About the end of October Lady Hester took to her bed, and did not leave it till the following March. She had suffered from pulmonary catarrh for several years, which disappeared in the summer, but returned every winter with increased violence. Her practice of frequent bleeding had brought on a state of complete emaciation, and left very little blood in her body. If she had lived like other people, and trusted to the balmy air of Syria, Dr. Meryon was of opinion that nothing serious need have been apprehended from her illness. But she seldom breathed the outer air, and took no exercise except an occasional turn in the garden. She was always complaining that she could get nothing to eat; yet, in spite of her profession (to Kinglake) that she lived entirely on milk, we are told that her diet consisted of forcemeat balls, meat-pies, and other heavy viands, and that she seldom remained half an hour without taking nourishment of some kind. 'I never knew a human being who took nourishment so frequently,' writes Dr. Meryon, 'and may not this in some measure account for her frequent ill-humour?'
During her illness the doctor read aloud Sir Nathaniel Wraxall'sMemoirsand theMemoirs of a Peeress, edited by Lady Charlotte Bury, both of which books dealt with persons whom Lady Hester had known in her youth. In return she regaled him with stories of her own glory, of Mr. Pitt's virtues, of the objectionable habits of the Princess of Wales, and of the meanness of the Regent in inviting himself to dinner with gentlemen who could not afford to entertain him, the whole pleasantly flavoured by animadversions on the social presumption of medical men, and descriptions of the methods by which formerly they were kept in their proper place by aristocratic patients. At this time, the beginning of 1838, Lady Hester was anxiously expecting an answer from Sir Francis Burdett about her property, and, hearing from the English consul at Sayda that a packet had arrived for her from Beyrout, which was to be delivered into her own hands, her sanguine mind was filled with the hope of coming prosperity. But when the packet was opened, instead of the long-expected missive from Sir Francis, it proved to be an official statement from Colonel Campbell, Consul-General for Egypt, that in consequence of an application made to the British Government by one of Lady Hester's chief creditors, an order had come from Lord Palmerston that her pension was to be stopped unless the debt was paid. When she read the letter Dr. Meryon feared an outburst of fury, but Lady Hester, who, for once, was beyond violence, began calmly to discuss the enormity of the conduct both of Queen and Minister.
'My grandfather and Mr. Pitt,' she said, 'did something to keep the Brunswick family on the throne, and yet the granddaughter of the old king, without hearing the circumstances of my getting into debt, or whether the story is true, sends to deprive me of my pension in a strange land, where I may remain and starve.... I should like to ask for a public inquiry into my debts, and for what I have contracted them. Let them compare the good I have done in the cause of humanity and science with the Duke of Kent's debts. I wonder if Lord Palmerston is the man I recollect--a young man from college, who was always hanging about waiting to be introduced to Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to say, "Ah, very well; we will ask him to dinner some day." Perhaps it is an old grudge that makes him vent his spite.' Colonel Campbell's letter had given the poor lady's heart, or rather her pride, a fatal stab, and the indignity with which she had been treated preyed upon her health and spirits. She now determined to send an ultimatum to the Queen, which was to be published in the newspapers if ministers refused to lay it before her Majesty. This document, which was dated February 12, 1838, ran as follows:--
'Your Majesty will allow me to say that few things are more disgraceful and inimical to royalty than giving commands without examining all their different bearings, and casting, without reason, an aspersion upon the integrity of any branch of a family that had faithfully served their country and the House of Hanover. As no inquiries have been made of me of what circumstances induced me to incur the debts alluded to, I deem it unnecessary to enter into any details on the subject. I shall not allow the pension given by your royal grandfather to be stopped by force; but I shall resign it for the payment of my debts, and with it the name of British subject, and the slavery that is at present annexed to it; and as your Majesty has given publicity to the business by your orders to your consular agents, I surely cannot be blamed for following your royal example.
'HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.'
This was accompanied by a long letter to the Duke of Wellington, in which Lady Hester detailed her services in the East, and expressed her indignation at the treatment she had received. She was now left with only a few pounds upon which to maintain her house-hold until March, when she could draw for £300, apparently the quarter's income from a legacy left her by her brother, but of this sum £200 was due to a Greek merchant at Beyrout. The faithful doctor collected all the money he had in his house, about eleven pounds, and brought it to her for her current expenses, but with her usual impracticability she gave most of it away in charity. Still no letter came from Sir Francis Burdett, and the unfortunate lady, old, sick, and wasted to a skeleton, lay on her sofa and lamented over her troubles in a fierce, inhuman fashion, like a wounded animal at bay. In the course of time a reply came from Lord Palmerston, in which he stated that he had laid Lady Hester's letter before the Queen, and explained to her Majesty the circumstances that might be supposed to have led to her writing it. The communications to which she referred were, he continued, suggested by nothing but a desire to save her from the embarrassments that might arise if her creditors were to call upon the Consul-General to act according to the strict line of his duty. This letter did nothing towards assuaging Lady Hester's wrath. In her reply she sarcastically observed:--
'If your diplomatic despatches are all as obscure as the one that now lies before me, it is no wonder that England should cease to have that proud preponderance in her foreign relations which she once could boast of.... It is but fair to make your lordship aware that, if by the next packet there is nothing definitely settled respecting my affairs, and I am not cleared in the eyes of the world of aspersions, intentionally or unintentionally thrown upon me, I shall break up my household, and build up the entrance-gate to my premises; there remaining as if I was in a tomb till my character has been done justice to, and a public acknowledgment put in the papers, signed and sealed by those who have aspersed me. There is no trifling with those who have Pitt blood in their veins upon the subject of integrity, nor expecting that their spirit would ever yield to the impertinent interference of consular authority, etc., etc.' It must be owned that there is a touch of unconscious humour in Lady Hester's terrible threat of walling herself up, a proceeding which would only make herself uncomfortable and leave her enemies at peace. For the present matters went on much as usual at Dar Jôon. No household expenses were curtailed, and thirty native servants continued to cheat their mistress and idle over their work. In March, that perambulating princeling, his Highness of Pückler-Muskau, arrived at Sayda, whence he wrote a letter to Lady Hester, begging to be allowed to pay his homage to the Queen of Palmyra and the niece of the great Pitt. 'I have the presumption to believe, madam,' he continued, 'that there must be some affinity of character between us. For, like you, my lady, I look for our future salvation from the East, where nations still nearer to God and to nature can alone, some day, purify the rotten civilisation of decrepid Europe, in which everything is artificial, and where we are menaced with a new kind of barbarism--not that with which states begin, but with which they end. Like you, madam, I believe that astrology is not an empty science, but a lost one. Like you, I am an aristocrat by birth and by principle; because I find a marked aristocracy in nature. In a word, madam, like you, I love to sleep by day and be stirring by night. There I stop; for in mind, energy of character, and in the mode of life, so singular and so dignified, which you lead, not every one who would can resemble Lady Hester Stanhope.'
Lady Hester was flattered by this letter, and told the doctor that he must ride into Sayda to see the prince, and tell him that she was too ill to receive him at present, but would endeavour to do so a few weeks later. The prince was established with his numerous suite in the house of a merchant of Sayda. Mehemet Ali had given him a special firman, requiring all official persons to treat him in a manner suitable to his rank, his whole expenditure being defrayed by cheques on the Viceroy's treasury. The prince, unlike most other distinguished travellers who were treated with the same honour, took the firman strictly according to the letter, and could boast of having traversed the whole of Egypt and Syria with all the pomp of royalty, and without having expended a single farthing. Dr. Meryon describes his Highness as a tall man of about fifty years of age, distinguished by an unmistakable air of birth and breeding. He wore a curious mixture of Eastern and Western costume, and had a tame chameleon crawling about his pipe, with which he was almost as much occupied as M. Lamartine with his lapdog. The prince stated that he had almost made up his mind to settle in the East, since Europe was no longer the land of liberty. 'I will build myself a house,' he said, 'get what I want from Europe, make arrangements for newspapers, books, etc., and choose some delightful situation; but I think it will be on Mount Lebanon.'
In his volume of travels in the East calledDie Rückkehr, Prince Pückler-Muksau has given an amusing account of the negotiations that passed between himself and Lady Hester on the subject of his visit. For once the niece of Pitt had found her match in vanity and arrogance; and if the prince's book had appeared in her lifetime, it is certain that she would not long have survived it. His Highness describes how he bided his time, as though he were laying siege to a courted beauty, and almost daily bombarded the Lady of Jôon with letters calculated to pique her curiosity by their frank and original style. At last, 'in order to be rid of him,' as she jokingly said, Lady Hester consented to receive him on a certain day, which, from his star, she deemed propitious to their meeting. Thereupon the prince, who intended that his visit should be desired, not suffered, wrote to say that he was setting out for an expedition into the desert, but that on his return he would come to Jôon, not for one day, but for a week. This impertinence was rewarded by permission to come at his own time.
Great preparations were made for the entertainment of this distinguished visitor. The scanty contents of the store and china cupboards were spread out before the lady of the house, who infused activity into the most sluggish by smart strokes from her stick. The epithets of beast, rascal, and the like, were dealt out with such freedom and readiness, as to make the European part of her audience sensible of the richness and variety of the Arabian language. On Easter Monday, April 15, the prince, followed by a part of his suite, and five mule-loads of baggage, rode into the courtyard. He wore an immense Leghorn hat lined with green taffetas, a Turkish scarf over his shoulders, and blue pantaloons of ample dimensions. From the excellent fit of his Parisian boots, it was evident that he felt his pretensions to a thoroughbred foot were now to be magisterially decided. The prince has given his own impression of his hostess, whom he describes as a thorough woman of the world, with manners of Oriental dignity and calm. With her pale, regular features, dark, fiery eyes, great height, and sonorous voice, she had the appearance of an ancient Sibyl; yet no one, he declares, could have been more natural and unaffected in manner. She told him that since she had lost her money, she had lived like a dervish, and assimilated herself to the ways of nature. 'My roses are my jewels,' she said, 'the sun and moon my clocks, fruit and water my food and drink. I see in your face that you are a thorough epicure; how will you endure to spend a week with me?' The prince, who had already dined, replied that he found she did not keep her guests on fruit and water, and assured her that English poverty was equivalent to German riches. He spent six or seven hourstête-a-têtewith his hostess each evening of his stay, and declares that he was astonished at the originality and variety of her conversation. He had the audacity to ask her if the Arab chief who accompanied her to Palmyra had been her lover, but she, not ill-pleased, assured him that there was no truth in the report, which at one time had been generally believed. She said that the Arabs regarded her neither as man or woman, but as a being apart.
Before leaving, the prince introduced his 'harem,' consisting of two Abyssinian slaves, to Lady Hester, and was presented, in his turn, to the sacred mares, which had lost their beauty, and grown gross and unwieldy under theirrégimeof gentle exercise and unlimited food. Leila licked the prince's hand when he caressed her, and Leila's mistress was thereby convinced that her guest was a 'chosen vessel.' She confided to him all her woes, the neglect of her relations and the ill-treatment of the Government, and gave him copies of the correspondence about her pension, which he promised to publish in a German newspaper. To Dr. Meryon she waxed quite enthusiastic over his Highness's personal attractions, the excellent cut of his coat, and the handiness with which he performed small services. 'I could observe,' writes the doctor, towards the end of the visit, 'that she had already begun to obtain an ascendency over the prince, such as she never failed to do over those who came within the sphere of her attraction; for he was less lofty in his manner than he had been at first, and she seemed to have gained in height, and to be more disposed to play the queen than ever.'
This, alas, was the last time that Lady Hester had the opportunity of playing the queen, or entertaining a distinguished guest at Dar Jôon. In June, when the packet brought no news of her imaginary property, and no apology from Queen or Premier, she began at last to despair. 'The die is cast,' she told Dr. Meryon, 'and the sooner you take yourself off the better. I have no money; you can be of no use to me--I shall write no more letters, and shall break up my establishment, wall up my gate, and, with a boy and girl to wait upon me, resign myself to my fate. Tell your family they may make their preparations, and be gone in a month's time.' Early in July Sir Francis Burdett's long-expected letter arrived, but brought with it no consolation. He could tell nothing of the legacy, but wrote in the soothing, evasive terms that might be supposed suitable to an elderly lady who was not quite accountable for her ideas or actions. As there was now no hope of any improvement in her affairs, Lady Hester decided to execute her threat of walling up her gateway, a proceeding which, she was unable to perceive, injured nobody but herself. She directed the doctor to pay and dismiss her servants, with the exception of two maids and two men, and then sent him to Beyrout to inform the French consul of her intention. On his return to Jôon he found that Lady Hester had already hired a vessel to take himself and his family from Sayda to Cyprus. He was reluctant to leave her in solitude and wretchedness, but knowing that when once her mind was made up, nothing could shake her resolution, he employed the time that remained to him in writing her letters, setting her house in order, and taking her instructions for commissions in Europe. He also begged to be allowed to lend her as much money as he could spare, and she consented to borrow a sum of 2000 piastres (about £80), which she afterwards repaid.
On July 30, 1838, the masons arrived, and the entrance-gate was walled up with a kind of stone screen, leaving, however, a side-opening just large enough for an ass or cow to enter, so that this much-talked-of act of self-immurement was more an appearance than a reality. On August 6, the faithful doctor took an affectionate leave of the employer, who, as Prince Pückler-Muskau bears witness, was accustomed to treat him with icy coldness, and sailed for western climes. To the last, he tells us, Lady Hester dwelt with apparent confidence on the approaching advent of the Mahedi, and still regarded her mare Leila as destined to bear him into Jerusalem, with herself upon Lulu at his side. It is to be hoped that the poor lady was able to buoy herself up with this belief during the last and most solitary year of her disappointed life. About once a month, up to the date of her death, she corresponded with Dr. Meryon, who was again settled at Nice. Her letters were chiefly taken up with commissions, and with shrewd comments upon the new books that were sent out to her.
'I should like to have Miss Pardoe's book on Constantinople,' she writes in October, 1838, 'if it is come out for strangers (i.e.in a French translation); for I fear I should never get through with it myself. This just puts me in mind that one of the books I should like to have would be Graham'sDomestic Medicine; a good Red Book (Peerage, I mean); and the book about the Prince of Wales. I have found out a person who can occasionally read French to me; so if there was any very pleasing French book, you might send it--but no Bonapartes or "present times"--and a littlebrochureor two upon baking, pastry, gardening, etc....
'Feb.9, 1839.--The book you sent me (Diary of the Times of George IV., by Lady Charlotte Bury) is interesting only to those who were acquainted with the persons named: all mock taste, mock feeling, etc., but that is the fashion. "I am this, I am that"; who ever talked such empty stuff formerly? I was never named by a well-bred person.... Miss Pardoe is very excellent upon many subjects; only there is too much of what the English like--stars, winds, black shades, soft sounds, etc....
'May6.--Some one--I suppose you--sent me theLife of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. It isIwho could give a true and most extraordinary history of all those transactions. The book is all stuff. The duchess (Lord Edward's mother) was my particular friend, as was also his aunt; I was intimate with all the family, and knew that noted Pamela. All the books I see make me sick--only catchpenny nonsense. A thousand thanks for the promise of my grandfather's letters; but the book will be all spoilt by being edited by young men. First, they are totally ignorant of the politics of my grandfather's age; secondly, of the style of the language used at that period; and absolutely ignorant of his secret reasons and intentions, and therealor apparent footing he was upon with many people, friends or foes. I know all that from my grandmother, who was his secretary, and, Coutts used to say, the cleverestmanof her time in politics and business.'
This was the last letter that Dr. Meryon received from his old friend and patroness. She slowly wasted away, and died in June 1839, no one being aware of her approaching end except the servants about her. The news of her death reached Beyrout in a few hours, and the English consul, Mr. Moore, and an American missionary (Mr. Thomson, author ofThe Land and the Book) rode over to Jôon to bury her. By her own desire she was interred in a grave in her garden, where a son of the Prophet Loustaunau had been buried some years before. Mr. Thomson has described how he performed the last rites at midnight by the light of lanterns and torches, and notes the curious resemblance between Lady Hester's funeral service and that of the man she loved, Sir John Moore. Together with the consul, he examined the contents of thirty-five rooms, but found nothing but old saddles, pipes, and empty oil-jars, everything of value having been long since plundered by the servants. The sacred mares, now grown old and almost useless, were sold for a small sum by public auction, and only survived for a short time their return to an active life.
In 1845 Dr. Meryon published his so-calledMemoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope, which are merely an account of her later years, and a report of her table-talk at Dar Jôon. In 1846 he brought out herTravels, which were advertised as the supplement and completion of theMemoirs. From these works, and from passing notices of our heroine, we gain a general impression of wasted talents and a disappointed life. That she was more unhappy in her solitude than, in her unbending nature, she would avow, observes her faithful friend and chronicler, the record of the last years of her existence too plainly demonstrates. Although she derived consolation in retirement from the retrospect of the part she had played in her prosperity, still there were moments of poignant grief when her very soul groaned within her. She was ambitious, and her ambition had been foiled; she loved irresponsible command, but the time had come when those over whom she ruled defied her; she was dictatorial and exacting, but she had lost the influence which alone makes people tolerate control. She incurred debts, and was doomed to feel the degradation consequent upon them. She thought to defy her own nation, and they hurled the defiance back upon her. She entertained visionary projects of aggrandisement, and was met by the derision of the world. In a word, Lady Hester died as she had lived, alone and miserable in a strange land, bankrupt in affection and credit, because, in spite of her great gifts and innate benevolence, her overbearing temper had alienated friends and kinsfolk alike, and her pride could endure neither the society of equals, nor the restraints and conventions of civilised life.
PRINCE PÜCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND
PRINCE PÜCKLER-MUSKAU
PART I
During the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century there was no more original and picturesque figure among the minor celebrities of Germany--one might almost say of Europe--than that of his Highness, Hermann Ludwig Heinrich, Prince Pückler-Muskau. Throughout his long career we find this princeling playing many parts--at once an imitation Werter, a sentimental Don Juan, a dandy who out-dressed D'Orsay, a sportsman and traveller of Münchhausen type, a fashionable author who wrote German with a French accent and a warrior who seems to have wandered out of the pages of mediæval romance. Yet with all his mock-heroic notoriety, thetoller Pücklerwas by no means destitute of those practical qualities which tempered the Teutonic Romanticism, even in its earliest and most extravagant developments. He was skilled in all manly exercises, a brave soldier, an intelligent observer, and--his most substantial claim to remembrance--the father of landscape-gardening in Germany, a veritable magician who transformed level wastes into wooded landscapes and made the sandy wildernesses blossom like the rose.
To English readers the prince's name was once familiar as the author ofBriefe eines Verstorbenen(Letters of a Dead Man), which contain a lively account of his Highness' sojourn in England and Ireland between the years 1826 and 1828. These letters, which were translated into English under the title ofThe Tour of a German Prince, made a sensation, favourable and otherwise, in the early 'thirties,' owing to the candid fashion in which they dealt with our customs and our countrymen. The book received the high honour of a complimentary review from the pen of the aged Goethe. 'The writer appears to be a perfect and experienced man of the world,' observes this distinguished critic; 'endowed with talents and a quick apprehension; formed by a varied social existence, by travel and extensive connections. His journey was undertaken very recently, and brings us the latest intelligence from the countries which he has viewed with an acute, clear, and comprehensive eye. We see before us a finely-constituted being, born to great external advantages and felicities, but in whom a lively spirit of enterprise is not united to constancy and perseverance; whence he experiences frequent failure and disappointment.... The peculiarities of English manners and habits are drawn vividly and distinctly, and without exaggeration. We acquire a lively idea of that wonderful combination, that luxuriant growth--of that insular life which is based in boundless wealth and civil freedom, in universal monotony and manifold diversity; formal and capricious, active and torpid, energetic and dull, comfortable and tedious, the envy and derision of the world. Like other unprejudiced travellers of modern times, our author is not very much enchanted with the English form of existence: his cordial and sincere admiration is often accompanied by unsparing censure. He is by no means inclined to favour the faults and weaknesses of the English; and in this he has the greatest and best among themselves upon his side.'
As these Letters were not written until the prince had passed his fortieth year, it will be necessary, before considering them in detail, to give a brief sketch of his previous career. Hermann Ludwig was the only son of Graf von Pückler of Schloss Branitz, and of his wife, Clementine, born a Gräfin von Gallenberg, and heiress to the vast estate of Muskau in Silesia. Both families were of immense antiquity, the Pücklers claiming to trace their descent from Rüdiger von Bechlarn, who figures in theNibelungenlied. Our hero was born at Muskau in October 1785, and spent, according to his own account, a wretched and neglected childhood. His father was harsh, miserly, and suspicious; his mother, who was only fifteen when her son was born, is described as a frivolous little flirt. The couple, after perpetually quarrelling for ten or twelve years, were divorced, by mutual consent, in 1797, and the Gräfin shortly afterwards married one of her numerous admirers, Graf von Seydewitz, with whom she lived as unhappily as with her first husband. Her little son was educated at a Moravian school, and in the holidays was left entirely to the care of the servants. After a couple of years at the university of Leipzig, he entered the Saxon army, and soon became notorious for his good looks, his fine horsemanship, his extravagance, and his mischievous pranks. Military discipline in time of peace proved too burdensome for the young lieutenant, who, after quarrelling with his father, getting deeply into debt, and embroiling himself with the authorities, threw up his commission in 1804. Muskau having become much too hot to hold him, he spent the next years in travelling about the Continent, always in pecuniary difficulties, and seldom free from some sentimental entanglement.
In 1810 Graf Pückler died, and his son stepped into a splendid inheritance. Like Prince Hal, the young Graf seems to have taken his new responsibilities seriously, and to have devoted himself, with only too much enthusiasm, to the development and improvement of his estates. In the intervals of business he amused himself with an endless series of love-affairs, his achievements in this respect, if his biographer may be believed, more than equalling those of Jupiter and Don Giovanni put together. Old and young, pretty and plain, noble and humble, native and foreign, all were fish that came to the net of this lady-killer, who not only vowed allegiance to nearly every petticoat that crossed his path, but--a much more remarkable feat--kept up an impassioned correspondence with a large selection of his charmers. After his death, a whole library of love-letters was discovered among his papers, all breathing forth adoration, ecstasy or despair, and addressed to the Julies, Jeannettes, or Amalies who succeeded one another so rapidly in his facile affections. These documents, for the most part carefully-corrected drafts of the originals, were indorsed, 'Old love-letters, to be used again if required!'
In 1813 the trumpet of war sounded the call to arms, and the young Graf entered the military service of Prussia, and was appointed aide-de-camp to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. He distinguished himself in the Netherlands, was present at the taking of Cassel, and in the course of the campaign played a part in a new species of duel. A French colonel of Hussars, so the story goes, rode out of the enemy's lines, and challenged any officer in the opposing army to single combat. Pückler accepted the challenge, and the duel was fought on horseback--presumably with sabres--between the ranks of the two armies, the soldiers on either side applauding their chosen champion. At length, after a fierce struggle, Germany triumphed, and the brave Frenchman bit the dust. Whether the tale be true or apocryphal, it is certain that numerous decorations were conferred upon the young officer for his brilliant services, that he was promoted to the rank of colonel, and appointed civil and military governor of Brüges. Pückler took part in the triumphal entry of the Allies into Paris, and afterwards accompanied the Duke of Saxe-Weimar to London, where he shared in all the festivities of the wonderful season of 1815, studied the English methods of landscape-gardening, and made an unsuccessful attempt to marry a lady of rank and fortune.
After his return to Muskau the Graf continued his work on his estate, which, in spite of a sandy soil and other disadvantages, soon became one of the show-places of Germany. Having discovered a spring of mineral water, he built a pump-room, a theatre, and a gaming-saloon, and named the establishment Hermannsbad. The invalids who frequented the Baths must have enjoyed a lively 'cure,' for besides theatrical performances, illuminations, fireworks and steeplechases, the Graf was always ready to oblige with some sensational achievement. On one occasion he leapt his horse over the parapet of a bridge into the river, and swam triumphantly ashore; while on another he galloped up the steps of the Casino, played and won acoupat the tables without dismounting, and then galloped down again, arriving at the bottom with a whole neck, but considerable damage to his horse's legs.
In 1816 Pückler became acquainted with Lucie, Gräfin von Pappenheim, a daughter of Prince Hardenberg, Chancellor of Prussia. The Gräfin, a well-preserved woman of forty, having parted from her husband, was living at Berlin with her daughter, Adelheid, afterwards Princess Carolath, and her adopted daughter, Herminie Lanzendorf. The Graf divided his attentions equally between the three ladies for some time, but on inquiring of a friend which would make the greatest sensation in Berlin, his marriage to the mother or to one of the daughters, and being told his marriage to the mother, at once proposed to the middle-aged Gräfin, and was joyfully accepted. The reason for this inappropriate match probably lay deeper than the desire to astonish the people of Berlin, for Pückler, with all his surface romanticism, had a keen eye to the main chance. His Lucie had only a moderate dower, but the advantage of being son-in-law to the Chancellor of Prussia could hardly be overestimated. Again, the Graf seems to have imagined that in a marriage of convenience with a woman nine years older than himself, he would be able to preserve the liberty of his bachelor days, while presenting the appearance of domestic respectability.
As soon as the trifling formality of a divorce from Count Pappenheim had been gone through, the marriage took place at Muskau, to the accompaniment of the most splendid festivities. As may be supposed, the early married life of the ill-assorted couple was a period of anything but unbroken calm. Scarcely had the Graf surrendered his liberty than he fell passionately in love with his wife's adopted daughter, Helmine, a beautiful girl of eighteen, the child, it was believed, of humble parents. Frederick William III. of Prussia was one of her admirers, and had offered to marry her morganatically, and create her Herzogin von Breslau. But Helmine gave her royal suitor no encouragement, and he soon consoled himself with the Princess Liegnitz. Lucie spared no pains to marry off the inconvenient beauty, but Pückler frustrated all her efforts, implored her not to separate him from Helmine, and suggested an arrangement based upon the domestic policy of Goethe'sWahlverwandschaften. But Lucie was unreasonable enough to object to aménage à trois, and at length succeeded in marrying Helmine to a Lieutenant von Blucher.
In 1822 the Graf accompanied his father-in-law to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, and shortly afterwards was raised to princely rank, in compensation for the losses he had sustained through the annexation of Silesia by Prussia. By this time the prince's financial affairs were in so desperate a condition, thanks to the follies of his youth and the building mania of his manhood, that a desperate remedy was required to put them straight again. Only one expedient presented itself, and this Lucie, with a woman's self-sacrifice, was the first to propose. During a short absence from Muskau she wrote to her husband to offer him his freedom, in order that he might be enabled to marry a rich heiress, whose fortune could be used to clear off the liabilities that pressed so heavily on the estate. The prince at first refused to take advantage of this generous offer. He had become accustomed to his elderly wife, who acted as his colleague and helper in all that concerned his idolised Muskau, and upon whose sympathy and advice he had learned to depend. But as time went on he grew accustomed to the idea of an amicable divorce, and at length persuaded himself that such a proceeding need make no real difference to Lucie's position; in fact, that it would be an advantage to her as well as to himself. For years past he had regarded her rather in the light of a maternal friend than of a wife, and the closecamaraderiethat existed between them would remain unbroken by the advent of a young bride whom Lucie would love as her own child. A divorce, it must be remembered, was a common incident of everyday life in the Germany of that epoch. As we have seen, Pückler's father and mother had dissolved their marriage, and Lucie had been divorced from her first husband, while her father had been married three times, and had separated from each of his wives.
The matter remained in abeyance for a year or two, and it was not until 1826, when the prince probably felt that he had no time to lose, that the long-talked-of divorce actually took place. This curious couple, who appeared to be more tenderly attached to each other now than they had ever been before, took a touching farewell in Berlin. The princess then returned to Muskau, where she remained during her ex-husband's absence as his agent and representative, while the prince set out for England, which country was supposed to offer the best hunting-ground for heiresses. Week by week during his tour, Pückler addressed to his faithful Lucie long, confidential letters, filled with observations of the manners and customs of the British barbarians, together with minute descriptions of his adventures in love and landscape-gardening.
The prince, though at this time in his forty-first year, was still, to all appearance, in the prime of life, still an adept in feats of skill and strength, and not less romantic and susceptible than in the days of his youth. With his high rank, his vast though encumbered estates, his picturesque appearance, and his wide experience in affairs of the heart, he anticipated little difficulty in carrying off one of the most eligible of British heiresses; but he quite forgot to include the hard-hearted, level-headed British parent in his reckoning. The prince's first letter to Lucie, who figures in the published version as Julie, is dated Dresden, September 7, 1826, and begins in right Werterian strain:--
'My dear friend--The love you showed me at our parting made me so happy and so miserable that I cannot yet recover from it. Your sad image is ever before me; I still read deep sorrow in your looks and in your tears, and my own heart tells me too well what yours suffered. May God grant us a meeting as joyful as our parting was sorrowful! I can only repeat what I have so often told you, that if I felt myself without you, my dearest friend, in the world, I could enjoy none of its pleasures without an alloy of sadness; that if you love me, you will above all things watch over your health, and amuse yourself as much as you can by varied occupation.' There are protestations of this kind in nearly every letter, for the prince's pen was always tipped with fine sentiment and vows of eternal devotion came more easily to him than the ordinary civilities of everyday life to the average man.
A visit to Goethe at Weimar, on the traveller's leisurely journey towards England, furnished his notebook with some interesting specimens of the old poet's conversation. 'He received me,' writes the prince, 'in a dimly-lighted room, whoseclair obscurewas arranged with somecoquetterie; and truly the aspect of the beautiful old man, with his Jovelike countenance, was most stately.... In the course of conversation we came to Walter Scott. Goethe was not very enthusiastic about the Great Unknown. He said he doubted not that he wrote his novels in the same sort of partnership as existed between the old painters and their pupils; that he furnished the plot, the leading thoughts, the skeleton of the scenes, that he then let his pupils fill them up, and retouched them at the last. It seemed almost to be his opinion that it was not worth the while of a man of Scott's eminence to give himself up to such a number of minute and tedious details. "Had I," he said, "been able to lend myself to the idea of mere gain, I could formerly have sent such things anonymously into the world, with the aid of Lenz and others--nay, I could still, as would astonish people not a little, and make them puzzle their brains to find out the author; but after all, they would be but manufactured wares...."
'He afterwards spoke of Lord Byron with great affection, almost as a father would of a son, which was extremely grateful to my enthusiastic feelings for this great poet. He contradicted the silly assertion thatManfredwas only an echo of hisFaust. He extremely regretted that he had never become personally acquainted with Lord Byron, and severely and justly reproached the English nation for having judged their illustrious countryman so pettily, and understood him so ill.' The conversation next turned on politics, and Goethe reverted to his favourite theory that if every man laboured faithfully, honestly, and lovingly in this sphere, were it great or small, universal well-being and happiness would not long be wanting, whatever the form of government. The prince urged in reply that a constitutional government was first necessary to call such a principle into life, and adduced the example of England in support of his argument. 'Goethe immediately replied that the choice of the example was not happy, for that in no country was selfishness more omnipotent; that no people were perhaps essentially less humane in their political or their private relations; that salvation came, not from without, by means of forms of government, but from within, by the wise moderation and humble activity of each man in his own circle; and that this must ever be the chief source of human felicity, while it was the easiest and the simplest to attain.'
The prince seems always to have played the part of Jonah on board ship, and on the occasion of his journey to England, he had a terrible passage of forty hours, from Rotterdam to the London Docks. As soon as he could get his carriage, horses, and luggage clear of the customs, he hastened to the Clarendon Hotel, where he had stayed during his first visit to London. Unlike the American, N. P. Willis, he had come armed with many prejudices against England and the English, few of which he succeeded in losing during the two years of his sojourn among us. In his first letter from London, dated October 5, 1826, he writes: 'London is now so utterly dead to elegance and fashion that one hardly meets a single equipage, and nothing remains of thebeau mondebut a few ambassadors. The huge city is at the same time full of fog and dirt, and the macadamised streets are like well-worn roads. The old pavement has been torn up, and replaced by small pieces of granite, the interstices between which are filled up with gravel; this renders the riding more easy, and diminishes the noise, but on the other hand changes the town into a sort of quagmire.' The prince comments favourably on the improvements that had recently been carried out by Nash the architect, more especially as regards Regent Street and Portland Place, and declares that the laying out of the Regent's Park is 'faultless,' particularly in the disposition of the water.
The comfort and luxury of English hotels, as well as of private houses, is a subject on which the traveller frequently enlarges, and in this first letter he assures his Lucie that she would be delighted with the extreme cleanliness of the interiors, the great convenience of the furniture, and the good manners of the serving-people, though he admits that, for all that pertains to luxury, the tourist pays about six times as much as in Germany. 'The comfort of the inns,' he continues, 'is unknown on the Continent; on your washing-table you find, not one miserable water-bottle with a single earthenware jug and basin, and a long strip of towel, but positive tubs of porcelain in which you may plunge half your body; taps which instantly supply you with streams of water at pleasure; half-a-dozen wide towels, a large standing mirror, foot-baths and other conveniences of the toilet, all of equal elegance.'
The prince took advantage of the dead season to explore the city and other unfashionable quarters of the town. He was delighted with the excellent side-pavements, the splendid shops, the brilliant gas-lamps, and above all (like Miss Edgeworth's Rosamund) with 'the great glass globes in the chemists' windows, filled with liquid of a deep red, blue or green, the light of which is visible for miles(!)' Visits to the Exchange, the Bank, and the Guildhall were followed by a call on Rothschild, 'the Grand Ally of the Grand Alliance,' at his house of business. 'On my presenting my card,' says our hero, 'he remarked ironically that we were lucky people who could afford to travel about, and take our pleasure, while he, poor man, had such a heavy burden to bear. He then broke out into bitter complaints that every poor devil who came to England had something to ask of him.... After this the conversation took a political turn, and we of course agreed that Europe could not subsist without him; he modestly declined our compliments, and said, smiling, 'Oh no, you are only jesting; I am but a servant, with whom people are pleased because he manages their affairs well, and to whom they allow some crumbs to fall as an acknowledgment.'
On October 19 the prince went to Newmarket for the races. During his stay he was introduced to a rich merchant of the neighbourhood, who invited him to spend a couple of days at his country-house. He gives Lucie a minute account of the manners and customs of an Englishménage, but these are only interesting to the modern reader in so far as they have become obsolete. For example: 'When you enter the dining-room, you find the whole of the first course on the table, as in France. After the soup is removed, and the covers are taken off, every man helps the dish before him, and offers some to his neighbour; if he wishes for anything else, he must ask across the table, or send a servant for it, a very troublesome custom.... It is not usual to take wine without drinking to another person. If the company is small, and a man has drunk with everybody, but happens to wish for more wine, he must wait for the dessert, if he does not find in himself courage to brave custom.'
On his return to town the prince, who had been elected a member of the Travellers' Club, gives a long dissertation on English club life, not forgetting to dwell on the luxury of all the arrangements, the excellent service, and the methodical fashion in which the gaming-tables were conducted. 'In no other country,' he declares, 'are what are here emphatically called "business habits" carried so extensively into social and domestic life; the value of time, of order, of despatch, of routine, are nowhere so well understood. This is the great key to the most striking, national characteristics. The quantity of material objects produced and accomplished--the work done--in England exceeds all that man ever effected. The causes that have produced these results have as certainly given birth to the dulness, the contracted views, the inveterate prejudices, the unbounded desire for, and deference to wealth which characterise the great mass of Englishmen.'
During this first winter in London the prince was a regular attendant at the theatres, and many were the dramatic criticisms that he sent to his 'friend' at Muskau. He saw Liston in the hundred and second representation of Paul Pry, and at Drury Lane found, to his amazement that Braham, whom he remembered as an elderly man in 1814, was still first favourite. 'He is the genuine representative of the English style of singing,' writes our critic, 'and in popular songs is the adored idol of the public. One cannot deny him great power of voice and rapidity of execution, but a more abominable style it is difficult to conceive.... The most striking feature to a foreigner in English theatres is the natural coarseness and brutality of the audiences. The consequence is that the higher and more civilised classes go only to the Italian Opera, and very rarely visit their national theatre. English freedom has degenerated into the rudest licence, and it is not uncommon in the midst of the most affecting part of a tragedy, or the most charming cadenza of a singer, to hear some coarse expression shouted from the gallery in a stentor voice. This is followed, either by loud laughter and applause, or by the castigation and expulsion of the offender.'
The poor prince saw Mozart'sFigaroannounced for performance at Drury Lane, and looked forward to hearing once more the sweet harmonies of his Vaterland. 'What, then, was my astonishment,' he exclaims, in justifiable indignation, 'at the unheard-of treatment which the masterpiece of the immortal composer has received at English hands! You will hardly believe me when I tell you that neither the count, the countess, nor Figaro sang; these parts were given to mere actors, and their principal airs were sung by other singers. To add to this the gardener roared out some interpolated English popular songs, which suited Mozart's music just as a pitch-plaster would suit the face of the Venus de' Medici. The whole opera was, moreover, arranged by a certain Mr. Bishop; that is, adapted to English ears by means of the most tasteless and shocking alterations. The English national music, the coarse, heavy melodies of which can never be mistaken for an instant, has to me, at least, something singularly offensive, an expression of brutal feeling both in pain and pleasure that smacks of "roast-beef, plum-pudding, and porter."'
Another entertainment attended by our hero about this time was the opening of Parliament by George IV., who had not performed this ceremony for several years. 'The king,' we are told, 'looked pale and bloated, and was obliged to sit on the throne for a considerable time before he could get breath enough to read his speech. During this time he turned friendly glances and condescending bows towards some favoured ladies. On his right stood Lord Liverpool, with the sword of state and the speech in his hand, and the Duke of Wellington on his left. All three looked so miserable, so ashy-grey and worn out, that never did human greatness appear to me so little worth.... In spite of his feebleness, George IV. read hisbanalespeech with great dignity and a fine voice, but with that royal nonchalance which does not concern itself with what his Majesty promises, or whether he is sometimes unable to decipher a word. It was very evident that the monarch was heartily glad when thecorvéewas over.'
In one of his early letters the traveller gives his friend the following account of the manner in which he passes his day: 'I rise late, read three or four newspapers at breakfast, look in my visiting-book to see what visits I have to pay, and either drive to pay them in my cabriolet, or ride. In the course of these excursions, I sometimes catch the enjoyment of the picturesque; the struggle of the blood-red sun with the winter fogs often produces wild and singular effects of light. After my visits I ride for several hours about the beautiful environs of London, return when it grows dark, dress for dinner, which is at seven or eight, and spend the evening either at the theatre or some small party. The ludicrous routs--at which one hardly finds standing-room on the staircase--have not yet commenced. In England, however, except in a few diplomatic houses, you can go nowhere in the evening without a special invitation.' The prince seems to have been bored at most of the parties he attended; partly, perhaps, out of pique at finding himself, so long accustomed to be the principal personage in his little kingdom of Muskau, eclipsed in influence and wealth by many a British commoner. Few persons that he met in the London of that day amused him more than the great Rothschild, with whom he dined more than once at the banker's suburban villa. Of one of these entertainments he writes: 'Mr. Rothschild was in high good-humour, amusing and talkative. It was diverting to hear him explain to us the pictures round his room (all portraits of the sovereigns of Europe, presented through their ambassadors), and talk of the originals as his very good friends, and in a certain sense his equals. "Yes," said he, "the Prince of ----- once pressed me for a loan, and in the same week on which I received his autograph letter, his father wrote to me also from Rome, to beg me, for Heaven's sake, not to have any concern in it, for that I could not have to do with a more dishonest man than his son...." He concluded by modestly calling himself the dutiful and generously paid agent and servant of these high potentates, all of whom he honoured equally, let the state of politics be what it might; for, said he, laughing, "I never like to quarrel with my bread and butter." It shows great prudence in Mr. Rothschild to have accepted neither title nor order, and thus to have preserved a far more respectable independence. He doubtless owes much to the good advice of his extremely amiable and judicious wife, who excels him in tact and knowledge of the world, though not, perhaps, in acuteness and talents for business.'
Although the prince had not as yet entered the ranks of authors, he was always interested in meeting literary people, such as Mr. Hope, author ofAnastasius, Mr. Morier ofHadji Babafame, and Lady Charlotte Bury, who had exchanged the celebrity of a beauty for that of a fashionable novelist. 'I called on Lady Charlotte,' he says, 'the morning after meeting her, and found everything in her house brown, in every possible shade; furniture, curtains, carpets, her own and her children's dresses, presented no other colour. The room was without looking-glasses or pictures, and its only ornaments were casts from the antique.... After I had been there some time, the celebrated publisher, Constable, entered. This man has made a fortune by Walter Scott's novels, though, as I was told, he refused his first and best,Waverley, and at last gave but a small sum for it. I hope the charming Lady Charlotte had better cause to be satisfied with him.' Towards the end of December, his Highness's head-gardener, Rehde, a very important functionary at Muskau, arrived in London to be initiated into the mysteries of English landscape-gardening. Together the two enthusiasts, master and man, made a tour of some of the principal show-places of England, including Stanmore Priory, Woburn Abbey, Cashiobury, Blenheim, Stowe, Eaton, Warwick, and Kenilworth, besides many of lesser note. At the end of the excursion, which lasted three weeks, the prince declared that even he was beginning to feel satiated with the charms of English parks. On his return to London he was invited to spend a few days with Lord Darnley at Cobham, and writes thence some further impressions of English country-house life. He was a little perturbed at being publicly reminded by his elderly host that they had made each other's acquaintance thirty years before.
'Now, as I was in frocks at the time he spoke of,' observes the prince, 'I was obliged to beg for a further explanation, though I cannot say I was much delighted at having my age so fully discussed before all the company, for you know I claim to look not more than thirty. However, I could not but admire Lord Darnley's memory. He recollected every circumstance of his visit to my parents with the Duke of Portland, and recalled to me many a little forgotten incident.'
Thevie de châteauthe traveller considered the most agreeable side of English life, by reason of its freedom, and the absence of those wearisome ceremonies which in Germany oppressed both host and guests. The English custom of being alwaysen évidence, however, occasioned him considerable surprise. 'Strangers,' he observes, 'have generally only one room allotted to them, and Englishmen seldom go into this room except to sleep, and to dress twice a day, which, even without company, is alwaysde rigueur; for all meals are usually taken in public, and any one who wants to write does it in the library. There, also, those who wish to converse, give each otherrendezvous, to avoid the rest of the society. Here you have an opportunity of gossiping for hours with the young ladies, who are always very literarily inclined. Many a marriage is thus concocted or destroyed between thecorpus jurison the one side, and Bouffler's works on the other, while fashionable novels, as a sort of intermediate link, lie on the tables in the middle.
Early in February the prince paid a visit to Brighton, where he made the acquaintance of Count D'Orsay, and was entertained by Mrs. Fitzherbert. He gives a jaundiced account of two entertainments, a public ball and a musicalsoirée, which he attended while at Brighton, declaring--probably with some truth--that the latter is one of the greatest trials to which a foreigner can be exposed in England. 'Every mother,' he explains, 'who has grown-up daughters, for whom she has had to pay large sums to the music-master, chooses to enjoy the satisfaction of having the youthful talent admired. There is nothing, therefore, but quavering and strumming right and left, so that one is really overpowered and unhappy; and even if an Englishwoman has a natural capacity for singing, she seldom acquires either style or science. The men are much more agreeabledilettanti, for they at least give one the diversion of a comical farce. That a man should advance to the piano with far greater confidence than a David, strike with his forefinger the note which he thinks his song should begin with, and thenentonnerlike a thunder-clap (generally a tone or two lower than the pitch), and sing through a long aria without an accompaniment of any kind, except the most wonderful distortions of face, is a thing one must have seen to believe it possible, especially in the presence of at least fifty people.'
By the middle of April the season had begun in town, and the prince soon found himself up to the eyes in invitations for balls, dinners, breakfasts, andsoirées. We hear of him dining with the Duke of Clarence, to meet the Duchess of Kent and her daughter; assisting at the Lord Mayor's banquet, which lasted six hours, and at which the chief magistrate made six-and-twenty speeches, long and short; breakfasting with the Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick, being nearly suffocated at the routs of Lady Cowper and Lady Jersey, and attending his first ball at Almack's, in which famous assemblage his expectations were woefully disappointed. 'A large, bare room,' so runs his description, 'with a bad floor, and ropes round it, like the space in an Arab camp parted off for horses; two or three badly-furnished rooms at the side, in which the most wretched refreshments are served, and a company into which, in spite of all the immense difficulty of getting tickets, a great many nobodies had wriggled; in which the dress was as tasteless as thetournurewas bad--this was all. In a word, a sort of inn-entertainment--the music and lighting the only good things. And yet Almack's is the culminating point of the English world of fashion.'
Unfortunately for his readers, the prince was rather an observer than an auditor; for he describes what he sees vividly enough, but seldom takes the trouble to set down the conversation that he hears. Perhaps he thought it hardly worth recording, for he complains that in England politics had become the main ingredient in social intercourse, that the lighter and more frivolous pleasures suffered by the change, and that the art of conversation would soon be entirely lost. 'In this country,' he unkindly adds, 'I should think it [the art of conversation] never existed, unless, perhaps, in Charles II.'s time. And, indeed, people here are too slavishly subject to established usages, too systematic in all their enjoyments, too incredibly kneaded up with prejudices; in a word, too little vivacious to attain to that unfettered spring and freedom of spirit, which must ever be the sole basis of agreeable society. I must confess that I know none more monotonous, nor more persuaded of its own pre-eminence than the highest society of this country. A stony, marble-cold spirit of caste and fashion rules all classes, and makes the highest tedious, the lowest ridiculous.'
In spite of his dislike to politics as a subject of conversation, his Highness attended debates at the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and was so keenly interested in what he heard that he declared the hours passed like minutes. Canning had just been intrusted by George IV. with the task of forming a government, but had promptly been deserted by six members of the former Ministry, including Wellington, Lord Eldon, and Peel, who were now accused of having resigned in consequence of a cabal or conspiracy against the constitutional prerogative of the king to change his ministers at his own pleasure. In the House of Commons the prince heard Peel's attack on Canning and the new government, which was parried by Brougham. 'In a magnificent speech, which flowed on like a clear stream, Brougham,' we are told, 'tried to disarm his opponent; now tortured him with sarcasms; now wrought upon the sensibility, or convinced the reason, of his hearers. The orator closed with the solemn declaration that he was perfectly impartial; that hecouldbe impartial, because it was his fixed determination never, and on no terms, to accept a place in the administration of the kingdom.... [Footnote: In 1831 Brougham accepted office as Lord Chancellor.] Canning, the hero of the day, now rose. If his predecessor might be compared to a dexterous and elegant boxer, Canning presented the image of a finished antique gladiator. All was noble, simple, refined; then suddenly his eloquence burst forth like lightning-grand and all-subduing. His speech was, from every point of view, the most complete, as well as the most irresistibly persuasive--the crown and glory of the debate.'
On the following day the prince heard some of the late ministers on their defence in the House of Lords. 'Here,' he observes, 'I saw the great Wellington in terrible straits. He is no orator, and was obliged to enter upon his defence like an accused person. He was considerably agitated; and this senate of his country, though composed of men whom individually, perhaps, he did not care for, appeared more imposing to himen massethan Napoleon and his hundred thousands. He stammered much, interrupted and involved himself, but at length he brought the matter tolerably to this conclusion, that there was no "conspiracy." He occasionally said strong things--probably stronger than he meant, for he was evidently not master of his material. Among other things, the following words pleased me extremely: "I am a soldier and no orator. I am utterly deficient in the talents requisite to play a part in this great assembly. I must be more than insane if I ever entertained the thought, of which I am accused, of becoming Prime Minister."... [Footnote: In January 1828 the duke became Prime Minister.] When I question myself as to the total impression of this day, I must confess that it was at once elevating and melancholy--the former when I fancied myself an Englishman, the latter when I felt myself a German. This twofold senate of the people of England, in spite of all the defects and blemishes common to human institutions, is yet grand in the highest degree; and in contemplating its power and operation thus near at hand, one begins to understand why it is that the English nation is, as yet, the first on the face of the earth.'
The traveller was by no means exclusively occupied in hearing and seeing new things. With that strain of practicality which contrasted so oddly with his sentimental and romantic temperament, he kept firmly before his eyes the main object of his visit to England. He had determined at the outset not to sell himself and his title for less than £50,000, but he confesses that, as time passed on, his demands became much more modest. His matrimonial ventures were all faithfully detailed to the presumably sympathising Lucie, for whose sake, the prince persuaded himself, he was far more anxious for success than for his own. But he had not counted on the many obstacles with which he found himself confronted, chief among them being his relations with his former wife. It was known that the ex-princess was still living at Muskau with all the rights and privileges of achátelaine, while the prince never disguised his attachment to her, and openly kept her portrait on his table. English mothers who would have welcomed him as a son-in-law were led to believe that the divorce was only a blind, and that the prince's marriage would be actually, if not legally, a bigamous union. The satirical papers represented him as a fortune-hunter, a Bluebeard who had ill-treated his first wife, and declared that he had proposed for the hand of the dusky Empress of Hayti, then on a visit to Europe.
Still our hero obstinately pursued his quest, laying siege to the heart of every presentable-looking heiress to whom he was introduced, and if attention to the art of the toilet could have gained him a rich bride, he would not long have been unsuccessful. In dress he took the genuine interest and delight of the dandy of the period, and marvellous are the descriptions of his costume that he sends to Lucie. For morning visits, of which he sometimes paid fifty in one day, he wore his hair dyed a beautiful black, a new hat, a green neckerchief with gaily coloured stripes, a yellow cashmere waistcoat with metal buttons, an olive-green frock-coat and iron-grey pantaloons. On other occasions he is attired in a dark-brown coat, with a velvet collar, a white neckerchief, in which a thin gold watch-chain is entwined, a waistcoat with a collar ofcramoisieand gold stars, an under-waistcoat of white satin, embroidered with gold flowers, full black pantaloons, spun silk stockings, and short square shoes. Style such as this could only be maintained at a vast outlay, from the German point of view, the week's washing-bill alone amounting to an important sum. According to the prince's calculation, a London exquisite, during the season of 1827, required every week twenty shirts, twenty-four pocket-handkerchiefs, nine or ten pairs of summer trousers, thirty neckerchiefs, a dozen waistcoats and stockingsà discértion. 'I see your housewifely ears aghast, my good Lucie,' he writes, 'but as a dandy cannot get on without dressing three or four times a day, the affair is quite simple.'
However much the prince may have enjoyed the ceremony of the toilet, he strongly objected to the process of hair-dyeing, and his letters are full of complaints of his sufferings and humiliation while undergoing the operation, which, he declares, is a form of slow poison, and also an unpleasant reminder that he is really old, but obliged to play the part of youth in order to attain an object that may bring him more misery than happiness. As soon as he is safely married to his heiress, he expresses his determination of looking his full age, so that people might say 'What a well-preserved old man!' instead of 'Voilà, le ci-devant jeune homme!' Still, with all this care and thought, heiresses remained coy, or more probably their parents were 'difficult.' The prince's highly-developed personal vanity was wounded by many a refusal, and so weary did he become of this woman-hunt, that in one letter to Lucie, dated March 5, 1827, he exclaims, 'Ah, my dearest, if you only had 150,000 thalers, I would marry you again to-morrow!'
PART II
The summer months were spent in visits to Windsor and other parks near London, and in a tour through Yorkshire. In October his Highness was back in town, and engaged in a new matrimonial venture. He writes to Lucie that 'the fortune in question is immense, and if I obtain it, I shall end gloriously.' In the correspondence published after the prince's death is the draft of a letter to Mr. Bonham of Titness Park, containing a formal proposal for the hand of his daughter, 'Miss Harriet,' and detailing (with considerable reservations) the position of his financial affairs. Muskau, he explains, is worth £4,000 a year, an income which in Germany is equivalent to three times as much in England. 'Everything belonging to me,' he continues, 'is in the best possible order; a noble residence at Muskau, and two smaller chateaux, surrounded with large parks and gardens, in fact, all that make enjoy life (sic) in the country is amply provided for, and a numerous train of officious (sic) of my household are always ready to receive their young princess at her own seat, or if she should prefer town, the court of Prussia will offer her every satisfaction.' Owing to the fact that Muskau was mortgaged for £50,000, he was forced, he confesses, to expect an adequate fortune with his wife, a circumstance to which, if he had been otherwise situated, he should have paid little attention.
This missive was accompanied by a long letter, dated Nov. 1, 1827, to 'Miss Harriet,' in which the suitor explains the circumstances of his former marriage, and of his divorce, the knowledge of which has rendered her uneasy. 'It is rather singular,' he proceeds, 'that in the very first days after my arrival, you, Miss Harriet, were named to me, together with some other young ladies, as heiresses. Now I must confess, at the risk of the fact being doubted in our industrious times, that I myself had a prejudice against, and even some dread of heiresses. I may say that I proved in some way these feelings to exist by marrying a lady with a very small fortune, and afterwards in England by never courting any heiresses further as common civility required. My reasons for so doing are not without foundation. In the first instance, I am a little proud; in the second, I don't want any more than I possess, though I should not reject it, finding it in my way, and besides all this, rich young maidens are not always very amiable.' The prince continues that he had gone, out of principle, into all kinds of society, and seen many charming and handsome girls, but had not been able to discover his affinity. At last, after renouncing the idea of marriage, he heard again of Miss Harriet Bonham, not of her fortune this time, but of her many excellent qualities, and the fact that she had refused several splendid offers. His curiosity was now at last aroused; he sought an opportunity of being introduced to her, and--'Dearest Miss Harriet, you know the rest. I thought--and I protest it by all that is sacred--I thought when I left you again, that here at last I had found united all and everything I could wish in a future companion through life. An exterior the most pleasing, a mind and person equally fit for the representation of a court and the delight of a cottage, and above all, that sensibility, that goodness of heart, and that perfect absence of conceitedness which I value more than every other accomplishment.... I beheld you, besides all your more essential qualities, so quick as lively, so playful as whitty (sic), and nothing really seemed more bewitching to me as when a hearty, joyful laugh changed your thoughtful, noble features to the cheerful appearance of a happy child! And still through every change your and your friends' conversation and behaviour always remained distinguished by that perfect breeding and fine tact which, indeed, is to private life what a clear sky is to a landscape....'
There is a great deal mere to the same effect, and it is sad to think that all this trouble, all this expenditure of ink and English grammar, was thrown away. Papa Bonham could not pay down the fortune demanded by the prince without injuring the other members of his family; [Footnote: Mr. Bonham's eldest daughter was the second wife of the first Lord Garvagh.] and although Miss Harriet deplores 'the cruel end of all our hopes,' the negotiations fell through.
The prince consoled himself for his disappointment with a fresh round of sight-seeing. He became deeply enamoured of a steam-engine, of which newly-invented animal he sends the following picturesque description to Lucie: 'We must now be living in the days of theArabian Nights, for I have seen a creature to-day far surpassing all the fantastic beings of that time. Listen to the monster's characteristics. In the first place, its food is the cheapest possible, for it eats nothing but wood or coals, and when not actually at work, it requires none. It never sleeps, nor is weary; it is subject to no diseases, if well organised at first; and never refuses its work till worn out by great length of service. It is equally active in all climates, and undertakes all kinds of labour without a murmur. Here it is a miner, there a sailor, a cotton-spinner, a weaver, or a miller; and though a small creature, it draws ninety tons of goods, or a whole regiment of soldiers, with a swiftness exceeding that of the fleetest mail-coaches. At the same time, it marks its own measured steps on a tablet fixed in front of it. It regulates, too, the degree of warmth necessary to its well-being; it has a strange power of oiling its inmost joints when they are stiff, and of removing at pleasure all injurious air that might find the way into its system; but should anything become deranged in it, it warns its master by the loud ringing of a bell. Lastly, it is so docile, in spite of its enormous strength (nearly equal to that of six hundred horses), that a child of four years old is able in a moment to arrest its mighty labours by the pressure of his little finger. Did ever a witch burnt for sorcery produce its equal?'
A few weeks later we hear of one manifestation of the new power, which did not quite come up to the expectations of its admirers. On January 16, 1828, the prince writes: 'The new steam-carriage is completed, and goes five miles in half an hour on trial in the Regent's Park. But there was something to repair every moment. I was one of the first of the curious who tried it; but found the smell of oiled iron, which makes steamboats so unpleasant, far more insufferable here. Stranger still is another vehicle to which I yesterday intrusted my person. It is nothing less than a carriage drawn by a paper kite, very like those the children fly. This is the invention of a schoolmaster, who is so skilful in the guidance of his vehicle, that he can get on very fairly with half a wind, but with a completely fair one, and good roads, he goes a mile in three-quarters of a minute. The inventor proposes to traverse the African deserts in this manner, and has contrived a place behind, in which a pony stands like a footman, and in case of a calm, can he harnessed to the carriage.'
In the early part of 1828 Henriette Sontag arrived in London, and the prince at once fell a victim to her charms. The fascinating singer, then barely three-and-twenty, was already the idol of the public, at the very summit of her renown. Amazing prices were paid for seats when she was announced to appear. Among his Highness's papers was found a ticket for a box at the opera on 'Madame Sontag's night,' on which he notes that he had sold a diamond clasp to pay the eighty guineas demanded for the bit of cardboard. He was in love once again with all the ardour of youth, and for the moment all thoughts of a marriage of convenience were dismissed from his mind. He was now eager for a love-match with the fair Henriette, whose attractions had rendered him temporarily forgetful of those of Muskau. But Mademoiselle Sontag, though carried away by the passionate wooing of the prince, actually remembered that she had other ties, probably her engagement to Rossi, to which it was her duty to remain true. She told her lover that he must learn to forget her, and that when they parted at the conclusion of the London season, they must never meet again. The prince was heart-broken at the necessity for separation, and we are assured that he never forgot Henriette Sontag (though she had many successors in his affections), and that after his return to Germany he placed a gilded bust of the singer in his park, in order that he might have her image ever before his eyes.
In the hope of distracting his thoughts from his disappointment, Prince Pückler decided to make a lengthened tour through Wales and Ireland, and with this object in view he set out in July 1828. Before his departure, however, he had an interesting rencontre at a dinner-party given by the Duchess of St. Albans-theci-devantHarriet Melton. 'I arrived late,' says the prince, in his account of the incident, 'and was placed between my hostess and a tall, very simple, but benevolent-looking man of middle age, who spoke broad Scotch--a dialect anything but agreeable; and would probably have struck me by nothing else, if I had not discovered that I was sitting next to ----, the Great Unknown! It was not long ere many a sally of dry, poignant wit fell from his lips, and many an anecdote told in the most unpretending manner. His eye, too, glanced whenever he was animated, with such a clear, good-natured lustre, and such an expression of true-hearted kindness, that it was impossible not to conceive a sort of affection for him. Towards the end of the dinner he and Sir Francis Burdett told ghost-stories, half terrible, half humorous, one against the other.... A little concert concluded the evening, in which the very pretty daughter of the great bard--a healthy-looking Highland beauty--took part, and Miss Stephens sang nothing but Scottish ballads.'
Before entering upon a new field of observation, the prince summed up his general impressions of London society with a candour that cannot have been very agreeable to his English readers. The goddess of Fashion, he observes, reigns in England alone with a despotic and inexorable sway; while the spirit of caste here receives a power, consistency, and completeness of development unexampled in any other country. 'Every class of society in England, as well as every field, is separated from every other by a hedge of thorns. Each has its own manners and turns of expression, and, above all, a supreme and absolute contempt for all below it.... Now although the aristocracy does not standas suchupon the pinnacle of this strange social edifice, it yet exercises great influence over it. It is, indeed, difficult to become fashionable without being of good descent; but it by no means follows that a man is so in virtue of being well-born--still less of being rich. Ludicrous as it may sound, it is a fact that while the present king is a very fashionable man, his father was not so in the smallest degree, and that none of his brothers have any pretensions to fashion; which unquestionably is highly to their honour.' The truth of this observation is borne out by the story of Beau Brummell, who, when offended by some action of the Regent's, exclaimed, 'If this sort of thing goes on, I shall cut Wales, and bring old George into fashion!'
'A London exclusive of the present day,' continues our censor, 'is nothing more than a bad, flat, dull imitation of a Frenchrouéof the Regency, Both have in common selfishness, levity, boundless vanity, and an utter want of heart. But what a contrast if we look further! In France the absence of all morality and honesty was in some degree atoned for by the most refined courtesy, the poverty of soul by agreeableness and wit. What of all this has the English dandy to offer? His highest triumph is to appear with the most wooden manners, as little polished as will suffice to avoid castigation; nay, to contrive even his civilities so that they are as near as may be to affronts--this is the style of deportment that confers on him the greatest celebrity. Instead of a noble, high-bred ease, to have the courage to offend against every restraint of decorum; to invert the relation in which his sex stands to women, so that they appear the attacking, and he the passive or defensive party; to cut his best friends if they cease to have the strength and authority of fashion; to delight in the ineffablyfadejargon and affectations of his set, and always to know what is "the thing"--these are the accomplishments that distinguish a young "lion" of fashion. Whoever reads the best of the recent English novels--those by the author ofPelham--may be able to abstract from them a tolerably just idea of English fashionable society, provided he does not forget to deduct qualities which the national self-love has erroneously claimed --namely, grace for itsroués, seductive manners and witty conversation for its dandies.'