The king looked at her in confusion and terror. “How so, to call for you!” he asked. “Whither do you want to go, then?”
Louisa encircled her husband’s neck with her arms, and clinging to him she exclaimed, in a loud and joyous voice:
“I want to go with you, dear husband!”
“With me?” ejaculated the king.
“Yes, with you,” she said. “Do you believe, then, my friend, I should have been so merry and joyful if this had not been my hope and consolation? I have secretly made all the necessary preparations, and am ready now to set out with you. I have arranged every thing; I have even,” she added, in a low and tremulous voice—“I have even taken leave of the children, and I confess to you I have shed bitter tears in doing so. Part of my heart remains with them, but the other, the larger part, goes with you, and remains with you, my friend, my beloved, my king. Will you reject it? Will you not permit me to accompany you?”
“It is impossible,” said the king, shaking his head.
“Impossible?” she exclaimed, quickly. “If you, if the king should order it so?”
“The king must not do so, Louisa. I shall cease for a while to be king, and shall be nothing but a soldier in the camp. Where should there be room and the necessary comforts for a queen?”
“If you cease to be king,” said Louisa, smiling, “it follows, as a matter of course, that I cease to be a queen. If you are nothing but a soldier, I am merely a soldier’s wife, and it behooves a soldier’s wife to accompany her husband into the camp. Oh, Frederick, do not say no!—do not deprive me of my greatest happiness, of my most sacred right! Did we not swear an oath at the altar to go hand in hand through life, and to stand faithfully by each other in days of weal and woe? And now you will forget your oath? You will sever our paths?”
“The path of war is hard and rough,” said the king, gloomily.