I wrote in reply from Leipzig, on September 2nd, 1891, inter alia: that if the “Memoirs” were never to be completed but remain mere materials, there was all the more reason for rescuing at least a portion from destruction.... I would do nothing in the matter before consulting him, but I was not without hope that the Chief would allow himself to be persuaded by my arguments, and would assist me with the dictated matter in my otherwise desperate undertaking. (...)
After some consideration, however, I addressed my request to the Prince direct, ... and in the course of a week, on the 17th of September, the following answer came by post:—
“Varzin, September 14, 1891.
“I have received your letter, and will willingly accede to your wish that I should—before its publication—look through the work which you have arranged to write. I cannot, however, as yet place what I have myself written and dictated at your disposal. It is not possible for the present to publish any part of it either directly or indirectly. Even if made public in an indirect way its accuracy would be questioned, and I should be challenged to produce my proofs.
“I should be glad to receive a short provisional communication, either written or verbal, as to the plan and contents of the work.
“v. Bismarck.”
(Probably written by Chrysander, but signed by the Prince in his own hand. Not the most favourable answer, still the “as yet” and “for the present” leaves room for hope.) (...)
On the 5th of October I paid Bucher a visit in Berlin in connection with this matter. I showed him the draft of a reply I had sent within the course of a week to the Chief, and he told me he had already been informed by Schweninger. He said I ought first to have arranged with him before writing to the Prince, and mentioning his name. As it was, Bismarck would believe that he had suggested my plan respecting the “Memoirs.” I was mistaken in thinking that Kröner had come to me about the biography with the knowledge and at the instance of the Prince. Kröner (who hoped to secure the publication of the “Memoirs”) probably thought I would enter into competition with him, and therefore decided to come to me, and thus become his own competitor. Not very clear! As publisher of the “Memoirs” that will never be completed, and which according to Bismarck’s verbal and written assurances are never to be published? It did not tally either with Bucher’s present statement that the Prince was thinking of leaving two copies of the “Memoirs,” one for the Emperor and one for his own sons. Moreover, the text of these two could not be the same. One of them would have to be first trimmed and Bowdlerised, in usum Delphini, as—according to Bucher’s own assertion—it contained a variety of things calculated to give offence. Referring to the differences between the Prince and the Emperor, Bucher stated that their origin was to be sought in the following incident, as well as in the demand with regard to the Order of 1852, and the steps which—according to Bismarck’s statement—had been taken in connection with Windthorst’s visit. (The Prince’s account of the Windthorst incident appeared to him, Bucher, not to be credible, at least so far as the date was concerned.) On the 15th of March, as the Emperor was returning home from a drive with Bismarck, he told the latter that he wished to inform the Tsar that he intended paying him a visit of some days’ duration at his estate—(I have forgotten the name of it). Bismarck dissuaded him on the ground that the Tsar liked to be alone there, and because the Emperor had not made a very favourable impression in St. Petersburg. His Majesty asked how he came to know that. B. replied through a private letter; whereupon the Emperor desired to see it. B. at first did not wish to show it; but finally, yielding to further pressure, drew it out of his pocket. The Emperor, after he had read it, ordered the carriage to stop, and set down the Chancellor at his residence.
It was evident from the foregoing that in my affair the Prince wanted to know—and in certain circumstances to alter, and probably to a great extent—whether I was in a position, and what I might perhaps be inclined to say about himself, and indeed generally. Hence Kröner’s proposition. In that case, however, I could not, as I had hoped, do a service to the truth and to history, and therefore could only write an empty book. I therefore informed Bucher I would tell Kröner that an alteration in my health would prevent me from carrying out our contract, and beg him to cancel it. This was done in a letter from Leipzig on the 11th of October; and I was relieved from that burden and anxiety.
On the morning of the 5th of January, 1892, I again spent an hour with Bucher at his place in Berlin, and found him the same dear old friend. His hopeless feeling with regard to the “Memoirs” had only grown deeper since I saw him last. In the interval he had paid a further long visit to Friedrichsruh, where he remained till shortly before Christmas. He was to return again soon on the Prince’s invitation, although the gout in his hands had begun again on the previous Sunday to give him great trouble, and the outlook and condition of affairs in the Sachsenwald pleased him less than ever. “Thank your stars that you are not in my place with these ‘Memoirs,’” he said. “One’s work is in every respect void of profit and pleasure. One exhausts himself on an utterly hopeless task, which will yield nothing for history. It is not alone that his memory is defective, and he has little interest in what we have done—up to the present he has looked through very few of my packets—but he begins also intentionally to misrepresent even plain and well-established matters of fact and occurrences. He will not admit his own share in anything that has failed, and he will acknowledge no one to be of any consequence compared to himself, except perhaps the old Emperor (to whom he now, as a foil to the young Emperor, gives a much higher place than he is fairly entitled to) and General Alvensleben—I cannot say why—who concluded the treaty with Russia and commanded at Vionville. Falk also is now praised, perhaps because he fears he might otherwise retort with disclosures. (But of course these ‘Memoirs’ are not to be published at all.) He insists that he is in no way responsible for the Kulturkampf, that he did nothing to oppose Pio Nono’s views respecting the Infallibility, and just as little against Arnim’s mischievous ambition—although everybody knows the contrary to be the fact. As if he and his work did not shed enough light to enable men to overlook such shadows! Even in cases where his policy was brilliantly successful he will not hear of acknowledging anything, as for instance the trap which he set for Napoleon in the Spanish affair. He denied the letter to Prim until I reminded him that I myself handed it to the general in Madrid, and that the world is now well aware of it through Rothan.” (So I understood the name, but perhaps he meant Grammont.) On this occasion Bucher also referred once more to his zigzag journey with Salazar and his audience with King Wilhelm at Ems. “The whole candidature of the Prince of Hohenzollern,” said Bucher, “is now represented by Bismarck as having been a purely private affair of the Court, a mere family matter, although he was obliged to confess that it was discussed at a sitting of the entire Ministry.”—I also added some reminiscences, but observed in conclusion that in spite of all that, the Chief remained the great political genius and saviour of the Germans. But he was not qualified to be a historian. He was to such a large extent the author of the history of the past decades that it might be called his history, but he did not understand how to relate it. Bucher, of course, agreed with me, and then continued his account of the last few weeks. Bismarck wanted to attend the Reichstag at all costs, in order to speak against the Commercial Treaties. It was in vain to point out to him the danger of malicious and coarse attacks from the Richter and Bebel corners of the House, and to warn him that the President would now be at liberty to call him also to order. “In that case I would answer him ironically” was the laughing reply. It was only Schweninger who succeeded in dissuading him on medical grounds.—“Hoffmann, of the Hamburger Nachrichten, comes every week, and prints whatever the Prince says to him, quite indifferent to the fact whether it is a well-considered statement, or the contrary.” “An old copying clerk has now been set to work on the ‘Memoirs,’ as Chrysander, to whom I dictate my notes, is overburdened with other things, and can no longer manage all the copying.” “They are to be left as a bequest to the sons, but will hardly be published by them,”—because they know that they contain too many misrepresentations of a kind which people could detect and easily disprove, and because they are full of unjust judgments on prominent personages, as, for instance, on most of the Prince’s former colleagues. At the very most, a last chapter might ultimately be published on the preliminary stages of his disgrace, and ultimate retirement. Herbert has made copious and reliable notes on this subject, in which, however, the old gentleman has made all sorts of inaccurate and false corrections. The Princess is still the same.... On my asking after the daughter, Bucher fetched a bottle of old Hungarian wine from behind the green curtain of a bookcase. Countess Rantzau had brought it with her from Hamburg for him, and we drank a glass of it to the health of the honest and excellent lady who had always been a friend to him. “And not forgetting our old master,” I added. “How is he getting on?” “Our old lion is well,” he replied, “and is always in good humour at table; eats and drinks heartily, cracks a joke, and is equal to the youngest of them in paying court to the fair ones.”