It is impossible to say how much not his master alone, but all Europe, owed to the spaniel whose marble effigy lies crouched at the feet of William the Silent, the great founder of the Dutch Republic, on his tomb in the church at Delft. It was this dog which saved the Prince’s life by springing forward, barking, and scratching his master’s face with his paws, when, in the night attack on the camp before Mons, a band of Spanish arquebusiers were on the point of entering the tent of William. His guards and himself were in profound sleep, and there was but just time for the Prince, after the spaniel had roused him, to mount a horse which was ready saddled, and to make his escape through the darkness. His servants and attendants lost their lives. To his dying day, Mr. Motley tells us, “the Prince ever afterwards kept a spaniel of the same race in his bed-chamber.”
Alfonso VI. of Portugal, despite his wild and savage nature, had an affection for mastiffs. Hearing, by accident, that the Jesuits kept some fine specimens of those animals, he once rode over at night to the convent where the fathers resided. He had alighted from his horse, and was waiting for torches to be conducted to the kennels, when, impatient of waiting, he strolled into the streets and almost immediately he got engaged in a quarrel, whereby, instead of seeing the mastiffs, he was carried to bed wounded.
Charles XII. of Sweden, when scarcely seven years old, was handing a piece of bread to his favourite dog, when the hungry animal, snapping at it too greedily, accidentally bit the Prince’s hand. But the young Prince, sooner than betray his dog, which he knew intended no mischief, kept the matter a secret to himself, until an officer who attended at table perceived what had happened, for the Prince had grown pale with the pain and loss of blood, and he could not but admire his nobility of character.
Frederick the Great’s greyhounds had quite a standing at Court, and supplied the place of the monkeys which, as Crown Prince and for a short time after his accession, he kept in his room strangely dressed. His dogs were his constant companions at home, in his walks, in his journeys, and in the field. Of these animals, Biche and, above all, Alcmene were the favourites, and with the former he once concealed himself from the Pandours under a bridge, where she crouched close to him without betraying him by the least sound. But, alas! “poor Biche died,” as Frederick said, “because ten doctors were trying to cure her.”
About 1780, when his Majesty went to the review in Silesia, he left Alcmene very ill at Sans Souci, and every day a courier was sent with the latest news of its condition. When informed of the poor animal’s death, Frederick gave orders for the dead body to be placed in a coffin in the library, and after his return he would for two or three days look at it “for whole hours, in silent grief, weeping bitterly,” after which he had it buried.
Frederick’s favourite dogs and their companions had for their attendant one of the so-called royal “small footmen,” who fed them and led them for exercise on fine days in the garden, and on wet ones in a large hall. For their amusement small leather balls were provided, and two dollars a month were allowed for the keep of each dog. One evening in 1760 the Marquis d’Argens found the King in his winter quarters at Leipzic, sitting on the floor with a dish of fricassee before him, from which the dogs made their repast, and holding a small stick in his hand with which he kept order, and pushed the best bits towards his favourites.
In addition to his dogs, his Majesty took great interest in his horses, one of his favourites being “the long Mollwitz Grey” which had belonged to his father, on which he retreated from the battlefield, and which he never afterwards rode, but kept till its death. Then there was Cæsar, a roan, that walked freely about in the garden of the palace of Potsdam, and was so accustomed to Frederick that it followed him to the parade, where his Majesty would occasionally order a different movement rather than disturb his old steed. Another pet horse was Condé, which was almost daily brought out before the King, who fed it with melons, sugar, and figs; other favourites being Choiseul, Kaunitz, Brühl, and Pitt. Another very fine horse, writes Vehse in his “Memoirs of the Court of Prussia,” was Lord Bute, and when the English minister had discontinued the subsidies, revenge was taken on the horse, which had to help the mules in drawing orange trees.
Peter the Great had a favourite monkey, which was allowed to take all kinds of liberties. During his Majesty’s stay in this country, William III. “made the Czar a visit to his lodgings in York Buildings, in which an odd incident happened. The Czar had his monkey, which sat upon the back of his chair,” writes Lord Dartmouth, and “as soon as the King was sat down the monkey jumped upon him in some wrath, which discomposed the whole ceremonial, and most of the time was spent afterwards in apologies for the monkey’s behaviour.”[114] Alexander III. was much attached to animals, and would tramp for miles through forest and marsh with his favourite setters—Spot and Juno—for sole companions. The imperial kennels and stables were models of order and propriety.
After children, dogs and animals in general were a great delight to Catherine II. of Russia, in connection with which many anecdotes have been recorded. In 1785, we are told how she took a fancy to a white squirrel, of which she made a pet, and about the same time she became possessed of a monkey of whose cleverness she would often boast. “You should have seen,” she writes to Grimm, “the amazement of Prince Henry one day when Prince Potenkin let loose a monkey in the room, with which I began to play. He opened his eyes, but he could not resist the tricks of the monkey.”
Her Majesty also had a favourite cat, which seems to have been a wonderful animal—“the most tomcat of all tomcats, gay, witty, not obstinate.” In one of her letters she writes: “You will excuse me if all the preceding page is very badly written. I am extremely hampered at the moment by a certain young and fair Zemire, who of all the Thomassins is the one who will come closest to me, and who pushes her pretensions to the point of having her paws on my paper.”