Chapter III: Bismarck on the Seine

[1862.]

The Premiership ahead.—Ambassador to Paris.—Unveiling
of the Brandenburg Statue.—Uncertainty.—Delivers his
Credentials to Napoleon III.—Description of the Embassy
House at Paris, and of Prussia House, London.—Journey to
the South of France.—Trouville.—Bordeaux.—Bayonne.—San
Sebastian.—Biarritz.—Luchon.—Toulouse.—End of his Journeyman
Days.

We have arrived at the last section in Bismarck’s political apprenticeship and journeymanship—to his embassy in Paris. This only comprises a period of a few weeks, but it has become very important, by reason of the distinguished acquaintances that Bismarck then made, by the more accurate knowledge he then obtained of French relations, which grew more extensive subsequently, on his later journeys to the waters of Biarritz. We know from one of the letters already given that Bismarck had already received an intimation at St. Petersburg that his King intended to appoint him Minister-President, and put him at the head of the Government. This intimation was probably not the only one; the relations between the King and himself had for a long time been very intimate. The events of those days are too near to us to admit of the veil being entirely drawn aside; probably it was King William’s intention to have appointed him Minister-President in the spring of 1862 at once. We do not know what hindered the appointment at that time; the result showed that it was a fortunate circumstance in several respects that Bismarck was first Ambassador in Paris before becoming head of the Government. Whether Bismarck had misgivings about assuming so great a responsibility, who can tell? He would have ripely tested himself, but certainly he would not have hesitated for an instant to respond to the call of his King with patriotic zeal, for he saw the reorganization of the army threatened by the liberal opposition, and in that for him was the sole hope of obtaining for Prussia at the right hour her just position, and the future of Germany. He certainly knew that severe struggles were before him, but he also knew they had to be fought through—that Parliamentarianism should be rendered innoxious to the kingdom of Prussia, and that the black-and-white standard should float from unassaulted battlements.

On the 23d May, 1862, Bismarck was appointed Ambassador to Paris, and set out thither. He had previously remained a few weeks at Berlin, where it is certain several conferences took place as to his acceptance of the office of Minister-President; a passage in a letter to his wife below alludes to this.

On the 17th May the statue of the Count of Brandenburg was dedicated on the Leipziger Platz, in the presence of King William. At that time, as it may be said, the Ministry of Bismarck was in the air. Bismarck was present. When the cover of the statue had fallen, amidst the strains of the Hohenfriedberg March, H. R. H. the Prince Carl advanced to him, and shook him by the hand, with a “Good-morning, Bismarck!”

“Salute the new Minister-President!” said a member of the former Ministry of Manteuffel, in a very animated manner, to a representative of the new era.

The acclamations for the King, and the trumpet-call of the trumpeters of the Cuirassiers, accompanied the prophecy.

The three following letters to his wife show that he felt himself painfully oppressed by the uncertainty of his then position:

Berlin, 17th May, 1862.

Our future is still as obscure as in Petersburg. Berlin is
more in the foreground. I do nothing for or against it,
but shall drink a good drop when I have my credentials to
Paris in my pocket. Nothing at all is said about London just
now, but things may change again. I go to the dedication of
Brandenburg, and then to ——, at ——, to dinner. I have not been
able to detach myself all day from Ministerial conversations,
and do not find these gentlemen at all more united than their
predecessors.

* * * * *

Berlin, 23d May, 1862.

From the newspapers you will already have seen that I am
appointed to Paris. I am very glad of it, but the shadow
remains in the background. I was already as good as taken
prisoner for the Ministry. I shall start for Paris as soon as
I can get loose, to-morrow or next day; but I can not direct
our “uncertain” things to that place as yet, for I can not
but expect that in a few months or weeks they may recall me
and keep me here. I do not come to you first, as I wish to
take possession in Paris first; perhaps they will find another
Minister-President, when I am out of their sight. I will not
go to Schönhausen for the same reason, that I may not again
be seized. Yesterday I rode about for four hours in a major’s
uniform, and received my credentials for Paris in the saddle.
The roan mare is here, and has been my joy and refreshment in
the Thiergarten; I shall take her with me. The bears went off
to Frankfurt yesterday. I have my hands full in order to render
my journey possible.

* * * * *

BISMARCK TO HIS WIFE.

Berlin, 25th May, 1862.

You write very seldom, and no doubt have more time for it than
I have. Since I have been here I have not had time to sleep
one night through. Yesterday I went out about eight o’clock
in the morning, came home five times to change my dress in a
hurry; at eight again I went to Potsdam to Prince Frederick
Charles, and returned at eleven. Now, at four, I have my first
free moment, and use it for heaping fiery coals upon your black
head. I think of leaving to-morrow—at latest on Tuesday—for
Paris; whether for long, God only knows—perhaps only for months
or weeks. They have all conspired to keep me here, and I shall
be very glad when I have found a point of rest on the Seine,
and a porter at the door who will let nobody see me for some
days. I do not know, indeed, whether to send our furniture
to Paris at all, for it is possible that I may be recalled
before they arrived. I am rather seeking a Hegira than a new
dwelling-place. I have been obliged to be very firm, to get rid
of the hotel life of waiting here. I am ready for every thing
that God sends, and only regret that I am separated from you,
without being able to say when we shall meet again. If I find
a prospect of remaining in Paris till the winter, I think you
will soon follow me, and we will settle, if it be only for a
short time. The course of June will decide whether I return
hither before the end of the session of the Diet, or remain
in Paris longer, and long enough to send for you. I shall do
what I can towards the latter result, and in any case I should
like you to come to Paris, were it only for a short time, and
without a regular residence, in order that you might see it.
Yesterday there was a grand military dinner, where I appeared
as a major. First there was a parade. The mare is my daily
delight in the Thiergarten, but not quiet enough for military
service.

As to his residence in Paris, the following letters give the best account:

BISMARCK TO HIS WIFE.

Paris, 31st May, 1862.

Just a few lines amidst the throng of business, to tell you
I am well; but I feel somewhat lonely with the prospect of
green, with dull rainy weather, the humming of bees, and
twittering of sparrows. To-morrow I have a grand audience. It
is annoying that I have to buy linen—napkins, table-cloths,
and sheets. Do not have the “uncertain” things sent as yet from
Petersburg; those for Schönhausen and Reinfeld send to Stettin,
both to Bernhard’s exporter, D. Witte’s successor, to whom I
have written. Those for Reinfeld go by ship from Stettin to
Stolpmünde. My stay here is not certain, until the Ministry has
another President in place of Hohenlohe, and London is filled
up. Farewell! I greet you heartily. Pray write.

* * * * *

THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Paris, 1st June, 1862.

To-day I was received by the Emperor, and delivered my
credentials. He received me in a friendly manner, looks well,
has become somewhat stronger, but by no means fat and aged, as
he is caricatured. The Empress is still one of the handsomest
women I know, despite Petersburg; she has even grown handsomer
within these five years. The whole affair was official and
solemn. I was fetched in an imperial carriage by the Master
of the Ceremonies, and shall probably soon have a private
audience. I am anxious for work, because I do not know what
to do. To-day I dined alone; the young gentlemen were out.
The whole evening there was rain, and I was alone at home. To
whom could I go? I am more lonely in the midst of great Paris
than you are at Reinfeld, and sit here like a rat in an empty
house. My only amusement was to send away the cook for cheating
me in the accounts. You know how narrowly I look after such
things; but —— was a child in this respect. I shall dine for
the present at a café. How long this is to last, God knows! In
from eight to ten days I shall probably receive a telegraphic
summons to Berlin, and then dance and song is over. If my
opponents only knew what a benefit they would confer upon me
personally by their victory, and how sincerely I wish them
success, —— would then, perhaps, from malice, do all he could
to bring me to Berlin. You can not detest the Wilhelm Strasse
more than I do, and if I am not convinced that it _must_ be,
I will not go. To leave the King in a dilemma during illness,
I regard as cowardice and infidelity. If it is not to be, God
will raise up, for those who seek, some —— who will consent
to be a saucepan-lid. If it is to be, then forward! as our
coachmen said when they took the reins. Next summer we shall
then probably live at Schönhausen. _Hurero!_ I shall get into
my canopy bed, as broad as it is long—the only living being
in the whole house, for I do not think any body lives in the
parterre.

* * * * *

BISMARCK TO HIS SISTER.

Paris, 16th June, 1862.

If all has happened according to the programme, you will to-day
have reached Landeck, where I wish you happy and healthy days.
On the completion of your twenty-ninth year I hope to present
myself with good wishes, although I do not accurately know in
how short a time the post goes between here and Landeck. The
barometer is always at changeable, as during the past year, and
will long continue so, whether I live here or in Berlin. There
is rest in the grave—at least I hope so. Since my departure
from Berlin I have not heard a word from any body about the
Ministerial question. ——’s leave of absence is out, and he
does not again enter on his duties; this I knew before. The
end of June I wait quietly for; if I do not then know what
is to become of me, I will urgently ask for certainty, so as
to settle myself here. If I seem likely to remain here till
January, I think I shall fetch Johanna in September, although
a domestic establishment of four months is very provisional
and uncomfortable. In packing and unpacking, a small fortune
is broken up in glass and china. Besides my wife and children,
the mare is what I chiefly want. I have tried some hired
horses, but I would rather never ride again. The house is
well situated, but is dark, damp, and cold. The sunny side is
spoilt with staircases and _non-valeurs_; every thing lies to
the north, and smells musty and cloacic. There is not a single
piece of furniture one can sit upon, nor a single corner in
which one can sit; three-quarters of the house is shut up as
“state rooms,” covered up, and, without a great change in
arrangements, not suitable for daily use. The nurses would live
on the third-floor, the children on the second. The principal
staircase (first-floor) only leads to a bed-chamber, with a
large bed, also an old-fashioned saloon (style of 1818) next
to it, many staircases and anterooms. Actual living room is on
the ground-floor northward towards the garden, where I warm
myself, when the sun shines, for some hours, at most three
times a week. You will see it in the margin: 1. Dressing-room,
spongy and uninhabitable, damp; 2. Study, dark, stinking; 3.
Reception-room; 4. A view from the house to the garden, with
bookcases; 5. Dining-room; 6. My bedroom; 7. Office; 8. Garden,
where the lines are, Quai D’Orsay and the Seine; 9 and 10.
Chancery; 11. Hall; 12. Staircase. Add to this, on the first
floor one bedroom, and no more, and all the domestic offices
two stories high; narrow, dark, steep stairs, which I can not
mount upright, on account of the breadth of my shoulders, and
without crinoline. The principal staircase only goes to the
first-floor, but there are three ladder-stairs at both ends
to the upper rooms. Hatzfeld and Pourtales existed thus their
whole time, but died over it in the prime of life; and if I
stay in the house, I shall die sooner than I wish. I would not
live in it for nothing, on account of the smell.

+---+ +---+
| 8 | | |
+---+ | 1 |
| 9 | +---+
+---+ | 2 |
+------+---+
| 10 | 3 |
+------+---+
| 11 | 4 |
+------+---+
| 5 |
+---+
12 | 6 |
+---+
| 7 |
+---+

Please send Johanna the address where you had such good cakes
(Baumkuchen) made two years ago, for the birthday. I promised
one to the Archduchess Marie. Or rather, send me the address,
and I will order the cake by letter from here, and will inclose
a letter for ——, which the confectioner can send with the thing
by ship from Stettin. I am somewhat afraid if we stay here that
Johanna will be but little pleased. In a few days I am to go
to Fontainebleau. The Empress is a little stronger, and thus
handsomer than ever, and always very delightful and cheerful.
Afterwards I shall go to London for a few days. A number of
agreeable Russian ladies who were here have mostly disappeared.
Who has got my mare, if I want it here?

At the end of June, Bismarck took a short trip to the Exhibition in London, and returned to Paris on the 5th of July. On the 14th he wrote to his wife:—

From your letter of the 9th of this month I have learnt with
joy that you are well, and I hope to read the same again
to-morrow morning. To-day the courier at last arrived, on whose
account I left London more than a week ago. I should like to
have remained there some days longer—I saw so many pretty faces
and fine horses. But the Embassy is a horror; well furnished,
but on the ground-floor, besides the staircase, there are
only three apartments, one a chancery, another a dining-room,
and between both, serving as a common rendezvous for dinner,
without a corner in which to take off a dressing-gown, the
study of His Excellency. If wash-hand basins, etc., are wanted
there, it is necessary to mount the high, tall stairway, and
pass through the principal bedroom into a little dog-hole of a
living-room. On the first-floor is one great saloon, a small
ball-room; next to it the afore-mentioned sleeping-room and
dog-hole; that is the whole of the living-room. Two stairs
higher there are two rooms for the secretary, and five small
places for children, tutor, governess, etc. On the third-floor,
under the roof, room for the servants, the kitchen in the
basement. I get quite miserable at the idea of being cooped
up in such a place. On my application for leave of absence, I
have to-day received a reply from Berlin, that the King could
not yet determine whether he could give me leave, because the
question whether I should accept the Presidency would be held
in suspense for six weeks, and I might write whether I thought
it necessary to enter the present session of the Chambers, and
when, and whether before the commencement of my leave I would
come to Berlin. The latter I shall endeavor to avoid—shall
propose that I be left here in peace till the winter, and
during the interval, say the day after to-morrow or Thursday,
go to Trouville, west from Havre-on-the-Sea, and there await
the winter. I can always get here from that place in five
hours. Since yesterday we have had fine weather; until then it
was miserably cold, with endless rain. Yesterday I employed in
dining at St. Germain, a fine wood, two versts long, a terrace
above the Seine, with a charming view over forests, hills,
towns, and villages, all green up to Paris. I have just driven
through the Bois de Boulogne in the mildest moonlight—thousands
of carriages in a Corso file, water-surfaces with gay lights,
an open-air concert; and now to bed. Our carriages have reached
Stettin; I shall have them housed there or in Külz. All my
colleagues are gone, and the only acquaintance with whom I have
any intercourse is old ——, which neither of us dreamt of twenty
years ago. My servants are Lemburg, a Russian, an Italian
Fazzi, who was footman to Stolberg in Morocco, three Frenchmen
(chancery-servant, coachman, and cook), and an Electoral
Hessian, with a Belgian wife, as porters.

Bismarck went first to Trouville, as he announces; but he was so uncomfortable there that he left in a very few days. On the 25th of July he entered upon that beautiful journey to the south-west of France into Spain, where he found strength for the important problem which fell, two months later, to his lot—that great task he did not seek, but did not refuse. He enjoyed the pleasure of this refreshment with keen appreciation, for he well knew what was before him. He enjoyed the sea-baths of San Sebastian and Biarritz particularly; he was all “sea-salt and sun;” he lived “as in Stolpmünde, only without sack.” He climbed the Pyrenees, and delighted in the mulberries, olives, and red grapes of Avignon, and was so industrious a correspondent towards his wife, that the blue envelopes, in which his letters flew from the Spanish frontier to Farther Pomerania, did not last. How many of these letters were written in the open air, upon a rock, upon the grass, with a newspaper underneath them! Some of these may find their place here.

Bordeaux, 27th July, 1862.

You can not refuse me the testimonial of being an industrious
correspondent; this morning I wrote to your birthday child from
Chenonceaux, and this evening I write from the city of red
wine. These lines, however, will arrive a day later than those,
the mail only going at noon to-morrow. I have only left Paris
the day before yesterday, but it seems to me a week. I have
seen some very beautiful castles. Chambord, of which the plans
torn from a book give a very imperfect idea, in its desolation
corresponds to the fate of its possessor. In the spacious halls
and magnificent saloons, where kings and their mistresses held
their court amidst hunting scenes, the childish playthings of
the Duke of Bordeaux are the only furniture. The guide thought
I was a French legitimist, and repressed a tear when she showed
me the little cannon of her master. I paid for the tears,
according to tariff, with an extra franc, although I have no
calling to subvent Carlism. The castle courts were as quiet in
the sun as deserted churchyards. From the towers there is an
expansive prospect; but on all sides there are silent woods
and broom to the utmost horizon—no town, no village, no farm
either near the castle or around it. From the inclosed examples
of broom you will hardly recognize how purple these plants, so
beloved by me, grow there—the only flower in the royal gardens,
and swallows almost the only living tenants of the castle.
It is too lonely for sparrows. The old castle of Amboise is
magnificently situated; one can see from the top six miles
either way down the Loire. Thence one gradually passes into the
south. Wheat disappears, and gives place to maize; in between
rank woods of vines and chestnuts, castles and forts, with many
towers, chimneys, and gables, quite white, with high pointed
slate roofs. The heat was glowing, and I was glad to have half
a coupé to myself. In the evening, splendid sheet lightning
in the east, and now a pleasant coolness, which, in our own
land, we should think somewhat sultry. The sun sets at 7.35. In
Petersburg one would be able to see now, about eleven, without
lights. Till now, no letter has arrived for me; perhaps I shall
find one at Bayonne. I shall stop here some two days, to see
where our wines grow.

* * * * *

Bordeaux, Wednesday, 29th July, 1862.

Your letter of the 23d yesterday reached me safely, and I thank
God you are well. Yesterday, with our Consul and a General, I
made a charming tour through Médoc. I drank Lafitte, Mouton,
Pichon, Laroze, Latour, Margaux St. Julien, Branne, Armeillac,
and other wines in their original names, in the cellar.
Thermometer 30° in the shade, 55° in the sun; but with good
wine inside this is not felt at all. I am just starting for
Bayonne, and will write thence more quietly than now, in the
custody of the railway.

* * * * *

Bayonne, 29th July, 1862.

I employ the time in which my things are coming from the
railway station to perfect my short epistle of this morning
from Bordeaux. The country I have just passed through
transports me at first sight most vividly into the Government
Pskow, or Petersburg. From Bordeaux to this place there are
uninterrupted pine forests, broom, and moorland, sometimes like
Pomerania—as in the Strandwald behind the downs—sometimes
Russia. But when I used my glass the illusion vanished;
instead of the Scotch fir, it is the long-haired sea-pine,
and the apparent mixture of juniper, raspberries, and such
plants covering the ground is dissolved into all sorts of
foreign-looking shrubs, with leaves resembling myrtle and
cypress. The magnificence with which the broom develops
its violet-purple blossoms here is astonishing; in between
there grows a very yellow furze with broad leaves, the whole
forming a gay carpet. The river Adour, on which Bayonne
lies, is the frontier of this B flat of heath, which, in its
softer idealization of a northern landscape, sharpened my
homesickness. From St. Vincent the view stretches over the
moor and pine-trees to the blue outlines of the Pyrenees, a
sort of giant Taunus, but more bold and jagged in profile. The
post-office is closed during the hot time of day, until four
o’clock, so that I can only receive your letter in an hour,
and should be doubly impatient had I not yesterday received
your letter of the 23d; and the one lying here is older. I
think of driving to Biarritz towards evening, and bathing there
to-morrow, and then continuing my journey to the frontier. In
Fuent Arabia I await intelligence as to whether G. is in St.
Sebastian, then I shall visit him; but if he has returned to
Madrid I shall content myself with having crossed the Bidassoa,
shall return hither, and then proceed along the mountains to
Pau; thence I shall turn to the right among the mountains,
first to Eaux Bonnes and Eaux Chaudes, and next to Cauterets,
St. Sauveur, Luz, Barrèges, and Bagnères de Luchon. I can not
say that I am bored; a number of new impressions rise up within
me, but I feel like a banished man, and in thought am rather on
the Kamenz than the Adour. German newspapers I have not seen
for six days, nor do I miss them.

* * * * *

San Sebastian, 1st Aug., 1862.

The road from Bayonne to this place is magnificent. To the left
are the Pyrenees, something like Dent du Midi and Moleson;
here, however, called Pic and Port, a changing Alp panorama. To
the right the sea, a shore like Genoa. The transition to Spain
is surprising. In Behobie, the last French place, one could
believe that one was still on the Loire. In Fuent Arabia is a
steep lane twelve feet wide; every window has its balcony and
curtain, every balcony its black eyes and mantillas, beauty and
dirt. On the market-place drums and fifes, and some hundreds of
women, old and young, dancing among themselves, while the men
stand by smoking and draped. The neighborhood up to this place
is extraordinarily beautiful; green valleys and woody slopes,
above them fantastic lines of forts, row after row. Bights
of the sea with very small inlets, which, like the Salzburg
Lakes in Bergkesseln, cut deep into the land. From my window I
am looking at one of these, cut away from the sea by a rocky
islet, steeply fringed by mountains, with forest and houses to
the left, below the town and harbor. At about ten I bathed,
and after breakfast we walked or slouched through the heat to
the mount of the citadel, and sat for a long time on a bank.
Some hundred feet beneath us was the sea; next to us a heavy
fort battery, with a singing sentinel. This mountain or rock
would be an island, did not a low isthmus connect it with the
mainland. The isthmus divides two arms of the sea from each
other, and thus from the citadel towards the north there is a
fine view of the sea. To the east and west are the two arms,
like two Swiss lakes; to the south is the isthmus, with the
town on it, and behind towards the land, mountains stretching
skyward. I should like to have a picture painted of it for you,
and were we fifteen years younger we would both come hither.
To-morrow or next day I return to Bayonne, but shall remain a
few days at Biarritz, where the shore is not so beautiful as
here, but still prettier than I had thought, and the life is
somewhat more civilized. To my great content, I hear nothing
from Berlin and Paris. I am very much sunburnt, and should have
liked to lie in the sea for an hour. The water buoys me up like
a piece of wood, and it is just cool enough to be pleasant. One
is almost dry by the time one reaches the dressing-hut; then I
put my hat on and take a walk _en peignoir_. Fifty paces off
the ladies bathe, after the custom of the country. The customs
and passport business are infinite, and the tolls incredible,
or I should remain here longer, instead of bathing at Biarritz,
where it is necessary to assume a costume.

* * * * *

Biarritz, 4th Aug., 1862.

I fear that I have made some confusion in our correspondence,
as I have led you to write too early to places where I am not.
It will be better to write to Paris, just as if I were there;
the Embassy will then forward them, and I can give quicker
information then as to any change in my travelling plans. Last
evening I reached Bayonne from St. Sebastian, where I slept for
the night, and am now sitting in a corner room of the Hotel de
l’Europe, with a charming view of the blue sea, which drives
its foam between wonderful cliffs against the lighthouse.
My conscience reproves me for seeing so much that is lovely
without you. Could I bring you here through the air, we would
immediately return to St. Sebastian. Think of the Siebengebirge
with the Drachenfels placed on the sea-shore; next to it
Ehrenbreitstein, and between both an arm of the sea, somewhat
broader than the Rhine, stretching into the land, forming a
round cove behind the mountains. Here one bathes in transparent
clear water, so heavy and salt that one floats, and can look
through the broad rock entrance into the ocean, or landward,
where the mountain chains rise ever higher and more azure. The
women of the middle and lower classes are remarkably pretty,
some of them handsome: the men are surly and uncivil; and the
conveniences of life to which we are accustomed are wanting.
The heat here is not worse than there, and I think nothing of
it—on the contrary, thank God, I am very well. Yesterday there
was a storm, the like of which I have never seen. On a stair
of four steps on the harbor dam I had to try to mount thrice
before I could get up; pieces of stone and halves of trees were
flying through the air. Unfortunately, this led me to retract
my place on a sailing vessel to Bayonne, little thinking that
in four hours all would be quiet and serene. I thus lost a
charming sea passage along the coast, remained another day in
St. Sebastian, and yesterday left in the diligence, somewhat
uncomfortably packed between dainty little Spanish women,
with whom I could not interchange a word. They understood
enough Italian, however, for me to make it clear to them that
I was pleased with their outward appearance. I looked over
a travelling plan this morning, how I could get from here,
_i.e._, Toulouse, by railway, through Marseilles to Nizza, then
by ship to Genoa, thence by Venice, Trieste, Vienna, Breslau,
Posen, Stargard to Cöslin!—if Berlin were only passable. Just
now I can not well get by.

Luchon, 9th September, 1862.

The day before yesterday we ascended the Col de Venasque from
this place; first two hours through magnificent beech woods,
full of ivy, rocks, and waterfalls; then to a hospice, then
two hours of steep riding on horseback in the snow, with great
views, quiet deep lakes between snow and cliffs, and at a
height of 7500 feet a narrow portal opened in the sharp comb of
the Pyrenees by which Spain is entered. The land of chestnuts
and palms here shows itself as a rocky basin, surrounded by
the Maladetta, which lay before us, Pic de Suavegarde, and Pic
de Picade; to the right rushed the waters to the Ebro, to the
left to the Garonne, and towards the horizon one glacier and
snow-cap after another stared at us, far into Catalonia and
Aragon. There we breakfasted, pressed closely to the rocks—red
partridges without salt and water; and then rode down again
upon giddy declivities, but with splendid weather. Yesterday
we had a similar expedition to Superbagnères and to the gates
of hell (_le gouffre d’enfer_), into the abysses of which a
magnificent waterfall precipitated itself between beeches,
oaks, chestnuts, and ashes. The waterfalls of the Pyrenees are
certainly superior to those of the Alps, although the latter
are decidedly more imposing. To-day we saw the Lake of Oo, a
rock basin like the Obersee, near Berchtesgaden, but animated
by a tremendous waterfall which tumbles into it. We rowed
upon it, singing French _chansonnettes_, alternately with
Mendelssohn—_i.e._, I listened. We then rode home in a pouring
rain, and are now dry again and hungry. No day passes without
being six or eight hours on horseback. To-morrow the jest is
over, and “How so soon it vanishes,” etc., was the order of the
day. To-morrow evening we shall be in Toulouse, where I hope
to find letters from you, _viâ_ Paris. The last I received was
yours of the 29th, sent to me by R. It is my fault, as I had
appointed that they were only to send on from Paris from the
4th, and then to Toulouse. I thought I should have left Luchon
on the 6th, and arrived at T. I know nothing from Berlin; have
not read a newspaper for a fortnight, and my leave is up. I
expect a letter from —— in Toulouse, and that I shall be sent
for to Berlin, without definitive conclusion.

* * * * *

Toulouse, 12th September, 1862.

By some blunder of my own, and post-office pedantry, I somehow
got into a mess with your letters, and I am very rejoiced and
thankful to receive here your dear letter of the 4th, with
good news. I also anticipated a letter from ——, with some
clear indications of the future, but only got one from ——. I
had no notion of the King’s journey to Doberan and Carlsruhe;
in happy forgetfulness of the world have I ranged mountains
and forests, and am somewhat upset at finding myself, after
six weeks, for the first time in a large city. I am going in
the first instance with —— to Montpellier, and must reflect
whether I shall proceed thence to Paris to make purchases, or
whether I shall accompany —— to Geneva, and thence make direct
for Berlin. My leave is up; —— writes that the King would be
in Carlsruhe on the 9th, but according to your letter it is
the 13th. The best thing would be, if I requested extension of
leave from here for further—weeks to Pomerania, and await the
answer in Paris, as well as the return of the King to Berlin,
before I set out, for certainty is now a necessity, or I shall
send in my resignation. At this moment I am not in a state
to decide; I will first take a walk, and perhaps I shall get
an idea what to do. I wonder my letters have not reached you
regularly. The longest interval I have ever allowed was four
days between my last letter from Luchon and the last but one
from Bayonne, because we were riding every day from morning
till night, eating or sleeping, and paper was not always at
hand. Yesterday was a rainy day, fitted for railway travelling,
bringing us from Montrejeau to this place—new and bad, a flat
country with vines and meadows. I am now writing to —— and ——.
If possible, I shall remain in Paris.

With these letters the Apprentice and Journeyman years of Bismarck are at an end; the next few days conducted him from Avignon to Berlin, to prove his Mastership.

Book the Fifth.

MINISTER-PRESIDENT AND COUNT.