At noon the King and Queen dined with the Emperor of the French; she at his right next to the Czar and the King at his left. Napoleon was very amiable. He was good-humored and talkative, and joked about the danger she had run the previous autumn, when at the King’s headquarters, of being taken prisoner by his hussars. The conversation turned on the cession of the provinces, which Napoleon thought the King ought not to take so much to heart. The King replied: “You do not know how painful it is to lose inherited lands in which the dearest memories of childhood are rooted, and which one can as little forget, as he can his cradle.” “His cradle,” sneered Napoleon, “when the child has become a man he no longer has time to think of his cradle.” “Oh! yes,” answered the King, “one can no more forget his youth than he can deny it, and a man of sentiment will always think with gratitude of the cradle where he lay as a child.” [Illustration: _NAPOLEON BONAPARTE_] The Queen sought to give the conversation another direction by saying: “The mother’s heart is the only cradle which one never forgets.” She had in mind the respect which Napoleon felt for his own mother, and pointedly inquired about the health of “Madame Bonaparte.” In the evening the Queen drove back to the village. On July 7 she again received an invitation to dine with Napoleon, but before leaving for Tilsit, she received a letter from the King with the news that the conditions of peace were merciless. Therefore all hopes of the Queen’s success vanished, and this second journey to Tilsit was an almost intolerable martyrdom. Exciting discussions took place, and neither the King nor the Queen concealed their feelings and opinions. As she took her leave Napoleon picked a magnificent rose from the vine at the window and offered it to her. Louise was about to refuse it, but quickly recovering herself, she took it with the words: “At least with Magdeburg?” To which Napoleon answered dryly: “Your Majesty will kindly remember that it is I who offer, and you who accept.” As she threw herself weeping bitterly against the cushions of her carriage, she sighed and, pointing to the house, exclaimed: “In that place I have been horribly circumvented.” Napoleon wrote on July eighth to his Consort Josephine: “The Queen of Prussia is really a charming woman; she is very amiable to me, but you need not be jealous. I am like an oil-cloth, over which such things slide without touching the inside. To play the gallant on such occasions does not cost much.” While a prisoner at St. Helena he wrote: “She was perfectly unaffected in her conversation, and remained mistress of it in spite of all the dexterity which I employed and all the trouble which I took. She always returned to her subject, and always with so much tact and delicacy that it was impossible to take offence.” A year after this fruitless sacrifice Louise wrote to a friend: