you know," asked my friend, "which is the greatest speech Bismarck ever made?... The speech upon the Septennate Bill, that in which he declared that the last war with France was as child's play compared with the next should there be a second-and that should Germany triumph she would be compelled to cripple her enemy for a generation.' As it happened, I had heard this very speech. It was delivered in the Reichstag in February, 1887, and it was without doubt, as to content, a marvellous effort, just as from the political standpoint it was a momentous utterance. Moltke was present that memorable morning, and sat just below the Ministerial tribune-cool and impassive as ever, a bundle of bones to look at, but for that intellectual, majestic, Cæsarian head which stamped him as a masterspirit. He had already intervened in the debate, to declare it as his deliberate conviction that unless the Septennate Bill were passed there would be war. Seldom indeed did the venerable "battle-thinker"-the Great Silent One, as he was by preference called claim any of the time of the Reichstag, and when he did speak it was usually in a few short, direct, pragmatic sentences, and always upon those military questions which he understood as none other. Upon this occasion his utterances created a profound impression, and this the Chancellor still further intensified by a speech which will probably rank as the most powerful which he ever made. 'We Germans fear God and nothing else in the world," he declared with fine fervor, and the assembly broke into frantic plaudits. Perhaps none of Bismarck's innumerable aphorisms enjoyed so cordial a reception among his countrymen.

66

The storm passed over quietly, and to the hasty observer it seemed as though it had been the veriest summer lightning that had flashed in the political firmament. In reality, the omens were very sinister. The political situation in Germany was acuter at that time than ever since the war of 1870-71acuter even than when the famous "War-in-sight" article of the Berlin Post set Europe by the ears in 1875. It is now known that Moltke was hon

estly convinced that France not merely wished for war, but was determined to find or create an occasion for it, and he was in favor of taking the initiative, and so meeting more advantageously a dire emergency which he believed to be inevitable. Not only so, but Bismarck has since declared that, beyond any doubt, the old Emperor himself-greatly as he loved peace-would at that time have allowed himself to be involved in a new war with the hereditary enemy, had his Chancellor but staked his word that it was necessary. Happily, Europe was saved from the threatened catastrophe.

I remember how, after his speech was over, and the shouts of the Right had died away, Bismarck stepped down to old Moltke's side and took a seat beside him. It was an impressive, an historical, a truly "psychological" moment. The business of the sitting went on as formality required; and Herr Something, Deputy for Somewhere, had begun a buzzing oration that was intended to be a reply to the Chancellor. the House and the spectators paid no heed. The marvellous voice had ceased, but the spell still endured, and all eyes were riveted upon the spot where those twin paladins of the Empire were chatting together as if oblivious of the fact that all Europe was hanging upon the pregnant words which had just been spoken.

But

Soon afterward Prince Bismarck left the Reichstag. It was his wont to be driven to and from his residence in the Wilhelmstrasse, but on this occasion he walked. How he got home was a mystery. Not only the approach to the Parliament House, but the whole adjacent street, was packed by a well-dressed and exultant crowd. Not one in a hundred had heard the speech, but all knew it had been made and-well, here was Bismarck back again! So they gave themselves over to jubilation as a Berlin crowd, familiarized almost to satiety though it is with great events and personages, so well knows how to do. They cheered, and shouted, and sang; they waved their handkerchiefs, and threw up their hats, and lost them; and, in general, acted like wild schoolboys. By mere chance I gained the street as the Chancellor, in charge of

Count Herbert Bismarck, as informal beadle-in-chief, began his triumphal progress home, and willy-nilly I was pushed on in front of him all the way to the Chancellery, a quarter of a mile distant, for there was no getting free. If ever Prince Bismarck was pleased with Berlin it must have been on that day. The ovation clearly went to his heart, and from beginning to end of the slow and measured walk his face was radiant with delight, while tears were in his eyes.

But Bismarck's speeches were good to read as well as to hear. It has been my painful lot to have waded through an appalling amount of German Parliamentary oratory, and it would be setting up a wholly indefensible fiction to say that vivacity is its distinguishing characteristic. Intellectually it is, as a rule, keen and forcible: it is as logical and ratiocinative as the German mind itself; it proves what it sets itself to prove; yet it carries no one away with it for it is but little relieved by those traits which evidence the orator's intimate touch with life. That this should be so brings into greater relief the great charm of Bismarck's speeches-their actuality and human interest. I suppose that no contemporary statesman has given to the world so many brilliant apophthegms that will live. These always came with the directness of the lightning flash, and they stuck like burrs. And what a storehouse of historical incident was his memory! If Macaulay, as a history-writer, is unrivalled in the faculty of happy literary allusion, Prince Bismarck, as a historymaker, had an equally wonderful knack of illustrating the present by reference to the past. Germany has no gray constitutional annals and precedents to which a Minister may, if so minded, appeal, for in truth precedents are of questionable utility in a country where Princes and Parliaments still grind each other like upper and nether millstones. But Bismarck's knowledge of the political history of the old and new Empires, and especially of the period covered by his own public life, extended to the minutest details, and whenever occasion arose he would flash down upon his hearers with telling recollections which betrayed the breadth and depth of his

studies and experience, and stamped him as one who spoke with unimpugnable authority. His wit and humor, too, were delightful because spontaneous, and there was plenty of both, for he was human all through. The character which the world has united to regard as adamantine, had yet its soft and supple parts. I vividly remember how this characteristic showed itself when I visited Friedrichsruh. During the forenoon meal which preceded a long tête-à-tête, the conversation was general, and the Prince was the soul of it all. He kept the whole table in the brightest humor, as happy bon mot, sententious obiter dictum, and entertaining story, drawn from his own official experience, left his ready lips in turn. He laughed heartily with the rest as he told of a certain Grand Duchess, all of the olden time, who could not tolerate him. "She used to say that I was too haughty-that I spoke as if I were myself a Grand Duke. For she used to divide humanity into three classes-whites, blacks, and Grand Dukes, though the Grand Dukes, of course, came first."

Within the Reichstag the feeling held toward the Prince was that of admiration and cold respect rather than attachment and cordiality. In private life he could unbend to the warmest geniality, but in the rough places of politics he maintained a reserve which kept the great mass of Parliamentarians at a distance. "We called him the great BowBow," said to me a former member of the Reichstag who had come in fearful contact with the ex-Chancellor in committee rooms and elsewhere. When he

entered the House he seldom exchanged words with any save his colleagues on the Ministerial tribune. It was only at the well-known "Bismarck evenings" that the official stiffness and formality were put on one side; those re-unions, to which representatives of most of the fractions were invited, were genial indeed. Even among his immediate colleagues of the Cabinet he cultivated no great intimacies. It is hardly to be wondered at, for equals he had none, and the members alike of the Imperial and the Prussian Cabinet all owed their positions to his own "favor and mere motion."

More than once it has been charged against him that in these relationships he was high-handed and inconsiderate, and that short shrift awaited the man who was unlucky enough to be in his way. Bismarck has, in fact, been called 66 a good hater." He was, as he He was, as he was a good friend-it was all a matter of experience. Certainly, he was slow to tolerate open, much less clandestine, opposition, and to the opponent who ventured deliberately to cross his path he showed no quarter. It is easy, judgIt is easy, judging the matter from a non-German standpoint, to convict Bismarck of intolerance in this respect. But both the men and the methods that are called into play in a semi-absolutistic system of Government are of necessity very different from those pertaining to a country where the last repository of power is the people and its elected assembly. Effective underhand conspiracy and illicit influence are wellnigh inconceivable in this country, where the relationships of Minister to minister are concerned. But, as a matter of fact, Prince Bismarck had at different parts of his career to contend with both, and if he retaliated with relentless measures, he could, at least, claim that he had the welfare of the State, as he understood it, alone at heart, and that personal interests were out of the question. But given the confidence, straightforwardness, and loyalty which he esteemed in his colleagues and subordinates more than genius, and no man was truer and firmer in his attachments. None the less, his ways were rough and ready. When a Minister became in; tractable, or otherwise no longer filled office to his satisfaction, he received a plain intimation that a change would be desirable. "They left me, the laconic phrase in which Bismarck described to myself the Ministerial changes which were a prelude to the reversal of Germany's fiscal policy which began to take effect in 1876. But they left him because above them was a man of iron will, whose imperative word was to this man, "Go," and to another, "Come," and whose word was law.

was

In the Reichstag itself there was, perhaps, only one member to whom Bismarck took a personal aversion. It

was Herr Eugen Richter, the talented but wayward leader of the ultra-Radicals. It seemed clear to all observers that Richter took a genuine delight in tormenting the Chancellor, and thwarting him on all possible occasions. It is, of course, the duty of an Opposition to oppose, but Richter's policy was one of consistent obstruction, and the description of him, in Goethe's phrase, as "the spirit of eternal negation," fitted him accurately. Bismarck, for his part, returned his antagonist's hostility duly, though at the same time decorously, until dislike took the form of dignified indifference. Toward the end of his Parliamentary career Bismarck took as little notice of his keen and aggravating critic as possible, and ceased altogether to pay him the compliment of listening to his biting speeches. Many of Richter's Richter's own friends were disappointed with his demeanor toward a statesman who, whatever his political theories, was at least the maker of the German Empire. Nor could youthful exuberance be pleaded in extenuation of the Radical leader's indiscretion. Richter became sixty years of age on the very day that Bismarck died.

To speak of Friedrichsruh suggests a very different side of Prince Bismarck's character. It is not a little significant that Bismarck and Moltke, those two men of mighty purpose and deep design, who were alike in so much else, should have shared a remarkable fondness for simple, homely life. Moltke on his Silesian Gut, and Bismarck in his modest retreat in the Sachsenwald, would have made model English country squires of half a century ago. For the so-called "castle" of Friedrichsruh is in reality but a pleasant country house of only moderate dimensions, such a house as the well-to-do Yorkshire or Lancashire manufacturer of these days, who leases his residence and seldom either buys or builds, would judge sufficient for his family's needs, but not more. A small park" is attached to the house, but its condition is only a few removes from the chaotic, and it lies altogether to the rear. From the lodge gates to the entrance there is only a simple carriage way of some twenty yards or so.

66

Within the walls the same simplicity reigned. (I speak of the past, of Friedrichsruh as I myself have seen it.) German homes never suggest the furniture shop, and the home of Prince Bismarck was like the rest. Only needful articles of furniture stood about the rooms, and of decoration there was absolutely no trace. So, too, old-fashioned ways ruled. The tell-tale blotting paper only sparingly took the place of the sand-box; the wax and seal did constant service; and if the tinder and flint long since went out, the matches used were of a massiveness which to modern taste must have seemed rude and uncouth. hold followed the same simple lines. There was no fastidiousness and no show -the economy was that of the burgher, rather than the princely family. From first to last, in its equipment, as in its conduct, the house preserved the essentials of an old North German Junkerheim-plain, substantial, jovial, and unconstrained. Here, as he often said, many of the happiest of the old days were spent, and even in the time of his retirement, galling as it was, the serene and genial associations of Friedrichsruh brought precious compensations. The country people were proud of their great neighbor, and continually bestowed upon him such humble tokens of their affection as farmyard and garden and forest yielded. During my visit, there was brought to the Prince a prettily arranged basket of Waldmeister (woodruff), attached to which was a label. He read it, and turning to me said, with a smile of genuine pleasure, "The people are very kind. Some one has just made me this present. We use it for the Maibowle" (a beverage of which white wine is the chief component). To such attentions he was very susceptible, and they helped to make the tie between him and the Sachsenwald so strong, that in death he would not allow it to be severed. He chose to be buried on the Schneckenberg from no ill-humor or whim, but because he knew that there he would always be among his friends.

The order of the house

A more delicate episode must be touched on here, and fairness requires the admission that the last word has not yet been said upon the subject by NEW SERIES.-VOL. LXVIII., No. 5.

It will

those most nearly concerned. be fresh in every memory how, early in March of 1890, the report got abroad that between the Emperor William II. and his Chancellor difference of opinion. had arisen. Before many hours had passed it became known definitely that the difference was acute, though now as then the actual cause was obscure. Then came talk of resignation; followed quickly by the act itself, and by the issue of an Imperial rescript confirming it, yet also notifying the bestowal of new titular honors upon the retiring Minister. Great as was the trouble taken to allow Bismarck's renunciation of office to bear the semblance of voluntary retirement, public suspicion was not satisfied, and soon so much of the bald truth leaked out as made it clear that the severance of Emperor and Chancellor had on one side been unwilling, on neither side amicable. The publication by Dr. Busch, on the day following Prince Bismarck's death, of the letter in which the virtual summons to resign was issued, has pointed the 's and crossed the t's of one passage in a deplorable story. I refer to the Emperor's decision (as King of Prussia) to supersede the Cabinet Order of 1852, regulating the relationship of Ministers of State to the Crown. Under that Order the relationship was made mediate (through the President of the Cabinet), rather than immediate, an arrangement held to be necessary in the interest of unity and continuity of policy, and to be an inevitable consequence of the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility laid down in the new Prussian Constitution. But this was not the only question at issue. Another point of discord was the summoning of the Berlin Labor Conference, to which Prince Bismarck was opposed from a fear that its result would be to place additional burdens upon industry, which the insurance laws had already, in his opinion, harassed enough; while another was the abandonment of the Socialist Law.

That Prince Bismarck was strongly opposed to the discontinuance of the exceptional law against the Socialists I heard from his own lips. His hostility to the Social-Democratic movement was, in fact, not more bitter than the

38

Socialists themselves allege, and if the latter endorse the saying which left Heine in one of his blackest moods, that there is no pleasure on earth so delightful as that of following your enemy to his grave, the last fortnight must have been a time of high glee for the political party which Bismarck consistently harried for twelve years.

The truth is, that even if it had been possible to patch up the first quarrel between the Emperor and his Chancellor, a dissolution would have inevitably come later. For Bismarck had been too long in harness to adapt himself to new conditions of service, he had grown too familiar with the "policy of the free hand" to accommodate himself to restrictions; he had become too adept in the ways and secrets of astute statecraft to take lessons from his pupil. Speaking with a brilliant member of the academic circle of Berlin about this time, I asked his opinion of the resignation incident. He shook his head as he replied, "Well, Bismarck is right and the Emperor is right. But," he added, "we could have wished that it had all been done differently." These words undoubtedly voiced the better opinion of Germany. Not only so, but the Emperor happily came round to the

same view.

He, too, lived to recognize that the same end might have been gained by other means it might "all have been done differently." Common justice, however, compels the admission that he did all he could to atone for the precipitous mistake of forcing his grandfather's and his father's Chancellor to retire into private life against his will, and amid circumstances which gave his enemies only too great cause for uncharitable jubilation.

Was Prince Bismarck, then, ever conciliated? Did those repeated imperial journeys to Canossa win for the pilgrim pardon?

It is to be feared not. Too much has, perhaps, been made of various incidents connected with the Emperor's thoughtful homage to the dead at Friedrichsruh, yet the truth remains that the manner of his congé rankled in Prince Bismarck's breast to the last, a grievance which all the polite phrases and professions of loyalty with which he met the Emperor's later attentions failed to conceal.

66

ever any

The idea that there was probability of Bismarck's returning to office is groundless. Even yet the legend lingers that when the deposed Chancellor left Berlin, amid an imposing manifestation of popular sympathy, he replied with an oracular equivocation to the cry of "You will return!" But it is a legend and nothing more. When the Prince went to Friedrichsruh in March, 1890, he went there for good and all. People make a great mistake," he said to me at his own table, "when they talk about my returning to office. They seem to think that it is simply necessary to call me and I will go at once. But they forget that I am. a gentleman; they forget what I owe to myself, to my to myself, to my honor." The words. were said, not in any spirit of animosity, but rather with a quiet, yet firm dignity, which made their significance the greater. It is true that Bismarck was wont to declare that never during the whole period of his laborious tenure. of office did he enjoy such joie de vivre as during his retirement, and that those who most triumphed over his fall were his best friends, yet no one who has read between the lines of his post-official utterances can doubt that his inaction was a constant source of disappointment and chagrin, and that he would rather have remained in office with its cares and animosities than have been relegated to privacy with its uneventful tedium and stagnation.

In this partial characterization of the Herculean figure which has just passed into the shades, no attempt has been made to estimate the value of his political achievements. Indeed, though these long ago became part of history, the task would be one of enormous difficulty. For are we even yet able to understand the significance, not merely for Germany, but for Europe and civilization at large, of the two great wars by whose blood and fire the union of twenty-six German States was consummated? A German Empire is the result! No doubt! But also a disintegrated and weakened Austria, a demoralized France which cannot get itself together again, a new Colonial Power, a rival in international commerce which

is threatening English supremacy in all parts of the world, a new lease of life