“I suffer unutterably. Reproaches are heaped upon me over and over again. What can I answer? I sigh and swallow my tears. A year ago yesterday I had my last interview with Napoleon. Ah! what a recollection! How I suffered, suffered more for others than for myself! I wept and pleaded in the name of love and humanity, in the name of our misfortunes and the laws that govern the world. And I was only a woman—a weak creature, and yet superior to this adversary, so cold and heartless. The King is still greater than his enemy, even though his kingdom has been diminished one-half. He only treated with the wicked one under pressure of necessity and will not enter into an alliance with him. That this will sometime prove to be a blessing to Prussia is my firm belief.” With such lofty sentiments this deeply wounded woman was able benignly to forgive the man who was to her the incarnation of evil, the boundless suffering which he had caused to her, to her family, and to her people. She was too noble to share the petty hatred of Napoleon shown by weaker natures. In former days, when every one belonging to the court joined in scorning the “upstart,” she kept silence. Shortly before her last illness, one day when her sorrowful glance fell upon the portrait of the Emperor, a titled lady in her company passionately denounced the oppressor. The Queen quickly turned and rebuked the outbreak with a gentle look and word: “If I have forgiven him the injuries he has done me, what reason have you not to forgive him?” And with a gesture of her hand, as though in blessing to her great enemy, she left the room. The Tilsit peace, concluded on the night of July 9-10 was more detrimental to Prussia than the previous war had been. The fortresses of Stettin, Cüstrin, and Glogau remained in the hands of the conqueror as pledges for the war indemnity. This indemnity, which included the support of forty thousand French troops and all sorts of unreasonable extortions, amounting, at the end of the year 1808, to at least six hundred million francs, was ruthlessly exacted from a poor land already robbed of its richest territories. Agriculture and art life were crippled, commerce restricted, and the country impoverished. Though the King and his people tried conscientiously to meet all these oppressive demands, Napoleon purposely delayed the evacuation of the country, paid no attention to representations made him, treated the Prussian ambassador like a servant, and kept faith with nobody. “Is it not enough to make one despair?” asked Louise in a letter. “Ah! my God, why hast Thou forsaken us?” Her last comforter on earth was Stein, who, with his “great heart and comprehensive mind,” she hoped might still find a way out of this misery.