ung Otto was born two years later, he would often
hear of the adventures of his three uncles and his cousin in the great
war. The latter, Bismarck-Bohlen, rose to very high honours and was to
die when over eighty years of age, after he had witnessed the next great
war with France. It is a curious instance of the divisions of Germany in
those days that there were Bismarcks fighting on the French side
throughout the war. One branch of the family had settled in South
Germany; the head of it, Friedrich Wilhelm, had taken service in the
Wurtemburg army; he had become a celebrated leader of cavalry and was
passionately devoted to Napoleon. He served with distinction in the
Russian campaign and was eventually taken prisoner by the Germans in the
battle of Leipzig.

The youngest of the four brothers, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich v. Bismarck,
had retired from the army at an early age: he was a quiet, kindly man of
domestic tastes; on the division of the estates, Schoenhausen fell to
his lot, and he settled down there to a quiet country life. He took a
step which must have caused much discussion among all his friends and
relations, for he chose as wife not one of his own rank, not a Kleist,
or a Katte, or a Bredow, or an Arnim, or an Alvensleben, or any other of
the neighbouring nobility; he married a simple Fraeulein Mencken. She
was, however, of no undistinguished origin. Her father, the son of a
professor at the University of Leipzig, had entered the Prussian Civil
Service; there he had risen to the highest rank and had been Cabinet
Secretary to both Frederick William II. and Frederick III. He was a man
of high character and of considerable ability; as was not uncommon among
the officials of those days, he was strongly affected by the liberal and
even revolutionary doctrines of France.

Fraeulein Mencken, who was married at the age of sixteen, was a clever
and ambitious woman. From her her son inherited his intellect; from
his father he derived what the Germans call _Gemueth_, geniality,
kindliness, humour. By his two parents he was thus connected with the
double foundation on which Prussia had been built: on his father's side
he had sprung from the fighting nobles; on his mother's, from the
scholars and officials. In later life we shall find that while his
prejudices and affections are all enlisted on the side of the noble,
the keen and critical intellect he had inherited from his mother enabled
him to overcome the prejudices of h