"Your majesty," she said, in an imploring voice, "you promised to take rest, for the sake of the king and of your children. Remember the burden of care weighing down the heart of his majesty. Remember that his grief would be more intense if he should see your eyes reddened with weeping, and find you prostrated in your distress."
"He shall not see it," said Louisa. "In his presence I will conceal my tears, and seem hopeful and courageous. Let me, therefore, now at least, pour out my overwhelming sorrow, for tears are the only consolation of the afflicted. When I am with my husband once more, I shall try to smile, and only weep in secret. Are you now satisfied, my faithful friend?"
"Your majesty had graciously promised me to take some refreshment, but the footman has long since announced that dinner is ready."
"Come, Caroline, we will eat," said the queen, rising hastily, and laying her hand on her friend's shoulder.
She kept her word, and did eat a little, trying to become more cheerful by conversing with Madame von Berg about her children and her approaching reunion with her husband.
"Believe me, Caroline," she then said gravely, "it is not vanity and longing for worldly splendor that causes me to bewail our present trouble. For my part, I would gladly lead a private life, and be contented in retirement and obscurity, if I could only see my husband and my children happy at my side. But the king is not allowed to be as other men are—merely a husband and father; he must think of his people, of his state, and of his royal duties. He is not at liberty to lay down his crown any more than we to destroy voluntarily the life we have received from God. 'With it or on it,' said the heroic mothers of Sparta to their sons, when delivering to them the shield with which they went into battle. And thus the king's ancestors, who have bequeathed the crown to him, call from their graves: 'With it, or buried under it!' It is the inheritance of his fathers, which he must leave to his children; he must fight for it, and either triumph or perish with it. That is the reason why I weep, and see nothing but years of disaster and bloodshed in store for me. Prussia must not make peace with Napoleon; she must not, in hypocritical friendship, give her hand to him who is her mortal enemy. She must remain faithful to the alliance which her king has sworn on the coffin of Frederick the Great to maintain; and France will resent this constancy as though it were a crime. But, in spite of her anger, we must not recede; we must advance on our path if we do not wish to lose also our honor, and if history is not to mention the name of Frederick William III. in terms of reproach. Germany hopes that Prussia will save her—the whole of Europe expects us to do our duty to the fatherland, and this duty is to wage war against the tyrant who wants to subjugate Germany, and transform her into a French province—to resist him as long as we have an inch of territory or a drop of blood in our veins! See, my friends, such are the thoughts that move my heart so profoundly, and cause me to weep. I clearly foresee the great misfortunes that will crush us in case we should proceed on the path which we have entered, but I am not allowed to wish that Prussia should turn back, for we may be permitted to be unfortunate, but never to act dishonorably. And I know these to be the king's views, too—he—but hark, what is that?" she interrupted herself. "Did it not sound as if a noisy crowd were approaching? The tumult draws nearer and nearer! If they are French soldiers, I am lost!" She rushed to the window, and looked anxiously down on the street. A vast multitude approached, yelling with rage, and threatening with their hands a pale, trembling man walking between two others who had seized him, and whose eyes closely watched every motion he made. That man was Cabinet-Counsellor Lombard, who, on his escape from Berlin, had safely reached Stettin.
Just as he was about entering his carriage, in order to leave the latter city, a few of the bystanders recognized and detained him. Those who were in the streets soon gathered around and curiously looked on during his altercation with the men who had stopped him.
Suddenly one of them turned to the crowd and exclaimed in a loud voice: "Do not permit this fellow to depart. It is Lombard, the Frenchman, the traitor; he has assuredly come to Stettin in order to prevent the queen from continuing her journey, or to inform the enemy whither she is going. Let us arrest him, that he may not betray her!"
"Yes, yes, arrest him; do not release him until long after the queen's departure," cried the people. Threatening men surrounded the traitor on all sides, and anxiously scanned his pale, cowardly face.
"Let me go, kind friends, let me go!" begged Lombard, and now all his arrogance and haughtiness had disappeared. "You do me the greatest injustice; I am a faithful servant of the king, and have come to Stettin in order to wait on her majesty, and to offer my services to her."