第201章

But Bismarck's feeling against the men who had acquired American citizenship for the purpose of evading their duties in both countries did not prevent his taking a great interest in Germans who had settled in the United States and, while becoming good Americans, had preserved an interest in the Fatherland. He spoke of these, with a large, kindly feeling, as constituting a bond between the two nations. Among other things, he remarked that Germans living in the United States become more tractable than in the land of their birth; that revolutionists thus become moderates, and radicals conservatives; that the word Einigkeit (union) had always a charm for them;that it had worked both ways upon them for good, the union of States in America leading them to prize the union of states in Germany, and the evils of disunion in Germany, which had been so long and painful, leading them to abhor disunion in America.

The conversation then fell into ordinary channels, and Itook leave after another hearty shake of the hand and various kind assurances. A few days later came an invitation to dinner with him; and I prized this all the more because it was not to be an official, but a family dinner, and was to include a few of his most intimate friends in the ministry and the parliament. On the invitation it was stated that evening dress was not to be worn; and on my arrival, accompanied by Herr von Schltzer, at that time the German minister in Washington, I found all the guests arrayed in simple afternoon costume. The table had a patriarchal character. At the head sat the prince; at his side, in the next seat but one, his wife; while between them was the seat assigned me, so that I enjoyed to the full the conversation of both. The other seats at the head of the table were occupied by various guests; and then, scattered along down, were members of the family and some personages in the chancery who stood nearest the chief. The conversation was led by him, and soon took a turn especially interesting. He asked me whether there had ever been a serious effort to make New York the permanent capital of the nation. I answered that there had not; that both New York and Philadelphia were, for a short period at the beginning of our national history, provisional capitals; but that there was a deep-seated idea that the permanent capital should not be a commercial metropolis, and that unquestionably the placing of it at Washington was decided, not merely by the central position of that city, but also by the fact that it was an artificial town, never likely to be a great business center; and I cited Thomas Jefferson's saying, ``Great cities are great sores.'' He answered that in this our founders showed wisdom; that the French were making a bad mistake in bringing their national legislature back from Versailles to Paris; that the construction of the human body furnishes a good hint for arrangements in the body politic; that, as the human brain is held in a strong inclosure, and at a distance from the parts of the body which are most active physically, so the brain of the nation should be protected with the greatest care, and should not be placed in the midst of a great, turbulent metropolis. To this I assented, but said that during my attendance at sessions of the French legislative bodies, both in my old days at Paris and more recently at Versailles, it seemed to me that their main defects are those of their qualities; that one of the most frequent occupations of their members is teasing one another, and that when they tease one another they are wonderfully witty;that in the American Congress and in the British Parliament members are more slow to catch a subtle comment or scathing witticism; that the members of American and British assemblies are more like large grains of cannon-powder, through which ignition extends slowly, so that there comes no sudden explosion; whereas in the French Assembly the members are more like minute, bright grains of rifle-powder, which all take fire at the same moment, with instant detonation, and explosions sometimes disastrous. He assented to this, but insisted that the curse of French assemblies had been the tyranny of city mobs, and especially of mobs in the galleries of their assemblies;that the worst fault possible in any deliberative body is speaking to the galleries; that a gallery mob is sure to get between the members and the country, and virtually screen off from the assembly the interests of the country.

To this I most heartily assented.

I may say here that there had not then been fully developed in our country that monstrous absurdity which we have seen in these last few years--national conventions of the two parties trying to deliberate in the midst of audiences of twelve or fifteen thousand people; a vast mob in the galleries, often noisy, and sometimes hysterical, frequently seeking to throw the delegates off their bearings, to outclamor them, and to force nominations upon them.

A little later, as we discussed certain recent books, I re-ferred to Jules Simon's work on Thiers's administration.

Bismarck said that Thiers, in the treaty negotiations at Versailles, impressed him strongly; that he was a patriot;that he seemed at that time like a Roman among Byzantines.

This statement astonished me. If ever there existed a man at the opposite pole from Bismarck, Thiers was certainly that man. I had studied him as a historian, observed him as a statesman, and conversed with him as a social being; and he had always seemed, and still seems, to me the most noxious of all the greater architects of ruin that France produced during the latter half of the nineteenth century--and that is saying much. His policy was to discredit every government which he found existing, in order that its ruins might serve him as a pedestal;and, while he certainly showed great skill in mitigating the calamities which he did so much to cause, his whole career was damning.