William of Germany Part 12

The "affaire," as it was universally known, was only once referred to in the German Parliament, in January, 1898, when Chancellor von Bulow declared "in the most positive way possible" that there had "never been any traffic or relations of any kind whatsoever between Dreyfus and any German authority," adding that the alleged finding of an official German communication in the wastepaper basket of the German Emba.s.sy in Paris was a fiction. The Chancellor concluded by saying that the case had in no respect ever troubled relations between Germany and France.

The incident most often cited as evidence of the Emperor's love of recalling the days of his great ancestor, Frederick the Great, is the concert he arranged at Sans Souci on June 13, 1895, to gratify, we may be sure, as well as surprise, the famous painter. The incident and its origin are described in a work already mentioned, the "Private Lives of William II and His Consort," by a lady of the Court. The account given below is ill.u.s.trative of the unfriendly sentiments which are evident throughout the work, but the lady is probably fairly accurate as regards the incident, and in any case her gossip will give the reader some notion, though by no means an entirely faithful one, of the Court atmosphere at the time. Talk at the palace during afternoon tea having turned on the fact that Adolf Menzel, the painter, would shortly celebrate his eightieth birthday, some one remarked on the refusal by the Court marshal in the previous reign to allow him to see the scene of his celebrated "Flute Concert at Sans Souci," which he was then composing, lighted up. The conversation, according to the lady writer, continued thus:--

"'Maybe he was frightened at the prospect of furnis.h.i.+ng a couple of dozen wax candles,' sneered the Duke of Schleswig.

"'More likely he knew nothing of Menzel's growing reputation,' suggested Begas, the sculptor.

"The Emperor overheard the last words. 'Are you prepared to say that my grand-uncle's chief marshal failed to recognize the genius of the foremost Hohenzollern painter?' he asked sharply.

"'I would not like to libel a dead man,' answered Begas, 'but appearances are certainly against the Count. I have it from Menzel's own lips that the Court marshal refused him all and every a.s.sistance when he was painting the scenes of life in Sans Souci. The rooms of the chateau were accessible to him only to the same extent as to any other paying visitor or the hordes of foreign tourists, and he had to make his sketches piece-meal, gathering corroborative and additional material in museums and picture-galleries.'

"Quick as a flash the Kaiser turned to Count Eulenburg. 'I shall repay the debt Prussia owes to Menzel,' he spoke, not without declamatory effect. 'We will have the representation of the Sans Souci flute concert three days hence. Your programme is to be ready tomorrow morning at ten. Menzel, mind you, must know nothing of this: merely command him to attend us at the Schloss at supper and for a musical evening.' And, turning round, he said to her Majesty: 'You will impersonate Princess Amalia, and you, Kessel' (Adjutant von Kessel, then Commander of the First Life Guards), 'engage all your tallest and best-looking officers to enact the great King's military household.'

"Again the Kaiser addressed Count Eulenberg: 'Be sure to have the best artists of the Royal Orchestra perform Frederick the Great's compositions, and let Joachim be engaged for the occasion.' Saying this, he took her Majesty's arm, and bidding his guests and the Court a hasty good-night, strode out of the apartment."

A description of the Empress's costume for the concert follows.

"Her Majesty's dress consisted of a petticoat of sea-green satin, richly ornamented with silver lace of antique pattern and an overdress of dark velvet, embroidered with gold and set with precious stones. On her powdered hair, amplified by one of Herr Adeljana, the Viennese coiffeur's, most successful creations, sat a jaunty three-cornered hat having a blazing aigrette of large diamonds in front, the identical cl.u.s.ter of white stones which figured at the great Napoleon's coronation, and which he lost, together with his entire equipage, in the battle of Waterloo. In her ears her Majesty wore pearl ornaments representing a small bunch of cherries. Like the aigrette, they are Crown property, and that Auguste Victoria thought well enough of the jewels to rescue them from oblivion for this occasion was certainly most appropriate."

The Emperor's costume is also described.

"He wore the cuira.s.sier uniform of the great Frederick's period, a highly ornamented dress that suited the War Lord, who was painted and powdered to perfection, extremely well, especially as Wellington boots, a very becoming wig and his strange head-gear really and seemingly added to his figure, while his usually stern face beamed pleasantly under the powder and rouge laid on by expert hands."

The arrival of Menzel is then narrated and the reception by the Emperor, who took the part of an adjutant of Frederick the Great's, and in that character "bombarded the helpless master," as the chronicler says,

"with forty stanzas of alleged verse, in which the deeds of Prussia's kings and the masterpieces that commemorate them were extolled with a prosiness that sounded like an afterclap of William's Reichstag and monument orations."

A real concert followed, and supper was taken in the Marble Hall adjoining. The auth.o.r.ess concludes as follows:--

"I was contemplating these reminiscences (the pictures of La Barberini) in silent reverie when the door opened and the Kaiser came in with little Menzel.

"'I have a mind to engage Angeli to paint her Majesty's picture in the costume of Princess Amalia,' said the Emperor 'What do you think of it?'

"'Angeli is painter to many emperors and kings,' replied the Professor, and I saw him smile diplomatically as he moved his spectacles to get a better view of the allegorical canvas on the left wall that exhibits the nude figure of the famous mistress in its entirety.

"'I am glad you agree with me on that point,' said the Emperor, impatient to execute the idea that had crossed his mind. 'I will telegraph to him to-night.'

"And when, five minutes later, Menzel bent over my hand to take formal leave, I heard him murmur in his dry, absent-minded manner--'Pesne ... Angeli ... Frederick the Great ... William II!"

We have spoken of the Court atmosphere of this time. The following extracts from the Memoirs of ex-Chancellor Prince Hohenlohe will a.s.sist the reader, perhaps even better than a connected account, to enter, in imagination at all events, into it. The conversations cited between the Emperor and the Prince turn on all sorts of topics--the pa.s.s question in Alsace (where Hohenlohe was then Statthalter), the possibility of war with Russia, pheasant shooting, projected monuments, the breach with Bismarck, the Triple Alliance, and a hundred more of the most different kinds. Once talking domestic politics, the Emperor said:

"It will end by the Social Democrats getting the upper hand.

Then they will plunder the people. Not that I care. I will have the palace loop-holed and look on at the plundering.

The burghers will soon call on me for help;"

and on another occasion, in 1889, Hohenlohe tells of a dinner at the palace, and how after dinner, when the Empress and her ladies had gone into another _salon_, the Emperor, Hohenlohe, and Dr. Hinzpeter (the Emperor's old tutor) conversed together for an hour, all standing.

"The first subject touched on," relates the Prince, was the gymnasia (high schools), the Emperor holding that they made too exacting claims on the scholars, while Hohenlohe and Hinzpeter pointed out that otherwise the run on the schools would be too great and cause danger of a "learned proletariat." Prince Hohenlohe concludes:

"In the whole conversation, which never once came to a standstill, I was pleased by the fresh, lively manner of the Emperor, and was in all ways reminded of his grandfather, Prince Albert."

Next year the Prince was present at an official dinner in the Berlin palace. He writes:--

"BERLIN, 22 _March_, 1890.

"At seven, dinner in the White Salon (at the palace). I sat opposite the Empress and between Moltke and Kameke. The former was very communicative, but was greatly interfered with by the continuous music, and was very angry at it. Two bands were placed facing each other, and when one ceased the other began to play its trumpets. It was hardly endurable.

The Emperor made a speech in honour of the Queen of England and the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward, present on the occasion of the invest.i.ture of his son Prince George, now King George V, with the Order of the Black Eagle), and mentioned his nomination as English admiral (whose uniform he was wearing) and the comrades.h.i.+p-in-arms at the battle of Waterloo; he also hoped that the English fleet and the German army would together maintain peace. Moltke then said to me: 'Goethe says, "a political song, a discordant song."'

"He also said he hoped the speech wouldn't get into the papers."

(It did, however.)

The next extract describes a conversation Prince Hohenlohe had with the Emperor at Potsdam the following year. It gives an idea of the ordinary nature of conversations between the Emperor and his high officials on such occasions.

"BERLIN, 13 _December_, 1891.

"Yesterday forenoon was invited to the New Palace at Potsdam. Besides myself were the Prince and Princess von Wied, with the Mistress of the Robes and the Court marshal.

Emperor and Empress very amiable. The Emperor spoke of his hunting in Alsace, and supposed it would be some years before the game there would be abundant. Then he expressed his satisfaction at my acquisition of Gensburg, and when I told him there was not much room in the castle he said, no matter, he could nevertheless pa.s.s a few days there with a couple of gentlemen very pleasantly. Pa.s.sing to politics, he gave vent to his displeasure at the att.i.tude of the Conservative party, who were hindering the formation of a Conservative-monarchical combination against the Progressives and Social Democrats. This was all the more regrettable as the Progressives, if now and then they opposed the Social Democrats, still at bottom were with them. The Emperor approves of the commercial treaties and seemed to have great confidence in Caprivi generally. As we came to speak of intrigues and gossip, the Emperor hinted that Bismarck was behind them. He added that people were urging him from many quarters to be reconciled with Bismarck, but it was not for him to take the first step. He seemed well informed about the situation in Russia and considered it very dangerous. When I asked the Emperor how he stood now with the Czar, he replied 'Badly. He went through here without paying me a visit, and I only write him ceremonious letters. The Queen of Denmark prevented him coming to Berlin, for fear he should go to Potsdam. She has gone now with him to Livadia on the pretext of the silver wedding, but in reality to keep him away from Berlin.'"

Writing of a lunch at Potsdam, under date Berlin, November 10, 1892, the Prince notes:--

"The Emperor came late and looked tired, but was in good spirits. We went immediately to table. Afterwards the conversation turned on Bismarck. 'When one compares what Bismarck does with that for which poor Arnim had to suffer!'

He would do nothing, he said, against Bismarck, but the consequences of the whole thing were very serious. Waldersee and Bismarck couldn't abide one another. They had, however, become allies out of common hatred of Caprivi, whose fall Bismarck desired. What might happen afterwards neither cared."

The following was penned after the old Chancellor's visit of reconciliation:--

"BERLIN, 27 _January_, 1894.

"To-night gala performance at the opera. Between the acts I talked first with different monarchs, the King of Wurttemberg, the King of Saxony, the Grand Duke of Oldenburg, and so on. Then I was sent for by the Empress, of whom I took leave. The Emperor came shortly afterwards. We spoke of Bismarck's visit the day before and the good consequences for the Emperor it would have. 'Yes,' said the Emperor, 'now they can put up triumphal arches for him in Vienna and Munich, I am all the time a length ahead. If the press continues its abuse it only puts itself and Bismarck in the wrong.' I mentioned that red-hot partisans of Bismarck were greatly dissatisfied with the visit, and said the Emperor should have gone to Friedrichsruh (Bismarck's estate near Hamburg). 'I am well aware of it,' said the Emperor,'but for that they would have had a long time to wait. He had to come here.' On the whole the Emperor spoke very sensibly and decisively, and I did not at all get the impression that he now wants to change everything."

Prince Hohenlohe was summoned to Potsdam in October, 1894, by a telegram from the Emperor. All the telegram said was that "important interests of the Empire" were concerned. Hohenlohe was only aware of the dismissal of Caprivi from a newspaper he read in Frankfort on his way to Potsdam. The Emperor met him at the station (Wildpark) and conveyed him to the New Palace, where the Prince agreed to accept the Chancellors.h.i.+p "at the Emperor's earnest request." Princess Hohenlohe was decidedly against her husband, who was now seventy-five, accepting the post, and even ventured to telegraph to the Empress to prevent it.

The Prince has a note on his intercourse with his imperial master. He is writing to his son, Prince Alexander:--

"BERLIN, 17 _October_, 1896.

"It is a curious thing--my relations to his Majesty. I come now and then to the conclusion, owing to his small inconsideratenesses, that he intentionally avoids me and that things can't continue so. Then again I talk with him and see that I am mistaken. Yesterday I had occasion to report to him, and he poured out his heart to me and took occasion in the friendliest way to ask my advice. And thus my distrust is dissipated."

Hunting with the Emperor:--

"15 _December_, 1896.

"Yesterday I obeyed the royal invitation to hunt at Springe.

I had to leave Berlin as early as 7 a.m. to catch the royal train at Potsdam. From Springe railway station we pa.s.sed immediately into the hunting district. Only sows were shot.

I brought down six. Then we drove to the Schloss, rested for a few hours and then dined. The Emperor was in very good humour and talked incessantly; in addition the Uhlan band and the usually noisy conversation."

When presenting his resignation to the Emperor at Hamburg in October, 1900, the Prince, who had evidently been for some time aware that his term of office was drawing to a close, describes his conversation with the Emperor:--

"At noon, as I came to the Emperor, he received me in a very friendly way. We first settled about summoning the Reichstag, and then his Majesty said, 'I have received a very distressing letter'--an allusion to the Chancellor's official letter of resignation, which he had placed in the Emperor's hands through Tschirschky, Foreign Minister. 'As I then,' continued Hohenlohe, 'explained the necessity of my resignation on the ground of my health and age the Emperor, apparently quite satisfied, agreed, so that I could see he had already expected my request and consequently that it was high time I should make it. We talked further over the question of my successor, and I was agreeably surprised when he forthwith mentioned Bulow, who certainly at the moment is the best man available. His Majesty then said he would telegraph to Luca.n.u.s (Chief of the Civil Cabinet) to bring Bulow to Homburg so that we might consult about details. I breakfasted with their Majesties and went calmly home.'"