In and Around Berlin

by Minerva Brace Norton

PALACES.

he palaces lately occupied by Emperor William I. and Crown Prince Frederick were formerly shown to the public during the absence of the occupants at their country residences; but as this was usually in the summer, when comparatively few strangers are in Berlin, they were not commonly included in a sight-seeing programme. They are pleasant homes, without great magnificence, but containing many interesting memorials of the lives of their Imperial masters. The palace of the Crown Prince was not used by him after he became Emperor Frederick III. The hundred days of pain which remained to him of life were spent at Charlottenburg and in the Castle of Friedrichskron at Potsdam.

The Old Schloss of Berlin, dating back in its foundation to the castle fortified on the river-side more than four hundred years ago by one of the early Electors of Brandenburg to maintain his rights of conquest, has received many later additions. It now has seven hundred apartments, and reached perhaps its greatest glory in the time of Frederick the Great, who was born here. It was then the central seat of the royal family; and here were deposited the records and treasures of the Government. It is now used only as the permanent residence of a few officials, but is the place of entertainment for many royal guests and their retinues when the great State pageants occur, of which Berlin has seen so many. It is popularly said to be haunted. There is a story that the Countess Agnes of Orlamünde, many, many years ago, murdered her two children in order that she might marry the man of her choice, and that in penance her ghost is condemned to haunt the Old Palace of Berlin and that of Bayreuth. It is believed by some that this apparition of "the White Lady" appears to a member of the Hohenzollern family as a sure forerunner of death; and Carlyle's picture of the causeless fright of one of the royal rulers when he thought he had seen this ghost, will recur to all who have read "Frederick the Great." We have heard of no visitor so fortunate as to get a sight of the apparition. One enters through an inner court; and parties who wish to see the interior are taken every half-hour, by an official in charge, for a tour of the palace. The waxed floors of inlaid wood are very handsome; and, as in other parts of Central Europe, they are protected from the tramp of visitors by immense felt slippers, into which all are required to thrust their shoes, and in which one goes gliding noiselessly over the polished surfaces in a way to save the floors, but not always to conserve the dignity or gravity of those unaccustomed to the process. Many of the rooms are highly decorated, and memorials of the history of Prussia abound. There are many paintings, of which most are portraits or battle scenes, the picture gallery proper containing the pictures connected with Prussian history, and the Kings' and Queens' chambers the portraits of all the sovereigns. The Chamber of the Cloth of Gold and the Old Throne Room are highly ornamented, and contain massive gold and silver mementos of former kings and of Emperor William's long career. Here also is the great crystal chandelier which once hung in the Hall of the Conclave at Worms, and under which Luther stood when he made the immortal declaration, "Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht andere; helfe mir Gott. Amen." In the White Hall court balls are held, and here sometimes has gathered the Parliament to be opened by the Emperor. It is said that when lighted up by its nearly three thousand wax candles for a court festival, the scene in this hall is extremely brilliant.

Charlottenburg has been anew endeared to the public by the pathos of the home-coming of Emperor Frederick III., who took up his first Imperial residence in this suburban palace, and from an upper window of which he watched the funeral procession of his venerable sire as it passed to the mausoleum. This only son and heir to a great throne might not follow the bier of the father to its resting-place, but gazed alone from the palace at the mournful pageant, knowing that the time could not be far distant when the same sad ceremonials would be repeated for himself. Who shall say what were the thoughts of the manly Frederick III., as, when wife and children had joined the sad procession which wound its way northward through that grand but sombre avenue of stately pines which leads from the palace of Charlottenburg to the beautiful marble mausoleum where Kaiser Wilhelm was laid to rest beside his mother and his father, the sick man stood immovably at that upper window, following only with his eyes, and with no spoken word, the drama in which himself was the central and most pathetic figure!

Charlottenburg is a suburb some two or three miles southwest of Berlin, practically now a part of the capital, but with a corporation and a quiet life of its own. Sophia Charlotte, Queen of the first King of Prussia, founded for herself a country residence here at the village of Lietzow, nearly two hundred years ago; and this has given the palace and the present suburb its name. Here the idolized Queen Louise in the early part of this century lived much, and here are many portraits and marbles bearing her likeness. The palace and front garden are in unattractive "rococo" style, especially the rooms occupied by Frederick the Great; but the gardens in the rear of the palace are large and most attractive. The fame of the place arises chiefly from the beautiful Doric mausoleum to Frederick William III. and Queen Louise, created by the taste of their son, King Frederick William IV., brother and predecessor of the late Emperor William. The exquisite reposing figure of Queen Louise in Carrara marble lies under light falling through stained glass in the dome; and the tomb of the King (her husband) lying beside her is hardly less attractive. Both are surrounded by excellent accessories in marble and fresco, and it is a place where one gladly lingers long. The great avenue leading from the palace to the mausoleum has ivy-mantled trunks of giant trees for sentinels, and greensward and forest on either hand make a quiet which beseems one of the loveliest of resting-places for the dead. It was here that King William came to pray, beside the tomb of the mother who had suffered so much at the hands of the First Napoleon, on the eve of going out to the war with Napoleon III.; and here, when returning in the flush of victory as Emperor of United Germany, with Louis Napoleon a prisoner in the German castle of Wilhelmshöhe, the old man came again to kneel in silent prayer beside the form of that mother whom the fortunes of war had so signally avenged more than sixty years after her death. What wonder that in this sacred spot only did William I. wish to be laid, when death should gather him to his fathers!

Sixteen miles southwest of Berlin, "that amphibious Potsdam" of Carlyle holds out manifold attractions by land and water ways. It is a city of fifty thousand inhabitants, besides a garrison of soldiers which guard its royal palaces and their lovely grounds. There are many interesting public buildings and historical monuments. It was early in our Berlin residence that, taking advantage of a bright morning when bright mornings were not too frequent, two Americans were set down at the station in Potsdam, armed only with a well-studied guide-book and a few words of conversational German. We did not wish to be shown everything, and so, declining the offered services of guides, engaged a drosky by the hour, with a kindly-faced young man for driver. He took the greatest interest in us, and supplied us with such information as we wished. For the rest we were set down at Sans Souci, free to stroll through its rooms in charge of the palace official, with our freshly read Macaulay and Carlyle in mind, striking the balance for ourselves between these two differing estimates of Frederick the Great, with every particular standing out vividly in the light of the object-lessons from that monarch's life which crowded on every hand. It was fortunate for us that we were the only visitors that morning, for this was the first palace we had entered, and the dreams of childhood were realizing themselves like the lines of a remembered fairy poem. The sympathy which spoke or was silent at will, sure of being always understood, gave the final touch of perfection to a memorable day. Beautiful for situation, the long, domed, one-storied building, the favorite residence of Frederick the Great, is impressive because of its history. As we wandered through the suites of elegant rooms and heard the stories connected with Frederick and Voltaire, their shades seemed everywhere to flit before us. The first terrace leads to the spot where the King buried his favorite horses and dogs, and where, before the palace was built, he once expressed a wish to lie at the last. "When I am there I shall be without care," he said in French; and so the palace afterwards built for him here took the name "Sans Souci." The great iron gates at the north of the palace had been but twice opened, we were told,—once by the force of the First Napoleon, and once when the greater monarch, Death, had laid his hand on King Frederick William IV., who was carried hence to his last home. The great fountain was not playing that day; but the drive through the vast and famous park, with its enticing views and bewitching beauty, left nothing to be desired except a convenient place for physical refreshments. Past the orangery, with its wide views over land and lake, and Bornstedt (the favorite country home of the Crown Prince) to the north; past the "old windmill" known to history, to the New Palace, with its magnificence, its great extent, and its curious shell grotto,—we leave the simple charms of Charlottenhof and its neighborhood for another visit, and hasten to stand beside the coffin of Frederick the Great beneath the pulpit of the Potsdam Garrison Church.

Nearer to the station is the Old Schloss of Potsdam. An old lime-tree opposite the entrance is shown as the place where the petitioners for the favor of Frederick the Great used to station themselves, in order to attract his Majesty's attention from the window of his bedroom, or as he went in and out of the palace. Here we were almost bewildered by the number and extent of the rooms, and the multitude of historical associations connected with them. Here lived Frederick William I., father of Frederick the Great, in Carlyle's word-painting inferior to no other figure in that great composition. Here are the rolling chairs and the inclined planes along which that monarch was wheeled in the course of his long and painful illness; in his study are the pictures painted by him in tormentis, and looking forth from the south windows we see the parade-ground where he used to drill his giant soldiers. There stands a statue of this strange, eccentric monarch, who, notwithstanding all that was bad, had so much in him that was good and true. It was from this palace that his lifeless remains were carried forth to rest in the Garrison Church, not far away.

As at Sans Souci, remembrance of Frederick the Great crowds upon us in the Old Schloss also. Here is his round-corner room, with walls of famous thickness, and a dumb-waiter lifting up through the floor the table and all its viands, that here he might dine alone with his intimates and no tell-tale sounds escape. Here is the heavy solid-silver balustrade which separates his library from his sleeping-room. In this place, not long before our visit, Prince and Princess Wilhelm, whose winter residence was on an upper floor of this palace, had brought their youngest son for baptism. All the later sovereigns have occupied, at one time or another, apartments in this interesting old palace, and here many souvenirs of the present as well as former royal families are shown.

Charlottenhof, in the southern part of the grounds of Sans Souci, is an unpretending villa, beautiful in its simplicity, and with all its charms enhanced by its having been granted by the King as a summer residence to Alexander von Humboldt while working at his "Kosmos." Near this is the beautiful Roman Bath, adorned with fine works of art.