A royal son and mother

by freiherrin von Pauline Hügel

I.—GERMANY.

It is rather strange that no times should have differed from one another more widely than the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We feel more in sympathy with, say the fourth or fifth century, that produced a Jerome, an Augustine, and a John Chrysostom—an age of decadence, no doubt; and yet one of intense intellectual activity, of deep heart-searching, of vehement thirst after truth,—than with those days so comparatively close to our own, when all seemed so cold, so colorless, so shallow; when the very first need of man—his need of God—was as though it had died away.

Then came the French Revolution, succeeded by the terrible Napoleonic days, when apathy and indolence had perforce to be shaken off, and men were roused to the consciousness that there was still such a thing as patriotism in the world; that noble enthusiasms needed but the strong winds of adversity to fan them into flame. And yet how deep-seated were the nervelessness and indolence of the children of an effete civilization! Had the Corsican tyrant worn his laurels with one degree less of insolence, had his despotism been a little less brutal, German princes and Russian statesmen and Italian diplomatists might have gone on obligingly handing him over crown after crown.

An age barren in patriots is also an age barren in saints. The man who can not be fired to a lofty enthusiasm, to heroic self-sacrifice for his country, is not made of the same stuff as those blessedly violent ones who carry the kingdom of heaven by storm. Hence we see a lamentable dead level in the religious life of the eighteenth century. The gentle Anna Emmerich was almost persecuted by good men for having the stigmata; anything abnormal, anything like direct interference on the part of Heaven with the ordinary jog-trot of human existence, aroused suspicion, even resentment. There was indeed faith, beautiful and deep-rooted, among the Catholic poor; but the wise of this world had not only lost faith, but lost all respect for faith; it was looked upon as something obsolete, useless, no longer capable of exercising any power over the lives of men. Bound, as they said, to die out among the lower orders of society, the upper classes had already flung it aside, as soon as the fashionable French philosophy had won the day.

It was at this period of spiritual darkness, as yet showing no signs of the grand revival to come, that Amalie von Schmettau was born in Berlin, in the year 1748. Field-Marshal Count von Schmettau, her father, was a Protestant; but, as her mother was a nominal Catholic, Amalie was to be brought up in the old faith. She was sent at a very early age to a convent school in Breslau, from whence at fourteen she returned good and innocent but with a very imperfect education. "I felt," she wrote in later years, "as though I had dropped from the skies, to find myself abruptly removed from the atmosphere of an enclosed convent to that of my mother's house, one of those most frequented by the gay world of Berlin."

Frederick the Great had received Voltaire with open arms at his court, and the French infidel had taught fashionable German society to sneer in the most approved style at all things great and holy. The grand old language of their fathers was no longer tolerated; in polished circles only French was to be spoken and written; and with the old language the old beliefs were to go too; and, if possible, that which has been well called the glory of the Teutonic race—its hunger and thirst after God.

Amalie von Schmettau, whose rare abilities fitted her to shine so brilliantly in her mother's salon was now sent to an educational establishment in Berlin, conducted by an avowed French atheist. The girl remained there about eighteen months, to return home once more, still innocent and in one sense unspoiled, but with no faith whatever left. Her beauty, her great talents, her musical accomplishments, and a certain innate refinement and distinction, quickly made her a great favorite at court.

In 1768 she went to Aix-la-Chapelle as lady in waiting to one of the German princesses. Here she met Prince Gallitzin, the Russian Ambassador to France. He was a man considerably older than the interesting young girl, but perhaps all the quicker to discern and appreciate her superior qualities. After a short acquaintance he made her an offer of marriage, that was accepted both by Amalie herself and her relatives, though for very different reasons. It was a brilliant marriage; this recommended the Prince to her family. With Amalie this side of the question had not the least weight. In after years she wrote to an intimate friend: "My heart did not feel the need of what is generally called love. But an affection that would lead one to desire and seek the perfection of the person one cared for—this I felt myself strongly capable of; it was an idea that had taken deep root within me and had become necessary to my happiness. Such an ideal was quite independent of externals. I believed the Prince could be everything to me, if he but shared these views."

Alas! so far from sharing them, he was not even capable of comprehending them. He proved himself in many ways a kind husband and father; but he was a disciple of the new school, which owned Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alembert and the other Encyclopedists for its leaders; and in their philosophy poor Amalie's idealism had no place. Indeed, proof does not seem wanting that the evil tree—French philosophy—brought forth evil fruit in the moral conduct of Amalie's husband, which explains the long years of their separation. But over this the high-souled wife has thrown a veil, which it would be useless and ungenerous now to draw aside. At the time of their marriage the young wife was almost as little of a Christian as her elderly husband; but while she was groping toward the light in a darkness that oppressed her, he was content with his own shallow views of life.

Shortly after their marriage Prince Gallitzin took his beautiful bride to St. Petersburg. She was presented to the famous Empress Catherine, who soon after appointed Prince Gallitzin Minister to the Hague. In Berlin, on their way to Holland, Marie Anna (Mimi), their only daughter was born; and a year later, in December, 1770, at the Hague, their only son, Demetrius.

Amalie's life was now seemingly a brilliant one. Rich, young and beautiful, highly gifted, blessed with two dearly loved children, she was not happy. "In vain," she writes, "did I throw myself into the distractions and amusements of the great world. I brought back after these entertainments, visits, dances, theatricals, and other frivolities, only an increased, fruitless longing after something higher, something better, which I could speak of to no one. It was seldom that I did not cry myself to sleep. I felt like one of those actors who have to amuse others on the stage while in secret they are shedding bitter tears."

She felt a great longing to lead a quiet, retired life, devoted to study and the education of her children. But the obstacles in the way of such a plan seemed insurmountable. And now we can but admire how God Himself leads onward the soul that is unconsciously striving after Him.

Diderot, one of the French atheistic philosophers, was for a time living at the embassy as Prince Gallitzin's guest. Amalie opened her heart to him, and he approved of her wish to devote herself to "philosophy," and to give up the world and its frivolities. He undertook to obtain her husband's consent, which he did; and in future, whilst keeping on cordial terms, corresponding regularly, and meeting occasionally, the Prince and his wife pursued their very different ways apart.

Amalie never did things by halves. She took care quickly to burn her ships behind her. She cut herself off from all society, save that of a chosen set of intimate friends of like mind with herself. Every luxury of dress, which then was at its height, was rigorously renounced. Her beautiful dark hair, in which splendid, costly pearls had been wont to gleam, and which had been particularly admired, was shaven off, and a black flat wig worn instead. The gay embassy was abandoned for a plain little country-house situated between the Hague and Schevelingen; and, as a warning to visitors, over the door hung a sign-board with the strange device, Nithuys—"Not at home."

Amalie was now exceedingly happy. "Soon I felt such comfort in this new life, in constant intercourse with my children, in gradual advance in knowledge, and above all in the peace of conscience with which I every night retired to rest, that still higher thoughts found room in my mind. God and my own soul came to be the usual subjects of my reflections and investigations."

That Amalie Gallitzin's young children received a very strange education her most ardent admirers would not seek to deny. It must be remembered she was really educating herself—trying first one system and then another, anxious to put what she read into practice, and making many an experiment with the poor little boy and girl. Mimi, the daughter, being somewhat of an amiable non-entity, was affected comparatively little by the educational vagaries of her mother. At one time she and her brother were made to run about barefoot, at another to plunge into the cold river from a bridge, to "harden" them and make them fearless.

But with Mitri (Demetrius)—clever, impulsive, sensitive, refined—mistakes were likely to be fraught with evil consequences. That his mother, who loved him so dearly, and whom he resembled so much, later on, in his splendid spirit of self-sacrifice and utter unworldliness, sorely misunderstood him seems certain. From the first she had an impossibly high standard for the poor boy, who, naturally spirited, was forever being checked and veered round like a pony in a game of polo. This led to a seeming indecision and weakness of character very foreign to his real nature. If you do not know where you stand, it is difficult to "put your foot down." Now, to his mother, who was all fire and energy, anything like weakness and half-heartedness was of all things most intolerable. His father, who saw the boy but seldom, judged far more correctly when he said: "That lad has really a tremendous will of his own, and will always go counter to the stream."

And yet all the different systems of philosophy and education (some absurd enough) that were tried on herself and her two children by the Princess, were adopted and abandoned with such earnestness of purpose, such a single-eyed desire to do not only right but the best, that we feel the Sacred Heart must have been touched; and we do not wonder that our generous God should have made all things co-operate unto good to that favored mother and son, who were by and by to love Him with a love nothing short of heroic.

Demetrius had a prodigious memory, and in his old age could still describe how when he was four years old he was taken to see the Empress Catherine, who petted the pretty, fair-haired, blue-eyed child, and then and there presented him with that ensign's commission in the Russian army which was destined to be the source of so much trouble. He remembered those early days and their sumptuous elegance, in which, as to the manner born, he had been the little tyrant, ordering about servants and serfs in most lordly style. But soon all that was changed: he was required to live in quite a poor way, to wait upon himself, and not to be spared the rod for childish misdemeanors.

In a memorandum from the Princess to the children's tutor we find the following: "Keep a sharp lookout on the children's chief faults. Mimi is talkative, vindictive and quarrelsome; and Mitri gives me much pain by his inveterate laziness and absurd want of pluck." Very serious are her letters to her son, who was, after all, but a little boy. On his fourteenth birthday she wrote to him:

"My thoughts to-day are a mixture of joy and dread. My first thought on awaking was certainly one of joy, love and gratitude that God had given you to me,—that He had granted me the grace to bring a soul into the world, destined, perhaps, to eternal salvation. But, oh, this 'perhaps'! Here came another cruel thought, fraught with fear and great uneasiness. To-day I said to myself: 'He has lived fourteen years, and he is still, alas! quite will-less and colorless, creeping along life according to the lead and will-power of others.' This terrible thought suggested the doubt whether this being I had brought into the world could ever grow up into a man pleasing to God, an heir of salvation; or whether, in spite of all the excellent gifts bestowed upon him by an all-good Creator to enable him to be one of the best and happiest of men; whether in spite of my anxieties, prayers, entreaties, he would continue to hasten on toward destruction.

"For a while I had been full of better hopes, which I gladly own have not altogether left me; but they have all grown dim since I have seen the ever-recurring signs of the slavish way in which you sink back into your dreadful sloth and want of energy.... Have mercy on him, Heavenly Father,—have mercy on him and on me! Hear him, help him, and strengthen him when he prays with sincerity and a firm will. Lord, Thou who knowest all things, Thou knowest that I care nothing for the praise of men, for riches, for honors, either for him or for myself; but only for the honor of pleasing Thee and for the happiness of both together drawing nearer and nearer to Thee, till we shall be united in that love and blessedness which Thou hast promised us for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."

But in quoting this remarkable letter we are anticipating. In the year 1779 the Princess began to think of a change of residence. Her little retreat did not afford the necessary means of education for children beyond a certain age. At first Geneva suggested itself as a likely place; it was in the heyday of its reputation as a city of culture and modern "enlightenment." Moreover, Prince Gallitzin owned a small property in its neighborhood, and readily gave his assent to a family migration. But it was not to be: God was about to lead the eager, earnest, groping soul surely and sweetly into His pleasant paths of peace.

Before Geneva had been finally settled upon, Amalie was told wonders of a new educational system introduced by Franz von Fürstenberg, as minister of Prince Maximilian of Cologne, into the town of Münster and other districts of Westphalia. This holy and enlightened priest was greatly in advance of his age, and had devised such an excellent scheme for public education that even infidel philosophers were forced to express wonder and admiration.

The Princess was far too eager to investigate anything likely to benefit her two children not to decide upon a visit to Münster as soon as she had read one of Fürstenberg's pamphlets. From their first acquaintance this truly great man made a profound impression upon her. In her letters to her husband she always speaks of Fürstenberg as le grand homme. This admiration soon ripened into a friendship which made her feel the priest's counsel and support necessary to her in the great task of her life—the education of her children. Moreover, Fürstenberg did not stand alone: at his side was the saintly Overberg, who devoted his time and talents to teaching the teachers of the poor. She felt, and with reason, that she now lived in an entirely new world.

Her new friends did not talk religion to her—that would at once have repelled her,—they lived religion. Their lives were obviously the fruit of an unseen deep root. Amalie asked no questions, she but basked in this sunny atmosphere of light and life, from which she felt it impossible to tear herself away. She rented a small country-place, known as Angelmodde, in the neighborhood of Münster; and now at length the days of real education had begun. To her own children, Mimi and Mitri, were added Amalie von Schmettau, who afterward became a nun in Vienna; George, a son of the celebrated Jakobi; and the Droste-Vischerings, one of whom became dean, the other bishop of Münster.

The Princess, in her anxious search after truth and goodness, had lost none of her old sprightliness and charm. Her society to the end was eagerly courted by all the best and most distinguished men of her time. But, strange to say, even yet Amalie continued to believe she was attracted to Fürstenberg and her new friends in spite of, rather than because of, their religion. "I could not," she once wrote, "blind myself to the great views and principles of Herr von Fürstenberg; but I felt I must forgive him his Christianity on the score of early education and prejudice. I had started my friendship by frankly asking him kindly not to convert me, as in all that concerned Almighty God I could stand no meddling; that I did not fail to pray to Him for light, and at the same time kept my heart open to receive it." Hence even then there could be no question of definite dogmatic Christian teaching in the education of her own and her adopted children.

Later she mourned that her want of faith had deprived the children's earlier years of the blessed knowledge of Christ. Once, when speaking of a family singularly fortunate in the way the sons had turned out, she unhesitatingly ascribed it to their early training in piety and devotion; adding that what she had obtained only through infinite pains and labor, these Christian parents had effected with comparatively little or no trouble.

But a practical difficulty now arose. What were the children, no longer little children, to be taught about religion? It was the very last subject she would entrust to the teaching of a stranger; yet what did she herself know or believe about it? But at length she solved the vexed problem by resolving to teach them "historical Christianity," as she called it, leaving them free to choose their own religion as they grew up. But even for this she had to qualify herself, and with her usual whole-heartedness she threw herself into a most careful and conscientious study of the Bible, especially of the New Testament.

And then there arose before her, dim and shadowy at first, but ever gaining in strength and light and beauty, the blessed picture of the Incarnate God,—of Him who is not only the light of the New Jerusalem, but the sunshine, the glory of every faithful soul in this vale of tears. "I resolved," she says in her memoirs, "to obey our Saviour's touching advice: 'My doctrine is not Mine but His that sent Me. If any man will do the will of Him, he shall know of the doctrine.' Consequently I began to act as if I really believed in Him. I at once compared my principles and actions with His teaching; and how much did I not find that required attention,—many things that before had hardly seemed to me to be faults! I had prayed before only rarely, now I began to pray frequently; and so often were my petitions answered that I became incapable of doubting the efficacy of prayer. Certain doubts against Christianity also were gradually cleared away."

During this time of spiritual growth she was attacked by a dangerous and tedious illness, during which she was forbidden to exert herself in any way; even the children's education had to be entrusted to other hands. Hence she had plenty of leisure for quiet reflection, self-examination, and above all prayer. And so it came about that on the Feast of St. Augustine, which happened also to be her birthday, Amalie's eager, troubled spirit found joy and peace in a very humble confession—her first since the old days of childhood. In the saintly Dr. Overberg she found not merely a confessor, but a spiritual father,—"some one who," as she so well expresses it, "would care for me sufficiently in spite of all my unlovableness, out of pure Christian zeal; one who would look after me spiritually, train me, correct, comfort and exhort me."

Soon afterward she wrote to Mitri, somewhat wistfully: "Dear child, I am obliged to grieve you so often because I must wish and will for you what till now you have not known how to wish and will for yourself; and I have had to keep you from what you most eagerly desired. Believe me, my dear son, this constant thwarting of your wishes is the hardest of my duties; for it seems to me as though thereby I might lose your love and confidence. And yet some day—perchance only after I am in my grave—you will learn to bless me for this strictness." And the day did come; for in far-distant America the grand old missionary would at times, with tears in his eyes, talk by the hour in glowing words of his "glorious mother."

Amalie's children soon followed her example in submitting themselves to the Church. On Trinity Sunday, 1787, they were both Confirmed; they were now seventeen and eighteen years of age.

Prince Gallitzin seems to have manifested no displeasure at the religious conversion of his wife and children. As his son was receiving the liberal education befitting a youth of his rank—an education that included French, music, riding, fencing, dancing, and the more serious studies requisite for the military profession,—the father was satisfied, and had sufficient good taste and feeling to be glad that to all these things should be added innocence of life and high principle. Seven years earlier Amalie had considered the children old enough to profit by travel; and Demetrius in later life would recall with interest the visits paid with his mother to the Stolbergs at Eutin, to Jakobi at Düsseldorf; above all to Weimar, the Athens of Germany, where the noble Herder seems to have attracted the lad more than the great Goethe himself; though Goethe was a sincere admirer of the Princess.

There is an account of an interesting interview between Amalie and Goethe in after years. She, full as usual of her beautiful, earnest zeal for souls, invited Goethe to her house at Münster,—an invitation gladly, though perhaps a little timorously, accepted. The great man probably guessed what he was "in for," and showed no resentment when the Princess began, after the manner of the saints, to speak to her guest of the judgment to come. The next day, when he departed, she accompanied him a stage or two of his journey, still speaking to him with that wonderful absolute conviction which invariably commanded respect, often admiration, and not infrequently brought about conversion. Alas! in the case of Goethe it was to bring forth only the first two of these fruits.

But such pleasant journeys in the Fatherland were considered insufficient for the liberal education of the children of the upper classes of those times. As Demetrius grew older, Prince Gallitzin did indeed talk of sending him straight to St. Petersburg to join the army; but his mother was opposed to this plan. Her Catholic heart, no doubt, shrank from exposing her son, whom she considered very unformed, very young for his age, very "infirm of purpose," to the corruption of Russian high life. Moreover, her motherly vanity wished to see him more polished, less angular; and so a distant voyage was discussed.

Till now there had been but one place where "golden youth" could receive its extra coat of gilding; but, happily, Paris, the gilder's shop, could not then be thought of,—it was in the throes of that terrible revolution of which no one could foresee the end. An alternative was decided upon, in which we can not fail to see the guidance of Providence. The Gallitzins determined to send their son to America for two years,—why it seems a little difficult to say. Probably the Princess, who looked upon Mitri as an idle dreamer and somewhat of a weakling, judged that having to "shift for himself" and stand alone for a time would strengthen and develop his character.

A young priest named Brosius, tutor in the Droste family, had just decided to go to America as a missionary. This would be an excellent escort for Demetrius, whose two years in America were to be spent in making himself conversant with the language, laws and habits of this interesting and most flourishing country. Prince Gallitzin was an admirer of Washington and Jefferson, and in his letters to his son bids him try for familiar intercourse with such great men. His mother, too, furnished him with an introduction from the Bishop of Hildesheim and Paderborn to the celebrated John Carroll, first Bishop of Baltimore,—indeed in those days the only Catholic bishop in the whole of the United States.

Demetrius set out on his long journey in August, 1792. His departure furnishes a curious anecdote. Had the sensitive and high-souled youth of twenty-two summers some presentiment that, once gone, he would never return; that this was a last solemn farewell to home, to friends, to country,—in fact, to all human brightness? At any rate, his resolution failed him; and, with what his mother considered characteristic indecision, he began to discuss whether the journey had not best be given up, after all. The moment was certainly ill chosen: already his mother and he were walking arm in arm to the quay at Rotterdam, whence a little boat was to take him on board the great ocean vessel. For a few minutes Amalie said never a word; then, with flashing eyes, she exclaimed, "Mitri, I am most heartily ashamed of you!" and the next moment Demetrius found himself floundering in the water. He was quickly picked up by the laughing sailors, who at a sign from his mother rowed him swiftly away.

The dear old priest, Father Gallitzin, when he merrily told this tale against himself forty-two years later, would not be positive that the "accident" had not perhaps been occasioned by a quick, involuntary movement on the part of his mother, causing him to stumble and so fall into the sea; but he very much inclined to the opinion that she had purposely given him this wholesome ducking.