Bismarck arose, slowly but steadily, with the whole force of his genius, among the defenders of the conservative interests of his order and of the throne.  He was then simply Herr von Bismarck, belonging to an ancient and noble but not wealthy family, whose seat was Schoenhausen, where the future prince was born, April 1, 1815.  The youth was sent to a gymnasium in Berlin in 1830, and in 1832 to the university of Goettingen in Hanover, where he was more distinguished for duels, drinking-parties, and general lawlessness than for scholarship.  Here he formed a memorable friendship with a brother student, a young American,—­John Lothrop Motley, later the historian of the Dutch Republic.  Much has been written of Bismarck’s reckless and dissipated life at the university, which differed not essentially from that of other nobles.  He had a grand figure, superb health, extraordinary animal spirits, and could ride like a centaur.  He spent but three semestres at Goettingen, and then repaired to Berlin in order to study jurisprudence under the celebrated Savigny; but he was rarely seen in the lecture-room.  He gave no promise of the great abilities which afterward distinguished him.  Yet he honorably passed his State examination; and as he had chosen the law for his profession, he first served on leaving the university as a sort of clerk in the city police, and in 1834 was transferred to Aix-la-Chapelle, in the administrative department of the district.  In 1837 he served in the crown office at Potsdam.  He then entered for a year as a sharpshooter of the Guards, to absolve his obligation to military service.

The next eight years, from the age of twenty-four, he devoted to farming, hunting, carousing, and reading, on one of his father’s estates in Pomerania.  He was a sort of country squire, attending fairs, selling wool, inspecting timber, handling grain, gathering rents, and sitting as a deputy in the local Diet,—­the talk and scandal of the neighborhood for his demon-like rides and drinking-bouts, yet now studying all the while, especially history and even philosophy, managing the impoverished paternal estates with prudence and success, and making short visits to France and England, the languages of which countries he could speak with fluency and accuracy.  In 1847 he married Johanna von Putkammer, nine years younger than himself, who proved a model wife, domestic and wise, of whom he was both proud and fond.  The same year, his father having died and left him Schoenhausen, he was elected a member of the Landtag, a quasi-parliament of the eight united Diets of the monarchy; and his great career began.