“There is nothing to be said yet about little Louise. May she become like her ancestress, the amiable and pious Louise of Orange, the worthy consort of the Great Elector. Now I have shown you my whole gallery, beloved father. You will say, this is a mother who is in love with her children and can see only the good. But really I do not see any bad tendencies in any of them. They have their faults like other children, but these disappear in time as they grow older. Circumstances and conditions discipline people, and it may be well for our children that they have become acquainted in their youth with the serious side of life. Had they grown up in the lap of luxury and in comfort, they would have thought that it must always be so. But now they perceive that there is another side to life in the grave face of their father and the frequent tears and sadness of their mother. My whole care is devoted to my children, and I ask God daily in my prayers to bless them and not to take his Holy Spirit from them. If God preserves them to me, he gives me my richest treasure, which no one can take from me. Come what may, united with our good children we shall be happy. I am and remain always your grateful daughter, “Louise.” Thus, happy with her husband and children, communing with God and occupied with the future of her people, Louise lived a blessed life in her family circle, though the little country house was hardly large enough to accommodate them, and in spite of the hardships of the time. “I have good books, a good conscience, a good piano, and so can live more peacefully among the storms of the world than those who cause these storms,” she wrote to a friend. Napoleon had just raised a fresh storm by crushing Spain, as he had crushed Prussia. But this time it was a revolution of the people, a prophecy of the storm which was to arise five years later against the tyrant in enslaved Germany. In the dethronement of the King of Spain at a time of peace, in order to put his brother Joseph on the throne, Louise recognized fresh evidence of the iron hand which rested so heavily on the bowed brow of Europe, and also a warning for Prussia. “What have we to expect in our situation?” she wrote. “Ah, my God! will the time come when the hand of fate shall at last write ‘Mene, mene, tekel’ on these walls? I do not complain, however, that my lot has been cast in this unhappy period. I have borne children who will perhaps contribute to the good of humanity.”