VIII.ToC
THE NINETIETH BIRTHDAY OF EMPEROR WILLIAM.
o those who are fond of pageants and who linger lovingly with past ages, such a spectacle as Berlin witnessed on the 22d of March, 1887, must have extraordinary attractions. Never in the long life of the aged Emperor, whose ninetieth birthday it was, had there been in splendor a rival to that day, although his whole career was prolific of great scenes and dramatic situations. Eighty-five royal personages had accepted the invitation to visit the Emperor on that occasion; and they came in person, or sent special envoys, each accompanied by a more or less imposing retinue. As guests of the Imperial family, they were lodged in the various palaces of Berlin and Potsdam, and entertained with most thoughtful and sumptuous hospitality. The arrivals began on Friday, March 18, and continued through the three following days, until the list included the Prince of Wales; the Crown Prince of Austria; the Grand Duke and Duchess Vladimir and the Grand Duke Michel of Russia; the Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden; the King and Queen of Roumania; the King and Queen of Saxony; the Prince and Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; the Grand Duke of Hesse and his daughter the Princess Irene; the Grand Duchess of Baden; the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen; the Hereditary Prince and Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; the Duke of Waldeck-Pyrmont, father of the Queen of the Netherlands and the Duchess of Albany; the Dowager Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; the Grand Duchess Marie, and a host of other royal notables. Costly presents and beautiful flowers had been pouring in to the Emperor for days before, from the members of his own large family, the various diplomatic corps, from royal friends, from learned societies, industrial and philanthropic associations, with gifts from China, Turkey, and other distant countries. Many of the presents were arranged in a room in the Kaiser's palace, the centre-piece being a portrait of his favorite and eldest great-grandson painted by the Crown Princess, and surrounded by an elegant display of flowers. This palace was reserved for the calls of the distinguished guests, and for a State dinner of a hundred covers, given to the visiting royalties on the eve of the birthday by the Emperor and Empress. The palace of the Crown Prince was decorated about the entrance with palms and other exotics. Here the Crown Princess entertained the Prince of Wales and the Princess Christian with her family,—three children of Queen Victoria under the same roof. The Grand Duchess of Baden, only daughter of the Emperor, was entertained in the Dutch Palace, connected with the Emperor's by a corridor. One of those dramatic touches in real life of which Emperor William was fond, was the betrothal of the Princess Irene, daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse and the late Princess Alice of England, to her cousin Prince Henry, second son of the Crown Prince. It was announced by the Emperor on his birthday, standing in the midst of the assembled family, with the foreign princes grouped in a semicircle around, the bride-elect leaning on her father's arm and blushingly receiving the congratulations of all present. In the two days preceding his birthday, the Emperor received not only his royal visitors, but the representatives of Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Servia, Japan, and China. The Old Schloss, with its six hundred apartments and reception-rooms, was used for the entertainment of royal guests. All the sunny south windows facing the Schloss Platz rejoiced for days beforehand in open draperies and freshly cleaned plate glass, giving an unwonted look of cheer and human habitableness to the majestic and venerable pile through which we had walked, a few weeks before, with hushed voices and muffled footsteps, gazing on the rich decorations of the public rooms, the glittering candelabra, the silver balustrades, the ancient plate, the historic paintings and monuments which recall past centuries and vanished sovereigns.
But the streets witnessed the most memorable scenes. On the eve of the birthday a torchlight procession of more than six thousand students represented the Universities of Berlin, Bonn, Heidelberg, Jena, Königsberg, Leipzig, Marburg, Munich, Strasburg, and others; the Polytechnic Schools of Berlin, Brunswick, Darmstadt, Dresden, Hanover, Karlsruhe, and Stuttgardt; the Mining Academies of Berlin, Clausthal, and Freiberg; and the Agricultural Schools of Berlin, Eberswalde, and Tharandt. Opposite the Imperial Palace stands the University,—formerly the palace of Prince Henry,—amid old trees and gardens, and with the fine colossal statues of the brothers Humboldt in white marble, sitting on massive pedestals on either side the main gateway. This was the starting-point of the great procession, which was led by two mounted students in the garb of Wallenstein's soldiers. Five abreast the torch-bearers approached the Emperor's palace, and before his windows the Ziethen Hussars wheeled in and out in mystic evolutions. A labyrinthine series of movements, marked in the darkness only by the flaming torches, was executed in perfect silence; then a simple hymn of the Middle Ages was sung with singular effect by these thousands of young and manly voices; and from the silence which succeeded, at the call of a student standing in the midst and waving his sword above his head, there arose a "Three cheers for the Emperor!" while six thousand torches swung to and fro, and hundreds of flags and ancient banners waved in the evening air. Again there was silence, when one struck the National Anthem, which was sung with all heads uncovered, the aged hero bowing low at his window in acknowledgment until emotion obliged him to withdraw. An incident soon on every tongue was the Emperor's sending for a deputation of the students to wait on him, his kind reception of and conversation with them, and their elation at the honor, notwithstanding their mortification at the contrast of the smoke-soiled hands and faces of the torch-bearers with the brilliance of the Imperial chamber and the full dress of distinguished visitors. Leaving the Emperor's palace, the procession passed through Unter den Linden and the Brandenburg Gate to the Thiergarten, where amid a dense and surging throng the students threw their burning torches in a heap and sang over the expiring flames, "Gaudeamus igitur juvenes dum sumus." Deputies from all the Universities, dressed in black velvet coats, high boots, and plumed hats, and bearing fine swords, brought up the rear of the procession in thirty carriages, with the flags of the old German towns and Universities floating above them. I watched this torchlight procession from a second-story window-seat on Unter den Linden, and was much impressed with the general view, extending from the equestrian statue of Frederick the Great before the Emperor's palace, where the entire area was filled with reflected light, for nearly a mile to the Brandenburg Gate, the various forms of the waving torches on the long line seeming the very apotheosis of flame. Many of the young men were dressed in the picturesque taste peculiar to German students. Gay feathers and unique caps set off to advantage the fine features and fair complexions which render some of the students remarkable, though the faces are too often disfigured by tell-tale sabre-cuts. After the passing of the procession, we drove through a portion of the Potsdamer Strasse where the lamps were rather infrequent and the overarching branches of the trees shut out the starlight from the handsome street. Crowds were hurrying to and fro,—but to this we had become accustomed,—when suddenly we met a company of mounted students returning from the park. In white wigs and high-peaked caps, close-fitting white suits embroidered with gold, brilliant sashes, and top-boots, they looked, in the dim light, like knights of the Middle Ages returning from some quest or tournament; and as they slowly filed by, bowing to the greetings of the passers, it was hard to believe for the moment that they were other than they seemed.
The morning of the birthday dawned bright and beautiful. "Emperor's weather this," the Germans fondly said. Before we left our breakfast-room the sound of chimes was calling all the children of the city to the churches for their share of the celebration. From my window I saw at one time three large processions of children passing in different directions through diverging streets. All were marshalled by teachers from the public schools in strictest order, and with fine brass bands playing choral music as they entered the church. Here the pastor, after prayer, addressed the children on the blessings of peace and the life of the good Emperor, and the children sang, as only German children can, the patriotic songs of their country. No more touching sight was seen that day than these thousands of boys and girls passing into the churches, with the sound of solemn music, to thank God for the blessings of Fatherland and Emperor,—a scene which caused tears to roll down the cheeks of many a spectator. It will be hard to uproot German patriotism while its future fathers and mothers are thus trained.
While the children were marching, another procession was also passing, composed of the magistrates and city officials, going to the Nicolai Kirche (the oldest church in Berlin) for a similar service. Every one was astir early, and before ten o'clock a dense crowd filled the streets. Horses, omnibuses, and tram-cars were garlanded and decorated with flags, and the house fronts were bewildering in color and decorations. The double-headed eagle, signifying in the heraldry of Germany the Empire of Charlemagne and that of the Cæsars, was everywhere intermingled with the German tri-color of red, white, and black, with the black and white of Prussia, the green of Saxony, the blue of Bavaria, and the orange, purple, and other colors of the various principalities and powers of the German Empire; hardly a house lacking some brilliant flutter of symbolic colors. Only an American in a foreign land can know how welcome was the sight of "the stars and stripes" floating majestically from two or three points on the route; though in one case it was flanked by the crescent and star of the Turkish Empire, and in another contrasted with the blue dragon on a yellow ground which formed the triangular flag of China. Miles of business thoroughfares showed glittering and artistic arrangements in the shop windows; nearly every one having its picture, bust, or statue of the Emperor,—some with most elaborate and expensive designs. Between ten and eleven A.M. the deputations from the Universities passed through Unter den Linden, making a daylight parade but little inferior to that of the evening before. The dense throng immediately closed in after the procession, but by great efforts the mounted police cleared a passage for the State carriages to the palace of the Emperor. At eleven o'clock a magnificent royal carriage drew up at the palace of the Crown Prince, who entered it, accompanied by the Crown Princess and two daughters. They proceeded to the presence of the Emperor, to offer the first congratulations. Next came a carriage whose splendid accompaniments eclipsed all others. Preceded by a mounted herald in scarlet and silver, on a mettled and caparisoned steed, and by other outriders in the same glittering fashion, came the carriage, surmounted by silver crowns, drawn by six horses; carriage, steeds, coachman, and footmen in shining livery and flowing plumes. At the door of the Crown Prince's palace the stout figure of the Prince of Wales, in comparatively plain attire, stepped into this coach; a lady was handed in after him, and the splendid equipage rolled toward the Emperor's palace, amid the cheers of the multitude. From the Old Schloss, a succession of royal carriages passed in the same direction, all glittering in silver and gold and flowing with plumes, many with four or six horses; until fully fifty State carriages had deposited their occupants at the palace of the Kaiser, and awaited, in the fine open spaces around the famous equestrian statue of Frederick the Great, the return of royalty from its congratulations to the venerable object of all this attention. Many of the royal visitors were known by sight to the crowd, as Berlin sees much of royalty; but many were not. The cheering was not enthusiastic, except in special cases. "Who is that?" said one near me, as a splendid carriage passed. "I do not know," replied another man; "it is only one of those kings." But when the Crown Prince Frederick returned from his call, "This is something else," said the proud German heart; and the cheers were deafening. The greatest enthusiasm of the day was shown when Prince William and his family passed, in the most striking equipage of all, except that of the Prince of Wales. It was a State carriage of the time of Frederick the Great, its decorations of gold on a dark body; a large, low vehicle whose glass windows revealed the occupants on every side. Six Pomeranian brown steeds of high mettle were guided by the skilful driver, horses and outriders being splendidly caparisoned in light blue and silver. Rudolph, Crown Prince of Austria, solitary in his carriage, received his share of attention, as did the Russian Grand Dukes and Grand Duchess, the fine-looking King and Queen of Saxony, the Prince-Regent of Bavaria with his two sons of ten and twelve, and the Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, venerable sister of the Emperor. The Queen of Roumania bowed to the throng with utmost grace, smiling and showing her brilliant teeth; but whether the special huzzas were a tribute to the beauty of the Queen, or to the poetry of Carmen Sylva, we could not determine. All things have an end; and so did this dazzling State pageant, at which all Europe assisted and where all Europe was looking on; but not until Bismarck's carriage had conveyed the Chancellor to his chief, followed by General Von Moltke, who had the good taste to drive up simply, with two horses and an open carriage that interposed not even plate-glass between the great soldier and the loyal multitude. A few moments after their entrance, the Emperor appeared at the palace window, Bismarck on his right and Von Moltke on his left, and the hurrahs of the crowd burst forth anew.
Later in the day the Crown Prince and Crown Princess entertained the royal guests at dinner; and Prince Bismarck, as usual on the Emperor's birthday, gave a dinner to the Diplomatic Corps. A drizzling rain set in suddenly in the afternoon, sending dismay to the hearts of all; for the most brilliant part of the celebration was still in reserve for the evening. The rain fell in occasional light showers up to a late hour, but it dampened only the outer garb, not the hearts, of the undiminished multitude, which at night-fall, on foot or in carriages, thronged the streets of the brilliant capital, whose myriad lights showed to better advantage under the reflecting clouds than they would have done under starlight. The carriages numbered scores of thousands, and the people on foot hundreds of thousands; but so complete were the arrangements of the police and so obedient the concourse, that all proceeded in nearly perfect order. Our coachman fortunately drove through Old Berlin and Köln, as a preliminary to the evening's sight-seeing. Long arcades filled with Jews' shops were worthy the pen of Dickens. This festal day made this most ancient portion of the city also one of the most picturesque. Houses with quaint dormer windows roofed by "eyelids," of an architecture dating back two or three hundred years, gleamed with candles in every window. Almost no house or shop was so poor as to dispense with its share of the universal illumination. At least three horizontal lines of lighted candles threaded both sides of every street of this city of a million and a half inhabitants. Many private as well as public buildings in the old part showed by colored lights the picturesque, quaint streets and nooks, as no light of day can ever do. We were passing the Rath-haus, or City Hall,—a modern and imposing edifice,—at the time when its great tower was being lighted up. Three hundred feet above the pavement floated the flags grouped in the centre and at the corners of the square tower. Invisible red fires illuminated them, the shafts of crimson light rising to the clouds above, the outlines of the remainder of the building dimly reposing in darkness. An immense electric light, guided by a reflector in another tower, shot a bridge of white light high in air across the river, and fell, like a circumscribed space of noonday amid black darkness, on the fine equestrian statue of the Great Elector by the bridge behind the Old Castle, with an effect almost indescribable. As we entered Unter den Linden by the Lustgarten, the beautiful square and its historic edifices, which form an ideal sight even by daylight, glowed and gleamed with jets of light from every point. The Old Schloss showed continuous lines of illumination in the windows of its four stories, along its front of six hundred and fifty feet, while the majestic dome caught and reflected rays of light from every point of the horizon. On the opposite side of the Lustgarten, the Doric portico of the National Gallery glowed with rose-colored light from massive Grecian lamps, while the arched entrance beneath its superb staircase gleamed with a pale sea-green radiance like the entrance to some ocean cave. The incomparable architecture of the Old Museum was set in strong relief by white light, which flooded its immense Ionic colonnade and brought out the high colors of the colossal frescos along the three hundred feet of its magnificent portico. The front of the palace of the Crown Prince was thrown, by innumerable jets, into a blaze of crimson. The Roman Catholic Church of St. Hedwig, with its dome in imitation of the Pantheon, its Latin cross and window arches beaming in pale yellow, made a fine background for the only unilluminated building, the palace of the Emperor. From the Opera House, the Arsenal, and the University, crowns and elaborate designs were burning, yet unconsumed. Most elaborately decorated of all Berlin buildings was the Academy of Arts and Sciences, opposite the Imperial Palace, with colossal warriors in bronze keeping guard at its portals, and the Angel of Peace laying a laurel wreath on the altar of Fatherland as its decorative centre-piece. No high meaning of all its symbols was more touching and significant than the appropriate texts of Scripture written for the Kaiser's eye, underneath its elaborate frescos. But of what avail would be an attempt to describe two miles of most beautiful decorations along Unter den Linden, each one a study in itself, and having nothing in common with the others, except the eagles and the Emperor's monogram; and the innumerable points of light, massed in a world of various forms, and in all the colors of the rainbow! This glow of splendor surrounded by the dense darkness covered the city, and the dazzling coronals of its lofty towers and domes and spires must have been visible to a great distance across the plains of Brandenburg.
Slowly the triple line of carriages and the surging throng pressed onward, past the palaces and diplomatic residences of the Pariser Platz; some diverging down the Wilhelm Strasse, where streaming flags and blazing illuminations made noonday brightness and gayety about the palace of the Chancellor, but most passing through the Brandenburg Gate. The massive Doric columns of this impressive structure were in darkness, but the Chariot of Victory with its fine bronze horses, surmounting the gate, was weird with the scarlet light of Bengal fires burning on the entablature.
As the artist rests his eyes by the spot of neutral gray which he keeps for the purpose on wall or palette, so brain and eye were prepared for sleep at the close of this long day, by sitting in our carriages, safe sheltered from the soft-falling rain, outside the great gate which divided the splendor from the darkness, for three quarters of an hour, in an inextricable tangle of carriages, until the perturbed coachmen and the sorely vexed police could evolve order from the temporary confusion, and set the hindered procession again on its homeward way.
Meantime the day was not over for the much-enduring Emperor and his royal guests. In the famous White Saloon of the Old Schloss an entertainment was going forward. Blinding coronets and necklaces on royal ladies made the interior of this ancient palace more brilliant than its shining exterior on this birth-night. The Empress Augusta, leaning on the arm of her grandson, Prince William, was attired in a lace-trimmed robe of pale green, her diamonds a mass of sparkling light; the Crown Princess was in silver-gray, the wife of the English Ambassador in pale mauve, the Princess Christian in turquoise blue; and the Grand Duchess Vladimir of Russia wore a magnificent robe of pink satin trimmed with sable, with a tiara of diamonds and a stomacher of diamonds and emeralds. From the neck and forehead of the Queen of Roumania flashed a thousand prismatic hues; and the Green Vault of Dresden sent some of its most precious treasures to keep company with the fair Queen of Saxony in adding brilliance to the scene.
Our reverie led from this starry point in history back to the time when, as on this memorable day, the royal salute of Berlin artillery shook the city, to announce the birth of a prince ninety years ago. A rapid, almost a chance recall of the years shows us Washington then living on his estate at Mount Vernon, Lafayette a young man of forty, Clay a stripling of twenty, Webster a boy of fifteen. The Directory in France had not yet made way for the First Republic; the younger Pitt and Canning held England; Metternich and O'Connell were in their youth, and Robert Peel was a child of nine. Napoleon Bonaparte was in the flush of youthful success, soon to become the idol of France and the terror of Europe, before whom the boy, now Kaiser Wilhelm, and his royal family fled to Königsberg by the Baltic, while the conqueror held Berlin and reduced Prussia to a second-rate province. To this boy the flames of burning Moscow were a transient aurora-borealis under the pole-star; and Nelson and Wellington were unknown to the stories of his childhood, for as yet their fame was not. Goethe and Schiller were in the prime of early manhood; Kant and Klopstock elderly, but with years yet to live; Scott was just laying down his poet's pen and preparing to take up the immortal quill with which he wrote his first "Waverley;" Moore was singing his sweet melodies; Wordsworth had yet to lay the foundations of the "Lake Poetry;" and the fair boy, Byron, was chanting his early songs, not yet for many a year to die at Missolonghi.
This wonderful old man of ninety, gayly stooping to kiss the hand of a lady to-night in his hospitable palace, like the young man that he is, has a memory stretching from the battle of Austerlitz across the gigantic struggles of the century to the battle of Sedan,—all of which he has seen, and a part of which he has been!
IX.ToC
STREETS, PARKS, CEMETERIES, AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
or a hundred years the picturesque Brandenburg Gate has guarded the entrance to Unter den Linden from the Thiergarten. It is a monument of the reversion of royal taste from the devotion to French style, which characterized Frederick the Great, to the purely classical. It is nearly two hundred feet in width, its five openings being guarded by six massive Doric columns about forty-five feet in height. To foot-passengers, riders, and ordinary vehicles the two outer spaces on each side are devoted respectively, while the wide central passage is traversed only by the royal carriages. The celebrated quadriga with the figure of Victory, on the entablature, was first placed with the face toward the Park. When the First Napoleon robbed Berlin, along with other cities, for the adornment of Paris, he carried off this masterpiece in bronze and set it up in the Place du Carrousel under the shadow of the Tuileries. Upon Napoleon's downfall in 1814, this group was restored to its original place, but was set facing the Unter den Linden, making of the Brandenburger Thor a triumphal arch marking the victory of Prussia in the long contest.
The famous Unter den Linden, nearly two hundred feet wide and three fourths of a mile in length, with a double line of lime-trees enclosing an area of greensward along the centre, would be accounted anywhere a handsome street, with the palaces of the Pariser Platz at one end, the Imperial palaces, the Arsenal, the Academy, and the University at the other, and brilliant shop-windows lining both sides of the whole length, while the Brandenburg Gate and the great equestrian statue of Frederick the Great at either extremity close the fine vista. Leaving out of view, however, these two noble features which mark its termini, the street seemed not handsome enough to justify its fame. Perhaps this was because we found the famous lime-trees, for which the street is named, quite ordinary young trees, not to be compared with the magnificent elms which line the streets of New Haven and the Mall of Boston Common.
The characteristic part of Berlin is, to our view, the great space east of Unter den Linden, surrounded by the palaces, the royal Guard House, the Arsenal, the University, and the Academy of Arts and Sciences. These fine buildings and the ornamented open spaces around and between them, on a sunny afternoon in midwinter, show a brilliant and unique scene which has hardly its parallel in Europe. The Champs Élysées is finer at night; Hyde Park, St. James, the Parliament buildings, and Westminster Abbey far finer on a sunny morning; but the third city in Europe has no need to be ashamed of its royal buildings and the scene before them, in the season when the Court is in Berlin, and the slant rays of an early afternoon sun light up the gay throng of soldiers in uniform, State carriages, pedestrians, and vehicles which surge to and fro without crowding the vast spaces.
The Lustgarten is fine; but of the buildings around it, the Old Museum alone meets the eye with architectural satisfaction. In all lights that building is beautiful in design and proportions. The Old Schloss is impressive mainly by its massiveness and its august dome. A most picturesque view by moonlight is to be had from the east end of the Lange or Kürfürsten Brücke, southeast of the old palace. Here the water-front of the old castle is in full view, with the fortified part unaltered since the early occupation by the Hohenzollerns. This mediæval building, shaded by a few ancient trees, with here and there a light reflected from the upper windows at evening, and with tower and turret duplicated on the surface of the darkly flowing river at its foot, shares with one the feeling of ancient times, as no other place in Berlin can do. In the centre of this bridge is the equestrian statue of the Great Elector, superior as a work of art to any other of its date. This grand figure is fabled to descend from his horse and stalk through the streets on New Year's eve, for the chastisement of evil-doers.
The Wilhelm Strasse, running from a point near the Pariser Platz south from Unter den Linden, has many palaces and public buildings; but its chief interest centres about No. 77, the palace of Prince Bismarck. The front looks eastward, and is built around three sides of a garden filled with shrubbery and threaded by walks, and shut off from the street by great iron gates and a high open iron fence. The study, where the Chancellor spends much time when in Berlin, looks upon a garden, and is furnished with the same simplicity which characterizes the private apartments of General Von Moltke. Among the few pictures which adorn the study of Bismarck is one of General Grant. Here it was that the famous Berlin Congress met in 1878 for the settlement of the Eastern Question.
The palace of Prince Albert of Prussia, now Military Governor of Brunswick, is situated in a magnificent private park, acres in extent, in the heart of the city. It opens from the Wilhelm Strasse at the head of Koch. This palace was built in the early part of the eighteenth century by a French nobleman, with wealth gained in the great speculations of the Mississippi Scheme, upon which all France entered in hope of retrieving the bankruptcy entailed by Louis XIV. Its fine colonnade, its great park, and its position, adjoining the park of the War Department, between two great railroad stations and surrounded by tramways, render it one of the most prominent features of Central Berlin.
The small and elaborately laid-out square of the Wilhelm Strasse, known as the Wilhelms Platz, with its pretty fountains, shrubs, and flowers, has bronze statues of six generals of Frederick the Great,—heroes of the Seven Years' War. Here it is easy to sit and dream of the olden time, in reverie which not even the Kaiserhof diplomats nor the Wilhelm-Street autocrats, within a stone's-throw on either side, nor the throng and glitter of the Berlin of to-day, can disturb. Here, surrounded by the figures and the faces of the men with whom Carlyle has made us acquainted, we recall the wonderful story which he, as none other, has written. How masterly is the way in which he has portrayed for us this Prussian history whose memorials stand around us! With feeling how deep and true for the real and the eternal as against the false, the seeming, and the transient! What a picture is the history! What a poem is the picture!
At the northeast corner of the Wilhelms Platz is the palace of Prince Friedrich Karl, one of the leaders of the Franco-Prussian War. It was once the temple of the Order of the Knights of Malta, but its sumptuous interior has now for many years been devoted to residence on the upper floor, and to the famous art and bric-à-brac collections of the late prince, on the ground floor. It is not difficult to gain, from the steward, the requisite permission to visit this interesting palace.
Many private houses, interesting for their associations, might be found by the sojourner in Berlin who cares to search them out; but intelligent residents only, and not the guide-books, can facilitate this search. In the Margrafen Strasse, near the Royal Library, is the house where Neander lived and studied and wrote. Near the Dreifaltische Kirche, behind the Kaiserhof, is the old-fashioned parsonage which was the home of Schleiermacher, and in the Oranienburger Strasse is the house in which lived Alexander von Humboldt.
Of the many beautiful parks, the Thiergarten overshadows all the rest, both because of its commanding location, close to Unter den Linden and other busy streets, and its great extent. A combination of park and wild forest, with streams, ponds, bridges, and miles of shaded avenues and riding-paths in perfect condition, its six hundred acres form one of the largest, most beautiful and useful parks in Europe. The elaborate and towering monument to commemorate the victories of recent Prussian and German wars is the centre of a system of grand avenues in the northeastern part. This monument was originally intended to commemorate the Schleswig-Holstein conquest; later, the victories over Austria in 1866 were to be included; and when the Franco-Prussian War was happily ended, it was decided to make of it also a fitting memorial of united Germany. On the third anniversary of the Capitulation of Sedan, Emperor William I. unveiled the colossal statue of Victory on the summit of the monument, which commemorates the chief events of his august reign.
Immense bas-reliefs on the pedestal represent, on one side, events in the Danish campaign; on another is shown the Decoration of the Crown Prince by the Emperor on the field of Sadowa, with Prince Friedrich Karl, Von Moltke, and Bismarck standing by; the third side shows the French General Reille, handing Louis Napoleon's letter of capitulation at Sedan; and the fourth, the triumphal entry of German soldiers into Paris through the Arc de Triomphe. There is also a representation of the scene, on that day when all Berlin went wild with joy and exultation over the return of the Kaiser and his troops from Paris, of their reception at the Brandenburg Gate.
Within the open colonnade of the substructure, a vast mosaic shows, in symbols, the history of the Franco-Prussian War, closing with a representation of Bavaria offering the German Crown to Prussia, and the proclamation of the Kaiser at Versailles. It was King William himself who refused to have his own image placed here as the Victor, and who substituted in the design of the artist the female figure of Borussia with the features of his mother, Queen Louise. The shaft, rising eighty-five feet above the substructure, has three divisions, with twenty perpendicular grooves in each. These grooves are filled with thrice twenty upright cannon, captured from the Danes, the Austrians, and the French, bound to the shaft by gilded wreaths of laurel. The Prussian Eagles surmount the column, forming a capital upwards of one hundred and fifty feet above the pavement; and the great statue soars nearly fifty feet still higher.
In the southeastern portion of the Thiergarten is a colossal statue of Goethe, which shows at its best in the twilight of an early summer evening, framed in the tender greens and browns of the bursting foliage behind it. Not far away are the statues of Queen Louise and King Frederick William III., parents of Emperor William I., surrounded by beautiful flowers, pools, and fountains; and the famous "Lion Group" marks the intersection of much-frequented avenues in the same neighborhood. A wide central avenue traversing the whole length of the Thiergarten from east to west allows space for the tramway to the imposing edifice of the Institute of Technology and to the Zoölogical Gardens, where is one of the largest and best collections of birds and animals in the world, each species with habitations suited to it, several built in showy Oriental style, amid concert-gardens where beautiful music may be heard every day.
A favorite walk of ours on sunny winter mornings was in the West End of Berlin, where are many of the finer aristocratic residences. No city can show, so far as we know, a handsomer residence quarter than portions of that which stretches between the Thiergarten on the north, the Zoölogical Gardens on the west, and the Botanical Garden on the south. The collections of the latter, like those of the Zoölogical Gardens, rank among the first of their kind. The great glass house which shelters the Victoria Regia is attractive chiefly in the summer, when the plants are in blossom, but the cacti and the palm houses are interesting the year round. The palm-house is a Crystal Palace on a small scale. Entering, one finds a tropical atmosphere, hot and moist. All the larger palms and some of the smaller have each a furnace to themselves, from four to six feet in diameter and the same in height. Over this furnace the great tub is set which contains the roots of the tree, over which water is frequently sprinkled. The arrangement of the trees is graceful and beautiful. There are galleries and seats everywhere; and little imagination is required to transport one's self to Oriental and Biblical scenes, with these palm-trees towering overhead. A short walk east of these gardens is the Matthai Cemetery, where repose the brothers Grimm.
The Schiller Platz, so named from the statue before the Schauspielhaus, is fortunate—if not in the life-size statue of the poet—in the fine pedestal, with its allegorical figures of Poetry, History, and Philosophy, which were originally designed to adorn a fountain. In a still more crowded part of Berlin the Donhof Platz has recently been transformed, from a barren square surrounding the statue of that great Prussian, Baron von Stein, into a lovely garden-spot, with flowers and trees and birds for the cheer of the hurrying multitudes.
The old Halle Gate, where several streets converge to the southern extremity of the Friedrich Strasse, is reached through ornamental grounds known as the Belle-Alliance Platz, in the centre of which is a column erected to commemorate the peace which followed the wars of the First Napoleon. Not far to the southwest is the Kreuzberg, the only mountain in this part of Brandenburg,—a modest eminence about two hundred feet above the sea-level. It is crowned by an iron obelisk which affords a good view of the city.
Berlin has no cemetery comparable in extent or beauty to many in the environs of American cities. Three small burial-grounds, separate but adjoining, at the southern edge of the city contain the graves of Neander, with the memorable inscription,—his favorite motto,—"Pectus est quod theologum facit;" of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, his parents and his sister Fanny; of Schleiermacher, and of our countryman, the Rev. Dr. J.P. Thompson, long-beloved pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle Church, New York. Here, also, Bayard Taylor was for a time laid to rest, before being finally removed to his native land. Decorations are not so ostentatious as in Catholic countries; and quiet ivy, simple greensward, and the shadow of trees in which birds may sing, make the quaint Berlin cemeteries attractive places. This was to us especially true of the ancient cemetery connected with the Sophien Kirche and the old Dorotheen-Stadt cemetery, in the northern part of the city, where we went to look upon the graves of Fichte and Hegel, and of several artists famous in Berlin annals. In the Sophien Kirchof lies the philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn; and in that of the Garrison Church, De la Motte Fouqué, the author of "Undine."
One of the most conspicuous public buildings is the Rath-haus, or Town Hall, erected at a cost of nearly two million dollars. Its lofty clock-tower with illuminated dial tells the time to all Berlin by night, and adds a charm to the group of royal palaces and museums on which it looks down. The ancient town-houses of North Germany most truly express the spirit of the old Hanse League; and the Rath-haus of Berlin, while keeping the spirit, adds the grand proportions and embellishments characteristic of the modern city. The interior apartments, including the Festival Hall, the Town Council-Room, and the Magistrates' Chamber, are elaborately adorned with historical frescos and statues, and the grand staircase has a finely vaulted ceiling and windows of stained glass filled with Prussian heraldry. A visit to this edifice by daylight gives one the fine view from the clock-tower; but to see the famous Raths-Keller underneath, with characteristic accompaniments, one must go after dark. One evening, after the adjournment, in an upper hall, of that rare thing in Berlin, a temperance meeting, a friend led our party through the elegant apartments of this place of popular refreshment. In the basement of this costly municipal building is a gilded saloon, upwards of three hundred feet long, divided into apartments. In some of these whole families were partaking of their evening "refreshments;" others were manifestly the appointed trysting-places of friends, while here and there, in sheltered nooks, the solitary ones sipped their wine or beer. Everything, so far as we could see, was orderly and quiet, and we were told that the place was one of eminent respectability. It is only after witnessing the habits of the people, in their homes and places of popular resort, that one is prepared to appreciate the enormous consumption of beer, averaging four glasses per day to every man, woman, and child in the kingdom, at an average annual cost to families greater than their house-rent.
The Exchange, or Börse, on the east bank of the river, is a most imposing building. The excitements of this money-centre may be seen in a visit here any week-day at noon. There are galleries for visitors, over the Great Hall, which accommodates five thousand persons.
The Imperial Bank, like the Imperial Mint, is under State control; and both occupy buildings themselves worthy to be called Imperial.
The great City Prison, on a modern plan, is in Moabit, a northwestern suburb. This region received its name, "Pays de Moab," from French immigrants on account of its sterile soil; but a part of it is becoming an attractive and beautiful residence quarter. To the north of this is a model state-prison, accommodating twelve hundred prisoners.
The Insane Asylum is said also to be a model institution. It has accommodations for fifteen hundred patients; and its buildings are near Dalldorf, a short distance east of the route to the northwestern suburb of Tegel. The Medical Department of the University has large buildings in different parts of the city. Connected with these is the great Carité Hospital, founded a hundred years ago, and richly endowed by public and private funds. In its many wards more than fifteen hundred patients are constantly under treatment. Another interesting hospital is the Städtische Krankenhaus, completed about fifteen years ago, on the "pavilion" plan, with the best modern appliances. This is situated in the beautiful park known as the Friedrichshain, in the northeastern part of the city. The Bethanien, in the southeastern quarter, is a large institution for the training of nurses, admirably managed, under the care of the deaconesses, or Protestant Sisters.
X.ToC
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.
The New Palace, now known as Friedrichskron, built on a vast scale by Frederick the Great after the Seven Years' War, to show that he was not impoverished, has henceforth its immortality as the birthplace of Frederick III.; and here he expired, on the morning of a June day, scarce a twelvemonth after he had ridden among the foremost of that dazzling throng of potentates which graced the imperial progress of Queen Victoria to Westminster Abbey on the celebration of her regal Jubilee.
In the days of their happy summer life, lived in great simplicity and homelikeness, the Crown Princess once wrote, in a little pavilion here,—