THURINGIA
While Franz, Otto and Carl were fighting, Marianne and Bettina were
nursing the wounded soldiers.
One day Bettina was called to assist with a wounded Thuringian.
When she saw his face she cried out:
"Willy! Willy Schmidt from Jena!"
The soldier's face lit up with welcome.
"Ach Himmel!" he cried, "if it isn't Bettina Weyland!"
But the doctor ordered no talking, and so the two could only smile at
each other. But when Waterloo was many days old, and the soldier almost
well again, there was much to talk about.
Certainly Willy had a strange tale to tell. It was about Bettina's
grandfather.
"Ach Himmel, child!" he said to Bettina, "he is alive and with mother
and father." And he told how, after the "Peace of Tilsit," the old man
had wandered back to Thuringia.
"But don't think he forgot you, Bettina," said Willy very hastily. Then
he touched his head. "Poor old man," he added, "he has forgotten
everything," and he told poor, wild-eyed Bettina that old Hans was like
a child, always talking about Frederick the Great and his battles, and
remembering not a word about Jena.
"But the queer thing," said Willy, "is that he starts at any very loud
noise and he had the mark of a wound on the back of his head. What it
means we have no idea, as he remembers nothing."
Bettina's tears fell fast.
"Grandfather," she said over and over, "my poor, dear, old grandfather!
"I will go home to Jena and see him," she cried. "I will tell Fraeulein
Marianne."
"And I will take you," announced Willy, "just as soon as I am well
enough to travel." And he gazed at Bettina as if he thought her very
pretty.
"And little Hans and the baby?" asked Bettina. Willy laughed as loud as
his weakness would permit him.
"Hans, ach Himmel! That's a joke, little Hans! There's no telling how
many Frenchmen he finished in one battle. The baby is eight now," he
added.
"Hans a soldier, the baby, a big boy!" How the years had flown! Jena,
yesterday; Waterloo, to-day.
"Yes," said the girl, "I will go back to Thuringia."
Then a smile lit her pretty face.
"Do you remember, Willy, how grandfather left word we would come back
when Napoleon was conquered?"
"It is nine years," said Willy, "but you can come now, for Napoleon is
conquered."
Bettina nodded, her face still wet with tears, while her mouth was
smiling.
"They will all be glad to see you," continued Willy. "Mother and father,
and the Schmelzes, and your grandfather Weyland. He is just the same,
quite as if nothing had happened."
And so Bettina went back, and old Hans called her "Annchen," thinking
her always his daughter, and when she married Willy and had children of
her own, he used to sing for them the old song of Frederick Barbarossa,
and tell them how he had seen the beautiful Princess Louisa come into
Berlin in a gold coach to be married.
Marianne went back to the "Stork's Nest," and presently home came her
brothers. Madame von Stork's face lost its troubled look, and only the
memory of Wolfgang came to make their happy home troubled.
"Marianne is the best daughter a mother ever had," she often told her
husband, "and I owe it to our good Queen, for books and Goethe nearly
ruined her."
"Not Goethe," the professor always said, but his wife insisted.
Certainly a great honour was to come to Marianne.
On March 10, 1816, on the anniversary of the birthday of the Queen,
Marianne was summoned to Court, and conducted to a great room where were
gathered all the Royal family and many grand people, but the old
Countess, however, was there no more. She had been a mother to her dear
Queen's children until she, too, had gone her way to a less troubled
country than Prussia. After a long list of names, "Marianne Hedwig Erna
Wilhelmina Ernestine von Stork" was called.
In her trembling hand the King placed a golden cross with the letter "L"
in black enamel on a ground of blue encircled with stars. On the back
were the dates, 1813-14. A white ribbon held it, and there was a pin to
fasten it above her heart. It was the medal of the "Order of Louisa,"
instituted by the King in memory of the Queen, and given to those women
of Prussia who had so nobly soothed the wounded and the sick in the war
against Napoleon. Marianne was the happiest person in Germany.
As for her mother, she was never weary of showing the medal and telling
her friends, "My Marianne received it."
Marianne's friend, Bettina Brentano, wrote a book called "Correspondence
of a Child," into which she put all her wild fancies about Goethe, and
to-day German girls are fond of reading it. She married a German author,
and her granddaughter is a living writer.
But the story is not quite ended.
In the year 1872 crowds were again gathered on the streets of Berlin.
Standing on Unter den Linden was an old man with his grandchildren. His
hair was snow white and his face wrinkled.
"Ja, Gretchen," he said to a little girl, whose hand was in his, "in a
little time we shall see our new Emperor. This is a great day, Liebchen,
for Germany at last is free and united."
"I know, dear grandfather," said one of the others, a clever looking boy
they called Richard, "I have learned all about it in the Gymnasium, of
Napoleon and Jena, and Queen Louisa and Napoleon, and of the Crown
Prince who was Frederick William IV, and all Bismarck's and von Moltke's
dreams of uniting our Germany."
The old man smiled.
"The Queen kissed me once," he said, "Queen Louisa, I mean, the mother
of our new Emperor." Then he laughed.
"It's a great day for your old grandfather, children," he said. "Why,
the Emperor and I, he was little Prince William then, used to fight
battles against rats and mice in the old castle at Koenigsburg. It's a
great day. God be praised that I live to see it," said Carl von Stork to
his grandchildren. "Alas," he added, "that none of the 'Stork's Nest'
are left to rejoice with me!"
"Simple, honourable, sensible" little William had accomplished the great
things his mother had hoped one of her children would do for mankind.
Before he had gone to fight the French Emperor, Napoleon III, at the
battle of Sedan, he had prayed at his mother's tomb that he might do
great things for Prussia. After the Germans entered Paris all the states
had elected him Emperor and Germany at last was one Fatherland.
And now he was returning to Berlin with Bismarck and von Moltke, his
councillor and general.
Suddenly Carl smiled.
"Ah," he said as the Royal guests passed in their carriages, "there is
the Dowager Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. See, Richard, the
pretty old lady with the white hair. She was the Royal baby when we were
at Memel. She was named Alexandrina for the Czar, and how the old
Countess loved her! They called her 'The Little Autocrat.' I remember
Princess Louisa, who was named for the Queen and who was the baby at
Koenigsburg, died during the war. There is 'The Red Hussar,' grandson of
Queen Louisa. Ach Himmel! What a hero!"
When the people of Berlin saw the kind, good face of "little William,"
their new Kaiser, cries rent the air. "Long live the Emperor! Hoch der
Kaiser! Hoch!" There were cheers for his wife, also, the granddaughter
of the Duchess of Weimar, who so bravely answered Napoleon.
As for old Frederick Barbarossa, there is a poet who tells us that, when
he heard all the noise the Germans were making, he sent a sleepy little
page from Kryffhaeuser to see what the ravens were up to.
"They have flown away, Kaiser," announced the frightened little page as
he ran back to the table.
With a great yawn the old Kaiser rose from his chair and stretched
himself. His sword in one hand, his sceptre in the other, a glittering
crown on his flaming hair, he came blinking into the sunlight.
"Ach Himmel!" he cried, for before him were all the lords of Germany, no
longer fighting and quarrelling with each other, but smiling and singing
the lively tunes of "Germany over all," "United Germany shall it be,"
and "The Watch on the Rhine."
The old Redbeard beamed with delight.
"One Germany!" he cried, "then God be thanked and praised! One Germany!"
He turned to little William, standing between Bismarck and von Moltke,
the statesman and general who had made him "Kaiser."
In his hand he laid the scepter, on his head he placed the crown.
"These," he said, "I lay in thy hand."
Then he breathed a long sigh of happiness.
"God be praised," he said again. "I can now go to sleep and be happy,"
and he went back into his cave to his ivory chair and his head sank to
his hands as he settled his elbows on the marble table and the old
Redbeard went again to his dreams.
They say he still sleeps in Thuringia, but calmly and happily, because
there is one Germany, one Kaiser, and the ravens no longer trouble him.