One day in 1794 the Countess von Voss, Mistress of the Household to the Crown Princess Louisa Augusta Wilhelmina Amelia of Prussia, opened a door in the palace at Berlin, and started back, appalled by the sight which met her eyes.

The Crown Prince and his wife were sitting very comfortably on a sofa, very close together, and talking most affectionately with "thou" and "thee"!

It was enough to shatter the nerves of any well-brought-up Mistress of the Ceremonies. They might have been a thousand miles apart, and not on speaking terms, without horrifying her half so much. But she was always having shocks in those days. When the Princess made her state entry to Berlin, and a nice fat infant presented her with a bouquet at the gates, this most reprehensible young woman hopped out of her carriage and hugged the small girl. Hugged her! With all Berlin watching!

Of course, the Countess von Voss might have been prepared for anything after the awful manner in which the Crown Prince and Princess Louisa behaved when they first met. All their relations had been praying for this particular match; but they prayed with sighs, knowing how two eligibles always dislike each other. They told the young people nothing, but arranged a meeting, when Princess Louisa was travelling with her grandmother. Three days later, the two came tremblingly to their relations to confess that they had fallen in love! It was really, in the opinion of the elders, almost uncanny.

Much as the Prince and Princess disliked ceremony, they could be dignified and stately on occasion. The Princess was exquisitely lovely, both in feature and expression and colouring. She could wear heavy fabrics and bright jewels as well as anyone, but the real life of the two was not in these splendours. Once when, after a big function, the Princess had, with relief, got into a simple, pretty frock again, the Prince took her in his arms and said: "Thank God you are my wife again!" She laughed. "Dear me! Am I not always your wife?" "No; too often you are obliged to be the Crown Princess."

A Nation's Idol

"Konigin Luise" is to-day the idol of Germany. How did she attain this proud position? It was not that she took part in politics, faced Napoleon, and was both the right and the left hand of her husband. Other queens have done as much and have not been adored either alive or dead. It was not that she loved beauty, and encouraged all the arts, leaving none out. Many rulers have done that without stirring anyone's heart. It was not even that she was a devoted wife and a perfect mother; Germans expect their queens to be that. It was that she had a disposition as lovely as her face, and she could not move a step from her palace without being moved to some little act of sweetness that helped to enshrine her in the nation's memory.

Once, when she was on a journey, nineteen little girls, all in white, strewed flowers before her. She immediately began to talk to them, for she was never content to consider herself just a part of a spectacle. They were soon quite at ease, and told her how they should have been twenty, but one was sent home because she was ugly. Half an hour afterwards, that disappointed, tear-stained, ugly little twentieth was being caressed and made much of by the most fairy-tale of queens.

When her travelling carriage stopped anywhere her keen eyes sought among the crowd, and anyone, such as an old soldier, who seemed specially worthy of attention was beckoned forward and talked to. Mothers of children were elated to the skies by the Queen's notice of them. Villagers in one place could tell how she left her carriage and ate pancakes with them. At country fairs she would appear in state clothes, and dance among them all. They were as much flattered by the compliment she paid them in dressing so brilliantly for their fair as they were by her dancing with the farmers.

A Queen of Hearts

Then she was so generous. Many pretty stories are told of her alms-giving. She and Frederick William had a playful way of handing medicants on to each other when both were present, which usually ended in the applicant being paid by both. When she was a child she had been very severely reprimanded for borrowing money of an old nurse. Then it was discovered that she wanted it to give to the poor, so her allowance was increased.

To the suffering she came as an angel from heaven. When she was thirteen she ran away from her very happy home, and was found at the bedside of a daughter of one of the runners of the duchy, who was ill of scarlet fever. (One pictures Countess von Voss shivering when told of it.) Before she was twenty-one she was called "The Mother of Germany."

She merited that name in many ways. It was she who never failed to voice the ideal of a united Germany, when even her husband seemed content to let things slide. Political enemies she had, and enemies in her household - the ones who said she was secretly an ally of Russia, the others who said that manners were sadly relaxed at Court. So they were, for, about the only time in history, Louise of Prussia made a Court at which courtiers could be human. As for her being a friend of Russia, she was a friend of Tsar Alexander, but first and foremost she was a lover of Germany and her Fritz.

Four years after their marriage, her husband succeeded to the throne of Prussia. The Queen's life inevitably became more public, but she still had many happy hours at her Castle of Oranienberg, which the King gave her for a birthday present. There she looked after her children, talked with her husband, managed her house, and oversaw the fortunes of her servants and the villagers.

But evil times were drawing near. The shadow of Napoleon fell dark over Europe, and, after a brave stand, Prussia was laid in the dust before him. The guns of Jena sounded fatefully in the ears of Goethe as he sat at breakfast with his Christiane in Weimar - Goethe, who, years before, had secreted himself in a tent when two young princesses - Louise and her sister - came to visit their future husbands in camp. He said they seemed like "two celestial beings." Now, the heavy guns of Jena fell no more gloomily on his ear than did their echo on the heart of the distant Queen.