turned at the
head of his army; in the village churches the medals won at Waterloo
were hung up by those of Grossbehren and Leipzig. One more victory had
been added to the Prussian flags, and then a profound peace fell upon
Europe; fifty years were to go by before a Prussian army again marched
out to meet a foreign foe.

The name and family of Bismarck were among the oldest in the land. Many
of the great Prussian statesmen have come from other countries: Stein
was from Nassau, and Hardenberg was a subject of the Elector of Hanover;
even Bluecher and Schwerin were Mecklenburgers, and the Moltkes belong to
Holstein. The Bismarcks are pure Brandenburgers; they belong to the old
Mark, the district ruled over by the first Margraves who were sent by
the Emperor to keep order on the northern frontier; they were there two
hundred years before the first Hohenzollern came to the north.

The first of the name of whom we hear was Herbort von Bismarck, who, in
1270, was Master of the Guild of the Clothiers in the city of Stendal.
The town had been founded about one hundred years before by Albert the
Bear, and men had come in from the country around to enjoy the
privileges and security of city life. Doubtless Herbort or his father
had come from Bismarck, a village about twenty miles to the west, which
takes its name either from the little stream, the Biese, which runs near
it, or from the bishop in whose domain it lay. He was probably the first
to bear the name, which would have no meaning so long as he remained in
his native place, for the _von_ was still a mark of origin and had not
yet become the sign of nobility. Other emigrants from Bismarck seem also
to have assumed it; in the neighbouring town of Prenzlau the name
occurs, and it is still found among the peasants of the Mark; as the
Wends were driven back and the German invasion spread, more adventurous
colonists migrated beyond the Oder and founded a new Bismarck in
Pomerania.

Of the lineage of Herbort we know nothing[1]; his ancestors must have
been among the colonists who had been planted by the Emperors on the
northern frontier to occupy the land conquered from the heathen. He
seems himself to have been a man of substance and position; he already
used the arms, the double trefoil, which are still borne by all the
branches of his family. His descendants are often mentioned in the
records of the Guild; his son or grandson, Rudolph or Rule, represented
the town in a confli