Baroness James Édouard de Rothschild—At Carlsbad—Transferred to
the 3rd Battalion
At Portsmouth, I was met by my father and Ernest Berkeley, a son of Lord
Berkeley, who some time afterwards obtained a commission in my regiment,
and with them I travelled to Paris and stayed for a few days with my
parents in the Champs-Elysées. I then started for Carlsbad, where I had
been recommended to take the waters for my complaint. On leaving Paris,
I found myself in the same carriage with an elderly English lady, a
Mrs. Michell, and her daughter, whose acquaintance I made. They were on
their way to Marienbad, as the mother was abnormally stout and anxious
to reduce her weight, life, she told me, being a torment to her. At
Nüremberg, a rather nice-looking woman entered our carriage, with a very
smart footman in attendance, who carried an immense bouquet of flowers,
which he deposited beside his mistress. This lady, it transpired, was the
Baroness James Édouard de Rothschild, who had been spending the night at
Nüremberg, and was also _en route_ for Marienbad. The Baroness entered
into conversation with us, and was very pleasant. She spoke English
almost perfectly, having spent nearly half her life in England, though
she was now living with her family in Paris. She had, she told us, been
ordered to take the waters at Marienbad, as she was inclined to be very
stout, and had sent on fourteen servants from Paris to get everything
ready for her.
I got out at Carlsbad and drove to the Hôtel Goldenes Schild, which was
in those days the principal hôtel. Next morning I consulted Dr. Ritter
von Hochberg, the doctor of the German Emperor, who was a very nice old
man, and who told me to drink two full glasses of the Schloss Brunn
waters and then walk for half an hour in the country every morning before
breakfast. I followed his instructions and, after drinking the waters,
walked out to the Posthof, where I breakfasted in the open air at a
very good restaurant, being served by a pretty young Austrian girl, who
was very tastefully dressed, with her hair arranged in quite the latest
fashion. The walk back to my hôtel, along the banks of a river, which
flowed through a delightfully picturesque valley, I enjoyed immensely.
While dining one evening at the Hôtel König von Hannover, I made the
acquaintance of a Mrs. Andrews, an elderly American lady, who was very
rich and lived in an apartment in the English quarter of Carlsbad. She
asked me to come and see her at her rooms, which were very comfortable,
and where she gave me a cup of English tea. Mrs. Andrews was very fond of
taking drives into the country, and often invited me to accompany her.
One day she introduced me to Freiherr von Klenck, the son of Baron von
Klenck, who had been a great favourite of the late King of Hanover and
always with him. Klenck, who was in a Hanoverian cavalry regiment, was a
man of about thirty, with a fair moustache. He detested Prussians, and
once, when I asked him if he would care to meet an officer in a Prussian
Line regiment whose acquaintance I had made, he replied:—
“It is all very well for you to know him, as you are not a German. But I
could not be seen with him. First of all, he is a Prussian, and then he
is in a Line regiment, so that I could not go about with him, since I am
in a cavalry regiment, as you know.”
I usually met Mrs. Andrews and Klenck at the Hôtel König von Hannover,
where we would engage a small table and dine together, going after to
Sans-Souci or the Posthof to hear the military concert, which was very
fine indeed. The band which played there was that of the 35th Regiment
König von Hannover, an Austrian military band, which had won the first
prize at Brussels in the competition for military bands of all nations.
It was composed of fifty men, and played the most difficult music of
Wagner in the most brilliant manner, besides playing lighter music in a
way which quite delighted me. In fact, it put all the military bands,
English, French and German, that I had ever heard completely in the
shade. A principal feature was that there were two men who played the
cymbals, and that the big drum was an insignificant item, the side-drum
being far more used. Sometimes, the band would play at Pupp’s Café of an
afternoon, while the people were taking their coffee at little tables. On
these occasions, a fee of fifty kreuzers was charged for admission, and
there was always great difficulty in securing seats.
The Kurkapelle, or string band, which played on most days of the week,
under the direction of the famous bandmaster, Auguste Labitzky, was one
of the finest string bands in Europe. Every Friday afternoon Labitzky
organized a classical concert at Posthof, for which an admission fee of
fifty kreuzers was charged. One day was consecrated to Wagner, another
to Mozart, a third to Beethoven, and on a fourth a programme of mixed
classical music was performed.
The places where afternoon coffee was taken were all in the country,
people sitting at little tables under the trees. At Pupp’s Café the
waitresses had their Christian names, Mizzi, Fanni, Resi, and so forth,
pinned on to their dresses. These girls were for the most part very
pretty and pleasant-mannered. One gentleman, after having finished his
cure at Carlsbad, received about twenty bouquets of beautiful flowers,
which were all placed on his breakfast-table at Pupp’s by the girls
serving there. People said that it must have cost him at least a hundred
florins in _douceurs_ to the waitresses.
When I asked my doctor how much I was in his debt, he told me that he
left the matter entirely to me. So I put forty florins in an envelope,
which the doctor declined even to open in my presence, saying that he
felt sure that I had remunerated his services sufficiently.
After a cure of three weeks, I left Carlsbad for Franzensbad, for the
after-cure, which my doctor had advised my taking. Here I secured very
comfortable rooms in a villa with a beautiful garden behind it, agreeing
to pay a fixed price per week for board and lodging. Shortly afterwards,
the proprietress informed me that, had she but known that I was an
Englishman, she would have asked me very much more than she had. She
appeared very much annoyed, and, I am afraid, never forgave me for not
having acquainted her with my nationality at our first interview.
I thought Franzensbad a very charming place, with its pretty villas with
gardens attached to them; but the walks could not compare with those
around Carlsbad. I was so tired after taking the waters at Carlsbad that
I rested the whole time I was at Franzensbad, merely taking iron baths,
which I found perfectly delightful. It was like bathing in champagne,
as the water sparkled and gave one a tickling kind of sensation. The
visitors at Franzensbad were chiefly ladies, but I made the acquaintance
of a young Bavarian officer, Freiherr von Rüdt, who was very musical and
played the violin beautifully, and used to meet him nearly every day at
the concert in the Kurpark. The Kurkapelle used to play at one or other
of the hôtels during supper, and I often went to these concerts. The
bandmaster, Tomaschek, was a very good conductor and a great favourite
with the ladies, who often sent him presents.
During my stay at Franzensbad I paid a visit to Marienbad, where I
renewed my acquaintance with Mrs. Michell and her daughter. I thought
Marienbad even more beautiful than Carlsbad, surrounded as it was by
woods and hills. The walks around it were really exquisite, and nothing
could be more pleasant than to take a walk in the woods on a summer’s day
and have coffee and listen to the band at one of the cafés.
On my return to Franzensbad I took a few more baths, and then left for
Paris, where I received a letter from the War Office, informing me that
I had been transferred to the 3rd Battalion of my regiment, which was
stationed at Chatham.