ve an
interview with the French emperor, he never secured it.

It was at this crisis of Prussia's affairs that the King, after much
urging, consented to summon his Queen. The rumors and insinuations
concerning the Czar's undue admiration of her, so industriously spread
by Napoleon, had made him over-sensitive; but as a last resort he felt
the need of her presence. She came with a single idea--to make the
cause of Magdeburg her own. She had suffered under the malicious
innuendos of Napoleon regarding her character; she had shared the
disgrace of the Berlin war party in the crushing defeat at Jena and
Auerstaedt; she had been a wayfarer among a disgraced and helpless
people; but her spirit was not broken, and she announced her visit
with all the dignity of her station. The court carriage in which she
drove, accompanied by her ladies in waiting, reached Tilsit on July
sixth, and drew up before the door of the humble miller under whose
roof were the rooms of her husband. Officers and statesmen were
gathered to receive and encourage her with good advice; but she waved
them away with an earnest call for quiet, so that she might collect
her ideas.

In a moment Napoleon was announced. As he climbed the narrow stairway
she rose to meet him. Friend and foe agree as to her beauty, her
taste, and her manners; her presence, in a white dress embroidered
with silver, and with a pearl diadem on her brow, was queenly. In her
husband's apartments she was the hostess, and as such she apologized
for the stair. "What would one not do for such an end!" gallantly
replied the somewhat dazzled conqueror. The suppliant, after making a
few respectful inquiries as to her visitor's welfare, and the effect
of the Northern climate on his health, at once announced the object of
her visit. Her manner was full of pathos and there were tears in her
eyes as she recalled how her country had been punished for its appeal
to arms, and for its mistaken confidence in the traditions of the
great Frederick and his glory. The Emperor was abashed by the lofty
strain of her address. So elevated was her mien that she overpowered
him; for the instant his self-assurance fled, and he felt himself but
a man of the people. He felt also the humiliation of the contrast, and
was angry. Long afterward he confessed that she was mistress of the
conversation, adding that she stood with her head thrown back like
Mlle. Duchesnois in the character of Chimene, meaning by this
com