Another remarkable religious ceremony in which the emperor plays the leading part, and which is only to be witnessed nowadays at the Court of Vienna, is the washing of the feet of twelve aged men on the Thursday of Holy Week, in memory of the washing of the feet of the twelve apostles on the first Holy Thursday by the Founder of Christianity. The ceremony takes place at the imperial palace, in the presence of the entire court. The twelve old men, each carefully dressed for the occasion, who have been brought from their homes to the palace in imperial carriages, are seated in a row, and, after a brief religious service celebrated by the cardinal archbishop, the emperor kneels in front of each, and washes his feet in a golden basin filled with rose water, the ewer being carried by the heir to the throne, while the prelate who holds the office of court chaplain hands to his majesty the gold-embroidered towel with which the feet are dried after having been washed. When the emperor has reached the end of the line there are more prayers, and the blessing; then a banquet is served to the old men, at which they are waited on in person by the emperor, the various dishes being handed to him by the archdukes and princes of the blood. The old people are finally sent home, each with a purse containing gold pieces, and a large hamper, wherein are placed several bottles of fine wine and the remains of the various dishes and gastronomical masterpieces which have figured on the table during the banquet. As a rule, the old men dispose of these for considerable sums of money to wealthy Viennese, who are only too delighted to purchase them, and thus to be able to boast of having partaken of the emperor's hospitality!
Brought up by parents who axe renowned for their religious bigotry, in the absolutist school of the great Prince Metternich, Emperor Francis-Joseph has experienced the utmost difficulty in reconciling his religions belief with his obligations as a constitutional monarch, for he has been repeatedly obliged to give his sanction as a sovereign to reforms enacted by the legislature of Austria, and particularly of Hungary, which were strongly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church, fiercely denounced by the clergy, and condemned by the Vatican. That he should in matters such as these have sacrificed his religious prejudices and conscientious scruples to what he conceived to be his duty as a constitutional monarch, speaks volumes for his strength of character, and for his uprightness as a ruler. There is only one thing that he has declined to do, in spite of all the pressure brought to bear upon him by his ministers and by his allies: he has absolutely declined to visit Rome so long as the Pope remains deprived of his temporal sovereignty. Ordinarily the most chivalrous and courteous of monarchs, and extremely punctilious in the fulfilment of all the obligations imposed by etiquette, he has up to the present moment refrained from returning the visit paid to his court at Vienna by King Humbert and Queen Marguerite nearly twenty years ago. Leo XIII., like his predecessor, has intimated that he would regard any visit paid to the King of Italy in the former Papal Palace of the Quirinal at Rome, by a Catholic sovereign, as a cruel affront to the occupant of the chair of St. Peter. The only Catholic ruler who has visited King Humbert at the Quirinal, in spite of this papal protest, is Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who was at the time subject to the ban of the church, in consequence of the conversion of his little son from Catholicism to the Greek orthodox rite, in order to insure his own (Ferdinand's) recognition by Russia as ruler of Bulgaria. But Francis-Joseph has never consented to set his foot in Rome, although it has been pointed out to him that the existence of the triple alliance was imperilled by this slight placed upon King Humbert and Queen Marguerite. He did not hesitate to declare that he would rather forego the alliance than affront the Pope by visiting Rome under the present circumstances.
One little scene, in conclusion, which I witnessed at Vienna, has always remained impressed upon my mind, illustrating as it does the democracy of the Catholic Church, if I may use that expression, and demonstrating the good old emperor's belief,—so different from that of Emperor William,—that in the eyes of the Almighty all men are equal.
It transpired at the funeral of Cardinal Gangelbauer, the popular and universally venerated Archbishop of Vienna. The obsequies took place in the ancient Cathedral of St. Stephen. Military and ecclesiastical pomp were combined with the magnificent ceremonial of the Austrian court for the purpose of rendering the last honors to the dead prelate. The entire metropolitan garrison was under arms, and lined the streets through which the funeral procession passed. The bells of all the churches in the metropolis were tolling throughout the ceremony, and added to the solemnity of the occasion. The stately Papal Nuncio performed the funeral service in the most impressive manner, and when he stood on the step of the high altar, and raised his hands aloft to pronounce the absolution, the whole of the vast assemblage bowed down, the wintry sunlight streaming through the rich stained glass windows, falling alike upon the reverently bent head of the monarch, and those of the peasant mourners who stood by his side at the head of the bier. For the dead cardinal was the son of an old farmer, and his brothers, his sisters, and his nephews, all of them plain, humble peasants of Upper Austria, were kneeling there in their peasant garb with the emperor in their midst, and surrounded by the glittering uniforms of the archdukes, the princes, the generals, cabinet ministers and ambassadors assembled around the coffin. There was no undue exaltation or timidity on the part of the peasants, no undue condescension or contempt on the part either of emperor or dignitaries for the lowly rank of their fellow mourners. All seemed thoroughly to realize that they were equal in the face of death, and in the presence of their Creator.
It is only in a metaphorical sense that William can be described as an Anointed of the Lord. For whereas Francis-Joseph was both anointed and crowned as King of Hungary in 1867, Emperor William has never been the object of either of these ceremonies. The fact of the matter is that there is a good deal of difference of opinion concerning the dignity of a German emperor; for while William claims that it is identical with the status of the emperors of Austria and Russia, the non-Prussian states of Germany insist that it is merely titular, inasmuch as he has no control or jurisdiction in the various federal states which constitute the empire, such as Bavaria, Saxony and Würtemberg, each of which has an independent king in nowise subject, but merely allied to the Prussian monarch.
It is only in time of war, and for the sake of successful co-operation that the supreme command of the united German military forces is by special agreement vested in the hands of the German emperor—a tribute to the superiority and pre-eminence of the Prussian military reorganizations. It is true that Prussia has since then, by degrees, endeavored to encroach upon the independence of the federal states. But this is strongly resented, to-day more than ever, and William is constantly being reminded by the non-Prussian press, by the non-Prussian governments, and even by the non-Prussian reigning dynasties that they are not vassals, but allies of Prussia.
The German emperor has no crown as such, nor any civil list, and with the solitary exception of his eldest son, all the members of his family figure merely as royal Prussian, not imperial German princes. Thus, for instance, Prince Henry, the brother of the emperor, is addressed not as imperial highness, but only as royal highness.
Had William attempted to have himself crowned as German emperor, it would merely have had the effect of attracting public attention to the difference existing between his own status as emperor and that of his fellow-sovereigns of Austria and Russia, besides which it would have raised all sorts of troublesome questions with the non-Prussian courts, and intensified their sensibilities and prejudices. If, on the other hand, he had caused himself to be crowned king of Prussia in the ancient city of Königsberg, where all Prussian kings have been crowned, the ceremony would have had the effect of impressing upon the world at large the fact that the only real crown to which William can lay claim, and which he is entitled to wear, is the crown of the kings of Prussia.
That is why he has never been either crowned or anointed, differing in this respect from Francis-Joseph, Emperor Nicholas and Queen Victoria, all of whom have experienced both ceremonies, which by the masses of Europe, especially among the uneducated and ignorant, are considered indispensable to endow the majesty of the sovereign with a sacred character. The Hungarians did not consider Francis-Joseph as entitled to their allegiance and loyalty until he had been crowned at Pesth with the crown of St. Stephen, and anointed with the sacred oil, and there is no doubt that the Bohemians would be transformed from the most turbulent, malcontent, and troublesome of his subjects into his most devoted lieges, were he to comply with their demands, and have himself anointed and crowned as King of Bohemia, with the crown of Saint Wenceslaus.
Nor was Emperor Nicholas of Russia considered a full-fledged Czar of Russia, nor his consort a czarina, until he had been anointed and crowned at Moscow, nearly two years after his accession to the throne. In fact, until the time of his coronation, his mother, the dowager empress, enjoyed precedence of his wife on all official occasions, on the ground that she was the widow of a crowned czar, and had herself been solemnly crowned as the consort of Alexander III., by her imperial husband, whereas her daughter-in-law, the younger empress, had enjoyed no such advantage up to that time.