“My letters are still here, as wind and storms have prevented all vessels from leaving port. Now, I shall provide a reliable messenger and continue to send you news from here. The army has been obliged to retreat farther and farther, and on the twenty-first an armistice of four weeks was arranged by the Russians. The sky often clears when one expects only cloudy weather; it may be so now. No one longs for it more than I, but wishes are only wishes and not realities. Everything comes from above, Thou merciful Heavenly Father!
“My faith shall not waver, but I can hope no more. I refer again to my letter, which was written from the depths of my soul. You will understand me thoroughly when you have read it, dear father. I will live and die in honor and even eat bread and salt, if it must be. I shall never be totally unhappy; only I can hope no more. One who has been overwhelmed as I have been, can have no more hope. Should good fortune come, oh! no human being could be more grateful than I should be; but I no longer expect it. If misfortune come, it may surprise me for the moment, but it cannot overwhelm me, if it is undeserved. Only wrongdoing on our part would bring me to the grave, and to that we shall not come, for we are above it. You see, dear father, the enemy of mankind has no power over me. The King has been with the Czar since the nineteenth; and since yesterday they have been in Tauroggen, only a few miles from Tilsit where the French Emperor is.
“I am at your feet, devotedly yours,
“Louise.”
Chapter V
Louise and Napoleon
An armistice with Russia was concluded by Napoleon June 21, and on the twenty-fifth of June one was arranged with Prussia also, at Tilsit. The next day an interview took place between the Czar and Napoleon, at which the King of Prussia was present. Napoleon’s egotism and haughtiness clashed continually with Frederick William’s directness and honesty. The King met the insolent victor with a noble pride and bore his misfortunes with a dignity which seemed to increase the enmity of the French Emperor. Upon this occasion Alexander conceived the unfortunate idea that the presence of the Queen might facilitate the deliberations and that her graciousness and the nobility of her character would soften the stern purpose of the conqueror. Alexander urged the King to summon his wife to Piktuppönen, a village east of Tilsit, where he returned each evening from the conferences. The King was finally persuaded, and wrote to his wife of the mission proposed for her. He withheld his own judgment and wishes, however, and allowed her to decide the matter entirely for herself. The Queen received the letter while sitting with a circle of intimate women friends, glanced at it hastily, and silently left the room. An hour later she reappeared with a tear-stained face and told the company the contents of the letter. Some of those present advised against the action as undignified and useless. But she explained: “If there is any one who believes that I can save even one village more to the fatherland by this step, I am in duty bound to test that belief. If I must take this painful step, however, I do not wish to do it unprepared; I must know just what to say and what to demand.”
Hufeland tells us that the Queen was beside herself at the thought of meeting the slanderer and defamer, and said: “This is the most cruel sacrifice that I have yet made for my people, and only the hope of being useful to them makes it possible for me.” She wrote in her journal in regard to it: “God knows what a struggle it costs me! For though I do not hate the man, I regard him as the author of the misfortunes of the King and our country. I admire his talents, but I cannot admire his character, which is evidently false and deceitful. It will be very difficult for me to be polite and agreeable to him. But this hard task is demanded of me, and I am already used to sacrifice.”
She left Memel and arrived on the evening of July 4 at Piktuppönen. Here she received her instructions from Minister Hardenberg as to what she was principally to dwell upon in the interview. On July 5 she received a visit from the Czar, and on the sixth Napoleon sent her greeting through General Caulaincourt, and an invitation to dinner. With a French guard of honor she drove in a state carriage with eight horses to Tilsit,—and stopped at the house where her husband lodged. An hour after her arrival Napoleon, mounted on a white Arabian horse and accompanied by a large escort, rode to her door. The King and the princes received him at the staircase. Napoleon, holding his riding-whip in his hand, took off his hat, bowed quickly right and left, and ascended the steps to the Queen’s room, into which the King led him and then left him alone with her. After the first painful moments, the Queen expressed her concern that he had been obliged to climb such a wretched stairway to visit her. Napoleon answered gallantly: “On the road to such a goal, one should fear no obstacles.” She inquired how the northern climate agreed with him. And then she turned the conversation to the negotiations and told him that she had come to try to persuade him to make reasonable terms of peace. And when he loftily inquired: “But how could you go to war with me?” she answered, “Sire, if we deceived ourselves, it was but a natural consequence of the fame of the great Frederick.” This reply was overheard by the celebrated Talleyrand, Napoleon’s clever minister. He is said to have warned Napoleon of the impression the Queen might make upon him, in these words: “Sire! shall posterity be able to say that a beautiful queen has caused you to forego the full results of your greatest victory?” But Napoleon scarcely needed any such warning from Satan, he was Satanic enough himself. After the Queen’s remark he led the conversation to indifferent subjects, asked about the material of her dress, etc. But Louise would not be turned from her purpose. With warmth and even with tears in her eyes she pleaded with him not to impose upon the country this unreasonable burden of a half billion francs for war indemnity and the numerous garrisons, and especially to promise her that Danzig and Magdeburg should remain Prussian. “I will think it over,” he answered, holding out a prospect of an acceptable peace. The conversation lasted a quarter of an hour.
At noon the King and Queen dined with the Emperor of the French; she at his right next to the Czar and the King at his left. Napoleon was very amiable. He was good-humored and talkative, and joked about the danger she had run the previous autumn, when at the King’s headquarters, of being taken prisoner by his hussars. The conversation turned on the cession of the provinces, which Napoleon thought the King ought not to take so much to heart. The King replied: “You do not know how painful it is to lose inherited lands in which the dearest memories of childhood are rooted, and which one can as little forget, as he can his cradle.”
“His cradle,” sneered Napoleon, “when the child has become a man he no longer has time to think of his cradle.”
“Oh! yes,” answered the King, “one can no more forget his youth than he can deny it, and a man of sentiment will always think with gratitude of the cradle where he lay as a child.”
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE