Two Royal Foes

by Eva Annie Madden

For an hour the two emperors conferred, the generals waiting in their boats, Frederick William pacing back and forth on his horse.

Then presently it began to rain, at first lightly, and then suddenly in torrents, as if Heaven itself was weeping over blood-stained Europe.

The King of Prussia rode to and fro, not minding the downfall, but thinking only of the cruelty of the man who had shut him out of the conference.

Everything was against him; he had lost his kingdom, his friend the Czar was deserting him, and yet, as his wife the Queen wrote her father, he was "the best man in the world," a King who lived only to help his subjects; a King who loved right and hated wrong, who believed in good and tried to do it.

But, like the Queen, he trusted in God, and even as he rode up and down, shut out in the rain from the conference, he knew that Napoleon and wrong could not always have their day, that right and justice always conquer. But Frederick William, good as he was, had a foe worse even than Napoleon. At no time in his life could he decide a thing quickly, or at just the right moment. He must think things over, he must look at both sides, and while he wavered in came the enemy and took the prize.

When an hour had passed there came a change. Napoleon summoned all the generals and counsellors, who, drenched and dripping, entered the door of the pavilion.

For two hours more they talked, the King still riding in the rain.

Surely, he thought, the peace which they were making must be favourable to poor Prussia. His friend, the Czar, must see to it. He himself had stood by Alexander; now let Alexander be true to him.

Had they not sworn an eternal friendship; was not his little daughter named Alexandrina, and was not the Czar also the friend of the Queen and the old Countess, to whom he had promised many things?

When Alexander of Russia entered the pavilion in the Niemen he had at heart the welfare of Prussia only. In one hour Napoleon did much. Always he studied citadels, or men, and discovered what we call the weak point. On it he turned his battery.