Bismarck was on his guard against Frederick the Good, from whom a
progressive policy was expected on account of his philosophical ideas,
and a liberal and parliamentary government on account of the domestic
influences which surrounded him. Knowing the humanitarian tendencies
which sparkled in his disappointed mind, and the ascendency exercised
over his diseased heart by the loved Empress Victoria, Bismarck
availed himself of the terrible infirmity with which implacable fate
afflicted the second Lutheran Emperor of Germany, and retained the
imperial power in his own person, as though William I. were not dead.
The enormous corpse of the latter, like that of Frederick Barbarossa,
made a subject for analogous legends by German tradition, was replaced
by another corpse, and in the decomposition consequent to his
frightful infirmity, the unfortunate Frederick III. seems to have
realized the title of a celebrated Spanish drama, "To Govern After
Death" (_Reinar Despues de Morir_). All that he could do, when already
ravaged by cancer, when the microbes of a terrible disease, like the
worms of the sepulchre, were attacking and destroying him, was to open
up a vista to timid hope, and to publish certain promises animated by
an exalted humaneness, in spite of and unknown to the Chancellor who
was not consulted in these declarations, which might be said to have
descended from heaven on the wings of the angel of death. Bismarck
went to and fro among the doctors, who naturally refused to declare
the terrible disease mortal, and prepared to vanquish the moribund
will of Frederick and the British notions of his widow, fearing that
when the last breath of the imperial life had ceased the whole policy
of Germany would have to be changed, as a scene in a theatre must be
changed if it has been hissed. It was certain that there was as great
a difference between the ideas of the Emperor William I. and those of
Frederick III., separated by so brief a space, as between those of the
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and those of the Emperor Frederick II.,
his successor, after the long period of two hundred years had changed
the capital features of the Middle Ages; the first was an unalloyed
Catholic, notwithstanding his dissidences with the Guelph cities, and
even with the Pope a stern Caesar, like the good Roman Caesars in time
of war and defence, a veritable orthodox crusader, whose piety was
concealed as in a colossal mountain whence he awaited the reconquest
of outraged Jerusalem by the Christians; whereas the second was an
almost Pantheistic poet and philosopher, whose Catholicity was mingled
with Orientalism, who was equally given to the discussion of
theological and of scientific questions, who followed the crusades in
fulfilment of an hereditary tradition, who penetrated into the
Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre by virtue of an extraordinary covenant
with the infidel, and whose own beliefs were so cosmopolitan that they
brought down a sentence of excommunication upon himself and of
interdiction upon his kingdom. To Pope Innocent III., the former
typified the Catholic emperor of the Middle Ages; Frederick II.
appeared to him very much the same as in our days the Lutheran emperor
appeared to Prince Bismarck, who took every possible precaution
against the humanitarianism and parliamentarism of his dying pupil,
and at the same time impelled his eldest son, the next heir to the
crown, with all his influence and advice towards absolutist principles
and reactionary propensities. No upright mind can ever forget the
terrible desecration committed when, a few days before the death of
his father, young William spoke of the empire as of a possession which
it was to be understood he had already entered upon, and awarded the
arm and head of his iron Chancellor the title of arm and head
connatural with the Caesarian institution. I know of no statesman in
history who has given, under analogous circumstances, such proof of
want of foresight as was given by Bismarck, comprehensible only if the
body could assume the authority of the will, as did his, and if the
intelligence could disappear, as did his, in an hydropic and
unquenchable desire for power. Frederick, holding progressive ideas
opposed to those of Bismarck and of William, would have greatly
considered public opinion, and on account of that consideration would
have perhaps respected, till the hour of his death, the Pilot, who,
dejected by the new direction of public government, inferred that
irreparable evil must result therefrom. When Maurice of Saxony trod on
the heels of Charles V., whom he had defeated at Innsbruck, he was
asked why he did not capture so rich a booty, and replied: "Where
should I find a cage large enough for such a big bird?" Assuredly the
conscience and mind of such a parliamentarian and philosopher as was
Frederick III., must have addressed to him a similar question when he
inwardly meditated sacrificing the Chancellor's person and prescinding
his power: "Where should I find a place outside the government for
such a man, who would struggle under bolts and chains, making the
whole state tremble in sympathy with his own agitation?" The
experience and talent of Frederick, together with his respect for
public opinion, led him to retain Bismarck at his post, subject only
to some slight restrictions. But the Chancellor, in his
shortsightedness, filled young William's head with absolutist ideas;
spurred and excited him to display impatience with his poor father;
and when thus nurtured, his ward opened his mouth to satisfy his
appetite, he swallowed up the Chancellor as a wild beast devours a
keeper.
It was the hand of Providence!