' ''■'}i''y^ i "'■■ i%-" |>rtncc00 louiec of flOecMeni)uta<'Strelit3« ^necn Xoui0e of ptti00la. \ ^be rt>otbev of an Emperor. lP1iotosr«p1i by Cottrtetty of th« Open Co«rt M*c.. %3%3^ ^ %; ^^/ % %^^ %% % % % % i I m ^1^ ^1 i € f ^ >., '^^., mf£m9 i L ^be ilDotber of an Emperor, iCU y^'^^-^^-"^ i "Reprints iprom pen an& J9ru6b JSi? fl>ar? fIDcartbur ICuttle. I • • » » O 3 3 • ■ * 3 3 • • • a • • » 3 J J » 5- > ,»- ••- • :» .'3 • • . •. •-• ••• I r »- • '• •»' • 9 O"* 5ennina6 ^ p^e, Cincinnati, ®bio. L THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two Copies Received MAR. 16 1901 Copyright entry CLASS (X^XXc. N». COPY B. Copyright, 1901, Mary MoArthur Tuttle. Alili RIGHTS RKSBRVED. 1»> Emperor Wilhelm, by W. Camphausen. By permission of Berlin Photographic Company, New Yorlc. /^U^ C^^^.^^-^ ^T-^.*^^ /My.^ ^lu M rpHE permission to make the drawings contained in this collection was procured by my husband through Hon. Nicholas Fish, who was the American Secretary of Legation during the years of our residence in Berlin. Mr. Fish secured from the Hofmarshallamt the rare opportunities which the original letter given opposite explains. Through the position of my husband, as American historian of Prussia, I was accorded every facility while making these sketches in the Charlottenburg and Mon- bijou Palaces. As they are the only sketches of the kind I know of, they will serve, I trust, as object-lessons even to advanced students in Prussian history. Two of the most interesting ones were lost in a recent fire while undergoing the electrotype process. M. McA. T. Hillsboro, Ohio, February, 1901. II in Original Sketches by Mary McArthur Tuttle Copyright owned by the Open Court Maga- zine Co., Chicago, and loaned for this work Il The Mother of an Emperor MARY M'A. TUTTLE Chapter I On a windy March morning considerably over a century ago (1776), in the old city of Hanover (Germany), a beautiful princess was bom. She had large blue eyes and golden hair. The cradle in which they rocked her, when she was large enough to be taken from her mother's arms, was a curiously-designed little affair of dark, rich wood, lined with green silk. The "sky-blue," the baby color of the present age, seems not to have been sought for among her belongings. Her home is in a dark, narrow street, busy with the traffic of an old German city. Her father is not made governor- general of the city until after her birth. To be sure, her aunt is the wife of George III of England, and both she and the king ai^e very partial to the father of our young princess. When only six years old, and the golden hair was beginning to turn a trifle brown, she and her sisters were taken out of the house very suddenly one day, and when they returned from their walk, they were told that their aunt, the Princess Charlotte, would remain with them for the present; that their mother had been called away. "O. why does mamma stay away so long?" exclaimed Louise, after her absence had become unendurable to her. "Be quiet, my child," said her Aunt Charlotte, "you shall soon go to Darmstadt, and then you will find out all about it." It was some time after the children arrived at Darmstadt that the grand duchess, their grandmother, had the courage to tell them that their mother was dead, and that "Aunt Charlotte" was to be- come mamma to them. But alas! Mamma Charlotte also died shortly after her marriage, and Prince Karl, robbed thus twice of home ties and domestic life, decided to leave his children permanently with their maternal grandmother in Darmstadt. HHiii^iBS 2 Around the castle at Darmstadt in which the grand duchess lived, their was a royal old garden. Long avenues of trees, grot- toes, rustic seats under widespreading trees. Here the children played, and one day little Louise wandered very near a seat where a tall, slender man was sitting. He held his head erect, in fact, a little thrown back, so that his long, flaxen hair and blue eyes were in the full blaze of the sunlight. To the child he looked very beautiful, and she continued to wander around and about the seat, and finally came so near she could see him writing a line, every now and then, on a blank-book, which was opened wide, lying on a rustic table which stood in front of this seat. This poet, this thinker, scarcely noticed the shadow of the little figure moving so quickly about him. He was intent upon his great drama of "Don Carlos," and all unaware that his future queen played near him, and that one day she would sorrow like a sister because of his death. Between the year of Louise's birth, 1776, and the year 1790, which we are now approaching in her history, many great events transpiring in the world were comparatively unknown to her. The Assembly of the States-General at Versailles and the storm- ing of the Bastile doubtless she heard of, but that the Declara- tion of Independence in America was of the date as her birth she probably never knew. The Confederation of States, the Consti- tution, Washington's inauguration meant very little to a young German princess. But the crowning of a German monarch which event was near at hand signified much of interest and joy. The Grand Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt was a woman of prac- tical mind, and the young princesses of Mecklenberg were re- ceiving a most substantial education under her roof. She prom- ised them, if they were obedient, she would allow them to go to Frankfort to witness the coronation of the Emperor. Leopold II of Austria would be crowned at Frankfort. It was the year 1790, and Louise was fourteen years old. As she sat one day, working on a pair of shoes which her grandma said "she must finish before she could go" (these were the same shoes which. Prince Metternich tells us, she wore at the coronation ball the evening he danced with her), she looked up with a beaming smile, and said to the grand duchess, "O grandma, possibly the beautiful wmsmmam TAe cMother of an Emperor 3 French queen, Marie Antoinette, will attend the coronation of the Emperor. I should rather see her than any one on earth." "O no, my child; that is quite impossible! France is full of ex- citement, and the king and queen could not leave Paris." The two young princesses started in company with their Hano- verian relatives in September for Frankfort. Such an occasion in the old capital naturally aroused the wildest enthusiasm. According to custom, and that the festivities should be conducted with proper order and dignity, the city was divided into as many parts as there were electors. Much pomp and rivalry were displayed, the different representatives of the various courts vying with one another. The elector of Hanover held his court in that part of the city known as the Rossmarkt and Grossen Hirschgraben. One of the handsome houses in this part of the city belonged to the mother of the dis- tinguished poet Goethe. This was not the first coronation Frau Rathin had witnessed, nor would it be the last. She wrote to a friend that she was *'a prisoner in the house, waiting for the oflScers to come and tell her whom she should entertain." "But," continues she, "I have always something to do. My son sends me books and papers in abundance." When it was decided that the two young Darmstadt princesses were to be her guests, she was delighted. Her place for witnessing the ceremony was in a window in the Romer, near the clock, assigned to her out of compliment to her husband's memory, who had been one of the chief magistrates of Frankfort. Yes, this cheerful, gay, winning "Frau Rathin," as she was called, was in a great glee over the arrival of her young guests. After returning from the exciting scene of the coronation, she and the young princesses went up the highly-polished old stairway in her house, which leads to many rooms, and to an alcove which Goethe, her distinguished son, especially cared for. There the Frau Rathin sat down, almost out of breath from the fatigue and excitemeut of the day, and looked around on the table for a letter from Wolfgang; "for he certainly has written," she exclaimed, "now that he has failed to come." Finding no letter from her son, whom she justly idolized, she quieted down for awhile from her usual hilarity. The young princesses stood at the window which overlooks the old plastered court-yard, and said they wanted a drink of water. "Shall we not go," said Louise, "and pump it for ourselves?" and away mmsssss^ 4: l^he cMoiher of an Emperor they ran, escaping the notice of Frau Rathin, but alas! not of their governess, who spied the young creatures at their sport, and flew after them in a rage. This angered the dear, old, good-natured Frau Goethe to such a degree, she exclaimed: "Shame on you! I shall lock you up in this room before you shall disturb the dear young creatures. Are they not bound down enough when with the grand duchess by court etiquette? When they are in my house they shall do as they please!" The Emperor Leopold II of Austria lived only two years after his coronation. His crovni was placed upon the head of his son Francis II, and once again the old capital was alive with festivity. A description of this o<2casion was written by Goethe in his usual wealth of diction and local color. Louise and her sisters were allowed once more to go to Frank- fort, and afterward to attend the ball at Coblentz in honor of the coronation. Prince Mettemich writes in his memoirs: "I opened the ball with the young Princess Louise of Mecklenburg, who after- ward, as Queen of Prussia, was diatinguished for her beauty and noble qualities. She is said to have worn shoes on this occasion made by her own hands." The haiV was arranged in a most dis- tinguished style, which certainly increased the splendor of her face. Her full, rosy lips and large, sympathetic eyes attracted admiration throughout her entire life, not only from royalty, but from all who looked upon her; and her magnificent figure, commanding and self- poised, was truly that of a queen. The winter of this same year — 1792-1793 — brought an invitation to the young princesses to meet Frederick William II of Prussia at Mainz, where his army was encamped; for Prussia held herself on the defensive during his reign, as she did during the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars. Goethe tells us that he happened to be in camp at this time, and it was partly for his pleasure that a promenade was arranged for the princesses. When the hour came for their arrival, he says, "I flew to my tent, buckled myself in, and, by peeping through, wit- nessed the promenade of the royal party." In the excitement and con- fusion of war scenes, which all were accustomed to, these young creatures seemed like angels going to and fro among the tents. The Orown Prince Frederick and his brother, Ludwig, were equally im- pressed by them, and found it no effort to fall in love with them. ^^Sm ^he cMother of an Emperor 5 "She must be the one, or no one on earth," said the crown prince in regard to Louise; and sure enough, on Ghristmas-day, 1793, Louise gave to Prince Frederick William, in the White Hall of the palace at Berlin, a pledge for life; and the tears which filled her large blue eyes in that hour testified to her sincerity. Happy beyond expres- sion was this young royal pair, realizing little but their own attach- ment. The reign of terror which had just begun in France, England gone to war, all Europe agitated — these facts had little significance to them just now. One of the first presents Louise received from her husband was a small phaeton. She greatly preferred to drive out in it instead of ordering the royal carriage with the eight spanned and the body guards. This simplicity of taste rather shocked the ladies in wait- ing. The prince and princess were altogether "too modest to suit them." ("My single phaeton and iron bedstead," said the late Emperor William, "are hereditary privileges. I have the tastes of my mother.") The young royal pair became greatly beloved by the people, and many anecdotes are preserved in which they are said to have always had the poor at heart. One morning, a count and a shoemaker hap- pened to be waiting in the anteroom at the same time. "Let the shoe- maker come in first," said the crown princess, "he has less time than the count." I Original Hketciies by Mary McArthur Tattle Copyright owned by the Open Court Maga- zine Co., Chicago, and loaned for tliis work H ! ■■ JM i mmmmm Chapter II The news reached Berlin, on a bitter morning in January, 1793, just about one month from the time of the wedding in the palace, that the King of France had been executed. The following October the beautiful Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, followed her hus- band on the scaffold. "O, what a revolution!" says Edmund Burke, "and what a heart I must have to contemplate, without emotion, that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disaster fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers." The terrible news from France alarmed every crowned head in Europe, and our young crown prince and princess were so saddened by the revolutionary state of affairs that they staid quietly in their palace, and seemed to have little heart for the elegance about them — indeed, court etiquette and court festivities were very irksome to them. On the 10th of March, which was the birthday of the crown princess, the king desired to celebrate it in a manner which would convince Louise of his real affection for her. For a gift he pre- sented her with a palace at Oranienburg, and then, turning to her, he said: "Louise, have you still a wish in your heart?" She looked at him with that wonderful charm of countenance which was peculiar to her, and said: "Yes, a handful of money for the poor." "That depends," said the king, "upon how large the handful is to be." "As large as the heart of the best of kings," was Louise's prompt reply. She walked through the markets, leaning on the arm of the crown prince, and distributed money right and left; and the poor old women and the ragged children were overjoyed, not alone with their money, but with the sight of the beautiful crown princess. As this was in March, she may have worn this very leghorn bonnet which is kept among her relics. She is now only seventeen years old, full of simplicity, beauty, and unostentatious in every way. Both she and 6 V>V ' l^- ^^^^^'S^L- /:^L^. <^, ^ ^ -^'^ -^^'^ ^:/^ W^ %.% -V' ^'C- .''-'^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 028 3 2 868 4