Before the Gratulations-Cour takes place, a service is held in the chapel of the Schloss, at which all the ambassadors, consuls and other diplomatic officials are present in uniform. They usually spend the time before the entrance of the royalties in wandering about and chatting with each other, till some one gives a warning tap on the marble floor, and the hum sinks into silence, broken by the music of the band stationed in the gallery above, for the chapel has no organ.
In the evening a special performance is given at the Opera, at which the whole Royal Family appears; and sometimes the Court returns next day to the New Palace, but more often remains in Berlin for the season, which practically begins with the Emperor’s birthday on January 27.
One quaint ceremony connected with New Year’s Day is the presentation to the Emperor, as he sits at table, of sausages and hard-boiled eggs by the “Halloren,” a guild of salt-workers living in Saxony, possessing peculiar customs, privileges and dress. It was the Princess who first introduced the “Halloren sausage” to my notice, for on the second or third day of the year, when the Court had returned to the New Palace, she burst into my room one morning with a very small sandwich—German sandwiches have bread on only one side of them—made of an extremely thin and delicate piece of pink sausage, which she presented to me with pride as a portion of her “Halloren sausage.” I was expected to eat it with great solemnity and a due appreciation of its marvellous merits, and I conscientiously tried to praise it, and declare that there was a “nameless something” about the flavour which marked it out from all other sausages. I subsequently discovered that it was a rare and special and not-to-be-repeated favour to share even the smallest piece of this wonderful delicacy. Every day this sausage appeared at breakfast and the eleven-o’clock lunch, but no one was then allowed to partake of it, with the exception of the Princess herself, and when a few days later we all went to Berlin for the rest of the winter the “Halloren sausage,” now sadly shrunk, was the one piece of luggage which the Princess insisted on taking in her own charge, carrying it carefully in a small black leather bag, and refusing to trust it to her footman, who she was convinced would leave it in the train or perhaps get it crushed or lost.
Life in Berlin Schloss was very different to that in the New Palace. Every morning when lessons began again—the Christmas holidays are only ten days long in German schools—the Princess had to drive away with her lady at twenty minutes to eight to Bellevue Schloss, at the other side of the Tier-Garten, where her tutor attended from eight o’clock till twelve.
Bellevue is one of those plain, unpretentious palaces which were built in the middle of the eighteenth century, and has the advantage of a fine large garden full of grass and trees. Dotted about in the grounds are various small monuments and memorial stones inscribed with the names of dead-and-gone Princes and Princesses of the Royal House. Sometimes these stones break out into poetry of a sentimental kind, always in the French language, often celebrating the marvellous virtues of “Hélène” or “Ferdinand.” Whatever happened, the affections of this particular family—belonging, I think, to a nephew of Frederick the Great—had to find an outlet in stonework. Every possible anniversary was commemorated, and even the death of a favourite Kammer-herr was left recorded for the benefit of future generations. The ivy has crept over these memorials of a bygone day, and in some cases has entirely obliterated the lettering. In others the frost and rain are by slow degrees accomplishing the same work. It is with difficulty that one can trace the crumbling letters.
In the mornings the Ober-Gouvernante took “Dienst” in Bellevue, returning at one o’clock with the Princess to the Schloss for luncheon, which was served in the tiny little dining-room of the Princess’s apartments, whose walls were made entirely of mirrors bordered by wreaths of painted flowers. At half-past two the carriage was ordered again to drive to Bellevue, where a few children were invited to spend the afternoon. That daily drive along the crowded streets was somewhat of an ordeal, for all along the route people were saluting and curtseying and rushing up in the enthusiastic German manner to wave pocket-handkerchiefs. Sometimes, if the Princess happened to be in a naughty mood and wished to converse undisturbed with her little friends, she would nod slowly backwards and forwards like a Chinese porcelain figure, regardless if any one was bowing to her or not; but as somebody usually was, it did not appear so strange as it otherwise might have done.
In Bellevue garden itself was a kind of earthwork called “Die Festung,” made by the elder Princes with the aid of their uncle Prince Henry, and this was the usual scene of the afternoon’s play.
In frosty weather part of the Park was flooded, and here the time was spent in skating and playing on the ice, but when the frost broke up again the dirt in the grounds was terrible and the walks ankle-deep in sludge.
The Emperor and Empress invariably came to the Park in the afternoons, and it was embarrassing to meet them with shoes and dress plastered with dirt; but as the children liked best to play at something which was rather dishevelling, such as dragging the gardener’s cart up on to a hillock through thick bushes, or along the wettest and dirtiest paths, it was difficult to preserve that immaculate appearance which one would desire to have in the presence of royalty. An old carpenter, named Fasel, had worked for many years in Bellevue Garden, and his shop was a constant centre of interest to the Princess, who liked to have a chat with him nearly every day. He used to make the children bows and arrows and tell them long stories of his Wander-Jahre, when he was an apprentice and walked from one end of Germany to the other, working his way along into Austria.
In January two other festivals broke into lessons, before they were well re-started. One was the anniversary of the Accession of the Emperor—Krönungs-Tag as it is called—when there is again a series of tedious ceremonies at which the whole family is present. These begin with a service in chapel at ten o’clock in the morning, at which, until a few years ago, all the ladies were obliged to appear in Court dress with long trains, those of royal birth having theirs carried by pages in red. For these functions tickets were issued for the gallery high up in the dome of the chapel, and given to anyone connected with the Court. It was no light task first to climb up the interminable steps of the winding-stair which leads to this coign of vantage, where no seats are allowed, and when there to endure the suffocating crush and atmosphere. The humours of the crowd happily relieve to a certain extent the tedium of waiting—for the lady who has received a ticket through the agency of an Ambassador thinks that, however late she appears, she has a right to a place in the front row, while the footman’s wife, who is already there, refuses to recognize social superiority except in her own case, which allows her precedence over a mere waiting-maid. Occasionally people faint, for the heat and standing combined are trying to weak constitutions; but if one can get to the front of the gallery, and is able to support the proximity of the band and the weight of the people behind who hang heavily over one’s shoulders, there is a good view to be had of the whole scene—which, however, since Court dresses were done away with by the Emperor’s order, has been shorn of much of its picturesque stateliness.