Journey home with Siegfried, who wins all hearts. For diversion: “The Prince Robber” by Triller, [1] most entertaining, and a number of the Deutsche Rundschau. [2] – At one o’clock reunion with R.! He tells me he dreamt in the night that we were together in a dancing-hall; my partner indulged in impropriety, I, pale with consternation, he, upon agreement, demands a second dance, mocking R., whereupon R. kicks him, from which the eiderdown flies off, and R. awakes.
In the evening Beethoven’s Quartet in A minor and the first movement of R.’s favourite Fantasy. I find a letter from Mimi awaiting me: she will endeavour to procure twenty-five thousand thalers from the Imperial Fund—the marvellous woman! – R. greatly delighted with Feustel, who understands that we must now move forward. “I believe I shall be a very old man at the close of this matter,” says R. –
Gloomy state of affairs in Bavaria—the King ever more invisible; it is said he associates only with his groom, who, however, is an honest and sensible fellow; yet, as soon as he is informed of anything serious, the mood in the country, he is sent away. For the moment the King’s remoteness serves him; the incidents in the Chamber, where a member of the ultramontane party uttered the most unseemly things about the King, under pretence that they had appeared in a liberal journal, such incidents are of a kind no king can deal with – the Liberals withdrew, the Ministry demanded his dismissal. R. says that after the King’s death he would wish Bavaria, that creation of Napoleon, to be dissolved into its components: the Rhenish Palatinate to Baden, Franconia to Württemberg, leaving the black gentlemen nothing but Old Bavaria. – The tidings of the betrothal of Princess Marie of Saxe-Weimar to Prince Reuß, [3] German ambassador in Petersburg, are received with astonishment.
[1] “The Saxon Prince Robbery”, 1743, by the Wittenberg physician, fable and comedy writer Daniel Wilhelm T. (1695-1782).
[2] Deutsche Rundschau, scientific-literary monthly magazine, founded in 1874 by Julius Rodenberg in Berlin, contributors included Count Moltke, Theodor Storm, Berthold Auerbach and Anastasius Grün.
[3] Heinrich VII. Prince Reuß (1825-1906) from the Reuß-Schleitz-Köstritz branch, officer, diplomat, Prussian ambassador in Munich 1864 and St. Petersburg 1867, German ambassador until 1876, 1878-94 in Vienna, 1876 member of the Prussian House of Lords.
Revised English translation by Jo Cousins.