Lay Down Your Arms: The Autobiography of Martha von Tilling

by Bertha von Suttner

It was a rather tiring process; but yet for a time it was very pleasant. In order to have some home, we had hired a small residence in the quarter of the Champs Elysées, whither we also could sometimes invite in turn our numerous acquaintance, by whom we were invited every day to a party of some kind or other. Having been introduced by our ambassador at the Court of the Tuilleries, we were invited for the whole winter to the Mondays of the empress, and, besides this, the houses of all the ambassadors were open to us, as well as the salons of Princess Mathilde, the Duchess of Mouchy, Queen Isabella of Spain, and so on. We made the acquaintance also of many literary magnates, not of the greatest, however, I mean Victor Hugo, as he was living in exile, but we met Renan, Dumas père et fils, Octave Feuillet, George Sand, Arsène Houssaye, and some others. At the house of the last named we also were present at a masked ball. When the author of the Grandes Dames gave one of his Venetian fêtes in his splendid little hotel, on the Avenue Friedland, it was the custom that the real grandes dames should go there under the protection of their masks along with the “little ladies,” well-known actresses and so forth, who were making their diamonds and their wit sparkle here.

We were also very industrious visitors to the theatres. At least three times a week we spent our evenings either at the Italian opera, where Adelina Patti, just married to the Marquis de Caux, was enchanting the audience, or at the Theâtre Français, or even at one of the little boulevard theatres to see Hortense Schneider as the Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, or some of the other celebrities of operetta or vaudeville.

It is wonderful, however, how, when one is once plunged into this whirl of splendour and entertainments, this little “great world” appears to one all of a sudden so terribly important; and the laws which prevail therein of elegance and chic (it was even then called chic) as laying on one a kind of solemnly undertaken duty. To take at the theatre a less distinguished place than a stage-box; to appear in the Bois with a carriage whose equipage should not be faultless; to go to a court ball without putting on a toilette of 2000 francs, “signed” by Worth; to sit down to table (Madame la Baronne est servie), even if one had no guests, without having the finest dishes and the choicest wines served by the solemn maître d’hôtel in person and several lackeys, all these would have been serious offences. How easy, how very easy it becomes to one, when one is caught up in the machinery of such an existence as this, to spend all one’s thoughts and feelings on this business, which is really devoid of all thought and feeling, and in doing this to forget to take any part in the progress of the real world outside, I mean the universe, or in the condition of one’s own world within, I mean domestic bliss. This is what might perhaps have happened to me, but Frederick preserved me from it. He was not the man to allow himself to be torn away and smothered by the whirlpool of Parisian “high-life”. He did not forget, in the world in which we were moving, either the universe or our own hearth. An hour or two in the morning we still kept devoted to reading and domestic life; and so we accomplished the great feat of enjoying happiness even in the midst of pleasure.

For us Austrians there was much sympathy cherished at Paris. In political conversations there was often a talk about a Revanche de Sadowa, certainly in the sense that the injustice done to us two years before was to be made good again—as if anything of that sort could make it good again. If blows are only to be wiped out by fresh blows, then surely the thing can never cease. It was just to my husband and me, because he had been in the army and had served the campaign in Bohemia, it was just to us that people thought they could say nothing more polite or more agreeable than a hopeful allusion to the Revanche de Sadowa which was in prospect, and which was already treated of as an historical event which would assure the European equilibrium, and was itself ensured by diplomatic arrangements. A slap to be administered to the Prussians on the next opportunity was a necessity in the school-discipline of the nations. Nothing tragical would come of the matter, only enough to check the arrogance of certain folks. Perhaps even the whip hanging up on the wall would be enough for this purpose; but if that arrogant fellow should try any of his saucy tricks he had received fair warning that it would come down upon him in the shape of the Revanche de Sadowa.

We, of course, decisively put aside all such consolations. A former misfortune was not to be conjured away by a fresh misfortune, nor an old injustice to be atoned for by a new injustice. We assured our friends that we wished for nothing, except that we might never see the present peace broken again. This was also essentially the wish of Napoleon III. We had so much intercourse with persons whose position was quite close to the emperor, that we had plenty of opportunities of becoming acquainted with his political views, as he gave utterance to them in his confidential conversation. It was not only that he wished for peace at the moment—he cherished the plan of proposing to the powers a general disarmament. But, for the moment, he did not feel his own domestic position in the country secure enough to carry this plan out. There was great discontent boiling and seething among the populace; and in the circle immediately surrounding the throne there was a party which laboured to represent to him that his throne could only be rendered secure by a successful foreign war—just a little triumphal promenade to the Rhine, and the splendour and stability of the Napoleonic dynasty were secured. Il faut faire grand, was the advice of his counsellors. That the war, which was in prospect the year before on the Luxembourg question, had come to nothing, and was displeasing to them; the preparations on both sides had gone on so grandly, and then the matter had been adjourned. But in the long run a fight between France and Prussia was certainly inevitable. They were incessantly urging on further in this direction. But only a feeble echo of these matters came to us. One is accustomed to hear that sort of thing resounding in the journals, as regularly as the breakers on the shore. There is no occasion to fear a storm on that account. You listen quite tranquilly to the band which is playing its lively airs on the beach—the breakers form only a soft unheeded bass accompaniment to them.

This brilliant way of life, only too overburdened with pleasure, reached its highest pitch in the spring months. At that time there were added long drives in the Bois in open carriages, numerous picture exhibitions, garden parties, horse-races, picnics, and with all this no fewer theatres, or visits, or dinner or evening parties, than in the depth of winter. We then began to long much for repose. In fact, this sort of life has never its true attraction, except when some flirtation or love affair is combined with it. Girls who are in search of a husband, women who want a lover, or men who are in search of adventures, for these every new fête, where it is possible they may meet the object of their dream, possesses a new interest, but for Frederick and me? That I was inflexibly true to my lord, that I never by a single glance gave any one the occasion to approach me with any audacious hopes, I may say, without any pride of virtue—it was a mere matter of course. Whether, under different relations, I should also have resisted all the temptations to which, in such a whirl of pleasure, pretty young ladies are exposed, is more than I can say; but when one carries in one’s heart a love so deep and so full of bliss as I felt for my Frederick, one is surely armed against all danger. And as far as he was concerned, was he true to me? I can only say, that I never felt any doubt about it.

When the summer had returned to the land, when the Grand Prix was over, and the different members of society began to quit Paris, some to Trouville or Dieppe, Biarritz or Vichy, others to Baden Baden, and a third set to their châteaux, Princess Mathilde to St. Gratien, and the court to Compiègne, then we were besieged with requests to select the same destinations for travel, and with invitations to country-houses; but we were decidedly indisposed to prolong the campaign of luxury and pleasure which we had carried out in the winter, into a summer one also. I did not wish to return at once to Grumitz. I feared too much the reawakening of painful memories; besides, we should not have found there the solitude we desired, on account of our numerous relations and neighbours. So we chose once more for our resting-place a quiet corner of Switzerland. We promised our friends in Paris that we would come back next winter, and went on our summer tour with the joy of schoolboys going for their holidays.

Now succeeded a time of real refreshment. Long walks, long hours of study, long hours of play with the children, and no entries in the red volumes—which last was a sign of freedom from care, and spiritual peace.

Europe also seemed at that time tolerably free from care, and peaceful. At least no “black spots” were anywhere visible. One did not even hear any more talk about the famous Revanche de Sadowa. The greatest trouble which I experienced at that time was caused by the universal obligation for defence which had been introduced a year before amongst us Austrians. That my Rudolf some time or other must become a soldier—that was a thing I could not bear. And yet folks dream of freedom!

Frederick tried to comfort me. “A year of ‘volunteering’ is not much.” I shook my head.