Up to this period Bismarck was not a publicly marked man, except in an avidity for country sports and skill in horsemanship.  He ever retained his love of the country and of country life.  If proud and overbearing, he was not ostentatious.  He had but few friends, but to these he was faithful.  He never was popular until he had made Prussia the most powerful military State in Europe.  He never sought to be loved so much as to be feared; he never allowed himself to be approached without politeness and deference.  He seemed to care more for dogs than men.  Nor was he endowed with those graces of manner which marked Metternich.  He remained harsh, severe, grave, proud through his whole career, from first to last, except in congenial company.  What is called society he despised, with all his aristocratic tendencies and high social rank.  He was born for untrammelled freedom, and was always impatient under contradiction or opposition.  When he reached the summit of his power he resembled Wallenstein, the hero of the Thirty Years War,—­superstitious, self-sustained, unapproachable, inspiring awe, rarely kindling love, overshadowing by his vast abilities the monarch whom he served and ruled.

No account of the man, however, would be complete which did not recognize the corner-stone of his character,—­an immovable belief in the feudalistic right of royalty to rule its subjects.  Descended from an ancient family of knights and statesmen, of the most intensely aristocratic and reactionary class even in Germany, his inherited instincts and his own tremendous will, backed by a physique of colossal size and power, made effective his loyalty to the king and the monarchy, which from the first dominated and inspired him.  In the National Diet of 1847, Herr von Bismarck sat for more than a month before he opened his lips; but when he did speak it became evident that he was determined to support to the utmost the power of the crown.  He was plus royaliste que le roi. In the ordinary sense he was no orator.  He hesitated, he coughed, he sought for words; his voice, in spite of his herculean frame, was feeble.  But sturdy in his loyalty, although inexperienced in parliamentary usage, he offered a bold front to the liberalism which he saw to be dangerous to his sovereign’s throne.  Like Oliver Cromwell in Parliament, he gained daily in power, while, unlike the English statesman, he was opposed to the popular side, and held up the monarchy after the fashion of Strafford.  From that time, and in fact until 1866, when he conquered Austria, Bismarck was very unpopular; and as he rose in power he became the most bitterly hated man in Prussia,—­which hatred he returned with arrogant contempt.  He consistently opposed all reforms, even the emancipation of the Jews, which won him the favor of the monarch.