Two Royal Foes

"Our Princess," began the journal, "was married last night, Christmas Eve, in this year of 1793. When mother lit our tree and my sister Clarechen's children, Franz and Wolfgang,...

"Good-morning, dear child," she said, kissing her round little cheek. "Grandfather must go far into the forest. Would you like to go with him? You may have a little basket like...

As Madame von Stork had told Hans, her family had taken refuge in Memel when the news came that Napoleon, having conquered the King at Jena, would advance upon Berlin.

The wounded soldier lay unconscious for many days in the Forest House. Hans nursed him carefully. He took care of Bettina, too, whom he refused to leave with Frau Schmelze, and...

One afternoon, a hundred and one years ago, old Hans took little Bettina to visit her godmother, Frau Schmidt, who lived in a red-roofed house not far from the old church of St....

In a few moments the whole party set forth, Pauline and Marianne in dark red dresses, fur hoods, and great baggy white muffs, the children wrapped to the tips of their noses, Ot...

Bettina was tired, indeed, when one day before noon they drew near a great city on the banks of the Elbe, its splendid cathedral rising against the sky, the snow falling and mel...

"Yes, yes," cried the Major, speaking French very rapidly, "there has been a battle, a dreadful one, something terrible. There is no news yet that is certain. Some say, victory,...

He saw a huge porcelain stove of green and white and blue and yellow, with a pelican on top for an ornament. A chest of drawers boasted a vase of roses, and there were pretty wh...

When Hans left Memel he went at once to the house where he had stayed the night with Bettina. The woman who had cleaned the dress was standing in the doorway.

News had come to Memel that the Czar had made a separate peace with Napoleon, and that the Emperor of the French, in his hatred of Frederick William, meant to rob him of his kin...

Hans worked hard all night and into the next morning, and then, feeling the need of food and finding none in overcrowded Jena, with an "Auf wiedersehen" to his comrades, he depa...

One day Marianne was standing with the children on the bridge of Kantstrasse. They were looking down at the Fish Market and laughing at the fish women from the Baltic as they so...

It clung to the tree limbs and turned the feathery firs to fairy trees. On the low bushes and oaks the ice glittered and gleamed, and a piercing blast, sweeping through the bran...

"Her name," continued Marianne, "is Louisa Augusta Wilhelmina Amelia. Her father is the Duke Carl of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Her mother, who died when she was six years old, was a...

On that twenty-fifth day of June, in the dreadful year of 1807, all the people of the place were gathered on the river banks in high excitement. Actually their faces looked joyf...

"All Europe must rise," he wrote his father; "the brave Andreas Hofer is rousing the Tyrolese, and, oh, dear father, have you heard of the brave deed of Haydn in Vienna?"

The stout lady, asking Hans question after question, led the way to a large, roomy house surrounded by a garden, now bare and wintry, the limbs of fruit trees, birches, and shru...

He was at the carriage door to open it for Queen Louisa. He led her to the table and placed her by his side, the King of Prussia sitting on his left, and the Czar by Queen Louisa.

Certainly the roar, always steady and loud, seemed to increase to a noise like thunder. Towards Jena they saw a cloud of blue smoke rising always thicker and higher. The air, us...

"Listen, my little Carl," he said, and waited until the laughter had all died from the chubby dimpled face, "a great and noble woman has kissed you. All your life think of it as...

But the doctor ordered no talking, and so the two could only smile at each other. But when Waterloo was many days old, and the soldier almost well again, there was much to talk...

The old Countess, who had known Marianne's grandmother well in her youth, made a pet of the pretty girl, and the ladies and gentlemen found her bright talk very amusing as they...

Within sat the King, pale and thin from a severe attack of malaria. With him were the Crown Prince and Prince William, the faces of the boys wet with tears, their eyes strugglin...

All night they walked steadily, meeting no one, but now and then catching sight of some village burning against the sky. Where they were they had no idea, but somewhere, they kn...

East Prussia again was frozen. The snow lay deep on the ground and the ice rattled on the tree limbs as it had done in that year when Bettina and Hans met the Queen on her fligh...

As for Marianne, herself, she was laying on a table in the room in which the two stood, all her books, her beloved Goethe, Schiller, all of them, her laces and the jewels which...

On the eleventh day of June, in the year 1815, Prince William received his first communion, all the Royal family being present. The next day, he and his father, the King, depart...

When his first grief was stilled, the King went to Fritz and Willy in the garden. Plucking a branch on which grew three roses, he returned with the little princes to the Queen....

To-day, the two Royal Foes sleep in the two famous mausoleums of the Continent, Queen Louisa at Charlottenburg, Napoleon in Paris. Beneath the dome of "Les Invalides" is the sar...