"Ah! your majesty," exclaimed Iffland, smiling, "the consequences were easy to bear after the sublime moment which I had witnessed. I was imprisoned for forty-eight hours at the French guard-house, where they put me on a diet of bread and water. That was all."
"I thank you for suffering so cheerfully for me," said the queen, dismissing Iffland with a pleasant nod. "Would I were able to reward all those who have suffered for us, and endured persecution in love and patience, and to return days of joy for days of sorrow!"
Iffland, who looked proud and happy, stepped back among the members of his committee, and Louisa continued her walk, uttering words of gratitude and acknowledgment, and charming all by her winning and withal queenly bearing.
After the reception was over, she returned to her apartments. The smile disappeared from her lips, and her countenance assumed a melancholy expression. She motioned to her two ladies of honor to leave her, and remained alone with her confidante, Madame von Berg. "Oh, Caroline," sighed the queen, "I can bear it no longer. My heart succumbs under these tortures. They call this day a holiday, but to me it is a day of terror. To-night a party at the palace—a banquet previous to it,—and I must be gay, though suffering severe pain! My heart is bleeding, and yet I am to dance, address pleasant words to every one, and assume an appearance of happiness. I do not know whither to escape with my grief! To whom will Prussia belong a year hence? Whither shall we all be scattered? God have mercy on us!"
"Your majesty views the situation in too gloomy a light," said Madame von Berg, consolingly. "No further events have occurred that need alarm you."
"No further events!" exclaimed the queen, vehemently. "You do not know, then, Caroline, that Count Krusemark arrived from Paris this morning?"
"No," replied Madame von Berg, anxiously; "I do not know any thing about it. What is the meaning of this unexpected arrival of the ambassador?"
"A new calamity is threatening us. Count Krusemark is the bearer of a letter from Napoleon to the king. Oh, Caroline, what a letter it is! One cannot help blushing with shame and anger on reading it, and yet it is necessary for us to be silent. Napoleon menaces because the war contributions are not promptly paid: he talks as a superior to his inferior who neglects his duty; he scolds as a schoolmaster does his pupil who has not learned his task. And we must bear it, we must stoop so low as to beg him to be indulgent! Caroline, we must now solicit the forbearance of the man who has insulted us by every word he addressed to us, and by every look he cast upon us. For do you really know what he threatens to do? He writes that if the king does not immediately pay up the arrears of the war contributions, he will send an army to Prussia, to collect the money, and punish the king for his breach of faith. He will send another army to Prussia!—that is to say, the war is to begin anew, and, as we have become powerless, and cannot defend our frontiers, he means to crush us. He will take every thing, and Prussia will cease to exist. And we cannot pay, we have no means to obtain those millions so unjustly claimed!"
"But the ministers will devise means to pay the contribution, dearest queen; the minister of finance will be able to suggest a scheme to fulfil the engagements that have been entered into, and to discharge the claims which Napoleon has against us."
The queen laughed scornfully. "Baron von Altenstein, the minister of finance, is not of your opinion," she said. "The king asked him to suggest measures by which the liabilities we had incurred might be discharged. But Altenstein replied that he did not know of any, and he then proposed to the king to pay the debt by ceding the province of Silesia to Napoleon."