He: “It was quite correct, however, as reports reached us from all sides as to the bad effect which the Rescript produced on the electors.” He then asked how old I was.
I: “Sixty-nine, but my father was eighty-six and my mother eighty-four.”
He: “Well, I should not mind living till I am eighty, out in the country.” He promised when I left to send me the latest papers (those in the green portfolio) to look through, arrange in chronological order, and copy. I thanked him for his great confidence in me, which was justified, for as I had already said to him on one occasion in 1870, he was my Master, and my Messiah.
He: “Blasphemy! But you have deserved my confidence.”
At 11 A.M. on the 17th of March a Chancery attendant arrived in a cab with a message that the Prince requested me to come to him immediately. On my entering the antechamber, Bleichröder was with him, and afterwards Herbert, and so I had to wait. At length Rottenburg, who had already declared that he, too, would retire, told me that they had gone upstairs to lunch, but that he would immediately again announce my arrival to the Prince. He returned in a few minutes with an invitation from the Chief to take lunch with him. At table upstairs I met a nephew or cousin of the Prince, to whom I was introduced as “Büschlein,” and who remembered having seen me at dinner in Versailles—doubtless the then lieutenant of dragoons with the red collar. The Princess and Count Herbert came in later. The conversation first turned on a foreign diplomatist, who would have married Countess Marie if her father had not been warned against him as a spendthrift. “Besides, I am altogether against marriages with foreigners,” said the Chief, “and particularly in the case of diplomatists.” He then spoke of the alleged second visit of Windthorst. It had displeased the Emperor, but it was merely a newspaper invention and ought to be contradicted. “Such intercourse, however, is useful,” he said. “It is well that I should in that way keep in touch with the parties, and for that reason I have always been accessible to them. Every member of Parliament could come to me at any time, day or night, and be received immediately. But they have taken little advantage of this. They do not want to be considered by their party as having Government sympathies, and prefer to be able to abuse me for having no relations with them. It is only the Ultramontanes who come sometimes, such as Windthorst, Schorlemer and Hüne, also Frankenstein, who is now dead. The cartel parties hardly ever put in an appearance.” He recommended me to try the caviar. “It has been sent to me by the Minister of the Imperial Household at St. Petersburg, and I take it that it is the same as that which is served to the Emperor Alexander. It is the best I have ever had.” He also praised the Moselle and Yquem. On Herbert coming in he laid before the Chief a portfolio connected with the negotiations in progress respecting a partition of East Africa, and the latter gave his opinion as to the frontiers. I accompanied him downstairs, and he handed me out of the green portfolio on the table in the large room nine or ten copies in his own handwriting of letters addressed by him to the Emperor William I., during the years 1872 to 1887. “Copy these and keep the copies by you, and bring me back the originals, as well as that of the letter of introduction of 1852.”
He also gave me a large envelope containing more recent letters and reports to be arranged in chronological order, with dockets on the more important ones for the purpose of the memoirs. “Return me these to-morrow or the day after,” he said; and I promised to bring them back on Thursday. We then went into the other study, and I said that even now I could not bring myself to realise that he was retiring; it seemed to me utterly impossible. He: “Impossible? It is now a fact. Things have gone more rapidly than I imagined they would. I thought he would be thankful if I were to remain with him for a few years, but I find that, on the contrary, he is simply longing with his whole heart to be rid of me in order that he may govern alone—with his own genius—and be able to cover himself with glory. He does not want the old mentor any longer, but only docile tools. But I cannot make genuflexions (Ich aber kann nicht mit Proskynesis dienen), nor crouch under the table like a dog. He wants to break with Russia, and yet he has not the courage to demand the increase of the army from the Liberals in the Reichstag. I have succeeded in winning their confidence at St. Petersburg, and obtain proofs of it every day. Their Emperor is guided by my wishes in what he does and in what he refrains from doing. What will they think there now? And also other expectations which I cannot fulfil, together with the intrigues of Courtiers, rudeness and spying, watching with whom I hold intercourse! My retirement is certain. I cannot tack on as a tail to my career the failures of arbitrary and inexperienced self-conceit for which I should be responsible.”
I: “When he falls into distress and difficulty he will himself come and fetch you back, Serene Highness! He will have to beg and implore you.”
He: “No, he is too proud for that. But he would like to keep Herbert, only that would not do—that would be a sort of mixed goods train, and I should always have to bear part of the responsibility. Moreover, although Herbert would doubtless stand being lectured and censured by me, he would not stand it from Imperial Chancellor Bötticher.” (He therefore seemed to think that the latter had been selected as his successor, and knew nothing as yet of the choice of Caprivi). “Besides they have treated his father badly.” I said: “The Emperor William seems to have the same notion as King Frederick William IV. had, according to Sybel, namely, that Kings in virtue of their office know everything better than their best servants.” He: “Yes, obedient Ministers! He has altogether a great deal in common with him.”... I proposed to publish the letters of William I., or at least a few of them, and mentioned the Grenzboten as a paper from which they would be largely quoted. He seemed to like the idea. “I will see about it when you bring me back the originals. If you do not then see me, report yourself at Friedrichsruh in a short time. I shall now go out riding for a while.” As I was leaving the room, he clapped me on the shoulder in a friendly way. In the antechamber, Rottenburg again said he would also retire. His nerves could no longer stand it. Very nice of him, but we shall see how the cat jumps.
On Thursday, March 20th, I took back to the Chief the originals of his letters to William I. He looked through them and sanctioned the publication in the Grenzboten of the first three, adding at the same time: “We shall first publish these which refer to family matters, and see what impression they make. Then we can let the others follow, and perhaps later on still more from the collection.”
I: “Perhaps articles also?”