Flunkyism and Royal Prussian Etiquette

Feudalism had its faults as well its merits: but it never conceived anything so contemptible or degrading to the character of a man as the flunkyism that surrounded Louis XIV and symbolized the “divinity that doth hedge a king,” by confiding to the nobles of France the august privilege of putting the King's shirt over his royal shoulders. 

Prussia, faithful to its traditions as a parvenu Kingdom, seems bent upon retaining the most foolish and out-of-date ceremonials that were imitated from the ways of the French Court by the founders of her position in Europe. Feudalism had its faults as well its merits: but it never conceived anything so contemptible or degrading to the character of a man as the flunkyism that surrounded Louis XIV and symbolized the “divinity that doth hedge a king,” by confiding to the nobles of France the august privilege of putting the King's shirt over his royal shoulders. 

All this is long gone by in France and in England, and of those who attend a Royal levee St.James's Palace, probably few remember that the popular crush of to-day originated, as its name implies, in the services rendered by French peers to French kings when they got out of bed in the morning. But in Berlin it is still the glory of Princes and content to play the lackey at the royal table on the or cousin of royal weddings. At the marriage of the Princess Alexandrine of Prussia, tureens of soup were placed before the King and his family by Prussian nobles, and other duties were fulfilled which show that the Prussian nobility have yet to learn the first elements of that personal self-respect which constitute a most important element in the security of the aristocracy of England. That a wealthy duke, possessing everything that position and education can bestow, should count it an honor to play at being butler to a King, would seen ludicrous even in the eyes of an English “workingman.” 

There is to disgrace in servitude, when it is a man's lot in life. It means simply that the servant is a poor man and has to work for his living. But this Berlin service is flunkyism pure and unmitigated. That the English and French ambassador recalled not have been admitted to share the dinner of a Sovereign thus hedged on from all brotherhood with the rest of mankind was but an insult of the same bygone ideas. In the darkness of feudalism,  earls and royalty dined at the same table with their household servants, and the modern notion about the divine right of Kings was unknown. Happily, we have long got rid of the notion and its attendant ceremonials in England. – From the Pall Mall Gazette, Dec 15, 1865

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