts by identifying himself
rather demonstratively with the place.
At my time people spoke frequently of "der Prinz Albehrt." All the older
townsfolk remembered the "bildschoene junge Mann," who sat his horse like a
born cavalier, and whose mere appearance was calculated to prepossess
people in his favour. Two friends of mine--the brothers von C---- (one of
them is now a retired general who has covered himself with glory in the
wars in 1866 and 1870)--used as boys to make a point of watching for the
Coburg Princes when about to mount horse, from the house of their
neighbour, Landrath von Hymmen, who lived just opposite. They would rush
out eagerly at the proper moment to hold the Princes' stirrups, and
consider themselves amply rewarded with a kind word or a genial smile.
Travelling Englishmen have afterwards made it a matter of duty, Murray or
Baedecker in hand, to "do" the simple house "in which Prince Albert
lived," as they "did" the Muenster and the Alte Zoll. To the people of Bonn
the Prince's doings were a living memory. Only eighteen months ago I was
surprised, while accidentally alluding to the subject in conversation with
an old resident, since dead, to find that gentleman at once pulling out of
his pocket a photograph of the Prince's house, which he seemed to carry
about with him habitually. He knew all the windows, and the gateway, and
answered questions about the Prince's habits of life as if they had
referred to matters of yesterday.
In truth, Bonn owes a great deal to the Prince Consort--more than most
people are aware. If the University has grown great and popular, a
favourite with reigning houses, a High School in which every King of
Prussia is expected to have pursued his studies, something like a "Christ
Church" among German Universities; if the town has grown rich and
flourishing, a favourite residence with wealth and position _en retraite_,
the merit is in no small measure due to the Prince who, practically
speaking, first set the fashion among illustrious folk. No scion of a
reigning house, to speak of--none, certainly, to make a mark--had been at
Bonn before. Indeed, Bonn, with its associations of the Burschenschaft,
of disaffection and of ecclesiastical strife, did not stand in the best of
odours. Hence, when a Prince came to break the ice, of more than ordinary
promise, and already connected by rumour with a high destiny, very
naturally, all eyes were turned upon him. His subsequent marriage with the
Queen--at that time certainly the most powerful sovereign in
Christendom--following almost immediately upon his studentship, no doubt
emphasised the effect and added force to the example. We see at once
princes flocking to the _Fridericia Guilelmia Rhenana_--Schaumburgs, and
Mecklenburgs, and Schleswig-Holsteins, and Meiningens. Twelve years after
we have the heir to the Prussian Crown matriculating as a student. We find
the roll of students growing at a bound from 650 to 731--to increase since
to above 1,200. In short, we see Bonn developing into a different place.
English folk--as the Prince's friend, Professor Loebell, puts it, rather
uncomplimentarily, in one of his Belgian letters--send their "young bears"
to Bonn in whole batches, "to be licked." Then the parents come
themselves, bringing their families with them, to settle there. German
rank and fashion follow in their wake, quintupling the population in less
than sixty years--and the reputation and position of the town are made.
Bonn was a very different place from the fashionable town that it is now,
when, on May 3, 1837, Professor Wutzer, as Rector Magnificus, pledged
"Prinz Albrecht Franz, Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha", "by pressure of
hand in place of oath," to be a faithful "citizen" of the University.
Prince Ernest, the Prince's elder brother, matriculated at the same time.
There was also a Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, of whom little was seen
or heard; moreover, Prince William of Loewenstein, who grew to be the
Prince's intimate friend; and two Hohenlohes. (Prince Erbach is not in the
University Register included among persons of illustrious birth.) All the
wide belt of spruce and tidy villas set up amid laughing gardens, which
now make Bonn so charming and attractive, and impart to it so pleasing a
look of prosperity and comfort, were still a thing to come. The little
town, having only about 12,000 inhabitants, still lay hemmed in within the
lines of its old walls, the gates of which were carefully closed for
security every night. There was an air of "smallness" about everything,
except the handsome "Schloss," which Archbishop Clemens August had built
(with money received from France) as a sumptuous residence for himself,
but which King Frederick William III. in 1818, without much regard for
Roman Catholic susceptibilities, converted into a "double-denomination"
University. Lutheran divines now taught where the most orthodox of
Catholic princes had held court. A non-denominational Senate conferred
degrees where the last Archbishop-Elector, the Austrian Archduke Max
Franz--"Abbe Sacrebleu," as he was popularly called--had danced with most
unepiscopal perseverance and vigour. And at Poppelsdorf learned professors
made the air malodorous with chemical stenches in the same palace in which
that most courtly of all archbishops, Clemens August, had entertained
those beautiful ladies who got him into rather serious trouble at Rome.
But, apart from these costly buildings, all was country-townish. There was
no Coblenzer Strasse as yet--only a small cluster of houses, among which
the _Vinca Domini_--whilom the winepress of the local lord--and the villa
of the patriot Arndt, were alone conspicuous. Inside the walls the
students were much in evidence, rough in their uncouth costume of those
days, very "Guys" in embroidered "pikesches" and wide petticoat-trousers,
having long curls dangling from their heads and heavy rapiers from their
waists. However, opinion in high quarters was not altogether favourable to
them. The revolutionary "Burschenschaft" had been strong in Bonn,
numbering Heinrich Heine among its members. Rhineland was, moreover, at
that time still wholly unreconciled to Prussian rule. Its seventeen years
of incorporation with France had raised a crop of free and anti-Prussian
ideas which were not soon to be eradicated. And with Austria so powerful,
and Austrian sympathies so widely diffused, thanks to Max Franz, the
authorities had still to deal gingerly with their new subjects. It made
them wince to hear the words "'ne Pruess" commonly and openly used as a
term of reproach and contempt--they were so to down in the fifties. But
they could not interfere too rigorously. Then there was the ecclesiastical
squabble, foreshadowing Prince Bismarck's "Culturkampf," and every bit as
serious and as violent. Only incapacity like that of a Schmedding, and
infatuation like that of a Bunsen, could have created such a hopeless
dilemma. "Is your Government mad?" Cardinal Lambruschini is reported to
have asked, when Bunsen communicated to him the appointment of Droste von
Vischering to be Archbishop of Cologne, as a supposed "angel of peace."
The Crown Prince, subsequently Frederick William IV., favoured the
appointment. The "angel of peace" proved a very demon of war. What with
the dispute over mixed marriages, the Episcopal protest against State
interference in Church matters, the Anathema pronounced by the new prelate
against the latitudinarian school of the followers of Hermes, particularly
favoured by the Government and deliberately installed at Bonn, and the
Archbishop's uncompromising ban upon the University _Convictorium_, there
was war along the whole line. All Rhineland, be it remembered, was then
still staunchly Romanist. Bonn contained but a handful of Protestants. The
"concurrently endowed" University, planted in the midst of a Catholic
country, was a standing abomination and a perpetual taunt to the native
population. The Prince's letters of that time show how fully he
appreciated the grave significance of the struggle even at his early age.
It was while he was at Bonn that the refractory Archbishop was carried off
by force, to be "interned" at Minden.
Under such circumstances it required some resolution for a young
Protestant Prince to settle amid an excited Romanist population. If to be
"'ne Pruess" was a reproach, to be "'ne Juess"--that is "Gueux," or
Protestant--meant downright anathema. And Prince Albert settled right in
what may be called a little Protestant colony, saucily set up under the
very shadow of the beautiful east-end of that splendid old "Muenster,"
which traces its foundation to Constantine, and has been the scene of
Councils and Imperial coronations from the tenth century downwards.
The Empress Frederick, a few years ago, when in Bonn, very naturally asked
to be shown the house in which her father had lived. By that time every
vestige of it had disappeared, and she could only be pointed out the
site--a garden it is now, fronting an entirely new building in the
Martinsplatz, close to where, up to the beginning of the century, stood
the church which gave the square its name. But I can perfectly recall the
unpretending structure, a three-storied, flat-gabled house, with a
two-storied wing--the old-fashioned windows set off by dark-green
shutters--lying rather in a hollow, within a yard enclosed in a stone wall
pierced by a gate, but generally open in situation and yet, thanks to the
enclosure, pretty private. It commanded very fair views of the
Poppelsdorfer Allee--the favourite strolling-ground, ever since it was
planted, for fashionable and unfashionable Bonn--of the Kreuzberg, and
sideways of the more distant Seven Mountains. It seemed a small house to
harbour two Princes and their suite, more especially when one was told
that what seemed the main portion was reserved for the use of the owner.
But it was a building of considerable depth, and so afforded sufficient
room for the illustrious inmates and all their not very numerous
household, which included, of course, the "excellent" Doctor Florschuetz as
tutor, the rather starchy martinet-soldier Herr von Wiechmann, who acted
as governor, the Prince's favourite valet, and some more. All about the
household, as about the Prince's doings generally, was marked by extreme
simplicity, which could not, however, in any particular have suggested
anything like niggardliness, but merely the voluntary plain living of a
gentleman who had no taste for sumptuous habits. Meals, appointments,
entertainments, everything indicated a dislike of display. The Prince's
trap was such as an innkeeper living opposite could, on its original
owner's departure, purchase and use for his business-drives without
occasioning remark. If there was one material thing in respect of which
the Prince practised luxury, it was his little stud, which was small, but
generally admired as choice, and which was, it need scarcely be added,
much prized by its owner. The hours kept in the little green-shuttered
house were probably the most regular in all the town. Everything in the
illustrious student's life was subordinated to the purposes of study.
Every hour had its allotted task. He must have been an early riser who
could have seen the blinds down of a morning; and long before lights went
out in some of the adjoining houses, all was darkness and rest in the
Prince's home, which was a veritable temple of method and punctuality.
The quarters had been selected because the Duke of Saxe-Coburg wished his
sons to be lodged with a professor. There were not many such with
sufficiently large dwellings to select from, and possibly on that ground
the choice had fallen upon a Professor of Medicine, who could have been of
little service to the Princes in the prosecution of their studies. He was
popularly known as "Gamaschenbischof"--"Gaiter-Bishop"--to distinguish him
from the other Geheimrath Bischoff who became better known as a great
professor of chemistry, but who wore no gaiters. I quite forget whether
"Gamaschenbischof" was a Roman Catholic or a Protestant. But his next-door
neighbour on the side of the old Neuthor--then still an old-fashioned
arched gateway with a substantial gate to keep out bad characters at
night--was the acknowledged head of the Lutheran congregation, then a
mere handful, the sparing growth of twenty years of Prussian rule. The
little community did not yet possess a church of their own as they do now.
Indeed, for many years after they had to content themselves with the use
of the bald but lofty University chapel, which for many decades they have
shared with their English fellow-Christians, often enough keeping the
latter waiting when their sermon happened to be long, and considerately
leaving a crucifix as a fixture for rigid Evangelicals to chafe at and
write letters about to successive chaplains. But the proper stronghold of
local Protestantism was to be found in that turreted little Chateau
Gaillard facing the Muenster, in which Pusey's friend, Professor Sack,
Schleiermacher's least heterodox pupil, had at the Prince's time his
official residence. The Coburg Princes, who loyally upheld their own
Protestant church, were not infrequent visitors in the house of this
pastor, who was well-informed and sociable, and by no means an
unacceptable neighbour. Beyond the parsonage, directly abutting upon the
Neuthor, was another Protestant institution--the Lutheran school--which,
some years later, became a noted centre of attraction to males of all
creeds, by reason of the residence in it of "The Three Graces," the
_Kuester's_--that is, the clerk and schoolmaster's--remarkably handsome
daughters. But in 1837 and 1838 those ladies were still too young to do
much mischief, even to so impressionable a cavalier as Prince Ernest. All
these buildings spoken of, which still stood at my time, have long since
been pulled down and made to give place to houses of a more modern type.
All things considered, it would have been difficult for the Duke of
Coburg to make a better choice of a University in which to give his sons
the last finishing touch of education. Bonn has always stood high as a
home of learning. King Frederick William III. was careful, with the most
luxurious buildings and what was at that time considered a truly princely
endowment, to bestow upon his own peculiar "pet child" as competent a
teaching staff as money and favour could procure. And in 1837, though
Niebuhr was gone, and Arndt was suspended--for preaching too vigorously
the gospel of German union, which was then reputed rank heresy--and though
Dahlmann, who would have been a professor after Prince Albert's own heart,
had not yet come, the teaching staff could compare with that of any
period. But apart from that, there was a tone of freedom and geniality
prevailing at Bonn which distinguished that place from all other German
universities. It was the least Prussian of all Prussian High Schools--far
more in the world and in touch with the world than all its sisters. Set up
on "Frankish" soil, which used to give Germany its Emperors; the chosen
residence, until recently, of prelates of an ancient See, who had
entertained relations from time immemorial with all great Courts, and who
had been recruited from princely houses; and, last, but not least, only a
generation before an integral portion of the Republic, "one and
indivisible," which planted its tricolor nowhere without leaving its free
spirit behind, even after the outward ensign was gone--Bonn nourished a
more independent habit of thought and encouraged wider and larger views
than did the "zopf"-ruled universities of the East. It was here,
doubtless, among the patriotic aspirations of a "Young Germany" unchilled
by Carlsbad and Laibach, under the inspiring teaching of Arndt, that Duke
Ernest, prophetically styled _Spes patriae_ in an address presented by the
Academical Senate, conceived that liberal, high-minded and unselfish
policy which paved the way as much as anything else for the Union of 1871.
And to Prince Albert, likewise, this must have seemed a wider world than
that of Coburg; and, in a period of life more formative of character than
any other, it must have served to prepare him better for that freer sphere
of action into which he was destined shortly to be called.