Part 14

I shall carry my historical retrospect no farther, but it may easily be imagined how this long and glorious history of the princes of the house of Anhalt made a deep impression on the minds of the young generation, and how even as boys we felt proud of our Duke. Though the belief in heredity was not then so strong as it is now—and I must confess that even now my own belief in acquired excellencies being inherited is very small—yet standing before our Ascanian[15] Duke, the descendant and representative of so many glorious ancestors, one felt something like the awe which one feels when looking at an oak that has weathered many a storm, and still sends forth every year its rich green foliage. It was a just pride that made even the schoolboys lift their caps before their stately Duke and his noble Duchess, and I must confess that something of that feeling has remained with me for life, and the title of Serene Highness, which has since been changed to Royal Highness (Hoheit), has always sounded to my ears not as an empty title or as inferior to Royal Highness or even Majesty, but as the highest that could be bestowed on any sovereign, if he had deserved it by high ideals, and by true serenity of mind in the storms and battles of life.

As to myself, if as a boy I was not quite so much overawed by the inhabitants of the old stately palace at Dessau as my friends and schoolfellows, it was due perhaps to their personal kindness to our family, and likewise to a strange event that happened while I was still very young. The reigning Duke had three brothers and only one son, and in the absence of male heirs it was supposed that the duchy would have gone to Prussia. One of his brothers had married a Countess von Reina, and their children therefore could not succeed. The other brother was married to a Hessian princess, and they had no sons. But for that, they would possibly have succeeded to the throne of Denmark, as it was only due to the resignation of the elder in favour of her younger sister that this younger sister, the mother of the Princess of Wales, became Queen of Denmark, and her husband King. Both the ducal family and the whole country were anxious, therefore, that the only remaining brother of the Duke should marry and have children, when suddenly he announced to the world that he had fallen in love with a young lady at Dessau, a cousin of mine, and that no power on earth should prevent him from marrying her. There was a considerable flutter in the dovecotes of the Dessau nobility; there was also a very just feeling of regret among the people, who disliked the idea of a possible amalgamation with Prussia. Everything that could be thought of was done to prevent the marriage, but after waiting for several years the marriage was celebrated, and my cousin, as Baronne von Stolzenberg, became the Prince’s (morganatic) wife, and sister-in-law of the reigning Duke. The Prince was a handsome man, and extremely good-natured and kind, there was not an atom of pride in him. They lived very happily together, and after a few years they were received most cordially even by the old Duke and his relations. In this way the doings and sayings of the Duke and the ducal court became less hidden behind the mysterious veil that formerly shrouded Olympus, and one began to see that its inhabitants were not so very different after all from other human beings, but that they acted up to their sense of duty, did a great deal of good work unknown to the world at large, and were certainly in many respects far more cultivated and far more attractive than those who were inclined to sneer at the small German courts, and to agitate for their suppression.

What would Germany have been without her small courts? Without a Duke Charles Augustus of Weimar, there would probably have been no Wieland, no Herder, no Goethe, and no Schiller. It is not only plants that want sunshine, genius also requires light and warmth to bring it out, and the refining influence of a small court was nowhere so necessary as during the period of storm and stress in Germany. It cannot be denied that some of these small courts were hotbeds of corruption of every kind. I remember how in my younger days the small Duchy of Anhalt-Cöthen, for instance, suffered extremely from maladministration during the reign of the last Duke, who died without heirs, and had no scruples in impoverishing the country, and suppressing all opposition, however legitimate. He was a sovereign by divine rights, as much as the King of Prussia, and with the assistance of his ministers he could alienate and sell whatever he liked. He actually established a public gambling house on the railway station at Cöthen. In the third Duchy of Anhalt, that of Anhalt-Bernburg, the reigning Duke was for a time almost out of his mind, but no one had the power to restrain or to remove him. The ministers did all they could to prevent any public scandal, but it was not easy to prevent, if not a revolution—that would have been difficult on so small a scale—at least a complaint to the German Diet, and that might have become serious. Many were the stories told of the poor Duke and believed by the people. Like all court stories they went on growing and growing, and they were repeated “on the highest authority.” One day, it was said, the Duke of Bernburg had been reading the history of Napoleon, how he had decorated a sentinel, and made him an officer on the field of battle. The Duke, so we are told, carried away by his enthusiasm, rushed out of his room, embraced the sentinel, fastened some medal on his breast and said: “Thou art a captain.” The soldier, not losing his presence of mind, said to the Duke: “I thank your Serene Highness, but would you please give it me in writing?” The Duke did, and nothing remained for his ministers but to grant to the private the title and the pension of a captain, and to let him wear the small medal which the Duke had given him. I confess I could never come face to face with the fortunate captain or find out his whereabouts. Still to doubt the truth of the story would have been considered the extreme of historical scepticism. Another time the Duke’s enthusiasm was fired by reading an account of a wild-boar hunt in the neighbouring duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, which had been attended by a number of princes from all parts of Germany. He summoned his Prime Minister and told him, “I must have wild boars in my forests. Turn out a herd of pigs, they will do quite as well.” This command too had to be obeyed, and the extraordinary part of it was that in a few years these tame pigs had completely reverted to their wild state, probably not without some intermarriages with neighbouring wild boars, and the Duke of Bernburg could invite the Duke of Dessau and other princes to hunt wild boars in the Hartz mountains, as well as in the forest of Dessau. Again I cannot vouch for the truth of the story, but I have been assured by competent authorities that such a return from the tame to the savage state is by no means incredible. Very soon after this exploit, however, the ducal race of Bernburg became extinct, and the three duchies now form a happy union under the old name of Duchy of Anhalt.

The year 1848 came at last, and everything was changed. There were _émeutes_ in the streets of Dessau, and when one of my uncles, the General commanding the ducal army, was telling his men that they would have to fire on the people, he received a message from some of them to say that they would willingly fire on anybody outside the town in the open, but not in the streets, because they might smash their own fathers’ windows. This respect for window-glass served, however, another good purpose. When my uncle, in default of a large enough prison, had to confine a number of people in the Duke’s hothouses, they were as quiet as lambs, because here too they were afraid of breaking the glass. In spite of this innate respect for glass and established authority, much mischief was done at Dessau in 1848. Splendid old oaks in the ducal forests were cut down, the game was killed by hundreds, and a new constitution was proclaimed. There was a chamber, I believe there was even a desire for a House of Peers, if Peers could be found; there were two responsible ministers, and the Duke had to be satisfied with a Civil List.

The Duke bore all this with wonderful serenity, but the Duchess died, I believe, from anxiety and nervous prostration. In 1848 even Dukes and Duchesses were hustled, and this was more than she could bear. She had done all that was in her power to make herself useful in her exalted position, and she deeply felt the ingratitude of those whom she had helped and befriended in former years, and who had joined the opposition. She told me herself that she had once to walk out on foot from her palace with an umbrella, because every one of her four carriages had been ordered by the Prime Minister, the Second Minister, the wife of the Prime, and some friend of the Second Minister. This Second Minister was a young man who had left the University not many years before, and was practising at Dessau as a lawyer. Of course, there was great joy among his former University friends; many were invited to Dessau, and as there was an abundance of old wine in the castle, the gates of the ducal cellar, so I was informed, were thrown open, and the thirsty young students soon reduced the store of wine to what they thought more reasonable dimensions. Some of the Rhenish wines in that cellar were more than a hundred years old, so old that but a few bottles were fit for drinking. A thick crust had formed inside the bottles, and only one or two glasses of wine were left. But what was left was considered so useful as medicine in certain illnesses that any doctor was allowed to prescribe and order bottles of it from the ducal cellars. My uncle, the Commander-in-chief of the small Anhalt army, had been through all the Napoleonic wars, had marched twice into Paris, and was such a _Franzosenfresser_, that, fond as he was of wine, he would never touch French wine, least of all French champagne. He lived to a very considerable age, he celebrated his silver, his golden, his diamond, and his iron (sixty-five years) wedding, and danced at his diamond wedding with his wife and one of the bridesmaids. He was my godfather, and as he had made the acquaintance of his wife at my christening, he never called me by any other name but “mein Wohlthäter,” my benefactor. As he had been at the battle of Jena (1806) with the Emperor William, then a mere cadet in the Prussian army, and afterwards through many campaigns, the Emperor treated him to the very end of his life as his personal friend. Once every year he had to go to Berlin to stay with the Emperor, and talk over old times. He was about five years older than the Emperor, and almost the last time he saw him the Emperor said to him: “Well, Stockmarr, we are both getting old, but as long as you march ahead, I shall follow.” “Yes, your Majesty,” Stockmarr replied, “and as long as you are behind to support me, I hope we shall get on and bring our shares up to par.” “Oh, Stockmarr,” the Emperor replied, “you are not a courtier. If you knew what the courtiers say to me, you would have said, ‘Oh, your Majesty, your Majesty, your shares will rise to at least 15 per cent. premium.’” General Stockmarr told me the story himself, and it gave me a new idea of the old Emperor’s humour, and his insight into the character of his surroundings.

Kind-hearted as the Duke of Dessau was, there were certain things that he could not stand. As his deafness grew upon him his chief amusement was shooting and driving about in his open carriage through the beautiful oak-forests that surround Dessau. There are long avenues through the old oak-forests like bowers formed by the lower branches of the trees, so that one can see the deer a mile off. Here the old Duke was to be seen almost every day. The common people had many endearing names for him, and when they saw his carriage from a distance they shouted _Hä Kimmet_, and the whole village was soon gathered to see their kind old Duke passing. He knew every tree, every stone, every road. In a wood not far from Dessau there was a large boulder, dropped there by a passing iceberg long before the time even of Albrecht the Bear and Count Esiko. One day, as he was passing by, the Duke missed the stone and drove straight to the next village to find out who had dared to move it. The Schulze of the village stood trembling before the Duke, and had to confess that as the road had had to be mended, the village commune had decided to blast the old useless stone and to break it up for that purpose. The Duke declared that it was his stone, that they had no right to touch it, and that they must replace it. That was, of course, an impossibility, without going back as far as the Glacial period. But the peasants had to go on searching all over the neighbourhood till at last they found two similar boulders, not quite so large as the original stone of offence, still, large enough to cause them much trouble and expense in transporting them to their village. This was their punishment, and from it there was no appeal. The two new stones may now be seen in a public park near Dessau, dedicated to the memory, one of Bismarck, the other of Moltke.

The sound of the Duke’s carriage was well known, not only in the town, but, as the people said, even by the deer in the forest. Other carriages might pass and the deer would not budge, but as soon as the Duke’s carriage was heard approaching they would all scamper away. The fact was that no one was allowed to shoot in the large ducal preserves except the Duke himself. It was a very great favour if he allowed even his brothers or his best friends to accompany him now and then.

Some of his forests were stocked with wild boars. These animals were quite tame while they were being fed in winter, but in summer they would attack the horses of a carriage and become really dangerous. If they could break out by night, which happened not unfrequently, the peasants would find next morning whole fields of corn ploughed up, trampled down, and destroyed. Large damages had to be paid by the Duke, but he never demurred as long as he was unshackled by his two responsible ministers. After 1848, however, not only was the amount to be paid for damages considerably reduced by his ministers, but the Duke was told that this pig-preserving was a very expensive amusement, and that it might make him very unpopular. The Duke knew better. He knew the peasants liked his boars, and still more the ample damages which he paid, but he did not like the advice of his ministers. So whenever any mischief had been done by the boars, the peasants ran after his carriage in the forest and told him how much they had lost. In his good-nature he used to say: “I will pay it all, let me know how much it is; only do not tell my ministers.”

After a time things settled down again at Dessau, still the old state of things could never come back. The three duchies of Anhalt-Dessau, Cöthen, and Bernburg with its beautiful Hartz mountains, when united, formed a more considerable principality, and it was thought necessary to have a regular parliament to control its finances, and watch over its legislation. Everything assumed a grander air; the Duke, who since the days of the Old Dessauer had been Serene Highness (Durchlaucht), now became Highness (Hoheit), which is supposed to be a step higher than Serene Highness (Durchlaucht), though I cannot see how language could ever produce a finer title than Serene Highness. The railway, which as the Berlin jokers said, had led to the discovery of Dessau, brought it at all events close to Berlin, Leipzig, Magdeburg, and the great Continental net of railways. People from all parts of Germany came to settle in the quiet, beautiful town on the Mulde; the Elbe had been made navigable nearly as far as Dessau, and the port near the Walwitzberg became an important commercial centre for export and import.

Whenever I pay a visit to Dessau I find the town more and more enlarged and much improved. The old lamps that swung across the streets are gone, the gurgoyles frown no longer on large red and green umbrellas; there are gas lamps, and there are waterworks, and cabs, and tramways. The grass is no longer allowed to grow in the chinks of the pavement. The old Duke is gone, and the old people whom I knew as a boy are gone too. The wild boars are still there, but they are no longer allowed to break out of bounds. Old men and women are still seen sawing wood and cutting it up in the street, but I do not know their faces, nor the faces of the old women from whom I bought my apples. I look at every man and woman that passes me, there is not one whose face or name I know. It is only when I go to the old cemetery outside the town that old names greet me again, some very dear to me, others almost forgotten during my _Wanderjahre_. No doubt the present is better, and the future, let us trust, will be better still; but the past had its own charms; our grandfathers were as wise as their sons and grandsons, and possibly they were happier.

RECOLLECTIONS OF ROYALTIES II

My first and very pleasant contact with Royalty had taken place at Dessau, while I was a schoolboy. When afterwards I went to the University of Berlin, the Duchess of Dessau had given me an introduction to Alexander von Humboldt, and while I was in Paris, working at the then Bibliothèque Royale, Humboldt had used his powerful influence with the King, Frederick William IV., to help me in publishing my edition of the “Rig Veda” in Germany. Nothing, however, came of that plan; it proved too costly for any private publisher, even with Royal assistance. But when, after having published the first volume in England, under the patronage of the East India Company, I passed some weeks at Berlin, in 1850, collating some of the Vedic MSS. in the Royal Library there, I received a message from Humboldt that the King wished to see me.

Frederick William IV. was a man of exceptional talent, nay, a man of genius. I had heard much about him from Bunsen, who was a true friend and confidant of the King, ever since they had met at Rome. I had seen some of the King’s letters to Bunsen; some of them, if I remember rightly, signed, not by the King’s name, but by _Congruentia Incongruentium_, probably from his imagining that the different opinions and counsels of his various friends and advisers would find their solution in him. This idea, if it was entertained by the King, would account for the many conflicting sides of his character, and the frequent changes in his opinions. I presented my volume of the “Rig Veda” to him at a private audience. He knew all about it, and had so much to tell me about the oldest book of mankind, that I had hardly a chance to say anything myself. But it was impossible to listen to him without feeling that one was in the presence of a mind of very considerable grasp and of high and noble ideals.

A few days after this audience I received an invitation to dine with the King at Potsdam, and Humboldt wrote to me that he would take me in his carriage.

But a curious intermezzo happened. While I was quietly sitting in my room with my mother, a young lieutenant of police entered, and began to ask a number of extremely silly questions—why I had come to Berlin, when I meant to return to England, what had kept me so long at Berlin, etc. After I had fully explained to him that I was collating Sanskrit MSS. at the Royal Library, he became more peremptory, and informed me that the police authorities thought that a fortnight must be amply sufficient for that purpose (how I wished that it had been so), and that they requested me to leave Berlin in twenty-four hours. I produced my passport, perfectly _en règle_; I explained that I wanted but another week to finish my work. It was all of no avail, I was told that I must leave in twenty-four hours. I then collected my thoughts, and said very quietly to the young lieutenant, “Please to tell the police authorities that I shall, of course, obey orders, and leave Berlin at once, but that I must request them to inform His Majesty the King that I shall not be able to dine with him to-night at Potsdam.” The poor young man thought I was laughing at him, but when he saw that I was in earnest he looked thunderstruck, bowed, and went away. All this seems now almost incredible even to myself while I am writing it down, but so it was. Nor was the explanation far to seek. One of my friends, with whom I had been almost every day, was Dr. Goldstücker, a young Sanskrit scholar, who had been mixed up with political intrigues, and had long been under strict surveillance. I was evidently looked upon as an emissary from England, then considered the focus of all political conspiracies; possibly my name had been found in the Black Book as a dangerous man, who, when he was about eighteen, had belonged to a secret society, and had sung Arndt’s song, “Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland,” before Bismarck sang it in his own way. It was not long, however, before another police official appeared, an elderly gentleman of very pleasant manners, who explained to me how sorry he was that the young lieutenant of police should have made so foolish a mistake. He begged me entirely to forget what had happened, as it would seriously injure the young lieutenant’s prospects if I lodged a complaint against him. I promised to forget, and, at all events, not to refer to what had happened in the Royal presence.

Humboldt and I drove to Potsdam, and I had a most delightful dinner and evening party. The King was extremely gracious, full of animated conversation, and evidently in the best of humours. While the Queen was speaking to me, he walked up to us, bowed to the Queen, and said to her, not to me, “S’il vous plait, monsieur.” With this sally he took her arm and walked into the dining-room. We followed and sat down, and during the whole dinner the King carried on a conversation in a voice so loud that no one else ventured to speak. I watched the King, and saw how his face became more and more flushed, while he hardly touched a drop of wine during the whole of dinner.

After dinner we all stood, and the King walked about from one to the other.

Humboldt, who was at that time an old man, about eighty, stood erect for several hours like all the rest. When we drove home it was very late, and I could not help remarking on the great sacrifice he was making of his valuable time in attending these court functions.

“Well,” he said, “the Hohenzollern have been very kind to me, and I know they like to show this old piece of furniture of theirs. So I go whenever they want me.” He went on to say how busy he was with his “Kosmos,” and how he could no longer work so many hours as in former years. “As I get old,” he said, “I want more sleep, four hours at least. When I was young,” he continued, “two hours of sleep were quite enough for me.” I ventured to express my doubts, apologising for differing from him on any physiological fact. “It is quite a mistake,” he said, “though it is very widely spread, that we want seven or eight hours of sleep. When I was your age, I simply lay down on the sofa, turned down my lamp, and after two hours’ sleep I was as fresh as ever.”

“Then,” I said, “your Excellency’s life has been double the life of other people, and this accounts for the immense amount of work you have been able to achieve.” Humboldt was never married and, I was told, had never been in love. But I did not tell him what was in my mind, that under such circumstances his life had really been four times that of ordinary mortals.