"If I have courage enough to listen, you must have courage enough to read," said the queen, almost harshly, "Read—I command you."
And the countess, in a low and tremulous voice, read the disgraceful charge preferred by that journal, which accused the queen of loving the Emperor Alexander in the most passionate manner. "Queen Louisa," said the editor, "was in favor of the alliance with Russia, because her heart had concluded an alliance with the handsome emperor, and she met with her 'fine-looking' friend for the last time in the presence of her husband at the grave of Frederick the Great. The alliance of their hearts was sealed there by a glowing kiss, which Alexander imprinted on the lips of Louisa."
The queen uttered a cry, and sprang up like an angry lioness. "That is not true—that cannot be in the paper!" she cried, almost beside herself.
The lady of honor silently handed her the paper. Louisa seized it, but she trembled so violently that she was hardly able to decipher the characters. She at last read the slanderous article herself. Heart-rending groans escaped her, and a strange twitching and quivering distorted her features. "It is indeed true, I have been wickedly reviled!" she exclaimed, throwing the paper aside. "My enemies will rob me of the only thing remaining—my honor—my good name. They desire to expose me to the scorn of the world. Oh, this disgrace is more shocking than all my other sufferings. It will kill me!" She covered her face with her hands and wept piteously. The tears trickled between her fingers, and fell on her black dress as if adorning it with diamonds.
The Countess von Truchsess was touched by the queen's grief. She softly gathered up the other papers, and was about to leave the room, but the noise of her footsteps aroused Louisa from the stupor of her despair. She quickly dropped her hands from her face and dried her tears. "Stay here," she said; "read the remainder. I want to hear it all." And as the lady of honor remonstrated against this order—as she implored the queen to spare herself, and to close her ears against such slanders, Louisa said, gravely and imperiously: "I want to know it all! Unknown terrors are even worse than those which we do know. Read!"
The countess, therefore, was obliged to read. The remaining numbers of the journal repeated the same charge. They stated, though in different words, that the queen alone was in favor of the alliance with Russia; that the king would be quite willing to make peace with France, but that his wife would never permit it, because she was passionately enamoured of the emperor of Russia, and maintained a tender liaison with him. The queen listened as immovable and cold as a statue; her whole vitality seemed suspended; she then pressed her right hand firmly against her heart; with her left she clung convulsively to the back of the sofa, on which she was sitting, as though she wished to prevent herself from falling. Her eyes stared wildly, as if strange and fearful visions passed before them. Thus she sat, long after the countess had paused, an image of grief and horror. The lady of honor dared not interrupt her; but clasping her hands, and weeping softly, she gazed at the queen, who, in her grief-stricken beauty, seemed to her a martyr. Nothing was heard but the monotonous ticking of the clock, and, at times, a low whistling of the canary-bird, in its gilt cage at the window.
But suddenly Louisa seemed to awake from her stupor; a tremor pervaded her whole frame; the flash of: life and consciousness returned to her eyes. "That is his work," she muttered; "this attack comes from him—from my mortal enemy. It is Napoleon who has aimed this poisoned arrow at my heart, because he knew that nothing could hurt me and my husband more fatally than this dreadful calumny." And uttering a loud cry of despair, and wringing her hands, she exclaimed: "Oh, my God, what did I do, to deserve so terrible a disgrace! What did my husband do that he should be thus exposed to the relentless malice of his foe? Was not the measure of our wretchedness full? Could not that cruel man, who calls himself Emperor of the French, content himself with hurling us into the dust, and with robbing my husband of his states? Is the honor of his wife also to be sacrificed?"
A flood of tears burst from her eyes, and lifting up her arms to heaven, she cried: "My God, why didst Thou desert me! Have mercy on me, and send death to me, that I may conceal my reviled head in the grave! I am accused of an ignominious, sinful love, although I love no one on earth but my husband and my children! And a German pen was bought to write that slander—German eyes did not shrink from reading it, and German men and women permitted it to be repeated in this journal time and again! They did not feel that they were disgraced and reviled in my person—that all Germany was calumniated! For, in my grief as well as in my love, I am the representative of Germany, and to insult me is to insult all German wives and mothers. Woe to you, Napoleon, for stooping to such an outrage! I pardon your attempts to rob me of my crown, but so long as I breathe, I will not forgive your attacks upon my honor!"
She rose slowly and proudly, and lifted her arms and eyes as if to utter a solemn imprecation. "Woe to you, Napoleon!" she cried, in a loud, ringing voice, "woe to you that you did not respect the innocence of the wife, and had no mercy on the honor of a mother! The tears which I am shedding at this hour will one day fall like burning coals on your heart, and for this torment I am now enduring I shall call you to account above! You think you are master of the earth, and, like fate itself, can dispose of empires; but you will be crushed at last—you will one day feel that you are only a weak creature—only dust, like all of us. You will yet sink down in your affliction, and cry for mercy. Let me live to see that day, my God: then my tears will be avenged!"
She paused, her eyes still directed toward heaven, her whole appearance breathing a sublime enthusiasm. She looked like a prophetess with her beaming face and uplifted arms. But after a while her arms dropped, her eyes turned to earth again, and the inspired prophetess was once more transformed into the unhappy woman, who feared she would die beneath the burden of her grief. She burst again into tears, and repeated again and again that terrible accusation, although every word of it struck her heart like a dagger. Gradually, however, the reviled woman, conscious of her innocence, became the proud and pure queen! With quiet dignity she stretched out her hand toward the countess, who rushed to her, pressed her lips on the royal hand, and sobbing asked to be forgiven.