CONVERSATION WITH BISMARCK
Her sister, Countess Arnim, was also in the room. When we had been talking with them for a few minutes the Princess rang, and beckoned to the servant who answered to come close that she might whisper. Lady Galloway overheard her say in German, “Tell the Prince that the English ladies are here.” After a short interval an inner door opened slowly, and the tall form of the Chancellor appeared. We all jumped up as the Princess announced “Mon Mari.” He shook hands with Lady Ermyntrude, who introduced us each in turn. Hearing that Lady Galloway was “la sœur de Lord Salisbury,” he was anxious to investigate whether she resembled him in face, but decided not very much, as “Lord Salisbury avait les traits très masculins and le visage plus carré,” which he emphasised rather in action than in words. Mary had to sit on one side of him facing the light in order that he might the better make these comparisons. I was at the end of a sofa on his other hand. Lady Galloway then remarked that he had been very kind to her nephew Lord Edward Cecil, who had been in Berlin in the spring of the previous year. Curiously enough, though he had had him to dinner, he did not seem to remember him, though he perfectly recollected Lord Cranborne, who had been with his father at the time of the Congress. Being informed that Lord Edward had been abroad in order to study German, he asked, “Eh bien, a-t-il eu de succès?” and remarked that German was a difficult language but less so for the English than for some other people, and that while the English often spoke French more fluently they grasped the German construction better as being more akin to their own. Mary agreed, saying we were of the same race, whereupon he politely thanked her for having recalled and acknowledged the fact. I then remarked that it had been suggested that he wished to change “les caractères allemands,” meaning the letters. He misunderstood me to mean the characters of the people, and said that he should hardly be capable of that, but added: “On m’accuse d’avoir changé une nation de poêtes en nation de politiques militaires, mais c’est parce que nous avons été si longtemps l’enclume qu’il fallait le faire. Il faut toujours être l’enclume ou le marteau, maintenant nous sommes le marteau. Nous étions l’enclume jusqu’à Leipzig et Waterloo.” I suggested that at Waterloo “nous étions deux marteaux,” and he answered, bowing, “J’espère que nous les serons encore ensemble.” Little did he or I look on twenty-seven years! Bismarck then asked for the English of “enclume”—“car je ne suis pas forgeron,” and when we told him he said that he only knew “l’anglais pour voyager, le russe pour la chasse et le français pour les affaires,” and went on to speak of his son, who, as we all agreed, knew English so well. Like the Princess, he said that Count Herbert was much attached to our country, and added that if he continued to do well and “si je peux guider sa destinée j’ai l’intention qu’il aille quelque jour en Angleterre”: meantime he thought that Count Hatzfeldt was getting on all right. Lady Galloway said that he was very popular. Bismarck considered that he did better as Ambassador than in affairs at home, as though he could work well he lacked the power of sticking to his work. I then referred to Mr. Deichmann, a country neighbour of ours who had built a house near Bicester and married a Miss de Bunsen, widow of another German, who had been his friend. Mr. (afterwards Baron) Deichmann and his wife were undoubtedly friends (or henchmen?) of the Bismarcks, and Mr. Deichmann was very proud of a tankard which the Prince had given him. “He gave me a very good horse,” returned the Prince, when I mentioned this, and described him as “bon enfant.” In the light of after experience I feel sure that the Deichmanns were employed to report to the Prince on social matters in England and particularly in diplomatic circles. I do not at all mean that they were anti-English, but that they were “utilised.” They were very intimate friends of the Münsters, and somehow kept in with the Crown Princess and her family, although the Princess certainly did not love Bismarck! I well recollect a dinner which (in years later than that of our interview with the great man) the Deichmanns gave at their house in London to reconcile the French and German Embassies. What had been the exact cause of friction I do not know, but the ostensible one was that the then Ambassadress, Madame Waddington, had not worn mourning when some German princelet died. Anyhow, Madame Deichmann had Madame Waddington to dinner, and Marie Münster to a party afterwards, and they were made to shake hands and be friends. It was clever of Madame Deichmann, and she well deserved the title of Baroness afterwards conferred upon her. However, I am not altogether sure that Bismarck appreciated the reference to his friends on this occasion—he may not have wished to be thought too intimate! He did not resent it though, and when we rose to take leave gave Lady Galloway many messages for Lord Salisbury, hoping to see him again in Germany or when he, Bismarck, came to England, which he seemed to regard as quite on the cards. He also asked Lady Ermyntrude affectionately after Sir Edward, whom he thought looking rather unwell when he last saw him, though quite himself again when he became excited.
BISMARCK AND LORD SALISBURY
Just as we were going away the Prince asked if we would like to see the room where the Congress had been held. Of course we were delighted, so that he took us in and showed us where they all sat, Lord Beaconsfield on his right hand, and Lord Salisbury, as he particularly pointed out to Lady Galloway, just round the corner. Then Gortschakoff, who, he said, did not take much part, next Schouvaloff, on whom the work fell, but he added in English, “Lord Salisbury squeezed him.” And there, he said, pointing to the other side of the table, “sat the victim of the Congress, the Turk.” So little impression had the victim made upon him that he could not even remember his name—he thought, however, that it was Mehemet—Mehemet something—at last Princess Bismarck helped him out—Mehemet Ali. I believe the head Turk was Karatheodori Pasha, but presume that he was a nonentity; at all events neither Prince nor Princess Bismarck referred to him. Bismarck rather apologised for the bareness of the room, a fine, large, long apartment, and wished that he were equal to giving balls in it—this, with Emperor William’s desire to go to balls, gave a cheerful impression of these old men.
Little did we then realise what our feelings with regard to Germany would be twenty-seven years later! Though I feel ashamed now of the impression made upon me by Prince Bismarck, I cannot help recording that I was foolish enough to write some verses comparing him to Thor, the Scandinavian war-god, with his hammer and anvil, and to add them to my account of our interview.
After our return to England Lord Salisbury told Lady Galloway that he should like to see this account, and when I met him again he said to me with great amusement, “So you have seen Thor?”
Prince Bismarck had an undoubted admiration for Lord Salisbury. Not long after Sir Edward Malet’s appointment to Berlin poor Lady Ermyntrude had a child who did not survive its birth. She was very ill. Some little time afterwards her father, the Duke of Bedford, told me that she had been very anxious to come over to England to be with her parents for her confinement. This was arranged, and then Sir Edward, anxious about her health, wanted to join her. He did not know whether he could rightfully leave his diplomatic duties, but Bismarck reassured him, telling him that so long as Lord Salisbury was in power he need have no apprehension as to the relations between England and the German Empire.
I confess also to having been fascinated by the Crown Prince—afterwards the Emperor Frederick; but he was not in the least like a Prussian—he was like a very gentle knight. Poor man! He had already begun to suffer from the fatal malady to his throat. The last time I spoke with him he came into the box in which we were sitting at the theatre and said, “I cannot talk to you much, my throat is so bad.”
The next event which made a great impression on me in common with every other subject of the British Empire was the first Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Its excitements, its glories, have been told over and over again, but no one who did not live through it can grasp the thrill which ran from end to end of the nation, and no one who did live through it can pass it on to others. The Queen became a tradition while yet alive. When ten thousand children from the elementary schools were entertained in Hyde Park the proceedings concluded by the release of a balloon bearing the word “Victoria.” As it ascended one child was heard gravely explaining to another that “that was the Queen going up to Heaven.” A man (or woman) wrote to the paper that in the evening he had observed that the sunset colours had formed themselves into a distinct arrangement of red, white, and blue! I chanced the week before the Jubilee celebrations to express to a girl in a shop a hope for fine weather. In a tone of rebuke she replied, “Of course it will be fine: it is for the Queen!”—a sentiment more poetically expressed by the French Ambassador Baron de Courcel, who said to me on one rather doubtful day in the week preceding the Diamond Jubilee, “Le bon Dieu nettoie les cieux pour la Reine!” This confidence was fully justified: the weather was glorious. When traffic was stopped in the main thoroughfares, and all streets and houses had their usual dinginess hidden in glowing decorations, London looked like a fairy city—a fitting regal background for an imperial apotheosis—only perchance excelled by the Diamond Jubilee ten years later. “Mother’s come home,” I heard a stalwart policeman say on the day when the Queen arrived in Buckingham Palace. That was just it—Mother had come back to her joyous children.
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