In the conduct of the war, as in the King’s cabinet, there was discord and indecision. The King at length became sadly conscious of this. “It cannot end well,” said he. “There is indescribable confusion; the gentlemen will not believe this, and say that I am too young and do not understand. I hope that I may be wrong.” But the clear-sighted Prince Louis Ferdinand uttered these sad words three days before the engagement at Saalfeld, in which he fell: “Alas! we are in a bad way, and so is our whole Prussian army; I consider it already lost, but I shall not outlive its fall.” The Prussian troops were to concentrate in Thuringia under the leadership of the old Duke of Brunswick for a decisive battle against the thus far unconquered one. The previous year, when war seemed imminent, Louise, with her children, had bidden the departing troops a hearty and enthusiastic farewell on the Wilhelmsplatz. Napoleon reproached her with this as though she had been the demon of war. When, in September, 1806, the Queen’s dragoon regiment left Berlin to take the field in Thuringia she received it at the Brandenburg Gate clad in the colors of the regiment, and rode at its head through the streets which it traversed. This also gave her enemies food for comment. But when, on September 21, she even accompanied the King, who was lost without her, by way of Magdeburg and Halle to join the army at Naumburg, Napoleon found even more fault with her. The celebrated politician Gentz, who was Austrian court-councillor at the time, had an interview with the Queen in Erfurt. This temperate statesman had heard so many praises of the high-born lady that he was quite prepared to find them only false flatteries. But in a conversation lasting three-quarters of an hour, she charmed him completely. He could not say enough about the decision and independence which she displayed, the fire and at the same time the wisdom of her language. “And yet, in all that she said she showed such deep feeling that one could not forget for a moment that it was a feminine intellect which attracted one’s admiration.” This man of the world and of courts declared that he had never seen such a combination of dignity, benevolence, and charm as in this wonderful woman.