Bismarck was soon able to hold his own; poor Count Thun, whose nerves were not strong, after a serious discussion with him used to go to bed at five o’clock in the afternoon; he complained that his health would not allow him to hold his post if there were to be continuous quarrels.  When his successor, Herr v.  Prokesch, left Frankfort for Constantinople, he said that “it would be like an Eastern dream of the blessed to converse with the wise Ali instead of Bismarck.”

As soon as the first strangeness had passed off Bismarck became reconciled to his position.  His wife and children joined him, he made himself a comfortable home, and his house soon became one of the most popular in the town; he and his wife were genial and hospitable and he used his position to extend his own influence and that of his country.  His old friend, Motley, visited him there in 1855 and wrote to his wife: 

“FRANKFORT,
“Monday, July 30, 1855.

" ...  The Bismarcks are as kind as ever—­nothing can be more frank and cordial than her manners.  I am there all day long.  It is one of those houses where everyone does what he likes.  The show apartments where they receive formal company are on the front of the house.  Their living rooms, however, are a salon and dining-room at the back, opening upon the garden.  Here there are young and old, grandparents and children and dogs all at once, eating, drinking, smoking, piano-playing, and pistol-firing (in the garden), all going on at the same time.  It is one of those establishments where every earthly thing that can be eaten or drunk is offered you; porter, soda water, small beer, champagne, burgundy, or claret are about all the time, and everybody is smoking the best Havana cigars every minute.”

He had plenty of society, much of it congenial to him.  He had given up playing since his marriage, and was one of the few diplomatists who was not found at the Homburg gaming-tables, but he had a sufficiency of sport and joined with the British envoy, Sir Alexander Malet, in taking some shooting.  A couple of years later in contradicting one of the frequent newspaper reports, that he aimed at supplanting the Minister, he says: 

“My castle in the air is to spend three to five years longer at Frankfort, then perhaps the same time in Vienna or Paris, then ten years with glory as Minister, then die as a country gentleman.”

A prospect which has been more nearly fulfilled than such wishes generally are.

He was for the first year still a member of the Second Chamber and occasionally appeared in it; his interest in his diplomatic work had, however, begun to overshadow his pleasure in Parliamentary debate.