Great is the contrast between the Court of Berlin to-day and the aspect which it presented during the closing years of the reign of old Emperor William, and were any of the latter's familiars to return to the place where so much of their existence had been spent, they would indeed find themselves amidst strange surroundings and strange faces. In those days, grey and white hair were the rule rather than the exception. To-day the contrary is the case, and not merely do the dignitaries of the court and of the army belong to a younger generation, but also the members of the imperial circle, that is to say, the princes and princesses of the blood, with whom the emperor and empress associate as kinsfolk and near relatives.
The few older members of the reigning house of Prussia who survive—the contemporaries of the grandfather and father of William II.—find the atmosphere of the court so different from what they have been accustomed to in the past, so out of keeping with their ideas—in one word, feel themselves so little at home there, that they prefer to stay away as much as they can. Thus Prince Albert of Prussia, one of the grandest looking soldiers of the imperial army, and certainly one of the most gigantic in stature, divides his time between Brunswick, where he holds a court of his own as regent, and England, where he is accustomed to spend his holidays. The widowed Princess Frederick-Charles lives nearly all the year round in Italy with her chamberlain, Baron Wangenheim, whom she is understood to have morganatically married, and in whose company she occasionally visits the pope, a circumstance which has led to the rumor that she has joined the Church of Rome. The widowed Empress Frederick is either at her lovely castle of Kronberg, near Homburg, which is stocked from garret to cellar with those art treasures of which she is one of the finest connaisseuses in Europe, or else is traveling about in Italy, Austria or England. Indeed the only contemporary of the old Emperor who still remains at Berlin, and who is occasionally to be seen at court, giving one the impression of a spectre of the past, is Prince George, who bears a startling resemblance to the old kaiser particularly when arrayed in uniform.
While slightly eccentric, he is remarkably accomplished, and has not only written a number of German plays over the pen-name of "George Conrad," which have been successfully staged in Germany, but is even the author of a drama written in the purest and most exquisitely correct French, sparkling with Parisian wit and brilliancy, which has had long runs in many theatres without either the actors or the public being aware that it was from the pen of a prince of Prussia.
Until the war of 1870, Prince George was on terms of the utmost intimacy with the de Goncourts, the Dumases, de Girardin, and all the principal literary lights of France, with whom he was wont to foregather on a footing of artistic equality each year at Ems, a German watering-place much frequented by the French prior to the great struggle of 1870; of course, since that time his intercourse with French people has been much more restricted, and through a feeling of delicacy and tact, with which he is not usually credited, he has refrained from visiting Paris, or even from setting his foot on French territory since the war. This, however, has not prevented him from keeping himself au courant of every literary and dramatic event that takes place on the banks of the Seine, and a French academician of my acquaintance who was presented to him last summer at Ems, and who spent several days there in his company, could not sufficiently express his amazement, not merely at the extraordinary purity of the prince's French, but likewise at the amazing manner in which he seems to have kept track of everything that has happened at Paris in the world of letters and art, as well as of the French idioms, figures of speech, and even witticisms of the present day.
The delicacy which Prince George manifests with regard to the French people, and his fear lest his admiration for them should be misinterpreted, is largely due to the treatment that he received at the hands of Empress Eugénie at Carlsbad, in 1874 or 1875. Having been a frequent and welcome guest at the Tuileries during the reign of Napoleon III., the prince, when he found that the widowed empress had arrived at Carlsbad, and had taken up her residence at the very hotel at which he was staying, naturally considered that he could not do otherwise than take some notice of her presence; if he affected to ignore her, he would have exposed himself to the reproach of gross discourtesy; at the same time he felt that any public form of attention might prove unwelcome to her, and might possibly serve to impair her son's prospects of recovering his father's throne; so he contented himself with sending her every day magnificent baskets of flowers, and with bowing to her with the utmost deference, but without attempting to accost her when he met her in the gardens or park. He likewise caused it to be intimated to her secretary, M. Pietri, that if at any moment she felt disposed to accord him an audience, he would be only too glad of the opportunity to "lay his homage at the feet of her majesty." That was all. Yet such as it was, the empress managed to turn it to political account, for she suddenly left Carlsbad, making it known throughout France, by means of the press, that she had been compelled to quit the baths, and to interrupt the cure, in consequence of the undesirable attentions which Prince George of Prussia persisted in forcing upon her. Naturally, the newspapers made the most of her story, and were filled with denunciations and abuse of the prince, some of the sheets asserting, by way of explanation of his conduct, that he was mentally unbalanced, his mother having been an acknowledged lunatic, and his brother. Prince Alexander, an imbecile. Nothing can be further from the truth. It cannot be denied that he has a few harmless and kindly eccentricities which would attract no attention whatever in an ordinary septuagenarian, but which excite comment merely by reason of his rank as a prince of the blood. He is a gentle, brilliantly accomplished, chivalrous old fellow, without an enemy in the world, and is a great favorite with the emperor's children, who will deeply miss him when he passes over to the majority, and is laid to rest in the family vault of the house of Hohenzollern.
With this exception, the princes and princesses of the blood of the Court of Berlin are all of much the same age as the emperor. They comprise Prince Henry, his only brother, who is due home from China in the spring of 1900, and his consort, Princess Irene of Hesse, sister of the young czarina. Then there is Prince Frederick-Leopold, the extremely wealthy son of Prussia's celebrated cavalry general, Prince Frederick-Charles, to whom belonged the credit of taking the French stronghold of Metz, in the war of 1870. He is married to a younger sister of the empress, and is, therefore, not only the cousin, but likewise the brother-in-law of the kaiser.
Prince Adolph, of Schaumburg-Lippe, although nominally stationed at Bonn, is also accustomed to spend the entire season at Berlin, with his wife, Princess Victoria of Prussia, a sister of the kaiser. The latter is credited with the intention of investing Prince Adolph with the regency of Brunswick, should it be vacated by Prince Albert, or else of appointing him Viceroy of Alsace-Lorraine. Princess Aribert of Anhalt and her husband, too, are very conspicuous figures in the imperial circle, the princess being a special favorite of the kaiser. She is his first cousin, being the offspring of Queen Victoria's daughter Helena, who married Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, the guardian of the present empress, who spent much of her girlhood in England with Prince and Princess Christian, so that her friendship with Princess Aribert may be said to date from childhood. Duke Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, the only brother of the empress, has quieted down to a great extent since his marriage a year ago to Princess Dorothy of Coburg, and inasmuch as his eighteen-year-old wife appears to be supremely happy, there is every reason to believe that he has demonstrated the truth of the good old adage, according to which "reformed rakes make the best husbands!" The only daughter of the King of Wurtemberg has made her home at Potsdam and at Berlin since her marriage to the Prince of Wied, and as she is not only the cousin, but likewise the most intimate friend of the young Queen of Holland, the kaiser finds considerable political advantage in lavishing tokens of his affection and regard upon both her and her husband.
Another young couple belonging to the Court of Berlin are Prince and Princess William of Hohenzollern. The princess is a daughter of the Sicilian branch of the house of Bourbon, while her husband is the eldest son of that Leopold of Hohenzollern, on account of whose election to the throne of Spain in 1870, France embarked upon her disastrous war with Germany. Young Prince William of Hohenzollern, it may be added, figured for a time as Crown Prince of Roumania, and as heir to the throne of his uncle, King Charles; but after living for some time at Bucharest, he came to the conclusion that life in Roumania as crown prince was infinitely less agreeable than that of a scion of the house of Hohenzollern at Berlin, so he renounced his rights to the Roumanian throne, and came back to Berlin to live.
His younger brother, Charles of Hohenzollern, divides his time between Berlin and Potsdam; he is married to Princess Josephine of Belgium, daughter of that Count of Flanders, who is brother and next heir to King Leopold. Besides these, there are Prince and Princess Albert of Saxe-Altenburg, and several other young couples belonging to the junior sovereign houses of the German empire, who prefer to make their home at Berlin, and at Potsdam, rather than in the smaller and infinitely less brilliant capitals of their respective countries. Moreover, it has now become the fashion among the various non-Prussian rulers of the German Confederation, to send the junior members of their families—the young men—to Berlin for a time, in order to complete their military education under the eyes of the kaiser, and to be in touch with that general staff which is virtually the Supreme Council of War of the German army.
It is for this reason that Prince Louis of Bavaria, although he notoriously dislikes the kaiser and resents his assumption of superiority, claiming that the members of the Wittelsbach family are not the vassals, but the allies of the emperor, nevertheless has sent first his eldest son, and then each of his younger ones in turn, to spend a year or two at the Court of Berlin, under the immediate direction and eye of the kaiser. Prince Louis was particularly anxious that his eldest son, Rupert, as future King of Bavaria, should get in touch with the emperor, and become thoroughly acquainted, not only with Prussian methods, but also with the leading statesmen and generals, and with the trend of political aims and aspirations at Berlin. The example of Prince Louis has been followed by all the other petty German sovereigns, so that there are always about a score of non-Prussian but German young princes of the blood, giving life and gayety to the Courts of Berlin, and Potsdam, and taking a leading part in Berlin society.