Blood and Iron Part 46

72

"As One Asleep"

-- On July 30, 1898, just before midnight, Otto Edward Leopold von Bismarck, Prince of Lauenburg and former Imperial Chancellor of the German Empire, died peacefully in the old homestead of his ancestors.

The immediate cause of death was congestion of the lungs.

-- "Ich danke Dir, mein Kind," were his last words, addressed to his daughter, who had stooped to wipe the moisture from his pale brow.

-- As late as the day he died, he had read the newspapers and talked politics.

His final remarks were on the relations of Germany and Russia, at all times a subject of deep concern to him.

-- Dr. Schweninger had promised to bring him to 90--and was seven years short.

But the Bismarck of retirement was not unhappy in the taking off; he had grown tired of it all; and it is pleasant to record that his last hours were without pain.

-- A few days before, he had had his champagne, and had smoked five pipes in succession; also the day before he died, he had asked an attendant to "color" two new meerschaums, gifts of friends. Toward the last, he had used an invalid's chair for breakfast, but otherwise he seemed as well as could be expected.

-- The windows looking upon the garden were opened, early next morning, and the servants of the household gathered there to look at the master, at rest.

He was seemingly asleep in his four-poster bed, his head slightly inclined to the left; his expression was that of one gently dreaming; his arms were resting over the coverlet, and in his left hand he held one white and three red roses, a last love-token from an Austrian lady.

-- The expression of his features was, at the end, proud and n.o.ble; but the face was as grey as ashes; for the fire of life was out at last!

-- Later, came two Cuira.s.siers, in white, with drawn swords; and these ma.s.sive figures stood there by the bedside, and by and by kept solemn guard beside the coffin; also, near by were two Foresters, in green.

-- Books, papers, telegrams and a laurel wreath were in the death chamber, where the master had worked to the end.

Not far away was his favorite chessboard, also, within touch the Emperor's last present, a fac-simile of Frederick the Great's great crook-headed gold cane; a step the other way the globe of the earth that Bismarck used to roll over with his big hand, when he studied his endless foreign political combinations.

-- Later, came the magnificent funeral with the high military, and all the rest; but we think we shall take leave of him in his old room with these simple objects around him, his tools of work, his big oak desk, his mounds of state papers, his writings, his quill pens, his box of blue sand, his pipes, steins and champagne gla.s.ses, his letters, his telegrams, his great heaps of books, his immense correspondence on the affairs of nations, his diplomas from universities, his degrees of law, philosophy and letters, and finally, his big Ulmar dogs.

-- Here we leave him as one asleep, reminded of his final words, uttered when the master was breaking fast with the infirmities of his eighty-three years:

-- "There is only one happy day left for me. It is the one on which I shall not wake again."

-- His son refused the request that a death-mask be made of the n.o.ble old face, but Lenbach's famous painting will recall the stern head for years to come.

-- Bismarck's coffin was of polished dark oak, with eight silver handles in the shape of lion's paws; candles burned around his coffin, the pale lights softened by veils of black and silver gauze that ornamented the silver candelabra. The floor was literally covered with wreaths, many bearing cards of sympathy in gold letters, from various eminent personages throughout the world.

-- The Kaiser heard the funeral services.

-- Bismarck's mausoleum rests on a spot Bismarck selected for himself; a plain Romanesque House of Death against a background of trees; and to the right still may be seen his favorite bench where he used to sit, under the shade of spreading oaks.

The sarcophagus of yellow marble bears this inscription, selected by Bismarck himself:

Here Lies PRINCE BISMARCK A Faithful German Servant of Emperor William I.

-- Hostile critics of Germany, brought forth by the great war of 1914, profess to believe that this inscription on Bismarck's tomb shows that Bismarck did not wish his work to be a.s.sociated with the future of the Empire, but with its past.

Instead, it really proclaims the man's great mind, his clairvoyant historical vision. He could have said many things about himself, touching the great part he played in sustaining the pomp and majesty of kings; but his simple acknowledgment of the role of faithful servant, is more eloquent than sermons in bra.s.s.

-- Finally, a small altar to the right of the porch carries this text from Colossians iii:23, the motto given to Bismarck many, many years before by Rev. Schliermacher, the pastor who confirmed the boy Otto; and that motto became indeed Bismarck's guiding star through life, as now well you do know, balancing his record with the solemn Biblical injunction you read here beside the master's tomb:

-- "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men."

THE END