Women of the Teutonic Nations Part 15

She gives an equally merciless picture of herself: "I must be very ugly.

I have little eyes, a short, thick nose, and a flat, broad face. I am little and thickset. Naturally, I hate mirrors and never injure my self-esteem by looking into one if I can help it." Though Elizabeth was not beautiful, she must have possessed the charm of a thoroughly honest, humorous, and impulsively kind nature. Her boy-cousins and young friends in Germany called her "Comrade" and "Bub." Louis XIV. was very fond of his German sister-in-law. She walked, rode, and hunted with him frequently. Except when he persecuted Germany, she liked the king extremely well.

Although no love existed at any time between the Duke of Orleans and his wife, one point, remarkable in that universally loose age, must be noted. They were true to each other. She writes in later years: "I never had any reason to complain of Monsieur in respect to his behavior so far as other women were concerned." She had no "love affair" in all the years she lived with him. A cabal, seeking to fasten scandal upon her in connection with the Chevalier Sincsanct, utterly failed to produce proof against her, or even to cast public suspicion upon her. She had three children, two boys and a girl. The oldest boy died at the age of three years. The struggle of Elizabeth's life was to preserve her two remaining children from the impure influences around them, and it was a long and bitter fight. Her daughter she saved. Her son, afterward Regent of France during the long minority of Louis XV., owed all that was good in him and that was much, in spite of his excesses to the prayers, the love, the admonitions of his mother. In her efforts to train the children rightly Elizabeth was constantly thwarted by her husband.

Philip was entirely controlled by two bad men, the Chevalier de Lorraine and the Marquis d'Essiat. Both hated Elizabeth because of her moral influence over the king. By her efforts, many of their iniquitous plots against women were frustrated. The only way they could punish her was through her children. Madame de Maintenon, whom Elizabeth treated disdainfully, was believed by the d.u.c.h.ess to have been an accomplice in the plan to remove her children from her influence.

Madame de Maintenon loved the children of the king's former mistress, Montespan, as if they were her own. Two of these children, Mademoiselle de Blois and the Duke of Maine, were still unmarried. It was now proposed, ostensibly by the king, that Elizabeth's son, the Duke of Chartres, should marry Mademoiselle de Blois. Also, it was planned, that her daughter Charlotte should at the same time become the wife of the young Duke of Maine. Elizabeth was furious. She refused her consent.

Saint-Simon, in his Memoirs, says of her at this time:

"She belongs to a nation which abhors b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and mesalliances.

Moreover, she has a determined character which forbids all hope that she may ever consent."

The Duke of Chartres a boy of eighteen promised his mother to refuse to contract the alliance. Then, the Abbe Dubois, who had great influence over him, secured a contrary promise. When the king himself urged the duke to marry Mademoiselle de Blois, the youth became confused and said he would leave the decision to his parents. Whereupon, his father, without more ado, had the engagement announced that evening at the court dinner. Elizabeth wept throughout the meal. Louis XIV., it is said, made awkward attempts at consolation by pa.s.sing her the choicest dishes. At the circle which followed, her son came up to kiss her hand. The memory of his broken promise was fresh in her mind. To the astonishment of the polished French court, she boxed the boy's ears soundly. An awful silence followed this impulsive piece of maternal discipline. The young duke, scarlet with mortification, stood abashed. His poor little pale bride-elect grew whiter than ever; Elizabeth, hardly making a reverence to the king, left the room. The people of Paris sided with the d.u.c.h.ess.

They threatened the life of Madame de Maintenon if the other proposed marriage, between Elizabeth's daughter and the Duke of Maine, was insisted upon. "I am very grateful to my friends, the Parisian mob,"

Elizabeth writes to her aunt.

From this time the breach between Elizabeth and her husband was complete. She was also estranged from her son. Her daughter was kept at a long distance from her amidst the most corrupt surroundings. Elizabeth became very lonely. The king, because of her opposition to the seizure of the Palatinate, now ignored her. Her husband seldom spoke to her. Her daughter was away but had been happily married. Her son, at this time, was very dissolute and avoided meeting her. She writes:

"Here in this great court I live, a hermit. Day after day I spend alone in my library. If visitors come I see them a few minutes, speak of the weather or the newspaper, then back again to my solitude."

In 1701 her husband died. By her aunt Sophie's sensible advice, reconciliation followed with the king and also with good-natured Madame de Maintenon. Her son, after one or two successful campaigns in Spain, returned to France loaded with honors. He turned again to his mother with the old affection of his boyhood. Much may be forgiven the Duke of Chartres because of his sincere, even if tardy, goodness to his mother.

Her old age was made happy by him. To others he might seem a heartless, dissipated roue, to her he was the eighth wonder of the world the strong, tender, manly son on whom she leaned. Her daughter, too, by frequent, loving letters brought her comfort.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans died December 8, 1722. Beside her coffin her son, then Regent of France, clasped his sister in his arms and the two wept bitterly for their German mother.

Few women have been more loyal to their native country than Elizabeth of Orleans. A day or two before her death she said: "In everything I am now, what I have been all my life, wholly German. I despise those Germans who, from choice, speak and write habitually in a foreign tongue. Such sycophants are not worth a hair."

More fully than any other woman of her day, Elizabeth of Orleans represents the n.o.bler side of German womanhood in a period of national debas.e.m.e.nt.

CHAPTER IX

WOMAN HELD IN TIGHTENING BONDS

Vice was the keynote of the first half of the eighteenth century in Europe. The moral miasma rising from that sink of iniquity, the late court of Louis XIV., and, infinitely more, that of Louis XV., enveloped Germany. Every little German court imagined itself a Versailles. Each German princeling esteemed himself a "Sun G.o.d." Mistresses were considered as necessary furnishings to every palace as tables or chairs.

Augustus the Strong, of Saxony, is said to have been the father of three hundred and fifty-four illegitimate children. Vice spread through all ranks, often blighting the innocent no less than the guilty woman.

Everywhere woman was man's toy. Faded, broken, ruined, she might be cast aside at his caprice. Without semblance of law, he might hold her captive, as in the case of the beautiful Baroness Cosel, a discarded mistress of Frederick Augustus of Saxony, who was kept in prison for fifty years by his majesty's command. Later, as we shall see, the wife of Prince George Louis of Hanover afterward George I. of England suffered a similar fate.

War continued. There were no long intervals of peace. Drunkenness, if possible, increased; certainly it did not decrease. Obscene practical jokes were constantly played. Ordinary conversation was interlarded with indecent words and the most vulgar phrases. Society was rotten to the core.

In a dumb, sub-conscious sort of way, the coa.r.s.e eighteenth century felt that its balance wheel was badly out of gear, and it attempted, though futilely, to remedy the lawlessness born of vice and war by hedging in each cla.s.s, almost each individual, of the social order by a thousand petty ceremonials. The eighteenth century was the age of etiquette. Rank was cringingly worshipped. t.i.tles became of paramount importance in the eyes of the middle cla.s.ses. Borne satirizes this t.i.tle worship:

"I divide the Germans into two cla.s.ses those who are Aulic Councillors, and those who would be so if they could. Were I a German prince, it would be quite otherwise. I would make all my subjects happy. I would make them all Aulic Councillors, without discrimination of rank, t.i.tle, property, family, s.e.x, or age. Then we should read in the Frankfort Weekly Advertiser, 'On the 13th inst. died Mr. Aulic Councillor Schinderhannis, after a few struggles, by hanging, in the thirty-sixth year of his active life. How powerfully this would inflame our patriotism.'" Women received the full benefit of their husband's t.i.tles.

Borne says:

"At a dinner we sat in this order. Myself, Mrs. Upper Criminal Councilloress, Mr. Finance Councillor, Mrs. Upper Paymistress, Mr.

Court-theatre Director, Mrs. Privy-Legations Councilloress, Mr. State Councillor, Mrs. Salt-mines Inspectoress. I was placed, happily, between two lovely women. Mrs. Upper Criminal Councilloress was one of the mildest, sweetest creatures in the world and Mrs. Tax-Gatheress was very captivating. I fell in love with them both. As for my host and hostess, I could hardly look at them without bursting into tears when I recollected that two such amiable persons were the only individuals present without t.i.tles."

In the general corruption of early eighteenth century society the single resource for a woman of fine feeling was to turn to G.o.d. Small wonder that, when Mysticism revived under the name of Quietism, it found thousands of followers among German women. During that shameful, or, rather, shameless, half century it would seem that the only pure men, the only happy families, left in Germany must be sought for in the ranks of the despised Quietists. Certainly, from no other cla.s.s did woman, as woman, receive the slightest consideration or respect. Of the Quietists'

att.i.tude toward women, Freytag says:

"For the first time since the ancient days of Germany, with the exception of a short period of chivalrous devotion to the female s.e.x, were German women elevated above the mere circle of family and household duties. For the first time did they take an active share, as members of a great society, in the highest interests of humankind. Gladly was it acknowledged by the theologians of the Pietists that there were more women than men in their congregations, and how anxiously and zealously they performed all the devotional exercises, like the women who remained by the cross when all the apostles had fled. Their inward life, their striving after the love of Christ and light from above, were watched with hearty sympathy, and they found trusty advisers and loving friends among refined and honorable men. The new conception of faith, which laid less stress on book-learning than on a pure heart, worked on women like a charm."

Jacob Spener was the great apostle of Quietism in Germany. He introduced and practised a refined mysticism that won him hosts of followers among women. Personal holiness was the constant theme of Spener's teaching.

Just as the marvellous subjective songs of Keats and Sh.e.l.ly were born of emotional Methodism in England, so, also, lyric poetry in Germany sprang from Quietism. The soul struggles of individual seekers after G.o.d ripened into a rich literary harvest by which the world will long continue to be nourished.

Two autobiographies of Quietists, by Johann Peterssen and his wife Johanna (born Von Merlau), are of extreme interest.

As in the case of all children in that militant age, Johanna's earliest recollections are of war. One day her mother was alone in the house except for her three little children a girl of seven, a babe, and Johanna, aged four. Suddenly a regiment was heard marching down the road. The mother knew, only too well, what horror that might mean for herself and her little girls. Very hastily she knelt and prayed that they might be saved. Then she led her little ones to a tall field of corn near the house, bidding them lie down between the rows and to keep quite still. Suckling the babe, she, too, lay down in the corn. They were not discovered. When the last military straggler had pa.s.sed, mother and children hurried to the nearest town for safety. As soon as they were well within the gates, Frau Merlau bade the children kneel down and thank G.o.d for their deliverance. The oldest girl objected to the delay.

She wanted her supper. "What is the use of praying now?" she asked. "We are safe here." At that moment Johanna's religious experience began. She writes: "Then was I grieved to the heart at this ungrateful speech of my sister, that she would not thank G.o.d. I rebuked her for it."

From that day the little maid thought and dreamed almost wholly of spiritual mysteries. Soon after, believing that the midwife brought babies from heaven, she sent by that functionary a greeting to Jesus. At the age of nine Johanna lost her good mother. Her father, a stern, saturnine man, hired a housekeeper, a captain's wife.

"But she was an unchristian woman and did not forget her soldier tricks," writes Johanna. For once when she saw some strange turkeys on the road she seized the best of them. To cook this stolen roast the housekeeper sent Johanna up into a high tower to throw down some loose dry boards. The child fell and lay stunned for a long time. When she regained consciousness and returned to the house she was well scolded for her clumsiness. Johanna refused to go to the table. "I sat apart,"

she writes, "because I would not eat any of the stolen fowl. It appeared to me truly disgraceful, though I was too timid to say so." It makes a pathetic little picture this baby's martyrdom for conscience' sake.

At the age of twelve, soon after her confirmation, Johanna was sent as maid of waiting to the court of the Countess of Solms Roedelheim. The countess was partially insane. "She imagined I was a little dog and often beat me," Johanna writes. "Whenever we rode over the flooded meadows, she would push me out of the carriage, bidding me swim." Prayer was the lonely, unhappy child's only solace. The countess grew so violent that, at last, Johanna was transferred to the court of the d.u.c.h.ess of Holstein. She accompanied the stepdaughter of the d.u.c.h.ess on her bridal journey to Austria, and, in spite of her ever nagging conscience, had an agreeable time.

"The drums and trumpets sounded beautiful on the water," says she; "only I could not help being worried to think I was going to a popish country.

Whenever we stopped at an inn I sought a solitary place, fell on my knees and prayed G.o.d to prevent my good fortune from working injury to my salvation."

The d.u.c.h.ess of Holstein loved Johanna like a daughter. Johanna laments her own fancied worldliness in girlhood: "I practised myself in all kinds of accomplishments, so that I excelled in these vanities. They were dear and pleasing to me. I had also a real liking for splendid dress because it became me well. People considered me G.o.dly because I liked to read and pray and went to church and could always give a good account of the sermon. I even knew what had been preached upon the same text the preceding year. I was looked upon as a G.o.dly maiden, but I was not really a true follower of Christ."

Nevertheless, Johanna was not worldly enough to suit the bridegroom a gay young lieutenant-colonel to whom her friends had affianced her. He broke the engagement because he complained, "though pretty and well-born, she is altogether too pious."

Johanna was glad to be free. She writes: "I always felt that among the n.o.bility there were many evil habits that were quite contrary to Christ's teaching l.u.s.t, drinking, and many idle words for which an account must be given to G.o.d."

Upon a journey by a slow boat to the baths at Emser, a great thing happened in Johanna's life. Among the pa.s.sengers, she noticed a studious looking man with a pleasant voice and refined manners. She writes:

"By G.o.d's special providence, he seated himself by me, and we fell into a spiritual discourse which lasted some hours, so that the four miles from Frankfort to Mainz seemed to me only a quarter of an hour's journey. We talked without ceasing, and it seemed just as if he read my heart. Then I gave vent to all concerning which I had hitherto lived in doubt. Indeed, I found in this new friend what I had despaired of ever finding in any man in the world. Long had I looked around me to discover whether there really were in the world any true doers of G.o.d's word, and it had been a great stumbling block to me that I had found none. But when I perceived in this stranger such great penetration that he could see into the very recesses of my heart, also such humility, gentleness, holy love and earnestness to point the way of truth, I felt that I desired, above all things, to give myself wholly up to G.o.d." The man whom Johanna met on the boat was Jacob Spener. Johanna's conversion was complete. She withdrew from court gayeties, dressed simply, lived plainly. At first she was remonstrated with, then ridiculed unmercifully, and, finally, let alone.

Johanna's marriage with Johann Peterssen was most happy. Together they worked for G.o.d and for what they believed to be his cause Quietism.

Persecution, poverty, sorrows were theirs. But these crosses, though hard to bear, they believed to be G.o.d's revelation of Himself. An apocalyptic vision, too, they declared, had been vouchsafed them.

Sustained by the unseen bread of faith, they lived to a great age, true to one another, to their fellowmen, and to G.o.d.

Very different is our next picture, taken from the court of Hanover.

From the moment of her arrival, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia and Princess of the Palatinate, had felt herself at home in Germany. But her youngest daughter, though born in Germany, was never at home there.

Sophie, Electress of Hanover, was thoroughly English. Mistress of five languages, she loved only English, and, from choice, would have spoken that alone. She knew more English history than the English amba.s.sadors accredited to her husband's court. To gain, through her remote claim, the English throne either for herself or her descendants, Sophie of Hanover all her life saved, and gathered, and schemed, and relentlessly crushed human obstacles. At the age of eighty, her old eyes gleaming, she said: "I could sink into the grave perfectly happy if I knew that the words 'Queen of Great Britain and Ireland' would be inscribed upon my tombstone." She died within sight of the promised land, only a few weeks before Anne Stuart.

An intellectual woman, an energetic woman, a virtuous woman, using the word "virtue" in its narrower sense of chast.i.ty, a wonderfully able woman, was Sophie of Hanover. An amiable woman, a lovable woman, a generous woman, except occasionally for policy's sake, she most certainly was not. But the hardness of her life should in some measure extenuate the hardness of her heart.

Sophie possessed a keen a.n.a.lytical intellect that saw, without the slightest tinge of emotion, clear down to the bottom of things. She pa.s.sed an almost loveless childhood in a royal nursery far away from her mother, whom she never understood or cared for, and a sunless girlhood as governess in the household of her brother Carl Ludwig, to whom the Rhine Palatinate had been finally restored. Prince Carl and his wife lived a cat and dog life. Disgraceful scenes were continually occurring between them, sometimes even at the court table. The only member of the Palatine household in the least congenial to Sophie was her quick-witted niece Elizabeth Charlotte, afterward d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans.

Even bridal joys unalloyed were not to be poor, plain Sophie's. Duke George William of Hanover, to whom she had been affianced, refused her after seeing her, and, as if she were no more than a horse, foisted her upon his younger brother Ernest Augustus, at that time Bishop of Osnabrueck, but later, through Sophie's clever scheming, Electoral Prince of Hanover.