And yet at that very time the French Foreign Office was at work upon a Project of a Treaty in which the restitution of Hanover to George III. was expressly named and received the assent of Napoleon.[93] The Prussian ambassador, Lucchesini, had some inkling of this from French sources,[94] as well as from Lord Yarmouth, and on July 28th penned a despatch which fell like a thunderbolt on the optimists of Berlin.  It crossed on the way—­such is the irony of diplomacy—­a despatch from Berlin that required him to show unlimited confidence in Napoleon.  From confidence the King now rushed to the opposite extreme, and saw Napoleon’s hand in all the friction of the last few weeks.

Here again he was wrong; for the French Emperor had held back Murat and the other hot-bloods of the army who were longing to measure swords with Prussia.[95] His correspondence proves that his first thoughts were always in the Mediterranean.  For one page that he wrote about German affairs he wrote twenty to Joseph or Eugene on the need of keeping a firm hand and punishing Calabrian rebels—­“shoot three men in every village”—­above all, on the plans for conquering Sicily.  It was therefore with real surprise that on August 16th-18th he learnt from a purloined despatch of Lucchesini that the latter suspected him of planning with the Czar the partition of Prussian Poland.  He treated the matter with contempt, and seems to have thought that Prussia would meekly accept the morsels which he proposed to throw to her in place of Hanover.  But he misread the character of Frederick William, if he thought so grievous an insult would be passed over, and he knew not the power of the Prussian Queen to kindle the fire of patriotism.

Queen Louisa was at this time thirty years of age and in the flower of that noble matronly beauty which bespoke a pure and exalted being.  As daughter of a poverty-stricken prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, her youth had been spent in the homeliest fashion, until her charms won the heart of the Crown Prince of Prussia.  Her first entry into Berlin was graced by an act that proclaimed a loving nature.  When a group of children dressed in white greeted her with verses of welcome, she lifted up and kissed their little leader, to the scandal of stiff dowagers, and the joy of the citizens.  The incident recalls the easy grace and disregard of etiquette shown by Marie Antoinette at Versailles in her young bridal days; and, in truth, these queens have something in common, besides their loveliness and their misfortunes.  Both were mated with cold and uninspiring consorts.  Destiny had refused both to Frederick William and to Louis XVI. the power of exciting feelings warmer than the esteem and respect due to a worthy man; and all the fervour of loyalty was aroused by their queens.