"MY QUEEN, MY POOR QUEEN!"
On the night of July 18 a travelling carriage dashed towards
Fuerstenburg, the first town within the Duke of Mecklenburg's dominions,
the driver urging its horses to their utmost.
Within sat the King, pale and thin from a severe attack of malaria. With
him were the Crown Prince and Prince William, the faces of the boys wet
with tears, their eyes struggling with weariness.
On dashed the horses.
"Faster! Faster!" now and then ordered the King, clenching his hands.
Presently a rosy light heralded the day, the clarion of the cocks
announced the morning, the stars faded from the brightening sky, and the
carriage dashed through Fuerstenburg.
Two hours more. The King looked at his watch and cried:
"Faster! Faster!"
The people of the town, startled by the wheels, wondered who was passing
in such haste. Later came a second carriage, a girl's white, tearful
face gazing from one window, a round, rosy-cheeked boy against her
shoulder.
It was the King, the Crown Prince and Prince William, and Princess
Charlotte and Prince Carl hastening to Queen Louisa.
After she had reached Mecklenburg the King had joined her.
Never had he seen her look happier.
Like a girl, she told him of how she had been met at Fuerstenburg by her
sister, Frederika, her father and her brothers. Her grandmother, being
old, welcomed her at the door of the Duke's palace, and for the first
time in many years she found herself alone with her own people.
When the King came they were given a public reception.
"But only one, let it be, dear father," begged Queen Louisa. "I feel
that this happiness cannot last. Something oppresses me, so please let
us make the most of seeing each other in quiet."
When she dressed herself for this one reception, her ladies noticed that
she had only pearls for jewels.
"I have sold the rest," she said with a smile, "but, never mind, pearls
are suitable for me, for they signify tears, and I have shed many.
Moreover," and she took out a miniature worn about her neck, "I have my
best treasure."
It was a picture of the King, and the Queen gazed at it lovingly.
"After all these years, my good Fritz loves me quite the same," she
said, and looked as happy as a girl.
"Come, Fritz," she cried to her husband, and led him about, showing him
this and that and telling stories of her childhood. Never had she seemed
so happy.
One morning they were to go to see a chapel the King had expressed an
interest in.
"I will stay with George," said the Queen, who complained of not feeling
well, and so they left her with her brother.
When her father returned he found on his writing desk a note written in
French, by his daughter, the Queen.
"My dear father," he read, "I am very happy to-day as your
daughter and as the wife of the best of husbands.
"LOUISA.
"New Strelitz, July 28, 1810."
At once he showed it, to the King, and the two men were silent with
happiness. But little did they think that never again was the woman who
so loved them to touch paper or pen.
She had not been well, but nothing had been thought of it. And now, in
the early summer morning, the King was hastening to her.
"Faster!" he called. "Faster!"
She had told him good-bye with a smile and the hope of soon seeing him,
and he had returned to Berlin.
There had come despatch after despatch.
"The Queen is ill. She grows worse. Come! Come!"
But this poor, always unfortunate King was himself severely ill with a
sudden attack of malaria. For days he could not leave his bed, and it
was not until the twenty-eighth that he set off for New Strelitz. And
then the Queen was so ill there was no delaying.
It was between four and five in the morning when the carriage reached
the castle.
The Queen, who lay awake in her room, heard them come. At midnight she
had grown worse, at two she had called out to her sister, who at once
went to her bed.
"Dear Frederika," she asked in a voice like a whisper, "what will my
husband and children do if I die?"
But now the King had come.
In the hall he met the physicians. They explained that an abscess had
formed and burst in one lung. The heart was involved and the Queen was
sinking.
"Majesty," they said, "there is no hope."
The Queen's old grandmother, her withered cheeks wet with tears, took
the King's hand in both of hers.
"While there is life there is hope," she said, her old voice struggling
to comfort him.
Unlucky Frederick William shook his head.
"If she were not mine," he said, "she might recover."
The old Duke joined him. In the night they had called him from his
sleep.
The Princess Frederika was at the door.
"Is my daughter in danger?" he asked.
She pressed his hand.
"Lord," said the poor old father, "Thy ways are not our ways."
With trembling hands he now led the King to the room.
Propped up on pillows, the bed curtains looped back to give her air, lay
poor Queen Louisa.
On one side was the old Countess von Voss, Frau von Berg held one hand,
and Princess Frederika the other.
The poor "Rose of the King," whose stem had been so roughly handled, had
drooped forever.
When the physicians had entreated her to move that she might be more
comfortable, it was impossible for her strength to accomplish it.
"I am a Queen," she said sadly, "and I have no power to move my arm."
But when she saw the King, joy made her like the old Louisa.
The King embraced her as if he would never again see her.
"Am I then so ill?" she asked.
The King went from the room.
The poor Queen gazed from one face to the other, and the strength again
left her.
"The King seems as if he wished to take leave of me," she gasped. "Tell
him not to do so, or I shall die directly."
At once he returned and sat on her bed and the minutes wore away, the
arms of the old Countess supporting her dear Queen Louisa.
"Where are my children, Fritz?"
The Crown Prince and William came, hand in hand, to her bed.
"My Fritz! My William!" she said, and gave them each a smile. Then she
struggled to ask about Charlotte, who had sent her a letter about her
birthday full of tears that her mother was absent.
The effort brought on such pain that they sent the boys away.
They went from the castle and out into the garden where the air was
fresh and cool and the dew lay on the roses.
In the room the doctors were begging the Queen to stretch her arms that
she might lie higher.
"I cannot," said the poor Queen. "Only death will help me."
Holding her hand, the King sat on the bed, the old Countess knelt, and
Frau von Berg supported her head.
All through her illness she had repeated over and over the texts which
she loved and found comfort in, but now her lips could only flutter as
the breath came slower and slower.
The poor King, with bowed head, was thinking of Jena and all his Queen
had suffered.
Suddenly the Queen drew her head against the breast of Frau von Berg.
Her blue eyes opened and gazed towards heaven.
"I am dying," she said quite distinctly, "Lord Jesus, make it short."
In a few minutes the Queen of Prussia had passed beyond the power of
Napoleon to harm.
"The ways of the Lord," wrote the old Countess, "are implacable and
holy, but they are dreadful to travel. The King, the children, the city
have lost all in the world. I speak not for myself, but my sorrow is
great. My Queen! Oh, my poor Queen!"