THE FOE CONQUERED
On the eleventh day of June, in the year 1815, Prince William received
his first communion, all the Royal family being present. The next day,
he and his father, the King, departed to join the army.
At Merseburg they were stopped by a courier. A great battle had been
fought near Brussels, the English under the Duke of Wellington, the
Prussians under General Bluecher, the brave commander who had wept when
he had given up the keys of Luebeck.
"Napoleon is conquered!" announced the courier as he handed the
despatches to the King.
The English call the battle "Waterloo," the Prussians, "La Belle
Alliance."
Old Bluecher had proved his words by fighting. The English had fought
steadily, Bluecher having promised to come if he heard the firing. The
French, who had defeated him a few days before, were in a position to
render this well-nigh impossible. But when the cannon sounded, the brave
old Prussian thought only of his promise.
"Forward, children, forward!" he cried to his soldiers.
"We cannot, Father Bluecher," they answered. "It is impossible."
"Forward, children, forward!" the old man repeated. "We must. I have
promised my brother, Wellington. I have promised, do you hear? It shall
not be said that I broke my word. Forward, children, forward!"
And so they came to Waterloo and the Allies conquered Napoleon.
"The most splendid battle has been fought. The most glorious victory
won," wrote old Bluecher. "I think the Napoleon story is ended."
In triumph, the Allies entered Paris, and Napoleon, throwing himself on
the protection of the English, was banished to the Island of St. Helena.
"Alas," wrote a great Frenchman, "had Napoleon made a friend of Queen
Louisa at Tilsit this might never have happened, for then would
Frederick William have refused to join the Allies."
Napoleon had valued Magdeburg above a hundred Queens, but one Queen had
conquered him, and Europe was free from the man who had warred with it
for twenty years.
"But," the Queen of Prussia once wrote, "we may learn much from
Napoleon; what he has done will not be lost upon us. It would be
blasphemous to say that God has been with him, but he seems to be an
instrument in the hands of the Almighty to do away with old things that
have lost their vitality, to cut off, as it were, the dead wood which is
still externally one with the tree to which it owes its existence. That
which is dead is utterly useless--that which is dying does but draw the
sap from the trunk and give nothing in return."
"I did, indeed, enjoy the sight of Napoleon," the mother of Goethe told
Marianne's Bettina Brentano. "He it is who has enwrapped the whole world
in an enchanted dream, and for this mankind should be grateful, for if
they did not dream they would have got nothing by it, and have slept
like clods as they hitherto have done."
After Napoleon had stirred up Europe with his wars, things changed, and
the ways of the world became what we call "Modern Times," and for this
even the poor Prussians thanked him, for many things improved and
liberty came more and more to the people. They spoke their own language,
they drew closer together, and, in their war against a foe, they learned
to love their Fatherland.