Bismarck and the foundation of the German empire . oblesse ; he would beup at daybreak to superintend the work in thefields, his wife and daughters that of the household,talking to the peasants the pleasant Piatt Deutsch ofthe countryside. Then there would be long rides ordrives to the neighbours houses ; shooting, for therewas plenty of deer and hares ; and occasionally inthe winter a visit to Berlin ; farther away, few ofthem went. Most of the country gentlemen hadbeen to Paris, but only as conquerors at the end ofthe great war. They were little disturbed by modern politicaltheories, but wer
Bismarck and the foundation of the German empire . oblesse ; he would beup at daybreak to superintend the work in thefields, his wife and daughters that of the household,talking to the peasants the pleasant Piatt Deutsch ofthe countryside. Then there would be long rides ordrives to the neighbours houses ; shooting, for therewas plenty of deer and hares ; and occasionally inthe winter a visit to Berlin ; farther away, few ofthem went. Most of the country gentlemen hadbeen to Paris, but only as conquerors at the end ofthe great war. They were little disturbed by modern politicaltheories, but were contented, as in old days, to begoverned by the King. It was a religious society ;among the peasants and the nobles, if not among theclergy, there still lingered something of the simplebut profound faith of German Protestantism ; they*? were scarcely touched by the rationalism of theeighteenth or by the liberalism of the nineteenthcentury ; there was little pomp and ceremony ofworship in the village church, but the natural periods jl,s;i t,]A. KARL WILHELM FERD. VON BISMARCK. BISMARCKS FATHER. Birth and Parentage. 13 of human life—birth, marriage, death—called for theblessing of the Church, and once or twice a yearcame the solemn confession and the belief and political faith were closelyjoined, for the Church was but a department of theState ; the King was chief bishop, as he was generalof the army, and the sanctity of the Church wastransferred to the Crown ; to the nobles and peasants,criticism of, or opposition to, the King had in itsomething of sacrilege ; the words by the Grace ofGod added to the royal title were more than anempty phrase. Society was still organised on theold patriarchal basis : at the bottom was the peasant;above him was \.\\&gnddiger Herr ; above him, Unseraltergnddigste Herr, the King, who lived in Berlin;and above him, the Herr Gott in Heaven. To the inhabitants of South Germany, and themen of the towns, these nobles of Further
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbismarckottofrstvon1
