Austria can’t hold out much longer, and the country is getting very violent against the King and Bismarck. The Emperor is less able to concede and keep peace.
Now good-bye, dearest Mama. We are so grateful to you for taking the children, if any thing comes to pass.
May 22d.
* * * Any thing you hear of Vicky and Fritz, will you write it to me? * * * The cloud grows blacker every day, and the anxiety we all live in is very great. But I ought not to write to you to-day of such gloomy things, which, thank God, you only see and hear of from the other side of the water.
May 25th.
* * * The Duke and Duchess of Nassau were here yesterday. They, like me, are in such an unpleasant position, should it come to blows, which I still hope may be averted—for why should we harmless mortals be attacked?
* * * We shall be beggars very soon, if all goes on as it promises to do; it is quite dreadful, and the want of other people (and dissatisfaction) increases. * * * I have ordered a good travelling-bag for Louis, for much the same reason that some people take out an umbrella in fine weather to keep off the rain, and this is to be against a war. * * * I have a sort of Ahnung [presentiment] that it won’t come to the worst—for us at least—and here we shall keep so quiet, only on the defensive, if attacked.
May 28th.
* * * There seems a little chance of the dreadful prospects being bettered. How I do pray it may be the commencement of a better time; and that, if peace be established, it may be so firmly, so that one may not live in the daily dread of new quarrels re-opening between the two countries. * * *
The man who built our house has nearly been made bankrupt, and wants money from us to save him from ruin, and we can scarcely manage it. The ruin this preparation for war, and consequent cessation of all speculations, buildings, or trade, has brought on people is dreadful, and of course increases.