From Memory's Shrine: The Reminscences of Carmen Sylva

by Carmen Sylva

It was still the fashion in those days, to bring children up with great severity, and for poor little princes and princesses in particular a Spartan system of education was enforced. Under these circumstances it was very often thanks to the servants that we escaped the Draconian penalties attached to every trifling misdeed; they were always ready to come to our aid in all our troubles, and by their adroitness and good-nature helped us out of many of our worst scrapes. There were two, in particular, who were our personal attendants, and can never be dissociated from our family history, accompanying us on all our travels, and literally sharing in all our joys and sorrows. The one was my father’s valet, Masset, a dear old fellow, with a round smiling face like a full moon, as good-natured as a big playful dog, always ready with some amusing story or harmless piece of fun, if he saw that one’s spirits were low and that one wanted cheering. Lang, on the contrary, was a most dignified personage, tall, and speaking French beautifully, and with well-cut features and a certain stiffness of manner, which we felt to be rather imposing. But he was no less devoted to us, and I can recall many an instance of his zeal in rendering us service. To give one little example, one day, when in the Isle of Wight, my brother’s kite, which he was flying, got caught in a tree; it was Lang who in a moment had climbed the tree, and set free the kite, almost before the little boy had time to distress himself about it. Lang told me about it afterwards, and of the bad fall he had in coming down from the tree, being really so badly shaken that he could not get up for a few minutes, though luckily no bones were broken. “And what did Wilhelm do?” I asked. “Oh! he ran off with his kite as fast as he could!” was the smiling reply. I very much fear that we were often extremely thoughtless in the way in which we took for granted that we should always find our wishes carried out by either of these two trusty allies, and that we did not always trouble ourselves to thank them afterwards. We have often laughed since to think of the artful devices of good old Masset, on one occasion, when my brother was shut up in his room for three weeks on a diet of dry bread and water, taking care to cut such very thick slices of bread, that inside each both butter and meat could be concealed; and this he carried with the most innocent face in the world to the poor hungry little prisoner, whose sole diversion, meanwhile, consisted in dragging his table up to the attic window, so that by placing a chair on it he could succeed in climbing out on the roof, to shoot at the sparrows with his little crossbow!

In our house the servants always said “we,” in speaking of the family; they quite felt that they belonged to it, and they were indeed fully justified in feeling thus by their devotion to us all. We might well be fond of them, though we certainly did not go quite so far as my mother, who, as a very small child was so much attached to the funny little wizened old man-servant who was her special attendant, that she was heard to say: “Ce cher Rupp! ce cher Rupp! je voudrais tant l’embrasser! je l’aime beaucoup plus que Papa!” But we liked ours quite as well as all but our very nearest relations, perhaps rather better than some! Masset, as his name shows, was of French extraction, descended from Huguenot refugees. Another servant had one of those names with a Latin termination not infrequently to be found in the Rhineland; he was called Corcilius. Our great-uncle, the traveller, whose delight it was to give nicknames to every one, amused himself with twisting and turning the servants’ names. Thus Lang (Long) became Kurz (Short), Schäfer (Shepherd) was transformed into Haas (Hare), and Corcilius was nicknamed “Garcilaso de la Vega.” Many of these good people had been in our service from father to son for several generations. One of our game-keepers belonged to a family who had been keepers with us for a couple of centuries. Many of our people lived to celebrate the jubilee of their fiftieth year in our service. Alas, not all!

But these two, as I said, Lang and Masset, were our special friends, we always felt so safe and sure with them, as if no danger could harm us. I should never stop, if I began relating everything, the fatherly way in which they took care of us, how often they carried us in their arms, all they did to please us, when we were quite small. For I was only two years old, when, the Rhine being frozen over for the first time for many years, they carried us across, my little brother and myself, in order that we might have a recollection of the unusual occurrence. And I do remember it quite distinctly, and many another little incident of like nature. I cannot think of these without emotion, but there was very much also that had its purely comic side. Whilst we were staying in Baden, later on, installed in the simplest, most modest fashion, with very few servants, some one happened one day to ring at the front door, just at the moment when Masset was summoned to my father. “Let me go,” I said; “I will open the door!” But very firmly though gently, I was pushed on one side. “No, dear child,—that cannot be, that would never do!” I was eighteen at the time, but for both Lang and Masset I always remained a child.

One amusing little scene, though it has not to do with them, but with another old servant, I cannot help relating here. In my mother’s bedroom hung a lamp with a pink shade, giving a very agreeable light whenever it chose to burn, but more often than not a source of infinite trouble and annoyance. Now-a-days with the comfort and convenience of electricity or even of ordinary petroleum lamps, people can little imagine the nuisance of the old-fashioned oil-lamps. Two or three times in the course of an evening they had to be wound up with a sort of big key—and even then they would not burn! All the same everyone was agreed as to their being a most admirable invention! One evening when my poor little invalid brother was being put to bed, as he happened for once to be free from pain, my mother came away and joined us others at the tea-table. For she felt safe in leaving Otto to the care of his devoted attendant, a very old man, quite a relic of the past, as he had been in my grandmother’s service and had been handed on to us. Suddenly the door opened, and a wrinkled old face, crowned with snow-white hair, peeped in.—“Your Highness, the lamp is going out!” My mother jumped up. To rush into the other room, pull down the lamp, and carry it outside before its feeble light was entirely extinguished and had poisoned the atmosphere with its fumes—all this was the work of an instant. But how we all laughed! till the tears ran down our cheeks. And we were laughing still when my mother came back to the tea-table, quite astonished at our merriment, and asking its cause. To her it had seemed just the most natural thing in the world that the old servant should appeal to her, and that she should run to his assistance.

I should like to mention each and every one of those whose faithful service was so invaluable to our family during the years in which we were tried by sickness and suffering; many were admirable in their untiring devotion, but the two I have spoken of above and beyond all the rest. No words could do justice to the tact, the discretion, the unwearied patience, with which their duties were fulfilled. Never did they utter a word of complaint, on any of those long and fatiguing journeys, all the responsibility of whose arrangements fell on them, and which had to be performed under circumstances of exceptional difficulty, with my mother in her crippled condition, having to be carried in and out of train and boat, and my father and brother also helpless invalids. To say nothing of the amount of luggage that was required for the whole party, nurse and lady’s maid, tutor, governess, and lady-in-waiting! And travelling was by no means so simple and easy a matter in those days. But Lang and Masset were equal to the circumstances, and managed it all without a hitch. For our journey from Bonn to Paris a whole railway-carriage had to be reserved, so that my mother, whose convulsive fits at that time followed one another in swift succession, barely giving her time between to recover consciousness, might rest undisturbed in the hammock put up for her. As for the preceding journey, that from Neuwied to Bonn, however difficult it may have been to plan, it was so successfully carried out, that to us children it was all unalloyed enjoyment, like a page out of a fairy tale! As my mother could not stand the shaking of the steamer, one of the Rhenish coal-barges had been chartered, thoroughly cleaned and fitted out with mats and awnings, and the deck strewn with fresh flowers everywhere, and in order that the little journey should not take too long, the barge was taken in tow by one of the Rhine-steamers. It was all too delightful, so Wilhelm and I thought, this novel style of travelling, and everything so amusing—the little cabin with its sky-light, and above all the lovely little dancing waves in the wake of the steamer. We were quite lost in the enjoyment of the hour, and had but a faint understanding of the cares weighing on the elders of our party, though those were brought before us again, when we reached the landing-stage, and saw our mother carried unconscious ashore by Lang and Masset. As in spite of all their care and the excellent arrangements made, she had lain in convulsions the whole time, they might well feel somewhat discouraged at this first step in the pilgrimage undertaken in quest of health and solace for our invalids. But such grave thoughts cannot altogether quell the natural high spirits of youth, and I remember the peals of laughter that greeted us from my Uncle Nicholas, my mother’s youngest brother, who was awaiting our arrival in the garden of the villa at Bonn, and who declared that he had known we were coming long before the boats were in sight, our approach having been heralded by the smell of ether and chloroform which surrounded us like an atmosphere as we glided along! That strong smell of ether and all the other medicaments used—and used in vain—to still those fearful paroxysms of pain, this remains for me so indissolubly associated with certain scenes and memories of my childhood, that as my pen traces these words, the air I breathe is pervaded with them once more!

I suppose it was the spectacle of suffering constantly before my eyes, and of the utter inefficacy of the remedies prescribed, that gave me, already as a child, the conviction of the absolute helplessness of doctors in certain cases. Of course I know the immense strides medical science has made since those days, but after all I wonder if to us it would have brought much help! That which did, however, most undeniably contribute to our comfort, and often helped to procure the sufferers some moments’ ease and rest, that was the quiet unobtrusive service of these two faithful souls. It was only natural that Masset’s devotion to my father should outweigh all else; it literally knew no bounds, and a very few months after his master’s death, his old servant was missing too. He had thrown himself into the Rhine, seeking a grave there between the blocks of ice with which the river was covered. His body was never found. It was only by the print of his footsteps in the snow (recognisable by the turning in of the toes), that some of the keepers traced him down to the riverside, and that we learned his fate. He simply could not live without the beloved master, to whom he belonged, body and soul. But the shock was a terrible one to us all; we mourned him most sincerely. Lang remained for years after my father’s death in my mother’s service, and was with her when she came to see me in Roumania. To the end he was the same invaluable, trustworthy servant, with such sound judgment that my mother often asked his advice, always receiving excellent counsel from the clear-headed, much experienced old man.

I must not forget our old coachman, Lindner, who at my father’s funeral drove the hearse, that none but himself might have the honour of performing that last service for his master. It was a touching sight, so uncontrollable was the grief of the fine old man, who, till then, had often been the life and soul of every rustic gathering. He it was who was generally the principal solo singer at every village festival. Unless, indeed, it so happened that I was there to take my part! There was always a sort of rivalry between us, as to which had the larger store of songs, Lindner or I! And at last, I believe, I bore away the palm; I knew even more than he did!

I am proud to think how sad all these good people were when I left my old home on my marriage. The day when I had to take my leave of the Ladies’ Nursing Union, I said to Lang as I stepped into the carriage:—“Lang, je dois tenir un discours aujourd’hui.” And struggling with his emotion, he replied: “Il doit être d’autant plus beau, qu’il ne sera jamais oublié!”

I was missed by all the good country-folk. They had always called me “our little princess!” And much nicer, prettier names still! The first time I came back on a visit after my marriage, through the streets of Neuwied and in the villages round about, they ran shouting:—“Our Lisbeth is coming! Our Lisbeth is here again!”

With every workman and mechanic in the neighbourhood we had a personal acquaintance, it was as if quite peculiar ties of very long standing united them to us, for had not their fathers and grandfathers worked for ours, for centuries past? So that we felt interested in all that concerned them, and ourselves took great pride in the fact, that the town of Neuwied had given birth to the celebrated wood-carver, Rœntgen, specimens of whose beautiful artistic wood-mosaics found their way to all the capitals of Europe, and decorate castles and manor-houses in every land.