QUEEN LOUISE and her two sons
On the road she had not even been able to get fresh horses at Bärwalde. Rather than furnish them the steward had turned them loose. So far had some of their subjects already fallen from their allegiance. Bad feeling, cowardice, treachery, and incompetence had spread since the misfortune at Jena, through military, official, and citizens’ circles. One fortress and one division of troops after another were needlessly surrendered to the enemy. It became evident that since the last years of Frederick the Great social decay had spread, not only in the army, which was insolently resting on its former laurels, but in official circles and even in the life of the people. Of this few had had any inkling, least of all the thoroughly upright King and the noble Louise. “Disaster had to come, or we should have burst with pride,” acknowledged a Prussian years afterwards.
The whole country between the Weser and the Oder became a prey to the enemy after the reserves under the Prince of Württemberg had been defeated and destroyed near Halle. Napoleon arrived in Potsdam October 24 and made his entry into Berlin on the twenty-seventh. Here he gave free vent to his ill-humor. According to him, Queen Louise and the Prussian nobles were to blame for everything. “I will bring these patricians down to beg their bread on the streets.” He pursued the Queen with the most violent abuse. He called her the “cause of all the troubles which had befallen Prussia.” He brought contempt upon her by pictures and writings. Even when, three years later, Major Schill marched from Berlin with six hundred hussars, called on the people of Germany to rise for their liberties, and fell fighting at Stralsund, this also was attributed to Louise, and Napoleon caused an engraving to appear in Paris, which represented her in the uniform of the Schill hussars. The attempt made by Frederick Staps in Schönbrunn at that time to assassinate the tyrant, Napoleon declared was planned in Berlin and Weimar. When a general doubted this, he exclaimed, “Women are capable of anything.”
These unworthy attacks and slanders of course did not injure her in the eyes of her subjects, as Napoleon wished. On the contrary, the Queen grew dearer to every good Prussian because of this abuse, and many heroic hearts were burning to avenge her wrongs. These attacks of her ignoble opponent could not always be kept from the Queen, and cost her much agitation and many tears. “Can this wicked creature not be content to rob the King of his State? Must the honor of his wife be sacrificed also, by this contemptible wretch who spreads the most shameful lies abroad concerning me?”
As prospects for a favorable turn of affairs were very slight, the King thought it advisable to open peace negotiations. Napoleon already demanded (October 22), at Wittenberg, that the Elbe should be the western boundary of Prussia, and that the King should pay one hundred million francs as war indemnity; but he was willing to permit him to keep Magdeburg. These demands appeared too harsh after but one defeat, and ambassadors were sent to Napoleon at Berlin to secure more favorable terms. In the meantime, however, Prince Hohenlohe had been obliged to lay down his arms, with twelve thousand men, at Prenzlau. The fortresses of Erfurt, Spandau, Magdeburg, and others were surrendered to the enemy by their cowardly commanders with incredible quickness, and Napoleon would no longer consider the Wittenberg conditions. He determined to keep as much territory as possible, so that he could force the English, as allies of Prussia, to hand over as many of the conquered French colonies as possible. He offered an armistice on condition that the principal fortresses in Silesia and on the Weichsel should be turned over to him, that the Prussian army should withdraw to the northeast corner of the dominion, and the assistance of Russia be declined. By means of this treaty, which the plenipotentiaries of the King accepted November 16 in Charlottenburg, Napoleon would have had Prussia completely in his power. The King who had gone with his consort from Cüstrin by way of Graudenz to Osterode, held counsel with his generals and ministers, most of whom were in favor of confirming the treaty. Stein, however, persuaded him to reject it, as it gave no guarantee of lasting peace and threatened the very existence of Prussia. At this, Napoleon declared: “If the King will not separate his affairs from Russia, he must take the consequences of the war. Should we conquer the Czar, there will no longer be a Prussian King.”
Louise took fresh courage from her devotion to Prussia’s honor and favored rejection of the treaty, in accord with the Minister Stein. She had always recognized in him one of the bulwarks of Prussia, and she placed in the King’s hands his memorial on the changes in systems of government. However, the two men did not understand one another, and the King, considering him an obstinate, pig-headed person, gave him permission to resign.
In political affairs Louise held to the faith which “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Her motto was: “Only enduring resistance can save us.” But on receiving news of one disaster after another; seeing nothing but good fortune attending Napoleon and nothing but misfortune the Prussians; seeing nothing but misery, the strong woman had her weak moments, when doubts tortured her as to whether she had been right in preaching resistance to the conqueror, or whether it was not presumptuous rebellion against the cruel fate which seemed to have overtaken her house and her country. On the way from Koenigsberg, at Ortelsburg, December 5, 1806, she wrote in her journal these verses from Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister”:
“Who never ate his bread in sorrow,
Who never spent the darksome hours
Weeping and watching for the morrow,