The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-12-27
Bismarck, the Empress, and the
Crown Princess.
From The London Echo

Prince Bismarck is credited with saying
which bids fair to occupy many a German poll
tlcal essayist; perhaps it may pass the bounda-
ry Of the German fatherland, and be made the
text OF journalistic sermons all over Europe.
When the latest Bismarck crisis was over.
one Of his special intimates is said to have ask
o the Man Of Iron what he took to be the
cause OF these necessarily recurring "fric-
tions" The Imperial Chancellor replied, and
we can imagine his grim smile which accom-
panied the answer: There are three causes,
"Junkers, Petticoats, and Parsons" The three
motive-powers of the political grindstone
which is always coming into disagreeable
contact with the iron Chancellor, and pro-
ducing what he pleasantly calls .'fric-
tion." have their seat and centre in the court
circles of Berlin. The collective title of
Court Camarilla" is pretty freely used by
Bsmark's admirers; and whenever a fresh
Bismarck crisis Is evolved, and the German
Achilles shuts himself up in his tent, or sends
his resignation to the Emperor, the Junkers,
the Petticoats, or the Parsons around the EN-
press Augusta, or the three in collision, usual
ly get the credit Of being the guilty causes.
1t is impossible to talk for long with any
thoroughly Bismarckian German without dis
covering how widely the opinion is accepted,
although it is only darkly hinted at in the pub
lie press, that the German Empress is the op-
ponent-in-chief of the German Chancellor
and the Empire. This lady is known to be a
highly cultivated woman, and also to be
aware of her own undoubted intellectual
gifts and powers; for long time she was a
Jealous admirer OF the genius of the man who
has made her an Empress, and it is presu med
that the admiration would have continued to
the present day if he had been more of a cour-
tier II he had paid more respectful tribute to
her mental powers, or if he had now and then
assented to her title to utter decisive word in
the inner and outer circles of the Empire
But Bismarck seems to share the views of
John Knox about 1.-THE monstrous regimen of
women perhaps his similarity to Knox is
one of the incidental reasons which cod bend
him so strongly to the admiration of Mr.. Car
lyle. The great English Reformer made no
distinction between an Elizabeth of England
and Mary Of Scotland: and Bismarck in
1880, as in 1866 and 1870, makes no conceal
ment of his opinion that women ought to keep
silence in the State, as the Apostle Paul and
John Knox said they should DO In the church:
nor does he hold that the wearing of a Ger
man crown-Imperial, Royal or Grand-ducal
-exempts woman in any measure from this
segregation of her sex. He has too much of the
aristocratic Junker's blood in him to be out
wardly rude; too much of a Prussian to be
anything but deferential and reverent in the
presence of his Queen and Empress; but there
is sort of politeness and Difference which is
even more exasperating than open rudeness
and defiance. As Sir Joshua Reynolds shifted
his ear-trumpet when he heard prigs and in
experts talk of Rafiaele and Corregio so Bis
marck has turned from the Empress to the
Emperor, from the Crown Princess to the
Crown Prince, and from the Grand Duchess
OF Baden to the Grand Duke, when these
high ladies have ventured to give their ad-
vice on political affairs. All these three great
ladies-the Empress, her daughter-in-law,
who is the daughter of our Queen, and her
daughter-are popularity credited with a DOW
erful degree Of self-conciousness and of will
whether truly or falsely we must leave to
those who are more intimate with them than
we are. Hence it is not unnatural that the
intellectual, High-Churchly and Imperial
Augusta should have willingly accepted the
position of standing Court Of Appeal against
Bismarck The high aristocratic Orthodox
frondeurs and feudals, the leaders Of the Par
lianientary Centre all make their court to
her, and hope to promote the reaction and
undo Falk's work through her Influence upon
the Emperor
notably very widely opposed in their religious
sympathies; the former is religiously Ortho-
dox, while the other has tiie credit of belong
ing to the other extreme. They harmonize,
however, in their anti-Bismarckism. The
Crown Prince is favorite with the German
people; they like his homely unassuming,
tolerant, good-humored and noble character
In his palace the Bismarck and Falk eccles-
astical policy has always been strongly ap-
proved while the ant-Engish and pro-Aus-
trian policy in the Eastern Question has been
as strongly disliked 1t was not the latter
alone. however, which lost Bismarck the favor
of the Liberal Crown Princess, but his un-
lucky jerking out of the expression, as Herr
Julius Rohde has publicly stated that he
feared that "the intirmixture of English
blood" might bring about Degeneration of
the splendid Hohenzollern race" The
Crown Princess hereupon let fly the winged
word (as the same lively describer of Prussian
Court informs us,) "This man is genuine
Cromwell" The foes of the Chancellor re-
ply-not without truth-that the daughter of
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert is quite as
German as her spouse himself is. The Royal
Family of England, from the time of George
l., has been unmixed Teutonc, thanks to the
English Parliament, which would never per-
init either King or Queen to marry Roman
Catholic or Greek Christian. The fact that
the house from which the Crown Princess de-
scends is II Hanoverian, is probably a good deal
moreSvexatious to the great Prussian states
man than the fact that it is English; and
when he speaks of English blood there is good
reason for supposing that he means Hanove-
rian blood.