'In September, 1889, having settled to take my son to Germany to a gymnasium, and having told Herbert Bismarck my intention when he was in London, I was asked by him in his father's name to stay at Friedrichsruh with the Prince. I started for Germany with my son at the same moment at which my wife started for the Trades Congress at Dundee.'
He wrote to M. Joseph Reinach in August, 1889: 'I'm going to Friedrichsruh the week after next to stay with Prince Bismarck, who seems very anxious to see me—about colonial matters, I think. I will tell you what he says, for your private information, if he talks of anything else, which is not, however, likely, as he knows my views about that Alsace question which lies at the root of all others. But I had sooner my going there was not mentioned in advance, and I shall not be there until September 7th-9th.'
'Herbert Bismarck wrote: "I hope you will accept my father's invitation, because he is anxious to make your personal acquaintance. I am greatly disappointed that I shall be deprived of the pleasure of introducing you myself to my father, owing to my absence, but, then, I am sure that you will find yourself at your ease in Friedrichsruh, whether I am there or not. Hoping to see you before long in England, believe me,
'"Very truly yours,
'"H. Bismarck."
'The son was still called Count von Bismarck by himself, and popularly Herbert Bismarck, but shortly afterwards his father gave him the family castle of Schoenhausen, and from that time forward he used on his cards the name of Graf Bismarck-Schoenhausen. When I got to Ratzeburg, where I left my son, I found a telegram from Friedrichsruh: "Prince Bismarck looks forward to your visit to-morrow with great pleasure"; and then it went on to tell me about trains.
'I was met at the station by Prince Bismarck's official secretary—Rottenburg of the Foreign Office—with an open carriage, although the house was formerly the railway hotel (Frascati) and adjoins the station. I wrote to my wife on Saturday, September 7th: "The great man has been very sweet to me, though he is in pain from his sinews. We had an hour's walk before lunch together. Then Hatzfeldt, the Ambassador in London, came, and all the afternoon we have been driving, and went to the harvest-home, where the Bismarck grandchildren danced with the peasants on the grass. The daughter, and mother of these children, does the honours, and is the only lady; and at dinner we shall be the Prince, Hatzfeldt, self, Countess von Rantzau, Count von Rantzau, Rottenburg the secretary, a tutor and another secretary, the two last 'dumb persons.' The forest is a Pyrford of 25,000 acres, but the house is in the situation of a Dockett, and must be damp in winter till the great January frost sets in, when the Baltic is hard frozen."'
Sir Charles notes upon this: 'Hatzfeldt was the Chancellor's right-hand man—of action. But Bismarck did not consult him: he said, "Do," and Hatzfeldt did.'
The letter continues:
'"When Bismarck's Reichshund died, a successor was appointed, but the Emperor, who had heard of the death and not of the appointment to fill the vacancy, gave another, and the Prince says: 'Courtier as I am, I sent away my dog to my head-forester's and kept the gift one, but as I do not like him I leave him at Berlin.' Here the favourite reigns, and her name is Rebekkah, and she answers very prettily to the name of Bex. The old gentleman is dear in his polite ways…. The daughter is equally pleasant, and the son-in-law as well. We were loudly cheered at the harvest festival, of course…. You can write to our friend J. R. [Reinach] of the R.F. [République Française] that I found the Chancellor very determined on peace as long as he lives, which he fears will not be long, and afraid of Prussian action after his death."
'In another letter the next day, Sunday, September 8th 1889, I wrote: "I expected the extreme simplicity of life. The coachman alone wears livery, and that only a plain blue with ordinary black trousers and ordinary black hat—no cockades and no stripes. There are only two indoor men-servants: a groom of the chambers, and one other not in livery—the one shown in the photograph of Bismarck receiving the Emperor, but there, for this occasion only, dressed in a state livery. [Footnote: Photographs which Bismarck gave Sir Charles, showing the Chancellor with his hound receiving the young Kaiser, and Bismarck alone with his dog, always hung on the wall at Dockett.] The family all drink beer at lunch, and offer the thinnest of thin Mosel. Bismarck has never put on a swallow-tail coat but once, which he says was in 1835, and which is of peculiar shape. A tall hat he does not possess, and he proscribes tall hats and evening dress among his guests. His view is that a Court and an army should be in uniform, but that when people are not on duty at Court or in war, or preparation for war, they should wear a comfortable dress, and each man that form of dress that he finds most agreeable to himself, provided that it be not that which he calls evening dress and tall hats—a sort of 'sham uniform.' Countess von Rantzau, however, dresses in a high, short evening gown like other people. The Prince eats nothing at all except young partridges and salt-herring, and the result is that the cookery is feeble, though for game-eaters there is no hardship. The table groans with red-deer venison, ham, grouse, woodcock, and the inevitable partridges— roast, boiled, with white sauce, cold, pickled in vinegar. A French cook would hang himself. There is no sweet at dinner except fruit, stewed German fashion with the game. Trout, which the family themselves replace by raw salt-herring, and game, form the whole dinner. Of wines and beer they drink at dinner a most extraordinary mixture, but as the wine is all the gift of Emperors and merchant princes it is good. The cellar card was handed to the Prince with the fish, and, after consultation with me, and with Hatzfeldt, we started on sweet champagne, not suggested by me, followed by Bordeaux, followed by still Mosel, followed by Johannesberg (which I did suggest), followed by black beer, followed by corn brandy. When I reached the Johannesberg I stopped, and went on with that only, so that I got a second bottle drawn for dessert. When the Chancellor got to his row of great pipes, standing against the wall ready stuffed for him, we went back to black beer. The railway-station is in the garden, and the expresses shake the house."