''Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.'
No number of royal alliances counts as against a bad geographical place in the world and the evil disposition of a strong neighbour. A change of heart has come over the world since Germany induced Austria to be her catspaw in 1914. The example of a country which deliberately asserted that might makes right, and followed this assertion with deeds that make the angels weep, has shocked the world, and forced other nations to examine their consciences. After all, we are a long time after Machiavelli. After the great breakdown in Russia there was a feeling among some of the conservatives in Denmark that the cousin of the Tsar of Russia, King George of England, might have laid a restraining hand on the Russian parties that forced the Tsar to abdicate. But the very mention of this seemed utterly futile. The King of Spain, though married to an English princess, could expect little help in any difficulty, were the interests of the English Ministry not entirely his. The contemplation of these alliances offers much material for the man who thinks in the terms of history.
When President Fallières visited Copenhagen in 1908, there was a gala concert given at the Palace of Amalieborg in his honour. The President was accompanied by a 'bloc' of black-coated gentlemen, some of them journalists of distinction.
There was no display of gold lace, and the representatives of the French Republic were really republican in their simplicity. The Danish court and the diplomatic corps were splendid, decorations glittered, and the white and gold rococo setting of the concert room was worthy of it all. The Queen of Denmark – now the Dowager Queen – was magnificent, as she always is at gala entertainments, possessing, as she does in her own right, some of the finest jewels in Europe.
Fallières represented the new order. His hostess, the Queen, is the daughter of Charles XV., a descendant of Bernadotte. Representing the lines of both St. Louis and Louis Philippe was the Princess Valdemar, now dead, who, as Marie of Orleans, came of the royal blood of the families of Bourbon and Orleans.
It was interesting to watch this gracious princess, whose father, the Duc de Chartres, had been with General McLellan during our Civil War. She adapted herself to the circumstances, as she always did, and seemed very proud of the honours shown to France. The Countess Moltke-Huitfeldt, Louise Bonaparte, was not in Denmark at the time. It would have added interest to the occasion, had this descendant of the youngest brother of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte been there.
Count Moltke-Huitfeldt, married to Louise Eugénie Bonaparte, is almost as French in his sentiments as his wife, and, for her, when the United States joined hands with France, it was a very happy day. One of the events that made the fine castle of Glorup, the seat of the Moltke-Huitfeldts, interesting was the visit of the ex-Empress Eugénie.
The Empress Eugénie, like all the Bonapartes, acknowledged the validity of the Patterson-Bonaparte marriage. She has always shown a special affection and esteem for the Countess Moltke-Huitfeldt.
The estate of Glorup, with its artificial lake and garden, in which Hans Christian Andersen often walked, was copied by an ancestor of the present count's from a part of Versailles. It was at its best during the visit of the empress, who was the most considerate of guests. The American Bonapartes were not ranked as royal highnesses for fear, on the part of Napoleon III. and Prince Napoleon, 'Plon-plon,' of raising unpleasant questions as to the succession.
Jerome himself, for a short time King of Westphalia, never pretended that his American marriage was not valid. Meeting Madame Patterson-Bonaparte by accident in the Pitti Palace, he whispered to the Princess of Würtemburg – she had then ceased to be Queen of Westphalia – 'There is my American wife.' Mr. Jerome Bonaparte was offered the title of 'Duke of Sartine' by Napoleon III. if he would give up the name of his family, which, of course, he declined to do. Under the French laws, as well as the American, he was the legitimate son of Jerome Bonaparte. The presence of the Countess Moltke-Huitfeldt would have added another interesting touch to the assemblage in Amalieborg Palace, a touch which would have served for a footnote to history. In spite of the name 'Moltke,' Count Adam and his wife are as French as the French themselves. Names in Denmark are very deceptive.
The question of war was even then, in 1908, in the air. The German diplomatists were polite to Fallières, but they considered him heavy and bourgeois, and believed that he represented the undying dislike for Germany which the French system of education was inculcating.
'If the French schools teach the rising generation to hate Germany, what is the attitude of the German educators?' I asked.
'We know that we are hated, and we teach our young to be ready for an attack from wherever it comes; but we love peace, of course.'
In 1908, it was generally thought that the Kaiser himself was inclined to keep the peace. Now and then an isolated Englishman would declare that he had his doubts, when a German traveller seemed to know too much about his country, or when amiable German guests asked too many intimate questions.
It was the custom for the older colleagues to offer the newer ones a history of the Slesvig-Holstein dispute, which dated from the fifteenth century. On my arrival, Sir Alan Johnston had presented me with a volume on the subject by Herr Neergaard, considered the 'last word' on the subject. The pages, I noticed, were uncut, so I felt justified in passing it on to the newest colleagues, taking care, in order to give him perfect freedom, not to autograph it!
It was, as a French secretary often said, 'a complication most complicated'; but one fact was clear – the deplorable position of a liberty-loving people, deprived of the essentials that make life worth living!
The great barrier to the entire domination of Prussian ideals in this area between the Baltic and the North Sea is the existence of the Danish national spirit in Slesvig. 'If the other nations of Europe had looked ahead, the power of Prussia might have been held within reasonable bounds; the war in 1870 would have been impossible; this last awful world-conflict would not have occurred. Germany would have been taught her place long ago.' How often was this repeated!
The relations between the Emperor William and the Emperor of Russia were supposed to be unusually friendly then, after the practical defeat of Russia by Japan. In older days, Queen Louise of Denmark thought she had laid the foundation for a certain friendliness; but, nevertheless, the Tsar, though closely related to the Kaiser and dominated largely by his very beautiful German wife, was never free to ignore the Slavic genius of his people. Kings and emperors – all royal folk – made up a family society of their own until this war. We have changed all that, as the man in Molière's comedy said; and yet, as a rule, German royal princesses remained Prussian in spite of all temptation, while other women seemed naturally to adopt the nationalities of their husbands. The princesses connected with the Prussian royal house seem immutably Prussian.
The Tsar, then, like the Kaiser, cousin of the King of England, the son of a mother who remembered Slesvig-Holstein and never liked the Prussians, had second thoughts. (They were nearly always wrong when his wife influenced them.) It was one thing to call the mighty Prussian 'Willie' – all royalties have little domestic names – another to break with France and to bow the Slavic head to German benevolent assimilation. The Tsar might call the Emperor by any endearing epithet, but that did not imply political friendship; King George of Greece and Queen Alexandra were very fond of each other, but the queen would never have attempted to give her brotherly Majesty the Island of Crete which he badly wanted. With the death of the queen of Christian IX., assemblies of royalties ceased in Denmark; the old order had changed.
There was no neutral ground where the royalties and their scions could meet and soften asperities by the simplicity of family contact.
The point of view in Europe had become more democratic and more keen.
Even if there had been a Queen Louise to try to make her family, even to the remotest grandchild, a unit, it could not have been done. Reverence for royalty had passed out with Queen Victoria; the idols were dissolving, and restless ideals became visible in their places.
Prussia had drawn her states into a united empire; tributary kings were at the chariot wheel of the Prussian Emperor, not because the kings so willed, but