CHAPTER LXI. A BAD OMEN.
The decisive word had been uttered! Prussia was at length going to draw the sword, and take revenge for years of humiliation.
The army received this intelligence with unbounded exultation and the people embraced every opportunity to manifest their martial enthusiasm. They demanded that Schiller’s “Maid of Orleans” should be performed at the theatre, and replied to every warlike and soul-stirring word of the tragedy by the most rapturous applause. They again broke all the windows in Count Haugwitz’s house, and serenaded Prince Louis Ferdinand, Minister von Hardenberg, and such generals as were known to be in favor of war.
All the newspapers predicted the most brilliant victories, and gloated already in advance over the triumphant battles in which the Prussian army would defeat the enemy.
But the proudest and happiest of all were the officers who, in the intoxication of their joy, saw their heads already wreathed with laurels which they would gain in the impending war, and whose pride would not admit the possibility of a defeat. The army of Frederick the Great, they said, could not be vanquished, and there was but one apprehension which made them tremble: the fear lest war should be avoided after all, and lest the inevitable and crushing defeat of Bonaparte should be averted once more by the conclusion of a miserable peace. [Footnote: Vide Varnhagen’s “Denkwurdigkeiten,” vol. i., pp. 389, 390.]
The old generals who had served under Frederick the Great were the heroes in whom the officers believed. “We have got generals who know something about war,” said the haughty Prussian officers; “generals who have served in the army from their early youth. Those French tailors and shoemakers who have gained some distinction only in consequence of the revolution, had better take to their heels as soon as such generals take the field against them.” [Footnote: Hausser’s “History of Germany,” vol. ii., p. 358.]
And in the enthusiasm inspired by their future victories, the officers gave each other brilliant farewell festivals, and indulged in liberal potations of champagne and hock in honor of the impending battles, singing in stentorian voices the new war-songs which E. M. Arndt [E. M. Arndt, the celebrated author of the German hymn, “Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?”] had just dedicated to the German people. When their passions had been excited to the highest pitch by dreams of victory, by wine and soul-stirring songs, they went in the evening to the residence of the French minister to whet their sword-blades on the pavement in front of his door.
“But what should we need swords and muskets for?” shouted the officers up to the windows of the French minister; “for when the brave Prussians are approaching, the French will run away spontaneously; cudgels would be sufficient to drive the fellows back to their own country.” [Bishop Eylert, “Frederick William III.,” vol. iii., p. 8.]
But there were among the officers, and particularly among the generals, some prudent and sagacious men who shared the king’s apprehensions, and who looked, like him, anxiously into the future.
These prudent men were aware of the condition of the Prussian army, and knew that it was no longer what it had been in the Seven Years’ War, and that there was no Frederick the Great to lead it into battle.
It is true, there were still in the army many generals and officers who had served under Frederick the Great, and these, of course, were experienced and skilled in warlike operations. But they were weighed down by the long number of their years; old age is opposed to an adventurous spirit, and in favor of the comforts of life. Nevertheless, these men believed in themselves and felt convinced that victory would adhere to them, the warriors of Frederick the Great, and that no army was able to defeat soldiers commanded by them.
The more prudent men looked with feelings of reverence on these ruins of the magnificent structure which the great king had erected, but they perceived at the same time that they were decayed and crumbling. They well knew that the Prussian army was behind the times in many respects, and not equal to the occasion. Not only were the leaders too old, but the soldiers also had grown hoary—not, however, in wars and military camps, but in parading and garrison life. They knew nothing of active warfare, and were only familiar with the duties of parade-soldiers. They were married, and entered sullenly into a war which deprived their wives and children of their daily bread.
The Prussian army, moreover, was still organized in the old-fashioned style, and none of the improvements rendered indispensable by the rapid progress of the art of war had been adopted by the Prussian ministers of war.
The arms of the infantry were defective and bad; the muskets looked glittering and were splendidly burnished, but their construction was imperfect. They were calculated only for parades, but not for active warfare. Besides, the infantry was drilled in the old tactics, which looked very fine on parade, but were worse than useless in battle. [“The War of 1806 and 1807.” By Edward von Hopfner, vol. 1., p. 46.]
The artillery was well mounted, but its generals were too old and disabled for field service; the youngest of them were more than seventy years of age.
The clothing of the army was of the most wretched description; it was made of the coarsest and worst cloth, and, moreover, entirely insufficient. The rations were just as scanty, and fixed in accordance with the economical standard of the Seven Years’ War.
Besides, there was no enthusiasm, no military ardor in the ranks of the army. The long period of peace and parade-service had diminished the zeal of the soldiers, and made them consider their duties as mere play and unnecessary vexations, requiring no other labor than the cleaning of their muskets and belts, the buttoning of their gaiters, and the artistic arrangement of their pigtails. Every neglect of these important duties was punished in the most merciless manner. The stick still reigned in the Prussian army, and while cudgelling discipline into the soldier, they cudgelled ambition and self-reliance out of him. Not military ardor and manly courage, but discipline and the everlasting stick accompanied the Prussian soldiers of 1806 into the war. [Ibid., vol. i., p. 86.]
The commander-in-chief of this dispirited and disorganized army in the present war was intrusted to the Duke of Brunswick, a man more than seventy years of age, talented and well versed in war, but hesitating and timid in action, relying too little on himself, and consequently without energy and determination. His assistant and second in command was Field Marshal Mollendorf. One of the bravest officers of the Seven Years’ War, but now no less than eighty years of age.
Such was the army which was to take the field and defeat Napoleon’s enthusiastic, well-tried, and experienced legions!
The apprehensions of the prudent were but too well founded, and the anxiety visible in the king’s gloomy mien was perfectly justified.
But all these doubts were now in vain; they were unable to stem the tide of events and to prevent the outbreak of hostilities.
The force of circumstances was more irresistible than the apprehensions of the sagacious; and if the latter said in a low voice this war was a misfortune for Prussia, public opinion only shouted the louder: “This war saves the honor of Prussia, and delivers us from the yoke of the hateful tyrant!”
Public opinion had conquered; war was inevitable. General von Knobelsdorf was commissioned to present to the Emperor of the French in the name of the King of Prussia an ultimatum, in which the king demanded that the French armies should evacuate Germany in the course of two weeks; that the emperor should raise no obstacles against the formation of the confederation of the northern princes; and give back to Prussia the city of Wesel, as well as other Prussian territories annexed to France.
This ultimatum was equivalent to a declaration of the war, and the Prussian army, therefore, marched into the field.
The regiments of the life-guards were to leave Berlin on the 21st of September, and join the army, and the king intended to accompany them.
In Berlin there reigned everywhere the greatest enthusiasm.
All the houses had been decorated with festoons and flowers, and the inhabitants crowded the streets in their holiday-dresses to greet the departing life-guards with jubilant cheers and congratulations.
The king had just reviewed the regiments, and now repaired to his wife to bid her farewell and then leave Berlin at the head of his life-guards.
The queen went to meet him with a radiant smile, and a wondrous air of joy and happiness was beaming from her eyes. The king gazed mournfully at her beautiful, flushed face, and her cheerfulness only increased his melancholy.
“You receive me with a smile,” he said, “and my heart is full of anxiety and sadness. Do you not know, then, why I have come to you? I have come to bid you farewell!”
She placed her hands on his shoulders, and her whole face was radiant with sunshine.
“No,” she said, “you have come to call for me!”
The king looked at her in confusion and terror. “How so, to call for you!” he asked. “Whither do you want to go, then?”
Louisa encircled her husband’s neck with her arms, and clinging to him she exclaimed, in a loud and joyous voice:
“I want to go with you, dear husband!”
“With me?” ejaculated the king.
“Yes, with you,” she said. “Do you believe, then, my friend, I should have been so merry and joyful if this had not been my hope and consolation? I have secretly made all the necessary preparations, and am ready now to set out with you. I have arranged every thing; I have even,” she added, in a low and tremulous voice—“I have even taken leave of the children, and I confess to you I have shed bitter tears in doing so. Part of my heart remains with them, but the other, the larger part, goes with you, and remains with you, my friend, my beloved, my king. Will you reject it? Will you not permit me to accompany you?”
“It is impossible,” said the king, shaking his head.
“Impossible?” she exclaimed, quickly. “If you, if the king should order it so?”
“The king must not do so, Louisa. I shall cease for a while to be king, and shall be nothing but a soldier in the camp. Where should there be room and the necessary comforts for a queen?”
“If you cease to be king,” said Louisa, smiling, “it follows, as a matter of course, that I cease to be a queen. If you are nothing but a soldier, I am merely a soldier’s wife, and it behooves a soldier’s wife to accompany her husband into the camp. Oh, Frederick, do not say no!—do not deprive me of my greatest happiness, of my most sacred right! Did we not swear an oath at the altar to go hand in hand through life, and to stand faithfully by each other in days of weal and woe? And now you will forget your oath? You will sever our paths?”
“The path of war is hard and rough,” said the king, gloomily.
“Therefore I must be with you, to strew sometimes a few flowers on this path of yours,” exclaimed the queen, joyfully. “I must be with you, so that you may enjoy at least sometimes a calm, peaceful hour in the evening, after the toils and troubles of the day! I must be with you to rejoice with you when your affairs are prosperous, and to comfort you when misfortunes befall you. Do you not feel, then, dearest, that we belong indissolubly to each other, and that we must walk inseparably through life, be it for weal or for woe?”
“I am not allowed to think of myself, Louisa,” said the king, greatly affected, “nor of the joy it would afford me in these turbulent and stormy days to see you by my side—you, my angel of peace and happiness; I must only think of you, of the queen, of the mother of my children, whom I must not expose to any danger, and whom I would gladly keep aloof from any tempest and anxiety.”
“When I am no longer with you, anxiety will consume me, and grief will rage around me like a tempest,” exclaimed the queen, passionately. “I should find rest neither by day nor by night, for my heart would always long for you, and my soul would always tremble for you. I should always see you before me wounded and bleeding, for I know you will not regard your safety, your life, when there is a victory to be gained or a disgrace to be averted. Bullets do not spare the heads of kings, and swords do not glance off powerlessly from their sacred persons. In time of war a king is but a man! Permit the queen, therefore, at this time, to be but a woman—your wife, who ought to nurse you if you should be wounded, and to share your pain and anxiety! Oh, my beloved husband, can you refuse your wife’s supplication?”
She looked at him with her large, tearful, imploring eyes; her whole beautiful and great soul was beaming from her face in an expression of boundless love.
The king, overwhelmed, carried away by her aspect, was no longer strong enough to resist her. He clasped her in his arms, and pressed a long and glowing kiss on her forehead.
“No,” he said, deeply moved, “I cannot refuse your supplication. We will, hand in hand, courageously and resolutely bear the fate God has in store for us. Nothing but death shall separate us. Come, my Louisa, my beloved wife, accompany me wherever I may go!”
The queen uttered a joyful cry; seizing the king’s hand, she bent over it and kissed it reverentially, before the king could prevent her from doing so.
“Louisa, what are you doing?” exclaimed the king, almost ashamed, “you—”
Loud shouts resounding on the street interrupted him. The royal couple hastened hand in hand to the window.
On the opposite side of the street, in front of the large portal of the arsenal, thousands of men had assembled; all seemed to be highly excited, and, with shouts and manifestations of wild curiosity, to throng around an object in the middle of the densest part of the crowd.
Some accident must have happened over yonder. Perhaps, a stroke of apoplexy had felled a poor man to the ground; perhaps, a murder had been committed, for the faces of the bystanders looked pale and dismayed; they clasped their hands wonderingly, and shook their heads anxiously.
The king rang the bell hastily, and ordered the footman, who entered immediately, to go over to the arsenal and see what was the matter.
In a few minutes he returned, panting and breathless.
“Well,” said the king to him, “has an accident occurred?”
“Yes, your majesty, not to anybody in the crowd, however. The statue of Bellona, which stood on the portal of the arsenal, has suddenly fallen from the roof.”
“Was it shattered?” asked the queen, whose cheeks had turned pale.
“No, your majesty, but its right arm is broken.”
The king beckoned him to withdraw, and commenced pacing the room. The queen had returned to the window, and her eyes, which she had turned toward heaven, were filled with tears.
After a long pause, the king approached her again. “Louisa,” he said, in a low voice, “will you still go with me? The day is clear and sunny; not a breath is stirring, and the statue of Bellona falls from the roof of our arsenal and breaks its arm. That is a bad omen! Will you not be warned thereby?”
The queen gave him her hand, and her eyes were radiant again with love and joyfulness. “Where you go, I shall go,” she said, enthusiastically! “Your life is my life, and your misfortunes are my misfortunes. I am not afraid of bad omens!” [Another bad omen occurred on that day. Field-Marshal von Mullendorf, who was to accompany the troops, after being lifted on the left side of his charger, fell down on the other.]