Part 27
On the morning of the 16th of November sweet little Princess “May”--the Princess’ sunshine, as she ever called her--was taken from her doting parents. The Grand Duchess telegraphed as follows to her mother:
November 16th.
* * * Our sweet little one is taken. Broke it to my poor Louis this morning; he is better; Ernie very, very ill. In great anguish.
_Telegrams._
November 16th; evening.
The pain is beyond words, but “God’s will be done!” Our precious Ernie is still a source of such terrible fear. The others, though not safe, better.
November 17th.
Ernie decidedly better; full of gratitude.
November 18th.
My patients getting better; hope soon to have them better. Last painful parting at three o’clock.
The coffin had to be closed very soon. It was entirely covered with flowers. The Grand Duchess quietly entered the room where it had been placed. She knelt down near it, pressing a corner of the pall to her lips; then she rose, and the funeral service began.
When it was over, she cast one long, loving look at the coffin which hid her darling from her. She then left the room and slowly walked up-stairs. At the top of the stairs she knelt down, and taking hold of the golden balustrade, looked into the mirror opposite to her to watch the little coffin being taken out of the house. She was marvellously calm; only long-drawn sighs escaped her.
When all had left the palace, she went to the Grand Duke, who was to be kept in ignorance of all that was going on. The Grand Duchess had herself arranged every detail of the funeral.
_Telegram._
November 19th.
The continued suspense almost beyond endurance. Ernie thought he was going to die in the night, and was in a dreadful state for some hours. Louis very nervous, too; but they are not worse. The six cases have been one worse than the other.
Later, November 19th.
Ernie had a relapse, and our fears are increased. I am in an agony between hope and fear.
The Grand Duchess desired her warmest thanks to be expressed to the country for their heart-felt sympathy.
On the 25th of November the Grand Duke was able for the first time to leave his bed for a few hours, and on the 6th of December he and Prince Ernest drove out for the first time, in a shut carriage.
It was on this day that the Grand Duchess wrote for the last time to the Queen.
November 19th.
BELOVED MAMA:--Tender thanks for your dear, dear letter, soothing and comforting!
Our sweet May waits for us up there, and is not going through our agony, thank God! Her bright, happy, sunshiny existence has been a bright spot in our lives--but oh! how short! I don’t touch on the anguish that fills me, for God in His mercy helps me, and it must be borne; but to-day, again, the fear and anxiety for Ernie is still greater. This is quite agonizing to me; _how_ I pray that he may be spared to me!
His voice is so thick; new membranes have appeared. He cries at times so bitterly, but he is gayer just now.
To a mother’s heart, who would spare her children every pain, to have to witness what I have, and am still doing, knowing all these precious lives hanging on a thread, is an agony barely to be conceived, save by those who have gone through it.
* * * Your letter says so truly all I feel. I can but say, in all one’s agony there is a mercy and a peace of God, which even now He has let me feel. * * *
P.S.--I mean to try and drive a little this afternoon. I shall go out with Orchie. Of my six children, since a week none more about me, and not my husband. It is like a very awful dream to me.
November 22d.
BELOVED MAMA:--Many thanks for your dear letter, and for all the expressions of sympathy shown by so many! I am _very_ grateful for it.
Dear Ernie having been preserved through the greatest danger is a source of such gratitude! These have been terrible days! He sent a book to May this morning. It made me almost sick to smile at the dear boy. But he must be spared yet awhile what to him will be such a sorrow.
For myself, darling Mama, God has given me comfort and help in all this trouble, and I am sure His Spirit will remain near us in the trials to come! Great sympathy, such as all show, is a balm; but I am very tired, and the pain is often very great; but pain can be turned into a blessing, and I pray this may be so. * * *
When alone, I rest; and writing even is a physical exertion. Those around me have spared me all they could, but one must bear the greater weight one’s self.
May God spare you all future sorrow, and give you the peace which He alone can give!
* * * * *
P.S.--I finish these lines at my dear Louis’ bed. He thanks you so much for your dear, loving sympathy. Thank God, he is doing well. But the pain they have all gone through in their poor throats has been _awful_. The doctors and nurses--eight! for they have changed day and night, and had such constant attendance--have been _all_ I could wish.
Your loving child, ALICE.
DARMSTADT, December 1st.
* * * Every one shows great sympathy, I hear, everywhere. * * * All classes have shown a great attachment to us personally, and to the House, and amongst the common people--it goes home to them that our position does not separate us so very far from them, and that in death, danger, and sorrow the palace and the hut are visited alike.
So many deep and solemn lessons one learns in these times, and I believe all works together for good for those who believe in God. * * *
December 2d.
So many pangs and pains come, and must yet for years to come. Still gratitude for those left is _so_ strong, and indeed resignation entire and complete to a higher will; and so we all feel together, and encourage each other. Life is _not_ endless in this world, God be praised! There is much joy--but oh! so much trial and pain; and, as the number of those one loves increases in Heaven, it makes our passage easier--and _home_ is there!
Ever your loving child, ALICE.
December 6th.
Louis and Ernie will go out in a shut carriage to-day, though it rains--but it is warm. Louis’ strength returns _so_ slowly. Of course he shuns the return to life, where our loss will be more realized; to him, shut off so long, it is more like a dream. I am so thankful they were all spared the dreadful realities I went through--and alone. My cup seemed very full, and yet I have been enabled to bear it. But daily I must struggle and pray for resignation; it is a cruel pain and one that will last years, as I know but too well.
Ever your loving child, A.
Amongst the last letters from the Grand Duchess is one written on the 6th of December, instructing Prince Ernest’s new tutor in his duties. Princess Alice wished her son to become a truly good man in every sense of the word--upright, truthful, courageous, unselfish, ready to help others, modest and retiring. She wished his tutor to encourage in him fear of God and submission to His will, a high sense of duty, a feeling of honor and of truth.
It had been settled that as soon as the convalescent patients were able to be moved, the whole Grand Ducal family should go to Heidelberg for thorough change of air.
On the 7th of December the Grand Duchess went to the railway station to see the Duchess of Edinburgh, who was passing through Darmstadt on her way to England. That night she first complained of feeling ill; and on the following morning the unmistakable symptoms of diphtheria had begun to show themselves. It is supposed that she must have taken the infection, when one day, in her grief and despair, she had laid her head on her sick husband’s pillow. During the first day of her illness she settled several things, and gave various orders in case of her death. Still it was evident that she thought she would recover.
She bore her great sufferings with wonderful patience, and was most obedient to every thing the doctors ordered her to do, however painful and trying. Those were terrible days! How much so to her is apparent from short sentences which from time to time she wrote down on slips of paper. Every thing was done to alleviate her sufferings--every thing to encourage her. The high fever which set in at the commencement of the illness did not decrease on the third day as in the previous cases, though her sufferings were perhaps not so great. At times she was very restless and distressed. In the night of the 12th of December she gave many directions to her mother-in-law, and to her lady-in-waiting. At times, too, she spoke in the most touching manner about her household, also enquiring kindly after poor and sick people in the town. Then followed hours of great prostration.
On the morning of the 13th of December the doctors could no longer disguise from the Grand Duke that their efforts to save that beloved life were in vain. As the danger increased, the Grand Duchess expressed herself as feeling better. She received her mother-in-law that afternoon in the most affectionate manner; also saw her lady-in-waiting; and when the Grand Duke entered her room her joy was most evident. She even read two letters--the last one being from her mother. After some hours of heavy sleep she woke perfectly conscious and took some nourishment. She then composed herself to rest, saying: “Now I will go to sleep again.” And out of this sleep she woke no more.
Shortly after 1 A.M. on the 14th of December a change took place which left no doubt to those around that that precious life was fast ebbing away. When, a little later on, Princess Charles went into the Grand Duke’s room, who was then asleep, she had left the Grand Duchess perfectly unconscious. It required no words of his mother’s to break the news to him.
At half-past eight that morning Princess Alice died peacefully, murmuring to herself, like a child going to sleep: “From Friday to Saturday--four weeks--May--dear Papa----!”
It was exactly to the day four weeks since Princess May’s death, and seventeen years since the death of the Prince Consort. On the following Tuesday evening, the 17th of December, after a solemn service held by the English chaplain, the remains of the beloved Princess were quietly removed from her own palace to the chapel in the Grand Ducal Castle. The next day, amidst the universal grief of high and low, the coffin was placed in the Mausoleum at the Rosenhöhe. Her brothers, the Prince of Wales and Prince Leopold, were present.
A beautiful recumbent monument by Boehm, representing the Princess holding Princess May in her arms, is now placed in the Mausoleum over the spot where she rests.
[Illustration]
[Illustration] CONCLUDING REMARKS.
We must leave it to those who have read the preceding pages--mere chronicle of facts as they are, to form their own idea of the character and personality of the Princess.
Still, the disjointed manner in which the whole subject has been treated seems to call for a few more additional remarks.
The world has long been acquainted with the outward appearance of the Princess--with the delicacy of her features, the sweetness of their expression, and the dignity and gracefulness of her every movement. Though so perfectly natural and simple in manner, she never forgot that she was a Princess. While she knew how to encourage and draw out those who, from timidity, kept themselves in the background, she also understood how, in a moment, to check any thing like forwardness, and, where necessary, to silence presumption by a glance.
Her conversation was bright and animated, passing rapidly from topic to topic, but always directed to subjects worth talking about. There was a certain distinction in the way she dealt even with minor matters of daily life. She spoke German with a slightly foreign accent, but with a power of idiomatic expression that seldom failed her, and showed how thoroughly she had mastered the genius of the language.
Occupation was a necessity to her; she could not understand how any one could be idle. When at home, she always had some needlework at hand ready to take up.
The Princess was singularly free from all prejudice, and always endeavored to judge people according to their worth.
It sometimes happened that she offended people by her independent views, but she never knowingly hurt anybody’s feelings; innate generosity was a striking trait in her character.
Frank and sincere herself to an unusual degree, she always encouraged others to be the same, and was most tolerant of well-grounded contradiction.
In times of trouble and danger, when so much was expected of her, her powers seemed to expand. It was in such moments that she really showed the master-spirit, which remains calm and self-possessed when all around lose their heads.
The Princess took the deepest interest in the personal welfare of all around her, even to the humblest of her servants. This interest was shown by many small services, seldom rendered to their servants by masters or mistresses.
With all her appreciation of the purely theoretical and scientific aspect of things, she was naturally of a very practical turn of mind. She had few equals in her love and talent for organizing, for communicating her own ideas to those around her, and in turn being animated by the views of others. Thus it was that she expected not a little from those about her, and might almost have given the impression of a very restless nature, had not this activity been counterbalanced by an unceasing perseverance in carrying out and adhering to what she had once undertaken.
To become acquainted with great men of every profession, whether scholars, artists, or men of science, was a real pleasure to her. She loved to gain an insight into their thoughts and views, and proved herself a very German in her admiration and appreciation of serious scientific work.
Among the arts, music and painting were those she loved the best, and cultivated the most. In both she was far ahead of even distinguished amateurs. Her drawing was free, firm, and bold; she had a decided talent for composition, and was rich in inventive power. She had a wonderful eye for color, and was especially successful in water-colors.
She was an excellent musician, and played extremely well. Few could read and understand difficult pieces at sight as the Princess did. In music, as in all the arts, her taste was rather severe. She had a great predilection for the classical school. Bach, Beethoven, and Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahams were her especial favorites.
In theatrical performances she disliked empty show and splendor--the mere decoration of pieces for the love of decoration. She believed in the ennobling influence of the representation of sound classical works.
Her whole being mentally and morally was concentrated in her children and their education, and in this she showed herself to be a thorough woman. She endeavored to make them feel the worth and greatness of both the nations to which they belonged by birth. She was apt to be more severe in her criticisms of the German mode of education and of moral training than of that of her own country. That this should have been so is easily to be explained. In Germany her life and work were not easy, and she knew that it would take time before her endeavors for the welfare of her adopted country met with recognition, whilst in England, the country of her birth and her affection, to which she clung with ever-increasing reverence and devotion, she knew she was ever becoming more beloved.
Still, being so thoroughly English as she was, we cannot but say that much that was best and finest in her character must be considered as the inheritance of her German father. A nature such as the Princess’ could not help coming in contact with many deep and serious questions, in which religion alone could help her.
The traces of perfect trust in God, and entire submission to His will, will be found throughout her letters. We know that at one time she wavered in her convictions. Although she never doubted the value of practical religion, although she ever turned to her Bible for help and comfort in hours of distress and anxiety, she had to wrestle heart and soul with theoretical doubts. It seems to have been a struggle of many years’ duration, at the commencement and end of which personal influences played a great part.
We are indebted to an intimate friend and relation of Princess Alice’s for the following communication, which is in accord with the observations of others who knew her:
“After her son’s death I thought I observed a change in her feelings. Before that time she had often expressed openly her doubts as to the existence of God--had allowed herself to be led away by the free-thinking philosophical views of others. After Prince Fritz died she never spoke in such a way again. She remained silent while a transformation was quietly going on within, of which I afterwards was made aware, under the influence of some hidden power. It seemed as if she did not then like to own the change that had come over her.
“Some time afterwards she told me herself, in the most simple and touching manner, how this change had come about. I could not listen to her story without tears. The Princess told me she owed it all to her child’s death, and to the influence of a Scotch gentleman, a friend of the Grand Duke’s and the Grand Duchess’, who was residing with his family at Darmstadt.
“‘I owe all to this kind friend,’ she said, ‘who exercised such a beneficial influence on my religious views; yet people say so much that is cruel and unjust of him, and of my acquaintance with him.’ At another time she said: ‘The whole edifice of philosophical conclusions which I had built up for myself, I find to have no foundation whatever; nothing of it is left; it has crumbled away like dust. What should we be, what would become of us, if we had no faith, if we did not believe that there is a God who rules the world and each single one of us? I feel the necessity of prayer; I loved to sing hymns with my children, and we have each our favorite hymn.’[136]
“I remember observing that her table in her room was covered with religious books of all languages. Some of them she recommended to me.”
The German Protestant form of worship did not satisfy her. Her own English liturgy, with its fine simple prayers and benedictions, with its many appointed lessons from Holy Writ--the old Testament especially,--with its sermons confined to a limited time, pleased her more. At the same time she always acknowledged with gratitude and admiration that the great spiritual hero who was the first to demand as a right absolute sincerity in the life of faith, and so brought on the Reformation, was a German.
The Princess had a very wide knowledge of history. Her political opinions were independent, entirely free from party prejudice, and based on the principle she had imbibed from her father--that Princes exist for the welfare of their people.
Future generations must ever acknowledge how the Princess Alice throughout her life strove to fulfil the saying of her favorite hero in history, “the great Fritz” (Frederic the Great, in his “Anaimachiavell”): “The rulers of nations must set the example of virtue to the world.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration] APPENDIX.
The beautiful sketch which follows appeared in the _Darmstädter Zeitung_, dated “Christmas Eve, 1878”; and the annexed translation of it, by Sir Theodore Martin, appeared a few days afterward in the _Times_.
A WATCHER BY THE DEAD.
Long, long before daybreak on one of those gloomy December days of last week, an officer made his way hurriedly along the empty, silent streets of the capital. He was in full uniform, but its pomp and splendor were shrouded in a thick covering of crape, for he was afoot thus early to do duty by the bier of the beloved Princess. Desolate were the streets, as of a city of the dead; desolate as though tenanted only by the dead was the lordly palace to which he bent his steps. The sentinels at the great gate stood motionless, despite the severe cold, as if they feared to disturb the repose of death. Here, where the inhabitants of the capital used to see all astir with the busy, cheerful life inseparable from the residence of a reigning Prince; here, where in days but recently gone by children, blooming and beautiful, the country’s pride and the joy of their princely parents, gave animation to house and garden, all was silent and void; a deadly blast had swept over the till now so happy home. The country’s young, idolized mother had closed her beautiful eyes, closed them for evermore, after doing and enduring nobly, after tasting the bitterness of great earthly sorrow. Many long and woful days, many nights of even greater anguish, had she watched, trembled, and prayed by the couch of a husband sick unto death, and of five children beloved past telling. The sweet, youngest bud in the fair wreath of princely children, had been torn from her bleeding heart, and tears--scalding tears--for the sweet little May-blossom, which she had herself put to its last sleep under chaplets of flowers, flowed fast, as she folded her hands in gratitude, when the peril of death had passed over the heads of her husband and her other children. “Thus do we learn humility!” she said, with quivering lip, to a lady who stood beside her. “God has called for one life, and has given me back five for it; how, then, should I mourn?” And now, when, with fear and trembling, joy seemed about to enter once more into that heavily-stricken home, again the dark pinions of the Angel of Death were heard upon the air, and he bore away the truest of wives, the most loving of mothers, a sacrifice to duty fulfilled with the noblest forgetfulness of self. These were the thoughts with which the solitary wayfarer went upon his sorrowful way, and crossed the threshold of the chamber of death. With light step and whispered words the watchers by the dead whom he relieved withdrew.