The treaty of Tilsit restored to Friedrich Wilhelm a fragment of his kingdom, but even this was to be held by the French till after the payment of a huge indemnity. Napoleon's threat that he would make the Prussian nobles beg their bread had hardly been a vain one, for the unhappy Prussians had to feed, lodge, and clothe every French soldier quartered in their land. Dark as was the outlook, Louise was upheld by loving pride in her husband. "After Eylau he might have deserted a faithful ally. This he would not do. I believe his conduct will yet bring good fortune to Prussia."
To help forward that good fortune they sold most of the crown lands and the queen's jewels, and had the gold plate melted down. Amid their heavy anxieties and pains they were not wholly unhappy, these two, who loved each other so entirely. "My Louise," the king said to her one day, "you have grown yet dearer to me in this time of trouble, for I more fully know the treasure I possess."
She, too, could write of him, "The king is kinder to me than ever, a great joy and reward after a union of fourteen years." Still those about her told of sleepless nights when prayer was her only relief. Her eyes had lost their brightness, her cheeks were pale, her step languid. By the Christmas of 1808 the last French soldier had quitted Prussian soil; but it was not deemed safe for the royal family to return at once to Berlin, and they spent the summer at Hufen, near Königsberg. Parents and children were constantly together, and the mother taught herself to believe that the sharp trials of those years would tell for good on her boys and girls. "If they had been reared in luxury and prosperity they might think that so it must always be."
It was not till the end of 1809 that the exiles turned their faces homeward. They travelled slowly, for the queen was still feeble. Everywhere a glad welcome greeted them; and on December 23d, the day on which, sixteen years before, she had entered the capital a girl-bride, Louise drove through its familiar streets in a carriage presented to her by the rejoicing citizens. Her father was waiting at the palace gate. He helped her to alight and led her in. Three years had gone by since she last crossed the threshold of her home, and what years they had been! Nor was the return all joy, for she knew and dreaded the changes she would find there. Napoleon and his generals had not departed empty handed. They had stripped the rooms of paintings and statues, of manuscripts and antiquities.
As the doors closed a great shout arose from the vast crowd before the palace. Presently she appeared in the balcony, and all saw the traces of long anguish in the lovely face, now bright with grateful smiles.
After a solemn service in the Dom, the king and queen drove through the illuminated city to the opera-house. "The queen sat beside her husband"—so wrote Fouqué afterward—"and as she talked she often raised her eyes to him with a very touching expression.... Our beloved queen has thanked us with tears. Bonaparte has dimmed those heavenly eyes ... and we must do all we can to make them sparkle again."
The bare walls, the empty cabinets of the palace, accorded with the almost ascetic habits now maintained there. Self-denial was made easy by one belief, that Prussia would arise from her great suffering stronger than before. The king and queen were not left to work alone toward that high end. Able generals replaced those who, through treachery or faint-heartedness, had surrendered the fortresses. Stein, now chief minister, curtailed the rights of the nobles, and gave the serfs an interest in guarding the soil they tilled; while Scharnhorst, by an ingenious evasion of Napoleon's edict limiting the Prussian army, contrived to have 200,000 men rapidly drilled and trained. The universities founded at Berlin and Breslau became the head-quarters of secret societies for the deliverance of the Fatherland. Princes and professors, merchants ruined by the Berlin decrees, and peasants ground down by French exactions, joined the Jugendbund, and implicitly obeyed the orders of its unseen heads. Through town and country spread that vast brotherhood, fired by the songs of Tieck and Arnim to live or die for Prussia.
And Louise watched thankfully the dawning promise of better days, "though, alas! we may die before they come."
Perhaps that sad presentiment haunted her husband too. If she jested with her children he would say wistfully, "The queen is quite herself to-day. What a blessing it will be if her mind recovers its joyous tone!"
That spring Louise was attacked by spasms of the heart. They did not last long, and when the court moved to Potsdam she seemed to regain strength, and showed much interest in discussing with Bishop Eylert how best to train her boys so that they might serve their country. Though very weak, she accompanied her family to Hohengieritz, the king perforce returning to Berlin. The loving eyes that watched her saw signs of amendment, but early on Monday, July 16th, the spasms recurred. For hours no remedies availed. She could only gasp for "Air! air!" and when the sharp pain had passed lay exhausted, now murmuring a few words of some hymn learnt as a child, faintly thanking God for each solace sent her, or entreating her grandmother to rest. No complaint passed her lips; she was only "very, very weary."