leon, and he dropped the subject. Louisa then candidly told him that she hoped to prevail on him to grant moderate terms for a treaty of peace. Thus pressed, he returned evasive answers, or parried her arguments with empty compliments; and he took care to say nothing which could bind him in any way. The Queen urged the power of clemency, besought him to be merciful for the love of humanity, and called his attention to the eternal laws by which God governs the world. In speaking of her husband and of his people, she could not restrain her tears. Finally she begged for Magdeburg, that Magdeburg, at least, might be spared to them! Talleyrand thought his master wavered; but at that moment the King entered, and the conversation was interrupted. Afterwards, in talking over the matter, it was agreed that the fortress was of too much importance to be yielded. "Magdeburg is worth a hundred Queens!" was Napoleon's conclusion.

When the interview closed, Louisa still hoped; for the parting words of the Emperor might mean a great deal-"You ask much, but I will think about it."

They met again at dinner, and the Emperor received the beau tiful Queen with all courtesy. He talked freely at table; and Louisa, too, was vivacious, for she kept her ends in view, and trusted that the treaty of peace might not be altogether disadvantageous to Prussia. She frequently led the conversation, and with infinite tact and delicacy. When Napoleon offered her a rose, true to her aim, she replied, with a smile, "At least with Magdeburg." "It is for me to beg; for you to accept or decline," was the Emperor's answer. "There is no rose without a thorn, but these thorns are too sharp for me," was Louisa's rejoinder, as she declined the flower. The sumptuous banquet was followed by music and dancing, and the Queen perceived that no further opportunity would be accorded to her.

It is affirmed that Napoleon and Frederick William, in a subsequent interview, came to rather high words, and that Napoleon in a moment of passion, having refused to cede Magdeburg, exclaimed, "I believe in the stability of only two sentiments-vengeance and hatred. For the future the Prussians must hate the French, but I will put it out of their power to injure them!"

Vain boast! Little more than sixty years had expired when the capitulation of Sedan, Metz, and Strasbourg told a far different tale. The tables were turned, and it was at last for Louisa's son to dictate, for Napoleon's nephew to plead. By the treaty of Tilsit, the King of Prussia was compelled to give up half his dominions, to reduce his military establishment to 42,000 men, and to pay to the French, as indemnification money, 140,000,000 francs! Only the other day France had to hand over to Prussia on the same

grounds a far larger sum of money, and her own towns and fortresses had to be yielded to the victorious Teuton. Most singularly retributive was the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1. So, by the immutable and Divine law of consequences, God's Word is accomplished, and the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation.

The climate of Memel was certainly injurious to Louisa's constitution, and the intense and protracted anxiety she endured told heavily on her physical frame; her health became delicate and uncertain. In December, 1808, the King and Queen visited St. Petersburg, as the guests of the Emperor Alexander I. On her return, Louisa wrote:-" I am come back from St. Peterburg as I went. Nothing dazzles me now; yes, I feel it daily more and more, my kingdom is not of this world." In a letter to her father, we find this sentence-"That which is dead is utterly useless; that which is dying does but draw the sap from the trunk and give nothing in return. Certainly, better times will come, our faith in Him who is goodness itself assures me of this. Only that which is good can produce good. This is why I cannot think that the Emperor Napoleon is firmly and safely on his splendid throne. Only truth and justice are immutable. He has worldly wisdom, that is to say, he is politic, but nothing more. He does not act in obedience to eternal laws, but according to the circumstances which rise up before him; thus the glory of his reign is tarnished *with injustice; the objects which he strives to arrive at are not legitimate. His inordinate ambition has no aim beyond his personal aggrandisement."

At length, the French troops finally withdrew from Berlin, and on the 23rd December, 1809, the Royal family and the Court returned; but not long was the Queen to need any home on earth. In May, 1810, while attending the sick bed of her little daughter Louisa, she was seized with a sharp agony, that proved to be "the beginning of the end." It was an attack of spasms of the heart. She soon rallied, and the Court removed to Potsdam. But on Easter Day, before she left Berlin, Queen Louisa received, with her relatives and friends, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It was a farewell lovefeast; the last commemoration of her Saviour's love in which she joined on earth.

On the evening of the 28th of June the Queen felt unwell, though she appeared to be suffering only from a feverish cold; she went, however, to Hohenzieritz, as had been arranged, and seemed so much better that the King, whose presence was required in the capital, confidently left her for a few days.

On Monday, 16th of July, the terrible spasms returned; the attack was violent, and lasted five hours. Throughout the long

protracted agony, the sufferer could only faintly gasp out—“ Air -air." In this seizure the medical attendants recognised her malady to be organic disease of the heart. Her father was at once informed of the mournful fact, and the King was immediately sent for.

With a child-like piety, Louisa thanked God for every temporary alleviation of her pain, and when free from suffering she lay tranquilly repeating the words of one of the simple hymns of her childhood. Once, when in her weakness she vainly attempted to change her position, she said: "I am a Queen, but I have not power to move my arms." She longed ardently for the arrival of her husband. The closing scene we copy verbatim from Miss Hudson's recent and most valuable memoir.

"Towards midnight between the Wednesday and Thursday the oppression on the chest returned; fever and thirst raged; she desired constantly to drink, and continued to moan feebly. Her sister asked if she felt in pain. Oh, no,' was the gentle answer; 'I am only very, very weary, and when the spasms come I feel as if I should lose breath entirely.' About two o'clock the thought of death occurred to her. 'Oh, what will my husband and children do if I should die ?' she said. At three the Duke was called. On being told that the Queen was in immediate danger the aged father exclaimed, in a supplicatory manner, Lord, Thy ways are not our ways.' An hour later the King arrived with his two elder sons. The physician announced to his patient the arrival of her husband. The dying face was lighted with a gleam of joy-the last joy that Louisa was to experience on earth. The King went into her room, striving to command his feelings; but the Queen, observing his agitation, said, 'Am I then so very ill?' He left the room for a few minutes, and she then remarked, 'The King seems as if he wished to take leave of me; tell him not to do so, or I shall die directly.' Louisa spoke of her children, and the Princes were called. The King brought them in. 'My Fritz, my William,' said the dying mother, as she gazed on them with her eyes full of affection. She tried to speak to them; the effort was too great, and the spasms returned. The Princes were taken out of the room; but the King remained. The physicians were summoned. They tried every remedy; but the spasms increased in violence. One of the doctors advised the Queen to stretch out her arms and lie higher. I cannot,' was the answer. He supported her in the attempt to move; but she sank down again, saying, 'Nothing but death can help me.' The King sat on her bedside. He had taken the Queen's right hand; her sister Frederica held her left hand. While they watched in breathless silence Louisa gently drew back her head and leant it on the shoulder of her faithful attendant.

She closed her eyes, and a few moments after distinctly said, 'Lord Jesus, make it short.' Five minutes later her sufferings were over. She drew a long breath, and with this last deep sigh mortal life was extinguished and the spirit was free."

Queen Louisa died on the 19th of July, 1810; her body lay in state until the 30th, and the funeral took place in the Cathedral. On the 23rd of December the Royal remains were conveyed to Charlottesburg, and laid in the mausoleum provided for them. The exquisitely beautiful monument within is by Ranch. To him it was a labour of love, and he worked at it gratefully for two years and longer. He was one of the many whom the good Queen had befriended.

Frederick William III. survived his beloved Louisa thirty years. He died on the 7th June, 1840, after a reign of forty-three years, "A long and glorious reign it was, though heavily clouded through the years from Jena to Waterloo." Nor did the devoted and heroic partner of his life live to share his triumphs. The last great struggle with Napoleon did not arrive till several years after Queen Louisa's departure from this world.

In 1814 the King instituted the order of the Iron Cross and the Order of Louisa. The insignia of the latter is a golden cross with the letter L in black enamel, on an azure ground. It is worn with a white ribbon, and fastened with a bow on the left breast. It lies open to all classes, and matrons and maidens are alike eligible; the number is limited to one hundred. Only the other day Queen Louisa's son conferred this order on two of our own English Princesses. Also, in memory of the deceased Queen two institutions were founded, the Louisen Denkmal and the Louisen Stiftung; the one by furnishing 300 dollars a year, to be divided between three bridal couples, to commemorate the matrimonial happiness which the King and Queen enjoyed; and the other for the benefit of ladies in reduced circumstances, in accordance with Queen Louisa's own expressed desire.

It is pleasant to us to know that the children of our own beloved Princess Royal are the immediate descendants of this excellent woman, in whom so much goodness and loveliness were centred, and that the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, should they be blessed with offspring, will also continue, though more remotely, the race of this noble Queen of Prussia-the German-hearted Queen, the mother of des Deutschen Vaterland.

466

THROUGH NIGHT TO LIGHT.

A SCHOOL BOARD STORY.

BY MARIANNE FARNINGHAM.

Book the Second.

CHAPTER I.-AFTER TEN YEARS.

FLEET STREET was crowded. This was not so unusual a thing that it requires to be recorded, excepting that the fact of there being a crowd in Fleet Street at this particular hour has some influence upon the destiny of one of the persons concerned in this narrative.

Along Fleet Street, pushing through the crowd without noticing it, was a young man intently studying a volume which he carried in his hand, and on which his eyes were bent.

People who were unaccustomed to him might have wondered why, if the book were so interesting, he did not choose some quiet spot in which to read it. But this young man had ideas of his own. His love for books was great, but the love which he bore his kind was greater still. He cared, in a peculiar way, for men, women, and children. There was not anywhere a human face which had not some charm for him; nor any human heart with whose hopes and fears, joys and woes, he did not sympathise. He liked to feel the crowds touching him. He enjoyed the music of their voices. To him the cabmen sitting stolidly on their boxes were not cabbies, but men; and the dirty children carrying heavy burdens through the streets were not nuisances to be put up with, but persons to be respected. And he thought it helped him with his studies to be in the crowd. When Euclid puzzled him he took the "father of mathematics" for a walk up and down Fleet Street, and he generally, found that when that venerable gentleman had looked a dozen times at Temple Bar, he became more friendly. When his soul was sick of historical battles, he took the history into the place where so many other battles were being fought, and always felt the better for studying them together. On this occasion he was reading "Josephus," and finding the Jew rather tiresome. "How Trypho, after he had beaten Demetrius, delivered the kingdom to Antiochus, the son of Alexander, and gained Jonathan for his assistant; and concerning the actions and embassies of Jonathan. Now there was a certain commander of Alexander's forces, an Apanemian by birth, whose name was Diodotus, and was also called Trypho, took notice of the ill-will the soldiers bare to Demetrius, and went to Malchus, the Arabian, who brought up Antiochus, the son of Alexander, and told him what ill-will the army bore Demetrius, and persuaded him to give him Antiochus, because he would make him King, and recover to him the kingdom of his father. Malchus at first opposed him in this attempt, because he could not believe him, but when Trypho lay hard at him for a long time-"