Eva Annie Madden

“ Never mind, Mariechen," for Marianne was beginning to cry out, "your idol is not entirely perfect. Now, when at last we have a literature in Germany, why will not our poets rouse our people? The imitation of France is on us like a curse. All must be French. We must speak French, we must read French, we must despise all things German. I tell you, Richard, it is now the calm before the storm. Over Prussia is gathering a cloud and the day will come when the sun shall shine no more for us." ”

“ Bettina tried to listen, but all she could think of was the dreadful Emperor on his white horse. She could see him again in his green overcoat with its white facings, and feel the gleam of his eyes from beneath his queer hat, and now he was firing cannon on her father. She could not keep back her tears at the thought, and they rolled down her cheeks and splashed to her red dress.
"Will he get us, grandfather, will he get us?" she cried.
"Nein, nein, little one," Hans answered. "That white horse will kick up its heels and start back to Paris, perhaps this evening." ”

“ There was the room as Hans knew it, with its sofa, its square table, its geraniums in the windows, its tall white porcelain stove, and its one picture of the Herr Jesus blessing the children.
A candle, smoking dismally about the socket, filled the room with a horrid odour. On the table stood the remains of supper, half eaten. But the two men looked at none of these things, nor took note of the little quivering fawn, whose eyes seemed to long to explain the whole story.
It was at the floor both gazed in horror.
"May the good God have pity," said the soldier softly. ”

“ They had hidden in the forest, Bettina holding the baby wrapped in her mother's shawl.
"Grandfather, oh, grandfather," and she burst into sobs, "he cries so, I can't stop him."
"Mother, I want mother!" screamed little Hans, while the baby's wails were incessant.
Bearing August in his arms, Hans and Bettina at his side, the old man appeared again in the kitchen of the farmhouse.
"Gott im Himmel!" cried Frau Schmelze, wringing her hands and weeping. "I knew it! I knew it! You need not tell me. Conrad, husband! Ulrich! Come! Quick! It is Anna! Our dear, dear Anna!" ”

“ Pauline and Marianne served the guests, one, dark and handsome in a red dress trimmed with bands of fur, her arms and neck like ivory, her dark hair arranged in curls tied back with ribbon, the other, golden-haired and pink-cheeked, in a gown of blue, her curls tied back also with ribbon, the ends of her narrow sash floating about as she moved in her quick, merry way. As they ate and drank, Dr. Hufeland told his old friends all the sad things which had happened to the Queen because of Napoleon. ”

“ We will rise. We will drive the tyrant from our land, for he has killed the best friend of Prussia."
"The ravens, Bettina," said the Herr Lieutenant, "will fly now from Kyffhäuser. Wait, old Barbarossa will wake now and save us."
But the peasants had another hero.
"Shill is not dead!" they cried. "The brave Shill is not dead. He, too, loved our Queen. He is in hiding and will lead us against Napoleon."
"It is as if we had lost a member of our own family," wept Madame von Stork, as she tried to comfort poor Marianne. ”

“ On each side is a figure of Atlas, one bearing a globe, the other, a sceptre and crown.
All is of earthly glory and victory.
Queen Louisa sleeps in a spot where she once loved to walk with her husband and children. A quiet avenue of pine trees leads to a grove of black firs, cypresses and Babylonian willows, bordered with white roses, lilies, Hortensia, the favourite flowers of the Queen, and at the end stands the mausoleum which Frederick William erected to her memory. ”

“ Hans caught Bettina in his arms. He drew her to the edge of the road.
"Down! down!" he cried, and pulled her into a gully. Harmless, the whirlwind passed above their heads, the ridge of earth protecting their bodies.
"Lie close, lie close, my Bettina," cried Hans, and he drew her within the folds of his great cape with fur lining.
Winds from the north, east, west, and south fought for mastery, the four beating and screaming and whirling the innocent snow in their fury, until, rising, the white confusion became like a veil concealing everything. ”

“ But do not be content, little sons, with tears. Bring out, develop your own powers, grow great in them, Fritz, Willy. Perhaps the guardian angel of Prussia gazes on you now. Free, then, your people from this humiliation which overpowers it. Seek to shake off France as your grandfather, the Great Elector, did Sweden. Do not forget, my sons, these times. Be men and heroes worthy of the names of Princes and grandsons of Frederick the Great, and for Prussia's sake be willing to confront death as Louis Ferdinand encountered it. ”

“ They were Prussians, and cavalry, and they acted as escort to a light, closed travelling carriage.
A dash, a rise of wet dust,—it had rained the day before,—hitting them in their faces, and the cavalcade passed, the roar of the cannon following like a pursuer.
"We'll keep to the woods," and Hans changed their direction.
Plunging again into the greenwood, they walked with the firs and pines for company until the path brought them out on the highway opposite an inn before which were the same Prussian soldiers, standing about dismounted from their horses. ”

“ Never was any man treated more cruelly than poor, good, unhappy King Frederick William. Yet there has never been a King who behaved better in time of trouble. In peace he had been irresolute and sluggish. In trouble his figure stands out against a background of woe in outlines of dignity and nobility.
Napoleon made him feel absolutely alone, taking away his friend as he had taken away his kingdom. Though he asked him to dinner, when the last morsel was eaten, the last wine drunk, he bore off the Czar to his private apartment, excusing both to Frederick William. ”

“ Alexander, listening, began to think that after all his allies had been no good. Prussia had dragged him to defeat; England had done nothing to help either of them. Surely a monarch must consider his own welfare.
When at last the conference ended and the two mighty emperors came forth into the sight of the people of Tilsit and their waiting soldiers, their faces were glowing. Waving their hands again and again, each was rowed to his own bank of the Niemen. They had formed a friendship—Russia and France, Alexander and Napoleon—and the whole world was to profit. ”

“ With triumphant flags and victorious music, in rode Napoleon, erect on his white horse as ever.
"The scoundrel, the upstart!" said a voice near Hans.
The speaker wore the dress of a professor of the University of Jena, and he stiffened his head as the conqueror approached. "I will not bow to him," he muttered, "I will not."
But Napoleon suddenly gazing at him, the professor hesitated, then, a strange look on his face, bowed as if in spite of himself.
"It is Professor Hegel, the philosopher," said a man near Hans. "He has been writing here in Jena and did not even hear the cannon. ”

“ Then Marianne told stories, also, of things she had heard of the Queen at Frau Rat Goethe's.
"Bettina Brentano," she began, "is a friend of the mother of our Goethe!"
"My goodness, Marianne!" cried Franz, who was home in those days, "don't pronounce that name as if it were sacred!"
But Marianne paid no heed to him.
"Frau Rat," she continued, with a toss of her head, "loves our Queen with all her heart. She has known her since she was as old as Carl. Once, when she and her sister, the Princess Frederika, were little girls, they came to Frankfort to the coronation of the Emperor Leopold." ”

“ Even the baby Alexandrina, holding the hand of little Prince William. But when they saw their mother, her face all wet with tears, her dress so tumbled and with such a wild look in her eyes, the poor little things started back in fright. The baby set up a wail, and even the Crown Prince looked frightened."
"Poor things," murmured Madame von Stork, her handkerchief again to her eyes.
"'My poor children! my poor children!' cried the Queen. Truly," and the Doctor gazed from the faces of Elsa, Ilse, and Bettina to the grown ones, "it was a pitiful thing to see the frightened little faces. ”

“ Old Major Joachim von Stork had welcomed his brother's family into his great empty house in Memel, and in the safety of a new nest the Mother Stork had gathered beneath her wings all her startled, frightened brood, but two sons who had gone against Napoleon.
Bettina nearly laughed aloud when she saw the old Major. He was stout, and red-faced, and wore a stock as high as three inches. On each side of his head were four curls, frizzled and powdered, as they once wore hair in the army, and his pig-tail boasted a huge cockade. ”

“ Never had "The Rose of the King" looked more beautiful, for excitement had brought back colour to pale cheeks, a fire to eyes faded from weeping. And about her whole figure was a girlish pathos.
Napoleon mounted the stairs heavily, for he had grown very stout in Prussia.
"I am sorry," said the Queen, her sweet voice welcoming him, "that you have had to mount so inconvenient a staircase."
Napoleon stared in the bold, rude way he did at everybody.
"One cannot be afraid of difficulties," he said, with a bow, "with such an object in view." And he gazed at her with bold admiration. ”

“ At once the Maids of Honour began to amuse themselves with Marianne, and, some of the gentlemen soon joining them, they turned the talk to Goethe, and then laughed behind their hands when Marianne rolled her eyes and clasped her hands and spoke of Frau Rat, and vowed she would never marry because there was but one man in Germany, and that one, Goethe!
The Countess von Voss did not like this conduct.
"I beseech you, dear ladies," she said with great dignity to the Maids, "let Mademoiselle von Stork alone. Young girls are better unnoticed." ”

“ Everything was against him; he had lost his kingdom, his friend the Czar was deserting him, and yet, as his wife the Queen wrote her father, he was "the best man in the world," a King who lived only to help his subjects; a King who loved right and hated wrong, who believed in good and tried to do it.
But, like the Queen, he trusted in God, and even as he rode up and down, shut out in the rain from the conference, he knew that Napoleon and wrong could not always have their day, that right and justice always conquer. But Frederick William, good as he was, had a foe worse even than Napoleon. ”

“ To love our country faithfully;
To love our land,
Our undivided Fatherland!"
And, as they sang, Otto remembered Friedland and his brother, Wolfgang. He remembered Queen Louisa and how she had often smiled at him in Memel, he remembered his beloved hero, Shill, and brave Andreas Hofer. Suddenly he interrupted his song with a laugh.
"Bettina was right," he thought. "Poor little maiden! Old Barbarossa has waked up and his sword is the spirit of the German people."
And when war was over, one day he appeared in Königsberg, a great, handsome soldier. ”

“ He paused in the narrow forest path and raised his old blue eyes to Heaven.
"Let us pray to the good God, my Bettina. He alone can save him in the battle."
For a moment he stood silent, his face gazing upward to the sky which showed now between the fir trees. When he had ended his prayer he went on more slowly and as they walked he told Bettina why the French and the Prussians were fighting. For eight years, he said, the King of Prussia had kept out of all the fighting in Europe, although both Russia and Austria had entreated him to help them. ”

“ Over the field flew the Prussians, whole companies taking flight as if children. Horses, freed from their riders, dashed where they would, galloping over the dead, crushing with their hoofs the dying; swords flashed against sabres; men fled as if mad; gunners deserted cannon; and still, through all the havoc and confusion, steadily, unswervingly, the cannon of Napoleon roared on. Towards late afternoon the Prussians were turning their backs in all directions, crossing each other's paths, blockading, hampering, as they struggled to escape to Erfurt, to Kolleda, to Sommerda. ”

“ When the children are noisy, she can quiet even Carl. It is she who makes the puddings, and if she has a spare moment she is busy over her embroidery; a true house-wife by nature, and French, too," added Madame von Stork, as if the two things were impossible. Perhaps it was Pauline's troubles which had subdued her. Before the flight from Berlin, Marianne had known nothing but joy and petting, but Pauline had a history as sad as Bettina.
One day, many years before the days of Memel, an old Frenchman had appeared at the "Stork's Nest" in Berlin. ”

“ In France, there had been a dreadful Revolution, and Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette had been guillotined. A Corsican soldier first had become France's first consul, and now he was the Emperor Bettina so dreaded. The Holy Roman Empire, whose Emperor had lived in Vienna and ruled Germany, was no more, and France's Emperor, Napoleon, had brought war all over the world. Europe had been fighting during Hans' whole lifetime, and all the small countries had belonged so to first one big one and then another, that it was hard sometimes to exactly know who was one's ruler. ”

“ In honour of Napoleon, Queen Louisa arrayed herself for the dinner in her most regal splendour. Her dress was white, most delicately embroidered, a velvet and ermine mantle flowed from her shoulders, a diamond star shone in her golden hair, and the crown of Prussia was arranged to surmount her exquisite tissue, or gauze, turban. ”

“ A peasant has become a captain, and what a captain! His weapon, prayer, and his ally, God. Oh, that the time of the Maid of Orleans might return that the enemy might be driven from the land!"
It was about this time that Napoleon permitted Minister Hardenburg to return to his duties. At once affairs began to prosper.
"And the Queen," Marianne wrote to her mother, "is to take a journey. She is to go with the King and her children to all the places where she had lived as Crown Princess, to Paretz, to Oranienburg, and Peacock Island." ”

“ The Czar and Napoleon embraced in public. The French and Russian soldiers became like brothers, leaving the Prussians to humiliation and solitude. The King, who had always suffered from shyness, felt more and more uncomfortable, being made always an unwelcome third. He had no opinion of himself, the Queen was not there to cheer him, and each day he grew more gloomy and sad.
One day the people of Tilsit saw the three monarchs riding together, the Czar and Napoleon entirely ignoring the King, who let his horse drop behind and rode alone. ”

“ And he told how, after the "Peace of Tilsit," the old man had wandered back to Thuringia.
"But don't think he forgot you, Bettina," said Willy very hastily. Then he touched his head. "Poor old man," he added, "he has forgotten everything," and he told poor, wild-eyed Bettina that old Hans was like a child, always talking about Frederick the Great and his battles, and remembering not a word about Jena.
"But the queer thing," said Willy, "is that he starts at any very loud noise and he had the mark of a wound on the back of his head. What it means we have no idea, as he remembers nothing." ”