DAYS OF DARKNESS
All the Storks, grown and children, liked their new Nest in Koenigsberg.
It was a city, and there was more to amuse one than in Memel. But life
still had its troubles both for them, for the Queen, and for Prussia.
One day Marianne was standing with the children on the bridge of
Kantstrasse. They were looking down at the Fish Market and laughing at
the fish women from the Baltic as they sold their fish. There were Dutch
vessels in the Pregel, and queer sailors, and Marianne told the twins to
look at the queer signs hanging on the houses on the bank. "When the
Poles were here," she explained, "each man painted the sign of his trade
and swung it from his house. See, that was a shoemaker, there was a
tailor."
While they talked, people were passing along Kantstrasse by the dozens,
professors going to and fro, town people, soldiers, sailors or fishers
from the Baltic.
Presently along came Franz.
When he saw the little group he smiled and joined them.
While they watched the scene he told them a dreadful story of Napoleon,
of something which had helped bring on the war.
"It roused all Prussia," he said.
It was the story of the bookseller, Palm of Nuremberg.
In that quaint old town where they make the toys of the world, where the
famous Albrecht Duerer once lived and drew and painted, had lived a
certain honest young man named Palm, and his young wife, Anna. He was a
bookseller, and respected by everybody.
One day he received a package of books by mail which he was to sell in
his shop. The name of the book was "Germany in Her Deepest Degradation,"
but it was anonymous.
Herr Bookseller Palm placed the books in his shop as requested.
A little later he was arrested by order of Napoleon and threatened with
death unless he revealed the name of the author.
Palm had one answer. The books had been sent him without a name, and
that was all he knew.
There was much more, but Franz first told how Palm, who had hidden, was
arrested by a trick. A man pretended to be in great trouble from which
only Palm could save him. The kind bookseller came forward to see the
messenger, was seized, dragged off, and shot without proper trial,
though the women of the town appeared before the judges clamouring for
mercy, and his poor young wife implored his life from Napoleon's
officers. Only a good Roman Catholic priest supported him to the end,
although Palm was a Lutheran. "Shot down like a dog!" cried Franz hotly.
Marianne's tears fell when she heard of the suffering of the wife, of
Palm's goodness, his belief in God, and his bravery in refusing to give
the name of the author.
"How I hate Napoleon!" cried Marianne. "Oh, if I were a man and able to
fight him!"
Those were stormy days in Koenigsberg.
The Stork's Nest was thronged with students and professors, all full of
talk and bitter against Napoleon.
Ludwig stayed there always now, and he was prime mover in a great plan
among the students, and so when Pauline was betrothed to him many
professors and students came with congratulations.
"I shall never marry," said Marianne, quite positively.
Everybody laughed, but she was herself very serious.
"My heart is with my country," she said.
In the evenings all the family gathered again about the big table, but
instead of reading they listened now to talking.
"Stein will save our land," said Ludwig one evening. "God be praised!
The King no longer opposes him, but is guided by his counsel."
"But will Napoleon permit him to remain?" The Professor looked anxious.
Ludwig shrugged his shoulders.
"At all events," he said, "our King's conduct is noble. He had given up
everything, plate, wealth, all he has, to help with this debt to
Napoleon. The future is God's, not ours."
As for the Queen, all Prussia sang praise of her nobility in going to
Tilsit.
Marianne had been once to Memel on a visit to her uncle Joachim, who was
happy now with Rudolph at home again, and had been to Court and had seen
Queen Louisa before she herself moved to Koenigsberg.
She had been reading a wonderful book called "Leonard and Gertrude."
"I wish," she told Marianne, "that I could get into a carriage and start
off to Switzerland and find the author."
His name was Pestalozzi, and he was full of new ideas of how to educate
children.
But what pleased Marianne was the news that the Queen was soon to come
to Koenigsberg.
"But our dear Queen is not well," said the old Countess to Marianne.
"Since her visit to that monster she lies awake at night and weeps and
often suffers a pain in her heart, though in public she smiles and is
always an angel."
"Down with Napoleon!" called out the parrot. "Upstart! Villain! Monster!
Down with the Emperor!"
The old Countess gave him a cracker.
"Pretty Polly," she said. "But now be quiet."
"Upstart! Villain!" repeated Polly.
Then the Countess complained to Marianne of all the noise of the Royal
children and of the conduct of the Maids of Honour.
"One night when our dear Queen was ill the noise was dreadful. It woke
her from a doze and I went out to see who was making it. And what did I
find?"
The old lady shook with offended dignity.
"Why, the Maids of Honour, my child, flirting and laughing with the
generals! I spoke to the King, but, my dear Marianne, what good can it
do? Etiquette has gone entirely out of fashion! The Maids of Honour will
have their ways, will laugh, talk, and behave in a way most unseemly.
But never mind, we shall soon come to Koenigsberg."
It was deep winter when the royal family arrived. The people of Memel
were sad, indeed, to see them depart, and the King wrote them a letter.
"I thank my brave citizens of Memel for their true and steadfast
attachment to my person, my wife, and my whole house. Memel is the only
town in my dominions which has escaped the worse calamities of the war,
but it has proved itself capable of enduring them and ready, if called
on, to resist the enemy. I shall never forget that Divine Providence
preserved to us an asylum in this town and that its people evinced the
warmest and most constant attachment to us."
The people of Koenigsberg on their part were delighted. Immediately they
elected the Crown Prince rector of their famous University.
"On the sixth of March," they said, "we will confer this honour on him,
give a grand fete, and have a torch-light procession."
The Crown Prince, who was thirteen now, thought this very fine, and for
a few days walked about with dignity, but then he grew tired of such
stiffness and joined Prince William and his friend Rudolph von
Auerswald, Carl von Stork, and little Prince Carl, in their battles
against the mice and rats in the old castle.
On February the first all the bells of this old city of the King rang
out most joyfully.
"We have a new little sister," the Royal children told Rudolph and Carl.
"Her name," said the King, "shall be Louisa, for her mother."
"It is because I love thee so dearly," he said to the Queen, "that I
have named our youngest little daughter, Louisa."
Tears started to the Queen's eyes.
"May she, dear Fritz, indeed grow up to be thy Louisa."
"I am weary," the King said, "of lords and ladies. It is the people of
Prussia who have been my friends and helped me. Therefore, it is they
who shall be sponsors at the baptism of my daughter."
So there came men to represent every class of the Prussian people, and
they sat down to as fine a feast as the King's pocketbook would permit
him to give them.
The Queen, who was not well, lay on a sofa and received all the
godfathers of the tiny Louisa, and the baptism took place there, and not
in the church, because of the cold weather.
The Countess von Voss brought the baby to the Princess William and gave
it its name of Louisa Augusta Wilhelmina Amelia for its mother.
The court ladies all wore round skirts and tunics, and the Queen gave
the old Countess a handsome set of ornaments, but they all wept bitterly
for the little girl whose blue eyes had opened on so cold and cruel a
world as Napoleon and winter had made East Prussia.
When all sat at the banquet one of the godfathers arose and addressed
the tiny Louisa, whose blue eyes stared at him in wonder.
"Louisa Wilhelmina," he said, "god-child of the people, thou art a
gentle mediator between the King and us. Mayst thou live to stand a
full-grown blooming virgin amongst thy brothers and sisters; may then
thy royal house be flourishing in renewed glory. Meanwhile, dark hours
will pass like storm-birds over thy head--thou wilt hear the rushing of
their wings, but it will not frighten thee. Thou, sweet one, wilt smile,
feeling nothing but thy childish happiness and the charm of life. Loving
arms will hold thee safely, high above the precipice on the edge of
which we stand. May the future smile on us through thee. In thee we see
thy father's love to us, and by thy bright eyes may the people speak
comfort to the King, saying, 'We are thine, thou art our lord and
master: be strong and true to thyself. Trust not in thy councillors and
thy servants, for they are not all full of courage, nor all of one mind.
What they have done and what they have left undone has brought us near
to ruin. Trust thine own judgment, thine own heart, and we will trust in
thee. We are all thine, master, be strong and true to thyself.'"
But the people of Koenigsberg had other things to think of than tiny
Louisa.
All the patriots of Germany came to and fro, among them Schleiermacher,
who had refused to remain in Halle when Napoleon took the city from
Frederick William. He believed that Austria and England would join in
throwing off Napoleon.
"Now," he said, "while Napoleon is in Spain, let us do what we can."
For, all over Germany, the French army were still masters, driving
people from their homes, burning villages, doing all that Napoleon
permitted.
"Now," cried Schleiermacher.
"Now," cried Ludwig Brandt.
"Now," cried all the students of the University.
So in that summer in Koenigsberg was founded a secret society called the
"Tugendbund," or "League of Virtue," whose purpose was to spread
patriotism throughout Germany. Members sprang up everywhere, agents went
to and fro, and the watchword was "Secresy."
Nevertheless, Napoleon heard of it.
"Dismiss Stein," he ordered the King, "he is the founder. He shall not
remain as Prussian Minister."
Then he put a price on this great man's head, and he was forced to flee
for his life to Prague in Bohemia. He had done his best for his country
and, therefore, Napoleon wished to be rid of him. But it was untrue that
he founded the "Tugendbund."
"I am heartily tired of life," he wrote, "and wish it would soon come to
an end. To enjoy rest and independence it would be best to settle in
America, in Kentucky, or Tennessee; there one would find a splendid
climate and soil, glorious views, and rest and security for a
century--not to mention a multitude of Germans--the capital of Kentucky
is called Frankfort."
But the Prussians refused to be conquered.
"We will outwit Napoleon, who has declared that the Prussian army can
consist only of forty-two thousand soldiers," they cried, and they
drilled soldiers, sending set after set home, always keeping the army at
forty-two thousand, but training every man and boy of Prussia.
Otto von Stork refused to return home, but while he drilled away with
the rest he sent letters telling of the dreadful times of the Berliners,
how they had no food, how even the once rich lived like beggars, how
there was no wax for candles, and how Napoleon had robbed the city of
all he could lay his hands upon.
So another unhappy year for Prussia passed away and brought in 1809.
The Queen's pink cheeks had faded to white, her eyes showed that their
blue had been washed with tears, and about her mouth were lines of
sorrow.
"If posterity," she wrote, "will not place my name amongst those of
illustrious women, yet those who are acquainted with the troubles of
these times will know what I have gone through and will say, 'She
suffered much and endured with patience,' and I only wish they may be
able to add: 'She gave being to children worthy of better times and who
by their continual struggles have succeeded in attaining them.'"
Sometimes she talked this way to the Crown Prince and little William,
and their eyes would glow and they would promise that they would do
great things for Prussia.
When she went through Koenigsberg streets, in the warm days when the
flowers were in bloom, it was the joy of all the little children to
offer her nosegays. Never did she decline one, and she always had a
smile for everybody.
One day came news of Otto which startled his father and sent his mother
weeping to bed. Major Shill, a brave Prussian soldier, refused to stop
fighting against Napoleon, and became a great hero of Prussia, though on
the 30th of December, 1808, while the King and Queen were in St.
Petersburg on a visit to the Czar Alexander, the Emperor had withdrawn
his soldiers from Prussia, and the Brandenburg Hussars and a cavalry
regiment under this Major Shill entered Berlin.
When Napoleon began again to fight the Austrians Major Shill departed
from Berlin against the French without a declaration of war, angering
the King, but attracting a thousand to his banner.
Among them was Otto von Stork.
"Do not grieve, my dear parents," he wrote; "never shall I lay down my
arms until Napoleon is defeated."
But what were a thousand men?
The end came quickly.
Ludwig brought the news to the Professor.
"Shill is killed," he said; "shot while fighting in the streets of
Stralsund. Twelve of his officers have been taken and shot by the
French, the others sent to the galleys."
"Otto! Otto!" cried poor Madame von Stork; "Richard, Ludwig, where is my
Otto?"