Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia Part 78

Joy was in her face; merry words dropped from her lips, and she glided in the mazes of the dance.

And this day was followed by another of still greater happiness. The king came to see again his longed-for consort and take her back to her second home, his house, and heart. She was again united with her most faithful friend. She gazed with delight at his fine, manly countenance; she was proud of his regal form, and his constant and earnest love transported her with grat.i.tude. As she looked toward the king, who was leaving the room with the duke, in order to look at the old palace church,--"Oh, George," she said to the hereditary prince, who had remained with his sister in the duke's sitting-room, "now I am altogether happy! I would like to repeat it to all of you!" And, as if these words were not sufficient, as if she ought to write them down--the queen hastened to her father's desk. She took a sc.r.a.p of paper and a pen, and wrote in a hasty hand: "My dear father! I am very happy to-day as your daughter, and as the wife of the best of husbands. Louisa."[56]

"So," she exclaimed, "I have written it down. My father will not find it to-day, for we shall immediately set out for Hohenzieritz; but when he returns the day after to-morrow, and steps to his desk, he will find this greeting from his Louisa, and it will gladden him, and--"

[Footnote 56: These were the last words the queen ever wrote. The king preserved the sc.r.a.p as a sacred relic, and carried it constantly in his memorandum-book.]

"Why do you start so suddenly, my sister? Your lips are quivering, and you look so pale! What ails you, dear sister?"

"It is nothing, brother--it is nothing! An insignificant pa.s.sing pain in my heart; it was sudden, but it is nothing, it is over now. And if you love me, George, you will forget it. You will not mention it to any one, and, least of all, to my husband. They are already returning, our dear ones! Let us meet them!"

They went from Neustrelitz to Hohenzieritz, the charming country-seat of the duke on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Tollen. The carriages halted in front of the palace-gate; Louisa, leaning on the king's arm, entered; suddenly a shudder shook her frame; a mortal pallor covered her cheeks, and she clung convulsively to her husband.

"What ails you, Louisa? Why do you look so ill, and tremble so violently? What is the matter?"

"I am quite well, my beloved friend, but I am cold, and the air here seems close and oppressive to me; and it is as silent and lonely as if death were dwelling here. Come, let us go into the garden. Come!" She hastened into the life and suns.h.i.+ne of the garden. The color came to her cheeks again, and her eyes a.s.sumed their serenity. She walked with her husband through the long, delightful avenues, and accompanied him to the lake. It lay before them, beautiful Lake Tollen, s.h.i.+ning like silver, and fringed with gigantic oaks.

"Oh, my dear Mecklenburg, my dear native country, how beautiful thou art!" exclaimed the queen, and an echo replied from the opposite sh.o.r.e, "Beautiful thou art!"

"The echo is right," said the king. "And, as I am gazing at you, you seem to me again the young princess whom I saw seventeen years ago for the first time. Your return to your native country has made you once more a girl."

"But the girl of seventeen years ago was not so happy as is the matron and mother of to-day," said the queen. "At that time I did not have you, my husband, nor my beloved children! I am younger in my heart to-day than then, for love imparts and preserves youthfulness."

"G.o.d preserve you this youth, my Louisa, to the delight of myself and our children! But come, it is cool here by the lake, and you look pale again." They returned to the palace, and the queen spent in the midst of her family a day of unalloyed pleasure. The last day!

When the next morning's sun shone into the queen's bedroom, Louisa attempted to raise herself; her head fell back heavily, and she pressed her hands convulsively against her bosom, exclaiming: "Oh, my heart!"

Poor queen! The death-worm was conquering!

"It is nothing!" she whispered to her husband, when the struggle was over. "Nothing but a cold!" she repeated, when the doctors, who had been called from Neustrelitz, came to her bedside.

It was a cold, but the queen was unable to leave her bed to accompany the king to Berlin, when, a few days afterward, pressing state affairs called him back to the capital. She was obliged to remain a few days at Hohenzieritz, in order to rest and recover her strength. But the few days became weeks. She was still ill, and suffered as she had never suffered. Often, in the night, when her friend Caroline von Berg was sitting at her bedside, she beckoned to her and whispered in her ear: "The conquering death-worm! Did I not tell you, Caroline, that it was attacking my heart? Oh, I would the king, my beloved husband, were with me!"

Couriers went to Charlottenburg to the king, and they came every day to Hohenzieritz and inquired in his name for Louisa's health. He himself was unable to come; he was also ill with fever, confining him to his bed.

"And I am not with him!" lamented the queen. "I cannot nurse him, and smile away his cares! I am myself an object of anxiety to him! Oh, shall I not soon be well again? Tell me, dear Doctor Heim, you whom the king has sent, shall I not soon be well, that I may nurse my husband?"

"Yes, your majesty, if it please G.o.d, you will soon be well. But now let me deliver to you a letter from the king, which his majesty has intrusted to me."

Louisa's eyes beamed with joy; she opened the letter and read it. The words of tender love and ardent longing which the king addressed to her brought tears to her eyes. "What a letter!" she exclaimed. "How happy is she who receives such!" She kissed the paper and then laid it on her heart. "It shall remain there, and will cure me better than all your medicine, doctor. If the spasms would only leave me, I should be well!

When they seize me, I cannot help thinking that my end is drawing nigh."

Doctor Heim made no reply; he turned and prescribed cooling beverages and anodynes. No one but G.o.d was able to help her. Her spasms became frequent and violent, and she of ten cried--"Air! air! I am dying!" She yearned more and more for her husband and children.

"Doctor! must I die, then? Shall I be taken from the king and from my children?" The doctor made no reply.

"My G.o.d, I am young to die!" groaned the queen. "Life has still to fulfil many promises to me; I have shed many tears and suffered much!

Oh, there are these dreadful spasms again! Doctor, help me! Ah, nothing but death can help me!"

It was in the night of the 18th of July that the queen uttered these complaints to her physicians. It was a stormy night, and the gigantic trees in the garden of Hohenzieritz rustled weirdly and dark. The silence of the palace was broken only by low groans.

It was dawning when a carriage rolled into the palace-yard. The duke hastened out. A pale man alighted and rushed toward him. "How is she?

How is Louisa?"

The duke was unable to make a reply. He took the king's arm and conducted him into the palace. The two sons of the king, who had arrived with their father, followed them in silence and with bowed heads. The duke conducted the king into his room, where he found the old landgravine and the three physicians of the queen.

Frederick William saluted the princess only with a silent nod; he then turned his quivering face toward the physicians. "How is the queen?" he asked. "What hopes have you?"

They made no reply, standing before him with gloomy faces and downcast eyes. The king's face turned livid, and, pressing his hand upon his forehead, covered with perspiration, he said, sternly and imperiously, "Reply to me, I want to know the truth! How is the queen? What hopes have you?"

"No hopes whatever, your majesty," said Dr. Heim, solemnly. "It is an organic disease of the heart, and in such cases our skill is powerless.

The queen has but a few hours to live!"

The king staggered back to the wall. He neither spoke nor wept, so great was his sorrow. The venerable old landgravine went to him and laid her hand gently on his shoulder. "Hope still, my son," she said, solemnly, "Louisa still lives, and so long as she lives there is hope. G.o.d in His mercy may yet preserve her to us!"

The king shook his head despairingly. "Ah," he cried in a husky, sombre voice, "if she were not mine, she would live. But as she is my wife, she will surely die! But I will see her, I must see her! So long as she lives she belongs to me!"

"I will go and inform the queen that the king has arrived," said Heim, and hastened into the sick-room.

A few minutes elapsed, and Louisa's voice exclaimed: "My Frederick! my beloved husband, come to me!"

The king rushed to her room, the door of which had just been opened by Dr. Heim. The queen lay on her couch, pale and beautiful as a broken lily.

"My husband! my beloved friend!" she exclaimed, raising herself and endeavoring to stretch out her arms toward the king, who stood at her bedside, but alas, she was unable to do so. "Oh," whispered Louisa, sadly, "I am a queen, but cannot move my arms!"

The king bent over, and, pressing her against his breast, kissed her beloved face. Louisa smiled, laid her head on his shoulder and looked at him long and tenderly. "You are here! You are mine again! But how are the children? Have you come alone?"

"No," said the king, "our two oldest sons accompany me."

"My sons! Where are they?" exclaimed the queen. "Let me see them, oh, pray let me see my sons!"

Heim hastened out and returned with the Princes Frederick and William.

With eyes filled with tears, they stepped on tiptoe to the bedside of the queen.

"My children!" exclaimed Louisa, in a loud, powerful voice, and she raised herself up. Her maternal love gave her strength to extend her arms.

"Oh, my children, my beloved children!" She pressed them to her bosom, kissing them with the pa.s.sionate tenderness of a mother.

The two young princes, entirely overcome by grief, sank on their knees at the bedside of their mother. She laid her hands on their heads, as if to bless them, and lifted her eyes to the king, who, pale and silent, was gazing at her in unutterable despair.

"Now I am happy," breathed the queen. "You are with me, and my beloved sons!"

The king's sorrow was overpowering him, and he quickly turned and left the room. Heim approached the princes and begged them in a low voice to withdraw, because the queen was unable to bear so much excitement. They rose from their knees and kissed their mother's hands. Louisa was so faint that she could greet her children only with a smile, and was unable to bear their presence longer. But her eyes followed them steadfastly until they had withdrawn.

She lay long silent and motionless, and then whispered to her sister, the Princess of Solms: "The king acted as though he wished to take leave of me. Tell him not to do so, else I shall die immediately. But where is he? Where is my husband? Oh, why is he not with me?"

Frederick William stood in a corner of the anteroom, his head leaning against the wall, his hands pressed against his breast, in order to suppress the sobs which escaped from it in spite of him. His eyes were tearless; his quivering lips were murmuring: "My wife is dying! She is dying!"

"Louisa wishes to see you," whispered the Princess of Solms, approaching him. "But, pray be gentle; do not manifest your grief; Louisa says that else she would die immediately."

"No," said the king, sternly, "she shall not die. I will endeavor to be calm!" And, restraining his grief, he stepped to the queen's bedside. "I just had a conference with the physicians," he said, almost smilingly.