Part 28
Overwhelmed by the majesty of death, which met him here in its most sombre form, the new comer bent his head and continued long in silent prayer. The Princess lay on a bier in the great hall on the ground-floor, where she had so often sat surrounded by a radiant circle of guests. What of her was earthly, cased in a triple cerement, was covered with a pall of black velvet, which, however, was almost hid from view beneath a mass of flowers and palms. Upon the head of the coffin stood a little, simple crucifix of perfect artistic workmanship. Six torches on pedestals, hung with black, stood round the bier, shedding but a feeble glimmer through the hall, scarcely brighter, indeed, than the scanty light of the dawning winter day. From the wall opposite the coffin the youthful image of her husband, painted in happier times, looked sadly down upon the loved one lost. Directly opposite hung the picture which the Hessian Division had had painted for their much-loved leader, in remembrance of the glorious day of Gravelotte--a picture of battle and of the wild _mêlée_ of slaughter in the silent chamber of death. He who now watched by the coffin had played a part in the conflict of the memorable day which the picture was meant to perpetuate, and he knew how deeply it was interwoven with the life of the Princess who lay there in her long last sleep. Her dear husband had gone to the campaign with his faithful Hessians; she knew his precious life to be in hourly danger; but her own sorrows and cares were not her first thought. Helpful, comforting, encouraging, she gave at all times to those who were left behind a brilliant example of cheerful and devoted courage; and when the wounded and sick came back from the battlefields in ever-increasing numbers, she it was who everywhere took the lead with noblest self-abnegation and practical good sense. By the beds of the sick and dying she stood like a comforting angel, and the love of the Hessian people twined the fairest of all diadems, the aureole of the heroine, round her princely brows.
This grateful love, not only of those who bore arms, but of the citizen and artisan as well, for which these things laid the foundation, was now sincerely and unconstrainedly busy beside the bier of the princely sleeper. Servants came, with loads of wreaths and bouquets, and arranged them upon the coffin. But it was not the official tributes of flowers from Court and noble, from the deputations of regiments far and near, which were laid as a mournful homage at the feet of the dead mistress, that touched most deeply the heart of him who stood there on guard. No, the tear that stole down unbidden, the little trivial gift of the poor and humble who lived far away from Court favor, had a greater value in his eyes. It was still quite early morning when, with the first glimmer of day, came an old peasant woman from the Odenwald. Advancing timidly, she laid, with a murmured prayer, a little wreath of rosemary, with a couple of small white flowers, perhaps the only ornament of her poor little room at home, as a token of grateful affection down upon the velvet pall. Then, thinking herself unnoticed, she took a rosebud from one of the splendid wreaths, and hid it under the old woollen dress. Who could interfere to balk the impulse of genuine affection, that longed to carry off some slight memorial with it? And now the little flower is lying between the leaves of the old Bible, and in days to come the matron, when she turns the leaves of the sacred volume, will tell her daughters and granddaughters of the noble lady, too early snatched away from her people--of her, who never forgot the poorest and the humblest of them all.
Anon appeared the bearer of one of the proudest names in Hesse, who was attached to the personal service of the Princess. The official, stalwart bearing of the courier was left outside, and, weeping hot, unhidden tears, he lingered long by the bier. To what a lofty soul, to what goodness of heart, was he saying here a bitter farewell! He was followed by two little girls, poorly but cleanly dressed, and they, too, brought their tribute of gratitude--two little bunches of violets. Shyly, almost frightened, and yet with childish curiosity, they drew slowly nearer. They thought of another winter day, some years ago. Hungry, chilled to the heart, they were sitting in an empty attic; their parents were dead, and they ate among strangers bread that was hard and grudgingly given, when that great lady appeared who was now sleeping here under the flowers. From her, whose heart was ever yearning to the orphan’s cry, they heard again, for the first time, gentle, loving words; by her provision was quickly made for their more kindly treatment, and gratitude was rooted firmly and forever in their young souls.
A deputation from the Court Theatre laid upon the coffin a wreath intertwined with pale pink streamers. Art, too, had come to mourn for her noblest patroness, who had been ever ready with her fine, cultivated intelligence to advance whatever was great and good. A servant brought a beautiful cross, of dark foliage with white flowers. It was the gift of the Grand Duke’s mother, anxious to testify by an outward sign her love for her dead daughter. In ever-growing numbers came the mourners, all visibly oppressed by the weight of the calamity which had fallen upon the country. Countless were the gifts of love, of gratitude, of respect, which, now beautiful and costly, now slight and simple, arched ever higher and higher the hill of flowers above the coffin. The ladies of the neighboring towns sent cushions of dark violets, with chaplets of white flowers. Two ladies deeply veiled brought branches of palm, from the dark green of which gleamed a white scroll--a poetic farewell word of deep feeling:
A hurricane, charged with destruction, O palm, swept o’er thee. The squall Crashed through thy leaves, and tore from thee The tenderest, sweetest of all.
The clouds clear’d away in the distance, The tempest seem’d over and past, When forth from the firmament darted A lightning-bolt, fiery and fast.
It struck thee, O noble one, struck thee! It crush’d thee, and now thou art gone! Farewell! To our death-day thine image Still, still in our hearts shall live on.
There was a second poem, enclosed in a heart-shaped framework of leaves, which gave expression to the grief of a devoted soul for the high-hearted lady.
But now the hour was come for another to take the post of honor by the bier of the Princess. Silently and sadly the two men saluted. He that left took away with him a deep and elevating impression of the general love and respect paid by the people of Hesse to their too-early departed Princess, and the remembrance of that silent watch by the dead will remain in his memory forever. And he who now entered on that honorable duty could chronicle proofs of genuine grief, of true reverence and love, not fewer nor less touching. Whosoever is thus bewept has secured the best and fairest memorial in the hearts of her own people for all time--“The remembrance of the just abideth in blessing.”
Nothing could show better than this touching narrative, how deep and how widespread was the grief for the death of the Princess throughout the country which had so recently hailed her as its Sovereign. Not less deep and universal was the sorrow with which the sad intelligence was received in her native land. She had long been dear to all hearts there; for the fame of her many admirable qualities as daughter, sister, wife, and mother had penetrated into every household. The news that her life was in peril had awakened the deepest sympathy; and when the anniversary of the death of the father she loved so well brought the tidings of her own death, there were few homes on which it did not cast a shadow as for the loss of one that was personally dear. The journals teemed with expressions of the national grief, each vying with the other in paying affectionate tribute to the worth of one whose name had long been familiar and cherished on the lips of her countrymen and countrywomen, and in assurances of sympathy to the Queen, and the loving hearts of her kindred, on whom this great calamity had fallen.
It may not be out of place to insert here, as an example of these, what was written out of a full heart on the day of the Princess’ death by the hand which had not yet concluded the task of tracing the “Life of the Prince Consort,” in which the Princess had all along taken the keenest interest. The letters printed in this volume afford the amplest proof of the justice of the estimate which the writer had formed of the gifted and devoted woman whose heart is there laid bare for our study and instruction.
“Oh, sir, the good die first, And those whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket.”--_Wordsworth._
December 14th, 1878.
On the 14th of December, seventeen years ago, a great sorrow fell upon England in the death of the Prince Consort, who, if he did not die too soon for his own happiness and fame, died at least, as all now feel, too soon for England. The memorable 14th of December has again come round, and again a great sorrow has fallen upon the country. The Princess has been taken to her rest, who watched and soothed the Prince Consort in the last days of his fatal illness, and who by her fortitude and noble devotion helped materially, though then but a girl of seventeen, to sustain and comfort the widowed Queen in her measureless affliction. For the first time a breach--and such a breach--has been made in that family circle to which all who had the priviledge to know it looked as the happiest in England--happiest, because mutual love and esteem bound all its members together by ties knit in childhood and never broken, and because of the noble activity for good which had been set before them in the example of their parents kept their hearts fresh and their minds ever open. She who, while yet a girl, was called to play a woman’s part by her father’s deathbed, has been the first to follow him into the Silent Land.
No life could have opened more auspiciously than that of the second daughter of our Royal house.[137] From the first she gave great promise of beauty and of intelligence. The fine old English names of Alice and Maud, selected for her by her happy parents, seemed as names sometimes do, to be particularly fitted to the winning, open character of her fair and finely-formed features, and their sound was one pleasant in the mouths, not only of those to whom she was known, but of the people, as she grew up and was seen in public by the eager and kindly eyes to whom the sight of the Royal children has always been welcome.
When the marriage of the Princess Royal took place in 1858, the Princess Alice was still only a girl of fifteen; but she had already developed qualities of mind and heart of no ordinary kind. She came by degrees to fill up in some measure the vacancy which had been created by the removal of her very gifted sister to Berlin. Naturally she was drawn nearer to the Prince Consort; and the influence of his character and the teachings of his affectionate wisdom sank deeply into her pure and highly intellectual nature. He looked forward to her future with the assurance that she would prove all he could wish a daughter to be. She, on the other hand, loved him with a devotion only tempered by a profound reverence for the great qualities which she could then, perhaps, but dimly appreciate, but the true extent and worth of which her own subsequent experience and reflection taught her more thoroughly to measure. When in later years she spoke of the Prince, one saw that, as Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare, “she honored his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any.”
The teaching of that beloved father was put to the proof in those sad days of patient watching which preceded his death. Things were told at the time of the devotion and the marvellous self-control of the young girl, called so sternly and so suddenly to face death in the person of a father, on whose life that of the Queen herself seemed to depend, and whose counsels she knew to be of inestimable value to the nation. A few days after the Prince’s death, she was spoken of by the _Times_ in these noticeable words: “Of the devotion and strength of mind shown by the Princess Alice all through these trying scenes it is impossible to speak too highly. Her Royal Highness has, indeed, felt that it was her place to be a comfort and a support to her mother in her affliction, and to her dutiful care we may perhaps owe it that the Queen has borne her loss with exemplary resignation, and a composure which, under so sudden and terrible a bereavement, could not have been anticipated.” The knowledge of this fact--and it was a fact--sank deeply into people’s minds. It was never forgotten, and from that day the name of the Princess Alice has been a cherished household word to all her countrymen and women.
When, in 1862, she married the husband of her choice--a man whose sterling worth and manliness had satisfied even the critical judgment of parents jealous for the happiness of a daughter so justly dear--the affectionate good wishes of the Queen’s subjects of all grades went with her to her new home. In that home, brightened and ennobled as it was by her presence, her love for the home and country of her youth burned with a steady and ever-deepening glow. It is only those who know how strong is the mutual love by which the children of Queen Victoria are bound to their parent and to each other, who can appreciate the passionate yearning toward England of the Princesses whose homes have been made elsewhere. England and all its interests held a foremost place in the heart of the Princess Alice; and no one watched more closely every phase of the changeful life of the busy land, which she loved and reverenced as the home of liberty and the pioneer of civilization.
While fulfilling with exemplary devotion every duty as a wife and mother, the process of self-culture was never relaxed. Every refined taste was kept alive by fresh study, fresh practice, fresh observation; neither was any effort spared to keep abreast with all that the best intellects of the time were adding to the stores of invention, of discovery, of observation, and of thought. Each successive year taught her better to estimate the value of the principles in religion, in morals, and in politics in which she had been trained. As her knowledge of the world and of men grew, she could see the wide range of fact upon which they were based, and their fitness as guides amid the perplexing experiences of human life, which, however seemingly varied in different epochs, are ever essentially the same. Then the significance of the Prince Consort’s habit of judging every thing by some governing principle, and working always by strict method, became clear to her; and in a letter written in January 1875, of which a copy is before us, the Princess writes with her accustomed modesty: “Living with thinking and cultivated Germans, much in Papa has explained itself to me, which formerly I could less understand, or did not appreciate so much as I ought to have done.”
She inherited much of her father’s practical good sense, and, like him, was ever ready to take part in any well-directed effort for raising the condition of the toilworn and the poor. How much of their misery, nay, of their evil ways, was due to their wretched habitations, she, like him, felt most keenly; and she gave her sympathy and support to every effort for their improvement. With this view she translated into German some of Miss Octavia Hill’s essays “On the Homes of the London Poor,” and published them with a little preface of her own (to which only her initial A. was affixed), in the hope that the principles, which had been successfully applied in London by Miss Hill and her coadjutors, might be put into action in some of the German cities. No good work appealed to her in vain. The great exemplar of her father was always before her; and in the letter from which we have already quoted she speaks of his life, “spent in the highest aims, and with the noblest conception of duty,” as a “leading star” to her own.
That sense of duty carried her to the bedside of the Prince of Wales when, at the end of 1871, he was struck down at Sandringham by the fell disease under which his father had sunk. There she fulfilled the same priceless offices which she had ten years before discharged at Windsor Castle. It pleased Heaven to spare her a renewal of the great affliction of 1861; and in the very days of December in which we are now living, the life of the much-loved brother, which had been wellnigh despaired of, came slowly back to requite her affection, and in answer to her prayers.
The trials of that time came, before the exhaustion had passed away both of body and mind which the Princess had undergone during the Franco-German war. Separated--and for the second time--by war from the Prince of Hesse, who was away in the thickest of the perils of that campaign, she was not a woman to give herself up to morbid brooding on the pangs and apprehensions under which, devoted wife as she was, she yet could not fail to suffer most acutely, for her feelings were warm, and her imagination active beyond that of most women. In the hospital at Darmstadt, crowded with the soldiers, French as well as German, who had come from the battlefields maimed and racked with pain, she was foremost with her bright intelligence, her helpful sympathy, and her tender hand, in soothing pain, and inspiring that sense of manly gratitude which is the best of panaceas to a soldier’s sick-bed. What she was and what she did at that time have embalmed her image in many a heart, and will make the tears flow thick and fast in many manly eyes at the thought of the death of one so young, so good, so gifted, and so fair. To her it was merely duty--duty to be done at every cost; but how much it had cost to that finely touched spirit and to that delicate womanly frame might be read, by all who could look below the surface, in the deep earnestness of her eyes and the deeper earnestness of her thoughts. The pain of that terrible period would not let itself be forgotten even in the gratitude which she felt for the providence which restored her beloved husband to her side, and for the realization of her father’s cherished dream of an United Germany, which had been purchased by the valor and the sufferings of its sons.
The Princess’ fortitude had already been severely tried in the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866. Hesse-Darmstadt was engaged upon the side of Austria, and her husband, Prince Louis, took the field with the troops of the Principality. At the very time that his third daughter, the Princess Irène, was born, he was with the army; and the Princess Alice knew he was under fire but was unable to get any tidings from him. The victorious Prussians marched into Darmstadt, while the Princess, newly made a mother, was still confined to her room.
Of the sad aspects of life it had been her destiny to see much--as daughter, as sister, and as mother. In June, 1873, a terrible calamity fell upon her as a mother. A child--one especially beloved--climbing to an open window in a room adjoining that in which she was, lost its balance, and was killed almost before her eyes, as she rushed in terror to call him back. This, too, had to be borne. It was borne nobly, and with Christian resignation. But such shocks tell upon the vital powers, and some trace of what had been “undergone and overcome” seemed to be visible long afterward in a perceptible bodily languor, and in a more spiritual beauty which had passed into her expressive face.
The thought of this sent an anxious thrill through the hearts of many, when it became known that the Princess was herself seized by the terrible malady which had prostrated her husband and five of her children, and taken from her the youngest of them all--the youngest, the brightest, the idol of her other children.[138] She had nursed them all through their time of danger, and now, spent with watching and anxiety as she was, the malady had laid its fatal clutch upon herself. She that had cared and thought for all was soon past all human care to save. Thus she died as she had lived, devoted, self-sacrificing, purified by great pain and great love--a model daughter--wife--mother.
Of the loss of such a woman to the husband to whom she was the all-in-all, to the children to whose love she will respond no more, to the mother in whose thoughts she is interwoven with the sweetest, the saddest, the most sacred memories, to the brothers and sisters whom she loved and who loved her so truly, so tenderly, who dare trust himself to speak? It must be long before the grief can be assuaged, under which all these must now be suffering--before the “Idea of her life can sweetly creep,” as something hallowed, “into their study of imagination”; but the day will come when they will bless God, that theirs was a wife, a daughter, a sister, a mother, so good, so noble, and that, having fought her fight on earth valiantly, yet meekly, she has gone where there is no more sorrow, nor crying, and where the great mysteries of life alone find their solution.
THEODORE MARTIN.
Of the many beautiful tributes in verse to the worth of the Princess, which appeared in England immediately after her death, none spoke the prevailing feeling more truly than the following:--
IN MEMORIAM.
PRINCESS ALICE: _died_ December 14th, 1878.
Death’s shadow falls across the Palace door, His fingers trace our dear Princess’ doom; “She will awake no more; ah! never more!” And through the murky night the big bells boom.
But in the gray of morning hope appears, And treading in death’s footprints entrance seeketh Where lonely grief is weeping bitter tears, And whispers low--“She being dead yet speaketh.”
And at the voice of hope the black clouds break, And through the rift there shines God’s glorious light; And we who mourn look up and solace take As those to whom comes day--dawn after night.
“She being dead yet speaketh”--all may hear The message left us by her lovely life In deeds that live, in actions that endear, As Princess, sister, daughter, mother, wife!
The fierce rude light that beats upon a throne For which so many royal heads are hid, Served but to make her worth more widely known, To glorify the acts of grace she did.