The Life of Bismarck, Private and Political. George Hesekiel
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at Helmstadt on the 2d of August, 1752, and was a member of a family distinguished for its literary attainments. To a certain extent he was a pupil of the Minister Count Herzberg,[25] by whose means he was appointed to a post in the Privy Chancery. Frederick the Great held him in great esteem, he having rendered an important service to his sister, the Queen Louise Ulrike, in Stockholm; and he employed him from the year 1782 in the capacity of Secretary to the Cabinet for Foreign Affairs. From 1786 he became Privy Councillor to Frederick William II., and in that office was again intrusted with the administration of foreign affairs, but after the war with France was supplanted by General von Bischofswerder,[26] and retired into private life. Menken was the only adviser of King Frederick William II., who was recalled and reappointed at the accession of Frederick William III. He was the author of the well-known Cabinet Order issued by Frederick William III., which insured the young King the confidence of his subjects. Menken was no revolutionist, as Bischofswerder and his partisans asserted, but to a certain extent he agreed with the principles of the first French National Convention. He is portrayed as a gentle, liberal, prudent, and experienced man, but of delicate health; and he died on the 5th August, 1801, in consequence of illness brought on by a life of unintermitting labor. According to the opinion of Stein, Menken was a person of generous sentiments, well educated, of fine feeling and benevolent disposition, with noble aims and principles. He desired the good of his native land, which he sought to promote by the diffusion of knowledge, the improvement of the condition of all classes, and the application of philanthropic ideas; but his indisposition for war at an important juncture was adverse to his fame; his too eloquent and humane edict, and his singular gentleness of mind, invested the Government with an appearance of weakness.
His orphan daughter became the mother of Count Bismarck. It is interesting to note that a hundred years before a daughter of the same family, Christine Sybille Menken, deceased in 1750, as the wife of the Imperial Equerry Peter Hohmann von Hohenthal, was the ancestress of the Count von Hohenthal of the elder line.
The brothers and sisters of Count Bismarck were:—
I. Alexander Frederick Ferdinand, born 13th April, 1807; died 13th December, 1809.
II. Louise Johanne, born 3d November, 1808; died 19th March, 1813.
III. Bernhard, born 24th June, 1810, Royal Chamberlain and Privy Councillor, and Chief Justice of the Circle of Naugard, near Külz and Jarchelin, in Pomerania.
IV. Francis, born 20th June, 1819; died 10th September, 1822.
V. Franziska Angelika Malwina, born the 29th June, 1827; wedded at Schönhausen on the 30th October, 1844, to Ernst Frederick Abraham Henry Charles Oscar von Arnim, of Kröchlendorff, Royal Chamberlain and a member of the Upper House.
The Minister-President himself, Otto Edward Leopold, was born at Schönhausen on the 1st April, 1815.
His earliest youth, however, was not passed at his ancestral estate in the Alt Mark, but in Pomerania, whither his parents had removed in the year 1816. By the decease of a cousin they had succeeded to the knightly estates of Kniephof, Jarchelin, and Külz, in the circle of Naugard. At Kniephof, where his parents took up their residence, Bismarck passed the first six years of his life, and to Kniephof he returned in his holidays from Berlin, so that this Pomeranian estate of his parents may be regarded as the scene of his earliest sports.
These estates were held in fee from the Dewitz family, in the circle of Pomerania, then known as the Daber and Dewitz circle, and were ceded with the feudal rights to the Colonel August Frederick von Bismarck, the great-grandfather of the Minister-President, on his marriage with Stephanie von Dewitz. After the death of the Colonel, his three sons, Bernd August, Charles Alexander (the Minister’s grandfather), and Ernst Frederick (Royal Conservator of Palaces) possessed these estates in common, until, on the partition of 12th August, 1747, they were handed over to Captain Bernd August alone. He bequeathed them to his son, the Deputy of the Daber-Naugard circle, and to Captain August Frederick von Bismarck and his sister Charlotte Henrietta, who was married to Captain Jaroslav Ulrich Frederick von Schwerin. By a deed dated the 7th of August, 1777, August Frederick became the sole possessor, and bequeathed them to Charles William Frederick von Bismarck, the father of the Minister-President.
The knightly estate of Kniephof is about a (German) mile from Naugard to the eastward; its situation is pleasant, being surrounded by woods and meadows, close to the little river Zampel. Even in the last century the beautiful gardens and carp-lake were famous.
Jarchelin, formerly called Grecholin, some quarter of a mile distant from Kniephof, which is incorporated with the parish of the former place. A small stream runs through this village.
Külz is nearer to Naugard; the church there was originally a dependency of Farbezin; formerly it possessed oak and pine forests, and the hamlet of Stowinkel was planted with oaks.
In the year 1838, Captain von Bismarck ceded these estates to his two sons, who farmed them for three years in common, but then divided them so that the elder, Bernhard, retained Külz, while the younger, the Minister-President, took for his share Kniephof and Jarchelin. When, after his father’s decease in 1845, the Minister-President took Schönhausen, Jarchelin was surrendered to the elder brother. Kniephof was retained by Count Bismarck until 1868, when, after the purchase of Varzin, it passed into the possession of his eldest nephew, Lieutenant Philip von Bismarck.
As the possessor of Kniephof, the Minister sat till 1868 for the ancient and established fief of the Dukedom Stettin in the Upper Chamber. On its cession the King created him a member of that chamber for life. In the adjacent estate of Zimmerhausen, belonging to the Von Blanckenburgs, Otto von Bismarck was then and afterwards a frequent guest. The youthful friendship which he then contracted with the present General County Councillor Moritz von Blanckenburg, a well-known leader of the Conservative party in the Chamber of Deputies and at the Diet, remains unshaken to the present day.
THE CRADLE.
About the Easter of 1821, Otto von Bismarck entered the then renowned school of Professor Plamann, in Berlin (Wilhelmstrasse 130), where his only surviving elder brother Bernhard then was. Bismarck remained in this place till 1827, when he left it to pursue his more classical studies at the Frederick William Gymnasium. He was there received into the lower third class—his elder brother having by that time reached the second class.
His parents were accustomed to pass the winter months in Berlin, and during those times received both their sons at home, so that the boys ever retained feelings of relationship to the home circle, although not always there.
From the year 1827 both brothers became chiefly residents at the Berlin establishment of their parents, and were committed to the care of a faithful servant, Trine Neumann, from Schönhausen, who still lives at the Gesund-Brunnen, at Berlin, though she no longer wears the black and red petticoat of her native spot. Well qualified masters attended, especially during the absence of the parents in the summer time. By their aid they became acquainted with several of the modern languages. Among these tutors, the first was M. Hagens in 1827, then a young Genevese, named Gallot, and in the year 1829, a certain Dr. Winckelmann, unquestionably a clever philologist, but a man of no principle, who vanished one morning with the cash-box, and left his charges behind with Trine Neumann. This occurred at the residence of the parents in Behrenstrasse No. 39; they afterwards resided at No. 52, in the same street, and subsequently on the Dönhofsplatz. At this time Otto von Bismarck laid the foundation of his prowess in English and French, which he ulteriorly brought to perfection.
It is evident that labor, care, or expense were not spared by the parents to foster the talents of these gifted children. This was, indeed, a special duty with their mother, a lady of great education, who combined with many accomplishments the sentimental religious feeling of her period, and had inherited the liberal views of her father. Madame von Bismarck was no doubt a distinguished woman, not only esteemed for her beauty in society, but exercising considerable influence in society. Her activity,