Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century

by George Paston

The prince's adventures in Wales and Ireland, with the recital of which he has filled up the best part of two volumes, must here be dismissed in as many paragraphs. On his tour through Wales, he left his card on the Ladies of Llangollen, who promptly invited him to lunch. Fortunately, he had previously been warned of his hostesses' peculiarities of dress and appearance. 'Imagine,' he writes, 'two ladies, the elder of whom, Lady Eleanor Butler, a short, robust woman, begins to feel her years a little, being nearly eighty-three; the other, a tall and imposing person, esteems herself still youthful, being only seventy-four. Both wore their still abundant hair combed straight back and powdered, a round man's hat, a man's cravat and waistcoat, but in the place of "inexpressibles," a short petticoat and boots: the whole covered by a coat of blue cloth, of quite a peculiar cut. Over this Lady Eleanor wore, first the grand cordon of the order of St. Louis across her shoulders; secondly, the same order round her neck; thirdly, the small cross of the same in her buttonhole; and, pour comble de gloire, a golden lily of nearly the natural size as a star. So far the effect was somewhat ludicrous. But now you must imagine both ladies with that agreeable aisance, that air of the world of the ancien régime, courteous, entertaining, without the slightest affectation, speaking French as well as any Englishwoman of my acquaintance; and, above all, with that essentially polite, unconstrained, simply cheerful manner of the good society of that day, which in our hard-working, business age appears to be going to utter decay.'

Thanks to his letters of introduction and the friendships that he struck up on the road, the prince was able occasionally to step out of the beaten tourist tracks, and to see something of the more intimate side of Irish social life. He has given a lively and picturesque account of his experiences, which included an introduction to Lady Morgan, [Footnote: See page 142.] and to her charming nieces, the Miss Clarkes (who made a profound impression on his susceptible heart), a sentimental journey through Wicklow, a glance at the humours of Donnybrook Fair, a visit to O'Connell at Derrinane Abbey, a peep into the wilds of Connaught, an Emancipation dinner at Cashel, where he made his début as an English orator, and an expedition to the lakes of Killarney. All this, which was probably novel and interesting to the German public, contains little that is not familiar to the modern English reader. The sketch of O'Connell is sufficiently vivid to bear quotation.

'Daniel O'Connell,' observes the prince, after his visit to Derrinane, 'is no common man--though the man of the commonalty. His power is so great that at this moment it only depends on him to raise the standard of rebellion from one end of the island to the other. He is, however, too sharp-sighted, and much too sure of attaining his ends by safer means, to wish to bring on any such violent crisis. He has certainly shown great dexterity in availing himself of the temper of the country at this moment, legally, openly, and in the face of Government, to acquire a power scarcely inferior to that of the sovereign; indeed, though without arms or armies, in some instances far surpassing it. For how would it have been possible for his Majesty George IV. to withhold 40,000 of his faithful Irishmen for three days from whisky drinking? which O'Connell actually accomplished in the memorable Clare election. The enthusiasm of the people rose to such a height that they themselves decreed and inflicted a punishment for drunkenness. The delinquent was thrown into the river, and held there for two hours, during which time he was made to undergo frequent submersions.... On the whole, O'Connell exceeded my expectations. His exterior is attractive, and the expression of intelligent good-humour, united with determination and prudence, which marks his countenance, is extremely winning. He has perhaps more of persuasiveness than of large and lofty eloquence; and one frequently perceives too much design and manner in his words. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to follow his powerful arguments with interest, to view the martial dignity of his carriage without pleasure, or to refrain from laughing at his wit.... He has received from Nature an invaluable gift for a party-leader, a magnificent voice, united to good lungs and a strong constitution. His understanding is sharp and quick, and his acquirements out of his profession not inconsiderable. With all this his manners are, as I have said, winning and popular, though somewhat of the actor is noticeable in them; they do not conceal his very high opinion of himself, and are occasionally tinged by what an Englishman would call vulgarity. But where is there a picture without shade?'

The prince's matrimonial projects had been pursued only in half-hearted fashion during this year, and on his return to England in December, he seems to have thrown up the game in despair. On January 2, 1829, he turned his back on our perfidious shores, and made a short tour in France before proceeding to Muskau. In one of his letters to Lucie he admits that on his return journey he had plenty of material for reflection. Two precious years had been wasted, absence from his dearest friend had been endured, a large sum of money had been spent in keeping up a dashing appearance--and all in vain. He consoles himself with the amazing reflection that Parry had failed in three attempts to reach the North Pole, and Bonaparte, after heaping victory on victory for twenty years, had perished miserably in St. Helena!

But if the prince had not accomplished his design of carrying off a British heiress, his sojourn in England brought him a prize of a different kind--namely, the laurel crown of fame. His Briefe eines Verstorbenen, the first volumes of which were published anonymously in 1830, was greeted with an almost unanimous outburst of admiration and applause. The critics vied with each other in praising a work in which, according to their verdict, the grace and piquancy of France were combined with the analytical methods and the profound philosophy of Germany. In England, as was only to be expected, the chorus of applause was not unmixed with hisses and catcalls. The author had, however, been exceptionally fortunate in his translator, Sarah Austin, whose version of the Letters, entitled The Tour of a German Prince, was described by the Westminster Review as 'the best modern translation of a prose work that has ever appeared, and perhaps our only translation from the German. As an original work, the ease and facility of the style would be admired; as a translation, it is unrivalled.' Croker reviewed the book in the Quarterly in his accustomed strain of playful brutality, rejoiced savagely over the numerous blunders, [Footnote: The most amusing of these is the derivation of the Prince of Wales' motto 'Ich dien' from two Welsh words, 'Eich deyn,' said to signify 'This is your man!'] and credited the author with almost as many blasphemies as Lady Morgan herself. The Edinburgh, in a more impartial notice, observed that a great part of the work had no other merit than that of being an act of individual treachery against the hospitalities of private life, and commented on the fact that while the masterpieces of Goethe and Schiller were still untranslated, the Tour of Prince Pückler-Muskau had been bought up in a month.

The prince was far too vain of his unexpected literary success to preserve his anonymity, and the ink-craving having laid hold upon him, he lost no time in setting to work upon another book. The semblance of a separation between himself and Lucie had now been thrown aside. During the summer months they lived at Muskau, where they laboured together over plans for the embellishment of the gardens, while in the winter they kept up a splendid establishment in Berlin. The sight of a divorced couple living together seems to have shocked the Berliners far more than that of a married couple living apart, but to Pückler, as a chartered 'original,' much was forgiven. At this time he went a good deal into literary society, and became intimate with several women-writers, among them the Gräfin Hahn-Hahn, Rahel, and that amazing lady, Bettine von Arnim. With the last-named he struck up an intellectual friendship which roused the jealousy of Lucie, and was finally wrecked by Bettine's attempts to obtain a spiritual empire over the lord of Muskau.

In 1832 the prince's debts amounted to 500,000 thalers, and he was obliged once again to face the fact that he could only save himself from ruin by a wealthy marriage, or by the sale of his estate. In a long letter he laid the state of the case before his faithful companion, pointing out that even at forty-seven, he, with his title and his youthful appearance, might hope to secure a bride worth 300,000 thalers, but that as long as his ex-wife remained at Muskau he was hardly likely to be successful in his matrimonial speculations. Lucie again consented to sacrifice herself in the good cause; but the prince, a man of innumerable bonnes fortunes according to his own account, was curiously unfortunate as a would-be Benedick. The German heiresses were no more propitious to his suit than the English ones had been; and though, as he plaintively observes, he would have liked nothing better than to be a Turkish pasha with a hundred and fifty sultanas, he was unable to obtain a single Christian wife.

In 1834 the prince published two books, Tutti Frutti, a collection of stories and sketches, and Observations on Landscape-Gardening. Tutti Frutti was by no means so popular as the Briefe eines Verstorbenen, but the Observations took rank as a standard work. The project of a journey to America having been abandoned, the prince now determined to spend the winter in Algiers, leaving Lucie in charge at Muskau. This modest programme enlarged itself into a tour in the East, which lasted for more than five years. The travellers adventures during this period have been described in his Semilasso in Africa, Aus Mehemet's Reich, Die Rückkehr, and other works, which added to their author's fame, and nearly sufficed to pay his expenses. We hear of him breaking hearts at Tunis and Athens, shooting big game in the Soudan, astonishing the Arabs by his horsemanship, and meddling in Egyptian politics. It was not until 1838 that, moved by Lucie's complaints of her loneliness, he reluctantly abandoned his plan of settling in the East, and turned his face towards Europe. On the homeward journey he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and turned out of his course for the visit to Lady Hester Stanhope that has already been described.

His Highness arrived at Vienna in the autumn of 1839, bringing in his suite an Abyssinian slave-girl, Machbuba, whom he had bought a couple of years before, and who had developed such wonderful qualities of head and heart, that he could not bring himself to part from her. But Lucie obstinately refused to receive Machbuba at Muskau, and declared that the prince's reputation would be destroyed for ever, if he brought a favourite slave under the same roof as his 'wife,' and thus sinned against the laws of outward seemliness. So Machbuba and the master who, like another Pygmalion, seems to have endowed this dusky Galatea with a mind and soul, remained at Vienna, where the Abyssinian, clad in a picturesque Mameluke's costume, accompanied the prince to all the public spectacles, and became a nine days' wonder to the novelty-loving Viennese. But the severity of a European winter proved fatal to poor Machbuba, consumption laid its grip upon her, and it was as a dying girl that at last she was taken to the Baths of Muskau. Lucie received this once-dreaded rival kindly, but at once carried off the prince for a visit to Berlin, and in the absence of the master whom she worshipped with a spaniel-like devotion, Machbuba breathed her last. The slave-girl was laid to rest amid all the pomp and ceremony of a state funeral, the principal inhabitants of Muskau and the neighbourhood followed her to her grave, and on the Sunday following her death the chaplain delivered a eulogy on Machbuba's virtues, and the fatherly benevolence of her master.

The prince was temporarily broken-hearted at the death of his favourite, but his mercurial spirits soon reasserted themselves, and a round of visits to the various German courts restored him to his accustomed self-complacency. The idea of selling Muskau, and thus ridding himself of the burden of his debts, once more occupied his mind. A handsome offer for the estate had been refused a few years before, in compliance with the wishes of Lucie, who loved Muskau even better than its master, and had appealed to the king to prevent the sale. But in 1845 came another offer from Count Hatzfeld of 1,700,000 thalers, which, in spite of Lucie's tears and entreaties, the prince decided to accept. Although it cost him a sharp pang to give up to another the spot of earth on which he had lavished so much time, so much labour, and so much money, he fully appreciated the advantage of an unembarrassed income and complete freedom of movement.