"Then, suddenly, everybody began to cry 'Ah Heaven!' and lift up hands in horror. It is a rule that the Guard must wear queues, and Prince William's hair was too short for a pig-tail. 'And there they were,' said the Countess, 'acting as foolishly as they are doing about this war, when I simply sent out for a false queue and tied it on the child's hair, and ended the trouble.' Then they gave him a little cane, and behold, a fine soldier!
"He is my favourite, and sometimes I think that the Countess likes him better than the Crown Prince, who certainly knows that he is clever, but he is very handsome. Then the Countess told us of how dreadful it was at Königsberg, where our dear Queen was so ill, and how, when they told her that the French were at hand, she begged to be allowed to travel. She had a great horror of that monster, Napoleon, who has vowed to capture her, and so she told them it was better to fall into the hands of the good God, than into the hands of man.
"Mother asked the Countess why Napoleon so hated the Queen. Before she could answer her parrot suddenly called out in the funniest way: 'Napoleon is a monster! Our Queen is an angel! Down with the French!' You can guess how startled we were, but...."
Before Marianne could end her sentence she heard Otto calling: "Marianne! Marianne!"
She flew downstairs and into the great kitchen.
There were Pauline, her mother, the children, and her father all listening to her uncle.
"The courier has come!" cried Otto. "Uncle will tell us the news!"
Both Russians and French claimed the victory, but such sufferings had never been known in the world's history.
Amid the ice and snow, all had waited for days, the Russians occupying a church and graveyard, the camp fires lighting snowy fields and trees and bushes which crackled.
"The courier, dear Richard," the old major addressed his brother, "says thousands are sleeping a sleep from which even the love of their families never can wake them."