¶ Bismarck now decided to try various gastronomic oddities; ordered his staff to shoot pheasants from the Baron’s preserves, and commanded the cook to stew the birds in champagne!
¶ When Napoleon wrote his famous note, at Sedan, “Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops, there is nothing left for me but to place my troops in your Majesty’s hands,” Bismarck saw the human nature side at a glance! He urged peace, then and there, with the Prince Imperial on the throne, and “under German influence,” which would thus give to Prussia the whip hand. General Sheridan tells the story.
It was an instantaneous look into the far future, and although it did not prevail, for certain important reasons, the Chancellor caught the human side of the combination, with the clarity of a dramatist constructing a plot.
¶ On his mother’s side, Otto von Bismarck comes of hunting, fighting and farming stock.
Shrewd, wise, ambitious, and haughty—with these traits she richly endowed her son. His father was handsome, bright, solid, emphatic-looking, but with a yielding disposition; the iron will and sharp tongue of the wife overawed the husband. The shrewish frau had things largely her own way, was able to read a lecture like the wrath of God. However, on the whole, the couple got along passably well—for Karl never took Louise too seriously! When Frau Louise’s efforts to make a lackey of him got on his nerves, Karl called his cronies and away they went fox-hunting.
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At the tender age of six, already is Otto forced out of the family circle; the wolf’s breed shows its teeth.
¶ Well, the incensed Louise, weary of the softness of Karl, and fearing lest Karl would spoil Otto by too much petting, packed the child off to Plamann Institute, Berlin, a school of the Squeers type.
Otto remained in this Spartan school-prison for nearly six years, and to the end of his life carried unpleasant memories. Plamann Institute idea was to harden lads, but instead of hardening the practices there embittered.