“As One Asleep”
¶ On July 30, 1898, just before midnight, Otto Edward Leopold von Bismarck, Prince of Lauenburg and former Imperial Chancellor of the German Empire, died peacefully in the old homestead of his ancestors.
The immediate cause of death was congestion of the lungs.
¶ “Ich danke Dir, mein Kind,” were his last words, addressed to his daughter, who had stooped to wipe the moisture from his pale brow.
¶ As late as the day he died, he had read the newspapers and talked politics.
His final remarks were on the relations of Germany and Russia, at all times a subject of deep concern to him.
¶ Dr. Schweninger had promised to bring him to 90—and was seven years short.
But the Bismarck of retirement was not unhappy in the taking off; he had grown tired of it all; and it is pleasant to record that his last hours were without pain.
¶ A few days before, he had had his champagne, and had smoked five pipes in succession; also the day before he died, he had asked an attendant to “color” two new meerschaums, gifts of friends. Toward the last, he had used an invalid’s chair for breakfast, but otherwise he seemed as well as could be expected.