“ Frederick William had to surrender half his dominions, and what remained to him was exhausted by French exactions and liable at any moment to be crushed out of existence by some new whim of Napoleon. In the dark years that followed it was the indomitable courage of Queen Louise that helped the weak king not to despair of the state. She seconded the reforming efforts of Stein and the work of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in reorganizing the army, by which the resurrection of Prussia became a possibility. ”

“ Once committed to the Russian alliance, however, he became the faithful henchman of the emperor Alexander, whose fascinating personality exercised over him to the last a singular power, and began that influence of Russia at the court of Berlin which was to last till Frederick William IV.’s supposed Liberalism was to shatter the cordiality of the entente. That during and after the settlement of 1815 Frederick William played a very secondary part in European affairs is explicable as well by his character as by the absorbing character of the internal problems of Prussia. ”

“ In the following month Queen Louise died, and the king was left alone to deal with circumstances of ever-increasing difficulty. He was forced to join Napoleon in the war against Russia; and even when the disastrous campaign of 1812 had for the time broken the French power, it was not his own resolution, but the loyal disloyalty of General York in concluding with Russia the convention of Tauroggen that forced him into line with the patriotic fervour of his people. ”