"And it is true," said Franz, gazing about the room, his eye resting on the handsome old Countess, looking bored because of her love of her own Saal in the evening, yet brightening if the Queen so much as looked at her, at the Princes and Princesses hanging on their mother's words, at the young poet, happy ever in the honour done his verses, at Frau Argelander, at the people of Memel.
"Ja, ja," he said, "the Angel of Prussia, the Queen of Every Heart!"
But there was one person who was determined not to let the Queen of Prussia be happy.
"Pay your war debt. Pay me what you owe," Napoleon kept crying.
The King of Prussia, who had no money, begged for time, and he would pay everything.
"Pay me, and at once," insisted Napoleon.
What was the King to do? He had no money.
Then his brother, Prince William, had an idea.
"There is no gold," he said, "how can we pay? I will go to Paris and entreat Napoleon to have mercy."
He said this in public, but his real plan, told only to his wife, was to offer himself as a hostage until Prussia could pay her debt.