254 WORKMEN AND HEROES { great deal, but I will think about it." Yet her heart was heavy, and when ar- rayed 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 king- dom, 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 out- look, 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 con- duct 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 en- tirely. " 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 bright- ness, her cheeks were pale, her step languid. By the Christmas of 1 808 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 Konigsberg. 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 luxurv 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 wel- come greeted them ; and on December 23d, the day on which, sixteen years be- fore, 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 manu- scripts and antiquities. As the doors closed a great shout arose from the vast crowd before the pal- ace. Presently she appeared in the balcony, and all saw the traces of long an- guish 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
