Chapter III: Part 3

Under the same roof were murderers and women of the town; and in the morning, when the cell-doors were opened, the scum of the earth, as one authority tells us, collected in the corridor. On each side of this corridor (the only place where the prisoners could take exercise) were small cells, and one of these, separated only by thin walls from the most depraved beings, whose vile language was constantly audible to her ears, this refined and elegant woman was forced to occupy. She suffered acutely from this proximity to depravity and vulgarity at first; but ere long she transformed the vicinity in which her cell was situated "from an inferno to an oasis of peace." When she walked in the corridor, where at first she was pointed at, abused and reviled, she was now surrounded by wretched beings who clung to her skirts and regarded her as a divinity. Her sweet voice soothed brawls, her words of courage inspired the most hopeless. Everybody loved her, everybody desired her acquittal.

Meantime she was writing her famous "Memoirs," and the touching letters to her husband, her child, and to Buzot. After an imprisonment of more than six months, she was finally called before the judge and the prosecution, and accused of being the wife of Roland, the conspirator, the friend of his accomplices. Twenty-one Girondists had already been executed, and she could not hope to escape. She was condemned to death as guilty of traitorous relations with conspirators. She heard the sentence proudly, and replied, "You consider me worthy to share the fate of the great men whom you have assassinated. I shall try to carry to the scaffold the courage they have shown."

Robespierre signed her death-warrant. He had been her friend, guest, and correspondent. She had helped him when he was unknown, defended him when he was in need of a defender. But he sent her to the scaffold; and on November 9, 1793, the tumbril came to convey her to the guillotine. It had taken many others on that same day; and now her only companion on that fatal ride was a trembling old man named La Marche. He wept bitterly, but Madame Roland cheered him with words of courage and strength.

When they arrived at the Place de la Concorde, she begged the executioner to permit the "etiquette of the scaffold" to be waived, and to allow La Marche to die first, that the sight of her death might not accentuate his fear and misery. So to the last moment of her life she was true to her religion of thoughtfulness for others.

Beautiful, self-possessed, and calm, she stood upon the scaffold in the pride of her womanhood, and spoke those last immortal words as she lifted her eyes to the statue of Liberty, "O Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name."

Then the axe fell, and the assassins of the Revolution had added another victim to their list. Seven days after this event, M. Roland committed suicide by stabbing himself through the heart.

[Signature: Ella Wheeler Wilcox.]

MARIE ANTOINETTE

By Mrs. OCTAVIUS FREIRE OWEN

(1755-1793)

Maria Theresa, the Empress of Austria, was not highly educated; and she was incapable of directing the studies of her children, although by precept and example she laid the foundation of characters, all of which became more or less remarkable. Marie Antoinette, her youngest child, was perhaps the most neglected. She once innocently caused the dismissal of her governess, through a confession that all the letters and drawings shown to her mother, in proof of her improvement, had been previously traced with a pencil. At fifteen her knowledge of Italian, studied under Metastasio, was the only branch of her education which had been fairly attended to, if we except considerable conversance with the "Lives of the Saints" and other legendary lore, the favorite fictions of monastic compilers. Nature had, nevertheless, done much for the young archduchess; she possessed great facility for learning, and was not slow in taking advantage of opportunities for improvement when they were afforded. In person she was most attractive. "Beaming with freshness," says Madame Campan, "she appeared to all eyes more than beautiful. Her walk partook at once of the noble character of the princesses of her house and of the graces of the French; her eyes were mild, her smile lovely. It was impossible to refrain from admiring her aërial deportment; her smile was sufficient to win the heart; and in this enchanting being, in whom the splendor of French gayety shone forth, an indescribable but august serenity--perhaps, also, the somewhat proud position of her head and shoulders--betrayed the daughter of the Cæsars." Such, according to her affectionate chronicler, appeared Marie Antoinette, when her nuptials were celebrated at Versailles with the Dauphin of France.

Superstitious minds discovered fatal omens from the earliest years of the hapless dauphiness. She had begun ill by first drawing breath upon the very day of the earthquake of Lisbon; this made a great impression on the mother, and later upon the child also. Another incident was not less discouraging: the empress had "protected a person named Gassner," who fancied himself inspired, and affected to predict events. "Tell me," she said to him one day, "whether my Antoinette will be happy?" At first Gassner turned pale and remained silent, but, urged by the empress, and dreading to distress her by his own fancies, he said, equivocally, "Madame, there are crosses for all shoulders." Goethe notices that a pavilion erected to receive Marie Antoinette and her suite in the neighborhood of Strasburg was lined with tapestry depicting the story of Jason, "the most fatal union" on record; and a few days later, when the young queen arrived from Versailles to witness the rejoicings of the people upon her marriage, she was compelled to fly, terrified, from a scene remarkable not for festivity and happiness, but for the variety and horror of its accidents. These circumstances threw a gloom over the prospective triumphs of the impressionable bride; but her nature and age were alike favorable to vivacity, and she shook off the morbid influence.

Something of her mother's wise advice to her as to the course she should follow in her new position has been preserved in the following letter:

"MY DEAR DAUGHTER:

"... Do not take any recommendations; listen to no one, if you would be at peace. Have no curiosity,--this is a fault which I fear greatly for you; avoid all familiarity with your inferiors. Ask of Monsieur and Madame de Noailles, and even exact of them, under all circumstances, advice as to what, as a foreigner and being desirous of pleasing the nation, you should do, and that they should tell you frankly if there be anything in your bearing, discourse, or any point which you should correct. Reply amiably to every one, and with grace and dignity; you can if you will. You must learn to refuse.... After Strasburg you must accept nothing without taking counsel of Monsieur and Madame de Noailles; and you should refer to them every one who would speak to you of his personal affairs, saying frankly that being a stranger yourself, you cannot undertake to recommend any one to the king. If you wish you may add, in order to make your reply more emphatic, 'The empress, my mother, has expressly forbidden me to undertake any recommendations.' Do not be ashamed to ask advice of any one, and do nothing on your own responsibility.... In the king you will find a tender father who will also be your friend if you deserve it. Put entire confidence in him; you will run no risk. Love him, obey him, seek to divine his thoughts; you cannot do enough on this moment when I am losing you.... Concerning the dauphin I shall say nothing; you know my delicacy on this point. A wife should be submissive in everything to her husband, and should have no thought but to please him and do his will.... The only true happiness in this world lies in a happy marriage; I know whereof I speak. Everything depends on the wife if she be yielding, sweet, and amusing.... I counsel you, my dear daughter, to reread this letter on the twenty-first of every month. I beg you to be true to me on this point. My only fear for you is negligence in your prayers and studies; and lukewarmness succeeds negligence. Fight against it, for it is more dangerous than a more reprehensible, even wicked state; one can conquer that more easily. Love your family; be affectionate to them--to your aunts as well as to your brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law. Suffer no evil-speaking; you must either silence the persons, or escape it by withdrawing from them. If you value your peace of mind, you must from the start avoid this pitfall, which I greatly fear for you knowing your curiosity....

"Your mother,
"MARIA-THERESA."

The grand annoyance Marie Antoinette experienced upon her entrance into the French Court, was the necessity of observing a system of etiquette to which she had been unaccustomed, and soon pronounced, with girlish vehemence, insupportable. Barrière copies a ridiculous anecdote in illustration of this from the manuscript fragments of Madame Campan: "Madame de Noailles" (this was the first lady of honor to the dauphiness) "abounded in virtues; I cannot pretend to deny it. Her piety, charity, and irreproachable morals rendered her worthy of praise, but etiquette was to her a sort of atmosphere; at the slightest derangement of the consecrated order, one would have thought she would have been stifled, and that life would forsake her frame. One day I unintentionally threw this poor lady into a terrible agony. The queen was receiving I know not whom--some persons just presented, I believe; the lady of honor, the queen's tire-woman, and the ladies of the bed-chamber were behind the queen. I was near the throne with the two women on duty. All was right; at least, I thought so. Suddenly I perceived the eyes of Madame de Noailles fixed on mine. She made a sign with her head, and then raised her eyebrows to the top of her forehead, lowered them, raised them again, then began to make little signs with her hand. From all this pantomime, I could easily perceive that something was not as it should be; as I looked about on all sides to find out what it was, the agitation of the countess kept increasing. The queen, who perceived all this, looked at me with a smile. I found means to approach her Majesty, who said to me in a whisper: '_Let down your lappets, or the countess will expire._' All this bustle arose from two unlucky pins, which fastened up my lappets, while the etiquette of costume said '_Lappets hanging down_.'"

To the Countess de Noailles Marie Antoinette speedily gave the name of Madame l'Étiquette; this pleasantry the object of it could pardon, not so the French nation. The avowed dislike to ceremony manifested by the lively little dauphiness, her desire to substitute the simple manners of her native Vienna for the stately formality of Versailles, displeased more than her genuine condescension and affability attracted. Early also in her married life, to beguile the heavy tedium of their evenings, she instituted a variety of childish games which became talked of and condemned; she liked theatrical representations, and persuaded her two young brothers-in-law, with the princesses, to join her in performing plays, and though they were kept secret for a time, she suffered for her innocent contrivances in public opinion. It must be remembered that Marie Antoinette had no sincere friends upon her arrival in France, except the Duc de Choiseul and his party, and his disgrace prevented her deriving much benefit from the man who had first negotiated her marriage. The house of Austria was looked upon with dislike and doubt; nor were these, even in the case of the young dauphin's aunt, Madame Adelaide, made a matter of concealment. Thus, at her entrance upon public life, Antoinette was met with cynicism and prejudice, and unfortunately her own conduct rather increased than quieted the insidious voice--the "_bruit sourd_"--of both.

Louis XV. had manifested from the first great pleasure in the society of his grandson's bride. After dining in his apartment at the Tuileries, upon her arrival at Paris, she was obliged to acknowledge the shouts of the multitude, which filled the garden below, by presenting herself on the balcony. The Governor of Paris had told her politely at the time, that "these were so many lovers." Little did she think that at the very moment a strong party around her was planning her divorce, under the supposition that the dauphin's coldness to his bride proceeded from dislike. Louis was a timid, though rough, youth at the time, and for a considerable period treated the attractions which the courtiers so highly extolled, with churlish indifference. The French king, indeed, did his best to promote a better understanding, and when the reserve of the dauphin once thawed, the latter became tenderly attached to her, and greatly improved by her influence and society.

An interesting trait of this youthful pair is told, as occurring at the moment when they might have been excused for entertaining other and more selfish thoughts. They were expecting the intelligence of the death of Louis XV. It had been agreed, as the disorder was one frightfully contagious, that the court should depart immediately upon learning it could be of no further assistance, and that a lighted taper, placed in the window of the dying monarch's chamber, should form a signal for the cavalcade to prepare for the journey. The taper was extinguished; a tumult of voices and advancing feet were heard in the outer apartment. "It was the crowd of courtiers deserting the dead sovereign's ante-chamber, to come and bow to the new power of Louis XVI." With a spontaneous impulse the dauphin and his bride threw themselves upon their knees, and shedding a torrent of tears, exclaimed, "O God! guide us, protect us; we are too young to govern." Thus the Countess de Noailles found them as she entered, the first to salute Marie Antoinette as Queen of France.

For some time the young queen's liking for children was ungratified by the possession of any of her own, and this gave rise to an amusing attempt to adopt one belonging to others. One day, when she was driving near Luciennes, a little peasant boy fell under the horses' feet, and might have been killed. The queen took him to Versailles, appointed him a nurse, and installed him in the royal apartments, constantly seating him in her lap at breakfast and dinner. This child afterward grew up a most sanguinary revolutionist! It was nine years before Marie Antoinette had the blessing of any offspring; four children were after that interval, born to her, two of whom died in their infancy, and two survived to share their parent's subsequent imprisonment. The sad history of her son's fate, a promising and attractive boy, is well known.

We have seen the Austrian princess was no favorite with her husband's nation. After a time accusations as unjust as serious assailed her, and in the horrors of the succeeding revolution the popular feeling evinced itself in a hundred frightful ways. Louis XVI., a mild prince, averse to violence or bloodshed, was unfit to stem the tide of opposition; had he possessed the energy of his queen, the Reign of Terror had perhaps never existed. Throughout her misfortunes, in every scene of flight, of opprobrium, and desolation, her magnanimity and courage won, even from the ruffians around, occasional expressions of sympathy. A harrowing and melancholy history is hers, and one which has been often vividly narrated; its details, also, are sufficiently recent to be still fresh within the recollection of many. For these reasons, and further because it seems to us a repellent, if not a mischievous, act to amplify such records before advancing age shall have invested them to the mind with deeper significance, we gladly pass over the picture suggested by this dark historical page, and, resuming the narrative where Madame de Campan drops it, content ourselves with a description of the last scene in the terrible drama.

When this devoted woman left her royal mistress in the miserable cell at the Convent of the Feuillans, she never again saw her. Imprisonment, and the intense grief she experienced, more for others than for herself, completely transformed the once beautiful queen; her hair was prematurely silvered, like that of Mary Stuart, her figure bowed, her voice low and tremulous. Then came the separation from the king. Once more only did her eyes again behold him, and after the parting between the dethroned monarch and his adoring family, he might indeed have been able to say, "The bitterness of death was passed." However weak at intervals, the unhappy Louis met his death heroically. The sufferings of his wife at the time when the guns boomed out the fearful catastrophe, may be supposed to have been as great as the human frame has power to endure. Shortly after, she was separated from her children and conveyed to the prison of the Conciergerie, a damp and loathsome place, whence she was summoned one morning in October to receive a sentence for which it is probable she ardently longed. Let us look at her through the bars of her prison upon her return thither after it was pronounced.

It is four o'clock in the morning. The widowed Queen of France stands calm and resigned in her cell, listening with a melancholy smile to the tumult of the mob outside. A faint illumination announces the approach of day; it is the last she has to live! Seating herself at a table she writes, with hurried hand, a last letter of ardent tenderness to the sister of her husband, the pious Madame Elizabeth, and to her children; and now she passionately presses the insensible paper to her lips, as the sole remaining link between those dear ones and herself. She stops, sighs, and throws herself upon her miserable pallet. What! in such an hour as this can the queen sleep? Even so!

And now look up, daughter of the Cæsars! Thou art waked from dreams of hope and light, from the imaged embrace of thy beloved Louis, thy tender infants, by a kind voice, choked by tears. Arise! emancipated one, thy prison doors are open. Freedom, freedom is at hand!

Immediately in front of the palace of the Tuileries--scene of the short months of her wedded happiness--there rises a dark, ominous mass. Around is a sea of human faces; above, the cold frown of a winter's sky. With a firm step the victim ascends the stairs of the scaffold, her white garments wave in the chill breeze, a black ribbon by which her cap is confined beats to and fro against her pale cheeks. You may see that she is unmindful of her executioners--she glances, nay, almost smiles, at the sharp edge of the guillotine, and then turning her eyes toward the Temple, utters, in a few agitated words, her last earthly farewell to Louis and her children. There is a hush--a stillness of the grave--for the very headsman trembles as the horrible blade falls--anon, a moment's delay. And now, look! No, rather veil your eyes from the dreadful sight; close your ears to that fiendish shout--_Vive la République!_ It is over! the sacrifice is accomplished! the weary spirit is at rest!

Let us dwell upon this last mournful pageant only sufficiently far as to imitate the virtues, and emulate the firmness and resignation with which she met her doom. Nothing is permitted without a meaning, all is for either warning or example; and while breathing a prayer that Heaven may avert a recurrence of such outrages, let us remember that moral indecision, the undue love of pleasure, and an aimless, profitless mode of life, as surely, and not less fatally, may raise the surging tide of events no human skill can quell, as the most selfish abandonment to uncontrolled desires.

ANDREAS HOFER

(1767-1810)

Andreas Hofer, a native of the village of St. Leonard, in the valley of Passeyr, was born on November 22, 1767. During the greater part of his life he resided peaceably in his own neighborhood, where he kept an inn, and increased his profits by dealing in wine, corn, and cattle. About his neck he wore at all times a small crucifix and a medal of St. George. He never held any rank in the Austrian army; but he had formed a secret connection with the Archduke John, when that prince had passed a few weeks in the Tyrol making scientific researches. In November, 1805, Hofer was appointed deputy from his native valley at the conference of Brunnecken, and again at a second conference, held at Vienna, in January, 1809.

The Tyrol had for many years been an appendage of the Austrian states, and the inhabitants had become devoted to that government; so that when, by the treaty of Presburg, the province was transferred to the rule of the King of Bavaria, then the ally of Napoleon I., the peasants were greatly irritated, and their discontent was further provoked by the large and frequent exactions which the continual wars obliged the new government to levy on the Tyrolese. The consequence was, that when their own neighborhood became the theatre of military operations between Austria and France, in the spring of 1809, a general insurrection broke out in the Tyrol. His resolution of character, natural eloquence, and private influence as a wealthy citizen, joined to a figure of great stature and strength, pointed out Andreas Hofer to his countrymen as the leader of this revolt; and with him were united Spechbacher, Joseph Haspinger, and Martin Teimer, whose names have all become historical. A perfect understanding was maintained between the insurgents and their late masters, and the signal of the insurrection was given by the Archduke John in a proclamation from his head-quarters at Klagenfurth. An Austrian army of 10,000 men, commanded by the Marquis Castellar, was directed to enter the Tyrol and support the insurrection, which broke out in every quarter on the night of April 8, 1809. The Austrian general himself crossed the frontier at daybreak on the 9th. On their side the Bavarians marched an army of 25,000 men into the province to quell the revolt. Hofer and his band of armed peasantry fell upon the Bavarians while entangled in the narrow glens, and on April 10th defeated Besson and Lemoine at the Sterzinger Moos. The next day a troop of peasants under Teimer took possession of Innsbrück. On the 12th Besson surrendered with his division of 3,000 men. In a single week all the fortresses were recovered, nearly 10,000 troops of the enemy were destroyed, and the whole province was redeemed.

Incensed by this interruption of his plans, Napoleon despatched three armies almost simultaneously to assail the province at three different points. One of these forces was under the command of Marshal Lefebvre, who, on May 12th, defeated the united army of the Austrian soldiers, under Castellar, and the Tyrolese peasantry, under Haspinger and Spechbacher, at Feuer Singer. The troops made a bad use of their victory, slaughtering the inhabitants of the villages on their route, without distinction of age or sex. The Bavarian and French officers encouraged and took part in the excesses of the soldiers; while the insurgents, far from retaliating, refrained from every species of license, and nursed their wounded prisoners with the same care as their own friends. Hofer himself was not always present in action, his talent consisting rather in stimulating his countrymen than in actual fighting; but at the battle of Innsbrück (May 28, 1809), he led the Tyrolese, exhibited both skill and daring, and defeated the Bavarians with a loss of 4,000 men. The whole of the Tyrol was delivered a second time. But after the battle of Wagram (July 6th), and the armistice of Znaim which immediately followed, the Austrian army was obliged to evacuate the Tyrol, leaving the helpless insurgents to the mercy of an exasperated enemy. Marshal Lefebvre now invaded the province a second time, and entered it by the road from Salzburg, with an army of 21,000 troops, while Beaumont, having crossed the ridge of Schnartz with a force 10,000 strong, threatened Innsbrück from the north. On July 30th Innsbrück submitted. A series of desperate contests followed along the line of the Brenner, mostly with doubtful success, but in one the marshal was defeated, when twenty-five pieces of artillery and a quantity of ammunition fell into the hands of the Tyrolese. Again, on August 12th, Marshal Lefebvre, with an army of 25,000 Bavarian and French soldiers, 2,000 of whom were cavalry, was totally beaten by the Tyrolese army, consisting of 18,000 armed peasants. The battle, which was fought near Innsbrück, is said to have lasted from six in the morning until midnight. For a third time the Tyrol was free.

After this victory, entirely achieved by the peasantry themselves, Hofer became the absolute ruler of the country; coins were struck with his effigy, and proclamations issued in his name. His power, however, scarcely lasted two months, and became the cause of his ruin ultimately. Three veteran armies, comprising a force of nearly 50,000 French and Bavarian troops, were despatched in October to subdue the exhausted province; and, unable to make head against them, Hofer was obliged to take refuge in the mountains. Soon after, a price having been set on his head, a pretended friend (a priest named Donay) was induced to betray him, January 20, 1810. After his arrest he was conveyed to Mantua, and the intelligence having been communicated by telegraph to the French emperor, an order was instantly returned that he must be tried. This order was a sentence; and after a court-martial, at which, however, the majority were averse to a sentence of death, Hofer was condemned to be shot. His execution took place on February 20, 1810, his whole military career having occupied less than forty weeks. The Emperor Francis conferred a handsome pension upon the widow and family of Hofer, and created Hofer's son a noble. The Austrian government also raised a marble statue of heroic size in the cathedral of Innsbrück, where the body of the patriot was interred; while his own countrymen have commemorated his efforts by raising a small pyramid to mark the spot where he was taken.

QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA

By Mrs. FRANCIS G. FAITHFULL

(1776-1810)

There is at Paretz, near Potsdam, a flower-bordered walk leading from a grotto overlooking the Havel to an iron gate, above which is inscribed "May 20, 1810" and the letter "L." Within the grotto an iron table bears in golden characters, "Remember the Absent."

These words were engraved by order of Friedrich Wilhelm III. of Prussia; and the "absent" he would have remembered--"the star of his life, who had lighted him so truly on his darkened way"--was the wife who died of a broken heart before reaching middle age.

Louise Augusta Wilhelmina, third daughter of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was born on March 10, 1776, in the city of Hanover. Her mother died when she was six years old, and henceforth she and her sister Frederica lived with their grandmother, the Landgravine of Darmstadt, sometimes at the Burgfreiheit Palace, sometimes at a château in the Herrengarten, surrounded by formal gardens and orangeries. The girls were brought up simply, making their own clothes, and going much among the poor. Now and then they made expeditions to Strasburg or the Vosges Mountains; and, when the Emperor Leopold was crowned at Frankfort, the Frau von Goethe housed them hospitably, and was highly entertained by the glee with which they worked a quaint sculptured pump in her courtyard. Two years later the advance of French troops compelled them to seek refuge with their eldest sister, the reigning Duchess of Hildburghausen; and on their homeward way they visited the Prussian head-quarters, that the Landgravine might present them to the king. His sons were with him, and long afterward the Crown Prince told a friend, "I felt when I saw her, 'tis she or none on earth."

The wooing was short. On April 24, 1793, he exchanged betrothal rings with Louise, and then rejoined his regiment. Soon after, the Princesses of Mecklenburg went over to the camp, Louise appearing "a heavenly vision" in the eyes of Goethe, who saw her there.

In the December of that same year Berlin, gay with flags and ablaze with colored lamps, welcomed Duke Charles and his daughters; and on Christmas Eve the diamond crown of the Hohenzollerns was placed on her fair head, and in her glistening silver robe she took part in the solemn torch procession round the White Saloon.

Then her young husband took her home to their palace in the "Unter den Linden." They were very happy. In the sunshine of his wife's presence the prince's spirit, crushed in childhood by a harsh tutor, soon revived, while Louise, though the darling of the court, was always most content when alone with him.

"Thank God! you are my wife again," he exclaimed, one day, when she had laid aside her jewels.

"Am I not always your wife?" she asked, laughingly.

"Alas! no; too often you can be only the crown princess."

Her father-in-law never wearied of showering kindnesses on his "Princess of Princesses." On her eighteenth birthday he asked if she desired anything he could give. "A handful of gold for the Berlin poor," was the prompt petition.

"And how large a handful would the birthday child like?"

"As large as the heart of the kindest of kings."

The Castle of Charlottenberg, one of his many gifts to the young pair, proving too splendid for their simple tastes, he bought for them the Manor of Paretz, about two miles from Potsdam. There Louise busied herself with household affairs, while her husband gardened, strolled over his fields, or inspected his farm stock. They played and sang together, or read Shakespeare and Goethe, while to complete this home-life came two baby boys: Fritz, born in October, 1795, and Friedrich Wilhelm, in March, 1797. Someone once asked Louise if this country existence was not rather dull. "Oh! no," she exclaimed; "I am quite happy as the worthy lady of Paretz."

But in the late autumn of 1797 the king died, and the quiet freedom of Paretz had to be exchanged for the restraints of court life. Little as either of the two desired regal pomp, they played their new parts well. Friedrich Wilhelm, stately in bearing, and acknowledged as the handsomest man in his realm, looked every inch a king; and if his laconic speech and caustic criticisms sometimes gave offence, the winning gentleness of his beautiful wife more than made amends. Nobles and citizens, statesmen, soldiers, and savants were alike made welcome; and Louise knew instinctively how to make each show at his best. With eager interest she discussed Pestalozzi's ideas with his disciples; and when Gotlöeb Hiller, the poet-son of a miner, was presented to her, she led him aside, and by the friendly ease with which she talked of things familiar to him, speedily banished his shyness. Indeed, ready as she was to recognize high gifts and to learn from all able to teach, yet it was to the obscure and suffering that her tones were most soft and gracious. Even in trifles her thoughtfulness was unfailing. When a count and a shoemaker were announced at the same moment, she gave audience first to the shoemaker. "For time is more valuable to him."

At Dantzic she constantly wore an amber necklace, because it had been the gift of the townsfolk. The voice which in childhood had pleaded for the panting footman running beside her grandmother's coach, might still be heard interceding, for when the royal carriage was overturned near Warsaw, and the Oberk of Messterin rated the servants, Louise interposed: "We are not hurt, and our people have assuredly been more alarmed than we."

Sometimes the midday meal was spread beneath a forest tree, and from far and near the peasants flocked to get "even a glimpse of her lovely face." They followed in crowds while she and the king climbed the Schneekoppe on foot, but loyal shouts died into awed silence when, at the summit, Friedrich Wilhelm bared his head, and the two standing side by side gazed at the glorious view. "That was one of the most blessed moments of my life," Louise said afterward; "we seemed lifted above this earth and nearer our God."

They entered the mines at Woldenberg by a swift-flowing stream, and twenty years afterward the steersman of their boat was fond of telling how, in the dark cavern--"The Foxes' Hole"--he saw her well by the torchlight. "In all my life I never saw such a face. She looked grand, as a queen should look, but gentle as a child. She gave me with her own hands two Holland ducats. My wife wears them when she goes to church, for what she touched is holy."

Louise had never meddled in foreign politics. She had been, she designed to be, only the "Landesmutter," and even when the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, seized on Prussian soil, aroused in Berlin a storm of indignation, in which she fully shared, she yet sympathized in the mental distress which found vent in her husband's often-repeated words, "I cannot decide for war."

At last he did decide. In October, 1805, Napoleon ordered Bernadotte to march his army corps through Anspach. This contemptuous comment on Prussia's ten-years' forbearance was too much for the king's pride. Armies were raised in Franconia, Saxony, Westphalia, and while the excitement was at fever point the czar came to Berlin. All his rare charm of manner was brought to bear, and at midnight, in the presence of Louise, the two monarchs, standing with clasped hands beside the tomb of the great Friedrich, solemnly pledged themselves to a close alliance.

Alexander departed to lead his Russians to Moravia, and Friedrich Wilhelm despatched a protest to the French camp; but the envoy, Haugwitz, arriving on the eve of Austerlitz, waited the issue of the battle, and then, withholding his packet, proposed to the victor a fresh treaty with Prussia. There was wrath in Berlin when his doings became known. The king at first disowned the disgraceful compact, but Austerlitz had just taught him what Napoleon's enemies might expect. French troops were already massing on his frontier, and in an evil hour he broke faith with the czar! To Louise, who neither feared foe nor deserted friend, that was a bitter time--doubly sad, indeed, since most of the long winter was spent by the dying bed of her youngest child. When she lost him her own strength broke down, and the doctors ordered her away to drink the Pyrmont waters. In the late summer she was able to rejoin her husband, and he had startling news to tell, for war with France was close at hand.

Since Haugwitz's fatal agreement Napoleon had heaped injuries on Prussia. Now, at least, king and people were of one mind. The young Prussian officers sharpened their swords on the French ambassador's window-sills, patriotic songs were hailed with thunders of applause in street and theatre, and when the queen, clad in the uniform of her own Hussars, rode at their head through the city, she was greeted with passionate loyalty.

Unhappily, Friedrich Wilhelm, hitherto too tardy, was now too precipitate. He had been passive while France crushed Austria, and Austria, suspicious and disabled, neither could nor would assist him. Russia, with better reason for distrust, responded generously to his appeal, but he did not wait for her promised aid. For all his haste, Napoleon, with 180,000 men, was nearing the Thuringian Forest before the Prussian troops left Berlin. They were very confident, those Prussian troops, and the shouting multitudes who watched the well-trained artillery and cavalry defiling by, hardly dreamed of disaster; yet it came almost at once. The Saxon corps, led by the king's cousin, Prince Louis, pushing on too fast, was surprised and surrounded, and the gallant young commander, the queen's dear friend, the idol of the army, fell while rallying his men.

Louise, who had hurriedly joined the king from Weimar, could hardly be persuaded to leave him, but on the evening of October 13th he confided her to a cavalry escort, promising speedy tidings of the coming battle. As she threaded the lonely passes of the Hartz Mountains she heard the distant cannonading, and a broken sentence now and again fell from her lips: "We know that all things work together for good." Late in the misty October twilight she drove into Brunswick. At Brandenburg a courier brought the news her trembling heart awaited. All was lost! Twenty thousand Prussians lay on the fields of Auerstadt and Jena, and the French were already in Weimar. The king was alive, but two horses had been killed under him. Grief-stricken, travel-worn as she was, Louise must not halt. Before she reached Berlin her children had been sent to Schwedt-on-Oder. She followed thither, almost terrifying them by her changed, despairing looks. As soon as she could check her weeping, she told her boys all she knew about Prince Louis's death. "Do not only grieve for him. Be ready for Prussia's sake to meet death as he met it," and then, in burning, never-forgotten words, she bade them one day free their country and break the power of France.

There seemed only a choice between utter destruction and utter submission, and yet when Napoleon demanded the cession of almost the whole kingdom, Friedrich Wilhelm and his wife agreed that "only determined resistance can save us." She was slowly rallying at Königsberg from a fever caught in the crowded city, when the cry was raised of the coming French. Propped by pillows, swathed in shawls, she drove through blinding sleet to Memel, the one fortress still left to the king. At her first halting-place the wind whistled in through a broken window, and the melting snow dripped from the roof on to her bed. Her companions trembled for her, but she, calm and trustful, hailed as a good omen the sunshine which welcomed them within the walls of Memel.

A week later Benningsen and his Russians, who had been wading knee-deep through Polish forests and fording swollen streams, always with 90,000 Frenchmen in hot pursuit, turned to bay amid the frozen lakes and drifted snows of Eylau. Next day those snows for miles around were red with blood. It was hard to tell with whom the costly victory lay, but Napoleon despatched Bertrand to the Russian outposts to propose an armistice, and Benningsen sent him on to Memel, reminding the Prussian king that it could not be their interest to grant what it was Napoleon's interest to ask. The terms were, indeed, far easier than those offered after June; but Friedrich Wilhelm, true to the ally who had held the field almost single-handed through that terrible winter, would make no separate agreement, nor did Louise receive more favorably a message to herself, conveying Napoleon's wish to pay his court to her in her own capital.

Though the piercing Baltic winds tried her strength greatly, she employed herself whenever able in reading and visiting the over-full hospitals. To a dear friend she said, "I can never be perfectly miserable while faith in God is open to me." "Only by patient perseverance," so she wrote to her father, "can we succeed. Sooner or later I know we shall do so."

It was not to be yet. On June 14, 1807, Napoleon annihilated the Russians at Friedland, and four days later Dantzic fell. Her tone grew sadder. "We are not yet bereft of peace. My great sorrow is being unable to hope."

As the czar could resist no longer and Napoleon desired peace, they met at Tilsit, and there, on a covered raft moored midway in the Niemen, arranged the outlines of a treaty. The next day Friedrich Wilhelm, yielding to stern necessity, accepted terms "to the last degree hard and overwhelming." The czar, believing that Louise might move even Napoleon to clemency, her husband begged her to join him at Tilsit. On reading this summons she burst into tears, declaring this the hardest task ever given her to do. "With my broken wing how can I succeed?" she pathetically asked.

Napoleon paid his respects soon after her arrival, and they met at the stairhead. Louise, for Prussia's sake, forced herself to utter courteous regrets that he should have to mount so steep a staircase. He answered blandly that no difficulties were feared when striving for a reward beyond. Then, touching her gauze robe, asked, "Is it crêpe?"

"Shall we speak of such trifles at such a time?" was her only reply.

He was silent; then demanded, "How could you make war on me?"

She told him that they had overrated their strength.

"And relying on the great Friedrich's fame you deceived yourselves."

Louise's clear eyes met his steadily. "Sire, resting on the great Friedrich's fame, we might naturally deceive ourselves, if, indeed, we wholly did so."

Then she told him that she had come to entreat him to be generous to Prussia. He answered respectfully, but made no promise. Again, with exceeding earnestness, she implored at least for Magdeburg, just then Friedrich Wilhelm entered, and Napoleon abruptly took leave.

"Sire," said Talleyrand warningly to him, when they were alone, "shall posterity say that you threw away your great conquest for the sake of a lovely woman?"

Louise meanwhile dwelt again and again on Napoleon's words, "You ask a great deal, but I will think about it." Yet her heart was heavy, and when arrayed for the evening banquet in the splendid attire so long unworn, she likened herself sadly to the old German victims decked for sacrifice. Napoleon said of her afterward, "I knew I should see a beautiful and dignified queen; I found the most interesting woman and admirable queen I had ever known."

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."

They told her that couriers had been despatched for the king, and she asked anxiously, "Will he soon come?" Before dawn he came, bringing the two elder boys. For those who tried to cheer him he had only one mournful reply: "If she were not mine she might recover." A gleam of joy lighted her pale face when he came to her bedside, but perceiving his emotion she asked, "Am I then so very ill?" Unable to reply, he hurriedly left the room, and she said to those standing by, "His embrace was so wild, so fervent, that it seemed as though he would take leave of me. Tell him not to do that, or I shall die at once."

He returned bringing in the children.

"My Fritz! my Wilhelm!" She had only time for one long gaze, and then the agonizing pain came again. One of the doctors tried to raise her, but she sank back. "Only death can help me;" and as all watched in breathless silence, she leaned her head against the shoulder of a faithful attendant, murmured, "Lord Jesus, shorten it!" and with one deep-drawn breath passed away.

JAMES WATT

By JOHN TIMES, F.S.A.

(1736-1819)

James Watt was born at Greenock, January 19, 1736. He was the fourth child in a family which, for a hundred years, had more or less professed mathematics and navigation. His constitution was delicate, and his mental powers were precocious. He was distinguished from an early age by his candor and truthfulness; and his father, to ascertain the cause of any of his boyish quarrels, used to say, "Let James speak; from him I always hear the truth." James also showed his constructive tastes equally early, experimenting on his playthings with a set of small carpenter's tools, which his father had given him. At six he was still at home. "Mr. Watt," said a friend to the father, "you ought to send that boy to school, and not let him trifle away his time at home." "Look what he is doing before you condemn him," was the reply. The visitor then observed the child had drawn mathematical lines and figures on the hearth, and was engaged in a process of calculation. On putting questions to him, he was astonished at his quickness and simplicity. "Forgive me," said he, "this child's education has not been neglected; this is no common child."

Watt's cousin, Mrs. Marian Campbell, describes his inventive capacity as a story-teller, and details an incident of his occupying himself with the steam of a tea-kettle, and by means of a cup and a spoon making an early experiment in the condensation of steam. To this incident she probably attached more importance than was its due, from reverting to it when illustrated by her after-recollections. Out of this story, reliable or not in the sense ascribed to it, M. Arago obtained an oratorical point for an _éloge_, which he delivered to the French Institute. Watt may or may not have been occupied as a boy with the study of the condensation of steam while he was playing with the kettle. The story suggests a possibility, nothing more; though it has been made the foundation of a grave announcement, the subject of a pretty picture, and will ever remain a basis for suggestive speculation.

Watt was sent to a commercial school, where he was provided with a fair outfit of Latin and with some elements of Greek; but mathematics he studied with greater zest, and with proportionate success. By the time he was fifteen, he had read twice, with grave attention, Gravesande's "Elements of Natural Philosophy;" and "while under his father's roof he went on with various chemical experiments, repeating them again and again, until satisfied of their accuracy from his own observations." He even made himself a small electrical machine, about 1750-53; no mean performance at that date, since, according to Priestley's "History of Electricity," the Leyden phial itself was not invented until the years 1745-46.

His pastime lay chiefly in his father's marine store, among the sails and ropes, the blocks and tackle: or by the old gray gateway of the Mansion House on the hill above Greenock, where he would loiter away hours by day, and at night lie down on his back and watch the stars through the trees.

At this early age Watt suffered from continual and violent headaches, which often affected his nervous system for many days, even weeks; and he was similarly afflicted throughout his long life. He seldom rose early, but accomplished more in a few hours' study than ordinary minds do in many days. He was never in a hurry, and always had leisure to give to his friends, to poetry, romance, and the publications of the day; he read indiscriminately almost every new book he could procure. He assisted his father in his business, and soon learned to construct with his own hands several of the articles required in the way of his parent's trade; and by means of a small forge, set up for his own use, he repaired and made various kinds of instruments, and converted, by the way, a large silver coin into a punch-ladle, as a trophy of his early skill as a metal-smith. From this aptitude for ingenious handiwork, and in accordance with his own deliberate choice, it was decided that he should proceed to qualify himself for following the trade of a mathematical instrument maker. He accordingly went to Glasgow, in June, 1754, and from there, after a year's stay, he proceeded for better instruction to London.