God had his joy thereon. 1866.
Gardeners have started a Bismarck rose, and a giant Bismarck strawberry, and the fashionable world attires itself in Bismarck brown. At our request, the management of the Bazar, the most competent house for such things, has kindly shown us fourteen shades of this color in silk, and informed us at the same time that there are many more of such Bismarck shades; that Bismarck foncé is not nearly so dark as Bismarck courroucé. This color originally was called hanneton (May beetle), and soon drove the Vert Metternich from the field; while in Austria a small cake (semmel), strewn with a little poppy-seed, shaped like a pigtail, holds its sway with the Radetzky Köpfel. On the Paraná and Paraguay the steamer Count Bismarck runs up and down the river. At Alexandria the passage Bismarck is full of brown and black forms. At Blumberg, in the South Australian colony of Adelaide, the Germans assemble in the Bismarck Hall, and to keep up their national enthusiasm over a drink, they smoke cigars “Conde de Bismarck.” These are considered highly elegant, but cost one hundred and thirty dollars a pound, although there is a cheaper medium Bismarck cigar.
In the Grand Duchy of Posen, by a Cabinet Order of the King, the four places Karsy, Bobry, Budy, and Zwierzchoslaw, in the circle of Pleschen, have been, at the desire of the inhabitants, incorporated as Bismarcksdorf.
In Berlin the Bismarck-Strasse unites the Roon-Strasse with the Moltke-Strasse; while in 1865 the malice of the Berlin wits wanted to change the name of the Wasserthor-Strasse, when the terrible fall of the houses took place there, into Bismarck-Strasse.
In South Germany the belief that Bismarck does every thing and can do every thing, down to the Spanish Revolution, and perhaps even directs the weather, is continually spreading. Oddly enough, the Ultramontane enemies of Bismarck especially take care to spread the name of the Minister-President. They certainly paint black over black, but they make the nation familiar with his fame, and though they may ever depict him as a sort of devil, truth will break through at last.
Is Bismarck really popular? This may be a curious question to ask, but it may still be legitimately put, for in the ordinary sense of the word Bismarck is not popular, despite his worldwide fame. For instance, he is not popular as in our days Cavour and Garibaldi have been. He has not the popularity of the ruling party opinion and that of the day, but, in place of it, his is the historical popularity which will preserve his memory to a grateful posterity. A correspondent of the liberal Paris paper, Le Temps, very excellently expresses our meaning in the following remarks:—“The Chancellor of the North German Confederation is not what we can call a popular man; the Prussians, or at least the Berlinese, entertain for him a similar feeling to that entertained by the other Germans for Prussia. They do not love him; they love to exercise their wit upon him, and you know how biting and salted the Berlin wit is; but they acknowledge him and wonder at him, showing him tolerance. They look upon him as the greatest statesman of the present day; are proud of him, although he often presses hard upon them. M. de Bismarck has for the Prussians an incomparable magic, particularly since he opposed the policy of Napoleon. Since 1866, a change has taken place which has surprised me, although there is nothing very surprising in it. Before 1866, the Premier in every thing he did had the world pretty much against him—to-day every impulse is expected from him, and if he gives it, almost every one is at his back.”
The question of popularity, as far as the great world is concerned, may well be left here; but in Varzin and the neighboring districts it has long since been determined. Only ask his farmers and laborers! And with the daring blacksmith—(or was it a miller?)—who secretly poaches on Bismarck’s preserves, the Minister-President is, perhaps, the most popular of any.
It is a real pleasure to see Bismarck at Varzin among his trees; not during those restless nocturnal wanderings in the park, to which his sleepless illness only too frequently impels him, but when he is pleasantly pointing out his favorites to his guests. It was an event when the North German Chancellor, the summer before last, discovered three magnificent beeches in the midst of a thicket.
On a declivity with a beautiful view, there is a rich deer preserve. Bismarck might even erect a falconry, and hunt with hawks—there are plenty in the Netherlands still. But this Imperial and Royal amusement is for him too—reactionary.
One day Bismarck thought, as he was riding to the Crangener frontier, whither he had sent his gamekeeper, that he caught a glimpse of a peculiar blue animal which fled before him. But when he came up with it, it proved to be a blue parasol, and he himself had fallen into an ambuscade, for he found himself suddenly surrounded by a crowd of young ladies, who received him with songs. The pastor in Crangen kept a young ladies’ school, who, having heard that Bismarck was coming, thus paid their respects to him in so unexpected a way, and left him, delighted with his amiability. Crangen, an ancient hunting castle of the Dukes of Pomerania, standing picturesquely, with its four stately towers and high gables, between three lakes and high mountains, is, without doubt, the most beautiful spot in this neighborhood. It belongs to the Royal Major Retired Rank Freiherr Hugo von Loën, who is Bismarck’s nearest neighbor in that direction.