In the new campaign against Austria, Napoleon arrived before Vienna, May 10. After overthrowing the brave army led so gallantly by Archduke Carl, in the battle of Wagram (July 5-6, 1809), he dictated the humiliating peace treaty at Schönbrunn on October 14, which made the return of the royal family to Berlin impossible. Therefore Louise passed another summer with her family at the country-seat near Koenigsberg. Her health grew worse, and an intermittent fever depleted her system. Austria’s new misfortune, which completed the enslavement of Germany, increased her illness.—“God knows where I may be buried—scarcely in Prussian soil! Austria is singing her swan song and then adieu, Germania!” she wrote in her journal, fearing the utmost from Napoleon’s anger and greed and no longer believing there was any future for them on earth.
Notwithstanding all this, she devoted herself zealously, as far as her strength allowed her to do so, to the schools of the adjacent metropolis of Koenigsberg, as the nurseries of a better future. She was especially interested in the “model institute” installed in the orphans’ home by School-director Zeller. She studied detailed reports and took a lively interest in all that pertained to the moral elevation of the people. She clearly perceived that this would cost great sacrifices. To her sorrow she realized that neither reason nor justice, morality nor piety had been awakened by the misfortunes which had overtaken Prussia. She wrote to a friend: “Our natures are too hardened through selfishness and false education for them to be easily shaken or disciplined. Only great revolutions can and will accomplish this.”
She watched with great interest during this cruel and sorrowful time, the revolt of the people of the Tyrol under the leadership of the heroic, simple, and pious Andreas Hofer, innkeper of Passeyr, against the foreigners. “Hofer!” she wrote, “what a man! This Hofer, a peasant, becomes a field-marshal, and what an able one! His weapons, prayer; his ally, God! He fights with folded hands and bent knee, and slays as with the flaming sword of the cherubim!” How she must have mourned over the fallen hero, when, betrayed by a countryman, he was taken prisoner by the French and shot on the walls of the fortress at Mantua, February 20, 1810!
At the beginning of September Louise had to be taken back to the city castle as the result of a relapse. In those days of suffering she found a comforter in the excellent, liberal-minded Pastor Borowsky. Once, when the King was looking dejectedly into the future, he took him by the button of his uniform and frankly said to him: “Your Majesty must learn faith!” Borowsky describes the Queen thus:
“She is not joyful in this time of trial; but her earnestness is full of quiet cheer, and the insight and composure which God has given her lends to her personality a charm and dignity. Her eyes have indeed lost their former brilliancy, and one can tell that she has wept much and still weeps; but they have gained an expression of sadness and quiet longing which is more beautiful than the mere zest of life. The roses on her cheeks have faded, and a delicate pallor has taken their place; but it is still a beautiful face, and I like the white roses on those cheeks almost better than the red ones. About her mouth, where formerly a sweet, happy smile lurked, one sees now and then a slight trembling of the lips. This shows pain but no bitterness. Her dress is always extremely simple, and the choice of colors shows her mood. Last Sunday I found her alone in the sitting-room, and reading the Holy Book. She quickly arose, met me kindly, and began at once: ‘I have now come to feel and appreciate the wonderful one hundred and twenty-sixth Psalm about which we lately conversed. The more I ponder it and try to understand it, the more its grandeur and loveliness attract me. I know of nothing so elevating and comforting, so deep and so sweet, as these precious words. It is full of a spirit of sadness and yet of victory, of resignation and of the most joyful confidence and trust; it is a hallelujah with tears. I have read it again and again, until it is graven on my memory.’ And then the Queen reverently repeated the psalm, with a soft, but clear, firm voice, varying it here and there and applying it to her condition. The tone in which she recited it betrayed how deeply her richly tuned nature had made it her own.”
Louise’s youngest son, Albert, was born October fourth. At the christening the officiating clergyman spoke of “the dedication of the child to life” instead of the reception of this new soul into the company of God’s elect. This shallow and superficial interpretation, which seemed to Louise like a profanation of the holy sacrament, grieved her deeply. Only the certainty consoled her that the worthiness or the opinions of the officiating clergyman had nothing to do with the holiness of the christening and could take nothing from it, for its power comes from God who instituted it, and not from weak men who perform it. But these occurrences gave her an insight into the true causes of Prussia’s downfall. She expressed this in the words: “We have fallen away from the faith; hence our misfortunes.” All the more urgent it seemed to her that she must never tire in her work, particularly for the religious elevation of the people. In this she was in accord with her husband.
Freiherr von Stein, who had been banished by Napoleon, but whom she considered the “foundation stone of justice” and a “jewel among the German people,” and had always esteemed so highly because the foundation of his steadfast political character was a serious piety and high morality, expressed her sentiments exactly when he said that “it was the highest duty to foster a moral, religious, and patriotic spirit in the nation, to infuse fresh courage, self-reliance, and a feeling of national unity, with a readiness to make any sacrifice for independence.” Thus Louise inspired all the efforts and the work by means of which, in the field of religion, of morality, and of scientific education, the Prussian State was to be regenerated.
Chapter VII
Louise’s Death
Although life in Koenigsberg and its environs was peaceful and pleasant, yet Louise often felt oppressed “in this banishment, this climate of raging storms more than a hundred miles from her home.” A fit of homesickness for Berlin and her Charlottenburg seized her. When at last the time of return grew near, she wept many tears at the thought of finding all as it had been, and yet so changed. “Dark forebodings trouble me,” she admitted, while everywhere the most gratifying and touching reception was being prepared for them.
The King, the Queen, the Princes and Princesses left Koenigsberg December 15, 1809, and during the journey, which lasted eight days, were the recipients of countless proofs of sincere affection from the populace. In Stargard they met old Nettelbeck of Kolberg, who had assisted the commandant Gneisenau so valiantly and successfully in the defence of this fortress, while other Prussian strongholds were shamefully capitulating. He was invited to dinner, and afterward had a long conversation in the adjoining room with the King and Queen. He was so affected at the sight of the long-suffering pair that he cried out: “Ah! as I look upon Your Majesty and my good Queen and think of the misfortunes which still weigh so heavily upon you, it seems as though my heart would break.” They all wept, and Nettelbeck, turning to the Queen, said: “May God long preserve you, my good Queen, to comfort my good King, for without you he could not have borne his misfortunes.”