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 Koenigsberg. 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 cr