Auld lang syne

by F. Max Müller

There must be something to hedge a king. While most people have to move in a crowd, and hold their own even in a mob—and it is difficult to move with ease when you are hustled and pushed—royal persons are never in a crowd, and have never to adopt a position of self-defence or self-assertion. Still there is a difference between royal persons also. Some of them with all their dignity manage to hide their crown in everyday life; others seem always conscious that it is there, and that they must not condescend too low, lest it should tumble from their head.

My first acquaintance with royalty was at Dessau, my native town. Much has been written to ridicule the small German princes and their small Courts. And it cannot be denied that the etiquette kept up by the courtiers, and the nobility, in some of the small capitals of Germany is ludicrous in the extreme. But there is in the sovereigns themselves an inherited dignity, a sentiment of noblesse oblige, which demands respect. The reigning Duke of Anhalt-Dessau was to us boys a being by himself, and no wonder. Though the Duchy was so small that on one occasion a troublesome political agitator, who had been expelled from the Duchy, threatened to throw stones and break the Duke’s windows as soon as he had crossed the frontier, to us children Dessau was our world. When I was a child, the town of Dessau, the capital of the Duchy, contained not more than 10,000 or 12,000 inhabitants, but the Duke, Leopold Friedrich (1817–1871), was really the most independent sovereign in Europe. He was perfectly irresponsible, a constitution did not exist, and was never allowed to be mentioned. All appointments were made by the Duke, all salaries and pensions were paid from the Ducal chest, whatever existed in the whole Duchy belonged, or seemed to belong, to him. There was no appeal from him, at least not in practice, whatever it may have been in theory. If more money was wanted, the Dukes, I believe, had only to issue a new tax, and the money was forthcoming. And with all that one never, or hardly ever, heard of any act of injustice. The Duke was rich, nearly the whole of the Duchy belonged to him, and he had large landed property elsewhere also. Taxation was low, and during years of war and distress, taxes were actually remitted by the Dukes. The only public opinion there was, was represented by the Duke’s own permanent civil service, and certainly in it tradition was so strong that even the Duke, independent as he was, would have hesitated before going against it.

But the Duke himself was a splendid example of uprightness, fairness, and justice. He belonged to one of the oldest reigning families in Europe. The Hohenzollern, and even the Hohenstaufen, were but of yesterday compared with the glorious ancestors of the Ascanian princes. They did not actually claim descent from Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, nor from Askenas, the grandson of Japhet, though some crazy genealogists may have done so; but there is no flaw in their pedigree from the present Duke to Albrecht the Bear, Markgrave of Brandenburg in 1134. Some people would probably say that he belonged to a totemistic age. The Duke whom I knew, and who died in 1871, was the eighteenth successor of this Albrecht the Bear, and though his possessions had been much reduced in the course of centuries, he knew what was due from him to his name, and to the blood of his ancestors. He never forgot it. He was a tall and very handsome man, very quiet, very self-contained, particularly during the later part of his life, when his increasing deafness made any free intercourse between him and his friends and officials extremely difficult. He worked as hard as any of his ministers, and no wonder, considering that everything, whether important or not, had finally to be decided by him. As he had been much attached to my father, and as my grandfather was his president or prime minister, he took some interest in me when I was a boy at school in Dessau, and I can remember standing before him and looking up to him in his cabinet with fear and trembling, although nothing could be kinder than the handsome tall man with his deep voice and his slowly uttered words; he seemed to move in an atmosphere of his own, far removed from the life of his subjects. The ducal castle at Dessau was a grand old building, a quadrangle open in front, with turrets that held the staircases leading up to the reception rooms. Some of his ancestors had been highly cultivated men, who had travelled in Italy, France, and England, and had collected treasures of art, which were afterwards stored up in the old Palace (Schloss) at Dessau, and in several beautiful parks in the neighbourhood that had been laid out a hundred years ago after the model of English parks. The orange trees (Orangerie) in those parks and gardens were magnificent, and I do not remember having seen such an abundance of them anywhere else; but they suddenly began to wither and die, and even replanting them by their heads and letting the roots grow as new branches does not seem to have saved them.

The Duke and his highly cultivated Duchess were the little gods of Dessau. They seemed to live on their own Olympus. Everything depended on them; everything, such as theatre, concerts, or any public amusements, had to be provided out of their private purse. No wonder that the people looked up to them, and that whatever they did was considered right, whatever they said was repeated as gospel.

Scholars are just now writing learned essays as to whether the idea of the apotheosis of Augustus came to the Romans from Greece or from Egypt, or whether it may be a survival of fetishism. It may have had a much more homely origin, however. To the common people in the villages round Dessau, I feel sure that the Duke was little short of a god, provided always that they knew what was meant by a god. He might not have created the world, even Divus Augustus was not credited with that tour de force; but there was nothing else, I believe, that the peasants would have thought beyond the power of their Duke. To us children also, the Duke, the Duchess, and all the members of the Ducal family, were something quite different from the rest of the world, and some of these impressions of childhood often remain for life. When their carriage passed through the streets, everybody stood still, took off his hat, and remained bareheaded till they had passed. There was nothing servile in all this, as little as there is in a Frenchman signing himself Votre très-obéissant serviteur, for no one ever thought at that time that it could be otherwise. Nor am I at all certain that this outward respect for a sovereign is a mistake, for in honouring their sovereign, people after all but honour themselves. Whether he is supposed to be a sovereign by the grace of God, or by hereditary right, or by the voice of the people, he represents the country and the people; he is their duke, their king, their emperor, and if they wish to see him honoured by others, they must not fail to honour him themselves. When I saw the other day a king passing through the streets of his own capital, and no one touching his hat, I thought, “What a low opinion these people must have of themselves.” Even as boys at school we felt a pride in our Duke, and, though we knew scraps only of the glorious history of his ancestors, we knew how they had borne the brunt of the battle in all the greatest episodes of the history of Germany.

Little is said of these numerous small principalities in the history of Germany, but without them German history would often be quite unintelligible, and Germany would never have had so intense a vitality, would never have become what it is now. No doubt there was also an element of danger in them, particularly during the first half of this century, when as members of the German Confederation they could band together and support either Austria or Prussia in their fatal rivalry. They were the horses, as Bismarck said, harnessed to the chariot of Germany, some before and some behind, and pulling in different directions, so that it was impossible to advance. But that danger is past, thanks chiefly to Bismarck’s policy, and for the future the smaller principalities that have escaped from his grasp will form the most useful centres of intellectual life, nor are they likely now to be absorbed by Prussia, if well advised. There was a time during the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 when everybody expected that Anhalt, being almost an enclave of Prussia, would share the fate of Hanover, Nassau, and the Electorate of Hessia. The reigning Duke had the strongest sympathies for Austria. But he had a clever minister, who showed him that there were only two ways open to him under the circumstances, either to abdicate of his own free will, and make as advantageous an arrangement with Prussia as possible, or to say yes to whatever demand was made from Berlin. He chose the latter alternative, and it is reported that it was of him that Bismarck said: “I know what to do with my enemies, but what to do with my friends, I don’t.”

I cannot resist the temptation of giving here a short sketch of the really glorious history of the duchy and the Dukes of Anhalt, such as it was known to us as boys. Nor should it be supposed that I exaggerate the importance of my native duchy. I doubt, indeed, whether there is any reigning house now that can produce such a splendid record as Anhalt. If it has remained small and lost much of its former political influence, that is due chiefly to a law of inheritance which prevailed in the ducal family. Instead of making the eldest son the ruler of the whole duchy, it was the custom to divide the land among all the princes. Thus instead of one Duchy of Anhalt there were four duchies, Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt-Cöthen, Anhalt-Zerbst, and Anhalt-Bernburg, some of them again subdivided. From time to time the duchies were reunited, and so they are at present, the last of the collateral branches having died out in 1863, when they were united once more into one duchy.

If we go slowly back into the past, and that seems to me the real task of the historian, we shall find that there is no critical epoch in the history of Germany, and of the history of the world, where we do not meet with some of the princes of the small Duchy of Anhalt, standing in the very front of the fight. I only wonder that no one has yet attempted to write a popular history of the four principalities of Anhalt, in order to show the share which they took in the historical development of Germany. I have tried to refresh my memory by reading a carefully written manual, “Anhalt’s Geschichte in Wort und Bild,” by Dr. Hermann Lorenz, 1893, but instead of quoting his opinion, or the opinions of any historians, as to the personal merits and the historical achievements of the princes of Anhalt, whether as warriors or as rulers, I shall try to quote, wherever it is possible, the judgments pronounced on them by some of their own contemporaries, whose names will carry greater weight.

The beginning of the nineteenth century was dominated by Napoleon’s invasion and almost annihilation of Germany. Dessau was then ruled by Prince Leopold Friedrich Franz (1740–1806). He had done an immense amount to raise both the material and the intellectual status of his people, and had well earned the name he is still known by, of “Father Franz.” Many of the princes of that time were far in advance of the people, and they met, as he did, with considerable difficulty in overcoming the resistance of those whom they wished to benefit by their reforms. The young prince of Dessau had travelled in Holland, England, and Italy. He avoided France, which he said was dangerous to young princes, and yet he was enlightened enough to erect a monument to Rousseau in his beautiful park at Wörlitz. He loved England. “In England,” he used to say, “one becomes a man.” Nor did he travel for pleasure only. While in England, he studied agriculture, architecture, gardening, brewing, and various other manufactures, in order to introduce as many improvements as possible among his own people. In Italy he studied art, both ancient and modern, under Winckelmann, and this great antiquarian was so delighted with the young prince and his companion that he spoke of their visit as the appearance of two young Greek gods. At that time it was still possible to buy old classical statues and old Italian pictures, and the young prince gladly availed himself of his opportunities as far as his financial resources would allow, and brought home to Dessau many valuable specimens of ancient and modern art. These he arranged in his various palaces and museums, all open to the people, and in the beautiful parks and gardens which he had created after English models in the neighbourhood of his capital. After a hundred years some of these parks, particularly that of Wörlitz, can vie with some of the finest parks in England. Like the neighbouring duchy of Weimar, Dessau soon attracted visitors from all parts of Germany. Goethe himself and his enlightened patron, the Duke Karl August, were often the guests of the Duke of Dessau, and Goethe has in several places spoken in rapturous terms of the beauties of Wörlitz, and the charm of the Duke’s society. Wieland, Lavater, Matthison, and other celebrities often passed happy days at Dessau as guests of the Duke.

But after Duke Franz had spent all his life in embellishing his land and inspiring his subjects with higher and nobler ideals, the Napoleonic thunder-cloud, which had long threatened Germany, burst over his head, and threatened to destroy everything that he had planted. After the battle of Jena in 1806 Prussia and the whole of Germany were at the mercy of the great French conqueror, and Napoleon, with his army of 100,000 men, who had to be lodged and fed in every town of Germany through which they passed, appeared at Dessau on 21st October, 1806. The old Prince had to receive him bareheaded at the foot of the staircase of his castle. My mother, then a child of six, remembered seeing her own grand and beautiful prince standing erect before the small and pale Corsican. The Prince, however, in his meeting with the Emperor, was not afraid to wear the Prussian order of the Black Eagle on his breast, and when he was asked by Napoleon whether he too had sent a contingent to the Prussian army, he said, “No, sir.” “Why not?” asked the Emperor. “Because I have not been asked,” was the answer. “But if you had been asked?” continued the Emperor. “Then I should certainly have sent my soldiers,” the Prince replied; and he added: “Your Majesty knows the right of the stronger.” This was a not very prudent remark to make, but the Emperor seems to have liked the outspoken old man. He invited him to inspect with him the bridge over the Elbe which had been burnt by the Prussians to cover their retreat. He demanded that it should be rebuilt at once, and on that condition he promised to grant neutrality to the duchy. Nay, before leaving Dessau in the morning he went so far as to ask his host whether he could do anything for him. “For myself,” the Prince replied, “I want nothing. I only ask for mercy for my people, for they are all to me like my children.”