Besides, there was no enthusiasm, no military ardor in the ranks of the army. The long period of peace and parade-service had diminished the zeal of the soldiers, and made them consider their duties as mere play and unnecessary vexations, requiring no other labor than the cleaning of their muskets and belts, the buttoning of their gaiters, and the artistic arrangement of their pigtails. Every neglect of these important duties was punished in the most merciless manner. The stick still reigned in the Prussian army, and while cudgelling discipline into the soldier, they cudgelled ambition and self-reliance out of him. Not military ardor and manly courage, but discipline and the everlasting stick accompanied the Prussian soldiers of 1806 into the war. [Ibid., vol. i., p. 86.]
The commander-in-chief of this dispirited and disorganized army in the present war was intrusted to the Duke of Brunswick, a man more than seventy years of age, talented and well versed in war, but hesitating and timid in action, relying too little on himself, and consequently without energy and determination. His assistant and second in command was Field Marshal Mollendorf. One of the bravest officers of the Seven Years' War, but now no less than eighty years of age.
Such was the army which was to take the field and defeat Napoleon's enthusiastic, well-tried, and experienced legions!
The apprehensions of the prudent were but too well founded, and the anxiety visible in the king's gloomy mien was perfectly justified.
But all these doubts were now in vain; they were unable to stem the tide of events and to prevent the outbreak of hostilities.
The force of circumstances was more irresistible than the apprehensions of the sagacious; and if the latter said in a low voice this war was a misfortune for Prussia, public opinion only shouted the louder: "This war saves the honor of Prussia, and delivers us from the yoke of the hateful tyrant!"
Public opinion had conquered; war was inevitable. General von Knobelsdorf was commissioned to present to the Emperor of the French in the name of the King of Prussia an ultimatum, in which the king demanded that the French armies should evacuate Germany in the course of two weeks; that the emperor should raise no obstacles against the formation of the confederation of the northern princes; and give back to Prussia the city of Wesel, as well as other Prussian territories annexed to France.
This ultimatum was equivalent to a declaration of the war, and the Prussian army, therefore, marched into the field.
The regiments of the life-guards were to leave Berlin on the 21st of September, and join the army, and the king intended to accompany them.
In Berlin there reigned everywhere the greatest enthusiasm.
All the houses had been decorated with festoons and flowers, and the inhabitants crowded the streets in their holiday-dresses to greet the departing life-guards with jubilant cheers and congratulations.
The king had just reviewed the regiments, and now repaired to his wife to bid her farewell and then leave Berlin at the head of his life-guards.
The queen went to meet him with a radiant smile, and a wondrous air of joy and happiness was beaming from her eyes. The king gazed mournfully at her beautiful, flushed face, and her cheerfulness only increased his melancholy.
"You receive me with a smile," he said, "and my heart is full of anxiety and sadness. Do you not know, then, why I have come to you?
I have come to bid you farewell!"
She placed her hands on his shoulders, and her whole face was radiant with sunshine.
"No," she said, "you have come to call for me!"
The king looked at her in confusion and terror. "How so, to call for you!" he asked. "Whither do you want to go, then?"
Louisa encircled her husband's neck with her arms, and clinging to him she exclaimed, in a loud and joyous voice:
"I want to go with you, dear husband!"
"With me?" ejaculated the king.
"Yes, with you," she said. "Do you believe, then, my friend, I should have been so merry and joyful if this had not been my hope and consolation? I have secretly made all the necessary preparations, and am ready now to set out with you. I have arranged every thing; I have even," she added, in a low and tremulous voice--
"I have even taken leave of the children, and I confess to you I have shed bitter tears in doing so. Part of my heart remains with them, but the other, the larger part, goes with you, and remains with you, my friend, my beloved, my king. Will you reject it? Will you not permit me to accompany you?"
"It is impossible," said the king, shaking his head.
"Impossible?" she exclaimed, quickly. "If you, if the king should order it so?"
"The king must not do so, Louisa. I shall cease for a while to be king, and shall be nothing but a soldier in the camp. Where should there be room and the necessary comforts for a queen?"