We were first thrown especially together by a

representation in favor of the double standard of value, which,

under instructions from our governments, we jointly

made to the German Foreign Office, and after that our

relations became very friendly. Whenever the Fourth

of July or Washington's Birthday came round, he was

sure to remember it and make a friendly call.

My liking for him once brought upon me one of the

most embarrassing mishaps of my life. It was at Nice,

and at the table d'h<o^>te of a great hotel on the Promenade

des Anglais, where I was seated next a French countess

who, though she had certainly passed her threescore

years and ten, was still most agreeable. Day after day

we chatted together, and all went well; but one evening,

on our meeting at table as usual, she said, ``I am told that

you are the American minister at Berlin.'' I answered,

``Yes, madam.'' She then said, ``When I was a young

woman, I was well acquainted with the mother of the

present French ambassador there.'' At this I launched

out into praises of Count St. Vallier, as well I might;

speaking of the high regard felt for him at Berlin, the

honors he had received from the German Government,

and the liking for him among his colleagues. The countess

listened in silence, and when I had finished turned

severely upon me, saying, ``Monsieur, up to this moment

I have believed you an honest man; but now I really don't

know what to think of you.'' Of course I was dumfounded,

but presently the reason for the remark occurred

to me, and I said, ``Madam, M. de St. Vallier serves

France. Whatever his private opinions may be, he no

doubt feels it his duty to continue in the service of his

country. It would certainly be a great pity if, at every

change of government in France, every officer who did

not agree with the new r<e'>gime should leave the diplomatic

service or the military service or the naval service, thus

injuring the interests of France perhaps most seriously.

Suppose the Comte de Chambord should be called to the

throne of France, what would you think of Orleanists

and republicans who should immediately resign their

places in the army, navy, and diplomatic service, thus

embarrassing, perhaps fatally, the monarchy and the

country?'' At this, to my horror, the lady went into

hysterics, and began screaming. She cried out, ``Oui,

monsieur, il reviendra, Henri Cinq; il reviendra. Dieu

est avec lui; il reviendra malgr<e'> tout,'' etc., etc., and

finally she jumped up and rushed out of the room. The

eyes of the whole table were turned upon us, and I fully

expected that some gallant Frenchman would come up

and challenge me for insulting a lady; but no one moved,

and presently all went on with their dinners. The next

day the countess again appeared at my side, amiable as

ever, but during the remainder of my stay I kept far

from every possible allusion to politics.

The Turkish ambassador, Sadoullah Bey, was a kindly

gentleman who wandered about, as the French expressively

say, ``like a damn<e'>d soul.'' Something seemed to

weigh upon him heavily and steadily. A more melancholy

human being I have never seen, and it did not surprise

me, a few years later, to be told that, after one of the

palace revolutions at Constantinople, he had been executed

for plotting the assassination of the Sultan.

The Russian ambassador, M. de Sabouroff, was a very

agreeable man, and his rooms were made attractive by

the wonderful collection of Tanagra statuettes which he

had brought from Greece, where he had formerly been

minister. In one matter he was especially helpful to me.

One day I received from Washington a cipher despatch

instructing me to exert all my influence to secure the

release of Madame ----, who, though married to a former

Russian secretary of legation, was the daughter of an

American eminent in politics and diplomacy. The case

was very serious. The Russian who had married this

estimable lady had been concerned in various shady

transactions, and, having left his wife and little children

in Paris, had gone to Munich in the hope of covering

up some doubtful matters which were coming to light.

While on this errand he was seized and thrown into jail

whereupon he telegraphed his wife to come to him. His

idea, evidently, was that when she arrived she also would

be imprisoned, and that her family would then feel forced

to intervene with the money necessary to get them both

out. The first part of the programme went as he had

expected. His wife, on arriving in Munich, was at once

thrown into prison, and began thence sending to the

Secretary of State and to me the most distressing letters

and telegrams. She had left her little children in Paris,

and was in agony about them. With the aid of the

Russian ambassador, who acknowledged that his compatriot

was one of the worst wretches in existence, I obtained

the release of the lady from prison after long negotiations.

Unfortunately, I was obliged to secure that of her

husband at the same time; but as he died not long afterward,

he had no opportunity to do much more harm.

Of the ministers plenipotentiary, the chief was Baron

Nothomb of Belgium, noted as the ``Belgian father of

constitutional liberty.'' He was a most interesting old

man, especially devoted to the memory of my predecessor,

Bancroft, and therefore very kind to me. Among

the reminiscences which he seemed to enjoy giving me

at his dinner-table were many regarding Talleyrand,

whom he had personally known.

Still another friend among the ministers was M. de

Rudhardt, who represented Bavaria. He and his wife

were charming, and they little dreamed of the catastrophe

awaiting them when he should cross Bismarck's path.

The story of this I shall recount elsewhere.[15]

[15] See chapter on Bismarck.

Yet another good friend was Herr von Nostitz-Wallwitz,

representative of Saxony, who was able, on one

occasion, to render a real service to American education.

Two or three young ladies, one of whom is now the

admired head of one of the foremost American colleges for

women, were studying at the University of Leipsic. I

had given them letters to sundry professors there, and

nothing could be better than the reports which reached

me regarding their studies, conduct, and social standing.

But one day came very distressing telegrams and letters,

and, presently, the ladies themselves. A catastrophe had

come. A decree had gone forth from the Saxon Government

at Dresden expelling all women students from the

university, and these countrywomen of mine begged me

to do what I could for them. Remembering that my

Saxon colleague was the brother of the prime minister of

Saxony, I at once went to him. On my presenting the

case, he at first expressed amazement at the idea of women

being admitted to the lecture-rooms of a German

university; but as I showed him sundry letters,

especially those from Professors Georg Curtius and Ebers,

regarding these fair students, his conservatism melted

away and he presently entered heartily into my view, the

result being that the decree was modified so that all lady

students then in the university were allowed to remain

until the close of their studies, but no new ones were to

be admitted afterward. Happily, all this has been changed,

and to that, as to nearly all other German universities,

women are now freely admitted.

Very amusing at times were exhibitions of gentle sarcasm

on the part of sundry old diplomatists. They had

lived long, had seen the seamy side of public affairs, and

had lost their illusions. One evening, at a ball given by

the vice-chancellor of the empire which was extremely

splendid and no less tedious, my attention was drawn to

two of them. There had been some kind of absurd

demonstration that day in one of the principal European

parliaments, and coming upon my two colleagues, I

alluded to it.

``Yes,'' said Baron Jauru of Brazil, ``that comes of the

greatest lie prevalent in our time--the theory that the

majority of mankind are WISE; now it is an absolute fact

which all history teaches, and to-day even more than ever,

that all mankind are FOOLS.'' ``What you say is true,''

replied M. de Quade, the Danish minister, ``but it is not

the WHOLE truth: constitutional government also goes

on the theory that all mankind are GOOD; now it is an

absolute fact that all mankind are bad, utterly BAD.'' ``Yes,''

said Jauru, ``I accept your amendment; mankind are

fools and knaves.'' To this I demurred somewhat, and

quoted Mr. Lincoln's remark, ``You can fool some of the

people all the time, and all of the people some of the time;

but you can't fool all the people all the time.''

This restored their good humor, and I left them smilingly

pondering over this nugget of Western wisdom.

Interesting to me was the contrast between my two

colleagues from the extreme Orient. Then and since at

Berlin I have known the Japanese Minister Aoki. Like all

other Japanese diplomatic representatives I have met,

whether there or elsewhere, he was an exceedingly

accomplished man: at the first dinner given me after my

arrival in Berlin he made an admirable speech in German,

and could have spoken just as fluently and accurately in

French or English.

On the other hand, Li Fong Pao, the Chinese representative,

was a mandarin who steadily wore his Chinese costume,

pigtail and all, and who, though jolly, could speak

only through an interpreter who was almost as difficult to

understand as the minister himself.

Thus far it seems the general rule that whereas the

Japanese, like civilized nations in general, train men

carefully for foreign service in international law, modern

languages, history, and the like, the Chinese, like

ourselves, do little, if anything, of the kind. But I may add

that recently there have been some symptoms of change

on their part. One of the most admirable speeches during

the Peace Conference at The Hague was made by a

young and very attractive Chinese attach<e'>. It was in

idiomatic French; nothing could be more admirable either

as regarded matter or manner; and many of the older

members of the conference came afterward to congratulate

him upon it. The ability shown by the Chinese Minister

Wu at Washington would also seem to indicate that China

has learned something as to the best way of maintaining

her interests abroad.

This suggests another incident. In the year 1880 the

newspapers informed us that the wife of the Chinese minister

at Berlin had just sailed from China to join her

husband. The matter seemed to arouse general interest,

and telegrams announced her arrival at Suez, then at

Marseilles, then at Cologne, and finally at Berlin. On

the evening of her arrival at court the diplomatic corps

were assembled, awaiting her appearance. Presently the

great doors swung wide, and in came the Chinese minister

with his wife: he a stalwart mandarin in the full attire

of his rank; she a gentle creature in an exceedingly pretty

Chinese costume, tripping along on her little feet, and

behind her a long array of secretaries, interpreters, and

the like, many in Chinese attire, but some in European

court costume. After all of us had been duly presented

to the lady by his Chinese excellency, he brought her

secretaries and presented them to his colleagues. Among

these young diplomatists was a fine-looking man,

evidently a European, in a superb court costume frogged

and barred with gold lace. As my Chinese colleague

introduced him to me in German, we continued in that

language, when suddenly this secretary said to me in

English, ``Mr. White, I don't see why we should be talking

in German; I was educated at Rochester University under

your friend, President Anderson, and I come from Waterloo

in Western New York.'' Had he dropped through

the ceiling, I could hardly have been more surprised.

Neither Waterloo, though a thriving little town upon the New

York Central Railroad and not far from the city in which

I have myself lived, nor even Rochester with all the added

power of its excellent university, seemed adequate to

develop a being so gorgeous. On questioning him, I found

that, having been graduated in America, he had gone to

China with certain missionaries, and had then been taken

into the Chinese service. It gives me very great pleasure

to say that at Berlin, St. Petersburg, and The Hague,

where I have often met him since, he has proved to be

a thoroughly intelligent and patriotic man. Faithful to

China while not unmindful of the interests of the United

States, in one matter he rendered a very great service

to both countries.

But a diplomatic representative who has a taste for

public affairs makes acquaintances outside the diplomatic

corps, and is likely to find his relations with the ministers

of the German crown and with members of the parliament

very interesting. The character of German public

men is deservedly high, and a diplomatist fit to represent

his country should bring all his study and experience

to bear in eliciting information likely to be useful to his

country from these as well as from all other sorts and

conditions of men. My own acquaintance among these

was large. I find in my diaries accounts of conversations

with such men as Bismarck, Camphausen, Delbr<u:>ck, Windthorst,

Bennigsen, George von Bunsen, Lasker, Treitschke,

Gneist, and others; but to take them up one after the

other would require far too much space, and I must be

content to jot down what I received from them wherever,

in the course of these reminiscences, it may seem

pertinent.

CHAPTER XXXI

MEN OF NOTE IN BERLIN AND ELSEWHERE--1879-1881

My acquaintance at Berlin extended into regions

which few of my diplomatic colleagues explored,

especially among members of the university faculty and

various other persons eminent in science, literature, and

art.

Writing these lines, I look back with admiration and

affection upon three generations of Berlin professors:

the first during my student days at the Prussian capital

in 1855-1856, the second during my service as minister,

1879-1881, and the third during my term as ambassador

1897-1902.

The second of these generations seems to me the most

remarkable of the three. It was a wonderful body of men.

A few of them I had known during my stay in Berlin as a

student; and of these, first in the order of time, Lepsius,

the foremost Egyptologist of that period, whose lectures

had greatly interested me, and whose kindly characteristics

were the delight of all who knew him.

Ernst Curtius, the eminent Greek scholar and historian,

was also very friendly. He was then in the midst of his

studies upon the famous Pergamon statues, which, by

skilful diplomacy, the German Government had obtained

from the Turkish authorities in Asia Minor, and brought

to the Berlin Museum. He was also absorbed in the

excavations at Olympia, and above all in the sculptures found

there. One night at court he was very melancholy, and on

my trying to cheer him, he told me, in a heartbroken tone,

that Bismarck had stopped the appropriations for the

Olympia researches; but toward the end of the evening he

again sought me, his face radiant, and with great glee told

me that all was now right, that he had seen the Emperor,

and that the noble old monarch had promised to provide

for the excavations from his own purse.

Still another friend was Rudolf von Gneist, the most

eminent authority of his time upon Roman law and the English

constitution. He had acted, in behalf of the Emperor

William, as umpire between the United States and Great

Britain, with reference to the northwestern boundary, and

had decided in our favor. In recognition of his labor, the

American Government sent over a large collection of valuable

books on American history, including various collections

of published state papers; and the first duty I ever

discharged as minister was to make a formal presentation

of this mass of books to him. So began one of my most

cherished connections.

Especially prized by me was a somewhat close acquaintance

with the two most eminent professors of modern history

then at the university--Von Sybel and Droysen.

Each was a man of great ability. One day, after I had

been reading Lanfrey's ``Histoire de Napol<e'>on,'' which

I then thought, and still think, one of the most eloquent and

instructive books of the nineteenth century, Von Sybel

happened to drop in, and I asked his opinion of it. He

answered: ``It does not deserve to be called a history; it

is a rhapsody.'' Shortly after he had left, in came

Droysen, and to him I put the same question, when he held up

both hands and said: ``Yes, there is a history indeed!

That is a work of genius; it is one of the books which

throw a bright light into a dark time: that book will live.''

Professor Hermann Grimm was then at the climax of

his fame, and the gods of his idolatry were Goethe and

Emerson; but apparently he did not resemble them in

soaring above the petty comforts and vexations of life.

Any one inviting him to dine was likely to receive an

answer asking how the dining-room was lighted--whether

by gas, oil, or wax; also how the lights were placed--

whether high or low; and what the principal dishes were to be:

and on the answer depended his acceptance or declination.

Dining with him one night, I was fascinated by his wife; it

seemed to me that I had never seen a woman of such

wonderful and almost weird powers: there was something

exquisitely beautiful in her manner and conversation; and,

on my afterward speaking of this to another guest, he

answered: ``Why, of course; she is the daughter of Goethe's

Bettina, to whom he wrote the `Letters to a Child.' ''

Another historian was Treitshke, eminent also as a

member of parliament--a man who exercised great power

in various directions, and would have been delightful but

for his deafness. A pistol might have been fired beside

him, and he would never have known it. Wherever he was,

he had with him a block of paper leaves and a pencil, by

means of which he carried on conversation; in parliament

he always had at his side a shorthand-writer who took

down the debates for him.

Some of the most interesting information which I

received regarding historical and current matters in Berlin

was from the biologist Du Bois-Reymond. He was of

Huguenot descent, but was perhaps the most anti-Gallic

man in Germany. Discussing the results of the expulsion

of the Huguenots under Louis XIV, the details he gave me

were most instructive. Showing me the vast strength

which the Huguenots transferred from France to

Germany, he mentioned such men as the eminent lawyer

Savigny, the great merchant Raven<e'>, and a multitude of

other men of great distinction, who, like himself, had

retained their French names; and he added very many

prominent people of Huguenot descent who had changed

their French names into German. He then referred to a

similar advantage given to various other countries, and

made a most powerful indictment against the intolerance

for which France has been paying such an enormous price

during more than two hundred years.

Interesting in another way were two men eminent in

physical science--Helmholtz and Hoffmann. Meeting

them one evening at a court festivity, I was told by

Hoffmann of an experience of his in Scotland. He had

arrived in Glasgow late on Saturday night, and on Sunday

morning went to call on Professor Sir William Thomson,

now Lord Kelvin. The door-bell was answered by a woman

servant, of whom Hoffmann asked if Sir William was

at home. To this the servant answered, ``Sir, he most

certainly is not.'' Hoffmann then asked, ``Could you tell

me where I might find him?'' She answered, ``Sir, you

will find him at church, where YOU ought to be.''

My acquaintance with university men was not confined

to Berlin; at Leipsic, Halle, Giessen, Heidelberg, and

elsewhere, I also found delightful professorial circles. In my

favorite field, I was especially struck with the historian

Oncken. As a lecturer he was perfect; and I have often

advised American historical students to pass a semester,

if not more, at Giessen, in order to study his presentation

of historical subjects. As to manner, he was the best

lecturer on history I heard in Germany; and, with the

exception of Laboulaye at the Coll<e!>ge de France, Seelye at

English Cambridge, and Goldwin Smith at Cornell, the

best I ever heard anywhere.

Especially delightful were sundry men of letters. Of

these I knew best Auerbach, whose delightful ``Dorfgeschichten''

were then in full fame. He had been a warm

personal friend of Bayard Taylor, and this friendship I

inherited. Many were the walks and talks we took

together in the Thiergarten, and he often lighted up my

apartment with his sunny temper. But one day, as he

came in, returning from his long vacation, I said to him:

``So you have been having a great joy at the unveiling of

the Spinoza statue at The Hague.'' ``A great joy!'' he

said. ``Bewahre! far from it; it was wretched--

miserable.'' I asked, ``How could that be?'' He answered,

``Renan, Kuno Fischer, and myself were invited to make

addresses at the unveiling of the statue; but when we

arrived at the spot, we found that the Dutch Calvinist domi-

nies and the Jewish rabbis had each been preaching to

their flocks that the judgments of Heaven would fall upon

the city if the erection of a statue to such a monstrous

atheist were permitted, and the authorities had to station

troops to keep the mob from stoning us and pulling down

the statue. Think of such a charge against the

`Gottbetrunkener Mensch,' who gave new proofs of God's

existence, who saw God in everything!''

Another literary man whom I enjoyed meeting was

Julius Rodenberg; his ``Reminiscences of Berlin,'' which

I have read since, seem to me the best of their kind.

I also came to know various artists, one of them being

especially genial. Our first meeting was shortly after my

arrival, at a large dinner, where, as the various guests were

brought up to be introduced to the new American minister,

there was finally presented a little, gentle, modest man as

``Herr Knaus.'' I never dreamed of his being the foremost

genre-painter in Europe; and, as one must say something,

I said, ``You are, perhaps, a relative of the famous

painter.'' At this he blushed deeply, seemed greatly

embarrassed, and said: ``A painter I am; famous, I don't

know. (Maler bin ich; ber<u:>hmt, das weiss ich nicht.)''

So began a friendship which has lasted from that day to

this. I saw the beginning, middle, and end of some of his

most beautiful pictures, and, above all, of the ``Hinter

den Coulissen,'' which conveys a most remarkable

philosophical and psychological lesson, showing how near mirth

lies to tears. It is the most comic and most pathetic of

pictures. I had hoped that it would go to America; but,

after being exhibited to the delight of all parts of

Germany, it was bought for the royal gallery at Dresden.

Very friendly also was Carl Becker. His ``Coronation

of Ulrich von Hutten,'' now at Cologne, of which he allowed

me to have a copy taken, has always seemed to me

an admirable piece of historical painting. In it there is

a portrait of a surly cardinal-bishop; and once, during an

evening at Becker's house, having noticed a study for this

bishop's head, I referred to it, when he said: ``Yes, that

bishop is simply the sacristan of an old church in Venice,

and certainly the most dignified ecclesiastic I have ever

seen.'' The musical soir<e'>es at Becker's beautiful

apartments were among the delights of my stay both then and

during my more recent embassy.

Very delightfully dwell in my memory, also, some

evenings at the palace, when, after the main ceremonies were

over, Knaus, Becker, and Auerbach wandered with me

through the more distant apartments and galleries,

pointing out the beauties and characteristics of various old

portraits and pictures. In one long gallery lined with the

portraits of brides who, during the last three centuries,

had been brought into the family of Hohenzollern, we

lingered long.

Then began also my friendship with Anton von Werner.

He had been present at the proclamation of the Emperor

William I in the great ``Hall of Mirrors'' at Versailles, by

express invitation, in order that he might prepare his

famous painting of that historic scene. I asked him whether

the inscription on the shield in the cornice of the Galerie

des Glaces, ``Passage du Rhin,'' which glorified one of the

worst outrages committed by Louis XIV upon Germany,

was really in the place where it is represented in his

picture. He said that it was. It seemed a divine prophecy

of retribution.

The greatest genius in all modern German art--Adolf

Menzel--I came to know under rather curious circumstances.

He was a little man, not more than four feet

high, with an enormous head, as may be seen by his bust

in the Berlin Museum. On being presented to him during

an evening at court, I said to him: ``Herr Professor, in

America I am a teacher of history; and of all works I

have ever seen on the history of Frederick the Great, your

illustrations of Kugler's history have taught me most.''

This was strictly true; for there are no more striking

works of genius in their kind than those engravings which

throw a flood of light into that wonderful period. At this

he invited me to visit his studio, which a few days later I

did, and then had a remarkable exhibition of some of his

most curious characteristics.

Entering the room, I saw, just at the right, a large

picture, finely painted, representing a group of Frederick's

generals, and in the midst of them Frederick himself,

merely outlined in chalk. I said, ``There is a picture

nearly finished.'' Menzel answered, ``No; it is not finished

and never will be.'' I asked, ``Why not?'' He said,

``I don't deny that there is some good painting in it. But

it is on the eve of the battle of Leuthen; it is the

consultation of Frederick the Great with his generals just

before that terrible battle; and men don't look like that just

before a struggle in which the very existence of their

country is at stake, and in which they know that most of

them must lay down their lives.''

We then passed on to another. This represented the

great Gens d'Armes Church at Berlin; at the side of it,

piled on scaffoldings, were a number of coffins all decked

with wreaths and flowers; and in the foreground a crowd

of beholders wonderfully painted. All was finished except

one little corner; and I said, ``Here is one which you

will finish.'' He said, ``No; never. That represents the

funeral of the Revolutionists killed here in the uprising of

1848. Up to this point''--and he put his finger on the

unfinished corner--``I believed in it; but when I arrived at

this point, I said to myself, `No; nothing good can come

out of that sort of thing; Germany is not to be made by

street fights.' I shall never finish it.''

We passed on to another. This was finished. It

represented the well-known scene of the great Frederick

blundering in upon the Austrian bivouac at the castle of Lissa,

when he narrowly escaped capture. I said to him, ``There

at least is a picture which is finished.'' ``Yes,'' he said;

``but the man who ordered it will never get it.'' I saw

that there was a story involved, and asked, ``How is

that?'' He answered, ``That picture was painted on the

order of the Duke of Ratibor, who owns the castle. When

it was finished he came to see it, but clearly thought it

too quiet. What he wanted was evidently something in

the big, melodramatic style. I said nothing; but meeting

me a few days afterward, he said, `Why don't you send

me my picture?' `No,' I said; `Serene Highness, that

picture is mine.' `No, said he; `you painted it for me; it is

mine.' `No,' said I; `I shall keep it.' His Highness shall

never have it.''

My principal recreation was in excursions to historical

places. Old studies of German history had stimulated a

taste for them, and it was a delight to leave Berlin on

Saturday and stay in one of these towns over Sunday.

Frequently my guide was Frederick Kapp, a thoughtful

historian and one of the most charming of men.

A longer pilgrimage was made to the mystery-play at

Oberammergau. There was an immense crowd; and, as

usual, those in the open, in front of our box, were drenched

with rain, as indeed were many of the players on the

stage. I had ``come to scoff, but remained to pray.''

There was one scene where I had expected a laugh--

namely, where Jonah walks up out of the whale's belly.

But when it arrived we all remained solemn. It was

really impressive. We sat there from nine in the morning

until half-past twelve, and then from half-past one

until about half-past four, under a spell which banished

fatigue. The main point was that the actors BELIEVED

in what they represented; there was nothing in it

like that vague, wearisome exhibition of ``religiosity''

which, in spite of its wonderful overture, gave me, some

years afterward, a painful disenchantment--the ``Parsifal''

at Bayreuth.

At the close of the Passion Play, I sought out some of

the principal actors, and found them kindly and interesting.

To the Christus I gave a commission for a carved

picture-frame, and this he afterward executed beautifully.

With the Judas, who was by far the best actor in the whole

performance, I became still better acquainted. Visiting

his workshop, after ordering of him two carved statuettes I

said to him: ``You certainly ought to have a double salary,

as the Judas had in the miracle-plays of the middle ages;

this was thought due him on account of the injury done

to his character by his taking that part.'' At this the

Oberammergau Judas smiled pleasantly, and said: ``No;

I am content to share equally with the others; but the

same feeling toward the Judas still exists''; and he then

told me the following story: A few weeks before, while

he was working at his carving-bench, the door of his

workshop opened, and a peasant woman from the mountains

came in, stood still, and gazed at him intently. On his

asking her what she wanted, she replied: ``I saw you in the

play yesterday; I wished to look at you again; you look

so like my husband. He is dead. HE, TOO, WAS A VERY BAD

MAN.''

Occasionally, under leave of absence from the State

Department, I was able to make more distant excursions,

and first of all into France. The President during one of

these visits was M. Gr<e'>vy. Some years before I had heard

him argue a case in court with much ability; but now, on

my presentation to him at the palace of the <E'>lys<e'>e, he

dwelt less ably on the relations of the United States with

France, and soon fell upon the question of trade, saying, in

rather a reproachful way, ``Vous nous inondez de vos produits.''

To this I could only answer that this inundation of

American products would surely be of mutual benefit to

both nations, and he rather slowly assented.

Much more interesting to me was his minister of foreign

affairs, Barth<e'>lemy-Saint-Hilaire, a scholar, a statesman,

and a man of noble character. We talked first of my

intended journey to the south of France; and on my telling

him that I had sent my eldest son to travel there, for the

reason that at Orange, Arles, N<i^>mes, and the like, a better

idea of Roman power can be obtained than in Italy itself,

he launched out on that theme most instructively.

The conversation having turned toward politics, he

spoke much of Bismarck and Moltke, pronouncing the

name of the latter in one syllable. He said that Bismarck

was very kind personally to Thiers during the terrible

negotiations; that if Bismarck could have had his way he

would have asked a larger indemnity,--say, seven

milliards,--and would have left Alsace-Lorraine to France;

that France would gladly have paid a much larger sum

than five milliards if she could have retained Alsace-

Lorraine; that Bismarck would have made concessions; but

that ``Molkt'' would not. He added that Bismarck told

``Molkt'' that he--the latter--had, by insisting on territory,

made peace too difficult. Saint-Hilaire dwelt long on

the fearful legacy of standing armies left by the policy

which Germany finally adopted, and evidently considered

a great international war as approaching.[16]

[16] December, 1880.

Dining afterward at the Foreign Office with my old

friend Millet, who was second in command there, I met

various interesting Frenchmen, but was most of all

pleased with M. Ribot. Having distinguished himself by

philosophical studies and made a high reputation in the

French parliament, he was naturally on his way to the

commanding post in the ministry which he afterward

obtained. His wife, an American, was especially attractive.

It is a thousand pities that a country possessing such

men is so widely known to the world, not by these, but by

novelists and dramatists largely retailing filth, journalists

largely given to the invention of sensational lies, politicians

largely obeying either atheistic demagogues or clerical

intriguers; and all together acting like a swarm of

obscene, tricky, mangy monkeys chattering, squealing,

and tweaking one another's tails in a cage. Some of these

monkeys I saw performing their antics in the National

Assembly then sitting at Versailles; and it saddened me

to see the nobler element in that assemblage thwarted by

such featherbrained creatures.[16]

[16] December, 1880.

Another man of note, next whom I found myself at a

dinner-party, was M. de Lesseps. I still believe him to

have been a great and true man, despite the cloud of

fraud which the misdeeds of others drew over his latter

days. Among sundry comments on our country, he said

that he had visited Salt Lake City, and thought a policy

of force against the Mormons a mistake. In this I feel

sure that he was right. Years ago I was convinced by

Bishop Tuttle of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who

had been stationed for some years at Salt Lake City, that

a waiting policy, in which proper civilization can be

brought to bear upon the Mormons, is the true course.

On the following Sunday I heard P<e!>re Hyacinthe

preach, as at several visits before; but the only thing at

all memorable was a rather happy application of Voltaire's

remark on the Holy Roman Empire, ``Ni Saint, ni

Empire, ni Romain.''

At the salon of Madame Edmond Adam, eminent as a

writer of review articles and as a hater of everything

Teutonic, I was presented to a crowd of literary men who,

though at that moment striking the stars with their lofty

heads, have since dropped into oblivion. Among these I

especially remember <E'>mile de Girardin, editor, spouter,

intriguer--the ``Grand <E'>mile,'' who boasted that he

invented and presented to the French people a new idea

every day. This futile activity of his always seemed to me

best expressed in the American simile: ``Busy as a bee in

a tar-barrel.'' There was, indeed, one thing to his credit:

he had somehow inspired his former wife, the gifted Delphine

Gay, with a belief in his greatness; and a pretty

story was current illustrating this. During the revolution

of 1848, various men of note, calling on Madame Girardin,

expressed alarm at the progress of that most foolish of

overturns, when she said, with an air of great solemnity,

and pointing upward, ``Gentlemen, there is one above who

watches over France. (Il y a un l<a!>-haut qui veille sur la

France.)'' All were greatly impressed by this evidence

of sublime faith, until the context showed that it was not

the Almighty in whom she put her trust, but the great

<E'>mile, whose study was just above her parlor.

This reminds me that, during my student days at Paris,

I attended the funeral of this gifted lady, and in the crowd

of well-known persons present noticed especially Alexandre

Dumas. He was very tall and large, with an African

head, thick lips, and bushy, crisp hair. He evidently

intended to be seen. His good-natured vanity was as

undisguised as when his famous son said of him in his

presence, ``My father is so vain that he is capable of

standing in livery behind his own carriage to make people

think he sports a negro footman.''

Going southward, I stopped at Bourges, and was

fascinated by the amazing stonework of the crypt. How the

mediaeval cathedral-builders were able to accomplish such

intricate work with the means at their command is still

one of the great mysteries. There is to-day in the United

States no group of workmen who could execute anything

approaching this work, to say nothing of such pieces as

the vaulting of Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster or of

King's College Chapel at Cambridge.

Thence we went to the Church of Brou, near Lyons--

exquisitely beautiful, and filled with monuments even

more inspiring than the church itself. But it was entirely

evident, from a look at the church and its surroundings,

that Matthew Arnold had written his charming poem without

ever visiting the place. Going thence to Nice, we

stopped at Turin; and at the grave of Silvio Pellico there

came back to me vivid memories of his little book, which

had seemed to make life better worth living.

At Genoa a decision had to be made. A mass of letters

of introduction to leading Italians had been given me, and

I longed to make their acquaintance; but I was weary, and

suddenly decided to turn aside and go upon the Riviera,

where we settled for our vacation at Nice. There we

found various interesting people, more especially those

belonging to the American colony and to the ship-of-war

Trenton, then lying at Villefranche, near by. Shortly

after our arrival, Lieutenant Emery of the navy called,

bearing an invitation to the ship from Admiral Howell,

who was in command at that station; and, a day or two

later, on arriving in the harbor, though I saw a long-boat

dressed out very finely, evidently awaiting somebody, and

suspected that it was intended for me, I quietly evaded

the whole business by joining a party of Americans in a

steam-launch, so that I had been on board some little time

before the admiral realized the omission in his programme.

As a result, in order to quiet his conscientious

and patriotic feelings, I came again a day or two

afterward, was conveyed to the frigate with the regulation

pomp, and received the salutes due an American minister.

My stay on the ship was delightful; but, though the admiral

most kindly urged me to revisit him, I could never again

gather courage to cause so much trouble and make so much

noise.

Most interesting to me of all the persons in Nice at that

time was a young American about fourteen years of age,

who seemed to me one of the brightest and noblest and

most promising youths I had ever seen. Alas! how many

hopes were disappointed in his death not long afterward!

The boy was young Leland Stanford. The aspirations of

his father and mother were bound up in him, and the great

university at Palo Alto is perhaps the finest monument

ever dedicated by parents to a child.

During another of these yearly absences in Italy, I met

various interesting men, and, among these, at Florence the

syndic Ubaldino Peruzzi, a descendant of the great Peruzzis

of the middle ages, and one of the last surviving

associates of Cavour. He was an admirable talker; but of all

he said I was most pleased with the tribute which he paid

to the American minister at Rome, Judge Stallo of Cincinnati.

He declared that at a recent conference of statesmen

and diplomatists, Judge Stallo had carried off all the honors--

speaking with ease, as might be necessary, in Italian,

French, and English, and finally drawing up a protocol

in Latin.

At Florence also I made an acquaintance which has

ever since been a source of great pleasure to me--that of

Professor Villari, senator of the kingdom, historian of

Florence, and biographer of Savonarola. So began a

friendship which has increased the delights of many

Florentine visits since those days--a friendship not only

with him, but with his gifted and charming wife.

This reminds me that at Rome the name of the eminent

professor once brought upon me a curious reproof.

I had met at various times, in the Eternal City and

elsewhere, a rising young professor and officer of Harvard

University; and, being one morning in Loescher's famous

book-shop on the Corso, with a large number of purchases

about me, this gentleman came in and, looking them over,

was pleased to approve several of them. Presently, on

showing him a volume just published and saying, ``There

is the new volume of Villari's history,'' I pronounced the

name of the author with the accent on the first syllable, as

any one acquainted with him knows that it ought to be

pronounced. At this the excellent professor took the book,

but seemed to have something on his mind; and, having

glanced through it, he at last said, rather solemnly, ``Yes;

VillAri''--accenting strongly the second syllable--``is an

admirable writer.'' I accepted his correction meekly and

made no reply. A thing so trivial would not be worth

remembering were it not one of those evidences, which

professors from other institutions in our country have not

infrequently experienced, of a ``certain condescension''

in sundry men who do honor to one or two of our oldest

and greatest universities.

Of all people at Rome I was most impressed by Marco

Minghetti. A conversation with him I have given in

another chapter.

Reminiscences of that first official life of mine at Berlin

center, first of all, in Bismarck, and then in the two great

rulers who have since passed away--the old hero,

Emperor William I, and that embodiment of all qualities

which any man could ask for in a monarch, the crown

prince who afterward became the Emperor Frederick III.

Both were kindly, but the latter was especially winning.

At different times I had the pleasure of meeting and talking

with him on various subjects; but perhaps the most

interesting of these interviews was one which took place

when it became my duty to conduct him through the

American exhibit in the International Fisheries Exhibition

at Berlin.

He had taken great interest in developing the fisheries

along the northern coast of Germany, and this exhibition

was the result. One day he sent the vice-chancellor of the

empire to ask me whether it was not possible to secure

an exhibit from the United States, and especially the loan

of our wonderful collections from the Smithsonian Institution

and from the Fisheries Institution of Wood's Holl {sic}.

To do this was difficult. Before my arrival an attempt

had been made and failed. Word had come from persons

high in authority at Washington that Congress could not

be induced to make the large appropriation required, and

that sending over the collections was out of the question.

I promised to do what I could; and, remembering that

Fernando Wood of New York was chairman of the Committee

of Ways and Means in the House, and that Governor

Seymour, then living in retirement near Utica, was

his old political associate, and especially interested in re-

stocking the waters of New York State with fish, I sent

the ex-governor a statement of the whole case, and urged

him to present it fully to Mr. Wood. Then I wrote in the

same vein to Senator Conkling, and, to my great satisfaction,

carried the day. The appropriation was made

by Congress; and the collections were sent over under the

control of Mr. Brown Goode of the Smithsonian, perhaps

the most admirable man who could have been chosen out

of the whole world for that purpose. The prince was

greatly delighted with all he saw, showed remarkable

intelligence in his questions, and, thanks to Mr. Goode's

assistance, he received satisfactory answers. The result was

that the American exhibit took the great prize--the silver-

gilt vase offered by the Emperor William, which is now

in the National Museum at Washington.

The prince showed a real interest in everything of

importance in our country. I remember his asking me

regarding the Brooklyn Bridge--how it could possibly be

sustained without guy-ropes. Of course it was easy to

show him that while in the first of our great suspension-

bridges--that at Niagara--guy-ropes were admissible, at

Brooklyn they were not: since ships of war as well as

merchant vessels of the largest size must pass beneath it; and

I could only add that Roebling, who built it, was a man of

such skill and forethought that undoubtedly, with the

weight he was putting into it and the system of trusses

he was placing upon it, no guy-ropes would be needed.

On many occasions the prince showed thoughtful kindness

to members of my family as well as to myself, and

the news of his death gave me real sorrow. It was a vast

loss to his country; no modern monarch has shown so

striking a likeness to Marcus Aurelius.

Hardly less hearty and kindly was the Emperor then

reigning--William I. Naturally enough, he remembered,

above all who had preceded me, Mr. Bancroft. His

first question at court generally was, ``How goes it

with your predecessor? (Wie geht es mit Ihrem

Vorg<a:>nger?)'' and I always knew that by my ``predecessor''

he meant Bancroft. When I once told him that Mr.

Bancroft, who was not far from the old Kaiser's age, had

bought a new horse and was riding assiduously every

day, the old monarch laughed heartily and dwelt on his

recollections of my predecessor, with his long white beard,

riding through the Thiergarten.

Pleasant to me was the last interview, on the presentation

of my letter of recall. It was at Babelsberg, the

Emperor's country-seat at Potsdam; and he detained me

long, talking over a multitude of subjects in a way which

showed much kindly feeling. Among other things, he

asked where my family had been staying through the

summer. My answer was that we had been at a hotel near

the park or palace of Wilhelmsh<o:>he above Cassel; and

that we all agreed that he had been very magnanimous in

assigning to the Emperor Napoleon III so splendid a

prison and such beautiful surroundings. To this he

answered quite earnestly, ``Yes; and he was very grateful

for it, and wrote me to say so; but, after all, that is by

no means the finest palace in Germany.'' To this I

answered, ``Your Majesty is entirely right; that I saw on

visiting the palace of W<u:>rzburg.'' At this he laughed

heartily, and said, ``Yes, I see that you understand it;

those old prince-bishops knew how to live.'' As a matter

of fact, various prince-bishops in the eighteenth century

impoverished their realms in building just such imitations

of Versailles as that sumptuous W<u:>rzburg Palace.

He then asked me, ``On what ship do you go to

America?'' and I answered, ``On the finest ship in your

Majesty's merchant navy--the Elbe.'' He then asked me

something about the ship; and when I had told him how

beautifully it was equipped,--it being the first of the

larger ships of the North German Lloyd,--he answered,

``Yes; what is now doing in the way of shipbuilding is

wonderful. I received a letter from my son, the crown

prince, this morning, on that very subject. He is at

Osborne, and has just visited a great English iron-clad

man-of-war. It is wonderful; but it cost a million pounds

sterling.'' At this he raised his voice, and, throwing up

both hands, said very earnestly, ``We can't stand it; we

can't stand it.''

After this and much other pleasant chat, he put out his

hand and said, ``Auf Wiedersehen''; and so we parted,

each to take his own way into eternity.

The other farewells to me were also gratifying. The

German press was very kindly in its references to my

departure; and just before I left Berlin a dinner was

given me in the great hall of the Kaiserhof by leading men

in parliamentary, professional, literary, and artistic

circles. Kindly speeches were made by Gneist, Camphausen,

Delbr<u:>ck, George von Bunsen, and others--all forming a

treasure in my memory which, as long as life lasts, I can

never lose.

CHAPTER XXXII

MY RECOLLECTIONS OF BISMARCK--1879-1881

My first glimpse of Bismarck was obtained during one

of my journeys through middle Germany, about the

time, I think, of the Franco-Prussian War. Arriving at

the Kissingen junction, we found a crowd gathered outside

the barriers, and all gazing at a railway-carriage

about to be attached to our train. Looking toward this, I

recognized the face and form of the great North-German

statesman. He was in the prime of life--sturdy, hearty,

and happy in the presence of his wife and children. The

people at the station evidently knew what was needed; for

hardly had he arrived when waiters appeared, bearing

salvers covered with huge mugs of foaming beer. Thereupon

Bismarck took two of the mugs in immediate succession;

poured their contents down his throat, evidently with

great gusto; and a burly peasant just back of me, unable

longer to restrain his admiration, soliloquized in a deep,

slow, guttural, reverberating rumble: ``A-a-a-ber er sieht

sehr-r-r gut aus.'' So it struck me also; the waters of

Kissingen had evidently restored the great man, and he

looked like a Titan ready for battle.

My personal intercourse with him began in 1879, when,

as chancellor of the German Empire, he received me

as minister of the United States. On my entering his

workroom, he rose; and it seemed to me that I had

never seen another man so towering save Abraham

Lincoln. On either side of him were his two big, black

dogs, the Reichshunde; and, as he put out his hand

with a pleasant smile, they seemed to join kindly in the

welcome.

His first remark was that I seemed a young man to

undertake the duties of a minister, to which I made the

trite reply that time would speedily cure that defect. The

conversation then ran, for a time, upon commonplace

subjects, but finally struck matters of interest to both our

countries.

There were then, as ever since, a great number of

troublesome questions between the two nations, and among

them those relating to Germans who, having gone over to

the United States just at the military age, had lived there

merely long enough to acquire citizenship, and had then

hastened back to Germany to enjoy the privileges of both

countries without discharging the duties of either. These

persons had done great harm to the interests of bona-fide

German-Americans, and Bismarck evidently had an intense

dislike for them. This he showed then and afterward;

but his tendencies to severity toward them were

tempted {sic} by the minister of foreign affairs, Von B<u:>low,

one of the most reasonable men in public business with

whom I have ever had to do, and father of the present

chancellor, who greatly resembles him.

But Bismarck's feeling against the men who had

acquired American citizenship for the purpose of evading

their duties in both countries did not prevent his taking

a great interest in Germans who had settled in the United

States and, while becoming good Americans, had preserved

an interest in the Fatherland. He spoke of these,

with a large, kindly feeling, as constituting a bond between

the two nations. Among other things, he remarked that

Germans living in the United States become more tractable

than in the land of their birth; that revolutionists

thus become moderates, and radicals conservatives; that

the word Einigkeit (union) had always a charm for them;

that it had worked both ways upon them for good, the

union of States in America leading them to prize the

union of states in Germany, and the evils of disunion in

Germany, which had been so long and painful, leading

them to abhor disunion in America.

The conversation then fell into ordinary channels, and I

took leave after another hearty shake of the hand and

various kind assurances. A few days later came an invitation

to dinner with him; and I prized this all the more because

it was not to be an official, but a family dinner, and

was to include a few of his most intimate friends in the

ministry and the parliament. On the invitation it was

stated that evening dress was not to be worn; and on my

arrival, accompanied by Herr von Schl<o:>tzer, at that time

the German minister in Washington, I found all the guests

arrayed in simple afternoon costume. The table had a

patriarchal character. At the head sat the prince; at his

side, in the next seat but one, his wife; while between them

was the seat assigned me, so that I enjoyed to the full the

conversation of both. The other seats at the head of the

table were occupied by various guests; and then, scattered

along down, were members of the family and some personages

in the chancery who stood nearest the chief. The

conversation was led by him, and soon took a turn

especially interesting. He asked me whether there had ever

been a serious effort to make New York the permanent

capital of the nation. I answered that there had not; that

both New York and Philadelphia were, for a short period

at the beginning of our national history, provisional

capitals; but that there was a deep-seated idea that the

permanent capital should not be a commercial metropolis, and

that unquestionably the placing of it at Washington was

decided, not merely by the central position of that city, but

also by the fact that it was an artificial town, never likely

to be a great business center; and I cited Thomas Jefferson's

saying, ``Great cities are great sores.'' He answered

that in this our founders showed wisdom; that the

French were making a bad mistake in bringing their

national legislature back from Versailles to Paris; that the

construction of the human body furnishes a good hint for

arrangements in the body politic; that, as the human brain

is held in a strong inclosure, and at a distance from the

parts of the body which are most active physically, so the

brain of the nation should be protected with the greatest

care, and should not be placed in the midst of a great,

turbulent metropolis. To this I assented, but said that during

my attendance at sessions of the French legislative bodies,

both in my old days at Paris and more recently at Versailles,

it seemed to me that their main defects are those

of their qualities; that one of the most frequent occupations

of their members is teasing one another, and that

when they tease one another they are wonderfully witty;

that in the American Congress and in the British Parliament

members are more slow to catch a subtle comment or

scathing witticism; that the members of American and

British assemblies are more like large grains of cannon-

powder, through which ignition extends slowly, so that

there comes no sudden explosion; whereas in the French

Assembly the members are more like minute, bright

grains of rifle-powder, which all take fire at the same

moment, with instant detonation, and explosions sometimes

disastrous. He assented to this, but insisted that the curse

of French assemblies had been the tyranny of city mobs,

and especially of mobs in the galleries of their assemblies;

that the worst fault possible in any deliberative body is

speaking to the galleries; that a gallery mob is sure to get

between the members and the country, and virtually

screen off from the assembly the interests of the country.

To this I most heartily assented.

I may say here that there had not then been fully

developed in our country that monstrous absurdity which

we have seen in these last few years--national conventions

of the two parties trying to deliberate in the midst of

audiences of twelve or fifteen thousand people; a vast

mob in the galleries, often noisy, and sometimes hysterical,

frequently seeking to throw the delegates off their

bearings, to outclamor them, and to force nominations

upon them.

A little later, as we discussed certain recent books, I re-

ferred to Jules Simon's work on Thiers's administration.

Bismarck said that Thiers, in the treaty negotiations at

Versailles, impressed him strongly; that he was a patriot;

that he seemed at that time like a Roman among Byzantines.

This statement astonished me. If ever there existed a

man at the opposite pole from Bismarck, Thiers was certainly

that man. I had studied him as a historian, observed

him as a statesman, and conversed with him as a

social being; and he had always seemed, and still seems,

to me the most noxious of all the greater architects of

ruin that France produced during the latter half of the

nineteenth century--and that is saying much. His policy

was to discredit every government which he found existing,

in order that its ruins might serve him as a pedestal;

and, while he certainly showed great skill in mitigating

the calamities which he did so much to cause, his whole

career was damning.

By his ``History of the French Revolution'' he revived

the worst of the Revolution legend, and especially the

deification of destructiveness; by his ``History of the

Consulate and of the Empire,'' and his translation of the body of

Napoleon to France, he effectively revived the Napoleonic

legend. The Queen of the French, when escaping from the

Tuileries in 1848, was entirely right in reproaching him

with undermining the constitutional monarchy of 1830;

and no man did more than he to arouse and maintain the

anti-German spirit which led to the Franco-Prussian War.

By his writings, speeches, and intrigues he aided in

upsetting, not only the rule of the Bourbons in 1830, but

the rule of Louis Philippe in 1848, the Second Republic

in 1851, and the Second Empire in 1870; and, had he

lived, he would doubtless have done the same by the present

Republic.

Louis Blanc, a revolutionist of another bad sort--so

common in France--who can ruin but NOT restore, once

said to me that Thiers's ``greatest power lay in his voicing

average, unthinking, popular folly; so that after one of his

speeches every fool in France would cry out with delight,

``Mais, voil<a!> mon opinion!''

Doubtless Bismarck was impressed, for the time being,

by Thiers's skill in negotiation; but it is perfectly evident,

from the recollections of various officials since published,

that his usual opinion of Thiers was not at all indicated

by his remark above cited.

Later the conversation fell upon travel; and, as he spoke

of his experiences in various parts of Europe, I recommended

America to him as a new field of observation--alluding

playfully to the city named after him, and suggesting

that he take his family with him upon a large steamer,

and, after seeing the more interesting things in the United

States, pass on around the world, calling at the Samoan

Islands, on which I had recently heard him speak in

parliament. After some humorous objections to this plan,

he said that early in life he had a great passion for travel,

but that upon his father's death he was obliged to devote

himself to getting his estate in order; that ever since that

time his political duties had prevented his traveling much;

and that now he had lost the love of wandering, and in

place of it had gained a desire to settle down in the midst

of his family.

He spoke English so perfectly that I asked him how

much time he had spent in England. He said, ``Very

little--in fact, only two or three days.'' He had made but

two short visits, one of them many years ago,--I think he

said in 1842,--the other during the exposition of 1862. He

seemed much struck with the beauty of England, and said

that if his lot had been cast there he would have been very

happy as an English country gentleman; that he could not

understand how Englishmen are so prone to live outside

of their own country. He spoke of various Englishmen,

and referred to Lord Dufferin, who had dined with him

the day before, as one of the most abstemious men he had

ever seen, drinking only a little claret and water. Upon

my speaking of the great improvement which I had noted

in England during the last quarter of a century, so that

the whole country was becoming more and more like a

garden, he said that such a statement was hardly likely to

please thinking Englishmen; that they could hardly be

glad that England should become more and more like a

garden; ``for,'' he said, ``feeding a great nation from a

garden is like provisioning an army with plum cake.''

He then dwelt on the fact that Great Britain had become

more and more dependent for her daily bread on other

countries, and especially on the United States.

The conversation next turned to the management of

estates, and he remarked, in a bluff, hearty way, that his

father had desired him to become a clergyman; that there

was a pastor's living, worth, if I remember rightly, about

fifteen hundred thalers a year, which his father thought

should be kept in the family. This led to some amusing

conversation between him and the princess on what his

life would have been under such circumstances, ending by

his saying jocosely to her, ``You probably think that if I

had become a pastor I would have been a better man.'' To

which she answered that this she would not say; that it

would not be polite. ``But,'' she continued, ``I will say

this: that you would have been a happier man.''

He referred to some of my predecessors, speaking very

kindly of Bayard Taylor and George Bancroft; but both

he and the princess dwelt especially upon their relations

with Motley. The prince told me of their life together at

G<o:>ttingen and at Berlin, and of Motley's visits since,

when he always became Bismarck's guest. The princess

said that there was one subject on which it was always a

delight to tease Motley--his suppressed novel

``Merrymount''; that Motley defended himself ingeniously in

various ways until, at his last visit, being pressed hard, he

declared that the whole thing was a mere myth; that he

had never written any such novel.

The dinner being ended, our assembly was adjourned to

the terrace at the back of the chancellor's palace, looking

out upon the park in which he was wont to take his famous

midnight walks. Coffee and cigars were brought, but for

Bismarck a pipe with a long wooden stem and a large

porcelain bowl. It was a massive affair; and, in a jocose,

apologetic way, he said that, although others might smoke

cigars and cigarettes, he clung to the pipe--and in spite

of the fact that, at the Philadelphia Exposition, as he had

heard, a great German pipe was hung among tomahawks,

scalping-knives, and other relics of barbarism. From time

to time a servant refilled his pipe, while he discoursed upon

various subjects--first upon the condition of America and

of Germany; then upon South American matters, and of

the struggle between Chile and other powers. He showed

great respect for the Chileans, and thought that they manifested

really sterling qualities.

He spoke of ship-building, and showed, as it seemed to

me, rather a close knowledge of the main points involved.

He referred to the superiority of Russian ships, the wood

used being more suitable than that generally found elsewhere.

As to American ships, he thought they were built,

as a rule, of inferior woods, and that their reputation had

suffered in consequence.

The conversation again falling upon public men, a reference

of mine to Gladstone did not elicit anything like a

hearty response; but the mention of Disraeli seemed to

arouse a cordial feeling.

Among the guests was Lothar Bucher, whom Bismarck,

in earlier days, would have hanged if he had caught him,

but who had now become the chancellor's most confidential

agent; and, as we came out together, Bucher said: ``Well,

what do you think of him?'' My answer was: ``He seems

even a greater man than I had expected.'' ``Yes,'' said

Bucher; ``and I am one of those who have suffered much

and long to make him possible.'' I said: ``The result is

worth it, is it not?'' ``Yes,'' was the reply; ``infinitely

more than worth it.''

My next visit was of a very peculiar sort. One day

there arrived at the legation Mr. William D. Kelly of

Pennsylvania, anxious, above all things, to have a talk

with Bismarck, especially upon the tariff and the double

monetary standard, both of which were just then burning

questions. I told Mr. Kelly that it was much easier to

present him to the Emperor than to the chancellor, but that

we would see what could be done. Thereupon I wrote a

note telling Bismarck who Mr. Kelly was--the senior

member of the House of Representatives by term of service,

the leading champion therein of protection and of the

double standard of value; that he was very anxious to

discuss these subjects with leading German authorities;

and that, knowing the prince's interest in them, it had

seemed to me that he might not be sorry to meet Mr.

Kelly for a brief interview. To this I received a hearty

response: ``By all means bring Mr. Kelly over at four

o'clock.'' At four o'clock, then, we appeared at the palace,

and were received immediately and cordially. When

we were seated the prince said: ``I am very sorry; but the

new Prussian ministry is to meet here in twenty minutes,

and I must preside over it.'' The meaning of this was

clear, and the conversation began at once, I effacing

myself in order to enjoy it more fully. In a few seconds they

were in the thick of the tariff question; and, as both were

high protectionists, they got along admirably. Soon rose

the question of the double standard in coinage; and

on this, too, they agreed. Notable was the denunciation

by the chancellor of those who differed from him; he

seemed to feel that, as captain of the political forces of

the empire, he was entitled to the allegiance of all honest

members of parliament, and on all questions. The discussion

ran through various interesting phases, when, noticing

that the members of the Prussian ministry were gathering

in the next room, I rose to go; whereupon the

prince, who seemed greatly interested both in the presentation

of his own views and those of Mr. Kelly, said: ``No,

no; let them wait.'' The new ministers therefore waited,

the argument on the tariff and the double standard being

more vigorously prosecuted than ever. After fifteen or

twenty minutes more, I rose again; but Bismarck said:

``No, no; there's no hurry; let's go and take a walk.''

On this we rose and went into the garden. As we stopped

for an instant to enable him to take down his military cap,

I noticed two large photographs with autographs beneath

them,--one of Lord Beaconsfield, and the other of King

Victor Emmanuel,--and, as I glanced at the latter, I

noticed an inscription beneath it:

Al mio caro cugino Bismarck.

VITTORIO EMANUELE.

Bismarck, seeing me look at it, said: ``He calls me `cousin'

because he has given me his Order of the Annunciata.''

This remark for a moment surprised me. It was hard for

me to conceive that the greatest man in Europe could care

whether he was entitled to wear the Annunciata ribbon or

not, or whether any king called him ``cousin'' or not. He

seemed, for a moment, to descend to a somewhat lower

plane than that upon which he had been standing; but, as

we came out into the open and walked up and down the

avenues in the park, he resumed his discussion of greater

things. During this, he went at considerable length into

the causes which led to the partial demonetization of silver

in the empire; whereupon Mr. Kelly, interrupting him,

said: ``But, prince, if you fully believed in using both the

precious metals, why did you allow the demonetization of

silver?'' ``Well,'' said Bismarck, ``I had a great many

things to think of in those days, and as everybody said that

Camphausen and ---- were great financiers, and that

they understood all about these questions, I allowed them

to go on; but I soon learned, as our peasants say of those

who try to impose upon their neighbors, that they had

nothing but hot water in their dinner-pots, after all.'' He

then went on discussing the mistakes of those and other

gentlemen before he himself had put his hand to the work

and reversed their policy. There were curious allusions

to various individuals whose ideas had not suited him,

most of them humorous, but some sarcastic. At last, after

a walk of about twenty minutes, bearing in mind the

ministers who had been so long waiting for their chief, I

insisted that we must go; whereupon the prince conducted

us to the gate, and most cordially took leave of us.

As we left the place, I said to Mr. Kelly, knowing that

he sometimes wrote letters for publication: ``Of course, in

whatever you may write to America, you will be careful

not to mention names of persons.'' ``Certainly,'' he said;

``that, of course, I shall never think of doing.'' But alas

for his good resolutions! In his zeal for protection and

the double standard, all were forgotten. About a fortnight

later there came back by cable a full statement regarding

his interview, the names all given, and Bismarck's references

to his colleagues brought out vividly. The result

was that a large portion of the German press was indignant

that Bismarck should have spoken in such a manner

to a foreigner regarding Germans of such eminence,

who had been his trusted colleagues, and who had rendered

to the country very great services; so that, for some

days, the ``Affaire Kelly'' made large demands upon

public attention. It had hardly subsided when there came

notice to me from the State Department at Washington

that a very eminent American financier was about to be

sent to Berlin; and I was instructed to secure for him an

audience with the chancellor, in order that some arrangements

might be arrived at regarding the double standard

of value. I must confess that, in view of the ``Affaire

Kelly,'' these instructions chilled me. Fortunately,

Bismarck was just then taking his usual cure at Kissingen,

during which he always refused to consider any matter of

business; but, on his return to Berlin, I sent him a note

requesting an audience for this special American

representative. This brought a very kind answer expressing

regret that the chancellor was so pressed with arrears of

business that he desired to be excused; but that the minister

of finance and various other members of the cabinet

had been instructed to receive the American agent and to

communicate with him to the fullest extent. That was all

very well, but there were my instructions; and I felt

obliged to write again, making a more earnest request.

Thereupon came an answer that settled the question: the

chancellor regretted that he was too much overwhelmed

with work to meet the gentleman; but said that he would

gladly see the American minister at any time, and must,

for the present, be excused from meeting any unaccredited

persons.

Of course, after that there was nothing to be said; and

the special American agent was obliged to content himself

with what he could obtain in interviews with various

ministers.

Mr. Kelly urged, as his excuse for publishing personal

details in his letters, that it was essential that the whole

world should know just what the great chancellor had said

on so important a subject. As it turned out, Mr. Kelly's

zeal defeated his purpose; for, had the special agent been

enabled to discuss the matter with the chancellor, there is

little doubt that Germany would have at least endeavored

to establish a permanent double standard of value.

Each year, during my stay, Bismarck gave a dinner to

the diplomatic corps on the Emperor's birthday. The

table was set then, as now, in the great hall of the

chancellor's palace--the hall in which the Conference of

Berlin was held after the Russo-Turkish War. The culminating

point of each dinner was near its close, when the

chancellor rose, and, after a brief speech in French,

proposed the health of the heads of all the states there

represented. This was followed by a toast to the health of

the Emperor, given by the senior member of the diplomatic

corps, and shortly after came an adjournment for

coffee and cigars. One thing was, at first sight, somewhat

startling; for, as Bismarck arose to propose the toast, the

big black head of a Danish dog appeared upon the table

on either side of him; but the bearing of the dogs was so

solemn that they really detracted nothing from the dignity

of the occasion.

In the smoking-room the guests were wont to gather in

squads, as many of them as possible in the immediate

neighborhood of our host. During one of these assemblages

he asked me to explain the great success of Carl

Schurz in America. My answer was that, before the Lincoln

presidential campaign, in which Schurz took so large

a part, slavery was always discussed either from a constitutional

or a philanthropic point of view, orators seeking to

show either that it was at variance with the fundamental

principles of our government or an offense against humanity;

but that Schurz discussed it in a new way, and mainly

from the philosophic point of view, showing, not merely

its hostility to American ideas of liberty and the wrong

it did to the slaves, but, more especially, the injury it

wrought upon the country at large, and, above all, upon

the slave States themselves; and that, in treating all public

questions, he was philosophic, eloquent, and evidently

sincere. Bismarck heard what I had to say, and then

answered: ``As a German, I am proud of Carl Schurz.''

This was indeed a confession; for it is certain that, if

Bismarck could have had his way with Carl Schurz in 1848

or 1849, he would have hanged him.

The chancellor's discussions at such times were

frequently of a humorous sort. He seemed, most of all, to

delight in lively reminiscences of various public men in

Europe. Nothing could be more cordial and hearty than

his bearing; but that he could take a different tone was

found out by one of my colleagues shortly after my

arrival. This colleague was Herr von Rudhardt, the

diplomatic and parliamentary representative of Bavaria. I

remember him well as a large, genial man; and the beauty

and cordial manner of his wife attracted general admiration.

One day this gentleman made a speech or cast a

vote which displeased Bismarck, and shortly afterward

went to one of the chancellor's parliamentary receptions.

As he, with his wife leaning on his arm, approached his

host, the latter broke out into a storm of reproaches,

denouncing the minister's conduct, and threatening to

complain of it to his royal master. Thereupon the diplomatist

simply bowed, made no answer, returned home at once,

and sent his resignation to his government. All the efforts

of the Emperor William were unable to appease

him, and he was shortly afterward sent to St. Petersburg

as minister at that court. But the scene which separated

him from Berlin seemed to give him a fatal shock; he

shortly afterward lost his reason, and at last accounts was

living in an insane asylum.

On another occasion I had an opportunity to see how

the chancellor, so kind in his general dealings with men

whom he liked, could act toward those who crossed his

path.

Being one evening at a reception given by the Duke of

Ratibor, president of the Prussian House of Lords, he

said to me: ``I saw you this afternoon in the diplomatic

box. Our proceedings must have seemed very stupid.'' I

answered that they had interested me much. On this he

put his lips to my ear and whispered: ``Come to-morrow

at the same hour, and you will hear something of real

interest.'' Of course, when the time arrived, I was in my

seat, wondering what the matter of interest could be.

Soon I began to suspect that the duke had made some mistake,

for business seemed following the ordinary routine;

but presently a bill was brought in by one of the leading

Prussian ministers, a member of one of the most eminent

families in Germany, a man of the most attractive manners,

and greatly in favor with the Emperor William and

the crown prince, afterward the Emperor Frederick. The

bill was understood to give a slight extension of suffrage

in the choice of certain leading elected officials. The question

being asked by some one on the floor whether the head

of the ministry, Prince Bismarck, approved the bill, this

leading minister, who had introduced it, answered in the

affirmative, and said that, though Prince Bismarck had

been kept away by illness from the sessions in which it had

been discussed, he had again and again shown that he was

not opposed to it, and there could be no question on the

subject. At this a member rose and solemnly denied the

correctness of this statement; declared that he was in

possession of information to the very opposite effect; and

then read a paper, claiming to emanate directly from the

chancellor himself, to the effect that he had nothing whatever

to do with the bill and disapproved it. Upon Bismarck's

colleagues in the ministry, who thought that his

silence had given consent, this came like a thunderbolt;

and those who had especially advocated the measure saw

at once that they had fallen into a trap. The general

opinion was that the illness of the chancellor had been a

stratagem; that his sudden disclaimer, after his leading

colleagues had thus committed themselves, was intended to

drive them from the ministry; and that he was determined

to prevent the minister who had most strongly

supported the bill from securing popularity by it. This

minister, then, and the other members of the cabinet at

once resigned, giving place to men whom the chancellor

did not consider so likely to run counter to his ideas and

interests.

Indeed, it must be confessed that the great statesman

not infrequently showed the defects of his qualities. As

one out of many cases may be cited his treatment of Eduard

Lasker. This statesman during several years rendered

really important services. Though an Israelite, he

showed none of the grasping propensities so often ascribed

to his race. He seemed to care nothing for wealth or

show, lived very simply, and devoted himself to the public

good as he understood it. Many capitalists, bankers, and

promoters involved in the financial scandals which followed

the Franco-Prussian War were of his race; but this

made no difference with him: in his great onslaught on the

colossal scoundrelism of that time, he attacked Jew and

Gentile alike; and he deserved well of his country for

aiding to cleanse it of all that fraud and folly. On a

multitude of other questions, too, he had been very serviceable

to the nation and to Bismarck; but, toward the end of his

career, he had, from time to time, opposed some of the

chancellor's measures, and this seemed to turn the latter

completely against him.

At the opening of the Northern Pacific Railway, Lasker

was one of the invited guests, but soon showed himself

desperately ill; and, one day, walking along a street in

New York, suddenly dropped dead.

A great funeral was given him; and, of all the ceremonies

I have ever seen, this was one of the most remarkable

for its simplicity and beauty. Mr. Carl Schurz and myself

were appointed to make addresses on the occasion in the

temple of the Israelites on Fifth Avenue; and we agreed

in thinking that we had never seen a ceremony of the kind

more appropriate to a great statesman.

At the next session of Congress, a resolution was

introduced condoling with the government of Germany on the

loss of so distinguished a public servant. This resolution

was passed unanimously, and in perfect good faith, every

person present--and, indeed, every citizen in the whole

country who gave the matter any thought--supposing that

it would be welcomed by the German Government as a

friendly act.

But the result was astounding. Bismarck took it upon

himself, when the resolution reached him, to treat it with

the utmost contempt, and to send it back without really

laying it before his government, thus giving the American

people to understand that they had interfered in a matter

which did not concern them. For a time, this seemed

likely to provoke a bitter outbreak of American feeling;

but, fortunately, the whole matter was allowed to drift by.

Among the striking characteristics of Bismarck was his

evident antipathy to ceremonial. He was never present

at any of the great court functions save the first reception

given at the golden wedding of the Emperor William

I, and at the gala opera a few evenings afterward.

The reason generally assigned for this abstention was

that the chancellor, owing to his increasing weight and

weakness, could not remain long on his feet, as people are

expected to do on such occasions. Nor do I remember

seeing him at any of the festivities attending the marriage

of the present Emperor William, who was then merely

the son of the crown prince. One reason for his absence,

perhaps, was his reluctance to take part in the Fackeltanz,

a most curious survival. In this ceremony, the ministers

of Prussia, in full gala dress, with flaring torches in their

hands, precede the bride or the groom, as the case may be,

as he or she solemnly marches around the great white hall

of the palace, again and again, to the sound of solemn

music. The bride first goes to the foot of the throne, and

is welcomed by the Emperor, who gravely leads her once

around the hall, and then takes his seat. The groom then

approaches the throne, and invites the Empress to march

solemnly around the room with him in the same manner,

and she complies with his request. Then the bride takes

the royal prince next in importance, who, in this particular

case, happened to be the Prince of Wales, at present King

Edward VII; the groom, the next princess; and so on, until

each of the special envoys from the various monarchs of

Europe has gone through this solemn function. So it is

that the ministers, some of them nearly eighty years of

age, march around the room perhaps a score of times; and

it is very easy to understand that Bismarck preferred to

avoid such an ordeal.

From time to time, the town, and even the empire, was

aroused by news that he was in a fit of illness or ill

nature, and insisting on resigning. On such occasions

the old Emperor generally drove to the chancellor's palace

in the Wilhelmstrasse, and, in his large, kindly, hearty

way, got the great man out of bed, put him in good humor,

and set him going again. On one of these occasions,

happening to meet Rudolf von Gneist, who had been, during a

part of Bismarck's career, on very confidential terms with

him, I asked what the real trouble was. ``Oh,'' said Gneist,

``he has eaten too many plover's eggs (Ach, er hat zu viel

Kibitzeier gegessen).'' This had reference to the fact

that certain admirers of the chancellor in the neighborhood

of the North Sea were accustomed to send him, each

year, a large basket of plovers' eggs, of which he was very

fond; and this diet has never been considered favorable

to digestion.

This reminds me that Gneist on one occasion told me

another story, which throws some light on the chancellor's

habits. Gneist had especial claims on Americans. As the

most important professor of Roman law at the university

he had welcomed a long succession of American students;

as a member of the imperial parliament, of the Prussian

legislature, and of the Berlin town council, he had shown

many kindnesses to American travelers; and as the

representative of the Emperor William in the arbitration

between the United States and Great Britain on our north-

western boundary, he had proved a just judge, deciding in

our favor. Therefore it was that, on the occasion of one of

the great Thanksgiving dinners celebrated by the American

colony, he was present as one of the principal guests.

Near him was placed a bottle of Hermitage, rather a heavy,

heady wine. Shortly after taking his seat, he said to me

with a significant smile, ``That is some of the wine I sent

to Bismarck, and it did not turn out well.'' ``How was

that?'' I asked. ``Well,'' he said, ``one day I met

Bismarck and asked him about his health. He answered, `It

is wretched; I can neither eat nor sleep.' I replied, `Let

me send you something that will help you. I have just

received a lot of Hermitage, and will send you a dozen

bottles. If you take a COUPLE OF GLASSES each day with

your dinner, it will be the best possible tonic, and will

do you great good.' Sometime afterward,'' continued

Gneist, ``I met him again, and asked how the wine agreed

with him. `Oh,' said Bismarck, `not at all; it made me

worse than ever.' `Why,' said I, `how did you take it?'

`Just as you told me,' replied Bismarck, `A COUPLE OF

BOTTLES each day with my dinner.' ''

Bismarck's constant struggle against the diseases which

beset him became pathetic. He once asked me how I managed

to sleep in Berlin; and on my answering him he

said--``Well, I can never sleep in Berlin at night when it

is quiet; but as soon as the noise begins, about four o'clock

in the morning, I can sleep a little and get my rest for

the day.''

It was frequently made clear that the Emperor William

and the German officials were not the only ones to experience

the results of Bismarck's ill health: the diplomatic

corps, and among them myself, had sometimes to take it

into account.

Bismarck was especially kind to Americans, and, above

all, to the American diplomatic representatives. To this

there was but one exception, my immediate successor, and

that was a case in which no fault need be imputed to

either side. That Bismarck's feeling toward Americans

generally was good is abundantly proven, and especially

by such witnesses as Abeken, Sidney Whitman, and Moritz

Busch, the last of whom has shown that, while the chancellor

was very bitter against sundry German princes who

lingered about the army and lived in Versailles at the

public expense, he seemed always to rejoice in the presence

of General Sheridan and other compatriots of ours who

were attached to the German headquarters by a tie of

much less strength.

But, as I have already hinted, there was one thing which

was especially vexatious to him; and this was the evasion,

as he considered it, of duty to the German Fatherland

by sundry German-Americans. One day I received a letter

from a young man who stated his case as follows:

He had left his native town in Alsace-Lorraine just

before arriving at the military age; had gone to the United

States; had remained there, not long enough to learn

English, but just long enough to obtain naturalization; and

had then lost no time in returning to his native town. He

had been immediately thrown into prison; and thence he

wrote me, expressing his devotion to the American flag,

his pride in his American citizenship,--and his desire to

live in Germany. I immediately wrote to the minister of

foreign affairs, stating the man's case, and showing that

it came under the Bancroft treaties, or at least under the

construction of them which the German Government up to

that time had freely allowed. To this I received an

answer that the Bancroft treaties, having been made before

Alsace-Lorraine was annexed to the empire, did not apply

to these new provinces, and that the youth was detained as

a deserter. To this I replied that, although the minister's

statement was strictly true, the point had been waived

long before in our favor; that in no less than eight cases

the German Government had extended the benefit of the

Bancroft treaties over Alsace-Lorraine; and that in one

of these cases the acting minister of foreign affairs had

declared the intention of the government to make this

extension permanent.

But just at this period, after the death of Baron von

B<u:>low, who had been most kindly in all such matters, the

chancellor had fallen into a curious way of summoning

eminent German diplomatists from various capitals of

Europe into the ministry of foreign affairs for a limited

time--trying them on, as it were. These gentlemen were

generally very agreeable; but on this occasion I had to

deal with one who had been summoned from service at

one of the lesser German courts, and who was younger

than most of his predecessors. To my surprise, he brushed

aside all the precedents I had cited, and also the fact that

a former acting minister of foreign affairs had distinctly

stated that, as a matter of comity, the German Government

proposed to consider the Bancroft treaties as applying

permanently to Alsace-Lorraine. Neither notes nor verbal

remonstrances moved him. He was perfectly civil, and

answered my arguments, in every case, as if he were about

to yield, yet always closed with a ``but''--and did nothing.

He seemed paralyzed. The cause of the difficulty was soon

evident. It was natural that Bismarck should have a feeling

that a young man who had virtually deserted the German

flag just before reaching the military age deserved the

worst treatment which the law allowed. His own sons had

served in the army, and had plunged into the thickest of

the fight, one of them receiving a serious wound; and that

this young Alsatian Israelite should thus escape service

by a trick was evidently hateful to him. That the chancellor

himself gave the final decision in this matter was the

only explanation of the fact that this particular acting

minister of foreign affairs never gave me an immediate

answer.

The matter became more and more serious. The letter

of the law was indeed on Bismarck's side; but the young

man was an American citizen, and the idea of an American

citizen being held in prison was anything but pleasant to

me, and I knew that it would be anything but pleasant

to my fellow-citizens across the water. I thought on the

proud words, ``civis Romanus sum,'' and of the analogy

involved in this case. My position was especially difficult,

because I dared not communicate the case fully to the

American State Department of that period. Various private

despatches had got out into the world and made

trouble for their authors, and even so eminent a

diplomatist as Mr. George P. Marsh at Rome came very near

being upset by one. My predecessor, Bayard Taylor, was

very nearly wrecked by another; and it was the escape

and publication of a private despatch which plunged my

immediate successor into his quarrel with Bismarck, and

made his further stay in Germany useless: I therefore

stopped short with my first notification to the State

Department--to the effect that a naturalized American had

been imprisoned for desertion in Alsace-Lorraine, and

that the legation was doing its best to secure his release.

To say more than this involved danger that the affair

might fall into the hands of sensation-mongers, and result

in howls and threats against the German Government and

Bismarck; and I knew well that, if such howls and threats

were made, Bismarck would never let this young Israelite

out of prison as long as he lived.

It seemed hardly the proper thing, serious as the case

was, to ask for my passports. It was certain that, if this

were done, there would come a chorus of blame from both

sides of the Atlantic. Deciding, therefore, to imitate the

example of the old man in the school-book, who, before

throwing stones at the boy in his fruit-tree, threw turf

and grass, I secured from Washington by cable a leave

of absence, but, before starting, saw some of my diplomatic

colleagues, who were wont to circulate freely and

talk much, stated the main features of the case to them,

and said that I was ``going off to enjoy myself''; that

there seemed little use for an American minister in a

country where precedents and agreements were so easily

disregarded. Next day I started for the French Riviera.

The journey was taken leisurely, with interesting halts

at Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle; and, as I reached the

hotel in Paris, a telegram was handed me--``Your man

in Alsace-Lorraine is free.'' It was evident that the

chancellor had felt better and had thought more leniently

of the matter, and I had never another difficulty of the sort

during the remainder of my stay.

The whole weight of testimony as regards Bismarck's

occasional severity is to the effect that, stern and

persistent as he was, he had much tenderness of heart; but

as to the impossibility of any nation, government, or press

scaring or driving him, I noticed curious evidences during

my stay. It was well known that he was not unfriendly

to Russia; indeed, he more than once made declarations

which led some of the Western powers to think him too

ready to make concessions to Russian policy in the East;

but his relations to Prince Gortchakoff, the former Russian

chancellor, were not of the best; and after the Berlin

Conference the disappointment of Russia led to various

unfriendly actions by Russian authorities and individuals

of all sorts, from the Czar down. There was a general

feeling that it was dangerous for Germany to resent

this, and a statesman of another mold would have deprecated

these attacks, or sought to mitigate them. Not so

Bismarck: he determined to give as good as was sent;

and, for a very considerable time he lost no chance to show

that the day of truckling by Germany to her powerful

neighbor was past. This became at last so marked that

bitter, and even defiant, presentation of unpalatable

truths regarding Russia, in the press inspired from the

chancery, seemed the usual form in which all Russian

statesmen, and especially members of the imperial house,

were welcomed in Berlin. One morning, taking up my

copy of the paper most directly inspired by the chancellor,

I found an article on the shortcomings of Russia,

especially pungent--almost vitriolic. It at once occurred

to me to look among the distinguished arrivals to see

what Muscovite was in town; and my search was rewarded

by the discovery that the heir to the imperial crown,

afterward Alexander III, had just arrived and was staying

a day or two in the city.

When Bismarck uttered his famous saying, ``We Germans

fear God and naught beside,'' he simply projected

into the history of Germany his own character. Fearlessness

was a main characteristic of his from boyhood,

and it never left him in any of the emergencies of his

later life.

His activity through the press interested me much at

times. It was not difficult to discern his work in many of

the ``inspired'' editorials and other articles. I have in

my possession sundry examples of the originals of these,

--each page is divided into two columns,--the first the

work of one of his chosen scribes, the second copiously

amended in the chancellor's own hand, and always with

a gain in lucidity and pungency.

Of the various matters which arose between us, one is

perhaps worthy of mention, since it has recently given

rise to a controversy between a German-American journalist

and Bismarck's principal biographer.

One morning, as I sat in dismay before my work-table,

loaded with despatches, notes, and letters, besides futilities

of every sort, there came in the card of Lothar

Bucher. Everything else was, of course, thrown aside.

Bucher never made social visits. He was the pilot-fish of

the whale, and a visit from him ``meant business.''

Hardly had he entered the room when his business was

presented: the chancellor wished to know if the United

States would join Germany and Great Britain in representations

calculated to stop the injuries to the commerce

of all three nations caused by the war then going on

between Chile and Peru.

My answer was that the United States could not join

other powers in any such effort; that our government

might think it best to take separate action; and that it

would not interfere with any proper efforts of other

powers to secure simple redress for actual grievances; but that

it could not make common cause with other powers in any

such efforts. To clinch this, I cited the famous passage

in Washington's Farewell Address against ``entangling

alliances with foreign powers'' as American gospel, and

added that my government would also be unalterably

opposed to anything leading to permanent occupation of

South American territory by any European power, and

for this referred him to the despatches of John Quincy

Adams and the declarations of President Monroe.

He seemed almost dumfounded at this, and to this day

I am unable to decide whether his surprise was real or

affected. He seemed to think it impossible that we could

take any such ground, or that such a remote, sentimental

interest could outweigh material interests so pressing as

those involved in the monkey-and-parrot sort of war going

on between the two South American republics. As he was

evidently inclined to dwell on what appeared to him the

strangeness of my answer, I said to him: ``What I state

to you is elementary in American foreign policy; and to

prove this I will write, in your presence, a cable despatch

to the Secretary of State at Washington, and you shall see

it and the answer it brings.''

I then took a cable blank, wrote the despatch, and

showed it to him. It was a simple statement of the

chancellor's proposal, and on that he left me. In the

evening came the answer. It was virtually my statement to

Bucher, and I sent it to him just as I had received it.

That was the last of the matter. No further effort was

made in the premises, so far as I ever heard, either by

Germany or Great Britain. It has recently been stated,

in an American magazine article, that Bismarck, toward

the end of his life, characterized the position taken by

Mr. Cleveland regarding European acquisition of South

American territory as something utterly new and unheard

of. To this, Poschinger, the eminent Bismarck biographer,

has replied in a way which increases my admiration

for the German Foreign Office; for it would appear that

he found in the archives of that department a most exact

statement of the conversation between Bucher and myself,

and of the action which followed it. So precise was his

account that it even recalled phrases and other minutiae

of the conversation which I had forgotten, but which I at

once recognized as exact when thus reminded of them.

The existence of such a record really revives one's child-

like faith in the opening of the Great Book of human deeds

and utterances at ``the last day.''

Perhaps the most interesting phase of Bismarck's life

which a stranger could observe was his activity in the

imperial parliament.

That body sits in a large hall, the representatives of the

people at large occupying seats in front of the president's

desk, and the delegates from the various states--known

as the Imperial Council--being seated upon an elevated

platform at the side of the room, right and left of the

president's chair. At the right of the president, some

distance removed, sits the chancellor, and at his right hand

the imperial ministry; while in front of the president's

chair, on a lower stage of the platform, is the tribune from

which, as a rule, members of the lower house address the

whole body.

It was my good fortune to hear Bismarck publicly

discuss many important questions, and his way of speaking

was not like that of any other man I have ever heard. He

was always clothed in the undress uniform of a Prussian

general; and, as he rose, his bulk made him imposing.

His first utterances were disappointing. He seemed

wheezy, rambling, incoherent, with a sort of burdensome

self-consciousness checking his ideas and clogging his

words. His manner was fidgety, his arms being thrown

uneasily about, and his fingers fumbling his mustache

or his clothing or the papers on his desk. He puffed,

snorted, and floundered; seemed to make assertions without

proof and phrases without point; when suddenly he

would utter a statement so pregnant as to clear up a whole

policy, or a sentence so audacious as to paralyze a whole

line of his opponents, or a phrase so vivid as to run

through the nation and electrify it. Then, perhaps after

more rumbling and rambling, came a clean, clear, historical

illustration carrying conviction; then, very likely, a

simple and strong argument, not infrequently ended by

some heavy missile in the shape of an accusation or taunt

hurled into the faces of his adversaries; then, perhaps at

considerable length, a mixture of caustic criticism and

personal reminiscence, in which sparkled those wonderful

sayings which have gone through the empire and settled

deeply into the German heart. I have known many clever

speakers and some very powerful orators; but I have

never known one capable, in the same degree, of

overwhelming his enemies and carrying his whole country with

him. Nor was his eloquence in his oratory alone. There

was something in his bearing, as he sat at his ministerial

desk and at times looked up from it to listen to a speaker,

which was very impressive.

Twice I heard Moltke speak, and each time on the army

estimates. Nothing could be more simple and straight-

forward than the great soldier's manner. As he rose, he

looked like a tall, thin, kindly New England schoolmaster.

His seat was among the representatives, very nearly in

front of that which Bismarck occupied on the estrade. On

one of these occasions I heard him make his famous

declaration that for the next fifty years Germany must be in

constant readiness for an attack from France. He spoke

very rarely, was always brief and to the point, saying with

calm strength just what he thought it a duty to say--neither

more nor less. So Caesar might have spoken. Bismarck,

I observed, always laid down his large pencil and

listened intently to every word.

The most curious example of the eloquence of silence in

Bismarck's case, which I noted, was when his strongest

opponent, Windthorst, as the representative of the

combination of Roman Catholics and others generally in

opposition, but who, at that particular time, seemed to have

made a sort of agreement to support some of Bismarck's

measures, went to the tribune and began a long and very

earnest speech. Windthorst was a man of diminutive

stature, smaller even than Thiers,--almost a dwarf,--and

his first words on this occasion had a comical effect. He

said, in substance, ``I am told that if we enter into a

combination with the chancellor in this matter, we are

sure to come out second best.'' At this Bismarck raised

his head, turned and looked at the orator, the attention of

the whole audience being fastened upon both. ``But,''

continued Windthorst, ``the chancellor will have to get

up very early in the morning to outwit us in this matter.''

There was a general outburst of laughter as the two

leaders eyed each other. It reminded one of nothing so

much as a sturdy mastiff contemplating a snappish terrier.

As to his relations with his family, which, to some little

extent, I noticed when with them, nothing could be more

hearty, simple, and kindly. He was beautifully devoted

to his wife, and evidently gloried in his two stalwart sons,

Prince Herbert and ``Count Bill,'' and in his daughter,

Countess von Rantzau; and they, in return, showed a

devotion to him not less touching. No matter how severe

the conflicts which raged outside, within his family the

stern chancellor of ``blood and iron'' seemed to disappear;

and in his place came the kindly, genial husband, father,

and host.

The last time I ever saw him was at the Sch<o:>nhausen

station on my way to Bremen. He walked slowly from the

train to his carriage, leaning heavily on his stick. He

seemed not likely to last long; but Dr. Schweninger's

treatment gave him a new lease of life, so that, on my

return to Berlin eighteen years later, he was still living.

In reply to a respectful message he sent me a kindly

greeting, and expressed the hope that he would, ere long,

be well enough to receive me; but he was even then sinking,

and soon passed away. So was lost to mortal sight

the greatest German since Luther.