Napoleon had insisted upon the dismissal of Hardenburg as Prime Minister, and in September the King called Stein to his assistance. From the Queen this great man received a letter.
"I conjure you," she wrote, for he had made some objections to remaining in office with a certain fellow minister, "have but patience in the first few months. For Heaven's sake, do not let the good cause be lost for want of three months' patience. I conjure, for the sake of the King, of the country, of my children, for my own sake, patience!
"Louisa."
As for Baron von Stein, he had at heart only the good of Prussia, and waited.
The war was ended. Prussia was in the dust; its King and Queen exiled from the capital. Crops were ruined, villages were burned, and this poor, unhappy country must pay its war debt.
"Now, God be everlastingly praised," wrote the poor Queen, "that my daughter, who would now be almost fifteen years old, came dead into the world."
"I must play my life days in this unlucky time," she said. "Perhaps God gave me my living children that one of them might bring good to mankind."
And there was one who did the great things the Queen dreamed of.
It was not the handsome Crown Prince, though he was a clever monarch; it was not Princess Charlotte, though she became Empress of Russia; it was not Alexandrina, who, a lovely old lady, died only a year or two ago as Dowager Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg; nor jolly Carl, nor Louisa, nor Albert, who came later.
It was simple, honourable, sensible little William. Every pain his mother felt sank deeply into his heart, and at last the day came when he led the Prussian army to the great battle of Sedan, where he conquered the nephew of Napoleon and created the German Empire.
But no one dreamed of this that dreary summer in Memel, and though the Queen did her best to be cheerful, all who loved her saw that the canker-worm of sorrow was drawing nearer and nearer the heart of the beautiful "Rose of the King," the flower whose stem had been so roughly handled by its enemy.