inquietudes. If I had dared, I should have unhappy union was committed by Frederick gone to Potsdam myself to see him." Again she says: "I have received a most obliging and gracious letter from the dear master, apologizing for not alighting here as he passed, and giving me notice that he will come and see me here some day." From her solitude at Schönhausen she writes that people avoid her, and that she is not included in the invitations to Potsdam. "Yet it is not all this magnificence which attracts me, but the dear master who inhabits the place. I still think with pleasure of the times of Rheinsberg, when I enjoyed perfect contentment, having been kindly received by a master whom I cherish, and for whom I would sacrifice my life. Ah! what regret do I feel now when all is changed; but my heart will always be the same, and I hope that all will again be as of old; this sole hope supports me." But though the neglected queen could not but feel this usage, she bore it without a murmur. Some longings to be with her husband, in place of those courtiers who cared little for him, escaped her; but she acquiesced in his will; and her delight that her sister, who had married the prince of Prussia, should be admitted to the court-circle from which she was excluded, was unselfish and generous. She occupied herself in works of charity, and was the munificent friend of the distressed. She followed her husband in her thoughts through the long struggle of the seven years' war; and while others were cast down by defeat, her strength of mind and piety were never shaken. In the midst of danger she lived in her tranquil thoughts; finding the company of her books better than that of her train, and seeking that peace which the mind that seeks is sure to find. The veneration with which she was regarded by the people followed her everywhere. "Never," says one of the great Prussian preachers, "shall I forget those stormy Magdeburg hours in which her majesty, during the wars, set an example of the highest piety and most heroic confidence in God. When the prudent and the cowardly trembled, she alone was unshaken in her glad hope for the future." The sermon which hailed the restoration of peace expressed the general feeling: "God preserve the mother of this land, who prayed for us in time of need." This life, so tried by private sorrow and public trouble, had other afflictions. She had seen her sister happily married to the prince of Prussia. But the prince had died brokenhearted; and his son, who had succeeded to his expectations and had married the queen's niece, had brought on himself calamities, which were all the heavier that they were the effect of his vices and entailed the ruin of his unfortunate wife. The offspring of this to his queen, and by her was brought up with tender care. The child requited this with the strongest affection; and her letters, when she became duchess of York, showed that her regard remained unabated. The last years of the queen's life were spent at Schönhausen, where Frederick visited her once a year on her birthday. Death carried off her most intimate friends; and, at length, in 1786, her husband followed. He died forsaken, as he wrote, by all the world, but retaining his esteem for his wife, requiring that every one should treat her with attention, and bequeathing her to his nephew with the strongest testimonies of regard. The rest of her life glided tranquilly away, comforted by the respect and affection both of courtiers and people. No marriage of any note was considered satisfactory unless the old queen was present; and parents sought her benevolent smile at the baptism of their children. The walks round her park were open to the citizens; one-half of her income was spent in charity, and a colony of Bohemian exiles found a refuge near the walls of her palace. As the trees had been felled during the wars, she replanted them in her old age; "for, though I shall never see the trees grow up, it will please me to watch the young plants, and to think that the place will be charming after I am gone." At the age of eighty-one, with few dry eyes that day in Berlin, she was carried to her rest; but not till she had blessed her greatnephew at the most important crisis of his life, and welcomed his young and blooming bride, whose life we must now relate. The The reign of the fifth king of Prussia, which began in 1786 and ended in November 1797, had been scandalous from its vices, and had, by the natural influence of example, corrupted Prussian society to the core. avowed scepticism of Frederick the Grant had tainted the opinions of his court; and the vices which had begun in infidelity flourished luxuriantly under the reign of his successor, Frederick William II. He did not preserve the military reputation of his country, and his campaign against the French, after the Revolution, brought on him defeat and disgrace. His sons, as they grew to manhood, witnessed with shame the transgressions of their father. The state of the court, and the wrongs done to their mother, moved them; and the eldest prince felt them the more keenly, after he and his brother had met, in their passage through Frankfort, the two princesses of Mecklenburg Strelitz, and had chosen them for their wives. It was in 1793, whilst the horrors of the French revolution were running their course, and those passions were boiling which were to scathe the whole of Europe, that the young princes met their brides at Potsdam, and made their entrance the sovereigns to the provinces, after their into Berlin on a winter's day in December. accession, left strong impressions on the minds Statesmen as well as poets, old rough war- of their subjects; acts of the kindest considerriors and gentle women, were alike enchant- ation, on the part of the queen, endeared her ed by the young princess who had married to young and old. Her impressions of delight, the crown prince. In describing her, the when she visited the Silesian mountains, were most prosaic became poetical; and Goethe remembered long after by those who witcelebrated her as a heavenly vision. There nessed them. Old men, who had ferried her never was a marriage more auspicious. It through the subterranean lakes in the mines, was grounded on pure affection, a love who had seen her grasp her husband's hand, which lasted through life. The differences and heard her, as she received vivid impresof character were happily met his gravity sions of awe and delight, whisper, "Slowly, by her loveliness, his reserved silence by her good steersman; oh! slowly," treasured up the cheerful candor; her brighter hopes cheered recollection for their later life; recalled that his anxieties, and her sanguine temperament thoughtful and beautiful face, "grand like a checked his disposition to melancholy. It is queen, yet as simple as a child;" and said, true that the courtiers were greatly disquieted with tears trickling down their cheeks, "that when they saw etiquette grievously set at in all their lives they had never seen a woman naught by the young couple. The princess with such a face as hers; why did the gcod horrified her stiff, grim old attendant, when God let her die so early?" Whatever were she snatched one of the fifty girls who wel- the defects in the king's character as a politicomed her with flowers, and kissed the wan- cian, our esteem for the man remains; the dering child; and, shocking to say, when deep piety which both he and the queen manBerlin wished to illuminate in honor of the ifested is recorded to us by attentive witmarriage, the crown prince begged the citi- nesses, and the sketch which Bishop Egbert zens to give the money meant for the illumina- gives of their domestic habits is a picture to tion to the poor. They persisted in calling dwell upon. each other thou;" walked hand in hand in We turn back, before entering on rougher their garden, without their suite; and the scenes, to the incident of the poor woman, prince would drive his wife in an open car- who had wandered into the queen's seat at raige without a retinue. When the king, church, and at the sign of the kind lady sat who, in spite of his vices, had a warm heart, down unconscious. Afterwards reproached presented his daughter-in-law, on her birth- by the grand-marshal, she retired in disquiet; day, with Oranienberg, the princess, desirous but the queen could not be satisfied till that the poor should share in her pleasure, ex- Bishop Egbert went and comforted her. We claimed," Now I only want a handful of gold think of that sabbath evening, when in the for the poor of Berlin." "And how big society of a few friends, while dwelling on the would the birthday child like the handful to sermon they had heard from the story of be?" said the king. "As big as the heart of Ruth, they had sunk into solemn reflection, the kindest of kings," was her prompt reply. till the king rose and whispered to his wife, Oranienberg was found too large for their "I and my house, we will serve the Lord," small income and simple tastes; and on the and withdrew to meditation and prayer. But farm of Paretz, near Potsdam, in a moderate-this life of peace was cast on the most troubled sized house, without state, their life, before period of European history, and was tried by they ascended the throne, was passed. It some of the sorest disasters that ever befell was there that their eldest son, afterwards Prussia. king of Prussia, was born, and that they had Frederick William succeeded to an emto mourn the untimely death of the crown barrassed exchequer. The reputation of the prince's brother, and the death of the queen Prussian armies had suffered during the dowager in a ripe old age. In the autumn French revolutionary wars. The ambition of 1797, Frederick William succeeded his of Napoleon, when he was embarking in his father on the throne; but though their resi- | wars of aggression, found in Prussia disordered dence and position were changed, the new finances and divided councils. The three minSovereigns retained their simple habits, walked isters who were placed at the head of the the streets like their subjects, made purchases Prussian cabinet were men of worthless charin the fair, and allowed the citizens to witness acter, two of them foreigners. Over such the pure taste and affection which character- a ministry, influenced by their sympathies, ized their rulers. The example was not lost some, at least, gained by bribes, Napolcon exon the citizens; and, though the courtiers, crcised an easy command. The cousin of the tainted by the infidelity and vice of two king, Prince Louis Ferdinand, was a man of reigns, declined this new standard of purity, great ability, prompt in action, and of firm the homely virtues of the middle classes were decision. He had much respect for the king's strengthened by the example. The visit of abilities, and, mourned that his want of con fidence in himself should prevent their exercise. He used to appeal to the queen to rouse her husband. Unhappily the influence of the ministers arrested the king's decision; and the treaty which one of them made with Napoleon, after the battle of Austerlitz, destroyed the character of Prussia. The events which followed, and the undisguised resolution of Napoleon to make Prussia the next victim, overthrew the policy of the ministry, and hurried the king into war. He had hesitated when his decision might have secured him the alliance of Russia and Austria. He allowed himself to be plunged into war when Napoleon was strengthened by success; and when the other European states were estranged from Prussia by her own misconduct. The conduct of the war was characterized by the same want of judgment. The choice of the Duke of Brunswick as general was a fatal blunder. The councils of Prussia were betrayed to Napoleon, and the incapacity which the Duke of Brunswick had formerly shown was now increased by age. The gallant Prince Louis fell at the commencement of the war, and the total defeat at Jena annihilated the hopes of Prussia. The queen was a partaker of the full weight of this disaster, as she had accompanied her husband to the army, both to cheer him by her presence, and to encourage the troops. She was, indeed, of a mind equal to the difficulties; while the king was depressed, she was collected; and Gentz, who met her in the camp, was struck with the precision with which she reasoned, and the just judgment which she formed both of men and events. Whatever could be done under the unfavorable circumstances of the campaign was suggested by her; and the cheerful smile and sweet voice with which she said to the soldiers, "Children, fight like Prussians," inspired courage which indeed was vain, as there were no generals to direct it. After the fatal battle of Jena, she retired from Berlin to Küstrin, and from thence, as Leipsic and Berlin were in the hands of the enemy, and Magdeburg fell, she fled with the king to Königsberg. The king's fainting spirits were sustained by her resolution; but the trial, though it could not overcome her, bent her to the ground. Her subjects mourned when they saw her grief-bowed head as she walked at Küstrin, with the king, on the walls; and those who were admitted to her presence at Königsberg marked with sorrow the traces of deep suffering in her face. She had, indeed, personal as well as public wrongs to endure. As Napoleon found that the queen was the object of the loyal affections of the Prussians, he felt that the best mode of detaching them from their allegiance was to defame her character. The foulest calumnies against her were circulated in public journals; and when the anguish caused by this and her husband's danger overthrew her health, public calamities thickened upon her. For a fortnight she had been in danger from a low fever, when news came of fresh defeats. On a damp winter's day she had to fly from Königsberg and to take refuge in Memel, the only town which remained to them. Still, through all her illness and sorrow, no word of impatience escaped her, and her smiles and kind words cheered her attendants. The assistance of the Emperor Alexander changed the face of affairs, and the queen was enabled to return to Königsberg, and to give her time to the instruction of her children. The literary men, who found a refuge there and were admitted to her society, speak with enchantment of her character-the childlike ingenuousness, the winning attention, and the thoughtful kindness. To her son, then a boy of twelve, she expressed her secret feelings, because she wished to strengthen his character; but with others she never talked on politics. History, education, manners, were her favorite topics; but above all religion. Bishop Borowski's society was a great comfort to her. He found her at times in an agony of tears, when she poured forth the words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But he heard her also bear witness to the consolations of religion. "I have been reading," she said to him, "that precious 126th Psalm, on which we spoke together when you were last here. Amidst all the sorrow it expresses, the conquering hope rises like the morning dawn; and through the storm of misfortune one hears the glad song of the victor. There is in it a spirit of sadness yet of triumph, of resignation yet of glad confidence; it is a hallelujah in tears." These sentiments encouraged her under every reverse. Writing to her father from Königsberg in May, 1807, when there was a gleam of light, she says that, "Dantzig held out; Blücher was in the field; all will yet be well, and we shall yet be happy." The following month she writes from Memel, after Dantzig and Königsberg had fallen, that she will soon have to leave the kingdom with her children; "but I direct my eyes to Heaven, from whence comes all, both of good and of evil; and my firm be lief is, that He will not send more than we can bear." And, again, in a later letter, she writes, "On the path of right to live, to die, or, if so it must be, to live upon bread and salt, never shall I be wholly unhappy." Hope was now gone, yet she says: "Yet all comes from thee, Father of Goodness; my faith cannot waver, though I can hope no more." One who had seen her in May, 1807, writes thus of her habits: "The queen leads a most retired life; the exercise of benevolence and MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENS OF PRUSSIA. cacy, that it was impossible to take offence. The In her interviews with Napoleon, she pleaded with warm eloquence the cause of her country; she conjured him to prove himself a hero, by showing magnanimity to a vanquished foe, to grant her the happiness of being able to assure him that he had won her esteem, and at least to give back Magdeburg. Napoleon was moved for a moment; his resolution was shaken, but the blight of Talleyrand's influShall posterity say that ence interposed. Napoleon sacrificed his greatest conquest to a pretty woman?" Before her departure, the unhappy queen made a last effort; and then finding it useless, threw herself sobbing into her carriage, overwhelmed with the convic tion of the useless degradation to which she had submitted. 66 humanity fills up her days. She seeks, so She arrived on the 5th of July, at Tilsit, and far as her sex permits, to alleviate the mis- was received by Napoleon with outward cour At dinner she was seated between the eries occasioned by war; she provides, with tesy. incessant efforts and with considerable con- two emperors, and Napoleon paid her the tributions, for the wounded and the needy. utmost attention. He admitted afterwards She visits no theatres, gives no concerts nor not only her singular beauty, but her bewitchballs; but every one who, like myself, has ing power; that in spite of all his efforts she the pleasure of approaching her, must ac- constantly led the conversation, returned at knowledge that she, or else no woman upon pleasure to her subject, and directed it as she earth, realizes the high idea of fairest woman-chose; but still with so much tact and delihood. Not striking but softly magical is the impression which she makes on all. calm, the resignation, with which she bears her misfortunes, deeply touches the heart." From these scenes of suffering, but of tranquil patience, she was led to a sharper trial. The defeat of the Russian forces disposed the emperor of Russia to make peace; and the temptations which Napoleon held out to him on the side of ambition, drew both emperors into a close friendship. Prussia had now to learn how much her confederacy with Russia cost her. The assistance of Russia had been fruitless, her desertion was fatal. Happily, however, the designs of Napoleon were too openly made known. He himself had stated that his intention was to name Jerome Buonaparte king of Prussia, and to expel the royal The Elbe became the boundary of Prussia, family. Even to Alexander he divulged his project of crushing the Prussian throne and and an enormous sum was laid upon the imleaving the sovereign scarcely a margrave of poverished country. The king and queen Brandenburg. But such projects alarmed returned to Memel, where in a country town Alexander; to have on his frontier such a and in a private house, they passed a life of neighbor as Napoleon was seriously to be the strictest economy. Many a citizen was deprecated. What fidelity to treaties would better lodged, and kept a better table; the not make him do was suggested by his own golden plate of the great Frederick was interest. He exerted himself to preserve melted down; and loans and gifts from their Prussia; and, as he hoped much from the sympathizing subjects were received in order talent and fascination of the queen, he invited to meet the French contribution. The king her to Tilsit. It was a bitter trial to meet and queen were much affected by letters "Our the usurper who had conquered her country, from their subjects in Lower Westphalia, and the slanderer who had defamed her whom they were obliged to abandon. character. "What struggles it has cost me," hearts were nigh to break," so the latter ran, she writes in her diary, "God only knows!" when we read thy farewell to us; we could It will cost me much to be courteous to him; not persuade ourselves that we should cease but the hardship is required of me, and I am to be thy true subjects, we who loved thee used to make sacrifices." Her presence was always so much." indeed necessary; for the king of Prussia, naturally dejected, and now depressed by -a sad and helpless misfortune, was present, spectator of arrangements which he could not influence. When he spoke to Napoleon of the pain of losing hereditary provinces, Napoleon answered with contempt, "Such losses are common in the chances of war." When he answered, "That one could not forget them any more than one can forget his cradle;" "The camp should be the cradle," answered Napoleon; a man has no time to think of such things." With these dispositions, and this insolence of conquest, it was not likely that a woman's influence could prevail. Yet the queen did all in her power. 66 "The Under this cloud the faith of the queen did not fail, nor her strength of mind. king," she writes, "is greater than his opponent; he has refused a confederacy with evil, and this will bring Prussia a blessing some day." The king derived comfort from lis wife's strength of mind, and from the consolations of his friend Bishop Borowski. opened to him the counsels of God from His word, and led him to see through this sore discipline a vista of future blessings. In every thing the vigor of the queen's mind was felt. Hardenburg and Stein were the ablest ministers of Prussia. Stein had been unjustly dismissed early in 1807, through the cabal of a rival minister. Hardenburg had been sacri "The ficed to the peremptory orders of Napoleon. therefore without all moderation; and he who Before his retirement he had entreated the does not keep within measure, loses his balking to send for the able and faithful Stein; ance and falls." Her belief in God and in but it was natural that Stein should remem- his moral government gave her an assured ber the wrongs he had received. Then it was hope that the reign of violence would be temthat the queen wrote to him a letter of en- porary, and that better times would come. treaty, and she prevailed. "Stein is coming," Of herself she speaks in terms alike touching she writes, " and with him a little light dawns in their resignation and foreboding. upon me." "Thank God," she writes again, good which is to come we shall not behold," "Stein is here; that is a proof that God has she says, "but shall die upon the road. As not forsaken us." It was indeed a fearful God wills; all as he wills it; but I find state of things which the new minister of the strength, courage, and cheerfulness in this interior had to face. A weak country was hope, which lies deep in my soul. The world trampled under foot by a grasping conqueror. is in a course of transit; we, too, must pass The Prussian ambassador at Paris was refused through it. Let us take heed that every day an interview with the emperor, and was renders us more prepared and better." treated by his minister for foreign affairs with Yet she had her consolations. The king's insolent contempt. Prussia must take care affection was constant; "his friendship, his how she behaved, her future fate depended confidence, and affectionate behavior make on her submission. A portion of Silesia had my happiness." As the French troops had been left to her. Now it was torn away; the partially evacuated Prussia, the royal family concession, it was said, had been a mistake, was able, by January, 1808, to remove to a slip of the pen. Say, if that be not enough," Königsberg. There Louisa, whose health had writes the queen, "to justify despair?" Mar- suffered severely, gave birth to a daughter. shal Soult domincered over Prussia, "he A touching ceremonial took place at its bapdoes," the queen writes, "what he chooses, tism, when representatives from the various and may hold us prisoners in Memel for classes of old Prussia stood, sponsors to the years." An enormous contribution must be child, and, as they laid their hands upon it, paid, and to secure it the French demanded prayed in mutual sorrow that the king and five fortresses, to be garrisoned with 40,000 his people might remain united. As the spring Frenchmen, who were to be clothed and fed came on, the king hired a small country house at the expense of Prussia. "This is our near Königsberg, to which he removed his frightful position; every one here is in despair. family; a house so small as not to contain all My future is of the gloomiest. If we only the royal children, but they were surrounded keep Berlin; but sometimes the thought with the affection of their people, who watched weighs on my boding heart, that that, too, will at their own doors to see them pass, and to be taken from us and made the capital of bless them, hung garlands of flowers on their another kingdom. Then I should have only gate to mark the king's birthday, and paid to one wish,- to emigrate far away, to live as the queen the homage of a warm attachment, private people, and, if possible, forget." The which was increased by her acts of considerqueen's feelings are more fully developed in ate kindness. The village country house her letters to her father, written early in revived the thoughts and pleasures of their the spring of 1808:earlier days. "You will gladly hear, dear father," she writes, "that the misfortune which has struck us, has not penetrated to our married and domestic happiness, but has rather confirmed and purified it. The king, the best of men, is more affectionate and kind than ever. - "All is over with us for the present, if not for ever. For my life, I hope nothing more. I have resigned myself, and in this resignation, in this dispensation of heaven, I am now tranquil and enjoy repose, which, if it be not earthly happiness, is something more, even spiritual peace." She then remarks, in very striking terms, on the dealings of Providence, which employed Napoleon as its instrument to correct the vices of German institutions, and to break up that old system which should pass away. And then she speaks of him with a true prophccy, as not firm and secure upon his glittering throre. "For," she says, "truth and justice only are calm and secure; while he, in his boundless ambition, consults only himself and his personal interest; dazzled by success, and thinking nothing impossible to him, he is · I often think I see in him still the lover and the bridegroom. More given as he is to actions than to words, I recognize his consideration and love for me everywhere. Only yesterday he said to me quietly and simply, with his truthful eyes fixed upon me, Dear Louisa, thou hast become to me still dearer and more precious in misfortune. Now I know from experience what I possess in thee."" Then she tells her father of the character of her children; "on whom," she says, our eyes dwell with satisfaction and tented; health, air, tranquil scenery, a few hope. One does not require much to be conshady trees, a few flower beds, and an arbor, 66 |