October 1, 1865. In the assembly of delegates at Frankfort the following conclusions were accepted: (1) The right of the people of Schleswig-Holstein to decide on their own destiny remains in force. The Gastein treaty is rejected by the nation as a breach of right. (2) All representatives of the people are to refuse all taxes and expenses to such Governments as assert the policy of violence hitherto followed.
October 15. The Prussian crown-syndic gave his judgment on the hereditary rights of Prince Augustenburg. The father of the latter had renounced for himself and his posterity his succession to the throne for a sum of one and a half million of specie thalers. The duchies were surrendered in the treaty of Vienna—the Augustenburg had no claims at all upon them.
An impudence—an assumption—such were the terms applied to this speech delivered at Berlin, and “the arrogance of Prussia” became a catchword. “We must protect ourselves against it,” was accepted as a dogma on all hands. “King William seems disposed to play the part of a German Victor Emmanuel.” “Austria’s secret motive is to reconquer Silesia,” “Prussia is paying court to France,” “Austria is paying court to France,” et patati, et patatà, as the French say. Tritsch tratsch is the German name for it, and it does not go on more busily in the coffee-house coteries of country towns than between the Cabinets of Great Powers.
The winter brought my whole family back to Vienna. Rosa and Lilly had amused themselves very much in the Bohemian watering-places, but neither was engaged. Conrad’s affairs were in an excellent way. In the shooting season he was to come to Grumitz, and, although at this crisis the decisive word had not yet been spoken, still both were inwardly convinced that they would end in being united.
Neither at this autumn shooting season did I make my appearance, in spite of my father’s pressing persuasions. Frederick could not get any leave, and to separate from him was to exist in such sorrow as I would not expose myself to without necessity. A second reason for not passing any length of time at my father’s was that I did not wish to expose my little Rudolf to his grandfather’s influence, whose effort always was to inspire the child with military tastes. The inclination for this calling, to which I was thoroughly averse as a profession for my son, had been awakened in him without this. Probably it was in his blood. The scion of a long race of soldiers must, by nature, bring warlike instincts into the world with him. In the works on natural science, whose study we were now pursuing more eagerly than ever, I had learned about the power of heredity, of the existence of so-called “congenital instincts,” which are nothing but the impulse to put in action the customs handed down from our ancestors.
On the boy’s birthday his grandfather was careful to bring him again a sabre.
“But you know, father,” I remonstrated, “that my son will certainly not become a soldier, and I must really beg you seriously——”
“What, do you want to tie him to his mother’s apron-strings? I hope you will not succeed there. Good soldiers’ blood is no liar. Let the fellow only grow up, and he will soon choose his profession for himself, ... and there is no finer one than that which you want to forbid him.”
“Martha is frightened,” said Aunt Mary, who was present at this conversation, “of exposing her only son to danger, but she forgets that if one is destined to die, that fate will overtake one in one’s bed as surely as in battle——”
“Then, suppose 100,000 men to have fallen in a war, they would all have been killed in peace, too?”