PRINCESS BISMARCK. Some Peculiar Traits of the Iron Chancellor's Wife.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 232, 10 December 1887, Page 12

PRINCESS BISMARCK. Some Peculiar Traits of the Iron Chancellor's Wife.

A friend who, during a visit to Hombuvg, has met and frequently dined with Bismarck's wife, kindly sends me an interesting description of her foi- the " Sun's " readers. Princess Bismarck, who alone enjoys the privilege of telling the master of Europe that he needs to change his collar or to be more careful about his personal appearance in general, was oiiginallyFraulein yon Pettkampr, a member of a noble Pomeranian family, and she is a most interesting woman, althoiigh probably not one in a thousand readers has ever heard anything about her. She cannot be called lovely. She is past 60 years, very tall and very grey. Her face is very strong, wiHi large check bones. She is rather what a character of Dickens describes as "a fine figure of a woman," inclined perhaps to be bony. Her acquaintance with the people at Hamburg and Frankfort dates from the time long ago when Bismarck, nob in the least a great man then, was simply an official at Frankfort. She made friends then to whom she has always remained true, and whom she goes every year to see. Wherever Mrs Bismarck is she rules. When she enters a house every window muht be closed tight, and no door can remain needlessly open, as she shares with the French their morbid diead of currents of air. At table she i.s fond of talking, and speaks very loud and decidedly. She gets very much excited in di&cus&ion, and to contradict her is not safe. She is very fond of music and discus&es it learnedly, although she really knows very little about it. This causes many wordy battles between her and her old friend, Baroness Wille Rothschild, one of the friends gained in Bismaick'a less important days. The Baroness is old, and, like mo&t Rothschilds, not lcmarkablo for beauty, but she is blight, really knows something about music, wi'ites Fiench songs and composes a gieat deal. She pi ay a and sings her own work, and she and the Princess Bis inarck do a great deal of talking about it. The Princes shares her husband's digestive ti dibit"*, Mid relics, like him, upon the advice of the export Dr Schweiningor, but like her grand husband and the old Emperor she quite refu&es to bo governed in her living by medical advice, and my correspondent writes me how she dunks cham panne almost frozen, in spite of the enbieatieb of her lady companion, a precise and amiable old sif b.sdamc. ' ' The only unfavourable thing about the Princes yon BiMnarck,*' says my correspondent naively, "is that she neglects to consider how youth should be talked to, and even at table, where young girls may be, does not repress her tendency to relate talcs with a taint of Boccaccio." Princes? Bismarck has- bi ought her boys up in the way they should go, and, although fche lived a long time in a little hotel on Riselegstrasse, they come frequently to s-ec her, Herbert irom Ktonig stein, and William, who calls himself, ond likes to be called, Bill Bi.-marck, from Hainan, not far from Frankfort, where he is Laudiath. Neither of the boys resembles hih mother, but they take after their father, especially William, who is a wonderfully exact, though mentally diluted, reproduction.